Is it a dream or a reality that a Global Independent Wireless Network is possible? What I mean is:
Global in that is covers almost the whole earth. People in Afghanistan or Siberia can hook in without even a phone system.
Independent means that this is an independent effort of government or corporations. This is partly my fear that we'll soon loose free speech and privacy on the internet...I would rather have this independent network that no single entity can pull the plug on.
Wireless means that it doesn't require physical wires to connect whether this means laser beams, radio waves, or smoke signals.
But I'm not knowledgable about this kind of thing. Is it possible? How long would it take? What is your opinion of it? But if it happens, it sounds like one of the engineering feats of the century.
Cool there...you know, the internet doesn't do a good job of expressing tone of voice. The paragraph you quoted of me was satire or sarcasm. I don't really believe it, rather I said it to show how silly the idea was.
I get tired of Apple's lawyers telling people what to do. Its the law, so what. There are more important things you know. A legal right is different from a natural right, you know. We're talking ethics here. If I am a painter and you made a painting that looks like my painting, does that mean I get to tell you not to show anyone your painting? Of course not!
But, if I am that same paining and I am copying it a hundred times so that I can sell it and the only way I can make money off of it is by being unique and different; then can I tell you to put your painting off the wall and not give it to anyone?
Yes! Of course they can! Because I am a poor company and spent so much money on my own paintings and if I allow you to paint something similar, I would not make as much money as I could have (also known as "losing money" in business speak) so of course I have this right!
Truth is, there is no ethical reason for taking this project down. It seems that the guy is having problems through his employer...well, that sucks.
So what do I say to do about it? Screw them. Stick the whole thing on freenet and tell people where to get it. Put it on newsgroups and get people to mirror it if they want to risk it.
What we do on our free time is our business and screw the intellectual property laws. They don't have an ethical leg to stand on!
While I agree with a lot of the negative comments seen here, there is some good original stuff in the pilot episode that I haven't seen before.
Did you guys notice when that one doctor guy smiled that he smiled just slightly more than is humanly possible? It was obviously a computer effect but I would like to see what other impossible facial expressions he can perform in upcoming episodes.
In that one room notice how there was a ghost that actually moved like a half-second before the captain did. That is how the captain was able to get out of the way of the phaser pistol! Its actually a completely different version of the matrix thing, very original!
I definitely like the doctor and he is likely to become my favorite character---with his attitude and his original brand of medicine.
Notice the British guy there. I don't think I've seen a brit in a star trek series before.
I think this show has potential but I'm not giving my hopes up.
As you type in emacs and have it in the right mode, it runs ispell on the previous word everytime you press the space bar.
Emacs is quite different from most software we all know--mostly because it forked independently from the rest of the software world long ago. It has evolved, almost separately, for a long time.
I say we adapt emacs conventions to look for real innovation.
First, I am the one who wrote that document that somehow got linked on the front page of slashdot. I am not a Berlin developer and in fact the main Berlin developers had several problems with what I posted (which was a very long time ago) which they must have found good enough to link from their FAQ.
Second, I don't see how anyone one is forcing you to do anything. At least I am not aware of any kind of license agreement forbidding you to resize your applications and dialogue boxes. The point of me saying that about resolution independence was to show where the Berlin desktop will probably be heading. For omnipotent being's sake, even PNG and CSS have absolute sizes in their specifications. So it makes sense for this to show up at the desktop level. How can a desktop make sense of a PNG image that is 5 cm across if it doesn't have any useful conversion from pixels to centimeters? And lets say you have two monitors showing the same PNG image but at different screen sizes and resolutions, should both images appear as the same size?
Third, conceptually there is a difference between resizing (what you do when you resize a window and the window contents realign themselves to fit in the window) and scaling which can be used to get your extra screen real estate. By when you scale, you need to scale by a factor. That is, you need to scale by twice or one-third the original. But the problem here is what the original size is. Is it expressed in resolution dependent terms (pixels) or resolution independent terms (centimeters, inches)?
Fourth, the consistant UI theme in the article is yet in a plan-to-do stage, I believe. While it seems to be the intention of the Berlin developers to have this in their design, the vehicle for this "taskets" which is like a meta-widget that allows the application to ask what from the user rather than how. An example is on the wiki (http://www2.berlin-consortium.org/wiki/html/Berli n/Taskets.htm). But from what I've seen, there isn't anything restricting the application developer.
But the main point I want to get at is that changing the setting of a system always require more advanced users. I think the idea of a desktop being consistant and nice by default is a good idea. The more advanced user is free to screw it all up, if you like.:-)
My opinion is that software is more useful when it is non-propietary. I think, in a sense, that this makes people somewhat more free (to do what they wish with the software).
I don't really agree with the Open Source concept. The concept, as I understand it, is that software should be non-propietary just because it makes the software less buggy and allows the Open Source Development Model.
However, this means there is no reason to give free use to small software. I am learning how to program and I like to see small examples of software to learn from and eventually use in my own software. This is kind of like freedom but not exactly (and the FSF has repeatedly said that freedom isn't a completely satisfactory word but there isn't anything better).
Now, what this has to do with RMS--I have no idea. For the reasons above, I support most of the views on www.gnu.org/philosophy/ . And my views are independent of RMS and anyone else---its just that we happen to agree.
There is some wishful thinking on my part. The first is that there is a GNU without RMS. It seems almost all of the pages on gnu.org are authored by RMS. I would like to think there is at least some kind of democracy at work within the GNU community and the FSF to balance against natural human limitations (like ego and fanatism).
But even if RMS is as bad as some say--it doesn't change my view. I would be for the development of a new free software organization if necessary. But already GNU is big in the hearts and minds of the free software community.
Microsoft and the Free Software Movement are about as opposite as you can get. It didn't take an astrologer to figure out the friction between them heating up. The problem is that they are both expanding and are finding there isn't enough room for the both of them.
Not to sound overly dramatic but I think there is a like a war brewing. Whose side are you on?
And that is why Open Source Movement is so popular. Its fundamentally flawed but it allows people who care an escape. It allows people to remain neutral and not have to decide what their beliefs are. Its accomidating and allows people to say "I beleive in the Open Source Movement" when really that statement doesn't mean anything.
Let me give you a broader perspective than the one we usually have. Many works of science fiction talk about computers controlling people. Without source code, the machine controlls the man. And indirectly the publisher of the software controlls the man. Proprietary software is a statement of control. The issue of controll is why we talk about freedom.
There's a difference. In the free software community, we have mostly given up on the concept of ownership. For us, its a community effort. We do what we do to get along.
But your perspective is different. AOL owns the network and therefore controls anything that uses it. I don't believe in that. I think that if an entity puts a server out their for public use, it should be publicly usable.
That's the thing. You can't own a publicly accessible service. That is, you can't control it. You can try...but that is like violating a social contract. Its implied.
Thats what Jabber is trying to do in part--provide a service that has no owners.
Also...people have the right to complain about anything they please. So quit telling people to shut up.
This is technology and operating systems, the instruction that runs computers and their application all around the world.
Microsoft isn't a battleship. It doesn't attack. It is just business. And they are corporation. They don't have mind.
As far as consciousness, it all comes down to the thousands of software engineers, quality assurance members, marketers, sales reps, accountants, lawyers, secretaries, graphic designers, animators, reasearch teams, computer scientists, and ganitors, executives, and administrators---each of them in their office doing their own thing that is described on their job description, wondering why the heck you care so much about what Balmer said to some press people.
OS/2 wasn't "beat". Its just not used that much any more. That's okay. No animals were harmed.
If GNU/Linux serves your needs right now, then why would you stop using it? Will GNU/Linux stop functioning somehow because of Microsoft "attacking" it? No, of course not.
You slashdotters are too fearful. Don't worry, there is no war. No one has sunk your battleship.
This is a trajedy of wording. Ever other operating system is considered the whole system---Mac, Windows, also Sun, HP, and all them other Unix systems I've only read about---they all consider the operating system the hardware access, drivers, graphical user interface, all the way up to your basic utilities and applications.
Yet part of us in the free software world insist on calling the operating system "Linux". So when we get a new version of Linux, what do we have? Improvements in Bash? themes in KDE? better installation?
No, we just get a better kernal (kernel...kernal...I don know).
So just let that PHB know that, actually there are lots of plans for the next operating system (look at the new versions of GNOME, KDE, Apache, Red Hat, Debian, etc., and their "The Road Ahead" announcements). Its just that they have little to do with Linux. Or they have everything to do with Linux. I guess it depends what you mean by "Linux"...
So don't blame the PHB. Blame whoever came up with this absurd naming scheme in the first place.
<ol>
<li>I live in a poorer neighborhood.</li>
<li>I have undereducated parents.</li>
<li>I go to public high school.</li>
</ol>
<p>Does this mean I am less likely to go to college? And what do these factors have to do with racism?</p>
What are you advocating for? You want Evolution to be better than Outlook, why? You more users to use GNU/Linux from Windows, why?
Why would you want users to switch to another operating system if its just another propietary OS that restricts the user from the software by its EULA?
It is not just about being popular! There is the reason GNU/Linux is as nice as it is; there is a reason we have an entire community of contributors changing and sharing these changes across the internet or across the room---it all started long ago in this project called GNU. This kind of dynamic and helpful community only happens when the users have the freedom to do so.
That is what freedom is about.
Now I entirely sympathize with the fact that people often can't use free software because it isn't a viable alternative for them. But an alternative that isn't free is not alternative at all.
That is what Miguel was talking about. Freedom first.
I am going to answer your answer for myself. I am technically a teenager, 18 years old.
Everyday I wake up thinking I can change the world. This software movement that we all have witnessed---the free software movement, is changing the world and I so much want to be a part of it. There is barely a day that goes by when I don't have a thought or idea that I beleive (for at least a limited time) can improve things dramatically.
I don't beleive people should put their means of communication, their business, their work, or their art, in the whims of someone else's intellectual property.
You are right in that a lot of technology industry is motivated by greed. I know that how successful I seem to my family will depend on how much income I make. And I don't care. Because when I read mailing list archives and release notes of technology, when I study manuals for programming languages and markup languages, and when I participate in certain IRC channels and USEnet groups and correspond with intelligent people from who knows where---from who cares where, I know that this is for *real*. We live in a world of our own where success is measured on a different scale.
The success in our community is based a lot on prestige, rather than income. When someone says that they are a Debian developer, I think intuitively that that is a successful person. When someone says that they are a GNOME hacker, they are a successful person.
I will be joining the technology community someday with these ideas in mind. And I will know I am not alone.
I love software. I love what it can do. I used to program in QBASIC, when I was stuck in the box of which it allowed me to do. Now I find myself wondering in this much larger field called the free software community and I can barely start coding when I spend so much time investigating all this technology. From XML to Haskell to Bonobo to Berlin to Latte to CORBA---these are all things that I am only beginning to understand. I want to manipulate these systems...they are incredible.
They are also the tools we use to change the world.
Re:I'd rather hit my nuts with a rock than use Lin
on
A Year of Linux
·
· Score: 2
I say "cool beans".:-)
None of the rest though.
Perhaps there is a planet somewhere where all them traits you described were desirable. But you would be an oddball there just as you are here.
Slashdot Mirror
Is it a dream or a reality that a Global Independent Wireless Network is possible? What I mean is:
But I'm not knowledgable about this kind of thing. Is it possible? How long would it take? What is your opinion of it? But if it happens, it sounds like one of the engineering feats of the century.
Cool there...you know, the internet doesn't do a good job of expressing tone of voice. The paragraph you quoted of me was satire or sarcasm. I don't really believe it, rather I said it to show how silly the idea was.
Sorry for the confusion.
I get tired of Apple's lawyers telling people what to do. Its the law, so what. There are more important things you know. A legal right is different from a natural right, you know. We're talking ethics here. If I am a painter and you made a painting that looks like my painting, does that mean I get to tell you not to show anyone your painting? Of course not!
But, if I am that same paining and I am copying it a hundred times so that I can sell it and the only way I can make money off of it is by being unique and different; then can I tell you to put your painting off the wall and not give it to anyone?
Yes! Of course they can! Because I am a poor company and spent so much money on my own paintings and if I allow you to paint something similar, I would not make as much money as I could have (also known as "losing money" in business speak) so of course I have this right!
Truth is, there is no ethical reason for taking this project down. It seems that the guy is having problems through his employer...well, that sucks.
So what do I say to do about it? Screw them. Stick the whole thing on freenet and tell people where to get it. Put it on newsgroups and get people to mirror it if they want to risk it.
What we do on our free time is our business and screw the intellectual property laws. They don't have an ethical leg to stand on!
While I agree with a lot of the negative comments seen here, there is some good original stuff in the pilot episode that I haven't seen before.
I think this show has potential but I'm not giving my hopes up.
Well...from the title its probably a code. I don't think the rest of the message is part of the code so I'll focus on the numbers.
3.149018493227539874383983749210025
3.14151747701120741294729382749277
3.141649287392847283785938472901018401
Too possibilities I can think of is that either the difference of the two numbers or perhaps the numbers after "3.14" are part of the code.
Hmm...playing with the numbers a bit doesn't lead to anything forthcoming. Does the first poster want to give a hint?
We should not ban encryption because it does not stop all terrorists.
We should not restrict driving laws because it does not stop all accidents.
We should not lock our doors because it does not stop all intruders.
Okay...what am I missing? These are logically equivalent, aren't they?
As you type in emacs and have it in the right mode, it runs ispell on the previous word everytime you press the space bar.
Emacs is quite different from most software we all know--mostly because it forked independently from the rest of the software world long ago. It has evolved, almost separately, for a long time.
I say we adapt emacs conventions to look for real innovation.
First, I am the one who wrote that document that somehow got linked on the front page of slashdot. I am not a Berlin developer and in fact the main Berlin developers had several problems with what I posted (which was a very long time ago) which they must have found good enough to link from their FAQ.
i n/Taskets.htm). But from what I've seen, there isn't anything restricting the application developer.
:-)
Second, I don't see how anyone one is forcing you to do anything. At least I am not aware of any kind of license agreement forbidding you to resize your applications and dialogue boxes. The point of me saying that about resolution independence was to show where the Berlin desktop will probably be heading. For omnipotent being's sake, even PNG and CSS have absolute sizes in their specifications. So it makes sense for this to show up at the desktop level. How can a desktop make sense of a PNG image that is 5 cm across if it doesn't have any useful conversion from pixels to centimeters? And lets say you have two monitors showing the same PNG image but at different screen sizes and resolutions, should both images appear as the same size?
Third, conceptually there is a difference between resizing (what you do when you resize a window and the window contents realign themselves to fit in the window) and scaling which can be used to get your extra screen real estate. By when you scale, you need to scale by a factor. That is, you need to scale by twice or one-third the original. But the problem here is what the original size is. Is it expressed in resolution dependent terms (pixels) or resolution independent terms (centimeters, inches)?
Fourth, the consistant UI theme in the article is yet in a plan-to-do stage, I believe. While it seems to be the intention of the Berlin developers to have this in their design, the vehicle for this "taskets" which is like a meta-widget that allows the application to ask what from the user rather than how. An example is on the wiki (http://www2.berlin-consortium.org/wiki/html/Berl
But the main point I want to get at is that changing the setting of a system always require more advanced users. I think the idea of a desktop being consistant and nice by default is a good idea. The more advanced user is free to screw it all up, if you like.
Best regards,
Kevin Holmes
My opinion is that software is more useful when it is non-propietary. I think, in a sense, that this makes people somewhat more free (to do what they wish with the software).
I don't really agree with the Open Source concept. The concept, as I understand it, is that software should be non-propietary just because it makes the software less buggy and allows the Open Source Development Model.
However, this means there is no reason to give free use to small software. I am learning how to program and I like to see small examples of software to learn from and eventually use in my own software. This is kind of like freedom but not exactly (and the FSF has repeatedly said that freedom isn't a completely satisfactory word but there isn't anything better).
Now, what this has to do with RMS--I have no idea. For the reasons above, I support most of the views on www.gnu.org/philosophy/ . And my views are independent of RMS and anyone else---its just that we happen to agree.
There is some wishful thinking on my part. The first is that there is a GNU without RMS. It seems almost all of the pages on gnu.org are authored by RMS. I would like to think there is at least some kind of democracy at work within the GNU community and the FSF to balance against natural human limitations (like ego and fanatism).
But even if RMS is as bad as some say--it doesn't change my view. I would be for the development of a new free software organization if necessary. But already GNU is big in the hearts and minds of the free software community.
Blame Microsoft!
Even thought the kiddies did it,
Microsoft will take shit for it!
Well, they're not a real company anyway.
(apologees to the southpark people)
Can anyone point me to a good explanation on .NET ? I've tried to understand it but it seems to be a little complex.
It seems that cloning it is a good idea and doing much of it at the GNU level makes sense since that is most of our development platform is.
I hope KDE can in on this too because forming a dotKDE doesn't sound like a good idea.
But alas! I proclaim lots of ignorance on this one!
Well when the MPAA has this much say on what happens on our machines this begs the question: Whose computer is this, anyway?
Never has there been more reason for GNU.
Microsoft and the Free Software Movement are about as opposite as you can get. It didn't take an astrologer to figure out the friction between them heating up. The problem is that they are both expanding and are finding there isn't enough room for the both of them.
Not to sound overly dramatic but I think there is a like a war brewing. Whose side are you on?
And that is why Open Source Movement is so popular. Its fundamentally flawed but it allows people who care an escape. It allows people to remain neutral and not have to decide what their beliefs are. Its accomidating and allows people to say "I beleive in the Open Source Movement" when really that statement doesn't mean anything.
Let me give you a broader perspective than the one we usually have. Many works of science fiction talk about computers controlling people. Without source code, the machine controlls the man. And indirectly the publisher of the software controlls the man. Proprietary software is a statement of control. The issue of controll is why we talk about freedom.
"Does everything need to be Open Source for it to be acceptable?"
Yes.
"Congress had no right to pass these laws in the first place"
I don't understand. Congress is the law-making body of my/our land. Why don't they have the right to pass laws? If they don't pass laws...who should?
Could you please explain that statement?
There's a difference. In the free software community, we have mostly given up on the concept of ownership. For us, its a community effort. We do what we do to get along.
But your perspective is different. AOL owns the network and therefore controls anything that uses it. I don't believe in that. I think that if an entity puts a server out their for public use, it should be publicly usable.
That's the thing. You can't own a publicly accessible service. That is, you can't control it. You can try...but that is like violating a social contract. Its implied.
Thats what Jabber is trying to do in part--provide a service that has no owners.
Also...people have the right to complain about anything they please. So quit telling people to shut up.
Subliminal message in your signature? Does it work? ;-)
Yes, but people need to be more modest in their wording. The guy said, "We need something better than X and we need it now."
Note the words "we" and "now".
There are plenty of people who would take legitament offense at that.
Free Software isn't magic. But some people treat as if it is.
It appears to be a political issue for him as well as he mentions that he feel more free when using GNU/Linux.
And if you yourself has something against this sort of politics then perhaps you aren't seeing the big picture?
This isn't a boxing match.
This isn't some kind of a game.
This is technology and operating systems, the instruction that runs computers and their application all around the world.
Microsoft isn't a battleship. It doesn't attack. It is just business. And they are corporation. They don't have mind.
As far as consciousness, it all comes down to the thousands of software engineers, quality assurance members, marketers, sales reps, accountants, lawyers, secretaries, graphic designers, animators, reasearch teams, computer scientists, and ganitors, executives, and administrators---each of them in their office doing their own thing that is described on their job description, wondering why the heck you care so much about what Balmer said to some press people.
OS/2 wasn't "beat". Its just not used that much any more. That's okay. No animals were harmed.
If GNU/Linux serves your needs right now, then why would you stop using it? Will GNU/Linux stop functioning somehow because of Microsoft "attacking" it? No, of course not.
You slashdotters are too fearful. Don't worry, there is no war. No one has sunk your battleship.
What else does the PHB want in Linux?
This is a trajedy of wording. Ever other operating system is considered the whole system---Mac, Windows, also Sun, HP, and all them other Unix systems I've only read about---they all consider the operating system the hardware access, drivers, graphical user interface, all the way up to your basic utilities and applications.
Yet part of us in the free software world insist on calling the operating system "Linux". So when we get a new version of Linux, what do we have? Improvements in Bash? themes in KDE? better installation?
No, we just get a better kernal (kernel...kernal...I don know).
So just let that PHB know that, actually there are lots of plans for the next operating system (look at the new versions of GNOME, KDE, Apache, Red Hat, Debian, etc., and their "The Road Ahead" announcements). Its just that they have little to do with Linux. Or they have everything to do with Linux. I guess it depends what you mean by "Linux"...
So don't blame the PHB. Blame whoever came up with this absurd naming scheme in the first place.
I fit many of the qualifyers
<ol>
<li>I live in a poorer neighborhood.</li>
<li>I have undereducated parents.</li>
<li>I go to public high school.</li>
</ol>
<p>Does this mean I am less likely to go to college? And what do these factors have to do with racism?</p>
What are you advocating for? You want Evolution to be better than Outlook, why? You more users to use GNU/Linux from Windows, why?
Why would you want users to switch to another operating system if its just another propietary OS that restricts the user from the software by its EULA?
It is not just about being popular! There is the reason GNU/Linux is as nice as it is; there is a reason we have an entire community of contributors changing and sharing these changes across the internet or across the room---it all started long ago in this project called GNU. This kind of dynamic and helpful community only happens when the users have the freedom to do so.
That is what freedom is about.
Now I entirely sympathize with the fact that people often can't use free software because it isn't a viable alternative for them. But an alternative that isn't free is not alternative at all.
That is what Miguel was talking about. Freedom first.
I am going to answer your answer for myself. I am technically a teenager, 18 years old.
Everyday I wake up thinking I can change the world. This software movement that we all have witnessed---the free software movement, is changing the world and I so much want to be a part of it. There is barely a day that goes by when I don't have a thought or idea that I beleive (for at least a limited time) can improve things dramatically.
I don't beleive people should put their means of communication, their business, their work, or their art, in the whims of someone else's intellectual property.
You are right in that a lot of technology industry is motivated by greed. I know that how successful I seem to my family will depend on how much income I make. And I don't care. Because when I read mailing list archives and release notes of technology, when I study manuals for programming languages and markup languages, and when I participate in certain IRC channels and USEnet groups and correspond with intelligent people from who knows where---from who cares where, I know that this is for *real*. We live in a world of our own where success is measured on a different scale.
The success in our community is based a lot on prestige, rather than income. When someone says that they are a Debian developer, I think intuitively that that is a successful person. When someone says that they are a GNOME hacker, they are a successful person.
I will be joining the technology community someday with these ideas in mind. And I will know I am not alone.
I love software. I love what it can do. I used to program in QBASIC, when I was stuck in the box of which it allowed me to do. Now I find myself wondering in this much larger field called the free software community and I can barely start coding when I spend so much time investigating all this technology. From XML to Haskell to Bonobo to Berlin to Latte to CORBA---these are all things that I am only beginning to understand. I want to manipulate these systems...they are incredible.
They are also the tools we use to change the world.
I say "cool beans". :-)
None of the rest though.
Perhaps there is a planet somewhere where all them traits you described were desirable. But you would be an oddball there just as you are here.
I feel for you though. You have problems.