You are not the only Free Software advocate who doesn't agree with Eric Raymond or libertarian politics. I fit that description too, and I'm not a European. However, that doesn't mean he shouldn't express his point of view. The only problem is that when he claims to represent the rest of us he does a poor job.
Based on my reading, Raymond's positions on this point are perfectly consistent. To my knowledge he has never advocated government intervention into Microsoft's business, and has roundly condemned the anti-trust case at every opportunity.
This is not to say that I don't think he's a kook, but he is consistent.
Joe Developer should know better than to make a deal like this with his ISP because traffic on the web is fundamentally unpredictable. Blaming Taco is preposterous. This is a law of nature. A court can meddle with it, but only at the expense of creating strange social anomalies that would present a real danger to the economics of the web.
The deep linking case is disguistingly easy to solve with technology. Simply create a web-server that allows access to the super-secret deep-directory only when the referer field comes from the same site. Apache probably already does this with one module or another. Compare this to the bevy of lawsuits and legal terrorism required to enforce this in court.
The law should give people an incentive to protect their own business interests, because this is feasable, rather than to protect those of everyone else, which is not. Taco can't be expected to keep track of every wacky deal offered by every internet provider, and neither can you. The New York Times, on the other hand, can be expected to find a business model that doesn't require changing the nature of the web. Joe Developer should find an ISP that charges a flat rate. Caveat emptor.
Are we now to assume that the source code to virii are the same plane as say, angry adolescent poetry?
Think about what you are saying. A newspaper contains protected speech, but that doesn't make it legal for me to roll it up and smack you with it (alas).
Someone who wraps a brick with the the New York Times (free registration notwithstanding) and throws it through someone else's window should not expect to be aquitted on a first amendment defense. Similarly, the source code to a virus may be protected speech, but intentionally spreading the compiled binary without the knowledge or consent of the victim is an action which can be attached to criminal penalties.
...other "rebel" operating systems, like {Net,Free,Open}BSD and BeOS?
Offtopic: Computing e (natural logarithm base)?
on
Happy Pi Day!
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· Score: 1
Does anyone know an algorithm for computing individual digits of the natural logarithm base constant (e)? I know the sum of one over n-factorial converges quickly to e but I don't know how to be sure of how many acutal digits are available at each step, and I imagine that there must be a computationally faster mechanism.
Documentation serves many purposes. Without it, even the orignal programmer will have trouble understanding what was going through his or her head six months after the code is written. Also, most people like to see their code in use, whether to promote the use of some important technology (cryptography comes to mind) or just to have the satisfaction of creating something people find useful. This isn't always altruistic: software with users who are informed and numerous will be easier to improve without the benefit of the original programmer, who will recieve the benefit of those improvements because of the GPL. Also, being known as the author of a widely used program makes a great resumé stuffer. These are benefits of free software that are reinforced by documentation.
They [...] want to control our minds in a way that Orwell may have not imagined at all'
Actually, George Orwell did imagine something like this. Several passages in 1984 describe machines that churn out mind-numbing novels, poetry and other forms of entertainment that was acceptable to the establishment. Ordinary people are not permitted any sort of expression. The story begins with the protagonist breaking the law by beginning a journal. In this case, the establishment was government rather than business interests, but the difference isn't significant.
That said, I find the content cartels considerably less terrifying than the organization in Orwell's novel... so far.
Your perceptions of Stallman, the GPL and history are warped. Symbolics and other companies didn't beging pulling out of academia because of anything Stallman did. They did it because they were greedy and thought they could get away with using the research without paying. It is this attitude that is responsible for destroying the balance of corporate and academic cooperation. This "profit-motive" without responsibility doesn't benefit anyone except the greedy and short-sighted shareholders of these companies.
The GPL does not deny corporations access to the software it covers, but it does attempt to restore that balance by forcing companies to play fair. Specifically, they can use and sell work they haven't done, but they must not restrict the rights of their customers, or hide their improvements from the rest of the community. This is the real win/win symbiosis, as companies like Cygnus, RedHat and VA/Linux have discovered. A true understanding of the "rules" should lead to respect for the GPL and the responsible business models it seeks to promote.
Any mechanism that disables an account after a number of unsuccessful tries is vulnerable to denial-of-service. An attacker who would like to prevent legitimate users from accessing the system will simply try a random password every one hundred seconds for each account once per day (presumably from one or more compromised machines to cover tracks). The system will be quite secure because no one will be able to use it.
In general, it is unwise to assume that you can secure a system simply by asking yourself where the holes are and plugging them. Anything you forget is a potential problem. A better approach for production systems is to apply caution systematically. For example, dispense with features and services that are not essential. The goal is simplicity because a complex system cannot be secure.
Do patients need to access medial records from the web? Do they need this more than they need privacy? Only if the answers are yes should such a system be installed. If some patients are willing to take this risk then expose only the corresponding accounts. An account that is accessable from the internet protected only by a password is a liability that should not be forced on the meek and uninformed.
Creating something for young people should not be an excuse to use simplistic caricatures that insult the intelligence of a mature audience, nor should it be an excuse to use a story that doesn't make people think. Consider things like Sesame Street and Dr. Seuss which, while aimed at children, are challenging and clever. That Lucas seems to have intended to make Star Wars intellectually empty should not make him immune to criticism.
You're wrong because you equate the expectation that a company will deliver on a promise with a sense of entitlement. The developers who recieved the letter didn't demand a piece of the action, but RedHat offered it anyway. That was a nice gesture, and it increases my respect for that company, but once they made the promise those developers were right to expect RedHat to deliver. I get the impression that after all was said and done RedHat did deliver, but that is another story.
You're wrong because you believe, as the author of the article does, that businesses have the power to control the development of free software. Companies and IPO's have existed before software did. They didn't control free software decades ago and they don't control it today. Some of them contribute to it, but that doesn't stop anyone from developing or using any free software in any way.
You're wrong becuase you assume that money and free software cannot coexist. There is nothing wrong with programmers being payed for their work. There is something wrong with reducing the utility of that work in order to pay them. Free software is not about giving software away, although there is nothing wrong with that either. Free software is about giving people the power to software in the way that works best for them, rather than accepting the canned decisions of some corporation.
The points you raise are reasonable, but none address the essential question: given a choice between improving the security of Linux and Win2K, which is more productive for the community? The answer depends on which community you believe that you belong to. I'll take the free software community myself, but those who prefer the Microsoft customer community are welcome to attack the Win2K test.
Exactly how is this "challenge" intriguing? Cracking contests are a dime-a-dozen these days, which is interesting because they demonstrate almost nothing about security. (See this essay to undestand why.) If you believe that the nature of the open-source community is to fall for tricks like that then you have drastically underestimated this community. Most of the audience here doesn't get paid to find and report security holes in Linux or NT. However, if you find a security hole in Linux the result of your work will be made available to you and everyone in the Linux community at no charge through the efforts of volunteers like Torvalds and Cox. If you make the same effort for NT on the other hand, Gates is sure to offer you the opportunity to pay for the improvement whenever Win2K manages to surface without seeing it's own shadow.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say, "The open-source community has been calling for Microsoft to do something like this for a long time now." As far as I can tell, no one has asked for Microsoft to offer us an opportunity to allow us to support their development and marketing efforts without compensation. Sorry, but now that the opportunity is here, I'm still not impressed. It probably would be easy to knock down the Win2K test server (I can't seem to get through to it so perhaps someone already did), and yours as well -- but I don't much care. I use Linux because it is the most stable and effective operating system that meets my computing needs, not as a protest against some other system. I choose to direct my attention to constructive activities -- attacking a system that isn't even in production without source code or specifications doesn't qualify.
Agreeing with Christ != Being Christ
on
RMS Responds
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· Score: 1
Aren't we reading a little too much into a single line of text here? What he said was, "one notable exponent of this view lived 2000 years ago", where this view is that people should cooperate. There are no reasonable grounds for interpreting this to mean that Stallman believes he is Christ.
In spite of Sun's attempt to keep Java in a corporate stranglehold, the free software community has produced several virtual machines (check out Kaffe and Japhar), a classpath implementation ( GNU Classpath), and a conformance test (see Mauve).
None of these are complete, but all are impressive and because of the GPL/ LGPL they will always be free software. Sure, Sun and other vendors offer the latest and greatest bells and whistles. Free software is inexorable -- it will catch up. I can wait, and those who can't are welcome to use proprietary products until then.
Slashdot Mirror
...as a client. Kerberos clients simply won't be able to get access to domain resources.
You are not the only Free Software advocate who doesn't agree with Eric Raymond or libertarian politics. I fit that description too, and I'm not a European. However, that doesn't mean he shouldn't express his point of view. The only problem is that when he claims to represent the rest of us he does a poor job.
Based on my reading, Raymond's positions on this point are perfectly consistent. To my knowledge he has never advocated government intervention into Microsoft's business, and has roundly condemned the anti-trust case at every opportunity.
This is not to say that I don't think he's a kook, but he is consistent.
Joe Developer should know better than to make a deal like this with his ISP because traffic on the web is fundamentally unpredictable. Blaming Taco is preposterous. This is a law of nature. A court can meddle with it, but only at the expense of creating strange social anomalies that would present a real danger to the economics of the web.
The deep linking case is disguistingly easy to solve with technology. Simply create a web-server that allows access to the super-secret deep-directory only when the referer field comes from the same site. Apache probably already does this with one module or another. Compare this to the bevy of lawsuits and legal terrorism required to enforce this in court.
The law should give people an incentive to protect their own business interests, because this is feasable, rather than to protect those of everyone else, which is not. Taco can't be expected to keep track of every wacky deal offered by every internet provider, and neither can you. The New York Times, on the other hand, can be expected to find a business model that doesn't require changing the nature of the web. Joe Developer should find an ISP that charges a flat rate. Caveat emptor.
Are we now to assume that the source code to virii are the same plane as say, angry adolescent poetry?
Think about what you are saying. A newspaper contains protected speech, but that doesn't make it legal for me to roll it up and smack you with it (alas).
Someone who wraps a brick with the the New York Times (free registration notwithstanding) and throws it through someone else's window should not expect to be aquitted on a first amendment defense. Similarly, the source code to a virus may be protected speech, but intentionally spreading the compiled binary without the knowledge or consent of the victim is an action which can be attached to criminal penalties.
...other "rebel" operating systems, like {Net,Free,Open}BSD and BeOS?
Does anyone know an algorithm for computing individual digits of the natural logarithm base constant (e)? I know the sum of one over n-factorial converges quickly to e but I don't know how to be sure of how many acutal digits are available at each step, and I imagine that there must be a computationally faster mechanism.
Documentation serves many purposes. Without it, even the orignal programmer will have trouble understanding what was going through his or her head six months after the code is written. Also, most people like to see their code in use, whether to promote the use of some important technology (cryptography comes to mind) or just to have the satisfaction of creating something people find useful. This isn't always altruistic: software with users who are informed and numerous will be easier to improve without the benefit of the original programmer, who will recieve the benefit of those improvements because of the GPL. Also, being known as the author of a widely used program makes a great resumé stuffer. These are benefits of free software that are reinforced by documentation.
They [...] want to control our minds in a way that Orwell may have not imagined at all'
Actually, George Orwell did imagine something like this. Several passages in 1984 describe machines that churn out mind-numbing novels, poetry and other forms of entertainment that was acceptable to the establishment. Ordinary people are not permitted any sort of expression. The story begins with the protagonist breaking the law by beginning a journal. In this case, the establishment was government rather than business interests, but the difference isn't significant.
That said, I find the content cartels considerably less terrifying than the organization in Orwell's novel... so far.
Your perceptions of Stallman, the GPL and history are warped. Symbolics and other companies didn't beging pulling out of academia because of anything Stallman did. They did it because they were greedy and thought they could get away with using the research without paying. It is this attitude that is responsible for destroying the balance of corporate and academic cooperation. This "profit-motive" without responsibility doesn't benefit anyone except the greedy and short-sighted shareholders of these companies.
The GPL does not deny corporations access to the software it covers, but it does attempt to restore that balance by forcing companies to play fair. Specifically, they can use and sell work they haven't done, but they must not restrict the rights of their customers, or hide their improvements from the rest of the community. This is the real win/win symbiosis, as companies like Cygnus, RedHat and VA/Linux have discovered. A true understanding of the "rules" should lead to respect for the GPL and the responsible business models it seeks to promote.
Any mechanism that disables an account after a number of unsuccessful tries is vulnerable to denial-of-service. An attacker who would like to prevent legitimate users from accessing the system will simply try a random password every one hundred seconds for each account once per day (presumably from one or more compromised machines to cover tracks). The system will be quite secure because no one will be able to use it.
In general, it is unwise to assume that you can secure a system simply by asking yourself where the holes are and plugging them. Anything you forget is a potential problem. A better approach for production systems is to apply caution systematically. For example, dispense with features and services that are not essential. The goal is simplicity because a complex system cannot be secure.
Do patients need to access medial records from the web? Do they need this more than they need privacy? Only if the answers are yes should such a system be installed. If some patients are willing to take this risk then expose only the corresponding accounts. An account that is accessable from the internet protected only by a password is a liability that should not be forced on the meek and uninformed.
Top 5 reasons to telnet into your Sony AIBO:
5) Play virtual frisbee with your pet: it's just like the real thing but without the exercise!
4) Configure the house training subsystem to avoid oil on the carpet!
3) Fix that problem in the "fetch" routine!
2) You can't teach an old dog new tricks, but you can download rollover-1.1.2.tar.gz!
1) Improve security to keep those pesky mechanical cats away!
Creating something for young people should not be an excuse to use simplistic caricatures that insult the intelligence of a mature audience, nor should it be an excuse to use a story that doesn't make people think. Consider things like Sesame Street and Dr. Seuss which, while aimed at children, are challenging and clever. That Lucas seems to have intended to make Star Wars intellectually empty should not make him immune to criticism.
...but you're still wrong.
You're wrong because you equate the expectation that a company will deliver on a promise with a sense of entitlement. The developers who recieved the letter didn't demand a piece of the action, but RedHat offered it anyway. That was a nice gesture, and it increases my respect for that company, but once they made the promise those developers were right to expect RedHat to deliver. I get the impression that after all was said and done RedHat did deliver, but that is another story.
You're wrong because you believe, as the author of the article does, that businesses have the power to control the development of free software. Companies and IPO's have existed before software did. They didn't control free software decades ago and they don't control it today. Some of them contribute to it, but that doesn't stop anyone from developing or using any free software in any way.
You're wrong becuase you assume that money and free software cannot coexist. There is nothing wrong with programmers being payed for their work. There is something wrong with reducing the utility of that work in order to pay them. Free software is not about giving software away, although there is nothing wrong with that either. Free software is about giving people the power to software in the way that works best for them, rather than accepting the canned decisions of some corporation.
The points you raise are reasonable, but none address the essential question: given a choice between improving the security of Linux and Win2K, which is more productive for the community? The answer depends on which community you believe that you belong to. I'll take the free software community myself, but those who prefer the Microsoft customer community are welcome to attack the Win2K test.
Exactly how is this "challenge" intriguing? Cracking contests are a dime-a-dozen these days, which is interesting because they demonstrate almost nothing about security. (See this essay to undestand why.) If you believe that the nature of the open-source community is to fall for tricks like that then you have drastically underestimated this community. Most of the audience here doesn't get paid to find and report security holes in Linux or NT. However, if you find a security hole in Linux the result of your work will be made available to you and everyone in the Linux community at no charge through the efforts of volunteers like Torvalds and Cox. If you make the same effort for NT on the other hand, Gates is sure to offer you the opportunity to pay for the improvement whenever Win2K manages to surface without seeing it's own shadow.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say, "The open-source community has been calling for Microsoft to do something like this for a long time now." As far as I can tell, no one has asked for Microsoft to offer us an opportunity to allow us to support their development and marketing efforts without compensation. Sorry, but now that the opportunity is here, I'm still not impressed. It probably would be easy to knock down the Win2K test server (I can't seem to get through to it so perhaps someone already did), and yours as well -- but I don't much care. I use Linux because it is the most stable and effective operating system that meets my computing needs, not as a protest against some other system. I choose to direct my attention to constructive activities -- attacking a system that isn't even in production without source code or specifications doesn't qualify.
Aren't we reading a little too much into a single line of text here? What he said was, "one notable exponent of this view lived 2000 years ago", where this view is that people should cooperate. There are no reasonable grounds for interpreting this to mean that Stallman believes he is Christ.
In spite of Sun's attempt to keep Java in a corporate stranglehold, the free software community has produced several virtual machines (check out Kaffe and Japhar), a classpath implementation ( GNU Classpath), and a conformance test (see Mauve).
None of these are complete, but all are impressive and because of the GPL/ LGPL they will always be free software. Sure, Sun and other vendors offer the latest and greatest bells and whistles. Free software is inexorable -- it will catch up. I can wait, and those who can't are welcome to use proprietary products until then.