Cause that's what trolls do - and don't worry, the moderators are only rarely fooled, and if they are the error is soon corrected.
I notice that the trolls have already defeated the Slashdot [link.url] thingies though, take a look at the AC replying to your post with the google.com kde.gif link. It fools both Slashdot and IE, if you mouseover it says it's a link to google. Amazing. To discover the trick, you have to use the "Copy Shortcut" command and paste it into your URL bar. Think what creative energies like that could do, if they were turned to the light! Think of the programs that could be written with talents like that! And yet whatever sad person thought that up sits here at Slashdot finding ways of fooling a few people into seeing the wrong website, until the post is modded into oblivion 2 minutes later. It truly is sad...
I mean, just add 'copy' to the things you can do with a file (like read, write, execute).
Only that wouldn't work because as long as you can read a file, you can duplicate it. The OS can't really check to see if the bits you're writing to disk are the same ones you just read from another file or not.
I don't think real DRM schemes can actually be reasonably uncrackable unless there's specialized hardware involved. And then, if someone somewhere *ever* cracks it, it can't be fixed.
My great fear is that every country in the world is going to pass its own version of a "decency" law, then attempt to require the conformance of every other country in the world. Soon enough, the Internet will have been watered down to contain only that content which is deemed acceptable, world-wide.
No, I don't think that will happen. That would require every country in the world to bow to every other country's wishes. That will never, ever happen in a million years. Instead, I fear that countries will start fragmenting the Internet by establishing national firewalls or the like. The Internet may become segregated, split into different pieces by the meddling of misguided politicians. That would be unfortunate.
I'm supposed to stake my name and my company's name on an OS with comments like: "/* This is a hack..." in the kernel?
Just because you've never seen the [insert proprietary OS here] source code doesn't mean that it is any better than Linux's. The fact that you can see the hacks is actually a *benefit* of Linux.
Isn't it amazing that so many programmers gladly give away their hard work in free software, while so few artists, musicians, and writers do?
I think there is a different problem here. I don't think that all artists and musicians are against doing some work for free. Rather, I think that the open-source community doesn't contain that many artists, musicians, and writers. How many artists, musicians, and writers do you know who use Linux? That's what I thought. There are tons of guys out there who would be willing to do this stuff, I'd be willing to bet. However, either they aren't involved with open source, or they don't know how to contribute. There isn't much precedent for artists or musicians contributing to open source projects. It needs to be made easier for non-coders to get involved with open-source projects. Documentation, artwork, sounds, and many other things often lacking in OS software can be done by non-coders (preferably, in fact:-). But there just isn't much of a way for these people to contribute in many cases, and Linux still isn't mainstream enough for non-coders to be using it much.
New Microsoft worm
Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon 26 Nov 11:26 AM from the neener-neener dept.
FrickinIdiot writes: Slashdot is reporting on a new Microsoft worm (big surprise). A new unnamed worm has been released and, once again, Microsoft software is the target. More specifically, this new worm targets Microsoft SQL servers with no administrator passwords set. Once the server is infected, it logs onto Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servers and is ready to receive commands and act accordingly. What I thnk is anyone still using Microsoft software desrves what they get.
Yes, folks, this is an actual Slashdot headline from tomorrow! Note the clues: Lack of respect for users of Microsoft software, direct cut-n-paste from the submitted article without attribution, small typos in the editorial comments and of course a total lack of knowledge about what was posted the day before on the front page.
The whole point is, if you use the GPLed Qt, then you are obliged to GPL your code. Troll Tech obviously does not think their business customers will be prepared to do this.
Then why haven't they released a GPL QT for Windows? If this was really the case, they would have no fears about GPLing QT for all their platforms. But still only the Linux version is open source. In-house software is the key.
The point is that companies developing in-house software don't care about the GPL one bit. They could care less whether they have to give the source to their own employees. There's nothing in the GPL that says you have to make the source available to everyone who asks. You only have to make the source available to people who have the program. In-house programs never are distributed outside the company so the source isn't distributed outside either. Why do you think TrollTech has not yet released QT/Windows as GPL if they are not worried?
For example, whenever I use explorer, I itch to have the menu that Konqueror pops up when moving around files. It's incredibly useful.
Drag with the right mouse button. I'd guess Microsoft is worried about usability so much they didn't think about real users. It's non-obvious what to do when you want to copy a program instead of "link" it. You have to use the right-mouse button to drag instead of the regular left button. I guess they thought a little pop-up was too confusing for people so they didn't make it the default. Right-mouse button dragging is all I ever use, that way I always get the result I want instead of the result Windows wants.
The new IE6 privacy mgr stuff is, imo, just horrendous.
Actually, I prefer it over Konqueror's cookie management (which I also think is very good, don't get me wrong). With IE6, I have separate control over first- and third-party cookies. I can set all cookies to "block" except for harmless and sometimes useful single-session cookies. If I ever want to let one through, I simply click the little icon in the status bar, and it gives me a summary of what it has blocked. BTW, it blocks more than cookies: it's on to some other privacy-invading tricks as well (sometimes it blocks loading of certain apparently invisible.gifs). I can select any one of those blocked items and let it through.
Konqueror doesn't really have anything comparable. The closest you can get is to make it ask you about cookies whenever you visit a new site. That generates lots of questions, which is annoying. You can set it to block always, but when you want to let a cookie through then, you have to go deep into the preferences, which is annoying. Especially because the preferences dialog takes forever to load and forever to go away afterwards. The cookie deleter dialog is nice, but I don't really find myself using it much. I'd like more convenient control over what gets in there in the first place.
I think they'd have to port Qt to windows natively. This, fortunatly, wouldn't be hard for an experienced programmer who knows the Windows API AND xlib.
I hope they don't do this. If they do, they will just discourage companies from GPLing their products.
TrollTech has been very supportive of KDE's development since the beginning, and has bent over backwards to please Free Software advocates by GPLing their main, high-quality product. They took a risk in doing that. So far it has not come back to bite them, but if the GPL'd QT was ported to Windows against their will, it would be very bad for them. They couldn't stop anyone from doing it, but it would be bad. A lot of TrollTech's revenue comes from companies doing in-house windows apps. In-house apps can be GPL'd easily because the source only has to be distributed where the binaries go. If the program never goes outside the company, the source doesn't have to either. If there is a free, GPL'd QT on windows, all those people will stop paying TrollTech and simply use the free version. There is a reason TrollTech hasn't released a GPL'd QT for windows. There is of course a free as in beer version, but it is not GPL. It has a license forbidding commercial use, for this very reason.
TrollTech has gone very far in its support of free software, but it is still trying to make money. It is trying to be a company that will balance Open Source and profit. Porting a GPL QT to windows would hurt TrollTech, and it would make the GPL look like poison for companies that want to make a profit. It would be more ammunition for Microsoft's "virus" analogy. It is the wrong thing to do.
On the other hand, making XFree on Cygwin "rootless" would be a much better solution. Then there would be a high-quality, useable, Free X-Server for Windows, which would be great. Then you would have the ability to make KDE a shell replacement or whatever. It might still be less than optimal for TrollTech, but I think most companies would still elect to buy the Windows version of QT. Commercial X servers have had this capability for a while now, and it hasn't been a problem so far (that I know of).
Yes, this is KDE running in a large window on your Windows desktop, not KDE applications running in their own separate windows. It uses the Cygwin port of XFree86, which doesn't allow applications to run in their own separate windows yet. The GPL'd QT hasn't been ported, it is just running in sort of an emulation window, kind of like Wine in desktop mode. This doesn't use the commercial Windows QT.
Hey! What is going on with the oodles of copycat posts all of a sudden? You guys are practicing plagarism, and I hope you get modded into oblivion. Just because the original post was good doesn't mean you should copy-and-paste it!
Hey! This isn't offtopic. This really is a copied and pasted comment from another thread (Thanks to the AC above who found this link). I had Deja Vu just reading this comment. This isn't the first time ekrout's done this either. Some moderators around here need a little clue-sticking...
Re:SMB (Samba) kioslave in Konqueror yet?
on
KDE 3.0 Screenshots
·
· Score: 3
smb:// is all you need.
No, smb:// doesn't work. The current KDE smb client won't let you list all computers in the network like Network Neighborhood. All you can do is access computers you know the name of (smb://servername/sharename/filename). There's a lan:/ thingy that is supposed to do this but it doesn't. It's very hard to set up and it doesn't have the same functionality as Windows Network Neighborhood. Here's hoping KDE 3 will include a real smb ioslave so we can forget about lan:/.
WindowBlinds? Isn't that illegal? I think all their themes say you can't use them without WindowBlinds in their license agreements. Not that we care about such things (:-) but the KDE project itself has to.
BTW, I really like your work on kbox!
Re:Recent KDE antialiasing looks worse than before
on
KDE 3.0 Screenshots
·
· Score: 3, Informative
I believe that it is XFree86 that actually uses the library to display text. Anyway, it doesn't matter which version of KDE you have, the version that matters is the version of the Freetype library. You can still turn on the patented stuff when you compile the library if you want to, but you have to do it yourself, specifically before you compile. I did it and didn't notice any difference. They have some "auto-hinting" code in the new libraries that simulates the old patented code without the patents. It seems to work pretty well as I couldn't tell the difference after I installed the supposedly better patented one.
If someone has screenshots to compare the two library versions, I'd be curious.
Re:Bad screenshots for showing anti-aliasing
on
KDE 3.0 Screenshots
·
· Score: 3, Informative
What? KDE 2 had font anti-aliasing, and so does KDE 3. It isn't "better" in KDE 3 or anything (plus it didn't work in CVS for a little while).
Maybe you're thinking of alpha blending? I hear QT 3 supports alpha blending everywhere using the RENDER extension, which should lead to such eyecandy as full PNG transparency support in Konqueror, alpha-blended icons everywhere (shadows), and cooler themes, among other things. I haven't seen this applied yet, though. You wouldn't see it in any screenshots you could make at this time.
Actually, there are animated window widgets! Select the new "Glow" window decoration, hold your mouse over one of the close, minimize, or maximize buttons, and watch the button pulse and glow.
Plus, there's always Amor for all your "little animated character" needs (also included with KDE in the "toys" package).
Slashdot Mirror
I notice that the trolls have already defeated the Slashdot [link.url] thingies though, take a look at the AC replying to your post with the google.com kde.gif link. It fools both Slashdot and IE, if you mouseover it says it's a link to google. Amazing. To discover the trick, you have to use the "Copy Shortcut" command and paste it into your URL bar. Think what creative energies like that could do, if they were turned to the light! Think of the programs that could be written with talents like that! And yet whatever sad person thought that up sits here at Slashdot finding ways of fooling a few people into seeing the wrong website, until the post is modded into oblivion 2 minutes later. It truly is sad...
Gimme my points, I want some too!
What would you prefer? long long? That wouldn't work either. It was just a joke.
Oh yeah? I've got a nifty little program right here that will factor your large primes in O(1)! Don't believe me? Read it and weep!
int factor(int largePrime)
{
return largePrime;
}
Only that wouldn't work because as long as you can read a file, you can duplicate it. The OS can't really check to see if the bits you're writing to disk are the same ones you just read from another file or not.
I don't think real DRM schemes can actually be reasonably uncrackable unless there's specialized hardware involved. And then, if someone somewhere *ever* cracks it, it can't be fixed.
or
tags or closing brackets? I mean come on, the formatting errors are really annoying and could only take 5 minutes to find and fix.
No, I don't think that will happen. That would require every country in the world to bow to every other country's wishes. That will never, ever happen in a million years. Instead, I fear that countries will start fragmenting the Internet by establishing national firewalls or the like. The Internet may become segregated, split into different pieces by the meddling of misguided politicians. That would be unfortunate.
Just because you've never seen the [insert proprietary OS here] source code doesn't mean that it is any better than Linux's. The fact that you can see the hacks is actually a *benefit* of Linux.
4.2.2.1: vnsc-pri.sys.gtei.net
I guess that's the curse of having a memorable IP address...4.2.2.2: vnsc-bak.sys.gtei.net
4.2.2.3: vsnc-lc.sys.gtei.net
4.2.2.4: i-will-not-steal-service.gtei.net
I think there is a different problem here. I don't think that all artists and musicians are against doing some work for free. Rather, I think that the open-source community doesn't contain that many artists, musicians, and writers. How many artists, musicians, and writers do you know who use Linux? That's what I thought. There are tons of guys out there who would be willing to do this stuff, I'd be willing to bet. However, either they aren't involved with open source, or they don't know how to contribute. There isn't much precedent for artists or musicians contributing to open source projects. It needs to be made easier for non-coders to get involved with open-source projects. Documentation, artwork, sounds, and many other things often lacking in OS software can be done by non-coders (preferably, in fact :-). But there just isn't much of a way for these people to contribute in many cases, and Linux still isn't mainstream enough for non-coders to be using it much.
Posted by CmdrTaco on Mon 26 Nov 11:26 AM
from the neener-neener dept.
FrickinIdiot writes: Slashdot is reporting on a new Microsoft worm (big surprise). A new unnamed worm has been released and, once again, Microsoft software is the target. More specifically, this new worm targets Microsoft SQL servers with no administrator passwords set. Once the server is infected, it logs onto Internet Relay Chat (IRC) servers and is ready to receive commands and act accordingly. What I thnk is anyone still using Microsoft software desrves what they get.
( Read More... 70 of 269 comments )
Yes, folks, this is an actual Slashdot headline from tomorrow! Note the clues: Lack of respect for users of Microsoft software, direct cut-n-paste from the submitted article without attribution, small typos in the editorial comments and of course a total lack of knowledge about what was posted the day before on the front page.
Then why haven't they released a GPL QT for Windows? If this was really the case, they would have no fears about GPLing QT for all their platforms. But still only the Linux version is open source. In-house software is the key.
The point is that companies developing in-house software don't care about the GPL one bit. They could care less whether they have to give the source to their own employees. There's nothing in the GPL that says you have to make the source available to everyone who asks. You only have to make the source available to people who have the program. In-house programs never are distributed outside the company so the source isn't distributed outside either. Why do you think TrollTech has not yet released QT/Windows as GPL if they are not worried?
Drag with the right mouse button. I'd guess Microsoft is worried about usability so much they didn't think about real users. It's non-obvious what to do when you want to copy a program instead of "link" it. You have to use the right-mouse button to drag instead of the regular left button. I guess they thought a little pop-up was too confusing for people so they didn't make it the default. Right-mouse button dragging is all I ever use, that way I always get the result I want instead of the result Windows wants.
Actually, I prefer it over Konqueror's cookie management (which I also think is very good, don't get me wrong). With IE6, I have separate control over first- and third-party cookies. I can set all cookies to "block" except for harmless and sometimes useful single-session cookies. If I ever want to let one through, I simply click the little icon in the status bar, and it gives me a summary of what it has blocked. BTW, it blocks more than cookies: it's on to some other privacy-invading tricks as well (sometimes it blocks loading of certain apparently invisible .gifs). I can select any one of those blocked items and let it through.
Konqueror doesn't really have anything comparable. The closest you can get is to make it ask you about cookies whenever you visit a new site. That generates lots of questions, which is annoying. You can set it to block always, but when you want to let a cookie through then, you have to go deep into the preferences, which is annoying. Especially because the preferences dialog takes forever to load and forever to go away afterwards. The cookie deleter dialog is nice, but I don't really find myself using it much. I'd like more convenient control over what gets in there in the first place.
I hope they don't do this. If they do, they will just discourage companies from GPLing their products.
TrollTech has been very supportive of KDE's development since the beginning, and has bent over backwards to please Free Software advocates by GPLing their main, high-quality product. They took a risk in doing that. So far it has not come back to bite them, but if the GPL'd QT was ported to Windows against their will, it would be very bad for them. They couldn't stop anyone from doing it, but it would be bad. A lot of TrollTech's revenue comes from companies doing in-house windows apps. In-house apps can be GPL'd easily because the source only has to be distributed where the binaries go. If the program never goes outside the company, the source doesn't have to either. If there is a free, GPL'd QT on windows, all those people will stop paying TrollTech and simply use the free version. There is a reason TrollTech hasn't released a GPL'd QT for windows. There is of course a free as in beer version, but it is not GPL. It has a license forbidding commercial use, for this very reason.
TrollTech has gone very far in its support of free software, but it is still trying to make money. It is trying to be a company that will balance Open Source and profit. Porting a GPL QT to windows would hurt TrollTech, and it would make the GPL look like poison for companies that want to make a profit. It would be more ammunition for Microsoft's "virus" analogy. It is the wrong thing to do.
On the other hand, making XFree on Cygwin "rootless" would be a much better solution. Then there would be a high-quality, useable, Free X-Server for Windows, which would be great. Then you would have the ability to make KDE a shell replacement or whatever. It might still be less than optimal for TrollTech, but I think most companies would still elect to buy the Windows version of QT. Commercial X servers have had this capability for a while now, and it hasn't been a problem so far (that I know of).
Yes, this is KDE running in a large window on your Windows desktop, not KDE applications running in their own separate windows. It uses the Cygwin port of XFree86, which doesn't allow applications to run in their own separate windows yet. The GPL'd QT hasn't been ported, it is just running in sort of an emulation window, kind of like Wine in desktop mode. This doesn't use the commercial Windows QT.
Hey! What is going on with the oodles of copycat posts all of a sudden? You guys are practicing plagarism, and I hope you get modded into oblivion. Just because the original post was good doesn't mean you should copy-and-paste it!
One word - *NSync.
Hey! This isn't offtopic. This really is a copied and pasted comment from another thread (Thanks to the AC above who found this link). I had Deja Vu just reading this comment. This isn't the first time ekrout's done this either. Some moderators around here need a little clue-sticking...
No, smb:// doesn't work. The current KDE smb client won't let you list all computers in the network like Network Neighborhood. All you can do is access computers you know the name of (smb://servername/sharename/filename). There's a lan:/ thingy that is supposed to do this but it doesn't. It's very hard to set up and it doesn't have the same functionality as Windows Network Neighborhood. Here's hoping KDE 3 will include a real smb ioslave so we can forget about lan:/.
BTW, I really like your work on kbox!
If someone has screenshots to compare the two library versions, I'd be curious.
Maybe you're thinking of alpha blending? I hear QT 3 supports alpha blending everywhere using the RENDER extension, which should lead to such eyecandy as full PNG transparency support in Konqueror, alpha-blended icons everywhere (shadows), and cooler themes, among other things. I haven't seen this applied yet, though. You wouldn't see it in any screenshots you could make at this time.
Plus, there's always Amor for all your "little animated character" needs (also included with KDE in the "toys" package).
Yessireebob, KDE is one great desktop ;-)