Much better value than a trip to MIR
on
Space Tourism
·
· Score: 1
Posted by PartA:
At $26,000/3 hours, I'm sure this would be much more affordable than a visit to the space station, and for people who fly on the concords, it's not much more expensive than one of their business trips. =)
I'm a published author who has books on Amazon,
("Install, configure and Customize Slackware Linux") but I wouldn't dream of complaining about people buying my book used. If someone buys it and decides to pass it on, oh well. That's their right -- they paid for it and they can do with it what they will.
All of the authors mentioned in the letter are high-profile authors who are already making decent money for their writing. Just like the record companies, this is an example of greed, not protection of working-class individuals.
I never thought that I would be on Amazon's side, but in this case I have to say that I think that they should continue this practice.
Well, I suppose I should prepare to be castigated...
I have a Ultra 10 just "sitting around" right now...
I recently got an UltraSparc 10 from a company that owed me money but had a shortage of money, but surplus equipment. I'm not a fan of Solaris, and I have no interest in supporting a non-free UNIX. I've long been a fan of Linux, and Slackware in particular, and I think it's great that they're supporting Sparc and UltraSparc.
This is a great sign for Linux, it's moving beyond the limitations of Intel hardware. Linux has potential to be an enterprise OS, but Intel hardware is not up to the task of running enterprise solutions in the way that Sun hardware is. IMHO it would be nice if Sun (and Apple...) would realize that they're hardware companies and get behind Open Source solutions like Linux or the *BSDs. (Until I saw the Slack announcement, I was leaning more towards NetBSD...)
I'd be willing to bet that you'd never used Slackware before. The Slackware team makes a fine distribution that is the most UNIX-like of the Linux distributions (at least of the ones that I've used; Debian, Caldera, Corel, Red Hat, SuSE, Stormix, LinuxPPC, Linux-Mandrake).
Maybe you like Solaris. Great, go for it. But don't jump down the throats of people who don't want to use closed-source OSes. (Despite Sun's attempts to convince the media to the contrary, Solaris is not an Open Source OS. Visible source, maybe, Open or Free? No way.)
Is Slack ready to compete with Solaris on Sparc? Probably not yet, but the only way to reach parity is for people to install Slack on Sparc and continue testing and development, which is exactly what I intend to do.
Generally I don't even bother to pull binaries, because they're often in RPM format and I don't use Red Hat -- the RPMs are often not quite right for my SuSE system, and my Slack and Debian boxen don't do RPM. (Okay, Slack 7.1 does include RPM, but it's not really integrated nor do I want it to be...)
If something is in alpha or early beta, leave it in source form. Users who can't compile their own software are probably shouldn't be mucking about with alpha software. Not to sound elitist, but alpha apps aren't supposed to be 100% usable and users who can't compile code aren't going to be able to do much to help out...or reap much benefit from the software until it's further along.
Screenshots, on the other hand, should be totally mandatory...and decent install instructions would be nice too. Sticking source code on SourceForge saying it's the greatest thing since sliced bread without demonstrating the software or explaining how to install it is pretty much useless. One of the complaints I have with SourceForge is since it has a default Web presence most projects don't put much time into their presentation of the software -- which doesn't entice users into actually trying it. Just one or two measly screenshots is all we ask...
the problem is if you even wanted to buy the stuff you could.........bad links,false links or shutdown links
Re:(Yeah, well..) Darwin != Free, GNUStep is
on
No Love For Darwin?
·
· Score: 1
Posted by BSD-Pat:
I actually have a few comments about this, and its essentially pet-peeves of mine.
FSF/GNU people think that "Open Source" is just what fits into the FSF's political agenda of "free software for all, free as in speech! not as in beer!"
Personally, I really don;t care about political agendas. Darwin is there for a couple reasons.
One, it allows developers to develop things within a the framwork of the underlying OS of MacOS X, which means you get the benefits of a wealth of UNIX related software that can run on MacOS X.
The other reason is that The OS X developers wanted alot of copperation between members of the Open Source community that they were using code from, namely Net and Free BSD projects.
Don't ever think that corporate entities release source for purely altruistic reasons.
And really, honestly, I don't care.
The other day I was in an IRC channel where someone said "What if your code was taken and used by Microsoft", as if Microsoft was evil. Personally M$ software works fine for my mother, aunts, uncles, and grandmother. It doesn't do what I want it to, so I don't use it personally (except as a gaming platform). If M$ used my BSD licensed code, I personally wouldn't care.
The difference between the GPL and the BSD license is this:
the GPL is a viral license, it has an aim, political, and parallels can be drawn to communism, theres nothing wrong with that. Communism != bad, it just means different. In certain situations, this philosophy may actually work.
the BSD license is different, the closest political view that can be drawn to it is Libertarianism. No central authority, no regulation.
The only restriction on the recent BSD licenses is "give us due credit, leave this copyright on the source code", theres no longer any advertising clause, so theres not even any penalties for not *publically* acknowledging ownership of the code.
I personally have issues with those that think we're *bad* because we don't have the political agenda that the FSF has.
Be thankful that code is there, and is given to learn, and get ideas from.
heh, the fact remains is that BSD news, other than releases, is not always interesting to the whole of Slashdot's readership. However, the BSD section is for those stories that may be interesting to you and I, but may not be interesting otherwise.
We try, most of the time to please the whole readership, and releases, and conferences as an event usually make the front page.
You know, it's almost refreshing to see someone recommending a Microsoft product on Slashdot - it's a nice attempt at being even-handed. However, suggesting that we switch to IE is a bit impractical for those who are using Linux, *BSD, and other OSes that Microsoft doesn't support.
Konqueror, on the other hand, is a viable alternative to Netscape. I'd recommend it quite highly.
I'm sick of all this, "I'm sending them to daycare for socialization" crap. Oh yeah its good for them to socialize with kids whose parent[s] dont give a rip about them too. They'd have something in common. Also this crap about sending them there for learning,.........shit you can`t teach a 3-5year old how to fingerpaint/color, read and write? I know of one 4 yearold that is quite proficent on a computer. He'll kick your ass in quake 3 also:) He never went to daycare!
...this would be it. C'mon - attacking someone for posting software that is no longer available from a company - or worse, from a company that's out of business. To what end? Who is being hurt by posting "abandonware?" It's easier to make a case for those who are being harmed by the inability to get copies of abandoned versions of software - there are many legitimate reasons to need to retrieve a copy of older software - particularly any software distributed on floppies...
If companies want to prove that they are concerned about their customers they should at least include a clause in their license regarding unsupported versions and contingency if they should go out of business.
How can anyone make a business case - forget the political issues for a moment - for buying software that you will rely on but have no control over? Getting support from a software company is nearly impossible, and the old saw about "having someone to sue" is ridiculous. I've never heard of a case where someone successfully sued a software company for damages - I'd love to see the case if one does exist...
Open Source - it's not just the Right Thing to do, it's practical too.
I will hold out. I have a banshee, everytime i have to update my xfree i have to use the SVGA server from linux.3dfx.com and it is an old version 3.3.5 and a RPM! Why haven't they added this driver to the newer xfree's? The one it comes does work but has lots of static in it. Anyone had that problem.......I solved it by using that driver.
I tend to agree, NetInfo is the worst thing to come along to distributed machine management since...well NetInfo. I used to admin a NeXTStep network and if NetInfo crashes and takes the database along with it, its next to near unrecoverable without a backup, and even then its a pain in the arse.
NeXT had alot of cool things, DPS rocked, and I *loved* the interface (so much that I use windowmaker now on my BSD boxen) but NetInfo is the biggest mistake they are making with MacOS X.
Yay! Apple. Come out with a cool product and make it near impossible to use.
If you were a sentient person you would know that Keyes isn't running. But I'd like to see him run sometime. Or Larry Elder a real black (libertarian) conservative. Surely G.W. isn't hoping on filtering the whole internet. He must be talking about libraries. I can agree with filters on libraries computers or public computers. What you view or allow to be view at home is up to you tho. I wonder if they'll put internet filters on bc's presidental liebrary, dang the whole place would need to be filtered. Btw the bc liebrary ( we call it the pyramid to the sun king) is about 15 miles from my house and I won't go near it!
I agree with that statement. I have been reading several posts here and I can't believe techies,geeks or whatever "our" demographic is, seem to support Gore or Nader. There probably is more support for Nadar because he's an outsider/underdog. Man all this whining about about some corporate goobers getting 100 million dollars year. Who gives a rip if they didn't earn it. Don't we all strive to get rich. "Honest work?" It won't be long before the "Nader" "Gore" types decide that 50k a year is too much money to give a 18year old high school dropout just because he can code. It wouldn't be considered honest work. Gore invented the internet and he sure as hell will regulate it! I'm voting for Harry Browne and I did so in 1996. I know he won't win but I don't care. By the way I'm not rich ( I'll be lucky to make 25k this year) but I don't want goobers like Gore and Nader screwing my opportunities up!
Um, you'll be arguing for a while - there's really no such thing as a "better distro" (well, okay - they're all better than Corel...sorry, couldn't help myself...) they all have strengths and weaknesses. It usually boils down to this: Which distro did you first successfully get up and running with all the services you need? That's probably going to be your favorite.
Both Slack and Debian have advantages...and I like 'em both - and I use them both. Debian on my laptop, Slackware on my main home server.
Glad to see Slackware on new platforms, I hope this brings a little more attention to Slackware...they've been ignored a lot because they don't try to be as commercial as Red Hat or SuSE. Personally, though, I think it's a great server distro and if you're doing consulting and setting up a lot of boxen, Slack's a quick install and easy to set up. I think my average install and configure time for a Slack box is about 30 minutes on a Pentium II or higher.
Bottom line: It's all free UNIX, it's all good. Whether you use any Linux distro or any of the *BSDs - it's all good.
I wonder if someone could make a case for this being a violation of First Amendment rights? If the filters specifically block political speech, the most protected of all varieties of speech, and they are mandated by the government then would that in fact be a violation of right to political speech? I'm not sure. They might be able to make a case for saying that they're letting you say what you want, but that no one has a right to LISTEN to your speech, you just have a right to say it. But, if the government is specifically blocking the content... Hmmm. I see an interesting legal case should anyone care to make it.
This may be on shaky ground in K-12, but if public libraries are being required to use the same software then that's restricting adults from the same content... could be a different story.
As I've mentioned in earlier Slashdot posts, the most simple and elegant solution I've been able to think of is to require porn sites or sites with adult content to have different TDLs like.xxx or maybe.N17 - then filtering programs become unnecessary - you just set browsers not to allow those sites...
it should be email by now. In the beginning, when it was a newish concept, it should have been "e-mail" after a period of use, it would be appropriate to drop the hyphen and simply call it email. I believe that the Associated Press style guide and the MLA style guide, as well as the Chicago Guide to Style should offer some insight. When in doubt, consult Strunk and White.
I believe Rob and other Slashdotters have been willing to don the "new journalist" clothing in interviews and comments they've made on Slashdot - how important Slashdot has been to the "new" online journalism. If you're going to claim the title, take the responsibility. If you're not journalists, remove the word "news" from your tagline.
I love Slashdot for a lot of reasons, but as a journalist, Slashdot does make me cringe from time to time. Would it be so difficult to grow up and do things right?
As far as other online journalists...it's really a matter of who they work for. I've found that sites like Linux Today do fall short of journalistic standards, but usually news sources that have newspaper equivalents are pretty much meeting the standard. That's probably because they're mostly re-printing stuff from the paper edition and the paper edition gets more attention and is held to a higher standard because it's actually being printed. (Never underestimate the subtle value shift between print and electronic media...)
Quite frankly, though, I think most news outlets these days fall short of meeting ideal journalistic standards.
(Wondering what they are: read the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics here:
http://spj.org/ethics/code.htm
But my main e-mail is an Earthlink account, which suffers greatly from spammers. However, they have a "spamigator" service which is actually pretty effective. I went from 10-15 a day to 2 or less a week.
When I order from someone like Barnes & Noble (I won't order from Amazon..) I usually use a Yahoo! email address that I only check once or twice a week...when I get spam I use the "block address" feature, so I can be assured they start getting bounces.
I'm not really sure why spam annoys us more than junk mail...at least spam only abuses bandwidth, I get about a pound of junk mail a month, stuff that used to be living trees!
Not to go off on a tangent, but I encourage everyone to take those annoying magazine subscription cards, write "THESE THINGS KILL TREES" on them and post them. They're postage paid, so they automatically go straight to them, and then they have to pay postage...
Anyway...I personally think all unsolicited commercial email should have to come from an address that ends in.spam, and all porn sites should have to register with a.xxx so that we can all filter out spam and concerned parents and public institutions can filter out porn. Have nudie pictures on a.com,.net or.org? $1,000.00 fine, each complaint. Have 'em on a.xxx? Go for it. Same with spam. If a unsolicited email comes from a.com,.net or.org - $1,000.00 fine each complaint...
I guess spam is just the dark side of human nature manifesting itself and there's nothing we can do about it. If we get rid of spam, they'll probably start doing something else. It's just surprising to me that people still do it from a logistical perspective - I don't know anyone who has ever bought anything advertised in an unsolicited commercial e-mail. Ever. So how come the spam keeps flowing if it's not effective? Who are the idiots responding to this stuff and making it worthwhile for the spammers?
Ok, so you put a few extra dollars into this kit, buy a couple of 6.5 megawat lazers to replace the lego "swords" and then, you got your self an awesome toy!!!
Reverse engineering is instinct in most children. Remember when you were two and all you ever did was ask WHY? Once you knew what why meant, You asked it till you were blue in the face. REMEMBER?? I KNOW YOU DO!!
I personally remember reverse engineering some kewl toys I had. I.E. remote/radio controled vehicles, my bicycle, fire, the toilet, and a feeble atempt to recreate the cooking of popcorn (when I was three).
my point here is not only is reverse engineering something that may help our society, it is instinctive to human nature to do so.
dw
Fire is red,violets are blue
I am a schitzophranic, so am I.
...with the assertion that Red Hat's release cycle isn't too quick. From a commercial, never mind technical, standpoint it is a nightmare. In the Windows world, the idea of a new OS every two or three years is hellish for IT managers and folks who maintain production systems and desktops. For the home computer user it's annoying to have to upgrade (because you have to in order to use the latest and greatest version of program x) every two to three years. However, Microsoft has found people will put up with upgrades on a cycle of every two or three years, and that drives sales.
To ask users to contend with new versions every four months is insane! It drives retailers nuts, almost as soon as you have Linux distro 7.0 stocked and promoted, version 7.1 is out. So, you're doing returns every couple months and consumers who are fence-sitting about Linux continue to do so because they perceive that there's never a right time to jump in. People who produce books and materials for Linux are finding it's extremely difficult to coordinate. Try writing a book, getting it through the editorial process and published before a distro goes through at least a point revision. It's nearly impossible. Even if you accomplish it, if you label it "Using Red Hat 6.2" you're nearly doomed because 7 will be out before the book has been on the shelves for six months. And who is going to buy "Using Red Hat 6.2" when 7.1 is out?
I'm not arguing they shouldn't provide updates - the way the Debian project handles it is optimum, in my opinion. They do official releases slowly, but updated software and bugfixes are only an apt-get away. Slackware handles it pretty well too, by releasing very stable releases only once or twice a year. (I believe 7.1 has been the only
release this year...)
Since Red Hat is the market leader, and they've supposedly got all this marketing might behind them now, I'd hope they'd see the problems they're creating. If they must do a buggy.0 release, do it as a developer's release. Make subscriptions available for those who want to live on the bleeding edge, but stick to one boxed version a year, max.
I realize that everyone has a different perspective, and I respect yours. I don't take your reply (rebuttal?) as a personal attack in any way. It's easy to see that we could probably exchange reasons for/against using new technology all day - but my main reason for posting is not to argue we should stop using new technologies - only to actually take the time to think before we deploy them and actually take the time to think whether we need them or not.
Also, no - I don't think we should freeze culture at any point. That's not what I'm trying to say - what I am saying is that our culture had changed very, very slowly throughout history - and still does. However, our technologies are advancing far faster than our culture can. The concepts of "generation gaps" are really unique to the last 150 years or so. Some of the cultural constructs we've come up with are great - like childhood. (If you look into it, you'll find that our culture's idea of childhood is quite novel and didn't exist several hundred years ago. The idea that children should be innocent of things like sex or work until a given age are very new, historically speaking.)
The main problem is this, to hold on to the car example, we introduced a major element of change to our society and no one realized until 50 years later (or so...) that it had this enormous impact on our society. Great, we can get away from an abusive home overnight or get someone to the hospital and save their life - but the car has also fostered an attitude in our culture that didn't exist 100 years ago - namely that if you completely screw up your life in an area, why you can just move and re-start. That used to be a huge undertaking. Now it's trivial. (Okay, moving's still a pain in the butt, but trivial compared to 150 years ago.)
Finally, I don't believe that we can only proceed from prior knowledge. It is possible to speculate what the consequences of a technology will be. Particularly now that we can examine the introduction of radical change through technology with other technologies that have been introduced. Granted, there's room for error, but it does give one a start. Simply saying "oh, we're not sure what this will do, so we'll throw it in the mix and see if we were right or not" is irresponsible. Maybe you'll look at something and find that it is a potential mixture of good and bad effects - but you think that the good outweighs the bad, okay - at least you've THOUGHT about it. That's all I'm saying.
Finally, saying that preventing access to technology could be unethical. That's an interesting perspective, considering you don't seem to feel that the reverse is true - namely that giving access is then ethical. I would say that not thinking about the consequences of an action is unethical - you're basically throwing caution to the wind and saying "okay, here you go - hot new technology! Hope it doesn't make your nipples fall off tomorrow, but I didn't think it through so que sera sera." Is that ethical?
I have a set of beliefs, and I try to live by them. I consider that ethical - my belief is that I have to do what I believe is right, and I have to think about the consequences of my actions - at least as far as I can reasonably predict. For me, it would be unethical to do any less. And, if I had invented something that had great potential for change, I would have to think about its possible effect. If, having thought about it, I decide it may be more harmful than positive, it would be less than ethical to go ahead and make it available. It's much harder to recall existing technology that people ingrain in their lives than it is to simply not release it. Think about the car again - if we were to decide that "Hey, cars are screwing up the environment, they're messing up the family unit and generally costing us too much - let's get rid of them" hoooo boy. What are the odds you'd be able to get rid of them without massive outcries and general chaos? Not good, I'd expect.
*whew*
Okay - off the soapbox. Sorry for the lengthy reply, and slight rambling, but this is an issue that I've thought about a lot - and it just happend to spring up on Slashdot of all places.:)
Slashdot Mirror
Posted by PartA:
At $26,000/3 hours, I'm sure this would be much more affordable than a visit to the space station, and for people who fly on the concords, it's not much more expensive than one of their business trips. =)
Posted by polar_bear:
I'm a published author who has books on Amazon,
("Install, configure and Customize Slackware Linux") but I wouldn't dream of complaining about people buying my book used. If someone buys it and decides to pass it on, oh well. That's their right -- they paid for it and they can do with it what they will.
All of the authors mentioned in the letter are high-profile authors who are already making decent money for their writing. Just like the record companies, this is an example of greed, not protection of working-class individuals.
I never thought that I would be on Amazon's side, but in this case I have to say that I think that they should continue this practice.
Posted by polar_bear:
Well, I suppose I should prepare to be castigated...
I have a Ultra 10 just "sitting around" right now...
I recently got an UltraSparc 10 from a company that owed me money but had a shortage of money, but surplus equipment. I'm not a fan of Solaris, and I have no interest in supporting a non-free UNIX. I've long been a fan of Linux, and Slackware in particular, and I think it's great that they're supporting Sparc and UltraSparc.
This is a great sign for Linux, it's moving beyond the limitations of Intel hardware. Linux has potential to be an enterprise OS, but Intel hardware is not up to the task of running enterprise solutions in the way that Sun hardware is. IMHO it would be nice if Sun (and Apple...) would realize that they're hardware companies and get behind Open Source solutions like Linux or the *BSDs. (Until I saw the Slack announcement, I was leaning more towards NetBSD...)
I'd be willing to bet that you'd never used Slackware before. The Slackware team makes a fine distribution that is the most UNIX-like of the Linux distributions (at least of the ones that I've used; Debian, Caldera, Corel, Red Hat, SuSE, Stormix, LinuxPPC, Linux-Mandrake).
Maybe you like Solaris. Great, go for it. But don't jump down the throats of people who don't want to use closed-source OSes. (Despite Sun's attempts to convince the media to the contrary, Solaris is not an Open Source OS. Visible source, maybe, Open or Free? No way.)
Is Slack ready to compete with Solaris on Sparc? Probably not yet, but the only way to reach parity is for people to install Slack on Sparc and continue testing and development, which is exactly what I intend to do.
Posted by polar_bear:
Generally I don't even bother to pull binaries, because they're often in RPM format and I don't use Red Hat -- the RPMs are often not quite right for my SuSE system, and my Slack and Debian boxen don't do RPM. (Okay, Slack 7.1 does include RPM, but it's not really integrated nor do I want it to be...)
If something is in alpha or early beta, leave it in source form. Users who can't compile their own software are probably shouldn't be mucking about with alpha software. Not to sound elitist, but alpha apps aren't supposed to be 100% usable and users who can't compile code aren't going to be able to do much to help out...or reap much benefit from the software until it's further along.
Screenshots, on the other hand, should be totally mandatory...and decent install instructions would be nice too. Sticking source code on SourceForge saying it's the greatest thing since sliced bread without demonstrating the software or explaining how to install it is pretty much useless. One of the complaints I have with SourceForge is since it has a default Web presence most projects don't put much time into their presentation of the software -- which doesn't entice users into actually trying it. Just one or two measly screenshots is all we ask...
Posted by Kewlhandtek:
damn it......i have a problem with my "nots" i leave them out tooooooooooo much. YOU CAN`T even buy the stuff
Posted by Kewlhandtek:
the problem is if you even wanted to buy the stuff you could.........bad links,false links or shutdown links
Posted by BSD-Pat:
I actually have a few comments about this, and its essentially pet-peeves of mine.
FSF/GNU people think that "Open Source" is just what fits into the FSF's political agenda of "free software for all, free as in speech! not as in beer!"
Personally, I really don;t care about political agendas. Darwin is there for a couple reasons.
One, it allows developers to develop things within a the framwork of the underlying OS of MacOS X, which means you get the benefits of a wealth of UNIX related software that can run on MacOS X.
The other reason is that The OS X developers wanted alot of copperation between members of the Open Source community that they were using code from, namely Net and Free BSD projects.
Don't ever think that corporate entities release source for purely altruistic reasons.
And really, honestly, I don't care.
The other day I was in an IRC channel where someone said "What if your code was taken and used by Microsoft", as if Microsoft was evil. Personally M$ software works fine for my mother, aunts, uncles, and grandmother. It doesn't do what I want it to, so I don't use it personally (except as a gaming platform). If M$ used my BSD licensed code, I personally wouldn't care.
The difference between the GPL and the BSD license is this:
the GPL is a viral license, it has an aim, political, and parallels can be drawn to communism, theres nothing wrong with that. Communism != bad, it just means different. In certain situations, this philosophy may actually work.
the BSD license is different, the closest political view that can be drawn to it is Libertarianism. No central authority, no regulation.
The only restriction on the recent BSD licenses is "give us due credit, leave this copyright on the source code", theres no longer any advertising clause, so theres not even any penalties for not *publically* acknowledging ownership of the code.
I personally have issues with those that think we're *bad* because we don't have the political agenda that the FSF has.
Be thankful that code is there, and is given to learn, and get ideas from.
Posted by BSD-Pat:
heh, the fact remains is that BSD news, other than releases, is not always interesting to the whole of Slashdot's readership. However, the BSD section is for those stories that may be interesting to you and I, but may not be interesting otherwise.
We try, most of the time to please the whole readership, and releases, and conferences as an event usually make the front page.
Thats all there is to it.
-Pat
Posted by BSD-Pat:
Orinoco/Wavelan support is actually, imho better than Linux's. I use wavelans in both IEEE and ad-hoc mode, WITH WEP.
Now firewire is another story. Not there yet, however I personally have no firewire devices, so what do *I* care? =)
Posted by polar_bear:
You know, it's almost refreshing to see someone recommending a Microsoft product on Slashdot - it's a nice attempt at being even-handed. However, suggesting that we switch to IE is a bit impractical for those who are using Linux, *BSD, and other OSes that Microsoft doesn't support.
Konqueror, on the other hand, is a viable alternative to Netscape. I'd recommend it quite highly.
Posted by Kewlhandtek:
:) He never went to daycare!
I'm sick of all this, "I'm sending them to daycare for socialization" crap. Oh yeah its good for them to socialize with kids whose parent[s] dont give a rip about them too. They'd have something in common. Also this crap about sending them there for learning,.........shit you can`t teach a 3-5year old how to fingerpaint/color, read and write? I know of one 4 yearold that is quite proficent on a computer. He'll kick your ass in quake 3 also
Posted by polar_bear:
...this would be it. C'mon - attacking someone for posting software that is no longer available from a company - or worse, from a company that's out of business. To what end? Who is being hurt by posting "abandonware?" It's easier to make a case for those who are being harmed by the inability to get copies of abandoned versions of software - there are many legitimate reasons to need to retrieve a copy of older software - particularly any software distributed on floppies...
If companies want to prove that they are concerned about their customers they should at least include a clause in their license regarding unsupported versions and contingency if they should go out of business.
How can anyone make a business case - forget the political issues for a moment - for buying software that you will rely on but have no control over? Getting support from a software company is nearly impossible, and the old saw about "having someone to sue" is ridiculous. I've never heard of a case where someone successfully sued a software company for damages - I'd love to see the case if one does exist...
Open Source - it's not just the Right Thing to do, it's practical too.
Posted by Kewlhandtek:
I will hold out. I have a banshee, everytime i have to update my xfree i have to use the SVGA server from linux.3dfx.com and it is an old version 3.3.5 and a RPM! Why haven't they added this driver to the newer xfree's? The one it comes does work but has lots of static in it. Anyone had that problem.......I solved it by using that driver.
Posted by BSD-Pat:
I tend to agree, NetInfo is the worst thing to come along to distributed machine management since...well NetInfo. I used to admin a NeXTStep network and if NetInfo crashes and takes the database along with it, its next to near unrecoverable without a backup, and even then its a pain in the arse.
NeXT had alot of cool things, DPS rocked, and I *loved* the interface (so much that I use windowmaker now on my BSD boxen) but NetInfo is the biggest mistake they are making with MacOS X.
Yay! Apple. Come out with a cool product and make it near impossible to use.
Posted by Kewlhandtek:
If you were a sentient person you would know that Keyes isn't running. But I'd like to see him run sometime. Or Larry Elder a real black (libertarian) conservative. Surely G.W. isn't hoping on filtering the whole internet. He must be talking about libraries. I can agree with filters on libraries computers or public computers. What you view or allow to be view at home is up to you tho. I wonder if they'll put internet filters on bc's presidental liebrary, dang the whole place would need to be filtered. Btw the bc liebrary ( we call it the pyramid to the sun king) is about 15 miles from my house and I won't go near it!
Posted by Kewlhandtek:
I agree with that statement. I have been reading several posts here and I can't believe techies,geeks or whatever "our" demographic is, seem to support Gore or Nader. There probably is more support for Nadar because he's an outsider/underdog. Man all this whining about about some corporate goobers getting 100 million dollars year. Who gives a rip if they didn't earn it. Don't we all strive to get rich. "Honest work?" It won't be long before the "Nader" "Gore" types decide that 50k a year is too much money to give a 18year old high school dropout just because he can code. It wouldn't be considered honest work. Gore invented the internet and he sure as hell will regulate it! I'm voting for Harry Browne and I did so in 1996. I know he won't win but I don't care. By the way I'm not rich ( I'll be lucky to make 25k this year) but I don't want goobers like Gore and Nader screwing my opportunities up!
Posted by polar_bear:
Um, you'll be arguing for a while - there's really no such thing as a "better distro" (well, okay - they're all better than Corel...sorry, couldn't help myself...) they all have strengths and weaknesses. It usually boils down to this: Which distro did you first successfully get up and running with all the services you need? That's probably going to be your favorite.
Both Slack and Debian have advantages...and I like 'em both - and I use them both. Debian on my laptop, Slackware on my main home server.
Glad to see Slackware on new platforms, I hope this brings a little more attention to Slackware...they've been ignored a lot because they don't try to be as commercial as Red Hat or SuSE. Personally, though, I think it's a great server distro and if you're doing consulting and setting up a lot of boxen, Slack's a quick install and easy to set up. I think my average install and configure time for a Slack box is about 30 minutes on a Pentium II or higher.
Bottom line: It's all free UNIX, it's all good. Whether you use any Linux distro or any of the *BSDs - it's all good.
Posted by polar_bear:
.xxx or maybe .N17 - then filtering programs become unnecessary - you just set browsers not to allow those sites...
I wonder if someone could make a case for this being a violation of First Amendment rights? If the filters specifically block political speech, the most protected of all varieties of speech, and they are mandated by the government then would that in fact be a violation of right to political speech? I'm not sure. They might be able to make a case for saying that they're letting you say what you want, but that no one has a right to LISTEN to your speech, you just have a right to say it. But, if the government is specifically blocking the content... Hmmm. I see an interesting legal case should anyone care to make it.
This may be on shaky ground in K-12, but if public libraries are being required to use the same software then that's restricting adults from the same content... could be a different story.
As I've mentioned in earlier Slashdot posts, the most simple and elegant solution I've been able to think of is to require porn sites or sites with adult content to have different TDLs like
Posted by polar_bear:
it should be email by now. In the beginning, when it was a newish concept, it should have been "e-mail" after a period of use, it would be appropriate to drop the hyphen and simply call it email. I believe that the Associated Press style guide and the MLA style guide, as well as the Chicago Guide to Style should offer some insight. When in doubt, consult Strunk and White.
Posted by polar_bear:
I believe Rob and other Slashdotters have been willing to don the "new journalist" clothing in interviews and comments they've made on Slashdot - how important Slashdot has been to the "new" online journalism. If you're going to claim the title, take the responsibility. If you're not journalists, remove the word "news" from your tagline.
I love Slashdot for a lot of reasons, but as a journalist, Slashdot does make me cringe from time to time. Would it be so difficult to grow up and do things right?
As far as other online journalists...it's really a matter of who they work for. I've found that sites like Linux Today do fall short of journalistic standards, but usually news sources that have newspaper equivalents are pretty much meeting the standard. That's probably because they're mostly re-printing stuff from the paper edition and the paper edition gets more attention and is held to a higher standard because it's actually being printed. (Never underestimate the subtle value shift between print and electronic media...)
Quite frankly, though, I think most news outlets these days fall short of meeting ideal journalistic standards.
(Wondering what they are: read the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics here:
http://spj.org/ethics/code.htm
Posted by polar_bear:
.spam, and all porn sites should have to register with a .xxx so that we can all filter out spam and concerned parents and public institutions can filter out porn. Have nudie pictures on a .com, .net or .org? $1,000.00 fine, each complaint. Have 'em on a .xxx? Go for it. Same with spam. If a unsolicited email comes from a .com, .net or .org - $1,000.00 fine each complaint...
But my main e-mail is an Earthlink account, which suffers greatly from spammers. However, they have a "spamigator" service which is actually pretty effective. I went from 10-15 a day to 2 or less a week.
When I order from someone like Barnes & Noble (I won't order from Amazon..) I usually use a Yahoo! email address that I only check once or twice a week...when I get spam I use the "block address" feature, so I can be assured they start getting bounces.
I'm not really sure why spam annoys us more than junk mail...at least spam only abuses bandwidth, I get about a pound of junk mail a month, stuff that used to be living trees!
Not to go off on a tangent, but I encourage everyone to take those annoying magazine subscription cards, write "THESE THINGS KILL TREES" on them and post them. They're postage paid, so they automatically go straight to them, and then they have to pay postage...
Anyway...I personally think all unsolicited commercial email should have to come from an address that ends in
I guess spam is just the dark side of human nature manifesting itself and there's nothing we can do about it. If we get rid of spam, they'll probably start doing something else. It's just surprising to me that people still do it from a logistical perspective - I don't know anyone who has ever bought anything advertised in an unsolicited commercial e-mail. Ever. So how come the spam keeps flowing if it's not effective? Who are the idiots responding to this stuff and making it worthwhile for the spammers?
Ok, so you put a few extra dollars into this kit, buy a couple of 6.5 megawat lazers to replace the lego "swords" and then, you got your self an awesome toy!!!
DW
Posted by DRAGONWEEZEL@HOTMAIL:
Reverse engineering is instinct in most children. Remember when you were two and all you ever did was ask WHY? Once you knew what why meant, You asked it till you were blue in the face. REMEMBER?? I KNOW YOU DO!! I personally remember reverse engineering some kewl toys I had. I.E. remote/radio controled vehicles, my bicycle, fire, the toilet, and a feeble atempt to recreate the cooking of popcorn (when I was three). my point here is not only is reverse engineering something that may help our society, it is instinctive to human nature to do so. dw Fire is red,violets are blue I am a schitzophranic, so am I.
Posted by polar_bear:
.0 release, do it as a developer's release. Make subscriptions available for those who want to live on the bleeding edge, but stick to one boxed version a year, max.
...with the assertion that Red Hat's release cycle isn't too quick. From a commercial, never mind technical, standpoint it is a nightmare. In the Windows world, the idea of a new OS every two or three years is hellish for IT managers and folks who maintain production systems and desktops. For the home computer user it's annoying to have to upgrade (because you have to in order to use the latest and greatest version of program x) every two to three years. However, Microsoft has found people will put up with upgrades on a cycle of every two or three years, and that drives sales.
To ask users to contend with new versions every four months is insane! It drives retailers nuts, almost as soon as you have Linux distro 7.0 stocked and promoted, version 7.1 is out. So, you're doing returns every couple months and consumers who are fence-sitting about Linux continue to do so because they perceive that there's never a right time to jump in. People who produce books and materials for Linux are finding it's extremely difficult to coordinate. Try writing a book, getting it through the editorial process and published before a distro goes through at least a point revision. It's nearly impossible. Even if you accomplish it, if you label it "Using Red Hat 6.2" you're nearly doomed because 7 will be out before the book has been on the shelves for six months. And who is going to buy "Using Red Hat 6.2" when 7.1 is out?
I'm not arguing they shouldn't provide updates - the way the Debian project handles it is optimum, in my opinion. They do official releases slowly, but updated software and bugfixes are only an apt-get away. Slackware handles it pretty well too, by releasing very stable releases only once or twice a year. (I believe 7.1 has been the only
release this year...)
Since Red Hat is the market leader, and they've supposedly got all this marketing might behind them now, I'd hope they'd see the problems they're creating. If they must do a buggy
Posted by polar_bear:
:)
Refreshing indeed.
I realize that everyone has a different perspective, and I respect yours. I don't take your reply (rebuttal?) as a personal attack in any way. It's easy to see that we could probably exchange reasons for/against using new technology all day - but my main reason for posting is not to argue we should stop using new technologies - only to actually take the time to think before we deploy them and actually take the time to think whether we need them or not.
Also, no - I don't think we should freeze culture at any point. That's not what I'm trying to say - what I am saying is that our culture had changed very, very slowly throughout history - and still does. However, our technologies are advancing far faster than our culture can. The concepts of "generation gaps" are really unique to the last 150 years or so. Some of the cultural constructs we've come up with are great - like childhood. (If you look into it, you'll find that our culture's idea of childhood is quite novel and didn't exist several hundred years ago. The idea that children should be innocent of things like sex or work until a given age are very new, historically speaking.)
The main problem is this, to hold on to the car example, we introduced a major element of change to our society and no one realized until 50 years later (or so...) that it had this enormous impact on our society. Great, we can get away from an abusive home overnight or get someone to the hospital and save their life - but the car has also fostered an attitude in our culture that didn't exist 100 years ago - namely that if you completely screw up your life in an area, why you can just move and re-start. That used to be a huge undertaking. Now it's trivial. (Okay, moving's still a pain in the butt, but trivial compared to 150 years ago.)
Finally, I don't believe that we can only proceed from prior knowledge. It is possible to speculate what the consequences of a technology will be. Particularly now that we can examine the introduction of radical change through technology with other technologies that have been introduced. Granted, there's room for error, but it does give one a start. Simply saying "oh, we're not sure what this will do, so we'll throw it in the mix and see if we were right or not" is irresponsible. Maybe you'll look at something and find that it is a potential mixture of good and bad effects - but you think that the good outweighs the bad, okay - at least you've THOUGHT about it. That's all I'm saying.
Finally, saying that preventing access to technology could be unethical. That's an interesting perspective, considering you don't seem to feel that the reverse is true - namely that giving access is then ethical. I would say that not thinking about the consequences of an action is unethical - you're basically throwing caution to the wind and saying "okay, here you go - hot new technology! Hope it doesn't make your nipples fall off tomorrow, but I didn't think it through so que sera sera." Is that ethical?
I have a set of beliefs, and I try to live by them. I consider that ethical - my belief is that I have to do what I believe is right, and I have to think about the consequences of my actions - at least as far as I can reasonably predict. For me, it would be unethical to do any less. And, if I had invented something that had great potential for change, I would have to think about its possible effect. If, having thought about it, I decide it may be more harmful than positive, it would be less than ethical to go ahead and make it available. It's much harder to recall existing technology that people ingrain in their lives than it is to simply not release it. Think about the car again - if we were to decide that "Hey, cars are screwing up the environment, they're messing up the family unit and generally costing us too much - let's get rid of them" hoooo boy. What are the odds you'd be able to get rid of them without massive outcries and general chaos? Not good, I'd expect.
*whew*
Okay - off the soapbox. Sorry for the lengthy reply, and slight rambling, but this is an issue that I've thought about a lot - and it just happend to spring up on Slashdot of all places.