I've only recently started using a p2p app, simply so I can find new music to buy.
Believe it or not, most of the 3 thousand tunes I have sitting in iTunes are all bought, paid for. Though it would be hard to prove it, I've not kept the originals, being that they are cumbersome to lug across 3 continents.
Until the music industry gives us something better, it looks like buying CDs and ripping them yourself to 320Kbps MP3s is still the best solution... at least for me anyway.
In france, on the motorways, nobody pays attention to speed. I was going to spain once, and had BMWs and Mercedes passing me at over 200KM/hour. I don't get the impression from the articles that he had the gendarme's attention until after he called them.
Most cruise control systems I have used will allow you to accelerate without shutting off the system. They then fall back to the 'set' speed.
I've seen some pretty odd problems in all kinds of systems where I could swear that the behaviour described is impossible, but when testing it, I find that in fact it does exactly what was described. Sometimes, I cannot find the problem at all.
though;
The brakes SHOULD have shut down cruise control, unless it wasnt the cruise system at fault, but how could that be? Unless the accelerator pedal was actually STUCK. Which is possible, I guess? That would be a weird kind of mechanical failure, but it must be possible.
like you, I don't get how the brakes were not worn at all. If he had been going 200KM and stood on the brakes, no matter how hard the engine was revving, it would have slown him down.
I don't think its as simple as a guy trying to avoid speeding, but I do think there is more to this than we can guess from some badly translated news articles.
My Powerbook 54 17" came with an NVidia. I didn't want it, but thats what it came with.
3D isn't so much of an issue for me; I spend my life in rxvts, but what IS an issue for me is dual display support. Without that, its pretty well useless.
I can do without the airport extreme support (Come on, dragging a cable over 5 metres is not such a big deal) but the lack of a xinerama/dual head capable nv driver is problematic for me.
The irony of this whole story is that today I wiped Debian Linux off my powerbook and rebuild my machine to use all 60GB of disk space for OSX for exactly these reasons.
I wonder if YDL have solved the outstanding issues with the nv driver and extreme?
I always felt technology to be something that you can hold in your hand, that does something useful. Code is not anything solid that you can hold in your hand, though it does something useful.
Code is just code. It can't be technology imho. And you shouldn't be able to patent it, just like you cannot patent E=MC^2.
If we treated code just like complex formulas, we wouldn't be in this position.
Now, every time I read one of these posts on Slashdot, it makes me want to change my career, permanently, away from 'technology' and towards something that I can't get sued for.
I week for the software industry, and I weep for free software.
Except for all the goddamn clam phones. I hate them. I don't need all the crap on the new phones either.
I bought the new DoCoMo Sony phone, the premini. Its nice. It doesnt have a camera, and it doesnt do streaming video etc, but it works really well as a phone and has no moving parts of note.
By contrast, most of the phones in japan are getting BIGGER, not smaller, than what they were a few years ago.
Any geek worth his salt has his own mailserver running a custom distribution with his own webmail over SSL, IMAP etc access and half a terabyte of storage. Hotmail! PFFT!
Besides, who cares if Hotmail loses data. I lose data all the time. I don't get upset. Why should I get upset if my email provider loses some worthless mail. Anything important, I make a couple of copies and keep them around on CD, encrypted of course!
Okay, I got this back: On May 12, 2004, at 12:46 PM, Robert Barr wrote:
> Okay, I get that point now, but is there anything stopping Cisco from > asserting its patents just for the hell of it?
Yes, my written statement above would stop us. I can turn it into a contract if that is necessary, but I don't think it is. Anybody who relies on that statement is protected, but I guess they should consult their own lawyer.
> You say that Cisco will only assert its patent against someone who > tries to assert a patent against Cisco, but what is stopping > Cisco from just doing it anyway?
see above.
> ie, the methods are integrated into the Linux Kernel TCP/IP stack and > gain wide acceptance, and Cisco then sees value in trying to claim that > all users of Linux need to pay Cisco a licensing fee of $200 per CPU to > use the proprietary, patented methods included in Linux. > > I know its far-fetched, but 3 years ago, anyone saying that SCO would > try to claim ownership of Linux would be laughed at.
SCO never made a statement like I did
> What agreement can open source projects enter into with Cisco to ensure > that the above is legally impossible?
I'll execute an agreement with those terms if necessary
> Lastly, the GPL states: > > "Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software > patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free > program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the > program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any > patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at > all."
Prof Eben Moglen says this about GPL, I think it applie
"Section 7 prohibits distribution under GPL if you cannot fulfill the requirements of the license because of other conditions *imposed* on you by, among other things, a judgment of patent infringement, interim measures short of judgment, such as a preliminary injunction, or contractual limitations such as non-disclosure agreements or patent licenses. But you are not unable to distribute under GPL unless those requirements have been *imposed*. Until a particular party distributing GPL'd code has either accepted a license whose requirements are incompatible with GPL or has been ordered by a court of competent jurisdiction to do or refrain from doing in a fashion incompatible with GPL, there is no direct conflict with the requirements of the license, and no requirement to refrain from distribution. With regard to patents, in particular, no one *ever* has an obligation to refrain from making, using or selling technology that *may* practice patent claims solely because someone somewhere has taken a patent, claims to have a patent, or even publishes a license. Only the demand that you in particular take a license or cease infringing triggers theoretical liability under US patent law. Whether there can be liability for damages for the period before such notification is another question, legitimately of importance to those who commercially distribute free software, but not ordinarily of significance to those who develop only, or who distribute non-commercially.
Moreover, patents are not global, only local. To say that we cannot *develop* under GPL because a patent exists in country X, and a license has been published there to which those making, using, or selling in country X *might* be asked to subscribe would go much too far. That situation certainly does not prevent development elsewhere, and distribution under GPL can certainly proceed."
***
> So, for any GPL software use Cisco's methods, Cisco will need to > provide a guarantee that under the GPL, any future patent for these > methods will be free for use by that GPL software. > > Just taking your word for it that Cisco won't assert it's patent in the > future isn't goo
I got a response back from Robert, my stuff is in bold, his is the reply below:
> If I read this correctly (IANAL, obviously) the Linux Kernel project > could go right ahead and use the methods that Cisco has applied patents > for, however at any time after a Patent has been issued (IF it is > issued - and I think its a fair bet its going to happen, the USPO seems > to rubber stamp anything out of tech companies these days) Cisco could > demand that the Linux Kernel project pay them whatever.
Not at all. That's not what it says, or what I mean to say. It says that nobody has to pay anything, or even ask for a license, unless they want to assert patents against Cisco. You don't read it that way?
Well, I'm not quite mollified by this. So I sent the following:
Okay, I get that point now, but is there anything stopping Cisco from asserting its patents just for the hell of it?
You say that Cisco will only assert its patent against someone who tries to assert a patent against Cisco, but what is stopping Cisco from just doing it anyway?
ie, the methods are integrated into the Linux Kernel TCP/IP stack and gain wide acceptance, and Cisco then sees value in trying to claim that all users of Linux need to pay Cisco a licensing fee of $200 per CPU to use the proprietary, patented methods included in Linux.
I know its far-fetched, but 3 years ago, anyone saying that SCO would try to claim ownership of Linux would be laughed at.
What agreement can open source projects enter into with Cisco to ensure that the above is legally impossible?
Lastly, the GPL states:
"Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all."
So, for any GPL software use Cisco's methods, Cisco will need to provide a guarantee that under the GPL, any future patent for these methods will be free for use by that GPL software.
Just taking your word for it that Cisco won't assert it's patent in the future isn't good enough:)
Now, I'll happily grant that my analysis if probably flawed, but I think I'm on the right track here;)
I sent an email back asking what could be done to ensure that Cisco won't try to SCO linux in the future if Linux uses the methods in the draft, we'll see what his reply is.
Rather than guess, I asked Robert Barr himself if I could get a license for the Linux Kernel Project, and this is what he said:
Hi Nathan
There is no patent and there is no standard, so it's a bit premature.
But if a patent does issue and a standard is approved, this is our policy
Cisco will not assert any patents owned or controlled by Cisco against any
party for making, using, selling, importing or offering for sale a product
that implements IETF RFCXXXX, provided, however that:
Cisco retains the right to assert its patents (including the right to claim
past royalties) against any party that asserts a patent it owns or controls
(either directly or indirectly) against Cisco or any of Cisco's affiliates
or successors in title; and Cisco retains the right to assert its patents
against any product or portion thereof that is not necessary for compliance
with RFC XXXX.
Royalty bearing licenses will also be available as an option.
Especially the part where Robert Barr says "any party will be able to obtain a license from Cisco to use any such patent claims under reasonable, non-discriminatory terms, with reciprocity, to implement and fully comply with the standard."
That sounds like to me that Cisco will not be charging a whole lot for this license, it will probably be one of those $1 license deals where once you have it, you have it in perpetuity.
If Cisco don't apply for a patent, someone else WILL and those barstards might end up charging so much for the method that it never becomes a standard.
I don't think Cisco's intent is to make the standard too expensive for it to become an actual standard in use.
Its a matter of convincing the business that its actually not in their best interest at times to insist upon that kind of stability.
For the Java stuff we run, we see increases in performance with every major release of fedora/redhat - most recently due to the nptl stuff. If we were still running RH 6.2, the machines would all be trojaned, and we would need twice as many of them - the JVM would run like shit on that old kernel.
For *very very* few applications, its important to keep the platform stable - and the only one that I can think of here at my company is Oracle. The rest of what we run is either in-house Java or Open Source, and both of these types of applications benefit more from an up-to-date system than a stale/stable one:)
I do understand your point, but I think a lot of people give up when it comes to explaining the difference between stable and stable to business decision makers. Its all about presenting your case successfully.
I've found that Keynote on a Mac with the spinning 3D cube transition usually does the trick;)
If I understand your post correctly, you seem to inferring that Linux users have a double standard when it comes to software piracy.
I'll define software piracy here as any act that infringes upon a lawful contract or copyright for a piece of software.
I have to strongly disagree with you. Not all Linux Users are Pirates, just as not all Pirates are Linux Users.
People on slashdot are mostly geeks. Some use Windows, some use Linux, some use OSX. Some of them might be pirates. But I don't think anyone is under any illusion that Piracy is OK - even if it's stealing from Microsoft - and I don't think I've read many posts to the contrary.
Oh, I'm sure there are some posts out there that you could use to try and prove your point - you get all kinds on Slashdot - but this kind of Slashdotter is far and few between,
Lots of people who are advocators of Linux use Linux products exclusively to the point where they only use Linux software, and have no MS software in their house. I'd love to see a slashdot poll based on that!:)
I'm so sick of the clam-shell keitais. I want non moving part phones like the infobar! I nearly bought an infobar but didn't like its low-rez screen or the fact it had not english capability.
I can handle a japanese OS on a phone, but I prefer to use english.
Clamshells suck - they break easily, are heavier than all-in-one designs etc. Blah!
Core 2 is tested, its been through four revisions so far. I don't think its a problem.
A lot of the work for Core2 is the Gnome and Kernel upgrades, and testing to make sure that the system is stable under 2.6.x.
We've been running Core 2 in production since Test 1, and its had hundreds of millions of hits so far with no problems.
I don't see the problem running Fedora. Sure, if you need to run Oracle on it or some application server that needs a specific version of Red Hat Enterprise or SuSE or whatever to be supported, then spend the money on it - its obviously important - but for 99% of your task, Fedora is fine - more than fine!
RedHat spent a lot of work on the Kickstart stuff, I now have ks.cfg files for any new server I build and I can rebuild that server just by changing a symlink on the kickstart box and then putting in a boot CD and rebooting. All my configs are rolled into RPMs, any custom apps whatever are RPMs, they are specified in the ks.cfg and the location of the yum archive is specified in the sources file... yes, I know debian can do all this, but debian is.. stale:)
With Fedora, I have a *fast* stable system, that never gets stale, and includes the latest technology (such as nptl) which can really help a lot of apps (like Java apps for instance).
The thing I'm trying to say here, is if you were with RedHat 9, and you found yourself installing Fedora Core 1, don't freak. Its fine. Upgrading to Core 2 is simple and can be done just with up2date, we've done it several times here with no problems.. as long as everything is RPMd properly, you should be fine.
Well, cost of living is higher here, but so is my wage, so my quality of life is about the same, but my net access is very very cheap.
It evens out, generally, but some things are unfair;)
Mind you, net access is cheap in Japan because of it's size and the way the population is grouped - its harder in Australia because of the distance. Mind you 99% of the population are on the coast, so you'd think they'd at least get THAT sorted out, sigh.
No shit. I moved to Japan because of the sucky/expensive net access, and now pay less than $100/month for an ADSL line with more bandwidth than most hosting companies in Australia..
I'm working in a company who moved to Fedora for the same reasons, but I can't say that being current particularly bothers me.
Fedora is more 'bleeding edge' than Debian, but thats also a way of saying it's 'less stale'. Its not as bleeding edge as the Test series of Fedora which have had some odd problems.
We've been running Core 1 since it came out, in over 50 machines. We havn't had a single kernel panic or software component failure in any of them.
How do we manage it? We have a local mirror of the Fedora Core distribution, and we also mirror the updates. We don't integrate the updates into our distribution until we've tested them - unless they are trivial and not likely to cause a major problem.
So, for most applications, like webservers and mailservers, I don't see what the issue is. Fedora isn't any less 'stable' than any other distribution. Who is to say that staying up to date is more or less stable than having 2-3 year old code that is only patched to fix specific, known vulnerabilities?
With no actual evidence of a problem, its hard to know if there is a problem or not. If we see evidence of Fedora being unstable, or unsafe to use, then we'll re-evaluate the situation - but right now Fedora is doing everything we need to to do and more.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I was. :)
... at least for me anyway.
I've only recently started using a p2p app, simply so I can find new music to buy.
Believe it or not, most of the 3 thousand tunes I have sitting in iTunes are all bought, paid for. Though it would be hard to prove it, I've not kept the originals, being that they are cumbersome to lug across 3 continents.
Until the music industry gives us something better, it looks like buying CDs and ripping them yourself to 320Kbps MP3s is still the best solution
Oh, cool, now I can go back to stealing music for stuffing into my iPod. :/
I didn't see that one coming ..
I, for one, welcome our new satellite masters!
A few contradictory points;
In france, on the motorways, nobody pays attention to speed. I was going to spain once, and had BMWs and Mercedes passing me at over 200KM/hour. I don't get the impression from the articles that he had the gendarme's attention until after he called them.
Most cruise control systems I have used will allow you to accelerate without shutting off the system. They then fall back to the 'set' speed.
I've seen some pretty odd problems in all kinds of systems where I could swear that the behaviour described is impossible, but when testing it, I find that in fact it does exactly what was described. Sometimes, I cannot find the problem at all.
though;
The brakes SHOULD have shut down cruise control, unless it wasnt the cruise system at fault, but how could that be? Unless the accelerator pedal was actually STUCK. Which is possible, I guess? That would be a weird kind of mechanical failure, but it must be possible.
like you, I don't get how the brakes were not worn at all. If he had been going 200KM and stood on the brakes, no matter how hard the engine was revving, it would have slown him down.
I don't think its as simple as a guy trying to avoid speeding, but I do think there is more to this than we can guess from some badly translated news articles.
Its all "utterly suspect", as you say.
pedant. It was a typo. :P
Hey, well, at least they know how to make a good curry. They learnt it off the Indians!
Mate, I feel your pain. Nobody around here can speel.
My Powerbook 54 17" came with an NVidia. I didn't want it, but thats what it came with.
3D isn't so much of an issue for me; I spend my life in rxvts, but what IS an issue for me is dual display support. Without that, its pretty well useless.
I can do without the airport extreme support (Come on, dragging a cable over 5 metres is not such a big deal) but the lack of a xinerama/dual head capable nv driver is problematic for me.
The irony of this whole story is that today I wiped Debian Linux off my powerbook and rebuild my machine to use all 60GB of disk space for OSX for exactly these reasons.
I wonder if YDL have solved the outstanding issues with the nv driver and extreme?
I always felt technology to be something that you can hold in your hand, that does something useful. Code is not anything solid that you can hold in your hand, though it does something useful.
Code is just code. It can't be technology imho. And you shouldn't be able to patent it, just like you cannot patent E=MC^2.
If we treated code just like complex formulas, we wouldn't be in this position.
Now, every time I read one of these posts on Slashdot, it makes me want to change my career, permanently, away from 'technology' and towards something that I can't get sued for.
I week for the software industry, and I weep for free software.
Except for all the goddamn clam phones. I hate them. I don't need all the crap on the new phones either.
I bought the new DoCoMo Sony phone, the premini. Its nice. It doesnt have a camera, and it doesnt do streaming video etc, but it works really well as a phone and has no moving parts of note.
By contrast, most of the phones in japan are getting BIGGER, not smaller, than what they were a few years ago.
Any geek worth his salt has his own mailserver running a custom distribution with his own webmail over SSL, IMAP etc access and half a terabyte of storage. Hotmail! PFFT!
Besides, who cares if Hotmail loses data. I lose data all the time. I don't get upset. Why should I get upset if my email provider loses some worthless mail. Anything important, I make a couple of copies and keep them around on CD, encrypted of course!
Okay, I got this back:
On May 12, 2004, at 12:46 PM, Robert Barr wrote:
> Okay, I get that point now, but is there anything stopping Cisco from
> asserting its patents just for the hell of it?
Yes, my written statement above would stop us. I can turn it into a contract if that is necessary, but I don't think it is. Anybody who relies on that statement is protected, but I guess they should consult their own lawyer.
> You say that Cisco will only assert its patent against someone who
> tries to assert a patent against Cisco, but what is stopping
> Cisco from just doing it anyway?
see above.
> ie, the methods are integrated into the Linux Kernel TCP/IP stack and
> gain wide acceptance, and Cisco then sees value in trying to claim that
> all users of Linux need to pay Cisco a licensing fee of $200 per CPU to
> use the proprietary, patented methods included in Linux.
>
> I know its far-fetched, but 3 years ago, anyone saying that SCO would
> try to claim ownership of Linux would be laughed at.
SCO never made a statement like I did
> What agreement can open source projects enter into with Cisco to ensure
> that the above is legally impossible?
I'll execute an agreement with those terms if necessary
> Lastly, the GPL states:
>
> "Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software
> patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free
> program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the
> program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any
> patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at
> all."
Prof Eben Moglen says this about GPL, I think it applie
"Section 7 prohibits distribution under GPL if you cannot fulfill the requirements of the license because of other conditions *imposed* on you by, among other things, a judgment of patent infringement, interim measures short of judgment, such as a preliminary injunction, or contractual limitations such as non-disclosure agreements or patent licenses. But you are not unable to distribute under GPL unless those requirements have been *imposed*. Until a particular party distributing GPL'd code has either accepted a license whose requirements are incompatible with GPL or has been ordered by a court of competent jurisdiction to do or refrain from doing in a fashion incompatible with GPL, there is no direct conflict with the requirements of the license, and no requirement to refrain from distribution. With regard to patents, in particular, no one *ever* has an obligation to refrain from making, using or selling technology that *may* practice patent claims solely because someone somewhere has taken a patent, claims to have a patent, or even publishes a license. Only the demand that you in particular take a license or cease infringing triggers theoretical liability under US patent law. Whether there can be liability for damages for the period before such notification is another question, legitimately of importance to those who commercially distribute free software, but not ordinarily of significance to those who develop only, or who distribute non-commercially.
Moreover, patents are not global, only local. To say that we cannot *develop* under GPL because a patent exists in country X, and a license has been published there to which those making, using, or selling in country X *might* be asked to subscribe would go much too far. That situation certainly does not prevent development elsewhere, and distribution under GPL can certainly proceed."
***
> So, for any GPL software use Cisco's methods, Cisco will need to
> provide a guarantee that under the GPL, any future patent for these
> methods will be free for use by that GPL software.
>
> Just taking your word for it that Cisco won't assert it's patent in the
> future isn't goo
Right. I checked the GPL and it does say that.
:)
;)
I got a response back from Robert, my stuff is in bold, his is the reply below:
> If I read this correctly (IANAL, obviously) the Linux Kernel project
> could go right ahead and use the methods that Cisco has applied patents
> for, however at any time after a Patent has been issued (IF it is
> issued - and I think its a fair bet its going to happen, the USPO seems
> to rubber stamp anything out of tech companies these days) Cisco could
> demand that the Linux Kernel project pay them whatever.
Not at all. That's not what it says, or what I mean to say. It says that
nobody has to pay anything, or even ask for a license, unless they want to
assert patents against Cisco. You don't read it that way?
Well, I'm not quite mollified by this. So I sent the following:
Okay, I get that point now, but is there anything stopping Cisco from asserting its patents just for the hell of it?
You say that Cisco will only assert its patent against someone who tries to assert a patent against Cisco, but what is stopping Cisco from just doing it anyway?
ie, the methods are integrated into the Linux Kernel TCP/IP stack and gain wide acceptance, and Cisco then sees value in trying to claim that all users of Linux need to pay Cisco a licensing fee of $200 per CPU to use the proprietary, patented methods included in Linux.
I know its far-fetched, but 3 years ago, anyone saying that SCO would try to claim ownership of Linux would be laughed at.
What agreement can open source projects enter into with Cisco to ensure that the above is legally impossible?
Lastly, the GPL states:
"Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all."
So, for any GPL software use Cisco's methods, Cisco will need to provide a guarantee that under the GPL, any future patent for these methods will be free for use by that GPL software.
Just taking your word for it that Cisco won't assert it's patent in the future isn't good enough
Now, I'll happily grant that my analysis if probably flawed, but I think I'm on the right track here
I sent an email back asking what could be done to ensure that Cisco won't try to SCO linux in the future if Linux uses the methods in the draft, we'll see what his reply is.
Rather than guess, I asked Robert Barr himself if I could get a license for the Linux Kernel Project, and this is what he said:
Hi Nathan There is no patent and there is no standard, so it's a bit premature.
But if a patent does issue and a standard is approved, this is our policy
Cisco will not assert any patents owned or controlled by Cisco against any party for making, using, selling, importing or offering for sale a product that implements IETF RFCXXXX, provided, however that: Cisco retains the right to assert its patents (including the right to claim past royalties) against any party that asserts a patent it owns or controls (either directly or indirectly) against Cisco or any of Cisco's affiliates or successors in title; and Cisco retains the right to assert its patents against any product or portion thereof that is not necessary for compliance with RFC XXXX.
Royalty bearing licenses will also be available as an option.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Robert Barr
Especially the part where Robert Barr says "any party will be able to obtain a license from Cisco to use any such patent claims under reasonable, non-discriminatory terms, with reciprocity, to implement and fully comply with the standard."
That sounds like to me that Cisco will not be charging a whole lot for this license, it will probably be one of those $1 license deals where once you have it, you have it in perpetuity.
If Cisco don't apply for a patent, someone else WILL and those barstards might end up charging so much for the method that it never becomes a standard.
I don't think Cisco's intent is to make the standard too expensive for it to become an actual standard in use.
Its a matter of convincing the business that its actually not in their best interest at times to insist upon that kind of stability.
:)
;)
For the Java stuff we run, we see increases in performance with every major release of fedora/redhat - most recently due to the nptl stuff. If we were still running RH 6.2, the machines would all be trojaned, and we would need twice as many of them - the JVM would run like shit on that old kernel.
For *very very* few applications, its important to keep the platform stable - and the only one that I can think of here at my company is Oracle. The rest of what we run is either in-house Java or Open Source, and both of these types of applications benefit more from an up-to-date system than a stale/stable one
I do understand your point, but I think a lot of people give up when it comes to explaining the difference between stable and stable to business decision makers. Its all about presenting your case successfully.
I've found that Keynote on a Mac with the spinning 3D cube transition usually does the trick
If I understand your post correctly, you seem to inferring that Linux users have a double standard when it comes to software piracy.
:)
I'll define software piracy here as any act that infringes upon a lawful contract or copyright for a piece of software.
I have to strongly disagree with you. Not all Linux Users are Pirates, just as not all Pirates are Linux Users.
People on slashdot are mostly geeks. Some use Windows, some use Linux, some use OSX. Some of them might be pirates. But I don't think anyone is under any illusion that Piracy is OK - even if it's stealing from Microsoft - and I don't think I've read many posts to the contrary.
Oh, I'm sure there are some posts out there that you could use to try and prove your point - you get all kinds on Slashdot - but this kind of Slashdotter is far and few between,
Lots of people who are advocators of Linux use Linux products exclusively to the point where they only use Linux software, and have no MS software in their house. I'd love to see a slashdot poll based on that!
peace.
I'm so sick of the clam-shell keitais. I want non moving part phones like the infobar! I nearly bought an infobar but didn't like its low-rez screen or the fact it had not english capability.
I can handle a japanese OS on a phone, but I prefer to use english.
Clamshells suck - they break easily, are heavier than all-in-one designs etc. Blah!
Core 2 is tested, its been through four revisions so far. I don't think its a problem.
... yes, I know debian can do all this, but debian is .. stale :)
.. as long as everything is RPMd properly, you should be fine.
A lot of the work for Core2 is the Gnome and Kernel upgrades, and testing to make sure that the system is stable under 2.6.x.
We've been running Core 2 in production since Test 1, and its had hundreds of millions of hits so far with no problems.
I don't see the problem running Fedora. Sure, if you need to run Oracle on it or some application server that needs a specific version of Red Hat Enterprise or SuSE or whatever to be supported, then spend the money on it - its obviously important - but for 99% of your task, Fedora is fine - more than fine!
RedHat spent a lot of work on the Kickstart stuff, I now have ks.cfg files for any new server I build and I can rebuild that server just by changing a symlink on the kickstart box and then putting in a boot CD and rebooting. All my configs are rolled into RPMs, any custom apps whatever are RPMs, they are specified in the ks.cfg and the location of the yum archive is specified in the sources file
With Fedora, I have a *fast* stable system, that never gets stale, and includes the latest technology (such as nptl) which can really help a lot of apps (like Java apps for instance).
The thing I'm trying to say here, is if you were with RedHat 9, and you found yourself installing Fedora Core 1, don't freak. Its fine. Upgrading to Core 2 is simple and can be done just with up2date, we've done it several times here with no problems
Well, cost of living is higher here, but so is my wage, so my quality of life is about the same, but my net access is very very cheap.
;)
It evens out, generally, but some things are unfair
Mind you, net access is cheap in Japan because of it's size and the way the population is grouped - its harder in Australia because of the distance. Mind you 99% of the population are on the coast, so you'd think they'd at least get THAT sorted out, sigh.
http://www.karajishi.org/flash/unix.swf
;)
That was interesting. Always the *nix guys come to save the day
No shit. I moved to Japan because of the sucky/expensive net access, and now pay less than $100/month for an ADSL line with more bandwidth than most hosting companies in Australia ..
I'm working in a company who moved to Fedora for the same reasons, but I can't say that being current particularly bothers me.
Fedora is more 'bleeding edge' than Debian, but thats also a way of saying it's 'less stale'. Its not as bleeding edge as the Test series of Fedora which have had some odd problems.
We've been running Core 1 since it came out, in over 50 machines. We havn't had a single kernel panic or software component failure in any of them.
How do we manage it? We have a local mirror of the Fedora Core distribution, and we also mirror the updates. We don't integrate the updates into our distribution until we've tested them - unless they are trivial and not likely to cause a major problem.
So, for most applications, like webservers and mailservers, I don't see what the issue is. Fedora isn't any less 'stable' than any other distribution. Who is to say that staying up to date is more or less stable than having 2-3 year old code that is only patched to fix specific, known vulnerabilities?
With no actual evidence of a problem, its hard to know if there is a problem or not. If we see evidence of Fedora being unstable, or unsafe to use, then we'll re-evaluate the situation - but right now Fedora is doing everything we need to to do and more.