This is the wrong question to "Ask Slashdot". Everyone here has a motive, a cause, and a bias. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but if you're going to donate money, it ought to be for your motive, cause, or bias.
That said, here's my advice: Don't donate $20,000 to an open source project. The big guys (XFree, GNU, Gnome, KDE) could always use it, but I don't think your money would improve their software any, just make them bigger projects. It's the little guys who I see as important; the startup OSS game developers, the small window manager that you see potential in, the guy who's working on a better file manager... you get the idea. But $20,000 is more money than most small projects could adequately handle.
Better advice: Take the money and buy some hardware: A bunch of medium-grade Linux workstations, video cards, etc. and donate them to developers who otherwise might be working on out-of-date, or non-standard equipment. Or maybe they could just use another testing machine -- who knows, but it would sure be useful for a load of developers I know of.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I had forgotten about USB -- that's a nice plus, provided the individual devices get drivers written for them (scanners, printers, external drives, etc...). Firewire though? We're talking about your average user, and your average computer doesn't even have a firewire port.
I know probably a dozen people who stick with windows for games too. Unfortunately XFree 4.0 isn't going to miraculously make all their games work under Linux, and WINE isn't even close to being at that point. This is another issue entirely, which has more to do with Linux's *apparent* feasibility, rather than the actual thing. Otherwise, companies will never port their games.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Let's take a look at what you just said, one piece at a time.
2.4 Kernel: Sure to be a great improvement in the Linux system, but hardware compatibility is no longer Linux's problem. And where it is a problem, it's with components like video cards and sound cards, where 2.4 is not going to have much added value for home users over 2.2.
XFree86 4.0: This will make hardware accelerated 3D under Linux much faster. Unfortunately, there are still only like 3 chipsets that support hardware 3D under Linux, so I hardly think this is going to springboard Linux into the gaming market that it is still so crucially lagging in.
Easel: I agree here, the Easel people may be on to something, and of course the KDE team has already made huge inroads for UI. *This*, above all else, is where Linux (and Unix in general) needs enormous amounts of work.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Oh wait, I'm American... and, hey, well over half the people here are American. But you're right, there's no reason for us to talk about anything that has to do with America because -- after all -- the motto of this site is "News That Has Nothing To Do With America For International Nerds"
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
And even if the PSX2 does outperform my PC (which it may very well do), that doesn't make it a useful workstation -- I can't run Linux OR Windows on a PSX2, so what good does it do me?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Very true. There's really no way to get around this, although it's suprising. The same principle holds true for symbolic link and hard links under Unix.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
The other answer to your post was a little abrupt, so let me see if I can explain:
The name of a file is not stored *in* the file or even in the same physical location as the file on the hard drive. In fact, the file itself (due to fragmentation) may even be spread out over the span of the hard disk. But this is beside the point. The point is that the two entries in the filesystem (read: filenames) could point to the same blocks of data on the physical hard drive, allowing more than one filename to share the same bytes, bit for bit. This is essentially how links work under Unix.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Although I'm a big user of Napster, I have to agree here. Napster is a tool to help people perform illegal acts. Yes, it could theoretically be used to transfer legal MP3s, but it isn't and that's the bottom line.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
While I agree that it would be nice for Slashdot to be a first-tier source of information, I think realistically we have to realize that it isn't, and it really never has been.
That's not to say that it couldn't become one, but in order for them to do that, the Slashdot crew would have to hire actual reporters to do research and write their own stories, rather than relying on their reader to do the research for them. Unfortunately, by the way this site is run, I don't think Malda is willing to take/. to the next level, even though they now have multi-million dollar backing.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
This isn't an insult to Slashdot, but what you're pointing out is nothing new. How many "reporters" does Slashdot have working for it? None. Everything that get's posted here (except for Katz' articles) is submitted by readers, who are also generally not "reporters". So the readers who have submitted stories are getting these stories from actual "reporters", from newspapers and websites like The New York Times, CNN, and Wired.
But that's okay -- Slashdot may be called "News for Nerds", but it's a misnomer. It's really "Discussions for Nerds", which is an area where weblogs like this have much more to offer than just plain news sites.
Of course, sooner or later, sites like CNN and The New York Times are going to wise up to this, and make their sites more discussion-oriented. That would be a great way for them to keep viewers at their site for longer periods of time, and thus getting more ad-revenue. I mean, after all, it's not like Rob's done anything amazing with the/. code, it's just a good application of the web.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Greedy? No kidding! Why the hell would any open source developer want to pay $2500 a year to do something they normally do for free as a hobby. Although we're less and less just a "hobby OS", that still completely goes against the grain of what the Linux community is all about.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
'Fraid not -- you don't need NetBEUI to authenticate against an MS Proxy Server from Mozilla. What you need is Internet Explorer;-) Seriously though, it could be done over TCP/IP, but yes, it's within the Proxy protocol AFAIK, which is higher up the protocol-ladder than NetBEUI, which is an underlying network protocol like IPX or TCP.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
You're sort of a cult of personality around here now. You could write the most enlightening piece imaginable, and people would still say, "Damn that was long-winded" and "Die Katz, Die".
I don't have anything against you personally; I don't know you at all. Sometimes your pieces are good, and sometimes they aren't. I rather think this one was shot wide, but maybe I am missing the point.
Someone else made a comment to the effect that this piece would be more appropriate on a less tech-related site, like salon or yahoo. I'm not sure how close that is to the truth, but there may be something there. Many of your pieces do tend to target the lowest common denominator when it comes to technology. While I recognize some of the points you made on this subject in your intereview, I think you may -- in very simple terms -- be boring some of the readers.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
You're right, it's not going to happen. Because I don't *dislike* Katz. And it wasn't Anti-Katz; it was anti-that-article. Trust me, Katz is not the only writer for Slashdot who writes articles that I've taken issue with -- I'm not picking on him.
Here's the way I look at it: If an author continually publishes material that I see as drivel, I will continually say "Wow, that's drivel". Then, if the publish a piece that I like, I will say "Hey, that wasn't drivel, that was good". Are you suggesting that I keep my mouth shut in the former case, but not the latter?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Why bother though. You've got to set up and administer the box, with both a WaveLan system and a regular Ethernet card. If you use the gateway, it will do it for you. Same result, different approach. Also, in most cases, I think the Linux PC would be more expensive, unless you already have one lying around.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Aside from the (cough cough) interesting ASCII art posted here, I don't see anything interesting about this article. This isn't a Anti-Katz comment -- I just don't get the significance of what he's saying.
Is there any? What kind of a genius does it take to figure out that people don't like to change things overnight? People like to smooth things over with gradual change. I know I do, and I know most businesses do too. This isn't a "middle media", it's just two medias in one.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Why should it be moderated up? It cluttered up the conversation just as much as a "This belongs on Freshmeat" post would have.
And I really resent that fact that so many people feel like anyone who doesn't like *everything* about Slashdot should leave. What's wrong with voicing an opinion about how it could be improved?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
His post wasn't whiny at all. This idea is just a suggestion. And why not? Where's the harm in giving software releases their own subject? They can still end up on the front page, and everyone who doesn't want to read would also be able to filter them out.
And you know what? That was a flame. There's no need to make a thread personal. Now who's acting like a 5 year old?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I'm not whining about it being posted -- dammit, I WANT to see this stuff posted. But I also want it to have it's own section so that other people (who seem to be complaining much more than I am) seem to want it gone. Where's the compromise?
Give it a section for itself. That way, we can have pretty slashboxes for them, and no one can complain that they have no place here, because they can filter them out.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
He's not saying "Leave it on Freshmeat". Like me, he's saying "Give it its own section." That way, we can have nice slashboxes and/or filter the stories out if we want to. Where's the harm in that?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Slashdot Mirror
That said, here's my advice: Don't donate $20,000 to an open source project. The big guys (XFree, GNU, Gnome, KDE) could always use it, but I don't think your money would improve their software any, just make them bigger projects. It's the little guys who I see as important; the startup OSS game developers, the small window manager that you see potential in, the guy who's working on a better file manager... you get the idea. But $20,000 is more money than most small projects could adequately handle.
Better advice: Take the money and buy some hardware: A bunch of medium-grade Linux workstations, video cards, etc. and donate them to developers who otherwise might be working on out-of-date, or non-standard equipment. Or maybe they could just use another testing machine -- who knows, but it would sure be useful for a load of developers I know of.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I know probably a dozen people who stick with windows for games too. Unfortunately XFree 4.0 isn't going to miraculously make all their games work under Linux, and WINE isn't even close to being at that point. This is another issue entirely, which has more to do with Linux's *apparent* feasibility, rather than the actual thing. Otherwise, companies will never port their games.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
2.4 Kernel: Sure to be a great improvement in the Linux system, but hardware compatibility is no longer Linux's problem. And where it is a problem, it's with components like video cards and sound cards, where 2.4 is not going to have much added value for home users over 2.2.
XFree86 4.0: This will make hardware accelerated 3D under Linux much faster. Unfortunately, there are still only like 3 chipsets that support hardware 3D under Linux, so I hardly think this is going to springboard Linux into the gaming market that it is still so crucially lagging in.
Easel: I agree here, the Easel people may be on to something, and of course the KDE team has already made huge inroads for UI. *This*, above all else, is where Linux (and Unix in general) needs enormous amounts of work.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Oh wait, I'm American... and, hey, well over half the people here are American. But you're right, there's no reason for us to talk about anything that has to do with America because -- after all -- the motto of this site is "News That Has Nothing To Do With America For International Nerds"
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
The name of a file is not stored *in* the file or even in the same physical location as the file on the hard drive. In fact, the file itself (due to fragmentation) may even be spread out over the span of the hard disk. But this is beside the point. The point is that the two entries in the filesystem (read: filenames) could point to the same blocks of data on the physical hard drive, allowing more than one filename to share the same bytes, bit for bit. This is essentially how links work under Unix.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
That's not to say that it couldn't become one, but in order for them to do that, the Slashdot crew would have to hire actual reporters to do research and write their own stories, rather than relying on their reader to do the research for them. Unfortunately, by the way this site is run, I don't think Malda is willing to take /. to the next level, even though they now have multi-million dollar backing.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
But that's okay -- Slashdot may be called "News for Nerds", but it's a misnomer. It's really "Discussions for Nerds", which is an area where weblogs like this have much more to offer than just plain news sites.
Of course, sooner or later, sites like CNN and The New York Times are going to wise up to this, and make their sites more discussion-oriented. That would be a great way for them to keep viewers at their site for longer periods of time, and thus getting more ad-revenue. I mean, after all, it's not like Rob's done anything amazing with the /. code, it's just a good application of the web.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I don't have anything against you personally; I don't know you at all. Sometimes your pieces are good, and sometimes they aren't. I rather think this one was shot wide, but maybe I am missing the point.
Someone else made a comment to the effect that this piece would be more appropriate on a less tech-related site, like salon or yahoo. I'm not sure how close that is to the truth, but there may be something there. Many of your pieces do tend to target the lowest common denominator when it comes to technology. While I recognize some of the points you made on this subject in your intereview, I think you may -- in very simple terms -- be boring some of the readers.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Here's the way I look at it: If an author continually publishes material that I see as drivel, I will continually say "Wow, that's drivel". Then, if the publish a piece that I like, I will say "Hey, that wasn't drivel, that was good". Are you suggesting that I keep my mouth shut in the former case, but not the latter?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Why bother though. You've got to set up and administer the box, with both a WaveLan system and a regular Ethernet card. If you use the gateway, it will do it for you. Same result, different approach. Also, in most cases, I think the Linux PC would be more expensive, unless you already have one lying around.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Is there any? What kind of a genius does it take to figure out that people don't like to change things overnight? People like to smooth things over with gradual change. I know I do, and I know most businesses do too. This isn't a "middle media", it's just two medias in one.
-----------
"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
And I really resent that fact that so many people feel like anyone who doesn't like *everything* about Slashdot should leave. What's wrong with voicing an opinion about how it could be improved?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
And you know what? That was a flame. There's no need to make a thread personal. Now who's acting like a 5 year old?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Give it a section for itself. That way, we can have pretty slashboxes for them, and no one can complain that they have no place here, because they can filter them out.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
He's not saying "Leave it on Freshmeat". Like me, he's saying "Give it its own section." That way, we can have nice slashboxes and/or filter the stories out if we want to. Where's the harm in that?
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."