Is there a site that will return coordinates when you give it street addresses? This site brought the question out, but I'm also interested in getting a GPS and would like to be able to just put addresses in as coordinates.
How does it fit that the GPL itself can't be modified and then redistributed? Most of the arguments I can think of for keeping control over the GPL are the same arguments I've heard for control over source code.
For each example think source code as well:
We need to maintain the integrity of the FSF's version. (We need to maintain the integrity of XYZ proprietary software package.)
We need to prevent confusion in the software world as to which GPL they are using. (We need to prevent marketplace confusion over XYZ product.)
Given every Free Software or Open Software (I'll not use them interchangably.) precept I can think of, there is no reason to have the license itself under copyRIGHT. If the FSF's version is the best, it will remain as the canonical version, otherwise, a better version will emerge. The risk of forking is the same for the license as the software licensed under it. If the license isn't in need of a Free license, why is software.
Well, I'm probably off my rocker and I haven't thought this through completely, but someone probably has.
Please excuse any lack of clarity, grammar or other errors in this post. If I had to fix all of them before posting, I'd never post.
I and a lot of the others I know who do a lot of graphics don't use any one tool. I use Photoshop 5, Paint Shop Pro 6, GIMPWin32, and a couple of lesser known tools all together. In many cases, the benefits are small, but when you need that benefit it's there.
Case in point. In Photoshop, create a 100 x 100 circle selection. Now expand or contract it. First of all, it limits you to a small expansion or contraction. Secondly, fill the changed selection and see how smooth(not) the shape is. Photoshop, for some reason, has a hard time with this. Now try the same exercise in Paint Shop Pro. It works much better.
That isn't something you'd list on a "features list" or anything, and you'd only know it if you'd worked with both programs and needed to do that series of tasks. Choice is definitely not a bad thing. Use the best tool for the job. And NO, I repeat NO tool is the best tool for everything, even within a knowledge domain.
"I'll bet anyone $10 that there will be Net taxes . . . for municipal, county, and states, in existance by 2010."
You mean like the 6.5% use tax on amounts over $700 spent online or outside of the state for Minnesotans? Or the 0.5% on top of that for residents of Minneapolis? They don't have a great way to be sure they are collecting it, but Minnesota already tries to collect it. This year's tax instructions carried a thinly veiled threat that if you don't file and pay the tax, and they find out, you'll be penalized. How they'll find out, I don't know, but they want to.
The advantage is time. I don't want to spend that much time to get this functionality.
An example. When a meal is over, I like to just rinse the dishes off and put them in a dishwasher. It cleans, disinfects and dries the dishes pretty well. In short, some pretty useful functionality. I, of course, could have gone to the hardware store and bought the high pressure pumps, heating coils, enclosure and spent the next 5 Saturdays building my dishwasher, or I could go to an appliance store and buy a dishwasher for a few hundred bucks and have it delivered and installed.
This parallel seems not to sink in with a great many geeks when the functionality is being done by a computer. In most other areas of life, we've decided that the trade off of money for a functioning device rather than having to put in the time to build it ourselves is worth it. Sure, you can buy car kits and build your own car, you can build your own house, you can get a kiln and bake your own dishes. OR . . . you can go to a dealer and buy a car, hire a carpenter, and buy your dishes, all decisions most of us have made. However, to the greasemonkey, the hammer and nails guy, and the potter, doing all of those things yourself is a great reward.
Let those who want to trade off the labor related to computers by buying consumer products or packaged solutions do so.
Yes, the hardware to get this to work may be close in cost, but for the sake of arguement let's assume you make $20/hour(Totally random number to make the math easy). You work 40 or so hours per week at that rate. If your situation is good, you get 1 1/2 times that if you are required to work in your "off" hours. Setting up the arrangement you describe, which includes writing the software, would take most people several evenings/weekend days. Figure 6 hours of hardcore work in an evening 6-12pm and 8 hours on a weekend. Work 3 weeknights and Saturday in a week (we'll assume you coded, debugged and it works in that time), and you've got 36 hours in on this project. Grand total if you had to do this at work on the clock? $1080.
For a geek who loves to configure hardware, write software, etc. a donation of labor like that is no big deal. However, for most people, they'd rather donate that time to something else, whether a project or just relaxing.
Exactly. See my related points elsewhere on this article.
The only problem with that is that the LDP hasn't decided exactly what each type actually is. According to the article, the difference between a Guide and a HOWTO isn't what's in them, it's the file format.
Again, my objection is not to file format coherency altogether, but placing it as the first factor of organization. O'Reilly's Nutshell books are all the same size, shape etc, not because the authors liked that format, but because O'Reilly decided that all of the books that had the same style, organizational content, etc. should also be in the same physical format. The LDP is saying nothing about what the content difference would be between a HOWTO and a GUIDE. It'd be the same thing as saying that just because you make an O'Reilly book the same size, shape and appearance as a Nutshell book that it belongs in that series. While it would be a problem for the Nutshell books to all be different sizes etc. it would be a bigger problem if there was no consistency in the content. I'd rather that all books published by O'Reilly with "Nutshell" in the title have the same no nonsense approach to the material (not some trying to do a Learn in 24 hours thing with others trying to do a Desktop Reference thing) than that we classify all books of the same appearance, font style, publishing template as part of a series.
I think part of my main point was missed here. Extensible file formats are a good idea. I never denied that fact. My objection is placing the file format as the first filter in content description. The LDP is approaching it from a writer/developer perspective rather than a user perspective. The user doesn't inventory their viewing tools and say, "I've got Adobe Acrobat and a web browser, now what shall I learn today?" They say, I've got a question on how to do something or I don't understand the concepts behind this, where do I find the information. Clear categorization based on the content contained in those documents is more important for that type of approach. Conceptual documents should be structured and titled alike, and likewise for procedural documents.
In all of the good tech writing projects I've been on, content structure and how to group and title the information was more important than the tool. The tool/file format WAS a consideration, but after the content questions were asked and answered. Then the issues of extensibility, maintainability etc. were addressed with the ultimate tool choice coming from those issues.
Basically, I'd rather know that there will be an Introduction in all text files, HTML, PDF, etc. than know that with Ghostscript, I'll be able to read everything. My goal is finding information.
Basically, I feel that regardless of file format, a HOWTO should be a HOWTO. True, if they are all in the abstracted universal file format, they can be converted to all of the other formats and will be more maintainable, but if it isn't in those formats, it's still a HOWTO.
a. you can write in LinuxDoc : call your document an HOWTO b. you can write in DocBook : call your document a DOCBOOK:-) c. you are a master of TeX/LaTeX, pdf or any specific format : call your document a GUIDE or a FAQ, depending on its contents.
Why are the documents being titled according to filetype first, and contents second. That's like Yahoo categorizing sites by whether they use PHP or Perl, and not by what the site is about.
Yes, I realize that they are still considering content, however, the quoted statement indicates that the title category is decided by the file format. "I'm looking for a HOWTO on ???. What? I need the GUIDE instead? There's no HOWTO because the expert doesn't use the right file format?" Good documentation relies on consistency. I thought that was one of the main points for the LDP: you can go there to get all of your questions answered. Companies like O'Reilly have it figured out. All of their "???? in a Nutshell" books are fairly similar in style and content. You can intuit from the title category what type of book it is. You ought to be able to do the same with LDP documents.
I'm sure someone will ask why I don't have any HOWTO's in the LDP.
When I first went to contribute, I found tons of stuff on making sure that I got the file format(s) properly set. However, I couldn't find much of anything on a suggested content outline, organizational structure, suggested content, etc. All of those things are important to create consistent documentation.
I'm not an expert on much Linux related.
As people tend to get a little touchy about a complete rewrite of their HOWTO, helping on existing one's isn't welcomed.
I spend enough time on the job writing doc, I'd rather write PHP apps in my free time.
"Hack" is a word that far predates the typewriter. It comes from the Old English word hakken: To cut irregulary, without skill or definite purpose; to notch; to mangle by repeated strokes of a cutting instrument; as, to hack a post.
The journalistic use of the word is logical and predates computers by quite a bit. A hack writer is one who writes without skill or definite purpose.
The definition has mutated a bit since in the computer era, to come to mean: Originally, a quick job that produces what is needed, but not well.
Once it got that connotation, it continued to mutate to be a particularly brilliant piece of code.
A little time spent over at Dictionary.com - term: Hack will clear up definitions and give you actual etymology for most words. Real etymology can be fun, but you've got to have more than a coincidence to create a word's history.
"People set up computers alone." His text relating to this point is not based on "the difficulties people have when installing an operating system for the first time." Rather, it is based on setting up a newly purchased computer for the first time.
Currently, there are several scenarios for someone buying a new computer and getting it usable in order of user complications. Please note that for the vast majority of users "usable" means able to complete a basic set of tasks. And those tasks are not playing with the computer itself. They are: word processing, email, games, web access.
The Macs. Take it out of the box, plug in the electric, monitor(if it's not an iMac), printer and phone line and turn it on. You can do all of the tasks on my list. You may need to pull out a credit card to set up your ISP, but other than that you're up and running.
A Windows box. You take it out of the box, hook the hardware together, turn it on and it autodetects most of the hardware and sets it up. Depending on whom you bought it from, all of those tasks are ready to go, same as the Mac.
A preinstalled Linux box. The primary hurdle in this is finding one for sale in mainstream distribution channels. Even then, you still get to try to manually configure virtually all of your hardware (and since you just bought your first PC, you don't know what any of the specs mean), then you need to dig to figure out how to do most of those tasks./tangent/ My biggest complaint about command-line based software is that you have to remember the command names (even to be able to get a list of the switches). In a GUI, you can explore to find what you're looking for./tangent/
A Windows box converted to a Linux box or a blank box waiting for either Windows or Linux. This is the only setup that requires installing an OS from scratch. You're quite right. An average user would have difficulty with any OS from scratch, but he was talking about the entire system being bought and set up, not just an OS being set up on an existing box.
Re: the manual in most distributions. The biggest problem is that they assume you already know enough to install the thing. Also, manuals (in general) as an only resource during a technical process are notorious for making users scream "BUT". As in, "but my monitor isn't listed, etc." Manuals can't deal in exceptions and the exceptions are what stops most people dead in their tracks.
"Learning new applications is hard." In this section, you make a subtle assumption about "Linux" that seems to permeate discussions such as these. That a change in one incarnation of Linux changes all incarnations. This is simply false. Just because Caldera includes a simple install, with a limited version of DiskMagic(or whatever it's called) and a copy of Tetris to play during install, doesn't mean that Debian, Slackware, S.U.S.E et al need to include it. Nor does it mean that a decent Word clone will overwrite your copies of emacs and vi. Why should it matter to you if one version of Linux is "being dumbed down"? For most users, the computer is not the end; some kind of work is. Ergo, needing to know what is going on in the computer is a waste of time to them.
I know that the majority of Slashdot readers do not own a high end camera. Most likely, if they own one at all, it's a simple point and shoot. A photo geek (and many do this by the way) could be decrying all of the amateur people taking bad pictures without so much as minimal knowledge of film speed, apeture(sp) settings, shutter speed, lens length. After all, in order to get a decent picture, you need to know what's going on with your camera, film, printing process, etc. But, if you can take pictures of the annual drunken bash with a point and shoot and you're happy with them, why do you need to know all of that?
If indeed, someone decides to buy an OS (and not just a PC with the OS on it) BECAUSE it's an alternative, your mindset makes sense. However, some people are buying boxes for the first time and being told they need to buy a Linux box because it is more reliable, more stable, cheaper, etc. not because it's an alternative OS. In those cases, the user is approaching the computer to get something done, not to be a rebel.
"Open source still requires good project management" I'm not going to quibble with you on that point. I don't necessarily agree with either side of this issue.
"Humility is a virtue." One of the factors that is being brought into play by the companies is that of evolution by proxy. Up until now, the user base for Linux has been able to implement their design ideas. That allows it to truly be democratic and to evolve according to its users' wishes. However, all along, there has been a group that wishes they could get a simpler interface or other features they'd like, but being unable to code themselves, they are unable to get their ideas into the evolution. Now enter Red Hat, Corel, et al. Those companies will only develop, evolve or improve something that provides a profit margin. You argue that that is a limited vision. It is no more limited than a developer only vision. A company will only see a profit potential where a section of the current or projected user base will spend the money. If those changes wouldn't have been implemented by a developer only vision, that means that the company has found a group of users that had needs being unrepresented in the current democratic development process.
Just remember, because all of your interests/features are included in the current vision, doesn't mean mine are.
Any spelling/grammatical/coherency errors are due to no editing, lack of sleep, and a desire to finish posting while it is still a relevant comment.
I just thought of another analogy to explain using DSS for viewing rather than copying.
Say, for example, you don't speak Welsh (I know someone out there does, but I needed an example), I write a book in Welsh. You can easily copy the book by retyping, photocopying, scanning etc. as long as you can recreate any special characters needed. However, you, not understanding Welsh, would not have any actual access to the information in my book. In this case, knowledge of the Welsh language(the DeCSS key) is useful only when you want to read and understand what I wrote.
Seeing the flyer and the mixed message it sends just bugs me. The text takes a rational approach to explain the issue and I applaud that. It makes those on our side of the issue look sane, rational and law abiding. However, putting Mickey Mouse's face on it is just asking for disrespect on the issue. If your going to violate(clearly, there's not much room in the law for using Mickey's face) existing, established intellectual property laws in your flyer, why should someone believe you had other intentions in writing/using DSS. The info in the flyer is a good idea. But the entire presentation has to be just as rational as the text. Since someone will say, why don't you do better?, I'll work on something this afternoon that uses the text without the Mickey image.
You don't see why this is good BECAUSE you consider installing to be half of the fun. You an many other geeks see the computer and OS themselves as the focus of your hobby/work energy.
This does not remove the ability to do things for yourself, it only removes the NECESSITY of doing it for yourself. By building a laptop and supplying a functioning install of Linux, it allows those who just want to get some work (i.e. writing, application coding, graphics) done to get started without 3 days of configuration/setup. I don't find fiddling with an X server to get it to work with hardware fun at all. Nor to I find twiddling kernel modules fun. Rather, I enjoy database work, writing and graphics. The way it is now, I need to do an awful lot of stuff to get to what I enjoy.
You said Linux is about customization/choices. I want the choice of not having to do the system stuff. This gives me an option that wasn't there before. It's not an option you wanted, so you don't see that choice as as important as the others.
I WANT someone to install it for me. I'm sick of doing it myself.
I have had similar experience. I find that I wake up almost exactly 3 minutes before the alarm goes off. This only works if I'm not extremely tired, but it does work if I change the alarm time. I agree with your theory on learned behavior. I think that in addition to using the time-keeping device as a calibration method, there are other calibration methods including daylight. I find that weeks I spend with daylight coming in through a window, I have a better sense of time. Note that that isn't checking the angle of the sun. It's just that the amount and quality of light acts as an additional calibrator. I find myself only looking at time-keeping pieces to confirm my suspicions of what time it is. "It's got to be 2:00. Yup it is."
In my area, it seems that anyone who is calling from behind a "corporate phone system" comes up "UNAVAILABLE". Unfortunately, that's also what several of my relatives and friend's come up as. The supreme irony came when US West (the provider of my CallerID) called to pitch me additional services and came up as "UNAVAILABLE".
Losing all of one's "home" files is most definitely a huge deal to most users. Witness the havoc that MS Word macro virii have had though they don't mess with the OS. For many hackers the OS is the work, but for most folks, documents, spreadsheets, saved games, etc. are the work/important stuff. If I lost my essays, articles, short stories and my novel in process (which won't happen due to CD-R backups), I couldn't care less if I have to rebuild the OS and apps. That's a day of work. Recreating all of those documents is months or years worth of work. To most people, source code and binaries are NOT important. Access to their work is. A virus, whether it attacks the OS and prevents them from booting or deletes the text in 75 Word documents is devestating. It just so happens that on Windows, both methods work when writing virii. On Unix variants, they'll have to sit at the user level, but that's just as bad.
In addition to integrity, he'd have to have complete control of his publishing/distribution rights. The part that can't be confirmed by any search is Jon Katz' contract. The assignment of copyright is usually done before the book is published. After that point, until the contract expires, Katz has no control over where they sell the book unless the contract allows that(which is beyond highly unlikely. It doesn't matter if he screams till he's blue in the face, he can't choose where they distribute his books. Add that to the fact that much of what Amazon.com sells is from the Ingram catalog and you'd have to pretty much quit selling your book altogether to pull it from Amazon. This isn't like having an online text on a web site that you can just move around to another site if you get pissed at the host. Book contracts are just that: contracts. Once you sign them, you're stuck. Music contracts are the same way. Look at the artists who have tried to distribute MP3's and had their record labels pull the files because of the contract wording. Katz can most likely no more stop Amazon from distributing his book than a Playboy model who has a religious experience can stop Playboy from continuing to publish her photos once she signs the contract.
Remember, just like "A picture is worth a thousand words", a well written letter on high quality paper is worth a thousand stupid emails. Also remember that those who will be writing in on the other side are probably not geeks. Rather they are lawyers and businessfolks: people who are acquainted with coming across as a professional in all communications. As a result you can expect that there will be more than one letter from a lawyer on 100% cotton letterhead, crisp laser printing, civil logical writing showing up at that postal address. Geeks keep screaming that the politians and business people need to play by the Internet rules while on the Internet. Remember that this is going on in the meatspace world of business and law and to get noticed there you have to at least understand their rules.
Linux is not a zero-sum game. It is not a single product. Increasing the user base of COREL Linux will only lower the LCD for COREL Linux. The simplification of Linux is not(generally) happening at the kernel level. Therefore a multitude of distributions can have varying levels of simplification. This can actually make "your" vision for the Linux you want to use MORE possible. How? When there was primarily Redhat, Debian, and Slackware, and someone inadequately prepared to get going asked questions, you either had to tell them RTFM, ignore them, or help them. That meant that your "pure" distribution was being dragged down by newbies. Now, however, if someone is having BIG problems getting going with Debian, you can say, "Why don't you just try Corel, or Caldera's distro for now." After all Corel is expressing a willingness to take them in after you turn them away. That can raise the LCD for your distro and will only lower it for those for whom the lowering is not the great travesty you see it as.
The discussion's mention of the TRS-80 jarred something loose in my memory that I've been trying to get out for quite awhile. I remember playing 2 specific games on the TRS-80 and I'd love to find copies of them for PC if they're available. They were ATC - an air traffic control game and RESTAURANT(I can't remember the spelling; I seem to remember it being spelled incorrectly, but not how) - a game where you managed a restaurant: food prices, quality etc. The games were great fun, and I'd like to play them again. Does anyone else remember them? Anyone know how I could play them again?
As an additional resource to this discussion I thought I'd post this.
Kat Nagel (KatNagel@eznet.net) sent this terrific piece to the EARLY-M mailing list in December 1994.
Every list seems to go through the same cycle:
Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot about how wonderful it is to find kindred souls).
Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list, and brainstorm recruitment strategies).
Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up).
Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience; everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions).
Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens to quit if *other* people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than is used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed).
Finally:
Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who asks an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are limited to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time self-righteously congratulating each other on keeping off-topic threads off the list).
OR
Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks; many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list lives contentedly ever after).
Amen. To add to your list: Should the makers of the Blair Witch Project sue all 30,000 advertisers who have copied their "I'm so scared in a stocking cap" scene?
True enough. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the metric units. However, as I live in the States, and this is my program, and my scale is in pounds, and the math I found was in pounds and calories and my doctor uses pounds and I was raised thinking in pounds and am too dang lazy to convert the math, I'll continue to use pounds, calories, and other arcane, outdated measurements.:) If someone wants to convert the math and send it to me, more power to them, but I don't have the time . . . I have to get on the treadmill.
Slashdot Mirror
I might be. 6'4" and 270 lbs.
LetterJ
Is there a site that will return coordinates when you give it street addresses? This site brought the question out, but I'm also interested in getting a GPS and would like to be able to just put addresses in as coordinates.
LetterJ
For each example think source code as well:
- We need to maintain the integrity of the FSF's version. (We need to maintain the integrity of XYZ proprietary software package.)
- We need to prevent confusion in the software world as to which GPL they are using. (We need to prevent marketplace confusion over XYZ product.)
Given every Free Software or Open Software (I'll not use them interchangably.) precept I can think of, there is no reason to have the license itself under copyRIGHT. If the FSF's version is the best, it will remain as the canonical version, otherwise, a better version will emerge. The risk of forking is the same for the license as the software licensed under it. If the license isn't in need of a Free license, why is software.Well, I'm probably off my rocker and I haven't thought this through completely, but someone probably has.
Please excuse any lack of clarity, grammar or other errors in this post. If I had to fix all of them before posting, I'd never post.
LetterJ
I and a lot of the others I know who do a lot of graphics don't use any one tool. I use Photoshop 5, Paint Shop Pro 6, GIMPWin32, and a couple of lesser known tools all together. In many cases, the benefits are small, but when you need that benefit it's there.
Case in point. In Photoshop, create a 100 x 100 circle selection. Now expand or contract it. First of all, it limits you to a small expansion or contraction. Secondly, fill the changed selection and see how smooth(not) the shape is. Photoshop, for some reason, has a hard time with this. Now try the same exercise in Paint Shop Pro. It works much better.
That isn't something you'd list on a "features list" or anything, and you'd only know it if you'd worked with both programs and needed to do that series of tasks. Choice is definitely not a bad thing. Use the best tool for the job. And NO, I repeat NO tool is the best tool for everything, even within a knowledge domain.
LetterJ
"I'll bet anyone $10 that there will be Net taxes . . . for municipal, county, and states, in existance by 2010."
You mean like the 6.5% use tax on amounts over $700 spent online or outside of the state for Minnesotans? Or the 0.5% on top of that for residents of Minneapolis? They don't have a great way to be sure they are collecting it, but Minnesota already tries to collect it. This year's tax instructions carried a thinly veiled threat that if you don't file and pay the tax, and they find out, you'll be penalized. How they'll find out, I don't know, but they want to.
LetterJ
The advantage is time. I don't want to spend that much time to get this functionality.
An example. When a meal is over, I like to just rinse the dishes off and put them in a dishwasher. It cleans, disinfects and dries the dishes pretty well. In short, some pretty useful functionality. I, of course, could have gone to the hardware store and bought the high pressure pumps, heating coils, enclosure and spent the next 5 Saturdays building my dishwasher, or I could go to an appliance store and buy a dishwasher for a few hundred bucks and have it delivered and installed.
This parallel seems not to sink in with a great many geeks when the functionality is being done by a computer. In most other areas of life, we've decided that the trade off of money for a functioning device rather than having to put in the time to build it ourselves is worth it. Sure, you can buy car kits and build your own car, you can build your own house, you can get a kiln and bake your own dishes. OR . . . you can go to a dealer and buy a car, hire a carpenter, and buy your dishes, all decisions most of us have made. However, to the greasemonkey, the hammer and nails guy, and the potter, doing all of those things yourself is a great reward.
Let those who want to trade off the labor related to computers by buying consumer products or packaged solutions do so.
Yes, the hardware to get this to work may be close in cost, but for the sake of arguement let's assume you make $20/hour(Totally random number to make the math easy). You work 40 or so hours per week at that rate. If your situation is good, you get 1 1/2 times that if you are required to work in your "off" hours. Setting up the arrangement you describe, which includes writing the software, would take most people several evenings/weekend days. Figure 6 hours of hardcore work in an evening 6-12pm and 8 hours on a weekend. Work 3 weeknights and Saturday in a week (we'll assume you coded, debugged and it works in that time), and you've got 36 hours in on this project. Grand total if you had to do this at work on the clock? $1080.
For a geek who loves to configure hardware, write software, etc. a donation of labor like that is no big deal. However, for most people, they'd rather donate that time to something else, whether a project or just relaxing.
LetterJ
Exactly. See my related points elsewhere on this article.
The only problem with that is that the LDP hasn't decided exactly what each type actually is. According to the article, the difference between a Guide and a HOWTO isn't what's in them, it's the file format.
LetterJ
Again, my objection is not to file format coherency altogether, but placing it as the first factor of organization. O'Reilly's Nutshell books are all the same size, shape etc, not because the authors liked that format, but because O'Reilly decided that all of the books that had the same style, organizational content, etc. should also be in the same physical format. The LDP is saying nothing about what the content difference would be between a HOWTO and a GUIDE. It'd be the same thing as saying that just because you make an O'Reilly book the same size, shape and appearance as a Nutshell book that it belongs in that series. While it would be a problem for the Nutshell books to all be different sizes etc. it would be a bigger problem if there was no consistency in the content. I'd rather that all books published by O'Reilly with "Nutshell" in the title have the same no nonsense approach to the material (not some trying to do a Learn in 24 hours thing with others trying to do a Desktop Reference thing) than that we classify all books of the same appearance, font style, publishing template as part of a series.
LetterJ
In all of the good tech writing projects I've been on, content structure and how to group and title the information was more important than the tool. The tool/file format WAS a consideration, but after the content questions were asked and answered. Then the issues of extensibility, maintainability etc. were addressed with the ultimate tool choice coming from those issues.
Basically, I'd rather know that there will be an Introduction in all text files, HTML, PDF, etc. than know that with Ghostscript, I'll be able to read everything. My goal is finding information.
Basically, I feel that regardless of file format, a HOWTO should be a HOWTO. True, if they are all in the abstracted universal file format, they can be converted to all of the other formats and will be more maintainable, but if it isn't in those formats, it's still a HOWTO.
LetterJ
a. you can write in LinuxDoc : call your document an HOWTO b. you can write in DocBook : call your document a DOCBOOK
Why are the documents being titled according to filetype first, and contents second. That's like Yahoo categorizing sites by whether they use PHP or Perl, and not by what the site is about.
Yes, I realize that they are still considering content, however, the quoted statement indicates that the title category is decided by the file format. "I'm looking for a HOWTO on ???. What? I need the GUIDE instead? There's no HOWTO because the expert doesn't use the right file format?" Good documentation relies on consistency. I thought that was one of the main points for the LDP: you can go there to get all of your questions answered. Companies like O'Reilly have it figured out. All of their "???? in a Nutshell" books are fairly similar in style and content. You can intuit from the title category what type of book it is. You ought to be able to do the same with LDP documents.
I'm sure someone will ask why I don't have any HOWTO's in the LDP.
LetterJ
"Hack" is a word that far predates the typewriter. It comes from the Old English word hakken: To cut irregulary, without skill or definite purpose; to notch; to mangle by repeated strokes of a cutting instrument; as, to hack a post.
The journalistic use of the word is logical and predates computers by quite a bit. A hack writer is one who writes without skill or definite purpose.
The definition has mutated a bit since in the computer era, to come to mean: Originally, a quick job that produces what is needed, but not well.
Once it got that connotation, it continued to mutate to be a particularly brilliant piece of code.
A little time spent over at Dictionary.com - term: Hack will clear up definitions and give you actual etymology for most words. Real etymology can be fun, but you've got to have more than a coincidence to create a word's history.
Practice safe linguistics.
LetterJ
"People set up computers alone."
His text relating to this point is not based on "the difficulties people have when installing an operating system for the first time." Rather, it is based on setting up a newly purchased computer for the first time.
Currently, there are several scenarios for someone buying a new computer and getting it usable in order of user complications. Please note that for the vast majority of users "usable" means able to complete a basic set of tasks. And those tasks are not playing with the computer itself. They are: word processing, email, games, web access.
- The Macs. Take it out of the box, plug in the electric, monitor(if it's not an iMac), printer and phone line and turn it on. You can do all of the tasks on my list. You may need to pull out a credit card to set up your ISP, but other than that you're up and running.
- A Windows box. You take it out of the box, hook the hardware together, turn it on and it autodetects most of the hardware and sets it up. Depending on whom you bought it from, all of those tasks are ready to go, same as the Mac.
- A preinstalled Linux box. The primary hurdle in this is finding one for sale in mainstream distribution channels. Even then, you still get to try to manually configure virtually all of your hardware (and since you just bought your first PC, you don't know what any of the specs mean), then you need to dig to figure out how to do most of those tasks.
/tangent/ My biggest complaint about command-line based software is that you have to remember the command names (even to be able to get a list of the switches). In a GUI, you can explore to find what you're looking for./tangent/ - A Windows box converted to a Linux box or a blank box waiting for either Windows or Linux. This is the only setup that requires installing an OS from scratch. You're quite right. An average user would have difficulty with any OS from scratch, but he was talking about the entire system being bought and set up, not just an OS being set up on an existing box.
Re: the manual in most distributions. The biggest problem is that they assume you already know enough to install the thing. Also, manuals (in general) as an only resource during a technical process are notorious for making users scream "BUT". As in, "but my monitor isn't listed, etc." Manuals can't deal in exceptions and the exceptions are what stops most people dead in their tracks."Learning new applications is hard."
In this section, you make a subtle assumption about "Linux" that seems to permeate discussions such as these. That a change in one incarnation of Linux changes all incarnations. This is simply false. Just because Caldera includes a simple install, with a limited version of DiskMagic(or whatever it's called) and a copy of Tetris to play during install, doesn't mean that Debian, Slackware, S.U.S.E et al need to include it. Nor does it mean that a decent Word clone will overwrite your copies of emacs and vi. Why should it matter to you if one version of Linux is "being dumbed down"? For most users, the computer is not the end; some kind of work is. Ergo, needing to know what is going on in the computer is a waste of time to them.
I know that the majority of Slashdot readers do not own a high end camera. Most likely, if they own one at all, it's a simple point and shoot. A photo geek (and many do this by the way) could be decrying all of the amateur people taking bad pictures without so much as minimal knowledge of film speed, apeture(sp) settings, shutter speed, lens length. After all, in order to get a decent picture, you need to know what's going on with your camera, film, printing process, etc. But, if you can take pictures of the annual drunken bash with a point and shoot and you're happy with them, why do you need to know all of that?
If indeed, someone decides to buy an OS (and not just a PC with the OS on it) BECAUSE it's an alternative, your mindset makes sense. However, some people are buying boxes for the first time and being told they need to buy a Linux box because it is more reliable, more stable, cheaper, etc. not because it's an alternative OS. In those cases, the user is approaching the computer to get something done, not to be a rebel.
"Open source still requires good project management"
I'm not going to quibble with you on that point. I don't necessarily agree with either side of this issue.
"Humility is a virtue."
One of the factors that is being brought into play by the companies is that of evolution by proxy. Up until now, the user base for Linux has been able to implement their design ideas. That allows it to truly be democratic and to evolve according to its users' wishes. However, all along, there has been a group that wishes they could get a simpler interface or other features they'd like, but being unable to code themselves, they are unable to get their ideas into the evolution. Now enter Red Hat, Corel, et al. Those companies will only develop, evolve or improve something that provides a profit margin. You argue that that is a limited vision. It is no more limited than a developer only vision. A company will only see a profit potential where a section of the current or projected user base will spend the money. If those changes wouldn't have been implemented by a developer only vision, that means that the company has found a group of users that had needs being unrepresented in the current democratic development process.
Just remember, because all of your interests/features are included in the current vision, doesn't mean mine are.
Any spelling/grammatical/coherency errors are due to no editing, lack of sleep, and a desire to finish posting while it is still a relevant comment.
LetterJ
I just thought of another analogy to explain using DSS for viewing rather than copying.
Say, for example, you don't speak Welsh (I know someone out there does, but I needed an example), I write a book in Welsh. You can easily copy the book by retyping, photocopying, scanning etc. as long as you can recreate any special characters needed. However, you, not understanding Welsh, would not have any actual access to the information in my book. In this case, knowledge of the Welsh language(the DeCSS key) is useful only when you want to read and understand what I wrote.
LetterJ
Seeing the flyer and the mixed message it sends just bugs me. The text takes a rational approach to explain the issue and I applaud that. It makes those on our side of the issue look sane, rational and law abiding. However, putting Mickey Mouse's face on it is just asking for disrespect on the issue. If your going to violate(clearly, there's not much room in the law for using Mickey's face) existing, established intellectual property laws in your flyer, why should someone believe you had other intentions in writing/using DSS. The info in the flyer is a good idea. But the entire presentation has to be just as rational as the text. Since someone will say, why don't you do better?, I'll work on something this afternoon that uses the text without the Mickey image.
LetterJ
You don't see why this is good BECAUSE you consider installing to be half of the fun. You an many other geeks see the computer and OS themselves as the focus of your hobby/work energy.
This does not remove the ability to do things for yourself, it only removes the NECESSITY of doing it for yourself. By building a laptop and supplying a functioning install of Linux, it allows those who just want to get some work (i.e. writing, application coding, graphics) done to get started without 3 days of configuration/setup. I don't find fiddling with an X server to get it to work with hardware fun at all. Nor to I find twiddling kernel modules fun. Rather, I enjoy database work, writing and graphics. The way it is now, I need to do an awful lot of stuff to get to what I enjoy.
You said Linux is about customization/choices. I want the choice of not having to do the system stuff. This gives me an option that wasn't there before. It's not an option you wanted, so you don't see that choice as as important as the others.
I WANT someone to install it for me. I'm sick of doing it myself.
LetterJ
I have had similar experience. I find that I wake up almost exactly 3 minutes before the alarm goes off. This only works if I'm not extremely tired, but it does work if I change the alarm time. I agree with your theory on learned behavior. I think that in addition to using the time-keeping device as a calibration method, there are other calibration methods including daylight. I find that weeks I spend with daylight coming in through a window, I have a better sense of time. Note that that isn't checking the angle of the sun. It's just that the amount and quality of light acts as an additional calibrator. I find myself only looking at time-keeping pieces to confirm my suspicions of what time it is. "It's got to be 2:00. Yup it is."
LetterJ
In my area, it seems that anyone who is calling from behind a "corporate phone system" comes up "UNAVAILABLE". Unfortunately, that's also what several of my relatives and friend's come up as. The supreme irony came when US West (the provider of my CallerID) called to pitch me additional services and came up as "UNAVAILABLE".
LetterJ
Losing all of one's "home" files is most definitely a huge deal to most users. Witness the havoc that MS Word macro virii have had though they don't mess with the OS. For many hackers the OS is the work, but for most folks, documents, spreadsheets, saved games, etc. are the work/important stuff. If I lost my essays, articles, short stories and my novel in process (which won't happen due to CD-R backups), I couldn't care less if I have to rebuild the OS and apps. That's a day of work. Recreating all of those documents is months or years worth of work. To most people, source code and binaries are NOT important. Access to their work is. A virus, whether it attacks the OS and prevents them from booting or deletes the text in 75 Word documents is devestating. It just so happens that on Windows, both methods work when writing virii. On Unix variants, they'll have to sit at the user level, but that's just as bad.
LetterJ
In addition to integrity, he'd have to have complete control of his publishing/distribution rights. The part that can't be confirmed by any search is Jon Katz' contract. The assignment of copyright is usually done before the book is published. After that point, until the contract expires, Katz has no control over where they sell the book unless the contract allows that(which is beyond highly unlikely. It doesn't matter if he screams till he's blue in the face, he can't choose where they distribute his books. Add that to the fact that much of what Amazon.com sells is from the Ingram catalog and you'd have to pretty much quit selling your book altogether to pull it from Amazon. This isn't like having an online text on a web site that you can just move around to another site if you get pissed at the host. Book contracts are just that: contracts. Once you sign them, you're stuck. Music contracts are the same way. Look at the artists who have tried to distribute MP3's and had their record labels pull the files because of the contract wording. Katz can most likely no more stop Amazon from distributing his book than a Playboy model who has a religious experience can stop Playboy from continuing to publish her photos once she signs the contract.
LetterJ
Remember, just like "A picture is worth a thousand words", a well written letter on high quality paper is worth a thousand stupid emails. Also remember that those who will be writing in on the other side are probably not geeks. Rather they are lawyers and businessfolks: people who are acquainted with coming across as a professional in all communications. As a result you can expect that there will be more than one letter from a lawyer on 100% cotton letterhead, crisp laser printing, civil logical writing showing up at that postal address. Geeks keep screaming that the politians and business people need to play by the Internet rules while on the Internet. Remember that this is going on in the meatspace world of business and law and to get noticed there you have to at least understand their rules.
LetterJ
Linux is not a zero-sum game. It is not a single product. Increasing the user base of COREL Linux will only lower the LCD for COREL Linux. The simplification of Linux is not(generally) happening at the kernel level. Therefore a multitude of distributions can have varying levels of simplification. This can actually make "your" vision for the Linux you want to use MORE possible. How? When there was primarily Redhat, Debian, and Slackware, and someone inadequately prepared to get going asked questions, you either had to tell them RTFM, ignore them, or help them. That meant that your "pure" distribution was being dragged down by newbies. Now, however, if someone is having BIG problems getting going with Debian, you can say, "Why don't you just try Corel, or Caldera's distro for now." After all Corel is expressing a willingness to take them in after you turn them away. That can raise the LCD for your distro and will only lower it for those for whom the lowering is not the great travesty you see it as.
LetterJ
The discussion's mention of the TRS-80 jarred something loose in my memory that I've been trying to get out for quite awhile. I remember playing 2 specific games on the TRS-80 and I'd love to find copies of them for PC if they're available. They were ATC - an air traffic control game and RESTAURANT(I can't remember the spelling; I seem to remember it being spelled incorrectly, but not how) - a game where you managed a restaurant: food prices, quality etc. The games were great fun, and I'd like to play them again. Does anyone else remember them? Anyone know how I could play them again?
LetterJ
Kat Nagel (KatNagel@eznet.net) sent this
terrific piece to the EARLY-M mailing list in December 1994.
Every list seems to go through the same cycle:
how wonderful it is to find kindred souls).
and brainstorm recruitment strategies).
develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up).
information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as
well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease
each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience;
everyone -- newbie and expert alike -- feels comfortable asking
questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions).
dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people
start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens
to quit if *other* people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet
topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten
up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than
is used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed).
an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies
are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor
issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are
limited to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time
self-righteously congratulating each other on keeping off-topic
threads off the list).
OR
stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks;
many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list
lives contentedly ever after).
LetterJ
Amen. To add to your list: Should the makers of the Blair Witch Project sue all 30,000 advertisers who have copied their "I'm so scared in a stocking cap" scene?
LetterJ
True enough. There's absolutely nothing wrong with the metric units. However, as I live in the States, and this is my program, and my scale is in pounds, and the math I found was in pounds and calories and my doctor uses pounds and I was raised thinking in pounds and am too dang lazy to convert the math, I'll continue to use pounds, calories, and other arcane, outdated measurements.:) If someone wants to convert the math and send it to me, more power to them, but I don't have the time . . . I have to get on the treadmill.
LetterJ