I reread this last week while I was ill with a cold, I enjoyed it just as much as the first time.
Vinge is a geek's geek, several times he uses the bandwidth limitation to most excellent and credible use -- and in truth, limitations stemming from not having enough bandwidth will never go away.
If you have never read his work, or disclaim the possibility of it being worth your attention, I urge you to reconsider, this is literature for the [above] average Slashdot reader.
There are many similarities between this and 'A Deepness In The Sky', Pham Nuwen is in both, but the similarities go deeper: a suppressing, evil Microsoft-like force closely controlling and monitoring the minds of the people who can throw off its yoke is the theme: makes you wonder about Vinge's childhood and siblings.
Apologies for the blatent plug, but you might be interested in up3date, which is free in the GPL, money and survey senses, and lets you autoupdate as a cron job from Redhat FTP mirrors or set up your own local HTTP mirrors for supporting multiple machines.
Maybe you should contact hotplug, so they can consider to either include it in the docs or the package, since it just seems to be a perl hotplug script.
That's intuitive. Lets see what I have to do in Windows to listen to an MP3.
Sure.
#1 First you have to pay MSFT for their stuff (via Dell/whoever or direct) which, although in the case of XP is pretty good, IMHO now no longer has a future. Just a couple of years ago this Slashdot story would have been full of far more serious problems. Now the level of comparison has been raised to how easy it is to play MP3s. Worth thinking about how the story will go in another couple of years.
#2 Then after install, you have to do product activation, which is compulsory. If you have no internet connection, you have to sit on the phone and recite numbers, then type them in. That's not very intuitive either.
#3 Then you have to go out on the Internet, or get shipped to you, so you can buy the shareware apps (like WinRar, a DVD player and so on) that you need to get Windows to do its job. MPlayer does a good job on DVDs for $0, rar support in in RH9. Having to pay another company to watch DVDs is not very intuitive either.
#4 Okay, now you can double-click on stuff. But my Redhat install would be halfway through Parsifal by then and I didn't touch my credit card.
Its true about the mp3 and video stuff, this is due to Redhat avoiding things with "patent issues". But, if this was making you wonder about how useful RH9 is for media duties, wonder no more: take the freshrpms.net Three Step plan to Redhat media heaven and you'll be all set.
That's it, mp3s, all kinds of video now work. You might need to make your file manager app use mplayer instead of a default app for the right file suffixes is all.
apt-get install frozen-bubble is a bunch of fun too. Check out freshrpms for the other things you can get that are not in stock Redhat.
... note that this guy at redhat is tracking the test releases with redhat-installable RPMs, over RH9.
If you try it, note that you must upgrade modutils and some other packages given in the link. Many modules have changed names, like usb-ohci.o -> ohci-hcd.ko so you will need to do some screwing around. I have been running test1 then test2 for a couple of weeks from the link on top of Redhat 9 and it has been working very nicely.
On the refresh rate thing, switch to LCDs, they stay at the last level until 'refreshed' to the level in the next frame, that's why there is no flicker at any refresh rate with LCDs.
Since our attempts to contact Microsoft have become public knowledge our team has been accused of attempting to extort or blackmail Microsoft, this is not true as we have made every attempt possible to make contact with Microsoft to offer the following:
- A complete summary of all hacking technologies (many of these technologies have not been released).
- Source Codes.
- All attacks which have been developed but not yet released.
- To sign a Non-disclosure Agreement regarding our discoveries.
- Further research on exploits, which would be exclusive to Microsoft.
- Full names of all hackers involved upon agreement of legal protection from Microsoft.
- Assistance in the development of future security for the XBox by working with Microsoft.
For the exchange, we were requesting but not demanding the following:
- Complete access to all documentation (chipsets, video etc.) to assist in developing a better Linux for the XBox.
- A signed Linux loader.
- Protection from Microsoft or support if any organisation/government attempted to prosecute members of our team. - Refunding of the cost occured during the agreement period.
Disclaimer, until a few weeks ago I was very active in Xbox Linux.
This just seems to me to be a cheap attempt to chisel money and personal advantage under the cover of pretending to be doing it for the benefit of Xbox Linux. "Assistance in the development of future security for the XBox by working with Microsoft" indeed!!!!
Anyone who has spent any time with the Xbox Linux project will immediately recognize the author of the "statement" by its novel spelling and tone. It'll be interesting to see just how what goes around is going to come around.
Everyone is vulnerable to evil attachments -- just look at this from earlier in the week. As you suggest having to open the attachment to execute any evil payload is of course much better than having it execute on previewing, since most bad things are sent by unknowns or by a spoofed contact with obviously fake covering notes.
Kmail has a good balance between previewing content and safety IMHO, but then I am happy to see raw HTML by default.
On the subject of Redhat and Debian, something that I don't see mentioned enough considering its usefulness is apt for Redhat, available from freshrpms. These guys have tons of RPMs which are fetchable and managed by apt-get, just like the Debian Troll keeps telling you -- the only difference is its RPMs and Redhat instead of.deb and Debian.
Their apt-gettable repository forms a really up to date exo-distro around Redhat where you can get the latest stuff that installs easily and 'just works'.
May I point out to you that the GPL has nothing whatsoever to do with who "controls" your code?
Sure you can point that out, if you want to look like a loudmouthed moron.
All licenses are about control. For example, if I choose a more normal commercial license for my code, I can choose to put things in it like the ability to revoke your use of it, that you are not allowed to redistribute, that I do not give you source code, etc. The license is the means by which you define who is allowed to do what with your code. The GPL is right at one end of the spectrum, allowing almost everything, and something like a MSFT license is at the other end, allowing almost nothing. Read through some of the other comments in this story before you decide to shoot your mouth off.
Choosing the GPL to release the code is a deliberate act of abnegation on the part of the author(s), they are putting control directly into the hands of the users and reserving almost no rights for themselves.
As for being a troll, I have released many projects under the GPL myself and will continue to do so.
GPL can be a little bit of a double-edged sword. It is very much about loss of control
of the creator, this is exhilirating when things are going right and random people are
contributing, but it is very sobering and unpleasant when your code is taken over by
people you don't approve of, taken in directions you object to, and the blood that
was sweated is forgotten.
However, it is explicit in the GPL, you release your stuff under it and on the one hand
you can build on the work of all the others before you by incorporating any other GPL
stuff, and on the other hand you really do lose control of your own code. That's the
deal to get access to the growing body of great works that are available in the GPL
already.
Reading between the lines, this guy is tired of not having enough money to get by, and
the whole goodbye message is mainly a plea to some company to set him up with
a job to keep it going. I can very much understand that and I hope this comes true
for him, and it might if some companies are actually reliant on his code. But because
of the inherent loss of control, its very difficult to translate even a great GPL project
into a paycheck.
Would you rather be out on your own looking for
another job than continuing to turn up every day and take what is being
dished out? Consider that despite the angry words of your colleagues, they
may not step up when the crucial moment comes, and you alone may be
the one leaving. Is that still okay?
Do you have savings to take 6 months with no income, or maybe shares
you can sell to cover that period... because if you leave, it will be like
leaving a relationship, you will be depressed, think and talk of nothing else for months,
boring your friends and family until you get over it.
Is there any upward future for you in the company, ie, is continuing to
work there acting as an investment for you that may pay off at a later time?
If there is some hope of a career path, given how you are treated by people
at that level, is that somewhere you want to be? Given the trajectory of the
company, is there going to be a later time for this to pay off in?
Can you get out without dropping innocent colleagues in the shit?
The company is looking to a new patent license for one new revenue source. It has acquired rights to a 1999 patent that Bermeister says covers the technique of identifying files on peer-to-peer networks using a "hash," or digital fingerprint based on the contents of the file. The company will approach virtually all other peer-to-peer services to seek license rights, Bermeister said.
I am also UK based and have worked from home like this.
A couple of years ago I worked for a fabless semiconductor company coming in to their offices (50 miles away) one day a week and working the rest of the time from home.
I was already set up with a cablemodem and PCs, there was no problem doing the actual work and keeping in touch by telephone. So "the problems" have
"been solved", in IT-type work.
All of your advantages seem realistic, a disadvantage you'll probably have to add is to have to carefully manage your motivation. I found that a phone
call and a chat would cheer me up and get me going if the news was positive, more often in that company the news was negative or depressing and it
requires some mindgames then to keep yourself pouring energy into the work and not slumping in the chair thinking "what's the use?". Being on the
phone regularly and documenting where you are at in a place easily visible from the office (CVS, email project dumps, etc) can deal with the monitoring problems in a good way.
However, this company had the most amazing political situations going on. I found that by not physically being there all the time there it was easy
to miss out on the latest twists and turns in the ongoing sagas, and that in such a hothouse political situation that can be a big drawback.
I also found that there was a tendancy by others to regard myself as less committed, simply by lack of physical presence, even though in every other
way it was clear I was playing more than a full role. So there are psychological issues in not being physically present when problems and bad or good news
comes up, you are not seen to be proactive when someone else is always first on the scene to fight the fire, since the call is going to come to the office.
The advantages are clear, especially if you have children. But the disadvantages make themselves felt pretty clearly too, if you cherish hopes of getting
a more managerial responsibility over time, you might find this system is not helping you towards that. In the end I quit after 14 months, when the political
sagas reached a point where it was clear there was no growth path for myself (and in fact anyone else based in their UK office as far as I could see, three
other people also left out of a total staff of 8 while I was there).
The intent of copyright is to maintain the flow of works into the public domain. The content creators argued that unless there was some period of monopoly on the right to copy, they would all starve and cease to create music, books, etc. So they were granted their temporary monopoly, but works must return to the public domain after that period. So the whole copyright thing is to maintain the flow of works to the public domain, NOT to enrich the temporary owners of the right to copy the works.
(Would people really stop making creative works if there was limited or no monetary reward? I don't think so... look at OSS. Sure some kinds of grotesque works like $1M music videos would become impossible... but... is that actually any loss?)
What has happened in the meanwhile is that the content creators like Disney and the other companies represented by the RIAA and MPAA have fostered the illusion that their precious "intellectual property" is permanently theirs, and anyone who desires free access to it is a pirate and a theif. But the fact is we all are entitled to free access to these works once the copyright monopoly period is up. The only theiving going on is when these evil companies press our representatives to continually extend the copyright monopoly period so the works never reach the public domain.
I read the first two of Vinge's realtime series, the first one was a little slow, but the second one really rocked, a particular part of it even made me cry, not something that happens often.
The central conceit is that shiny spherical "bobbles" can be generated around volumes of space. The perimiter of the bobble is completely inpenetrable, even to time, but each bobble has a fixed duration set at creation, after which it pops.
With these simple rules Vinge invents a great story with many interesting uses for the bobbles (for example spaceships which throw out nuclear bombs, bobble up until they are propelled far enough away, let our another bomb, etc; people who generate millenia span bobbles in order to observe the end of the universe in their lifetime...). Because people can go in the bobbles for periods of time of their choosing, over time this leads to a range of people from different post-bobble eras with different levels of technology mixing together.
Now I heard there's a third one I'm off to Amazon, if these stories sound up your street why not give them a try yourself.
''We have to somehow fix the culture that thinks it's OK to rip off people's intellectual property rights,'' McCredie said.
Its a University - you go there to take in and then build on the intellectual work of others. The "intellectual property" culture is what needs fixing.
That is true. There are numerious buffer overflows within mpeg itself
MPEG itself is a committee... but its true, no doubt there are exploitable problems in the various codecs.
With Windowsw2k unpatched I have clicked on porn only to have hidden code in the mpeg launch IE and god knows what
More likely it was simply a mislabelled.asf or.wmv, which, thanks to Microsoft's forward-looking concern for delivering what the consumer wants, are designed to be able to spawn browser windows (containing whatever). WMP will accept a mislabelled.asf or.wmv and play it anyway, spawning said browser windows from what you thought was a.mpg.
Slashdot Mirror
I reread this last week while I was ill with a cold, I enjoyed it just as much as the first time.
Vinge is a geek's geek, several times he uses the bandwidth limitation to most excellent and credible use -- and in truth, limitations stemming from not having enough bandwidth will never go away.
If you have never read his work, or disclaim the possibility of it being worth your attention, I urge you to reconsider, this is literature for the [above] average Slashdot reader.
There are many similarities between this and 'A Deepness In The Sky', Pham Nuwen is in both, but the similarities go deeper: a suppressing, evil Microsoft-like force closely controlling and monitoring the minds of the people who can throw off its yoke is the theme: makes you wonder about Vinge's childhood and siblings.
Apologies for the blatent plug, but you might be interested in up3date, which is free in the GPL, money and survey senses, and lets you autoupdate as a cron job from Redhat FTP mirrors or set up your own local HTTP mirrors for supporting multiple machines.
Maybe you should contact hotplug, so they can consider to either include it in the docs or the package, since it just seems to be a perl hotplug script.
I stand corrected :-)
xmms plays mp3 just fine from a Samba share here. mplayer plays video really well from a Samba share.
xmms cannot do video. So that's a good reason Redhat didn't put MPEG1 in it. Maybe you're thinking of xine.
I don't doubt tho, that in general these kind of consumer-orientated "attention to detail" points are valid and critical for Linux Desktop Domination.
That's intuitive. Lets see what I have to do in Windows to listen to an MP3.
Sure.
#1 First you have to pay MSFT for their stuff (via Dell/whoever or direct) which, although in the case of XP is pretty good, IMHO now no longer has a future. Just a couple of years ago this Slashdot story would have been full of far more serious problems. Now the level of comparison has been raised to how easy it is to play MP3s. Worth thinking about how the story will go in another couple of years.
#2 Then after install, you have to do product activation, which is compulsory. If you have no internet connection, you have to sit on the phone and recite numbers, then type them in. That's not very intuitive either.
#3 Then you have to go out on the Internet, or get shipped to you, so you can buy the shareware apps (like WinRar, a DVD player and so on) that you need to get Windows to do its job. MPlayer does a good job on DVDs for $0, rar support in in RH9. Having to pay another company to watch DVDs is not very intuitive either.
#4 Okay, now you can double-click on stuff. But my Redhat install would be halfway through Parsifal by then and I didn't touch my credit card.
"Total Cost of Ownership".
Its true about the mp3 and video stuff, this is due to Redhat avoiding things with "patent issues". But, if this was making you wonder about how useful RH9 is for media duties, wonder no more: take the freshrpms.net Three Step plan to Redhat media heaven and you'll be all set.
Step 1: Get and install apt for rpm
Step 2: apt-get update
Step 3: apt-get install xmms-mp3 mplayer mplayer-fonts mplayer-skins
That's it, mp3s, all kinds of video now work. You might need to make your file manager app use mplayer instead of a default app for the right file suffixes is all.
apt-get install frozen-bubble is a bunch of fun too. Check out freshrpms for the other things you can get that are not in stock Redhat.
... stabbed out of the DarlBot's unhealthy bloodshot eyes, scorching a black line across the very pixels of the JPG until the RedHat was just a blackened, charred area.
... note that this guy at redhat is tracking the test releases with redhat-installable RPMs, over RH9.
If you try it, note that you must upgrade modutils and some other packages given in the link. Many modules have changed names, like usb-ohci.o -> ohci-hcd.ko so you will need to do some screwing around. I have been running test1 then test2 for a couple of weeks from the link on top of Redhat 9 and it has been working very nicely.
haha - if I mod points today...
On the refresh rate thing, switch to LCDs, they stay at the last level until 'refreshed' to the level in the next frame, that's why there is no flicker at any refresh rate with LCDs.
From the 'statement' link:
Since our attempts to contact Microsoft have become public knowledge our team has been accused of attempting to extort or blackmail Microsoft, this is not true as we have made every attempt possible to make contact with Microsoft to offer the following:
- A complete summary of all hacking technologies (many of these technologies have not been released).
- Source Codes.
- All attacks which have been developed but not yet released.
- To sign a Non-disclosure Agreement regarding our discoveries.
- Further research on exploits, which would be exclusive to Microsoft.
- Full names of all hackers involved upon agreement of legal protection from Microsoft.
- Assistance in the development of future security for the XBox by working with Microsoft.
For the exchange, we were requesting but not demanding the following:
- Complete access to all documentation (chipsets, video etc.) to assist in developing a better Linux for the XBox.
- A signed Linux loader.
- Protection from Microsoft or support if any organisation/government attempted to prosecute members of our team.
- Refunding of the cost occured during the agreement period.
Disclaimer, until a few weeks ago I was very active in Xbox Linux.
This just seems to me to be a cheap attempt to chisel money and personal advantage under the cover of pretending to be doing it for the benefit of Xbox Linux. "Assistance in the development of future security for the XBox by working with Microsoft" indeed!!!!
Anyone who has spent any time with the Xbox Linux project will immediately recognize the author of the "statement" by its novel spelling and tone. It'll be interesting to see just how what goes around is going to come around.
Everyone is vulnerable to evil attachments -- just look at this from earlier in the week. As you suggest having to open the attachment to execute any evil payload is of course much better than having it execute on previewing, since most bad things are sent by unknowns or by a spoofed contact with obviously fake covering notes.
Kmail has a good balance between previewing content and safety IMHO, but then I am happy to see raw HTML by default.
Their apt-gettable repository forms a really up to date exo-distro around Redhat where you can get the latest stuff that installs easily and 'just works'.
BackupPC.
May I point out to you that the GPL has nothing whatsoever to do with who "controls" your code?
Sure you can point that out, if you want to look like a loudmouthed moron.
All licenses are about control. For example, if I choose a more normal commercial license for my code, I can choose to put things in it like the ability to revoke your use of it, that you are not allowed to redistribute, that I do not give you source code, etc. The license is the means by which you define who is allowed to do what with your code. The GPL is right at one end of the spectrum, allowing almost everything, and something like a MSFT license is at the other end, allowing almost nothing. Read through some of the other comments in this story before you decide to shoot your mouth off.
Choosing the GPL to release the code is a deliberate act of abnegation on the part of the author(s), they are putting control directly into the hands of the users and reserving almost no rights for themselves.
As for being a troll, I have released many projects under the GPL myself and will continue to do so.
However, it is explicit in the GPL, you release your stuff under it and on the one hand you can build on the work of all the others before you by incorporating any other GPL stuff, and on the other hand you really do lose control of your own code. That's the deal to get access to the growing body of great works that are available in the GPL already.
Reading between the lines, this guy is tired of not having enough money to get by, and the whole goodbye message is mainly a plea to some company to set him up with a job to keep it going. I can very much understand that and I hope this comes true for him, and it might if some companies are actually reliant on his code. But because of the inherent loss of control, its very difficult to translate even a great GPL project into a paycheck.
You're trying to be 'wise' when you just need to wise up
Would you rather be out on your own looking for another job than continuing to turn up every day and take what is being dished out? Consider that despite the angry words of your colleagues, they may not step up when the crucial moment comes, and you alone may be the one leaving. Is that still okay?
Do you have savings to take 6 months with no income, or maybe shares you can sell to cover that period... because if you leave, it will be like leaving a relationship, you will be depressed, think and talk of nothing else for months, boring your friends and family until you get over it.
Is there any upward future for you in the company, ie, is continuing to work there acting as an investment for you that may pay off at a later time? If there is some hope of a career path, given how you are treated by people at that level, is that somewhere you want to be? Given the trajectory of the company, is there going to be a later time for this to pay off in?
Can you get out without dropping innocent colleagues in the shit?
1) Profit!
A couple of years ago I worked for a fabless semiconductor company coming in to their offices (50 miles away) one day a week and working the rest of the time from home. I was already set up with a cablemodem and PCs, there was no problem doing the actual work and keeping in touch by telephone. So "the problems" have "been solved", in IT-type work.
All of your advantages seem realistic, a disadvantage you'll probably have to add is to have to carefully manage your motivation. I found that a phone call and a chat would cheer me up and get me going if the news was positive, more often in that company the news was negative or depressing and it requires some mindgames then to keep yourself pouring energy into the work and not slumping in the chair thinking "what's the use?". Being on the phone regularly and documenting where you are at in a place easily visible from the office (CVS, email project dumps, etc) can deal with the monitoring problems in a good way.
However, this company had the most amazing political situations going on. I found that by not physically being there all the time there it was easy to miss out on the latest twists and turns in the ongoing sagas, and that in such a hothouse political situation that can be a big drawback. I also found that there was a tendancy by others to regard myself as less committed, simply by lack of physical presence, even though in every other way it was clear I was playing more than a full role. So there are psychological issues in not being physically present when problems and bad or good news comes up, you are not seen to be proactive when someone else is always first on the scene to fight the fire, since the call is going to come to the office.
The advantages are clear, especially if you have children. But the disadvantages make themselves felt pretty clearly too, if you cherish hopes of getting a more managerial responsibility over time, you might find this system is not helping you towards that. In the end I quit after 14 months, when the political sagas reached a point where it was clear there was no growth path for myself (and in fact anyone else based in their UK office as far as I could see, three other people also left out of a total staff of 8 while I was there).
The intent of copyright is to maintain the flow of works into the public domain. The content creators argued that unless there was some period of monopoly on the right to copy, they would all starve and cease to create music, books, etc. So they were granted their temporary monopoly, but works must return to the public domain after that period. So the whole copyright thing is to maintain the flow of works to the public domain, NOT to enrich the temporary owners of the right to copy the works.
(Would people really stop making creative works if there was limited or no monetary reward? I don't think so... look at OSS. Sure some kinds of grotesque works like $1M music videos would become impossible... but... is that actually any loss?)
What has happened in the meanwhile is that the content creators like Disney and the other companies represented by the RIAA and MPAA have fostered the illusion that their precious "intellectual property" is permanently theirs, and anyone who desires free access to it is a pirate and a theif. But the fact is we all are entitled to free access to these works once the copyright monopoly period is up. The only theiving going on is when these evil companies press our representatives to continually extend the copyright monopoly period so the works never reach the public domain.
I read the first two of Vinge's realtime series, the first one was a little slow, but the second one really rocked, a particular part of it even made me cry, not something that happens often.
The central conceit is that shiny spherical "bobbles" can be generated around volumes of space. The perimiter of the bobble is completely inpenetrable, even to time, but each bobble has a fixed duration set at creation, after which it pops.
With these simple rules Vinge invents a great story with many interesting uses for the bobbles (for example spaceships which throw out nuclear bombs, bobble up until they are propelled far enough away, let our another bomb, etc; people who generate millenia span bobbles in order to observe the end of the universe in their lifetime...). Because people can go in the bobbles for periods of time of their choosing, over time this leads to a range of people from different post-bobble eras with different levels of technology mixing together.
Now I heard there's a third one I'm off to Amazon, if these stories sound up your street why not give them a try yourself.
I believe they are known as the Yakuza
Its a University - you go there to take in and then build on the intellectual work of others. The "intellectual property" culture is what needs fixing.
MPEG itself is a committee... but its true, no doubt there are exploitable problems in the various codecs.
With Windowsw2k unpatched I have clicked on porn only to have hidden code in the mpeg launch IE and god knows what
More likely it was simply a mislabelled