I feel that Debian's greatest strength is in its package-space, which is both vast and amazingly consistent. On the other hand, many commercial distributions do (IMHO) a better job at providing pre-selected sets of packages, configuration options and installation programs for the general-case desktop or server.
That's why when I try to imagine the ideal future for Linux, I usually think of numerous commercial distributions that are easy and quick to install, but all connected to the same package-space that Debian provides. Sort of limiting Debian's function to being a hyper-distribution, a super-set of all possible package-selections. And letting commercial distributors actually deal with the users and the installation process and select which packages or profiles they probably need.
So my question is: would you say such a system is likely, possible or even desireable?
If Crusoe is really aimed at laptops, wouldn't Linux be a strange choice for its main OS? Now I know we all like to think Linux is better at everything, but right now it's still a server OS that's rather hard to operate for non-techie users, which makes choosing it as the main OS for laptop a risky vote of confidence. Wouldn't MacOS make a much better choice, especially considering its recent revival? (iMac) Well maybe there's already a hidden deal with Apple. Or maybe Linus is developing Linux to take advanteges of Cruso's unique features and be the first OS to run everything. That would be nice...:)
The comm ent doesn't specify what are its sources, but it: 1. Confidently states that Crusoe works by special hardware translating the instructions and then storing them in a huge cache, 2. Says that because of that, MS-Windows will probably not run on Crusoe. This is because of Windows' habit of altering its code on the fly for reasons of optimization, and 3. Speculates that Linus was hired because Linux is to be [one of the] first OS[s] to run on Crusoe (ok, so this isn't new:D ).
It looks like both Intel and Microsoft are facing Interesting Times...:)
MSNBC's (read as: BillG's) article is dancing around the point and is just a tad bit misleading, IMHO. The article does admit that this problem is due to a specific bug in ActiveX -- NOT because of some general vulnerability in emails. It's not different than any internet exploit which crackers can use to hack into machines, bluescreen them or spread worms... Without the bug, there wouldn't have been any problem. It's just a coincidence that this time the bug allowed the worm to penetrate through HTML mail rather than an open vulnurable port or a defective browser. The article doesn't bother to make it clear how vulnurable are OTHER mailers. In fact, it mentions a very specific configuration required to have the worm effective, but mentions Eudora as a vulnerability. Yet the article talks little about ActiveX being responsible and turns to throw the blame on the entire internet, in effect. I'd guess they hope that since the blame is so general, the already-desensitized world would take it lightly... If they admitted MS responsibility in this users might've started to notice this is not the first MS-specific security problem for the past few months alone and might've chosen a different mailer. Like Eudora. Nice to see them fix it fast though:)
By what I understood from the article, the webmasters' problem was not inability to use IE's specific tags, but NS not supporting many standard features from the WWW Consortium such as XML and the like. These features were developed to be used, and not beind able to use them because NS doesn't support them is IMO more than justifiably annoying. I really do hope Mozilla will solve the problem.
I think the disagreement here results from different assumptions regarding what "freedom" means. RMS sees publishing binary-only or non-free source software as an act restricting the freedom of users. Therefore, since "your freedom to wave your fist ends at the tip of my nose", you do NOT have the freedom to do so. In an ideal world no one would publish any software that was not free, and that would be enforced by either written law, unwritten law or Forces of the Market. Needless to say, that would make the GPL meaningless and unnecessary. In real life, publishing software under the GPL helps us towards such a world by creating an incentive for people to publish free software. The limitation that all derived software must also be GPLed does NOT limit authors freedom, as (GNU-ethically speaking) publishing proprietory software is not an excercize of freedom but of power (since such an act would restrict the freedom of others).
DISCLAIMER: I've tried express here RMS's stands on these issues, with which I agree on the most part, the way I understood them. If I've misrepresent them (and I may have), I'm sorry.
Maybe rating comments both by how many points they have, bu also by how controversial they are? 1. Perhaps moderating down high controversiality would knock all these one- and two-sided holy wars comments off the 3+ score filter. 2. Or maybe high controversial comments should get an extra point if they have low score (say 2) and lose one if they're high? Controversiality probably indicates that the comment's final score is being influenced most strongly by how popular or unpopular is the oppinion expressed. This would push both back to the average score. It's hard to tell what the effect would be... But Malda can conduct "experiments" on assigning different values according to where a comment is located on the two-dimensional score vs. controversiality map.
Maybe an XML front-end to existing configuration file? I mean an XML file format that describes existing configuration files, so that the new XML-based configuration tool will be able to access old files as well in the same environment. I wonder if that's possible...
Create new TLD for each country just for owners of trademarks or registered companies/organizations. The TM office in each country will be responsible for letting owners use domains called after their registered TMs, or reasonables short forms... We'll have names such as microsoft.corp.us-tm and windows98.os.tm (once we decide what constitutes an international trademark).
Attaching the domain names to TMs will ensure their uniqueness, will make the TM TLDs more prestigious than others, and leave the rest of the TLDs free for poorer, less commercial or less organized, who don't make such a fuss about owenership of TLDs anyhow.
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I feel that Debian's greatest strength is in its package-space, which is both vast and amazingly consistent. On the other hand, many commercial distributions do (IMHO) a better job at providing pre-selected sets of packages, configuration options and installation programs for the general-case desktop or server.
That's why when I try to imagine the ideal future for Linux, I usually think of numerous commercial distributions that are easy and quick to install, but all connected to the same package-space that Debian provides. Sort of limiting Debian's function to being a hyper-distribution, a super-set of all possible package-selections. And letting commercial distributors actually deal with the users and the installation process and select which packages or profiles they probably need.
So my question is: would you say such a system is likely, possible or even desireable?
If Crusoe is really aimed at laptops, wouldn't Linux be a strange choice for its main OS? :)
Now I know we all like to think Linux is better at everything, but right now it's still a server OS that's rather hard to operate for non-techie users, which makes choosing it as the main OS for laptop a risky vote of confidence.
Wouldn't MacOS make a much better choice, especially considering its recent revival? (iMac)
Well maybe there's already a hidden deal with Apple. Or maybe Linus is developing Linux to take advanteges of Cruso's unique features and be the first OS to run everything. That would be nice...
The comm ent doesn't specify what are its sources, but it: :D ).
:)
1. Confidently states that Crusoe works by special hardware translating the instructions and then storing them in a huge cache,
2. Says that because of that, MS-Windows will probably not run on Crusoe. This is because of Windows' habit of altering its code on the fly for reasons of optimization, and
3. Speculates that Linus was hired because Linux is to be [one of the] first OS[s] to run on Crusoe (ok, so this isn't new
It looks like both Intel and Microsoft are facing Interesting Times...
MSNBC's (read as: BillG's) article is dancing around the point and is just a tad bit misleading, IMHO. :)
The article does admit that this problem is due to a specific bug in ActiveX -- NOT because of some general vulnerability in emails. It's not different than any internet exploit which crackers can use to hack into machines, bluescreen them or spread worms... Without the bug, there wouldn't have been any problem. It's just a coincidence that this time the bug allowed the worm to penetrate through HTML mail rather than an open vulnurable port or a defective browser. The article doesn't bother to make it clear how vulnurable are OTHER mailers. In fact, it mentions a very specific configuration required to have the worm effective, but mentions Eudora as a vulnerability.
Yet the article talks little about ActiveX being responsible and turns to throw the blame on the entire internet, in effect. I'd guess they hope that since the blame is so general, the already-desensitized world would take it lightly... If they admitted MS responsibility in this users might've started to notice this is not the first MS-specific security problem for the past few months alone and might've chosen a different mailer. Like Eudora.
Nice to see them fix it fast though
By what I understood from the article, the webmasters' problem was not inability to use IE's specific tags, but NS not supporting many standard features from the WWW Consortium such as XML and the like. These features were developed to be used, and not beind able to use them because NS doesn't support them is IMO more than justifiably annoying.
I really do hope Mozilla will solve the problem.
I think the disagreement here results from different assumptions regarding what "freedom" means.
RMS sees publishing binary-only or non-free source software as an act restricting the freedom of users. Therefore, since "your freedom to wave your fist ends at the tip of my nose", you do NOT have the freedom to do so. In an ideal world no one would publish any software that was not free, and that would be enforced by either written law, unwritten law or Forces of the Market. Needless to say, that would make the GPL meaningless and unnecessary.
In real life, publishing software under the GPL helps us towards such a world by creating an incentive for people to publish free software. The limitation that all derived software must also be GPLed does NOT limit authors freedom, as (GNU-ethically speaking) publishing proprietory software is not an excercize of freedom but of power (since such an act would restrict the freedom of others).
DISCLAIMER: I've tried express here RMS's stands on these issues, with which I agree on the most part, the way I understood them. If I've misrepresent them (and I may have), I'm sorry.
Maybe rating comments both by how many points they have, bu also by how controversial they are?
1. Perhaps moderating down high controversiality would knock all these one- and two-sided holy wars comments off the 3+ score filter.
2. Or maybe high controversial comments should get an extra point if they have low score (say 2) and lose one if they're high? Controversiality probably indicates that the comment's final score is being influenced most strongly by how popular or unpopular is the oppinion expressed. This would push both back to the average score.
It's hard to tell what the effect would be... But Malda can conduct "experiments" on assigning different values according to where a comment is located on the two-dimensional score vs. controversiality map.
Maybe an XML front-end to existing configuration file?
I mean an XML file format that describes existing configuration files, so that the new XML-based configuration tool will be able to access old files as well in the same environment. I wonder if that's possible...
I'm all for it!
Create new TLD for each country just for owners of trademarks or registered companies/organizations. The TM office in each country will be responsible for letting owners use domains called after their registered TMs, or reasonables short forms... We'll have names such as microsoft.corp.us-tm and windows98.os.tm (once we decide what constitutes an international trademark).
Attaching the domain names to TMs will ensure their uniqueness, will make the TM TLDs more prestigious than others, and leave the rest of the TLDs free for poorer, less commercial or less organized, who don't make such a fuss about owenership of TLDs anyhow.