Not so. It should be referred to as "the Linux kernel", to differentiate it from "Linux", the OS. Even if you're a hard-core GNU/Linux terminologist, the extra qualification ensures that people know what you're talking about.
I personally will never call Linux (the OS) GNU/Linux because it was not the GNU folks that took their OS work and integrated the Linux kernel into GNU (not right away at least, since they were telling people to stop working on Linux and start working on Hurd) -- it was Linus and the folks helping him who took bits and pieces from all over, including GNU stuff, BSD stuff, etc., and combined it into an OS, naming it "Linux" in the process.
Also (as I've said before) the term GNU/Linux is really only referring to a subset of all of Linuxdom. The GNU prefix has a meaning, and it means a hard-core "free software" belief that is not as tolerant of the use of closed-source code as the "open source" movement is. "Linux" encompasses both camps. GNU/Linux only represents one part of the whole.
I'm currently running Devil Linux on a couple routers. It is a CD-bootable Linux distribution that looks similar to LEAF, but since I haven't used LEAF, I'm not sure how they compare. Would someone who has tried out both distributions care to comment on the differences?
My quick look leads me to believe the following:
Devil Linux only boots from CD, while LEAF can do that or boot from a floppy.
Devil Linux has more features, and thus needs more memory (than a floppy-based LEAF at least).
Devil Linux uses the 2.4.x kernel, which is available in one of the LEAF branches, but is not the default LEAF version.
If you re-read my comment, you'll see that I said exactly what your "clarification" said -- that the reason this GPL release is binding is that SCO released it under the GPL, not because someone snuck it in. Here's the part you left out of your quote:
After all, we're not talking about a third-party distributing the code, we're talking about the code's originator distributing the code.
I agree that this doesn't have anything to do with the "viral GPL" accusations. The viralness that Microsoft was going on about was their accusation that if you're using GPL code alongside code with a different license, the GPL license can cause your code to unintentionally become GPL.
This obviously this is very different from actually releasing code directly under the GPL license as was the case of SCO releasing Linux source. Wouldn't the result be the same no matter what open source license was involved?
Imagine that SCO was releasing a FreeBSD distribution that contained their source code
under the BSD license. They couldn't come along later and say, "Oops, we didn't mean to do that! Everyone that downloaded that code, you must destroy it!" -- could they? After all, we're not talking about a third-party distributing the code, we're talking about the code's originator distributing the code.
Obviously they could prosecute the person who incorporated their code illegally into a release that they didn't authorize, but once they start distribution under a license, the people who download that code should certainly have the right to use that code as indicated by the code's license.
What you appear to be missing is what the phrase "lines of resolution" means when used as a measurement for horizontal resolution of video content. The horizontal measure has, somewhat confusingly, been measured in a unit that is relative to the vertical resolution. I find it easiest to conceptualize this as measuring only the resolution inside a square box the same physical width as the physical image height. So, while it is true that a DVD has 720 pixels of horizontal resolution, it is also true that a 4:3 U.S. DVD has 540 lines of horizontal resolution (since the other 80 pixels are outside this imaginary square box).
This means that a 16:9 DVD has 405 lines of horizontal resolution because the 720 pixels are stretched across a wider area.
I just googled for a more authoritive source than me on this issue, and found this web page.
Not sums, hyphen abductions!
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Spielberg's Taken
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· Score: 2, Funny
I think you have witnessed an actual hyphen abduction in progress! I had been wondering why so many hyphens were missing from people's text these days. Now, all is clear -- they have been taken away by an alien race for nefarious purposes!
Witness the original sentence, as we imagine it must have looked at the start of the event:
The whole series is a total of 10, 2-hour events.
Note that the hyphen is in its correct place.
Now, the snapshot you took shows the aliens starting to pull the hyphen to the left, which manages to obscure the comma:
The whole series is a total of 10 - 2 hour events.
If you had dropped by/. just moments later, the hyphen would have undoubtedly been completely gone.
Good work! You've solved another mystery that has been baffling mankind for decades!
"Virii", which is correct according to the rules of the english language
I'd sure love to hear what those rules are. If you're planning to cite the Latin rule of turning "us" into "i" keep in mind that (1) not all Latin words that end in "us" pluralize using this rule, and (2) you're turning "us" into "ii".
This is a waldo, not a robot
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Robotic Surgery
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· Score: 1
I for one wish that the media would stop referring to human-controlled devices as robots, reserving that word for something that can perform its actions autonomously. I.e., if someone could tell a machine, "Remove this man's appendix" and it would perform the operation without human guidance (though, perhaps with human oversight), that would be a surgical robot.
One replacement word for robot in this context is the term waldo, taken from the Heinlein story of the same name. Thus, this is not a surgical robot, this is a surgical waldo; the space shuttle has a waldo arm (not a robot arm); and there's a well known TV show that should really be called "Waldo Wars".
It would certainly help to make stories such as this one clearer in the long run (once the term gained a wide usage). I recall that the last time a surgical robot made an appearance on slashdot, there were several commenters that thought the story was referring to a device that could perform surgery on its own, so even a tech-oriented crowd would benefit from a better choice of terms.
All they're saying is, "We think GNU/Linux would be a more appropriate term for the product commonly referred to as Linux, and here's the reasons why." You're free to disagree if you want.
Really? RMS actively refuses to visit any users group that has the name Linux in it without a GNU. The press is also being pressured to refer to Linux as GNU/Linux or RMS won't talk to them. These are not the actions of someone who feels that people are free to decide whatever they like. These actions are divisive and intimidating.
The biggest problem I have with the FSF arguments is that "GNU" is a software project of the FSF. It has principles that it abides by. It has people working on it. Saying that the term "GNU/Linux" means "GNU, the operating system, distinguished by having Linux as the kernel" is a total revision of history. The people working on Linux were not working on the GNU project, so the OS they created is not the GNU OS (and yes, they did create an entire OS distribution separate from the GNU project). It uses many of the same pieces, but that doesn't make it the same. Also, branding Linux after the fact with a "GNU" moniker has meaning. It should mean that "this OS follows the GNU/FSF principles of 'Free Software' and avoids all closed-source software." (The FSF seems to think that adding a simple slash between the names negates this meaning, but I think they are deluding themselves in this regard.) Since most Linux distributions do not abide by the FSF's strict principles, this makes the GNU moniker deceptive and unwarranted.
I think the best possible solution is to refer to all of Linuxdom as just "Linux". This includes the subset of Linux that is GNU/Linux (such as Debian).
Hmm. That makes me think of a tongue-in-cheek slogan: Just Linux -- that's "Just" as in justice, not "Just" as in beer.
Now if only they will do the same with Lois McMaster Bujold's "Miles Vorkosigan" series (also publish by Baen), I'll be a VERY happy girl.
The early Bujold works (including the books Falling Free and Ethan of Athos that others in this thread have mentioned wanting) are available at www.fictionwise.com.
Combine this with several of the newer works that are available on Baen's www.webscription.net site, and there's just a few in the middle that are not currently available in ebook format. The latest WebScription setup even lets you buy individual books instead of a monthly bundle of books, if you prefer that.
I'm certainly hoping that the gaps in the Bujold ebook availability will get closed in before too long has passed, but I haven't heard if this is planned or not.
For those that haven't read any of Lois's work, you can get one of her short stories for free at the Baen Free Library -- The Mountains of Mourning. I heartily recommend it.
Another good reason why the OS should be called just Linux and not GNU/Linux is that by any logical definition of the term, GNU/Linux (the OS) is a subset of all the available Linux operating systems, and so does not encompass all of Linuxdom. This is because the GNU project has a FSF mandate that limits itself to only using "free software" (in the FSF definition of the term). Not all distributions agree with this limitation, and so cannot be included under the auspices of the GNU project.
So, Debian being GNU/Linux is very appropriate -- they are very careful about enforcing the GNU restrictions. However, distributions such as RedHat or Mandrake often include "non-free" software, and are not in keeping with the moniker GNU/Linux -- they are each an "Open Source"-based OS with a wider scope (one which I personally prefer over GNU/Linux).
No, you're missing the point. In the name of copy-protection, many publishers have totally crippled the usability of their ebooks. You can't loan them, you can't sell them, you can't even read them on more than one (or maybe 2) devices. This means that in a few years, your entire e-library will turn to "dust" (unusable bits) because you won't have a reader that can read your old books anymore. People using MS Reader software have already encountered this problem when they did something as silly as to re-install their OS -- poof, their old authorized ebook key is now gone, and their books are all unreadable.
If publishers want to build-in strong encryption, they need to also build-in the ability pass on your book to your next-generation reading hardware. They need to make it possible to loan a book to your spouse without having to hand over your reader (and thus lose access to your entire ebook collection for the duration). And they need to figure out that removing a book's usability (such as the ability to resale or loan a book) means that you have to remove a bunch of the price -- trying to sell crippled ebooks at hardback or paperback prices is an affront to customers. (Publishers are trying to turn every ebook sale into a "first sale", which will put a stop to the used-book market and increase their revenue (if ebooks take off), but they aren't willing to discount the books in the process.)
The ONLY advantage one of these has over a book might be weight and ease of storage.
For those of us who only read one book at a given time there is very little advantage.
Not so! If you have a good ebook reader (which are, unfortnately, rare at the moment) I think you'll find that there are plenty of advantages. For me I much prefer to read a book on my Rocket eBook whenever possible. Here's why:
Ergonomics. Paper books are much less convenient to either hold open (especially a paperback) or keep from flopping around (like a hardback when reading in bed). With my ebook reader I can sit it on the table while I eat, put it on the arm of the sofa while I recline with my feet up, etc. and it works much better than a paper book (just tap it periodically for the next page).
Lighting. With a (good) ebook reader, I don't need to turn on a lamp in the room to get really good illumination and contrast. The Rocket eBook excells in this area, and this is the main reason why I continue to use it and not some newer reading hardware.
Searching. I often read multi-volume episodic fantasy, and it is really convenient to be able to search for a particular character name or event. For instance, there was this one book where a character's name got mentioned late in the book, and the only previous mention was way back in the prologue. I needed a reminder of who exactly this person was, and a quick select/search-backwards answered that question quickly and easily.
User-selectable fonts. I don't require a large font for reading (yet), but it's nice to know that if/when I do, all my books will still be readable.
Non-destructive markup. I never markup my paper books, but on an ebook it's easy to underline something or make a note, find it later (searching is easy), and then remove/hide it when I'm done.
Longevity. As long as I'm not using a high-encryption ebook (which I never buy), my books will last a really long time without getting stained or torn or mangled. And for those that like to read in the bath, I hear that putting a reader in a zip-lock bag is a great way to keep it from getting wet. (In the future ebook-reader prices will be both affordable and the hardware will probably be water resistent, so even the reader will have longevity and/or easy replacability.)
So, in summary, I have come to love reading ebooks, primarily because I found an ebook reader that was of a high enough quality and versatility to make the reading experience better. I'm still hoping for a lighter reader with higher resolution and at least grayscale if not color, but for now, I'm enjoying the advantages that I get from my Rocket eBook.
> Without Richard Stallman 'Linux' would not exist. <
I don't believe that at all. It would have developed quite differently, but I think it would have come about anyway.
In the beginning, Linus was using Minix, a unix-like OS that was not freely redistributable. There was a C compiler available for Minix that DID come with source code, but was not in as advanced a state as gcc at the time. The BSD source had recently become available, but it was only partially complete and in a questionable legal state.
In my opinion, if RMS were not around, Linus would have taken a different compiler, opted to use the BSD utilities and libc source, and released the source under a different license than the GPL. The presence of the GNU source code gave us a path that wasn't under threat of legal action, so that seemed like the better choice, even though it took the GNU tools a while to catch up with the BSD versions.
What we can say for sure, though, is that Linux was not a part of the GNU project -- the GNU folks were working on the Hurd.
This is as it should be. In the same way that the government should not be advocating any particular religion, the government should not be advocating any particular software philosophy.
Let's be honest here -- the GPL is really "philosophy-ware". The people releasing software using it declare that they believe that software should always come with source, and that only if you agree with this philosophy can you use the GPLed work in some software that you release to others.
Since I personally choose to release the software that I write in my spare time with a less restrictive license than the GPL (such as the Artistic license), I would also lose out if publicly-funded software was licensed solely with the GPL (if I wanted to make use of this software in my own open-source project).
So, I firmly believe that government-funded software should be open source and available for anyone to use. This does not preclude it from being incorporated into GPLed projects, but it also does not preclude people who don't want to use the GPL from making use of it as well.
I think Linus summed it up best when he said that the midwife doesn't get to name the child (referring to RMS advocating a name change for Linux). Linux the OS has historically been just "Linux" and should remain that way, IMO (with the kernel being called the Linux Kernel, of course).
An OS's name is not the right place for the FSF to try to advertise itself. Adding a GNU just makes things harder to say and write without adding any real benefit.
Let's follow the K.I.S.S. rule and leave well-enough alone -- Linux is a great name for the OS we all know and love.
If you pronounce 'Z' as "Zed" instead of "Zee", then how in the world do you make the "ABCs Song" rhyme? "...cue are ess, tee you vee, dubba-you ex, why and zed" just doesn't seem to cut it.
Zsh has the most powerful programmable completion I've seen. Yes, cd completes only directory names (and you can even type something like "cd/u/X/b/" and have it expand to "/usr/X11/bin/" with one TAB press).
Even better, the latest zsh has completion support for commands that output help text via "--help". This allows it to automatically query the program for the command-line options and to complete them, including giving you the help-text. For example:
zsh% diff --i<TAB>
--ignore-all-space -- ignore all white space
--ignore-blank-lines -- ignore lines that are all blank
--ignore-case -- case insensitive
--ignore-matching-lines -- ignore lines that match regex
--ignore-space-change -- ignore changes in the amount of white space
--initial-tab -- prepend a tab
Other completion areas include fabulous support for CVS (e.g. "cvs commit <TAB>" completes only files that need to be commited), completion of installed RPM package names, completing job numbers that belong to the current user, and that just barely scratches the surface.
Re:Two things that alone is enough to use zsh
on
To Z Or Not To Z
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· Score: 1
No. That would do the same thing as "rm *". This is because "**" only has expanded meaning in path elements, not in the final name element. Thus, you'd have to type "rm **/*" to get the '**'s expanded meaning to be significantly more destructive. Also, typing "rm **/" would try to remove all the directories in this dir and all subdirs, but that would fail (due to rm's inability to remove subdirs).
I always find it mildly amusing when people say that CGI doesn't "look real". I usually counter with the question, "so, you thought Yoda looked real, did you?":-)
I think part of the problem is that many people expect CGI to look flawless, while they don't hold other things (such as puppetry or stop-motion) to such a high standard.
Another part of the problem is that our brain does a really good job of subconsciously picking up on minute details that just don't look quite right, and this can distract us in a way that looking at a puppet or a model doesn't.
Finally, there are many things that people are used to seeing that we think of as looking "real" when they aren't. For instance, we movie-goers are used to seeing bullet hits done with squibs (that generate a hole that looks totally wrong), but when someone decided to do it in a more reality-based way, people complained that the wounds "didn't look real". This same sort of a thing applies to outerspace scenes. We're so used to seeing scenes here in our atmosphere (or done with models) that scenes that may be rendered truer to what you'd actually see in outerspace don't "look real" to our minds.
That cat-entertainment patent is not as obvious as you may think. If you read the abstract, it says that they are patenting the use of "invisible light" to cause the cat to exercise. I don't think that one person in a million would have thought to use light that the cat can't see for this purpose.
(Hopefully this means that someone using a regular, visible-light laser pointer isn't covered by this patent.)
While I agree that anonymous postings are often valuable, I think that it would be better to implement them as an anonymous pseudonym. The bad thing about the current system is that each and every AC is unique. Because of this, you can't give credence to previously-good ACs, you can't tell when someone is attempting to impersonate a previous AC informant, and you can't apply "karma" ratings to repeated AC posts.
Here's what I would do:
Implement an "Anonymous Citizen" creation screen that allows you to associate a new pseudonym with a password (without giving any details about who you are). Since only you know the password, only you can post with that pseudonym. This differs from the current/. login in that even/. doesn't know the email address of an Anonymous Citizen.
Next, try to limit the ability of people to create too many pseudonyms. One way might be to log a count of pseudonyms created per IP and not allow this to grow too large. A better idea (IMO) would be to only allow a pseudonym to be created by a registered user, and limit the number of pseudonyms created per user to something like 1 per month (note that/. would not be keeping track of what pseudonym(s) were created, just a count).
Finally, eliminate normal ACs and flag pseudoym users as the new Anonymous Citizens. ACs would still be treated differently than registered users, but a good AC could have enough karma to start their posting scored as a 1 or a 2, for instance.
I think that the benefits of this system would be many. What do you think?
I tried the new site last night and again a few moments ago, and both times the load times for pages were _very_ slow, often taking minutes for the table portions to show up. Accessing the regular slashdot during these times was as snappy/sluggish as usual, so it wasn't my connection.
Hopefully this is just a result of over-agressive stress testing, but I haven't seen any speed benefits with the new site yet.
Slashdot Mirror
Not so. It should be referred to as "the Linux kernel", to differentiate it from "Linux", the OS. Even if you're a hard-core GNU/Linux terminologist, the extra qualification ensures that people know what you're talking about.
I personally will never call Linux (the OS) GNU/Linux because it was not the GNU folks that took their OS work and integrated the Linux kernel into GNU (not right away at least, since they were telling people to stop working on Linux and start working on Hurd) -- it was Linus and the folks helping him who took bits and pieces from all over, including GNU stuff, BSD stuff, etc., and combined it into an OS, naming it "Linux" in the process.
Also (as I've said before) the term GNU/Linux is really only referring to a subset of all of Linuxdom. The GNU prefix has a meaning, and it means a hard-core "free software" belief that is not as tolerant of the use of closed-source code as the "open source" movement is. "Linux" encompasses both camps. GNU/Linux only represents one part of the whole.
My quick look leads me to believe the following:
Devil Linux only boots from CD, while LEAF can do that or boot from a floppy.
Devil Linux has more features, and thus needs more memory (than a floppy-based LEAF at least).
Devil Linux uses the 2.4.x kernel, which is available in one of the LEAF branches, but is not the default LEAF version.
Anyone care to add to and/or correct this?
After all, we're not talking about a third-party distributing the code, we're talking about the code's originator distributing the code.
I agree that this doesn't have anything to do with the "viral GPL" accusations. The viralness that Microsoft was going on about was their accusation that if you're using GPL code alongside code with a different license, the GPL license can cause your code to unintentionally become GPL.
This obviously this is very different from actually releasing code directly under the GPL license as was the case of SCO releasing Linux source. Wouldn't the result be the same no matter what open source license was involved?
Imagine that SCO was releasing a FreeBSD distribution that contained their source code under the BSD license. They couldn't come along later and say, "Oops, we didn't mean to do that! Everyone that downloaded that code, you must destroy it!" -- could they? After all, we're not talking about a third-party distributing the code, we're talking about the code's originator distributing the code.
Obviously they could prosecute the person who incorporated their code illegally into a release that they didn't authorize, but once they start distribution under a license, the people who download that code should certainly have the right to use that code as indicated by the code's license.
What you appear to be missing is what the phrase "lines of resolution" means when used as a measurement for horizontal resolution of video content. The horizontal measure has, somewhat confusingly, been measured in a unit that is relative to the vertical resolution. I find it easiest to conceptualize this as measuring only the resolution inside a square box the same physical width as the physical image height. So, while it is true that a DVD has 720 pixels of horizontal resolution, it is also true that a 4:3 U.S. DVD has 540 lines of horizontal resolution (since the other 80 pixels are outside this imaginary square box).
This means that a 16:9 DVD has 405 lines of horizontal resolution because the 720 pixels are stretched across a wider area.
I just googled for a more authoritive source than me on this issue, and found this web page.
Witness the original sentence, as we imagine it must have looked at the start of the event:
The whole series is a total of 10, 2-hour events.
Note that the hyphen is in its correct place. Now, the snapshot you took shows the aliens starting to pull the hyphen to the left, which manages to obscure the comma:
The whole series is a total of 10 - 2 hour events.
If you had dropped by /. just moments later, the hyphen would have undoubtedly been completely gone.
Good work! You've solved another mystery that has been baffling mankind for decades!
I'd sure love to hear what those rules are. If you're planning to cite the Latin rule of turning "us" into "i" keep in mind that (1) not all Latin words that end in "us" pluralize using this rule, and (2) you're turning "us" into "ii".
Extra credit: pluralize the following words:
One replacement word for robot in this context is the term waldo , taken from the Heinlein story of the same name. Thus, this is not a surgical robot, this is a surgical waldo; the space shuttle has a waldo arm (not a robot arm); and there's a well known TV show that should really be called "Waldo Wars".
It would certainly help to make stories such as this one clearer in the long run (once the term gained a wide usage). I recall that the last time a surgical robot made an appearance on slashdot, there were several commenters that thought the story was referring to a device that could perform surgery on its own, so even a tech-oriented crowd would benefit from a better choice of terms.
Really? RMS actively refuses to visit any users group that has the name Linux in it without a GNU. The press is also being pressured to refer to Linux as GNU/Linux or RMS won't talk to them. These are not the actions of someone who feels that people are free to decide whatever they like. These actions are divisive and intimidating.
The biggest problem I have with the FSF arguments is that "GNU" is a software project of the FSF. It has principles that it abides by. It has people working on it. Saying that the term "GNU/Linux" means "GNU, the operating system, distinguished by having Linux as the kernel" is a total revision of history. The people working on Linux were not working on the GNU project, so the OS they created is not the GNU OS (and yes, they did create an entire OS distribution separate from the GNU project). It uses many of the same pieces, but that doesn't make it the same. Also, branding Linux after the fact with a "GNU" moniker has meaning. It should mean that "this OS follows the GNU/FSF principles of 'Free Software' and avoids all closed-source software." (The FSF seems to think that adding a simple slash between the names negates this meaning, but I think they are deluding themselves in this regard.) Since most Linux distributions do not abide by the FSF's strict principles, this makes the GNU moniker deceptive and unwarranted.
I think the best possible solution is to refer to all of Linuxdom as just "Linux". This includes the subset of Linux that is GNU/Linux (such as Debian).
Hmm. That makes me think of a tongue-in-cheek slogan: Just Linux -- that's "Just" as in justice, not "Just" as in beer.
The early Bujold works (including the books Falling Free and Ethan of Athos that others in this thread have mentioned wanting) are available at www.fictionwise.com. Combine this with several of the newer works that are available on Baen's www.webscription.net site, and there's just a few in the middle that are not currently available in ebook format. The latest WebScription setup even lets you buy individual books instead of a monthly bundle of books, if you prefer that.
I'm certainly hoping that the gaps in the Bujold ebook availability will get closed in before too long has passed, but I haven't heard if this is planned or not.
For those that haven't read any of Lois's work, you can get one of her short stories for free at the Baen Free Library -- The Mountains of Mourning. I heartily recommend it.
Another good reason why the OS should be called just Linux and not GNU/Linux is that by any logical definition of the term, GNU/Linux (the OS) is a subset of all the available Linux operating systems, and so does not encompass all of Linuxdom. This is because the GNU project has a FSF mandate that limits itself to only using "free software" (in the FSF definition of the term). Not all distributions agree with this limitation, and so cannot be included under the auspices of the GNU project.
So, Debian being GNU/Linux is very appropriate -- they are very careful about enforcing the GNU restrictions. However, distributions such as RedHat or Mandrake often include "non-free" software, and are not in keeping with the moniker GNU/Linux -- they are each an "Open Source"-based OS with a wider scope (one which I personally prefer over GNU/Linux).
No, you're missing the point. In the name of copy-protection, many publishers have totally crippled the usability of their ebooks. You can't loan them, you can't sell them, you can't even read them on more than one (or maybe 2) devices. This means that in a few years, your entire e-library will turn to "dust" (unusable bits) because you won't have a reader that can read your old books anymore. People using MS Reader software have already encountered this problem when they did something as silly as to re-install their OS -- poof, their old authorized ebook key is now gone, and their books are all unreadable.
If publishers want to build-in strong encryption, they need to also build-in the ability pass on your book to your next-generation reading hardware. They need to make it possible to loan a book to your spouse without having to hand over your reader (and thus lose access to your entire ebook collection for the duration). And they need to figure out that removing a book's usability (such as the ability to resale or loan a book) means that you have to remove a bunch of the price -- trying to sell crippled ebooks at hardback or paperback prices is an affront to customers. (Publishers are trying to turn every ebook sale into a "first sale", which will put a stop to the used-book market and increase their revenue (if ebooks take off), but they aren't willing to discount the books in the process.)
Not so! If you have a good ebook reader (which are, unfortnately, rare at the moment) I think you'll find that there are plenty of advantages. For me I much prefer to read a book on my Rocket eBook whenever possible. Here's why:
So, in summary, I have come to love reading ebooks, primarily because I found an ebook reader that was of a high enough quality and versatility to make the reading experience better. I'm still hoping for a lighter reader with higher resolution and at least grayscale if not color, but for now, I'm enjoying the advantages that I get from my Rocket eBook.
I don't believe that at all. It would have developed quite differently, but I think it would have come about anyway.
In the beginning, Linus was using Minix, a unix-like OS that was not freely redistributable. There was a C compiler available for Minix that DID come with source code, but was not in as advanced a state as gcc at the time. The BSD source had recently become available, but it was only partially complete and in a questionable legal state.
In my opinion, if RMS were not around, Linus would have taken a different compiler, opted to use the BSD utilities and libc source, and released the source under a different license than the GPL. The presence of the GNU source code gave us a path that wasn't under threat of legal action, so that seemed like the better choice, even though it took the GNU tools a while to catch up with the BSD versions.
What we can say for sure, though, is that Linux was not a part of the GNU project -- the GNU folks were working on the Hurd.
Let's be honest here -- the GPL is really "philosophy-ware". The people releasing software using it declare that they believe that software should always come with source, and that only if you agree with this philosophy can you use the GPLed work in some software that you release to others.
Since I personally choose to release the software that I write in my spare time with a less restrictive license than the GPL (such as the Artistic license), I would also lose out if publicly-funded software was licensed solely with the GPL (if I wanted to make use of this software in my own open-source project).
So, I firmly believe that government-funded software should be open source and available for anyone to use. This does not preclude it from being incorporated into GPLed projects, but it also does not preclude people who don't want to use the GPL from making use of it as well.
I pronounce it post-greh-squeal since I believe that the best way to pronounce SQL is not sequel or ess-cue-ell, but squeal. Try it, you'll like it.
An OS's name is not the right place for the FSF to try to advertise itself. Adding a GNU just makes things harder to say and write without adding any real benefit.
Let's follow the K.I.S.S. rule and leave well-enough alone -- Linux is a great name for the OS we all know and love.
If you pronounce 'Z' as "Zed" instead of "Zee", then how in the world do you make the "ABCs Song" rhyme? "...cue are ess, tee you vee, dubba-you ex, why and zed" just doesn't seem to cut it.
Even better, the latest zsh has completion support for commands that output help text via "--help". This allows it to automatically query the program for the command-line options and to complete them, including giving you the help-text. For example:
zsh% diff --i<TAB>
--ignore-all-space -- ignore all white space
--ignore-blank-lines -- ignore lines that are all blank
--ignore-case -- case insensitive
--ignore-matching-lines -- ignore lines that match regex
--ignore-space-change -- ignore changes in the amount of white space
--initial-tab -- prepend a tab
Other completion areas include fabulous support for CVS (e.g. "cvs commit <TAB>" completes only files that need to be commited), completion of installed RPM package names, completing job numbers that belong to the current user, and that just barely scratches the surface.
Let's see bash do this:
zsh% echo x{1..20}.txt
x1.txt x2.txt x3.txt x4.txt x5.txt x6.txt x7.txt x8.txt x9.txt x10.txt x11.txt x12.txt x13.txt x14.txt x15.txt x16.txt x17.txt x18.txt x19.txt x20.txt
No. That would do the same thing as "rm *". This is because "**" only has expanded meaning in path elements, not in the final name element. Thus, you'd have to type "rm **/*" to get the '**'s expanded meaning to be significantly more destructive. Also, typing "rm **/" would try to remove all the directories in this dir and all subdirs, but that would fail (due to rm's inability to remove subdirs).
I always find it mildly amusing when people say that CGI doesn't "look real". I usually counter with the question, "so, you thought Yoda looked real, did you?" :-)
I think part of the problem is that many people expect CGI to look flawless, while they don't hold other things (such as puppetry or stop-motion) to such a high standard.
Another part of the problem is that our brain does a really good job of subconsciously picking up on minute details that just don't look quite right, and this can distract us in a way that looking at a puppet or a model doesn't.
Finally, there are many things that people are used to seeing that we think of as looking "real" when they aren't. For instance, we movie-goers are used to seeing bullet hits done with squibs (that generate a hole that looks totally wrong), but when someone decided to do it in a more reality-based way, people complained that the wounds "didn't look real". This same sort of a thing applies to outerspace scenes. We're so used to seeing scenes here in our atmosphere (or done with models) that scenes that may be rendered truer to what you'd actually see in outerspace don't "look real" to our minds.
..wayne..
(Hopefully this means that someone using a regular, visible-light laser pointer isn't covered by this patent.)
Here's what I would do:
Implement an "Anonymous Citizen" creation screen that allows you to associate a new pseudonym with a password (without giving any details about who you are). Since only you know the password, only you can post with that pseudonym. This differs from the current /. login in that even /. doesn't know the email address of an Anonymous Citizen.
Next, try to limit the ability of people to create too many pseudonyms. One way might be to log a count of pseudonyms created per IP and not allow this to grow too large. A better idea (IMO) would be to only allow a pseudonym to be created by a registered user, and limit the number of pseudonyms created per user to something like 1 per month (note that /. would not be keeping track of what pseudonym(s) were created, just a count).
Finally, eliminate normal ACs and flag pseudoym users as the new Anonymous Citizens. ACs would still be treated differently than registered users, but a good AC could have enough karma to start their posting scored as a 1 or a 2, for instance.
I think that the benefits of this system would be many. What do you think?
Hopefully this is just a result of over-agressive stress testing, but I haven't seen any speed benefits with the new site yet.