And would you have suggested Transmeta if Linus was not working there?
Not to say you wouldn't. I don't know how many other low power CPUs are out there. I know Intel is trying to make some.
Transmeta played it smart. They hired a very well known programmer, who developed a successful OS that has a lot of followers (Although Linus did not write all of it, he does get credit for starting it). Then to have him in every interview, when asked what he does, to reply only with "cool stuff". And to top that off, have a web site that only tells you that "it's not here yet", knowing they will have lots of visitors trying to figure out what Linus does. Than taking all that suspense and introducing your tech with an ending like "Survivor". This has brought Transmeta to the front of the stage. Linus may not be the reason for Transmeta's cool stuff, but he helped make them noticed.
Yes there are those that don't give a rat's ass about Mr. Torvalds, but as long as he is in the news, so is Transmeta. We all know that having your company name known by many helps in the business world.
Conclusion, Linus helped Transmeta get to be in the spot light. But it is up to Transmeta to stay there by their own merits.
What you will see is that there is pretty much the same memory allocate. Linux does funny things with memory that you can't base on "free". One thing it does is to cache the file system in "unused memory" so that you can have fast access to files. Ever grep a directory twice. The first time takes forever, then the second time it comes up quickly. This is why.
It's only a leak if it is lost forever. Not if it is being stored for later use. When you restart X, it will reclaim the freed memory of before, not really the same memory, but what's available.
It looks like the most applications are leaking memory
Ok, but shouldn't the OS clean up the memory after the application terminates. I don't keep applications running all the time. I even try login off and logging back on. But things still seem wierd after a month. Maybe it's one of these NT daemon equivalents but most of them are written by MS.
This machine only has 96Meg of RAM so I will experience bad memory usage quickly. But my Linux box only has 64Meg and runs fine. Although having Oracle on it doesn't help.
Ok, I use Linux, NT, and 98 at work on a regular basis. 98 crashed just a week ago. I haven't had an X crash since I upgraded to RedHat 6.2. NT hasn't crashed in a year, but I usually need to reboot once a month because strange things start to happen (applications will start to crash for no apparent reason. Things will take forever to startup, etc.) but NT hasn't crashed!
I'm about to get two dual PIII's both with a Gig of RAM to be used on some R&D projects. One will have W2K and the other RedHat Linux. I'll get these machines in October so I'm hoping that 2.4 kernel will be ready. Although they are going to be used for normal R&D research, I'll be doing my own research to see which one lasts longer.
Ok, I'm showing my age.
I haven't used a mainframe for over ten years.
Sorry!
But he/she did say "Unix was designed to run on mainframes" and that sounds like he was talking about Mainframes when they were just a bunch of dumb terminals attached to a centralized unit.
First I must say that Unix was not for mainframes (which is a centralized system) but to be more of a network (client/server paradigm).
You do have valid points, but I must say that the problem may not be with the OS but what we are doing with it. We say that Unix/Linux is not for your grandmother, and I would agree. But *nux is very good with networks. Now the problem is, we are trying to get Grandma onto a network. The Internet.
Now this causes all sorts of problems. I saw one poster a few days talking about how their wife complained about having to log in. "I own this machine, and I'm the only one on it". But that my not be the case if you have an Internet access. You see when you take single user methodologies and put them with network ones, you get things like virus and privacy compromises.
So, we need to educate the average user and maybe tweak the OS a little. But I really think that if you are going to have a connection to the internet, you should have basic knowledge about how to use a computer. The normal analogy is to compare computers with cars. You may not know how a car works, but you definitely know what to do and not do with it before you drive. That's why we have licenses, (although I would say there are those that don't know how to drive). A computer is no different (except for being less dangerous). You should have a basic knowledge before surfing the net. And I'm tired of hearing how Joe Schmoe doesn't want to know anything before using a computer. If all you want to do is play games, that's fine, but if you accept email and go out onto the net, then either learn or accept the consequences.
I'm sorry, but once I heard about the "cheaper and faster" space missions, I knew it was a disaster from the start.
Yes... cheap missions that fail is a bad thing and
expensive missions that succeed is a good thing.
I think we are so excited about how fast technology is going today we are moving blindly. I have had debates with people not so technically incline about how the speed of processors will not be doubling every two years unless some new break through is found. They have this blind notion that "No! technology will never slow down". I agree that technology will always advance, but it will slow down until something new is discovered. You can only improve on a single method so much.
Now back to the space program. I think it's good that things are being taken more seriously, and we should slow down and do things right the first time. Prototypes are ok, but the final product should work.
Unfortunately, this means things like that Pluto mission may be axed. But I'm optimistic that programs canceled today will be the programs of tomorrow.
I've read a lot of comments that talk about the skill level of these programmers, their intentions, and "why would they do this?".
Now we could really test the cathedral and the bizarre. If it is open, hopefully the bugs will be discovered quickly.
Now others have said that most "geeks" would want to use Linux or Free BSD, which is probably true. But this would be a good chance for the "non-geek" community to use open source OS, since the focus here is not to make an efficient OS, but to may a user friendly one. This has been the biggest complaint about Linux and BSD as well as all Unix OS.
Now if your non-geek friend needs help with their Non MS Windows, you would be more incline to help. And if you find a bug, you might just fix it, or at least notify those that are working on it.
So, although I don't ever plan on using this, but if I would find someone who does, I would certainly want to play with it.
Actually we did care when Yahoo, CNN.com, etc. was attacked. But we were not emotional about it.
it must take a special kind of asshole to attack a nonprofit site like Kuro5hin. I feel sorry for anyone immature enough to pull a pathetic stunt like this. This is no better than kicking dogs.
That line actually answers your question.
We cared about Yahoo, CNN etc. But those don't seem to be as "human" as Kuro5hin. We can relate to people spending their own time doing something right for the community, and are really annoyed when some ass pulls a stunt like this. But when it happens to corporations, we may be upset, but its a company and not a person. Yes some people are affected by that, but it is more like "part of the job". Volunteers should not have to deal with this crap. (although, no one should)
IBM's strategy is very smart--help APP developers start using Linux and there will be more apps--which means more users, which means more of everything for everybody.
Strongly agree.
But throwing money at the kernel people gets you nothing. The kernel people aren't driven by money. You might conceivably find someone who was unable to implement a feature due to lack of money, but all your money has bought is the feature--not apps that exploit the feature.
Actually, I was just using the Kernel as an example. But what irritates me is this notion that "we will use the free/GPL software, include it, write tools to interact with it, but we will not support it in any other ways".
Now if IBM comes out with tools that are not under the GPL, that's fine. They can do what they please, and do what they think will give them the most money.
But it doesn't hurt to help improve the tools that are GPL. I read the comment in the article as "it's non-commercial, it's free, so we won't do anything for it". That is not the way to interact with GPL software and the Open Source community. Write your own tools under your own license, but if you use something that is under GPL and can afford to help improve it a little, then go ahead and do something.
I guess I'm just sick of this free software taboo. My company spends more money on inferior products just because it comes with a license that they understand. I'm not just talking about Windows vs. Linux. We couldn't use majordomo for a mailing list, and had to go buy some terrible "closed source" software. That's just one example. But I've been told by upper management "if it's free then it can't be good". That statement just irritates the hell out of me!
Sorry for the rant, but things have got to change.
Its non-commercial nature, however, means that no money is invested directly in the development of Linux, in contrast to competing products such as Windows, and the Unix operating system developed and sold by IBM, Compaq, SCO and others.
I'm glad that IBM is throwing this much money into developing apps and support for Linux, but I feel that they could also do something to help in the development of the kernel as well. It almost seems that, with this statement, that they are saying "Someone else can worry about that". Like they are taking advantage of the open source community.
Ok, I'm not totally against this, and this is a statement from the reporter and not from IBM themselves. But I think this is a point that most commercial companies are missing. It is actually to their advantage to offer some expertise to the free stuff. For one thing, it makes you look good in the eyes of the community (SGI sees this). And another thing (which RMS probably won't agree with), is that, by doing so, you can have more influence in the decisions that are made.
Actually, closed source drivers are usually given away for free (as in beer). I have downloaded several drivers off the net for free (not for linux though). The problem is that the companies are afraid that the code will act like the blue-prints to their products that their competetors can look at. This may or may not be the case.
It is possible to have a binary driver to work with linux, but it becomes a pain since you can't compile it when you build your kernel. And there may be problems with the driver with upgrades to the kernel.
Although I would be interested in knowing how much changes from one version of the kernel to the next regarding driver interfaces. Is it really that big of a deal. I have successfully used older versions of modules with new versions of the kernel. I just turn off that switch that checks for module kernel versions. Steven Rostedt
Actually I have always felt that Steve Jobs is more of the artistic type. Steve Woz was the computer guy in the apple duet. Jobs was good at marketing.
Even in the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley", Jobs was portrayed as being artistic.
Jobs is the one that keeps coming up with the artistic computers. I really don't care what my computer looks like on the outside. I even try to buy the most standard looking case, just because it is easier to tear out the guts. But then again, I'm not the majority in the market.
Actually I do believe that purpose has a large part to do with it.
Yes, I know about the kubotan, infact I own one (wood version). I also know all about the martial arts weapons. Nunchaku's were used to bash rice, the Bo staff was used to carry water, so on and so forth.
But today, unless you work in a rice field, nunchaku's are mainly a weapon. Infact, where I live (New York), nunchaku's are illegal to own. Its funny that it is more illegal to own nunchakus than it is to own a gun.
Again, purpose and usefulness play a large part. Since cars need a key to start, it is harder for a kid to cause too much damage (although they can take it out of park and roll down a hill). So, ok, If you leave your keys in the car and running, you have some responsibility if a child gets in and hurts someone.
There is a layer of responsibility that comes with things that can kill. Although I wouldn't say a car is more destructive then some guns. Maybe a.22 but its hard to get cars inside a school.
As for me being more against guns. No, I believe they serve a purpose. I'm not against hunting or even just recreational shooting. But I'm for strict gun laws since they are the equalizer. Even though you can be killed by a knife, I much rather face someone who has a knife than someone who has a gun.
My in-laws are big time hunters and I have no problems with that. But they take big responsibility for their guns. They always lock them up and they teach all their children to respect the power of a gun. I don't think of guns as evil, I think of guns as very powerful and dangerous in the wrong hands.
And actually, I believe that a car is more evil than a gun. They hurt the environment more. They make people lazy (I know people who drive a quarter mile on sunny days and no hurry). And with the gas prices of today... Damn!
A nail gun is actually a tool that's meant to be used in construction
And I would say the samething about a nail gun as I would the car. But I don't consider a nail gun to be the same as a pistol.
The more problematic place to draw a line, would be dynamite. Since that is a tool as well. But being very dangerous, it needs to be kept secure.
Nothing's black and white. You have to judge it case by case and different people will judge it differently. But I would say that you need to take into account the availability of the weapon/tool and the likelyhood that it will cause damage.
I would hold responsible if an adult gave keys to a 10 year old and said, go ahead and drive. But I won't blame the adult if the 10 year old took the keys from the table and went out and drove, although there could be blame for raising that kid.
Actually, from what I have read and heard (A buddy of mine does test bench testing on the Crusoe at IBM) is that the Transmeta is going after an even smaller market. -- Cell phones, and things like PDAs.
So, as you said, the smaller appliances are the target, but laptops is a pretty good start.
This matters to whom are the Authors. If you write code that your company pays you to write, then the Company owns the code. So I would say the Company is actually the Author and not you. That's a stretch, so let me rephrase it. The company owns the code, and lets get rid of the word Author.
If you write code on your own time and have no silly contracts with your company. You can publish it under GPL and still use it for any close source version as well. Since you own the code you can do what you want. But once you release that code under GPL, you can't go back and tell those that have it, that it is nolonger GPL and to pay a royalty. The contract is already made, and must be abide by you. If you later want to take your code and make it commercial, it is perfectly fine to do so. But what is out in GPL is always in GPL if not neccessarily mantained by you.
If the company you work for releases the code you write under GPL (under company dollars), the company can later release it under their own license.
What can't be done, is if you incorporate someone's patches and then use that update for your non-GPL version. You can't do that unless you get permission from the owner (better word than author) to use it in your closed-source version. So when someone gives a patch, that is like a new contract, and you have to abide by it as well as those that use your code.
This thread makes more sense if you replace the word "Author" with "Owner".
This machine is used mainly by my wife and kids, and I have my own production machine that I use for work.
But unfortunately, I can't turn javascript off. Well I can, but the sites my family visits won't work. This irritates me that normal family sites require javascript to navigate the site. One that comes to mind, is Mattel's Barbie.com. (Now that site could have turned up something else, luckly it didn't:) But to use it you need javascript turned on. There are several other sites that this is the case, and my wife is not too computer literate to keep turning javascript on and off.
As for banner ads, they don't bother me or my family as long as they are on topic and not pr0nographic. Steven Rostedt
My wife's first experience with the Internet, was when she (with my 4 year old daughter) was looking up my daughter's favorite show "Dragon Tails" Which happens to be a kids cartoon about dragons. My wife typed in "www.dragontails.com" because she didn't know about search engines, and thought that's what you do. You can just imagine what showed up!
When I came home, she told me how she hates the internet because of the filth. She was horrified because every time she closed a window another one popped up that was even more explicit. She ended up just turing off the computer to stop it. I have since taught her to use Google. And to read the hits before clicking the link.
But this is what gives the Internet a bad rap. I don't believe in censoring at all. But there should be a law that prevents being forced into it. There should be a top level domain for adult sites and a law against automatically moving you to the site, since you know the first thing the pr0n industry will do is take a non adult TLD and have it switch you to their site.
Sorry for the rant but something has to be done before the government goes to censorship. Steven Rostedt
Actually one major difference to this and the MS/. case (yikes MS/.;-) is that what was posted on/. was publicly accessible to everyone via MS. Whereas the penthouse photos were exclusively for the pay site. So what was being published on the Usenet was something that you can only get if you paid Penthouse. So, I would say that Penthouse has a legitimate claim that they are losing money from these postings.
So, MS complains that someone posted something that they freely post anyway. Penthouse complains when someone posts something that is NOT freely available.
By allowing the LAW to determine what is right and wrong you can remove many problems associated with letting Politicians and "interested parties" defining the process.
It looks to me that you are contradicting yourself, since the LAW is created by Politicians and "interested parties" (lobbies).
I probably shouldn't post this, because I'll give virus writers some new ideas. But hell, this is/. and I'm going to do it anyway.
I'm also posting this so admins can watch our for it incase a virus writer gets the idea anyway.
Although we had problems with vbs. But thinking back about the Melissa virus coming from a word document. I fear that someone will write a virus that instead of reading you address book, read your inbox, and then send a reply back to all those that have sent you mail. This seems to be more likely something that people will open.
I'm basically forced to use Outlook at work (at home I use pine and netscape) but I deal with documents all day. I constantly mail, forward and reply word documents to my colleagues. But if i receive a reply from someone with a word document, I'm more likely to open it (although I do have macros turned off).
Just a fear of mine, and hopefully there's a solution before there's a virus.
Slashdot Mirror
And would you have suggested Transmeta if Linus was not working there?
Not to say you wouldn't. I don't know how many other low power CPUs are out there. I know Intel is trying to make some.
Transmeta played it smart. They hired a very well known programmer, who developed a successful OS that has a lot of followers (Although Linus did not write all of it, he does get credit for starting it). Then to have him in every interview, when asked what he does, to reply only with "cool stuff". And to top that off, have a web site that only tells you that "it's not here yet", knowing they will have lots of visitors trying to figure out what Linus does. Than taking all that suspense and introducing your tech with an ending like "Survivor". This has brought Transmeta to the front of the stage. Linus may not be the reason for Transmeta's cool stuff, but he helped make them noticed.
Yes there are those that don't give a rat's ass about Mr. Torvalds, but as long as he is in the news, so is Transmeta. We all know that having your company name known by many helps in the business world.
Conclusion, Linus helped Transmeta get to be in the spot light. But it is up to Transmeta to stay there by their own merits.
Steven Rostedt
And restart X and type free.
What you will see is that there is pretty much the same memory allocate. Linux does funny things with memory that you can't base on "free". One thing it does is to cache the file system in "unused memory" so that you can have fast access to files. Ever grep a directory twice. The first time takes forever, then the second time it comes up quickly. This is why.
It's only a leak if it is lost forever. Not if it is being stored for later use. When you restart X, it will reclaim the freed memory of before, not really the same memory, but what's available.
Steven Rostedt
It looks like the most applications are leaking memory
Ok, but shouldn't the OS clean up the memory after the application terminates. I don't keep applications running all the time. I even try login off and logging back on. But things still seem wierd after a month. Maybe it's one of these NT daemon equivalents but most of them are written by MS.
This machine only has 96Meg of RAM so I will experience bad memory usage quickly. But my Linux box only has 64Meg and runs fine. Although having Oracle on it doesn't help.
Steven Rostedt
That brings back memories....
Ok, I use Linux, NT, and 98 at work on a regular basis. 98 crashed just a week ago. I haven't had an X crash since I upgraded to RedHat 6.2. NT hasn't crashed in a year, but I usually need to reboot once a month because strange things start to happen (applications will start to crash for no apparent reason. Things will take forever to startup, etc.) but NT hasn't crashed!
I'm about to get two dual PIII's both with a Gig of RAM to be used on some R&D projects. One will have W2K and the other RedHat Linux. I'll get these machines in October so I'm hoping that 2.4 kernel will be ready. Although they are going to be used for normal R&D research, I'll be doing my own research to see which one lasts longer.
Steven Rostedt
Ok, I'm showing my age.
I haven't used a mainframe for over ten years.
Sorry!
But he/she did say "Unix was designed to run on mainframes" and that sounds like he was talking about Mainframes when they were just a bunch of dumb terminals attached to a centralized unit.
Steven Rostedt
First I must say that Unix was not for mainframes (which is a centralized system) but to be more of a network (client/server paradigm).
You do have valid points, but I must say that the problem may not be with the OS but what we are doing with it. We say that Unix/Linux is not for your grandmother, and I would agree. But *nux is very good with networks. Now the problem is, we are trying to get Grandma onto a network. The Internet.
Now this causes all sorts of problems. I saw one poster a few days talking about how their wife complained about having to log in. "I own this machine, and I'm the only one on it". But that my not be the case if you have an Internet access. You see when you take single user methodologies and put them with network ones, you get things like virus and privacy compromises.
So, we need to educate the average user and maybe tweak the OS a little. But I really think that if you are going to have a connection to the internet, you should have basic knowledge about how to use a computer. The normal analogy is to compare computers with cars. You may not know how a car works, but you definitely know what to do and not do with it before you drive. That's why we have licenses, (although I would say there are those that don't know how to drive). A computer is no different (except for being less dangerous). You should have a basic knowledge before surfing the net. And I'm tired of hearing how Joe Schmoe doesn't want to know anything before using a computer. If all you want to do is play games, that's fine, but if you accept email and go out onto the net, then either learn or accept the consequences.
Steven Rostedt
I'm sorry, but once I heard about the "cheaper and faster" space missions, I knew it was a disaster from the start.
Yes... cheap missions that fail is a bad thing and
expensive missions that succeed is a good thing.
I think we are so excited about how fast technology is going today we are moving blindly. I have had debates with people not so technically incline about how the speed of processors will not be doubling every two years unless some new break through is found. They have this blind notion that "No! technology will never slow down". I agree that technology will always advance, but it will slow down until something new is discovered. You can only improve on a single method so much.
Now back to the space program. I think it's good that things are being taken more seriously, and we should slow down and do things right the first time. Prototypes are ok, but the final product should work.
Unfortunately, this means things like that Pluto mission may be axed. But I'm optimistic that programs canceled today will be the programs of tomorrow.
Steven Rostedt
I've read a lot of comments that talk about the skill level of these programmers, their intentions, and "why would they do this?".
Now we could really test the cathedral and the bizarre. If it is open, hopefully the bugs will be discovered quickly.
Now others have said that most "geeks" would want to use Linux or Free BSD, which is probably true. But this would be a good chance for the "non-geek" community to use open source OS, since the focus here is not to make an efficient OS, but to may a user friendly one. This has been the biggest complaint about Linux and BSD as well as all Unix OS.
Now if your non-geek friend needs help with their Non MS Windows, you would be more incline to help. And if you find a bug, you might just fix it, or at least notify those that are working on it.
So, although I don't ever plan on using this, but if I would find someone who does, I would certainly want to play with it.
Best of luck to those guys.
Steven Rostedt
Actually we did care when Yahoo, CNN.com, etc. was attacked. But we were not emotional about it.
it must take a special kind of asshole to attack a nonprofit site like Kuro5hin. I feel sorry for anyone immature enough to pull a pathetic stunt like this. This is no better than kicking dogs.
That line actually answers your question.
We cared about Yahoo, CNN etc. But those don't seem to be as "human" as Kuro5hin. We can relate to people spending their own time doing something right for the community, and are really annoyed when some ass pulls a stunt like this. But when it happens to corporations, we may be upset, but its a company and not a person. Yes some people are affected by that, but it is more like "part of the job". Volunteers should not have to deal with this crap. (although, no one should)
Steven Rostedt
IBM's strategy is very smart--help APP developers start using Linux and there will be more apps--which means more users, which means more of everything for everybody.
Strongly agree.
But throwing money at the kernel people gets you nothing. The kernel people aren't driven by money. You might conceivably find someone who was unable to implement a feature due to lack of money, but all your money has bought is the feature--not apps that exploit the feature.
Actually, I was just using the Kernel as an example. But what irritates me is this notion that "we will use the free/GPL software, include it, write tools to interact with it, but we will not support it in any other ways".
Now if IBM comes out with tools that are not under the GPL, that's fine. They can do what they please, and do what they think will give them the most money.
But it doesn't hurt to help improve the tools that are GPL. I read the comment in the article as "it's non-commercial, it's free, so we won't do anything for it". That is not the way to interact with GPL software and the Open Source community. Write your own tools under your own license, but if you use something that is under GPL and can afford to help improve it a little, then go ahead and do something.
I guess I'm just sick of this free software taboo. My company spends more money on inferior products just because it comes with a license that they understand. I'm not just talking about Windows vs. Linux. We couldn't use majordomo for a mailing list, and had to go buy some terrible "closed source" software. That's just one example. But I've been told by upper management "if it's free then it can't be good". That statement just irritates the hell out of me!
Sorry for the rant, but things have got to change.
Steven Rostedt
Its non-commercial nature, however, means that no money is invested directly in the development of Linux, in contrast to competing products such as Windows, and the Unix operating system developed and sold by IBM, Compaq, SCO and others.
I'm glad that IBM is throwing this much money into developing apps and support for Linux, but I feel that they could also do something to help in the development of the kernel as well. It almost seems that, with this statement, that they are saying "Someone else can worry about that". Like they are taking advantage of the open source community.
Ok, I'm not totally against this, and this is a statement from the reporter and not from IBM themselves. But I think this is a point that most commercial companies are missing. It is actually to their advantage to offer some expertise to the free stuff. For one thing, it makes you look good in the eyes of the community (SGI sees this). And another thing (which RMS probably won't agree with), is that, by doing so, you can have more influence in the decisions that are made.
Steven Rostedt
Actually, closed source drivers are usually given away for free (as in beer). I have downloaded several drivers off the net for free (not for linux though). The problem is that the companies are afraid that the code will act like the blue-prints to their products that their competetors can look at. This may or may not be the case.
It is possible to have a binary driver to work with linux, but it becomes a pain since you can't compile it when you build your kernel. And there may be problems with the driver with upgrades to the kernel.
Although I would be interested in knowing how much changes from one version of the kernel to the next regarding driver interfaces. Is it really that big of a deal. I have successfully used older versions of modules with new versions of the kernel. I just turn off that switch that checks for module kernel versions.
Steven Rostedt
Come now, we all know that slashdot will become a
;-)
Steven Rostedt
Actually I have always felt that Steve Jobs is more of the artistic type. Steve Woz was the
computer guy in the apple duet. Jobs was good at marketing.
Even in the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley", Jobs was portrayed as being artistic.
Jobs is the one that keeps coming up with the artistic computers. I really don't care what my
computer looks like on the outside. I even try to buy the most standard looking case, just
because it is easier to tear out the guts. But then again, I'm not the majority in the market.
Steven Rostedt
Actually I do believe that purpose has a large part to do with it.
Yes, I know about the kubotan, infact I own one (wood version). I also know all about the martial arts weapons. Nunchaku's were used to bash rice, the Bo staff was used to carry water, so on and so forth.
But today, unless you work in a rice field, nunchaku's are mainly a weapon. Infact, where I live (New York), nunchaku's are illegal to own. Its funny that it is more illegal to own nunchakus than it is to own a gun.
Again, purpose and usefulness play a large part. Since cars need a key to start, it is harder for a kid to cause too much damage (although they can take it out of park and roll down a hill). So, ok, If you leave your keys in the car and running, you have some responsibility if a child gets in and hurts someone.
There is a layer of responsibility that comes with things that can kill. Although I wouldn't say a car is more destructive then some guns. Maybe a
As for me being more against guns. No, I believe they serve a purpose. I'm not against hunting or even just recreational shooting. But I'm for strict gun laws since they are the equalizer. Even though you can be killed by a knife, I much rather face someone who has a knife than someone who has a gun.
My in-laws are big time hunters and I have no problems with that. But they take big responsibility for their guns. They always lock them up and they teach all their children to respect the power of a gun. I don't think of guns as evil, I think of guns as very powerful and dangerous in the wrong hands.
And actually, I believe that a car is more evil than a gun. They hurt the environment more. They make people lazy (I know people who drive a quarter mile on sunny days and no hurry). And with the gas prices of today... Damn!
Steven Rostedt
A nail gun is actually a tool that's meant to be used in construction
And I would say the samething about a nail gun as I would the car. But I don't consider a nail gun to be the same as a pistol.
The more problematic place to draw a line, would be dynamite. Since that is a tool as well. But being very dangerous, it needs to be kept secure.
Nothing's black and white. You have to judge it case by case and different people will judge it differently. But I would say that you need to take into account the availability of the weapon/tool and the likelyhood that it will cause damage.
I would hold responsible if an adult gave keys to a 10 year old and said, go ahead and drive. But I won't blame the adult if the 10 year old took the keys from the table and went out and drove, although there could be blame for raising that kid.
Ok, I had enough of being Offtopic
Steven Rostedt
Actually, from what I have read and heard (A buddy of mine does test bench testing on the Crusoe at IBM) is that the Transmeta is going after an even smaller market. -- Cell phones, and things like PDAs.
So, as you said, the smaller appliances are the target, but laptops is a pretty good start.
Steven Rostedt
This matters to whom are the Authors. If you write code that your company pays you to write, then the Company owns the code. So I would say the Company is actually the Author and not you. That's a stretch, so let me rephrase it. The company owns the code, and lets get rid of the word Author.
If you write code on your own time and have no silly contracts with your company. You can publish it under GPL and still use it for any close source version as well. Since you own the code you can do what you want. But once you release that code under GPL, you can't go back and tell those that have it, that it is nolonger GPL and to pay a royalty. The contract is already made, and must be abide by you. If you later want to take your code and make it commercial, it is perfectly fine to do so. But what is out in GPL is always in GPL if not neccessarily mantained by you.
If the company you work for releases the code you write under GPL (under company dollars), the company can later release it under their own license.
What can't be done, is if you incorporate someone's patches and then use that update for your non-GPL version. You can't do that unless you get permission from the owner (better word than author) to use it in your closed-source version. So when someone gives a patch, that is like a new contract, and you have to abide by it as well as those that use your code.
This thread makes more sense if you replace the word "Author" with "Owner".
Steven Rostedt
Amazing thing about the English language, isn't it?
:-)
Now if my wife (and I for that matter) knew it was Dragon Tales and not Tails this would not have been a problem
Steven Rostedt
This machine is used mainly by my wife and kids, and I have my own production machine that I use for work.
:) But to use it you need javascript turned on. There are several other sites that this is the case, and my wife is not too computer literate to keep turning javascript on and off.
But unfortunately, I can't turn javascript off. Well I can, but the sites my family visits won't work. This irritates me that normal family sites require javascript to navigate the site. One that comes to mind, is Mattel's Barbie.com. (Now that site could have turned up something else, luckly it didn't
As for banner ads, they don't bother me or my family as long as they are on topic and not pr0nographic.
Steven Rostedt
My wife's first experience with the Internet, was when she (with my 4 year old daughter) was looking up my daughter's favorite show "Dragon Tails" Which happens to be a kids cartoon about dragons. My wife typed in "www.dragontails.com" because she didn't know about search engines, and thought that's what you do. You can just imagine what showed up!
When I came home, she told me how she hates the internet because of the filth. She was horrified because every time she closed a window another one popped up that was even more explicit. She ended up just turing off the computer to stop it. I have since taught her to use Google. And to read the hits before clicking the link.
But this is what gives the Internet a bad rap. I don't believe in censoring at all. But there should be a law that prevents being forced into it. There should be a top level domain for adult sites and a law against automatically moving you to the site, since you know the first thing the pr0n industry will do is take a non adult TLD and have it switch you to their site.
Sorry for the rant but something has to be done before the government goes to censorship.
Steven Rostedt
Actually one major difference to this and the MS /. case (yikes MS /. ;-) is that what was posted on /. was publicly accessible to everyone via MS. Whereas the penthouse photos were exclusively for the pay site. So what was being published on the Usenet was something that you can only get if you paid Penthouse. So, I would say that Penthouse has a legitimate claim that they are losing money from these postings.
So, MS complains that someone posted something that they freely post anyway. Penthouse complains when someone posts something that is NOT freely available.
Steven Rostedt
By allowing the LAW to determine what is right and wrong you can remove many problems associated with letting Politicians and "interested parties" defining the process.
It looks to me that you are contradicting yourself, since the LAW is created by Politicians and "interested parties" (lobbies).
Steven Rostedt
I probably shouldn't post this, because I'll give virus writers some new ideas. But hell, this is /. and I'm going to do it anyway.
I'm also posting this so admins can watch our for it incase a virus writer gets the idea anyway.
Although we had problems with vbs. But thinking back about the Melissa virus coming from a word document. I fear that someone will write a virus that instead of reading you address book, read your inbox, and then send a reply back to all those that have sent you mail. This seems to be more likely something that people will open.
I'm basically forced to use Outlook at work (at home I use pine and netscape) but I deal with documents all day. I constantly mail, forward and reply word documents to my colleagues. But if i receive a reply from someone with a word document, I'm more likely to open it (although I do have macros turned off).
Just a fear of mine, and hopefully there's a solution before there's a virus.
Steven Rostedt
Damn, I got hit with a variant of this!
- YOU HAVE NOW RECEIVED THE UNIX VIRUS -
This virus works on the honor system:
If you're running a variant of unix or linux, please forward
this message to everyone you know and delete a bunch of your
files at random
And just after I got done restoring my files from backup, I was hit again by a different variant!!!
Will the horror never end?
:0)
Steven Rostedt