Well... maybe it will, us english people are scarily apathetic, perhaps we care, perhaps we don't, and even if we did there aren't many people that would actually make a stand.
Having said this is was 7 years ago when the single data card idea was proposed in UK government, the card with an electronic chip which would hold all our info (we wouldn't get to know what info it held) and would supposedly have had a chip that could be tracked so the police would always know where we were.
It didn't happen, I don't think these proposals will either.
We *DO* still live in a democracy of sorts, although maybe not for much longer.
Hmm - just a few articles ago there was a story about the EU putting an embargo on intel... surely that doesn't bode well for the SuSE investment, SuSE being a German company and all.
This could get interesting... maybe one big mess?
The timing is empecable, is this really a good thing??
How could you possibly like a distro that changes *ALL* of the normal dependencies????
Okay so it's great if you want a no frills out of the box version of linux with no up to date packages and nothing to compile non packaged code with, but otherwise it's USELESS!!!
We have used it at work for near on 2 years now, and it's finally got to breaking point. It just doesn't work if you want to do anything non-standard with it.
Even when you compile -nodeps it still barfs because nothing follows a logical path.
Anyway, with current trends, EU directives mean very little anyway, I can't imagine anyone actually sticking to this one, regardless of the pivacy implications.
I for one don't particularly want to add an athlon to the pIII450 I have in my current dual motherboard. Nor do I want to forsake the hardware I already have to buy new 'non serialed' stuff.
Sucky... particularly with all the other privacy issues flying around at the moment that *never* get talked about!
How about the cold war, surely one of the best hacks around?
It did wonders for the world economy and scared the **** out of most people at the same time.
Sure it could have lead to a complete world disaster that could have destroyed the planet, but what the hell. It was all good clean fun and kept people in jobs for years!
The question is, what percentage of the really good cracks do we actually get to hear about?
I mean, the major companies would put people under pain of death for leaking any information about the really dangerous interesting non script kiddy stuff. I think there are many more out there than we know about, and probably some very rich people because of them. It's just impossible to tell.
Of course, it's funny how people can actually use being cracked to their advantage. As with the UK Conservative Party who last night announced that a 'hacker' had tampered with their accounts, coincidentaly the same day as a major newspaper revealed that the Conservative Party had been fidling their books for the umpteenth time in the past few years.
Small companies want/like to keep things 'known'. They want to be sure that their systems aren't going to fail and that they can develop things with relatively low investment in time and resources.
Yes, we all know the arguments about TCO and Opensource and all that, but at the end of the day it's the quick and easy (and yes sometimes dirty) fixes that work best, and they have their place.
It's the same at the company I work for, we are a linux house, we write our own stuff in mod_perl. Yet we put up a dual Piii500 server running NT4Server and purchased at quite a cost a piece of e-commerce software to run our e-commerce outfit precisely because it was quick (this is a matter of perceptions) and relatively easy. It was a managers choice, and perhaps in the long run the wrong choice, but it happened none the less.
It seems to me that there are 2 kinds of company, and 2 types of IT depts.
Managers make the decisions about hardware/software and other business decisions and very often they are not in the 'know' about the arguments between opensource and closed source. They see a product that does 80% of what they want, and they will buy it because they *know* it will do what it says on the tin. They expect no more.
This is a standard thing, unless managers relinquish at least some of the responsibility to those in the 'know', then it's the way it stays.
To a non technical manager, paying $50,000 for a system that will do exactly what it says for minimal hassle then it's very tempting. Much more of a sure fire thing than spending half that on something which has the potential, but needs developing.
NT does to a greater or lesser extent do exactly what it says, as do the products that run on it. No they aren't great, and you can't always adapt them at all *because* they are proprietary, but most people (read managers) will settle for this.
Ultimately if someone is knowingly using software for illegal things then they are responsible, end of story.
However you can also argue that the people who develop the software can be held accountable for enabling people to perform these illegal actions. In the same way that it is illegal to sell certain guns to people in the UK unless they specifically have an owners license.
Then again, people use windows, linux and all sorts of other things for illegal purposes, visual interdev creates programs that do illegal things all the time (haha - sorry - had to throw that one in).
It's an interesting ethical question, creating software purely for illegal purposes is indeed unethical, but it *can* be a fine fine line.
Debian for it's excellent desktop/workstation capabilities with their wonderful autoupdating website/dependencies thing and the total hackability of it all. The packages always work, and their dependencies aren't all funny like they often are with SuSE and RedHat,
However I use FreeBSD for my servers, yes it's not the easiest of distros and it's very hard to get anything real working (for a relative newbie like me anyway), but it works, very well in fact. It never ever crashes and it servers my websites just fine. There are very few bugs very few updates, and I can just leave it alone totally.
To combine both? Well - heaven - what else can it be. Add to it KDE 2.0 and you have the complete MS competitor for the desktop/low end server market.
The y2K issues aren't going to be about a computers internal dates, they will be about all the wierd lamers and fanatics out there that think it's a handy date for them to do their stuff while people are recovering from their hangovers.
Who knows how many virii there are out there that lie dormant until 1/1/00, who knows how many hackers there are, or indeed even bombs out there with detonators set for 00:01 1/1/2000
I might be paranoid, I might not be, all I know is that humans are a strange breed in general and do some very silly things.
The thing I have always like about KDE is it's simplicity of use.
I am not a linux hacker and have never claimed to be, I am used to windows98 and NT4 and while I dislike it's bugs, security issues and lack of source they are still useful operating systems.
Until KDE came along I have to admit I was scared of linux... the WMs that were around were very basic and I was addicted to the Ms way of doing things.
Now this is all changing,I have been using KDE for quite a while now and anticipate the release of v2 with baited breath, it takes something like KDE to convert all us MS users who like the idea of linux but are scared of it.
You can run it quite happily after install, or you can hack it to bits. It's themeable and it has all the software bits and LAF of windows, while at the same time being quite different.
What more could a windows user want?
What's more, here in the office we are considering putting all the admin monkeys on a locked down version of linux with StarOffice and KDE too!
Slightly strange article commenting on/. as a under-educated self interest group??
I'm sorry, I read slashdot for the technology news and intrinsicly highly educated comments and analysis, at least here you can say there are no market forces or capitalist influences, and if there are they tend to balance each other out.
You will always get the rubbish, it's unavoidable even on/. - but at least here it's evident, and can easily be weeded out by setting comment thresholds to 2 or similar.
It seems to me that people are starting to fear/. as a leading source of commentary and popular opinion, and if this is the case then I can only see this as a good thing. It is rare that a group of people can have an influence on a trade, and even more rare to do it through a single web site.
In my opinion this article is a compliment to the good ethos Rob and co. have created and long may it continue!
Some people will pay for it, some wont. Simple as that. Home users will almost inevitably buy it OEM - which means there will always be a market. Corporations will buy it in the hope that it is more stable and secure than NT4 server.
Price is 90% meaningless IMHO.
On the other hand the security issues surrounding the must buy to browse issue scares me!
Ratface typed randomly at his keyboard and spelt out: Personally, I feel that I would rather have soft(/hard)ware companies be held *more* responsible for their products than less. However a lawsuit of this type seems ridiculous as well. We need something inbetween - but if companies have warranties that protect them when they ship faulty products, what can we do to threaten them with the message that delivering reliable products is what the consumers want?
Well... if this is the case as you suggest it *does* leave a big hole for companies that are willing to provide software/hardware with decent warranties and who will take responsibility. If this happens it leaves the door open for smaller calue added companies who are willing to take risks and are more likely to win. Following a this argument to it's logical conclusion means that people will be scared away from the big no-nonsense no support corporations to the smaller manufacturer. Could this be the downfall?
You also have to remember that part of the GPL states that no support is given and that if it is broken or doesnt work for you *TOUGH*. That old phrase "mileage may vary" springs to mind. It's very much the same with licensed software.
There is a scary trend in the commercial software world where you pay $xxx for a largely shoddy product with known bugs, then you have to pay another $xxx for support to fix the bugs that were in the product when it shipped!! - All done under the guise of support saying 'well it works on our system' - Perhaps a symptom of the diverse hardware and software market that now exists. Perhaps not... I do not wish to make cynical statements.
There is only one easy answer... talk with your money. If you are worried about it - don't buy it. There are almost always alternatives out there that are a) cost free or covered by a GPL and b) come with support cost free (isn't that one of the many great things about the interenet).
While I am not a huge raving fan of the GPL it *does* have it's benefits, and they are to both the developer and the user. It's a no-lose situation.
Anything stated in this email is purely the opinion of the author, please don't shoot him.
The basis to all respect is love, the basis of all love and respect for other people is to love and respect ourselves first.
Society puts so much pressure on *ALL* of us no matter what kind of lifestyle we choose to lead, making it very difficult both love and respect ourselves. We are constantly reminded about the mistakes we make, never allowed to forget them or move on, reminded of how we dont fit into societal norms and taunted and forced to change into something more popular in the societal view. This kind of pressure *is* a method of social control as someone else so rightly pointed out. It opresses us into mindless beings who are here to serve the purpose of accumulating money for corrupt governments.
How can we possibly expect to have love, respect and understanding if we are not allowed or help and even positively prevented from loving respecting and understanding ourselves.
The only person that can see my world is me, because I am the only one that sees through my eyes, feels my feelings and percieves with my thoughs. Until I understand the way I think feel and see, until I am able to fully understand my world and relate it to that of others I am always going to have problems.
I feel for the people of littleton, I feel for everyone that has posted to this thread and others and I have been moved beyond words at what I have read. I myself am only now beginning to realise just how much my school years effected me and how even now I find myself reacting to events that happen in my life currently in ways which have been conditioned in my past... REacting in ways which are very much protective and self preserving instead of ACTing the way I want to act and being the person I want to be as a free being who has choices in the way he lives.
I'm not sure how much sense this has made all I can say is that if we lived in a world where we were allowed to love and respect ourselves then love and respect for others would come automatically.
I cannot blame anyone for what has happened, (flame me if you like, if you do email me don't make the thread suffer), but I firmly believe that this will continue happening until we change the emphasis on our lives. Until society as a whole is based on love and not on blame then we are in for a rollercoater ride of a future.
Slashdot Mirror
Well... maybe it will, us english people are scarily apathetic, perhaps we care, perhaps we don't, and even if we did there aren't many people that would actually make a stand.
Having said this is was 7 years ago when the single data card idea was proposed in UK government, the card with an electronic chip which would hold all our info (we wouldn't get to know what info it held) and would supposedly have had a chip that could be tracked so the police would always know where we were.
It didn't happen, I don't think these proposals will either.
We *DO* still live in a democracy of sorts, although maybe not for much longer.
Erm hello??
No I'm talking about non RPM'ed code - stuff that isn't nicely packaged... you know... the stuff that's actually useful?
SuSE RPM's are great, they work really well, if you don't mind being totally limited to what they offer in RPM format.
Please don't moderate this, it adds, nothing to the discusion, I'm merely replying to someone else.
Hmm - just a few articles ago there was a story about the EU putting an embargo on intel... surely that doesn't bode well for the SuSE investment, SuSE being a German company and all.
This could get interesting... maybe one big mess?
The timing is empecable, is this really a good thing??
How could you possibly like a distro that changes *ALL* of the normal dependencies????
Okay so it's great if you want a no frills out of the box version of linux with no up to date packages and nothing to compile non packaged code with, but otherwise it's USELESS!!!
We have used it at work for near on 2 years now, and it's finally got to breaking point. It just doesn't work if you want to do anything non-standard with it.
Even when you compile -nodeps it still barfs because nothing follows a logical path.
*yuck*
Debian rules, FreeBSD is cool... SuSE, no thanks.
...it should be up to the user to take the risk?
What happened to consumer choice?
Anyway, with current trends, EU directives mean very little anyway, I can't imagine anyone actually sticking to this one, regardless of the pivacy implications.
I for one don't particularly want to add an athlon to the pIII450 I have in my current dual motherboard. Nor do I want to forsake the hardware I already have to buy new 'non serialed' stuff.
Sucky... particularly with all the other privacy issues flying around at the moment that *never* get talked about!
How about the cold war, surely one of the best hacks around?
It did wonders for the world economy and scared the **** out of most people at the same time.
Sure it could have lead to a complete world disaster that could have destroyed the planet, but what the hell. It was all good clean fun and kept people in jobs for years!
The question is, what percentage of the really good cracks do we actually get to hear about?
I mean, the major companies would put people under pain of death for leaking any information about the really dangerous interesting non script kiddy stuff. I think there are many more out there than we know about, and probably some very rich people because of them. It's just impossible to tell.
Of course, it's funny how people can actually use being cracked to their advantage. As with the UK Conservative Party who last night announced that a 'hacker' had tampered with their accounts, coincidentaly the same day as a major newspaper revealed that the Conservative Party had been fidling their books for the umpteenth time in the past few years.
Slightly suspect I think
Ack - hitting return posted the comment
Anyway, as I was saying...
Small companies want/like to keep things 'known'. They want to be sure that their systems aren't going to fail and that they can develop things with relatively low investment in time and resources.
Yes, we all know the arguments about TCO and Opensource and all that, but at the end of the day it's the quick and easy (and yes sometimes dirty) fixes that work best, and they have their place.
It's the same at the company I work for, we are a linux house, we write our own stuff in mod_perl. Yet we put up a dual Piii500 server running NT4Server and purchased at quite a cost a piece of e-commerce software to run our e-commerce outfit precisely because it was quick (this is a matter of perceptions) and relatively easy. It was a managers choice, and perhaps in the long run the wrong choice, but it happened none the less.
It seems to me that there are 2 kinds of company, and 2 types of IT depts.
Managers make the decisions about hardware/software and other business decisions and very often they are not in the 'know' about the arguments between opensource and closed source. They see a product that does 80% of what they want, and they will buy it because they *know* it will do what it says on the tin. They expect no more.
This is a standard thing, unless managers relinquish at least some of the responsibility to those in the 'know', then it's the way it stays.
To a non technical manager, paying $50,000 for a system that will do exactly what it says for minimal hassle then it's very tempting. Much more of a sure fire thing than spending half that on something which has the potential, but needs developing.
NT does to a greater or lesser extent do exactly what it says, as do the products that run on it. No they aren't great, and you can't always adapt them at all *because* they are proprietary, but most people (read managers) will settle for this.
That's why NT is here to stay.
There are so many other variables.
It's all a question of 'intent'.
Ultimately if someone is knowingly using software for illegal things then they are responsible, end of story.
However you can also argue that the people who develop the software can be held accountable for enabling people to perform these illegal actions. In the same way that it is illegal to sell certain guns to people in the UK unless they specifically have an owners license.
Then again, people use windows, linux and all sorts of other things for illegal purposes, visual interdev creates programs that do illegal things all the time (haha - sorry - had to throw that one in).
It's an interesting ethical question, creating software purely for illegal purposes is indeed unethical, but it *can* be a fine fine line.
I use both debian and FreeBSD,
Debian for it's excellent desktop/workstation capabilities with their wonderful autoupdating website/dependencies thing and the total hackability of it all. The packages always work, and their dependencies aren't all funny like they often are with SuSE and RedHat,
However I use FreeBSD for my servers, yes it's not the easiest of distros and it's very hard to get anything real working (for a relative newbie like me anyway), but it works, very well in fact. It never ever crashes and it servers my websites just fine. There are very few bugs very few updates, and I can just leave it alone totally.
To combine both? Well - heaven - what else can it be. Add to it KDE 2.0 and you have the complete MS competitor for the desktop/low end server market.
Bring it on!!
The y2K issues aren't going to be about a computers internal dates, they will be about all the wierd lamers and fanatics out there that think it's a handy date for them to do their stuff while people are recovering from their hangovers.
:o)
Who knows how many virii there are out there that lie dormant until 1/1/00, who knows how many hackers there are, or indeed even bombs out there with detonators set for 00:01 1/1/2000
I might be paranoid, I might not be, all I know is that humans are a strange breed in general and do some very silly things.
Still, I don't much care, I'll be hungover
The thing I have always like about KDE is it's simplicity of use.
I am not a linux hacker and have never claimed to be, I am used to windows98 and NT4 and while I dislike it's bugs, security issues and lack of source they are still useful operating systems.
Until KDE came along I have to admit I was scared of linux... the WMs that were around were very basic and I was addicted to the Ms way of doing things.
Now this is all changing,I have been using KDE for quite a while now and anticipate the release of v2 with baited breath, it takes something like KDE to convert all us MS users who like the idea of linux but are scared of it.
You can run it quite happily after install, or you can hack it to bits. It's themeable and it has all the software bits and LAF of windows, while at the same time being quite different.
What more could a windows user want?
What's more, here in the office we are considering putting all the admin monkeys on a locked down version of linux with StarOffice and KDE too!
The future is bright.
Slightly strange article commenting on /. as a under-educated self interest group??
/. - but at least here it's evident, and can easily be weeded out by setting comment thresholds to 2 or similar.
/. as a leading source of commentary and popular opinion, and if this is the case then I can only see this as a good thing. It is rare that a group of people can have an influence on a trade, and even more rare to do it through a single web site.
I'm sorry, I read slashdot for the technology news and intrinsicly highly educated comments and analysis, at least here you can say there are no market forces or capitalist influences, and if there are they tend to balance each other out.
You will always get the rubbish, it's unavoidable even on
It seems to me that people are starting to fear
In my opinion this article is a compliment to the good ethos Rob and co. have created and long may it continue!
Some people will pay for it, some wont. Simple as that. Home users will almost inevitably buy it OEM - which means there will always be a market. Corporations will buy it in the hope that it is more stable and secure than NT4 server.
Price is 90% meaningless IMHO.
On the other hand the security issues surrounding the must buy to browse issue scares me!
Well... if this is the case as you suggest it *does* leave a big hole for companies that are willing to provide software/hardware with decent warranties and who will take responsibility. If this happens it leaves the door open for smaller calue added companies who are willing to take risks and are more likely to win. Following a this argument to it's logical conclusion means that people will be scared away from the big no-nonsense no support corporations to the smaller manufacturer. Could this be the downfall?
You also have to remember that part of the GPL states that no support is given and that if it is broken or doesnt work for you *TOUGH*. That old phrase "mileage may vary" springs to mind. It's very much the same with licensed software.
There is a scary trend in the commercial software world where you pay $xxx for a largely shoddy product with known bugs, then you have to pay another $xxx for support to fix the bugs that were in the product when it shipped!! - All done under the guise of support saying 'well it works on our system' - Perhaps a symptom of the diverse hardware and software market that now exists. Perhaps not... I do not wish to make cynical statements.
There is only one easy answer... talk with your money. If you are worried about it - don't buy it. There are almost always alternatives out there that are a) cost free or covered by a GPL and b) come with support cost free (isn't that one of the many great things about the interenet).
While I am not a huge raving fan of the GPL it *does* have it's benefits, and they are to both the developer and the user. It's a no-lose situation.
Anything stated in this email is purely the opinion of the author, please don't shoot him.
Can the Times sue the NYT over the models eggs story?
Can I sue my boss for missing a deadline?
Hohum - I could... but I wont... because I have more exciting things to do in life.
It isn't all about an easy buck - there are more things to life than that. Believe it or not.
I *sigh* at the world sometimes.
The basis to all respect is love, the basis of all love and respect for other people is to love and respect ourselves first.
Society puts so much pressure on *ALL* of us no matter what kind of lifestyle we choose to lead, making it very difficult both love and respect ourselves. We are constantly reminded about the mistakes we make, never allowed to forget them or move on, reminded of how we dont fit into societal norms and taunted and forced to change into something more popular in the societal view. This kind of pressure *is* a method of social control as someone else so rightly pointed out. It opresses us into mindless beings who are here to serve the purpose of accumulating money for corrupt governments.
How can we possibly expect to have love, respect and understanding if we are not allowed or help and even positively prevented from loving respecting and understanding ourselves.
The only person that can see my world is me, because I am the only one that sees through my eyes, feels my feelings and percieves with my thoughs. Until I understand the way I think feel and see, until I am able to fully understand my world and relate it to that of others I am always going to have problems.
I feel for the people of littleton, I feel for everyone that has posted to this thread and others and I have been moved beyond words at what I have read. I myself am only now beginning to realise just how much my school years effected me and how even now I find myself reacting to events that happen in my life currently in ways which have been conditioned in my past... REacting in ways which are very much protective and self preserving instead of ACTing the way I want to act and being the person I want to be as a free being who has choices in the way he lives.
I'm not sure how much sense this has made all I can say is that if we lived in a world where we were allowed to love and respect ourselves then love and respect for others would come automatically.
I cannot blame anyone for what has happened, (flame me if you like, if you do email me don't make the thread suffer), but I firmly believe that this will continue happening until we change the emphasis on our lives. Until society as a whole is based on love and not on blame then we are in for a rollercoater ride of a future.
Merry part,
Ben