No judge will ever allow something like that to hold up in court.
And it has to hold up in court because...?
Do you honestly believe the "average" American consumer would go to court against Microsoft to fight, say, an additional 5 dollar licensing fee snuck into the EULA?
Large companies like Microsoft will threaten people with Lawsuits over the most inane details. See the recent thread on MS threatening the NTFS developers. The threat of a lawsuit is often far more effective in getting things done than the actual lawsuit itself.
And not even Microsoft would be so bold as to try something like that.
Right. And not even Microsoft would engage in blatant violations of a consumer's rights. And it would never invade a user's privacy with its online software update service. Or its web browser. And it would never, ever violate any anti-trust laws whatsoever. Did I mention that all those "bugs" people complain about in Windows are actually features?
Oh wait. I guess it has, hasn't it? Saying Microsoft would never be so "bold" as to try something like this is begging them to do it. If not Microsoft, then certainly another company will. Don't be naive. If there's a way to exploit a law in a legal fashion like, there are plenty of companies that will leap at the chance to.
Here's an easy way of getting out of a legally binding contract: "I'm sorry your Honor, but someone else must've been using my computer."
Sure, you can claim someone else was using your computer. Microsoft will just claim you're lying and trying to escape the terms of the agreement.
Can you prove you didn't install the OS on your machine? How about proving that you didn't accept the EULA when you started using it?
Remember, thanks to the lack of definition as to what an "electronic signature" is, _using Windows_ could be viewed as a signature.
If I were you, I'd read those EULA's very carefully before clicking on "I Accept". Especially if they require you to register your product with your name like Microsoft does. I know I will be.
You know that 'Accept' button you clicked on as part of the Microsoft installation process? You know, the one about the EULA?
Start reading it. Really carefully.
To quote the CNN article:
But the expanded definition of legal signatures and flaws in the technology could contribute to fraud. The law does not specify a type of technology for e-signatures. They can be obtained through secured processes, like secret passwords or digital fingerprints, as well as unsecured ones, such as faxed signatures or
clicking an acceptance button on a Web page.
(emphasis mine)
This means that the EULA you're clicking 'Accept' for can now be as legally binding as, oh, say, a loan from a bank. Or a bill of sale.
Watch for Microsoft's next version of its EULA, where you agree not to compete with the company for the next 5 years. Or watch for the inevitable rash of popup boxes that require you to hit 'okay' to get rid of. Nevermind mind the fact that when you hit okay, you're legally signing away all your worldly possessions.
Who needs the DMCA to trample our software rights? This law will do it all for us by itself...
Let the war on my Karma begin, but this article is just way too much.
I had been one of the (few?) people on/. that actually enjoyed many of Katz's articles.
This one, however, has made me join many of the other readers in filtering out Katz posts now. Katz has completely crossed the line of even editorializing here, and has wandered off the deep end into the realm of zealotry and conspiracy theory.
I don't come to/. for politcal diatribe and for groundless threats and accusations of huge conspiracy theories determined to remove our right and privledges all for the sake of stopping the Internet.
Every season brings more books, articles, news stories warning that technology is driving us crazy, making us stupid, turning out kids into murderers, endangering out families. And how many articles and TV news stories have you seen on dangerous "hackers," online predators, Net addicts?
Great. And how do these articles, TV news stories, books, and news stories get published? Oh yes, the entire media system is part of the Neo-Luddite conspiracy, isn't it?
But no assault has been more relentless than the idea that technology and culture endanger the moral and literal lives of children. For years Bennett and Lieberman have led a wildly successful campaign (now joined both by Al Gore and George W. Bush), thumping the entertainment industry for allegedly contributing to violent behavior.
Great. So Al Gore and George W. Bush are both leading the Neo-Luddite campaign to our doorstep. Technology as we know it is doomed if we vote for either one of them. I'm surprised Katz doesn't present us with someone running for president to stop the Neo-Luddite menace. Any volunteers Katz?
It's interesting how modern-day Luddites invoke morality as a shield to mask zealotry and ignorance.
And it's interesting how Katz invokes the same morality as a shield against his own zealotry. This article reads as little more than a long-winded governmental conspiracy theory against Neo-Luddites. Let me guess, Bill Gates is part of the Neo-Luddite conspiracy too, since he supports the highly restrictive and probably unconstitional DMCA? Please. There are plenty of reasons for politicians to vote for laws that restrict our rights and privledges. They don't need to be members of an anti-technology conspiracy to do it.
If you're going to construct conspiracy theories, I suggest you read the Illuminatus Triology. You'll learn a lesson or two in conspiracy theories as taught by the Grand Illuminated Masters themselves.
Nothing has been "rolled out". This is not a product launch. This is the prototype release of preliminary code for a development kernel. The 2.4.x series isn't here yet, and neither is MontaVista's code.
Read the article, as there are several paragraphs in there talking about where this code will be going. They're hoping to get it incorporated into 2.5.x NOT 2.4.x.
>Now, cp will attempt to preserve the permissions
>of an original file within the constraints of
>your umask. With a umask of 022, a file with
>permissions of 600 will keep those permissions if
>you cp it somewhere. scp behaves in the same way.
>Unless you're doing something stupid like
>using cat to copy your keys around, it doesn't
>seem like a problem.
Hrm. Poor example then. You do, however, see my point. Anything you create is immediately vulnerable to being copied by any other user. Forget using your favorite editor to create files. Now you need to "touch filename;chmod 600 filename;vi filename".
Fortunately emacs obeys existing file permissions with is tilde files, otherwise you could be in for even more pain.
Why are you going to give hackers another _unnecessary_ opening in your system? We're talking security here people, come on. The fact that it 'requires root' in order to hack/etc/groups is crap, and you know it. If it "required root" to hack things, nobody would ever get rooted except from someone walking up to the console and booting into single user mode. With as focused on security as this discussion is, I'm surprised you even brought that up.
What happens if there's a bug in say, vi, that lets an unpriveledged user kidnap an editing session only for the current file being edited? If you're editing/etc/group to set up that new web-editing group, you've just lost all your user files under those default permissions. Is there such a security whole in vi? Of course not. Could it conceivably happen? Hell yes.
Your example for/var/www has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand. Setting that up requires two steps: a) changing the permissions to be set-gid on the directory and b) changing the ownership.
Having to do both of those things means you have saved the user exactly NO time by making things default to being group read/write/world read.
There is nothing wrong with having those permissions on a directory. It _is_ a problem if those permissions are the _default_.
>Group writable home directories: Debian uses
>"usergroups", where every user gets their own
>group. This makes working on shared projects
>(in a +s directory) slightly easier, since your
>umask is 002. However, since nobody is in your
>group by default, your home directory and files
>there are as secure as if they were only user
>writable. This is configurable in
>/etc/adduser.conf, and if it is set to no,
>Debian's default login scripts do the correct
>thing and set your umask to 022
No no no! This is _not_ the correct thing. If each user is the only member of his/her default group (i.e. joeuser/joeuser) and all of his/her files are owned by that group, you are providing _no_ extra functionality by having them group-writeable, or even group-readable. None. Zero. This "makes working on shared projects (in a +s directory) slightly easier" thing is an absolute myth. In order to do what you describe, the user would both have to a) have an idea of how to run chmod and b) actually _run_ chmod, at which point they can change the safe, secure, hopefully default permissions that allow _only_ the original user access to it.
Why is this so important? Because leaving everything completely accessible by groups, _any_ groups, opens up another file to be comprimised. In the above arrangement, all a hacker needs to do is find a way to hack/etc/group (or whatever the equivelent is. I don't use Debian, myself). That's right. Thanks to having hacked/etc/group, all your shadow passwords are no longer neccesary, since the hacker can now access any user files (s)he wants. I wonder if they do root files like that...
Also, neither you nor Ben Collins address the problems of leaving user directories world-readable and -executable by default. Say goodbye to working ssh under that arrangement, unless you've got the foresight to manually set your directories up properly. And what happens when you try to set your ssh keys up, expecting things to be secure? You've got a window of oppurtunity where another user on the system can get _all_ of your RSA information. Your personal and private keys are right there, ripe for the taking with just a simple "cp../joeuser/.ssh/* ~", and you'd never be the wiser.
Come on folks, say it with me now: The correct thing to do is set umask 077 and chmod -R 700/home.
>No, it's not copyright infringement, because they >are not trying to pass someone else's work off as >their own. They are just choosing an amusing >naming scheme for files. I don't think that >anyone's likely to believe that their cuckoo >noises are really black sabbath recordings, so to >claim that they're violating anything is a >stretch.
They are passing _their_ work off as someone else's! They say so on their page. And you can choose whatever crazy naming format you like for you files, as long as you're the only one looking at it.
The problem here, though, is that they are _publishing_ these files via Napster, making them visible to the rest of the net. In order to determine that the files are _actually_ cuckoo noises and not the _copyrighted music that they are claimed to be_, you would have to download the file. At which point, according to the RIAA's attorneys, you've comitted piracy via Napster, because you've downloaded a file that matches the name of one of their songs.
So, since you couldn't have known beforehand that the files contained something other than what they were labelled to contain, why were you downloading it in the first place? To listen to what you thought was a Black Sabbath, or Kid Rock, or some other piece of music.
If these people did this out of the back of their car with selling cds instead of trading mp3s, they'd be guilty of more numerous law offenses than I'm qualified to list. Fraud, Trademark and Copyright infringement, and false advertising come to mind. Being that it's on Napster and being freely shared makes it less of a crime (though how much less is best left up to the lawyer-types), but does not remove copyright and/or trademark infringement problems, because those are violations regardless of whether profit is being made by the violator.
An interesting project, but wouldn't labelling your work as if it were actually someone else's be considered copyright infringement as well?
If take my homegrown CD, label it up like, oh, the latest Kid Rock album, and sell to some poor guy looking for a Kid Rock album, haven't I just infringement on the copyright? (and committed fraud in the process?)
This isn't exactly a great way to protest piracy on Napster. Yes, it's amusing. Yes, you'll be able to fool some pirates using this. But this is a much more powerful stride _for_ Napster than against. Napster Co. now has a perfect example for 'false' positives on its tests. Anybody getting their account pulled from here on out has a _publicized_ excuse for their actions, saying "Oh yeah, my friend told me it was one of those cuckoo tricks, so I downloaded 'em to see if it was real".
I also find it amusing they chose to use existing music for this project. Why not just use dead air? It's just as easy, if not moreso, to produce X amount of dead air than it is to produce X amount of your wife's music and X amount of dead air to pad it out to the proper length. And using dead air would cause all sorts of consternation when people play the files, wondering if they had a problem in their sound system somewhere...
All in all, this is a great publicity stunt, but it's not going to accomplish the goals that they want, and is sinking to the same level of the pirates to do it.
(Warning: Some of Jon Katz's comments may make little or no sense. Spoiler material contained within)
"This movie, while entertaining and warm-hearted, isn't funny or scary enough."
Ah, yes Jon. Exactly what were you expecting it be with a _PG_ rating? I was personally amazed at some of the content the ratings board let slip into the PG market. Gratuitous animated gore usually doesn't survive the 'dumbing down' to PG-level. Neither do butt-shots of the lead character. Had this been a PG-13 movie, and designed to be scary, we could've expected a lot more. They could have easily made the Drej absolute nightmares, but they didn't, because this is not a "scary" movie.
(WARNING: Spoilers below this point)
"The Titan (A.E. stands for "After Earth) has the power -- precisely how is never explained -- to give humanity its own planet back,"
It's not explained because most of the target audience (male teenagers, according to Katz) doesn't have enough of a grasp of physics. Hey Jon, do you know how Star Trek's Warp Drive works? How about their shields? What about the Death Star's energy cannons? No? Does it matter? Does it take away from the movie at all?
"The well-equipped Drej are advanced enough to wipe out the earth in seconds and to capture Cale, but they haven't quite figured out how to build a cell that can hold him for 30 seconds."
Sigh. And he misses a plot point entirely. Jon, did it ever occur to you that the Drej let him escape? Ever wonder why the Drej didn't wonder where their rogue fighter ran off to? Did Corseau's betrayal give you any clue? Sheez.
"For some reason, just leaving primitive humans alone is never an option for the Drej."
Gyah. Someone needs to explain the concept of a "plot" to Jon. Could the Drej be harassing humans because they're _gasp_ looking for Cale so they can make sure the Titan, a ship capable of destroying them utterly, is destroyed forever?
"Although the future of humans is on the line, Cale never loses site of the real drama in the movie -- coming to terms with seething resentment at his Dad."
Again, Jon misses another not-so-subtle plot point. Remember Cale's big speech at the start of the movie? About how he doesn't care about the human race as a hole, because it's already doomed? For a large portion of the movie, Cale is just in it for himself. As it progresses, he slowly grows into the role Corseau presented to him at the beginning, the "Saviour of Mankind". Meanwhile, Corseau slowly sheds his shiny exteriour to reveal the bitterness lurking underneath. It's wonderful to see plot depth like this in a _PG_ movie.
Overall, I found Titan AE to be exactly what I expected it to be: A "Transformers, the Movie" for the 21st century. Beautiful special effects, using a blending of CGI, hand-drawn animation, and painted art (which according to Katz is uninspiring and yet is supposed to appeal to the special-effects crowd?), a wonderful plot, and (for once) a non-orchestral soundtrack that not only fits well into the movie, but does wonders to set the mood. This is definately a movie to go see if you enjoy animation/cartoons at all, and while not quite as much 'fun' as Shaft, the fact that _it actually has a plot_ makes it far more enjoyable as whole (I saw Shaft prior to seeing Titan. It's a blast, but consists solely of Samuel L. Jackson being a badass).
>Except that Napster is designed to only allow the >transmission of MP3s. And most MP3's are >illegally owned. Yes, I've got some MP3's I've >ripped for personal usage, I don't use Napster, >but still, most MP3's are illegal. (And most >people seem not to want Final Fantasy VII's OST - >but anyway...)
So you're saying that since "most" mp3s are illegal, that's an excuse to infringe on the perfectly valid uses of Napster?
I wonder if there are statistics for firearms like this. Would you advocate the abolishment of firearms if it turned out most were used by criminals? What if it was "most bullets" instead of most firearms? What if a study is done, and we find that 51% of mp3s are legitimate, and 49% are pirated? Where do you draw the line?
I don't have those statistics. And, for that matter, nobody has those kinds of statistics for mp3s, either. We're just taking reasonable guesses based on observations. However, Napster _does_ have legitimate purposes and it _is_ being used in that fashion.
>FTP and HTTP are used for the transmission of >binary data, and the person with the server is >responsible for the information which goes over >those methods of transmission. I can use FTP to >allow people to download Linux HOWTOs, mirrors of >free ISO images, or the latest open source >project I'm working on. All of this would be >legal. If I start posting my MP3 collection up >through FTP or HTTP, that would be (for most >people) illegal.
And here you are _wrong_. Under US law, your ISP is not help responsible for your illegal content until they are notified about it. At which point, most ISPs react by removing the content, and terminating the offender's account. This is EXACTLY what Napster has been doing, even going so far as to ban the ips of offenders to insure that they don't just sign on under a new username.
The people to blame (and sue) in this case would be the end user, or the ISP if it failed to remove the illegal content. ISPs are NOT required to actively check every file on their system to see whether it's legal or not. They're only responsible for the things they've been notified of.
As I said previously, and I'll say again (and again):
The people the RIAA, the MPAA, Metallica, Dr. Dre, and the rest should be suing are the people pirating the software. You don't sue the car manufacturer for providing the get-away car. You don't sue the ski-mask maker for making the ski mask. You DO sue the person that pirates the files. You DO sue the person that is responsible for making them publicly available. You do NOT sue that person's ISP, nor that ISP's backbone provider. Nor do you sue the manufacturer of that person's computer.
The dangers of this suit are what's being attacked, and the precedent that it sets. I personally believe that copyright infringement is wrong, and should be stopped. But this NOT the way to do it.
You're right. Stealing is stealing, and the vast majority of MP3s out that _weren't_ created with the artist's or the record company's consent.
However, you're wrong in thinking that this is about stealing. That's what the RIAA, the MPAA, Metallica, and the rest of those people filing lawsuits against Napster and college universities wants you to think.
I live in Bloomington, Indiana, which is the home of Indiana University, one of the colleges initially named in the Metallica lawsuit. Immediately after the lawsuit was filed, University officials were contacted for comment. IU's lawyers have stated that IU was acting legally and responsibly, and that it would have been shielded from any sort of lawsuit like the one Metallica filed, on the grounds that it's a content provider along the same lines as an ISP.
So, with their lawyers telling them that they're in the clear, what do the school officials do? They pull access to Napster. The university that helped Napster restructure its network protocol to minimize bandwidth usage is now _pulling_ from its network the same product it helped reengineer. Apparently, IU (and the other universities pulling Napster access based on an overblown threat of litigation) are more interested in their own pocketbooks than the rights and freedoms of their students.
This lawsuit, and the others like it, long ago went beyond "We wan't just compensation for our work". It's now about control of information, and about control of the Internet.
I don't want _anybody_, whether it's Metallica or the Russian government, telling how and where I can express myself, and that's the fundamental level these lawsuits are operating on.
So what if they win the lawsuits, you might ask? Well, for starters, they can immediately make moves on the http, ftp, and irc protocols and their authors. Why? Because their encouraging piraacy by allowing for the free transmission of data. What do you think was the primary source for pirated mp3s prior to Napster? And do you honestly think that with a precedent like that that the RIAA and the MPAA would _not_ take advantage of it? This is a case with the capacity of setting a _very_ dangerous precedent, because it asks the question "Is the method of transmission responsible for what's transmitted?".
There are many wonderful real-life analogies that can be drawn here, but I'm sure you can figure them out. What kind of world would it be if you could be sued anytime you helped someone that later went on to do criminal acts?
Suing Napster is one thing. Suing the Universities that provide Napster access is another, and I find it absolutely disgusting that universities are bowing to legal pressure when _their own layers_ are telling them that they're legally safe.
>Making copies without the copyright holder's >permission is wrong, both morally and legally.
I'd like to quickly point out that morality in does not require you to follow written laws. Morals are something that each invidual decides for themselves. Legally, copyright infringement is against law. Morally, it depends entirely on the situation.
Would you infringe someone else's copyright to save a life? Would you be morally wrong for doing so?
Napster is by no means anything "new". It's just popular at the moment. There have been other file-sharing systems in place for far, far longer than Napster has, such as IRC, the web, and ftp servers. The 3 terabytes of music you see listed on Napster when you log in is _nothing_ compared to the total volume of music available out there via other formats.
The only difference with Napster is that there is now a company behind. A perfect target the RIAA to file suit against. Which, ironically, only serves to fuel Napster's popularity. RIAA says "Napster lets you download pirated music for free! It's bad!" Your average college student would probably stop listening at "free".
Then there's the real blunder that the RIAA made. RIAA launched an all out war against the MP3 format. Not the software that makes it, not the people who use it, the format itself. And in so doing, they doomed any chance they had to use it, or for that matter any other compressed media format, for distribution. Why? Because adopting such a format would be the highest form of hypocrisy. While shouting down from the heavens and condemning the online distribution of music, they'd be asking their artists to use the same formats to distribute the music.
And you wonder why you've never seen more than fluff and hype about the RIAA's SDMI initiative?
The RIAA had a chance to capitalize on the MP3 movement. Instead, they did the last thing they should've done. Look at what the my.mp3.com service is offering now! The RIAA could have _easily_ offered up such a service, with the support of the artists. And by adding the ability to buy a new album online relatively inexpensively, you've just made a service that people will not only want, but one people will _use_.
The RIAA's only goal here is to stave off their current business model. They missed the proverbial boat when they slammed down on the mp3 format. Now they're trying to do too little, too late.
The problems that have led up to the current MP3 "scene" are pretty obvious when you stop to look at them. People have access to both the blank media and the neccesary hardware to imprint on said media. You can pick up a CD-RW drive for under 200 bucks now, if you're willing to get an older, slower model. Blank CD-Rs, the same material used in commercial CDs, sell for less than 50 cents each in bulk quantities of 500 or more. I think the RIAA would probably manage to get bulk rates that are even lower, wouldn't you?
Yet commercial CDs sell for between 10 to 20 dollars. What exactly is it that we're paying for with that 2000% to 4000% markup? The shiny cellophane wrapping? The stupid adhesive plastic strip along the edge? The cheap (as in quality) plastic case? Or maybe it's that flimsy booklet inside, printed on poor paper stock and as often than not containing no lyrics.
The RIAA probably asks itself how this could happen. I'm sure the artists are asking their labels that very same question. And the answer is simple: You made it happen.
Overpriced CDs that don't contain a full CD's worth of music, wrapped in poor quality containers makes for a helluva lot of profit for the RIAA labels, a steady stream of royalties for the artists, and an overall poor quality product for the consumer. After nearly a decade and a half of this abuse, the consumers are finally fed up with it, and they're saying "No"in perhaps the best way that they can. With their wallets.
I had exactly the same problem that you're describing. The solution I had at the time was to disable Javascript (don't ask me why this fixed it, as I have absolutely no idea).
"New ABIT Mainboards with Gentus? Shipping 13/February/2000
ABIT will be shipping Gentus? with all motherboards, including all of the new models from ABIT. For more info on the newest ABIT motherboards please go to: http://www.abit.com.tw "
Now, regardless of whether this is 'merely' a re-packaged version of Redhat or not, _think_ about this a moment!
_Every_ motherboard ABIT ships is going to have a copy of Linux along with it. And if it's repackaged RedHat, so what? RedHat is a high-quality, professional distribution, and now it's being delivered to a potentially _vast_ quantity of new users.
Gear up the newbie sites folks. If this trend continues, we're going to see Linux gaining a huge chunk of market share very soon.
Exactly where are you getting these figures from? It's not Intel's or AMD's websites... >To wit, SPECcpu95: >Coppermine 800 MHz: SPECint - 38.9, SPECfp - 32.4
Taking a look at Intel's own posted benchmarks of the 800mhz Coppermine running on a 133mhz bus gives:
Now, I'd compare these to AMD's benchmarks, but AMD hasn't published SPECINT results, and only publishes the base SPECfp results. (Which, by the way, show the Athlon soundly thrashing the Coppermine
In any event, comparing SPEC scores is a rather _bad_ way to judge system performance. If you know enough to extrapolate new benchmark scores from current ones, you should also know that there are much better real world tests available.
If you like, you can watch a 700mhz Athlon kick the snot out of a 733mhz PIII Coppermine running on a 133mhz bus over at Ace's Hardware
So next time, please take your results somwhere else or provide a real source for them.
Overall, this was a very good article, highlighting many of the already-known weaknesses of Linux and it's corresponding community.
However, there are a few issues where Mr. Connell is, IMHO, mistaken:
"People set up computers alone."
Mr. Connell talks about the difficulties people have when installing an operating system for the first time.
For the 'average' user, trying to install Windows 98 from scratch is _just as hard_ as trying to install Linux from scratch. Installing an OS from scratch is _not_ something that today's "average" user is an any way capable of doing on their own.
He also speaks of the manufacturer support line being the only resource available to the customer. Again, this is not entirely true. Nearly every 'boxed' distribution comes with a printed manual, and from personal experience I know RedHat's manual to be _extremely_ thorough in covering not only a step-by-step install process, but in also dealing with any problems that might occur both during and after the installation.
"Learning new applications is hard." In this section Mr. Connell talks about the argument that users are resistant to change, and that software should be tailored to work exactly how the customer is expecting it to.
While he makes a very good point for 'classical' computing methodology, this is simply not the case for Linux. Linux isn't about dumbing itself down to the 'average' user's level. It's about raising the average user to a level in which they can understand the things that they're doing on their computer.
By deciding to purchase and use an 'alternative' OS, a user has already made a decision to learn something new. That means they should be expecting from the beginning to be learning and adjusting to a new way of doing things. You don't honestly think Microsoft and Apple sit down and discuss the UI for their programs and how they should make them compatbiel do you? Linux will have it's own, unique user interface, just like Apple and Microsoft each have their own, unique UIs.
"Open source still requires good project management"
This section, while well-written, argues from the incorrect assumption that the Linux community is/will be at the beck and call of the corporations selling it. Things are, in fact, exactly opposite from that. The Linux kernel itself dictates what features are possible, and it is the responsibility of the _corporations_ to provide the neccesary resources to get the features they want. For an example, see RedHat's sizeable list of on-staff developers, including one Alan Cox.
"Humility is a virtue." Humility is indeed a virtue. However, the problems Mr. Connell describe in this section stem from a lack of vision rather than a lack of humility. Linux has the potential to become the best computer Operating System, period. Why? Because it is designed and evolved by _its own users_. It goes in the directions its users want it to. Not the directions the limited vision of a corporation out to make a profit dictate. The Linux development model cuts out the 'middle-man' of profits and share-holders, and goes straight to the user instead. It is truly democratic software. Anyone is capable of contributing to the whole if they make the effort.
Linux isn't just an Operating System, it's frame of mind.
"You are invited to come out at our expense to review our technology plan going forward."
Ironic. You posted that at 11:34am. You're willing to pay for his expenses in getting to you, but unless he's in your local area, the chances of him actually making it there to the meeting you're holding are almost nil. Or would you be willing to delay said meeting until his arrival?
"That we've fucked up is not in dispute"
This is amusing. Care to post this on the LinuxOne webpage? While _you_ may admit your company has made some horrendous blunders, that's certainly hasn't stopped the marketing people from trying to convince everyone of the exact opposite. How about some good ole "Truth in Advertising"?
"That we had the balls to come to New York should also not be in dispute."
You're right. You were there. And I must admit, your company had to have some pretty giantic kahones to come to the premiere Linux trade show with a repackaged set of standard utilities that you claim is your new and innovative product. You also claim that you don't use these utilities at all, and that, in fact, you don't have a copy of them anywhere.
You seem intelligent enough to realize the horrible mistakes your company is making. Perhaps it's time that you (and your company) began correcting these mistakes, as opposed to committing further blatant blunders. And _if_, not when, your company begins to play by the rules, _then_ you may get the same level of coverage. But only if your efforts to make amends and repair the damage are as equally strong as the blunders you're making now.
Yes, the intent of it is definately business-app oriented. But I'm more interested in its capabilities and how it does the neccesary forwarding/displaying of information. I just used QuakeIII as an example of a piece of software that is not likely to work with this stuff. The article gives the impression that _all_ Windows software will work "seamlessly". I'd say no OpenGL/DirectX stuff tends to be a pretty big seam, wouldn't you?
The article talks about letting you run all your Windows applications seamlessly over the network.
Okay, that's a neat thing to say, but what can it actually _do_? With this stuff, can I run QuakeIII over the network and get it to work on my X display? What if I don't have MesaGL installed? How does it handle displaying data? Obviously it will run in X, but is it compatible with the XFree86 4.0 stuff that's coming out Real Soon Now?
I suspect that what this will eventually boil down to is another piece of VMware-ish. VMware uses custom kernel modules in order to provide all the neccesary hooks, and these modules have been known to cause all sorts of problems, both in causing actual faults to trying to tract them down.
Perhaps the best thing to do, in addition to boycotting ArtX's products, is to email/snail mail the CEO directly, politely explaining why you'll not be purchasing any of their products.
People that not only lie, but misrepresent the company they work for in an attempt to bolster public opinion wind up doing more damage than good in the long run. I'm sure Mr. Calle's will be deservedly short-lived, but only if the CEO of the company hears about it. Don't let this fall by the wayside folks!
P.S. On that note, does anyone have an address for the CEO? Email/SnailMail/Phone Number # would be nice...
I've seen mentioned in several different places now a special law that allows government anti-trust prosecuters to fast-track appealed decisions to the Supreme Court. One of the things that is mentioned is that, if this were to happen, it would likely be determined that the state's portion of the case could not follow it.
Should the appeals process be split like this (seperating the states from the DOJ), what happens? If the two appeals trials become seperate entities, what happens if there are mixed decisions? (one upholding the ruling, one opposing)
Slashdot Mirror
And it has to hold up in court because...?
Do you honestly believe the "average" American consumer would go to court against Microsoft to fight, say, an additional 5 dollar licensing fee snuck into the EULA?
Large companies like Microsoft will threaten people with Lawsuits over the most inane details. See the recent thread on MS threatening the NTFS developers. The threat of a lawsuit is often far more effective in getting things done than the actual lawsuit itself.
Right. And not even Microsoft would engage in blatant violations of a consumer's rights. And it would never invade a user's privacy with its online software update service. Or its web browser. And it would never, ever violate any anti-trust laws whatsoever. Did I mention that all those "bugs" people complain about in Windows are actually features?
Oh wait. I guess it has, hasn't it? Saying Microsoft would never be so "bold" as to try something like this is begging them to do it. If not Microsoft, then certainly another company will. Don't be naive. If there's a way to exploit a law in a legal fashion like, there are plenty of companies that will leap at the chance to.
Sure, you can claim someone else was using your computer. Microsoft will just claim you're lying and trying to escape the terms of the agreement.
Can you prove you didn't install the OS on your machine? How about proving that you didn't accept the EULA when you started using it?
Remember, thanks to the lack of definition as to what an "electronic signature" is, _using Windows_ could be viewed as a signature.
If I were you, I'd read those EULA's very carefully before clicking on "I Accept". Especially if they require you to register your product with your name like Microsoft does. I know I will be.
Start reading it. Really carefully.
To quote the CNN article:
(emphasis mine)
This means that the EULA you're clicking 'Accept' for can now be as legally binding as, oh, say, a loan from a bank. Or a bill of sale.
Watch for Microsoft's next version of its EULA, where you agree not to compete with the company for the next 5 years. Or watch for the inevitable rash of popup boxes that require you to hit 'okay' to get rid of. Nevermind mind the fact that when you hit okay, you're legally signing away all your worldly possessions.
Who needs the DMCA to trample our software rights? This law will do it all for us by itself...
I had been one of the (few?) people on
This one, however, has made me join many of the other readers in filtering out Katz posts now. Katz has completely crossed the line of even editorializing here, and has wandered off the deep end into the realm of zealotry and conspiracy theory.
I don't come to
Great. And how do these articles, TV news stories, books, and news stories get published? Oh yes, the entire media system is part of the Neo-Luddite conspiracy, isn't it?
Great. So Al Gore and George W. Bush are both leading the Neo-Luddite campaign to our doorstep. Technology as we know it is doomed if we vote for either one of them. I'm surprised Katz doesn't present us with someone running for president to stop the Neo-Luddite menace. Any volunteers Katz?
And it's interesting how Katz invokes the same morality as a shield against his own zealotry. This article reads as little more than a long-winded governmental conspiracy theory against Neo-Luddites. Let me guess, Bill Gates is part of the Neo-Luddite conspiracy too, since he supports the highly restrictive and probably unconstitional DMCA? Please. There are plenty of reasons for politicians to vote for laws that restrict our rights and privledges. They don't need to be members of an anti-technology conspiracy to do it.
If you're going to construct conspiracy theories, I suggest you read the Illuminatus Triology. You'll learn a lesson or two in conspiracy theories as taught by the Grand Illuminated Masters themselves.
The submitter read the article wrong. AMD hasn't blocked overclocking. What they've done is re-locked the front-side bus multiplier on their chips.
This renders the AMD Duron supporting just as much overclocking as your favorite Intel CPU. Before this, they were _more_ overclockable.
Nothing has been "rolled out". This is not a product launch. This is the prototype release of preliminary code for a development kernel. The 2.4.x series isn't here yet, and neither is MontaVista's code.
Read the article, as there are several paragraphs in there talking about where this code will be going. They're hoping to get it incorporated into 2.5.x NOT 2.4.x.
It's a $250 million aware, not $118 million. I'm not sure where people got the 118 number from. It's not in the article anywhere....
>Now, cp will attempt to preserve the permissions
>of an original file within the constraints of
>your umask. With a umask of 022, a file with
>permissions of 600 will keep those permissions if
>you cp it somewhere. scp behaves in the same way.
>Unless you're doing something stupid like
>using cat to copy your keys around, it doesn't
>seem like a problem.
Hrm. Poor example then. You do, however, see my point. Anything you create is immediately vulnerable to being copied by any other user. Forget using your favorite editor to create files. Now you need to "touch filename;chmod 600 filename;vi filename".
Fortunately emacs obeys existing file permissions with is tilde files, otherwise you could be in for even more pain.
Why are you going to give hackers another _unnecessary_ opening in your system? We're talking security here people, come on. The fact that it 'requires root' in order to hack /etc/groups is crap, and you know it. If it "required root" to hack things, nobody would ever get rooted except from someone walking up to the console and booting into single user mode. With as focused on security as this discussion is, I'm surprised you even brought that up.
/etc/group to set up that new web-editing group, you've just lost all your user files under those default permissions. Is there such a security whole in vi? Of course not. Could it conceivably happen? Hell yes.
/var/www has absolutely nothing to do with the issue at hand. Setting that up requires two steps: a) changing the permissions to be set-gid on the directory and b) changing the ownership.
What happens if there's a bug in say, vi, that lets an unpriveledged user kidnap an editing session only for the current file being edited? If you're editing
Your example for
Having to do both of those things means you have saved the user exactly NO time by making things default to being group read/write/world read.
There is nothing wrong with having those permissions on a directory. It _is_ a problem if those permissions are the _default_.
And if you're brining over existing ssh keys from another server? One that you're decomissioning or migrating from? Not everyone uses ssh-keygen...
The flaw isn't with SSH. It's with Debian's default umask and it's default permissions on home directories.
>Group writable home directories: Debian uses
/etc/group (or whatever the equivelent is. I don't use Debian, myself). That's right. Thanks to having hacked /etc/group, all your shadow passwords are no longer neccesary, since the hacker can now access any user files (s)he wants. I wonder if they do root files like that...
../joeuser/.ssh/* ~", and you'd never be the wiser.
/home.
>"usergroups", where every user gets their own
>group. This makes working on shared projects
>(in a +s directory) slightly easier, since your
>umask is 002. However, since nobody is in your
>group by default, your home directory and files
>there are as secure as if they were only user
>writable. This is configurable in
>/etc/adduser.conf, and if it is set to no,
>Debian's default login scripts do the correct
>thing and set your umask to 022
No no no! This is _not_ the correct thing. If each user is the only member of his/her default group (i.e. joeuser/joeuser) and all of his/her files are owned by that group, you are providing _no_ extra functionality by having them group-writeable, or even group-readable. None. Zero. This "makes working on shared projects (in a +s directory) slightly easier" thing is an absolute myth. In order to do what you describe, the user would both have to a) have an idea of how to run chmod and b) actually _run_ chmod, at which point they can change the safe, secure, hopefully default permissions that allow _only_ the original user access to it.
Why is this so important? Because leaving everything completely accessible by groups, _any_ groups, opens up another file to be comprimised. In the above arrangement, all a hacker needs to do is find a way to hack
Also, neither you nor Ben Collins address the problems of leaving user directories world-readable and -executable by default. Say goodbye to working ssh under that arrangement, unless you've got the foresight to manually set your directories up properly. And what happens when you try to set your ssh keys up, expecting things to be secure? You've got a window of oppurtunity where another user on the system can get _all_ of your RSA information. Your personal and private keys are right there, ripe for the taking with just a simple "cp
Come on folks, say it with me now: The correct thing to do is set umask 077 and chmod -R 700
>No, it's not copyright infringement, because they
>are not trying to pass someone else's work off as
>their own. They are just choosing an amusing
>naming scheme for files. I don't think that
>anyone's likely to believe that their cuckoo
>noises are really black sabbath recordings, so to
>claim that they're violating anything is a
>stretch.
They are passing _their_ work off as someone else's! They say so on their page. And you can choose whatever crazy naming format you like for you files, as long as you're the only one looking at it.
The problem here, though, is that they are _publishing_ these files via Napster, making them visible to the rest of the net. In order to determine that the files are _actually_ cuckoo noises and not the _copyrighted music that they are claimed to be_, you would have to download the file. At which point, according to the RIAA's attorneys, you've comitted piracy via Napster, because you've downloaded a file that matches the name of one of their songs.
So, since you couldn't have known beforehand that the files contained something other than what they were labelled to contain, why were you downloading it in the first place? To listen to what you thought was a Black Sabbath, or Kid Rock, or some other piece of music.
If these people did this out of the back of their car with selling cds instead of trading mp3s, they'd be guilty of more numerous law offenses than I'm qualified to list. Fraud, Trademark and Copyright infringement, and false advertising come to mind. Being that it's on Napster and being freely shared makes it less of a crime (though how much less is best left up to the lawyer-types), but does not remove copyright and/or trademark infringement problems, because those are violations regardless of whether profit is being made by the violator.
An interesting project, but wouldn't labelling your work as if it were actually someone else's be considered copyright infringement as well?
If take my homegrown CD, label it up like, oh, the latest Kid Rock album, and sell to some poor guy looking for a Kid Rock album, haven't I just infringement on the copyright? (and committed fraud in the process?)
This isn't exactly a great way to protest piracy on Napster. Yes, it's amusing. Yes, you'll be able to fool some pirates using this. But this is a much more powerful stride _for_ Napster than against. Napster Co. now has a perfect example for 'false' positives on its tests. Anybody getting their account pulled from here on out has a _publicized_ excuse for their actions, saying "Oh yeah, my friend told me it was one of those cuckoo tricks, so I downloaded 'em to see if it was real".
I also find it amusing they chose to use existing music for this project. Why not just use dead air? It's just as easy, if not moreso, to produce X amount of dead air than it is to produce X amount of your wife's music and X amount of dead air to pad it out to the proper length. And using dead air would cause all sorts of consternation when people play the files, wondering if they had a problem in their sound system somewhere...
All in all, this is a great publicity stunt, but it's not going to accomplish the goals that they want, and is sinking to the same level of the pirates to do it.
(Warning: Some of Jon Katz's comments may make little or no sense. Spoiler material contained within)
"This movie, while entertaining and warm-hearted, isn't funny or scary enough."
Ah, yes Jon. Exactly what were you expecting it be with a _PG_ rating? I was personally amazed at some of the content the ratings board let slip into the PG market. Gratuitous animated gore usually doesn't survive the 'dumbing down' to PG-level. Neither do butt-shots of the lead character. Had this been a PG-13 movie, and designed to be scary, we could've expected a lot more. They could have easily made the Drej absolute nightmares, but they didn't, because this is not a "scary" movie.
(WARNING: Spoilers below this point)
"The Titan (A.E. stands for "After Earth) has the power -- precisely how is never explained -- to give humanity its own planet back,"
It's not explained because most of the target audience (male teenagers, according to Katz) doesn't have enough of a grasp of physics. Hey Jon, do you know how Star Trek's Warp Drive works? How about their shields? What about the Death Star's energy cannons? No? Does it matter? Does it take away from the movie at all?
"The well-equipped Drej are advanced enough to wipe out the earth in seconds and to capture Cale, but they haven't quite figured out how to build a cell that can hold him for 30 seconds."
Sigh. And he misses a plot point entirely. Jon, did it ever occur to you that the Drej let him escape? Ever wonder why the Drej didn't wonder where their rogue fighter ran off to? Did Corseau's betrayal give you any clue? Sheez.
"For some reason, just leaving primitive humans alone is never an option for the Drej."
Gyah. Someone needs to explain the concept of a "plot" to Jon. Could the Drej be harassing humans because they're _gasp_ looking for Cale so they can make sure the Titan, a ship capable of destroying them utterly, is destroyed forever?
"Although the future of humans is on the line, Cale never loses site of the real drama in the movie -- coming to terms with seething resentment at his Dad."
Again, Jon misses another not-so-subtle plot point. Remember Cale's big speech at the start of the movie? About how he doesn't care about the human race as a hole, because it's already doomed? For a large portion of the movie, Cale is just in it for himself. As it progresses, he slowly grows into the role Corseau presented to him at the beginning, the "Saviour of Mankind". Meanwhile, Corseau slowly sheds his shiny exteriour to reveal the bitterness lurking underneath. It's wonderful to see plot depth like this in a _PG_ movie.
Overall, I found Titan AE to be exactly what I expected it to be: A "Transformers, the Movie" for the 21st century. Beautiful special effects, using a blending of CGI, hand-drawn animation, and painted art (which according to Katz is uninspiring and yet is supposed to appeal to the special-effects crowd?), a wonderful plot, and (for once) a non-orchestral soundtrack that not only fits well into the movie, but does wonders to set the mood. This is definately a movie to go see if you enjoy animation/cartoons at all, and while not quite as much 'fun' as Shaft, the fact that _it actually has a plot_ makes it far more enjoyable as whole (I saw Shaft prior to seeing Titan. It's a blast, but consists solely of Samuel L. Jackson being a badass).
>Except that Napster is designed to only allow the
>transmission of MP3s. And most MP3's are
>illegally owned. Yes, I've got some MP3's I've
>ripped for personal usage, I don't use Napster,
>but still, most MP3's are illegal. (And most
>people seem not to want Final Fantasy VII's OST -
>but anyway...)
So you're saying that since "most" mp3s are
illegal, that's an excuse to infringe on the
perfectly valid uses of Napster?
I wonder if there are statistics for firearms like
this. Would you advocate the abolishment of
firearms if it turned out most were used by
criminals? What if it was "most bullets" instead
of most firearms? What if a study is done, and we
find that 51% of mp3s are legitimate, and 49% are
pirated? Where do you draw the line?
I don't have those statistics. And, for that
matter, nobody has those kinds of statistics for
mp3s, either. We're just taking reasonable guesses
based on observations. However, Napster _does_
have legitimate purposes and it _is_ being used in
that fashion.
>FTP and HTTP are used for the transmission of
>binary data, and the person with the server is
>responsible for the information which goes over
>those methods of transmission. I can use FTP to
>allow people to download Linux HOWTOs, mirrors of
>free ISO images, or the latest open source
>project I'm working on. All of this would be
>legal. If I start posting my MP3 collection up
>through FTP or HTTP, that would be (for most
>people) illegal.
And here you are _wrong_. Under US law, your ISP
is not help responsible for your illegal content
until they are notified about it. At which point,
most ISPs react by removing the content, and
terminating the offender's account. This is
EXACTLY what Napster has been doing, even going so
far as to ban the ips of offenders to insure that
they don't just sign on under a new username.
The people to blame (and sue) in this case would
be the end user, or the ISP if it failed to remove
the illegal content. ISPs are NOT required to
actively check every file on their system to see
whether it's legal or not. They're only
responsible for the things they've been notified
of.
As I said previously, and I'll say again (and
again):
The people the RIAA, the MPAA, Metallica, Dr. Dre,
and the rest should be suing are the people
pirating the software. You don't sue the car
manufacturer for providing the get-away car. You
don't sue the ski-mask maker for making the ski
mask. You DO sue the person that pirates the
files. You DO sue the person that is responsible
for making them publicly available. You do NOT sue
that person's ISP, nor that ISP's backbone
provider. Nor do you sue the manufacturer of that
person's computer.
The dangers of this suit are what's being
attacked, and the precedent that it sets. I
personally believe that copyright infringement is
wrong, and should be stopped. But this NOT the way
to do it.
You're right. Stealing is stealing, and the vast majority of MP3s out that _weren't_ created with the artist's or the record company's consent.
However, you're wrong in thinking that this is about stealing. That's what the RIAA, the MPAA, Metallica, and the rest of those people filing lawsuits against Napster and college universities wants you to think.
I live in Bloomington, Indiana, which is the home of Indiana University, one of the colleges initially named in the Metallica lawsuit. Immediately after the lawsuit was filed, University officials were contacted for comment. IU's lawyers have stated that IU was acting legally and responsibly, and that it would have been shielded from any sort of lawsuit like the one Metallica filed, on the grounds that it's a content provider along the same lines as an ISP.
So, with their lawyers telling them that they're in the clear, what do the school officials do? They pull access to Napster. The university that helped Napster restructure its network protocol to minimize bandwidth usage is now _pulling_ from its network the same product it helped reengineer. Apparently, IU (and the other universities pulling Napster access based on an overblown threat of litigation) are more interested in their own pocketbooks than the rights and freedoms of their students.
This lawsuit, and the others like it, long ago went beyond "We wan't just compensation for our work". It's now about control of information, and about control of the Internet.
I don't want _anybody_, whether it's Metallica or the Russian government, telling how and where I can express myself, and that's the fundamental level these lawsuits are operating on.
So what if they win the lawsuits, you might ask?
Well, for starters, they can immediately make moves on the http, ftp, and irc protocols and their authors. Why? Because their encouraging piraacy by allowing for the free transmission of data. What do you think was the primary source for pirated mp3s prior to Napster? And do you honestly think that with a precedent like that that the RIAA and the MPAA would _not_ take advantage of it? This is a case with the capacity of setting a _very_ dangerous precedent, because it asks the question "Is the method of transmission responsible for what's transmitted?".
There are many wonderful real-life analogies that can be drawn here, but I'm sure you can figure them out. What kind of world would it be if you could be sued anytime you helped someone that later went on to do criminal acts?
Suing Napster is one thing. Suing the Universities that provide Napster access is another, and I find it absolutely disgusting that universities are bowing to legal pressure when _their own layers_ are telling them that they're legally safe.
>Making copies without the copyright holder's >permission is wrong, both morally and legally.
I'd like to quickly point out that morality in does not require you to follow written laws. Morals are something that each invidual decides for themselves. Legally, copyright infringement is against law. Morally, it depends entirely on the situation.
Would you infringe someone else's copyright to save a life? Would you be morally wrong for doing so?
Napster is by no means anything "new". It's just popular at the moment. There have been other file-sharing systems in place for far, far longer than Napster has, such as IRC, the web, and ftp servers. The 3 terabytes of music you see listed on Napster when you log in is _nothing_ compared to the total volume of music available out there via other formats.
The only difference with Napster is that there is now a company behind. A perfect target the RIAA to file suit against. Which, ironically, only serves to fuel Napster's popularity. RIAA says "Napster lets you download pirated music for free! It's bad!" Your average college student would probably stop listening at "free".
Then there's the real blunder that the RIAA made. RIAA launched an all out war against the MP3 format. Not the software that makes it, not the people who use it, the format itself. And in so doing, they doomed any chance they had to use it, or for that matter any other compressed media format, for distribution. Why? Because adopting such a format would be the highest form of hypocrisy. While shouting down from the heavens and condemning the online distribution of music, they'd be asking their artists to use the same formats to distribute the music.
And you wonder why you've never seen more than fluff and hype about the RIAA's SDMI initiative?
The RIAA had a chance to capitalize on the MP3 movement. Instead, they did the last thing they should've done. Look at what the my.mp3.com service is offering now! The RIAA could have _easily_ offered up such a service, with the support of the artists. And by adding the ability to buy a new album online relatively inexpensively, you've just made a service that people will not only want, but one people will _use_.
The RIAA's only goal here is to stave off their current business model. They missed the proverbial boat when they slammed down on the mp3 format. Now they're trying to do too little, too late.
The problems that have led up to the current MP3 "scene" are pretty obvious when you stop to look at them. People have access to both the blank media and the neccesary hardware to imprint on said media. You can pick up a CD-RW drive for under 200 bucks now, if you're willing to get an older, slower model. Blank CD-Rs, the same material used in commercial CDs, sell for less than 50 cents each in bulk quantities of 500 or more. I think the RIAA would probably manage to get bulk rates that are even lower, wouldn't you?
Yet commercial CDs sell for between 10 to 20 dollars. What exactly is it that we're paying for with that 2000% to 4000% markup? The shiny cellophane wrapping? The stupid adhesive plastic strip along the edge? The cheap (as in quality) plastic case? Or maybe it's that flimsy booklet inside, printed on poor paper stock and as often than not containing no lyrics.
The RIAA probably asks itself how this could happen. I'm sure the artists are asking their labels that very same question. And the answer is simple:
You made it happen.
Overpriced CDs that don't contain a full CD's worth of music, wrapped in poor quality containers makes for a helluva lot of profit for the RIAA labels, a steady stream of royalties for the artists, and an overall poor quality product for the consumer. After nearly a decade and a half of this abuse, the consumers are finally fed up with it, and they're saying "No"in perhaps the best way that they can. With their wallets.
I had exactly the same problem that you're describing. The solution I had at the time was to disable Javascript (don't ask me why this fixed it, as I have absolutely no idea).
3.9.18 fixes the 'invisible page' problem.
"New ABIT Mainboards with Gentus? Shipping 13/February/2000
ABIT will be shipping Gentus? with all motherboards, including all of the new models from ABIT.
For more info on the newest ABIT motherboards please go to:
http://www.abit.com.tw
"
Now, regardless of whether this is 'merely' a re-packaged version of Redhat or not, _think_ about this a moment!
_Every_ motherboard ABIT ships is going to have a copy of Linux along with it. And if it's repackaged RedHat, so what? RedHat is a high-quality, professional distribution, and now it's being delivered to a potentially _vast_ quantity of new users.
Gear up the newbie sites folks. If this trend continues, we're going to see Linux gaining a huge chunk of market share very soon.
You know, sometimes people amaze me.
Exactly where are you getting these figures from? It's not Intel's or AMD's websites...
>To wit, SPECcpu95:
>Coppermine 800 MHz: SPECint - 38.9, SPECfp - 32.4
Taking a look at Intel's own posted benchmarks of the 800mhz Coppermine running on a 133mhz bus gives:
SPECINT - 38.4 SPECfp - 28.9
Source:
Intel's own website and benchmarks
Now, I'd compare these to AMD's benchmarks, but AMD hasn't published SPECINT results, and only publishes the base SPECfp results. (Which, by the way, show the Athlon soundly thrashing the Coppermine
In any event, comparing SPEC scores is a rather _bad_ way to judge system performance. If you know enough to extrapolate new benchmark scores from current ones, you should also know that there are much better real world tests available.
If you like, you can watch a 700mhz Athlon kick the snot out of a 733mhz PIII Coppermine running on a 133mhz bus over at Ace's Hardware
So next time, please take your results somwhere else or provide a real source for them.
Overall, this was a very good article, highlighting many of the already-known weaknesses of Linux and it's corresponding community.
However, there are a few issues where Mr. Connell is, IMHO, mistaken:
"People set up computers alone."
Mr. Connell talks about the difficulties people have when installing an operating system for the first time.
For the 'average' user, trying to install Windows 98 from scratch is _just as hard_ as trying to install Linux from scratch. Installing an OS from scratch is _not_ something that today's "average" user is an any way capable of doing on their own.
He also speaks of the manufacturer support line being the only resource available to the customer. Again, this is not entirely true. Nearly every 'boxed' distribution comes with a printed manual, and from personal experience I know RedHat's manual to be _extremely_ thorough in covering not only a step-by-step install process, but in also dealing with any problems that might occur both during and after the installation.
"Learning new applications is hard."
In this section Mr. Connell talks about the argument that users are resistant to change, and that software should be tailored to work exactly how the customer is expecting it to.
While he makes a very good point for 'classical' computing methodology, this is simply not the case for Linux. Linux isn't about dumbing itself down to the 'average' user's level. It's about raising the average user to a level in which they can understand the things that they're doing on their computer.
By deciding to purchase and use an 'alternative' OS, a user has already made a decision to learn something new. That means they should be expecting from the beginning to be learning and adjusting to a new way of doing things. You don't honestly think Microsoft and Apple sit down and discuss the UI for their programs and how they should make them compatbiel do you? Linux will have it's own, unique user interface, just like Apple and Microsoft each have their own, unique UIs.
"Open source still requires good project management"
This section, while well-written, argues from the incorrect assumption that the Linux community is/will be at the beck and call of the corporations selling it. Things are, in fact, exactly opposite from that. The Linux kernel itself dictates what features are possible, and it is the responsibility of the _corporations_ to provide the neccesary resources to get the features they want. For an example, see RedHat's sizeable list of on-staff developers, including one Alan Cox.
"Humility is a virtue."
Humility is indeed a virtue. However, the problems Mr. Connell describe in this section stem from a lack of vision rather than a lack of humility. Linux has the potential to become the best computer Operating System, period. Why? Because it is designed and evolved by _its own users_. It goes in the directions its users want it to. Not the directions the limited vision of a corporation out to make a profit dictate. The Linux development model cuts out the 'middle-man' of profits and share-holders, and goes straight to the user instead. It is truly democratic software. Anyone is capable of contributing to the whole if they make the effort.
Linux isn't just an Operating System, it's frame of mind.
"You are invited to come out at our expense to review our technology plan going forward."
Ironic. You posted that at 11:34am. You're willing to pay for his expenses in getting to you, but unless he's in your local area, the chances of him actually making it there to the meeting you're holding are almost nil. Or would you be willing to delay said meeting until his arrival?
"That we've fucked up is not in dispute"
This is amusing. Care to post this on the LinuxOne webpage? While _you_ may admit your company has made some horrendous blunders, that's certainly hasn't stopped the marketing people from trying to convince everyone of the exact opposite. How about some good ole "Truth in Advertising"?
"That we had the balls to come to New York should also not be in dispute."
You're right. You were there. And I must admit, your company had to have some pretty giantic kahones to come to the premiere Linux trade show with a repackaged set of standard utilities that you claim is your new and innovative product. You also claim that you don't use these utilities at all, and that, in fact, you don't have a copy of them anywhere.
You seem intelligent enough to realize the horrible mistakes your company is making. Perhaps it's time that you (and your company) began correcting these mistakes, as opposed to committing further blatant blunders. And _if_, not when, your company begins to play by the rules, _then_ you may get the same level of coverage. But only if your efforts to make amends and repair the damage are as equally strong as the blunders you're making now.
Yes, the intent of it is definately business-app oriented. But I'm more interested in its capabilities and how it does the neccesary forwarding/displaying of information. I just used QuakeIII as an example of a piece of software that is not likely to work with this stuff. The article gives the impression that _all_ Windows software will work "seamlessly". I'd say no OpenGL/DirectX stuff tends to be a pretty big seam, wouldn't you?
The article talks about letting you run all your Windows applications seamlessly over the network.
Okay, that's a neat thing to say, but what can it actually _do_? With this stuff, can I run QuakeIII over the network and get it to work on my X display? What if I don't have MesaGL installed? How does it handle displaying data? Obviously it will run in X, but is it compatible with the XFree86 4.0 stuff that's coming out Real Soon Now?
I suspect that what this will eventually boil down to is another piece of VMware-ish. VMware uses custom kernel modules in order to provide all the neccesary hooks, and these modules have been known to cause all sorts of problems, both in causing actual faults to trying to tract them down.
Perhaps the best thing to do, in addition to boycotting ArtX's products, is to email/snail mail the CEO directly, politely explaining why you'll not be purchasing any of their products.
People that not only lie, but misrepresent the company they work for in an attempt to bolster public opinion wind up doing more damage than good in the long run. I'm sure Mr. Calle's will be deservedly short-lived, but only if the CEO of the company hears about it. Don't let this fall by the wayside folks!
P.S. On that note, does anyone have an address for the CEO? Email/SnailMail/Phone Number # would be nice...
I've seen mentioned in several different places now a special law that allows government anti-trust prosecuters to fast-track appealed decisions to the Supreme Court. One of the things that is mentioned is that, if this were to happen, it would likely be determined that the state's portion of the case could not follow it.
Should the appeals process be split like this (seperating the states from the DOJ), what happens? If the two appeals trials become seperate entities, what happens if there are mixed decisions? (one upholding the ruling, one opposing)