No - I must disagree here. This is not an event signifying anything having to do with "the GNU generation." This merely acknowledges the passing of a noted author of well-written technical books.
Yes, I am prejudiced; I, too, like many other posters own well-worn copies of Steven's books. Steven's death does not do anything to add legitimacy to "the GNU generation" - whatever that means. The torch that you speak of will be picked up by the next author who can express technical concepts with clarity.
For once, let's think beyond our own petty squabbles and try to show a little respect for the dead.
I think this is the result of several things - at least one of which is Linux.
But Sun and IBM certainly didn't help themselves any - there were not one, not two, but at least three competing products they were posing in varying guises as a Java OS: - JavaOS for Consumers The original - and I assume still continuing effort at an OS. - JavaOS for Business Dead - JavaPC Developed by Sun's Israeli division to "rescue" low-end PCs; an environment that ran on DOS, AFAICT.
Oddly enough, the JavaPC idea had some features that made it superiour to its more marketed cousins, like the ability to use a local hard drive.
Let's pretend someone in a "branch automation" market segment, say a large bank, gas company, or retailer, wants to do mojo installs and guarantee that they're all the same. Imaging disks is one option. This is another.
Maybe Sun/Netscape are waiting to see how IBM's Application Server - Websphere - will do on Linux, although I don't think that's a very good strategy in the long term.
If WebSphere under Linux takes off, I think Sun/Netscape will quickly change their minds.
There have been a slew of recent announcements from Telxon, Symbol, et al. concerning 10+Mb 802.11 compiliant devices - including VoIP phones and the like. While these are geared more for the business market than the home market currently, you *know* they have to be eyeing that playground as well. And they have nifty-neato bridges, for instances, to hook their access points to analog phone bridges. VoIP to POTS! POTS to VoIP! Dogs and cats living together....
Agreed, that reading licenses during an install for each package, separately presented, would be a kind of legalistic hell. The point I'm trying to make, and I think you've picked up on, is that usable mechanism should be put in place. I'd like a universal mechanism, capable of provided all types of licenses and covering all situations, including installs, upgrades, etc.
That's just it - throw "quality" out the window. Several journal indices don't measure "quality" per se - they measure impact, essentially. That is, the more often an article is cited, the more impact the article has - either as a source of truth, radical theory, or wrong thinking.
Why do we need to search the whole Web? Are we afraid that someone in New Guinea has the answer to our life's problems? I don't see why searching the whole web is any more relevant an activity than reading every book that has been written. Some will see a flaw in this: they'll say, "Reading the web and searching the web aren't the same thing - I want to know my choices." Fine, I say - you don't know all your choices when it comes to books, either.
Then there's the "quality" argument: "I don't want all of the references to 'X' - I want only the 'good' references to 'X'." On the Internet not only does no one know if you're a dog, they don't know if you're a dog with bad taste! I think this argument needs to be changed; I like the Social Sciences Index idea, personally: the number of references to an article makes it "important". That is, the greater the number of times that an article is refererred to by another article, even if the reference is only to refute the original, the higher the ranking of the article. We already see this in action - they're called portals. They are the hot spots of the web...
I read these sorts of articles and I wonder which is going to "win" - the ultimate portable or the ubiquity of access. By that I mean this - what do we really want? Do we want to carry around a wonderful machine with a great display, superfast processor and tons of memory? (You're all saying yes?) OR do we want acccess to a great machine everywhere we go? I liken it to the Library of Congress argument: do you want the library of congress on your desktop or do you want access to the library of congress from your desktop? I admit that they are advantages to carrying a portable machine, but for a great many such a device is unneccessary if we could access shared computing resources from work, home, school, etc. To carry around a machine does grant independence, but at the price of maintaining the machine. The vendor's current answer to that question is to provide low-end, non-upgradeable machines and consumer leasing agreements. But if you take away the machine, you exchange that problem for one of guaranteed access/QOS and a heavier emphasis on standard protocols (to allow for the transfer of information).
It's nice to see so many folks chiming in with comments about ssh & rdist replacements; the competition to build a better mousetrap sometimes seems a bit ridiculous, but then you run into a situation like this and you're grateful. Unfortunately, being able to name a replacement is not the point. The point is that someone out there is not going to know that there is a licensing distinction for some piece of software including on one of the distros and they're going to violate the terms of the license. And they're going to get caught. And they're going to raise a stink. Not that this is a real problem; I think all of the distributions should band together to develop some universal mechanism for informing users when they are installing a "pseudo-commercial" licensed product. I think that rpm, yast, apt and whatever tools that are used to install packages should be modified to present the license to a user when it varies from the license used by a majority of the distribution. Or that a user should have to read/accept each license in kind.
I'm suprised that they do not want to port the client, given that they have an AIX version of the client (or at least they did - maybe they don't have an R5 version). But I will say this: the AIX version was fairly bletcherous.
Good summary, Jon. I, too, remember Wired, but from a different perspective: I can turn around from this chair and view my stack of every issue, neatly arranged by date. And the Re>Wired Parody, too - almost superfluous, really. Wired was everything Mondo 2000 tried to be and then some; it could be serious when it wanted to be and often comical when it didn't want to be, but usually every issue contained some kernel of truth, even if it was only a picture of the latest tech toys.
The best Wired issues were the ones in which riders such as Neal Stephenson (remember issue 4.12 - The Hacker Tourist?) were given what seemed to be free reign.
If Wired seemed to bent to some on projecting the "New Economy" and their place in it, I say they made up for it with their re-telling of facets of Net history in stories such as "The Epic Saga of The WELL". Yes, they were biased, but they tended to get most of the story right and they certainly prompted discussion.
Curiously, when I read the Mitnick Speaks article, the second paragraph was missing both the title of the Markhoff book and the name of the paper in which the article appeared.
As I joyfully prepared my letter to the Forbes' Editors taking them to task for allowing such a thing, I noticed that the cut-n-pasted paragraph included the missing (invisible?) references.
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No - I must disagree here. This is not an event signifying anything having to do with "the GNU generation." This merely acknowledges the passing of a noted author of well-written technical books.
Yes, I am prejudiced; I, too, like many other posters own well-worn copies of Steven's books. Steven's death does not do anything to add legitimacy to "the GNU generation" - whatever that means. The torch that you speak of will be picked up by the next author who can express technical concepts with clarity.
For once, let's think beyond our own petty squabbles and try to show a little respect for the dead.
--
I think this is the result of several things -
at least one of which is Linux.
But Sun and IBM certainly didn't help themselves
any - there were not one, not two, but at
least three competing products they were
posing in varying guises as a Java OS:
- JavaOS for Consumers
The original - and I assume still continuing effort at an OS.
- JavaOS for Business
Dead
- JavaPC
Developed by Sun's Israeli division to
"rescue" low-end PCs; an environment that ran on
DOS, AFAICT.
Oddly enough, the JavaPC idea had some features
that made it superiour to its more marketed
cousins, like the ability to use a local hard
drive.
Let's pretend someone in a "branch automation"
market segment, say a large bank, gas company,
or retailer, wants to do mojo installs and
guarantee that they're all the same.
Imaging disks is one option.
This is another.
'Nuff said.
Wearable with wireless ethernet connector?
Does that make more sense to you?
It does to me.
Maybe Sun/Netscape are waiting to see how
IBM's Application Server - Websphere -
will do on Linux, although I don't think that's a very good strategy in the long term.
If WebSphere under Linux takes off, I think
Sun/Netscape will quickly change their minds.
There have been a slew of recent announcements
from Telxon, Symbol, et al. concerning
10+Mb 802.11 compiliant devices - including
VoIP phones and the like.
While these are geared more for the business market than the home market currently, you *know* they have to be eyeing that playground as well.
And they have nifty-neato bridges, for instances,
to hook their access points to analog phone bridges. VoIP to POTS! POTS to VoIP! Dogs and cats living together....
It's so risky that companies are marketing
products based on the idea? (http://www.computernerd.com)
and setting prices on the guaranteed overclock
MHz?
Agreed, that reading licenses during an install for each package, separately presented, would be a kind of legalistic hell. The point I'm trying to make, and I think you've picked up on, is that usable mechanism should be put in place. I'd like a universal mechanism, capable of provided all types of licenses and covering all situations, including installs, upgrades, etc.
That's just it - throw "quality" out the window.
Several journal indices don't measure "quality" per se - they measure impact, essentially.
That is, the more often an article is cited, the more impact the article has - either as a source of truth, radical theory, or wrong thinking.
Why do we need to search the whole Web?
Are we afraid that someone in New Guinea has the answer to our life's problems?
I don't see why searching the whole web is any more relevant an activity than reading every book that has been written. Some will see a flaw in this: they'll say, "Reading the web and searching the web aren't the same thing - I want to know my choices." Fine, I say - you don't know all your choices when it comes to books, either.
Then there's the "quality" argument: "I don't want all of the references to 'X' - I want only the 'good' references to 'X'." On the Internet not only does no one know if you're a dog, they don't know if you're a dog with bad taste! I think this argument needs to be changed; I like the Social Sciences Index idea, personally: the number of references to an article makes it "important". That is, the greater the number of times that an article is refererred to by another article, even if the reference is only to refute the original, the higher the ranking of the article. We already see this in action - they're called portals. They are the hot spots of the web...
--
I read these sorts of articles and I wonder which is going to "win" - the ultimate portable or the ubiquity of access. By that I mean this - what do we really want? Do we want to carry around a wonderful machine with a great display, superfast processor and tons of memory? (You're all saying yes?) OR do we want acccess to a great machine everywhere we go? I liken it to the Library of Congress argument: do you want the library of congress on your desktop or do you want access to the library of congress from your desktop?
I admit that they are advantages to carrying a portable machine, but for a great many such a device is unneccessary if we could access shared computing resources from work, home, school, etc.
To carry around a machine does grant independence, but at the price of maintaining the machine. The vendor's current answer to that question is to provide low-end, non-upgradeable machines and consumer leasing agreements. But if you take away the machine, you exchange that problem for one of guaranteed access/QOS and a heavier emphasis on standard protocols (to allow for the transfer of information).
It's nice to see so many folks chiming in with comments about ssh & rdist replacements; the competition to build a better mousetrap sometimes seems a bit ridiculous, but then you run into a situation like this and you're grateful.
Unfortunately, being able to name a replacement is not the point. The point is that someone out there is not going to know that there is a licensing distinction for some piece of software including on one of the distros and they're going to violate the terms of the license. And they're going to get caught. And they're going to raise a stink. Not that this is a real problem; I think all of the distributions should band together to develop some universal mechanism for informing users when they are installing a "pseudo-commercial" licensed product.
I think that rpm, yast, apt and whatever tools that are used to install packages should be modified to present the license to a user when it varies from the license used by a majority of the distribution. Or that a user should have to read/accept each license in kind.
I'm suprised that they do not want to port the client, given that they have an AIX version of the client (or at least they did - maybe they don't have an R5 version).
But I will say this: the AIX version was fairly bletcherous.
Good summary, Jon.
I, too, remember Wired, but from a different perspective: I can turn around from this chair and view my stack of every issue, neatly arranged by date. And the Re>Wired Parody, too - almost superfluous, really. Wired was everything Mondo 2000 tried to be and then some; it could be serious when it wanted to be and often comical when it didn't want to be, but usually every issue contained some kernel of truth, even if it was only a picture of the latest tech toys.
The best Wired issues were the ones in which riders such as Neal Stephenson (remember issue 4.12 - The Hacker Tourist?) were given what seemed to be free reign.
If Wired seemed to bent to some on projecting the "New Economy" and their place in it, I say they made up for it with their re-telling of facets of Net history in stories such as "The Epic Saga of The WELL". Yes, they were biased, but they tended to get most of the story right and they certainly prompted discussion.
Because nothing can be seperated....
Sorry, couldn't resist.
Curiously, when I read the Mitnick Speaks article,
the second paragraph was missing both the title of
the Markhoff book and the name of the paper in which the article appeared.
As I joyfully prepared my letter to the Forbes' Editors taking them to task for allowing such a thing, I noticed that the cut-n-pasted paragraph
included the missing (invisible?) references.
Anyone else notice this?