...with a system based on beta code from the internet you are running a lot of untrusted code, and (unfortunately) Open Source development/distribution will start to attract malicious hackers sooner or later. We are wide open.
How? It's open source, so the second somebody tries to improve it, or at least look at the code, they will find out about the backdoor or whatever. It seems to me that the properties of OSS make it *more* secure than other development models.
Using a scripting language instead of a shell is ridiculous. Do people write bash scripts in their GUI text editor, and run them instead of going to the shell? I doubt it. What you are proposing is exactly the same. I doubt anything will ever replace the shell, because it's so powerful.
There is what is known as "dirty Java" (I think that's what it's called, anyway,) that is compiled to native code. Perhaps something similar can be used for The Next Big Thing.
Getting back on topic... if another OS comes along that does everything Linux does and more, and has the community behind it developing, then I will jump ship.
I don't run Linux because it's trendy (which would be beyond pathetic,) I run it because it works well for me, and I can count on it being developed further. If everyone else bails on Linux, then I will have to too - it sounds like following the herd, but in reality, a community-based development model *needs* a horde of developers, or no matter what it's technical merits, it will fail as it will not go anywhere.
Actually, I used to use RedHat and Mandrake a lot, and they were both a pain in the arse to configure the way I liked.
I was a bit harsh when I said that it was the GUI or nothing, but it is a hell of a lot quicker and easier to do it in Slackware when you are using a text editor.
By the way, if it wasn't for the insult at the end, you probably wouldn't have been moderated down, and people would have actually read your post.
I wasn't doing any USA bashing at all. The guy was acting like the Internet is what it is simply because of the American way. I wasn't saying that they weren't important in it's creation, I was merely being a little sarcastic.
What Makes The Internet What It Is Today.
Today the Internet is comprised of billions of web pages, most of which are written by individual authors. Do all of these people come from the USA? I doubt it.
If you've got to find some kind of What Makes The Internet What It Is Today collection, look no further than the USA's Bill of Rights
Yeah, that's it, let's not forget that the U.S. of A. is the sole owner of the Internet, and we should all be thankful that the U.S. exists. But otherwise, yeah, you're right, ESR is no more important than a hell of a lot of other people in *Internet* terms.
Although I despise the fact that the author of that comment was obviously trying to provoke the non-American people who read Slashdot, I have to point out that absolutely *tons* of countries hand out patents without even thinking about it. I don't have any hard evidence to prove that (hey, this is Slashdot,) but people have posted evidence in the past, and they'll post it in the future. Nobody can criticise the Americans for that (anlthough they can criticise the moron for posting that troll.)
Actually, I find text-based configs *far* easier than anything Redhat has tried to do. I mean, let's face it, anything that you have to configure in Redhat has to be done in the GUI or not at all. And yes, I *have* used Redhat (and Mandrake.) Don't get me wrong, there is a market for that, it's just that MS-Windows has it covered completely. Redhat means well, but ends up just f*cking things up even more in an attempt to make things better.
If there was a version of Word that ran under UNIX and LINUX I think we'd all stop using Microsoft products.
Erm. You mean a Word-like app, right? If you are comparing like-for-like, then what is wrong with Star Office compared with Office 2000? KOffice is on the way, and the new Wordperfect Office 2000 suite is also coming.
To get back on topic, I think that the more publicity Linux gets in China, the better. Think about how much the Linux market grew last year (212% in the server market alone.) Now, if a similar rise will start happening in China next year, that will mean a phenomenal surge in the number of Linux users worldwide, and perhaps a few Chinese distributions (are there any yet?) I always believe that the more people get exposed to Linux (and other, similar OSes like FreeBSD,) the more people realise that MS is screwing them.
It's nowhere near the same thing with NT. First of all, this assumes an NTFS partition. Also, the \WINNT system directory is writeable by all users - an effect similar to having/bin,/sbin,/etc,/var, and/lib world writable in UNIX. Sure, you could easily set the proper permissions, but that means that users cannot install and run the majority of NT programs, because they all expect to be able to put DLLs, etc, in the system directories.
I have this book, and I have to say that it is very easy to pick up QT programming using it. This is basically the only really good learning aid for QT I have found, online or off. You don't really need any experience with GUI programming, though. I haven't much, and I picked things up straight away.
But you have to remember that the kernel has to support the hardware, X has to be configured for the monitor/vidcard, etc, etc. I believe this topic has come up many times before.
Anyone interested in developing a GPLed 3D game should head over to http://www.timecity.org - it's just about getting to the stage where code is being laid down. Or visit #timecity on SlashNet.
End users aren't ever going to be encouraged to use advanced packaging mechanisms...
In a typical environment for these viruses, such as the workplace, Linux on the desktop would simply have a mounted/usr. The sysadmin could just upgrade the package once, and all users would be safe from any holes. Fire & forget.
Because, on a Linux system, the security model depends heavily on the concept of a Root superuser account, once a process or user gets root access the whole system is basically defenseless against it. And because Linux is deep down a multi-user system, there is tremendous power granted to processes running inside the machine without user purview. So your arguement doesn't hold much credence.
Linux depends heavily on the root user account, so it is flawed? I'm laughing my ass off at that one. So f*cking what if the system is defenceless against the root account? In MS-Windows, the system is defenceless against every user. This is is not even an issue any more, as Linux is doing away with the root account, as capabilities are introduced.
Read: an elitist "let the sysadmin do it, you don't need root access to your machine. He'll get around to it next Tuesday" scenario. Great, people will love that.
Like I just said, one upgrade for the entire network. If users want to install their own programs, then they can do so in their home dir. Compare this with MS-Windows, where every user need write permission to \windows or \winnt to install programs. The default permissions in NT for some things are ridiculous. And that's if you even use NTFS, it won't even complain if you install to FAT. How considerate of it.
Actually, this isn't as bad as it sounds. Only users who are dumb enough to actually run email attachments would use up cpu on it, everyone else would just ignore it. Not that I am suggesting somebody actually goes out and writes one...
"...but if someone exploits the backticks in/etc/mailcap to delete $HOME, how much better are you going to feel because/usr was untouchable?"
A hell of a lot better. It means I don't have to reinstall the OS just to make sure I have a secure system. Although, many people would argue that is a non-issue with MS-Windows.
IANAL, but I think that, as nhw said, the law as it stands considers news postings as being published by the ISP. Until the law is changed so that ISPs are classed as telecommunication suppliers (or whatever the correct term is) issues such as this will continue to crop up.
As far as I know, BT and other telcos are not at risk from being sued because they are classed as service providers, and are just the access point for people. ISPs do this now, and I assume Demon are going to press for ISPs to be put in the same league.
However, I am not sure what the legal situation is if, e.g. somebody keeps getting harassing phone calls and BT does nothing about it. I would think that BT would be legally required to put a stop to it somehow. If ISPs were put in the same boat, and somebody kept posting defamatory articles, then I would imagine Demon would have to cancel the account. Which would be the correct thing to do.
I think that Demon are doing the right thing by dismissing this and pressing for ISPs to have more rights.
If you are implying Slackware doesn't work out of the box, and you say you have installed Slack on over 50 systems, then you obviously can't read the simple instructions to install.
The only way Slack wouldn't work out of the box is if you decided in your infinite wisdom to not install libc or something. Other than that, Slack works just fine.
Less of the distro bashing please - and before you start, most of the criticisms of Redhat here are justified.
So my email address & uni web page will be blocked, simply for being at Essex University?
I'm gonna sue the au. gov. for slander:). I don't want people going around accusing me of hosting "unsuitable content".
Imagine all the businesses out there who will lose customers over this. Australia has a pretty large population, and if other nations join in, any commercial website that must compete with others will have to do a hell of a lot of research into each country's censorship laws just to be able to be viewed by anyone.
Ballmer hinted that one area would concern portions of the code that related to database connectivity, which many developers find "complicated and difficult to understand."
Read this as "It's so broke we need help to fix it." Seriously.
Windows 2000 has *how* many billion lines of code? My guess is that they have reached a point where MS VC++ simply looks at the code, and says "no way, man"
They won't be able to ship a *working* Win2000, but that doesn't mean people won't pay good money for it. If they open some of the source, it will give them a chance to free their developers to work on the closed off bits.
IMHO, Open Source is the only way for MS-Windows to survive in the long run. I doubt the freaks at Microsoft know this yet though:)
OK, I'll agree, computers are more expensive, and yeah, like I said, what they are aiming for would be "dumbed down" compared with computers. But I don't agree with you when you say that consoles are better for games. Not at all.
At the end of the day, whatever the console does has to be piped through a TV. And for many countries (like the UK, where I live), the standard TV is awful quality for anything other than watching TV. And when it comes to crashing, blame Microsoft. I really ought to make that my sig sometime. COMPUTERS DON'T CRASH. The software does.
It would be better for them if they ported an already available OS, such as Linux or *BSD, removed half the code, such as that relating to filesystems and hardware, wrote their own drivers, and bundled it as firmware.
Obviously, you wouldn't have to install anything, because it would all come on dvd or whatever. They would already have the code base necessary to offer internet connection, sound, etc. And it would be simple enough for a five year old to pop the cd in and switch on. Half the problems associated with computers is their versatility, which Nintendo and Sony are adding to every day.
So what happens when they add internet connectivity. Where do I store my bookmarks? What happens when I want a different browser? Not everyone will be happy with the one that comes with the console. Sooner or later someone else will come out with a rival, and there will be all sorts of incompatabilities, etc.
A little setting up is the price people have to pay for versatility. If they keep adding to their products at this rate, in five years time, a five year old kid WON'T be able to use it.
"...they want to make this thing the center of your entertainment unit-DVD, CD, as well as hooking up to the Internet."
Oh, you mean like a computer does? Let's face it, with all the console makers out to add more and more functionality to their consoles, they are aspiring to what computer-owners have had for ages. Nintendo wants to break into the computer market with a dumbed-down PC.
If I want to buy something to write an email on, I'll buy a computer. If I want to buy something to play games on, I'll buy a computer.
Sounds like Nintendo have finally noticed what's happening with the computer games industry. What's the point of having hi-res 3d games, if they are only going to be displayed on a TV?
Jim, who's seen this coming since the MarioPaint Mouse was released.
Re:An Alternative Development Model:FreeBSD
on
Linux 2.3.0
·
· Score: 3
Why would sysadmins want to install development kernels on production systems? I know that the 2.2.x series has been progressing a bit quickly recently, but it will settle down now a bit.
What happens in the BSD camp if a major flaw is released? Do people have to wait for the next quarter? Of course not, that would be ridiculous.
The work on Linux is just a little less opaque. With Linux, sysadmins get to review the changelogs, and upgrade if it would improve performance/reliability/etc. Compare that to FreeBSD, where the choice is made for them. I know which I prefer.
This is ridiculous. The Y2K problem just highlights the massive code bloat in all their software - if it was coded better, it would take them half the time to sort this out.
Surely if this is a license which requires your agreement before you download/install the patch, it must fall under the same rules that people were working with to get their money back from preinstalled windows. In other words, if you refuse to accept the license, can Microsoft be liable because they refused to fix the software on the same terms under which you bought the original software?
You can configure all sorts of weird combos with the control panel keyboard module. Does anyone know how to get the Win95 keys going easily for KDE?
Anyway, I have never liked the split keyboard design. Whenever I am forced to use one, I am always left searching for the 'g' or 'h' on the wrong side.
Slashdot Mirror
How? It's open source, so the second somebody tries to improve it, or at least look at the code, they will find out about the backdoor or whatever. It seems to me that the properties of OSS make it *more* secure than other development models.
Using a scripting language instead of a shell is ridiculous. Do people write bash scripts in their GUI text editor, and run them instead of going to the shell? I doubt it. What you are proposing is exactly the same. I doubt anything will ever replace the shell, because it's so powerful.
There is what is known as "dirty Java" (I think that's what it's called, anyway,) that is compiled to native code. Perhaps something similar can be used for The Next Big Thing.
Getting back on topic... if another OS comes along that does everything Linux does and more, and has the community behind it developing, then I will jump ship.
I don't run Linux because it's trendy (which would be beyond pathetic,) I run it because it works well for me, and I can count on it being developed further. If everyone else bails on Linux, then I will have to too - it sounds like following the herd, but in reality, a community-based development model *needs* a horde of developers, or no matter what it's technical merits, it will fail as it will not go anywhere.
Actually, I used to use RedHat and Mandrake a lot, and they were both a pain in the arse to configure the way I liked.
I was a bit harsh when I said that it was the GUI or nothing, but it is a hell of a lot quicker and easier to do it in Slackware when you are using a text editor.
By the way, if it wasn't for the insult at the end, you probably wouldn't have been moderated down, and people would have actually read your post.
What Makes The Internet What It Is Today.
Today the Internet is comprised of billions of web pages, most of which are written by individual authors. Do all of these people come from the USA? I doubt it.
No trolls here, mate.
Yeah, that's it, let's not forget that the U.S. of A. is the sole owner of the Internet, and we should all be thankful that the U.S. exists. But otherwise, yeah, you're right, ESR is no more important than a hell of a lot of other people in *Internet* terms.
Although I despise the fact that the author of that comment was obviously trying to provoke the non-American people who read Slashdot, I have to point out that absolutely *tons* of countries hand out patents without even thinking about it. I don't have any hard evidence to prove that (hey, this is Slashdot,) but people have posted evidence in the past, and they'll post it in the future. Nobody can criticise the Americans for that (anlthough they can criticise the moron for posting that troll.)
Actually, I find text-based configs *far* easier than anything Redhat has tried to do. I mean, let's face it, anything that you have to configure in Redhat has to be done in the GUI or not at all. And yes, I *have* used Redhat (and Mandrake.) Don't get me wrong, there is a market for that, it's just that MS-Windows has it covered completely. Redhat means well, but ends up just f*cking things up even more in an attempt to make things better.
Erm. You mean a Word-like app, right? If you are comparing like-for-like, then what is wrong with Star Office compared with Office 2000? KOffice is on the way, and the new Wordperfect Office 2000 suite is also coming.
To get back on topic, I think that the more publicity Linux gets in China, the better. Think about how much the Linux market grew last year (212% in the server market alone.) Now, if a similar rise will start happening in China next year, that will mean a phenomenal surge in the number of Linux users worldwide, and perhaps a few Chinese distributions (are there any yet?) I always believe that the more people get exposed to Linux (and other, similar OSes like FreeBSD,) the more people realise that MS is screwing them.
It's nowhere near the same thing with NT. First of all, this assumes an NTFS partition. Also, the \WINNT system directory is writeable by all users - an effect similar to having /bin, /sbin, /etc, /var, and /lib world writable in UNIX. Sure, you could easily set the proper permissions, but that means that users cannot install and run the majority of NT programs, because they all expect to be able to put DLLs, etc, in the system directories.
I have this book, and I have to say that it is very easy to pick up QT programming using it. This is basically the only really good learning aid for QT I have found, online or off.
You don't really need any experience with GUI programming, though. I haven't much, and I picked things up straight away.
But you have to remember that the kernel has to support the hardware, X has to be configured for the monitor/vidcard, etc, etc. I believe this topic has come up many times before.
Anyone interested in developing a GPLed 3D game should head over to http://www.timecity.org - it's just about getting to the stage where code is being laid down. Or visit #timecity on SlashNet.
End users aren't ever going to be encouraged to use advanced packaging mechanisms...
/usr. The sysadmin could just upgrade the package once, and all users would be safe from any holes. Fire & forget.
In a typical environment for these viruses, such as the workplace, Linux on the desktop would simply have a mounted
Because, on a Linux system, the security model depends heavily on the concept of a Root superuser account, once a process or user gets root access the whole system is basically defenseless against it. And because Linux is deep down a multi-user system, there is tremendous power granted to processes running inside the machine without user purview. So your arguement doesn't hold much credence.
Linux depends heavily on the root user account, so it is flawed? I'm laughing my ass off at that one. So f*cking what if the system is defenceless against the root account? In MS-Windows, the system is defenceless against every user. This is is not even an issue any more, as Linux is doing away with the root account, as capabilities are introduced.
Read: an elitist "let the sysadmin do it, you don't need root access to your machine. He'll get around to it next Tuesday" scenario. Great, people will love that.
Like I just said, one upgrade for the entire network. If users want to install their own programs, then they can do so in their home dir. Compare this with MS-Windows, where every user need write permission to \windows or \winnt to install programs. The default permissions in NT for some things are ridiculous. And that's if you even use NTFS, it won't even complain if you install to FAT. How considerate of it.
Actually, this isn't as bad as it sounds. Only users who are dumb enough to actually run email attachments would use up cpu on it, everyone else would just ignore it. Not that I am suggesting somebody actually goes out and writes one...
A hell of a lot better. It means I don't have to reinstall the OS just to make sure I have a secure system. Although, many people would argue that is a non-issue with MS-Windows.
HOW did you check? I think that is the point Riktov was making - you *cannot* check.
IANAL, but I think that, as nhw said, the law as it stands considers news postings as being published by the ISP. Until the law is changed so that ISPs are classed as telecommunication suppliers (or whatever the correct term is) issues such as this will continue to crop up.
As far as I know, BT and other telcos are not at risk from being sued because they are classed as service providers, and are just the access point for people. ISPs do this now, and I assume Demon are going to press for ISPs to be put in the same league.
However, I am not sure what the legal situation is if, e.g. somebody keeps getting harassing phone calls and BT does nothing about it. I would think that BT would be legally required to put a stop to it somehow. If ISPs were put in the same boat, and somebody kept posting defamatory articles, then I would imagine Demon would have to cancel the account. Which would be the correct thing to do.
I think that Demon are doing the right thing by dismissing this and pressing for ISPs to have more rights.
If you are implying Slackware doesn't work out of the box, and you say you have installed Slack on over 50 systems, then you obviously can't read the simple instructions to install.
The only way Slack wouldn't work out of the box is if you decided in your infinite wisdom to not install libc or something. Other than that, Slack works just fine.
Less of the distro bashing please - and before you start, most of the criticisms of Redhat here are justified.
So my email address & uni web page will be blocked, simply for being at Essex University?
:). I don't want people going around accusing me of hosting "unsuitable content".
I'm gonna sue the au. gov. for slander
Imagine all the businesses out there who will lose customers over this. Australia has a pretty large population, and if other nations join in, any commercial website that must compete with others will have to do a hell of a lot of research into each country's censorship laws just to be able to be viewed by anyone.
Read this as "It's so broke we need help to fix it." Seriously.
Windows 2000 has *how* many billion lines of code? My guess is that they have reached a point where MS VC++ simply looks at the code, and says "no way, man"
They won't be able to ship a *working* Win2000, but that doesn't mean people won't pay good money for it. If they open some of the source, it will give them a chance to free their developers to work on the closed off bits.
IMHO, Open Source is the only way for MS-Windows to survive in the long run. I doubt the freaks at Microsoft know this yet though :)
OK, I'll agree, computers are more expensive, and yeah, like I said, what they are aiming for would be "dumbed down" compared with computers. But I don't agree with you when you say that consoles are better for games. Not at all.
:)
At the end of the day, whatever the console does has to be piped through a TV. And for many countries (like the UK, where I live), the standard TV is awful quality for anything other than watching TV.
And when it comes to crashing, blame Microsoft. I really ought to make that my sig sometime. COMPUTERS DON'T CRASH. The software does.
It would be better for them if they ported an already available OS, such as Linux or *BSD, removed half the code, such as that relating to filesystems and hardware, wrote their own drivers, and bundled it as firmware.
Obviously, you wouldn't have to install anything, because it would all come on dvd or whatever. They would already have the code base necessary to offer internet connection, sound, etc. And it would be simple enough for a five year old to pop the cd in and switch on. Half the problems associated with computers is their versatility, which Nintendo and Sony are adding to every day.
So what happens when they add internet connectivity. Where do I store my bookmarks? What happens when I want a different browser? Not everyone will be happy with the one that comes with the console. Sooner or later someone else will come out with a rival, and there will be all sorts of incompatabilities, etc.
A little setting up is the price people have to pay for versatility. If they keep adding to their products at this rate, in five years time, a five year old kid WON'T be able to use it.
Blame Microsoft
"...they want to make this thing the center of your entertainment unit-DVD, CD, as well as hooking up to the Internet."
Oh, you mean like a computer does? Let's face it, with all the console makers out to add more and more functionality to their consoles, they are aspiring to what computer-owners have had for ages. Nintendo wants to break into the computer market with a dumbed-down PC.
If I want to buy something to write an email on, I'll buy a computer.
If I want to buy something to play games on, I'll buy a computer.
Sounds like Nintendo have finally noticed what's happening with the computer games industry. What's the point of having hi-res 3d games, if they are only going to be displayed on a TV?
Jim, who's seen this coming since the MarioPaint Mouse was released.
Why would sysadmins want to install development kernels on production systems? I know that the 2.2.x series has been progressing a bit quickly recently, but it will settle down now a bit.
What happens in the BSD camp if a major flaw is released? Do people have to wait for the next quarter? Of course not, that would be ridiculous.
The work on Linux is just a little less opaque. With Linux, sysadmins get to review the changelogs, and upgrade if it would improve performance/reliability/etc. Compare that to FreeBSD, where the choice is made for them. I know which I prefer.
How can Microsoft tell win95 users to upgrade to win98 to solve their "issues" when 98 STILL isn't compliant???
0 24
http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990423S0
This is ridiculous. The Y2K problem just highlights the massive code bloat in all their software - if it was coded better, it would take them half the time to sort this out.
Jim
Surely if this is a license which requires your agreement before you download/install the patch, it must fall under the same rules that people were working with to get their money back from preinstalled windows.
In other words, if you refuse to accept the license, can Microsoft be liable because they refused to fix the software on the same terms under which you bought the original software?
Jim
Try Alt-F1
You can configure all sorts of weird combos with the control panel keyboard module. Does anyone know how to get the Win95 keys going easily for KDE?
Anyway, I have never liked the split keyboard design. Whenever I am forced to use one, I am always left searching for the 'g' or 'h' on the wrong side.
Jim