I know I will probably get flamed for this, so please let me make the disclaimer at the beginning here that I am not trying to acuse anyone of being a thief.
The problem is that I can't help noticing a disturbing trend in Slashdot discussions. We have a lot of people here who are upset that Apple continues to want to keep some of it's code closed. There are accusations of Apple taking from Open Source without contributing what it should. There are concerns of those wary of a corporation trying to keep a foot in Open and a foot in Closed source at the same time. There are calls for Apple to Open up more of its code. Etc. etc. These discussions always sound very libertarian and mature. People want the right to use something for free before they do.
Now, look at Napster. The discussions on Slashdot tend to be complaints about Napster being shutdown. Even those good natured individuals who claim to use it for a 'try before you buy' tool are breaking the law. I'm not saint and I use Napster myself, but I suspect that there are very, very few people here who can claim to have never downloaded a song that they didn't already own. So the bottom line, legally speaking, is that this amounts to theft.
Therefore, it seems incongruous that the same community should even care about the terms of any software license. Afterall, software can be copied from a Warez site, or a CD can be burned from a friend. So why worry? If there's no problem stealing intellectual property from the RIAA, why not from Apple, or Microsoft, or anyone else?
Again, I understand that there is more to these issues, I am merely observing what seems to be a general attitude that seems somewhat indefensible.
.NET has the potential to truly tie the desktop experience into a proprietary web technology. This is the major difference between the two IMHO...java had the potential to drive web services from any platform,.NET has the ability to dictate what platform is used in order to drive these web services.
This is a scary thought, considering the marketing clout of MS. I'm no MS basher, but the OpenSource community needs to seriously look at.NET and figure out a way to react.
It just struck me that email servers (in the client/server scenario that we see today) will be made very much redundant in the future if we all have dedicated 100 meg pipes coming into our homes and PCs with a static IP. There will be no more need for store-and-forward messaging.
Universal broadband will totally change the face of what we do online, when, where and with whom.
In the recent/. interview Jon Lasser and Jay Beale commented that they believed OpenBSD was impractical, missed vulnerabilities and basically missed the point of OS hardening. How do you respond to this point of view?
"The question everybody asks, in a million different ways (sorry, I'm not going through the thread again to pick out users; you know who you are):
Why do this? Why not just use OpenBSD?
Jon: Because people use Linux. Ultimately, standard is better than better. For most tasks, most of the time, assuming that the stuff meets minimum qualifications, it's better to have a single platform than multiple platforms that fulfill different needs.
Besides, a fair part of OpenBSD's security comes from its feature-limited default installation. They've been subject to the same FTP and DHCP exploits as everyone else, only the features aren't enabled by default. Heck, they're not enabled by default for most classes of Red Hat installs either. But people use them.
I'm not opposed to auditing, and I'm not opposed to more secure defaults. But most boxes sure seem to me to be hacked via holes that are known, that have been out for months, in services that aren't being used, and that haven't been patched. We speak to those systems first, since the low-hanging fruit is so extensive.
Jay: Yup. Further, Linux has room to surpass OpenBSD, in my opinion. Linux developers are doing more kernel-level security work, because of Linux's popularity as a standard. OpenBSD, as Jon points out, misses vulnerabilities, because their auditors are human and non-omniscient. Kernel-level security solutions, like Medusa DS9 or WireX's Immunix technology, are the only way to really stop the vulnerabilities that the audits miss. Linux can really rocket ahead here and I think the whole Bastille project will be eager to help."
I'm sure I'm not the only person who clicked through to that explanation page about the IDs and thought that this seems to be one of the dark and dusty corners of computing to which too little attention has been paid.
Why is this stuff not governed by standards? Shouldn't standards be emerging so that engineers from different companies don't step on each others' toes (as IBM has clearly done in this case).
Open Source is built on standards. Why can't there be IDs reserved for hardware mfgs who want to do proprietary stuff without running the risk of this happening again. While I respect the NetBSD guys for wanting to have their OS run on anything, I don't think the onus should be on the software people to change their code whenever some knownothing laptop maker gets in the way.
the homeless voting from their homes?
on
eLection '04
·
· Score: 1
"Would it have been fair, in 2000, for the middle class to be able to vote from the comfort of their homes and jobs, while the poor and homeless had to get to a voting booth? I don't know. "
I think the homeless would have some difficulty voting from their homes. And if I'm not mistaken, they have some trouble registerning to vote as it is. Perhaps we should provide temporary homes for the homeless so they can vote. We'd only need this housing once every two years, so it could be used by the wealthy the rest of the time.
If I'm not mistaken, we are still way off in the capability to render enough polygons to approximate reality well enough to fool ourselves into thinking the CG is real life. So we need these killer cards that can run our current software at crazy-ass frame rates in order to allow the next level of game designers to write games that show more polygons per second while being able to rely on there being a consumer base that can run their resource intensive games. Think about it, if Carmack had to sell QuakeIII to the same hardware base that ran QuakeI at crazy frame rates, he wouldn't have been able to make the software improvements that he did.
I have no idea whether I'm making any sense, but I hope someone understands my point.
check out this related article.
I think, therefore that we should conserve as many characters as possible. It's like people named Matt or Elliott who use 2 't's - I mean that's pretty frickin' gready. Wouldn't it sound the same with just 1 't'? Why are you people hoarding?
I think the real question is whether one Linux Kernel can - or even, should, fit all systems. Obviously the current scalability and flexibility of Linux to run on an enviably diverse range of platforms is impressive - but will it ever be the best OS for everyone?
I guess you can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but no more - and frankly this makes sense.
Big Iron is bound to have requirements that differ greatly from handheld computing. I'm pretty sure that this will continue. My fear is that code forks will reduce the impact that the Linux community is having in attracting applications developers. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to write once and run anywhere.
And, fundamentally, isn't that really the point? After all the end user won't know/care whether there's a special patch on the kernel powering their system, as long as it's possible(hopefully easy) to run the apps they like. That's when you get real flexibility and power out of having a common denominator.
I think the stakeholders in this discussion (Linus, IBM etc) should be encouraged not to take their eyes off this goal.
What the hell? How can any self respecting report write a sentence on Helix Code without mentioning Eazel? I'm so glad that the Linux community continues to be inpenetrable to the media. Great.
I wonder if this level of understanding will ever improve?
It seems to me that this is either a really good idea, or a really bad idea, and the determining factor is why accidents happen when working remotely in space.
There's really no point in sending more than one probe at the same time if we need to use the information collected from an accident to prevent future problems. If, however, accidents result from random, or factors beyond human influence, then the red planet should be bombarded with probes, the more the merrier!
I've heard a lot of criticsm of the NASA cheap-&-many vs. few-&-pricey approach, but I disagree with most critics. I think it is important to get out into space, and this goal should be the primary concern. More smaller missions IMHO insure more effectively against the cost of mishap.
I agree that code reuse will bring more apps better and faster to Unix, but can this be implemented without being vulnerable to lovebug-like viruses and exploits? Linux tends to be very resiliant to such things thanks to the independence of the components in the GNU/Linux environment doesn't it?
I think there may be tools for converting scanned documents to HTML for the web since HTML is an open standard and the web is everywhere. Loads of vendors work with the web and there may be more tools than for PS or PDF alone.
Printing from Netscape to PS and then using ps2pdf gives nice and searchable results.
I haven't read through the nitty gritty of the linked article here yet, but the March edition of Sysadmin magazine had an article, Router-Based Network Defense by Gilbert Held "Held discusses the use of router access lists (using Cisco routers as an example) to minimize certain types of network attacks." It's not online at www.sysadminmag.com yet, but it explores some of the basic concepts involved in configuring CISCO routers to stop such attacks. Worth the read if you are interested. You can still get it at your local newsstand.
The only reason I can think of to have a color palm (besides the obvious cool factor) is for web browsing. Sure I haven't used AvantGo and a Palm VIII, but I suspect that you will only participate in very specialized browsing functions on a screen that small, color or no. Gimme a color web pad, sure, but for my money, the palm should remain in the realm of monochrome and text based...this is why the terminal applications are my favourite X apps.
The editorial in Linux Magazine in the latest issue argues for settling of either kde or gnome and abandoning everthing else in favour of pushing one to being finished and creating a "standard". Well, ideas like that would have left Linux in the dark ages. I couldn't believe that the editor of a Linux mag could miss the point of the OSS revolution so completely. Go get a copy and tell him how it is.
I've been playing with blackbox window manager lately and I think it's great! Very clean, nice menus, and runs kde or gnome apps without breaking a sweat. My problem with gnome and kde is that they are customizable to a point, but no matter what you do, it always looks like gnome. If you want a really good looking and customizable desktop, run enlightenment by itself. Much nicer IMHO. Anyway, I think that there's a lot of great reasons to have multiple window managers, multiple GUI environments etc.
The world is a better place now that Kevin walks free and can tell his story. Best wishes Kevin. I have a feeling that the phrase "Free Kevin" will stand for a lot more than the Kevin Mitnick case and online rights/justice in the future.
Recent IPOs for Linux related companies have shown that the market is really excited about this new and rapidly growing technology. Are there any plans to spin Corel's Linux products off into a separate company - trading separately on the exchanges - in order to unlock the market value of your Linux investments?
Basing (or even using) this movie in a philosophy class is a ludicrous idea. If the students need their idea's shrink-wrapped in this manner, they are likely unequipped to consider the ideas themselves. Philosophical ideas are a challenge to consider in and of themselves - changing the metaphor to a more contemporary idea may make them initially more accessable, but without the slog of understanding an ancient passage one is less likely to respect the concept they confront. Discussions in the this course must range from "there is a spoon...no there isn't" to random attacks by people taking a running jump at your midsection.
My question is that if life first came from Mars, where did life come from to get there? Was is Jupiter? Or Saturn? Just because something might have been possible does not mean that it happened - and until we have reason to believe that life did not begin here, we should continue to operate under the assumption that it did. I'd like to shoot the scientist conducting this research to Mars and see how they feel after the trip.
Jobs knows what he's doing when it comes to consumer devices. With Apple behind Palm OS, we can all sleep soundly knowing that WinCE is even less likely to take control of the CE market place. Palm OS has great support in the independent developer community (not to mention the OSS guys), but it has been in danger of not having the necessary backing to compete against a competitor w/ unlimited R&D, marketing power and patience. If you can get a Palm into the hands of every whimsical Mac user, it will push the demand for increased usability with improved look&feel. This couldn't come at a better time considering the new wireless Internet applications being made available.
My only worry is that carrying one could become an embarrasment. I really don't want to use a PDA that is named after a fruit. Steve, please, make it black or grey. We need at least the semblance of looking cool. Go watch the matrix.
Slashdot Mirror
I know I will probably get flamed for this, so please let me make the disclaimer at the beginning here that I am not trying to acuse anyone of being a thief.
The problem is that I can't help noticing a disturbing trend in Slashdot discussions. We have a lot of people here who are upset that Apple continues to want to keep some of it's code closed. There are accusations of Apple taking from Open Source without contributing what it should. There are concerns of those wary of a corporation trying to keep a foot in Open and a foot in Closed source at the same time. There are calls for Apple to Open up more of its code. Etc. etc. These discussions always sound very libertarian and mature. People want the right to use something for free before they do.
Now, look at Napster. The discussions on Slashdot tend to be complaints about Napster being shutdown. Even those good natured individuals who claim to use it for a 'try before you buy' tool are breaking the law. I'm not saint and I use Napster myself, but I suspect that there are very, very few people here who can claim to have never downloaded a song that they didn't already own. So the bottom line, legally speaking, is that this amounts to theft.
Therefore, it seems incongruous that the same community should even care about the terms of any software license. Afterall, software can be copied from a Warez site, or a CD can be burned from a friend. So why worry? If there's no problem stealing intellectual property from the RIAA, why not from Apple, or Microsoft, or anyone else?
Again, I understand that there is more to these issues, I am merely observing what seems to be a general attitude that seems somewhat indefensible.
I'd like this explaned in terms of Alice, Bob and Eve.
I figure which ever way you look at it, Bob's going to be a pretty lucky guy.
But if I were Alice I wouldn't stand for this kind of philandering.
.NET has the potential to truly tie the desktop experience into a proprietary web technology. This is the major difference between the two IMHO...java had the potential to drive web services from any platform, .NET has the ability to dictate what platform is used in order to drive these web services.
.NET and figure out a way to react.
This is a scary thought, considering the marketing clout of MS. I'm no MS basher, but the OpenSource community needs to seriously look at
It just struck me that email servers (in the client/server scenario that we see today) will be made very much redundant in the future if we all have dedicated 100 meg pipes coming into our homes and PCs with a static IP. There will be no more need for store-and-forward messaging.
Universal broadband will totally change the face of what we do online, when, where and with whom.
In the recent /. interview Jon Lasser and Jay Beale commented that they believed OpenBSD was impractical, missed vulnerabilities and basically missed the point of OS hardening. How do you respond to this point of view?
"The question everybody asks, in a million different ways (sorry, I'm not going through the thread again to pick out users; you know who you are):
Why do this? Why not just use OpenBSD?
Jon: Because people use Linux. Ultimately, standard is better than better. For most tasks, most of the time, assuming that the stuff meets minimum qualifications, it's better to have a single platform than multiple platforms that fulfill different needs.
Besides, a fair part of OpenBSD's security comes from its feature-limited default installation. They've been subject to the same FTP and DHCP exploits as everyone else, only the features aren't enabled by default. Heck, they're not enabled by default for most classes of Red Hat installs either. But people use them.
I'm not opposed to auditing, and I'm not opposed to more secure defaults. But most boxes sure seem to me to be hacked via holes that are known, that have been out for months, in services that aren't being used, and that haven't been patched. We speak to those systems first, since the low-hanging fruit is so extensive.
Jay: Yup. Further, Linux has room to surpass OpenBSD, in my opinion. Linux developers are doing more kernel-level security work, because of Linux's popularity as a standard. OpenBSD, as Jon points out, misses vulnerabilities, because their auditors are human and non-omniscient. Kernel-level security solutions, like Medusa DS9 or WireX's Immunix technology, are the only way to really stop the vulnerabilities that the audits miss. Linux can really rocket ahead here and I think the whole Bastille project will be eager to help."
I'm sure I'm not the only person who clicked through to that explanation page about the IDs and thought that this seems to be one of the dark and dusty corners of computing to which too little attention has been paid.
Why is this stuff not governed by standards? Shouldn't standards be emerging so that engineers from different companies don't step on each others' toes (as IBM has clearly done in this case).
Open Source is built on standards. Why can't there be IDs reserved for hardware mfgs who want to do proprietary stuff without running the risk of this happening again. While I respect the NetBSD guys for wanting to have their OS run on anything, I don't think the onus should be on the software people to change their code whenever some knownothing laptop maker gets in the way.
"Would it have been fair, in 2000, for the middle class to be able to vote from the comfort of their homes and jobs, while the poor and homeless had to get to a voting booth? I don't know. "
I think the homeless would have some difficulty voting from their homes. And if I'm not mistaken, they have some trouble registerning to vote as it is. Perhaps we should provide temporary homes for the homeless so they can vote. We'd only need this housing once every two years, so it could be used by the wealthy the rest of the time.
If I'm not mistaken, we are still way off in the capability to render enough polygons to approximate reality well enough to fool ourselves into thinking the CG is real life. So we need these killer cards that can run our current software at crazy-ass frame rates in order to allow the next level of game designers to write games that show more polygons per second while being able to rely on there being a consumer base that can run their resource intensive games. Think about it, if Carmack had to sell QuakeIII to the same hardware base that ran QuakeI at crazy frame rates, he wouldn't have been able to make the software improvements that he did.
I have no idea whether I'm making any sense, but I hope someone understands my point.
check out this related article. I think, therefore that we should conserve as many characters as possible. It's like people named Matt or Elliott who use 2 't's - I mean that's pretty frickin' gready. Wouldn't it sound the same with just 1 't'? Why are you people hoarding?
I prefer the explanation from The Fifth Element where it said that the universe is made up of four parts boring stuff, one part hot redhead.
I think the real question is whether one Linux Kernel can - or even, should, fit all systems. Obviously the current scalability and flexibility of Linux to run on an enviably diverse range of platforms is impressive - but will it ever be the best OS for everyone?
I guess you can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time, but no more - and frankly this makes sense.
Big Iron is bound to have requirements that differ greatly from handheld computing. I'm pretty sure that this will continue. My fear is that code forks will reduce the impact that the Linux community is having in attracting applications developers. You want to make it as easy as possible for people to write once and run anywhere.
And, fundamentally, isn't that really the point? After all the end user won't know/care whether there's a special patch on the kernel powering their system, as long as it's possible(hopefully easy) to run the apps they like. That's when you get real flexibility and power out of having a common denominator.
I think the stakeholders in this discussion (Linus, IBM etc) should be encouraged not to take their eyes off this goal.
I've been waiting on the edge of my seat for the 1.13Ghz chip.
How can I be expected to get anything done with a 1.1Ghz processor?
C'mon Intel, this isn't rocket science. Get with the program. You guys are so sloppy. Way to ruin my day.
What the hell? How can any self respecting report write a sentence on Helix Code without mentioning Eazel? I'm so glad that the Linux community continues to be inpenetrable to the media. Great.
I wonder if this level of understanding will ever improve?
It seems to me that this is either a really good idea, or a really bad idea, and the determining factor is why accidents happen when working remotely in space.
There's really no point in sending more than one probe at the same time if we need to use the information collected from an accident to prevent future problems. If, however, accidents result from random, or factors beyond human influence, then the red planet should be bombarded with probes, the more the merrier!
I've heard a lot of criticsm of the NASA cheap-&-many vs. few-&-pricey approach, but I disagree with most critics. I think it is important to get out into space, and this goal should be the primary concern. More smaller missions IMHO insure more effectively against the cost of mishap.
I agree that code reuse will bring more apps better and faster to Unix, but can this be implemented without being vulnerable to lovebug-like viruses and exploits? Linux tends to be very resiliant to such things thanks to the independence of the components in the GNU/Linux environment doesn't it?
I think there may be tools for converting scanned documents to HTML for the web since HTML is an open standard and the web is everywhere. Loads of vendors work with the web and there may be more tools than for PS or PDF alone.
Printing from Netscape to PS and then using ps2pdf gives nice and searchable results.
looks like she got slashdotted by this article. Growl!
I haven't read through the nitty gritty of the linked article here yet, but the March edition of Sysadmin magazine had an article, Router-Based Network Defense by Gilbert Held "Held discusses the use of router access lists (using Cisco routers as an example) to minimize certain types of network attacks." It's not online at www.sysadminmag.com yet, but it explores some of the basic concepts involved in configuring CISCO routers to stop such attacks. Worth the read if you are interested. You can still get it at your local newsstand.
The only reason I can think of to have a color palm (besides the obvious cool factor) is for web browsing. Sure I haven't used AvantGo and a Palm VIII, but I suspect that you will only participate in very specialized browsing functions on a screen that small, color or no. Gimme a color web pad, sure, but for my money, the palm should remain in the realm of monochrome and text based...this is why the terminal applications are my favourite X apps.
The editorial in Linux Magazine in the latest issue argues for settling of either kde or gnome and abandoning everthing else in favour of pushing one to being finished and creating a "standard". Well, ideas like that would have left Linux in the dark ages. I couldn't believe that the editor of a Linux mag could miss the point of the OSS revolution so completely. Go get a copy and tell him how it is.
I've been playing with blackbox window manager lately and I think it's great! Very clean, nice menus, and runs kde or gnome apps without breaking a sweat. My problem with gnome and kde is that they are customizable to a point, but no matter what you do, it always looks like gnome. If you want a really good looking and customizable desktop, run enlightenment by itself. Much nicer IMHO. Anyway, I think that there's a lot of great reasons to have multiple window managers, multiple GUI environments etc.
CNN Story
Ziff Davis Story
Wired Story
The world is a better place now that Kevin walks free and can tell his story. Best wishes Kevin. I have a feeling that the phrase "Free Kevin" will stand for a lot more than the Kevin Mitnick case and online rights/justice in the future.
Recent IPOs for Linux related companies have shown that the market is really excited about this new and rapidly growing technology. Are there any plans to spin Corel's Linux products off into a separate company - trading separately on the exchanges - in order to unlock the market value of your Linux investments?
Basing (or even using) this movie in a philosophy class is a ludicrous idea. If the students need their idea's shrink-wrapped in this manner, they are likely unequipped to consider the ideas themselves. Philosophical ideas are a challenge to consider in and of themselves - changing the metaphor to a more contemporary idea may make them initially more accessable, but without the slog of understanding an ancient passage one is less likely to respect the concept they confront. Discussions in the this course must range from "there is a spoon...no there isn't" to random attacks by people taking a running jump at your midsection.
My question is that if life first came from Mars, where did life come from to get there? Was is Jupiter? Or Saturn? Just because something might have been possible does not mean that it happened - and until we have reason to believe that life did not begin here, we should continue to operate under the assumption that it did. I'd like to shoot the scientist conducting this research to Mars and see how they feel after the trip.
Jobs knows what he's doing when it comes to consumer devices. With Apple behind Palm OS, we can all sleep soundly knowing that WinCE is even less likely to take control of the CE market place. Palm OS has great support in the independent developer community (not to mention the OSS guys), but it has been in danger of not having the necessary backing to compete against a competitor w/ unlimited R&D, marketing power and patience. If you can get a Palm into the hands of every whimsical Mac user, it will push the demand for increased usability with improved look&feel. This couldn't come at a better time considering the new wireless Internet applications being made available.
My only worry is that carrying one could become an embarrasment. I really don't want to use a PDA that is named after a fruit. Steve, please, make it black or grey. We need at least the semblance of looking cool. Go watch the matrix.