Well... all that has to happen for there to be a Kernel 2.4 is for Linux to declare it as such. Windows 2K is in Beta.. we know it exists.. all they have to do is release it.
Vapourware is more an intent to decieve... "Well we don't even have any ideas, but we'll announce it to stifle anyone else trying to do it."
You're arguing that simply because it doesn't have the same name that it is vapour... vapour might include Microsoft Word for Linux. There's nothing even resembling it.. they might announce it to make others rush or drop their plans, but they have no intention of doing it...
A promised peice of software or feature is not vapourware if it ever emerges.
I always thought vapour ware was a tool that Microsoft (or other large companies) used... They would promise some software that they hadn't developed and weren't going to develop. When the "news" called it the greatest thing since sliced bread then the public would stop buying it.
In Development may mean vapourware coming from some people... The 2.3 Kernel is "in development" but it's far from vapour. Don't believe me? Go down it...
That's all good and well, but people have to start accepting the fact that the mainstream media has embraced the word hacker as a term for malicious hackers, ie crackers.
That's nice and all, but if the general public started refering to arsonists as "firemen" don't you think the fire fighters would be a little upset about this? Lots of people in the general public also refer to hard disk space as "memory". Just because the general public says one thing doesn't mean that we have to accept it.
Knowing the difference between "Hacker" and "Cracker" is a sign of knowladge... Othewise you simply come across as some script kiddie.
Although it doesn't help microsoft that they couldn't prove that it can't be remove,I belive that under US law the prosecutor or plantiff bears the burden of proof. I think that the government in this case must show that it can be separtated. I belive this is the whole "innocent until proven guilty." ("Unless your name is Louis 'Louis the Squid' Calimari." -Dave Barry)
The point is not to dictate what a software companies priorities should be, but rather to keep them from selling unfit software. If they make a claim such as:
Using BlahWare 2001 will increase your productivity! Never reboot again!
And the damn thing crashes every 10 minutes, then you ought to be able to get your money back... The companies should not be allowed to sell broken software, not allow refunds, etc, etc...
> Sometimes simply getting something out there >that works is more important.
Right. So what about software that you buy that doesn't work? This is not about where the priorities are, but rather against making false claims, selling shoddy programs and refusing to accept responsibility when your software breaks.
This might work... a group that certifies software and makes sure that the companies do what they are supposed to do. Those who do would be able to use the logo on their box or mention that they are approved.
How do you garuntee that the panel stays unbiased? If you have Microsoft lovers on the panel, then I garuntee that Microsoft will be able to release anything under any conditions. If the panel only containes GNU advocates then it would be REALLY hard for ANY commercial company to get approved...
The problem with demanding a refund is that lots of commercial software packages come with an EULA. The "agreement" usually states something like:
You the user assume all responsibilities in the installion and running the program. You can't hold us liable for anything. If it doesn't run, tough poopie. That's the way it works. Don't come crying to us about it. We really don't care about you at all. Just give us your money, and if we get enough complaints we'll release a "service pack" for $50 in a few months.
Maybe I exaggerate... So this leaves most consumers unable to get a refund for any peice of software because the producers make you agree to not ask for one when you try to install the product (or open the bag, or whatever).
What recourse does this leave the average consumer? There is no one to hold liable for broken software. Wait, wasn't that why companies don't want to use free software? Oh....
Well... No matter what time they did it it would be early in the morning for someone... I guess they decided to do it at a time when Linus would be awake... sounds resonable to me..
That's sort of a defeatist attitude, but to a certain extent you are right.
I don't believe that by enforcing the rules now that it should have long ago that USENET will die. Maybe it can be saved from the spammers. Maybe A time will come when all usenet messages can be traced to their authors (the real ones)
That degree of personal accountability is missing, which means that lots of people will take advantage of being anonymous.
Don't get me wrong, being anonymous has advantages sometimes... for whistle blowing, etc, Nobody needs to know what I'm looking at when I surf, but for alt.fan.star-wars? Seriously, who needs to be anonymous there? You're posting to the public...
> controlling content on the internet on behalf > of their population or any other way of > "controlling" the internet
So what's the issue here? The issue here is freedom. If I want to go look at porn, or see information on abortion, or read anti-{insert your country here} propaganda, I should be allowed to. Freedom does not include "doing anything you want." I should not be able to degrade the quality of your service.
I should be free to view whatever content I want.
Spam, however, is another matter entirely. An email message sent to my account is not the same thing as a web page sitting out there. An email to me gets to me, and I am forced to wade through it in order to get to the rest of my messages. The spam sent to me actually causes me harm (in terms of lost time, lost bandwith, and lost disk space). A web page sitting out there that I don't want to see doesn't affect me at all.
USENET has rules. For example, posts are supposed to stay on topic, avoid flames, don't cross post to 1000 different groups. AOL users have violated the policies, and AOL refuses to do anything about it. In order to keep the net sane, they've got to be controled. So we have the freedom to read on topic posts and not see ads for sex sites in EVERY newsgroup.
> you may not care whether or not Uncle Sam (or > any other government) can read your online > commmunications
This is my point.. I don't like the fact that they can read my mail.. I don't like the fact that anything we do electronically can be and is monitored.. I don't like it AT ALL.
I also don't like knowing that there are so many laws about strong crypto. Knowing that uncle sam will show up at my door with large guns and make me disappear for while if I use crypto they can't break makes me nervous.
That's why I want strong crypto with no Escrow to be legal. That's what I've been saying.
Under the same logic should we also oppose gun control? By removing weapons from the populus, is that not another way the goverment could keep us from enforcing our rights? I can't remember who said it, but the quote "We have not only the right but the obligation to overthrow a corrupt government."
Granted, this is taking things a bit far. But what steps are there to stop the government from infringing on our rights?
Well.. that's one way... The encryption software on the other end has to have some way of knowing how the messages are being encrypted. They've got headers and other types of information... Somewhat along the lines of mailing someone an image without a trailing.jpg,.gif, or.bmp. They can still figure it out...
> Again, how is the export policy going to > affect this?
How about for legal businesses? Those with offices in the US, the UK, and Tibet? They develop their own "Uber-Encryption" but due to export restrictions can't give it to their other offices...
The point is: Any sort of crypto can be identified and broken... all in a matter of time... by _legally_ being able to use STRONG crypto, that time could be an inhibiting factor.
Explain to me how this is a non-issue?
I want to be able to use encryption and know that uncle sam won't be able to read it at will
This horse is not dead until the government agrees to get off our backs and let us use strong crypto for anything we want. It's not "over" until we're allowed to make strong crypto and export it, so we can communicate securely with people who aren't in the US...
The debate is that lots of governments seem intent on trying to keep the public from using strong encryption. That was the can continue to steal the patents...
>So when I'm running NT, and the screen suddenly >turns blue, it's not NT?
Man, that happened to me not too long ago... I was sitting here, and suddenly the Blue Screen of Death popped up!
Thank god it was my xscreensaver bsod module;-)
Seriously... I was attacking the posters claim that not being able to connect to slashdot was a fault of Linux. I still haven't seen a post telling me why it was.
>How can Linux be serious? Slashdot was >unreachable for the past few hours.
Which is of course a problem with linux... how silly of us... any time we can't connect to Slashdot, it's obviously a problem with Linux! There are never any network problems or router problems, or... (please note the dripping sarcasm)
> I think they're just there to disperse some of > the FUD that Linux supporters are spewing.
Right.. FUD like: Linux is free. Linux is open source. Linux is stable. Linux is customizable. Linux runs on older hardware. That sort of FUD?
>but *WHO* is going to go purchase a 486 machine >just to prove that it runs better than a NT >machine on a P133?
No, no, no... I think you're missing the point. The point is that I have a couple 486 machines already laying around. My personal computer is a Pentium 120. Run windows on it? Are you insane?
We took an old spare P100 and turned ito into a fast webserver. That's the power, not "buying new 486s" but being able to reuse hardware. If you took all the machines that companies don't use anymore because they're outdated or too old, and put linux on them, you could do some incredible things.
Netscape for linux is about the biggest load of crap that I have ever seen. The fonts are sick looking, it crashes more than any other piece of software I have ever used, it takes longer to load than anything else than any other browser in windoze
Hmmm... Edit -> Preferences -> Fonts Welp, that fixed that problem. It crashes? How often? Granted it does crash on me some, like once every 3 days or so, but I hardly classify that as an anything more than a minor pain to reclick that icon off my GNOME bar.
Besides Netscape is not the only web browser. There's lynx for the console loving, there's Arena, and.. uhh... someone help me out here....
Someone took the time to convert it to MP3, and put it put on their own site... The webmaster for PE said it was cool for him to do that... the webmaster words: "yeah,Dean go ahead do your thing... thanx for helping out.....thats what this board is for...access..... "
Not a bad article, but it really didn't say much. The only problem I had with the article was the reference to Linux as freeware. There's a major difference between freeware and OSS and GPL. Mabye it's just me, but I don't see how understanding the differences could be too hard.
Although Linux costs nothing to use ("free beer") it's greatest strength is the open source and GPL licenses. I think this is a rather major point that tends to be glazed over and not mentioned in articles.
Would you folks please stop bitching about the site? If you don't like it, don't read it. We don't need your worthless comments. If you don't have anything nice to say....
I for one had not seen this before, and thought it was pretty funny. Mabye my Publishers Clearing House one for $31 Million will go through... somehow I doubt it though.
Slashdot Mirror
Well... all that has to happen for there to be a Kernel 2.4 is for Linux to declare it as such. Windows 2K is in Beta.. we know it exists.. all they have to do is release it.
Vapourware is more an intent to decieve... "Well we don't even have any ideas, but we'll announce it to stifle anyone else trying to do it."
You're arguing that simply because it doesn't have the same name that it is vapour... vapour might include Microsoft Word for Linux. There's nothing even resembling it.. they might announce it to make others rush or drop their plans, but they have no intention of doing it...
A promised peice of software or feature is not vapourware if it ever emerges.
I always thought vapour ware was a tool that Microsoft (or other large companies) used... They would promise some software that they hadn't developed and weren't going to develop. When the "news" called it the greatest thing since sliced bread then the public would stop buying it.
In Development may mean vapourware coming from some people... The 2.3 Kernel is "in development" but it's far from vapour. Don't believe me? Go down it...
That's nice and all, but if the general public started refering to arsonists as "firemen" don't you think the fire fighters would be a little upset about this? Lots of people in the general public also refer to hard disk space as "memory". Just because the general public says one thing doesn't mean that we have to accept it.
Knowing the difference between "Hacker" and "Cracker" is a sign of knowladge... Othewise you simply come across as some script kiddie.
More when I get to work...
I don't think that is right...
Although it doesn't help microsoft that they couldn't prove that it can't be remove,I belive that under US law the prosecutor or plantiff bears the burden of proof. I think that the government in this case must show that it can be separtated. I belive this is the whole "innocent until proven guilty." ("Unless your name is Louis 'Louis the Squid' Calimari." -Dave Barry)
Using BlahWare 2001 will increase your productivity! Never reboot again!
And the damn thing crashes every 10 minutes, then you ought to be able to get your money back... The companies should not be allowed to sell broken software, not allow refunds, etc, etc...
> Sometimes simply getting something out there
>that works is more important.
Right. So what about software that you buy that doesn't work? This is not about where the priorities are, but rather against making false claims, selling shoddy programs and refusing to accept responsibility when your software breaks.
This might work... a group that certifies software and makes sure that the companies do what they are supposed to do. Those who do would be able to use the logo on their box or mention that they are approved.
How do you garuntee that the panel stays unbiased? If you have Microsoft lovers on the panel, then I garuntee that Microsoft will be able to release anything under any conditions. If the panel only containes GNU advocates then it would be REALLY hard for ANY commercial company to get approved...
What recourse does this leave the average consumer? There is no one to hold liable for broken software. Wait, wasn't that why companies don't want to use free software? Oh....
Well... No matter what time they did it it would be early in the morning for someone... I guess they decided to do it at a time when Linus would be awake... sounds resonable to me..
That's sort of a defeatist attitude, but to a certain extent you are right.
I don't believe that by enforcing the rules now that it should have long ago that USENET will die. Maybe it can be saved from the spammers. Maybe A time will come when all usenet messages can be traced to their authors (the real ones)
That degree of personal accountability is missing, which means that lots of people will take advantage of being anonymous.
Don't get me wrong, being anonymous has advantages sometimes... for whistle blowing, etc, Nobody needs to know what I'm looking at when I surf, but for alt.fan.star-wars? Seriously, who needs to be anonymous there? You're posting to the public...
> controlling content on the internet on behalf
> of their population or any other way of
> "controlling" the internet
So what's the issue here? The issue here is freedom. If I want to go look at porn, or see information on abortion, or read anti-{insert your country here} propaganda, I should be allowed to. Freedom does not include "doing anything you want." I should not be able to degrade the quality of your service.
I should be free to view whatever content I want.
Spam, however, is another matter entirely. An email message sent to my account is not the same thing as a web page sitting out there. An email to me gets to me, and I am forced to wade through it in order to get to the rest of my messages. The spam sent to me actually causes me harm (in terms of lost time, lost bandwith, and lost disk space). A web page sitting out there that I don't want to see doesn't affect me at all.
USENET has rules. For example, posts are supposed to stay on topic, avoid flames, don't cross post to 1000 different groups. AOL users have violated the policies, and AOL refuses to do anything about it. In order to keep the net sane, they've got to be controled. So we have the freedom to read on topic posts and not see ads for sex sites in EVERY newsgroup.
> you may not care whether or not Uncle Sam (or
> any other government) can read your online
> commmunications
This is my point.. I don't like the fact that they can read my mail.. I don't like the fact that anything we do electronically can be and is monitored.. I don't like it AT ALL.
I also don't like knowing that there are so many laws about strong crypto. Knowing that uncle sam will show up at my door with large guns and make me disappear for while if I use crypto they can't break makes me nervous.
That's why I want strong crypto with no Escrow to be legal. That's what I've been saying.
Right...
Under the same logic should we also oppose gun control? By removing weapons from the populus, is that not another way the goverment could keep us from enforcing our rights? I can't remember who said it, but the quote "We have not only the right but the obligation to overthrow a corrupt government."
Granted, this is taking things a bit far. But what steps are there to stop the government from infringing on our rights?
--------Begin-PGP-Encoded-Message
.jpg, .gif, or .bmp. They can still figure it out...
Well.. that's one way... The encryption software on the other end has to have some way of knowing how the messages are being encrypted. They've got headers and other types of information... Somewhat along the lines of mailing someone an image without a trailing
> Again, how is the export policy going to
> affect this?
How about for legal businesses? Those with offices in the US, the UK, and Tibet? They develop their own "Uber-Encryption" but due to export restrictions can't give it to their other offices...
The point is: Any sort of crypto can be identified and broken... all in a matter of time... by _legally_ being able to use STRONG crypto, that time could be an inhibiting factor.
Explain to me how this is a non-issue?
I want to be able to use encryption and know that uncle sam won't be able to read it at will
This horse is not dead until the government agrees to get off our backs and let us use strong crypto for anything we want. It's not "over" until we're allowed to make strong crypto and export it, so we can communicate securely with people who aren't in the US...
The debate is that lots of governments seem intent on trying to keep the public from using strong encryption. That was the can continue to steal the patents...
>So when I'm running NT, and the screen suddenly
;-)
>turns blue, it's not NT?
Man, that happened to me not too long ago... I was sitting here, and suddenly the Blue Screen of Death popped up!
Thank god it was my xscreensaver bsod module
Seriously... I was attacking the posters claim that not being able to connect to slashdot was a fault of Linux. I still haven't seen a post telling me why it was.
>How can Linux be serious? Slashdot was
>unreachable for the past few hours.
Which is of course a problem with linux... how silly of us... any time we can't connect to Slashdot, it's obviously a problem with Linux! There are never any network problems or router problems, or... (please note the dripping sarcasm)
> I think they're just there to disperse some of
> the FUD that Linux supporters are spewing.
Right.. FUD like: Linux is free. Linux is open source. Linux is stable. Linux is customizable. Linux runs on older hardware. That sort of FUD?
>but *WHO* is going to go purchase a 486 machine
>just to prove that it runs better than a NT
>machine on a P133?
No, no, no... I think you're missing the point. The point is that I have a couple 486 machines already laying around. My personal computer is a Pentium 120. Run windows on it? Are you insane?
We took an old spare P100 and turned ito into a fast webserver. That's the power, not "buying new 486s" but being able to reuse hardware. If you took all the machines that companies don't use anymore because they're outdated or too old, and put linux on them, you could do some incredible things.
Hmmm... Edit -> Preferences -> Fonts Welp, that fixed that problem. It crashes? How often? Granted it does crash on me some, like once every 3 days or so, but I hardly classify that as an anything more than a minor pain to reclick that icon off my GNOME bar.
Besides Netscape is not the only web browser. There's lynx for the console loving, there's Arena, and.. uhh... someone help me out here....
http://www.mailbag.com/users/deanengmann/
Not a bad article, but it really didn't say much. The only problem I had with the article was the reference to Linux as freeware. There's a major difference between freeware and OSS and GPL. Mabye it's just me, but I don't see how understanding the differences could be too hard.
Although Linux costs nothing to use ("free beer") it's greatest strength is the open source and GPL licenses. I think this is a rather major point that tends to be glazed over and not mentioned in articles.
Would you folks please stop bitching about the site? If you don't like it, don't read it. We don't need your worthless comments. If you don't have anything nice to say....
I for one had not seen this before, and thought it was pretty funny. Mabye my Publishers Clearing House one for $31 Million will go through... somehow I doubt it though.