If my memory serves me correctly, the reason Intel changed to the Pentium naming scheme was not because 586 was already taken. The reason was that the number only naming scheme could not be copyrighted or trade marked. They wanted consumers to be able to immediately tell the difference between an intell chip and an AMD chip. That was not possible when both chips are called 486DX etc.
Years from now when these guys actually make something functional out of this stuff it is not likely to be clothing. It is much more likely to be beach umbrellas or tents. Those are much better ideas and they will be stolen from right here at/.
And the brilliant minds that came up with those ideas will not be recieving royalty checks in the mail either. Nor will we be able to hack the fabric; I doubt those guys believe in open source.
What about solar powered circus tents. Now that is a bright idea. For all you corporate spies out there, I hereby patent that idea under the newly formulated Open Source Patent. And could you please make it run Apache too?
While it is indeed true that the zealous pursuit of privacy by citizens is a critical cog in the machinery of checks and balances that our forefathers gave us, it is a poor choice of words to compare the knowledgeable lust for justice to paranoia.
Paranoia connotes an extreme and illogical distrust of others. There is nothing illogical about failing to trust government to do what is best for its citizens. History is littered with examples of governments, including ours, trampling over the rights of citizens in the name of some well-meant but poorly thought out justification.
If history tells us anything, it is that governments become despots bit by bit while citizens are unaware. Some do not forget the lessons of history and diligently fight to prevent such catastrophes from occurring again. And with good reason.
Consider this, some attacks on privacy and freedom spring from seemingly just ends, but are ultimately disavowed by the people or the courts because the ends do not justify the means. Too many rights are trampled in the process.
Now ask yourself, if seemingly innocent and righteous government actions are ultimately revealed to be threats to liberty, what about invasions of privacy which have no such justification. What good could possibly come of our government having unfettered access to information about where we shop and what we buy. What justification could the government have for wanting immediate access to trails of cookies and other online habits? The breadth of information our government is compiling about us could not possibly justified by the needs of law enforcement.
If there is no good justification for our government collecting and indexing that data then their justification must be a threat to privacy and freedom without benefit to the people. What benefit does the government enjoy? If the justification is not a good one then it must be a bad one and I do not want to see it become reality.
Actually, the original post was about porting Apache or Linux to the box. I was responding to a series of posts complaining about not being able to use linux locally because of a lack of peripherals. In such a case there is no worry about messing up your favorite game because the box would not be used for games. Furthermore, I doubt an xbox running linux or apache would be sitting in the living room and astheitics would not be a concern.
Perhaps you have not been paying much attention, but it is no secret that Linux lacks user level security controls. Microsoft points it out on their site as one of the reasons not to use Linux.
Sure Linux has great file level security, but users are users and admins are admins. There is no mechanism for giving one user administrative control of the Apache and another user administrative control of Bind for example. With Linux it is an all or nothing proposition.
There is no shame in announcing that publicly known and exploited security short comings are going to be addressed.
I like this idea for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that is offers an alternative to SELinux for those of us who prefer not to use a product engineered by the good folks as NSA.
The idea of adding kernel hooks so that a variety of security oriented modules can be loaded at boot time will alow for maximum flexibility and control by admins.
However, the short term consequences may very well be a plethora of security modules releases which could lead to confusion. Fortunately, the OSS community is good at sorting the good from the bad. It will not take long for the best modules to become more standard and make it into the distros.
Microsoft has attempted to ensure a market monopoly on xbox peripherals by de-commoditizing USB protocols.
This is a common Microsoft tactic that is rarely successful.
Open Source engineers with enough time and motivation could easily backward engineer the bastardized MS USB protocol. A kernal hack could implement a driver to translate standardized USB communications into MS USB communications and vice versa. Having accomplished this task there would be no impediment to using mice, keyboards or even USB printers with the XBox.
Of course someone would still need to write an xbox driver for XFREE86 and Linux successful takes over the box.
When I was a child I never would have dreamed that I could remotely control my air conditioner from anywhere in the world.
As an adult, I have to wonder why I would want to do such a thing.
I am sure there must be some really decent uses for such a luxury and time will bring more practical remote control applications.
Did you just leave for vacation and forgot to check if the oven was left on? No problem, logon to the net with your PDA and check. While you are away on vacation just turn the lights and television off and on randomly to scare away would be burglars (California residents need not do this because rolling blackouts will do it for them).
I can think of hundreds of worth while applications for being able to control applicances via a web interface (not the least of which is setting the vcr to tape X-Files while I am stranded in traffic), in some ways it is a dream come true.
George Orwell causes me to think twice about this luxury though. I'd sure hate to come home and find that some script kiddy had programmed my vcr to record MTV or worse VH1. I would not want some neo-technical pyromaniac setting my house ablaze from two continents away by simply turning my stove on high while I am gone.
Then there is the government and big business (one and the same...thanks Bush) spying on which television shows I recorded from afar. Perhaps the movie industries equivilant of the RIAA keeping tabs to make sure I do not tape any of their movies.
Thanks, but no thanks. I think I will wait until these services are more secure before turning the keys to my home over blindly to anyone on the net. Maybe they could host the services on SE-Linux (lol).
Rather than keep the changes themselves, the NSA decide to share the source code back with the community - this really embraces the Free Software / Linux philosophy.
Actually, the Linux GPL requires them to make the modifications available under GPL. They are not symbolically embracing "Free Software / Linux philosophy"; they are simply complying with the licensing agreement.
On the other hand, this in and of itself seems amazing.
Certainly if you have signed an agreement with an employer which clearly gives the employer all IP rights to works created on your own time then you would not be able to legally release the software under GPL or any other license for that matter.
The solutions I offered assume the more normal case where no agreement has been signed, but the employer may attempt to seize IP rights at some future date based on a legal theory other than a signed contract.
At first blush I see two alternatives for individuals who would like to pursue individual projects while employed by a company which may have financial interest in such independant intellectual property.
The first alternative is to release all projects under the GPL license. Employers are not likely to be interested in products they cannot make proprietary, and if they are there is nothing to prevent you from continuing to develop and support your version.
The major drawback, of course, is that there is no money in GPL projects. If your motivation is profit rather than creativity then this is not a viable option. Furthermore, if your employer is vicious enough they could claim in court that you did not have the right to release the project under the GPL and you would be out of luck anyway.
The second option is akin to a pre-nuptual agreement. Make the employer sign an agreement that you have a right to all IP created on your own time. The agreement should state that the employer will not make any effort to gain control of such IP.
In my experience, employers who have not been involved in IP cases rarely give such issues thought and are likley to sign such an agreement. If they refuse to do so, get another job. I could not imagine working for a company who refuses to agree not to attempt to cheat me at some future date.
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When the US Government kidnapped and imprisoned Japanese immigrants they had a very good purpose. They were protecting National Security.
Nonetheless, the outcome was outrageous injustice.
Everyone Japanese was assumed to be an agent of the Enemy and they paid with their freedom and property.
The war on drugs is, IMHO, also a cery good purpose.
And now every person paying for train tickets with cash is assumed to be a drug smuggler.
And they too will pay with a loss of freedom and privacy.
If my memory serves me correctly, the reason Intel changed to the Pentium naming scheme was not because 586 was already taken. The reason was that the number only naming scheme could not be copyrighted or trade marked. They wanted consumers to be able to immediately tell the difference between an intell chip and an AMD chip. That was not possible when both chips are called 486DX etc.
And the brilliant minds that came up with those ideas will not be recieving royalty checks in the mail either. Nor will we be able to hack the fabric; I doubt those guys believe in open source.
What about solar powered circus tents. Now that is a bright idea. For all you corporate spies out there, I hereby patent that idea under the newly formulated Open Source Patent. And could you please make it run Apache too?
Paranoia connotes an extreme and illogical distrust of others. There is nothing illogical about failing to trust government to do what is best for its citizens. History is littered with examples of governments, including ours, trampling over the rights of citizens in the name of some well-meant but poorly thought out justification.
If history tells us anything, it is that governments become despots bit by bit while citizens are unaware. Some do not forget the lessons of history and diligently fight to prevent such catastrophes from occurring again. And with good reason.
Consider this, some attacks on privacy and freedom spring from seemingly just ends, but are ultimately disavowed by the people or the courts because the ends do not justify the means. Too many rights are trampled in the process.
Now ask yourself, if seemingly innocent and righteous government actions are ultimately revealed to be threats to liberty, what about invasions of privacy which have no such justification. What good could possibly come of our government having unfettered access to information about where we shop and what we buy. What justification could the government have for wanting immediate access to trails of cookies and other online habits? The breadth of information our government is compiling about us could not possibly justified by the needs of law enforcement.
If there is no good justification for our government collecting and indexing that data then their justification must be a threat to privacy and freedom without benefit to the people. What benefit does the government enjoy? If the justification is not a good one then it must be a bad one and I do not want to see it become reality.
Actually, the original post was about porting Apache or Linux to the box. I was responding to a series of posts complaining about not being able to use linux locally because of a lack of peripherals. In such a case there is no worry about messing up your favorite game because the box would not be used for games. Furthermore, I doubt an xbox running linux or apache would be sitting in the living room and astheitics would not be a concern.
Groups work well for what they are, but they are not fine tuned access control mechanisms such as those in SELinux or for that matter NT.
Sure Linux has great file level security, but users are users and admins are admins. There is no mechanism for giving one user administrative control of the Apache and another user administrative control of Bind for example. With Linux it is an all or nothing proposition.
There is no shame in announcing that publicly known and exploited security short comings are going to be addressed.
The idea of adding kernel hooks so that a variety of security oriented modules can be loaded at boot time will alow for maximum flexibility and control by admins.
However, the short term consequences may very well be a plethora of security modules releases which could lead to confusion. Fortunately, the OSS community is good at sorting the good from the bad. It will not take long for the best modules to become more standard and make it into the distros.
Interesting. So all we have to do is cut and splice some cable. That is an even easier proposition.
This is a common Microsoft tactic that is rarely successful.
Open Source engineers with enough time and motivation could easily backward engineer the bastardized MS USB protocol. A kernal hack could implement a driver to translate standardized USB communications into MS USB communications and vice versa. Having accomplished this task there would be no impediment to using mice, keyboards or even USB printers with the XBox.
Of course someone would still need to write an xbox driver for XFREE86 and Linux successful takes over the box.
As an adult, I have to wonder why I would want to do such a thing.
I am sure there must be some really decent uses for such a luxury and time will bring more practical remote control applications.
Did you just leave for vacation and forgot to check if the oven was left on? No problem, logon to the net with your PDA and check. While you are away on vacation just turn the lights and television off and on randomly to scare away would be burglars (California residents need not do this because rolling blackouts will do it for them).
I can think of hundreds of worth while applications for being able to control applicances via a web interface (not the least of which is setting the vcr to tape X-Files while I am stranded in traffic), in some ways it is a dream come true.
George Orwell causes me to think twice about this luxury though. I'd sure hate to come home and find that some script kiddy had programmed my vcr to record MTV or worse VH1. I would not want some neo-technical pyromaniac setting my house ablaze from two continents away by simply turning my stove on high while I am gone.
Then there is the government and big business (one and the same...thanks Bush) spying on which television shows I recorded from afar. Perhaps the movie industries equivilant of the RIAA keeping tabs to make sure I do not tape any of their movies.
Thanks, but no thanks. I think I will wait until these services are more secure before turning the keys to my home over blindly to anyone on the net. Maybe they could host the services on SE-Linux (lol).
Actually, the Linux GPL requires them to make the modifications available under GPL. They are not symbolically embracing "Free Software / Linux philosophy"; they are simply complying with the licensing agreement.
On the other hand, this in and of itself seems amazing.
Certainly if you have signed an agreement with an employer which clearly gives the employer all IP rights to works created on your own time then you would not be able to legally release the software under GPL or any other license for that matter.
The solutions I offered assume the more normal case where no agreement has been signed, but the employer may attempt to seize IP rights at some future date based on a legal theory other than a signed contract.
At first blush I see two alternatives for individuals who would like to pursue individual projects while employed by a company which may have financial interest in such independant intellectual property. The first alternative is to release all projects under the GPL license. Employers are not likely to be interested in products they cannot make proprietary, and if they are there is nothing to prevent you from continuing to develop and support your version. The major drawback, of course, is that there is no money in GPL projects. If your motivation is profit rather than creativity then this is not a viable option. Furthermore, if your employer is vicious enough they could claim in court that you did not have the right to release the project under the GPL and you would be out of luck anyway. The second option is akin to a pre-nuptual agreement. Make the employer sign an agreement that you have a right to all IP created on your own time. The agreement should state that the employer will not make any effort to gain control of such IP. In my experience, employers who have not been involved in IP cases rarely give such issues thought and are likley to sign such an agreement. If they refuse to do so, get another job. I could not imagine working for a company who refuses to agree not to attempt to cheat me at some future date.