So, the limits on "fair use" of trademarks are even less stringent than those on copyright. Basically you can use a trademark, the whole thing, for *whatever* you want as long as you are not trying to trick customers into believing that you are actually the owner of the mark. Trademark is a BSD style license:p
There's so many wrong things in your post... I don't have time to correct them all. Suffice it to say:
1) BSD is open source. 2) Anything released under BSD can be forked and re-released under GPL. 3) It's absolutely possible to "integrate" software in Linux without it being GPL.
Probably missed some things... no doubt others will pick them up:)
We should not enslave the people to the American Bar Association.
These aren't people, they're corporations. And if they expect to continue being corporations, they'll abide by the minimum civil standards imposed by the nation-state that recognizes them as such.
Industries that have governing bodies already have policies.
Those are few and far between. Insurance companies are an exception and are highly regulated because 1) they're basically an arm of the state and 2) they're legalized gambling.
not sustainable -- commercially viable -- large scale farming
You seem to be arguing against something, but I'm not sure what it is. This isn't a business plan being submitted to a bank for a loan. It's basic research into alternative fuels.
If the public gets anything out of it, it won't be another multinational energy concern to fill Washington with lying politicians. It'll be (pardon the pun) grassroots discussions such as these on all sorts of pros and cons, environmentally and otherwise.
Mostly it's just the newsflash that you can burn grass. There's lots of it lying around growing just fine without the need for bureaucracy and economic analysis.
People, the whole power of Debian lies in the fact I don't need to wait for a new release. I've been running Debian Testing on my servers for two years. I'm already running the next release.
You're describing Gentoo. The whole power of Debian is that it's the only community-supported Linux OS whereby each release has a bounded group of possible packages and a shelf life of more than six months. These features are important for things like backporting security updates, making large scale deployments possible, and getting any kind of commercial support.
Unfortunately these benefits are lost if Debian doesn't release.
Surely there's a candidate who is opposed to the reduction in the number of "released" architectures. And, if not, perhaps you should ask yourself: what is really wrong with releasing architectures separately then?
Ding. I declare you the winner for this story. Congratulations. For the rest of you: keep hitting refresh and maybe you'll win the next one.
Seriously, though, this is why I charge more for Windows support than for Linux. It's degrading to spend a couple of hours clicking buttons almost at random and when you've discovered the problem, get told "That was easy!" or "I could have done that!"
Calling it "identity theft" and holding me responsible for preventing it is just an attempt to turn the banks' problem into my problem -- one they are happy to help me solve for a fee of $10 a month.
Perhaps at one point in our history, you could have told your bank to "go screw themselves" and find another bank with less restrictive policies. Unfortunately, all banks are that way today due to national regulations. Credit unions used to be fair competition, but they're technically "banks" today as well and subject to the same laws designed to collect your private identifying information.
And you have to have a bank in order to collect your direct-deposit paycheck. Just try asking your boss to be paid in cash, ha! Even if you can manage to get a paper check, cashing it at the issuer's bank usually entails more invasive "security" measures because you don't have a "relationship" with them.
But if you follow the trail a little farther, you'll see that your employer won't pay you in cash because of the cost and risk involved. Somebody has to hand out the cash and guard it. Banks are falling over themselves to sign up companies for their direct deposit services. Everybody wins but you. Your employer has shifted the costs of paying you onto... you. And you choices are either submit to the Identification State or pay the price.
Because you do it for every other person who dies in public. That's like saying: if you choke on a popcicle at the park, the police and firemen shouldn't have to clean up the remains because your stupid ass chose to eat popcicles. Damn hippie popcicle-eating communist.
Or, let's make it even more realistic (everyone knows popcicles aren't really dangerous). Let's say everyone should wear helmets, armored body suits even, lest a building fall on them. Those who choose to disobey this law are obviously at fault and should be left to rot, right?
Of course it's not ever the fault of the actor, that would require the police to waste even more time and taxpayers' money trying to figure out who's to blame. It's easier to blame the victim for not going to ridiculous lengths to protect himself. It's better that everyone have a duty (under penalty of criminal prosecution no less) to wear full body armor at all times when in public... right?
The government has a responsibility to keep the peace as well as ensure public safety. Registering TNT is a responsible step in that direction.
There seems to be a lot of confusion nowadays surrounding the phrase public safety. Governments like to cite this as a reason for all sorts of forays into our private lives, from destroying livestock (without just compensation) because it could possibly be infected with the latest virus, to such nonsense as seatbelt legislation, which criminalizes private choices in an ill-founded attempt to protect people from themselves, to curfews, which make people prisoners in their own homes often for the express purpose of protecting them, all in the name of public safety.
I'd love to see a concise definition of the term public safety along with a citation from the US or any State Constitution giving the government these ridiculously broad powers. Anyone?
Debian provides an outstanding foundation for the greater Linux community.
Debian has a great packaging system and dedicated volunteers who do a better job tearing apart source and putting it back together in a usable fashion than any other distro. Check.
Debian's contribution cannot be overstated... blah blah... psuedo developers hard at work individualizing their splash screens, backgrounds and icon sets while cherry picking the source tree.
I don't see the actual authors of the 10,000 odd pieces of software in Debian complaining about Debian being parasitic "redistributors". There's value added by all parties: recognize that.
There Is No Problem
Everyone left using Debian says that. Know why? It's because anyone with a halfway decent idea of improving the distro left years ago after being told "we don't care" enough times. The people left have Woody on a couple of servers and could care less if Debian ever releases again. The new Debian motto should be "10% of the server market is fine for us" instead of all that crap about "universal operating system". Hell, half of the *major* distros out there today wouldn't exist had Debian not dropped the ball in several major areas, most prominently in the "human relations" department. I see that problem still hasn't been fixed.
Failure to acknowledge and respect the importance and overall contribution of the Debian team...
Where are you coming from here? These "parasitic redistributors" of whom you speak would mostly *love* to work within the Debian project. Bruce has stated over and over again that that's a major goal of UserLinux. The problem is: they can't. It seems they can't even work *outside* the Debian project either because paranoid nimrods think that somehow they're stealing Debian's thunder by taking a ridiculously unmanageable OS and trimming it down to offer support.
including the relative unimportance of release dates
In UserLinux we have a group of people who are willing to work directly on Debian to help stabilize the next release and provide security updates, and all they ask is a relatively predictable release schedule and that their work not be replaced every ten days by something from "Unstable". The question should be: "What the hell is wrong with the Debian project that they view this as a threat rather than an opportunity?" There are developers on Bruce's mailing list talking about freezing a snapshot of Testing themselves because Debian refuses to do so. A distro that doesn't even make an effort to stabilize it's tree, let alone release, is the very definition of "broken".
This is not to discount the value added efforts of others, including Ubuntu
Ubuntu doesn't add shit to Debian other than dependence and confusion. On the one hand, you have people offering Debian support that have to warn users how incompatible Ubuntu is, and on the other it's Debian devs calling to drop releases altogether and "let Ubuntu release for us". Ubuntu is great for their users, but it ain't Debian.
I'm not quoting any of your post because the whole thing hits the nail on the head wrt the problem with Debian releases: Testing is broken.
The sad thing is, nobody can fix the problems you encountered because a month from now the packages you're using from Testing will be replaced with new ones from Unstable. Despite it being the design goal for the Testing branch, it's impossible for Testing to ever be "almost ready to release" because it's never frozen. If it's never frozen, no one will be able to contribute to stabilizing it, even UserLinux developers.
If you look at the email headers you can often times tell which IP address it was sent from.
If you have somebody opening a TCP connection to your mail server, you already *know* what IP address is on the other end. And, as IBM has realized, that's *all* you know, so that's the place to start applying pressure.
I'd personally much rather hire someone who got in A in calculus without using a calculator rather than one who did it with a TI-89.
And what you'd get is a *human* calculator. Instead of hiring three or four human calculators, I'd rather hire one person who understands the fundamentals well enough to use a calculator (or any tool) effectively and appropriately.
Remember the Chinese Box, being able to do calculus on paper doesn't imply understanding. While I agree that computers are steadily absorbing more of the "understanding" function of calculation, they are also becoming more powerful tools for the conveyance of understanding to students.
The distinction isn't between having a tool and not having a tool. It's between having a tool that does the understanding for you (and hides it from you) and having a tool that conveys understanding or greater insight to you.
TI-89's have graphical displays and basic programmability for a reason. The fact that most students use this ability to download programs that do their work for them and games is not the fault of the tool.
It's based on QT/embedded and basically runs embedded Konqueror along with a couple of other basic apps. As the website says, it's kind of old and probably rough around the edges. But I'd bet it will fly on any Pentium with 64 megs of ram.
It's sad that the bloat of most current Linux apps means that these millions of users would have to upgrade to basically an "embedded" version of Linux with limited functionality, but it's at least an option, which is more than Microsoft is offering.
As with the other comment about managing Firefox on corporate installs, useragent cloaking is another sorely lacking feature that is *critical* in any business deployment.
Having the ability to adjust the useragent for a specific list of broken sites would make large business deployments that much more possible. As it stands, the "so now we'll have to support two browsers, IE and Firefox" argument is still persuasive.
You can't just get a business loan and start stringing fiber all over town.
Actually, in lots of states, you can. In mine, for instance, "telegraph" companies have the statutory right to condemn property for their lines. This merely involves filing some papers and standing before a judge to argue that it's in the public interest for them to do so. In fact, according to statute, if they go ahead and string lines *without* going through the condemnation process, their maximum liability is the value it would have cost them to go ahead and condemn it anyways, so this is what most of them do.
Slashdot Mirror
In that case I'm afraid I must inform you I have naked pictures of your wife.
So, the limits on "fair use" of trademarks are even less stringent than those on copyright. Basically you can use a trademark, the whole thing, for *whatever* you want as long as you are not trying to trick customers into believing that you are actually the owner of the mark. Trademark is a BSD style license :p
There's so many wrong things in your post... I don't have time to correct them all. Suffice it to say:
:)
1) BSD is open source.
2) Anything released under BSD can be forked and re-released under GPL.
3) It's absolutely possible to "integrate" software in Linux without it being GPL.
Probably missed some things... no doubt others will pick them up
These aren't people, they're corporations. And if they expect to continue being corporations, they'll abide by the minimum civil standards imposed by the nation-state that recognizes them as such.
Those are few and far between. Insurance companies are an exception and are highly regulated because 1) they're basically an arm of the state and 2) they're legalized gambling.
Also, a new low for Slashdot:
-"Air is free. OMG we can run our cars for free!"
Heh. I had the exact same thought.
Other than that, you missed:
-"Air cars already exist!"
This site says they just use steam and sawdust. Probably something like making commercial pasta.
You seem to be arguing against something, but I'm not sure what it is. This isn't a business plan being submitted to a bank for a loan. It's basic research into alternative fuels.
If the public gets anything out of it, it won't be another multinational energy concern to fill Washington with lying politicians. It'll be (pardon the pun) grassroots discussions such as these on all sorts of pros and cons, environmentally and otherwise.
Mostly it's just the newsflash that you can burn grass. There's lots of it lying around growing just fine without the need for bureaucracy and economic analysis.
You're describing Gentoo. The whole power of Debian is that it's the only community-supported Linux OS whereby each release has a bounded group of possible packages and a shelf life of more than six months. These features are important for things like backporting security updates, making large scale deployments possible, and getting any kind of commercial support.
Unfortunately these benefits are lost if Debian doesn't release.
Surely there's a candidate who is opposed to the reduction in the number of "released" architectures. And, if not, perhaps you should ask yourself: what is really wrong with releasing architectures separately then?
Ding. I declare you the winner for this story. Congratulations. For the rest of you: keep hitting refresh and maybe you'll win the next one.
Seriously, though, this is why I charge more for Windows support than for Linux. It's degrading to spend a couple of hours clicking buttons almost at random and when you've discovered the problem, get told "That was easy!" or "I could have done that!"
me responsible for preventing it is just
an attempt to turn the banks' problem into
my problem -- one they are happy to help
me solve for a fee of $10 a month.
Perhaps at one point in our history, you could have told your bank to "go screw themselves" and find another bank with less restrictive policies. Unfortunately, all banks are that way today due to national regulations. Credit unions used to be fair competition, but they're technically "banks" today as well and subject to the same laws designed to collect your private identifying information.
And you have to have a bank in order to collect your direct-deposit paycheck. Just try asking your boss to be paid in cash, ha! Even if you can manage to get a paper check, cashing it at the issuer's bank usually entails more invasive "security" measures because you don't have a "relationship" with them.
But if you follow the trail a little farther, you'll see that your employer won't pay you in cash because of the cost and risk involved. Somebody has to hand out the cash and guard it. Banks are falling over themselves to sign up companies for their direct deposit services. Everybody wins but you. Your employer has shifted the costs of paying you onto... you. And you choices are either submit to the Identification State or pay the price.
Because you do it for every other person who dies in public. That's like saying: if you choke on a popcicle at the park, the police and firemen shouldn't have to clean up the remains because your stupid ass chose to eat popcicles. Damn hippie popcicle-eating communist.
Or, let's make it even more realistic (everyone knows popcicles aren't really dangerous). Let's say everyone should wear helmets, armored body suits even, lest a building fall on them. Those who choose to disobey this law are obviously at fault and should be left to rot, right?
Of course it's not ever the fault of the actor, that would require the police to waste even more time and taxpayers' money trying to figure out who's to blame. It's easier to blame the victim for not going to ridiculous lengths to protect himself. It's better that everyone have a duty (under penalty of criminal prosecution no less) to wear full body armor at all times when in public... right?
Veils for women too, I suppose?
There seems to be a lot of confusion nowadays surrounding the phrase public safety. Governments like to cite this as a reason for all sorts of forays into our private lives, from destroying livestock (without just compensation) because it could possibly be infected with the latest virus, to such nonsense as seatbelt legislation, which criminalizes private choices in an ill-founded attempt to protect people from themselves, to curfews, which make people prisoners in their own homes often for the express purpose of protecting them, all in the name of public safety.
I'd love to see a concise definition of the term public safety along with a citation from the US or any State Constitution giving the government these ridiculously broad powers. Anyone?
Debian provides an outstanding foundation for the greater Linux community.
Debian has a great packaging system and dedicated volunteers who do a better job tearing apart source and putting it back together in a usable fashion than any other distro. Check.
Debian's contribution cannot be overstated... blah blah... psuedo developers hard at work individualizing their splash screens, backgrounds and icon sets while cherry picking the source tree.
I don't see the actual authors of the 10,000 odd pieces of software in Debian complaining about Debian being parasitic "redistributors". There's value added by all parties: recognize that.
There Is No Problem
Everyone left using Debian says that. Know why? It's because anyone with a halfway decent idea of improving the distro left years ago after being told "we don't care" enough times. The people left have Woody on a couple of servers and could care less if Debian ever releases again. The new Debian motto should be "10% of the server market is fine for us" instead of all that crap about "universal operating system". Hell, half of the *major* distros out there today wouldn't exist had Debian not dropped the ball in several major areas, most prominently in the "human relations" department. I see that problem still hasn't been fixed.
Failure to acknowledge and respect the importance and overall contribution of the Debian team...
Where are you coming from here? These "parasitic redistributors" of whom you speak would mostly *love* to work within the Debian project. Bruce has stated over and over again that that's a major goal of UserLinux. The problem is: they can't. It seems they can't even work *outside* the Debian project either because paranoid nimrods think that somehow they're stealing Debian's thunder by taking a ridiculously unmanageable OS and trimming it down to offer support.
including the relative unimportance of release dates
In UserLinux we have a group of people who are willing to work directly on Debian to help stabilize the next release and provide security updates, and all they ask is a relatively predictable release schedule and that their work not be replaced every ten days by something from "Unstable". The question should be: "What the hell is wrong with the Debian project that they view this as a threat rather than an opportunity?" There are developers on Bruce's mailing list talking about freezing a snapshot of Testing themselves because Debian refuses to do so. A distro that doesn't even make an effort to stabilize it's tree, let alone release, is the very definition of "broken".
This is not to discount the value added efforts of others, including Ubuntu
Ubuntu doesn't add shit to Debian other than dependence and confusion. On the one hand, you have people offering Debian support that have to warn users how incompatible Ubuntu is, and on the other it's Debian devs calling to drop releases altogether and "let Ubuntu release for us". Ubuntu is great for their users, but it ain't Debian.
It's a critical problem for those who are pushing Linux onto business desktops, instead of just being content with keeping it on servers.
The sad thing is, nobody can fix the problems you encountered because a month from now the packages you're using from Testing will be replaced with new ones from Unstable. Despite it being the design goal for the Testing branch, it's impossible for Testing to ever be "almost ready to release" because it's never frozen. If it's never frozen, no one will be able to contribute to stabilizing it, even UserLinux developers.
Check out the release proposals wiki for more info.
If you have somebody opening a TCP connection to your mail server, you already *know* what IP address is on the other end. And, as IBM has realized, that's *all* you know, so that's the place to start applying pressure.
It means this recognizes the spam and initiates the counter attack from the mail server, not the client.
From the specs page:
Operating frequency: 230-450 Mhz
What's that in the middle of?
And what you'd get is a *human* calculator. Instead of hiring three or four human calculators, I'd rather hire one person who understands the fundamentals well enough to use a calculator (or any tool) effectively and appropriately.
Remember the Chinese Box, being able to do calculus on paper doesn't imply understanding. While I agree that computers are steadily absorbing more of the "understanding" function of calculation, they are also becoming more powerful tools for the conveyance of understanding to students.
The distinction isn't between having a tool and not having a tool. It's between having a tool that does the understanding for you (and hides it from you) and having a tool that conveys understanding or greater insight to you.
TI-89's have graphical displays and basic programmability for a reason. The fact that most students use this ability to download programs that do their work for them and games is not the fault of the tool.
NevyOS
It's based on QT/embedded and basically runs embedded Konqueror along with a couple of other basic apps. As the website says, it's kind of old and probably rough around the edges. But I'd bet it will fly on any Pentium with 64 megs of ram.
It's sad that the bloat of most current Linux apps means that these millions of users would have to upgrade to basically an "embedded" version of Linux with limited functionality, but it's at least an option, which is more than Microsoft is offering.
As with the other comment about managing Firefox on corporate installs, useragent cloaking is another sorely lacking feature that is *critical* in any business deployment.
Having the ability to adjust the useragent for a specific list of broken sites would make large business deployments that much more possible. As it stands, the "so now we'll have to support two browsers, IE and Firefox" argument is still persuasive.
Actually, in lots of states, you can. In mine, for instance, "telegraph" companies have the statutory right to condemn property for their lines. This merely involves filing some papers and standing before a judge to argue that it's in the public interest for them to do so. In fact, according to statute, if they go ahead and string lines *without* going through the condemnation process, their maximum liability is the value it would have cost them to go ahead and condemn it anyways, so this is what most of them do.