Does anyone else other than me seem to think that "Power Tools" is an ill-suited title for a book that sounds more like an introductory book, then one detailing tools for a "Power User"?
"Power User" is a concept that makes no sense in Unix land. When everything is open, when anyone can dig down to the metal if s/he so desires, then the boundary between "User" and "Programmer" becomes blurred and replaced by a continuous spectrum. Wherever you stand, you can always keep learning, and everything reminds you of how little you know. Who's to be called a "Unix Power User"? A perl expert? Larry Wall? It doesn't make sense.
Where it makes sense is/was in systems like Windows or (pre-X) Mac OS, where everything was closed so the most you could be was, well, a user. That was the habitat of the quintessential "Power User", someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of all the little (closed source) utilities you should download if you want to perform unforeseen tasks. "Linux Power User" makes just as much sense as "GNU Shareware": the day the expression takes hold is the day we'll know Linux has died.
does this leave the product open to lawsuits by RIAA
Wow. First rated post, and already the legal talk is on. Has this world really turned so litigious that everything must be looked at from that angle all the time? No offense I hope, but sometimes it seems like this turned into News for Lawyers, Frivolism that matters.
Well it's this guy's bounty, not yours, is it? And he most clearly explains the benefit he sees:
Many of my favourite tools are already scriptable in Python. (...) This would accelerate the learning curve of someone who has already learned to script one app in Python, when they try to learn to script another.
"It should handle not only Python, but also (etc.)"
And the word "should" should only be used to prescribe what oneself, not others, "should" be doing.
Re:Similar techniques are in use already
on
Javascrypt
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· Score: 1
* Copyright (C) Paul Johnston 1999 - 2000.
Incidentally, this one is pretty widespread (!), available from here. Walker uses another one by Henri Torgemane (no home page that I could find).
Netcraft's method *is* unfair, because there's no weight as to the location to which the domains point.
What's the alternative, counting by IP? It could be interesting, but not necessarily more representative. I'm on a shared host with dozens of other domains: by choosing that host, we 'cast votes' for Apache, didn't we?
Oh but it's worse than that. The opt-out provision only applies to the specific company being advertised. Start a new shell company (maybe $50 in some states, less in the carribean) and you can spam everyone all over again
How about something like this: If you want to send commercial e-mail, then all the addresses you send out in it (sender, smtp from:, return address, any urls and links in the body) must be from the same domain.
May be a PITA to comply with, and "defining spam"/"defining commercial" remains tricky, buy hey, these would be the rules if you want to do it legitimately. It certainly won't stop Amazon from sending me an account status.
What's the point of referencing this Internet.com article? All it does is rehash the actual source (which we also get, thanks) in biz-speak; add those "(Quote, Chart)" references for those who regard the market as the arbiter of all truths; terminate all sentences with "he wrote", "she said"; and wrap the whole thing in ghastly illiterate thoughtless style:
The first employs the "Berkeley Packet Filter" (BPF) firewall but SCO ever held an ownership interest in the original BPF implementation
s/ever/never
Moglen said a pattern matching search shows SCO what it thought was an example of copying
s/SCO what it/what SCO
but the "C code" shown in the slides was first incorporated in Unix Version 3
"C code"?! Please!! does "Christmas" need quotes now?
SCO used pattern matching to associate code as its own
s/associate/claim
It has therefore published its supposed trade secrets and copy-righted material
GTK+ programmers won't touch Qt because the Qt libraries are GPL'd instead of LGPL'd. And frankly, they're right too. Development libraries should not be GPL'd, and this should have been settled long ago.
Interesting how this makes KDE more orthodox than Gnome...
I look forward to a completed version of this tool and its availability on the Mac. Not to get music from others but to allow me to use music purchased on iTMS as I see fit and without audio quality loss. Indeed the availability of this tool would make me reconsider purchasing music from the iTMS - currently there's compelling enough reasons to no do so and so I don't.
I agree, for yet another reason. This business of having to "authorize" your machine simply makes me uncomfortable that the music will remain playable for years to come, like an LP.
Ok, I'm sorry but this is a little short-sighted. Just because you happen to like LPs doesn't mean that the rest of us do. People who use multiple turntables can't use the vinyl. I can't use them in my cylinder player or in my turntable that plays 78 RPM singles. I can't use them in my juke box which does the same. I have to use Garrard's idiot player to play the damn LPs. They spin at 33 RPMs, that's not a price I'm willing to pay. Why should I? I have been using shellac for years, I donated to the project, why should I have to use another player? It's my music, I have the right to use it in any way I choose as long as I don't give it away. Your definition of "something that works" is a little off, vinyl does not work for me and I would be there are some people who will agree with me.
Slashdot Mirror
For a concise summary see also here ;-)
Man! A picture on the Aftenposten page even shows you exactly where the holes are in the proof!
Just change the name to Winux!
Nah, that would be the audience for this book.
"Power User" is a concept that makes no sense in Unix land. When everything is open, when anyone can dig down to the metal if s/he so desires, then the boundary between "User" and "Programmer" becomes blurred and replaced by a continuous spectrum. Wherever you stand, you can always keep learning, and everything reminds you of how little you know. Who's to be called a "Unix Power User"? A perl expert? Larry Wall? It doesn't make sense.
Where it makes sense is/was in systems like Windows or (pre-X) Mac OS, where everything was closed so the most you could be was, well, a user. That was the habitat of the quintessential "Power User", someone with an encyclopedic knowledge of all the little (closed source) utilities you should download if you want to perform unforeseen tasks. "Linux Power User" makes just as much sense as "GNU Shareware": the day the expression takes hold is the day we'll know Linux has died.
Wow. First rated post, and already the legal talk is on. Has this world really turned so litigious that everything must be looked at from that angle all the time? No offense I hope, but sometimes it seems like this turned into News for Lawyers, Frivolism that matters.
Yes, "you" ;-)
Well it's this guy's bounty, not yours, is it? And he most clearly explains the benefit he sees:
"It should handle not only Python, but also (etc.)"And the word "should" should only be used to prescribe what oneself, not others, "should" be doing.
Incidentally, this one is pretty widespread (!), available from here. Walker uses another one by Henri Torgemane (no home page that I could find).
http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/sbo0313l.jpg
What's the alternative, counting by IP? It could be interesting, but not necessarily more representative. I'm on a shared host with dozens of other domains: by choosing that host, we 'cast votes' for Apache, didn't we?
Wha, "wha"?
Szulik said something about the home desktop, not about the desktop in general. Tempest in a tea pot...
How about something like this: If you want to send commercial e-mail, then all the addresses you send out in it (sender, smtp from:, return address, any urls and links in the body) must be from the same domain.
May be a PITA to comply with, and "defining spam"/"defining commercial" remains tricky, buy hey, these would be the rules if you want to do it legitimately. It certainly won't stop Amazon from sending me an account status.
Etc., etc. Wasn't Slashdot's point to link original sources so as to spare us such tripe? Editors: edit!
Interesting how this makes KDE more orthodox than Gnome...
(nt)
I look forward to a completed version of this tool and its availability on the Mac. Not to get music from others but to allow me to use music purchased on iTMS as I see fit and without audio quality loss. Indeed the availability of this tool would make me reconsider purchasing music from the iTMS - currently there's compelling enough reasons to no do so and so I don't. I agree, for yet another reason. This business of having to "authorize" your machine simply makes me uncomfortable that the music will remain playable for years to come, like an LP.
Ok, I'm sorry but this is a little short-sighted. Just because you happen to like LPs doesn't mean that the rest of us do. People who use multiple turntables can't use the vinyl. I can't use them in my cylinder player or in my turntable that plays 78 RPM singles. I can't use them in my juke box which does the same. I have to use Garrard's idiot player to play the damn LPs. They spin at 33 RPMs, that's not a price I'm willing to pay. Why should I? I have been using shellac for years, I donated to the project, why should I have to use another player? It's my music, I have the right to use it in any way I choose as long as I don't give it away. Your definition of "something that works" is a little off, vinyl does not work for me and I would be there are some people who will agree with me.
Thanks so much for including that link (with title tag!) so we can track down the relevant site!
I went and dug out the link, so... I might as well post it.
...and soon it spreads to others.
It spreadsheets. And when the spreadsheet hits the fan...
More like "dozens of people", no?
The foundations of OSS are not this sort of drivel. And yet the mods are biting in droves.