Hey, if the casual user is so desperately clingy to ignorance and apathy they DESERVE what they get.
It's bad enough we can't motivate anyone to care about rights and freedoms let alone free software. It's bad enough trying to talk "healthy living" is ineffective, or about fuel conservation or etc... It seems pretty much every possible legitimate concern for the future is just "too much" for the lay person.
You know what happens when the majority don't evolve right? They get obsolete and a severe case of the EXTINCT.
That comment was addressed to the people sweating the DRM in it. As in, this slashdot story is moot since you don't have to use it.
I don't care what MSFT does to their OS primarily because I'm not dependent on it. I use Gentoo for all my professional work.
It's like making a story out of the fact that MSFT painted the outside of their buildings bright yellow. Who cares. Look the other way. WMP is a horrible program to begin with. Just don't use it if this bothers you. That's what I do.
Notepad can't read LF-only text files. That's more of a concern for me than this:-)
And why anyways? Even without the DRM crap WMP is still a nasty user unfriendly program. With more concern for style and gui glitter [hint: if you full screen your movies you can't see the fucking GUI anyways] than functionality or stability.
I almost universally use mediaplayer in Windows anyways. It works better and isn't so cluttered with crap.
In the Linux world I use a command line [mplayer, diff one] since again, I FULL SCREEN my movies...
Rolling back isn't always an option when there are SECURITY FIXES in between. Between 2.6.16 and 2.6.18 there are a few exploits/DoS.
Second, I agree that politely worded requests deserve more attention. The problem I was trying to point out is Gentoo needs more time spent on quality than quantity.
Um other distros suffer similar problems. Specially since many packages are universal.
And besides, bitching is how things get done in this world.
If I walk up to a LTC user and ask "what do you hate about it" and they just politely say "oh I love it, nothing to complain about", they're not doing me a favour. LTC isn't perfect and there are shortcommings in it that I don't know about [or haven't realized yet].
If we all just sit around holding hands and singing campfire songs then nothing gets improved.
But there is a diff between "Your shit won't build with GCC 4.1.1" and "I really want a port to J2ME this weekend if possible" [*].
I think overall I fulfill probably more than 90% of all user requests. I reject the ones that have nothing to do with my goals [e.g. porting to J2ME] and others which are just wrong [e.g. insecure or just inefficient].
Tom
[*] Don't laugh, I have people requesting stupid shit all the time. Micro-optimizers are the worst though. Telling me that if I use the lib in some obscure way [e.g. converting 10 million bit numbers to decimal] that it's inefficient. But the use cases for those projects are so small and obscure that it doesn't merit polluting the code base for 99.999% of the users....
What I hate is the downloads of a 40MB package which then turns into 32000 files taking up 400MB...I could see if the kernel was 10MB and a dozen files or something but this is a bit excessive to just randomly force install...
You don't get to brag that you *donated* your time and effort to a project if you expect to be compenated for your troubles. Last I checked Gentoo was a free product, donated to the public [under various licenses] for all to use. If this means I can't gripe about shit getting broken without taking out my cheque book... then it's not really a free project now is it?
I didn't pay for that toll highway in Toronto, but I certainly can't use it for free. Does that mean the highway was "donated" to the public?
I certainly don't demand money for my projects [though I'm not above begging at times]. I fix/upgrade/add new shit all the time for free. Even if the customers are people like IBM, Intel, whatever, making bank off my work. I would rather help others than demand they pay up.
Actually I have patches in Allegro and bug reports in GCC [that have been fixed or are being fixed]. I've just recently filed a lkml notice about the ICH8 in 2.6.18. That's how I contribute to these projects.
On my own, I have http://libtomcrypt.com/ which has three major projects that I support, even commercially [I don't get paid but I have companies asking for help for products that they sell... damn I need money...]. I certainly don't say "fuck you user, fix the fucking problem your damn god fucking self you lazy cunt!" I'm sure I'd be out of users fairly quickly.
Yeah, well next time people are like "Linux market share is only 3%, boo fucking hoo" don't look this way for sympathy.
As much as I like Linux and the potential of GNU/Linux/OSS/etc somedays it drives me fucking mad. Two steps forwards, one step backwards.
As for chilling out, that comes next week at Toorcon. Horton plaza == Movie Theater + nice bars == fuck you americans I'll get drunk and insult strangers all I want.:-)
It's being a bad parent. Nobody cares if your sperm shoot straight. If you can't invest in raising the child you're a bad parent.
Unfortunately, for some reason in the hacker/oss/etc world nobody cares about the longterm. They only care about the recent coolness. oooh, GLX rendered xterm!! AWESOME!!!
Similarly, if you can't maintain a project [and actually fix things before adding NEW content] you're a bad developer. People shouldn't praise and adore you [like most OSS press whores] but shun and shame you. As a user I do my part, I file bug reports. In my software that I release I don't blame the users [even the ones on Windows...]. I see if I can fix the problem and work on it. Why is that so hard?
Hahahaha, that's a funny retort, you think about it yourself or did your mother help you out with the big words?
I'm sorry, but why should we trust the future systems to people who can't afford a box to test their drivers on? This is where becoming a platform expert comes in handy. Instead of hacking any random bit just to get your name in the changelog you take ownership of something and then work towards that. Like if you maintain the ICH drivers... you should own a few Intel boxes. Not just some 12 yr old box and a few databooks.
I'm waiting for the case of N peeps with vaguely overlapping patents [N > 2] and then they can have fights about it. I'd pay to watch that... wait...
I don't know why people are all proud about their patents. Places like IBMs hand out awards and framed pictures of [first page] the patent to inventors. Most of the time it's like "method and apparatus of doing something obvious, on the Internet." When patents are so easy to come by the value of them should be nil, or at least you'd like to think that...
Whoa, just because an idea has been around for CENTURIES doesn't mean it's has prior art. I mean, clearly $IDEA "on the internet" is a completely new and non-obvious idea.
Hehehe, people should just ignore patents and hope they go away. It's much simpler than getting all in an uproar about it.
Slashdot Mirror
Hey, if the casual user is so desperately clingy to ignorance and apathy they DESERVE what they get.
It's bad enough we can't motivate anyone to care about rights and freedoms let alone free software. It's bad enough trying to talk "healthy living" is ineffective, or about fuel conservation or etc... It seems pretty much every possible legitimate concern for the future is just "too much" for the lay person.
You know what happens when the majority don't evolve right? They get obsolete and a severe case of the EXTINCT.
Tom
The money I save on not buying expensive doo-dahs, I can best and better use on plane tickets and booze.
Ha-cha-cha!
Tom
New Yorker article was more than 1000 words. BORING.
Bitchy PDF is whiny and lengthy too.
Slashdot desperately needs better users and more boobies...
Tom
All very good reasons to use an OSS OS.
Tom
um, you could just as easily use a Mac Mini for this purpose. Mac Mini + itunes == iTV?
And yes, I hate Apple and MSFT. Big whoop, wanna fight about it?
Tom
boring for anyone with an ounce of AV skills. My computer *IS* my TV, mp3 player, movie player, dvd player, cd player, etc....
Tom
KDE?
Blashphemereerere [damn lack of spelling abilities].
I'm sure Gnome has some CD ripper crap. I just prefer the command line...
Tom
That comment was addressed to the people sweating the DRM in it. As in, this slashdot story is moot since you don't have to use it.
I don't care what MSFT does to their OS primarily because I'm not dependent on it. I use Gentoo for all my professional work.
It's like making a story out of the fact that MSFT painted the outside of their buildings bright yellow. Who cares. Look the other way. WMP is a horrible program to begin with. Just don't use it if this bothers you. That's what I do.
Tom
cdparanoia + lame, done. Well if you want pretty names add Grip to the list.
Winamp can rip MP3s too can't it?
Tom
Notepad can't read LF-only text files. That's more of a concern for me than this :-)
And why anyways? Even without the DRM crap WMP is still a nasty user unfriendly program. With more concern for style and gui glitter [hint: if you full screen your movies you can't see the fucking GUI anyways] than functionality or stability.
I almost universally use mediaplayer in Windows anyways. It works better and isn't so cluttered with crap.
In the Linux world I use a command line [mplayer, diff one] since again, I FULL SCREEN my movies...
Tom
You don't have to use WMP to rip CDs you know?
This is really a moot issue. I mean I hate Microsoft and all that they are, but seriously, just don't use WMP.
Tom
Rolling back isn't always an option when there are SECURITY FIXES in between. Between 2.6.16 and 2.6.18 there are a few exploits/DoS.
Second, I agree that politely worded requests deserve more attention. The problem I was trying to point out is Gentoo needs more time spent on quality than quantity.
Tom
or just hit the shift key. It's what I do when I don't knwo what's going on in the shell.
Of course who looks at tty directly? Hello SSH....
Tom
Um other distros suffer similar problems. Specially since many packages are universal.
And besides, bitching is how things get done in this world.
If I walk up to a LTC user and ask "what do you hate about it" and they just politely say "oh I love it, nothing to complain about", they're not doing me a favour. LTC isn't perfect and there are shortcommings in it that I don't know about [or haven't realized yet].
If we all just sit around holding hands and singing campfire songs then nothing gets improved.
Tom
I know what you are saying.
But there is a diff between "Your shit won't build with GCC 4.1.1" and "I really want a port to J2ME this weekend if possible" [*].
I think overall I fulfill probably more than 90% of all user requests. I reject the ones that have nothing to do with my goals [e.g. porting to J2ME] and others which are just wrong [e.g. insecure or just inefficient].
Tom
[*] Don't laugh, I have people requesting stupid shit all the time. Micro-optimizers are the worst though. Telling me that if I use the lib in some obscure way [e.g. converting 10 million bit numbers to decimal] that it's inefficient. But the use cases for those projects are so small and obscure that it doesn't merit polluting the code base for 99.999% of the users....
What I hate is the downloads of a 40MB package which then turns into 32000 files taking up 400MB...I could see if the kernel was 10MB and a dozen files or something but this is a bit excessive to just randomly force install...
Tom
You don't get to brag that you *donated* your time and effort to a project if you expect to be compenated for your troubles. Last I checked Gentoo was a free product, donated to the public [under various licenses] for all to use. If this means I can't gripe about shit getting broken without taking out my cheque book ... then it's not really a free project now is it?
I didn't pay for that toll highway in Toronto, but I certainly can't use it for free. Does that mean the highway was "donated" to the public?
I certainly don't demand money for my projects [though I'm not above begging at times]. I fix/upgrade/add new shit all the time for free. Even if the customers are people like IBM, Intel, whatever, making bank off my work. I would rather help others than demand they pay up.
Tom
Actually I have patches in Allegro and bug reports in GCC [that have been fixed or are being fixed]. I've just recently filed a lkml notice about the ICH8 in 2.6.18. That's how I contribute to these projects.
On my own, I have http://libtomcrypt.com/ which has three major projects that I support, even commercially [I don't get paid but I have companies asking for help for products that they sell... damn I need money...]. I certainly don't say "fuck you user, fix the fucking problem your damn god fucking self you lazy cunt!" I'm sure I'd be out of users fairly quickly.
Next question?
Yeah, well next time people are like "Linux market share is only 3%, boo fucking hoo" don't look this way for sympathy.
:-)
As much as I like Linux and the potential of GNU/Linux/OSS/etc somedays it drives me fucking mad. Two steps forwards, one step backwards.
As for chilling out, that comes next week at Toorcon. Horton plaza == Movie Theater + nice bars == fuck you americans I'll get drunk and insult strangers all I want.
Tom
Yeah, but my USB ports work in Windows don't they. :-)
Though I half blame crappy mobo producers too... PICK A STANDARD AND STICK TO IT!!!
In this day and age, ethernet and USB controllers should be a dime a dozen. Not obscure and hard to clone...
Tom
That's such a bullshit unprofessional attitude.
"oh it doesn't work? fix it yourself."
How about take ownership of your projects?
It's being a bad parent. Nobody cares if your sperm shoot straight. If you can't invest in raising the child you're a bad parent.
Unfortunately, for some reason in the hacker/oss/etc world nobody cares about the longterm. They only care about the recent coolness. oooh, GLX rendered xterm!! AWESOME!!!
Similarly, if you can't maintain a project [and actually fix things before adding NEW content] you're a bad developer. People shouldn't praise and adore you [like most OSS press whores] but shun and shame you. As a user I do my part, I file bug reports. In my software that I release I don't blame the users [even the ones on Windows...]. I see if I can fix the problem and work on it. Why is that so hard?
Tom
Hahahaha, that's a funny retort, you think about it yourself or did your mother help you out with the big words?
... you should own a few Intel boxes. Not just some 12 yr old box and a few databooks.
I'm sorry, but why should we trust the future systems to people who can't afford a box to test their drivers on? This is where becoming a platform expert comes in handy. Instead of hacking any random bit just to get your name in the changelog you take ownership of something and then work towards that. Like if you maintain the ICH drivers
Tom
I'm waiting for the case of N peeps with vaguely overlapping patents [N > 2] and then they can have fights about it. I'd pay to watch that... wait...
I don't know why people are all proud about their patents. Places like IBMs hand out awards and framed pictures of [first page] the patent to inventors. Most of the time it's like "method and apparatus of doing something obvious, on the Internet." When patents are so easy to come by the value of them should be nil, or at least you'd like to think that...
Tom
I cried when they removed "--inject". I used that all the time to overstep the up-down cycles.
Or how about this,
I DON'T WANT GENTOO FUCKING SOURCES IN THERE. I'll use a vanilla kernel thank you.
What the hell is dependent on gentoo-sources anyways?
Tom
Whoa, just because an idea has been around for CENTURIES doesn't mean it's has prior art. I mean, clearly $IDEA "on the internet" is a completely new and non-obvious idea.
Hehehe, people should just ignore patents and hope they go away. It's much simpler than getting all in an uproar about it.
Tom