MS should be bashed...it's like the diner that tries to sell rancid water and stale bread for $100(us). They use whatever means necessary to beat down their competition, so almost all of the other diners (or food producers) have gone out of business or are struggling. You can get better food from homeless shelters for free.
If you want to make a better comparison of MS vs open source then take 80-90% of _all_ open source programs and compare the number of flaws to MS' flaws.
Probably 80-90% of all open source programs are made by one or more of: script kiddies, teenagers playing around, hobbists, power users, people that bought "Learn to Program C in 21 Days" who now think they are "experts", and the people can't program so they start a project on SourceForge with a basic description and hope someone bites. None of these people should be expected to create a decent, bug-free program. For you to even think MS needs to be compared with them shows how backwards your position is.
Anyone and their cat can start an open source project in their garage. It doesn't mean anyone will use these programs, and it is absurd to compare those projects with a funded company that has paid professional programmers. However, from what I've seen, Microsoft would barely scratch by with even this test. If compared with the commonly used (and made by real programmers) Open Source projects, Microsoft wouldn't even have a chance.
Take a simple program like "BitchX," an IRC client.
I've used it before. Not to dis the guy who made it (BitchX isn't too bad an effort), but it does seem a bit script kiddie-like. In fact only a script kiddie would choose such a name.;-) In fact read their page: "BitchX was started by Trench and HappyCrappy as a script for the ircII client."
It has had countless security issues, and IRC has been around since '89 or so.
Why don't you compare BitchX with Microsoft's IRC client--assuming they still have one. All I remember about it was almost no features and stupid cartoons. BitchX has lots of features. Not that I'm saying they should be compared, BitchX is made by script kiddies after all--in fact they seem to want to be known as script kiddies--just look at their page!
We like to conveniently forget about sendmail and bind
What kind of dumbfuck would use sendmail or bind on their servers??? There are plenty of alternatives to thoseprograms...
there is no equal or objective comparison between MS and "Linux" (or whatever you want to define as the yardstick of security.. which is typically "Linux" on/.) in terms of security.
There is no equal or objective comparison between the two because MS doesn't care about security or bugs! Whatever Linus would call a "Brown Paper Bag Bug", Bill calls a "feature"....and I don't think most slashdot readers define Linux as a "yardstick of security". That would be something more like OpenBSD, who kick the hell out of Microsoft in terms of paranoia and therefore security. Numbers from bug reports aren't a good comparison between them either--the OpenBSD people seem to raise hell when they find the tiniest potential exploit, while Microsoft won't even acknowledge the most horrid of bugs/exploits and will only release a patch if they are embarrassed into it.
From the article: "Oy Online Solutions Ltd. of Finland said it notified Microsoft Corp. of the security hole on May 20 but the software giant has yet to produce a software patch to fix the problem."
I don't see why Microsoft just doesn't disable the gopher protocol--that wouldn't take long, would it? I haven't seen a gopher site for five years. I don't see any point in keeping it...
Anyone want to start with conspiracy theories that M$ wants bugs in its software?;-)
Hell, sign the source / binary packages if you want - if you live in a country where the law doesn't care about this sort of thing, and you don't work for a company where you might be fired for such behavior, go ahead. So many people seem to make a big deal about knowing packages came from a particular source - it doesn't matter if you can't punish that person if they do trojan an app.
So digital signatures for programs are identifiably linked to people? What is everyone using--Verisign to verify the identity of a public key? I thought they were just using pgp and providing the public key on the project's homepage. Not that Verisign can absolutely guarantee that they have no fraudulently created identities...
It doesn't matter if you can't even find out if a real person signed the packages...if that is the case, the threat is even worse than you state!
Maybe Open Source needs a trusted public key repository. It wouldn't help the users that don't understand security, but it may help those that do...
The author sas there will be no banning. But he tells us he will ban child pornographers?
You misunderstand. There is no contradiction. You can share all the child porn and snuff all you want, but you will also be reported to the police. No banning involved, however it'll be quite hard to share your files when your computer has been impounded and you are in prison.;-)
AC writes:
All the more reason that companies avoid the GPL. It is predatory, complicated, and...
Yeah, I even thought the LGPL wasn't that bad. Question 8 proved me wrong. In fact, I thought I knew the GPL well, but I still got 3 questions wrong! What about question 2, why can't he do number I? So once you modify a GPLed program, you're required to only distribute the modified version and never the original?????? #3 seems hypocritical--RMS can create all the restrictions he wants, but any code that links with his license cannot have any?
Now I'm not even sure I even want to donate code to any already existing GPLed projects anymore.
Are there any licenses out there that say "you
are required to distribute source code with binaries for this component, but you can do anything you want with other components you create"??? It would be nice with projects that I don't want to use the BSD license. Maybe I'll have to come up with my own, however I hear that it comes with legal tanglings and etc. Although I was thinking of coming up with one that disallows a bunch of people and companies that've pissed me off from using my program. Maybe I should include RMS on the list!
Yeah, at least that's what my roommate told me (he uses Kaazza) From what he said it doesn't sound too useful as you could only talk to someone who owns a specific file.
However, there are P2P systems that have IRC like chat channels and Usenet like messaging. The Circle is one.
Boycotting them won't do much of anything. They'll just scream piracy and try to make the government force everyone to pay taxes to the RIAA/MPAA--just like they do with such things as blank music CDs and CD burners.
The entertainment cartel has to be both taken down and replaced. That is the only way to be free of their dictatorship...
P2P is not just for copyright infringement!!!!!!!!
on
KaZaA Collapses
·
· Score: 2
And yes I am aware that legitimate artists use P2P to distribute their work... perhaps they should try mp3.com
So you're saying that "legitimate artists" shouldn't be allowed to distribute their own copyrighted work in the way they see appropriate? Well, I'm glad that you at least acknolwedged that there are "legitimate" artists outside of the RIAA!
P2P is just a way of transporting data. It shouldn't be banned anymore than HTTP, IRC, FTP, TCP, or the telephone system.
And no, I'm not a troll, but I suspect that the illegal-mp3-downloading moderators will think otherwise.
P2P can do more than just share music--it can share any type of file. It also can be used for real time chatting and group messaging. Think Usenet, the WWW, and IRC/IM all in one decentralized (meaning you're not dependant upon crappy unstable ISP's or spyware companies' servers) package. I imagine P2P technology could also make it possible to create citywide intranets that aren't reliant on any ISP or servers. Just think: plug in a wireless network card and some software and go. No need to find an ISP--you can play games, send messages/files without intervention or assistance from any specific organization--just like the internet used to be.
Back to the bastards: The entertainment cartel mostly seems to go after third parties instead of the people who are doing the copyright infringement. Like universities who were merely providing internet access for their students--they didn't tell the students to use Napster--they didn't even say anything about Napster--the students found and used that program on their own, yet universities where named in the lawsuit!!! That's like suing a telephone company because someone had played music through a long distance phone line. How could the telco be responsible for that? The universities?
Their whole plan appears to attempt to maintain their monopolistic position and control the internet rather than stop copyright infringement! Copyright infringement was around long before it was viable on the internet. Ever hear of anyone taping off the radio? How about copying audio/video tapes of copyrighted material and giving them to friends? Just because it is possible for a device to do something illegal, and some people do it, it doesn't mean that device should be banned. There are thousands of illegal things that could be done with a hammer or a car or a cat or a peice of wood. Why not ban those too?
It's the entertainment cartel's fault that P2P is mostly used for "pirating" because they're the ones that were screaming that P2P was only intended for "stealing" their music, and so people heard that and thought: "I can get free music if I run this P2P thingy? Cool!" P2P could do so much more. However stupid people like you and stupid people that believe you have amplified these misconceptions about P2P systems--thereby causing them to be mostly used for such purposes.
Let me tell you this. No one wants to look into your webcam unless you are only slightly over 18, female and have an aversion to wearing clothing.
You're a bit naive.
So you're saying that no one would want to see a CEO's webcam that has confidential papers in view of the picture? Papers that could give a competitor an advantage? (or anyone--such information could make a person very rich in the stock market)...or how about a credit card in view of the cam. Maybe those items would be hard to read, but someone could get lucky, and the mic wouldn't even have this sort of problem if any of this info is spoken aloud. In fact the mic could probably catch information that is even more sensitive...
Maybe they don't really want to look at your webcam pics, but use them to embarass you. Ever use your computer in your underwear? Ever change in front of your webcam? Ever pick your nose? Those events could be posted all over the internet.
It isn't being invasive, it's off by default. Go cry wolf where it's important.
So it is off by default. That doesn't guarantee that the plugin doesn't have a bug somewhere that'll allow a webmaster to get access to the webcam or mic anyway. It's another possible way some wacko can access your system. Granted that the most used browsers have known security holes that are much worse, so to some degree you have a point, but it is still a concern.
it rewrites the From: header line, forcing the message to appear authored by the user you logged in as.
Oh great, another piece of software that rewrites my email address to myloginname@ crap.dns.entry.pointing. to.my.computers.ipaddr.myisp.net
Where my computer isn't running a mail server, so this makes it so no one can contact me, and when they try, their mail server bangs against my firewall for days.
Just kidding! I'm sure you wrote it correctly so it doesn't do that--I hope. Unfortunately, there are a lot of programs written for UN*X that do just that. Sucks to have to fix those problems all the time on my computer at home...
One more on topic comment: back when I was on @home they used to add an Organization: line when your newsreader didn't, however their terms of service said that you shouldn't ever represent yourself as @home in any way. I guess I'm splitting hairs, but that seems a bit contradictory to me...
Yeah, it could be used as an argument for the anti-abortion side, but the main goal of this exercise seems to be to limit what can be patented. Do you think people's DNA should be patented? I don't.
What about genetic enhancements for people? Let's say some company engineers and patents a genetic modification that makes people more resistant to disease. Then a couple pays the company to implant these genes into their children during the invitro fertilization. The kids grow up and find out that they will have to pay patent fees to the company should they reproduce--up until the patent expires.
This may sound silly now, however it probably won't be in the future. I could just see the "Patent Enforcement Alliance" (sister company to the BSA) showing up at the hospital to collect patent fees when a baby is born.
I don't have any problem with abortion, but I do have a problem with patenting DNA. Maybe geneticly engineered stuff could fall under copyright, but I am concered how far that could go and what kinds of control it could give to various organizations/people...
BTW, I think the designations left/right wing are silly. It's not accurate to limit all the possible political views on a one dimensional graph. Only a small subset of the normal popluation happen to fall upon this graph. Real people have wide varieties of views and opinions.
If I understand your post correctly, you are confused. It seems you say the industry should make a system that people want and also has copy protection. Then you go on to say it should be just like DVD. DVDs already have a "rights management" system (CSS, regions, etc...). It is weak and primitive, but it is there.
Even this primitive scheme has serious problems--as do all copy protection systems. Read these two articles listed below. Note that voodoo3 cards have a tv out, which the DVD consortium apparently decided is evil.
This kind of crap is why I haven't bought a DVD player/drive. The thing is useless if you can't play anything due to copy protection....or you are forced to watch a bunch of commercials!...or cannot use the OS of your choice!
Support those who design, engineer a stand-alone generic, hardware reference platform that has uses beyond the home (data logging, control, robotics, etc.), allow people to buy the components individually, and THEN layer an OS (Linux?) onto it;
Ummm....computer hardware manufacturers and retailers already do this....and it may become difficult to figure out who to support (assuming enough of the public will care). They could make the "copy protected" components work with existing "unprotected" ones--then in phase two ease in the components that no longer work with anything that is "unprotected." The consumer wouldn't be able to tell which components were "unprotected" or "protected" in the phase one way.
The only reason this hasn't happend is that it hasn't been in the interest of the manufacturers--legislation, lawsuits, FCC mandates, or making it so that DRM is the only way to access the MPAA/RIAA's "content" would change this. IMO the latter is the best hope as decent people could make their own "content" and the stupid would just buy the MPAA/RIAA machines, however the MPAA/RIAA members don't want this because they know they'd lose massive marketshare. Their real goal is to get one of the first three going so they have the capability of controling the entire market like they have in the past...
...this would keep it difficult to attack legally as the hardware would have very justifiable existence on it's own.
The thing is the hardware already has a justifiable existence--even if computers could only browse the web and do wordprocessing. Hollywood doesn't care, congresspeople don't care, all they care about is how much money/power they can milk out of the situation.
This is a typical problem installing from source with Linux--something is probably broken in either the source or your setup. Some idiots insist that compiling and installing is "not that time-consuming" and "not as tempermental as [I] suggest"--yeah right. Gotta love the open source "community".;-)
The line appears to use a macro called MODULE_LICENSE. It appears to allow a module to store which type of license it falls under...interesting. The macro is in my 2.4.17 kernel source and the program/module seems to compile find on my machine. Could the macro be something new?
Perhaps the macro is only in the newer kernels, or maybe the patch added to your kernel breaks it somehow. (usually extra numbers indicate your kernel was patched/modified by the distro maintainers--I'm assuming this is the case.) I would suggest just getting the newest kernel from kernel.org. You'll lose whatever patches were made to that kernel, however I think this is a good thing unless you really really need what the patch does. In fact I recommend upgrading to a newer kernel anyway, as 2.4.7 was still in the stage where there were those funky problems.
the response:
So how could you possibly have a valid opinion on the subject?
More of what I said that you conveniently left off:
I have read a lot about them and have helped some people that use their distro, so I do know about the subject.
If I read from countless sources that Ford Explorers with Firestone tires are dangerous to drive, hear countless stories about how accidents have been caused by such a combination, and know a friend who was in a car wreck because his Firestone tires fell apart on his Ford Explorer, then I think I would know a bit about the subject. I suppose according to you I should start driving Ford Explorers with Firestone tires just to see if I can get in an accident.
what insecurities are you talking about? I mean -- find me a Linux distro that has no exploits.
Obviously you are clueless. Read the
SecurityFocus Vulns Stats note the table marked "Number of OS Vulnerabilities by Year". Now lets see you tell me that RedHat's distro is just as secure as other Linux distros. Compare the figures with MS NT/2000--they look close to me...
Qualify that. How do they do things the same way as Microsoft?
Geee...so many choices--where to begin. How about their "configurator" program. I only had to deal with it once--but it was a nasty experience. For one, everytime it was run it would reset the real settings (edited by me in the/etc directory) to whatever it's internal system said they should be--apparently from some other RedHat config file--they made it so that anyone who learned on a normal Linux system would have their settings clobbered as soon as RedHat's program started up.
How about the fact that they use a single script file for every service run at startup? This makes booting any RedHat system painfully-ass slow. That's just like when Microsoft uses single files per item for their "favorites" and cheap symbolic link substitutes.
What about the whole gcc 2.96 mess? Read about it
here and here and here
Have you ever used Linux in a professional setting? Package management is essential.
Do you know anything? Slackware uses tar files for their packages--I've never seen any problem with Slackware's package management system.
It doesn't keep track of dependencies, however I usually have to do nodeps with rpms because the program only checks what it has installed--not anything compiled from source or installed through other packaging systems. However, tar could contain a package dependency file inside if it was necessary.
They don't have an apt-get, however that just checks dependencies and downloads files--it could be done using tar files if need be.
A really great packaging system would check the binaries to see what libraries they required and go from there. "This executable requires libuberssl.so.2--not present on system, but found in package ubernetlibs. Do you wish to download and install?" Unfortunately I haven't seen a packaging system like this, and I know the rpm program doesn't do this--it uses the files in/var/lib/rpm and complains if the dependencies aren't listed there.
Does this mean that you resent.debs too?
I would if nearly every Linux developer insisted on using.debs to distribute their binaries, therefore requiring me to install the packaging system on every Linux computer I use, just for the ability of installing binaries.
You can build and install tar'ed & gziped source just like with any other *nix.
Obviously you haven't tried to compile many programs from source. Not only does it take lots more time (try installing XFree86, Mozilla, or GIMP this way), there are also quite a few programs that take much time dicking around with them to even get them to compile. They'll be written for every OS under the sun and very tempormental. Or they'll have stupidly written makefiles. Or they'll have straight out errors in the makefiles/compile scripts/code that takes an hour to correct the problem. Etc. etc. etc...
"./configure; make; make install" doesn't always work!
I can go on and on about how dumb your post is, and how unsubstantiated your opinion on RedHat seems to be, but its pretty clear that you're a troll and trying to get a rise out of me.
The same can be said about you. I could go on and on about how idiotic your ideas about what a decent distro is and how to run it. Like how it is bad to just add patches to the kernel for some newfangled gee-whiz buzzword and put it in a major distro. Those patches should only be added by people who really need them--everyone else can wait until the patch goes through the review process and is confirmed stable.
Well I suppose there are other bad Linux
distros out there, but RedHat is quite popular
and it is bad. Maybe you don't think so, however,
from all that I've read and seen, their distro
seems pretty bad--using releases of programs
from the unstable branches,
they used to have insecure default settings,
apparently they even have their own people
add patches and modify the kernel. (I believe the "pure" Torvalds kernel is the best choice)
I haven't ever used their distro just because
by the time I may have considered trying it,
I already knew about the stupid things they do
(I only listed what relates to security above).
I have read a lot about them
and have
helped some people that use their distro, so
I do know about the subject. Yes,
they fixed the default settings on their systems
and I haven't been keeping track of them
recently, however the way they do things in
terms of software quality, security and "usability"
seems to be exactly the same as Microsoft.
Therefore I have zero confidence in RedHat.
I don't remember saying they're evil,
however it does seem they are becoming the
mark of the beast for Linux. Why else would
everyone insist upon using their packaging
format to distribute binaries (now official
in the Linux Standard Base) when tar is good
enough? It's fine that they use their own
internal packaging system, however it's
annoying to have that forced upon me when
I don't use their distro.
For years I've been thinking that Microsoft should really be held accountable for building that capability into Outlook in the first place. Then just a couple weeks ago someone said that is like holding gun makers accountable for murders.... It's funny that I didn't notice how much of a hypocrite I was until it was pointed out to me.
No, that person was wrong. Let's say there is a popular gun manufacturer called Smallnlimp. This is like if smallnlimp put in a "feature" that caused the weapon to go off anytime it detected a certain audio pattern. Then some whacko discovers if a specific other signal is sent immediately after, the guns will repeat both signals loudly--thereby causing other guns to go off too. The result? Millions of Smallnlimp's guns fire unexpectedly injuring and killing people as this signal is spread over open air and through telephone lines. Is Smallnlimp responsible for the guns going off? Maybe not directly...
IIRC Microsoft patched this problem by not allowing Outlook Express to run executables directly, however IMO they have been very careless and irresponsible in how they've produced software--their whole objective seems to be to take over the world instead of producing quality software. The types of "viri" that require opening an attachment are only the tip of the iceburg. Code Red and
Nimda are just two examples of real worms/viri that Microsoft has allowed to spawn. I dare someone to show me a security exploit in Apache/NFS/etc that would allow such a program to spread. In additon to bugs, their default settings and all the stuff they try to hide from the user (such as file extentions and the network settings) have allowed script kiddies to go freestyle on Winboxen. Between Microsoft and Redhat, more internet worms are probably on the way...
The moderators can mod this as flamebait all they want, however it doesn't change the fact that this is an honest assessment of the MS by a person who has used their software for at least a decade.
Maybe that example will, but not others. I'm using Mozilla under Linux too, and their other example allows me to browse my harddrive and look at files (the full page one--link is near the bottom of their page). I would assume that this technique can be used to send the contents of files to some server...this is bad.
I don't know much about XMLHTTP. I suppose you still have to go to and evil site to be exploited, but still.
I just want a browser that supports the more basic stuff HTTP, SSL, HTML, images, CSS, cookies, and simple javascript. Maybe I should just go back to Lynx--no images or javascript which means some sites don't work, however I'd rather be inconvienced than hacked.
...
the warez community will find some way to strip it out and make it availalbe, but the downside is that the new pc's that come out after this watermarking technology will not allow you to play unwatermarked content....
Ahh...the beauty of this woud be that the warez community would come up with a way to create the watermarks, and you could view the "pirated" content even on new computers. You just wouldn't be able to transfer or record your own original content (not your child's first steps, family reunions, or that cheesy home made movie you and your friends slapped together). Then we would truely be under control of the mega media corps! The next step: implant chips in everyone's head--just like in Syndicate Wars. Have a nice day.;-)
You seem to hold the communist view of free market capitalism: "In a capitalist society, anyone can and will do anything to make money--even lying stealing and cheating." That's not a free market IMO. A free market is when every customer can choose to by any vendor's product, and every vendor is free to make and sell any product.
The computer operating system market is not currently a free market specificly because of Microsoft. A monopoly is never a free market. If I wanted sell an OS, it wouldn't work because if I copied MS's API, they'd sue me, and if I made my own, it wouldn't work because almost no software would run on the system. Java could've done away with that, but guess what Microsoft did to that...
For OSs and the free market to work, there needs to be a standardised system that most (if not all) software vendors will write their application programs for. Things like Java, OpenGL, POSIX all work toward that, but Microsoft works against them specificly because it would take away M$'s near monopoly position in the market.
Stripping down Windows may indeed cripple Microsoft and traumatize the computer industry as Microsoft pundits claim
Boo hoo. An "industry" that has been screwing over it's customers for nearly a decade may be tramatized. That should not even be considered in the case. If Microsoft and the companies that have been riding their coattails all go down in flames, then that would be a good thing. The real companies producing real products will just port their software/hardware over to other operating systems--assuming they haven't already done so...
From what I read, it sounded like the program just deleted files from the standard Ad-aware install location. I guess if you change the location that you install Ad-aware, you won't have any problems.:)
Linux does have support for some winmodems. Check out linmodems.org.
However, I don't think winmodems are a good thing for internet access/gaming. They are just cheap soundcards that have a telephone jack as a connector--real modems use a chip to process the signals. Having your CPU do the signal processing slows down your computer. It's better to buy a real modem and save money on a slower processor--or have a fast processor that isn't bogged down with unneeded crap...
However the winmodems may be useful with some of the alternative suggestions on the linmodem page. A voice mail server could be quite nice...
Slashdot Mirror
MS should be bashed...it's like the diner that tries to sell rancid water and stale bread for $100(us). They use whatever means necessary to beat down their competition, so almost all of the other diners (or food producers) have gone out of business or are struggling. You can get better food from homeless shelters for free.
Probably 80-90% of all open source programs are made by one or more of: script kiddies, teenagers playing around, hobbists, power users, people that bought "Learn to Program C in 21 Days" who now think they are "experts", and the people can't program so they start a project on SourceForge with a basic description and hope someone bites. None of these people should be expected to create a decent, bug-free program. For you to even think MS needs to be compared with them shows how backwards your position is.
Anyone and their cat can start an open source project in their garage. It doesn't mean anyone will use these programs, and it is absurd to compare those projects with a funded company that has paid professional programmers. However, from what I've seen, Microsoft would barely scratch by with even this test. If compared with the commonly used (and made by real programmers) Open Source projects, Microsoft wouldn't even have a chance.
I've used it before. Not to dis the guy who made it (BitchX isn't too bad an effort), but it does seem a bit script kiddie-like. In fact only a script kiddie would choose such a name. ;-) In fact read their page: "BitchX was started by Trench and HappyCrappy as a script for the ircII client."
Why don't you compare BitchX with Microsoft's IRC client--assuming they still have one. All I remember about it was almost no features and stupid cartoons. BitchX has lots of features. Not that I'm saying they should be compared, BitchX is made by script kiddies after all--in fact they seem to want to be known as script kiddies--just look at their page!
What kind of dumbfuck would use sendmail or bind on their servers??? There are plenty of alternatives to those programs...
There is no equal or objective comparison between the two because MS doesn't care about security or bugs! Whatever Linus would call a "Brown Paper Bag Bug", Bill calls a "feature". ...and I don't think most slashdot readers define Linux as a "yardstick of security". That would be something more like OpenBSD, who kick the hell out of Microsoft in terms of paranoia and therefore security. Numbers from bug reports aren't a good comparison between them either--the OpenBSD people seem to raise hell when they find the tiniest potential exploit, while Microsoft won't even acknowledge the most horrid of bugs/exploits and will only release a patch if they are embarrassed into it.
From the article: "Oy Online Solutions Ltd. of Finland said it notified Microsoft Corp. of the security hole on May 20 but the software giant has yet to produce a software patch to fix the problem."
I don't see why Microsoft just doesn't disable the gopher protocol--that wouldn't take long, would it? I haven't seen a gopher site for five years. I don't see any point in keeping it...
Anyone want to start with conspiracy theories that M$ wants bugs in its software? ;-)
So digital signatures for programs are identifiably linked to people? What is everyone using--Verisign to verify the identity of a public key? I thought they were just using pgp and providing the public key on the project's homepage. Not that Verisign can absolutely guarantee that they have no fraudulently created identities...
It doesn't matter if you can't even find out if a real person signed the packages...if that is the case, the threat is even worse than you state!
Maybe Open Source needs a trusted public key repository. It wouldn't help the users that don't understand security, but it may help those that do...
You misunderstand. There is no contradiction. You can share all the child porn and snuff all you want, but you will also be reported to the police. No banning involved, however it'll be quite hard to share your files when your computer has been impounded and you are in prison. ;-)
Yeah, I even thought the LGPL wasn't that bad. Question 8 proved me wrong. In fact, I thought I knew the GPL well, but I still got 3 questions wrong! What about question 2, why can't he do number I? So once you modify a GPLed program, you're required to only distribute the modified version and never the original?????? #3 seems hypocritical--RMS can create all the restrictions he wants, but any code that links with his license cannot have any?
Now I'm not even sure I even want to donate code to any already existing GPLed projects anymore.
Are there any licenses out there that say "you are required to distribute source code with binaries for this component, but you can do anything you want with other components you create"??? It would be nice with projects that I don't want to use the BSD license. Maybe I'll have to come up with my own, however I hear that it comes with legal tanglings and etc. Although I was thinking of coming up with one that disallows a bunch of people and companies that've pissed me off from using my program. Maybe I should include RMS on the list!
Yeah, at least that's what my roommate told me (he uses Kaazza) From what he said it doesn't sound too useful as you could only talk to someone who owns a specific file.
However, there are P2P systems that have IRC like chat channels and Usenet like messaging. The Circle is one.
Boycotting them won't do much of anything. They'll just scream piracy and try to make the government force everyone to pay taxes to the RIAA/MPAA--just like they do with such things as blank music CDs and CD burners.
The entertainment cartel has to be both taken down and replaced. That is the only way to be free of their dictatorship...
So you're saying that "legitimate artists" shouldn't be allowed to distribute their own copyrighted work in the way they see appropriate? Well, I'm glad that you at least acknolwedged that there are "legitimate" artists outside of the RIAA!
P2P is just a way of transporting data. It shouldn't be banned anymore than HTTP, IRC, FTP, TCP, or the telephone system.
I don't think you're a troll! ;-)
P2P can do more than just share music--it can share any type of file. It also can be used for real time chatting and group messaging. Think Usenet, the WWW, and IRC/IM all in one decentralized (meaning you're not dependant upon crappy unstable ISP's or spyware companies' servers) package. I imagine P2P technology could also make it possible to create citywide intranets that aren't reliant on any ISP or servers. Just think: plug in a wireless network card and some software and go. No need to find an ISP--you can play games, send messages/files without intervention or assistance from any specific organization--just like the internet used to be.
Back to the bastards: The entertainment cartel mostly seems to go after third parties instead of the people who are doing the copyright infringement. Like universities who were merely providing internet access for their students--they didn't tell the students to use Napster--they didn't even say anything about Napster--the students found and used that program on their own, yet universities where named in the lawsuit!!! That's like suing a telephone company because someone had played music through a long distance phone line. How could the telco be responsible for that? The universities?
Their whole plan appears to attempt to maintain their monopolistic position and control the internet rather than stop copyright infringement! Copyright infringement was around long before it was viable on the internet. Ever hear of anyone taping off the radio? How about copying audio/video tapes of copyrighted material and giving them to friends? Just because it is possible for a device to do something illegal, and some people do it, it doesn't mean that device should be banned. There are thousands of illegal things that could be done with a hammer or a car or a cat or a peice of wood. Why not ban those too?
It's the entertainment cartel's fault that P2P is mostly used for "pirating" because they're the ones that were screaming that P2P was only intended for "stealing" their music, and so people heard that and thought: "I can get free music if I run this P2P thingy? Cool!" P2P could do so much more. However stupid people like you and stupid people that believe you have amplified these misconceptions about P2P systems--thereby causing them to be mostly used for such purposes.
I'm glad to see there are some sane open source programmers that doesn't assume everyone is connected to a mainframe at a major university. :)
You're a bit naive.
So you're saying that no one would want to see a CEO's webcam that has confidential papers in view of the picture? Papers that could give a competitor an advantage? (or anyone--such information could make a person very rich in the stock market) ...or how about a credit card in view of the cam. Maybe those items would be hard to read, but someone could get lucky, and the mic wouldn't even have this sort of problem if any of this info is spoken aloud. In fact the mic could probably catch information that is even more sensitive...
Maybe they don't really want to look at your webcam pics, but use them to embarass you. Ever use your computer in your underwear? Ever change in front of your webcam? Ever pick your nose? Those events could be posted all over the internet.
So it is off by default. That doesn't guarantee that the plugin doesn't have a bug somewhere that'll allow a webmaster to get access to the webcam or mic anyway. It's another possible way some wacko can access your system. Granted that the most used browsers have known security holes that are much worse, so to some degree you have a point, but it is still a concern.
Oh great, another piece of software that rewrites my email address to myloginname@ crap.dns.entry.pointing. to.my.computers.ipaddr.myisp.net Where my computer isn't running a mail server, so this makes it so no one can contact me, and when they try, their mail server bangs against my firewall for days.
Just kidding! I'm sure you wrote it correctly so it doesn't do that--I hope. Unfortunately, there are a lot of programs written for UN*X that do just that. Sucks to have to fix those problems all the time on my computer at home...
One more on topic comment: back when I was on @home they used to add an Organization: line when your newsreader didn't, however their terms of service said that you shouldn't ever represent yourself as @home in any way. I guess I'm splitting hairs, but that seems a bit contradictory to me...
Yeah, it could be used as an argument for the anti-abortion side, but the main goal of this exercise seems to be to limit what can be patented. Do you think people's DNA should be patented? I don't.
What about genetic enhancements for people? Let's say some company engineers and patents a genetic modification that makes people more resistant to disease. Then a couple pays the company to implant these genes into their children during the invitro fertilization. The kids grow up and find out that they will have to pay patent fees to the company should they reproduce--up until the patent expires.
This may sound silly now, however it probably won't be in the future. I could just see the "Patent Enforcement Alliance" (sister company to the BSA) showing up at the hospital to collect patent fees when a baby is born.
I don't have any problem with abortion, but I do have a problem with patenting DNA. Maybe geneticly engineered stuff could fall under copyright, but I am concered how far that could go and what kinds of control it could give to various organizations/people...
BTW, I think the designations left/right wing are silly. It's not accurate to limit all the possible political views on a one dimensional graph. Only a small subset of the normal popluation happen to fall upon this graph. Real people have wide varieties of views and opinions.
If I understand your post correctly, you are confused. It seems you say the industry should make a system that people want and also has copy protection. Then you go on to say it should be just like DVD. DVDs already have a "rights management" system (CSS, regions, etc...). It is weak and primitive, but it is there.
Even this primitive scheme has serious problems--as do all copy protection systems. Read these two articles listed below. Note that voodoo3 cards have a tv out, which the DVD consortium apparently decided is evil.
This kind of crap is why I haven't bought a DVD player/drive. The thing is useless if you can't play anything due to copy protection. ...or you are forced to watch a bunch of commercials! ...or cannot use the OS of your choice!
Ummm....computer hardware manufacturers and retailers already do this. ...and it may become difficult to figure out who to support (assuming enough of the public will care). They could make the "copy protected" components work with existing "unprotected" ones--then in phase two ease in the components that no longer work with anything that is "unprotected." The consumer wouldn't be able to tell which components were "unprotected" or "protected" in the phase one way.
The only reason this hasn't happend is that it hasn't been in the interest of the manufacturers--legislation, lawsuits, FCC mandates, or making it so that DRM is the only way to access the MPAA/RIAA's "content" would change this. IMO the latter is the best hope as decent people could make their own "content" and the stupid would just buy the MPAA/RIAA machines, however the MPAA/RIAA members don't want this because they know they'd lose massive marketshare. Their real goal is to get one of the first three going so they have the capability of controling the entire market like they have in the past...
The thing is the hardware already has a justifiable existence--even if computers could only browse the web and do wordprocessing. Hollywood doesn't care, congresspeople don't care, all they care about is how much money/power they can milk out of the situation.
This is a typical problem installing from source with Linux--something is probably broken in either the source or your setup. Some idiots insist that compiling and installing is "not that time-consuming" and "not as tempermental as [I] suggest"--yeah right. Gotta love the open source "community". ;-)
The line appears to use a macro called MODULE_LICENSE . It appears to allow a module to store which type of license it falls under...interesting. The macro is in my 2.4.17 kernel source and the program/module seems to compile find on my machine. Could the macro be something new?
Perhaps the macro is only in the newer kernels, or maybe the patch added to your kernel breaks it somehow. (usually extra numbers indicate your kernel was patched/modified by the distro maintainers--I'm assuming this is the case.) I would suggest just getting the newest kernel from kernel.org. You'll lose whatever patches were made to that kernel, however I think this is a good thing unless you really really need what the patch does. In fact I recommend upgrading to a newer kernel anyway, as 2.4.7 was still in the stage where there were those funky problems.
If I read from countless sources that Ford Explorers with Firestone tires are dangerous to drive, hear countless stories about how accidents have been caused by such a combination, and know a friend who was in a car wreck because his Firestone tires fell apart on his Ford Explorer, then I think I would know a bit about the subject. I suppose according to you I should start driving Ford Explorers with Firestone tires just to see if I can get in an accident.
Obviously you are clueless. Read the SecurityFocus Vulns Stats note the table marked "Number of OS Vulnerabilities by Year". Now lets see you tell me that RedHat's distro is just as secure as other Linux distros. Compare the figures with MS NT/2000--they look close to me...
Geee...so many choices--where to begin. How about their "configurator" program. I only had to deal with it once--but it was a nasty experience. For one, everytime it was run it would reset the real settings (edited by me in the /etc directory) to whatever it's internal system said they should be--apparently from some other RedHat config file--they made it so that anyone who learned on a normal Linux system would have their settings clobbered as soon as RedHat's program started up.
How about the fact that they use a single script file for every service run at startup? This makes booting any RedHat system painfully-ass slow. That's just like when Microsoft uses single files per item for their "favorites" and cheap symbolic link substitutes.
What about the whole gcc 2.96 mess? Read about it here and here and here
Do you know anything? Slackware uses tar files for their packages--I've never seen any problem with Slackware's package management system.
It doesn't keep track of dependencies, however I usually have to do nodeps with rpms because the program only checks what it has installed--not anything compiled from source or installed through other packaging systems. However, tar could contain a package dependency file inside if it was necessary.
They don't have an apt-get, however that just checks dependencies and downloads files--it could be done using tar files if need be.
A really great packaging system would check the binaries to see what libraries they required and go from there. "This executable requires libuberssl.so.2--not present on system, but found in package ubernetlibs. Do you wish to download and install?" Unfortunately I haven't seen a packaging system like this, and I know the rpm program doesn't do this--it uses the files in /var/lib/rpm and complains if the dependencies aren't listed there.
I would if nearly every Linux developer insisted on using .debs to distribute their binaries, therefore requiring me to install the packaging system on every Linux computer I use, just for the ability of installing binaries.
Obviously you haven't tried to compile many programs from source. Not only does it take lots more time (try installing XFree86, Mozilla, or GIMP this way), there are also quite a few programs that take much time dicking around with them to even get them to compile. They'll be written for every OS under the sun and very tempormental. Or they'll have stupidly written makefiles. Or they'll have straight out errors in the makefiles/compile scripts/code that takes an hour to correct the problem. Etc. etc. etc... "./configure; make; make install" doesn't always work!
The same can be said about you. I could go on and on about how idiotic your ideas about what a decent distro is and how to run it. Like how it is bad to just add patches to the kernel for some newfangled gee-whiz buzzword and put it in a major distro. Those patches should only be added by people who really need them--everyone else can wait until the patch goes through the review process and is confirmed stable.
Well I suppose there are other bad Linux distros out there, but RedHat is quite popular and it is bad. Maybe you don't think so, however, from all that I've read and seen, their distro seems pretty bad--using releases of programs from the unstable branches, they used to have insecure default settings, apparently they even have their own people add patches and modify the kernel. (I believe the "pure" Torvalds kernel is the best choice)
I haven't ever used their distro just because by the time I may have considered trying it, I already knew about the stupid things they do (I only listed what relates to security above). I have read a lot about them and have helped some people that use their distro, so I do know about the subject. Yes, they fixed the default settings on their systems and I haven't been keeping track of them recently, however the way they do things in terms of software quality, security and "usability" seems to be exactly the same as Microsoft. Therefore I have zero confidence in RedHat.
I don't remember saying they're evil, however it does seem they are becoming the mark of the beast for Linux. Why else would everyone insist upon using their packaging format to distribute binaries (now official in the Linux Standard Base) when tar is good enough? It's fine that they use their own internal packaging system, however it's annoying to have that forced upon me when I don't use their distro.
No, that person was wrong. Let's say there is a popular gun manufacturer called Smallnlimp. This is like if smallnlimp put in a "feature" that caused the weapon to go off anytime it detected a certain audio pattern. Then some whacko discovers if a specific other signal is sent immediately after, the guns will repeat both signals loudly--thereby causing other guns to go off too. The result? Millions of Smallnlimp's guns fire unexpectedly injuring and killing people as this signal is spread over open air and through telephone lines. Is Smallnlimp responsible for the guns going off? Maybe not directly...
IIRC Microsoft patched this problem by not allowing Outlook Express to run executables directly, however IMO they have been very careless and irresponsible in how they've produced software--their whole objective seems to be to take over the world instead of producing quality software. The types of "viri" that require opening an attachment are only the tip of the iceburg. Code Red and Nimda are just two examples of real worms/viri that Microsoft has allowed to spawn. I dare someone to show me a security exploit in Apache/NFS/etc that would allow such a program to spread. In additon to bugs, their default settings and all the stuff they try to hide from the user (such as file extentions and the network settings) have allowed script kiddies to go freestyle on Winboxen. Between Microsoft and Redhat, more internet worms are probably on the way...
The moderators can mod this as flamebait all they want, however it doesn't change the fact that this is an honest assessment of the MS by a person who has used their software for at least a decade.
Maybe that example will, but not others. I'm using Mozilla under Linux too, and their other example allows me to browse my harddrive and look at files (the full page one--link is near the bottom of their page). I would assume that this technique can be used to send the contents of files to some server...this is bad.
I don't know much about XMLHTTP. I suppose you still have to go to and evil site to be exploited, but still.
I just want a browser that supports the more basic stuff HTTP, SSL, HTML, images, CSS, cookies, and simple javascript. Maybe I should just go back to Lynx--no images or javascript which means some sites don't work, however I'd rather be inconvienced than hacked.
Ahh...the beauty of this woud be that the warez community would come up with a way to create the watermarks, and you could view the "pirated" content even on new computers. You just wouldn't be able to transfer or record your own original content (not your child's first steps, family reunions, or that cheesy home made movie you and your friends slapped together). Then we would truely be under control of the mega media corps! The next step: implant chips in everyone's head--just like in Syndicate Wars. Have a nice day. ;-)
You seem to hold the communist view of free market capitalism: "In a capitalist society, anyone can and will do anything to make money--even lying stealing and cheating." That's not a free market IMO. A free market is when every customer can choose to by any vendor's product, and every vendor is free to make and sell any product.
The computer operating system market is not currently a free market specificly because of Microsoft. A monopoly is never a free market. If I wanted sell an OS, it wouldn't work because if I copied MS's API, they'd sue me, and if I made my own, it wouldn't work because almost no software would run on the system. Java could've done away with that, but guess what Microsoft did to that...
For OSs and the free market to work, there needs to be a standardised system that most (if not all) software vendors will write their application programs for. Things like Java, OpenGL, POSIX all work toward that, but Microsoft works against them specificly because it would take away M$'s near monopoly position in the market.
I thought Microsoft was "Tha Man"! ;-)
Boo hoo. An "industry" that has been screwing over it's customers for nearly a decade may be tramatized. That should not even be considered in the case. If Microsoft and the companies that have been riding their coattails all go down in flames, then that would be a good thing. The real companies producing real products will just port their software/hardware over to other operating systems--assuming they haven't already done so...
From what I read, it sounded like the program just deleted files from the standard Ad-aware install location. I guess if you change the location that you install Ad-aware, you won't have any problems. :)
Linux does have support for some winmodems. Check out linmodems.org. However, I don't think winmodems are a good thing for internet access/gaming. They are just cheap soundcards that have a telephone jack as a connector--real modems use a chip to process the signals. Having your CPU do the signal processing slows down your computer. It's better to buy a real modem and save money on a slower processor--or have a fast processor that isn't bogged down with unneeded crap...
However the winmodems may be useful with some of the alternative suggestions on the linmodem page. A voice mail server could be quite nice...
Ewwww...is this the new goatse.cx site???