But then again we are talking about Apple ppl here who must have more money than God in order to afford an Apple computer.
You can get an eMac (1GHz G4, 17" CRT, DVD-ROM/CD-RW), or last year's iBook (800MHz G3, 12" LCD, CD-ROM), for $799. Financing available. If God can't afford that, no wonder He has so many of His followers on TV asking for money.
It's just an exaple of typical modern journlistic style. Got a factoid you want to include, but don't want to dump it in as a stand-alone non-sequitur where it'll stick out like sore thumb? Use it in a compound sentence.
You may not like the GPL and the fact that it has such restrictions. Fair enough. But there it is, and there's a whole pile of code willfully distributed under precisely those terms. I'm afraid you can't rewind the clock and relicence ot all under a different licence that's more to your liking.
it sounds just like you just need to include a little extra text.
(IANAL or a licencing expert, so please correct me if I'm wrong.) I believe the problem is that this is a restriction being placed on the code, and the GPL doesn't allow any additional restrictions (however harmless they may seem) to be added. Hence, an incompatibility between that licence and the GPL.
Which again goes to show that it's not so much the OS that's at risk as it is the applications.
Most of the problems with IE have come since it became so tightly integrated into the OS. Outlook is pretty well hooked in there as well. But you're right: browser and mail client monoculture are a big part of the problem as well.
If I didn't know better, I'd say that's a derogatory comment. Not a good way to start off your response if you want to be taken objectively.
Neither is parroting a PR-crafted argument from the company that stands to lose most from an avoidance of monoculture.
Or whining that I made a derogatory comment about it.
Productivity would almost certainly be similarly reduced due to lack of high-level interoperability between these disparate platforms.
Kind of like driving productivity has suffered from the varied places auto manufacturers put the "high beams" control? I think you dramatically overestimate the difficulty (and frequency) of people switching from one system's GUI to another's. Besides, the design of the user interface is not in itself a vector of vulnerability. User interfaces can converge (and as a matter of fact, they have) without also developing the same low-level code exploits that can so easily devastate a monoculture.
The data-interchange issue is also a red herring. Common file formats can be (and have been) developed to allow easy exchange of data. You don't need to run the same application code on each machine to manipulate that data. Granted, certain companies have used data storage formats for just that sort of market expansion. That doesn't mean it A) has to be that way, or B) should be.
I don't know about you, but it's been my experience that if users have to choose between security and functionality, they choose functionality almost exclusively.
Yes, that's what's gotten us into this mess. Perhaps is time to devote less attention to making excuses for how we got here, and more attention on how to fix it. Such as educating people about the problems you seem to want to sweep under the rug, so that maybe in the future they'll consider security as well.
OK, you get a B+ for successfully paraphrasing the Microsoft flack's comments.
But did you critically evaluate whether his argument that we'd need ridiculous numbers of OSes is sound? Ireland didn't need thousands of breeds of potatoes for its population to all survive the potato blight; a handful of still-viable varieties would have been enough to feed them.
Likewise, in an alternate universe where the desktop computer landscape today was a roughly even mix of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, BSD, OS/2, BeOS, and Amiga, the "network effect" that spreads malware like wildfire in our universe would be drastically reduced. Instead of a 95% chance of any two computers sharing an OS, there'd be a 15% chance, which would reduce the rate of spread profoundly.
You're right that Linux won't "fix it all". But a duoculture is more robust than a monoculture, and a true multiculture - even if it consisted of equal numbers of just the top four of the desktop OSes I mentioned - would be even more so.
It's not that hard to do. I have Red Hat, Mandrake, Coyote Linux, OS X, OS 7.5, Windows 98, BeOS, and a TiVo all playing fairly nicely in my home office (some of these are used more than others, of course), and my day-job environment is very much like what you describe. It takes more planning and cleverness to manage than an all-Microsoft shop, but the ability to do that is why I'm worth a salary in the 5-figure range. {grin}
Stuff like single-sign-on is notoriously more difficult to implement in a diverse network, but it can be done (though I've always viewed that as a kind of "security monoculture" and I've never really trusted it anyway; I want some roadblocks between systems.).
[MS mouthpiece] says monoculture theory doesn't suggest any reasonable solutions; more use of the Linux open-source operating system, a rival to Microsoft Windows, might create a "duoculture," but that would hardly deter sophisticated hackers.
This neglects that fact that Linux itself has internal diversity that makes it less vulnerable to "disease".
It's also not necessary to have "thousands of different operating systems" to gain some resilience. If (for example) half of all computers were Type A and the other half Type B, the rate of transmission of type-specific malware would be slowed dramatically. It wouldn't prevent pandemics, but it would slow them down.
My favorite thing about this contest is the fact that they judges not only appreciated the humor of the verse to which they gave "dishonorable mention", but they even published it. Geeks have a (not entirely undeserved) reputation for humorless fanaticism, and it's nice to see that set aside.
Unreadable code,
Why would anyone use it?
Learn a better way.
"It also has the best keyboard I've used on a PDA."
Perhaps the author needs to get out more. OK, so maybe it's better than it looks, and I'm sure it's better than the buttons on the Treo my employer issued to me. But I can't imagine it being better than the keyboards on the Psion Series5, Revo, or even the old Series3.
...I'm ready to accept the idea that voles are capable of what we call "love", no matter what you inject them with. Even in humans, mating for life and loving someone aren't necessarily the same thing.
And yet, "plain" M&Ms do also contain a significant quantity of peanuts. Peanuts are blended into the chocolatey mixture found in M&Ms of all varieties.
The resulting source code would arguably be a "derivative work" and therefore a violation of Microsoft's copyrights. It'd be a tough case to make, but I bet it has enough merit to go to trial... which for the plaintiff is almost as good as winning.
I'm guessing this isn't coming to Wal*Mart's changerooms when they implement RFID.
The lack of pushy salespeople who know everything about me is all the more reason to stick with Wal-Mart.
(Though actually, I make a point of going to locally-owned businesses who charge a little more so they can pay their employees more, rather than go to the W'art.)
I think it's interesting to see all the people saying how they use Firefox, love Firefox, tell their friends about Firefox, etc. When a mere 50 hours ago they had yet to even hear or see the name.
For all the handwringing and then the grousing about the name change, if/. is any indication, it seems to be going over pretty well.
There seem to be too many conflicts of interest in a cable company owning a content creator.
As opposed to a content creator owning a cable company (Warner Bros and TimeWarner Cable), or a content creator owning a satellite company (News/Fox and DirecTV)?
The US government won't stop this. At most Comcast/Disney will divest a few pieces and make some key campaign donations.
No particular order, just the order in which I found them going through a Disney corporate report.
CBS is part of the Viacom conglomerate (also Blockbuster, Paramount, MTV, VH1, Showtime, Movie Channel, UPN, Spike, Nickelodeon, BET, Famous Players/United Cinema theaters, Infinity radio/billboard advertising, Simon & Schuster)
NBC is owned by GE (RCA, CNBC, Bravo, Telemundo, a stake in Pax TV, Universal Pictures & Television*, USA Network*, Sci-Fi channel*, Trio*, GE consumer appliances, a whole portfolio of business-to-business divisions, and probably a small country or two)
Fox is part of News Corporation (20th Century Fox, TV Guide, NY Post, FX, Natl Geographic channel, DirecTV, BSkyB, News of the World, The Sun, The Times, Harper Collins, Zondervan, LA Dodgers)
WB is owned by TimeWarner (AOL, Time Warner Cable, Warner Books, Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated, People, Fortune, DC Comics, HBO, Cinemax, New Line Cinema, Turner Broadcasting [TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, CNN], Warner Music Group, etc.)
Comcast Cable TV Comcast Internet Disney Studios Disney Animation (including The Mouse et al.) Touchstone Pictures Miramax Buena Vista Studios Buena Vista Theaters Buena Vista Music Disneyland/world/resorts/etc ESPN Disney Stores Lifetime A&E E! ABC Radio Disney Hyperion Books SOAPnet History Channel Go.com Movies.com
Slashdot Mirror
You can get an eMac (1GHz G4, 17" CRT, DVD-ROM/CD-RW), or last year's iBook (800MHz G3, 12" LCD, CD-ROM), for $799. Financing available. If God can't afford that, no wonder He has so many of His followers on TV asking for money.
It's just an exaple of typical modern journlistic style. Got a factoid you want to include, but don't want to dump it in as a stand-alone non-sequitur where it'll stick out like sore thumb? Use it in a compound sentence.
There always has to be at least one person having a dig at Hurd ;)
Funny... except that by definition, GNU/HURD is not a Linux distro.
You may not like the GPL and the fact that it has such restrictions. Fair enough. But there it is, and there's a whole pile of code willfully distributed under precisely those terms. I'm afraid you can't rewind the clock and relicence ot all under a different licence that's more to your liking.
(IANAL or a licencing expert, so please correct me if I'm wrong.) I believe the problem is that this is a restriction being placed on the code, and the GPL doesn't allow any additional restrictions (however harmless they may seem) to be added. Hence, an incompatibility between that licence and the GPL.
You say that as if it were unusual. ;)
Most of the problems with IE have come since it became so tightly integrated into the OS. Outlook is pretty well hooked in there as well. But you're right: browser and mail client monoculture are a big part of the problem as well.
Neither is parroting a PR-crafted argument from the company that stands to lose most from an avoidance of monoculture.
Or whining that I made a derogatory comment about it.
Productivity would almost certainly be similarly reduced due to lack of high-level interoperability between these disparate platforms.
Kind of like driving productivity has suffered from the varied places auto manufacturers put the "high beams" control? I think you dramatically overestimate the difficulty (and frequency) of people switching from one system's GUI to another's. Besides, the design of the user interface is not in itself a vector of vulnerability. User interfaces can converge (and as a matter of fact, they have) without also developing the same low-level code exploits that can so easily devastate a monoculture.
The data-interchange issue is also a red herring. Common file formats can be (and have been) developed to allow easy exchange of data. You don't need to run the same application code on each machine to manipulate that data. Granted, certain companies have used data storage formats for just that sort of market expansion. That doesn't mean it A) has to be that way, or B) should be.
I don't know about you, but it's been my experience that if users have to choose between security and functionality, they choose functionality almost exclusively.
Yes, that's what's gotten us into this mess. Perhaps is time to devote less attention to making excuses for how we got here, and more attention on how to fix it. Such as educating people about the problems you seem to want to sweep under the rug, so that maybe in the future they'll consider security as well.
But did you critically evaluate whether his argument that we'd need ridiculous numbers of OSes is sound? Ireland didn't need thousands of breeds of potatoes for its population to all survive the potato blight; a handful of still-viable varieties would have been enough to feed them.
Likewise, in an alternate universe where the desktop computer landscape today was a roughly even mix of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, BSD, OS/2, BeOS, and Amiga, the "network effect" that spreads malware like wildfire in our universe would be drastically reduced. Instead of a 95% chance of any two computers sharing an OS, there'd be a 15% chance, which would reduce the rate of spread profoundly.
You're right that Linux won't "fix it all". But a duoculture is more robust than a monoculture, and a true multiculture - even if it consisted of equal numbers of just the top four of the desktop OSes I mentioned - would be even more so.
Stuff like single-sign-on is notoriously more difficult to implement in a diverse network, but it can be done (though I've always viewed that as a kind of "security monoculture" and I've never really trusted it anyway; I want some roadblocks between systems.).
(At the risk of being modded -1, Overly-Literal)
10:37pm, yesterday.
This neglects that fact that Linux itself has internal diversity that makes it less vulnerable to "disease".
It's also not necessary to have "thousands of different operating systems" to gain some resilience. If (for example) half of all computers were Type A and the other half Type B, the rate of transmission of type-specific malware would be slowed dramatically. It wouldn't prevent pandemics, but it would slow them down.
Unreadable code,
Why would anyone use it?
Learn a better way.
But what about code poets?
Perhaps the author needs to get out more. OK, so maybe it's better than it looks, and I'm sure it's better than the buttons on the Treo my employer issued to me. But I can't imagine it being better than the keyboards on the Psion Series5, Revo, or even the old Series3.
...I'm ready to accept the idea that voles are capable of what we call "love", no matter what you inject them with. Even in humans, mating for life and loving someone aren't necessarily the same thing.
And yet, "plain" M&Ms do also contain a significant quantity of peanuts. Peanuts are blended into the chocolatey mixture found in M&Ms of all varieties.
The resulting source code would arguably be a "derivative work" and therefore a violation of Microsoft's copyrights. It'd be a tough case to make, but I bet it has enough merit to go to trial... which for the plaintiff is almost as good as winning.
Well, there's the iPod. Not a "real" PDA, but you can load it with your calendar, addresses, and other such data for reference on the road.
The lack of pushy salespeople who know everything about me is all the more reason to stick with Wal-Mart.
(Though actually, I make a point of going to locally-owned businesses who charge a little more so they can pay their employees more, rather than go to the W'art.)
For all the handwringing and then the grousing about the name change, if /. is any indication, it seems to be going over pretty well.
As opposed to a content creator owning a cable company (Warner Bros and TimeWarner Cable), or a content creator owning a satellite company (News/Fox and DirecTV)?
The US government won't stop this. At most Comcast/Disney will divest a few pieces and make some key campaign donations.
CBS is part of the Viacom conglomerate (also Blockbuster, Paramount, MTV, VH1, Showtime, Movie Channel, UPN, Spike, Nickelodeon, BET, Famous Players/United Cinema theaters, Infinity radio/billboard advertising, Simon & Schuster)
NBC is owned by GE (RCA, CNBC, Bravo, Telemundo, a stake in Pax TV, Universal Pictures & Television*, USA Network*, Sci-Fi channel*, Trio*, GE consumer appliances, a whole portfolio of business-to-business divisions, and probably a small country or two)
Fox is part of News Corporation (20th Century Fox, TV Guide, NY Post, FX, Natl Geographic channel, DirecTV, BSkyB, News of the World, The Sun, The Times, Harper Collins, Zondervan, LA Dodgers)
WB is owned by TimeWarner (AOL, Time Warner Cable, Warner Books, Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated, People, Fortune, DC Comics, HBO, Cinemax, New Line Cinema, Turner Broadcasting [TNT, TBS, Cartoon Network, CNN], Warner Music Group, etc.)
PBS is owned by its member stations.
*When the Vivendi Universal merger is finished
In Soviet Russia, Apple owns a substantial chunk of Microsoft!
Comcast Cable TV
Comcast Internet
Disney Studios
Disney Animation (including The Mouse et al.)
Touchstone Pictures
Miramax
Buena Vista Studios
Buena Vista Theaters
Buena Vista Music
Disneyland/world/resorts/etc
ESPN
Disney Stores
Lifetime
A&E
E!
ABC
Radio Disney
Hyperion Books
SOAPnet
History Channel
Go.com
Movies.com