That's right and there was a law suit and a settlement. I didn't say MS plays nice as a rule, but the whole thing was settled at the time. That and, MS actually gave Apple some developers to help roll out their OS at the time, so they worked pretty close together when the whole GUI thing was hot. Later, of course, MS decided to screw Apple over and do their own thing with GUIs, but at that point they really did it together - they couldn't do it alone.
Yeah that's like saying pox vaccination is killing people - not guns! Airbags save FAR FAR MORE lives than they take - even though there are stupid people who put their children's head in front of airbag hatches! How can you get by pretending to be an educated person and even bragging about your education when your post is really just stupid ranting to make your point that "with guns people are safe and free"???
I usually don't say it that directly, but you are either trolling or misinformed.
Let's face it, they stole it from Apple. I know, I know, it's a great handy dandy point used over and over by some people instead of solid arguments. Here's how it really happened: In the late 70s Xerox/PARC labs has some revolutionary ideas about creating *graphical* user interfaces: windows, icons, mouse pointer - things like that. Apple and Microsoft *both* visited PARC and took the technology with them to implement it, mind you, they were actually very close to one another at the time! And I'm sure you agree that ideas like having a GUI should not be patented *at all* because there would be no Linux desktop then. Which takes me to another point:
Sheesh, even free projects like KDE [kde.org] and Gnome [gnome.org] have been able to come up with their own look and feel. How is KDE different from Apple's GUI if Microsoft's is not? Let's face the truth here: *all* desktop environments use the same principles and look alike! And it's my personal opinion but I think KDE is actually leaning more toward MS style than Apple style.
And when does Apple get paid reparations for this theft of look and feel? So if you think look and feel should be copyrighted/patentable even given the design makeover differences between MS and Apple: how much do you think ALL other desktop environments (like GNOME/KDE...) should pay to compensate Apple? This is getting nowhere.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not usually a MS advocate, quite the contrary. But this is sillyness born from misinformation. Let's keep with the hard facts and work with that. Anything else doesn't make sense.
In a way Linux is pretty well suited for this paradigm shift, because what the user *perceives* as "one program" is really made up of hundreds of modules or parts which work silently together in the background. So Linux software can already interoperate very well (although interop capability so far is strongest in console mode right now) and could be expanded to support this user interface paradigm quite nicely. You're right of course, from a developer's point of view there is no "one program" and there won't be in the near future, but in the end it's the user experience and the interface behavior that counts. For a user a "program" is an app main window or a similar structure. Btw. I didn't say I'm all for it but it would make sense to go in that direction before MS or Apple do it first. Just an example, there are quite a few other ideas out there - but please, in all honesty, 3D virtual worlds will certainly not be the productive user interface of the future, at least not with todays hardware (2D screens). All 3D interface stuff I have seen so far does nothing but looking futuristic and making it harder and slower to do tasks than before.
Allright, that - in essence - what the article is all about. Yet, we know that the desktop metaphor is really the MINIMAL thing to implement before you can go on to other things. Because 1) users that were running Win/Max before don't want to change their way of working that profoundly 2) I for one think that the desktop metaphor will EVOLVE instead of just being killed and replaced completely
So, clearly with X/KDE/GNOME we are behind of MS/Apple by a more or less far shot. But I agree with the author, that - as some of us still are working on perfecting the desktop - we could work on possible "evolutions" and advancements.
One thing, for example, which will definitely be coming along in the not too far away future, is the "one-program" paradigm. The general idea behind is to a) essentially have one "framework" interface for more or less all applications b) really driving application-to-application interaction and data-transfer to a new level c) employ new ways of browsing through data and software d) making it possible to access the same data with multiple software modules while they are interacting with one another in a meaningful way e) further degrade of the data-software boundary
So I guess we COULD put a lot of things together, if only OSS would focus more on the user side...
Saying Linux is becoming a lot like windows is pretty imprecise. What exactly does he think is becoming more like Windows? He says: "all the flavors of Linux and the open-source software that runs on it". That's an overly broad statement, if you ask me.
Yes, it is. And what annoyed me most is: in the end it's just another guy who's saying "the desktop metaphor is dead!". Don't get me wrong, I'd really like to see working alternatives but I haven't come across any so far. So desktop Linux really has to compete with Microsoft playing on the common ruleset (MS, Apple, Sun interfaces).
And I think instead we who develop open source software should really focus on the part of his statement that says Linux' interface are "not quite as good but a lot cheaper". If we could only decide on a specific direction we could make desktop Linux a reality.
A probe that wanders away isn't really very useful, unless perhaps somebody picks it up and sends it home or comes to visit.
Yes, and there is actually a deeper point behind this, because once Pioneer enters a region of space inhabited by other civilizations - nobody will see it! You see, space is actually so vast and the probe is essentially a silent piece of space junk that you can't recognize unless you are explicitly looking for it.
If we were to design a space probe with the purpose of a) transmitting a steady signal back as it travels to validate our astronomical equations b) being found by another civilization to make contact we should really build something that will send a strong signal and something that is designed to last hundreds of years at least. It should emit varying signatures starting with EM data transmissions, it have a vastly reflective surface and it should probably be radioactive as hell - so it could be actually SEEN by someone. Oh yeah, and we should make it VERY big, let's say attach a large reflecive balloon or a space sail or something.
*** Cool, congratulations to Mr and Mrs Taco!!! ***
Man, at times like this/. sure DOES feel a bit like family. So this is a happy family event, and there is even the equivalent of drunken Angry Uncle Bob vandalizing the decoration in the background (read: the trolls) while the others celebrate...:-))
What's to stop MS from creating a free linux compatible distribution ("Bill Hat"), but not open source and then competing with the likes of Redhat? Um, the GPL?
Seriously: they would have to re-implement the whole shebang from scratch if they didn't want to publish the source. What business sense would that make?
OK, I'm replying to this even though it seems to be a troll, because some of the points stated are very widely believed to be true (outside/. mainly).
Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down. Theoretical mumbo jumbo aside, let's talk about personal experience. At our shop we have a few Windows servers and a few Linux servers. One of the Windows servers is always down. OS code and design aside, it's hard to automate housekeeping system tasks in Windows - that's why Linux will run a lot longer.
Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly. All non-journaling filesystems are prone to interruption errors (like FAT32, too). Luckily there are many other filesystems available that are native to any decent Linux distro (I like ReiserFS personally). My impression is also that systems like ReiserFS store files much more efficient than, say, NTFS - but a minor gripe is that you can't have compressed folders just like that (like on NTFS).
Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices.... Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems". Linux should theoretically be more stable than Windows and many other unices. But there is indeed a problem with Linux' fault tolerance regarding hardware. This is more a philosophical problem, as Linux developers tend to say things like "if the hardware isn't 100% reliable my software won't run and you shouldn't have faulty hardware in the first place". Reality is, many hardware pieces are partly broken (be it some circuits on the board or a few faulty sectors on the harddrive) and Linux reacts very badly once it encounters those errors. But looking deeper that's not so much an inherent kernel problem as an issue in device drivers and filesystem code.
The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. In fact my experience with open source projects in general suggests that standards and specifications are implemented VERY strictly and correctly.
On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude. Yeah, some messages are a bit silly but hey, its not as if system messages have to be presented to the CEO each morning or something ike that. I think more serious problems are cryptic messages that defy any meaning (every system has them) and bad/lacking documentation.
Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc. And yet, Linux is deployed on a large scale for many environments, in some areas it pervades even more than MS and other unices combined. Why do you think IT people do that?
You are right of course, the underlying architecture itself is still very much vulnerable (on all platforms). But at least those languages make it hard for application developers to create weaknesses like that. Of course it remains to be seen where most exploits will come from, but (taking Java and Delphi as an example and comparing it to C++ apps) I think that most mistakes are made by application developers and that infrastructure code on the other hand (like compilers or protocol stuff) is more thoroughly tested in that respect.
Saying that there is nothing dangerous in this interaction, is not only stupid but irresponsible.
I never said there is nothing dangerous in tight integration like that. I just wanted to make a comment on the security of.NET executables by taking one of the most often exploited weaknesses of traditional compiled apps into account. What's true for Java is also true for "pure".NET apps.
Well at least pure C# software will most likely not have buffer overrun weaknesses. I for one think it's time to build this into the programming languages and compilers instead of relying on programmer's discipline. So languages like C#, Java, Object Pascal (...) are the way to go!
Yes Mono itself also works on Windows! You can even use the compiler without Cygwin or other supporting environment stuff. There is even a Windows binary release available although it's a bit outdated. And compared to the.NET runtime it's a very small package to download (yet, Mono isn't complete). Only thing that's preventing true "crossplatform" GUI development on Mono is windows.forms, the ability to use the native Windows windowing objects and classes.
In other words, guns are much more dangerous when concentrated in the hands of a government then in the hands of a free people.
That was yesterday. Today the government is always way better armed than civilians. Most recent (successful) revolutions have been done peacefully (like in Eastern Germany) - where as armed conflicts between government and civilians always resorted in lengthy and tragic civil wars. And look to America, where civic freedom has once again reached an alltime low and nobody would DREAM to do anything about it! That's of course because armed opposition would be most inappropriate and - more importantly - propaganda and fear proves to be the governments most effective weapons to control the public.
The time for guns as a means of political communication is over folks! Yet somehow some people live in the illusion that as long as they have a weapon it automatically means they are free...
It seems posting malicious code is alot of like providing links to pre-release code for a certain up coming game. (read: Doom III article)
That's utter crap and you know it. There was never any pre-release code nor the pre-release game of Doom 3 here on slashdot. All CmdrTaco did was posting links to SCREENSHOTS, man! And of course exploit code was not posted or linked to in this article, either (may have been submitted by readers in comments, but what the hell).
Why is my browser even capable of formating a hard disk?
It isn't. This exploit is a trick that uses a scripting language to execute a system call. It could be used to execute anything, any executable that is on the hard drive. So, as an example, the format command could be executed by the shell. There are also a lot of other possibilities, including the construction of a virus/worm/trojan that uses the exploit to install and reproduce. But to answer your question: no, the browser itself cannot do system level stuff like this. In most modern OS components of varying levels are accessible across application borders, that nothing new or special.
I don't know but in my opinion a feasability and TCO study would definetely have to be based on the individual components of your infrastructure. Sadly this article doesn't say anything about what kind of solutions would have to be supported/replaced. Without that kind of information you simply can't do any cost analysis. You cannot just say that TCO with any specific system (even Linux) is going to be lower/higher *without* knowing the facts about the infrastructure. All that I CAN say based on recent experience is that a Linux server solution tends to be more stable, thereby saving costs in comparison to Windows servers with respect to reliability. Base installation costs for our shop has been equal to Windows, by the way, because it took our people more time to get things running in the first place. But that's only *our* experience. Again: without knowing the facts you cannot get meaningful conclusions for your specific situation.
(I can see why you posted AC, because you would likely have been modded down.) Anyway, your observation matches my experience: at our shop we tried pair programming and it not only resulted in a fair slowdown, there were also other effects that we noticed: - the pairs spent a lot of time talking to each other about off-topic things. - it lead to the formation of "expertise" domains, where one developer would do a specific task because he was treated as the expert, when the other just sat nearby and stared. - the number of bugs was not significantly reduced - bad design was not eliminated
So what we do know is, we build small groups of programmers and give them a modular task. They can do as many meetings and talking and planning as they like, but then they distribute the work amongst themselves and get it done alone. The code is then later reviewed by a "review partner" from the same group. It works nicely!
Means essentially: nobody would buy one, anyway.
on
Longhorn Server Scrapped
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· Score: 4, Interesting
One of the key paragraphs says:
Analysts expect the company's upcoming server software,.Net Server, to take off slowly because many businesses have either recently moved to Windows 2000 or are in the process of doing so. A majority of customers, then, would begin introducing.Net Server in late 2004--around the same time as the planned release of the Longhorn desktop and server software versions.
And that about covers my experience, too. Server overhauls take much longer intervals then changes in the desktop segment, where they install a new Windows every 3 years or so (doesn't matter, they are largely compatible versions, anyway... no admins, don't kill me, aaarrrghh).
So it actually makes sense to come out with a new server only if the changes are really signifcant and if the interval since the last major roll-out was more than, say, 5-6 years ago. Besides, nobody has money to throw at a new unproven technology right now (and in 2 years all the same), anyway.
I don't mean to troll (and I hear you say "yeah but you are") BUT quite a few project sites seem to have been infused with trojaned downloads over the last few months. Actually makes you think if there is a certain person or organization behind this? Considering the fact that news like this give these projects a bad security reputation, which counter-balances the built-in security breaches of a certain commercial software giant just nicely. Just a paranoid thought, don't take it too seriously though (I know you won't but still).
I think you're absolutely right. (This is getting off topic but since this entire thread formed here anyway I might as well say something about that...) There are a lot of people who think that:
- "No, OSS GUI interfaces are not broken, they are in fact superior (just not...well usable)" - "X is so much more advanced" when it is in fact a pain in the ass and slow as hell even when used over what it is made for - network connections. - "By the way text mode is the way to the future, GUI is for faggots" which I think doesn't need any further comment - "Linux has sooo *not* a dependency hell but Windows has" ignoring the fact that Linux libraries situation (source and compiled objects alike) is totally out of hand because often times you can't even run two apps alongside because they need different versions - "Linux software installation is just so smooth" when in reality one can install even complicated apps on Windows and OSX within mere minutes while on Linux you are lucky if it takes under 2 hours to get something running.
Now, all this is not neccessarily a bad sign for the state of the OSS developer community, if people would just *recognize* the problems and try to fix them in the future. But sadly nobody seems to care, quite on the contrary. Everyone pointing out these problems will be marked "flamebait" disregarding the fact that a well meaning wake-up call often originates from a friendly corner.
In fact you can see a small variation on this step by step theme right now with software piracy. First, piracy was rampant. Then they created huge publicity about the phenomenon as a warning. Then they sacked the large fish, the big crackers who copied and distributed by the millions. Right now we're in the phase where we got software sheriffs harassing small companies (even if they are innocent, bending and widening the law in the process) we're actually not very far from the point in time where the size of offense or alleged offense is down to Joe Average's home PC! And as we progress in time, penalties will increase, new draconic laws will further tighten the tumb screws...
The problem with the glass citizen model though is that it assumes the transgressions are rare. Look at the mp3 issue.
In it's "final" state the number of transgressions are indeed rare, because the odds and consequences of being hit by far outweight the benefits for the offender (no matter even if the laws are nonsensical). Yes, numbers. You couldn't arrest all Kazaa users. It makes more sense to increase pressure on the thumbscrews on step at a time. First, create lots of FUD. Second, get those people disconnected from their ISP. Third sue remaining offenders for lots of money (you can do that to a fairly large number of people). Forth - by now the number of offenders has reached a reasonable alltime low - introduce harsh punishments. Now you got it, the Glass Citizen scenario has helped every single one of those 4 steps to be successful and ensures a state of almost no transgressions for all citizens for all crimes. Just as it would help pushing ANY other law (which is the real dangerous part).
OK, you have been very helpful, thank you very much! Just a few last questions...
What are the properties of a singularity, how can it be formed and what consequences would there be if one would exist right now?
Does it or does it not matter how much stuff there is in a singularity? (If it doesn't: doesn't that mean the universe is somewhat unstable if a singularity existed right now that can devour/expell mass like that?
If there is a Planck time after which you can really start saying something about the universe, does that also mean Planck time is the shortest possible unit of time for something to happen? Or is time more like, really without any "quantization"? (Well, apparently space isn't.)
Of course this goes far beyond terrorist hunting. Data mining like that would only be the logical consequence of events that have been taken place in legislature and executive for many months now. The outcome of those efforts would be the proverbial "glass citizen" who makes no move without being thoroughly profiled. The government (and the big corporations if you like) know more about the Glass Citizen's state of mind than he himself. Every little crime or disobedience will be found and punished. Science fiction yesterday, hard reality today (and cheered by the masses, too). Only in the real 1984 almost everyone enjoys being big brothered like that. Everyone cheering the government on should think about the fact that terrorists (short of a grand nuclear attack) have a minimal actual physical effect on the population (speaking of cold hard percent figures). The damage they do results not from the deaths they leave behind but from the fear they create. And this damage has been immense in the US. It is due to that damage, that we allow our government to watch and eventually control us like that. Those terrorists have been incredibly successfull.
Slashdot Mirror
That's right and there was a law suit and a settlement. I didn't say MS plays nice as a rule, but the whole thing was settled at the time. That and, MS actually gave Apple some developers to help roll out their OS at the time, so they worked pretty close together when the whole GUI thing was hot. Later, of course, MS decided to screw Apple over and do their own thing with GUIs, but at that point they really did it together - they couldn't do it alone.
Yeah that's like saying pox vaccination is killing people - not guns! Airbags save FAR FAR MORE lives than they take - even though there are stupid people who put their children's head in front of airbag hatches!
How can you get by pretending to be an educated person and even bragging about your education when your post is really just stupid ranting to make your point that "with guns people are safe and free"???
yeah, I know, flame away...
I usually don't say it that directly, but you are either trolling or misinformed.
Let's face it, they stole it from Apple.
I know, I know, it's a great handy dandy point used over and over by some people instead of solid arguments. Here's how it really happened: In the late 70s Xerox/PARC labs has some revolutionary ideas about creating *graphical* user interfaces: windows, icons, mouse pointer - things like that. Apple and Microsoft *both* visited PARC and took the technology with them to implement it, mind you, they were actually very close to one another at the time!
And I'm sure you agree that ideas like having a GUI should not be patented *at all* because there would be no Linux desktop then. Which takes me to another point:
Sheesh, even free projects like KDE [kde.org] and Gnome [gnome.org] have been able to come up with their own look and feel.
How is KDE different from Apple's GUI if Microsoft's is not? Let's face the truth here: *all* desktop environments use the same principles and look alike! And it's my personal opinion but I think KDE is actually leaning more toward MS style than Apple style.
And when does Apple get paid reparations for this theft of look and feel?
So if you think look and feel should be copyrighted/patentable even given the design makeover differences between MS and Apple: how much do you think ALL other desktop environments (like GNOME/KDE...) should pay to compensate Apple? This is getting nowhere.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not usually a MS advocate, quite the contrary. But this is sillyness born from misinformation. Let's keep with the hard facts and work with that. Anything else doesn't make sense.
In a way Linux is pretty well suited for this paradigm shift, because what the user *perceives* as "one program" is really made up of hundreds of modules or parts which work silently together in the background. So Linux software can already interoperate very well (although interop capability so far is strongest in console mode right now) and could be expanded to support this user interface paradigm quite nicely.
You're right of course, from a developer's point of view there is no "one program" and there won't be in the near future, but in the end it's the user experience and the interface behavior that counts. For a user a "program" is an app main window or a similar structure.
Btw. I didn't say I'm all for it but it would make sense to go in that direction before MS or Apple do it first. Just an example, there are quite a few other ideas out there - but please, in all honesty, 3D virtual worlds will certainly not be the productive user interface of the future, at least not with todays hardware (2D screens). All 3D interface stuff I have seen so far does nothing but looking futuristic and making it harder and slower to do tasks than before.
Allright, that - in essence - what the article is all about. Yet, we know that the desktop metaphor is really the MINIMAL thing to implement before you can go on to other things. Because
1) users that were running Win/Max before don't want to change their way of working that profoundly
2) I for one think that the desktop metaphor will EVOLVE instead of just being killed and replaced completely
So, clearly with X/KDE/GNOME we are behind of MS/Apple by a more or less far shot. But I agree with the author, that - as some of us still are working on perfecting the desktop - we could work on possible "evolutions" and advancements.
One thing, for example, which will definitely be coming along in the not too far away future, is the "one-program" paradigm. The general idea behind is to
a) essentially have one "framework" interface for more or less all applications
b) really driving application-to-application interaction and data-transfer to a new level
c) employ new ways of browsing through data and software
d) making it possible to access the same data with multiple software modules while they are interacting with one another in a meaningful way
e) further degrade of the data-software boundary
So I guess we COULD put a lot of things together, if only OSS would focus more on the user side...
Saying Linux is becoming a lot like windows is pretty imprecise. What exactly does he think is becoming more like Windows? He says: "all the flavors of Linux and the open-source software that runs on it". That's an overly broad statement, if you ask me.
Yes, it is. And what annoyed me most is: in the end it's just another guy who's saying "the desktop metaphor is dead!". Don't get me wrong, I'd really like to see working alternatives but I haven't come across any so far. So desktop Linux really has to compete with Microsoft playing on the common ruleset (MS, Apple, Sun interfaces).
And I think instead we who develop open source software should really focus on the part of his statement that says Linux' interface are "not quite as good but a lot cheaper". If we could only decide on a specific direction we could make desktop Linux a reality.
A probe that wanders away isn't really very useful, unless perhaps somebody picks it up and sends it home or comes to visit.
Yes, and there is actually a deeper point behind this, because once Pioneer enters a region of space inhabited by other civilizations - nobody will see it! You see, space is actually so vast and the probe is essentially a silent piece of space junk that you can't recognize unless you are explicitly looking for it.
If we were to design a space probe with the purpose of
a) transmitting a steady signal back as it travels to validate our astronomical equations
b) being found by another civilization to make contact
we should really build something that will send a strong signal and something that is designed to last hundreds of years at least. It should emit varying signatures starting with EM data transmissions, it have a vastly reflective surface and it should probably be radioactive as hell - so it could be actually SEEN by someone. Oh yeah, and we should make it VERY big, let's say attach a large reflecive balloon or a space sail or something.
*** Cool, congratulations to Mr and Mrs Taco!!! ***
/. sure DOES feel a bit like family. So this is a happy family event, and there is even the equivalent of drunken Angry Uncle Bob vandalizing the decoration in the background (read: the trolls) while the others celebrate... :-))
Man, at times like this
What's to stop MS from creating a free linux compatible distribution ("Bill Hat"), but not open source and then competing with the likes of Redhat?
Um, the GPL?
Seriously: they would have to re-implement the whole shebang from scratch if they didn't want to publish the source. What business sense would that make?
OK, I'm replying to this even though it seems to be a troll, because some of the points stated are very widely believed to be true (outside /. mainly).
... Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".
Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.
Theoretical mumbo jumbo aside, let's talk about personal experience. At our shop we have a few Windows servers and a few Linux servers. One of the Windows servers is always down. OS code and design aside, it's hard to automate housekeeping system tasks in Windows - that's why Linux will run a lot longer.
Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly.
All non-journaling filesystems are prone to interruption errors (like FAT32, too). Luckily there are many other filesystems available that are native to any decent Linux distro (I like ReiserFS personally). My impression is also that systems like ReiserFS store files much more efficient than, say, NTFS - but a minor gripe is that you can't have compressed folders just like that (like on NTFS).
Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices.
Linux should theoretically be more stable than Windows and many other unices. But there is indeed a problem with Linux' fault tolerance regarding hardware. This is more a philosophical problem, as Linux developers tend to say things like "if the hardware isn't 100% reliable my software won't run and you shouldn't have faulty hardware in the first place". Reality is, many hardware pieces are partly broken (be it some circuits on the board or a few faulty sectors on the harddrive) and Linux reacts very badly once it encounters those errors. But looking deeper that's not so much an inherent kernel problem as an issue in device drivers and filesystem code.
The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right.
In fact my experience with open source projects in general suggests that standards and specifications are implemented VERY strictly and correctly.
On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
Yeah, some messages are a bit silly but hey, its not as if system messages have to be presented to the CEO each morning or something ike that. I think more serious problems are cryptic messages that defy any meaning (every system has them) and bad/lacking documentation.
Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
And yet, Linux is deployed on a large scale for many environments, in some areas it pervades even more than MS and other unices combined. Why do you think IT people do that?
You are right of course, the underlying architecture itself is still very much vulnerable (on all platforms). But at least those languages make it hard for application developers to create weaknesses like that. Of course it remains to be seen where most exploits will come from, but (taking Java and Delphi as an example and comparing it to C++ apps) I think that most mistakes are made by application developers and that infrastructure code on the other hand (like compilers or protocol stuff) is more thoroughly tested in that respect.
.NET executables by taking one of the most often exploited weaknesses of traditional compiled apps into account. What's true for Java is also true for "pure" .NET apps.
Saying that there is nothing dangerous in this interaction, is not only stupid but irresponsible.
I never said there is nothing dangerous in tight integration like that. I just wanted to make a comment on the security of
Well at least pure C# software will most likely not have buffer overrun weaknesses. I for one think it's time to build this into the programming languages and compilers instead of relying on programmer's discipline. So languages like C#, Java, Object Pascal (...) are the way to go!
Yes Mono itself also works on Windows! You can even use the compiler without Cygwin or other supporting environment stuff. There is even a Windows binary release available although it's a bit outdated. And compared to the .NET runtime it's a very small package to download (yet, Mono isn't complete). Only thing that's preventing true "crossplatform" GUI development on Mono is windows.forms, the ability to use the native Windows windowing objects and classes.
In other words, guns are much more dangerous when concentrated in the hands of a government then in the hands of a free people.
That was yesterday. Today the government is always way better armed than civilians. Most recent (successful) revolutions have been done peacefully (like in Eastern Germany) - where as armed conflicts between government and civilians always resorted in lengthy and tragic civil wars. And look to America, where civic freedom has once again reached an alltime low and nobody would DREAM to do anything about it! That's of course because armed opposition would be most inappropriate and - more importantly - propaganda and fear proves to be the governments most effective weapons to control the public.
The time for guns as a means of political communication is over folks! Yet somehow some people live in the illusion that as long as they have a weapon it automatically means they are free...
It seems posting malicious code is alot of like providing links to pre-release code for a certain up coming game. (read: Doom III article)
That's utter crap and you know it. There was never any pre-release code nor the pre-release game of Doom 3 here on slashdot. All CmdrTaco did was posting links to SCREENSHOTS, man! And of course exploit code was not posted or linked to in this article, either (may have been submitted by readers in comments, but what the hell).
Why is my browser even capable of formating a hard disk?
It isn't. This exploit is a trick that uses a scripting language to execute a system call. It could be used to execute anything, any executable that is on the hard drive. So, as an example, the format command could be executed by the shell. There are also a lot of other possibilities, including the construction of a virus/worm/trojan that uses the exploit to install and reproduce. But to answer your question: no, the browser itself cannot do system level stuff like this. In most modern OS components of varying levels are accessible across application borders, that nothing new or special.
I don't know but in my opinion a feasability and TCO study would definetely have to be based on the individual components of your infrastructure. Sadly this article doesn't say anything about what kind of solutions would have to be supported/replaced. Without that kind of information you simply can't do any cost analysis. You cannot just say that TCO with any specific system (even Linux) is going to be lower/higher *without* knowing the facts about the infrastructure.
All that I CAN say based on recent experience is that a Linux server solution tends to be more stable, thereby saving costs in comparison to Windows servers with respect to reliability. Base installation costs for our shop has been equal to Windows, by the way, because it took our people more time to get things running in the first place. But that's only *our* experience.
Again: without knowing the facts you cannot get meaningful conclusions for your specific situation.
(I can see why you posted AC, because you would likely have been modded down.) Anyway, your observation matches my experience: at our shop we tried pair programming and it not only resulted in a fair slowdown, there were also other effects that we noticed:
- the pairs spent a lot of time talking to each other about off-topic things.
- it lead to the formation of "expertise" domains, where one developer would do a specific task because he was treated as the expert, when the other just sat nearby and stared.
- the number of bugs was not significantly reduced
- bad design was not eliminated
So what we do know is, we build small groups of programmers and give them a modular task. They can do as many meetings and talking and planning as they like, but then they distribute the work amongst themselves and get it done alone. The code is then later reviewed by a "review partner" from the same group. It works nicely!
One of the key paragraphs says:
.Net Server, to take off slowly because many businesses have either recently moved to Windows 2000 or are in the process of doing so. A majority of customers, then, would begin introducing .Net Server in late 2004--around the same time as the planned release of the Longhorn desktop and server software versions.
Analysts expect the company's upcoming server software,
And that about covers my experience, too. Server overhauls take much longer intervals then changes in the desktop segment, where they install a new Windows every 3 years or so (doesn't matter, they are largely compatible versions, anyway... no admins, don't kill me, aaarrrghh).
So it actually makes sense to come out with a new server only if the changes are really signifcant and if the interval since the last major roll-out was more than, say, 5-6 years ago. Besides, nobody has money to throw at a new unproven technology right now (and in 2 years all the same), anyway.
I don't mean to troll (and I hear you say "yeah but you are") BUT quite a few project sites seem to have been infused with trojaned downloads over the last few months. Actually makes you think if there is a certain person or organization behind this? Considering the fact that news like this give these projects a bad security reputation, which counter-balances the built-in security breaches of a certain commercial software giant just nicely. Just a paranoid thought, don't take it too seriously though (I know you won't but still).
I think you're absolutely right. (This is getting off topic but since this entire thread formed here anyway I might as well say something about that...)
...well usable)"
There are a lot of people who think that:
- "No, OSS GUI interfaces are not broken, they are in fact superior (just not
- "X is so much more advanced" when it is in fact a pain in the ass and slow as hell even when used over what it is made for - network connections.
- "By the way text mode is the way to the future, GUI is for faggots" which I think doesn't need any further comment
- "Linux has sooo *not* a dependency hell but Windows has" ignoring the fact that Linux libraries situation (source and compiled objects alike) is totally out of hand because often times you can't even run two apps alongside because they need different versions
- "Linux software installation is just so smooth" when in reality one can install even complicated apps on Windows and OSX within mere minutes while on Linux you are lucky if it takes under 2 hours to get something running.
Now, all this is not neccessarily a bad sign for the state of the OSS developer community, if people would just *recognize* the problems and try to fix them in the future. But sadly nobody seems to care, quite on the contrary. Everyone pointing out these problems will be marked "flamebait" disregarding the fact that a well meaning wake-up call often originates from a friendly corner.
In fact you can see a small variation on this step by step theme right now with software piracy. First, piracy was rampant. Then they created huge publicity about the phenomenon as a warning. Then they sacked the large fish, the big crackers who copied and distributed by the millions. Right now we're in the phase where we got software sheriffs harassing small companies (even if they are innocent, bending and widening the law in the process) we're actually not very far from the point in time where the size of offense or alleged offense is down to Joe Average's home PC! And as we progress in time, penalties will increase, new draconic laws will further tighten the tumb screws...
The problem with the glass citizen model though is that it assumes the transgressions are rare. Look at the mp3 issue.
In it's "final" state the number of transgressions are indeed rare, because the odds and consequences of being hit by far outweight the benefits for the offender (no matter even if the laws are nonsensical).
Yes, numbers. You couldn't arrest all Kazaa users. It makes more sense to increase pressure on the thumbscrews on step at a time. First, create lots of FUD. Second, get those people disconnected from their ISP. Third sue remaining offenders for lots of money (you can do that to a fairly large number of people). Forth - by now the number of offenders has reached a reasonable alltime low - introduce harsh punishments. Now you got it, the Glass Citizen scenario has helped every single one of those 4 steps to be successful and ensures a state of almost no transgressions for all citizens for all crimes. Just as it would help pushing ANY other law (which is the real dangerous part).
OK, you have been very helpful, thank you very much! Just a few last questions...
;-)
What are the properties of a singularity, how can it be formed and what consequences would there be if one would exist right now?
Does it or does it not matter how much stuff there is in a singularity? (If it doesn't: doesn't that mean the universe is somewhat unstable if a singularity existed right now that can devour/expell mass like that?
If there is a Planck time after which you can really start saying something about the universe, does that also mean Planck time is the shortest possible unit of time for something to happen? Or is time more like, really without any "quantization"? (Well, apparently space isn't.)
OK, that's it, I promise...
Of course this goes far beyond terrorist hunting. Data mining like that would only be the logical consequence of events that have been taken place in legislature and executive for many months now. The outcome of those efforts would be the proverbial "glass citizen" who makes no move without being thoroughly profiled. The government (and the big corporations if you like) know more about the Glass Citizen's state of mind than he himself. Every little crime or disobedience will be found and punished. Science fiction yesterday, hard reality today (and cheered by the masses, too).
Only in the real 1984 almost everyone enjoys being big brothered like that. Everyone cheering the government on should think about the fact that terrorists (short of a grand nuclear attack) have a minimal actual physical effect on the population (speaking of cold hard percent figures). The damage they do results not from the deaths they leave behind but from the fear they create. And this damage has been immense in the US. It is due to that damage, that we allow our government to watch and eventually control us like that. Those terrorists have been incredibly successfull.