Having a choice is better than not having a choice. Having a Linux port of MS Office means one more set of tools for Linux. Having extra tools to do your job is always good, and no one can force you to use them.
If you like KOffice or StarOffice, then use them. Those who have Windows installed at school or at work will be very pleased for the extra functionality that Linux might acquire.
Most of the posts here seem to be upset that Debian can now be run in a proprietary environment. Don't people realise that Open Source programs are not simply used because they are "free", but because of their superior functionality? Now it is possible to do something that was impossible before, and people are complaining?
Open source developers aren't simply trying to get Linux used everywhere 'because it's Linux,' they are actually trying to make the software world a little better, more functional.
You would think Slashdot readers would be pleased at a technological advancement.
Good point, but you're only partially right. Building transportation systems in a free market economy often results in train stations being built side by side, with different companies' tracks running parallel. Just like in software, different programs to do exactly the same thing.
This worries me slightly, since I was under the impression that part of what made his previous books so good was that he slaved over every word, writing and re-writing until it was perfect. Fingers crossed.
I usually make a policy of ignoring posts that deliberately misunderstand or misquote me, but in this instance, I'll make an exception, especially as I'm not sure that your misunderstanding is deliberate.
Just because a 3 year-old will "someday" see some porn doesn't mean 5 people should rush up to the kid with laptops running hardcore porn mpegs and say, "get prepared, kid!"
Did I say this? Did I ever even imply that the kids should have porn forced at them? No. There is a significant difference between forcing people to look at something and allowing them to look at something. If the kid sees something that he doesn't like on the Internet, there's nothing stopping him from going to a different site. It's a bit different to having it forced at him in the manner that you suggest here.
once you've said "I don't care that you're the parent, I'm better at it" -- are you willing to usurp the parent in other areas?
Again, did I say this? Did I ever imply that I want to take over the job of parenting? Even if your point is valid, wouldn't this just be what the government would be doing by blocking certain sites on the Internet? The Internet unfiltered is the default, and if you didn't want the government becoming the parents of your kids, why do you want them to have the responsibility of making value-judgements on what they can see or not?
As a parent myself, I know very well how carefully I try to avoid parenting for others.
Then why do you want the government inflicting its own opinions on what your child can see?
I say, "how about I stamp your hand with a J, for Jesus?"
Interesting solution, though I'm surprised that she didn't consider that blasphemy.
Agreed, educational establishments shouldn't really use the.com TLD. Oxford University is an independent university though, and if it does receive any cash from the government, it gets much more from private industry, etc.
In the United Kingdom, universities usually go with.ac.uk (academic UK) rather than.edu or.com.
State Attorney General Charlie Condon says that "Pornographic smut anywhere is undesirable, but in the local library where our children visit, is intolerable."
I have to ask, why? I can't understand why people are so keen to stop their children seeing things. When they finally get to see what it is they've been blocked from it'll obviously hold more interest for them, being completely new. Blocking things can only be successful if every single instance of that thing is blocked, which is impossible. If you remove pornography from the Internet, then the kids can see see it on TV. Block it from TV, and they'll see it in some magazine one of their friends at school smuggled in.
It's a losing battle, and it would be far better to just leave the Internet unfiltered and foster a spirit of family discussion in the home. If the kid sees something like hate propaganda, it's going to have a lot more effect on him if it's a totally new idea. Let them see everything, so that they know to spot the gunk when they see it.
One day they're going to see it, they might as well be prepared for it.
I say, let it die peacefully. The intelligent people left newsgroups a long time ago and the only remaining denizens are the pornographers and anarchists who don't deserve a voice in the first place.
Why would any group of people "not deserve a voice"? Perhaps you didn't mean it literally, but no matter how inane the average content from any group of people may seem, they still should be entitled to say what they have to say.
Can we trust people to auto censor themselves ? no. Can we trust Yahoo to make the right choices ? yes we can
I disagree. Self-censorship is the best method of censorship possible. I do not see why others should have the right to decide what I can read, or what I can watch. Certainly, I would not trust any corporation to do so.
Censorship by others has to be a bad idea anyway. Not only do moral standards fluctuate, but how can anyone know what is right for me to see? There's a quote which I believe was made popular through a computer game, but it's none the worse for that: "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Now, I don't know about you, but I sure don't want Yahoo to be MY master!
If you were to invent something... you would have a right to make money from it.
No no no! No, I say, NO! That principle just does not work whatsoever, and that's exactly what's so worrying about it. The big corporations seem to have convinced most people of this, but a few moments' thought shows it cannot possibly work.
Say I invent... a new type of storage media, which is so inefficient it's laughable. According to you, I have the right to make money from it, no matter how poor my product is. Say I make only one unit, and try to sell it, but no-one buys, because it's so poor. Do I have the right to sue the market? Since, according to you, I have the right to make money from my invention, short of government subsidy, that's the only way that I can exercise my "right" to make money from my invention.
While this idea of patents and copyrights being in existence to facilitate the excercising of non-existent rights is a widely-held belief, who can blame the corporations from screwing us out of every last penny that they can? It's their "right" after all!
Although the article is a little vague, I have to agree with the author's main points. In Britain, where I live, British Telecom has a pretty strong grip on the market (despite its incredibly large debt). This has resulted in an very slow and patchy roll-out of DSL services, and if your area is DSL ready, you're going to have to fork out a lot for it. Last time I checked it was about forty pounds (fifty-five dollars or so) per month.
While there is SOME competition, as BT hold so much of the infrastructure, most rival companies seem to be renting it off BT and selling it on. This is clearly not too good for the consumer. I dearly want DSL, but like so many in this country, my 56k modem is an example of what the consumer ends up with when privatising a public service goes as badly as it has done here.
Considering all the talk about regulating the Internet I think that methods like this might become the NEW Internet, assuming that the governments of the world are successful at all. One potential problem I see with it is that if it truly is a free service, as soon as people start realising they can get broadband for nothing, wouldn't the system quickly become saturated? Let's hope not!
This article could actually be a good thing!
on
Taming the Web
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· Score: 1
Despite the inherent FUDliness of this article, I think it could prove to be a good thing. If it actually does convince people that current peer-to-peer systems are potentially breakable, it can only go to encourage people to develop new programs and protocols which are harder to break.
Another point is that if operating systems and even hardware become modified to be more "protection friendly", I know that I will simply not "upgrade" to them! If Windows XP is even half as bad as it looks like it's going to be, I know that my Win '98 machine won't be having that experience. As little control as Windows gives me, I'd rather have slightly more than XP appears to be offering.
Also, dare I say it, the whole PC obsolescence thing seems to be slowing down a bit. I've had my P3 850 for just over a year now, and even though computers have got much much faster, I've never come across anything that I actually NEED a faster computer for. Quake 3 runs just fine, thank you very much, and even editing of 1gb+ wave files can be done without having to wait more than a couple minutes at a time. I'd be prepared to wait two minutes at a time doing sound editing if it meant my computer stayed peer-to-peer compatible. It seems to me that try as they might, bloatware is not bloating itself so much as to even make me think of upgrading.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I sure know that I didn't feel like this one year after I bought my Pentium-90.
This raises the question, if it is possible to prosecute somebody in another country under a particular country's law, what is to stop someone from seeking out a country which has harsh laws against some seemingly innocuous action and bringing others to trial through it? Something tells me that if someone brought a case against a NATO country using Iraqi law, say, they would simply be ignored.
I wonder how all you who support this and the similar BS would feel if someone put out simple instructions for a tool to unlock and start any car, especially yours.
Firstly, if such a thing were possible, then would it not be better for it to be out in the open, so that the car manufacturers could improve their locks, rather than only criminals having the knowledge?
Secondly, DeCSS is used to break the region-lock on DVDs that people have bought honestly. The only way this could be compared to "breaking in" is if someone broke into their own car after it was declared illegal to open the car in countries other than the one it was originally purchased in.
What about recording your mp3s in "CD Quality" (according to R3mix, LAME b 256 -m s -h --lowpass 19.5) and then when Ogg Vorbis or some other format becomes stable enough to use, re-encoding your mp3s to that. It seems to me that the problems with double encoding should be minimal if the mp3s are CD quality to start off with.
Slashdot Mirror
That's why I had to explain to my aunt that to stop the computer you had to press the Start button?
If you like KOffice or StarOffice, then use them. Those who have Windows installed at school or at work will be very pleased for the extra functionality that Linux might acquire.
Open source developers aren't simply trying to get Linux used everywhere 'because it's Linux,' they are actually trying to make the software world a little better, more functional.
You would think Slashdot readers would be pleased at a technological advancement.
Good point, but you're only partially right. Building transportation systems in a free market economy often results in train stations being built side by side, with different companies' tracks running parallel. Just like in software, different programs to do exactly the same thing.
Dolly the sheep is still alive. She even gave birth to "Bonnie".
This worries me slightly, since I was under the impression that part of what made his previous books so good was that he slaved over every word, writing and re-writing until it was perfect. Fingers crossed.
Did I say this? Did I ever even imply that the kids should have porn forced at them? No. There is a significant difference between forcing people to look at something and allowing them to look at something. If the kid sees something that he doesn't like on the Internet, there's nothing stopping him from going to a different site. It's a bit different to having it forced at him in the manner that you suggest here.
Again, did I say this? Did I ever imply that I want to take over the job of parenting? Even if your point is valid, wouldn't this just be what the government would be doing by blocking certain sites on the Internet? The Internet unfiltered is the default, and if you didn't want the government becoming the parents of your kids, why do you want them to have the responsibility of making value-judgements on what they can see or not?
Then why do you want the government inflicting its own opinions on what your child can see?
Interesting solution, though I'm surprised that she didn't consider that blasphemy.
In the United Kingdom, universities usually go with
I have to ask, why? I can't understand why people are so keen to stop their children seeing things. When they finally get to see what it is they've been blocked from it'll obviously hold more interest for them, being completely new. Blocking things can only be successful if every single instance of that thing is blocked, which is impossible. If you remove pornography from the Internet, then the kids can see see it on TV. Block it from TV, and they'll see it in some magazine one of their friends at school smuggled in.
It's a losing battle, and it would be far better to just leave the Internet unfiltered and foster a spirit of family discussion in the home. If the kid sees something like hate propaganda, it's going to have a lot more effect on him if it's a totally new idea. Let them see everything, so that they know to spot the gunk when they see it.
One day they're going to see it, they might as well be prepared for it.
Why would any group of people "not deserve a voice"? Perhaps you didn't mean it literally, but no matter how inane the average content from any group of people may seem, they still should be entitled to say what they have to say.
I disagree. Self-censorship is the best method of censorship possible. I do not see why others should have the right to decide what I can read, or what I can watch. Certainly, I would not trust any corporation to do so.
Censorship by others has to be a bad idea anyway. Not only do moral standards fluctuate, but how can anyone know what is right for me to see? There's a quote which I believe was made popular through a computer game, but it's none the worse for that: "Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
Now, I don't know about you, but I sure don't want Yahoo to be MY master!
No no no! No, I say, NO! That principle just does not work whatsoever, and that's exactly what's so worrying about it. The big corporations seem to have convinced most people of this, but a few moments' thought shows it cannot possibly work.
Say I invent... a new type of storage media, which is so inefficient it's laughable. According to you, I have the right to make money from it, no matter how poor my product is. Say I make only one unit, and try to sell it, but no-one buys, because it's so poor. Do I have the right to sue the market? Since, according to you, I have the right to make money from my invention, short of government subsidy, that's the only way that I can exercise my "right" to make money from my invention.
While this idea of patents and copyrights being in existence to facilitate the excercising of non-existent rights is a widely-held belief, who can blame the corporations from screwing us out of every last penny that they can? It's their "right" after all!
While there is SOME competition, as BT hold so much of the infrastructure, most rival companies seem to be renting it off BT and selling it on. This is clearly not too good for the consumer. I dearly want DSL, but like so many in this country, my 56k modem is an example of what the consumer ends up with when privatising a public service goes as badly as it has done here.
Another point is that if operating systems and even hardware become modified to be more "protection friendly", I know that I will simply not "upgrade" to them! If Windows XP is even half as bad as it looks like it's going to be, I know that my Win '98 machine won't be having that experience. As little control as Windows gives me, I'd rather have slightly more than XP appears to be offering.
Also, dare I say it, the whole PC obsolescence thing seems to be slowing down a bit. I've had my P3 850 for just over a year now, and even though computers have got much much faster, I've never come across anything that I actually NEED a faster computer for. Quake 3 runs just fine, thank you very much, and even editing of 1gb+ wave files can be done without having to wait more than a couple minutes at a time. I'd be prepared to wait two minutes at a time doing sound editing if it meant my computer stayed peer-to-peer compatible. It seems to me that try as they might, bloatware is not bloating itself so much as to even make me think of upgrading.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I sure know that I didn't feel like this one year after I bought my Pentium-90.
This raises the question, if it is possible to prosecute somebody in another country under a particular country's law, what is to stop someone from seeking out a country which has harsh laws against some seemingly innocuous action and bringing others to trial through it? Something tells me that if someone brought a case against a NATO country using Iraqi law, say, they would simply be ignored.
Firstly, if such a thing were possible, then would it not be better for it to be out in the open, so that the car manufacturers could improve their locks, rather than only criminals having the knowledge?
Secondly, DeCSS is used to break the region-lock on DVDs that people have bought honestly. The only way this could be compared to "breaking in" is if someone broke into their own car after it was declared illegal to open the car in countries other than the one it was originally purchased in.
What about recording your mp3s in "CD Quality" (according to R3mix, LAME b 256 -m s -h --lowpass 19.5) and then when Ogg Vorbis or some other format becomes stable enough to use, re-encoding your mp3s to that. It seems to me that the problems with double encoding should be minimal if the mp3s are CD quality to start off with.