IBM no longer makes PCs, but they are certainly still in the hardware business. Hell, they advertize it on TV. And a large part of the goal of all their other services is "sell IBM hardware".
By the 1980s, almost all software was proprietary, which means that it had owners who forbid and prevent cooperation by users. This made the GNU Project necessary.
Every computer user needs an operating system; if there is no free operating system, then you can't even get started using a computer without resorting to proprietary software. So the first item on the free software agenda is a free operating system.
An operating system is not just a kernel; it also includes compilers, editors, text formatters, mail software, and many other things. Thus, writing a whole operating system is a very large job. It took many years.
We decided to make the operating system compatible with Unix because the overall design was already proven and portable, and because compatibility makes it easy for Unix users to switch from Unix to GNU.
The initial goal of a free Unix-like operating system has been achieved. By the 1990s, we had either found or written all the major components except one--the kernel. Then Linux, a free kernel, was developed by Linus Torvalds. Combining Linux with the almost-complete GNU system resulted in a complete operating system: a Linux-based GNU system. Estimates are that hundreds of thousands of people now use Linux-based GNU systems, including Slackware, Debian, Red Hat, and others.
The GNU system began long before the Linux kernel, and exists independently of it. If for some reason the Linux kernel disappeared tomorrow, it would still be possible to run the GNU system on top of other kernels. (Even, with Cygwin, on top of MS Windows kernels.)
Boy was I wrong, here I was thinking that the GNU utilities were nothing more than a bunch of seperate utilites.
Then you need to learn more about the history and scope of the GNU project.
Pre-pending GNU to Linux is an affront to the Linux trademark. Microsoft would be furious if people started advertising "x86/Windows XP".
"Intel x86/Windows XP" would be an accurate description of what are otherwise known as "Wintel" systems; the combination of the Windows XP operating system with the Intel x86 hardware platform. (As opposed to an "AMD/Windows XP" system, for example.)
Similarly, "GNU/Linux" is an accurate description of a GNU system running on top of the Linux kernel. (As opposed to a "GNU/Hurd" system, or a "GNU/*BSD" system, or an embedded system running some proprietary software on top of the Linux kernel.)
Neither is an affront to any trademark. In fact misusing "Linux" to refer to the entire system rather than the kernel would be improper use of the trademark, something like calling all sodas "Coke" or all photocopiers "Xerox".
If an artist owns the music and wants to share it, they can...
See, that's the problem right there. No one owns the music. Someone may hold a copyright on it (if copyright law actually followed the Constitution, that someone could only be the author), but copyrights are a different beast than ownership of property.
While I can see some musicians embracing the "free" model, I imagine that most would like to earn their living from their music.
Very few musicians ever make a living from their music. (Thus the cliche, "Don't give up your day job.") And there were musicians before there was recorded music, you know, so obviously having musicians get paid for recorded music is not necessary for the existence of the species.
But yes, getting paid helps. That doesn't mean that a monopoly on making copies is the right way for musicians to get paid.
Songwriters don't get a monopoly on who gets to sing their songs - I can sing "Tangled Up in Blue" in the shower and not pay Bob Dylan a penny. When I play it on stage at a bar, Bob (via ASCAP or BMI) gets paid. A similar system should be used for copying: share for free, if you sell or profit in any way, you owe a royalty.
Comcast has every right to make rules as they see fit and if they decide you shouldn't use their network to steal then you aren't using their network to steal.
Except of course that:
copying is not stealing, and
if Comcast is going to spy on its customers to see if they're copying things Comcast doesn't want them to, and to treat them like children ("now you apologize to MGM, Junior"), customers have every right to take their business elsewhere
This is just plain silly -- loose vs. well attached genes?
I'm talking about horizontal gene tranfer. Transgenic technologies, by definition, use techniques that make it easier for genes to move from one species to another; I don't think it's silly to speak of that as "loose".
It makes me so mad when talking to misinformed people who get into these campaigns to ban GM food when all the food you eat is pretty much been GM'd through several thousand years of selective breeding
Selective breeding has nothing to do with the transgenic techgniques used in GM crops. It makes me so mad when GM apologists offer up this tired and inaccurate canard.
When you crossbreed tomato strains, all the genes in the hybrid were in the tomato gene originally; the same cannot be said of transgenic grops. (Barring the small possibility of a mutation, or of genetic transfer via viral infection - but in most cases these will kill the plant, or render it less likely to reproduce.)
Also the genes in the hybrid are (to simplify) "well attached" to the organism's genome; in GM organisms, the transgenic part is "loose". This increases the chance of it migrating into a virus, and we don't know the implications of this "looseness" over generations of reproduction.
GM crops are nothing like selective breeding. But there is a huge problem with the way we apply selective breeding, and GM crops suffer from this also: we're losing the genetic diversity of our food crops, as heirloom varieties are displaced.
It's funny that people don't understand how people can believe stuff in the Bible but they have no trouble believing in theories in a textbook that can't be proven either.
The difference is that the theories in the textbook have evidence, and have ground rules saying, "These could be wrong. If better evidence comes along, replace them."
The domga and miracle stories of most mainstream religions lack both evidence and a means for error checking and correction. (There are exceptions; some religious teachers are smart enough to realize that the point of religion is to help us deal with the subjective and experiential world, not objective physical reality.)
(Some religious teachers wisely confine their teachings to the
A UN with teeth would basically be a world government instead of a world forum. I don't think it's bearable for most countries to have laws primarily influenced by the values of other countries.
We have that now. Most countries toe the American line. If they don't, we use economic sanctions, covert operations, or outright invasion, against them.
Government is inevitable; if no better system is set up, the strongest rule by force. This is as true internationally as it is locally.
Would a "Pax U.N." be better than the current "Pax Americana"? It would at least have the virtue of being more a government of law than of de facto power.
The "Treaty of Peace and Friendship" with Tripoli, written duing the Washington administration, states that "the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
To Christians, it's illogical to say that the pledge is unconstitutional for saying a fact (that God exists).
To an atheist, it's clearly unconstitutional to have the state push people to make a clearly untrue statement (that God exists).
Fortunately, we have a constitution that makes it clear that it is not the state's job to judge the truth or falsity of the proposition "God exists". Unfortunately we have a surplus of Christian nutcases who are incapable of accepting the plain text of the First Amendment.
But let me ask you: how many American boys would you have sacrificed in further conventional war against Japan
How many innocent Japanese would you have sacrificed to save one American soldier? One? Ten? One hundred? One thousand?
You're correct that Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were really no worse that, say, Tokyo or Dresden. But comparing atrocities is a tricky calculus. Was 9/11 worse than the Trail of Tears? Was Ted Bundy more sick and twisted than Jack the Ripper?
Costumes and make-believe are for birthday parties and comic book conventions.
...and traditional weddings. You know, the ones where the groom rents a costume and the bride buys a special one. A white one, part of the make-believe that she's a virgin. And everyone makes-believe that there's not a 50% chance of divorce.
Sorry, but costumes and make-beleive are an essential part of every ritual. Which forms you find silly and which solemn are a matter of opinion. (I find the idea of a Star Trek wedding hideous, but I also find the idea of a traditional church wedding hideous.)
PKI? You're kidding, right? I am most decidedly not interested in paying a tithe (either directly, or via my ISP) to RSA, Verisign, Microsoft, or whoever the root CA would be in order to send email.
Thawte has free personal certificates, and an interesting "Web of Trust" idea for e-mail certificates.
You need to see a hand surgeon - preferably an orthopaedic trained one.
When all you have is a scalpel, everything looks like surgery. Don't turn to a practitioner who's going to be biased to that course until you've exhausted all other alternatives. The failure rate for CTS surgery is over 50%.
See your regular doctor (who will, as the parent notes, probably prescribe NSAIDs). See a bodyworker. See an acupuncturist. See a herbalist. Hell, see a shaman. Then, if all else fails, see a surgeon.
Massage is often overlooked as an option for many types of ailments like this.
Blatant plug for what will soon be my new profession - you might also consider Asian Bodywork Therapy (acupressure, shiatsu, etcetera). Or acupuncture. (You don't have to beleive that ki/qi/ch'i is an "electromagnetic field" to benefit from or practice these arts; IMHO qi is energy as is "I feel full of energy today!", not as in kilowatt-hours.)
While there is a new-agie mystique to some of it, massage has a grounded scientific basis for why it works to fix things like this.
Boddywork is hardly "New Age" - it's been around for thousands of years!
You can only fit so many xterms on an X screen before you have to start using virtual screens, but you can easily fit dozens of terms into a screen session
gnome-terminal now lets you have several tabbed terminals in one window. You can even have them in different styles, I like to use different color combinations for different hosts.
Still doesn't let you do anything like screen -r, though.
Easy to use 3d pointing device? We've had em for about a century.
A joystick is just as much a 2-dimensional pointing device as a mouse. In an airplane-like interface, the joystick controls the direction that the nose points, but you need the throttle to control forward motion.
My grandmother has trouble understanding functions, variables, and flow-control. Should I not use them?
If you reasonably expect that your grandmother will have to debug your code one day, yes.
Or, comment and document your code so thoroughly that even Grandma can understand it.
If someone that replaces me can't read my code due to making full use of the language, then the company has failed to replace me.
If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted, or moved on to other and more interesting projects. I recommend making yourself highly replacable. Indeed, being skilled enough to make yourself highly replacable, will make you irreplacable.
When sound works great in Win95 but it's a pain in Linux, complaining about it isn't trolling.
Sounds works fine in Linux. I've had no problems in seven years.
Not all sound cards work fine in Linux. That's a different (and much more minor) issue, a subset of the general driver problem: manufacturers who don't release specs.
you've highlighted perfectly how linux dev's and advocats simply don't appreciate the problem
What problem?
Do sports-car enthusiasts think it's a problem that I never learned to drive a standard transmission? Are the going to redesign their cars for me? Of course not.
Part of the Ledbelly legend is the way he got out of prison by singing.
...twice. When you sing your way out of prison, ladies and gentlemen, that's a blueman lifestyle. But when you sing your way out of prison twice, that's a legendary blueman lifestyle.
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IBM no longer makes PCs, but they are certainly still in the hardware business. Hell, they advertize it on TV. And a large part of the goal of all their other services is "sell IBM hardware".
Yes. In the 1980s, RMS concieved the idea of a complete Unix-like system that would be Free Software:
The GNU system began long before the Linux kernel, and exists independently of it. If for some reason the Linux kernel disappeared tomorrow, it would still be possible to run the GNU system on top of other kernels. (Even, with Cygwin, on top of MS Windows kernels.)
Then you need to learn more about the history and scope of the GNU project.
"Intel x86/Windows XP" would be an accurate description of what are otherwise known as "Wintel" systems; the combination of the Windows XP operating system with the Intel x86 hardware platform. (As opposed to an "AMD/Windows XP" system, for example.)
Similarly, "GNU/Linux" is an accurate description of a GNU system running on top of the Linux kernel. (As opposed to a "GNU/Hurd" system, or a "GNU/*BSD" system, or an embedded system running some proprietary software on top of the Linux kernel.)
Neither is an affront to any trademark. In fact misusing "Linux" to refer to the entire system rather than the kernel would be improper use of the trademark, something like calling all sodas "Coke" or all photocopiers "Xerox".
See, that's the problem right there. No one owns the music. Someone may hold a copyright on it (if copyright law actually followed the Constitution, that someone could only be the author), but copyrights are a different beast than ownership of property.
Very few musicians ever make a living from their music. (Thus the cliche, "Don't give up your day job.") And there were musicians before there was recorded music, you know, so obviously having musicians get paid for recorded music is not necessary for the existence of the species.
But yes, getting paid helps. That doesn't mean that a monopoly on making copies is the right way for musicians to get paid.
Songwriters don't get a monopoly on who gets to sing their songs - I can sing "Tangled Up in Blue" in the shower and not pay Bob Dylan a penny. When I play it on stage at a bar, Bob (via ASCAP or BMI) gets paid. A similar system should be used for copying: share for free, if you sell or profit in any way, you owe a royalty.
I'm talking about horizontal gene tranfer. Transgenic technologies, by definition, use techniques that make it easier for genes to move from one species to another; I don't think it's silly to speak of that as "loose".
Selective breeding has nothing to do with the transgenic techgniques used in GM crops. It makes me so mad when GM apologists offer up this tired and inaccurate canard.
When you crossbreed tomato strains, all the genes in the hybrid were in the tomato gene originally; the same cannot be said of transgenic grops. (Barring the small possibility of a mutation, or of genetic transfer via viral infection - but in most cases these will kill the plant, or render it less likely to reproduce.)
Also the genes in the hybrid are (to simplify) "well attached" to the organism's genome; in GM organisms, the transgenic part is "loose". This increases the chance of it migrating into a virus, and we don't know the implications of this "looseness" over generations of reproduction.
GM crops are nothing like selective breeding. But there is a huge problem with the way we apply selective breeding, and GM crops suffer from this also: we're losing the genetic diversity of our food crops, as heirloom varieties are displaced.
The Earth did not exist at the time of the Big Bang. So, how in the world it this relevant?
The difference is that the theories in the textbook have evidence, and have ground rules saying, "These could be wrong. If better evidence comes along, replace them."
The domga and miracle stories of most mainstream religions lack both evidence and a means for error checking and correction. (There are exceptions; some religious teachers are smart enough to realize that the point of religion is to help us deal with the subjective and experiential world, not objective physical reality.)
(Some religious teachers wisely confine their teachings to the
No more so than the Socratic/Platonic philosophy, the Lockean philosophy, the Cartesean philosophy, the philosophy of Voltaire...
Jesus of Nazareth was just one of the philosophers with whom the Founding Fathers were familiar, and who influenced their views.
We have that now. Most countries toe the American line. If they don't, we use economic sanctions, covert operations, or outright invasion, against them.
Government is inevitable; if no better system is set up, the strongest rule by force. This is as true internationally as it is locally.
Would a "Pax U.N." be better than the current "Pax Americana"? It would at least have the virtue of being more a government of law than of de facto power.
Many of the "Founding Fathers" - Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Paine, Franklin, and Madison, to name a few - were Deists, Unitarians, or in some other way explictly disagreed with Christian dogma.
The "Treaty of Peace and Friendship" with Tripoli, written duing the Washington administration, states that "the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion."
To an atheist, it's clearly unconstitutional to have the state push people to make a clearly untrue statement (that God exists).
Fortunately, we have a constitution that makes it clear that it is not the state's job to judge the truth or falsity of the proposition "God exists". Unfortunately we have a surplus of Christian nutcases who are incapable of accepting the plain text of the First Amendment.
How many innocent Japanese would you have sacrificed to save one American soldier? One? Ten? One hundred? One thousand?
You're correct that Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings were really no worse that, say, Tokyo or Dresden. But comparing atrocities is a tricky calculus. Was 9/11 worse than the Trail of Tears? Was Ted Bundy more sick and twisted than Jack the Ripper?
Sorry, but costumes and make-beleive are an essential part of every ritual. Which forms you find silly and which solemn are a matter of opinion. (I find the idea of a Star Trek wedding hideous, but I also find the idea of a traditional church wedding hideous.)
Thawte has free personal certificates, and an interesting "Web of Trust" idea for e-mail certificates.
Verisign Class 1 Digital ID: $14.95 per year. I'm sure with some shopping around you can find a better deal.
Or there's the "web of trust" model.
When all you have is a scalpel, everything looks like surgery. Don't turn to a practitioner who's going to be biased to that course until you've exhausted all other alternatives. The failure rate for CTS surgery is over 50%.
See your regular doctor (who will, as the parent notes, probably prescribe NSAIDs). See a bodyworker. See an acupuncturist. See a herbalist. Hell, see a shaman. Then, if all else fails, see a surgeon.
Blatant plug for what will soon be my new profession - you might also consider Asian Bodywork Therapy (acupressure, shiatsu, etcetera). Or acupuncture. (You don't have to beleive that ki/qi/ch'i is an "electromagnetic field" to benefit from or practice these arts; IMHO qi is energy as is "I feel full of energy today!", not as in kilowatt-hours.)
Boddywork is hardly "New Age" - it's been around for thousands of years!
gnome-terminal now lets you have several tabbed terminals in one window. You can even have them in different styles, I like to use different color combinations for different hosts.
Still doesn't let you do anything like screen -r, though.
Except that there's no K for Keyboard in CLI, now is there?
Command Line Interface: if you don't have a command line, you ain't got one.
A joystick is just as much a 2-dimensional pointing device as a mouse. In an airplane-like interface, the joystick controls the direction that the nose points, but you need the throttle to control forward motion.
If you reasonably expect that your grandmother will have to debug your code one day, yes.
Or, comment and document your code so thoroughly that even Grandma can understand it.
If you can't be replaced, you can't be promoted, or moved on to other and more interesting projects. I recommend making yourself highly replacable. Indeed, being skilled enough to make yourself highly replacable, will make you irreplacable.
Sounds works fine in Linux. I've had no problems in seven years.
Not all sound cards work fine in Linux. That's a different (and much more minor) issue, a subset of the general driver problem: manufacturers who don't release specs.
What problem?
Do sports-car enthusiasts think it's a problem that I never learned to drive a standard transmission? Are the going to redesign their cars for me? Of course not.