I am getting really sick of this move to more and more graphical interfaces for everything. There are times when pretty pictures are nice, they make things more intuative, i.e. having Mozilla or Netscape around is often easier than using Lynx.
It's interesting that you say that, cos I'm the other way round. I'm quite happy to use a gui mailer/newsreader, but I really really prefer lynx to most browsers. I only use Netscape/Mozilla when a page forces me to use Java[script]. I think this shows that it's a matter of personal preference. You'll always have the choice of Mutt, and I'll always have the choice of Lynx (presuming the spread of Java[script] to completely unneccessary places doesn't continue). Choice is a good thing, and adding an extra choice shouldn't do any harm.
Patent law is currently heavily weighted against anyone who wants to make their work publically available. "Fair" is not neccessarily something which should be defined in terms of current patent law. The authors of LAME are *not* just coding for their own gain. They are trying to give something away to the public.
most artists earn less than the poverty level when working as an artist full-time already
Aside from the 97% of the sale price which the artist doesn't get, I don't think your argument shows that abolishing copyright law would make the music scene shrink. Most web site authors don't make a living by writing web sites, but there's still millions of them. If people tried to charge me 10p/20 cents per page then I would never use the web. 99% of musicians have always been amateur. Abolishing copyright would break up the publishing cartel so that these amateurs might have more chance of recognition.
Now most games are $39-45 at release and not $49-$59 like they used to be.
Wow, what good value, $39 for a game when I can get a whole operating system with hundreds of applications from cheapbytes for $5. Ok so they're not directly comparable, but I still think $39 is a rip off (and it's more like £39 ~= $50 here). But then IANA gamer.
Now, [Netscape is] almost a joke. I upgraded to N6 for about half and hour, then went back to 4.7.
You haven't tried NS6 - it hasn't been released! There's a *reason* why people call things ß releases. It's because they are *not ready for general consumption*. So please try the release version before deciding whether or not it is a joke.
Did the original poster even *mention* Linux? Linux is not the same thing as Open Source.
it's people like you that prevent open-source software from being adopted for serious purposes because you're constantly advocating it even when it is not a rational choice.
Free software was not a "rational choice" in 1984, if by rational you mean The Best Tool For The Job. If everyone only cared about using the best toolset, gcc would not have been written and none of this open-source explosion would have happened. Your use of the word "rational" suggests the original poster's view is crazy. Well, remember that this whole shebang has been made possible by a man who is "crazy", in the sense of not always wanting to use the short-term best tool for the job.
I agree with your point, that the use of Excel does not detract from this study at all. You're also right about misuse of the word "ironic". Please don't misuse the word "rational".
Debian would have been a more sensible distro to use, because it is overflowing with (packages|crap). Red Hat (presumably) just ship the ones which it makes commercial sense to ship, wheras Debian has everything that anyone's bothered to include whether it's useful or not. For example, Cooledit (my favourite text editor) is missing from the survey. The only problem with Debian would be stuff missing because it is not DFSG-free. Such stuff is available in the non-free/ directory but it's probably not as comprehensive as the main/ directory is.
Having said that, it's very interesting to see what they have got. I didn't know Andrew Tridgell did all that stuff, for example. This could be a good tool for the community to get to know people better.
[The FSF] will make sure that the characters GNU/ will be prepended to your program name
Hold your horses - nobody is calling the *kernel* GNU/Linux. That name refers to distros, built upon glibc and a whole load of other GNU software, e.g. Debian.
I have yet to hear of a single case where the FSF has taken a company to court to get the problem resolved.
Didn't they do that for some derivative of Emacs?
They certainly have persuaded many violators to back down without taking legal action. Their standing in the world means that their threats carry more weight than, say, threats made by me. And they have a lawyer doing stuff for them, which is more than I can say.
It is [...] perhaps hypocritical to some degree, that the FSF could not exist as it is without copyrights.
That's like saying that Jesus must be hypocritical because he couldn't have come down and saved everyone from their sins if nobody sinned. It is ironic, maybe, but not hypocritical. The FSF would, presumably, do everything in their power to hasten the day when they become completely redundant. (No arguments about the validity of Christianity, please, it was an illustration).
The front line of defence against such sophisticated viruses is a continually evolving computer-operating system that attracts the efforts of eager software developers, Gates said.
He's quite right, of course. One of the worst things that can happen, from a virus writer's point of view, is a mass migration from DOS-based Win9X and Macro-happy Outlook to a platform with permissions which isn't controlled by a monopoly vendor who wants to force Outlook on everyone. Of course, I dunno if he had that OS in mind...
So what happens when they find out that a Windows 98 box can be caused to execute arbitrary code remotely by sending it some bogus TCP/IP packets?
They could release a binary patch, and some time later the fixed source only. Of course, that doesn't help people who don't patch their copy of Windows. But that problem will always be there anyway.
You'd have to wait six months or more before it'd be safe enough to put your Win9X box online again.
Ok, they could have a six month period where various security experts can audit the source. Not too tough really. This team could even release the source bit by bit, as it had been audited.
Yebbut that's "manually" as in, click on an unsuspicious looking box. As opposed to in PINE, say, where it's "manually" as in, save the attachment to disk, give it chmod u+x, then run it. One of them is harder to do without thinking.
The blame for this falls on the shoulders of the virus(?) writer(s) and the users stupid enough to activate it. [...] There's no security hole unless it's the one where the users brain shoulda been.
That's a valid opinion. However, if you believe this then you *can't* tell people that UNIX is harder to use than Windows. Sure, some of the programs may take longer to learn. But almost no popular UNIX mail reader would let you execute arbitrary code by accident (and it wouldn't be running as root even if you were stupid enough to do it on purpose).
IF you think UNIX is too complicated for someone, then being happy to have them sitting one inviting click away from disaster is a big mistake.
Too late, there's prior art - xscreensaver does it. Random BSOD images in 9x and NT style. Also imitates the death rituals of Mac, Amiga and Sun.
Now what you could try, is patenting the concept of a BSOD *in response to a certain error*. Then if Windows ever crashes due to that error then it's infringing software and you can sue for compensation.
Where are the killer free software apps? The only one I ever here of is the GIMP
Sorry, that's just funny, posting that to slashdot. Get a Debian CD and have a look. Anyway, the normal meaning of "killer app" is "program which increases the market for computers". The World Wide Web has been the biggest killer app in history. Both HTML and Apache have been cornerstones of this revolution.
It's far more "elite" to code the kernel than it is to actually to the boring stuff of writing applications.
Free software predates the kernel, dear. And there's an order of magnitude more developers of free applications out there than kernel developers. Anyway there are a lot of people out there doing the "boring" work, and businesses often find it in their interests to fill in any missing "boring" bits from a program they want to use, which then sorts it for everybody else.
Slashdot Mirror
But if you've paid for someone to design a web site, surely updating that web site counts as Fair Use?
It's interesting that you say that, cos I'm the other way round. I'm quite happy to use a gui mailer/newsreader, but I really really prefer lynx to most browsers. I only use Netscape/Mozilla when a page forces me to use Java[script]. I think this shows that it's a matter of personal preference. You'll always have the choice of Mutt, and I'll always have the choice of Lynx (presuming the spread of Java[script] to completely unneccessary places doesn't continue). Choice is a good thing, and adding an extra choice shouldn't do any harm.
You could spend some time with the GIMP. [sorry]
Patent law is currently heavily weighted against anyone who wants to make their work publically available. "Fair" is not neccessarily something which should be defined in terms of current patent law. The authors of LAME are *not* just coding for their own gain. They are trying to give something away to the public.
Aside from the 97% of the sale price which the artist doesn't get, I don't think your argument shows that abolishing copyright law would make the music scene shrink. Most web site authors don't make a living by writing web sites, but there's still millions of them. If people tried to charge me 10p/20 cents per page then I would never use the web. 99% of musicians have always been amateur. Abolishing copyright would break up the publishing cartel so that these amateurs might have more chance of recognition.
Wow, what good value, $39 for a game when I can get a whole operating system with hundreds of applications from cheapbytes for $5. Ok so they're not directly comparable, but I still think $39 is a rip off (and it's more like £39 ~= $50 here). But then IANA gamer.
You haven't tried NS6 - it hasn't been released! There's a *reason* why people call things ß releases. It's because they are *not ready for general consumption*. So please try the release version before deciding whether or not it is a joke.
Did the original poster even *mention* Linux? Linux is not the same thing as Open Source.
Free software was not a "rational choice" in 1984, if by rational you mean The Best Tool For The Job. If everyone only cared about using the best toolset, gcc would not have been written and none of this open-source explosion would have happened. Your use of the word "rational" suggests the original poster's view is crazy. Well, remember that this whole shebang has been made possible by a man who is "crazy", in the sense of not always wanting to use the short-term best tool for the job.
I agree with your point, that the use of Excel does not detract from this study at all. You're also right about misuse of the word "ironic". Please don't misuse the word "rational".
They list their sources as follows:
Debian would have been a more sensible distro to use, because it is overflowing with (packages|crap). Red Hat (presumably) just ship the ones which it makes commercial sense to ship, wheras Debian has everything that anyone's bothered to include whether it's useful or not. For example, Cooledit (my favourite text editor) is missing from the survey. The only problem with Debian would be stuff missing because it is not DFSG-free. Such stuff is available in the non-free/ directory but it's probably not as comprehensive as the main/ directory is.
Having said that, it's very interesting to see what they have got. I didn't know Andrew Tridgell did all that stuff, for example. This could be a good tool for the community to get to know people better.
It probably depends on your definition of "single". But I reckon the pyramids would beat windows, given that they were done by hand millenia ago.
Yeah, it reduces the development costs (i.e. time) of adding new features. Beyond that, not really AFAICS.
Hold your horses - nobody is calling the *kernel* GNU/Linux. That name refers to distros, built upon glibc and a whole load of other GNU software, e.g. Debian.
Yep, or Mao's position, or even Senator McCarthy's. Quite right - the FSF have to be judged by their track record too.
Didn't they do that for some derivative of Emacs?
They certainly have persuaded many violators to back down without taking legal action. Their standing in the world means that their threats carry more weight than, say, threats made by me. And they have a lawyer doing stuff for them, which is more than I can say.
If you don't distribute the binaries, you don't have to distribute the source. See the second paragraph of section 0 of the GPL.
That's like saying that Jesus must be hypocritical because he couldn't have come down and saved everyone from their sins if nobody sinned. It is ironic, maybe, but not hypocritical. The FSF would, presumably, do everything in their power to hasten the day when they become completely redundant. (No arguments about the validity of Christianity, please, it was an illustration).
He's quite right, of course. One of the worst things that can happen, from a virus writer's point of view, is a mass migration from DOS-based Win9X and Macro-happy Outlook to a platform with permissions which isn't controlled by a monopoly vendor who wants to force Outlook on everyone. Of course, I dunno if he had that OS in mind ...
They could release a binary patch, and some time later the fixed source only. Of course, that doesn't help people who don't patch their copy of Windows. But that problem will always be there anyway.
Yeah, cos we all run Lynx as root, don't we? Sorry, d'y'care to provide a reference to such an exploit?
Ok, they could have a six month period where various security experts can audit the source. Not too tough really. This team could even release the source bit by bit, as it had been audited.
Yebbut that's "manually" as in, click on an unsuspicious looking box. As opposed to in PINE, say, where it's "manually" as in, save the attachment to disk, give it chmod u+x, then run it. One of them is harder to do without thinking.
There's a difference. Neither of your two statements are true for an older version of Linux or ESR.
That's a valid opinion. However, if you believe this then you *can't* tell people that UNIX is harder to use than Windows. Sure, some of the programs may take longer to learn. But almost no popular UNIX mail reader would let you execute arbitrary code by accident (and it wouldn't be running as root even if you were stupid enough to do it on purpose).
IF you think UNIX is too complicated for someone, then being happy to have them sitting one inviting click away from disaster is a big mistake.
Too late, there's prior art - xscreensaver does it. Random BSOD images in 9x and NT style. Also imitates the death rituals of Mac, Amiga and Sun.
Now what you could try, is patenting the concept of a BSOD *in response to a certain error*. Then if Windows ever crashes due to that error then it's infringing software and you can sue for compensation.
Sorry, that's just funny, posting that to slashdot. Get a Debian CD and have a look. Anyway, the normal meaning of "killer app" is "program which increases the market for computers". The World Wide Web has been the biggest killer app in history. Both HTML and Apache have been cornerstones of this revolution.
Free software predates the kernel, dear. And there's an order of magnitude more developers of free applications out there than kernel developers. Anyway there are a lot of people out there doing the "boring" work, and businesses often find it in their interests to fill in any missing "boring" bits from a program they want to use, which then sorts it for everybody else.