and I wonder where you get the idea that IE6 will be better than IE5
Of course it won't. Internet Explorer 6 will likely be released solely to implement new (proprietary) "extensions" to web formats. Of course they will claim that they did this because so many of their current users were begging for it. And, incidentally, the new extensions will cause competing products to core/GPF/whatever. Very typical indeed.
I've had first posts, 8 and counting, but they were all half way intelligent and none mentioned it.
If it were halfway intelligent then it would not fall under the new category, of course. There is no reason that a 301st post couldn't be in the "First Post" category.
What the moderators need is an easy way to zero out the idiots, instead of moderating them.
I still think it's better to have them not displayed at all. This removes most of the motivation that these moronic first-posters have. There just needs to be an easy way to nuke them from public sight.
I suppose just deleting them would muck up the display order of comments.
They don't have to be deleted, just make sure that they are not displayed. No posting numbers have to be changed.
I think this could be solved with a new moderation scheme.
Suppose a new category, say, "First Post," were added. Any post so moderated would instantly get a score of -10 and would be stricken from even being displayed.
It could even be set up so that moderators wouldn't lose any points by moderating first posts, but I suppose that, in order to avoid abuse, such a scheme should require, perhaps, three moderators to agree.
This is exactly why I picked GIMPS over Distributed.net and SETI@Home.
RC5: We know that there's an answer, and a probability theorist could even tell you how long it will take to find.
SETI: Even if you believe in E.T. (I don't), the particular data being examined by SETI seems of minimal real value in finding him.
GIMPS: We have every reason to believe that huge Mersenne primes exist beyond those already known, but we don't know. The only way to find them is by a brute force.
In this sense, I consider, the GIMPS project to be somewhat more serendipitous research -- more interesting. (Ok, "serendipitous" is the wrong word, since we are, in fact, looking for huge primes. But it's 3:45AM and I can't think of the right word.)
[By the way, there are only 38 known Mersenne primes and the most recently discovered is over 2 million digits long. If you like huge numbers, GIMPS is the project for you.]
The thing that struck me after I stopped laughing at that was the following thought: Instead of just a couple of privileged developers at Micros~1 actually understanding how their software works, imagine that *nobody* understands how their software works.
Still, I suppose that an infinite number of monkeys pounding on an infinite number of computer keyboards might just do better than Windows. Now *that* I almost believe.
Actually, != most certainly does not look like a 'does not equal' symbol. Ada was slightly closer with/=, but neither is close enough to pass in english text being read by non-programmers. I'm sure you wouldn't make the argument that == looks rather a lot like 'an equal sign.'
Before I learned C, != was just so much jibberish to me.
My 19-inch does 1600x1200 (somewhat) acceptably. The problem is that it makes some things just too small. Web pages that specify their own fonts end up with tiny tiny text in Netscape.
I do use 1600x1200, but at that res, I'd rather have a 21-inch.
I wonder why people such as yourself even bother to follow the link to the responses, much less post such vacuous drivel. If you don't care, then simply move on to another story which does interest you.
Re:What a tangled web we weave...
on
RMS Responds
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· Score: 1
Alright. These posts are getting much too long, so I'll sum up.
You seem to believe that the only way for open software to exist is to abolish proprietary software. I'm not sure where you are getting this idea.
If Stallman and other open software advocates are right, then open software should so outshine proprietary software technically and be developed so much faster that proprietary software doesn't stand a chance in the long run. So why the need to abolish what is doomed already?
Somehow, however, you believe that if proprietary software exists, then users will be denied access to open software. Why? If Corel wants to sell WordPerfect, what keeps the KDE developers from making KWord? Since it's open source, it *must* be technically superior, more feature rich, etc.
You would rather that the right of choice be abridged, than the right of ability to copy, modify, and redistribute. Fair enough, but why not keep *all* of these rights intact? If a developer makes proprietary software, this does not mean that open software isn't allowed to compete. On the contrary, open software should excel, if the advocates are to be believed.
Re:What a tangled web we weave...
on
RMS Responds
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· Score: 1
If you choose to be a slave you aren't really a slave. Just a volunteer.
Yes. Go on.
The lack of the freedom to enslave software does not mean the software isn't free.
Suppose for the sake of a very hypothetical argument that I took some free software, say FreeBSD, compiled the sources, and sold it under a different name, say, "FooBarUnix," with a very restrictive, commercialized license. (Please ignore any real world licensing issues I am creating in this example. It is an example of freedom, not of how any particular license works.)
Suppose further that some people actually buy this from me and agree to my license. Have I enslaved them? Or did they volunteer to be slaves of my license?
Regardless of the what I do to the code or the license, I have not "enslaved the software" because I don't own the source from which it came. Anyone can go to the source, or else choose to accept my terms. That's freedom.
The counter-argument is that people might not know where the source is and therefore would have no choice but to accept what I am offering. This argument, however, depends on people being ignorant. They, therefore, need the protection of a restrictive license which keeps them from volunteering for a different restrictive license. But in any case, it's not freedom.
And this is what Mr. Christiansen is saying. There is a difference between freedom and insisting that information remain open. Obligatorially open is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's not free in the full sense of freedom. Freedom is not: "You can do what you like as long as we approve."
That's what copyrights are, enslavement of code.
Perhaps. But any honest philosophy regarding freedom can't exclude the freedom of others. In this case, that particularly applies to others' freedom to copyright their own work and to give it to others under any contract that both parties will agree to. If the receiving individual does not like the contract, that person is free to seek a suitable solution elsewhere.
It certainly isn't nearly as horrible as enslaving a person
Very true. I don't think that restrictive software licenses compare at all well with human slavery, unless Africans were asked if they wanted to be slaves before being shipped to America.
My disclaimer in all of this is that I am an advocate of freedom, of open source, and even of the GPL. I really believe that the GPL is a good thing, but I don't think that it is everything, and it certainly doesn't engender my idea of freedom. Everything has its place, and the GPL's place isn't everywhere, unless GPL software is the best solution for everyone at all times.
In my ideal world, I have the freedom to choose the best solutions when I need them, even if the best solution is a commercial offering with restrictive licensing. I should have the freedom to choose that and not be bound by the GPL to wait for an open source alternative to become good enough. That's freedom.
Re:What a tangled web we weave...
on
RMS Responds
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· Score: 1
Would you say it is deceptive to call someone a "free man" if he no longer has the freedom to be taken as a slave?
I always love picking out exactly where someone's argument breaks down. When you say, "he no longer has the freedom to be taken as a slave," are you talking about his freedom or somebody else's freedom?
If the man wished to be a slave and was not allowed to be, would we not say that his freedom had been abridged?
"You are free! Go do as you like!"
"I wish to be a slave. That is what I chose." "You can't do that: You are free." "I am free to do whatever I want as long as it is what I don't want to do?" "You don't want to be a slave. Now go and do as you like. You are free!"
So now I'm waiting for RMS to make his official war cry about how it should be called "GNU/BeOS."
Re:Hot rods and compaqs ... er, compacts.
on
Cool PC Cases
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· Score: 1
> fashion computer probably ~=800-1,200. If it lasts 2 years for an average user, that's a pretty good value... Huh? Would you honestly buy a refrigerator for 800-1200 dollars if you were reasonably certain it would require complete replacement in 2 years? That's good value? Gosh! It is a brave new world.
Re:Why the bitterness?
on
Cool PC Cases
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· Score: 1
Your possible assertion that these new Intel cases "look badass" is somewhat disturbing. I suppose it's true in the same way that Teletubbies look badass...
I there a problem here? So what if commercial Vendor X only supports Distro Y? If the Open Source community has any teeth left at all then Vendor X will be the one to suffer by such an exclusive deal. If "our" philosophy means anything then all we have to do is compete with them (that is, make an OSS alternative to their product which adheres to our philosophical standards) and they will eventually lose, or else see the error of their ways and fall in line.
We should not fear the presence of commercial software, but rather revel in it as it gives Open Source the opportunity to prove how much better it is. We do believe that, don't we?
If a commercial vendor shows up with some restrictive license or policy, is it their fault that our choice is restricted? Or is it our fault because we chose to whine and complain about it rather than provide a better alternative for ourselves? Freedom goes both ways, and they are free to support you or to leave you behind, just as you are free to buy their product or to come up with an alternative.
We have the choice. The GPL ensures that we will always have the choice. That doesn't mean that freedom will be handed to us on a silver platter. MetroWerks has just as much right to support a single distro as we have to support them all. We shouldn't restrict their freedom by enforcing our notion of freedom.
Lately, it seems that the Open Source notion of freedom is that everyone should be free to do only what we think they should do. We need to lose that attitude quickly, and start competing on the basis of our technical and philosophical superiority. Does it make any sense that we preach freedom and procede to rant that everyone should be restricted to the GPL?
Wake up, people! Stop whining and get to work! I've seen the enemy and the enemy is us.
How is it that this slipped by and nobody noticed? Technophile must be the hands-down winner.
It has no existing negative connotation. In fact, people encountering the term for the first time will likely think back to the term audiophile and think: Hmmm. Audiophile had something to do with high quality stereo equipment. Technophile must have something to do with technology and high quality. Those who ask what it is can have it explained to them.
And the media-at-large could adopt the term fairly painlessly. (As in, "Hackers broke into X-corp's computers this afternoon, but local technophiles stepped in and saved the day!") On the other hand, I can't see the media adopting silly terms like "Code Poet" (See below. Many technophiles know little or nothing about code. Honestly, how did that get moderated to [2, Insightful]?) And the tems Nerd and Geek will likely never be tasteful to the general public.
For the sake of completeness and accuracy, I looked up audiophile: An enthusiast of high-fidelity sound reproduction. It seems to me that the term technophile can't lose the public opinion battle. And it sounds kind of classy; at least it sounds more professional/respectable and better suited than any of the other geekish terms I've heard.
Still offtopic like the rest of the thread...
on
Corel Linux FAQ
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· Score: 1
I have to agree here. top tells me enlightenment is using 2408k (-1616k shared = 792k unshared). Compare this to the gnome drivemount-applet at 3240k (-2312k shared = 928k unshared). What's up with that? That's almost a meg for a little icon I click to mount a drive!
FWIW, KDE isn't any easier on memory than GNOME. Both environments would benifit from a serious diet, IMHO.
The upside is that I don't really have to choose. I can have both on my system so that I can continue to tinker with GNOME/E and my wife can use KDE if that suits her. And if Enlightenment goes its own way, I can use it separately as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course it won't. Internet Explorer 6 will likely be released solely to implement new (proprietary) "extensions" to web formats. Of course they will claim that they did this because so many of their current users were begging for it. And, incidentally, the new extensions will cause competing products to core/GPF/whatever. Very typical indeed.
If it were halfway intelligent then it would not fall under the new category, of course. There is no reason that a 301st post couldn't be in the "First Post" category.
What the moderators need is an easy way to zero out the idiots, instead of moderating them.
I still think it's better to have them not displayed at all. This removes most of the motivation that these moronic first-posters have. There just needs to be an easy way to nuke them from public sight.
I suppose just deleting them would muck up the display order of comments.
They don't have to be deleted, just make sure that they are not displayed. No posting numbers have to be changed.
Suppose a new category, say, "First Post," were added. Any post so moderated would instantly get a score of -10 and would be stricken from even being displayed.
It could even be set up so that moderators wouldn't lose any points by moderating first posts, but I suppose that, in order to avoid abuse, such a scheme should require, perhaps, three moderators to agree.
Anyway, just an idea.
RC5: We know that there's an answer, and a probability theorist could even tell you how long it will take to find.
SETI: Even if you believe in E.T. (I don't), the particular data being examined by SETI seems of minimal real value in finding him.
GIMPS: We have every reason to believe that huge Mersenne primes exist beyond those already known, but we don't know. The only way to find them is by a brute force.
In this sense, I consider, the GIMPS project to be somewhat more serendipitous research -- more interesting. (Ok, "serendipitous" is the wrong word, since we are, in fact, looking for huge primes. But it's 3:45AM and I can't think of the right word.)
[By the way, there are only 38 known Mersenne primes and the most recently discovered is over 2 million digits long. If you like huge numbers, GIMPS is the project for you.]
One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them...
Does anyone know how to turn this thing off? It's incredibly obnoxious!
O come on! Didn't you ever fiddle with the config options just to see what they do? I don't know anyone who hasn't.
Anyway, Enlightenment Configuration Editor -> Behavior -> Miscellaneous -> Tooltips
Still, I suppose that an infinite number of monkeys pounding on an infinite number of computer keyboards might just do better than Windows. Now *that* I almost believe.
Before I learned C, != was just so much jibberish to me.
I do use 1600x1200, but at that res, I'd rather have a 21-inch.
I wonder why people such as yourself even bother to follow the link to the responses, much less post such vacuous drivel. If you don't care, then simply move on to another story which does interest you.
You seem to believe that the only way for open software to exist is to abolish proprietary software. I'm not sure where you are getting this idea.
If Stallman and other open software advocates are right, then open software should so outshine proprietary software technically and be developed so much faster that proprietary software doesn't stand a chance in the long run. So why the need to abolish what is doomed already?
Somehow, however, you believe that if proprietary software exists, then users will be denied access to open software. Why? If Corel wants to sell WordPerfect, what keeps the KDE developers from making KWord? Since it's open source, it *must* be technically superior, more feature rich, etc.
You would rather that the right of choice be abridged, than the right of ability to copy, modify, and redistribute. Fair enough, but why not keep *all* of these rights intact? If a developer makes proprietary software, this does not mean that open software isn't allowed to compete. On the contrary, open software should excel, if the advocates are to be believed.
Yes. Go on.
The lack of the freedom to enslave software does not mean the software isn't free.
Suppose for the sake of a very hypothetical argument that I took some free software, say FreeBSD, compiled the sources, and sold it under a different name, say, "FooBarUnix," with a very restrictive, commercialized license. (Please ignore any real world licensing issues I am creating in this example. It is an example of freedom, not of how any particular license works.)
Suppose further that some people actually buy this from me and agree to my license. Have I enslaved them? Or did they volunteer to be slaves of my license?
Regardless of the what I do to the code or the license, I have not "enslaved the software" because I don't own the source from which it came. Anyone can go to the source, or else choose to accept my terms. That's freedom.
The counter-argument is that people might not know where the source is and therefore would have no choice but to accept what I am offering. This argument, however, depends on people being ignorant. They, therefore, need the protection of a restrictive license which keeps them from volunteering for a different restrictive license. But in any case, it's not freedom.
And this is what Mr. Christiansen is saying. There is a difference between freedom and insisting that information remain open. Obligatorially open is not necessarily a bad thing, but it's not free in the full sense of freedom. Freedom is not: "You can do what you like as long as we approve."
That's what copyrights are, enslavement of code.
Perhaps. But any honest philosophy regarding freedom can't exclude the freedom of others. In this case, that particularly applies to others' freedom to copyright their own work and to give it to others under any contract that both parties will agree to. If the receiving individual does not like the contract, that person is free to seek a suitable solution elsewhere.
It certainly isn't nearly as horrible as enslaving a person
Very true. I don't think that restrictive software licenses compare at all well with human slavery, unless Africans were asked if they wanted to be slaves before being shipped to America.
My disclaimer in all of this is that I am an advocate of freedom, of open source, and even of the GPL. I really believe that the GPL is a good thing, but I don't think that it is everything, and it certainly doesn't engender my idea of freedom. Everything has its place, and the GPL's place isn't everywhere, unless GPL software is the best solution for everyone at all times.
In my ideal world, I have the freedom to choose the best solutions when I need them, even if the best solution is a commercial offering with restrictive licensing. I should have the freedom to choose that and not be bound by the GPL to wait for an open source alternative to become good enough. That's freedom.
I always love picking out exactly where someone's argument breaks down. When you say, "he no longer has the freedom to be taken as a slave," are you talking about his freedom or somebody else's freedom?
If the man wished to be a slave and was not allowed to be, would we not say that his freedom had been abridged?
"I wish to be a slave. That is what I chose."
"You can't do that: You are free."
"I am free to do whatever I want as long as it is what I don't want to do?"
"You don't want to be a slave. Now go and do as you like. You are free!"
So now I'm waiting for RMS to make his official war cry about how it should be called "GNU/BeOS."
> fashion computer probably ~=800-1,200. If it lasts 2 years for an average user, that's a pretty good value... Huh? Would you honestly buy a refrigerator for 800-1200 dollars if you were reasonably certain it would require complete replacement in 2 years? That's good value? Gosh! It is a brave new world.
Your possible assertion that these new Intel cases "look badass" is somewhat disturbing. I suppose it's true in the same way that Teletubbies look badass...
We should not fear the presence of commercial software, but rather revel in it as it gives Open Source the opportunity to prove how much better it is. We do believe that, don't we?
If a commercial vendor shows up with some restrictive license or policy, is it their fault that our choice is restricted? Or is it our fault because we chose to whine and complain about it rather than provide a better alternative for ourselves? Freedom goes both ways, and they are free to support you or to leave you behind, just as you are free to buy their product or to come up with an alternative.
We have the choice. The GPL ensures that we will always have the choice. That doesn't mean that freedom will be handed to us on a silver platter. MetroWerks has just as much right to support a single distro as we have to support them all. We shouldn't restrict their freedom by enforcing our notion of freedom.
Lately, it seems that the Open Source notion of freedom is that everyone should be free to do only what we think they should do. We need to lose that attitude quickly, and start competing on the basis of our technical and philosophical superiority. Does it make any sense that we preach freedom and procede to rant that everyone should be restricted to the GPL?
Wake up, people! Stop whining and get to work! I've seen the enemy and the enemy is us.
How is it that this slipped by and nobody noticed? Technophile must be the hands-down winner.
It has no existing negative connotation. In fact, people encountering the term for the first time will likely think back to the term audiophile and think: Hmmm. Audiophile had something to do with high quality stereo equipment. Technophile must have something to do with technology and high quality. Those who ask what it is can have it explained to them.
And the media-at-large could adopt the term fairly painlessly. (As in, "Hackers broke into X-corp's computers this afternoon, but local technophiles stepped in and saved the day!") On the other hand, I can't see the media adopting silly terms like "Code Poet" (See below. Many technophiles know little or nothing about code. Honestly, how did that get moderated to [2, Insightful]?) And the tems Nerd and Geek will likely never be tasteful to the general public.
For the sake of completeness and accuracy, I looked up audiophile: An enthusiast of high-fidelity sound reproduction. It seems to me that the term technophile can't lose the public opinion battle. And it sounds kind of classy; at least it sounds more professional/respectable and better suited than any of the other geekish terms I've heard.
For the record: RH-6 comes with ghostscript 5.10.
I have to agree here. top tells me enlightenment is using 2408k (-1616k shared = 792k unshared). Compare this to the gnome drivemount-applet at 3240k (-2312k shared = 928k unshared). What's up with that? That's almost a meg for a little icon I click to mount a drive!
FWIW, KDE isn't any easier on memory than GNOME. Both environments would benifit from a serious diet, IMHO.
The upside is that I don't really have to choose. I can have both on my system so that I can continue to tinker with GNOME/E and my wife can use KDE if that suits her. And if Enlightenment goes its own way, I can use it separately as well.