I disagree with your interpretation, specifically "that is: it must be supplied together with the binaries at the same time. If the software is distributed without source, then it is in violation of the license agreement." I disagree because of the written offer, which doesn't specify a timeline...
My comment referred to (a), but it is applicable to all three options. All begin with "Accompany it...", which meanscome together with, so either the source, or a written offer of the source must be bundled with the binaries at the time of distribution.
Earlier comments have stated that (at least at first), the software/product/binaries were distributed without complying with any of (a), (b), or (c), and so violated the GNUGPL.
3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:
a) Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
b) Accompany it...
(quoted from parent comment, with added emphasis)
My interpretation of this is that the source (or written offer as per (b)) must accompany the distribution, that is: it must be supplied together with the binaries at the same time. If the software is distributed without source, then it is in violation of the license agreement.
If this is not clear in the license, then a future version should try to more precisely define the meaning, but I would hope this point could be easily argued and won, should it arise.
I just asked ten of my friends, colleagues, and associates whose opinions I respect. Of those I asked, some are Unix users/experts, some are Windows administrators, some are systems retailers, and some are hardcore gamers. Every one of them recommended Seagate. Most also said that Fujitsu and IBM are reliable.
I agree that anecdotal evidence should not always be taken at face value or regarded as the only true source of information, but if several persons post their experiences here and there is general consenus as to which are best and worst, then surely it should be given some credence (at least more than web polls!). I would also pay particular attention to the experience of retailers, who have to deal with many warranties on faulty units -- they know which drives break down more.
The fact is, however, that all manufacturers are likely to produce an odd bad disk, so the warranty length and support provided by the manufacturer and/or retailer should also be taken into consideration.
Of course, it's still important to backup your important data, regardless of how reliable you perceive your disks to be.
I don't know of any such resource, but there's surely sufficient users here to form an idea of what to buy and what not to, just from their experiences.
Only last week I was agreeing with fellow LinuxSA members that Seagate, Fujitsu, and IBM drives are reliable, and Maxtor and Western Digital drives are not. The last-mentioned brands seem far more likely to seize or develop bad clusters after a few years of use.
I also does not seem coincidental that larger reputable companies seem to sell those drives perceived to be reliable and smaller "iffier" companies (such as those marketing only on cost) seem to sell those drives perceived to be unreliable.
I finally managed to get to the Red Hat Network site, where it is described like this:
Red Hat Network is an Internet solution for managing one or more Red Hat Linux systems. All Security Alerts, Bug Fix Alerts, and Enhancement Alerts (collectively known as Errata Alerts) can be retreived directly from Red Hat. You can even have updates automatically delivered directly to your system as soon as they are released.
So this service does not actually offer the ability to upgrade to the next Red Hat Linux version; it only offers patches for your current version.
Does this mean Red Hat still has no upgrade facility other than rebooting the server and booting from the install media? If so, then despite the RHN being a useful service, it seems that Red Hat still doesn't provide the functionality I want.
If I could do a live minor upgrade (such as 7.1 -> 7.2) of a Red Hat system it would definately be a step in the right direction.
I also wonder how a major upgrade (such as 6.2 -> 7.2) could be made smoother, considering the substantial changes between major versions.
The Red Hat Network is a good start, but some more tools are needed to ensure that upgrades are easier to perform, and are more likely to succeed.
It's unfortunate that Red Hat has not offered this service sooner. I moved my home systems to FreeBSD only last week as it's much easier to upgrade to the latest release version (or even to the latest CVS version) or to get a package of a recently-released application. Similar benefits can be obtained from Debian GNU/Linux as well. Both can be upgraded at no cost.
From my experience of Red Hat, even if I did want to upgrade to a more recent version of Red Hat Linux, I wouldn't trust it to an automated system. I upgraded a Red Hat 6 production server to Red Hat 7 last year, and so many things broke I was quite disappointed.
I guess this service will be useful for those home users who want to automatically pull down the latest security patches, tho.
(For those who don't know, the quote is from Red Dwarf, a British comedy.)
This is a new standard designed to eliminate confusion, particularly as the discrepancy between powers of 2 and powers of 10 becomes very large when dealing with today's storage sizes (such as terabytes), and ensure that kilo and mega mean what they have traditionally done in science and every day life rather than the unofficial twisted computing adaptations.
MINOR CORRECTION: Others have claimed that MiB is a symbol/abbreviation of mibibyte. It's acutally mebibyte. The binary names always use the first two letters (first syllable) of the SI prefix.
...the people on slashdot are politically apathetic...
Isn't it interesting that the majority of sentiment expressed here is in favor of more strict remedies, yet the majority of eligible voters here chose Bush who has presided over (and probably influenced) the effective withdrawl of severe remedy against Microsoft?
It seems that Slashdot readers really are apathetic on IT politics.
I'm not trying to stick up for Netscape, but their browser development did begin to go downhill when Microsoft started giving away Internet Explorer. Netscape found it had to give away its Navigator browser to compete with Microsoft's free offering, resulting in reduced revenues, and thus the inability to afford as many engineers.
I expect this will be one of the points AOL will argue.
Most of these sites have English versions, but there's not always the same level of detail. If you can stand its translations, it might be worthwhile firing up Babelfish or a similar translation service.
Re:get your terms correct
on
CPU Wars
·
· Score: 1
I dislike the current installer. Not because it is text-based, but because the existing text is not optimal.
Many dialog boxes I have seen do not have a clear objective: you need to read thru the entire text of the dialog box before you understand what your options are. The dialog boxes really should have a clear question as a heading, then a paragraph explaining which option you might choose, then buttons allowing you to select an option.
The current installer has a distinct feel that the text for each section was written by a different person. For a distribution that has the most stringent standards on most other topics (keybindings, file hierarchy, and so on), the installer should have clearer guidelines.
propreitary software rules, but it is well within the budget of the average peasant...
In this situation, the basic freedom to access and modify source code is lost. This means we still do not have direct influence on new features or bug fixes, and still can't get our printer to work, which I believe is one of the motivations of free software.
The whole point, or bottom line, of freedom is that it works. Free soceities are rich, effective soceities. Libertarians sometimes forget this, thinking that freedom is the bottom line. It isn't, material welfare is.
Unfortunately many "free" societies also undervalue those who work for free or perform volunteer work. George W. Bush has been heard saying "get a real job" to those who are not paid to work. We need to change the view that giving your efforts to free software is somehow "un-American" or "communist" (which has negative connotations).
Re:I need this like I need colonic irrigation
on
Galeon 1.0 Released
·
· Score: 1
OVERDONE WEB PAGES:
I agree with your point. I always advocate simplistic, standards-compliant web pages (after all HTML is about content, not appearance!). To see how dependent recent web pages are on plugins, one only needs to spend a few minutes browsing with a vanilla Mozilla build.:-(
NETSCAPE ON IRIX:
Have you tried Mozilla for IRIX? Mozilla itself is somewhat bloated IMHO, but it is becoming quite stable and should easily run on the Indigo box you mention. Have a look at SGI Freeware for an inst package.
A DECENT BROWSER ON IRIX:
Maybe it's worth seeing whether Galeon will build on IRIX. (I expect this will require some work, as recent GNOME libraries don't seem to be readily available on IRIX.)
Whilst there are all sorts of risks involved with online use and tampering with the smart card readers, most of the smart cards released here in Australia don't even have a PIN or signature protection: you just press OK/ENTER. If these cards are combined with a credit card, then presumably there will at least be a signature on the back, but this also is not a guarantee (how many times does the sales clerk actually check your signature when purchasing a 5 $ item?).
To provide at least basic protection, the use of these smart cards must require entry of some code such as a PIN.
It's nice to see some card companies finally moving towards smart cards in the hope that one day we may not need to carry cash.
The two major offerings are currently Visa's smart Visa and American Express's Blue. At this stage, it seems that MasterCard does not have a combined smart card/credit card.
There have also been various smart card only cards including MasterCard's Mondex and Visa's Visa Cash, but neither of these seems to have gained wide acceptance, despite being backed (however weakly) by the major credit card companies. Let's hope these new combined cards don't suffer the same fate.
I think they may have a right to charge you the 6 cents if you use their service. Yes, they may have obtained the data from us and under false pretenses too, but they are now charging for the service or at least so they claim.
If Google suddenly started charging one cent per search, it would be a charge for the search service, not for the billion web-pages which aren't really Google's property!
Maybe, but without user submissions, Gracenote would have no data. How could Google charge for a search service if it didn't have any web pages to search?
Slashdot Mirror
I disagree with your interpretation, specifically "that is: it must be supplied together with the binaries at the same time. If the software is distributed without source, then it is in violation of the license agreement." I disagree because of the written offer, which doesn't specify a timeline...
My comment referred to (a), but it is applicable to all three options. All begin with "Accompany it...", which means come together with, so either the source, or a written offer of the source must be bundled with the binaries at the time of distribution.
Earlier comments have stated that (at least at first), the software/product/binaries were distributed without complying with any of (a), (b), or (c), and so violated the GNU GPL.
(quoted from parent comment, with added emphasis)
My interpretation of this is that the source (or written offer as per (b)) must accompany the distribution, that is: it must be supplied together with the binaries at the same time. If the software is distributed without source, then it is in violation of the license agreement.
If this is not clear in the license, then a future version should try to more precisely define the meaning, but I would hope this point could be easily argued and won, should it arise.
IANAL
I just asked ten of my friends, colleagues, and associates whose opinions I respect. Of those I asked, some are Unix users/experts, some are Windows administrators, some are systems retailers, and some are hardcore gamers. Every one of them recommended Seagate. Most also said that Fujitsu and IBM are reliable.
I agree that anecdotal evidence should not always be taken at face value or regarded as the only true source of information, but if several persons post their experiences here and there is general consenus as to which are best and worst, then surely it should be given some credence (at least more than web polls!). I would also pay particular attention to the experience of retailers, who have to deal with many warranties on faulty units -- they know which drives break down more.
The fact is, however, that all manufacturers are likely to produce an odd bad disk, so the warranty length and support provided by the manufacturer and/or retailer should also be taken into consideration.
Of course, it's still important to backup your important data, regardless of how reliable you perceive your disks to be.
I don't know of any such resource, but there's surely sufficient users here to form an idea of what to buy and what not to, just from their experiences.
Only last week I was agreeing with fellow LinuxSA members that Seagate, Fujitsu, and IBM drives are reliable, and Maxtor and Western Digital drives are not. The last-mentioned brands seem far more likely to seize or develop bad clusters after a few years of use.
I also does not seem coincidental that larger reputable companies seem to sell those drives perceived to be reliable and smaller "iffier" companies (such as those marketing only on cost) seem to sell those drives perceived to be unreliable.
I finally managed to get to the Red Hat Network site, where it is described like this:
Red Hat Network is an Internet solution for managing one or more Red Hat Linux systems. All Security Alerts, Bug Fix Alerts, and Enhancement Alerts (collectively known as Errata Alerts) can be retreived directly from Red Hat. You can even have updates automatically delivered directly to your system as soon as they are released.
So this service does not actually offer the ability to upgrade to the next Red Hat Linux version; it only offers patches for your current version.
Does this mean Red Hat still has no upgrade facility other than rebooting the server and booting from the install media? If so, then despite the RHN being a useful service, it seems that Red Hat still doesn't provide the functionality I want.
If I could do a live minor upgrade (such as 7.1 -> 7.2) of a Red Hat system it would definately be a step in the right direction.
I also wonder how a major upgrade (such as 6.2 -> 7.2) could be made smoother, considering the substantial changes between major versions.
The Red Hat Network is a good start, but some more tools are needed to ensure that upgrades are easier to perform, and are more likely to succeed.
It's unfortunate that Red Hat has not offered this service sooner. I moved my home systems to FreeBSD only last week as it's much easier to upgrade to the latest release version (or even to the latest CVS version) or to get a package of a recently-released application. Similar benefits can be obtained from Debian GNU/Linux as well. Both can be upgraded at no cost.
From my experience of Red Hat, even if I did want to upgrade to a more recent version of Red Hat Linux, I wouldn't trust it to an automated system. I upgraded a Red Hat 6 production server to Red Hat 7 last year, and so many things broke I was quite disappointed.
I guess this service will be useful for those home users who want to automatically pull down the latest security patches, tho.
(For those who don't know, the quote is from Red Dwarf, a British comedy.)
KB = kilobyte = 10^3 bytes = 1000 bytes
MB = megabyte = 10^6 bytes = 1000000 bytes
KiB = kibibyte = 2^10 bytes = 1024 bytes
MiB = mebibyte = 2^20 bytes = 1048576 bytes
This is a new standard designed to eliminate confusion, particularly as the discrepancy between powers of 2 and powers of 10 becomes very large when dealing with today's storage sizes (such as terabytes), and ensure that kilo and mega mean what they have traditionally done in science and every day life rather than the unofficial twisted computing adaptations.
MINOR CORRECTION: Others have claimed that MiB is a symbol/abbreviation of mibibyte. It's acutally mebibyte. The binary names always use the first two letters (first syllable) of the SI prefix.
...the people on slashdot are politically apathetic...
Isn't it interesting that the majority of sentiment expressed here is in favor of more strict remedies, yet the majority of eligible voters here chose Bush who has presided over (and probably influenced) the effective withdrawl of severe remedy against Microsoft?
It seems that Slashdot readers really are apathetic on IT politics.
I'm not trying to stick up for Netscape, but their browser development did begin to go downhill when Microsoft started giving away Internet Explorer. Netscape found it had to give away its Navigator browser to compete with Microsoft's free offering, resulting in reduced revenues, and thus the inability to afford as many engineers.
I expect this will be one of the points AOL will argue.
What I want to know is: who are the politicians making all of these progressive decisions
The German Government is a coalition between the Social Democratic Party and the Green Alliance.
On the Bundesministerium Wirtschaft und Technologie's (Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology's) site you can see more about who makes up the ministry. The BMWi's site also carries more information about this story.
Heise is a leading German news source. You'll find more information about similar technology news there.
The German CIA fact file has some more background about Germany.
Most of these sites have English versions, but there's not always the same level of detail. If you can stand its translations, it might be worthwhile firing up Babelfish or a similar translation service.
Sorry, the symbol's m.
0.13-micron...
The term micron has been deprecated for over 20 years. The correct term for millionth of a meter is micrometer, symbol .
I dislike the current installer. Not because it is text-based, but because the existing text is not optimal.
Many dialog boxes I have seen do not have a clear objective: you need to read thru the entire text of the dialog box before you understand what your options are. The dialog boxes really should have a clear question as a heading, then a paragraph explaining which option you might choose, then buttons allowing you to select an option.
The current installer has a distinct feel that the text for each section was written by a different person. For a distribution that has the most stringent standards on most other topics (keybindings, file hierarchy, and so on), the installer should have clearer guidelines.
(Most of my experience is with potato.)
propreitary software rules, but it is well within the budget of the average peasant...
In this situation, the basic freedom to access and modify source code is lost. This means we still do not have direct influence on new features or bug fixes, and still can't get our printer to work, which I believe is one of the motivations of free software.
The whole point, or bottom line, of freedom is that it works. Free soceities are rich, effective soceities. Libertarians sometimes forget this, thinking that freedom is the bottom line. It isn't, material welfare is.
Unfortunately many "free" societies also undervalue those who work for free or perform volunteer work. George W. Bush has been heard saying "get a real job" to those who are not paid to work. We need to change the view that giving your efforts to free software is somehow "un-American" or "communist" (which has negative connotations).
OVERDONE WEB PAGES: :-(
I agree with your point. I always advocate simplistic, standards-compliant web pages (after all HTML is about content, not appearance!). To see how dependent recent web pages are on plugins, one only needs to spend a few minutes browsing with a vanilla Mozilla build.
NETSCAPE ON IRIX:
Have you tried Mozilla for IRIX? Mozilla itself is somewhat bloated IMHO, but it is becoming quite stable and should easily run on the Indigo box you mention. Have a look at SGI Freeware for an inst package.
A DECENT BROWSER ON IRIX:
Maybe it's worth seeing whether Galeon will build on IRIX. (I expect this will require some work, as recent GNOME libraries don't seem to be readily available on IRIX.)
Whilst there are all sorts of risks involved with online use and tampering with the smart card readers, most of the smart cards released here in Australia don't even have a PIN or signature protection: you just press OK/ENTER. If these cards are combined with a credit card, then presumably there will at least be a signature on the back, but this also is not a guarantee (how many times does the sales clerk actually check your signature when purchasing a 5 $ item?).
To provide at least basic protection, the use of these smart cards must require entry of some code such as a PIN.
It's nice to see some card companies finally moving towards smart cards in the hope that one day we may not need to carry cash.
The two major offerings are currently Visa's smart Visa and American Express's Blue. At this stage, it seems that MasterCard does not have a combined smart card/credit card.
There have also been various smart card only cards including MasterCard's Mondex and Visa's Visa Cash, but neither of these seems to have gained wide acceptance, despite being backed (however weakly) by the major credit card companies. Let's hope these new combined cards don't suffer the same fate.
Maybe, but without user submissions, Gracenote would have no data. How could Google charge for a search service if it didn't have any web pages to search?