What I ment was that the Blaster incident was probably the last nail in their coffin - maybe they finally had enough and decided to take security a little bit more seriously from now on. That would explain the delay.
...and after that, the tiger will change his stripes and George W. Bush will stop telling lies.
Come on, lets get real. You can't secure something as dreadfully wide-open as Windows with a Service Pack. If they say they can, thats just a lie. If they THINK they can, then they should consult a psychiatrist about their tenuous grip on reality.
A project that complex has to be built against a secure design from the drawing board forward. You can't just decide, deployment +18 months later that you're going to now change the software to make it secure. Hey MS has known about this hole for a while (the Slashdot story was, what, two months ago?) and only patched it last month.
It is also possible they want to synchronize the release of "secure" windows XP with the sunset of Windows 2000 to encourage people to upgrade. I'll say this, that MS will be seen for what they are if this turns out to really be the strategy. IT Managers who have struggled against MS worms, virii, and trojans for years will now see that secure Windows was only released to coincide with him forking over thousands of dollars to "upgrade" to a product with features that should have been in (because they were advertised as being there) 1.0. I refer to the ability to plug it into a network without becoming an instant DDoS zombie.
1. Get your wallet out. 2. Check for an Electrician's license/certificate. 3. If you find one, hand it in for lacking the skill to do this without an ASK SLASHDOT. 4. If you don't, take all your money and buy a big insurance policy so your wife can have the financial security to wait and next time marry somebody smart enough to not try something like this, after you get electrocuted and die trying this crap.
My own, admitedly limited experience says that a Mac really does need less support. We had about 50/50 macs & pcs at my educational publisher employer several years ago. We had four PC support specialists and one Mac guy (me) who also admined the groupwise, firewall, db, and web servers. The # of Mac tickets was REAL low, so my job was really interesting--80% server, 15% mac desktop, 5% firewall, vpn, etc.
What do you think we did? Went to 70/30 Windows to mac ratio, added two more people and eliminated Groupwise (a godsend if you've ever been stuck with any version of exchange) in favor of... Exchange. Ugly. Ugly Ugly. We were in the office for two straight days to implement the whole mess. My job became a nightmare of updating Windows security holes opened by Outlook and fighting the exchange server's constant memory leaks.
Predictably, the number of PC tickets went through the roof. So a bigger budget was needed for the IT department, more employees, more prestige for VP of IT as his head-count, budget, and value to the company went up. Just a cluster-fuck for users and support staff. I left a month later for a job supporting heavy duty hospital software and its database/EDI functions for a nice raise.
...But why doesn't he just upgrade to RH9 for his Oracle app and run another distro for the other stuff? Certainly, many data centers carry a variety of OS on their servers... Even in our (mostly) Windows back room, we have a couple Solaris machines and a couple Linux boxes and everything works out just fine. (Except for the Windows stuff which present constant niggling, unexplained/undocumented problems. Exchange server? What a nightmare. Thank god it isn't the actual external mail server or the real relay.)
Anyway, this is a bummer, because I certainly do appreciate what RedHat has done for the comunity. I know MY first box ran RedHat. It is too bad the prices are so high, but if you run a business critical app, it is almost neccessary to have 24x7 support available. Even though you'll use it two or three times in your whole life, when you need it, your ass will be saved. I've called MS support one time and only did so after a lot of work...But finally, we had no choice. It was get the thing up or we're out of business. OK...We'll call Microsoft. They did suggest a lot of things we had already tried, but ultimately did help us. We had to pay something like $300 for the call, in addition to our enormous annual Microsofft budget, but we got it running.
My urge is to move everything to something else, but our CIO lives in the dark ages and won't listen to any suggestions that aren't Windows...Our two linux boxes function as load balancers for...IIS. They exist because our Win NT 4.0 balancers were choking and we didn't want to spend $25,000 on new Windows hardware to cover the same task. I weep because I know that the two balancers would serve the site better than the six win2k boxes which do the same job now. The Sun boxes were installed with the phone system. Same weekend, we put the Exchange 5.5 server in. You can guess which has gone down more times since.
Right now it is Exchange seven crashes, Sun ZERO. Not even a reboot in the last 12 months! And the last one was because of a wide-scale, longterm power failure that outlasted our UPS and generation capability.
I do not believe this is the right way to approach the issue. Let them work this ugly legalese - in courts. How are we any different from Microsoft, if we happen to "exclude" some support from projects because we do not like the receipient? I do not say "let's all develop code for SCO support", but please do not remove any *existing* code.
Removing SCO support is the right move, and here is why...
Free software is about community. SCO is attempting to destroy that community. Why should community authors help SCO sell their wares and fund the holy war against, essentially, themselves? If supporting an antique operating system in your open-source code perpetuates this lawsuit for even one more day, why should I be required to do it? If I owned any copyrights to code that would be detrimental to SCO if withdrawn, you bet your ass I would consider it. Or at the least, I'd ponder a patch to remove SCO support while maintaining functionality for everybody else. Yes, I know its OSS, and they can download the code, but there's an expense involved for SCO there, too, since developers need to pay mortgages and food bills too.
Yes, it would probably be considered punitive, but as an author I am under no requirement to permanently support every stupid operating system for my software. Crap, does SCO even matter anymore outside of their lawsuit against IBM? I don't really think so.
Clear Channel, Fox, et al are making money precisely because the public voluntarily chooses their programming.
Sorry, but that is irrelevant. The FCC has ruled time and again that "People are watching/listening" is not a valid excuse for broadcasting things that aren't in the public's interest. Traditionally, the FCC has interpreted this as meaning "the public's BEST interest", while most broadcasters these days define it as "What catches the public's eye/interest."
A good example of this conflict of semantics was the On-TV debacle in Chicago during the 80's. On-TV was a pay-television service that illegally scrambled the signal of a commercial UHF tv station to provide a commercial free movie channel. The company's argument was that their 50,000 subscribers proved there was public interest in pay-tv. The FCC said, "Uh, no, it has to actually be in the public's interest, not just your own financial interest" and yanked their license. This is the last time the FCC used license forfeiture that I know about... If you know of other, more recent examples please share with the class.
The thing about this is that Fox actually approved/funded/aired these shows in the first place. Fox is far from perfect, I'm no fanboy, but the other big networks don't tolerate stuff like Family Guy and Futurama.
Fox certainly is willing to take risks other networks don't... That is how it works if you want people to watch your fourth banana network. Imagine how hard it is to get good shows if you're a fifth or sixth banana, like UPN/WB are? However, part of taking risks is knowing that you sometimes have to STICK WITH IT for a while, and not just by not cancelling it.
Fox stuck with the show through four years of poor ratings, and with Family Guy through three years or so of dismal ratings.
Fox did more to sabotage that show than they did to help it. (Many television networks are guilty of this, not just Fox. See also "Ed" on NBC.) First, they changed timeslots over and over and over again so that even people who already KNEW the show was good never knew when to tune in. Frequent timeslot changes had more to do with Family Guy not finding a big audience in first run. The show should be on where "Malcolm in the Middle" is now, and Malcolm should be slinging shakes at Mc Donald's.
Contrast this with Cartoon Network, where Family Guy beat Jay Leno AND David Letterman COMBINED in the 18-34 demographic several evenings in July. How did this happen? They picked a good time, put it on, left it there, and promoted it. Amazingly enough people watch.
This is both extraordinary and revolutionary... [/sarcasm]
At least now they'll have thirty more minutes available for more lowbrow, idiot level programming... Good thing. People might start to think that the networks were actually trying to provide good entertainment in exchange for all of that publicly owned broadcast spectrum they've been granted exclusive use of for the last 75 or so years. Maybe it is time to take that spectrum back?
After all, those licenses were granted to provide a broadcast service "in the public interest", but when was the last time you saw something on TV that wasn't crap? You could even argue that the majority of commercial broadcasting actually makes people more stupid. That can't POSSIBLY be in the public's interest.
PBS has some good stuff, maybe History Channel, but what else? Along the same lines, when was the last time you heard a radio program (besides NPR) that wasn't the same recycled viagra jokes/top 40 playlist as every other station on the dial? Granted, Clear Channel is making plenty of money, but what about the public, the people the broadcaster's were entrusted to serve?
The EU wants Microsoft to disclose more code to its competitors, to allow them to make sure their systems can work together with Microsoft's rather than being disadvantaged by Microsoft's dominant market position.
If the EU can get them to release code affecting interoperability with other OS (like their CIFS implementation) it would be a boon to Samba and linux fans everywhere. Or if they had to publish their MAPI protocol it would be a big boost for projects like Open Groupware.
Strengthening either of these projects creates opportunities for enterprises to switch to other back-of-the-house technology without violently uprooting their desktop users (just yet...)
I have one friend that is a manager at a Warehouse music, the other worked at Sam Goody's. The Sam Goody's closed down, after 6 years of doing awesome business, three years ago sales slowed to a crawl.
Nobody shops at the Sam Goody store near me either. Maybe it is because they don't have a single CD priced under $17.99. Maybe their outrageous prices had something to do with their demise, rather than the "pirates"?
I can tell you honestly that I would never set foor in another Sam Goody as long as I live based on my last experience... I walked in looking for the new Jayhawks record, found it priced at $29.99 and laughed my ass off as I walked out for the last time and headed over to the punk rock record shop down the street.
Somehow, an entreprenuer with pink hair and a mohawk manages to sell RIAA label releases for less than Sam Goody despite paying higher prices at wholesale for the same merchandise.
Re:What about people who don't live in the US?
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The RIAA's Hit List Named
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· Score: 5, Insightful
I live in the UK, can these lawsuits be filed over here from the RIAA?
Well... Since the last "A" in RIAA stands for America, you probably wouldn't get sued by the RIAA. But I wouldn't put it past an internationally focused recording industry group to try legal maneuvers in other countries to establish a precedent similar to the "Verizon" one here.
OO.org is SO slashdotted right now, it isn't even funny... As such, I have no way of finding out the answer to my question:
Does the OS X version make use of the groovy "Aqua" gui yet, or is it still kludged on top of X for OS X? That's the barrier to getting mass testing/deployment on the Macinotsh... There certainly is no love lost between Mac users and Redmond.
I could easily see the "De facto" format for document distribution becoming the PDF... Originally, that would have been ineffecient (due to people using modems for internet connectivity,) but now, especially as bandwidth available to users goes up over time with increased availability of cable/dsl/dedicated T1... After a while it won't matter how HUGE long PDF files can bceome.
Windows users can make PDFs for free, right now, thanks to this program. (Or you can pay $10 and not see pop-up ads when you launch the program.) I don't see why anybody wouldn't start doing it, as sort of a one man protest.
All modern versions of Windows have the "Run As..." command whereby you can start a process as if you were logged in as any other given user. This includes doing things like starting a Control Panel applet or CD Burning program as Administrator or running an installation program as a Power User.
"Run As" is a half-assed implementation of the concept of the sudo command. It only works with executables (so if you need to, say, run a batch file with elevated priveleges, forget it) and some installers I've tried using it with simply puke and tell you that your priveleges are insufficient.
Granted, this could be a coding defficiency on the part of the software's authors, or simply "growing pains" from the idea of RunAs being so new (to Windows, anyway) but it needs to be, well, more "sudo"ey... If that is a real word.
I know enough to know that you are just an idiot if you can't uninstall software. Don't blame a company for your own problems.
Interesting that you accuse me of an inability to read later in this post, yet you seem to suffer from the same affliction. The problem has nothing to do with me being unable to follow directions... The uninstall simply failed. How is that my fault? Software is imperfect. There are bugs. For you to assume this failure to be my fault illustrates your total lack of professional, real-world experience.
guess Gator only has fake employees, perhaps blow up dolls that produce the products and sell the advertisement.
My point was to weigh the benefit we get as a society from Gator against the benefit we get from the companies who are affected.
If your girlfriend is too blind to nto realize she is installing software on your computer, perhaps you should look into setting some security up to prevent it.
Thanks, already did. Mentioning her wasn't really an invitation to get condescending advice, but to illustrate how people who don't want Gator can end up having their machines hijacked... (In my case, she heard about kazaa, and wanted to check out P2P... After I figured out what she was trying to do I showed her Kazaa Lite...)
Me, I'm one of these crazy people who thinks what he looks at on the web is his own business... I want to be in as few databases as possible out there. Maybe privacy means nothing to you? Don't really understand...
Anyway, thanks for the advice. Good luck with whatever you're into.
Than I can say with absolute certainty that you are just an idiot. Gator and GAIN uninstallation is painfully simple. [gatoradver...etwork.com] Don't blame Gator because you are too simply too dumb to read their FAQ and follow a simple Remove Programs step.
...And I would say you are naive. The version of Gator I got infected with did not fully uninstall, even when following the "procedure" from their web-site. Do you claim total knowledge of all version of Gator throughout the universe? No, it wasn't the "newest version"--My girlfriend infected my machine about a year and a half ago... wouldn't surprise me if they've changed their code since then.
Insulting me != A real argument.
Uhm, you do realize how many software products are supported by Gator? Including Kazaa?
Doesn't really matter how many people are employed by the company that creates the scumware, their actions still steal advertising space on other peoples' web-sites. All the advertisers whose ads are being overlaid are enduring real damages--as are the sites being targeted.
It is interesting to me how much effort and time you put into insulting me, and how little you spent addressing the real meat of the issue--the real harm Gator does to real businesses that employ real employees.
Is keeping a handful of marginally talented coders employed more important than the long-term health of small (and not so small) businesses that employ potentially thousands of people, all of whom contribute far more to the economy than a handful of dorks who buy Boxsters, iPods, and Blackberry cell phones?
Stop making excuses for people who just blindly click through several installation screens telling them what's going on.
Can I translate? "Stop sticking up for the people who buy rust-proofing and $500 floor-mats, they're paying my mortgage..." Just because somebody is stupid enough to use Gator doesn't justify it.
As I have illustrated, you can end up with gator crapware installed on your computer through no action of your own... Is it my fault for dating a non-techie? Okay... Got me on that one.
I'm sorry for your friends who work for Gator. I sincerely hope they learn some better skills and apply them at a different business before a court comes to its senses and hits Gator with a big judgement and they go tits up. Unemployment is a bitch... Their situation is unfortunate, but forseeable.
The real issue isn't that stupid people don't read wizards, because thats exactly what scumware takes advantage of, and it isn't how stupid they are (or I am, for that matter) either, because we've known that for a longtime. It bores me to see you wave around how smart you are--good for you, numbnuts. But most of the people who use the software you create ARE NOT EXPERTS. Most people "just click next" because that is all they ahve the confidence to do. Changing defaults fucked up their installation of some obscure software three years ago, so now they NEVER change the defaults int he wizard. Again, a layer of jaded disconnect that scumware authors take advantage of.
Please address the real issues: The companies whose ads are being "overlaid"--how is it fair competition for Yahoo! to have the expense of creating the content, running the site, buying the hardware and bandwidth, AND selling ads while Gator only hasto pay the expense of writing some scumware to put their ads over the top of Yahoo.
Why don't you let people do what they want with their own computers?
This phrase is a red-herring designed to identify me as a "crazy"... I have no objection to people putting whatever they want on their computer... My beef is with the software's creator. Yes, only the uneducated install scumware... But we already know your average internet user (especially at AOL.com) will respond positively to an email claiming to be from
So, if you have a seperate window on top of your browser that covers an advert it's wrong? Gator doesn't replace anything, so you are just buying into the FUD.
...Except that isn't what it does. The "license agreement" you click through clearly says ads will be in a seperate window. People (myself included) define these as "pop-ups" that have their own borders and window controls. But their software does something different.
Their software preys on people who don't understand that a window doesn't neccessarily have to have a border and the familiar "windows blue bar" across the top. Therein lies the deception. (Or, at best, the scummy abuse of the common perception of what a "window" is.)
Also, your entire argument seems to be based on "people are allowed to install what they want on their computer." Your argument is totally irrelevant, because nobody is accusing the endusers of anything.
The companies paying for the ads are being damaged, but so are the people that do business with the sites whose ads are "overlaid." Since advertising is used to drive traffic and sales of goods and services, overlaying their ads takes away real sales. So the company must either post more ads to generate the same sales, or raise prices on goods to compensate for lesser sales.
So, the list of people harmed by Gator is as follows:
1) People who buy things on-line (through higher prices). 2) Companies who sell things on-line (through increased ad costs to achieve the same sales). 3) People who advertise through Gator, since they know the threat presented by Gator, and how easy it would be for Gator to "overlay" their ads if they were placed through a different advertiser. 4) Anybody who uses a computer on the net, since the success of scumware like Gator leads other people to write new, "better" scumware. The uproar and lawsuits just encourage them to make their software even more blatantly a "torpedo-install."
So far, the list of people who benefit from Gator is pretty short:
1) Gator itself.
Companies like Gator and WhereU.com are leeches. They exist not to create any innovative products or services for anybody, but only to siphon profits away from companies doing actual business. In the real (non-virtual) world, these people run protection schemes, gambling books, and hijack trucks, and are referred to by the name "mafia." Wonder if Gator's salespeople call on companies that they most often "overlay." Gee, wouldn't that be a huge coincidence...
Gator advertises exactly what they do.
No, they don't... They rely on people interpreting their use of the term "seperate window" incorrectly to get access to their machines.
Users install Gator to get software for free.
I don't see where anybody has proven that. Most of the people I know with Gator on their machine want to know how to make it go away... This is also a deceptive lie, since the only "free software" you get from Gator is Gator itself.
If disallowing popup advertisements from an application happens, the browser also must be at the front and no client-side software can modify the actual presentation of that web-browser.
No. Dis-allowing deceptive advertising practices harms only Gator (and their "competitors") and benefits everybody. It in no way means "no more non-browser apps" or "no-plugins", it means no deceptive advertising.
I think if you TRULY explained what Gator did to the people who have it installed, most would want it removed. Of course, uninstalling Gator can be a difficult, if not impossible task. I ended up re-installing Windows after my machine was accidentally infected with Gator. Ads just kept popping up, even after I removed it... "What a coincidence... Zero pop-ups ever, then millions after I uninstall the torpedo-ware."
Purity of sport and competition
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Sports Technology?
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· Score: 4, Funny
When I think of sport, I think of the guys who got it hard, like those kenyan's who run, with nothing but a pair of shoes.
Yeah. I'm always impressed when I hear about kids in Central America playing baseball naked, barehanded (regulation hard ball) because they can't afford a real glove and only own one change of clothes (if that), and don't want to wreck them.
Lets face it... You are a true gamer if you play at 100% when you're totally naked. (Think sliding without pants on... OUCH! That's dedication...) This is probably off-topic, but this type of dedication you don't see in most professionals who have every technical, financial, and medical advantage (not to mention clothes to protect their bodies when sliding.)
Technology is great, but you have to remember why you play the game (or run the race, or whatever) otherwise it is all pointless. Look how spoiled, whiny, and decadent most pro ballers are these days... Think any of them really remember what its all about?
Indiana Jones will be using such popular consumer products as Geritol, Fix-a-Dent, Ben Gay, and Preperation H. The people representing those "Rascal" mobility scooters didn't put up enough cash to get into the movie.... Just as well, as the pace would be pretty slow with Harrison Ford buzzing along at a brisk 2 mph on one of those electric scooters.
I said this elsewhere, but what if he were able to afford to pay $180 mil instead of just $500/month. Would Dish and DirectTV deserve that large amount when they didn't actually lose anything? I don't think so.
...He would have had a better lawyer with that much in the bank, and would have gotten a much more vigorous/successful defense. Personally, I can't see how this sentence falls in-line with our country's justice system.
At what point did sending somebody to jail become "Only the beginning" of rehabilitation? Remember, the justice system is supposed to be about rehabilitating the criminal, not never-ending revenge for the victim.
This guy shouldn't have to pay them a dime... A $180 million fine for a non-billionaire individual who has caused no actual damages to anyone falls under the "unusual" part of "Cruel and unusual punishment..." Especially considering the fact that he has been sentenced to five years of anal rape and broadcast television in our gloriously ineffective, overcrowded prison system.
"The fear among artists is that the work of art they put together, the album, will become a thing of the past," says attorney Fred Goldring, whose firm represents Will Smith and Alanis Morissette.
Radiohead may not be the problem, but the two "artists" whose rep was quoted in the header--Alanis Morissette and Will Smith--definitely are. Both represent the epitome of "manufactured" music...
The truth is, for real "artists" in the world (like Radiohead) having their album offerred one track at a time isn't a real problem because their real fans will still spring for the whole pre-packaged disc (or at least buy all 10-15 tracks on the iTunes store.)
The only people whose sales will diminish now that consumers have the choice of not buying the cruddy "filler" tracks are the manufactured stars we see today like Brittney Spears, Will Smith, and Alanis Morissette. Radiohead is just afraid of change... Their records will never be part of the "filler songs" problem. If anything they prove just the opposite: That the real fans (ie. you) will make your best effort to buy the whole thing in the most convenient form, and failing that, will still buy the CD at a retail location.
Umm, the eMac is $799 and the iBook is $999. Both qualify as a sub-$1000 machine.:-)
While I love my Powerbook, I definitely agree Macs are not price competitive right now. Back when all computers for personal use were an $1700-$3000 investment, the Macs were sort of price competitive. But the problem is Apple is stuck in that "premium price" fantasy world from the early 90's.
Bring me a 1.8 ghz/8x AGP/400-500FSB a machine in the $900 range and I'll be damn impressed.
Ah, but your forgetting the "many eyeballs" theory. I'm not a big believer in that theory, but many open-source advocates are.
My point about "why should SCO bother" was that it's pointless to present proof to people who won't believe it proves anything anyway. Linux advocates should have established early on what they considered adequate proof. Then they wouldn't look like they are in denial now.
In a way, I agree with you that what SCO has presented to the public was a pointless gesture as far as the lawsuit goes, because it proves nothing either way. It simply enflames the public sentiment on both sides of the issue--and this I think, is the true purpose here. Get everybody worked up about the possibility that there's stolen code in Linux--and the implied threat that SCO might "find" more and go after other compaies--so that IBM, Novell, or somebody feel compelled to buy them out.
Unfortunately, SCO fails to convince us again here because they don't really WANT to convice US. They could care less about the OSS/Slashdot hangout crowds... It is about selling whatever worthless "IP" SCO owns to somebody so that the executives can all keep their golden parachutes.
Also, dude, "Many eyeballs" is only useful if we know WHICH 80 LINES TO LOOK AT. Also, changelogs are quite relevant. If SCO has changelogs dating back to the day before the lawsuit was filed, and the linux kernel changelogs show work on those same lines as far back as 92-93, that would be important information for the judge to hear, eh?
---BEGIN--- Why Open Data Format Laws Are Better Than Open Source Laws
With a variety of open source bills introduced, both in the United States and elsewhere, there has been a lot of discussion about open source laws. However open source laws have problems, both structurally and politically, and I think open data format laws would work much better.
(NOTE: I use the term "open source laws," although in fact some of the laws refer to "free software" instead.)
The reasons are as follows:
Open source laws are too easy to argue against
The three points mentioned most often in favor of open source laws are cost, security, and open data formats. In the lobbying against open source laws, I have never seen any negative comments about open data formats; the focus is on the cost and security arguments.
When discussing cost, opponents of open source laws can point out (correctly) that the actual cost of the product is only one part of the total cost; Microsoft quotes a Gartner Group survey putting the number at 8%. Presumably they found the study with the lowest number, but the general fact is correct. Plus, the cost issue likely favors open source more on the server, where administration costs may be lower with open source software; on the client, where Windows is bundled with almost any computer anyway and support involves helping end users with unfamiliar software, open source won't come out looking as good.
Now, you could argue that even the study that Microsoft is pushing shows that the total TCO of open source is only 92% of what it is for proprietary software. The problem is that this then leads to a long debate about how open source affects the other costs of software (installation, support, administration, etc) and no clear winner will emerge.
Meanwhile, the security issue can easily get embroiled in a FUD battle between the two sides, each claiming that the other has more crashes and remote exploits, each waving studies that support their claims. If you want to convince a legislature to pass a law causing significant, possibly risky changes in government procurement, you can't get stuck in a battle like that. Keep in mind that properly designed secure file formats are not dependent on keeping the file format itself secret, so nobody should be able to argue that open data formats compromise security.
When the debate can be framed in terms of cost and security, the issue of open data formats can be conveniently ignored by opponents. Requring only open data formats would remove the abililty of opponents to attack the cost and security arguments, leaving them to come up with arguments explaining why open data formats are bad, whch I have not seen so far. Finally, governments have presumably always considered cost as a factor when evaluating software purchases, and these days they no doubt consider security too; having a law that focussed only on open data formats would open their eyes to something new, that they have probably missed in the discussion of open source laws.
Open source laws are either too inflexible, or require too much work
Many open source laws seem designed to force a government to replace Windows/IIS/Office with Linux/Apache/*Office, but of course they aren't written that way; they discuss open source and proprietary software in general. This can take one of two tacks; either requiring open source or free software with no alternative, or making it difficult to buy proprietary software (for example requiring each purchase be accompanied by written justification).
The first approach takes too simplistic a view of the type of software that governments use. Much of the it is customized for specific tasks such as processing drivers' licenses, and the market for providers of such software is presumably small. If software vendors release their software as open source, they may find that cash-strapped governments in other states gladly help themselves to it for free, so the vendor may g
Slashdot Mirror
Come on, lets get real. You can't secure something as dreadfully wide-open as Windows with a Service Pack. If they say they can, thats just a lie. If they THINK they can, then they should consult a psychiatrist about their tenuous grip on reality.
A project that complex has to be built against a secure design from the drawing board forward. You can't just decide, deployment +18 months later that you're going to now change the software to make it secure. Hey MS has known about this hole for a while (the Slashdot story was, what, two months ago?) and only patched it last month.
It is also possible they want to synchronize the release of "secure" windows XP with the sunset of Windows 2000 to encourage people to upgrade. I'll say this, that MS will be seen for what they are if this turns out to really be the strategy. IT Managers who have struggled against MS worms, virii, and trojans for years will now see that secure Windows was only released to coincide with him forking over thousands of dollars to "upgrade" to a product with features that should have been in (because they were advertised as being there) 1.0. I refer to the ability to plug it into a network without becoming an instant DDoS zombie.
Ditto my man... Wish I had mod points...
1. Get your wallet out.
2. Check for an Electrician's license/certificate.
3. If you find one, hand it in for lacking the skill to do this without an ASK SLASHDOT.
4. If you don't, take all your money and buy a big insurance policy so your wife can have the financial security to wait and next time marry somebody smart enough to not try something like this, after you get electrocuted and die trying this crap.
My own, admitedly limited experience says that a Mac really does need less support. We had about 50/50 macs & pcs at my educational publisher employer several years ago. We had four PC support specialists and one Mac guy (me) who also admined the groupwise, firewall, db, and web servers. The # of Mac tickets was REAL low, so my job was really interesting--80% server, 15% mac desktop, 5% firewall, vpn, etc.
What do you think we did? Went to 70/30 Windows to mac ratio, added two more people and eliminated Groupwise (a godsend if you've ever been stuck with any version of exchange) in favor of... Exchange. Ugly. Ugly Ugly. We were in the office for two straight days to implement the whole mess. My job became a nightmare of updating Windows security holes opened by Outlook and fighting the exchange server's constant memory leaks.
Predictably, the number of PC tickets went through the roof. So a bigger budget was needed for the IT department, more employees, more prestige for VP of IT as his head-count, budget, and value to the company went up. Just a cluster-fuck for users and support staff. I left a month later for a job supporting heavy duty hospital software and its database/EDI functions for a nice raise.
...But why doesn't he just upgrade to RH9 for his Oracle app and run another distro for the other stuff? Certainly, many data centers carry a variety of OS on their servers... Even in our (mostly) Windows back room, we have a couple Solaris machines and a couple Linux boxes and everything works out just fine. (Except for the Windows stuff which present constant niggling, unexplained/undocumented problems. Exchange server? What a nightmare. Thank god it isn't the actual external mail server or the real relay.)
Anyway, this is a bummer, because I certainly do appreciate what RedHat has done for the comunity. I know MY first box ran RedHat. It is too bad the prices are so high, but if you run a business critical app, it is almost neccessary to have 24x7 support available. Even though you'll use it two or three times in your whole life, when you need it, your ass will be saved. I've called MS support one time and only did so after a lot of work...But finally, we had no choice. It was get the thing up or we're out of business. OK...We'll call Microsoft. They did suggest a lot of things we had already tried, but ultimately did help us. We had to pay something like $300 for the call, in addition to our enormous annual Microsofft budget, but we got it running.
My urge is to move everything to something else, but our CIO lives in the dark ages and won't listen to any suggestions that aren't Windows...Our two linux boxes function as load balancers for...IIS. They exist because our Win NT 4.0 balancers were choking and we didn't want to spend $25,000 on new Windows hardware to cover the same task. I weep because I know that the two balancers would serve the site better than the six win2k boxes which do the same job now. The Sun boxes were installed with the phone system. Same weekend, we put the Exchange 5.5 server in. You can guess which has gone down more times since.
Right now it is Exchange seven crashes, Sun ZERO. Not even a reboot in the last 12 months! And the last one was because of a wide-scale, longterm power failure that outlasted our UPS and generation capability.
Removing SCO support is the right move, and here is why...
Free software is about community. SCO is attempting to destroy that community. Why should community authors help SCO sell their wares and fund the holy war against, essentially, themselves? If supporting an antique operating system in your open-source code perpetuates this lawsuit for even one more day, why should I be required to do it? If I owned any copyrights to code that would be detrimental to SCO if withdrawn, you bet your ass I would consider it. Or at the least, I'd ponder a patch to remove SCO support while maintaining functionality for everybody else. Yes, I know its OSS, and they can download the code, but there's an expense involved for SCO there, too, since developers need to pay mortgages and food bills too.
Yes, it would probably be considered punitive, but as an author I am under no requirement to permanently support every stupid operating system for my software. Crap, does SCO even matter anymore outside of their lawsuit against IBM? I don't really think so.
Sorry, but that is irrelevant. The FCC has ruled time and again that "People are watching/listening" is not a valid excuse for broadcasting things that aren't in the public's interest. Traditionally, the FCC has interpreted this as meaning "the public's BEST interest", while most broadcasters these days define it as "What catches the public's eye/interest."
A good example of this conflict of semantics was the On-TV debacle in Chicago during the 80's. On-TV was a pay-television service that illegally scrambled the signal of a commercial UHF tv station to provide a commercial free movie channel. The company's argument was that their 50,000 subscribers proved there was public interest in pay-tv. The FCC said, "Uh, no, it has to actually be in the public's interest, not just your own financial interest" and yanked their license. This is the last time the FCC used license forfeiture that I know about... If you know of other, more recent examples please share with the class.
Fox certainly is willing to take risks other networks don't... That is how it works if you want people to watch your fourth banana network. Imagine how hard it is to get good shows if you're a fifth or sixth banana, like UPN/WB are? However, part of taking risks is knowing that you sometimes have to STICK WITH IT for a while, and not just by not cancelling it.
Fox did more to sabotage that show than they did to help it. (Many television networks are guilty of this, not just Fox. See also "Ed" on NBC.) First, they changed timeslots over and over and over again so that even people who already KNEW the show was good never knew when to tune in. Frequent timeslot changes had more to do with Family Guy not finding a big audience in first run. The show should be on where "Malcolm in the Middle" is now, and Malcolm should be slinging shakes at Mc Donald's.
Contrast this with Cartoon Network, where Family Guy beat Jay Leno AND David Letterman COMBINED in the 18-34 demographic several evenings in July. How did this happen? They picked a good time, put it on, left it there, and promoted it. Amazingly enough people watch.
This is both extraordinary and revolutionary... [/sarcasm]
At least now they'll have thirty more minutes available for more lowbrow, idiot level programming... Good thing. People might start to think that the networks were actually trying to provide good entertainment in exchange for all of that publicly owned broadcast spectrum they've been granted exclusive use of for the last 75 or so years. Maybe it is time to take that spectrum back?
After all, those licenses were granted to provide a broadcast service "in the public interest", but when was the last time you saw something on TV that wasn't crap? You could even argue that the majority of commercial broadcasting actually makes people more stupid. That can't POSSIBLY be in the public's interest.
PBS has some good stuff, maybe History Channel, but what else? Along the same lines, when was the last time you heard a radio program (besides NPR) that wasn't the same recycled viagra jokes/top 40 playlist as every other station on the dial? Granted, Clear Channel is making plenty of money, but what about the public, the people the broadcaster's were entrusted to serve?
If the EU can get them to release code affecting interoperability with other OS (like their CIFS implementation) it would be a boon to Samba and linux fans everywhere. Or if they had to publish their MAPI protocol it would be a big boost for projects like Open Groupware.
Strengthening either of these projects creates opportunities for enterprises to switch to other back-of-the-house technology without violently uprooting their desktop users (just yet...)
Nobody shops at the Sam Goody store near me either. Maybe it is because they don't have a single CD priced under $17.99. Maybe their outrageous prices had something to do with their demise, rather than the "pirates"?
I can tell you honestly that I would never set foor in another Sam Goody as long as I live based on my last experience... I walked in looking for the new Jayhawks record, found it priced at $29.99 and laughed my ass off as I walked out for the last time and headed over to the punk rock record shop down the street.
Somehow, an entreprenuer with pink hair and a mohawk manages to sell RIAA label releases for less than Sam Goody despite paying higher prices at wholesale for the same merchandise.
Well... Since the last "A" in RIAA stands for America, you probably wouldn't get sued by the RIAA. But I wouldn't put it past an internationally focused recording industry group to try legal maneuvers in other countries to establish a precedent similar to the "Verizon" one here.
OO.org is SO slashdotted right now, it isn't even funny... As such, I have no way of finding out the answer to my question:
Does the OS X version make use of the groovy "Aqua" gui yet, or is it still kludged on top of X for OS X? That's the barrier to getting mass testing/deployment on the Macinotsh... There certainly is no love lost between Mac users and Redmond.
I could easily see the "De facto" format for document distribution becoming the PDF... Originally, that would have been ineffecient (due to people using modems for internet connectivity,) but now, especially as bandwidth available to users goes up over time with increased availability of cable/dsl/dedicated T1... After a while it won't matter how HUGE long PDF files can bceome.
Windows users can make PDFs for free, right now, thanks to this program. (Or you can pay $10 and not see pop-up ads when you launch the program.) I don't see why anybody wouldn't start doing it, as sort of a one man protest.
"Run As" is a half-assed implementation of the concept of the sudo command. It only works with executables (so if you need to, say, run a batch file with elevated priveleges, forget it) and some installers I've tried using it with simply puke and tell you that your priveleges are insufficient.
Granted, this could be a coding defficiency on the part of the software's authors, or simply "growing pains" from the idea of RunAs being so new (to Windows, anyway) but it needs to be, well, more "sudo"ey... If that is a real word.
Interesting that you accuse me of an inability to read later in this post, yet you seem to suffer from the same affliction. The problem has nothing to do with me being unable to follow directions... The uninstall simply failed. How is that my fault? Software is imperfect. There are bugs. For you to assume this failure to be my fault illustrates your total lack of professional, real-world experience.
My point was to weigh the benefit we get as a society from Gator against the benefit we get from the companies who are affected.
Thanks, already did. Mentioning her wasn't really an invitation to get condescending advice, but to illustrate how people who don't want Gator can end up having their machines hijacked... (In my case, she heard about kazaa, and wanted to check out P2P... After I figured out what she was trying to do I showed her Kazaa Lite...)
Me, I'm one of these crazy people who thinks what he looks at on the web is his own business... I want to be in as few databases as possible out there. Maybe privacy means nothing to you? Don't really understand...
Anyway, thanks for the advice. Good luck with whatever you're into.
Insulting me != A real argument.
Doesn't really matter how many people are employed by the company that creates the scumware, their actions still steal advertising space on other peoples' web-sites. All the advertisers whose ads are being overlaid are enduring real damages--as are the sites being targeted.
It is interesting to me how much effort and time you put into insulting me, and how little you spent addressing the real meat of the issue--the real harm Gator does to real businesses that employ real employees.
Is keeping a handful of marginally talented coders employed more important than the long-term health of small (and not so small) businesses that employ potentially thousands of people, all of whom contribute far more to the economy than a handful of dorks who buy Boxsters, iPods, and Blackberry cell phones?
Can I translate? "Stop sticking up for the people who buy rust-proofing and $500 floor-mats, they're paying my mortgage..." Just because somebody is stupid enough to use Gator doesn't justify it.
As I have illustrated, you can end up with gator crapware installed on your computer through no action of your own... Is it my fault for dating a non-techie? Okay... Got me on that one.
I'm sorry for your friends who work for Gator. I sincerely hope they learn some better skills and apply them at a different business before a court comes to its senses and hits Gator with a big judgement and they go tits up. Unemployment is a bitch... Their situation is unfortunate, but forseeable.
The real issue isn't that stupid people don't read wizards, because thats exactly what scumware takes advantage of, and it isn't how stupid they are (or I am, for that matter) either, because we've known that for a longtime. It bores me to see you wave around how smart you are--good for you, numbnuts. But most of the people who use the software you create ARE NOT EXPERTS. Most people "just click next" because that is all they ahve the confidence to do. Changing defaults fucked up their installation of some obscure software three years ago, so now they NEVER change the defaults int he wizard. Again, a layer of jaded disconnect that scumware authors take advantage of.
Please address the real issues: The companies whose ads are being "overlaid"--how is it fair competition for Yahoo! to have the expense of creating the content, running the site, buying the hardware and bandwidth, AND selling ads while Gator only hasto pay the expense of writing some scumware to put their ads over the top of Yahoo.
This phrase is a red-herring designed to identify me as a "crazy"... I have no objection to people putting whatever they want on their computer... My beef is with the software's creator. Yes, only the uneducated install scumware... But we already know your average internet user (especially at AOL.com) will respond positively to an email claiming to be from
Their software preys on people who don't understand that a window doesn't neccessarily have to have a border and the familiar "windows blue bar" across the top. Therein lies the deception. (Or, at best, the scummy abuse of the common perception of what a "window" is.)
Also, your entire argument seems to be based on "people are allowed to install what they want on their computer." Your argument is totally irrelevant, because nobody is accusing the endusers of anything.
The companies paying for the ads are being damaged, but so are the people that do business with the sites whose ads are "overlaid." Since advertising is used to drive traffic and sales of goods and services, overlaying their ads takes away real sales. So the company must either post more ads to generate the same sales, or raise prices on goods to compensate for lesser sales.
So, the list of people harmed by Gator is as follows:
1) People who buy things on-line (through higher prices).
2) Companies who sell things on-line (through increased ad costs to achieve the same sales).
3) People who advertise through Gator, since they know the threat presented by Gator, and how easy it would be for Gator to "overlay" their ads if they were placed through a different advertiser.
4) Anybody who uses a computer on the net, since the success of scumware like Gator leads other people to write new, "better" scumware. The uproar and lawsuits just encourage them to make their software even more blatantly a "torpedo-install."
So far, the list of people who benefit from Gator is pretty short:
1) Gator itself.
Companies like Gator and WhereU.com are leeches. They exist not to create any innovative products or services for anybody, but only to siphon profits away from companies doing actual business. In the real (non-virtual) world, these people run protection schemes, gambling books, and hijack trucks, and are referred to by the name "mafia." Wonder if Gator's salespeople call on companies that they most often "overlay." Gee, wouldn't that be a huge coincidence...
No, they don't... They rely on people interpreting their use of the term "seperate window" incorrectly to get access to their machines.
I don't see where anybody has proven that. Most of the people I know with Gator on their machine want to know how to make it go away... This is also a deceptive lie, since the only "free software" you get from Gator is Gator itself.
No. Dis-allowing deceptive advertising practices harms only Gator (and their "competitors") and benefits everybody. It in no way means "no more non-browser apps" or "no-plugins", it means no deceptive advertising.
I think if you TRULY explained what Gator did to the people who have it installed, most would want it removed. Of course, uninstalling Gator can be a difficult, if not impossible task. I ended up re-installing Windows after my machine was accidentally infected with Gator. Ads just kept popping up, even after I removed it... "What a coincidence... Zero pop-ups ever, then millions after I uninstall the torpedo-ware."
Yeah. I'm always impressed when I hear about kids in Central America playing baseball naked, barehanded (regulation hard ball) because they can't afford a real glove and only own one change of clothes (if that), and don't want to wreck them.
Lets face it... You are a true gamer if you play at 100% when you're totally naked. (Think sliding without pants on... OUCH! That's dedication...) This is probably off-topic, but this type of dedication you don't see in most professionals who have every technical, financial, and medical advantage (not to mention clothes to protect their bodies when sliding.)
Technology is great, but you have to remember why you play the game (or run the race, or whatever) otherwise it is all pointless. Look how spoiled, whiny, and decadent most pro ballers are these days... Think any of them really remember what its all about?
Indiana Jones will be using such popular consumer products as Geritol, Fix-a-Dent, Ben Gay, and Preperation H. The people representing those "Rascal" mobility scooters didn't put up enough cash to get into the movie.... Just as well, as the pace would be pretty slow with Harrison Ford buzzing along at a brisk 2 mph on one of those electric scooters.
At what point did sending somebody to jail become "Only the beginning" of rehabilitation? Remember, the justice system is supposed to be about rehabilitating the criminal, not never-ending revenge for the victim.
This guy shouldn't have to pay them a dime... A $180 million fine for a non-billionaire individual who has caused no actual damages to anyone falls under the "unusual" part of "Cruel and unusual punishment..." Especially considering the fact that he has been sentenced to five years of anal rape and broadcast television in our gloriously ineffective, overcrowded prison system.
Radiohead may not be the problem, but the two "artists" whose rep was quoted in the header--Alanis Morissette and Will Smith--definitely are. Both represent the epitome of "manufactured" music...
The truth is, for real "artists" in the world (like Radiohead) having their album offerred one track at a time isn't a real problem because their real fans will still spring for the whole pre-packaged disc (or at least buy all 10-15 tracks on the iTunes store.)
The only people whose sales will diminish now that consumers have the choice of not buying the cruddy "filler" tracks are the manufactured stars we see today like Brittney Spears, Will Smith, and Alanis Morissette. Radiohead is just afraid of change... Their records will never be part of the "filler songs" problem. If anything they prove just the opposite: That the real fans (ie. you) will make your best effort to buy the whole thing in the most convenient form, and failing that, will still buy the CD at a retail location.
Didn't say a Sony Vaio, I was referring to a desktop machine. Since I wasn't specific, I'll assume you weren't trying to troll.
While I love my Powerbook, I definitely agree Macs are not price competitive right now. Back when all computers for personal use were an $1700-$3000 investment, the Macs were sort of price competitive. But the problem is Apple is stuck in that "premium price" fantasy world from the early 90's.
Bring me a 1.8 ghz/8x AGP/400-500FSB a machine in the $900 range and I'll be damn impressed.
In a way, I agree with you that what SCO has presented to the public was a pointless gesture as far as the lawsuit goes, because it proves nothing either way. It simply enflames the public sentiment on both sides of the issue--and this I think, is the true purpose here. Get everybody worked up about the possibility that there's stolen code in Linux--and the implied threat that SCO might "find" more and go after other compaies--so that IBM, Novell, or somebody feel compelled to buy them out.
Unfortunately, SCO fails to convince us again here because they don't really WANT to convice US. They could care less about the OSS/Slashdot hangout crowds... It is about selling whatever worthless "IP" SCO owns to somebody so that the executives can all keep their golden parachutes.
Also, dude, "Many eyeballs" is only useful if we know WHICH 80 LINES TO LOOK AT. Also, changelogs are quite relevant. If SCO has changelogs dating back to the day before the lawsuit was filed, and the linux kernel changelogs show work on those same lines as far back as 92-93, that would be important information for the judge to hear, eh?
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Why Open Data Format Laws Are Better Than Open Source Laws
With a variety of open source bills introduced, both in the United States and elsewhere, there has been a lot of discussion about open source laws. However open source laws have problems, both structurally and politically, and I think open data format laws would work much better.
(NOTE: I use the term "open source laws," although in fact some of the laws refer to "free software" instead.)
The reasons are as follows:
Open source laws are too easy to argue against
The three points mentioned most often in favor of open source laws are cost, security, and open data formats. In the lobbying against open source laws, I have never seen any negative comments about open data formats; the focus is on the cost and security arguments.
When discussing cost, opponents of open source laws can point out (correctly) that the actual cost of the product is only one part of the total cost; Microsoft quotes a Gartner Group survey putting the number at 8%. Presumably they found the study with the lowest number, but the general fact is correct. Plus, the cost issue likely favors open source more on the server, where administration costs may be lower with open source software; on the client, where Windows is bundled with almost any computer anyway and support involves helping end users with unfamiliar software, open source won't come out looking as good.
Now, you could argue that even the study that Microsoft is pushing shows that the total TCO of open source is only 92% of what it is for proprietary software. The problem is that this then leads to a long debate about how open source affects the other costs of software (installation, support, administration, etc) and no clear winner will emerge.
Meanwhile, the security issue can easily get embroiled in a FUD battle between the two sides, each claiming that the other has more crashes and remote exploits, each waving studies that support their claims. If you want to convince a legislature to pass a law causing significant, possibly risky changes in government procurement, you can't get stuck in a battle like that. Keep in mind that properly designed secure file formats are not dependent on keeping the file format itself secret, so nobody should be able to argue that open data formats compromise security.
When the debate can be framed in terms of cost and security, the issue of open data formats can be conveniently ignored by opponents. Requring only open data formats would remove the abililty of opponents to attack the cost and security arguments, leaving them to come up with arguments explaining why open data formats are bad, whch I have not seen so far. Finally, governments have presumably always considered cost as a factor when evaluating software purchases, and these days they no doubt consider security too; having a law that focussed only on open data formats would open their eyes to something new, that they have probably missed in the discussion of open source laws.
Open source laws are either too inflexible, or require too much work
Many open source laws seem designed to force a government to replace Windows/IIS/Office with Linux/Apache/*Office, but of course they aren't written that way; they discuss open source and proprietary software in general. This can take one of two tacks; either requiring open source or free software with no alternative, or making it difficult to buy proprietary software (for example requiring each purchase be accompanied by written justification).
The first approach takes too simplistic a view of the type of software that governments use. Much of the it is customized for specific tasks such as processing drivers' licenses, and the market for providers of such software is presumably small. If software vendors release their software as open source, they may find that cash-strapped governments in other states gladly help themselves to it for free, so the vendor may g