> The problem I have is the imprimateur one might think this gives their actions. "I thought about it, and this is what Jesus would do, therefore what I am doing is as righteous as Christ himself!" I don't think human agency should ever presume such knowledge.
Agreed, evilpenguin. This problem is exactly one of the causes of evil in the name of faith throughout history. People have to realize that not every act taken by a Christian (or those who claim to be Christian) is an accurate presentation of the faith. Thanks for a fine post! ---------------------
> those who claim that morality is not possible unless one believes in a god
Ouch! I don't say that some such morality is *impossible* or could never be invented without a belief in God or an afterlife. Many of the fundamental moral precepts are indeed self-evident. Who really supports murder or theft on moral grounds? Surprise, it did happen in Germany in WWII!! That was Nazi righteousness in action!
Rather, I assert that morality *in its entirety* becomes a circular argument without the original authority of the Creator. Without God as the ultimate reference for morality, we're left to fend for ourselves, personally and individually (are we really that infallible?), or we must derive it from concensus (sp?) (are we really that conformist? Note that the Nazis were...) ---------------------
> In fact one of its main tenents is not just faith, but blind faith.
"Critically examine everything. Hold on to the good." 1 Thessalonians 5:21. My faith is not blind.
> In Russia, Christians killed thousands of Jews in the pogroms. Need I say anything about the ones in Austria? The ones who stayed in Europe were all killed.
Please do not equate Christianity with Nazism, or anti-semitism in general. I've addressed this in other posts until I'm tired of cutting and pasting. Not everyone who makes an appeal to religion is acting according to what that religion teaches. Did you know that the senior rabbi of Rome converted to the Catholic church after WWII, out of respect for how much the Church had done to protect Jews during the occupation?
>...many of the stories and rituals in Christianity are taken from pagan religions.
To convince me of this, you would have to show a direct link to these religions and the development of Christian doctrine. Vague similiarities are not enough. Considering that there is evidence that the early Christian church resisted any and all pagan influence as vigorously as Judaism had, I don't envy you in such a task!:-) Many have tried and failed to find that smoking gun.
> Religion may cause people to act morally for the wrong reason, which is not morality. The lack of choice also degrades the moral act.
On one hand, you point out that many people have committed atrocities throughout history using religion as a justification, now you say that religious people have a "lack of choice"???
> In fact religion is the easy way out.
The easy way out *for who*??? The thousands of people throughout history who chose torture and death rather than simply renounce their faith? Is it the "easy way out" for me to argue with you than to agree as I once would have? I suggest that making up your own morality, based on what you want or what *others want from you*, is taking the easy way out.
> I do not act this way. Please explain why.
I'm glad to hear it. I don't know you and can't personally accuse you of anything. But let me put it this way: what means of natural reason have not been tried to bring about peace and plenty in this world? Capitalism, communism, democracy, monarchy, fascism... perhaps more science and technology will do it? Ultimately, man's intractible problem is Moral, not so much in *defining* morality (though that is often a problem) but in the *will* to live justly and charitably. Rather than do what is obviously right, we make excuses. *That* is the overwhelming conclusion of history, and it overrides our individual claims to personal morality.
Anyway, thanks for listening so far, if indeed you are!:-D
> But it would be intellectually dishonest to attempt to claim that belief in some sort of deity automatically makes one moral.
Indeed, I make no such claim, cje. As a believer, I'm more grieved than anyone about the abuse of Christian identity for other purposes. But the pseudo-religious are not an argument against Christianity any more than pseudo-scientists are an argument against science. If some like to trade on the respect accorded to scientists without living up to the standards of scientific practice, there are also those who cultivate a religious appearance for the perceived righteousness it grants to their agenda.
> Personally, I live by the Golden Rule.
Of course, you realize where the Golden Rule comes from!:-D
> If large segments of the population behave morally and ethically simply because they are scared of a God that has a metaphysical shotgun wired to their foreheads, so be it.
Actually, I came to believe out of a recognition that God is my Creator and the Source of moral law. Rather than a purely negative fear of God's wrath against sin (though that has some justification!), knowing and *loving* God for *who He is* allows me to trust His law as correct, even when it seems difficult and I'm tempted to seek some other justification for doing what's easy. ---------------------
Your point is well taken, dingbat_hp. However, I think there is a point where satire effectively stops being satire and becomes simple indulgence for the sake of shock value, which must escalate constantly if it's to retain its power. We must ask ourselves, and answer honestly, do we enjoy SP for its social commentary or because of its licensiousness (sp?)? And *how much* shock is necessary to acheive its satirical point?
> No religious basis is necessary in order to be a moral person. In fact, religion *hinders* morality. It lowers the mentality to the level of a two year old.
You have the advantage of being able to reason like this after having been raised in a culture informed by Judeo-Christian values. Since you are alive, we can assume that you were not sacrified to some pagan deity as an infant, nor were you 'exposed' on a mountain for being imperfect ( or simply being female, in some cultures), nor were you aborted becuase your parents wanted to assert their 'right' to an easier life above your right to life itself.
As for religion hindering morality and intellectual quality, I await the historical evidence for this extraordinary claim. Many people who have been both more moral and more intelligent than both of us put together have based both of these qualities on their faith in God. Perhaps you need some better education in history. I can say that without hostility because I once believed as you do, before I realized that the evidence was against it.
In fact all that is needed to be moral is to realize that it is a privelidge to be a self-aware being and that the purpose of life is to enjoy this privelidge to its fullest, which can only be achieved if you help others to enjoy theirs.
That's a very nice sentiment, and a pretty good paraphrase of statements Jesus made. How many people would argue with it? Very few. How many times have people who believed this throughout history been able to bring it about? You tell me. When it comes down to it, people will pursue their own advantage whenever it suits them, unless there is a moral authority *greater than themselves and their institutions*. Without God, there is no atrocity that won't seem right to somebody somewhere.
The pseudo-religious are not an argument against Christianity any more than pseudo-scientists are an argument against science. If some like to trade on the respect accorded to scientists without living up to the standards of scientific practice, there are also those who cultivate a religious appearance for the perceived righteousness it grants to their agenda. ---------------------
Not having read the book in question, I'll have to be circumspect, but I have read this review and hope I can offer something.
> Harvard entomologist James Wilson wrote in the late l970?s that no species, including the human one, has any real purpose beyond the imperatives created by its particular genetic history.
This, and several other statements attributed to Wilson, are quite remarkable presumptions that belong to philosophy rather than a physical science. That in itself doesn't devalue it, but I wonder what is the survival value in posessing the intellectual capacity to make such a judgement? Is that capacity only an accidental by-product of the need for genetic survival, and if so why? Why are humans apparently the only beings with this absurd excess of intellect and ability, if its demonstrable survival value is its only purpose why isn't it commonplace among other species also driven by survival? The purely materialistic viewpoint amounts to non-sequiteurs like "The truth is, there is no truth" or "It means that there is no meaning."
> In the next century, it?s possible that humankind can conquer technology, stabilize politics, solve the ongoing crises in energy, poverty and materials, avert nuclear and other war, and begin to control reproduction. That would bring the world a stable eco-system for the first time.
Heh, you are an optimist, Jon! If Man is sufficient unto himself and the only agent in control of his existence, then why isn't the world yet a Garden of Eden? What does he lack *today* to bring about a human millennium? More resources? More enlightenment? More technical skill? More wealth? What political or economic system has yet to be tried, what science or technology is still inadequate to bring about happiness and plenty? Ultimately, Man's intractable problem is moral, the will to live justly and charitably. Rather than do what is obviously right, we make excuses, and I doubt that any further amount of 'progress' can change that!
Anyway, on to the real subject...
> "We want to ask, is there a God? Does my life have meaning and purpose? Science, we are told, says that even to ask about God is beyond its scope." But this, Walker argues, is not true. Either there is no such thing as God, or science - which embodies our ability to reason - must be able to frame the question and provide us with the answers.
As a Christian I believe that science can indeed *point* to God but can't *prove* God in any way that satisfies its own standards (i.e. science can't disprove God, therefore the 'proof' can't be falsifiable). We can only come to a conclusion based on evidence sufficient to convince a reasonable person, and keep an intellectually honest appraisal for our motives (or presuppositions) to believe what we do, either way. ---------------------
Just imagine the overwhelming stench of the Beowulf I could build with two dozen of these! ---------------------
Re:Characterization in Clarke's work (OT)
on
Childhood's End
·
· Score: 1
You are so mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence. Two words : Reading Comprehension. It will serve you either as a Christian or as a Christian-basher executing a poorly done parody of a Christian.
My sigs generate more comments than my comments. Am I the only one?
---------------------
Characterization in Clarke's work
on
Childhood's End
·
· Score: 1
> The characters are often stilted and rather formal. Even in the worst extreme, their emotional life is considerably less interesting than their intellectual activity.
Much the same could be said for all of Clarke's fiction, no one would compare him with Heinlein in style. If anything, "Childhood's End" was Clarke at his most readable, in other work one almost forgets that there *are* any characters. This book also prefigures an idea that would recur in "2001", that humanity might be responsible to a destiny not of its own making (and this from an atheist!:-) ).
I hate to tell you this, but Borland/Imprise can't open source the old Turbo Prolog because it isn't theirs anymore. It was bought (licensed?) from another company, then returned to that company when Borland was done with it. I believe it's now known as PDC Prolog, and has a distinctly un-Borland like price tag.
While I realize that this is still in development and we should offer the benefit of a doubt, let's keep in mind the consequences of the 'office suite' mentality.
There was a time when many products flourished in the traditional categories of productivity software (processing words, spreading sheets, basing data) and customers had a choice between competing 'best of breed' products. The monolithic all-in-one (and preloaded) office suite changed that, and I believe for the worse.
It was now possible for inferior products to 'inherit' market share through bundling with more competitive products, after all who would spend extra money and effort to use a better DBMS if the one included was (almost, if buggily and painfully) not too bad? Perversely, this bundling did nothing to reduce feature bloat (table management in word processors, sorting in spreadsheets, etc) since each product was originally developed separately, and in fact was still required to be used stand-alone.
Thus we landed in a market where vendors who essentially did one thing and did it well (WordPerfect, for instance), and vendors who did several things well at good prices (Borland), were marginalized into near oblivion. The characteristics of the current market leader in desktop office suites are well documented here and elsewhere, how much of those problems are inherent in the concept of the one-stop-shopping software experience?
Isn't it interesting that C/Net concluded that Red Hat was of more use to corporate customers and server environments while Caldera had the advantage as an easily installed personal desktop? Not even two years ago Red Hat's primary advantage was its relatively simple installation and maintenance, while Caldera emphasized its commercial ties and networking (i.e. Netware) support.
My home LAN domain name is beast.net, and the host names come from cheesy Japanese sci-fi monsters. So far I've got 5 (godzilla, ghidrah, mothra, rodan and gamera), plenty for my purposes.
If your environment is divided between dedicated servers and client-only hosts, consider implementing a different theme for each, so you can readily tell by name which class of host it is.
For what it's worth, I've been able to compile and use the 2.3.x series with gcc 2.95.1, and that's even with freaky opt flags like -O6 -mpentium. This is in distinct contrast to pgcc 2.95.1, which could best be described as a Signal 11 generator instead of a compiler.
Heh, I get 600+ messages into this and *finally* someone brings up Cocteau Twins. Thank you!
Normally, I can't deal with vocals while doing any computer work, coding or otherwise, but the Cocteau Twins are an exception since no one can understand what Liz is singing anyway...:-D
> I really don't think the Debian developers are concerned with meeting any "release schedule".
Actually, that's my point. Shrinkwrapping a product for retail sale is quite a different approach than volunteers maintaining a distribution over the net. Someone who downloads the Debian core, boots and apt's the rest is well served by Debian's stable/unstable branch design. A retail customer counting on the convenience of a CD might be put off by finding out that the CD they just bought at Borders is well over a year old and requires *many* megabytes of download through their 56k modem, whether for the occasional security issue or just compatibility with 3rd party apps.
Don't get me wrong, I may be a Red Hat guy myself, but I have nothing but respect for Debian's contributions and commitment to Free Software. I'm not critisizing Debian for a style that obviously works for many people, I'm just not sure their release schedule (or rather lack of one) will work for a shrinkwrap market.
Glad to see Debian getting some recognition and wider distribution, but I'm wondering how this will be handled. It seems that Debian users typically use the "unstable" branch and update in near real-time (daily, whatever) to stay current, as opposed to the "stable" release which goes for quite a while between formal updates. Will the requirements of retail distribution push Debian into an accellerated release schedule?
I'm a few pages short of finishing "Under the Radar" and was considering submitting a Slashdot book review, but Mr. Leonard has already said it all. The book was painfully unfocused and managed to say very little to anyone who has even heard of Linux by now. Ah well, at least the title page says that the royalties are going to the FSF.
Slashdot Mirror
> The problem I have is the imprimateur one might
think this gives their actions. "I thought about it, and this is what Jesus would do, therefore what I am doing is as righteous
as Christ himself!" I don't think human agency should ever presume such knowledge.
Agreed, evilpenguin. This problem is exactly one of the causes of evil in the name of faith throughout history. People have to realize that not every act taken by a Christian (or those who claim to be Christian) is an accurate presentation of the faith. Thanks for a fine post!
---------------------
> those who claim that morality is not possible unless one believes in a god
Ouch! I don't say that some such morality is *impossible* or could never be invented without a belief in God or an afterlife. Many of the fundamental moral precepts are indeed self-evident. Who really supports murder or theft on moral grounds? Surprise, it did happen in Germany in WWII!! That was Nazi righteousness in action!
Rather, I assert that morality *in its entirety* becomes a circular argument without the original authority of the Creator. Without God as the ultimate reference for morality, we're left to fend for ourselves, personally and individually (are we really that infallible?), or we must derive it from concensus (sp?) (are we really that conformist? Note that the Nazis were...)
---------------------
> In fact one of its main tenents is not just faith, but blind faith.
...many of the stories and rituals in
:-) Many have tried and failed to find that smoking gun.
:-D
"Critically examine everything. Hold on to the good." 1 Thessalonians 5:21. My faith is not blind.
> In Russia, Christians killed thousands of Jews in the pogroms. Need I say anything about the ones in Austria? The ones who stayed in Europe were all killed.
Please do not equate Christianity with Nazism, or anti-semitism in general. I've addressed this in other posts until I'm tired of cutting and pasting. Not everyone who makes an appeal to religion is acting according to what that religion teaches. Did you know that the senior rabbi of Rome converted to the Catholic church after WWII, out of respect for how much the Church had done to protect Jews during the occupation?
>
Christianity are taken from pagan religions.
To convince me of this, you would have to show a direct link to these religions and the development of Christian doctrine. Vague similiarities are not enough. Considering that there is evidence that the early Christian church resisted any and all pagan influence as vigorously as Judaism had, I don't envy you in such a task!
> Religion may cause people to act morally for
the wrong reason, which is not morality. The lack of choice also degrades the moral act.
On one hand, you point out that many people have committed atrocities throughout history using religion as a justification, now you say that religious people have a "lack of choice"???
> In fact religion is the easy way out.
The easy way out *for who*??? The thousands of people throughout history who chose torture and death rather than simply renounce their faith? Is it the "easy way out" for me to argue with you than to agree as I once would have? I suggest that making up your own morality, based on what you want or what *others want from you*, is taking the easy way out.
> I do not act this way. Please explain why.
I'm glad to hear it. I don't know you and can't personally accuse you of anything. But let me put it this way: what means of natural reason have not been tried to bring about peace and plenty in this world? Capitalism, communism, democracy, monarchy, fascism... perhaps more science and technology will do it? Ultimately, man's intractible problem is Moral, not so much in *defining* morality (though that is often a problem) but in the *will* to live justly and charitably. Rather than do what is obviously right, we make excuses. *That* is the overwhelming conclusion of history, and it overrides our individual claims to personal morality.
Anyway, thanks for listening so far, if indeed you are!
---------------------
> But it would be intellectually dishonest to
:-D
attempt to claim that belief in some sort of deity automatically makes one moral.
Indeed, I make no such claim, cje. As a believer, I'm more grieved than anyone about the abuse of Christian identity for other purposes. But the pseudo-religious are not an argument against Christianity any more than pseudo-scientists are an argument against science. If some like to trade on the respect accorded to scientists without living up to the standards of scientific practice, there are also those who cultivate a
religious appearance for the perceived righteousness it grants to their agenda.
> Personally, I live by the Golden Rule.
Of course, you realize where the Golden Rule comes from!
> If large segments of the population behave morally and ethically simply because they are scared of a God that has a metaphysical shotgun wired to their foreheads, so be it.
Actually, I came to believe out of a recognition that God is my Creator and the Source of moral law. Rather than a purely negative fear of God's wrath against sin (though that has some justification!), knowing and *loving* God for *who He is* allows me to trust His law as correct, even when it seems difficult and I'm tempted to seek some other justification for doing what's easy.
---------------------
Your point is well taken, dingbat_hp. However, I think there is a point where satire effectively stops being satire and becomes simple indulgence for the sake of shock value, which must escalate constantly if it's to retain its power. We must ask ourselves, and answer honestly, do we enjoy SP for its social commentary or because of its licensiousness (sp?)? And *how much* shock is necessary to acheive its satirical point?
---------------------
> No religious basis is necessary in
order to be a moral person. In fact, religion *hinders* morality. It lowers the mentality to the level of a two year old.
You have the advantage of being able to reason like this after having been raised in a culture informed by Judeo-Christian values. Since you are alive, we can assume that you were not sacrified to some pagan deity as an infant, nor were you 'exposed' on a mountain for being imperfect ( or simply being female, in some cultures), nor were you aborted becuase your parents wanted to assert their 'right' to an easier life above your right to life itself.
As for religion hindering morality and intellectual quality, I await the historical evidence for this extraordinary claim. Many people who have been both more moral and more intelligent than both of us put together have based both of these qualities on their faith in God. Perhaps you need some better education in history. I can say that without hostility because I once believed as you do, before I realized that the evidence was against it.
In fact all that is needed to be moral is to realize that it is a privelidge to be a self-aware being and that the purpose of life is to enjoy this privelidge to its fullest, which can only be achieved if you help others to enjoy theirs.
That's a very nice sentiment, and a pretty good paraphrase of statements Jesus made. How many people would argue with it? Very few. How many times have people who believed this throughout history been able to bring it about? You tell me. When it comes down to it, people will pursue their own advantage whenever it suits them, unless there is a moral authority *greater than themselves and their institutions*. Without God, there is no atrocity that won't seem right to somebody somewhere.
---------------------
The pseudo-religious are not an argument against Christianity any more than pseudo-scientists are an argument against science. If some like to trade on the respect accorded to scientists without living up to the standards of scientific practice, there are also those who cultivate a religious appearance for the perceived righteousness it grants to their agenda.
---------------------
Not having read the book in question, I'll have to be circumspect, but I have read this review and hope I can offer something.
> Harvard entomologist James Wilson wrote in the late l970?s that no species, including the human one, has any real purpose
beyond the imperatives created by its particular genetic history.
This, and several other statements attributed to Wilson, are quite remarkable presumptions that belong to philosophy rather than a physical science. That in itself doesn't devalue it, but I wonder what is the survival value in posessing the intellectual capacity to make such a judgement? Is that capacity only an accidental by-product of the need for genetic survival, and if so why? Why are humans apparently the only beings with this absurd excess of intellect and ability, if its demonstrable survival value is its only purpose why isn't it commonplace among other species also driven by survival?
The purely materialistic viewpoint amounts to non-sequiteurs like "The truth is, there is no truth" or "It means that there is no meaning."
> In the next century, it?s possible that humankind can conquer technology, stabilize politics, solve the ongoing crises in
energy, poverty and materials, avert nuclear and other war, and begin to control reproduction. That would bring the world a
stable eco-system for the first time.
Heh, you are an optimist, Jon! If Man is sufficient unto himself and the only agent in control of his existence, then why isn't the world yet a Garden of Eden? What does he lack *today* to bring about a human millennium? More resources? More enlightenment? More technical skill? More wealth? What political or economic system has yet to be tried, what science or technology is still inadequate to bring about happiness and plenty? Ultimately, Man's intractable problem is moral, the will to live justly and charitably. Rather than do what is obviously right, we make excuses, and I doubt that any further amount of 'progress' can change that!
Anyway, on to the real subject...
> "We want to ask, is there a God? Does my life have meaning and purpose? Science, we are told, says that even to ask about
God is beyond its scope." But this, Walker argues, is not true. Either there is no such thing as God, or science - which
embodies our ability to reason - must be able to frame the question and provide us with the answers.
As a Christian I believe that science can indeed *point* to God but can't *prove* God in any way that satisfies its own standards (i.e. science can't disprove God, therefore the 'proof' can't be falsifiable). We can only come to a conclusion based on evidence sufficient to convince a reasonable person, and keep an intellectually honest appraisal for our motives (or presuppositions) to believe what we do, either way.
---------------------
Go FTP it PDQ, or be SOL.
Just had to keep the TLA's going...
---------------------
Just imagine the overwhelming stench of the Beowulf I could build with two dozen of these!
---------------------
You are so mercifully free of the ravages of intelligence. Two words : Reading Comprehension. It will serve you either as a Christian or as a Christian-basher executing a poorly done parody of a Christian.
My sigs generate more comments than my comments. Am I the only one?
---------------------
> The characters are often stilted and rather formal. Even in the worst extreme, their emotional
:-) ).
life is considerably less interesting than their intellectual activity.
Much the same could be said for all of Clarke's fiction, no one would compare him with Heinlein in style. If anything, "Childhood's End" was Clarke at his most readable, in other work one almost forgets that there *are* any characters. This book also prefigures an idea that would recur in "2001", that humanity might be responsible to a destiny not of its own making (and this from an atheist!
One of my favorites.
---------------------
> Maybe some Martian dragged it to its garage
for spare parts.
Right now there's a Martian thinking, "Just imagine the Beowulf I could build if they'd crash a dozen more of these!"
---------------------
I hate to tell you this, but Borland/Imprise can't open source the old Turbo Prolog because it isn't theirs anymore. It was bought (licensed?) from another company, then returned to that company when Borland was done with it. I believe it's now known as PDC Prolog, and has a distinctly un-Borland like price tag.
---------------------
Do you have something to say? I guess not, the sole point of your post was to ineptly flame me. Right back atcha, Skippy.
---------------------
NME's newsfeed wants to *force* me to activate Java before I can read the article.
---------------------
While I realize that this is still in development and we should offer the benefit of a doubt, let's keep in mind the consequences of the 'office suite' mentality.
There was a time when many products flourished in the traditional categories of productivity software (processing words, spreading sheets, basing data) and customers had a choice between competing 'best of breed' products. The monolithic all-in-one (and preloaded) office suite changed that, and I believe for the worse.
It was now possible for inferior products to 'inherit' market share through bundling with more competitive products, after all who would spend extra money and effort to use a better DBMS if the one included was (almost, if buggily and painfully) not too bad? Perversely, this bundling did nothing to reduce feature bloat (table management in word processors, sorting in spreadsheets, etc) since each product was originally developed separately, and in fact was still required to be used stand-alone.
Thus we landed in a market where vendors who essentially did one thing and did it well (WordPerfect, for instance), and vendors who did several things well at good prices (Borland), were marginalized into near oblivion. The characteristics of the current market leader in desktop office suites are well documented here and elsewhere, how much of those problems are inherent in the concept of the one-stop-shopping software experience?
---------------------
Isn't it interesting that C/Net concluded that Red Hat was of more use to corporate customers and server environments while Caldera had the advantage as an easily installed personal desktop? Not even two years ago Red Hat's primary advantage was its relatively simple installation and maintenance, while Caldera emphasized its commercial ties and networking (i.e. Netware) support.
---------------------
My home LAN domain name is beast.net, and the host names come from cheesy Japanese sci-fi monsters. So far I've got 5 (godzilla, ghidrah, mothra, rodan and gamera), plenty for my purposes.
If your environment is divided between dedicated servers and client-only hosts, consider implementing a different theme for each, so you can readily tell by name which class of host it is.
---------------------
Just imagine the horrific carnage of killing a parallel computation process on a Beowulf cluster!
---------------------
For what it's worth, I've been able to compile and use the 2.3.x series with gcc 2.95.1, and that's even with freaky opt flags like -O6 -mpentium. This is in distinct contrast to pgcc 2.95.1, which could best be described as a Signal 11 generator instead of a compiler.
---------------------
Heh, I get 600+ messages into this and *finally* someone brings up Cocteau Twins. Thank you!
:-D
Normally, I can't deal with vocals while doing any computer work, coding or otherwise, but the Cocteau Twins are an exception since no one can understand what Liz is singing anyway...
---------------------
> I really don't think the Debian developers are concerned with meeting any "release schedule".
Actually, that's my point. Shrinkwrapping a product for retail sale is quite a different approach than volunteers maintaining a distribution over the net. Someone who downloads the Debian core, boots and apt's the rest is well served by Debian's stable/unstable branch design. A retail customer counting on the convenience of a CD might be put off by finding out that the CD they just bought at Borders is well over a year old and requires *many* megabytes of download through their 56k modem, whether for the occasional security issue or just compatibility with 3rd party apps.
Don't get me wrong, I may be a Red Hat guy myself, but I have nothing but respect for Debian's contributions and commitment to Free Software. I'm not critisizing Debian for a style that obviously works for many people, I'm just not sure their release schedule (or rather lack of one) will work for a shrinkwrap market.
---------------------
Glad to see Debian getting some recognition and wider distribution, but I'm wondering how this will be handled. It seems that Debian users typically use the "unstable" branch and update in near real-time (daily, whatever) to stay current, as opposed to the "stable" release which goes for quite a while between formal updates. Will the requirements of retail distribution push Debian into an accellerated release schedule?
---------------------
I'm a few pages short of finishing "Under the Radar" and was considering submitting a Slashdot book review, but Mr. Leonard has already said it all. The book was painfully unfocused and managed to say very little to anyone who has even heard of Linux by now. Ah well, at least the title page says that the royalties are going to the FSF.
---------------------