I'm not saying Linux is bad, and I'm definately not saying all software not owned by the FSF is bad. What I'm saying is that I care about the philosophy that the FSF preaches. And they're having a hard time getting it through to the people as long as the people think "Well the system is called Linux and Linus made it all by himself". I know that's not how it is. You know too. But most people don't. And since Linus does not clearly tell the press about it, most people will not know about it as long as Linux is needed to run GNU. I mean, why listen to RMS, if he seems to be contradicting Linus? Linus created the whole system, he should know.
For the sake of clarity: I don't know of Linus ever claiming he created the whole sytem. But he says things like "I'm in the center of it all" (about the kernel) when he knows very well the journalist and all the readers think he's talking about the operating system.
And speaking of L4ka, That's exactly what we're currently working on. Probably most things from Mach Hurd can be ported fairly easily to it, so the effort that was put in there is not wasted.
Did you read my post at all? I'll quote it for you:
It seems that as long as Linux is needed to run a full-featured GNU system, the philosophy that you (and I) consider so important is not preached very well. That would probably change if GNU has its own kernel.
And besides, the Hurd, doing almost everything is userspace, has a much cooler design and it's nicer to use it when programming device drivers (making them easier to debug, etc.)
If you think technical merits are all that count (like Linus does), then that is your right. I think ethics are important and I think having a GNU system without Linus involved, and therefore without his philosophy sticking to it would be a good thing for the PR of GNU. And since I consider GNU to be one of the best things in the world (because of RMS' philosophy), something improving its PR is good as well.
And as I said, Hurd is just better than Linux from the point of view of a system programmer. Linux is very good indeed, but Hurd is better.
Not because they don't like or agree with the concept, but that they disagree with his associated zealotry.
His zealotry consists of sticking to his principles. He's not going to be pragmatic. That is the concept of GNU. Freedom is the most important thing there is about software, and anything harming it is a Bad Thing. If preaching that is alienating people, then they are disagreeing with the concept.
Richard doesn't care much about if people like his software. He cares about freedom. And I'm happy he does.
If he would, like Linus, allow non-free products as the best tool for the job, then GNU would have been nowhere. If there is only a non-free product that does the job, well then he's going to make sure there will be a free alternative. That's what GNU is all about.
You can call it zealotry, and people may dislike it. I can't see why though, Richard is the most ethical person I know. I don't see why anyone would have a problem with him holding on to his principles. Well, except if you're opportunistic and you can make more money if he doesn't. But in that case I don't even have words for how low I would think of you.
All idiologies you say? I agree with the rest of you post, but I think the reason such a project has grown to be what it is, is that all those people share the same ideology. And actually, that ideology is exactly what Richard has given us.
Of course it's not all the same... Linus has a different ideology, and the BSD people have yet another one. But Ideologies like Bill Gates' are not found in those projects. And I'm happy with that:-)
Actually vim is not an official GNU project, in that the copyrights are not owned by the fsf. Of course it is GPL'd and most people prefer to use it on a GNU system:-)
That said, if we had to start from scratch today, I would be part of it.
Now you mention it, are you already working on the Hurd?
It seems that as long as Linux is needed to run a full-featured GNU system, the philosophy that you (and I) consider so important is not preached very well. That would probably change if GNU has its own kernel.
And besides, the Hurd, doing almost everything is userspace, has a much cooler design and it's nicer to use it when programming device drivers (making them easier to debug, etc.)
You may be right, but I tried to find out what several parties think about software patents yesterday, and google didn't help. Some sites didn't have any information at all, and none of them had a page where "software patent" matched. I found only one site which had some position statements about the issues that currently play in Europe, but software patents weren't amongst them. It seems that, as usual, the average politician doesn't know and doesn't care about software.
I just hope someone starts enforcing the patents that were mentioned on the knoppix page, like "scrolling a window". Then perhaps European citizens and the European parliament will see that they made the wrong choice and they might cancel the implementation of the directive.
the scientists hope that it will one day be able to automatically tune to your favorite television programs, order you take out food, and control other household appliances.
What a strange idea to let the sofa be the main server. I'd expect it to be a peripheral, and use a general purpose computer as a server. Other peripherals could include the television, the internet (for ordering food), and household appliances.
If they know only a bit about how many people in Europe consider him their leader, as far as philosophy on software is concerned, they care.
But what's more important: If you listen to RMS, you notice that he's not trying to get personal gain. He's not trying to get money, he's not trying to get fame, or at least not for the sake of getting it. He's trying to make a better world. And his better world is better for everyone, both Americans and Europeans. They should listen to such talk.
We should be voting for politicians who believe in OSS.
I wish that free software, or even any form of ethics, would be the reason for people to vote. It is for me, I want politicians to be ethical. But I have the feeling most people vote for their interests (read: money). Well, they get what they ask for: opportunistic politicians.
But even if people would vote for ethical reasons, then they'd probably say software is not the issue that makes the difference. Education, medical care, etc. are considered more important.
As Steve Jobs once said, "Every security scheme that is based on secrets eventually fails."
Well, he's got it wrong. He probably meant obscurity, not secrets. Then he would be right. Your gpg private key is a secret. Not telling how the encryption works is obscurity. There's a big difference between the two.
Security through obscurity (as you correctly show is Microsoft's way of working) is bad for security, because it gives the people the feeling that they're safe, while they're not. That means that the end result can be worse than no security at all (in which case the user would perhaps choose not to put sensitive data on the device).
Re:File a complaint with the FTC
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Don't just vent your frustrations on/. where no one outside our community will hear.
What do you mean no one will hear? Didn't you know we're being watched by Microsoft (and probably some others)?
On his site, George says he'll donate whatever he gets from it to EFF. Perhaps someone wanted to do a (quite large, I must say) donation anyway and thought this was a nice way to do it.
On the other hand, the bid might be retracted before the auction closes.
This will end with SCO a flaming wreck, and its executives rich, and that's ALL they want.
When I read all the news, I don't think this is all they want. They have some statements that suggest that they want more than just get rich (actually it suggests they they get rich from another money source).
They aren't just going to the press with anything they can find. They say weird things. Things that don't drive their stock up. Things that make Free software/Open source software/GNU/Linux/BSD/what's the difference between all of them anyway/... look worse to the public.
And there's really only one company that would pay money for that to happen. (And as a side note, that company happens to be the only one I know of that doesn't know the difference between GNU and Linux even when responding to RMS.)
You don't have to believe in conspiracies to see that Microsoft is behind this. And they know they'll get away with it. It's unlikely that any proof will be found, and if it is, they'll just lengthen the trial until they have a judge that says the things they like.
So you are actually right that they only want to get rich, but there's a bit more to the story than that.
But I don't agree with you that Slashdot shouln't post this. Since other media do, geeks should know what their managers hear.
OK, got me on that technicaliy. In this case "anyone" refers to any organization that chooses to use it or not, which would override "you" if you're employed by that organization. "You" can either do what your boss says or quit.
In the article they claim that the system is only meant to be used internally at large corporations. Expect the marketing people to have a different opinion. The music industry will want to send their songs in this new format, so noone can copy them. They don't care if everyone has to upgrade to a newer version of Windows. And I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft commercials will be talking about the great possibilities when you send such documents to your friends. Which means those friends need a new version of Windows.
Having people sending Word documents at them is IMHO already the reason everyone uses Word nowadays. Microsoft thinks they can do that trick again and they're probably right.
Of course any encryption system gives the possibility to do secret things. The difference is that with a publicly known encryption scheme, anyone who receives the document can do with it whatever he/she wants. Which opens the way for whistleblowers.
If the whole group who has access to the document is agreed that some other group (the competition, the FBI, etc) should not read it, then encryption makes that possible. But if someone is being blackmailed, public encryption gives the victim a proof to send to the press. That is what is blocked by this scheme. And there's nothing good about it.
Of course the problem they say they are solving is real. And they should be solving it. They should build PGP into office.
But as you probably have noticed this scheme has some very anti-social side effects that using PGP doesn't: It blocks other office programs, it blocks other browsers on the way as well (they'll write a plugin for IE for the people who don't want to buy Windows server 2003). Oh and since IE only runs on Windows (I bet they'll not write a mac IE plugin), they're blocking other OS's, too.
Very anti-competitive, very Microsoft-like. They don't do things because there is some problem with the customers. They claim to be solving a problem, while in fact they are just trying to crush competition again.
Oh did that violate our settlement? Sue us and see if you're right about that.
Leach said Microsoft will provide a free plug-in for its Internet Explorer Web browser that will let it display rights-protected Office documents.
"We recognize that people are going to want to take advantage of this that don't have Office 2003," he said. "This way, they can see the document in a browser window (and) they can print, copy or forward," as decided by the document creator.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if Microsoft would stop OpenOffice from being compatible. Is that against their setlement? Sue them and see in 15 years if you were right.
but thats much like saying all car security can be defeated by a towtruck and a truck driver.
Not at all. The point of car security is that people can not drive your car away. If they tow it away, they have it somewhere private but they still cannot drive it, so they succeeded in solving the problem. They are not solving the problem of your car getting towed away, because they think that getting a towtruck is too much trouble for a thief (and they're right).
The problem Microsoft says to be solving is that documents can be forwarded to people who shouldn't see them. This problem is not solved, since with a camera it is very well possible to do just that. And of course a camera is a lot easier to get and use than a towtruck;-)
It can be done. It will be done. It has been done. It's called PGP and implemented in free software called Gnu Privacy Guard.
The only thing this scheme adds that gpg doesn't have is the control to stop users who are allowed to read it from forwarding it. Very nice for memos saying "break the law or I'll fire you", because they might leak to the press otherwise. However, I don't know of anything Good that can be done with it.
Of course such things cannot be done with open source software. People could just change the software so they can forward it. Then again, with a closed source project people can photograph their display and forward the photo anyway.
So encrypt the document with public/private key encryption. If anyone without the private key gets that document, no problem, they can't read it.
This problem doesn't need you to lock yourself into Microsoft, and therefore you shouldn't let it. Lock-in is a Bad Thing and should be avoided at all costs. In this case it doesn't really cost anything, which is even better:-)
Wrong. People want compatibility, that's why they upgrade to the newer version of office when they they start receiving documents in such a format. That's exactly why "lock-in" is in the title of the article. If people would want compatibility, they would write their documents in some open format, and most of them don't do that.
And about the setlement: Did you read any news lately? As far as I know they haven't complied with anything in it yet, so this will not be a problem. And I heard a rumour here on slashdot (therefore totally unreliable;-) ) that the only penalty they get for ignoring the setlement is that they have to ignore it a bit longer. Doesn't sound like they would have a problem with that, does it?
The article mentions something different: Employees should be able to have the documents on a laptop and connect to the server to see if they may read them. So the documents aren't on that server, but the server needs to be on the internet for the mobile users to be able to use their documents.
And by the way, Microsoft would make a IE plugin to read the documents (but you can't print or copy them if the document says you can't), so the users don't need a $500 product. They only need IE. Did someone mention consumer lock-in on their office product? They don't mind locking you into their browser as well, if it isn't too much trouble.
It does indeed look like you are defending Microsoft, you should get an instant karma penalty;-)
Seriously, while your post is indeed, as moderated, informative, it is offtopic as well. Mentioning trustworthy computing in this article doesn't make any sense at all.
Trustworthy computing is not about security. If it is implemented everywhere, the world is not a safer place. It's all about trust. The content providers can trust your computer if it runs palladium. The user can't control it anymore (not fully anyway), but the content providers can trust it. That's what trustworthy computing is all about.
So not only is this not a very good joke, it is very irrelevant in an article about security.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not saying Linux is bad, and I'm definately not saying all software not owned by the FSF is bad. What I'm saying is that I care about the philosophy that the FSF preaches. And they're having a hard time getting it through to the people as long as the people think "Well the system is called Linux and Linus made it all by himself". I know that's not how it is. You know too. But most people don't. And since Linus does not clearly tell the press about it, most people will not know about it as long as Linux is needed to run GNU. I mean, why listen to RMS, if he seems to be contradicting Linus? Linus created the whole system, he should know.
For the sake of clarity: I don't know of Linus ever claiming he created the whole sytem. But he says things like "I'm in the center of it all" (about the kernel) when he knows very well the journalist and all the readers think he's talking about the operating system.
And speaking of L4ka, That's exactly what we're currently working on. Probably most things from Mach Hurd can be ported fairly easily to it, so the effort that was put in there is not wasted.
Did you read my post at all? I'll quote it for you:
If you think technical merits are all that count (like Linus does), then that is your right. I think ethics are important and I think having a GNU system without Linus involved, and therefore without his philosophy sticking to it would be a good thing for the PR of GNU. And since I consider GNU to be one of the best things in the world (because of RMS' philosophy), something improving its PR is good as well.
And as I said, Hurd is just better than Linux from the point of view of a system programmer. Linux is very good indeed, but Hurd is better.
His zealotry consists of sticking to his principles. He's not going to be pragmatic. That is the concept of GNU. Freedom is the most important thing there is about software, and anything harming it is a Bad Thing. If preaching that is alienating people, then they are disagreeing with the concept.
Richard doesn't care much about if people like his software. He cares about freedom. And I'm happy he does.
If he would, like Linus, allow non-free products as the best tool for the job, then GNU would have been nowhere. If there is only a non-free product that does the job, well then he's going to make sure there will be a free alternative. That's what GNU is all about.
You can call it zealotry, and people may dislike it. I can't see why though, Richard is the most ethical person I know. I don't see why anyone would have a problem with him holding on to his principles. Well, except if you're opportunistic and you can make more money if he doesn't. But in that case I don't even have words for how low I would think of you.
All idiologies you say? I agree with the rest of you post, but I think the reason such a project has grown to be what it is, is that all those people share the same ideology. And actually, that ideology is exactly what Richard has given us.
Of course it's not all the same... Linus has a different ideology, and the BSD people have yet another one. But Ideologies like Bill Gates' are not found in those projects. And I'm happy with that :-)
Actually vim is not an official GNU project, in that the copyrights are not owned by the fsf. Of course it is GPL'd and most people prefer to use it on a GNU system :-)
Now you mention it, are you already working on the Hurd?
It seems that as long as Linux is needed to run a full-featured GNU system, the philosophy that you (and I) consider so important is not preached very well. That would probably change if GNU has its own kernel.
And besides, the Hurd, doing almost everything is userspace, has a much cooler design and it's nicer to use it when programming device drivers (making them easier to debug, etc.)
You may be right, but I tried to find out what several parties think about software patents yesterday, and google didn't help. Some sites didn't have any information at all, and none of them had a page where "software patent" matched. I found only one site which had some position statements about the issues that currently play in Europe, but software patents weren't amongst them. It seems that, as usual, the average politician doesn't know and doesn't care about software.
I just hope someone starts enforcing the patents that were mentioned on the knoppix page, like "scrolling a window". Then perhaps European citizens and the European parliament will see that they made the wrong choice and they might cancel the implementation of the directive.
I know, I'm too optimistic...
the scientists hope that it will one day be able to automatically tune to your favorite television programs, order you take out food, and control other household appliances.
What a strange idea to let the sofa be the main server. I'd expect it to be a peripheral, and use a general purpose computer as a server. Other peripherals could include the television, the internet (for ordering food), and household appliances.
If they know only a bit about how many people in Europe consider him their leader, as far as philosophy on software is concerned, they care.
But what's more important: If you listen to RMS, you notice that he's not trying to get personal gain. He's not trying to get money, he's not trying to get fame, or at least not for the sake of getting it. He's trying to make a better world. And his better world is better for everyone, both Americans and Europeans. They should listen to such talk.
That was what I thought. Not because of the grammar (I haven't read much of any of them), but because of this sentence:
Software patents are also the utmost threat to the development of Linux and other free software products
I thought Linus was always talking about open source software, not free software.
We should be voting for politicians who believe in OSS.
I wish that free software, or even any form of ethics, would be the reason for people to vote. It is for me, I want politicians to be ethical. But I have the feeling most people vote for their interests (read: money). Well, they get what they ask for: opportunistic politicians.
But even if people would vote for ethical reasons, then they'd probably say software is not the issue that makes the difference. Education, medical care, etc. are considered more important.
As Steve Jobs once said, "Every security scheme that is based on secrets eventually fails."
Well, he's got it wrong. He probably meant obscurity, not secrets. Then he would be right. Your gpg private key is a secret. Not telling how the encryption works is obscurity. There's a big difference between the two.
Security through obscurity (as you correctly show is Microsoft's way of working) is bad for security, because it gives the people the feeling that they're safe, while they're not. That means that the end result can be worse than no security at all (in which case the user would perhaps choose not to put sensitive data on the device).
Don't just vent your frustrations on /. where no one outside our community will hear.
What do you mean no one will hear? Didn't you know we're being watched by Microsoft (and probably some others)?
Who bids US $9,700.00 for .99 cent song?
On his site, George says he'll donate whatever he gets from it to EFF. Perhaps someone wanted to do a (quite large, I must say) donation anyway and thought this was a nice way to do it.
On the other hand, the bid might be retracted before the auction closes.
This will end with SCO a flaming wreck, and its executives rich, and that's ALL they want.
When I read all the news, I don't think this is all they want. They have some statements that suggest that they want more than just get rich (actually it suggests they they get rich from another money source).
They aren't just going to the press with anything they can find. They say weird things. Things that don't drive their stock up. Things that make Free software/Open source software/GNU/Linux/BSD/what's the difference between all of them anyway/... look worse to the public.
And there's really only one company that would pay money for that to happen. (And as a side note, that company happens to be the only one I know of that doesn't know the difference between GNU and Linux even when responding to RMS.)
You don't have to believe in conspiracies to see that Microsoft is behind this. And they know they'll get away with it. It's unlikely that any proof will be found, and if it is, they'll just lengthen the trial until they have a judge that says the things they like.
So you are actually right that they only want to get rich, but there's a bit more to the story than that.
But I don't agree with you that Slashdot shouln't post this. Since other media do, geeks should know what their managers hear.
OK, got me on that technicaliy. In this case "anyone" refers to any organization that chooses to use it or not, which would override "you" if you're employed by that organization. "You" can either do what your boss says or quit.
In the article they claim that the system is only meant to be used internally at large corporations. Expect the marketing people to have a different opinion. The music industry will want to send their songs in this new format, so noone can copy them. They don't care if everyone has to upgrade to a newer version of Windows. And I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft commercials will be talking about the great possibilities when you send such documents to your friends. Which means those friends need a new version of Windows.
Having people sending Word documents at them is IMHO already the reason everyone uses Word nowadays. Microsoft thinks they can do that trick again and they're probably right.
Of course any encryption system gives the possibility to do secret things. The difference is that with a publicly known encryption scheme, anyone who receives the document can do with it whatever he/she wants. Which opens the way for whistleblowers.
If the whole group who has access to the document is agreed that some other group (the competition, the FBI, etc) should not read it, then encryption makes that possible. But if someone is being blackmailed, public encryption gives the victim a proof to send to the press. That is what is blocked by this scheme. And there's nothing good about it.
Of course the problem they say they are solving is real. And they should be solving it. They should build PGP into office.
But as you probably have noticed this scheme has some very anti-social side effects that using PGP doesn't: It blocks other office programs, it blocks other browsers on the way as well (they'll write a plugin for IE for the people who don't want to buy Windows server 2003). Oh and since IE only runs on Windows (I bet they'll not write a mac IE plugin), they're blocking other OS's, too.
Very anti-competitive, very Microsoft-like. They don't do things because there is some problem with the customers. They claim to be solving a problem, while in fact they are just trying to crush competition again.
Oh did that violate our settlement? Sue us and see if you're right about that.
From the article:
Leach said Microsoft will provide a free plug-in for its Internet Explorer Web browser that will let it display rights-protected Office documents.
"We recognize that people are going to want to take advantage of this that don't have Office 2003," he said. "This way, they can see the document in a browser window (and) they can print, copy or forward," as decided by the document creator.
It wouldn't surprise me at all if Microsoft would stop OpenOffice from being compatible. Is that against their setlement? Sue them and see in 15 years if you were right.
There's tons of perfectly legitimate uses for this technology
Any legitimate use it implements is also in GPG, which doesn't have the problem that it provides better possibilities for doing illegal things.
anyone who doesn't like it can go use OO or just ignore the feature.
Wrong. I don't like it, my boss sends me a protected document anyway. Should I just ignore that document?
but thats much like saying all car security can be defeated by a towtruck and a truck driver.
Not at all. The point of car security is that people can not drive your car away. If they tow it away, they have it somewhere private but they still cannot drive it, so they succeeded in solving the problem. They are not solving the problem of your car getting towed away, because they think that getting a towtruck is too much trouble for a thief (and they're right).
The problem Microsoft says to be solving is that documents can be forwarded to people who shouldn't see them. This problem is not solved, since with a camera it is very well possible to do just that. And of course a camera is a lot easier to get and use than a towtruck ;-)
a Free/Open project could do it better
It can be done. It will be done. It has been done. It's called PGP and implemented in free software called Gnu Privacy Guard.
The only thing this scheme adds that gpg doesn't have is the control to stop users who are allowed to read it from forwarding it. Very nice for memos saying "break the law or I'll fire you", because they might leak to the press otherwise. However, I don't know of anything Good that can be done with it.
Of course such things cannot be done with open source software. People could just change the software so they can forward it. Then again, with a closed source project people can photograph their display and forward the photo anyway.
So encrypt the document with public/private key encryption. If anyone without the private key gets that document, no problem, they can't read it.
This problem doesn't need you to lock yourself into Microsoft, and therefore you shouldn't let it. Lock-in is a Bad Thing and should be avoided at all costs. In this case it doesn't really cost anything, which is even better :-)
Wrong. People want compatibility, that's why they upgrade to the newer version of office when they they start receiving documents in such a format. That's exactly why "lock-in" is in the title of the article. If people would want compatibility, they would write their documents in some open format, and most of them don't do that.
And about the setlement: Did you read any news lately? As far as I know they haven't complied with anything in it yet, so this will not be a problem. And I heard a rumour here on slashdot (therefore totally unreliable ;-) ) that the only penalty they get for ignoring the setlement is that they have to ignore it a bit longer. Doesn't sound like they would have a problem with that, does it?
The article mentions something different: Employees should be able to have the documents on a laptop and connect to the server to see if they may read them. So the documents aren't on that server, but the server needs to be on the internet for the mobile users to be able to use their documents.
And by the way, Microsoft would make a IE plugin to read the documents (but you can't print or copy them if the document says you can't), so the users don't need a $500 product. They only need IE. Did someone mention consumer lock-in on their office product? They don't mind locking you into their browser as well, if it isn't too much trouble.
It does indeed look like you are defending Microsoft, you should get an instant karma penalty ;-)
Seriously, while your post is indeed, as moderated, informative, it is offtopic as well. Mentioning trustworthy computing in this article doesn't make any sense at all.
Trustworthy computing is not about security. If it is implemented everywhere, the world is not a safer place. It's all about trust. The content providers can trust your computer if it runs palladium. The user can't control it anymore (not fully anyway), but the content providers can trust it. That's what trustworthy computing is all about.
So not only is this not a very good joke, it is very irrelevant in an article about security.