(and to avoid the same pointless conversation I have had too many times, secure in this context means not having exploits in the code. it does not mean having encrypted passwords - we are talking about anonymous ftp)
ftp as a protocol is far simpler to implement than ssh2 for example, so if you have no authentication to do, use ftp.
Using ssl is good if you have eg. passwords to hide, but other than that it just introduces complexity. more complexity tends to mean more possibility for bugs, which means more possible exploits.
However, don't use bloated, over-complicated stuff like wuftpd etc. something like vsftpd is/much/ better. its very simple and designed from scratch to be secure above all else. afaik it has never had a security bug found, and I would say is as close to secure as it is possible to be.
Copyright ownership is not "awarded", it is automatic for the creator of a work.
Prior art has nothing to do with copyright, but relates to patent claims for an invention of something that already existed.
What registering copyright is for is beyond me, but it doesn't change much. Either linux contains SCO code, or it doesn't No amount of registering things will change those facts.
I just wish SCO would show us the code or go away. What they are doing now is harassing people.
A good trick is to cleverly craft and advert for your site and then cunningly present it as an "ask slashdot" question, thereby getting free advertising to huge numbers of people.
The artists sign so they can be supported by the massive long-established marketing machine that is the music industry. If they didn't sign, they would be competing against that marketing machine which is almost impossible given its size.
That doesn't mean they want the industry the way it is. They would get paid much more fairly (ie, more based on merit) if those greedy middle men didn't exist.
It's almost like a protection racket: "You come and work with us and we will look after you. It will cost you a huge chunk of your work, but if you don't come to us we will obliterate you with our marketing power"
This is a good demonstration of why Income Tax is a much better form of taxation than Sales Tax: it's easier to enforce local taxation that way.
WTF?
Of course income tax is easier to collect, but that's about the only reason I can see that its a "good" thing from the governments (and their tax collectors) point of view. From the citizens point of view you offer no reason at all why it is "much better" than sales tax.
Personally, I despise income tax.
Imagine this. You go to work and produce goods or provide services. Some of the benefit of that work goes to others whether you like it or not and there's nothing you can do about it, but if you don't work you can't eat.
Now - guess whether I was describing income tax or slavery.
Robbers will go for the biggest and easiest loot they can get away with. Currently, that's robbing a cash register etc, but once we have RFIDs and the cash register "knows" what money it has, the easiest target (albeit less money) becomes something like knifepoint street robbery.(unless everyone is going to have wireless RFID readers in their pockets)
Europeans, contact your MEP now or else we will have this stupidity as well. The vote is next month and it looks most likely to give the go ahead on allowing software patents in Europe.
I have contacted my MEP and am trying to set up a personal meeting with him. Please do the same. There aren't many of us doing this kind of thing.
It is not theft whether it is paid for or not. It is copyright infringement. This idea that copyright infringement is theft was invented by copyright holders and those who profit from strong copyright protection. If you look at copyright law you will see that it is legally quite different from theft. (and rightly so IMO)
If Linus calls his kernel Linux and not gnuLinux then its called Linux.
Its not Linux (the kernel) that RMS is calling GNU/Linux. He calls linux linux just like anyone else. What he is calling GNU/Linux is all the distrubutions which are made up from the GNU project together with the linux kernel (and usually some other stuff)
Most people call the distributions just linux, which is fine (I personally think people can call things whatever they like) but I find it does cause confusion sometimes. eg "I'm downloading a new version of linux" can mean redhat 9 for example, or it can mean linux-2.5.68.tar.gz
RMS idea of saying GNU/Linux does avoid this confusion while at the same time giving credit to the GNU project. (After all, any given distro probably contains more lines of GNU code than Linux code (in fact emacs probably does that alone!))
However, I prefer to be even more specific and just use vendor names. "I'm downloading a new version of debian" is pretty unambiguous and avoids the whole linux vs gnu/linux problem.
I'm simply amazed that people are still asking such basic questions. Surely we all know why the savings are not being passed on by now?
It's easy:
Monopolies and cartels do not have any reason to pass money on to consumers. They will not change unless forced to, and they should be forced to.
Before anyone claims that I am suggesting intervention, regulation etc. let me say I am most certainly not. They didn't get to the position they are now by being left alone in a free market. They were unfairly given monopoly status in the form of outrageously long copyright terms. This government invention called copyright is a massive intervention on behalf of the cartels into everyone elses activities. That's what needs to be stopped before they have any incentive to reduce prices (and to innovate, streamline themselves etc, etc - you know all the stuff copyright was supposed to do in the first place in fact)
I see what you mean now, and I completely agree. However, I see this as an advantage. It means those apps where network transparency is desirable (which could be _everything_ for some users) can use it, but those which only care about raw speed and/or smaller memory footprint etc, such as embedded apps and possibly some games that want to get close to the hardware can ignore the network transparency, or not even include it in their distro.
Personally, I think network transparency can be retained without the app developers having to think about it, but still take advantage of dfb. For example, gdk could use xlib etc if it finds a $DISPLAY, but otherwise use dfb. That way, local users dont even need X installed to use gtk apps, but those who want the transparency can get it by installing the client side parts of XFree and exporting a DISPLAY.
Of course, if dfb really took off and supported the range of h/w that xfree does, then the hw support part of xfree could be ignored, leaving the dfb folks to concentrate on the fastest most efficient h/w access, and the X11 ppl thinking about important non-hw issues like polishing RENDER etc.
The question I don't know the answer to is this:
Is is a good idea generally to do the low level hardware access in a more kernel based way like directfb does, or should it be almost all userland based like we see with XFree86. I don't know the answer. My usual feeling is obviously keep it out of the kernel, but then again sometimes if it needs to be fast and/or it has a close relationship with other parts of the kernel then perhaps it should go in. (eg. nfs)
Not only can it gain network transparency, but it gains everything that X has functionally in the form of XDirectFB, a rootless X server that puts X compatability on a layer _above_ the windowing system. Many people believe this is where network transparency belongs rather than entangled within the windowing system.
Just out of interest, what problems are you getting? I've been using linux with token ring daily for years without problems. I'm using a pcmcia IBM 16/4 card at the moment, but I had a pci ibm card before also with no problems. Initially, I was using an IBM lanstreamer (about 2 years or more ago), and I had occasional problems with that under heavy network load. It would just stop working, although the kernel didn't seem to think anything was wrong. "ifconfig down" followed by "ifconfig up" would usually fix it, but sometimes oopsed. I attempted to debug it once but got lost.
Which part of the text you quoted are you saying you disagree with? As far as I can see you haven't disagreed with any of it, except maybe "worst public servant" and that was being said in the context of privacy invasion whereas you seem to be disagreeing in the context of traffic problems. If this were "traffic problem awards" you might have a point.
The article fails to address one important question IMO.
The fact is that for some people, being contactable is absolutely essensial throughout the working day. Personally, I find myself constantly being asked technical questions about a very wide range of subjects as well as having my own work to do. I have to have give answers at some point or others get no work done. If people want to know how to contact me, I have to tell them something!
By default the majority just pick up the phone and call me. This is an absolute disaster when I am in the middle of debugging some complex problem.
Most of the time now when someone phones with a technical question I ask them if they can send me an email about it. After hearing this several times they usually get the message and stop calling at all in favour of sending emails. This has improved my ability to work no end. I now check and answer emails in batches whenever I have a convenient breaking point.
Email has substantially reduced breaks in my concentration. Exactly the opposite of what the author finds.
This guy is a fair and legitimate target for electronic surveilance.
I don't think anyone would disagree with who is being targetted by echelon, but that doesn't make echelon okay.
echelon is an unacceptable invasion of privacy for many people. We all know that some terrorists might walk free without it, but only in the same way that some murderers walk free because police have to get warrants for everything.
The end does not justify the means. If there was echelon, there is no reason to believe that an alternative could not exist that is just as effective but without being so invasive.
Slashdot Mirror
So provide a family tracing system then. Give people access to a database where they can _optionally_ enter their details for others to find them by.
Just because an ill concieved scheme has the potential to solve one particular problem doesn't suddenly mean it's a good scheme.
I wouldn't recommend that. Just check the source and you know why.
I've checked the source and I don't know what you are talking about. What have I missed?
I don't trust PureFTPd anywhere near as much. It's certainly had more exploits appear over the years.
vsftpd is all you need for secure ftp.
(and to avoid the same pointless conversation I have had too many times, secure in this context means not having exploits in the code. it does not mean having encrypted passwords - we are talking about anonymous ftp)
ftp as a protocol is far simpler to implement than ssh2 for example, so if you have no authentication to do, use ftp.
/much/ better. its very simple and designed from scratch to be secure above all else. afaik it has never had a security bug found, and I would say is as close to secure as it is possible to be.
Using ssl is good if you have eg. passwords to hide, but other than that it just introduces complexity. more complexity tends to mean more possibility for bugs, which means more possible exploits.
However, don't use bloated, over-complicated stuff like wuftpd etc. something like vsftpd is
Copyright ownership is not "awarded", it is automatic for the creator of a work.
Prior art has nothing to do with copyright, but relates to patent claims for an invention of something that already existed.
What registering copyright is for is beyond me, but it doesn't change much. Either linux contains SCO code, or it doesn't No amount of registering things will change those facts.
I just wish SCO would show us the code or go away. What they are doing now is harassing people.
I wasn't having a go at you. My comment was meant in a lighthsarted way, not as snide sarcasm.
One thing you really need is some publicity.
A good trick is to cleverly craft and advert for your site and then cunningly present it as an "ask slashdot" question, thereby getting free advertising to huge numbers of people.
I would do something like that if I were you.
The artists sign so they can be supported by the massive long-established marketing machine that is the music industry. If they didn't sign, they would be competing against that marketing machine which is almost impossible given its size.
That doesn't mean they want the industry the way it is. They would get paid much more fairly (ie, more based on merit) if those greedy middle men didn't exist.
It's almost like a protection racket:
"You come and work with us and we will look after you. It will cost you a huge chunk of your work, but if you don't come to us we will obliterate you with our marketing power"
This is a good demonstration of why Income Tax is a much better form of taxation than Sales Tax: it's easier to enforce local taxation that way.
WTF?
Of course income tax is easier to collect, but that's about the only reason I can see that its a "good" thing from the governments (and their tax collectors) point of view.
From the citizens point of view you offer no reason at all why it is "much better" than sales tax.
Personally, I despise income tax.
Imagine this. You go to work and produce goods or provide services. Some of the benefit of that work goes to others whether you like it or not and there's nothing you can do about it, but if you don't work you can't eat.
Now - guess whether I was describing income tax or slavery.
Don't you mean it would make robberies different?
Robbers will go for the biggest and easiest loot they can get away with. Currently, that's robbing a cash register etc, but once we have RFIDs and the cash register "knows" what money it has, the easiest target (albeit less money) becomes something like knifepoint street robbery.(unless everyone is going to have wireless RFID readers in their pockets)
Not exactly an improvement if you ask me.
Don't you just love software patents.
Europeans, contact your MEP now or else we will have this stupidity as well. The vote is next month and it looks most likely to give the go ahead on allowing software patents in Europe.
I have contacted my MEP and am trying to set up a personal meeting with him. Please do the same. There aren't many of us doing this kind of thing.
No it doesn't!
RTFA! For goodness sake!
then it is still theft.
It is not theft whether it is paid for or not. It is copyright infringement. This idea that copyright infringement is theft was invented by copyright holders and those who profit from strong copyright protection. If you look at copyright law you will see that it is legally quite different from theft. (and rightly so IMO)
To make an analogy between programming and painting is a mistake, because "computer programming" is more like "putting paint on a canvas"
Neither is an art in itself, but a programmer or painter _can_ use their tools to create art.
In other words, saying "computer programming is art" is wrong just as saying "paint and brushes are art" but a painting or a program can both be art.
If Linus calls his kernel Linux and not gnuLinux then its called Linux.
Its not Linux (the kernel) that RMS is calling GNU/Linux. He calls linux linux just like anyone else. What he is calling GNU/Linux is all the distrubutions which are made up from the GNU project together with the linux kernel (and usually some other stuff)
Most people call the distributions just linux, which is fine (I personally think people can call things whatever they like) but I find it does cause confusion sometimes. eg "I'm downloading a new version of linux" can mean redhat 9 for example, or it can mean linux-2.5.68.tar.gz
RMS idea of saying GNU/Linux does avoid this confusion while at the same time giving credit to the GNU project. (After all, any given distro probably contains more lines of GNU code than Linux code (in fact emacs probably does that alone!))
However, I prefer to be even more specific and just use vendor names. "I'm downloading a new version of debian" is pretty unambiguous and avoids the whole linux vs gnu/linux problem.
I'm simply amazed that people are still asking such basic questions. Surely we all know why the savings are not being passed on by now?
It's easy:
Monopolies and cartels do not have any reason to pass money on to consumers. They will not change unless forced to, and they should be forced to.
Before anyone claims that I am suggesting intervention, regulation etc. let me say I am most certainly not. They didn't get to the position they are now by being left alone in a free market. They were unfairly given monopoly status in the form of outrageously long copyright terms. This government invention called copyright is a massive intervention on behalf of the cartels into everyone elses activities. That's what needs to be stopped before they have any incentive to reduce prices (and to innovate, streamline themselves etc, etc - you know all the stuff copyright was supposed to do in the first place in fact)
I see what you mean now, and I completely agree. However, I see this as an advantage. It means those apps where network transparency is desirable (which could be _everything_ for some users) can use it, but those which only care about raw speed and/or smaller memory footprint etc, such as embedded apps and possibly some games that want to get close to the hardware can ignore the network transparency, or not even include it in their distro.
Personally, I think network transparency can be retained without the app developers having to think about it, but still take advantage of dfb. For example, gdk could use xlib etc if it finds a $DISPLAY, but otherwise use dfb. That way, local users dont even need X installed to use gtk apps, but those who want the transparency can get it by installing the client side parts of XFree and exporting a DISPLAY.
Of course, if dfb really took off and supported the range of h/w that xfree does, then the hw support part of xfree could be ignored, leaving the dfb folks to concentrate on the fastest most efficient h/w access, and the X11 ppl thinking about important non-hw issues like polishing RENDER etc.
The question I don't know the answer to is this:
Is is a good idea generally to do the low level hardware access in a more kernel based way like directfb does, or should it be almost all userland based like we see with XFree86.
I don't know the answer. My usual feeling is obviously keep it out of the kernel, but then again sometimes if it needs to be fast and/or it has a close relationship with other parts of the kernel then perhaps it should go in. (eg. nfs)
DirectFB cannot gain network transparency
Not only can it gain network transparency, but it gains everything that X has functionally in the form of XDirectFB, a rootless X server that puts X compatability on a layer _above_ the windowing system. Many people believe this is where network transparency belongs rather than entangled within the windowing system.
Just out of interest, what problems are you getting?
I've been using linux with token ring daily for years without problems. I'm using a pcmcia IBM 16/4 card at the moment, but I had a pci ibm card before also with no problems.
Initially, I was using an IBM lanstreamer (about 2 years or more ago), and I had occasional problems with that under heavy network load. It would just stop working, although the kernel didn't seem to think anything was wrong. "ifconfig down" followed by "ifconfig up" would usually fix it, but sometimes oopsed. I attempted to debug it once but got lost.
I think you might be looking for this
What is the purpose of a backup?
1) Enable recovery from user error. ie, a user deletes stuff they shouldn't have. A backup from last week can be used to retrieve it.
2) Recovery from catastrophic failure. eg. UPS failure, drive controller failure, or fire in the server room.
3) Recovery from a failed drive without downtime.
RAID solves neither of (3) but not (1) or (2). A backup solves (1) and (2) but not (3)
If you think about it, RAID is useful, but is certainly not a good backup strategy. In fact, it is not a backup strategy at all.
Which part of the text you quoted are you saying you disagree with?
As far as I can see you haven't disagreed with any of it, except maybe "worst public servant" and that was being said in the context of privacy invasion whereas you seem to be disagreeing in the context of traffic problems.
If this were "traffic problem awards" you might have a point.
Please moderate the above (and this comment of mine) down,
The article fails to address one important question IMO.
The fact is that for some people, being contactable is absolutely essensial throughout the working day. Personally, I find myself constantly being asked technical questions about a very wide range of subjects as well as having my own work to do. I have to have give answers at some point or others get no work done. If people want to know how to contact me, I have to tell them something!
By default the majority just pick up the phone and call me. This is an absolute disaster when I am in the middle of debugging some complex problem.
Most of the time now when someone phones with a technical question I ask them if they can send me an email about it. After hearing this several times they usually get the message and stop calling at all in favour of sending emails. This has improved my ability to work no end. I now check and answer emails in batches whenever I have a convenient breaking point.
Email has substantially reduced breaks in my concentration. Exactly the opposite of what the author finds.
This guy is a fair and legitimate target for electronic surveilance.
I don't think anyone would disagree with who is being targetted by echelon, but that doesn't make echelon okay.
echelon is an unacceptable invasion of privacy for many people. We all know that some terrorists might walk free without it, but only in the same way that some murderers walk free because police have to get warrants for everything.
The end does not justify the means. If there was echelon, there is no reason to believe that an alternative could not exist that is just as effective but without being so invasive.