No open source software will be receive any development on opening day. In cities with lines around the block, open source development may cease prior to opening day.
This is good for Linux
Developers work too hard. They need a break. They need to see sunlight again.
This is bad for Linux
When developers return to their computers they will be spending less time developing and more time critiquing the movie or trying to create Yoda fight scenes in their favorite open source 3D program.
"If they join all the state drivers licence databases together, they'll be able to track me! How do I change my identity?"
Currently there is no data to join on. They're using silly stuff like first name, last name, and birth date. Joining all the databases together will increase their ability to track you but it will also cause tons of headaches as license records for separate individuals will be joined because politicians aren't smart enough to realize that name and birth date aren't distinct across 250 million US citizens.
I'm too fucking dense to realise that this has been going on for over 15 years already, and I've just finished reading 1984. Go figure.
First of all, lack of awareness does not make one dense.
The "Problem Driver Pointer System" was created 20 years ago but some states did not become involved until the mid to late 90s. So the fact that the system doesn't work and hassles a lot of innocent people doesn't seem to have been worked out yet. If your name is rare enough you may never have a problem but my first name is in the top 10 of male first names and my last name in the top 30 (http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/).
My sister's first name is in the top 10 female names and she has also had problems with false matches.
The current system doesn't work. Trying to join all those databases together will cause tons of problems. If they do work out the kinks a single database will result in an increased ability to track individuals across state lines.
As far as changing your identity, I say just be happy with who you are.
Personally I think "selling out" == "trying to market your sound to get a larger audience". Art of any kind is about creation of something special that comes from within you and makes you happy. Linus would be my example of someone who did not sell out. He does the kernel because he wants to and he avoids having people tell him it must be done this way or that because of money or politics or whatever.
I would describe almost any famous musical artist as a sellout. Very few are in a position to control their own "art".
They are "selling" it, in essence, to every department within their organization. They have a responsibility to maintain corporate standards so that they can keep their network manageable. By the time they get done creating the "Fedex standard install" they have approached the creation of their own distro.
The problem with hiring an 'expert' company is that Fedex software management is not a one-time job. Every day there are tasks to be done, security fixes and new features to be rolled out. Corporate software management is not so different from what RedHat and the UnitedLinux group do but it can be rather company specific.
Fedex may pick one program (KDE for example) and pretty much ignore the competitor while RedHat still needs to support both.
Here are the criteria for establishing whether you have seen an honest to goodness UFO.
1. Could you identify it? 2. Was it flying? 3. Was it an object?
If, indeed, you could not identify it, it was flying, and it was an object then, yes, it was a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object).
With the above criteria I would expect greater amounts of UFO sightings among the near-sighted as they/we are more prone to be unable to identify a flying object.
Maybe the large corporations want this and if they want it and will pay for it then more power to them but I'm not convinced it is the best approach. Large corporations can afford to hire their people loyal to their company. Fedex, for example, could create the Fedex distro. They already have to do most of the tasks involved in a distro in the everyday upkeep of their systems.
A large corporation should not be counting on phone support for their systems, they should be providing phone support for their systems.
Actually I do claim that legally mandating Macrovision (as the DMCA does) is inappropriate and unlawful. I have experienced movies that will not display properly with my equipment due to the Macrovision "protection". Requiring consumer VCRs to support Macrovision is silly. (If Macrovision can have a law that makes them rich then I want a law that makes me rich too.)
I also contend that requiring DVD players to respect region codes is inappropriate and unlawful. There is no reason a DVD player manufacturer should be required to cripple their device just so that the motion picture producer can control his movie watching.
I also don't get how the movie industry, who has depicted so many crimes including murders, terrorism, scams of all kinds, etc can try to censor a piece of software code (DeCSS) that merely depicts how to copy a DVD. Why are their created works protected pieces of art while computer software creations are evil creations to be stifled and suppressed? Is it only creative if created in the proper medium?
Once SCC approved the use of Type Enforcement under the GPL they cannot revoke that use or change the terms of use same as if you purchased a product and they later raised the price retroactively and sent you a bill.
SCC approved use of the patented technology under the GPL so they cannot legally stop others from using it under the GPL. One of the advantages to this for them is that they still retain full legal rights to prevent their technology from being used in closed source apps without a legal agreement with SCC.
So if Microsoft wanted this technology embedded into Windows XXP they have to either pay up or GPL their OS.
G/F: "Honey, I love you but I know you're not ready to commit and my old boyfriend from high school is. I'm going to marry him." B/F: "Here's a ring I purchased with the proceeds from selling my big screen TV. Let's get married."
If a software application representing 5000 hours uses Microsoft-licensed code that reflects only 100 hours, is Microsoft fair in its argument that the entire product is Microsoft-licensed? (or Apple or whatever)
Or whatever percentage. The fact is it isn't fair. So what? It isn't fair that not all vendors support Linux with every product. It isn't fair that Microsoft leverages monopoly power to increase their business.
The question is, is it legal and ethical? Life isn't fair and getting caught up in making everything "fair" for everyone will just end up screwing a lot of people. (Communism is all about making everything fair for everyone.)
I think they should start designing PDAs as workable phones and then build CompactFlash phone modules for them. That way Sprint can have their system, Verizon can have their system, and the PDA doesn't have to conform.
permissions to execute scripts from E-mail software
I am not aware of an email program that does this unless you count attachment types that open in specific programs like the koffice apps or that sort of thing.
There is no reason shell scripts or executable binaries should ever be clickably executable from an email program and I don't expect to see that feature/hole added to Linux mail programs.
1) Not true. No Linux mail program that I am aware of can execute attachments. If you want to do that you will need to save the attachment and set the permission to executable. The mail programs can use a program like Gimp or something to open attachments you have received. If you want to exploit this there needs to be a hole in Gimp or whatever program you used to open the attachments.
2) a novice user will have difficulty in either case. you can't expect a novice user to know everything without a bit of training.
3) I believe Linux developers to be smart enough to disable most potential viruses and actually fix problems without having to always resort to checking a list of all known viruses each time you execute a program.
telecommunication is defined as "communication at a distance". Maybe the FCC commissioners aren't familiar with e-mail, chat, instant messaging, video conferencing, or IP telephony.
I thought the topic was "what kind of underpowered computers can we use to run a web server and the brag about it so slashdot so they can cripple it with many hits?"
Privacy laws are there to protect consumers, not vendors. Vendors are not entitled to have their identities obscured. The system doesn't work that way.
This isn't really a privacy issue so much. Every business keeps their records for a limited amount of time and then gets rid of them. 6 months is kinda short and if we want to take issue with that and force them to keep transaction records longer I'm OK with that. I still don't see any privacy issues.
The original notification of the security flaw includes the above, perfectly workable fix. I find it irresponsible that the news organizations that I have seen, CNN and Yahoo, reproduce news of the flaw without including the working workaround.
Slashdot Mirror
What effect will Episode III have on open source?
No open source software will be receive any development on opening day. In cities with lines around the block, open source development may cease prior to opening day.
This is good for Linux
Developers work too hard. They need a break. They need to see sunlight again.
This is bad for Linux
When developers return to their computers they will be spending less time developing and more time critiquing the movie or trying to create Yoda fight scenes in their favorite open source 3D program.
"If they join all the state drivers licence databases together, they'll be able to track me! How do I change my identity?"
Currently there is no data to join on. They're using silly stuff like first name, last name, and birth date. Joining all the databases together will increase their ability to track you but it will also cause tons of headaches as license records for separate individuals will be joined because politicians aren't smart enough to realize that name and birth date aren't distinct across 250 million US citizens.
I'm too fucking dense to realise that this has been going on for over 15 years already, and I've just finished reading 1984. Go figure.
First of all, lack of awareness does not make one dense.
The "Problem Driver Pointer System" was created 20 years ago but some states did not become involved until the mid to late 90s. So the fact that the system doesn't work and hassles a lot of innocent people doesn't seem to have been worked out yet. If your name is rare enough you may never have a problem but my first name is in the top 10 of male first names and my last name in the top 30 (http://www.census.gov/genealogy/names/). My sister's first name is in the top 10 female names and she has also had problems with false matches.
The current system doesn't work. Trying to join all those databases together will cause tons of problems. If they do work out the kinks a single database will result in an increased ability to track individuals across state lines.
As far as changing your identity, I say just be happy with who you are.
So you're arguing that it isn't through Sprint's stupidity that they were hackable? that the stupidity was actually Nortel's stupidity?
Personally I think "selling out" == "trying to market your sound to get a larger audience". Art of any kind is about creation of something special that comes from within you and makes you happy. Linus would be my example of someone who did not sell out. He does the kernel because he wants to and he avoids having people tell him it must be done this way or that because of money or politics or whatever.
I would describe almost any famous musical artist as a sellout. Very few are in a position to control their own "art".
This article claims that Moby does indeed drink.
They are "selling" it, in essence, to every department within their organization. They have a responsibility to maintain corporate standards so that they can keep their network manageable. By the time they get done creating the "Fedex standard install" they have approached the creation of their own distro.
The problem with hiring an 'expert' company is that Fedex software management is not a one-time job. Every day there are tasks to be done, security fixes and new features to be rolled out. Corporate software management is not so different from what RedHat and the UnitedLinux group do but it can be rather company specific.
Fedex may pick one program (KDE for example) and pretty much ignore the competitor while RedHat still needs to support both.
I believe in UFOs.
Here are the criteria for establishing whether you have seen an honest to goodness UFO.
1. Could you identify it?
2. Was it flying?
3. Was it an object?
If, indeed, you could not identify it, it was flying, and it was an object then, yes, it was a UFO (Unidentified Flying Object).
With the above criteria I would expect greater amounts of UFO sightings among the near-sighted as they/we are more prone to be unable to identify a flying object.
Absolutely. You probably would not be able to call it United Linux though.
Maybe the large corporations want this and if they want it and will pay for it then more power to them but I'm not convinced it is the best approach. Large corporations can afford to hire their people loyal to their company. Fedex, for example, could create the Fedex distro. They already have to do most of the tasks involved in a distro in the everyday upkeep of their systems.
A large corporation should not be counting on phone support for their systems, they should be providing phone support for their systems.
Actually I do claim that legally mandating Macrovision (as the DMCA does) is inappropriate and unlawful. I have experienced movies that will not display properly with my equipment due to the Macrovision "protection". Requiring consumer VCRs to support Macrovision is silly. (If Macrovision can have a law that makes them rich then I want a law that makes me rich too.)
I also contend that requiring DVD players to respect region codes is inappropriate and unlawful. There is no reason a DVD player manufacturer should be required to cripple their device just so that the motion picture producer can control his movie watching.
I also don't get how the movie industry, who has depicted so many crimes including murders, terrorism, scams of all kinds, etc can try to censor a piece of software code (DeCSS) that merely depicts how to copy a DVD. Why are their created works protected pieces of art while computer software creations are evil creations to be stifled and suppressed? Is it only creative if created in the proper medium?
How about *.sf.net? That one is set up already.
IANAL
Once SCC approved the use of Type Enforcement under the GPL they cannot revoke that use or change the terms of use same as if you purchased a product and they later raised the price retroactively and sent you a bill.
SCC approved use of the patented technology under the GPL so they cannot legally stop others from using it under the GPL. One of the advantages to this for them is that they still retain full legal rights to prevent their technology from being used in closed source apps without a legal agreement with SCC.
So if Microsoft wanted this technology embedded into Windows XXP they have to either pay up or GPL their OS.
It is not unreasonable. In Apache vs IIS, Apache runs on more sites than IIS yet there isn't worm for it while IIS has plenty of holes.
The mail program I run, kmail, does not execute code found in emails. That is a huge step toward preventing viruses.
That can work out.
G/F: "Honey, I love you but I know you're not ready to commit and my old boyfriend from high school is. I'm going to marry him."
B/F: "Here's a ring I purchased with the proceeds from selling my big screen TV. Let's get married."
(the future counterpart to the ISO and W3.org)
A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. . .
If a software application representing 5000 hours uses Microsoft-licensed code that reflects only 100 hours, is Microsoft fair in its argument that the entire product is Microsoft-licensed? (or Apple or whatever)
Or whatever percentage. The fact is it isn't fair. So what? It isn't fair that not all vendors support Linux with every product. It isn't fair that Microsoft leverages monopoly power to increase their business.
The question is, is it legal and ethical? Life isn't fair and getting caught up in making everything "fair" for everyone will just end up screwing a lot of people. (Communism is all about making everything fair for everyone.)
I think they should start designing PDAs as workable phones and then build CompactFlash phone modules for them. That way Sprint can have their system, Verizon can have their system, and the PDA doesn't have to conform.
permissions to execute scripts from E-mail software
I am not aware of an email program that does this unless you count attachment types that open in specific programs like the koffice apps or that sort of thing.
There is no reason shell scripts or executable binaries should ever be clickably executable from an email program and I don't expect to see that feature/hole added to Linux mail programs.
1) Not true. No Linux mail program that I am aware of can execute attachments. If you want to do that you will need to save the attachment and set the permission to executable. The mail programs can use a program like Gimp or something to open attachments you have received. If you want to exploit this there needs to be a hole in Gimp or whatever program you used to open the attachments.
2) a novice user will have difficulty in either case. you can't expect a novice user to know everything without a bit of training.
3) I believe Linux developers to be smart enough to disable most potential viruses and actually fix problems without having to always resort to checking a list of all known viruses each time you execute a program.
At least Microsoft has sense to ship systems with unnecessary services disabled.
When did they start this? I'm glad to hear it.
I am not familiar with which distribution ships with wu-ftpd, sshd, bind, and rpc.statd all enabled.
The average computer user doesn't want to play sysadmin and keep up with patches. What solution do you recommend? What about Redhat's up2date service?
telecommunication is defined as "communication at a distance". Maybe the FCC commissioners aren't familiar with e-mail, chat, instant messaging, video conferencing, or IP telephony.
I thought the topic was "what kind of underpowered computers can we use to run a web server and the brag about it so slashdot so they can cripple it with many hits?"
But what do I know?
when you can use a beowulf cluser of Commodore 64s?
I'm just kidding. I'm sure you'd have to write your own clustering software in C-64 basic.
Privacy laws are there to protect consumers, not vendors. Vendors are not entitled to have their identities obscured. The system doesn't work that way.
This isn't really a privacy issue so much. Every business keeps their records for a limited amount of time and then gets rid of them. 6 months is kinda short and if we want to take issue with that and force them to keep transaction records longer I'm OK with that. I still don't see any privacy issues.
I don't see the problem. Most of CNN's readership have no clue what gopher even is and have never been to a gopher:// link.
The original notification of the security flaw includes the above, perfectly workable fix. I find it irresponsible that the news organizations that I have seen, CNN and Yahoo, reproduce news of the flaw without including the working workaround.