> Larry introduces Trae McCombs from Themes > Larry says these are the people who run > these fine Web sites.
I hope Kurt Gray made a mistake and that Larry isnt that clueless about his own holdings. Trae did indeed found themes.org, but he doesn't work on it anymore, he runs linux.com. As the project manager of bb.themes.org, I have been privy to enough events to know that VA is more interested in politics and hype than the open source community. Hey, they are out to make money just like everyone else, but I doubt we will see any articles on/. to the tune of "VA is the Microsoft of the Linux world" like we got with Red Hat. When VA went public, lots of people got "the letter" but curiously, none of the people who volunteer at themes.org did, even though themes.org was the most popular site in VA's stable of web sites until yesterday. Ever notice how every VA web site is redesigned whenever there is a trade show? This mandate alone has seriously kept themes.org from completing a decent design that loads well in any browser. Will we see a/. redesign every time there is another trade show, too? VA has always scared me, but now that they have such wide reaching potential to hurt the community, I am more scared than ever. -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
After reading Jon Katz's review of The Talented Mr. Ripley I could not help but laugh. Maybe it was because the way the article was introduced was a complete joke, (As made clear in earlier comments) or maybe is was because I had already read a review of the film which said quite the opposite, at least concerning the accuracy of the film adaptation and the need to keep the plot secret. (Come on, the preview makes most of it pretty clear) For those who want a good review of the film, read Charles Taylor's review at Salon. -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
An article on this subject at EE Times mentions Slashdot and the debate over this hearing. The article also has some good links to the DVD CCA's arguments. You can read the article here -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
In a portable device, it is often inconvenient to input data by speech. Suppose you are taking down an address or a note that someone is reading to you, (most cases where one needs to take a note) speaking over the other person would be rude, but you dont always want to write down everything they are saying. Handwriting recognition is more useful for a PDA.
For a specialized wearable computer or robot, one that executes a limited set of commands, voice recognition is more beneficial as it does not require physical contact with the device. Both have their places, but for using Linux on a PDA, handwriting is more useful. -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
Microsoft's goal has to be to increase WinCE's market share. Handheld computing profits are not in the OS, but in the hardware and the applications. The more widespread WinCE is, the more M$ can make on CE Office products. The only way CE is going to beat PalmOS and Linux in the embedded market is to open source and offer additional benefits (i.e. multi-platform support, increased hardware support, more extendable OS, etc.) Linux is not ready for the palm computing world, probably will not be for awhile. If Microsoft can enhance WinCE now by allowing more people to develop for the platform, they can compete with PalmOS. Will this happen? I don't know. -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
The KKK is not a Nazi organization. I would imagine that members of the KKK are some of the most anti-socialist people you could ever meet. Both, however, are hate groups. In the US, both groups have the right to hold meetings, demonstrate on public property, and do pretty much anything any other group is allowed to do. No group is legally allowed to threaten people or violate property rights, it is not just the KKK or the Nazi party. It is perfectly fine for the KKK to burn a cross on their own property or for the Nazi party to publish anti-Semetic propaganda.
Personally, I believe that this is what makes our country great. Jon Katz may like to believe that he is full of great insights, but the truth is a great deal of what he is talking about is not censorship. (Art in NY, see one of the other posts for a good explanation) It is not censorship if I do not let you talk about a topic in media which I fund, it is censorship when I don't let you say it in media that you fund. This is the key difference, subtle though it may be. If Princeton were to fire Singer, that would not be censorship, just good sense. They need money more than they need his reputation and "expertise". If Princeton starts suing me because I am talking about the topic and the government allows it, that is censorship. -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
"Brooks's Law" as you call it is not a definite relationship, as you seem to believe. Rather, Brooks shows that as you add people to a project, communication problems tend to overwhelm the project. In another work by Brooks, No Silver Bullet, Brooks argues that no "silver bullet" (technological advance) had yet been produced that would advance software development by an order of magnitude. I think that we are now seeing this silver bullet, the internet. It allows for communication between vast numbers of people across a wide area.
The principles of The Mythical Man-Month also apply to open source, however. Obviously as you add people to an open source project, the per person productivity decreases. (Which is much of what Brooks says in MMM) The reason open source projects are successful are good organizational structures, which Brooks emphasized. -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
In 1975, Fred Brooks showed how many of the practices described in this article would actually produce worse software and extend the time necessary to complete it in hia classic, The Mythical Man Month. However, management still does not seem to understand these basic concepts. Any software project, open or closed source, should heed Brooks' words wisely. If you are a programmer or manage programmers, read this book!
It seems a shame that most people in the industry have not read it and that most managers have little or no idea of how managing a software project differs from general management. -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
I remember LOGO. Now that is old school. Mac hypercard too. My first programming experience (if you can call LOGO programming) was on Ataris with LOGO in elementary school. I did some Mac hypercard in sixth grade. (That is not programming) I taught myself TI-BASIC and then took AP Computer Science (Pascal) in 10th grade. I learned C/C++ the next year. I got lucky that there were some opportunities for me. Most kids don't get the chance.
The worst part of computer science education below college is that the teachers do not know how to program at all. I don't know how to remedy this, I wish I did. Even an independent study in computer science would be better than what is offered now. -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
Once again, stupidity rears its ugly head in the form of a "prevention program". Let me be clear, I do not condone cracking, (hacking on the other hand has given me a stable operating system) but I understand why kids do it. Boredom. Most teenagers are not challenged, and many are looking for a challenge. Cracking is perfect, because all they need is a computer and an internet connection. Cracking provides a sense of accomplishment that is hard for teenage "geeks" to find elsewhere. Preaching to them will only waste money.
I have a possible solution, however. If these same kids had the opportunity to take computer science classes early on, they could find the challenge they needed in producing good software. Computer science education in high schools is terrible; it should be offered at multiple levels and even begun in middle school. With the infusion of technology into the workplace, schools would be able to justify the change as useful. Hopefully someone will catch on that this would be a good thing, though with the current status of education, who knows. -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
As opposed to the naysayers who have already posted, I think that this work is very useful and difficult. As far as I can tell, they developed a system that, knowing the physical properties of legos, found a way to span a defined gap with no external support other than the initial lego. On the surface, this looks silly, but by implementing an "intelligent" algorithm to do a fairly complicated task is a good thing in my book. Though this is one of many small steps, it will help to further the progress of intelligent machines. -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
Unlike some other software, Redhat does not follow this schema for version numbers. (Most distros don't) Whereas Linux 2.3.x is experimental, Redhat 6.1 is stable. (Lorax, the beta, was 6.0.5x)
And the name of the release is Cartman -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
Redhat did have an open beta, it was called lorax. I believe it was announced on/. Lorax included the graphical installer and featured two releases for testing. There was also a mailing list for discussion of bugs and things that needed to be added or chnaged. If this is not open development, I don't know what is.
Secondly, your wish for a parallel distro with the newest of everything has been around for quite awhile. It is called rawhide, and it is the current status of Redhat's development. If all you want are updates, Redhat has those too, and they come out pretty frequently. Though the boxed sets may not offer the stuff that came out last week, the updates do. In 6.1, getting updates is even easier. Seems they have a nifty gui update tool, and if you buy a boxed set and register, you get access to a separate (and probably faster) ftp site for updates. -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
As opposed to those who believe that Redhat should have waited for Linux 2.4 or XFree 4, I don't realistically believe that either of those will be available for some time. One of the major advantages of Redhat is that they follow a regular release schedule for the most part. (Twice a year)
As for this release just being an update, that if for the most part true. The main focus of this release was the introduction of the graphical installer. This is and excellent installer, easier than previous Redhat installs and far easier than other Linux distros and Windows installers. (My roommate did extensive testing of it in lorax) Kudos to Matt Wilson for his excellent work.
As for the announcement of this on/. before it was officially released by Redhat, I think a huge mistake was made./. often warns that downloads may be rocky for awhile when it reports on a new distro release or a new kernel, but part of the reason that this is true is that the mirrors don't have time to get it before/. users start pounding it. I think many of us dislike the "first post" mentality that clouds useful discussion on/. and we should be fed up with/. following the same model for news when doing so is inappropriate. -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
Clearly this article is full of FUD. Those who believe that a Microsoft breakup will cause undue harm to consumers is dearly wrong. Clearly, this move will benefit consumers with increased competition in all areas, as MS will no longer be able to force the use of their products through integration that other vendors cannot match.
One point that I greatly disagreed with was that software will cost more. At the moment, free software has moved into a position to be a clear competitor to MS products. If a MS breakup occurred, more software would be developed for these platforms, making platforms with inexpensive, well developed, effective software. Obviously this breakup would cost MS money, they would be forced to actually produce good products instead of well integrated, buggy software. If MS has to spend $30 billion, so be it. They have the money from all the years MS has exploited computer users.
One other point that was truly ludicrous was that by breaking up MS, the Justice Department would be punishing them for being too successful. Rather, this would be punishment for destroying competition and exploiting customers.
MS has hurt the computer industry for too long. The computer industry should have the opportunity to use the best product, instead of being forced to use software from one company because of that company's monopoly position. Breaking up MS and opening Windows source code is the necessary measure. -- Gregory J. Barlow fight bloat. use blackbox.
Slashdot Mirror
Good to know. One thing I wonder though, why wasn't scoop from freshmeat introduced?
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
> Larry says these are the people who run
> these fine Web sites.
I hope Kurt Gray made a mistake and that Larry isnt that clueless about his own holdings. Trae did indeed found themes.org, but he doesn't work on it anymore, he runs linux.com. As the project manager of bb.themes.org, I have been privy to enough events to know that VA is more interested in politics and hype than the open source community. Hey, they are out to make money just like everyone else, but I doubt we will see any articles on /. to the tune of "VA is the Microsoft of the Linux world" like we got with Red Hat. When VA went public, lots of people got "the letter" but curiously, none of the people who volunteer at themes.org did, even though themes.org was the most popular site in VA's stable of web sites until yesterday. Ever notice how every VA web site is redesigned whenever there is a trade show? This mandate alone has seriously kept themes.org from completing a decent design that loads well in any browser. Will we see a /. redesign every time there is another trade show, too? VA has always scared me, but now that they have such wide reaching potential to hurt the community, I am more scared than ever.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
After reading Jon Katz's review of The Talented Mr. Ripley I could not help but laugh. Maybe it was because the way the article was introduced was a complete joke, (As made clear in earlier comments) or maybe is was because I had already read a review of the film which said quite the opposite, at least concerning the accuracy of the film adaptation and the need to keep the plot secret. (Come on, the preview makes most of it pretty clear) For those who want a good review of the film, read Charles Taylor's review at Salon.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
An article on this subject at EE Times mentions Slashdot and the debate over this hearing. The article also has some good links to the DVD CCA's arguments. You can read the article here
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
For a specialized wearable computer or robot, one that executes a limited set of commands, voice recognition is more beneficial as it does not require physical contact with the device. Both have their places, but for using Linux on a PDA, handwriting is more useful.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
Microsoft's goal has to be to increase WinCE's market share. Handheld computing profits are not in the OS, but in the hardware and the applications. The more widespread WinCE is, the more M$ can make on CE Office products. The only way CE is going to beat PalmOS and Linux in the embedded market is to open source and offer additional benefits (i.e. multi-platform support, increased hardware support, more extendable OS, etc.) Linux is not ready for the palm computing world, probably will not be for awhile. If Microsoft can enhance WinCE now by allowing more people to develop for the platform, they can compete with PalmOS. Will this happen? I don't know.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
Personally, I believe that this is what makes our country great. Jon Katz may like to believe that he is full of great insights, but the truth is a great deal of what he is talking about is not censorship. (Art in NY, see one of the other posts for a good explanation) It is not censorship if I do not let you talk about a topic in media which I fund, it is censorship when I don't let you say it in media that you fund. This is the key difference, subtle though it may be. If Princeton were to fire Singer, that would not be censorship, just good sense. They need money more than they need his reputation and "expertise". If Princeton starts suing me because I am talking about the topic and the government allows it, that is censorship.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
The principles of The Mythical Man-Month also apply to open source, however. Obviously as you add people to an open source project, the per person productivity decreases. (Which is much of what Brooks says in MMM) The reason open source projects are successful are good organizational structures, which Brooks emphasized.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
It seems a shame that most people in the industry have not read it and that most managers have little or no idea of how managing a software project differs from general management.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
The worst part of computer science education below college is that the teachers do not know how to program at all. I don't know how to remedy this, I wish I did. Even an independent study in computer science would be better than what is offered now.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
I have a possible solution, however. If these same kids had the opportunity to take computer science classes early on, they could find the challenge they needed in producing good software. Computer science education in high schools is terrible; it should be offered at multiple levels and even begun in middle school. With the infusion of technology into the workplace, schools would be able to justify the change as useful. Hopefully someone will catch on that this would be a good thing, though with the current status of education, who knows.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
As opposed to the naysayers who have already posted, I think that this work is very useful and difficult. As far as I can tell, they developed a system that, knowing the physical properties of legos, found a way to span a defined gap with no external support other than the initial lego. On the surface, this looks silly, but by implementing an "intelligent" algorithm to do a fairly complicated task is a good thing in my book. Though this is one of many small steps, it will help to further the progress of intelligent machines.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
And the name of the release is Cartman
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
Secondly, your wish for a parallel distro with the newest of everything has been around for quite awhile. It is called rawhide, and it is the current status of Redhat's development. If all you want are updates, Redhat has those too, and they come out pretty frequently. Though the boxed sets may not offer the stuff that came out last week, the updates do. In 6.1, getting updates is even easier. Seems they have a nifty gui update tool, and if you buy a boxed set and register, you get access to a separate (and probably faster) ftp site for updates.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
As for this release just being an update, that if for the most part true. The main focus of this release was the introduction of the graphical installer. This is and excellent installer, easier than previous Redhat installs and far easier than other Linux distros and Windows installers. (My roommate did extensive testing of it in lorax) Kudos to Matt Wilson for his excellent work.
As for the announcement of this on /. before it was officially released by Redhat, I think a huge mistake was made. /. often warns that downloads may be rocky for awhile when it reports on a new distro release or a new kernel, but part of the reason that this is true is that the mirrors don't have time to get it before /. users start pounding it. I think many of us dislike the "first post" mentality that clouds useful discussion on /. and we should be fed up with /. following the same model for news when doing so is inappropriate.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.
One point that I greatly disagreed with was that software will cost more. At the moment, free software has moved into a position to be a clear competitor to MS products. If a MS breakup occurred, more software would be developed for these platforms, making platforms with inexpensive, well developed, effective software. Obviously this breakup would cost MS money, they would be forced to actually produce good products instead of well integrated, buggy software. If MS has to spend $30 billion, so be it. They have the money from all the years MS has exploited computer users.
One other point that was truly ludicrous was that by breaking up MS, the Justice Department would be punishing them for being too successful. Rather, this would be punishment for destroying competition and exploiting customers.
MS has hurt the computer industry for too long. The computer industry should have the opportunity to use the best product, instead of being forced to use software from one company because of that company's monopoly position. Breaking up MS and opening Windows source code is the necessary measure.
--
Gregory J. Barlow
fight bloat. use blackbox.