To the average Joe six pack, XP is the same or better. Not to us of
course but for playing games, reading MS Word docs or Ms Excel sheets,
to browsing the web with MS IE, its just plain better then free
alternatives.
I do not agree. The problem with Joe Sixpack is that
the majority of people who use computers are not Joe Sixpacks.
What reason would hillbilly Joe Sixpack have to crunch
Excel spreadsheets, unless he's an accountant or working
with accounting?
If Joe Sixpack is the majority user of Windows, then Microsoft
wouldn't have to worry about a thing wouldn't they? Then how
come their shrilly stereotyping of GPL as un-American
sounds very much like someone who just had his balls kicked?
The problem, as Microsoft sees it, is that users are getting
intelligent. Sure, Linux and the host of OSS/FS applications
are not yet as good today as their equivalent MS offerings.
But MS, knows that OSS/FS can only improve,
MS on the other hand, is
still looking for the next killer feature.
Open source would be nothing with out corporate source. Companies
create new ideas and uses that idea to make a profit. Then the open
source community makes it better and makes it free. It is really just
that simple.
Hogwash. After the LoveBug wreaked havoc on Cyberspace
and many articles pointed out that Microsofts monopoly
of the operating system makes it as vulnerable to
viruses as the entire state of Kansas when planted
with a single breed of corn would be vulnerable to diseases,
Microsoft, in the person of Bill Gates himself, wrote
a rebuttal. The rebuttal was printed in in a newsweekly,
I forgot whether it was Time or Newsweek.
Essentially, Mr. Gates defended his company's monopoly
by pointing out that it enables Microsoft to create
innovation and provide value to its customers.
The very same premise you expounded in your post,
by the way. Naturally,
Professor Gates needs to provide an example
to his wide-eyed students in order to drive the point home.
Now, guess what MS innovation did Professor Gates
provide by way of example? The spreadsheet?, nope,
Visicalc invented the spreadsheet.
Wysiwyg word processing?, no way!, Wordstar was doing
wysiwyg back in the days when Billg still
counts himself among the hackers of Basic. The graphical
user interface?, no, XEROX PARC invented that one.
Give up? Bill Gates provided the toolbar
as primary evidence of the innovation that a Microsoft
monopoly benefits the world. I laughed myself silly
after reading that one.
Microsoft's best response is to allow their code to be
user patchable.
I have been thinking about this possibility for some
time now and I hope Microsoft is too greedy to think about
it. Here is a response that, I believe, we in the
Open Source Camp will find
very hard to meet.
Microsoft includes source code for its most important
applications in its CDROM. This could be for the
base operating system, drivers, etc. Included with the CDROM is
a patch utility that allows any user to create
and apply patches to the base source.
Microsoft allows any licensed owner of its product
to recompile the source code and modify it for
the licensee's exclusive use but not to redistribute it.
The source code is still Microsoft property.
Microsoft explicitly allows any licensed owner
of its products to freely create, apply, distribute,
exchange, sell, rent, etc.,
his or her patches. Since the patches were written by
the user, Microsoft essentially says that the user
owns the patches and could do with it whatever he
or she pleases. Microsoft owns only the base source.
Microsoft sets up a web site where users can submit
their patches. If the patch is good enough, Microsoft
will include it in its next version of the product.
Any submitter to the patch site explicitly allows
Microsoft to include his/her patch in revisions without
any compensation whatsoever. However, as a sign of
its good faith, Microsoft promises to give the
submitter a free copy of the next version of its
product that includes the submitters patch.
If Microsoft does this, it will have the benefits
of the open source philosophy and still make
money selling the base products.
I have been around long enough to have seen firsthand how
the IBM PC took the laurel wreath away from Apple.
Apple computer had more software for it, it had been around
much longer etc. When IBM came up with a non-interoperable
machine, how many actually predicted that the IBM PC
would actually, in a very short time, become dominant?
Not the press, not the pundits, not even IBM itself.
Apple had the traction, it had the numbers, and the
computer world was idolizing Steve Jobs as the
founder of the PC revolution. (I think he still is.)
But dominant and revolutionary the IBM PC did become.
Why? Because businesses took it
up. IBM targeted small and medium scale businesses.
The IBM PC had only one good software on it, Lotus 123,
but it was enough to convince business owners to buy
an IBM PC.
Soon, the market was divided into two camps. The business
user and the home user. The business user bought
monochrome IBM's while the home users bought
the Apple ][ and later the Macintosh with its slick
GUI interfaces.
When the businessman comes home with his work, what kind
of computer would he need? An IBM of course. His files
cannot be read by the slick Macintosh at home. So this
businessman would probably buy an IBM PC so he
can work on his papers even at night.
From being a business machine, the IBM PC soon
invaded the home and within a short span of time,
apple was evicted from most american homes.
If history can be used to judge the current computer
wars, then Linux will surely win this war in the long run.
Businesses today are dominated by big iron: mainframes,
servers and the internet. And in this arena, Microsoft is
floundering. Yes, it is dominant in the desktop, but more
than that, microsoft is dominant in the home. Do not ever
forget that fact. Businesses don't care much for
the ability to play mp3's or play DVD's or
the fact that the latest cool games are Windows only.
Those are concerns of the home user, but not businesses.
If Linux is allowed to dominate the server and backroom arena,
its domination of the business desktop will be
inevitable. Once it dominates the business desktop,
it will soon invade the homes.
Microsoft knows this. That's why all its
announcements and press releases of the last two years
have all been directed at the business user.
Whan was the last time Microsoft made great fanfare
of a home application?
Linux has mind share and the momentum in the business world.
It's desktop applications are not yet as slick as that of
Microsoft's, but I have no doubt that Microsoft is feeling
very uncomfortable with this linux upstart.
I agree with the main thesis of the article. I just wish more
packages follow the ideas expounded,
and specially the FHS.
For example, gcc when installed from source defaults to
putting itself into/usr/local/ which is quite understandable,
because it was locally installed. Unfortunately libgcc_s.so
should have placed itself in/lib instead of/usr/local/lib because
some boot-time binaries need it. (modutils if I recall correctly.)
The first time I installed gcc from.tar.gz, my sysinit crashed because/usr wasn't mounted yet.
Other packages have this problem too: fileutils, bash and modutils
come to mind. The default configuration is to install themselves
into/usr/local/ despite the fact they are needed
during boot. (init's message of "rm: no such file" puzzled me
the first time I saw it.)
Now, I know that./configure --prefix=/ fixes those
things, but my point is, the user shouldn't have to learn
from experience how to correctly install those packages. The packages
should help him.
Refactoring means that when you find a more efficient carburator, you
install it in your car and go. Ground up rewriting means that when you
find a more efficient carburator, you throw your old car in the trash,
go buy a new one, and install your new carburator in it.
Good analogy for as long your old car still works.
But if its really old and rusty, wouldn't it
be more economical to just a buy a new one?
If you own a VW Beetle and you want to make it into
something that works more like a Ferrari Testarossa,
how the hell are you going to refactor it? I would
like to see that. I say throw that beetle away and
get your self the Ferrari.
The same with code. Outlook is an insecure and kludgy
piece of junk that no amount of refactoring
can make it purr like a Jaguar. With all the resources
that MS has, why can't it hire talent that will
rewrite outlook from scratch and replace it's rusty
Model T outlook?
I think ``refactoring'' is just a new buzz word for what
we old-timers would call maintenance.
No command shell. No shell means no way to hook or intercept...
A command shell is just a convenient way to go around a UNIX system
after you've logged in. It has nothing to do with the question of
a box being easier to crack. Once you've been compromised, you've
been compromised --- whether you have a shell or not.
All mac developers know their code is always running at
root. Nothing is higher...
By always being root their is no false sense of security.
Tell that to the hapless windows user. Everyone is root there,
that didn't make windows more secure. Being root all the time
only means that when you have executed an email worm, it is trivial
for the worm to do anything it wants. The only reason Macs were'nt affected
by the ILOVEYOU virus is because Macs are not running visual basic.
Pascal strings...
are faster than C (because they have the length
delimiter in the front...
Which means I have only to change that
single number and I'll have what amounts to a buffer overran. Especially
if...
...
The Mac places return address infront of where the buffer would overrun.
Much safer.
Placing the return address in front of a buffer rather than at
the end is safer but does not guarantee that the machine won't be
compromised. Why?
Assume there is a function a() which calls b()
sometime after being invoked. In the Mac architecture, the return
address for a() is placed between buffer allocations for a()
and buffer allocations for b(). If the buffer allocated by a()
is globally accessible, then it is possible for some routine
c() to access that buffer, overrun the return address,
and have arbitrary code executed when b() returns. Granted, this
is more difficult to do than is the case with the intel architecture
but it is entirely possible. Having a different way of storing
return addresses is not a substitute for careful, paranoid programming.
Macs never run code ever merely based on how a file is named....
And so do Unix. The Mac style is even more readily compromised if
as you say, "A mac cannot run a program unless it has TWO files."
One of which is invisible. Imagine that!
You have a file that
cannot be seen by the ordinary user or by the standard file tools
provided by default. What would happen if someone (could
be you running a trojanned program) changes those so called ``hidden
attributes?'' (Discussion left as an exercise for the student.)
There are less macs,...
This is the real reason there are no Mac related compromises
on Bugtraq or anywhere. There are so few of them it just isn't
worth it for the script kids. But what kind of advertisement for
security is that? Mac Proven Safer because Unpopular and
Slow-Selling!
Re:You are not anal enough either. (IAAL)
on
Abusing the GPL?
·
· Score: 1
There are many comments in this post now, but I sure am not
going to let a good debate pass me by.
In order to impart meaning to the GPL distinction between source vs.
object/executable, one must go on a fact-finding parade to measure
industry practice, and other wishy-washy standards. In the context of
a dispute over a GPL'd bit of code, you can be damn sure that the GPL
will collapse under the weight of this fact-finding process,...
What you are saying here is that the practitioners of the craft
themselves do not know what common terms in their
craft mean. There may be crafts where that predicate is true
(law for example) but in the software industry, there
is no doubt as to what source and object code means.
I doubt it if you can coerce a judge to go on an expensive
fact-finding mission, complete with metrics and statistics
when all one needs is an expert witness.
Now guess what industry you're going to get that expert witness
from?
... the GPL's definitional distinction between
source and object/executable form relies on two key terms that cannot
be objectively measured: "preferred" and "normally". I defy you to
provide me with objective metrics for measuring what is "normally
distributed...with the major components...
The argument in this paragraph is a corollary to the preceding
argument. It is also based on the predicate that practitioners
of the programming arts are not in agreement with ``normal''
and ``preferred'' practices.
If you are arguing the question of What is the preferred language
when programming business systems then, you would have hit the
jackpot because in this case there is no such preferred and normal
programming language. Indeed, no amount of fact-finding exercise
can ever resolve this question. If I am arguing this fact then
all I need to do is subpoena the archives of slashdot. But...
The disputation is "what is the preferred form of the work for
making modifications to it?" In this case, practitioners are in
agreement. It is what they call a source code. The term source code
may be quite opaque to non-practitioners, but so is the
term legal brief and tort. The fact that non-lawyers do not
understand what tort and brief means does not mean that lawyers
do not understand what they are talking about. (Despite the
fact that the general populace seems to think so.)
If you are arguing against the GPL I would advise you against
asking the other side to provide you with ``objective metrics
for measuring what is normally distributed...'' Why?
You are not an expert witness, the other side will get an
expert witness who is a programmer who will then tell you about
the ratio of number of lines of source in a programming language
over the number of files in a typical software distribution.
They would then show that in the GNU distributions alone,
the ratio is at least 1,000 lines to 1.
Their expert witness will then argue that lines of source
is their ``acceptable'' objective metric to prove that source code
is the ``preferred'' form for making modifications to software.
Since you are not a programmer, how are you going to dispute
this?
To be perfectly frank, the GPL is a POS contract and I would arguably
be liable for malpractice if I advised a client to use it for reason
other than their unbending adherence to open source dogma.
This is a legal opinion only and you have stated so yourself.
But the objective and the spirit of the GPL shows that the GPL
was designed more as a memorandum of agreement rather than
a POS contract. In cases of disputes over language and meaning,
the courts always adhere to the ``intent and the spirit'' of
what ever is being disputed.
By the way, argue that the GPL is a POS contract and you won't
be getting any offers from Microsoft.:-)
if congress didn't mess with the patent law that
essentially says...
1. You can't patent an idea.
2. If you want to patent something, you must build it
first.
The patent office grants patents based on a written
description nowadays.
The patent law was supposed to be a way for inventors and
tinkerers (the engineers of this world) to benefit
financially from their work. Now it has become
a way for bored lawyers to make money. I'm getting sick.
A small group of developers earning lots of money, making clients
happy, and developing and releasing a useful software product is
wonderful, but... to make a substantial impact on the world, you
gotta grow.
This is where it all began. ArsDigita had earnings, had satisfied
clients and had a useful software product. What they didn't have
was an impact on the world. What I'm saying may not be popular,
but it seems to me that after an initial success, egoism got
the better of them. It isn't enough that they are a big fish in
a little pond, they gotta be a big fish in a big pond.
There is nothing wrong with growing, but Greenspun and cohorts
should have realized that as ArsDigita grew, it will change
its character: It will need funds, it will need expert managers,
it will need a longer list of clients.
Funds: Conservative companies don't go to venture capitalists
for funds. They go to financial institutions for that.
VC's ask too much control in return for their cash. FI's
only ask that you present them a viable business plan and a
reliable payment schedule. Perhaps ArsDigita never went
to the large FI's because it couldn't present a viable
business plan? Or because their ego told them that bricks
and mortar FI's are not the way to growth in the
internet-age?
Clients: So they got three or four big clients initially.
Considering that ArsDigita had no office, no letterhead
and had only 5 employees, that's a big deal. But if they
grew to a hundred full time employees and
an office, even 10 big clients won't be enough. Did they
have a plan to increase their client list or at least
knew where those clients will be coming from?
Expert Management: The most important rule for entrepreneurs:
This company is your baby, you gotta take care of it, nurture
it, and help it grow, because
no one else will. When the company grows, the owner's expertise
must grow with it. ArsDigita was forced to grow so fast that
the owners never had a change to gain the expertise to manage
the enterprise. ArsDigita had to hire outside ``experts'' whose
only probable interest is how to bail out with a golden
parachute.
If ArsDigita didn't try to match the company's size with the owners
inflated ego, it would be probably still be profitable today.
Compare ArsDigita with John Carmack's Id Software
and you'll understand everything I just said.
Open source in the intelligence community means
getting intelligence from sources that everyone
knows about instead of from someone that had just
gone through some ``tactical interrogation.''
I can give examples to make this open source
intelligence clear.
During the second world war, allied planes would bomb railways
in France in order to interdict German supply lines.
Now this was before the era of Key Hole Satellites --- the
only way to know if the bombing did distroy the railway
is to send somebody to look it over.
It is reported that scores of lives were sacrificed to
obtain and send information about the state of the
targeted rail line to headquarters. Most of the
intelligence is gathered by French patriots.
But when the information gets to headquarters it is
thrown away because HQ already knows what the
reports are saying. It turns out that the effectiveness
of the bombing is easily gauged the next morning
from the prices of basic goods on the Paris market.
Allied intelligence never told French Resistance
about the redundancy of the intelligence-gathering
the patriots are engaging in because HQ doesn't
want to make it obvious that their efforts
were unneeded.
Also during the second world war, intelligence
about the affectiveness of bombing raids on
Hitlers factories can be determined from the
length of the German womens skirts.
Perhaps it was just me, but animation-wise I found this movie much more
impressive than Shrek or Monsters Inc.
If by impressive you mean impressive technically, then yes
Final Fantasy is light years ahead of Shrek and Monsters Inc.
Unfortunately, technical production is only one minor aspect
of a movie. Plot and story comes first. Aki Ross is a lovely
lady but her idea of Gaia and those ghosts simply sound
too New Age to me. I didn't like it at all.
Shrek is a fun movie with good music, a compelling plot and
a cast characters that are very memorable. I heard that Dreamworks's
technology is capable of matching the textures of Final Fantasy but
backed off from applying it because they want the movie
to have the character of a traditional animation. They focused
on the story rather than the technology.
I too was impressed
by the CGI of Final Fantasy, it was breathtaking, and I firmly believe
that this is where animation and movie making will go. But I also
found out I enjoyed Final Fantasy more if I shut the audio off
and concentrated only in watching Aki Ross's beautiful face and
fluid movements.
I have an old 486 lying around, but I don't have any DOS install disks
lying around. Anyone where I could find them? This sounds like it
would be cool to try out.......
What do you need DOS for? If you are looking for
coolness, hike over to
Linux From Scratch
and install Linux onto your 486's hard drive directly from
source code!
DVD's are much more flexible and have far more capabilities than VHS
or 35mm film...
These features are purely the work of
software; the software logic on a DVD is far more complex than a VHS
drive motor or film projector, and should be valued as such.
The fact that software is used to produce something does not
legally classify it as software. Cell phones, computers (know what
a BIOS is?), cars, and a plethora of other devices have software.
If all those mentioned devices are classified as software, you'll
be shocked at what companies can force on you as a consumer...
I for one will gladly pay twice as much for DVD content as...
... not only that: You cannot resell it, you cannot view the movie
without agreeing to a license (ever heard of the EULA?),
if you do not like the movie, you cannot return it
because then you've already seen the movie in order to form a
judgement, only one person can use the movie at a time (EULA again!).
These and other such inanities are standard
operating procedures in the software industry.
Yes, I know it says that WB will release two such versions of the
DVD, but what will prevent WB from releasing only the one software-licensed
DVD if they won the case?
I'm afraid Australia could be severely stifling the incentive
of movie companies to include special DVD-only features. This move
doesn't benefit anyone; both the content producers and the consumers
suffer.
I disagree. Hollywood has a history of myopic reactions and
is prone to throwing lawyers at a technology that they believe
is a threat to their hold on the entertainment market. One
need only to remember the Columbia vs VHS case to understand
this. It is ironic that Video rentals and sales now represent
a huge portion of their profits.
IANAL, but being of legal age simply means being at the point
in your life where society can punish you for your
misdeeds. For example, let's say you have a job
changing tires in a mechanic's garage. If the car
you just had your hands on had an accident because
the screws on the tires were not properly torqued
leading them to be unscrewed on the highway, whose
responsibility is it and exactly how much are you
liable for the accident?
The law simply says that
persons that are of legal age are sufficiently
informed and possessing of wisdom to be held responsible
for the consequences of their actions and decisions.
You should realize that the ``legal age'' is not
determined through biology but by the law. It has
been arbitrarily set to 18 but can be lower or
higher.
Minors are protected by the law from
the responsibility of accounting for their misdeeds.
They are deemed without sufficient wisdom to
make an informed judgement. The military, OTOH
is governed by a chain of command, a chain of
responsibility. A superior officer is deemed to be
responsible for the actions of his subordinates,
whether they are of legal age or not. Besides, the
army is supposed to be there to protect the nation.
And isn't that the responsibility of any citizen? I
think both sides in the civil war had drummer boys
don't they?
Of course its going to be strictly Linux/open source
oriented. After all the money you spent on that MCSE,
the MSDN subscriptions, etc..., why would you be so
kind as to give out tips to an anonymous fellow
on the internet? Even if slashdot started out
with an eclectic mix of platforms, it will soon
evolve into something that slashdot is now. My guess
is that soon, there will be no microsoft partisans
on this site. Except for those few lost
fellows who can't afford the MSDN.
According to my crystal ball, AOL wants to have Linux distribution that
they can cast to the winds and reach the consumers between pages
of a magazine and their mail. The Linux distribution will be stamped
``AOL Bonus OFFER!! A Powerful Internet Connectivity Experience Suite.
Exclusively for users of Windows 95/98/2000 only!!''
The user installs the CDROM on his drive which (1) repartitions the
users hard drive and makes the computer dual-booting or (2) Installs
a small boot portion of itself on the Windows partition allowing
the user to click-boot ``AOL icXP'' via the bootable CDROM.
Presto! Linux has conquered another drive. AOL now gently offers
to make AOL icXP the default boot OS. Of course, in order to satisfy
the requirements of the GPL, AOL puts a 5 pt typeface blurb on the
inside back cover of the installation manual about GPL, Linux etc.
If AOL icXP is any good, it will have an office suite, a browser,
and an IM client. No one will need to boot Windows anymore.
... never used to reading between the lines. CARLY FIORINA IS ATTEMPTING
TO SAVE HP'S STORM-TOSSED PC BUSINESS. Why the proposed merger with
Compaq if not for this very reason? Compaq has nothing to give HP but
a dosage of revitalizing medicine. That is what
attracted Carly Fiorina in the first place. With the merger deal
on the verge of collapsing, poor Fiorina is left to giving not
so subtle hints about the imminent future of HP without Compaq.
``Hoping to frighten the crows with your `off-the-record' remarks
to the USA Today reporter Carly?'' Truly, Fiorina will be forced
to resign if this merger does not proceed.
Influential members of the HP board are opposed to the merger
for reasons that are not very clear. Hints are emerging that at
least the Packard faction is concerned about what the merger's
costs will do to HP's profitable printer business. But whatever
their reasons are, no one is talking outside the board-room.
You can try browsing ``Building Portable C++
Applications with YACL'' by M. A. Sridhar from
Addison-Wesley. It is a book on a GUI
manager that can be ported across different
platforms; linux and OS/2 being two of them.
The source code is also available at
ftp://ftp.aw.com/cseng/authors/sridhar/yacl
Hope this is of help.
If we follow your argument, then there cannot be a 2:1 compression
algorithm either. By successively using the 2:1 algorithm on any
data, you can reduce it to 1 byte too. The fact is, there is a
point at which further processing on data will not reduce it
further. Whenever a file F is compressed, a compressing algorithm
A looks for patterns in the file and builds a table T from which
it hopes to rebuild the file later. Let the compressed file be F'.
Then A(F) -> F' + T. (Applying A on F yields the compressed file F'
and the table T). If we apply A on F' again then A(F') -> F'' + T'.
We were able to reduce F' to F'' at the expense of adding another
table. F = F'' + T' + T. Here is the catch: As the size of F''
decreases, the size of table T' increases. That's because F'' loses
information which must be recovered. Information on how to recover
that information is stored in T'. Think about this, if I cut
a picture in half and send you one piece, there is no way you
can recover the other half unless I give you clues on what the
other half is. The clue can be as simple as `mirror image' or
as complicated as a 10,000 word description. This clue is
encoded in the table T. If by a compression ratio of 100:1
they mean the ratio F/F' then this is really possible.
Even a 1000:1 ratio of F/F' is possible.
But F/(F' + T) = 100/1? I doubt it, unless F is a
special case. Here's a compressed fictional anecdote I heard
that every budding information scientist should know. A
new student was puzzled by the behavior of his classmates.
One student said a number, ``53'' and the rest
of the class suddenly erupted in laughter. Another student then
said ``94'' and the same thing happened. Unable to stand it
any longer he asked his classmate what is happening. ``Well,''
his classmate answered. ``Everybody here has known everybody
for so long and the same jokes were being told over and over
again that we decided to use information theory and assigned
numbers to each joke. Thus, instead of saying the entire joke,
we would just say the numbers and since everyone has the joke
memorized, we would all remember it and laugh at it.'' The
new student understood. He stood up and said to the entire
class ``69.'' No laughter happened, just dead silence.
The other students looked at him, shrugged their shoulders
and turned away. They don't seem amused.
Surprised at the response, he asked his classmate, ``What did
I say wrong?'' His classmate answered. ``That wasn't a good joke.''
> Realizing it was intended to be a joke it should be noted that several
> cubic centimeters can not be easily pushed into something the size of
> a PDA or cell phone with all the other stuff in the same package.
> I'm picturing something like a portable TIVO or IPod for video with a...
The reason tuners are so big is because your fingers have to be
able to select the channels. I think it's quite possible to have
really small tuner circuits by using ASICs.
For someone who claims to hate slashdot,
he really took the time to write a comment we
could all hate. Hey kid, welcome to the club.
You're a true slashdotter now.
> Step 1...
> Step 2...
> Step 3...
> Step 4) Microsoft takes the lessons learned from both deployments to
> deploy a super-box.
Except they can't follow the same procedure they're doing with
software to hardware. Xbox is not even a year old yet and they
are ``leaking'' its successor already? Unlike software, hardware
has such costs as factory toolings, dies, inventory,
warehousing and a host of other costs. You don't spend millions
on the above and then throw it all away after a month because
Grand Theft Auto 3 kicked their ass. Microsoft is better off
spending money on promotions and FUD rather than retooling
a factory. Look at the PS2, it's two years old already yet
Sony has yet to release a successor to it. (It doesn't mean
Sony or Microsoft has to keep still. It only means they have
to let their products find its way in the market first because
they release an improvement.)
Slashdot Mirror
I do not agree. The problem with Joe Sixpack is that the majority of people who use computers are not Joe Sixpacks. What reason would hillbilly Joe Sixpack have to crunch Excel spreadsheets, unless he's an accountant or working with accounting?
If Joe Sixpack is the majority user of Windows, then Microsoft wouldn't have to worry about a thing wouldn't they? Then how come their shrilly stereotyping of GPL as un-American sounds very much like someone who just had his balls kicked?
The problem, as Microsoft sees it, is that users are getting intelligent. Sure, Linux and the host of OSS/FS applications are not yet as good today as their equivalent MS offerings. But MS, knows that OSS/FS can only improve, MS on the other hand, is still looking for the next killer feature.
Hogwash. After the LoveBug wreaked havoc on Cyberspace and many articles pointed out that Microsofts monopoly of the operating system makes it as vulnerable to viruses as the entire state of Kansas when planted with a single breed of corn would be vulnerable to diseases, Microsoft, in the person of Bill Gates himself, wrote a rebuttal. The rebuttal was printed in in a newsweekly, I forgot whether it was Time or Newsweek.
Essentially, Mr. Gates defended his company's monopoly by pointing out that it enables Microsoft to create innovation and provide value to its customers. The very same premise you expounded in your post, by the way. Naturally, Professor Gates needs to provide an example to his wide-eyed students in order to drive the point home. Now, guess what MS innovation did Professor Gates provide by way of example? The spreadsheet?, nope, Visicalc invented the spreadsheet. Wysiwyg word processing?, no way!, Wordstar was doing wysiwyg back in the days when Billg still counts himself among the hackers of Basic. The graphical user interface?, no, XEROX PARC invented that one.
Give up? Bill Gates provided the toolbar as primary evidence of the innovation that a Microsoft monopoly benefits the world. I laughed myself silly after reading that one.
Microsoft's best response is to allow their code to be user patchable. I have been thinking about this possibility for some time now and I hope Microsoft is too greedy to think about it. Here is a response that, I believe, we in the Open Source Camp will find very hard to meet.
If Microsoft does this, it will have the benefits of the open source philosophy and still make money selling the base products.
I have been around long enough to have seen firsthand how the IBM PC took the laurel wreath away from Apple. Apple computer had more software for it, it had been around much longer etc. When IBM came up with a non-interoperable machine, how many actually predicted that the IBM PC would actually, in a very short time, become dominant? Not the press, not the pundits, not even IBM itself.
Apple had the traction, it had the numbers, and the computer world was idolizing Steve Jobs as the founder of the PC revolution. (I think he still is.)
But dominant and revolutionary the IBM PC did become. Why? Because businesses took it up. IBM targeted small and medium scale businesses. The IBM PC had only one good software on it, Lotus 123, but it was enough to convince business owners to buy an IBM PC.
Soon, the market was divided into two camps. The business user and the home user. The business user bought monochrome IBM's while the home users bought the Apple ][ and later the Macintosh with its slick GUI interfaces.
When the businessman comes home with his work, what kind of computer would he need? An IBM of course. His files cannot be read by the slick Macintosh at home. So this businessman would probably buy an IBM PC so he can work on his papers even at night. From being a business machine, the IBM PC soon invaded the home and within a short span of time, apple was evicted from most american homes.
If history can be used to judge the current computer wars, then Linux will surely win this war in the long run. Businesses today are dominated by big iron: mainframes, servers and the internet. And in this arena, Microsoft is floundering. Yes, it is dominant in the desktop, but more than that, microsoft is dominant in the home. Do not ever forget that fact. Businesses don't care much for the ability to play mp3's or play DVD's or the fact that the latest cool games are Windows only. Those are concerns of the home user, but not businesses.
If Linux is allowed to dominate the server and backroom arena, its domination of the business desktop will be inevitable. Once it dominates the business desktop, it will soon invade the homes. Microsoft knows this. That's why all its announcements and press releases of the last two years have all been directed at the business user. Whan was the last time Microsoft made great fanfare of a home application?
Linux has mind share and the momentum in the business world. It's desktop applications are not yet as slick as that of Microsoft's, but I have no doubt that Microsoft is feeling very uncomfortable with this linux upstart.
I agree with the main thesis of the article. I just wish more packages follow the ideas expounded, and specially the FHS.
For example, gcc when installed from source defaults to putting itself into /usr/local/ which is quite understandable,
because it was locally installed. Unfortunately libgcc_s.so
should have placed itself in /lib instead of /usr/local/lib because
some boot-time binaries need it. (modutils if I recall correctly.)
The first time I installed gcc from .tar.gz, my sysinit crashed because /usr wasn't mounted yet.
Other packages have this problem too: fileutils, bash and modutils come to mind. The default configuration is to install themselves into /usr/local/ despite the fact they are needed
during boot. (init's message of "rm: no such file" puzzled me
the first time I saw it.)
Now, I know that ./configure --prefix=/ fixes those
things, but my point is, the user shouldn't have to learn
from experience how to correctly install those packages. The packages
should help him.
Good analogy for as long your old car still works. But if its really old and rusty, wouldn't it be more economical to just a buy a new one? If you own a VW Beetle and you want to make it into something that works more like a Ferrari Testarossa, how the hell are you going to refactor it? I would like to see that. I say throw that beetle away and get your self the Ferrari.
The same with code. Outlook is an insecure and kludgy piece of junk that no amount of refactoring can make it purr like a Jaguar. With all the resources that MS has, why can't it hire talent that will rewrite outlook from scratch and replace it's rusty Model T outlook?
I think ``refactoring'' is just a new buzz word for what we old-timers would call maintenance.
I hate to send rain on your parade but...
A command shell is just a convenient way to go around a UNIX system after you've logged in. It has nothing to do with the question of a box being easier to crack. Once you've been compromised, you've been compromised --- whether you have a shell or not.
Tell that to the hapless windows user. Everyone is root there, that didn't make windows more secure. Being root all the time only means that when you have executed an email worm, it is trivial for the worm to do anything it wants. The only reason Macs were'nt affected by the ILOVEYOU virus is because Macs are not running visual basic.
Which means I have only to change that single number and I'll have what amounts to a buffer overran. Especially if ...
Placing the return address in front of a buffer rather than at the end is safer but does not guarantee that the machine won't be compromised. Why?Assume there is a function a() which calls b() sometime after being invoked. In the Mac architecture, the return address for a() is placed between buffer allocations for a() and buffer allocations for b(). If the buffer allocated by a() is globally accessible, then it is possible for some routine c() to access that buffer, overrun the return address, and have arbitrary code executed when b() returns. Granted, this is more difficult to do than is the case with the intel architecture but it is entirely possible. Having a different way of storing return addresses is not a substitute for careful, paranoid programming.
And so do Unix. The Mac style is even more readily compromised if as you say, "A mac cannot run a program unless it has TWO files." One of which is invisible. Imagine that! You have a file that cannot be seen by the ordinary user or by the standard file tools provided by default. What would happen if someone (could be you running a trojanned program) changes those so called ``hidden attributes?'' (Discussion left as an exercise for the student.)
This is the real reason there are no Mac related compromises on Bugtraq or anywhere. There are so few of them it just isn't worth it for the script kids. But what kind of advertisement for security is that? Mac Proven Safer because Unpopular and Slow-Selling!
There are many comments in this post now, but I sure am not going to let a good debate pass me by.
What you are saying here is that the practitioners of the craft themselves do not know what common terms in their craft mean. There may be crafts where that predicate is true (law for example) but in the software industry, there is no doubt as to what source and object code means. I doubt it if you can coerce a judge to go on an expensive fact-finding mission, complete with metrics and statistics when all one needs is an expert witness.
Now guess what industry you're going to get that expert witness from?
The argument in this paragraph is a corollary to the preceding argument. It is also based on the predicate that practitioners of the programming arts are not in agreement with ``normal'' and ``preferred'' practices.
If you are arguing the question of What is the preferred language when programming business systems then, you would have hit the jackpot because in this case there is no such preferred and normal programming language. Indeed, no amount of fact-finding exercise can ever resolve this question. If I am arguing this fact then all I need to do is subpoena the archives of slashdot. But...
The disputation is "what is the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it?" In this case, practitioners are in agreement. It is what they call a source code. The term source code may be quite opaque to non-practitioners, but so is the term legal brief and tort. The fact that non-lawyers do not understand what tort and brief means does not mean that lawyers do not understand what they are talking about. (Despite the fact that the general populace seems to think so.)
If you are arguing against the GPL I would advise you against asking the other side to provide you with ``objective metrics for measuring what is normally distributed...'' Why?
This is a legal opinion only and you have stated so yourself. But the objective and the spirit of the GPL shows that the GPL was designed more as a memorandum of agreement rather than a POS contract. In cases of disputes over language and meaning, the courts always adhere to the ``intent and the spirit'' of what ever is being disputed.
By the way, argue that the GPL is a POS contract and you won't be getting any offers from Microsoft. :-)
if congress didn't mess with the patent law that essentially says...
1. You can't patent an idea.
2. If you want to patent something, you must build it first.
The patent office grants patents based on a written description nowadays.
The patent law was supposed to be a way for inventors and tinkerers (the engineers of this world) to benefit financially from their work. Now it has become a way for bored lawyers to make money. I'm getting sick.
A small group of developers earning lots of money, making clients happy, and developing and releasing a useful software product is wonderful, but ... to make a substantial impact on the world, you
gotta grow.
This is where it all began. ArsDigita had earnings, had satisfied clients and had a useful software product. What they didn't have was an impact on the world. What I'm saying may not be popular, but it seems to me that after an initial success, egoism got the better of them. It isn't enough that they are a big fish in a little pond, they gotta be a big fish in a big pond.
There is nothing wrong with growing, but Greenspun and cohorts should have realized that as ArsDigita grew, it will change its character: It will need funds, it will need expert managers, it will need a longer list of clients.
Funds: Conservative companies don't go to venture capitalists for funds. They go to financial institutions for that. VC's ask too much control in return for their cash. FI's only ask that you present them a viable business plan and a reliable payment schedule. Perhaps ArsDigita never went to the large FI's because it couldn't present a viable business plan? Or because their ego told them that bricks and mortar FI's are not the way to growth in the internet-age?
Clients: So they got three or four big clients initially. Considering that ArsDigita had no office, no letterhead and had only 5 employees, that's a big deal. But if they grew to a hundred full time employees and an office, even 10 big clients won't be enough. Did they have a plan to increase their client list or at least knew where those clients will be coming from?
Expert Management: The most important rule for entrepreneurs: This company is your baby, you gotta take care of it, nurture it, and help it grow, because no one else will. When the company grows, the owner's expertise must grow with it. ArsDigita was forced to grow so fast that the owners never had a change to gain the expertise to manage the enterprise. ArsDigita had to hire outside ``experts'' whose only probable interest is how to bail out with a golden parachute.
If ArsDigita didn't try to match the company's size with the owners inflated ego, it would be probably still be profitable today. Compare ArsDigita with John Carmack's Id Software and you'll understand everything I just said.
Just my half cents worth. ;-)
Open source in the intelligence community means getting intelligence from sources that everyone knows about instead of from someone that had just gone through some ``tactical interrogation.'' I can give examples to make this open source intelligence clear.
During the second world war, allied planes would bomb railways in France in order to interdict German supply lines. Now this was before the era of Key Hole Satellites --- the only way to know if the bombing did distroy the railway is to send somebody to look it over.
It is reported that scores of lives were sacrificed to obtain and send information about the state of the targeted rail line to headquarters. Most of the intelligence is gathered by French patriots. But when the information gets to headquarters it is thrown away because HQ already knows what the reports are saying. It turns out that the effectiveness of the bombing is easily gauged the next morning from the prices of basic goods on the Paris market.
Allied intelligence never told French Resistance about the redundancy of the intelligence-gathering the patriots are engaging in because HQ doesn't want to make it obvious that their efforts were unneeded.
Also during the second world war, intelligence about the affectiveness of bombing raids on Hitlers factories can be determined from the length of the German womens skirts.
Perhaps it was just me, but animation-wise I found this movie much more impressive than Shrek or Monsters Inc.
If by impressive you mean impressive technically, then yes Final Fantasy is light years ahead of Shrek and Monsters Inc.
Unfortunately, technical production is only one minor aspect of a movie. Plot and story comes first. Aki Ross is a lovely lady but her idea of Gaia and those ghosts simply sound too New Age to me. I didn't like it at all.
Shrek is a fun movie with good music, a compelling plot and a cast characters that are very memorable. I heard that Dreamworks's technology is capable of matching the textures of Final Fantasy but backed off from applying it because they want the movie to have the character of a traditional animation. They focused on the story rather than the technology.
I too was impressed by the CGI of Final Fantasy, it was breathtaking, and I firmly believe that this is where animation and movie making will go. But I also found out I enjoyed Final Fantasy more if I shut the audio off and concentrated only in watching Aki Ross's beautiful face and fluid movements.
I have an old 486 lying around, but I don't have any DOS install disks lying around. Anyone where I could find them? This sounds like it would be cool to try out. ... ...
What do you need DOS for? If you are looking for coolness, hike over to Linux From Scratch and install Linux onto your 486's hard drive directly from source code!
DVD's are much more flexible and have far more capabilities than VHS or 35mm film ...
These features are purely the work of
software; the software logic on a DVD is far more complex than a VHS
drive motor or film projector, and should be valued as such.
The fact that software is used to produce something does not legally classify it as software. Cell phones, computers (know what a BIOS is?), cars, and a plethora of other devices have software. If all those mentioned devices are classified as software, you'll be shocked at what companies can force on you as a consumer...
I for one will gladly pay twice as much for DVD content as ...
Yes, I know it says that WB will release two such versions of the DVD, but what will prevent WB from releasing only the one software-licensed DVD if they won the case?
I'm afraid Australia could be severely stifling the incentive of movie companies to include special DVD-only features. This move doesn't benefit anyone; both the content producers and the consumers suffer.
I disagree. Hollywood has a history of myopic reactions and is prone to throwing lawyers at a technology that they believe is a threat to their hold on the entertainment market. One need only to remember the Columbia vs VHS case to understand this. It is ironic that Video rentals and sales now represent a huge portion of their profits.
IANAL, but being of legal age simply means being at the point in your life where society can punish you for your misdeeds. For example, let's say you have a job changing tires in a mechanic's garage. If the car you just had your hands on had an accident because the screws on the tires were not properly torqued leading them to be unscrewed on the highway, whose responsibility is it and exactly how much are you liable for the accident?
The law simply says that persons that are of legal age are sufficiently informed and possessing of wisdom to be held responsible for the consequences of their actions and decisions. You should realize that the ``legal age'' is not determined through biology but by the law. It has been arbitrarily set to 18 but can be lower or higher.
Minors are protected by the law from the responsibility of accounting for their misdeeds. They are deemed without sufficient wisdom to make an informed judgement. The military, OTOH is governed by a chain of command, a chain of responsibility. A superior officer is deemed to be responsible for the actions of his subordinates, whether they are of legal age or not. Besides, the army is supposed to be there to protect the nation. And isn't that the responsibility of any citizen? I think both sides in the civil war had drummer boys don't they?
Of course its going to be strictly Linux/open source oriented. After all the money you spent on that MCSE, the MSDN subscriptions, etc..., why would you be so kind as to give out tips to an anonymous fellow on the internet? Even if slashdot started out with an eclectic mix of platforms, it will soon evolve into something that slashdot is now. My guess is that soon, there will be no microsoft partisans on this site. Except for those few lost fellows who can't afford the MSDN.
According to my crystal ball, AOL wants to have Linux distribution that
they can cast to the winds and reach the consumers between pages
of a magazine and their mail. The Linux distribution will be stamped
``AOL Bonus OFFER!! A Powerful Internet Connectivity Experience Suite.
Exclusively for users of Windows 95/98/2000 only!!''
The user installs the CDROM on his drive which (1) repartitions the
users hard drive and makes the computer dual-booting or (2) Installs
a small boot portion of itself on the Windows partition allowing
the user to click-boot ``AOL icXP'' via the bootable CDROM.
Presto! Linux has conquered another drive. AOL now gently offers
to make AOL icXP the default boot OS. Of course, in order to satisfy
the requirements of the GPL, AOL puts a 5 pt typeface blurb on the
inside back cover of the installation manual about GPL, Linux etc.
If AOL icXP is any good, it will have an office suite, a browser,
and an IM client. No one will need to boot Windows anymore.
... never used to reading between the lines. CARLY FIORINA IS ATTEMPTING
TO SAVE HP'S STORM-TOSSED PC BUSINESS. Why the proposed merger with
Compaq if not for this very reason? Compaq has nothing to give HP but
a dosage of revitalizing medicine. That is what
attracted Carly Fiorina in the first place. With the merger deal
on the verge of collapsing, poor Fiorina is left to giving not
so subtle hints about the imminent future of HP without Compaq.
``Hoping to frighten the crows with your `off-the-record' remarks
to the USA Today reporter Carly?'' Truly, Fiorina will be forced
to resign if this merger does not proceed.
Influential members of the HP board are opposed to the merger
for reasons that are not very clear. Hints are emerging that at
least the Packard faction is concerned about what the merger's
costs will do to HP's profitable printer business. But whatever
their reasons are, no one is talking outside the board-room.
---
``I bet you 10 dollars I'll be modded down.''
You can try browsing ``Building Portable C++ Applications with YACL'' by M. A. Sridhar from Addison-Wesley. It is a book on a GUI manager that can be ported across different platforms; linux and OS/2 being two of them. The source code is also available at ftp://ftp.aw.com/cseng/authors/sridhar/yacl Hope this is of help.
If we follow your argument, then there cannot be a 2:1 compression
algorithm either. By successively using the 2:1 algorithm on any
data, you can reduce it to 1 byte too. The fact is, there is a
point at which further processing on data will not reduce it
further. Whenever a file F is compressed, a compressing algorithm
A looks for patterns in the file and builds a table T from which
it hopes to rebuild the file later. Let the compressed file be F'.
Then A(F) -> F' + T. (Applying A on F yields the compressed file F'
and the table T). If we apply A on F' again then A(F') -> F'' + T'.
We were able to reduce F' to F'' at the expense of adding another
table. F = F'' + T' + T. Here is the catch: As the size of F''
decreases, the size of table T' increases. That's because F'' loses
information which must be recovered. Information on how to recover
that information is stored in T'. Think about this, if I cut
a picture in half and send you one piece, there is no way you
can recover the other half unless I give you clues on what the
other half is. The clue can be as simple as `mirror image' or
as complicated as a 10,000 word description. This clue is
encoded in the table T. If by a compression ratio of 100:1
they mean the ratio F/F' then this is really possible.
Even a 1000:1 ratio of F/F' is possible.
But F/(F' + T) = 100/1? I doubt it, unless F is a
special case. Here's a compressed fictional anecdote I heard
that every budding information scientist should know. A
new student was puzzled by the behavior of his classmates.
One student said a number, ``53'' and the rest
of the class suddenly erupted in laughter. Another student then
said ``94'' and the same thing happened. Unable to stand it
any longer he asked his classmate what is happening. ``Well,''
his classmate answered. ``Everybody here has known everybody
for so long and the same jokes were being told over and over
again that we decided to use information theory and assigned
numbers to each joke. Thus, instead of saying the entire joke,
we would just say the numbers and since everyone has the joke
memorized, we would all remember it and laugh at it.'' The
new student understood. He stood up and said to the entire
class ``69.'' No laughter happened, just dead silence.
The other students looked at him, shrugged their shoulders
and turned away. They don't seem amused.
Surprised at the response, he asked his classmate, ``What did
I say wrong?'' His classmate answered. ``That wasn't a good joke.''
> Realizing it was intended to be a joke it should be noted that several > cubic centimeters can not be easily pushed into something the size of > a PDA or cell phone with all the other stuff in the same package. > I'm picturing something like a portable TIVO or IPod for video with a ...
The reason tuners are so big is because your fingers have to be
able to select the channels. I think it's quite possible to have
really small tuner circuits by using ASICs.
For someone who claims to hate slashdot,
he really took the time to write a comment we
could all hate. Hey kid, welcome to the club.
You're a true slashdotter now.
> Step 1... > Step 2... > Step 3... > Step 4) Microsoft takes the lessons learned from both deployments to > deploy a super-box. Except they can't follow the same procedure they're doing with software to hardware. Xbox is not even a year old yet and they are ``leaking'' its successor already? Unlike software, hardware has such costs as factory toolings, dies, inventory, warehousing and a host of other costs. You don't spend millions on the above and then throw it all away after a month because Grand Theft Auto 3 kicked their ass. Microsoft is better off spending money on promotions and FUD rather than retooling a factory. Look at the PS2, it's two years old already yet Sony has yet to release a successor to it. (It doesn't mean Sony or Microsoft has to keep still. It only means they have to let their products find its way in the market first because they release an improvement.)