"This database sets out to prove it once and for all. "
As much as I would like this to be proven once and for all, I don't see how this database will prove anything. It is being assumed that everyone who adds data is telling the truth. Probably not a good assumtion.
If they could somehow weed out all of the bad data they still would need another database: How many people didn't buy an album because they could just download it?
I work with several in-house database applications implemented using PowerBuilder. They run against a Microsoft SQL server.
We decided to use stored procedures instead of inline SQL so that we could make modifications on the server instead of having to change the code in the application, recompile it, repackage it and deploy it to over 100 PCs.
The drawback is that it's not always easy to know what's going on because the application is broken into various parts. That is there are business rules being enforced in the PowerBuilder code and in the stored procedures on the server. I guess once you get to know the application really well it doesn't matter but it can make it a real pain in the ass for a new programmer.
I wonder how long it will be before Microsoft integrates this "technology" into their OS so that the "user experience" will be improved. Seems like the standard way in which Microsoft abuses its monopoly position.
I hope they aren't going to hire offshore programmers. Wasn't there an article on Slashdot just the other day about how some terrorist rogue programmer might slip something awful into Linux and destroy the civilized world? The article said that the US government shouldn't use open source because of this bogus reason.
Seems to me that the government using proprietary code that has been out sourced would be an even greater risk.
When manufacturers gear up to produce a product it only makes sense to sell as many units as possible. I remember when Radio Shack use to sell computers and I found that their parts were identical with MUCH cheaper hardware.
Well, except that they always would ensure that there was a superficial difference that prevented the MUCH cheaper hardware from being mounted thus forcing people with Radio Shack computers to by their over priced products.
By that reasoning drunk driving laws are unnecessary also. After all it is very negligent to drive under the influence of alcohol. The problem is that without laws that spell it out the law may be too vague to prosecute offenders.
There are a lot of people who don't believe that talking on a cell phone while driving is dangerous. Yet it has been shown that people using non-hands-free cell phones while driving have an accident rate roughly equivalent to drunk drivers. Sounds like a good law to have to me.
I disagree that technology shouldn't be addressed via new laws.
Cellphones come to mind. Did you know that people who talk on cell phones (that aren't hands free) while driving have an accident rate roughly equivalent to drunk drivers? Even so, most states do not have laws which prohibit the use of cellphones while driving.
New laws are needed to address technology. Not to punish people more severely after someone gets killed but rather to hopefully save lives.
Sure, a rogue coder could try to slip something into the Linux project. It would probably get caught rather quickly.
Now ask yourself this: Could there be any rogue coders working for software companies putting out proprietary software? You bet there could! And I doubt that the offending code in a proprietary project would get caught quickly if at all. No, it's not Open Source that presents the security risk here.
It is my sincerest hopes that Lawrence is correct; that some in the open source community are over stating the danger of patent litigation. He does NOT however state that there is no risk. I must have the "Chicken Little" syndrome that he talks about. Let me share my reasoning:
From the article...
"Does the dramatic increase in the number of software patents portend a catastrophe for open source software?
Some argue that the threat of patents is vastly overstated. They point out that, while there are from time to time serious assertions of software patents, patent litigation is in practice very rare. This reflects both the high cost of such litigation and the difficulty of winning. "
Although patent litigation has so far been rare, it is my belief that Microsoft sees the writing on the wall and will either directly or indirectly though the use of SCO-Like actions fund law suites in an effort to destroy any open source project that it feels is on its turf. Just because patent litigation has been rare in the past is no assurance that it will remain so. How many copyright litigation cases have been levied against the open source community? Microsoft helped SCO fund it's current litigation and I believe that it is a signal that they intend to use the law as a new anti-competitive tool.
Litigation against a well funded corporation like IBM would be incredibly expensive but for smaller groups like the SAMBA team it wouldn't. Microsoft wouldn't have to win. All they would have to do is drain the open source company's coffers dry. Unless we all stick together, of course. Will we? Would there be a white knight corporation out there willing to swoop in and save the small open source developer? I don't know the answer to that.
I believe that Microsoft's strategy is to ensure that Linux cannot be compatible with their next version of Windows. They have been filing ten or more patents every day related to Longhorn. The idea is simple. Find standards that you feel will become important and then patent as much technology as close to those standards as possible.
Remember that Microsoft doesn't want to allow Linux to talk to it's monopoly OS. If they succeed in their strategy Linux, they hope, will wither on the vine. Look for Microsoft try to patent new protocols and force them to become "the standard." If they can control the way in which computers talk to each other via their monopoly and patent the way computers talk to each other then Linux as we know it could be toast.
I have always had really bad vision and have been considering this procedure. A friend of mine had it done and is very pleased. However, he did lose the ability to focus on objects very close so he still needs reading glasses.
As we get older, our eye lenses become less flexible. At some point just about everyone needs reading glasses or bifocals because their eye muscles simply are not strong enough to bend lenses in their eyes anymore. So depending on your age this may not matter. Also my friend was in his forties at the time of his surgery so he was almost at that point already.
Don't become discouraged if IBM doesn't get its summary judgment. All SCO need do is bring up ANYTHING that can be disputed and the Judge will be forced to allow the case to proceed. It doesn't mean that SCO has won just that they get to lose more slowly. Which, I believe, is all SCO really wants. More time for FUD.
I think that they may be hoping that if they can draw this out long enough and make it painful enough that IBM will just buy them out.
Remember that it has been pretty well documented that this whole thing began with funding from Microsoft. And I'm sure that Microsoft wants Linux and Open Source dragged through the mud for as long as possible. They offered to give SCO LOTS more money though Baystar-like deals. But that may not be so easy now that the whole scam has gone sour and it looks like Baystar may sue SCO. SCO's dilemma is in no small way do to the internet community which hangs out around groklaw.
What scares me a little is that if the internet can be used for such good there must be someone out there determined to ruin it for that purpose. I mean we can't have the little people taking power can we?
First of all the number of N's in Whining is unimportant. 2nd of all a lot of people are whining. We at/. tend to bitch a lot anytime someone bitches about actually having to pay for either software or music. As indicated by the moron you modded my post as a troll, probably without even reading what I had to say beyond the title.
Most students will use this service and it with be of good value to them. If you don't find value in it then you are the exception.
" It's lucky for Napster that the RIAA picked it as a henchman. Students can now download as many songs as they like while enrolled at a university. This is a nice service if holding onto to your tunes is not important. Once their four years at school are over, the students are cut off from Napster and lose all the music they've download. That is unless they pay 99 cents per song or $10 per album to own a permanent download that can be burned onto CDs or MP3 players."
It seems to me that a lot of people won't settle for any thing less than free-as-in-beer music downloads. The article goes out of its way to vilify the RIIA and Napster.
Students get to download all they want and if they like a song enough to want to keep it permanently they pay less than a buck! I don't like the RIIA any better than anyone else but that's a good deal!
It seems to me that we keep talking about changing the way music is distributed but when a way is provided it just isn't good enough. Let's be fair. If this what the RIIA should do then what?
I think joe user will start to care about security when he finds that his bank account information has been lifted from his Windows box and he is now funding a well earned vacation for joe haxtor.
The way different distros package their software can make it difficult for the average user and is one of the areas that I believe will become easier.
If you are running Mandrake you have several tools available to get and install the proper software. You have both a graphical tool and a command line tool.
For instance, I wanted to install this really great chess training tool I heard about called scid. (Don't know what it stands for) so I opened a shell, switched to the root user and typed urpmi scid. My computer found the file on the internet, downloaded it, then installed and configured it.
One command and in thirty seconds I was using my new program. I could have done the same thing with Mandrake's graphical software management tools found in the Mandrake control center.
Mandrake also comes with a graphical update tool. Each day I fire it up. It looks for updates to the software that I am running on my system. If I find anything I select the packages that I wand updated and click install. Pretty easy.
I don't know what to say about "lack of specific software running." You get to choose from thousands of software packages if you want but most people just select the default load which seems fairly standard across distros.
It almost sounds like you're suggesting that choice is a bad thing?
I'm really curious about your hardware because I am running a computer using Mandrake Linux and all of the hardware was detected and setup correctly. Unlike Windows, I didn't have to go out and hunt down drivers for anything.
This is not the case for my computer alone but also my wife's computer and my home server. Linux came up with everything configured and running.
As far as the "fragmented" thing, I'm beginning to wonder if this is the newest Microsoft FUD. Linux is NOT as fragmented as you make out. Most programmer's write using either the KDE or the Gnome libraries. I use KDE and all of my applications have a consistent look and feel. Programmer's can make their programs look and feel different if they want to but this is the case in Windows as well. Most don't most use one of two APIs. There are a few applications that don't follow any standards. Gimp is one of them and for a long time I hated it! It's a very powerful graphics program but it's not intuitive for me. However, this is an application and does not reflect on the operating system. There are some non-intuitive Windows programs as well.
And although KDE and Gnome don't look like XP, that's not necessarily a bad thing and definitely not "hideous."
Linux is not as "fragmented" as Microsoft wants people to believe. Most differences is in the particular distro's tools used to manage the computer. And there are more than one choice of window manager. This is a good thing.
The two most popular window managers are Gnome and KDE. As long as one has both libraries installed (usually by default) programs written for one will run fine on the other.
I'm a programmer and I work in an all Microsoft shop. I know about their tech support. It can be horrid! It costs us 250.00 per incident and there is no guarantee that they will find a solution. On one occasion they ran us around in circles and then told us that we had to burn another 250.00 incident. We never did get a solution from them.
If you want support for Linux most distro's have tech support for which you can pay.
So, Linux is no not much more fragmented than different versions of Windows and the 24/7 tech support is there if you want to pay for it.
It's really not a case of being intelligent. Linux is getting to be "country simple" to install and it's already no harder to use than Windows.
"I know i've never had a security problem on any of my Windows computers, and i only switched off of IE maybe 6 months ago."
Are you sure? When your box gets "owned" chances are you'll be the last to know.:-)
"Going to Windows Update and clicking 'install updates' once every other month is a small price to pay for having a usable computer."
I can't say it any better than Steve Vaughan-Nichols who wrote the Eweek article on which the Slashdot story was based. When talking about a flaw that allowed hackers to take control of a computer running Windows and the Mozilla browser:
"Hmmm... let me see now. It took open-source programmers less than a day to fix it, Microsoft programmers still haven't fixed the real problem, and it's been more than a year. I know which record I'm more impressed by!"
The open source community responded lighting fast and reprogrammed the part of Mozilla that allowed a user to exploit a weakness in the XP operating system. They shouldn't have had to do this. Microsoft should have closed this hole more than a year ago.
Running an update every other month may give you a sense of security but it is a false sense of security!
The idea that open source software destroys the economy is not well thought out. The money that would have been spent on over priced software will now be spent on other things thus fueling different parts of the economy. The real loser is Microsoft; a company that has shown a tendency to destroy jobs and entire companies though the illegal and anticompetitive practices related to it's monopoly.
What do I say? Tough shit! Adapt or die Microsoft! Open Source is good for the economy in general. It's just not good for YOUR economy!
"If you don't want to create jobs or intellectual property, then there is a tendency to develop open source."
As opposed to integrating a browser into your monopoly OS to destroy a competitor. As opposed to integrating a media player into your monopoly OS to destroy a competitor. As opposed to funding a surrogate litigator in an attempt to destroy a competitor while hiding your anticompetitive practices from the public!
Bill, your balls have to be so big that they drag on the ground when you walk!
I agree with you that prompt hardware support is important. Althought I haven't had any trouble even with new computers it still would be nice if hardware vendors would come onboard. I think they are more and more.
I don't agree with you about VBA. Mixing data and code is a bad idea and one of the reasons for Microsoft being insecure. No, I think we should avoid going down that road.
Slashdot Mirror
"This database sets out to prove it once and for all. "
As much as I would like this to be proven once and for all, I don't see how this database will prove anything. It is being assumed that everyone who adds data is telling the truth. Probably not a good assumtion.
If they could somehow weed out all of the bad data they still would need another database: How many people didn't buy an album because they could just download it?
I work with several in-house database applications implemented using PowerBuilder. They run against a Microsoft SQL server.
We decided to use stored procedures instead of inline SQL so that we could make modifications on the server instead of having to change the code in the application, recompile it, repackage it and deploy it to over 100 PCs.
The drawback is that it's not always easy to know what's going on because the application is broken into various parts. That is there are business rules being enforced in the PowerBuilder code and in the stored procedures on the server. I guess once you get to know the application really well it doesn't matter but it can make it a real pain in the ass for a new programmer.
I wonder how long it will be before Microsoft integrates this "technology" into their OS so that the "user experience" will be improved. Seems like the standard way in which Microsoft abuses its monopoly position.
I hope they aren't going to hire offshore programmers. Wasn't there an article on Slashdot just the other day about how some terrorist rogue programmer might slip something awful into Linux and destroy the civilized world? The article said that the US government shouldn't use open source because of this bogus reason.
Seems to me that the government using proprietary code that has been out sourced would be an even greater risk.
When manufacturers gear up to produce a product it only makes sense to sell as many units as possible. I remember when Radio Shack use to sell computers and I found that their parts were identical with MUCH cheaper hardware.
Well, except that they always would ensure that there was a superficial difference that prevented the MUCH cheaper hardware from being mounted thus forcing people with Radio Shack computers to by their over priced products.
By that reasoning drunk driving laws are unnecessary also. After all it is very negligent to drive under the influence of alcohol. The problem is that without laws that spell it out the law may be too vague to prosecute offenders.
There are a lot of people who don't believe that talking on a cell phone while driving is dangerous. Yet it has been shown that people using non-hands-free cell phones while driving have an accident rate roughly equivalent to drunk drivers. Sounds like a good law to have to me.
I disagree that technology shouldn't be addressed via new laws.
Cellphones come to mind. Did you know that people who talk on cell phones (that aren't hands free) while driving have an accident rate roughly equivalent to drunk drivers? Even so, most states do not have laws which prohibit the use of cellphones while driving.
New laws are needed to address technology. Not to punish people more severely after someone gets killed but rather to hopefully save lives.
Sure, a rogue coder could try to slip something into the Linux project. It would probably get caught rather quickly.
Now ask yourself this: Could there be any rogue coders working for software companies putting out proprietary software? You bet there could! And I doubt that the offending code in a proprietary project would get caught quickly if at all. No, it's not Open Source that presents the security risk here.
I think I've come up with a patent that could destroy Microsoft... Let's obtain a patent on the buffer overflow! Think about it...
Oh damn... I forgot about prior art... Never mind...
It is my sincerest hopes that Lawrence is correct; that some in the open source community are over stating the danger of patent litigation. He does NOT however state that there is no risk. I must have the "Chicken Little" syndrome that he talks about. Let me share my reasoning:
From the article...
"Does the dramatic increase in the number of software patents portend a catastrophe for open source software?
Some argue that the threat of patents is vastly overstated. They point out that, while there are from time to time serious assertions of software patents, patent litigation is in practice very rare. This reflects both the high cost of such litigation and the difficulty of winning. "
Although patent litigation has so far been rare, it is my belief that Microsoft sees the writing on the wall and will either directly or indirectly though the use of SCO-Like actions fund law suites in an effort to destroy any open source project that it feels is on its turf. Just because patent litigation has been rare in the past is no assurance that it will remain so. How many copyright litigation cases have been levied against the open source community? Microsoft helped SCO fund it's current litigation and I believe that it is a signal that they intend to use the law as a new anti-competitive tool.
Litigation against a well funded corporation like IBM would be incredibly expensive but for smaller groups like the SAMBA team it wouldn't. Microsoft wouldn't have to win. All they would have to do is drain the open source company's coffers dry. Unless we all stick together, of course. Will we? Would there be a white knight corporation out there willing to swoop in and save the small open source developer? I don't know the answer to that.
I believe that Microsoft's strategy is to ensure that Linux cannot be compatible with their next version of Windows. They have been filing ten or more patents every day related to Longhorn. The idea is simple. Find standards that you feel will become important and then patent as much technology as close to those standards as possible.
Remember that Microsoft doesn't want to allow Linux to talk to it's monopoly OS. If they succeed in their strategy Linux, they hope, will wither on the vine. Look for Microsoft try to patent new protocols and force them to become "the standard." If they can control the way in which computers talk to each other via their monopoly and patent the way computers talk to each other then Linux as we know it could be toast.
I have always had really bad vision and have been considering this procedure. A friend of mine had it done and is very pleased. However, he did lose the ability to focus on objects very close so he still needs reading glasses.
As we get older, our eye lenses become less flexible. At some point just about everyone needs reading glasses or bifocals because their eye muscles simply are not strong enough to bend lenses in their eyes anymore. So depending on your age this may not matter. Also my friend was in his forties at the time of his surgery so he was almost at that point already.
"According to crn.com when they tried upgrading various computers to Windows XP SP2 RC2 3 out of 5 of the machines failed to come back up..."
Well thank God functionality wasn't affected...
Don't become discouraged if IBM doesn't get its summary judgment. All SCO need do is bring up ANYTHING that can be disputed and the Judge will be forced to allow the case to proceed. It doesn't mean that SCO has won just that they get to lose more slowly. Which, I believe, is all SCO really wants. More time for FUD.
I think that they may be hoping that if they can draw this out long enough and make it painful enough that IBM will just buy them out.
Remember that it has been pretty well documented that this whole thing began with funding from Microsoft. And I'm sure that Microsoft wants Linux and Open Source dragged through the mud for as long as possible. They offered to give SCO LOTS more money though Baystar-like deals. But that may not be so easy now that the whole scam has gone sour and it looks like Baystar may sue SCO. SCO's dilemma is in no small way do to the internet community which hangs out around groklaw.
What scares me a little is that if the internet can be used for such good there must be someone out there determined to ruin it for that purpose. I mean we can't have the little people taking power can we?
I'd feel sorry for them. Good thing that they are scumbags 'cause I hate feeling bad!
ROFLMAO!
First of all the number of N's in Whining is unimportant. 2nd of all a lot of people are whining. We at /. tend to bitch a lot anytime someone bitches about actually having to pay for either software or music. As indicated by the moron you modded my post as a troll, probably without even reading what I had to say beyond the title.
Most students will use this service and it with be of good value to them. If you don't find value in it then you are the exception.
" It's lucky for Napster that the RIAA picked it as a henchman. Students can now download as many songs as they like while enrolled at a university. This is a nice service if holding onto to your tunes is not important. Once their four years at school are over, the students are cut off from Napster and lose all the music they've download. That is unless they pay 99 cents per song or $10 per album to own a permanent download that can be burned onto CDs or MP3 players."
It seems to me that a lot of people won't settle for any thing less than free-as-in-beer music downloads. The article goes out of its way to vilify the RIIA and Napster.
Students get to download all they want and if they like a song enough to want to keep it permanently they pay less than a buck! I don't like the RIIA any better than anyone else but that's a good deal!
It seems to me that we keep talking about changing the way music is distributed but when a way is provided it just isn't good enough. Let's be fair. If this what the RIIA should do then what?
Oh wait.... This is Slashdot... Never mind... :-)
I think joe user will start to care about security when he finds that his bank account information has been lifted from his Windows box and he is now funding a well earned vacation for joe haxtor.
The way different distros package their software can make it difficult for the average user and is one of the areas that I believe will become easier.
If you are running Mandrake you have several tools available to get and install the proper software. You have both a graphical tool and a command line tool.
For instance, I wanted to install this really great chess training tool I heard about called scid. (Don't know what it stands for) so I opened a shell, switched to the root user and typed urpmi scid. My computer found the file on the internet, downloaded it, then installed and configured it.
One command and in thirty seconds I was using my new program. I could have done the same thing with Mandrake's graphical software management tools found in the Mandrake control center.
Mandrake also comes with a graphical update tool. Each day I fire it up. It looks for updates to the software that I am running on my system. If I find anything I select the packages that I wand updated and click install. Pretty easy.
I don't know what to say about "lack of specific software running." You get to choose from thousands of software packages if you want but most people just select the default load which seems fairly standard across distros.
It almost sounds like you're suggesting that choice is a bad thing?
I'm really curious about your hardware because I am running a computer using Mandrake Linux and all of the hardware was detected and setup correctly. Unlike Windows, I didn't have to go out and hunt down drivers for anything.
This is not the case for my computer alone but also my wife's computer and my home server. Linux came up with everything configured and running.
As far as the "fragmented" thing, I'm beginning to wonder if this is the newest Microsoft FUD. Linux is NOT as fragmented as you make out. Most programmer's write using either the KDE or the Gnome libraries. I use KDE and all of my applications have a consistent look and feel. Programmer's can make their programs look and feel different if they want to but this is the case in Windows as well. Most don't most use one of two APIs. There are a few applications that don't follow any standards. Gimp is one of them and for a long time I hated it! It's a very powerful graphics program but it's not intuitive for me. However, this is an application and does not reflect on the operating system. There are some non-intuitive Windows programs as well.
And although KDE and Gnome don't look like XP, that's not necessarily a bad thing and definitely not "hideous."
Linux is not as "fragmented" as Microsoft wants people to believe. Most differences is in the particular distro's tools used to manage the computer. And there are more than one choice of window manager. This is a good thing.
The two most popular window managers are Gnome and KDE. As long as one has both libraries installed (usually by default) programs written for one will run fine on the other.
I'm a programmer and I work in an all Microsoft shop. I know about their tech support. It can be horrid! It costs us 250.00 per incident and there is no guarantee that they will find a solution. On one occasion they ran us around in circles and then told us that we had to burn another 250.00 incident. We never did get a solution from them.
If you want support for Linux most distro's have tech support for which you can pay.
So, Linux is no not much more fragmented than different versions of Windows and the 24/7 tech support is there if you want to pay for it.
It's really not a case of being intelligent. Linux is getting to be "country simple" to install and it's already no harder to use than Windows.
:-)
... let me see now. It took open-source programmers less than a day to fix it, Microsoft programmers still haven't fixed the real problem, and it's been more than a year. I know which record I'm more impressed by!"
"I know i've never had a security problem on any of my Windows computers, and i only switched off of IE maybe 6 months ago."
Are you sure? When your box gets "owned" chances are you'll be the last to know.
"Going to Windows Update and clicking 'install updates' once every other month is a small price to pay for having a usable computer."
I can't say it any better than Steve Vaughan-Nichols who wrote the Eweek article on which the Slashdot story was based. When talking about a flaw that allowed hackers to take control of a computer running Windows and the Mozilla browser:
"Hmmm
The open source community responded lighting fast and reprogrammed the part of Mozilla that allowed a user to exploit a weakness in the XP operating system. They shouldn't have had to do this. Microsoft should have closed this hole more than a year ago.
Running an update every other month may give you a sense of security but it is a false sense of security!
The idea that open source software destroys the economy is not well thought out. The money that would have been spent on over priced software will now be spent on other things thus fueling different parts of the economy. The real loser is Microsoft; a company that has shown a tendency to destroy jobs and entire companies though the illegal and anticompetitive practices related to it's monopoly.
What do I say? Tough shit! Adapt or die Microsoft! Open Source is good for the economy in general. It's just not good for YOUR economy!
"If you don't want to create jobs or intellectual property, then there is a tendency to develop open source."
As opposed to integrating a browser into your monopoly OS to destroy a competitor. As opposed to integrating a media player into your monopoly OS to destroy a competitor. As opposed to funding a surrogate litigator in an attempt to destroy a competitor while hiding your anticompetitive practices from the public!
Bill, your balls have to be so big that they drag on the ground when you walk!
I agree with you that prompt hardware support is important. Althought I haven't had any trouble even with new computers it still would be nice if hardware vendors would come onboard. I think they are more and more.
I don't agree with you about VBA. Mixing data and code is a bad idea and one of the reasons for Microsoft being insecure. No, I think we should avoid going down that road.