"You're right, I shouldn't expect a new Lexmark printer to "just work" on Linux. That's really too much to ask. I should spend hours reading documens, tweaking text files, posting on newsgroups, JUST TO FUCKING PRINT. You realize I do have other things to do in my life right? Of course its my fault, I should still be using a printer from 1995 today too.
I understand drivers, I understand that 3rd parties may not provide drivers. But I keep hearing that there's all these developers working to fill that gap for free, yet it never seems to happen. At the end of the day, I don't care why its not working, I just want it to work, and with Windows I don't have to worry about whether it will work or not."
This is all very old FUD. Most Linux distros come with GUI printer utilities that allow you to pick your printer from a list and sets it up for you. The list of printers is extensive. As linux grows in market share the few printers that are not supported yet will be. I'm really doubting that you were truthful about running either Linux servers or a Linux desktop. If you were telling the truth you would be aware of this already.
I have also been running a Linux server for over a decade and using it on my desktop for over seven years now. Have you tried Ubuntu? You know there are updates waiting because an icon will show up to let you know. Updating is as hard as clicking on that icon and typing in a password!
There are thousands of freely available programs for Ubuntu. There is an install program that will list all available programs in the repositories. Installing the software is as difficult as finding it in a list, checking the checkbox next to it, clicking on the "apply changes" button and entering a password.
The Linux desktop isn't hard to use. All you do is point and click. If the distro you are using isn't that advanced on the desktop they switch to a distro that is. And it is only getting better.
Linux is NOT hard to use. That's very old FUD. T there are only about three possibilities to explain your post:
1. You haven't tried using Linux recently or maybe not at all. This means you don't know what you are talking about. 2. You are a Microsoft shill/astro-turfer. 3. You are one of the crappiest programmer's in the world and really too stupid to be using a computer. You should find a different line of work.
"As much as I want to believe aliens are among us, it just doesn't make sense that a civilization advanced enough to cross interstellar space would crash in New Mexico."
I don't agree with your "social problem" fix thing. Cheating is both a social problem and a tech problem.
Given enough bandwidth and computing power on the server end cheating can be stopped or nearly so. This is a rather hypothetical statement, however, because I don't see either of those requirements coming in my lifetime.
Cheating is enabled mostly because the server must provide too much information to the client so that the client can do it's own calculations thus reducing the workload for the server. For example, in Counter Strike each client has most of the graphical data. Maps, models, etc. The server then only has to send positional data about the other players to each client. The client can then do the calculations needed to render the world as seen by the player. What this means is that if an opponent is standing behind a wall the client PC "knows" about it even if the player should not. If the player hacks the software he can display the hidden player. Further since the client knows the exact position of opponents the player can hack the software to allow auto aim etc.
If we had enough bandwidth and computing power the server could do ALL of the work and provide the client with prerendered scenes. The client PC would not be given enough information to do an effective cheat. The client PC would be more like a dumb terminal.
Of course this would require bandwidth and computing power on the order of what is depicted in the StarTrek series.
Seems kind of screwed up to me too. The only reason I can think of for a delay is the possibility that they mixed GPL'd code with some proprietary 3rd party code that they licensed. If that's the case they better have good lawyers because they'll need them.
"Shouldn't an artist be able to give away his own music if he wants to without fear of industry retaliation?"
And shouldn't software developer's be able to give away their works without fear of corporate retaliation??
The answer to both questions is "Yes!" Unfortunately greedy corporations will never leave either of us (recording artists and software developers) alone.
It's too bad. Any vulnerability will not go away just because it is not discussed. What this WILL do is make it more likely that some hacker will make a large profit selling the vulnerability to the bad guys. Black hats will have it but the white hats that would be the first line of defense have been barred from having the knowledge they need to mitigate the threat.
Microsoft was using this bogus report to show that their OS was more secure than OSX or Linux. There were NOT saying "My browser is more secure than your's but your TCP/IP stack is better than ours..." Which is what you would have us do.
What people care about is that their computer doesn't get compromised... period...
"if you want to compare the security of the two you need to compare basically the same feature set or the result is meaningless."
Actually what you are trying to do is meaningless. As a consumer I want to know how likely it will be that my system will get damaged by ciber attacks. That's the bottom line. Anything else is meaningless.
Believe me, your point didn't "fly by" anyone. We simply don't agree.
"Thus it should not be counted as a vulnerability unless Linux has a way to do the same thing..."
So the vulnerabilities in ActiveX and COM shouldn't be counted either since Linux doesn't use those... Or vulnerabilities in DirectX shouldn't count because Linux doesn't use it?? That just isn't logical.
Anything that can be used as a vector to successfully compromise a computer should be counted as a vulnerability because that's what it is.
"his wasn't a fight they picked. It was some dumbass software developers who, for whatever reason, didn't ponder the possibility that voting authorities might actually want to know what's going on beneath the hood, all the way down."
The fact that a third party used a proprietary OS isn't Microsoft's fault. The fact that Microsoft came in with a resolution that would gut a bill designed to give transparency to the process IS Microsoft's fault. I find that action more offensive than the use of a closed source OS in voting machines. The manufacturer of the voting machines may not of realized how stupid their decision was but Microsoft knew all too well what it was doing.
I wouldn't trust a company like Microsoft for one second when it comes to ensuring fairness. Fairness is a subject they know nothing about.
"This does not mean that any of them are suitable for a high assurance application -- none of them are high assurance products."
I guess that depends on you definition of "high assurance products." If you mean products that are stable enough to be used in critical application I would say that embedded Linux is way more stable than Microsoft's offerings.
"We have trained the world to know and love GUI's."
If by "we" you mean Microsoft I have to disagree. XWindows on Unix and Apple products were doing the GUI thing way before Microsoft. Microsoft's dominance only came about because Microsoft chose to stab IBM in the back with regards to OS2. OS2 was by far the superior product.
It seems to me that what Microsoft is asking is that we "trust them" without having earned that trust. Without seeing the code how do I know that there isn't a backdoor?
Microsoft's security record has been dismal to put it politely. I certainly don't want to gamble my freedoms on a company that can't secure its own operating system and a company who has shown flagrant disregard for our laws.
As far I'm concerned Microsoft has shown that it will do almost anything to get what it wants. We don't need the fairness of our elections endangered by a company unwilling to provide transparency.
If a SCMS-supporting device was used (let's say she found one that could make a mix) would it then be legal to give that CD away? I'm not a lawyer so I don't know but something doesn't sound right.
Does it mean if I purchased a SCMS-supporting device and a million music CDs I could burn a million copies of a popular album and give them away to whom ever I wanted? Any lawyers out there want to explain?
It has come to my attention that noncommercial copying of digital music recordings may not be an infringement under Title 17 of the U.S. Code, "Copyrights." I apologize for any confusion I may have caused or any mistaken impression I may have given."
Microsoft has got to know that if it really sued for patent infringement it would lose. Any minor infringement that did make it to litigation would be coded out ASAP. They wouldn't get billions and billions of dollars but they would lose their FUD talking points.
This can be a good thing. We are now separating the distros who have integrity from those that don't.
"...a 'fact rich' program to try to convince them to 'proceed with confidence'. "
Boy, I hope it is as accurate as there "Get the Facts" web page that talks about how it's cheaper to buy Microsoft products than it is to use free software. You know the "Total Cost of Ownership" thingy that only looks good on paper if you assume you already own all of the Microsoft software.
Yeah, upgrade to Vista people. It's slower. It's showing itself to be buggy. Your drivers may not work and it breaks most of your software but hey, it's new.
The sad part is that they are going to shove it down people's throats.
I smell a Microsoft agreement somewhere at the bottom of this. Do they sell other Linux distros for business? Do they sell any Microsoft OS based PC for home use only?
Hello DOJ. Are you looking into this? If this is true and because of Microsoft we have a major antitrust situation here!
True. MS is paying big bucks and we have to ask what they expect to get out of it.
They paid Novell over 300 million. But now Novell is obligated to give them money for each sale of it's distrubution. I doubt that MS will ever gain back the 300 million so I'm betting that they are setting the stage for the next phase of their plan to eliminate Linux or at least cripple it.
FUD can be a powerful weapon. The original poster is proof of that.
Will MS ever bring a lawsuit against a Linux vendor? I don't know. It would be risky. For one thing they would have to lay their cards on the table and once that's done the OSS community could either invalidate the patents or code around them. Those two options I don't think fit into Microsoft's evil little plans.
Slashdot Mirror
"You're right, I shouldn't expect a new Lexmark printer to "just work" on Linux. That's really too much to ask. I should spend hours reading documens, tweaking text files, posting on newsgroups, JUST TO FUCKING PRINT. You realize I do have other things to do in my life right? Of course its my fault, I should still be using a printer from 1995 today too.
I understand drivers, I understand that 3rd parties may not provide drivers. But I keep hearing that there's all these developers working to fill that gap for free, yet it never seems to happen. At the end of the day, I don't care why its not working, I just want it to work, and with Windows I don't have to worry about whether it will work or not."
This is all very old FUD. Most Linux distros come with GUI printer utilities that allow you to pick your printer from a list and sets it up for you. The list of printers is extensive. As linux grows in market share the few printers that are not supported yet will be. I'm really doubting that you were truthful about running either Linux servers or a Linux desktop. If you were telling the truth you would be aware of this already.
I have also been running a Linux server for over a decade and using it on my desktop for over seven years now. Have you tried Ubuntu? You know there are updates waiting because an icon will show up to let you know. Updating is as hard as clicking on that icon and typing in a password!
There are thousands of freely available programs for Ubuntu. There is an install program that will list all available programs in the repositories. Installing the software is as difficult as finding it in a list, checking the checkbox next to it, clicking on the "apply changes" button and entering a password.
The Linux desktop isn't hard to use. All you do is point and click. If the distro you are using isn't that advanced on the desktop they switch to a distro that is. And it is only getting better.
"Those who fall below the federal poverty line may be eligible for health care at no cost."
And those who don't will fall below the federal poverty line after securing health care!
So I'll just come out and say it:
Linux is NOT hard to use. That's very old FUD. T there are only about three possibilities to explain your post:
1. You haven't tried using Linux recently or maybe not at all. This means you don't know what you are talking about.
2. You are a Microsoft shill/astro-turfer.
3. You are one of the crappiest programmer's in the world and really too stupid to be using a computer. You should find a different line of work.
So, which one are you?
"As much as I want to believe aliens are among us, it just doesn't make sense that a civilization advanced enough to cross interstellar space would crash in New Mexico."
Maybe the contract went to the lowest bidder?
I don't agree with your "social problem" fix thing. Cheating is both a social problem and a tech problem.
Given enough bandwidth and computing power on the server end cheating can be stopped or nearly so. This is a rather hypothetical statement, however, because I don't see either of those requirements coming in my lifetime.
Cheating is enabled mostly because the server must provide too much information to the client so that the client can do it's own calculations thus reducing the workload for the server. For example, in Counter Strike each client has most of the graphical data. Maps, models, etc. The server then only has to send positional data about the other players to each client. The client can then do the calculations needed to render the world as seen by the player. What this means is that if an opponent is standing behind a wall the client PC "knows" about it even if the player should not. If the player hacks the software he can display the hidden player. Further since the client knows the exact position of opponents the player can hack the software to allow auto aim etc.
If we had enough bandwidth and computing power the server could do ALL of the work and provide the client with prerendered scenes. The client PC would not be given enough information to do an effective cheat. The client PC would be more like a dumb terminal.
Of course this would require bandwidth and computing power on the order of what is depicted in the StarTrek series.
Who knows... Maybe someday...
Seems kind of screwed up to me too. The only reason I can think of for a delay is the possibility that they mixed GPL'd code with some proprietary 3rd party code that they licensed. If that's the case they better have good lawyers because they'll need them.
Mod Parent down
The poster is a troll
"Shouldn't an artist be able to give away his own music if he wants to without fear of industry retaliation?"
And shouldn't software developer's be able to give away their works without fear of corporate retaliation??
The answer to both questions is "Yes!" Unfortunately greedy corporations will never leave either of us (recording artists and software developers) alone.
And apparently can silence as well...
It's too bad. Any vulnerability will not go away just because it is not discussed. What this WILL do is make it more likely that some hacker will make a large profit selling the vulnerability to the bad guys. Black hats will have it but the white hats that would be the first line of defense have been barred from having the knowledge they need to mitigate the threat.
I don't think the argument "Vista is less secure than Linux only because it contains insecure packages that Linux does not..." will fly very far.
In the end people who have their systems compromised will not think kindly of that logic.
Microsoft was using this bogus report to show that their OS was more secure than OSX or Linux. There were NOT saying "My browser is more secure than your's but your TCP/IP stack is better than ours..." Which is what you would have us do.
What people care about is that their computer doesn't get compromised... period...
"if you want to compare the security of the two you need to compare basically the same feature set or the result is meaningless."
Actually what you are trying to do is meaningless. As a consumer I want to know how likely it will be that my system will get damaged by ciber attacks. That's the bottom line. Anything else is meaningless.
Believe me, your point didn't "fly by" anyone. We simply don't agree.
"Thus it should not be counted as a vulnerability unless Linux has a way to do the same thing..."
So the vulnerabilities in ActiveX and COM shouldn't be counted either since Linux doesn't use those... Or vulnerabilities in DirectX shouldn't count because Linux doesn't use it?? That just isn't logical.
Anything that can be used as a vector to successfully compromise a computer should be counted as a vulnerability because that's what it is.
"his wasn't a fight they picked. It was some dumbass software developers who, for whatever reason, didn't ponder the possibility that voting authorities might actually want to know what's going on beneath the hood, all the way down."
The fact that a third party used a proprietary OS isn't Microsoft's fault. The fact that Microsoft came in with a resolution that would gut a bill designed to give transparency to the process IS Microsoft's fault. I find that action more offensive than the use of a closed source OS in voting machines. The manufacturer of the voting machines may not of realized how stupid their decision was but Microsoft knew all too well what it was doing.
I wouldn't trust a company like Microsoft for one second when it comes to ensuring fairness. Fairness is a subject they know nothing about.
"This does not mean that any of them are suitable for a high assurance application -- none of them are high assurance products."
I guess that depends on you definition of "high assurance products." If you mean products that are stable enough to be used in critical application I would say that embedded Linux is way more stable than Microsoft's offerings.
"We have trained the world to know and love GUI's."
If by "we" you mean Microsoft I have to disagree. XWindows on Unix and Apple products were doing the GUI thing way before Microsoft. Microsoft's dominance only came about because Microsoft chose to stab IBM in the back with regards to OS2. OS2 was by far the superior product.
It seems to me that what Microsoft is asking is that we "trust them" without having earned that trust. Without seeing the code how do I know that there isn't a backdoor?
Microsoft's security record has been dismal to put it politely. I certainly don't want to gamble my freedoms on a company that can't secure its own operating system and a company who has shown flagrant disregard for our laws.
As far I'm concerned Microsoft has shown that it will do almost anything to get what it wants. We don't need the fairness of our elections endangered by a company unwilling to provide transparency.
If a SCMS-supporting device was used (let's say she found one that could make a mix) would it then be legal to give that CD away? I'm not a lawyer so I don't know but something doesn't sound right.
Does it mean if I purchased a SCMS-supporting device and a million music CDs I could burn a million copies of a popular album and give them away to whom ever I wanted? Any lawyers out there want to explain?
He published a retraction:
Friday, June 22, 2007
A Retraction
It has come to my attention that noncommercial copying of digital music recordings may not be an infringement under Title 17 of the U.S. Code, "Copyrights." I apologize for any confusion I may have caused or any mistaken impression I may have given."
I keep forgetting that our Department of Justice hasn't stood for Justice for about six years now.
"Where did I say that Open Source products were poor quality?"\
Don't play games with me. I think the statement:
"If you think MS has quality problems now, wait until the amateur geniuses get a hold of the code."
Says is all when taken in context. The implication is obvious.
It wants stronger FUD mojo...
Microsoft has got to know that if it really sued for patent infringement it would lose. Any minor infringement that did make it to litigation would be coded out ASAP. They wouldn't get billions and billions of dollars but they would lose their FUD talking points.
This can be a good thing. We are now separating the distros who have integrity from those that don't.
Nice business you have there. It'd be a shame if I started a Linux distro... 300 Million and it won't happen...
"...a 'fact rich' program to try to convince them to 'proceed with confidence'. "
Boy, I hope it is as accurate as there "Get the Facts" web page that talks about how it's cheaper to buy Microsoft products than it is to use free software. You know the "Total Cost of Ownership" thingy that only looks good on paper if you assume you already own all of the Microsoft software.
Yeah, upgrade to Vista people. It's slower. It's showing itself to be buggy. Your drivers may not work and it breaks most of your software but hey, it's new.
The sad part is that they are going to shove it down people's throats.
I smell a Microsoft agreement somewhere at the bottom of this. Do they sell other Linux distros for business? Do they sell any Microsoft OS based PC for home use only?
Hello DOJ. Are you looking into this? If this is true and because of Microsoft we have a major antitrust situation here!
True. MS is paying big bucks and we have to ask what they expect to get out of it.
They paid Novell over 300 million. But now Novell is obligated to give them money for each sale of it's distrubution. I doubt that MS will ever gain back the 300 million so I'm betting that they are setting the stage for the next phase of their plan to eliminate Linux or at least cripple it.
FUD can be a powerful weapon. The original poster is proof of that.
Will MS ever bring a lawsuit against a Linux vendor? I don't know. It would be risky. For one thing they would have to lay their cards on the table and once that's done the OSS community could either invalidate the patents or code around them. Those two options I don't think fit into Microsoft's evil little plans.