Yes, I think it will be the games market that drives hardware. How many of us bought a Voodoo card just for GLQuake? How many of us are planning to buy a Geforce4 when Doom 3 comes out later this summer? (/me Raises hand)
In my opinion, no. It still took an evil jackass, in this case named Max, to act on that information and break the law. Now, if you are *suggesting* or trying to coerce Max, then that's a different matter.
But I think you're right when you state "After all, he had to build the thing", and that I think is the crux of this issue.
Now *that* is an absolutely facsinating point and question. (I mean that sincerely.) I'll do my best to express my answer and opinion.
Any type of "How To" information, no matter how dastardly the action it describes, is neither good nor bad. Even the information of the "How To Take Over a Plane and Slam it into the WTC" variety is still just that - information. It still takes a jackass with evil intent to act on that information. So, as unpopular as it may be, I'd have to say yes, it's just source code of a different sort. And, now we know what to do when some terrorist jackass hijacks a plane.
From your own experience, just because you had the Jolly Rogers' Cookbook didn't mean you *acted* on it and became an anarchist or terrorist. That information needs to be out so that law enforcement and everyday citizens can protect themselves from the people who take that information and use it to perform evil actions.
Possibly, but the source code still has to be compiled. Handing someone a loaded pistol makes you once removed - handing someone source code distances you from that because the jackass script kiddie still has to compile / link the code, and *then* make an effort to distribute.
I really think the distinction holds. The source code does not become a weapon until it is compiled and linked into machine code.
But there's an awfully big difference there. Yelling "FIRE" in a crowded movie theatre could possibly cause a panic. Posting source code won't. Freedom of speech does protect the release of information, and that's all source code is. Information.
The United States Constitution protects free speech, but virus writing and subsequent distribution aren't pure speech. Rather, they're speech plus action. The U.S. Supreme Court has recognized that speech and action, while closely intertwined, aren't one and the same. Thus, the act of putting virus code on the Internet isn't necessarily protected.
I have to strongly disagree with this. Putting up information on the web that shows a person how to write a virus or a DoS bot or anything else is purely free speech, it's the free release of information. The action she's talking about here is the action of posting information, which is not malicious at all.
To further illustrate her misguided logic by being absurd, let's apply this reasoning to other realms. By her logic, if you teach a person to use a gun, and that person takes that knowledge and shoots and kills someone, then you should go to prison for murder. Sorry, that doesn't fly. Just because you know how to write a virus and teach others how to write a virus, it's not illegal until you compile that source and make an effort to infect computer systems with that virus.
Information, no matter what can be done with it, is never "good" or "bad" - it's what you do with that information, the actions you take, that are good or bad.
Like it or not, even virus code should be protected under the First Amendment. However, for actually implementing and distributing a virus, there should be stiffer penalties.
The Radio, the air conditioning, the CD player, the automatic transmissions, the power doors, the power windows, the tinted windows, etc, on a car are all options . You can still buy a base model car at just about any car dealership. However, with Windows, you can't. You can go to Best Buy today, and buy either a Compaq with Windows XP or a HP with Windows XP or any other manufacturer WITH WINDOWS XP.
Given that it costs money to develop software, there is a cost associated with Internet Exploder that Microsoft is probably adding into the cost of buying Windows. However, much like a car, shouldn't consumers have a choice or whether or not they just want an operation system, or whether or not they want to spring extra money for "features" like Internet Exploder or Windows Media Player or any other middleware apps that Windows ships with?
I don't know how many of you are Windows developers, but one thing that you all should know is that the Windows Common Controls have been, and will likely continue to be, updated via newer versions of Internet Exploder. In Visual Studio.NET there's even a browser MFC control - CHtmlEditCtrl - that allows you to embed the ActiveX browser part of Internet Exploder into your application.
And that's all fine and dandy.
However, there's nothing stopping a developer from writing their own controls or using a library such as Qt for their UI. Since it's not mandatory that a developer use the Windows Common Controls to write a Windows application, Microsoft's argument that the browser is too tightly integrated to remove is absolute bullshit, and always has been.
The example of XP embedded is a very good one - as far as I can tell, the lionshare of Internet Exploder "embedding" has been in the Common Controls. The most glaring example I can think of is the CReBarCtrl - a new toolbar style that you had to install IE 4.0 or higher to have access to. Again, it's not mandatory that you use it, and since it's not mandatory, Microsoft's lawyers simply prove that they're full of it.
The larger problem here is that here on SlashDot, we are the technically elite. We are the upper 1% of the technically minded, Mom and Pop AOL user wouldn't understand my comments, and unfortunately, neither would most judges. Lawyers, on the other hand, get to submit partial information and not full disclosure to try and sway a judge's opinion. The crux of this is: Did Microsoft embed Internet Exploder into Windows? Yes. Is it mandatory to use this? NO!
And thus, Microsoft's argument that they can't remove IE fails. Some applications may need the extension, but that's their own damned problem.
I think the reason you (and I) haven't seen to much of a difference in graphics is simply the limitations of the human eye.. Can anyone really tell the difference between an eyebrow that was rendered with 75 polygons vs. an eyebrow rendered with 150?
But you're right - it's the games. XBox has Halo, and not much else. PlayStation2 has Grand Theft Auto 3, State of Emergency, Final Fantasy X, Gran Turismo 3, Blood Omen 2, and many other "must have" games.. as well as games like Batman: Vengeance which are multi-platform.
What does Gamecube have that's must have? Most Nintendo games to me seem to be targeted towards 8 year olds. I'll buy my kids a nintendo system sometime, but Dad's not interested in playing Luigi's Mansion. (Game Boy Advance is a different story).
Of course, if/when the Gamecube releases a really good metroid game, I might have to reconsider.
I'm surprised the Satellite companies would go that route - it might mean less revenue from them. Why would anyone buy the Fox Sports package, for example, if they can see games on one of the local television stations?
Sure, it'd take some research to FIND that local channel that's broadcasting the game of your choice, but that's a one shot time investment.
Then again, how much market is there for these packages? Like the Baseball package, for example. I'm in Texas and a huge fan of the Detroit Tigers... but I'm not shelling out additional money just to watch them blow 5-3 leads like they did last night (dammit). However, if I could catch their games on a local Detroit or even Toledo Ohio station, that would be great. I would imagine it would also mean better ad rates for the stations carrying the games, since more people would be watching.
If this isn't what happens, anyone know how much one of those giant white-trash satellite dishes are? Don't those get raw feeds?
Actually, you may be on to something, even though you were being sarcastic.
Why don't more of us run for Congress? I know for probably 75% of us it's a paycut, and you have to spend a lot of time in DC, but what better way for our voice to be heard then for some of us to run for Congress? Every seat in the House is up for grabs.. run as an independent or a libertarian if you have to.
"The problem with general public license advocates is that they don't understand that people need the opportunity to commercialize software,"
As a developer, I want to get paid for code I write, especially in the case of a proprietary application. For example, say you write an application that.. oh I dunno.. figures out car payments based on a number of different variables. You should be able to close that source code and sell your application to people, since you put in the effort to write it. I don't think any developers in slashdot will disagree, we all have families to feed.
However, there has to be a difference between the Operating System and Applications for that OS. Making the OS GPL'd makes sense - it evens the playing field for all developers, and forces there to be competition among applications. Let the best apps win. Competition, of course, leads to better products for consumers. Unfortunately, Mundie's NOT talking about applications, he's talking about Windows, an Operating System. And the scary thing to remember is that Microsoft takes applications, and ties them to the OS and claims that the application is part of the OS. (Internet Explorer being a famous example). If Windows "loses" to Linux, as I think it inevitably will, then Microsoft's applications such as Office, etc, have to compete with products such as KOffice and StarOffice and MS's market share will go down.
"If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services. If commercialization was cut down, investors would not support research and development in the IT sector, less projects would be developed, less taxes paid and the government would have less money to run universities, and all the other things that governments do,"
Not really. Instead of writing Windows Apps a lot of companies would just write Linux Apps. If no one ran Windows, would it stop Blizzard from writing, say, Starcraft 2 for Linux? No, of course not. The only thing this effects is companies that develop Operating Systems, and more specifically, Microsoft. Keep in mind Microsoft tries to blur the distinction between OS and Application. If you can't sell an OS, you have to sell support. Application Development is a whole different world. You're not selling a system, you are selling a tool for a system, whether it's a browser, text editor, IDE, or a game.
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative"
Yeah that's capitalism, Mundie. Competition always breeds the best products for consumers. Or would you like it if everyone still drove a Ford Model T because there was no competition? Of course, we already know you want everyone to only run Windows and Microsoft Applications on windows. Or perhaps, Mundie isn't so sure about the superiority of his product?
Personally, I always did the best job I could when paying my dues with crappy jobs. And you are absolutely right about a person taking pride in their work. But the sad reality is that many simply DON'T. This CompUSA employee is a prime example of this. The worst part of it is that this seems to be the majority.
What about the 80+ embryos that failed? What kind of sick freakshow (ala Alien Resurrection) are they not publishing?
And why do they want rich people to be able to clone their pets? That does nothing but cheapen the life of the original. "Oh, kids, Sparky got run over by a car, but we'll just go get a new Sparky". And that doesn't even work because behavior is partly genetic, but mostly environmental.
Cloning is a bad idea, IHMO. We shouldn't play God under any circumstances.
Would there be that much of a performance hit? When I play Team Fortress Classic I get better frame rates running it under OpenGL then I do DirectX.. (Voodoo5 5500 video card in case anyone is wondering)
But even if there is a 5% performance rate, with a Geforce4 would anyone *really* notice? Is there that big a difference between 100fps and 95fps? (Especially when the human eye can only detect approx 60fps..)
The more games that can be run on or come out for Operating Systems other then Winblows, the better. If I could run all my games on Linux as opposed to Windows, I'd never use Windows again. Ever. Unfortunately, the lion's share of games are Win32 only..
Writing safe and unsafe code is entirely the responsibility of the developer. A quote from the article:
"Often a computer virus propagates by exploiting a simple programming error, typically a C program failing to check for buffer overflow, allowing input data to overwrite arbitrary portions of memory. Last year's Code Red worm exploited exactly such a bug in Microsoft IIS. "
Well no shit.
And this brings me to my point: Security is the job of the developer, not the language. The language can make it easier on the developer, but it really shouldn't be the end all / be all of secure code. For example, one way you can prevent buffer over-runs in C/C++ is by using strncpy() instead of strcpy()..
As far as adding security to an insecure system as Joy writes, I have to wonder: Has Bill Joy ever written any kind of serious application? Does he know the first thing about programming?
Is he *truly* advocating using "safe" languages for everything when secure programs can be written in other languages? Or is he truly willing to ban all "unsafe" languages like C, C++, Assembler, hell, it's still technically possibly to write machine code. Maybe he isn't going far enough - maybe all processors should be capable of only running Java BYTECODE natively.
And yes, I am illustrating absurdity by being absurd. Joy needs to buy a clue here. I'll say it again - as developers writing secure applications is *OUR* job, not the job of the language we choose to develop in.
You can almost count on Microsoft adding goodies, and Mono will always be catching up to be compatible with Microsoft..
unless...
Why don't we (the open source community) BEAT Microsoft at it's own game? Once Mono is released, let's embrace it and extend it to where beautiful UI features and widgets will run under Linux but *not* under Windows. Certainly if enough open source developers start contributing, just by sheer numbers we'll pull far ahead of Microsoft. This is a much better path then trying to match MS's offering bug for bug..
The key to success is building a better mousetrap, not the same mousetrap for a lower cost. Brand loyalty matters...
I'm not sure everything will ever be digital as far as books go, but it's certainly among the realm of possibilities, but it would be a good thing if it did.
How many "normal" books now are distributed in either Braille or Audio form? Is it possible that there are already blind people that don't have access to all the books that the rest of us have? Also - Audio books cost more then a cheap paperback, what about Braille?
If this software works and allows blind people to read (hear) printed books that they've paid for, then what's the problem? Technology should be used whenever possible to help the handicapped.
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, I think it will be the games market that drives hardware. How many of us bought a Voodoo card just for GLQuake? How many of us are planning to buy a Geforce4 when Doom 3 comes out later this summer? (/me Raises hand)
But I think you're right when you state "After all, he had to build the thing", and that I think is the crux of this issue.
Any type of "How To" information, no matter how dastardly the action it describes, is neither good nor bad. Even the information of the "How To Take Over a Plane and Slam it into the WTC" variety is still just that - information. It still takes a jackass with evil intent to act on that information. So, as unpopular as it may be, I'd have to say yes, it's just source code of a different sort. And, now we know what to do when some terrorist jackass hijacks a plane.
From your own experience, just because you had the Jolly Rogers' Cookbook didn't mean you *acted* on it and became an anarchist or terrorist. That information needs to be out so that law enforcement and everyday citizens can protect themselves from the people who take that information and use it to perform evil actions.
I really think the distinction holds. The source code does not become a weapon until it is compiled and linked into machine code.
But there's an awfully big difference there. Yelling "FIRE" in a crowded movie theatre could possibly cause a panic. Posting source code won't. Freedom of speech does protect the release of information, and that's all source code is. Information.
I have to strongly disagree with this. Putting up information on the web that shows a person how to write a virus or a DoS bot or anything else is purely free speech, it's the free release of information. The action she's talking about here is the action of posting information, which is not malicious at all.
To further illustrate her misguided logic by being absurd, let's apply this reasoning to other realms. By her logic, if you teach a person to use a gun, and that person takes that knowledge and shoots and kills someone, then you should go to prison for murder. Sorry, that doesn't fly. Just because you know how to write a virus and teach others how to write a virus, it's not illegal until you compile that source and make an effort to infect computer systems with that virus.
Information, no matter what can be done with it, is never "good" or "bad" - it's what you do with that information, the actions you take, that are good or bad.
Like it or not, even virus code should be protected under the First Amendment. However, for actually implementing and distributing a virus, there should be stiffer penalties.
The Radio, the air conditioning, the CD player, the automatic transmissions, the power doors, the power windows, the tinted windows, etc, on a car are all options . You can still buy a base model car at just about any car dealership. However, with Windows, you can't. You can go to Best Buy today, and buy either a Compaq with Windows XP or a HP with Windows XP or any other manufacturer WITH WINDOWS XP.
Given that it costs money to develop software, there is a cost associated with Internet Exploder that Microsoft is probably adding into the cost of buying Windows. However, much like a car, shouldn't consumers have a choice or whether or not they just want an operation system, or whether or not they want to spring extra money for "features" like Internet Exploder or Windows Media Player or any other middleware apps that Windows ships with?
And that's all fine and dandy.
However, there's nothing stopping a developer from writing their own controls or using a library such as Qt for their UI. Since it's not mandatory that a developer use the Windows Common Controls to write a Windows application, Microsoft's argument that the browser is too tightly integrated to remove is absolute bullshit, and always has been.
The example of XP embedded is a very good one - as far as I can tell, the lionshare of Internet Exploder "embedding" has been in the Common Controls. The most glaring example I can think of is the CReBarCtrl - a new toolbar style that you had to install IE 4.0 or higher to have access to. Again, it's not mandatory that you use it, and since it's not mandatory, Microsoft's lawyers simply prove that they're full of it.
The larger problem here is that here on SlashDot, we are the technically elite. We are the upper 1% of the technically minded, Mom and Pop AOL user wouldn't understand my comments, and unfortunately, neither would most judges. Lawyers, on the other hand, get to submit partial information and not full disclosure to try and sway a judge's opinion. The crux of this is: Did Microsoft embed Internet Exploder into Windows? Yes. Is it mandatory to use this? NO!
And thus, Microsoft's argument that they can't remove IE fails. Some applications may need the extension, but that's their own damned problem.
But you're right - it's the games. XBox has Halo, and not much else. PlayStation2 has Grand Theft Auto 3, State of Emergency, Final Fantasy X, Gran Turismo 3, Blood Omen 2, and many other "must have" games.. as well as games like Batman: Vengeance which are multi-platform.
What does Gamecube have that's must have? Most Nintendo games to me seem to be targeted towards 8 year olds. I'll buy my kids a nintendo system sometime, but Dad's not interested in playing Luigi's Mansion. (Game Boy Advance is a different story).
Of course, if/when the Gamecube releases a really good metroid game, I might have to reconsider.
Sure, it'd take some research to FIND that local channel that's broadcasting the game of your choice, but that's a one shot time investment.
Then again, how much market is there for these packages? Like the Baseball package, for example. I'm in Texas and a huge fan of the Detroit Tigers... but I'm not shelling out additional money just to watch them blow 5-3 leads like they did last night (dammit). However, if I could catch their games on a local Detroit or even Toledo Ohio station, that would be great. I would imagine it would also mean better ad rates for the stations carrying the games, since more people would be watching.
If this isn't what happens, anyone know how much one of those giant white-trash satellite dishes are? Don't those get raw feeds?
Actually if you feed Cid nothing but Tasty Fish, it is possible for Celes to nurse him back to health.
Why don't more of us run for Congress? I know for probably 75% of us it's a paycut, and you have to spend a lot of time in DC, but what better way for our voice to be heard then for some of us to run for Congress? Every seat in the House is up for grabs.. run as an independent or a libertarian if you have to.
As a developer, I want to get paid for code I write, especially in the case of a proprietary application. For example, say you write an application that.. oh I dunno.. figures out car payments based on a number of different variables. You should be able to close that source code and sell your application to people, since you put in the effort to write it. I don't think any developers in slashdot will disagree, we all have families to feed.
However, there has to be a difference between the Operating System and Applications for that OS. Making the OS GPL'd makes sense - it evens the playing field for all developers, and forces there to be competition among applications. Let the best apps win. Competition, of course, leads to better products for consumers. Unfortunately, Mundie's NOT talking about applications, he's talking about Windows, an Operating System. And the scary thing to remember is that Microsoft takes applications, and ties them to the OS and claims that the application is part of the OS. (Internet Explorer being a famous example). If Windows "loses" to Linux, as I think it inevitably will, then Microsoft's applications such as Office, etc, have to compete with products such as KOffice and StarOffice and MS's market share will go down.
"If there is not commercialization there, a company can only exist based on ancillary manufacturing or services. If commercialization was cut down, investors would not support research and development in the IT sector, less projects would be developed, less taxes paid and the government would have less money to run universities, and all the other things that governments do,"
Not really. Instead of writing Windows Apps a lot of companies would just write Linux Apps. If no one ran Windows, would it stop Blizzard from writing, say, Starcraft 2 for Linux? No, of course not. The only thing this effects is companies that develop Operating Systems, and more specifically, Microsoft. Keep in mind Microsoft tries to blur the distinction between OS and Application. If you can't sell an OS, you have to sell support. Application Development is a whole different world. You're not selling a system, you are selling a tool for a system, whether it's a browser, text editor, IDE, or a game.
"Rather than form a federation with Microsoft and work with what we had already created, there was this notion that the world should be offered an alternative"
Yeah that's capitalism, Mundie. Competition always breeds the best products for consumers. Or would you like it if everyone still drove a Ford Model T because there was no competition? Of course, we already know you want everyone to only run Windows and Microsoft Applications on windows. Or perhaps, Mundie isn't so sure about the superiority of his product?
Personally, I always did the best job I could when paying my dues with crappy jobs. And you are absolutely right about a person taking pride in their work. But the sad reality is that many simply DON'T. This CompUSA employee is a prime example of this. The worst part of it is that this seems to be the majority.
Too bad you're in the vast minority.
Yeah.. didn't think so.
And why do they want rich people to be able to clone their pets? That does nothing but cheapen the life of the original. "Oh, kids, Sparky got run over by a car, but we'll just go get a new Sparky". And that doesn't even work because behavior is partly genetic, but mostly environmental.
Cloning is a bad idea, IHMO. We shouldn't play God under any circumstances.
Would there be that much of a performance hit? When I play Team Fortress Classic I get better frame rates running it under OpenGL then I do DirectX.. (Voodoo5 5500 video card in case anyone is wondering) But even if there is a 5% performance rate, with a Geforce4 would anyone *really* notice? Is there that big a difference between 100fps and 95fps? (Especially when the human eye can only detect approx 60fps..) The more games that can be run on or come out for Operating Systems other then Winblows, the better. If I could run all my games on Linux as opposed to Windows, I'd never use Windows again. Ever. Unfortunately, the lion's share of games are Win32 only..
I'm not sure patents should be given on software. Copyrights (or Copylefts) yes, but not a patent.
TCHAR tszBuf[500];
_tcsncpy (tszBuf, SomeBuffer);
tszBuf[499] = 0;
Problem solved.
OK, I'll rephrase my question then - Has Bill Joy written any kind of serious application in the last 5 years?
Well no shit.
And this brings me to my point: Security is the job of the developer, not the language. The language can make it easier on the developer, but it really shouldn't be the end all / be all of secure code. For example, one way you can prevent buffer over-runs in C/C++ is by using strncpy() instead of strcpy().. As far as adding security to an insecure system as Joy writes, I have to wonder: Has Bill Joy ever written any kind of serious application? Does he know the first thing about programming? Is he *truly* advocating using "safe" languages for everything when secure programs can be written in other languages? Or is he truly willing to ban all "unsafe" languages like C, C++, Assembler, hell, it's still technically possibly to write machine code. Maybe he isn't going far enough - maybe all processors should be capable of only running Java BYTECODE natively. And yes, I am illustrating absurdity by being absurd. Joy needs to buy a clue here. I'll say it again - as developers writing secure applications is *OUR* job, not the job of the language we choose to develop in.
You can almost count on Microsoft adding goodies, and Mono will always be catching up to be compatible with Microsoft.. unless... Why don't we (the open source community) BEAT Microsoft at it's own game? Once Mono is released, let's embrace it and extend it to where beautiful UI features and widgets will run under Linux but *not* under Windows. Certainly if enough open source developers start contributing, just by sheer numbers we'll pull far ahead of Microsoft. This is a much better path then trying to match MS's offering bug for bug.. The key to success is building a better mousetrap, not the same mousetrap for a lower cost. Brand loyalty matters...
I'm not sure everything will ever be digital as far as books go, but it's certainly among the realm of possibilities, but it would be a good thing if it did. How many "normal" books now are distributed in either Braille or Audio form? Is it possible that there are already blind people that don't have access to all the books that the rest of us have? Also - Audio books cost more then a cheap paperback, what about Braille? If this software works and allows blind people to read (hear) printed books that they've paid for, then what's the problem? Technology should be used whenever possible to help the handicapped.