No: tracking down Linux / BSD users won't be difficult. Why? Because I suspect many, many users will do just what I do if this is passed. Namely, I have every intention of continuing to use my computer as I always have (which, incidentally, doesn't, AFAIK, include depriving anyone else of anything, or harming anyone intentionally), and writing to my MP, explaining that I am doing this, that it is illegal, and inviting them to come round and arrest me if they so please.
This is the true power of civil disobedience: you don't use violence, you don't wage a war, you just continue as normal.
Actually, that's total crap. The whole browser bundling thing was one of the parts where Microsoft/wasn't/ found guilty - it was suggested there wasn't concrete evidence to show this was a problem.
The Guardian also has an article. It includes the hilarious quotation 'Some very
clever people have been chipping away at the problem, and now we think it could be possible without breaking the laws of physics' - I presume as opposed to how people used to think it was possible only *with* breaking the laws of physics...
How sad then, that America has almost single-handedly prevented the banning of anti-personnel land mines, principally because it is afraid of losing its ability to interfere in Korea.
...not laying them in the first place is a lot more cost / effort / human-life efficient than removing mines once you have...
Black Hawk Down 'true and well done'? Well, yes, September 11th does seem to have changed people's views of films! Before then, we might have dreamed that Americans would notice that THE REST OF THE WORLD realises that Black Hawk Down was ridiculous, fake, American-enhancing crap, glorifying effectively the fallout of an American massacre - now we realise that everyone else's perspective will be ignored...
Re:Too bad Recall doesn't work right now
on
Xft Support For Mozilla
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Sure - but wait for the APIs to stabilize and everything to get sorted by 1.0, and then mozdev-type projects will properly take off!
Whilst I agree with other comments that point out that Mozilla really is pretty crash-proof already, you might like to follow the Total Recall project on mozdev...
Meanwhile, apparently it's too much effort to even link to their own story explaining their poll, so that when Microsoft tries to use it as propaganda there's a big 'How this poll was rigged by Microsoft' link...
This is interesting in terms of OS share figures. One of the obvious things that statistics on OS shares frequently totally ignore is market penetration, especially in terms of saturation. The US (and European) markets are far closer to saturation that, say, the Chinese market, and it is these markets which stand to grow the most that are of most interest in terms of potential future share. Since these sorts of stories may well become fairly frequent, it seems that in the markets which have least been decided already, Linux, and otehr alternative OSes, stand to gain the most.
>My contributing code for free to an open source
>project does not diminish my standing as a
>capitalist.
Erm, actually it does.
True capitalism, in the sense of Thatcherism, etc., holds that money is the only motivation, and thus that society will benefit from companies competing to provide the services centrally organised in a communist society, in order to try to make money. Entering other things into the equation - such as contributing to things for fame, respect, altruism, etc. - does mark you out as not a pure, extreme capitalist, since you don't believe money to be the only motivating factor.
HOWEVER, of course, there is a long way from capitalism to communism, and it is perfectly possible to stand somewhere in between, and it seems unlikely that open source (or even free software) should be place right at the end with communism.
So, if Napster has been going for two years, how long have *actual* Peer-to-peer programs been around (rather than the old server-client ones like Napster which have been around for ages)?
Has *every* single person in the world forgotten what copyright is for?!?!?! Copyright isn't there 'to protect artists', it's there to encourage people to create stuff, and thereby expand the public domain. The point of copyright is that if people have a limited opportunity to exclusively sell their work, more people will create. It has *nothing* to do with protecting a person's 'right' (?) to monopolise and control creative output.
Yes it does. And it is very important that they chose the word 'expression' rather than the word 'speech' - a huge amount has been made of this. The fact that you're allowed to *express* whatever you like doesn't mean you're allowed to *say* whatever you like.
I really hope people actually think about this before replying about how this is simply wrong. Different countries have different ways of dealing with things. In America, for example, Freedom of Speech is enshrined in law - this gives an enormous amount of protection to citizens from their government, which is good, but also ensures the right of racists and others to say what they like, and recruit new members. In other countries, they frequently take a different approach, and for example consider protecting minorities from hate speech to be more important than letting everyone say whatever they like.
I wish people would understand that these are simply different ways of going about things, and certainly each has its own advantages and disadvatages. I don't honestly think, for example, that one groups is simply correct about gun ownership - perhaps America/is/ correct to claim that citizens need to be able to assert control, and not be powerless against their own government, but there are clear disadvatages. The same with speech - given no censorship, and no ability to assert local laws over internet content has major disadvantages, as well as the obvious advantages.
Erm, that is sort of true, but not entirely. In the UK you can expect goods you buy to be of a saleable quality, and that means they have to 'work' in some sense. Often this sense has been interpreted quite broadly, since it's so vague, so you could certainly argue that the presence of an ability to make a back-up counts as correctly working. Obviously these CDs don't just limit their life in terms of being corrupt - they also limit their life because you should be able to make a back-up and use that if the first one breaks...
This was posted yesterday or the day before on Linuxtoday, and the thing I really didn't understand is not why people keep posting articles like this that claim to explain why Linux will never succeed, but why editors don't correct the headlines.
Very, very little of this article is about why the author thinks linux won't succeed on the desktop - what it is about is why Linux isn't *currently* on the desktop.
Sure, for example, we don't have an Office killer *currently*, but where exactly does he explain why we can never have one? Nobody can seriously be so conned by Microsoft as to believe that we'll always be playing catch-up. Obviously there will come a point (very soon, IMHO) when Linux word processors have every function most users could possibly want - just because Word adds new extraneous features every release doesn't mean those are necessary, and certainly doesn't mean people use them (or would miss them in a Linux equivalent).
I'm just constantly bemused how people seem to make the inference from 'linux isn't currently on the desktop' to 'linux will never be on the desktop'. There may be some good reasons why this might be, but this article certainly doesn't offer any conclusive ones as far as I can see.
Seems to me that there will come a point where a free operating system can do everything current OSes do, so the intuitive step is to ask 'Why when that happens will people pay for an OS instead?' - surely the burden is on people claiming linux will never win the desktop to answer that, even if that time is a year off or whatever.
I think what we really need is for Slashdot: News for Nerds, to be a ***NEWS*** site. I don't really understand why the editors occasionally seem to find this such a bizarre concept - that if something is years old, it's not news. They might also consider that if someone is posting something that old there are two possibilities: 1) that it's been posted before or 2) though a brilliant process of sub-k5 user-voting the item hasn't ended up on the front page: namely if nobody bothers to post something, it isn't important.
What's worse, half the time we have these years old items the things come under (2) - that everybody else has managed to read a crap article without posting it, but then someone, months later, posts it and the editors accept it, never considering that the reason nobody's submitted it before is that everyone who's read it has realised it's crap...
Lots of people have mentioned how strange they think it is to release Winamp on a platform with a perfectly good clone, but I think this is bizarre for another reason. Surely this is a *really* good example where simply branding an open source product would be perfectly adequate for creating a presence on a platform? Quite clearly if Winamp released a Winamp branded version of XMMS there are a large number of people who would download it simply due to name recognition, and they wouldn't have to worry about their development being open source, since they would have a pretty much guarenteed (unless they really screwed up) following, who would download WinampLinux rather than any other version of XMMS. Are they really so into their closed source scheme (for a free beer program!) that they can't bear to use what's already been developed, and simply improve it to achieve feature parity or whatever?
Before people start slamming the Gartner report again, I hope they've read it. People seem to be under the impression that Gartner said that IIS simply wasn't secure and that other things are better - and that the response to this is 'duh, any machine which isn't updated isn't secure'. That isn't a valid response at all, because what Gartner very specifically said was not that IIS couldn't be secured, but that it is simply uneconomical because of the time and effort it takes to update IIS.
I.e. Just what they are saying is 'We all know you need good sysadmins to make sure systems are up to date with security patches, but in the case of IIS you'll have to employ someone to spend all their time doing this, and that simply isn't the least expensive way to go'....
Erm. How exactly does saying that there are patches that cause some problems show that the patches refused were not ones that wouldn't cause far more serious problems? That's a mad argument.
Of course Mozilla has reduced it's defect curve. I presume you're talking about it's increasing REPORTED defect curve, which is a totally different thing. This is like people who call rape awareness campaigns failures because more rapes are reported after them.
Slashdot Mirror
No: tracking down Linux / BSD users won't be difficult. Why? Because I suspect many, many users will do just what I do if this is passed. Namely, I have every intention of continuing to use my computer as I always have (which, incidentally, doesn't, AFAIK, include depriving anyone else of anything, or harming anyone intentionally), and writing to my MP, explaining that I am doing this, that it is illegal, and inviting them to come round and arrest me if they so please.
This is the true power of civil disobedience: you don't use violence, you don't wage a war, you just continue as normal.
Sorry? Fully 70% of security problems are bugs in the software? Well what are the other 30%, then?!?!?
Oh yes, I forgot: features!
Actually, that's total crap. The whole browser bundling thing was one of the parts where Microsoft /wasn't/ found guilty - it was suggested there wasn't concrete evidence to show this was a problem.
The Guardian also has an article. It includes the hilarious quotation 'Some very
clever people have been chipping away at the problem, and now we think it could be possible without breaking the laws of physics' - I presume as opposed to how people used to think it was possible only *with* breaking the laws of physics...
How sad then, that America has almost single-handedly prevented the banning of anti-personnel land mines, principally because it is afraid of losing its ability to interfere in Korea.
...not laying them in the first place is a lot more cost / effort / human-life efficient than removing mines once you have...
Black Hawk Down 'true and well done'? Well, yes, September 11th does seem to have changed people's views of films! Before then, we might have dreamed that Americans would notice that THE REST OF THE WORLD realises that Black Hawk Down was ridiculous, fake, American-enhancing crap, glorifying effectively the fallout of an American massacre - now we realise that everyone else's perspective will be ignored...
Sure - but wait for the APIs to stabilize and everything to get sorted by 1.0, and then mozdev-type projects will properly take off!
Whilst I agree with other comments that point out that Mozilla really is pretty crash-proof already, you might like to follow the Total Recall project on mozdev...
Meanwhile, apparently it's too much effort to even link to their own story explaining their poll, so that when Microsoft tries to use it as propaganda there's a big 'How this poll was rigged by Microsoft' link...
This is interesting in terms of OS share figures. One of the obvious things that statistics on OS shares frequently totally ignore is market penetration, especially in terms of saturation. The US (and European) markets are far closer to saturation that, say, the Chinese market, and it is these markets which stand to grow the most that are of most interest in terms of potential future share. Since these sorts of stories may well become fairly frequent, it seems that in the markets which have least been decided already, Linux, and otehr alternative OSes, stand to gain the most.
...which is good!
>My contributing code for free to an open source
>project does not diminish my standing as a
>capitalist.
Erm, actually it does.
True capitalism, in the sense of Thatcherism, etc., holds that money is the only motivation, and thus that society will benefit from companies competing to provide the services centrally organised in a communist society, in order to try to make money. Entering other things into the equation - such as contributing to things for fame, respect, altruism, etc. - does mark you out as not a pure, extreme capitalist, since you don't believe money to be the only motivating factor.
HOWEVER, of course, there is a long way from capitalism to communism, and it is perfectly possible to stand somewhere in between, and it seems unlikely that open source (or even free software) should be place right at the end with communism.
...and not to mention at the highest price!
So, if Napster has been going for two years, how long have *actual* Peer-to-peer programs been around (rather than the old server-client ones like Napster which have been around for ages)?
Has *every* single person in the world forgotten what copyright is for?!?!?! Copyright isn't there 'to protect artists', it's there to encourage people to create stuff, and thereby expand the public domain. The point of copyright is that if people have a limited opportunity to exclusively sell their work, more people will create. It has *nothing* to do with protecting a person's 'right' (?) to monopolise and control creative output.
Yes it does. And it is very important that they chose the word 'expression' rather than the word 'speech' - a huge amount has been made of this. The fact that you're allowed to *express* whatever you like doesn't mean you're allowed to *say* whatever you like.
Could someone tell me, does this guy *actually* not understand that the first amendment doesn't cover Germany, or, er, did he just vote for Bush?
I really hope people actually think about this before replying about how this is simply wrong. Different countries have different ways of dealing with things. In America, for example, Freedom of Speech is enshrined in law - this gives an enormous amount of protection to citizens from their government, which is good, but also ensures the right of racists and others to say what they like, and recruit new members. In other countries, they frequently take a different approach, and for example consider protecting minorities from hate speech to be more important than letting everyone say whatever they like.
/is/ correct to claim that citizens need to be able to assert control, and not be powerless against their own government, but there are clear disadvatages. The same with speech - given no censorship, and no ability to assert local laws over internet content has major disadvantages, as well as the obvious advantages.
I wish people would understand that these are simply different ways of going about things, and certainly each has its own advantages and disadvatages. I don't honestly think, for example, that one groups is simply correct about gun ownership - perhaps America
Erm, that is sort of true, but not entirely. In the UK you can expect goods you buy to be of a saleable quality, and that means they have to 'work' in some sense. Often this sense has been interpreted quite broadly, since it's so vague, so you could certainly argue that the presence of an ability to make a back-up counts as correctly working. Obviously these CDs don't just limit their life in terms of being corrupt - they also limit their life because you should be able to make a back-up and use that if the first one breaks...
...let's hope the EU actually has some...
This was posted yesterday or the day before on Linuxtoday, and the thing I really didn't understand is not why people keep posting articles like this that claim to explain why Linux will never succeed, but why editors don't correct the headlines.
Very, very little of this article is about why the author thinks linux won't succeed on the desktop - what it is about is why Linux isn't *currently* on the desktop.
Sure, for example, we don't have an Office killer *currently*, but where exactly does he explain why we can never have one? Nobody can seriously be so conned by Microsoft as to believe that we'll always be playing catch-up. Obviously there will come a point (very soon, IMHO) when Linux word processors have every function most users could possibly want - just because Word adds new extraneous features every release doesn't mean those are necessary, and certainly doesn't mean people use them (or would miss them in a Linux equivalent).
I'm just constantly bemused how people seem to make the inference from 'linux isn't currently on the desktop' to 'linux will never be on the desktop'. There may be some good reasons why this might be, but this article certainly doesn't offer any conclusive ones as far as I can see.
Seems to me that there will come a point where a free operating system can do everything current OSes do, so the intuitive step is to ask 'Why when that happens will people pay for an OS instead?' - surely the burden is on people claiming linux will never win the desktop to answer that, even if that time is a year off or whatever.
Well quite.
I think what we really need is for Slashdot: News for Nerds, to be a ***NEWS*** site. I don't really understand why the editors occasionally seem to find this such a bizarre concept - that if something is years old, it's not news. They might also consider that if someone is posting something that old there are two possibilities: 1) that it's been posted before or 2) though a brilliant process of sub-k5 user-voting the item hasn't ended up on the front page: namely if nobody bothers to post something, it isn't important.
What's worse, half the time we have these years old items the things come under (2) - that everybody else has managed to read a crap article without posting it, but then someone, months later, posts it and the editors accept it, never considering that the reason nobody's submitted it before is that everyone who's read it has realised it's crap...
</rant!>
Lots of people have mentioned how strange they think it is to release Winamp on a platform with a perfectly good clone, but I think this is bizarre for another reason. Surely this is a *really* good example where simply branding an open source product would be perfectly adequate for creating a presence on a platform? Quite clearly if Winamp released a Winamp branded version of XMMS there are a large number of people who would download it simply due to name recognition, and they wouldn't have to worry about their development being open source, since they would have a pretty much guarenteed (unless they really screwed up) following, who would download WinampLinux rather than any other version of XMMS. Are they really so into their closed source scheme (for a free beer program!) that they can't bear to use what's already been developed, and simply improve it to achieve feature parity or whatever?
Before people start slamming the Gartner report again, I hope they've read it. People seem to be under the impression that Gartner said that IIS simply wasn't secure and that other things are better - and that the response to this is 'duh, any machine which isn't updated isn't secure'. That isn't a valid response at all, because what Gartner very specifically said was not that IIS couldn't be secured, but that it is simply uneconomical because of the time and effort it takes to update IIS.
I.e. Just what they are saying is 'We all know you need good sysadmins to make sure systems are up to date with security patches, but in the case of IIS you'll have to employ someone to spend all their time doing this, and that simply isn't the least expensive way to go'....
Erm. How exactly does saying that there are patches that cause some problems show that the patches refused were not ones that wouldn't cause far more serious problems? That's a mad argument.
Of course Mozilla has reduced it's defect curve. I presume you're talking about it's increasing REPORTED defect curve, which is a totally different thing. This is like people who call rape awareness campaigns failures because more rapes are reported after them.
Erm, it is at least theoretically possible that there are some dangerous patches, and some less so, and that the dangerous ones are being avoided....