This is somewhat unlikely, unless the site admin resides in a country where international patents don't apply.
The problem being that, certainly in the UK, the site would still be considered to be being published from their home/business machine, irregardless of where the data was being served from.
Online, yet traditional, newspapers of any kind would be nice though. It'd completely revolutionise the newspaper industry, although people would be less inclined to leave their newspapers about.
Really? The vatican doesn't appear to have a ftp.vatican.[net|va] site at all...
The only two machine which have an FTP service on them both give back:
555-You are not permitted to use the ftp operation. 555-Please contact your system administrator. 555- 555
Now I don't know what OS they're using on their WWW server, but it's running Netscape Enterprise server.
You might, of course, mean either vatican.org or vatican.com, neither of whihc has anything to do with the Holy See.
Even their search doesn't say anything about Linux, although it does mention Compaq and Altavista... And gives some mighty weird junk back if you simply ask it for the HEADer of '/'...
Sorry for pissing on your fire, and all.
Meanwhile, Isidore (Soon to be known, I hope, as Izzy), only gets a mention in the footnotes of Vatican II, in relation to the celibacy of the preisthood.
Actually, using -f to force it is a really remarkably bad habit to get into... Or at least, it is for me, since then I start *always* using -f.
I'm all for doing the chattr +i stuff, and I'll happily litter my filesystems with '-i' sparse (empty) files purely to catch out rm * things.
rm -f, on the other hand, will remove some things that rm on it's own won't do. Additionally, it never throws up warnings or errors, which might prove somewhat confusing.
Each to his own, of course - there's more than one way to skin a cat.
Dave. (Who always makes a point of buying RH, seeing as I've made a living out of knowing Linux, I'm sure as hell not going to quibble over 80 quid, some of which is going to support the likes of Alan Cox... besides, the last really major problem I had with the distro was trying to find/var/run/utmp after the Mother's Day release put it there...)
Firstly, the Qt argument is about a library with a seriously confusing license, rather than a piece of commercial software (See: Linus's remarks about there being a place for Commercial software too).
Secondly, I can't actually think of a piece of closed-source software that they sell, but that's probably just me. Unless you count Netscape, of course, which they don't sell, they redistribute.
Thirdly, there's a really fundamental difference between RH and MS - that is, that Alan Cox's code is (all?) under GPL at RedHat. And besides which, if Alan thought for a moment that he was being taken for a ride against the best interests of Linux itself, or the Linux Community, then I'm reasonably certain that he's easily intelligent enough to spot that one for himself.
Interestingly, this ends up meaning that the more money RedHat make, the more people can work on useful, practical, code that will benefit RedHat, sure, but also Debian, and anything else Linux. Possibly even Slackware in about ten years time.
And even better, and this is the reason that even with 24/7 access, I still bought the 70 UKP CD of RH6, RedHat will, in my opinion, fund those projects that need to be done even if nobody actually really wants to do them.
In other words, things that only the business world want will be funded, I believe, by RedHat, and still released GPL. This is superb stuff, because the "personal itch", to quote ESR, isn't personal in these cases, and may well never be scratched under other circumstances.
Lastly, I'd just like to point out that Linux and the Enterprise can only make Linux stronger - it may introduce some weird things, but it'll be a stronger system for them.
And finally, just to prove my lack of understanding of the word 'lastly', some food for thought:
If Alan was working full time at the CymrwNet (Or however you say that - Welsh was a language invented to annoy me, I'm sure), would he have found the time to find the bug mentioned today in another/. article? Who knows.
Can anyone give me a legal description of Prior Art, though?
And a pointer to some basic Patent Law? I'd be interested to see whether a US Patent will migrate to something more international or not.
I've got a perfectly good webserver live on the net, and I might as well use it for something nice and friendly, as well as my own evil capitalistic aims.:-)
It'll need a trust formed, to ensure that the patents granted, or Prior Art collected, will be free of use to software released under certain free licenses. Perhaps free to anyone who doesn't withhold their own patents?
Anyone interested in lending a hand, drop me an email. (The email address is real - I have observed that publishing an email address with "spam" in it seriously damages the health of spam robots, who try to strip it out...)
I assume you mean the kind of meta-information within HTTP/1.1 headers. It does, in the 'MLST' style listings. It can contain MIME types, sizes of files, and almost any other information that you can think of. It's held in a machine readable listing, which allows for a quick and easy method of detirmining which file you want.
That's a different concept to HTTP's - giving you the file that the author of the site wants to give you - and neither is wrong, just very different.
But you're right in that neither is worse for large file transfers of a specific file. It's simply that finding that specific file may prove easier with FTP.
Equally, one might ask why HTTP was created at all... Since FTP does nearly everything that HTTP does.
HTTP cannot perform directory listings, nor can it return those directory listings in terms which a computer can understand - there's absolutely nothing in the standard for it.
FTP, on the other hand, gives out surprising little information about what the files it is giving access to are for, something that HTTP has done since 1.0. (Note: FTP can, actually, do this too, but it's not
Don't confuse FTP with HTTP - they're very different protocols, with the common feature of being able to transfer a file in a stable manner. But that's the base use of both - their feature sets diverge heavily from that point.
Back onto the point in hand, ftp://ftp.replay.com/pub/crypto/ should have all the FTP/SSL stuff you want, but it's non-standard... If you want to make it a standard, head on over to http://www.ietf.org/ and join in the fun.
-.com : Commercial Institutions. (So personal.com's are breaking the rules...)
-.net : Networking Equipment. (Not instutions... In other words, no services should actually be run off these, they're just there for traceroutes and the like.)
-.org : Anything that doesn't fit into the first two. In other words, organisations that might make a profit, but couldn't be described as a commrcial institution. Individuals fit into here I think best...
He's got it backwards
on
Gene Leakage
·
· Score: 1
Umm... Penicillin wasn't created, it was merely used more. People assumed that it would work forever - it's this assumption, which failed, which is the interesting point. Biology was changed, penicillin is now considerably less effective.
Besdies which, I find it extremely interesting that Steve Jones is saying this kind of thing.
For those that wondered about his informality, that's because he's a chatty kind of bloke - he's had TV series on Genetics and so on on UK TV.
Before I begin, let me warn people that I'm going to drift slightly off topic here. Sorry in advance...
Rob knows what individual readers actually read. This is largely by looking at the user preferences, and the reading patterns associated with the user. For instance, he may note that I have all articles listed, but only read some of them in full, and only read the comments in even less.
Given that Rob is also able to ask us (the login people) to fill in a quick questionaire about what we do, and why we read Slashdot, he could gain even more demographics. These are useful in terms of advertising, too, of course, which in turn means more money for both Rob, BSI, and Slashdot, too - so Rob can put more into the development of Slashdot.
Now, in my out-dated experience (I used to run a Telnet BBS back when they were in fashion), the best moderators for any given thread are those that are experienced in the field, but maintain a high readership of everything, nonetheless. This rules me out of being a moderator, by default - I don't read enough of the comments, I imagine.
Obviously, people who make the more interesting comments make more stringent moderators, too, but enough's been said on this subject already.
On another note, I'm agreeably surprised that moderation is working as well as it is - certainly the posts that are moderated up seem to be well worth reading. None of my drivel's getting moderated up that high, which is also good. I'm slightly concerned that perhaps the moderators - or me - are missing some other good posts, but since I haven't gone looking, and haven't found much in the way of evidence to suggest this, it's hard to say.
True... My own IP address comes out as being in London's West End, a place I could only wish to live.
The problem is usually that dialup IP pools and the like aren't easily reconcilable with RIPE's level of accuracy. Nor would anyone particularly like to have their home address easily available to everyone...
Ah... I see. Domain location, rather than IP location. Thanks.
Which gives me another thought... Should Slashdot provide a RFC database? With Rob's coding skills, we could end up with a very valuable resource here.
RIPE - http://www.ripe.net/ - contains all European (And others, sometimes) IP addresses, and shuold have a postal address associated with them. This should mean that you can trace any IP address down to a pretty fine location, assuming it's entered properly in RIPE, of course.
As for RFCs or drafts regarding IP location, I can't immediately find one... Although there is/was going to be a world wide database of IP/AS details, much along the lines of what RIPE can do. Can't get through to the IETF site to find the details, though.
And people wonder why they - ESR et al - refer to this place as being full of kiddies.
The fact is that although I don't mind a good practical joke, the emphasis here is on "joke". I do mind a plain wind up at the expense of many people who are - or were - loyal supporters.
From UF:
> I'm glad I'm not on the bad end > of the stick you guys were waving.
Well, now.
Why the hell would I want to support these guys in any kind of problem now? Even if it's not a joke next time, they've had their chance.
The way I'm feeling right now, I'd be quite happy to see all these sites sued, and I'd take great pleasure in ignoring it.
Yeah, my chain was yanked. The purpose of a joke is to amuse. This one didn't.
I've been trying to persuade the people in the company I've just joined that Slashdot is a good way of keeping tabs on what's happening in a marketplace that it's considering moving into. I'm not entirely sure how I'm meant to ensure that they keep that opinion after today, and I'm not even sure I want them to myself.
However, RedHat still does sell 5.2 for Alpha - and Sparc, too.
I can't find the boxed set, but I suspect that this is simply because of sound business reasons.
Equally, I also suspect that Compaq are barking up the wrong tree... An OS like Linux doesn't make a CPU. They simply have to lower the price, or at least produce boxes that match up to what the UltraSparc hardware can do - which probably means a departure from PC style hardware.
But really, there's no need to get paranoid. Just keep pushing your favourite CPU make and model if you beleive in it.
I'm not entirely sure you've thought this thing through.
You see, you've selected a method, implemented it, and people seem to be saying, by and large, "Well, it's fine, but I won't be using it.", or else, "Well, it's not fine, and I won't be using it.".
Perhaps these are only the people who are vocal enough to express an opinion - we all know that people who agree with the status quo are pretty much silent.
Now, suggestions and comments of my own:
- First, why not, in future, propose these things to everyone, and let them make comments about how it could be improved. That way, Slashdot surely benefits from the experience and suggestions of its readers, which is certainly a large part of its success. (Not saying you've done nowt, Rob, but the readers haven't done nowt either.)
- Second, I don't want to read through reams of crap. I have no intention of doing so, either. However, if there's a good post to be read, then I enjoy reading any old reply to it - it's one thing to read a dull reply to the article, but often another thinng entirely to read a dull reply to someone else's post. Can there be an option to only have the moderation affect the top level?
- Third, I have to say that as I write this post, I'm very conscious of the moderation, of getting a good score. I try to write constructively anyway - anyone can go look at what I've written before, I don't post much. But I write constructively because I like to read constructive posts. Now I find myself thinking, "I'm criticising Rob - I'll be scored down." I hope I won't be, at least, I hope I won't be scored down purely for that, but where does it end? Does it matter that my grammer isn't perfect? Does it matter that I spell colour with a 'u'? Should I use shorter paragraphs? Should I write more or less? It's just plain disconcerting.
- And lastly, I'd like a user pref to be able to drop printing the scores. I took no notice of them before, and I'm quite happy for them to exist, just I don't feel any need to read them. Except on my own posts.
Right. Time to post this and check out that score...:-/
Supposing that, as is the case with many companies, they've standardised on Office.
You can't expect a secretary with no knowledge of comuputing to sit in front of LaTeX, after all, so it's a valid choice.
This currently prevents a company from using Linux.
Now, if M$ supported Linux, a large number of companies would switch to Linux rapidly - I know, for instance, that my own company would, and be glad of it - we have Linux boxes acting as servers already, and Linux workstations would clear up much of the serious problems we have with Windows, such as viruses, and the like.
This means, and I stress this for the hard of thinking: MORE PEOPLE USING LINUX. LESS PROPRIETORY SOFTWARE. More proprietory software on linux, but that's okay, because it's moving in the right direction.
Personally, I'm dropping an email to M$ now, and asking them for Office on Linux, preferably running under GNOME. I'm going to ask them to consider giving the software away for free to personal users, too. I'll offer any support and help I can - hell, if I can sign an NDA and help with the code, I will. I urge others to do the same.
I'm hoping that the GNOME project, or KDE, or anyone else, will produce a GPL Office replacement soon, too, but I'm really hoping that businesses take up Linux onto the desktop, because then the problem of installed userbase suddenly swings in the direction of Linux.
As you (almost?) say, the fact is that good distros for business use aren't actually the same thing as good distros for home use.
Linux needs, desperately, support from business, and if Caldera can get that support, then that's obviously a good thing for Linux, even if business later decides to go RedHat as a result of the Caldera publicity.
However, there's something to be said for one distribution handling business on its own - business seems to prefer it, which is why they've concentrated soley on RedHat, at least for now.
I've spoken before with an Intel person about overclocking.
What he essentially said was, Intel have no problem at all with home users overclocking, so long as they know the risks they're taking. However, they had a problem with manufacturers actually altering the chip case so that they were a clock speed higher, and then selling them on at that price.
The risks, he said, were simply that of instability. Intel, quite rightly, doesn't want its reputation for reliability - and I don't think people would disagree that they have one - tarnished by people misleading the buyers.
It's not a "Nobody must overclock" thing, it's more a simple case of fraud.
Anyways, must get back to working out how to oil-cool my PC, using Peltier effect heat pumps.
Well, RMS in particular has written articles about not using LGPL on libraries, but instead using GPL, on the basis that then, people are forced into releasing the source (By GPL rules).
This fits his philosophy, of course, that freedom of source is paramount, and that the freedom *not* to give out source for any reason shalt not be granted.
In my case, that's a problem - some GNOME libraries may be, or become, GPL, for instance - because I can't reasonably give out the source because the game would then be at peril to people wrecking the system by coding around it.
I'd like to use GNOME, actually, as the UI library, but it's looking now like I'll have to drop that in favour of something else. I have no objections to paying a reasonable fee - but the point is that GPL doesn't fit every occasion.
I agree with what you're saying, but then, I also don't.
Linux is as good as it is because of collaborative coding - and that's a direct result of Open Source software. Not GNU itself.
However, just as other people are saying, "Listen to what RMS has to say,", I do wish RMS would sometimes listen to what others have to say.
Whether we like it or not, commercial needs have a direct influence on software, too. If only to give me that cup of tea I just had, or to pay for the line I use, or the computer, or whatever.
In a perverse twist, Linux will only hit the desktop when the likes of Microsoft actually back it to some degree as a desktop platform. Not because Microsoft's say so is important in and of itself, but because the opinion of business is. And business tends to use Office right now. (And, having used it, I can sometimes see why).
Perhaps more confusingly, I'm currently working on a project which none of the developers can see a way of giving out the source. And yet I'll happily give out the source for many other projects I've worked on. This one is a networked game - income - to pay my rent, to pay for the game's servers, and so on - relies on the game being fair, as well as playable. I can't produce that in a source distributed form, so I can't use GPL, so I can't use GPL libraries, so I then have to do even more work, simply to produce a freely downloadable game. (Box set with glossy manuals anyone?;-) )
Point being (Assuming there is one after all this, anyway) that there's a time and a place for GPL software. It undoubtedly produces higher quality software, a good 99% of the time. But it can often fail to account for other factors... Simple freedom with the code is one thing, but that doesn't always hold.
The good advocate is the one who knows the limitations as well as the freedoms, the cons as well as the pros, and those of the opposition, too. The world at large will accept imperfect solutions - you only need to look at the percentage of machines installed with Win95 for that - but they need to know those limitations, too.
The good advocate demonstrates, eloquently and persuasively, that the limitations of Linux, or GPL, or whatever else, are less constraining, or irritating, or problematic, than the alternative. And where this isn't possible without lying, well, the good coders have to step in and sort that out.
Damn and bollocks. Didn't mean to turn this into an essay. Did someone run me with -v?
Slashdot Mirror
This is somewhat unlikely, unless the site admin resides in a country where international patents don't apply.
The problem being that, certainly in the UK, the site would still be considered to be being published from their home/business machine, irregardless of where the data was being served from.
Online, yet traditional, newspapers of any kind would be nice though. It'd completely revolutionise the newspaper industry, although people would be less inclined to leave their newspapers about.
BTW, love that sig - just compiled it.
Really? The vatican doesn't appear to have a ftp.vatican.[net|va] site at all...
The only two machine which have an FTP service on them both give back:
555-You are not permitted to use the ftp operation.
555-Please contact your system administrator.
555-
555
Now I don't know what OS they're using on their WWW server, but it's running Netscape Enterprise server.
You might, of course, mean either vatican.org or vatican.com, neither of whihc has anything to do with the Holy See.
Even their search doesn't say anything about Linux, although it does mention Compaq and Altavista... And gives some mighty weird junk back if you simply ask it for the HEADer of '/'...
Sorry for pissing on your fire, and all.
Meanwhile, Isidore (Soon to be known, I hope, as Izzy), only gets a mention in the footnotes of Vatican II, in relation to the celibacy of the preisthood.
Actually, using -f to force it is a really remarkably bad habit to get into... Or at least, it is for me, since then I start *always* using -f.
/var/run/utmp after the Mother's Day release put it there...)
I'm all for doing the chattr +i stuff, and I'll happily litter my filesystems with '-i' sparse (empty) files purely to catch out rm * things.
rm -f, on the other hand, will remove some things that rm on it's own won't do. Additionally, it never throws up warnings or errors, which might prove somewhat confusing.
Each to his own, of course - there's more than one way to skin a cat.
Dave.
(Who always makes a point of buying RH, seeing as I've made a living out of knowing Linux, I'm sure as hell not going to quibble over 80 quid, some of which is going to support the likes of Alan Cox... besides, the last really major problem I had with the distro was trying to find
Oh, boy.
/. article? Who knows.
I have to agree with the Debian guy above...
Firstly, the Qt argument is about a library with a seriously confusing license, rather than a piece of commercial software (See: Linus's remarks about there being a place for Commercial software too).
Secondly, I can't actually think of a piece of closed-source software that they sell, but that's probably just me. Unless you count Netscape, of course, which they don't sell, they redistribute.
Thirdly, there's a really fundamental difference between RH and MS - that is, that Alan Cox's code is (all?) under GPL at RedHat. And besides which, if Alan thought for a moment that he was being taken for a ride against the best interests of Linux itself, or the Linux Community, then I'm reasonably certain that he's easily intelligent enough to spot that one for himself.
Interestingly, this ends up meaning that the more money RedHat make, the more people can work on useful, practical, code that will benefit RedHat, sure, but also Debian, and anything else Linux. Possibly even Slackware in about ten years time.
And even better, and this is the reason that even with 24/7 access, I still bought the 70 UKP CD of RH6, RedHat will, in my opinion, fund those projects that need to be done even if nobody actually really wants to do them.
In other words, things that only the business world want will be funded, I believe, by RedHat, and still released GPL. This is superb stuff, because the "personal itch", to quote ESR, isn't personal in these cases, and may well never be scratched under other circumstances.
Lastly, I'd just like to point out that Linux and the Enterprise can only make Linux stronger - it may introduce some weird things, but it'll be a stronger system for them.
And finally, just to prove my lack of understanding of the word 'lastly', some food for thought:
If Alan was working full time at the CymrwNet (Or however you say that - Welsh was a language invented to annoy me, I'm sure), would he have found the time to find the bug mentioned today in another
You should patent that idea, it's so good.
:-)
Can anyone give me a legal description of Prior Art, though?
And a pointer to some basic Patent Law? I'd be interested to see whether a US Patent will migrate to something more international or not.
I've got a perfectly good webserver live on the net, and I might as well use it for something nice and friendly, as well as my own evil capitalistic aims.
It'll need a trust formed, to ensure that the patents granted, or Prior Art collected, will be free of use to software released under certain free licenses. Perhaps free to anyone who doesn't withhold their own patents?
Anyone interested in lending a hand, drop me an email. (The email address is real - I have observed that publishing an email address with "spam" in it seriously damages the health of spam robots, who try to strip it out...)
Header information within FTP?
I assume you mean the kind of meta-information within HTTP/1.1 headers. It does, in the 'MLST' style listings. It can contain MIME types, sizes of files, and almost any other information that you can think of. It's held in a machine readable listing, which allows for a quick and easy method of detirmining which file you want.
That's a different concept to HTTP's - giving you the file that the author of the site wants to give you - and neither is wrong, just very different.
But you're right in that neither is worse for large file transfers of a specific file. It's simply that finding that specific file may prove easier with FTP.
Equally, one might ask why HTTP was created at all... Since FTP does nearly everything that HTTP does.
HTTP cannot perform directory listings, nor can it return those directory listings in terms which a computer can understand - there's absolutely nothing in the standard for it.
FTP, on the other hand, gives out surprising little information about what the files it is giving access to are for, something that HTTP has done since 1.0. (Note: FTP can, actually, do this too, but it's not
Don't confuse FTP with HTTP - they're very different protocols, with the common feature of being able to transfer a file in a stable manner. But that's the base use of both - their feature sets diverge heavily from that point.
Back onto the point in hand, ftp://ftp.replay.com/pub/crypto/ should have all the FTP/SSL stuff you want, but it's non-standard... If you want to make it a standard, head on over to http://www.ietf.org/ and join in the fun.
Interesting that you should say this, because there's some work being done to look at the causes of RSI in the University of California.
It was reported in the New Scientist in the UK, and on their WWW edition at: http://www.newscientist.com/
However, the article needs a subscription to view it.
Essentially says that repeated, mindless physical action using fingers ends up scrweing up your brain, causing RSI - not the actual physical strain.
Not disagreeing, but it's:
.com : Commercial Institutions. (So personal .com's are breaking the rules...)
.net : Networking Equipment. (Not instutions... In other words, no services should actually be run off these, they're just there for traceroutes and the like.)
.org : Anything that doesn't fit into the first two. In other words, organisations that might make a profit, but couldn't be described as a commrcial institution. Individuals fit into here I think best...
-
-
-
Umm... Penicillin wasn't created, it was merely used more. People assumed that it would work forever - it's this assumption, which failed, which is the interesting point. Biology was changed, penicillin is now considerably less effective.
Besdies which, I find it extremely interesting that Steve Jones is saying this kind of thing.
For those that wondered about his informality, that's because he's a chatty kind of bloke - he's had TV series on Genetics and so on on UK TV.
Before I begin, let me warn people that I'm going to drift slightly off topic here. Sorry in advance...
Rob knows what individual readers actually read. This is largely by looking at the user preferences, and the reading patterns associated with the user. For instance, he may note that I have all articles listed, but only read some of them in full, and only read the comments in even less.
Given that Rob is also able to ask us (the login people) to fill in a quick questionaire about what we do, and why we read Slashdot, he could gain even more demographics. These are useful in terms of advertising, too, of course, which in turn means more money for both Rob, BSI, and Slashdot, too - so Rob can put more into the development of Slashdot.
Now, in my out-dated experience (I used to run a Telnet BBS back when they were in fashion), the best moderators for any given thread are those that are experienced in the field, but maintain a high readership of everything, nonetheless. This rules me out of being a moderator, by default - I don't read enough of the comments, I imagine.
Obviously, people who make the more interesting comments make more stringent moderators, too, but enough's been said on this subject already.
On another note, I'm agreeably surprised that moderation is working as well as it is - certainly the posts that are moderated up seem to be well worth reading. None of my drivel's getting moderated up that high, which is also good. I'm slightly concerned that perhaps the moderators - or me - are missing some other good posts, but since I haven't gone looking, and haven't found much in the way of evidence to suggest this, it's hard to say.
True... My own IP address comes out as being in London's West End, a place I could only wish to live.
The problem is usually that dialup IP pools and the like aren't easily reconcilable with RIPE's level of accuracy. Nor would anyone particularly like to have their home address easily available to everyone...
Ah... I see. Domain location, rather than IP location. Thanks.
Which gives me another thought... Should Slashdot provide a RFC database? With Rob's coding skills, we could end up with a very valuable resource here.
RIPE - http://www.ripe.net/ - contains all European (And others, sometimes) IP addresses, and shuold have a postal address associated with them. This should mean that you can trace any IP address down to a pretty fine location, assuming it's entered properly in RIPE, of course.
As for RFCs or drafts regarding IP location, I can't immediately find one... Although there is/was going to be a world wide database of IP/AS details, much along the lines of what RIPE can do. Can't get through to the IETF site to find the details, though.
And people wonder why they - ESR et al - refer to this place as being full of kiddies.
The fact is that although I don't mind a good practical joke, the emphasis here is on "joke". I do mind a plain wind up at the expense of many people who are - or were - loyal supporters.
From UF:
> I'm glad I'm not on the bad end
> of the stick you guys were waving.
Well, now.
Why the hell would I want to support these guys in any kind of problem now? Even if it's not a joke next time, they've had their chance.
The way I'm feeling right now, I'd be quite happy to see all these sites sued, and I'd take great pleasure in ignoring it.
Yeah, my chain was yanked. The purpose of a joke is to amuse. This one didn't.
I've been trying to persuade the people in the company I've just joined that Slashdot is a good way of keeping tabs on what's happening in a marketplace that it's considering moving into. I'm not entirely sure how I'm meant to ensure that they keep that opinion after today, and I'm not even sure I want them to myself.
Right... I think I see where you're coming from.
:-/ )
However, RedHat still does sell 5.2 for Alpha - and Sparc, too.
I can't find the boxed set, but I suspect that this is simply because of sound business reasons.
Equally, I also suspect that Compaq are barking up the wrong tree... An OS like Linux doesn't make a CPU. They simply have to lower the price, or at least produce boxes that match up to what the UltraSparc hardware can do - which probably means a departure from PC style hardware.
But really, there's no need to get paranoid. Just keep pushing your favourite CPU make and model if you beleive in it.
(Currently running NT of all things...
But Rob, Rob...
:-/
I'm not entirely sure you've thought this thing through.
You see, you've selected a method, implemented it, and people seem to be saying, by and large, "Well, it's fine, but I won't be using it.", or else, "Well, it's not fine, and I won't be using it.".
Perhaps these are only the people who are vocal enough to express an opinion - we all know that people who agree with the status quo are pretty much silent.
Now, suggestions and comments of my own:
- First, why not, in future, propose these things to everyone, and let them make comments about how it could be improved. That way, Slashdot surely benefits from the experience and suggestions of its readers, which is certainly a large part of its success. (Not saying you've done nowt, Rob, but the readers haven't done nowt either.)
- Second, I don't want to read through reams of crap. I have no intention of doing so, either. However, if there's a good post to be read, then I enjoy reading any old reply to it - it's one thing to read a dull reply to the article, but often another thinng entirely to read a dull reply to someone else's post. Can there be an option to only have the moderation affect the top level?
- Third, I have to say that as I write this post, I'm very conscious of the moderation, of getting a good score. I try to write constructively anyway - anyone can go look at what I've written before, I don't post much. But I write constructively because I like to read constructive posts. Now I find myself thinking, "I'm criticising Rob - I'll be scored down." I hope I won't be, at least, I hope I won't be scored down purely for that, but where does it end? Does it matter that my grammer isn't perfect? Does it matter that I spell colour with a 'u'? Should I use shorter paragraphs? Should I write more or less? It's just plain disconcerting.
- And lastly, I'd like a user pref to be able to drop printing the scores. I took no notice of them before, and I'm quite happy for them to exist, just I don't feel any need to read them. Except on my own posts.
Right. Time to post this and check out that score...
Okay, simple words for you here.
Supposing that, as is the case with many companies, they've standardised on Office.
You can't expect a secretary with no knowledge of comuputing to sit in front of LaTeX, after all, so it's a valid choice.
This currently prevents a company from using Linux.
Now, if M$ supported Linux, a large number of companies would switch to Linux rapidly - I know, for instance, that my own company would, and be glad of it - we have Linux boxes acting as servers already, and Linux workstations would clear up much of the serious problems we have with Windows, such as viruses, and the like.
This means, and I stress this for the hard of thinking: MORE PEOPLE USING LINUX. LESS PROPRIETORY SOFTWARE. More proprietory software on linux, but that's okay, because it's moving in the right direction.
Personally, I'm dropping an email to M$ now, and asking them for Office on Linux, preferably running under GNOME. I'm going to ask them to consider giving the software away for free to personal users, too. I'll offer any support and help I can - hell, if I can sign an NDA and help with the code, I will. I urge others to do the same.
I'm hoping that the GNOME project, or KDE, or anyone else, will produce a GPL Office replacement soon, too, but I'm really hoping that businesses take up Linux onto the desktop, because then the problem of installed userbase suddenly swings in the direction of Linux.
Couldn't agree more. Can't add jack, either.
As you (almost?) say, the fact is that good distros for business use aren't actually the same thing as good distros for home use.
Linux needs, desperately, support from business, and if Caldera can get that support, then that's obviously a good thing for Linux, even if business later decides to go RedHat as a result of the Caldera publicity.
However, there's something to be said for one distribution handling business on its own - business seems to prefer it, which is why they've concentrated soley on RedHat, at least for now.
I've spoken before with an Intel person about overclocking.
What he essentially said was, Intel have no problem at all with home users overclocking, so long as they know the risks they're taking. However, they had a problem with manufacturers actually altering the chip case so that they were a clock speed higher, and then selling them on at that price.
The risks, he said, were simply that of instability. Intel, quite rightly, doesn't want its reputation for reliability - and I don't think people would disagree that they have one - tarnished by people misleading the buyers.
It's not a "Nobody must overclock" thing, it's more a simple case of fraud.
Anyways, must get back to working out how to oil-cool my PC, using Peltier effect heat pumps.
Well, RMS in particular has written articles about not using LGPL on libraries, but instead using GPL, on the basis that then, people are forced into releasing the source (By GPL rules).
This fits his philosophy, of course, that freedom of source is paramount, and that the freedom *not* to give out source for any reason shalt not be granted.
In my case, that's a problem - some GNOME libraries may be, or become, GPL, for instance - because I can't reasonably give out the source because the game would then be at peril to people wrecking the system by coding around it.
I'd like to use GNOME, actually, as the UI library, but it's looking now like I'll have to drop that in favour of something else. I have no objections to paying a reasonable fee - but the point is that GPL doesn't fit every occasion.
I agree with what you're saying, but then, I also don't.
;-) )
Linux is as good as it is because of collaborative coding - and that's a direct result of Open Source software. Not GNU itself.
However, just as other people are saying, "Listen to what RMS has to say,", I do wish RMS would sometimes listen to what others have to say.
Whether we like it or not, commercial needs have a direct influence on software, too. If only to give me that cup of tea I just had, or to pay for the line I use, or the computer, or whatever.
In a perverse twist, Linux will only hit the desktop when the likes of Microsoft actually back it to some degree as a desktop platform. Not because Microsoft's say so is important in and of itself, but because the opinion of business is. And business tends to use Office right now. (And, having used it, I can sometimes see why).
Perhaps more confusingly, I'm currently working on a project which none of the developers can see a way of giving out the source. And yet I'll happily give out the source for many other projects I've worked on. This one is a networked game - income - to pay my rent, to pay for the game's servers, and so on - relies on the game being fair, as well as playable. I can't produce that in a source distributed form, so I can't use GPL, so I can't use GPL libraries, so I then have to do even more work, simply to produce a freely downloadable game. (Box set with glossy manuals anyone?
Point being (Assuming there is one after all this, anyway) that there's a time and a place for GPL software. It undoubtedly produces higher quality software, a good 99% of the time. But it can often fail to account for other factors... Simple freedom with the code is one thing, but that doesn't always hold.
The good advocate is the one who knows the limitations as well as the freedoms, the cons as well as the pros, and those of the opposition, too. The world at large will accept imperfect solutions - you only need to look at the percentage of machines installed with Win95 for that - but they need to know those limitations, too.
The good advocate demonstrates, eloquently and persuasively, that the limitations of Linux, or GPL, or whatever else, are less constraining, or irritating, or problematic, than the alternative. And where this isn't possible without lying, well, the good coders have to step in and sort that out.
Damn and bollocks. Didn't mean to turn this into an essay. Did someone run me with -v?