Thanks to Antioffline.com for hosting us, and Gentoo's Portage system for catching the trojaned files via checksums.
This was caught by the gentoo portage system. The gentoo portage system distributes a number of "ebuilds". Each one of those contains (amongst many other pieces of info) the MD5 for the downloaded source file.
To get this exploit past gentoo, you would have had to compromise the tcpdump.org site AND compromise the gentoo mirror which held the ebuild.
I'm a debian user who has tinkered with gentoo. This is a very impressive win for gentoo. Way to go, gentoo.
The GPL specifically says prohibits a licensee from distributing modifications to GPL'd code that are encumbered by patents. So, interestingly, you could use the GPL to prevent distribution of the Linux if it turned out to contain patent encumbered modifications.
But IANAL, so take this with a grain of salt (or as much as you need).
Wow! With the slanted, insulation stuffed, exterior walls, that room looks like it's in the attic. I don't know where you live, but my attic gets to be 110+ degrees in the summer time. And after helping my brother wire his house in Chicago this summer, I can verifiy that it isn't just because I live in the southern US. I musta sweat off 15 pounds wiring that house.
Where in your house is this, and if it *is* just below the roof (as it looks) how do you manage to keep it cool enough to run all of that equip?
Re:Aren't APPS the real issue?
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Halloween VII
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· Score: 3, Insightful
But you missed my entire point! Why is that our goal?? Why should that be the goal of anyone who does not have a direct financial incentive to get people to switch (ie, people who work for RedHat)? What happened to our goal of just having a system that does what we want it to do, because Windows doesn't? Why limit our goals to just killing Microsoft?
The point isn't to kill Microsoft. It's to maintain the practical ability to not become beholden to Microsoft. And that depends on being able to freely communicate through open protocols/document formats/etc. Microsoft's goal is antithetical to openness. They want to proprietize everything so that everything you do generates a payment to them. That's their motiviation. It's a fine motivation, as long as it isn't effectively implemented.
The problem is that Microsoft's goal, combined with their market share, make it increasingly more difficult to use any other computing software that isn't produced out of Redmond. Some folks have responded by wanting to kill Microsoft, dead. But the reality is that if Microsoft were effectively curtailed that most of those folks would back down from the "kill 'em dead" stance.
Getting some mom's & pop's on board is an indirect goal. The primary goal is to be able to maintain independance from beholdenness to anyone (including Microsoft). Having mom's & pop's as a 2ndary goal, is supportive of the primary goal because if there are enough people using an alternative to Microsoft, Microsoft can't arbitrarily change things without breaking compatibility with a huge population of people who'll be outraged.
Mom's & pop's provide the check and balance to an overly agressive Microsoft. This allows me to continue to expect that open network protocols will continue to work. And effectively enable me to continue using Linux.
How do we get mom's & pop's onboard? Giving them something that has a low financial cost, but a high educational cost isn't going to work. You have to give them something that is low cost in terms of ease of use as well as easy on the pocket book. Thus the desire to mimic the MS environment.
In summary: Easy to use leads to mom & pop onboard leads to prevention of MS monopoly breaking everything non-MS. This enables freedom to continue to effectively use Linux. Which is the goal.
Does that help?
Re:We are emotional and not rational??!!!
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Excuse me? Because people in Microsoft's survey were supportive of OSS, that means that they were predisposed to like it, and therefore is based on emotion and not rationality?!
Yeah, I read that too. But recall that they also say, "Linking this with other on-point research...". We don't have access to the other on-point research. They do. We don't know what that research says or doesn't say. It may very well be fair for them to make the conclusion that they made. We don't know.
There is a big difference between "uniform licensing" and "effective enforcement".
Oh, you're absolutely correct. My point is that prior to the judge coming to a ruling, they simply can't risk looking like they're already subverting a settlement that they agreed to. It may give the judge grounds to break the company up.
As soon as this case is settled without a breakup, then MS will open up and start doing this kind of stuff. Not enforcing the uniform licensing. Ignoring areas where they know pirating is taking place in order to get a foothold later. And it will then be incumbent upon someone else spending a lot of $$ to prove that MS is violating the agreement.
Short of a ruling to breakup MS, this is what we'll see.
Ironically, conquering the piracy problem is what got the ball rolling. If Microsoft turned a blind eye toward piracy in certain key markets, they could have prevented Linux from establishing market share.
According to the terms of the proposed settlement, they can't do this. They agreed to uniform licensing terms. Which means that they must give everyone the same terms as everyone else. If they "turn a blind eye" that enables them to apply different licensing models for different areas in order to sustain and grow their monopoly.
They aren't allowed to do that. And they certainly can't do it until today's rulings are released. If they fail to enforce a uniform licensing, which they agreed to in the proposed settlement, that may impact the judge's ruling.
After today, though, the game is afoot. I predict we're going to hear lots less of this kinda stuff.
I think that you have a valid point, but you can only take it so far before it stops being true.
So for example, you can use your example to justify using windows instead of *nix products. Despite the generally poorer performance, most admins are much more comfortable with it.
But it doesn't end there. You could say, for example, that admins should run their boxes with the default configuration that comes with the windows product. Admins don't have to spend the extra time to get the marginal improvement that the tweaking provides. And now you're at the point where the admin doesn't really need to do anything, but you have an unstable and insecure network... that impacts the end product of the business.
Basically I disagree with your premise, although in some cases it may have merit. Your premise is that for a given product (in this case a computer network) reducing the learning time required by the admin will lead to quicker production of that product. In other words, give the admin what he/she is comfortable with and they can produce that thing quicker.
The problem with this is that if you recursively apply this methodology you end up with admins who know and do nothing, and a network that isn't stable or secure.
To break out of the cycle you have to remember what the real product is. It isn't the computer network. It's whatever it is that the network is used to produce. For example, Ford Motor Company produces cars. They use their computer networks to produce cars. The thing that needs to be optimized is the production of cars not the production of computer networks. Computer networks should be built to be as effective and efficient as possible in order to accomplish the production of cars.
This may take some time. It may take twice as long to develop an optimized computer network vs. a sub-optimal computer network which performs 10% poorer. But that computer network will be used for a much longer time than it's development cycle. It won't be long before the slowdown of the sub-optimal network chews up much more time than designing the optimized network.
Keep your eye on the ball. Churning out computer networks as quickly as possible is almost always the wrong thing to do..
If they outlaw the GPL, which has its basis entirely on copyright law, then wouldn't this be invalidating copyright law?
In other words, are we getting to a point where we are defining what types of restrictions copyright is allowed to enforce/license? So if there are only certain types of restrictions allowable in copyright law, then isn't all of copyright impacted? Wouldn't the precedent be set that says that certain types of restrictions would permit you to violate them w/out violating copyright law?
(Flamers: remember I'm asking a question, if I thought the answer was patently obvious I woulnd't need to ask)
On the other hand, this seems to me to be a ploy. It's not a serious bill that anyone expects to pass. It's probably a bill to say to certain coroporate sponsers, "See you should donate more to my re-election campaign, and encourage your employees to vote for me in next month's elections."
As far as the $300 for the receiver, if the satelite providers really had a good understanding of what their target customers *could* be, then they'd do it differently. What they need to recognize is that they can now make nationwide radio stations. Which means that they can market to advertisers nationwide radio coverage. Radio can't say that right now. TV can, and look at how much advertisers are willing to pay for it.
If that's the case, subsidize the radios. Make them for whatever they cost, and sell them for $50. If you sell them cheap enough, everyone will get them. If everyone gets them, then they can market to their real customers: advertisers.
But that's just my $.02. I think the satellite providers are really screwing up their oppurtunity. If only I had a half billion (or so) so that I could start up MJH Sat Radio...
Indistinguishable? How about being able to listen to the same station while you drive across the country. Heck across the state... unless, of course, you live in Rhode Island, and you can already do that. For the rest of us, especially those of us who love sports, that is a *VERY* nice feature. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to be in between big cities and not be able to pick up the football game. I want satelite radio for that feature alone... and I'm willing to pay for it by listening to advertisements. I'm not willing to pay cash for it on a monthly basis.
XM has a *lot* of indie stuff, as well as stuff that'll never get signed
That may be the case, but it's probably not a good enough biz model to sustain them. What they ought to think about doing is providing a large commercial-laden offering for free, and a "premium" offering for money. That way the business is sustained by a large enough revenue stream (advertising) and those who want the indie stuff can still get it, but it costs them more. 200k customers may seem like a lot, but think about the amount of money they must be paying to run the service.
Although not referring specifically to the Mallinson case, he added it may be necessary to "weed out" employees who did not live up to Microsoft's code of behaviour.
Ahh, right.
Love Bug: not a bug, user error
Code Red: not a bug, administrator error
Switch campaign: she can't be the right person, we made her up.
So what exactly is the Microsoft code of conduct? You'll get castigated for anything resembling the truth?
No. In order to go to trial, the prosecution needs to make a prima facie case. That is the prosecution needs to have enough evidence, that w/out defense, the defendant will be found guilty. If the prosecution does not make a prima facie case, then the judge can throw out the case, and the defense doesn't even have to say a word.
If the defendant doesn't show up, it's easy for the prosecution to get a conviction because all they really need to do is make their case. Undefended, the prosecution can almost always make a prima facie case.
But IANAL, so take it for what it's worth (Hint: not much).
So by your rationale (and I'm not saying you're incorrect), is there an assload of spam because that's what people are interested in?
I don't think that's what he was saying. He was specifically talking about why there's so much porn. I could be wrong, but I don't think he meant his statement explain everything that's on the internet in abundance. I think he was just trying to explain the abundance of porn. Consumer demand, clearly would be insufficient explanation for the abundance of spam, as you point out.
You know what I desperatly want? I want a seperate phone # that I give out ONLY on forms that I fill in, only to companies that request information from me. But I want the phone number to always be answered by my phone company's voice mail service. I don't want a line to my house. I don't want to pay all the extra crap. I just want a phone number that always goes to an answering machine. Which I will check from time to time.
Then I'll give out my real phone number to all my friends and family. And my public phone number to anyone I don't know. Oh, also, my public phone number will be the one listed in the phone book. Oh, and I'll put callerid blocker on my real phone number.
I'd be willing to pay about $10 a month for the extra number w/out a line to my house and the voice mail that operates on that number. But I'm not willing to pay $40 a month for a phone line attached to a $30 answering machine that comes to my house. That's too expensive.
Honestly, what schmuck would pay Microsoft for security??
The hordes of schmucks that are so heavily invested into MS products so deeply that paying to divest themselves would be more expensive than paying for security services from Microsoft.
On a system with many users, limiting the damage caused to a single user to himself is a necessity. On a system with one user/administrator, it's meaningless.
No it isn't. It's the single thing that keeps virii from propagating on linux. I don't mean worms like slapper, I mean things that attach themselves to executable code. The fact that almost all binaries under linux are not installed writable by the average user, limits the effectiveness of classic virii, if not completely irradicating them.
Now, I'll grant that this is not a particularly populer form of malware anymore. But running as non-root makes you virtually impervius to it. There are LOTS of other advantages to not running as root, but to be able to completely eliminate one form of malware is something that can't be ignored.
While it's true that the GNU project took too long to finish their kernel, and it is arguable that they ought to have abandoned it in favor of Linux when it appeared, these tactical considerations aren't really relevant. Would you be pleased if, after completing 80% of a large free software project and getting bogged down on the remaining 20%, I added the missing pieces and released the product under a different name? What if people began to credit me with organizing the entire project?
Ummmm... GNU does NOT comprise 80% of a Linux distro. I refer you back to this article, Section 3. Adding up the 35 projects listed, GNU provides 26%.
But it's obvious to me that I'm not going to convice you, and so far nothing that you've said is any more convincing than anything I've heard or read before. Would you agree that we disagree? Maybe we ought to just leave it at that.
I'm more than happy to go away continuing to call Linux distro's "Linux" because that's what I think they are. I will feel no guilt for doing so. Moreover, I encourage you to continue calling them "GNU/Linux" if that's what you think they ought to be called.
They are not antithetical, and no one said they were.
If they're not antithetical to each other, then why would you feel the need to say this:
Do you really care so little about your freedom that you can't be bothered to prepend two little syllables?
If leaving off "GNU" means I don't care about freedom, then it would seem that Linux w/out GNU means no freedom.
Who should get to make the choice of what the operating system is called?
The people who actually put it together. I'm glad that GNU made glibc, bash, gcc, etc. I'm glad that they were able to produce those independant projects in such a way as they would fit together. But they did not put them together. They couldn't. They didn't have a kernel. And even after there was a kernel, GNU was not the first one to put together a complete operating system. Slackware was first.
I remain unconvinced that this is a legitimate gripe on GNU's part. It seems to me that it's little more than coattailing.
You think BSD would have just up and died if Linux didn't come along? If Linux hadn't come along, once the legal wars over BSD settled down, GNU would have taken the BSD kernel and made a GnuBSD, to which neither FreeBSD and NetBSD would have complained, or really had grounds too.
It was not my intention to diss *BSD. I simply meant to suggest that GNU has already received a lot of recognition because of their deployment on Linux. As far as GnuBSD that's fine. GNU has done that with Linux, too: Debian GNU/Linux. However, what GNU would have done had BSD been the thing that came along was that they'd have insisted other distros call themselves GNU/FreeBSD and GNU/NetBSD, etc.
No one is complaining that Debian calls itself GNU/Linux. What folks are complaining about is that RMS wants things named Red Hat GNU/Linux, SuSE GNU/Linux, Mandrake GNU/Linux, etc. Fortunately, Red Hat, Mandrake, et al, are doing the smart thing. They're ignoring this futile and arrogant RMS-gasm, and continuing to do their thing.
The terms "Linux" and "Open Source" stand for a focus on narrow technicial advantage and a \ just-for-fun mentaility. "GNU" and "Free Software" stand for preserving meaningful liberty in a digital era. Do you really care so little about your freedom that you can't be bothered to prepend two little syllables?
If the terms GNU and Linux are so antithetical to each other, why on earth would anyone insist that they be paired together? If Linux by itself is such an affront to freedom, why pair it with GNU? That's like saying that I can turn around what murder represents for by calling it GNU/murder. Or that I can turn around what terrorism represents by calling it GNU/terrorism.
Now, of course, I don't think that Linux is antithetical to GNU. To suggest that the name Linux does not represent the exact same freedoms that GNU represents might be more meaningful if Linux were licensed under the BSD license (for example). But Linux uses the GPL and *insists* on guaranteeing the same freedoms as every FSF project. How is it that Linux represents anything other than the FSF's definition of freedom?
As far as forgetting about K&R's contribution to Unix, we haven't forgot their contribution. But we don't have to call it K&R/Unix, either.
The FAQ merely says "GNU is the most important secondary component, so we should include it" and Perens advocates using it as well. My point was that the threshold shouldn't be there, so why bother using it?
Actually the FAQ says that "The principal developer is the GNU Project" implying that Linux is the secondary component. So, according to GNU/Stallman, you need to give the principle developer recognition. You're free to cut off any secondary developers at any point you choose. Call it GNU, or GNU/Linux, or GNU/Linux/perl, etc.
I disagree with this assessment. I think that GNU will still be a nice set of free utilities for Solaris if Linux didn't come along. If you ask me the principle project is on Linux distros and it's Linux.
Now, that's just an opinion. Maybe we should measure somehow. How about lines of code? Check out this.
Top project is the kernel.
Well maybe it's overall contribution? The top 3 pieces of code, are not the GNU project. The first GNU project's contribution is only 15% of the contribution of the top three. 6 of the next 7 projects are GNU projects. Combined they still only account for 69% of the top three projects.
Ok. Well maybe it should be measured in terms of which code is more frequently resident in memory. Glibc runs a lot, that's for sure. But not as much as the kernel!
By what measure, other than "we were here first", can GNU make the claim that they're the principle developer?
I am a supporter of GNU and I agree with almost all of the things that they stand for... including the differentiation of open source from free software. But this silly demand is the stark exception. And it drives me crazy. I wish that they would have simplified the FAQ and put the real reason: "Because we want to ride on the PR coat tails of Linux".
Yeah I've set up a RH box doing this, too. It's nice, but it's not the same. I think the problem is that there simply aren't enough people contributing to the RPM repositories. Basically it's just Red Hat. Which is pretty good, but it's not the same as debian.
Because RH has to maintain so many packages, more or less, all by themselves, the workload on each package maintainer is pretty high. And they're not able to keep up with patches as well as debian. Security patches are kept about equally. But other non-security related patches don't seem to get into the red hat repositories as quickly as they get into debian.
But that's just my $.02 after having tried apt-rpm for a month or so. That may not have been long enough to get a very good feel for it.
Slashdot Mirror
This was caught by the gentoo portage system. The gentoo portage system distributes a number of "ebuilds". Each one of those contains (amongst many other pieces of info) the MD5 for the downloaded source file.
To get this exploit past gentoo, you would have had to compromise the tcpdump.org site AND compromise the gentoo mirror which held the ebuild.
I'm a debian user who has tinkered with gentoo. This is a very impressive win for gentoo. Way to go, gentoo.
The GPL specifically says prohibits a licensee from distributing modifications to GPL'd code that are encumbered by patents. So, interestingly, you could use the GPL to prevent distribution of the Linux if it turned out to contain patent encumbered modifications.
But IANAL, so take this with a grain of salt (or as much as you need).
Wow! With the slanted, insulation stuffed, exterior walls, that room looks like it's in the attic. I don't know where you live, but my attic gets to be 110+ degrees in the summer time. And after helping my brother wire his house in Chicago this summer, I can verifiy that it isn't just because I live in the southern US. I musta sweat off 15 pounds wiring that house.
Where in your house is this, and if it *is* just below the roof (as it looks) how do you manage to keep it cool enough to run all of that equip?
The point isn't to kill Microsoft. It's to maintain the practical ability to not become beholden to Microsoft. And that depends on being able to freely communicate through open protocols/document formats/etc. Microsoft's goal is antithetical to openness. They want to proprietize everything so that everything you do generates a payment to them. That's their motiviation. It's a fine motivation, as long as it isn't effectively implemented.
The problem is that Microsoft's goal, combined with their market share, make it increasingly more difficult to use any other computing software that isn't produced out of Redmond. Some folks have responded by wanting to kill Microsoft, dead. But the reality is that if Microsoft were effectively curtailed that most of those folks would back down from the "kill 'em dead" stance.
Getting some mom's & pop's on board is an indirect goal. The primary goal is to be able to maintain independance from beholdenness to anyone (including Microsoft). Having mom's & pop's as a 2ndary goal, is supportive of the primary goal because if there are enough people using an alternative to Microsoft, Microsoft can't arbitrarily change things without breaking compatibility with a huge population of people who'll be outraged.
Mom's & pop's provide the check and balance to an overly agressive Microsoft. This allows me to continue to expect that open network protocols will continue to work. And effectively enable me to continue using Linux.
How do we get mom's & pop's onboard? Giving them something that has a low financial cost, but a high educational cost isn't going to work. You have to give them something that is low cost in terms of ease of use as well as easy on the pocket book. Thus the desire to mimic the MS environment.
In summary: Easy to use leads to mom & pop onboard leads to prevention of MS monopoly breaking everything non-MS. This enables freedom to continue to effectively use Linux. Which is the goal.
Does that help?
Yeah, I read that too. But recall that they also say, "Linking this with other on-point research...". We don't have access to the other on-point research. They do. We don't know what that research says or doesn't say. It may very well be fair for them to make the conclusion that they made. We don't know.
$.02.
Oh, you're absolutely correct. My point is that prior to the judge coming to a ruling, they simply can't risk looking like they're already subverting a settlement that they agreed to. It may give the judge grounds to break the company up.
As soon as this case is settled without a breakup, then MS will open up and start doing this kind of stuff. Not enforcing the uniform licensing. Ignoring areas where they know pirating is taking place in order to get a foothold later. And it will then be incumbent upon someone else spending a lot of $$ to prove that MS is violating the agreement.
Short of a ruling to breakup MS, this is what we'll see.
$.02
According to the terms of the proposed settlement, they can't do this. They agreed to uniform licensing terms. Which means that they must give everyone the same terms as everyone else. If they "turn a blind eye" that enables them to apply different licensing models for different areas in order to sustain and grow their monopoly.
They aren't allowed to do that. And they certainly can't do it until today's rulings are released. If they fail to enforce a uniform licensing, which they agreed to in the proposed settlement, that may impact the judge's ruling.
After today, though, the game is afoot. I predict we're going to hear lots less of this kinda stuff.
Who are you trying to fool? They're ALREADY up to all new, even worse shenanigans. How about palladium? How about licensing 6.0?
If you ask me, these guys are already acting as if they won first case, or at least as if there will not be any consequences for having lost.
I think that you have a valid point, but you can only take it so far before it stops being true.
So for example, you can use your example to justify using windows instead of *nix products. Despite the generally poorer performance, most admins are much more comfortable with it.
But it doesn't end there. You could say, for example, that admins should run their boxes with the default configuration that comes with the windows product. Admins don't have to spend the extra time to get the marginal improvement that the tweaking provides. And now you're at the point where the admin doesn't really need to do anything, but you have an unstable and insecure network... that impacts the end product of the business.
Basically I disagree with your premise, although in some cases it may have merit. Your premise is that for a given product (in this case a computer network) reducing the learning time required by the admin will lead to quicker production of that product. In other words, give the admin what he/she is comfortable with and they can produce that thing quicker.
The problem with this is that if you recursively apply this methodology you end up with admins who know and do nothing, and a network that isn't stable or secure.
To break out of the cycle you have to remember what the real product is. It isn't the computer network. It's whatever it is that the network is used to produce. For example, Ford Motor Company produces cars. They use their computer networks to produce cars. The thing that needs to be optimized is the production of cars not the production of computer networks. Computer networks should be built to be as effective and efficient as possible in order to accomplish the production of cars.
This may take some time. It may take twice as long to develop an optimized computer network vs. a sub-optimal computer network which performs 10% poorer. But that computer network will be used for a much longer time than it's development cycle. It won't be long before the slowdown of the sub-optimal network chews up much more time than designing the optimized network.
Keep your eye on the ball. Churning out computer networks as quickly as possible is almost always the wrong thing to do..
$.02
If they outlaw the GPL, which has its basis entirely on copyright law, then wouldn't this be invalidating copyright law?
In other words, are we getting to a point where we are defining what types of restrictions copyright is allowed to enforce/license? So if there are only certain types of restrictions allowable in copyright law, then isn't all of copyright impacted? Wouldn't the precedent be set that says that certain types of restrictions would permit you to violate them w/out violating copyright law?
(Flamers: remember I'm asking a question, if I thought the answer was patently obvious I woulnd't need to ask)
On the other hand, this seems to me to be a ploy. It's not a serious bill that anyone expects to pass. It's probably a bill to say to certain coroporate sponsers, "See you should donate more to my re-election campaign, and encourage your employees to vote for me in next month's elections."
$.02
Oops... you said *TWO* things.
As far as the $300 for the receiver, if the satelite providers really had a good understanding of what their target customers *could* be, then they'd do it differently. What they need to recognize is that they can now make nationwide radio stations. Which means that they can market to advertisers nationwide radio coverage. Radio can't say that right now. TV can, and look at how much advertisers are willing to pay for it.
If that's the case, subsidize the radios. Make them for whatever they cost, and sell them for $50. If you sell them cheap enough, everyone will get them. If everyone gets them, then they can market to their real customers: advertisers.
But that's just my $.02. I think the satellite providers are really screwing up their oppurtunity. If only I had a half billion (or so) so that I could start up MJH Sat Radio...
Indistinguishable? How about being able to listen to the same station while you drive across the country. Heck across the state... unless, of course, you live in Rhode Island, and you can already do that. For the rest of us, especially those of us who love sports, that is a *VERY* nice feature. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to be in between big cities and not be able to pick up the football game. I want satelite radio for that feature alone... and I'm willing to pay for it by listening to advertisements. I'm not willing to pay cash for it on a monthly basis.
That may be the case, but it's probably not a good enough biz model to sustain them. What they ought to think about doing is providing a large commercial-laden offering for free, and a "premium" offering for money. That way the business is sustained by a large enough revenue stream (advertising) and those who want the indie stuff can still get it, but it costs them more. 200k customers may seem like a lot, but think about the amount of money they must be paying to run the service.
Ahh, right.
- Love Bug: not a bug, user error
- Code Red: not a bug, administrator error
- Switch campaign: she can't be the right person, we made her up.
So what exactly is the Microsoft code of conduct? You'll get castigated for anything resembling the truth?No. In order to go to trial, the prosecution needs to make a prima facie case. That is the prosecution needs to have enough evidence, that w/out defense, the defendant will be found guilty. If the prosecution does not make a prima facie case, then the judge can throw out the case, and the defense doesn't even have to say a word.
If the defendant doesn't show up, it's easy for the prosecution to get a conviction because all they really need to do is make their case. Undefended, the prosecution can almost always make a prima facie case.
But IANAL, so take it for what it's worth (Hint: not much).
I don't think that's what he was saying. He was specifically talking about why there's so much porn. I could be wrong, but I don't think he meant his statement explain everything that's on the internet in abundance. I think he was just trying to explain the abundance of porn. Consumer demand, clearly would be insufficient explanation for the abundance of spam, as you point out.
You know what I desperatly want? I want a seperate phone # that I give out ONLY on forms that I fill in, only to companies that request information from me. But I want the phone number to always be answered by my phone company's voice mail service. I don't want a line to my house. I don't want to pay all the extra crap. I just want a phone number that always goes to an answering machine. Which I will check from time to time.
Then I'll give out my real phone number to all my friends and family. And my public phone number to anyone I don't know. Oh, also, my public phone number will be the one listed in the phone book. Oh, and I'll put callerid blocker on my real phone number.
I'd be willing to pay about $10 a month for the extra number w/out a line to my house and the voice mail that operates on that number. But I'm not willing to pay $40 a month for a phone line attached to a $30 answering machine that comes to my house. That's too expensive.
Anyone know of any phone company that does this?
The hordes of schmucks that are so heavily invested into MS products so deeply that paying to divest themselves would be more expensive than paying for security services from Microsoft.
No it isn't. It's the single thing that keeps virii from propagating on linux. I don't mean worms like slapper, I mean things that attach themselves to executable code. The fact that almost all binaries under linux are not installed writable by the average user, limits the effectiveness of classic virii, if not completely irradicating them.
Now, I'll grant that this is not a particularly populer form of malware anymore. But running as non-root makes you virtually impervius to it. There are LOTS of other advantages to not running as root, but to be able to completely eliminate one form of malware is something that can't be ignored.
$.02
Ummmm... GNU does NOT comprise 80% of a Linux distro. I refer you back to this article, Section 3. Adding up the 35 projects listed, GNU provides 26%.
But it's obvious to me that I'm not going to convice you, and so far nothing that you've said is any more convincing than anything I've heard or read before. Would you agree that we disagree? Maybe we ought to just leave it at that.
I'm more than happy to go away continuing to call Linux distro's "Linux" because that's what I think they are. I will feel no guilt for doing so. Moreover, I encourage you to continue calling them "GNU/Linux" if that's what you think they ought to be called.
Cheers!
If they're not antithetical to each other, then why would you feel the need to say this:
If leaving off "GNU" means I don't care about freedom, then it would seem that Linux w/out GNU means no freedom.
The people who actually put it together. I'm glad that GNU made glibc, bash, gcc, etc. I'm glad that they were able to produce those independant projects in such a way as they would fit together. But they did not put them together. They couldn't. They didn't have a kernel. And even after there was a kernel, GNU was not the first one to put together a complete operating system. Slackware was first.
I remain unconvinced that this is a legitimate gripe on GNU's part. It seems to me that it's little more than coattailing.
It was not my intention to diss *BSD. I simply meant to suggest that GNU has already received a lot of recognition because of their deployment on Linux. As far as GnuBSD that's fine. GNU has done that with Linux, too: Debian GNU/Linux. However, what GNU would have done had BSD been the thing that came along was that they'd have insisted other distros call themselves GNU/FreeBSD and GNU/NetBSD, etc.
No one is complaining that Debian calls itself GNU/Linux. What folks are complaining about is that RMS wants things named Red Hat GNU/Linux, SuSE GNU/Linux, Mandrake GNU/Linux, etc. Fortunately, Red Hat, Mandrake, et al, are doing the smart thing. They're ignoring this futile and arrogant RMS-gasm, and continuing to do their thing.
If the terms GNU and Linux are so antithetical to each other, why on earth would anyone insist that they be paired together? If Linux by itself is such an affront to freedom, why pair it with GNU? That's like saying that I can turn around what murder represents for by calling it GNU/murder. Or that I can turn around what terrorism represents by calling it GNU/terrorism.
Now, of course, I don't think that Linux is antithetical to GNU. To suggest that the name Linux does not represent the exact same freedoms that GNU represents might be more meaningful if Linux were licensed under the BSD license (for example). But Linux uses the GPL and *insists* on guaranteeing the same freedoms as every FSF project. How is it that Linux represents anything other than the FSF's definition of freedom?
As far as forgetting about K&R's contribution to Unix, we haven't forgot their contribution. But we don't have to call it K&R/Unix, either.
$.02.
Actually the FAQ says that "The principal developer is the GNU Project" implying that Linux is the secondary component. So, according to GNU/Stallman, you need to give the principle developer recognition. You're free to cut off any secondary developers at any point you choose. Call it GNU, or GNU/Linux, or GNU/Linux/perl, etc.
I disagree with this assessment. I think that GNU will still be a nice set of free utilities for Solaris if Linux didn't come along. If you ask me the principle project is on Linux distros and it's Linux.
Now, that's just an opinion. Maybe we should measure somehow. How about lines of code? Check out this. Top project is the kernel.
Well maybe it's overall contribution? The top 3 pieces of code, are not the GNU project. The first GNU project's contribution is only 15% of the contribution of the top three. 6 of the next 7 projects are GNU projects. Combined they still only account for 69% of the top three projects.
Ok. Well maybe it should be measured in terms of which code is more frequently resident in memory. Glibc runs a lot, that's for sure. But not as much as the kernel!
By what measure, other than "we were here first", can GNU make the claim that they're the principle developer?
I am a supporter of GNU and I agree with almost all of the things that they stand for... including the differentiation of open source from free software. But this silly demand is the stark exception. And it drives me crazy. I wish that they would have simplified the FAQ and put the real reason: "Because we want to ride on the PR coat tails of Linux".
Yeah I've set up a RH box doing this, too. It's nice, but it's not the same. I think the problem is that there simply aren't enough people contributing to the RPM repositories. Basically it's just Red Hat. Which is pretty good, but it's not the same as debian.
Because RH has to maintain so many packages, more or less, all by themselves, the workload on each package maintainer is pretty high. And they're not able to keep up with patches as well as debian. Security patches are kept about equally. But other non-security related patches don't seem to get into the red hat repositories as quickly as they get into debian.
But that's just my $.02 after having tried apt-rpm for a month or so. That may not have been long enough to get a very good feel for it.