Oh, come on. If this really bothered people, wouldn't browsers provide an option to disable it? How much time does the typical user spend mousing over non-navigation images anyway? This is exactly the sort of non-objection that creates the need for legislation.
If they're going to legislate me into putting in 'assistive technology' into my websites, why don't they force magazines to put out Braille versions, or make them supply audio-cassettes or CDs with the contents transcribed ? Why don't they widen airplane and car and bus seats so morbidly obese people can sit in them ?
Because for Web technology, the extra costs of making your site accessible are trivial, and have lots of additional benefits, like making it accessible to sighted people browsing from PDAs, cellphones and WebTV.
A lot of accessibility measures aren't going to cramp a designer's style at all. How exactly does adding ALT tags to images affect the design?
It's web designers who are ignorant of the correct use of CSS, and the importance of simple things like how to support non-Javascript browsers who think that accessibility means every page looking the same. It's nonsense.
You can make beautiful, accessible pages if you know what you're doing. A List Apart are hardly ignorant or non-artistic.
Does that look exactly the same as UseIt.com to you?
First alt tags. A couple more itterations [sic] and flash might be illegal.
Piffle. The requirement is that the site is accessible to disabled people, not that every part of the site has to be accessible. In other words, if you did have Flash content, you could provide an HTML summary or alternative. Also, Macromedia have provided accessibility extensions to Flash (although how good they are, I don't know).
Doesn't that suggest that this isn't really a trivial issue?
Web designers might be ignorant, but the steps you need to take to make most sites accessible ARE trivial. How hard is it to add alt tags?
If you don't have a problem with providing wheelchair ramps to help accessibility (which is probably far more expensive than having your webmaster do a couple of days work), then you shouldn't have a problem with this.
Their main public relations problem seems to be the use of an adult language, C++.
I thought wxWindows was the de facto standard for Python GUIs now, as well? Or do you mean the language they used to write wxWindows? You can use it without knowing C++, can't you?
The Register said this was a "closed platform" - does this mean that you can't install whatever software you like on a HipTop?
If so, that's very bad, because T-Mobile's WAP service (in the UK) is unusably poor, due to their badly thought out menu layouts. I wouldn't buy it if I couldn't configure it how I liked.
Music is simply property. If you use it without the owner's permission, it's wrong.
P2P may be illegal, but is it wrong? Your argument by an analogy with physical property is pretty weak. In the case of a bicycle, there is always the risk that the bicycle could be damaged, or you could want to use it when it's being borrowed.
These considerations don't apply to MP3s. The idea that P2P is inherently wrong IF it's not damaging the music industry is pretty odd, and you haven't justified it.
The argument that "X does no (or little) harm, so it should be made legal" seems reasonable to me.
It's not the music industry's "noses to be cut off". "Intellectual property" is granted by the state for the common good. The idea that music is property at all would have seemed bizarre 200 years ago, and maybe it will be seen that way in future.
I'm not saying copyright should be abolished, just that both IP law and the music industry's business model should be subject to revision to meet the needs of the day.
Gah! The coursenotes for 6.170 are in PDF. Why? Why? Can't they at least provide a rough HTML version? They're supposed to be software engineers, Google can do it, why not them?
Whether or not you care if it's proprietary, PDF is lame. It interrupts the online reading experience, it has accessibility problems, and it's slow to open for people with slow computers. It's also harder to re-format for most people, and it can't be read on as many platforms as HTML.
Their "Open"CourseWare is locked up in a crappy format.
The bombardier beetle is only considered a challenge to Darwinian evolution among creationists. Much of the so-called "puzzle" of how it evolved is due to garbled accounts of the biochemistry involved in its defence mechanism.
Please be more careful in future. Also, don't believe anything about biology that you read on Slashdot.
"Video mail and e-mailed voice mail will be just a popular as e-mail or voice mail in five years," Gruver says.
Sure, because it's much easier to say what you mean in one flawless take than to type it up, edit and then send. Of course, video's also a lot easier to edit than plain text, if you do make a mistake. Also, it'll be nice to know that your clients can see exactly what you look like at 8.30am on a Monday.
For fuck's sake. Let's not even go into the surround sound. How are these people still in business?
All the fancy screens and video technology won't disguise the fact that Microsoft Office is a bad way to work productively with computers. The document-oriented model (based around preparing documents for print) is outdated - try collaborating through a wiki for a week and you'll see what I mean.
I can only imagine that this is some sort of disinformation campaign to fool the competition.
example of this is IE, whose early versions were truely aweful but is now the best browser on the market
That was true a few years ago, but Opera is now arguably better. It has lots of genuinely useful features which IE has failed to anticipate or rip off:
mouse gestures
tabbed interface
good user control over presentation (one click removal of stylesheets and background colours, one click image removal, zoomable pages)
Standards compliance comparable to or better than IE in many areas (ECMAscript and DOM are apparently not so good, but CSS is better)
Text shortcuts to search from the address bar - type "g goats" to search for goats on Google (er, for example).
And so on... OK, so it's closed source and it costs money to remove the mildly-annoying ads, but if we're talking about the "market", than it's the best you can buy. It runs on shedloads of platforms, too.
Internet Explorer is a generation behind in adding features which actually enhance the browser experience. But then, that's not the point - it's not so much a browser as a techno-legal monopoly-defence strategy.
Single sign on, where you log in once and can get straight into a load of different accounts (webmail, credit card, bank, local council benefits office, etc.) is clearly a bad idea, because of the single-point-of-failure problem.
However, what would be useful is a flexible system with different levels of login. For example, a single login for discussion sites like slashdot, kuro5hin etc. would probably be acceptable. Also, non-sensitive bookmarks and browser history could be kept (again depending on the user). I wouldn't want a single login for financial services, but maybe a site could know who I have my credit cards with and provide information relevant to that, like "Buy this watch with your Platinum TardCard and get double airmiles and a free toaster!". Plus a convenient link to the login for that card account.
This system could also support collaboration. Say I want to show someone a sequence of websites, or give them live access to a folder of bookmarks I maintain. I store it in my login (somehow), and then allow their ID to access it.
I think this single ID thing could be useful for sharing non-sensitive stuff. I just don't see it as a security feature. Maybe it could be a selective, pseudonymous peer-to-peer?
I wondered why they used those coloured balls to deliver the psychic crime predictions in Minority Report. I thought it was bollocks, but maybe it makes sense in the light of this.
Please append your Samantha Morton/balls jokes below. Humunnah.
Oh, and you thought that when an individual of an evolving species picked up a nice feature, all the other members instantaneously picked it up as well and implemented it in exactly the same way? You think evolution happened in a straight line?
Well, think of a piece of code which produces a useful feature, such as a resolution switcher, as a gene. Then if it has selective value, it should spread throughout the population of distros.
It's not a bad analogy for how things could work. Sadly, the distro population seems to be acting as if it's asexual rather than sexual.
A unified "look and feel" is one thing (probably a good thing), but I hope they will address the deeper interoperability problems between KDE and Gnome apps, and config problems in both.
In particular, I'd like cut and paste between apps to work 100% reliably. I'd like Quanta not to use an illegible font (A.D. Mono) just because it's alphabetically first and something has monged the config files. In fact, why do distros ship with illegible fonts in the first place?
I'd like a single "Control Centre" rather than a KDE Control Centre, a GNOME Control Centre and a $DISTRO Control Center (which from the article is something they're trying to do).
I could live without apps looking exactly the same way as long as they play together nicely.
Does anyone who reads Slashdot ever read the GPL, or is there something I'm not getting here? Surely just because it's covered by the GPL, it doesn't mean it'll have to be available to users outside the German government.
They only need to make the source available if they distribute the binary. If it was kept for internal use, they wouldn't have to make anything available to anyone.
But there's really no downside for them to allow distribution of their custom code, as long as someone else pays for the bandwidth. In fact, the wider testing/scrutiny of the code would be a plus.
Can you imagine if all governments started doing things like this? The rate of useful development for open source software would skyrocket. Not only would it let more coders work on projects full time, but maybe a tighter focus and clear specs would improve the usability of the resulting software. And even if, say, the Ruritanian government's groupware project failed, the successful Armenian groupware project would step up to fill the gap.
It amazes me that, in my country, individual local councils hire incompetent companies to screw up important services like benefit distribution when they should be clubbing together to develop a GPL'd local government suite. Sure, you wouldn't get widespread use of such software by a big pool of users, but it still makes sense to have 50 councils funding something they can all use rather than each one getting a bespoke solution. I suppose they each have different legacy tardware, but even so...
I wouldn't switch to Mozilla, but...
Try Galeon, which is Mozilla-based.
It does most of what Opera does in terms of being lightweight, letting you control fonts/colours, using tabs etc. etc. It gives you a custom portal and autobookmarks, which are nice. You can also "open in background" with the middle button, which is very useful.
But it's still not that much better than Opera that you should feel compelled to switch if you've already paid for Opera.
Maybe you could compare Galeon with Opera when your licence stops being valid for the newest version of the latter.
but if you read it as sarcastic, he has a point.
Choice is a good thing for command line apps etc., but having two semi-compatible desktops is not a good thing. If I were a Linux GUI developer, I'd be a bit pissed off in having to choose between two equally common desktop frameworks.
Also, it's ridiculous that the user has to worry about a KDE control centre, a GNOME control centre and a $DISTRO control centre. And that you still can't cut and paste properly. And your font choices for KDE apps don't apply to GNOME (and probably sometimes don't work, leaving you looking at A.D. Mono). This kind of "choice" is not good for anyone, let alone novice users.
I think it'd be good if one of them died, or they were both replaced by something better.
Slashdot Mirror
That common form of colour-blindness.
Hard to tell if you're a troll, or just an idiot.
Oh, come on. If this really bothered people, wouldn't browsers provide an option to disable it? How much time does the typical user spend mousing over non-navigation images anyway? This is exactly the sort of non-objection that creates the need for legislation.
Because for Web technology, the extra costs of making your site accessible are trivial, and have lots of additional benefits, like making it accessible to sighted people browsing from PDAs, cellphones and WebTV.
It's web designers who are ignorant of the correct use of CSS, and the importance of simple things like how to support non-Javascript browsers who think that accessibility means every page looking the same. It's nonsense.
You can make beautiful, accessible pages if you know what you're doing. A List Apart are hardly ignorant or non-artistic.
Does that look exactly the same as UseIt.com to you?
Nitpick: Magna Carta.
More seriously, the article is about using software systems as a tool to help with the "vigilance and dedication" bit.
Piffle. The requirement is that the site is accessible to disabled people, not that every part of the site has to be accessible. In other words, if you did have Flash content, you could provide an HTML summary or alternative. Also, Macromedia have provided accessibility extensions to Flash (although how good they are, I don't know).
Doesn't that suggest that this isn't really a trivial issue?
Web designers might be ignorant, but the steps you need to take to make most sites accessible ARE trivial. How hard is it to add alt tags?
If you don't have a problem with providing wheelchair ramps to help accessibility (which is probably far more expensive than having your webmaster do a couple of days work), then you shouldn't have a problem with this.
I thought wxWindows was the de facto standard for Python GUIs now, as well? Or do you mean the language they used to write wxWindows? You can use it without knowing C++, can't you?
If so, that's very bad, because T-Mobile's WAP service (in the UK) is unusably poor, due to their badly thought out menu layouts. I wouldn't buy it if I couldn't configure it how I liked.
P2P may be illegal, but is it wrong? Your argument by an analogy with physical property is pretty weak. In the case of a bicycle, there is always the risk that the bicycle could be damaged, or you could want to use it when it's being borrowed.
These considerations don't apply to MP3s. The idea that P2P is inherently wrong IF it's not damaging the music industry is pretty odd, and you haven't justified it.
The argument that "X does no (or little) harm, so it should be made legal" seems reasonable to me.
It's not the music industry's "noses to be cut off". "Intellectual property" is granted by the state for the common good. The idea that music is property at all would have seemed bizarre 200 years ago, and maybe it will be seen that way in future.
I'm not saying copyright should be abolished, just that both IP law and the music industry's business model should be subject to revision to meet the needs of the day.
Whether or not you care if it's proprietary, PDF is lame. It interrupts the online reading experience, it has accessibility problems, and it's slow to open for people with slow computers. It's also harder to re-format for most people, and it can't be read on as many platforms as HTML.
Their "Open"CourseWare is locked up in a crappy format.
Most companies these days would advertise for someone with 20 years experience writing TCP/IP drivers in Java in a Novell Netware environment.
Please be more careful in future. Also, don't believe anything about biology that you read on Slashdot.
Sure, because it's much easier to say what you mean in one flawless take than to type it up, edit and then send. Of course, video's also a lot easier to edit than plain text, if you do make a mistake. Also, it'll be nice to know that your clients can see exactly what you look like at 8.30am on a Monday.
For fuck's sake. Let's not even go into the surround sound. How are these people still in business?
All the fancy screens and video technology won't disguise the fact that Microsoft Office is a bad way to work productively with computers. The document-oriented model (based around preparing documents for print) is outdated - try collaborating through a wiki for a week and you'll see what I mean.
I can only imagine that this is some sort of disinformation campaign to fool the competition.
That was true a few years ago, but Opera is now arguably better. It has lots of genuinely useful features which IE has failed to anticipate or rip off:
mouse gestures
tabbed interface
good user control over presentation (one click removal of stylesheets and background colours, one click image removal, zoomable pages)
Standards compliance comparable to or better than IE in many areas (ECMAscript and DOM are apparently not so good, but CSS is better)
Text shortcuts to search from the address bar - type "g goats" to search for goats on Google (er, for example).
And so on ... OK, so it's closed source and it costs money to remove the mildly-annoying ads, but if we're talking about the "market", than it's the best you can buy. It runs on shedloads of platforms, too.
Internet Explorer is a generation behind in adding features which actually enhance the browser experience. But then, that's not the point - it's not so much a browser as a techno-legal monopoly-defence strategy.
However, what would be useful is a flexible system with different levels of login. For example, a single login for discussion sites like slashdot, kuro5hin etc. would probably be acceptable. Also, non-sensitive bookmarks and browser history could be kept (again depending on the user). I wouldn't want a single login for financial services, but maybe a site could know who I have my credit cards with and provide information relevant to that, like "Buy this watch with your Platinum TardCard and get double airmiles and a free toaster!". Plus a convenient link to the login for that card account.
This system could also support collaboration. Say I want to show someone a sequence of websites, or give them live access to a folder of bookmarks I maintain. I store it in my login (somehow), and then allow their ID to access it.
I think this single ID thing could be useful for sharing non-sensitive stuff. I just don't see it as a security feature. Maybe it could be a selective, pseudonymous peer-to-peer?
Or maybe I'm talking a load of shit.
I thought the security of the system relies on the fact that it's hard to make those kind of calculations?
-This idea has been released under the GPL. It may be freely distributed or modified under said terms.
The GPL relies on copyright and there's no copyright on ideas, sorry.
I wondered why they used those coloured balls to deliver the psychic crime predictions in Minority Report. I thought it was bollocks, but maybe it makes sense in the light of this. Please append your Samantha Morton/balls jokes below. Humunnah.
The GPL seems to be the most misunderstood simple idea since natural selection.
As has been pointed out already, the people who receive code have to have the right to redistribute it.
Oh, and you thought that when an individual of an evolving species picked up a nice feature, all the other members instantaneously picked it up as well and implemented it in exactly the same way? You think evolution happened in a straight line?
Well, think of a piece of code which produces a useful feature, such as a resolution switcher, as a gene. Then if it has selective value, it should spread throughout the population of distros.
It's not a bad analogy for how things could work. Sadly, the distro population seems to be acting as if it's asexual rather than sexual.
A unified "look and feel" is one thing (probably a good thing), but I hope they will address the deeper interoperability problems between KDE and Gnome apps, and config problems in both. In particular, I'd like cut and paste between apps to work 100% reliably. I'd like Quanta not to use an illegible font (A.D. Mono) just because it's alphabetically first and something has monged the config files. In fact, why do distros ship with illegible fonts in the first place? I'd like a single "Control Centre" rather than a KDE Control Centre, a GNOME Control Centre and a $DISTRO Control Center (which from the article is something they're trying to do). I could live without apps looking exactly the same way as long as they play together nicely.
Good.
They only need to make the source available if they distribute the binary. If it was kept for internal use, they wouldn't have to make anything available to anyone.
Right?
But there's really no downside for them to allow distribution of their custom code, as long as someone else pays for the bandwidth. In fact, the wider testing/scrutiny of the code would be a plus.
Can you imagine if all governments started doing things like this? The rate of useful development for open source software would skyrocket. Not only would it let more coders work on projects full time, but maybe a tighter focus and clear specs would improve the usability of the resulting software. And even if, say, the Ruritanian government's groupware project failed, the successful Armenian groupware project would step up to fill the gap.
It amazes me that, in my country, individual local councils hire incompetent companies to screw up important services like benefit distribution when they should be clubbing together to develop a GPL'd local government suite. Sure, you wouldn't get widespread use of such software by a big pool of users, but it still makes sense to have 50 councils funding something they can all use rather than each one getting a bespoke solution. I suppose they each have different legacy tardware, but even so...
<Sigh.> What was my point again?
He's talking about a point raised in the interview.
I wouldn't switch to Mozilla, but... Try Galeon, which is Mozilla-based. It does most of what Opera does in terms of being lightweight, letting you control fonts/colours, using tabs etc. etc. It gives you a custom portal and autobookmarks, which are nice. You can also "open in background" with the middle button, which is very useful. But it's still not that much better than Opera that you should feel compelled to switch if you've already paid for Opera. Maybe you could compare Galeon with Opera when your licence stops being valid for the newest version of the latter.
but if you read it as sarcastic, he has a point. Choice is a good thing for command line apps etc., but having two semi-compatible desktops is not a good thing. If I were a Linux GUI developer, I'd be a bit pissed off in having to choose between two equally common desktop frameworks. Also, it's ridiculous that the user has to worry about a KDE control centre, a GNOME control centre and a $DISTRO control centre. And that you still can't cut and paste properly. And your font choices for KDE apps don't apply to GNOME (and probably sometimes don't work, leaving you looking at A.D. Mono). This kind of "choice" is not good for anyone, let alone novice users. I think it'd be good if one of them died, or they were both replaced by something better.