...Another holy war. As if we didn't already have enough.
vi vs emacs KDE vs GNOME SCO vs everybody
and now Source vs Precompiled.
Now to add something intelligent to this conversation, I personally am a Gentoo user who builds from source. Source and packages both have their pros and cons. Source is highly optimized if you know how to work the compiler flags and the downloads are smaller, but you have to wait hours for some pieces of software to install. Precompiled binaries on the other hand may be a little larger downloads and usually aren't very optimized so run a little slower, but have no compilation time so they install much quicker.
Personally I like source, but that's because I have the time to let my stuff compile and I like having the small performance increase, even though I barely notice it at all. I'd imagine that in a more business like setting where time is much shorter it would be beneficial to use packages simply because it's quicker to install allowing for more time to configure and make sure that it works.
From what I'm reading on other posts it seems like the open source part is just the interface to the firmware. Is it possible to write a totally new open source firmware that would work with this driver? Or rather will it be easier now that we have a closed source one?
"Software is the immediate result and the manifestation of what your learned and what you know. How much is that worth? Nothing? Think again."
I wonder what this guy thinks about air. I mean, it's free, but pretty important to him. One could argue that while it's free, it's worth more than all the gold in the world, simply becasue without it, he's gonna die.
Granted that air wasn't developed by an outside party, but the analogy still holds (sort of). If this kid were to develop something very useful and gave it away as open source, His contribution would be appreciated everywhere, and worth far more than they paid for it.
So the kid isn't an uber-capitalist out to make billions on his products. So what? He wants to make software that everyone can enjoy, review, and improve. Money isn't his goal in life. Personally I think that says more about his character than anything else.
Now I don't know anything about these kinds of suits or anything, like what or how you're required to pay, but if you're stuck with a 97 billion dollar debt, can't you just declare bankruptcy and have the entire debt wiped away. Granted bankruptcy is a pretty drastic measure but given the alternative... well, just a thought.
Nooo, don't teach them VB. It's horrible, in fact there are a few reasons why noone should teach (or use for that matter) VB.
It's...
Expensive : Sorry but if you're just learning you don't usually want to spend (on yourself or your kid) a few hundred dollars on something that they might drop in a few days, unless of course you don't have a problem swiping a copy from M$, at which point it's pretty cheap.
Non-portable : Not so much of a concern for most people, but a few of us (like me) actually care about stuff like that.
Encouraging bad practices : In particular the whole "all public variables" idea that they instill from day one. Just a pet peeve I suppose, but that is very discouraged basically everywhere but in VB
Shoddy syntax : I should say confusing syntax cause that's what you'll be when you pick up a new (better) language. I don't think there is a single other (mainstream) language that has syntax as strange as VB's.
Micro$oft : It's just... Micro$oft (yes I'm trying to get fL4m3dz0r3d).
Now some of those points are very subjective and bullshit, but cost and portability are very real concerns when learning a language. It shouldn't cost really anything to learn basic programing techniques I think.
Now as far as what I'd suggest for a learning language I'd suggest what everyone else is throwing out (python, ruby, etc). One that I haven't seen anyone else mention yet is HTML. Ok, ok, it isn't a programming language, but writing webpages actually tends to be a good place to start when you want to start making things happen on the computer.
"...for the current icon, has anyone else wondered if that fox is having a little too much fun with the globe?"
You fscker. Now I'm going to walk into work later today, open up Fire...whatever, notice the icon and think EXACTLY THAT. I don't need more perverted thoughts in my head. Thanks a lot.
What if this guy just said "No, noone can use my 'invention', you all have to change the way you do things" Would we have to figure out a new method to do this sort of thing? It seems kinda damaging if that is the case (although it would probably send a big enough wake up call to fix the patent system)
If you're just wondering what he did wrong you can just look at what he was charged with. He was charged with Extortion. That would be him threatening to release damaging info on their website unless he got paid.
That being said, the article said he was attacking their webpage. Chances are all he was doing was URL manipulation, which I would imagine could be hard to find in their logs unless they knew what to look for, and therefore hard to gather evidence for a computer damage crime (I could easily be wrong about this though.)
Stupid in hindsight. The guy probably thought 'oooo, new shell, shiny' and ran it just cause he was curious. Though using it for everything he was doing probably wasn't too smart either. It's especially stupid though if there was documentation about the boobytrapping sitting somewhere around the shell and he ignored it.
... Had microsoft not fired this person I would never have seen the picture or read any of this guy's posts, and I wouldn't be a bit suprised if it was the same for most of the people posting here. If microsoft was trying to keep this post quiet, I think they've failed miserably.
It's kinda like the Diebold memos, the more they go after them, the more slashdot posters give us links to them;-)
But they haven't really been strict linux commercials have they? As I recall most of them are like "IBM e-servers running linux don't crash!" or that sort of thing. I could be wrong though, I don't watch much tv past law and order anymore;-)
When the SCO suit is proven to be total BS, will all the companies who bought licenses sue SCO for extortion or something like that? Seems to me that if SCO loses the suit they're going to have a lot of civil (and almost as likely criminal) suits on their hands.
You seem to forget about all the hicks and slack jawed yokels all over eastern and southern Oregon. They probably outnumber the washington national guard 20 to 1. They'd probably get riled up enough to take over Washington in the process
Imagine, an army of rednecks armed with hunting rifles marching on the Microsoft campus....
Slashdot Mirror
You think they'd at least try when they're making an april fools post.
...Another holy war. As if we didn't already have enough.
vi vs emacs
KDE vs GNOME
SCO vs everybody
and now
Source vs Precompiled.
Now to add something intelligent to this conversation, I personally am a Gentoo user who builds from source. Source and packages both have their pros and cons. Source is highly optimized if you know how to work the compiler flags and the downloads are smaller, but you have to wait hours for some pieces of software to install. Precompiled binaries on the other hand may be a little larger downloads and usually aren't very optimized so run a little slower, but have no compilation time so they install much quicker.
Personally I like source, but that's because I have the time to let my stuff compile and I like having the small performance increase, even though I barely notice it at all. I'd imagine that in a more business like setting where time is much shorter it would be beneficial to use packages simply because it's quicker to install allowing for more time to configure and make sure that it works.
From what I'm reading on other posts it seems like the open source part is just the interface to the firmware. Is it possible to write a totally new open source firmware that would work with this driver? Or rather will it be easier now that we have a closed source one?
It's not hard, you just have to think of god as the creator of many children and not just us.
"Software is the immediate result and the manifestation of what your learned and what you know. How much is that worth? Nothing? Think again."
I wonder what this guy thinks about air. I mean, it's free, but pretty important to him. One could argue that while it's free, it's worth more than all the gold in the world, simply becasue without it, he's gonna die.
Granted that air wasn't developed by an outside party, but the analogy still holds (sort of). If this kid were to develop something very useful and gave it away as open source, His contribution would be appreciated everywhere, and worth far more than they paid for it.
So the kid isn't an uber-capitalist out to make billions on his products. So what? He wants to make software that everyone can enjoy, review, and improve. Money isn't his goal in life. Personally I think that says more about his character than anything else.
Now I don't know anything about these kinds of suits or anything, like what or how you're required to pay, but if you're stuck with a 97 billion dollar debt, can't you just declare bankruptcy and have the entire debt wiped away. Granted bankruptcy is a pretty drastic measure but given the alternative... well, just a thought.
Now some of those points are very subjective and bullshit, but cost and portability are very real concerns when learning a language. It shouldn't cost really anything to learn basic programing techniques I think.
Now as far as what I'd suggest for a learning language I'd suggest what everyone else is throwing out (python, ruby, etc). One that I haven't seen anyone else mention yet is HTML. Ok, ok, it isn't a programming language, but writing webpages actually tends to be a good place to start when you want to start making things happen on the computer.
"...for the current icon, has anyone else wondered if that fox is having a little too much fun with the globe?"
You fscker. Now I'm going to walk into work later today, open up Fire...whatever, notice the icon and think EXACTLY THAT. I don't need more perverted thoughts in my head. Thanks a lot.
What if this guy just said "No, noone can use my 'invention', you all have to change the way you do things" Would we have to figure out a new method to do this sort of thing? It seems kinda damaging if that is the case (although it would probably send a big enough wake up call to fix the patent system)
If you're just wondering what he did wrong you can just look at what he was charged with. He was charged with Extortion. That would be him threatening to release damaging info on their website unless he got paid.
That being said, the article said he was attacking their webpage. Chances are all he was doing was URL manipulation, which I would imagine could be hard to find in their logs unless they knew what to look for, and therefore hard to gather evidence for a computer damage crime (I could easily be wrong about this though.)
Stupid in hindsight. The guy probably thought 'oooo, new shell, shiny' and ran it just cause he was curious. Though using it for everything he was doing probably wasn't too smart either. It's especially stupid though if there was documentation about the boobytrapping sitting somewhere around the shell and he ignored it.
Someone did that at one of my high school's graduations a few years ago, except they used plain air and a gigantic penis.
"Congratulations class of 2001," the speaker says as a six foot long phallus emerges from the students.
Ultimate... Xbox... Sorry, I just don't think those two words go together.
I think the problem isn't so much that common people today don't have spines, just that the common people don't know they're going to get raped.
*shrug* just a thought...
... Had microsoft not fired this person I would never have seen the picture or read any of this guy's posts, and I wouldn't be a bit suprised if it was the same for most of the people posting here. If microsoft was trying to keep this post quiet, I think they've failed miserably. It's kinda like the Diebold memos, the more they go after them, the more slashdot posters give us links to them ;-)
But they haven't really been strict linux commercials have they? As I recall most of them are like "IBM e-servers running linux don't crash!" or that sort of thing. I could be wrong though, I don't watch much tv past law and order anymore ;-)
"We're confident the facts will support our position." They obvoiusly didn't the first time :-P
When the SCO suit is proven to be total BS, will all the companies who bought licenses sue SCO for extortion or something like that? Seems to me that if SCO loses the suit they're going to have a lot of civil (and almost as likely criminal) suits on their hands.
You seem to forget about all the hicks and slack jawed yokels all over eastern and southern Oregon. They probably outnumber the washington national guard 20 to 1. They'd probably get riled up enough to take over Washington in the process Imagine, an army of rednecks armed with hunting rifles marching on the Microsoft campus....