Either you're talking about Linus Torvalds or you're talking about some ephemeral "Linux community"; expecting either to throw their support behind a single distro is wishful thinking.
None of those people ever applied communism. Stalin was a bonehead, Mao was insane, Lenin was ineffectual, Castro was screwed over by the US, Marx never implemented anything (being a philosopher) and Kim Jong Il is just a maniac.
You might as well condemn capitalism in the name of Pinochet or any of a number of banana republic dictators.
Maybe that's true in Wonderful Ayn Rand Land, but in the real world, it becomes increasingly difficult to get any of those "grants, scholarships, free money, etc." unless you're young and can convince people you'll use the money well (high SAT scores, etc.). It's pretty damn difficult to walk in and get a job if you don't have an address or clean clothes or any schooling.
A large percentage of street youth, for example, are on the streets due to abuse at home or drug addiction. It takes a lot of work to get them into a job and a home.
In addition, only 1/4 of people earning the federal minimum wage are teenagers; 1/2 are under the age of 25. This doesn't take into account the many people earning a wage above the federal minimum wage and below the calculated living wage (~$12/hr).
The story about minimum wage earners being mostly young white kids working a few hours a week for pot money is a total myth.
Marxism involves the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Communism isn't Marxism and it certainly isn't Leninism, Maoism, or Stalinism. If a philosophy is named after a single man, you can be pretty sure it isn't communism.
"Freeware" is not free in the sense of free software. Whether it's being provided for a fee or not has nothing to do with the issue; from a free software standpoint, charging $1000 for a proprietary application is no worse than charging $0 for it.
"Light-years ahead of anything Linux is offering" is only true if you're entirely ignorant of any security work done on linux. SELinux and grsecurity both offer features that NT entirely lacks.
And, as a response to my former post explained, "*incredibly* fine-grained" is also untrue. It's only fine-grained in comparison to UNIX permissions bits.
This is true. 'Very good' isn't the appropriate term, but I was directing my post at the numerous posters on this topic who apparently believe that Windows has no permissions at all, and now they're getting UNIX-style permissions.
And you're right -- WinNT permissions are a pain in the ass. I've had to use them far too many times for my enjoyment.
So, yes. I take 'very good' back.
Also: > Try assigning filesystem rights to anything other that Users or Groups (for example, to an Application Object, or an OU in the Directory Service). Whoops, can't do that!
That is a feature I've wanted in Linux for a long time; it's possible with a rather irritating group setup, but insanely annoying when you have 20 applications you wish to thus control.
Personally, I don't give a flying fuck about "breaking into the Windows market." If Windows users don't believe in software freedom, that's their prerogative.
Perhaps because you shouldn't have to run a virtualization program and an entirely different OS instance just to run a program securely. I think that would be a neat concept, don't you?
Oh, and I've yet to find a modern game that didn't run like shit under VMware.
'Being root' and running a SUID CD burning application is rather different. In fact, it's entirely different, since you're granted no special rights as a user.
You do not have to be root to mount anything. That's what/etc/fstab is for, specifically the user flag. That is indeed a bogus claim.
Most programs can be installed as a regular user under $HOME. I've done it many times on systems where I have no root access. This includes everything from Lua to GTK+. In fact, very few Linux programs require root access to install and use properly.
Either you haven't used Linux, or you haven't bothered to learn how to use it properly.
I did some work on my girlfriend's computer (installed a new CD burner, nearly broke the case, etc.) and once everything was back on, Windows decided that the CD drive was E: rather than D:. This would have been all right, except that a few of her games apparently had the CD drive letter in their configurations and refused to run without the CD in drive D:.
I had to actually re-install one of them. Some software developers do really idiotic things.
Note that the discussion isn't about using literal Unix-style permissions -- the title is rather misleading. NTFS permissions are very good; in some ways, they are superior to classic Unix permissions (but not necessarily to Posix ACLs).
Instead, the Windows security model is (apparently) going to be more Unix-like, in that the demarcation between administrator (root) and normal user will be more strict. Mostly, this means making software developers allow their programs to be installed and run with limited permissions, unlike the current admin-fest.
There are many ways that Microsoft could fuck this up, but I hope they don't. Unlike some people, I have no investment in constantly repairing ruined systems.
I don't have mod points, but I'd like to commend you on writing one of the best posts I have ever read on Slashdot.
People seem to treat the space shuttle like it's their overclocked P4 1-million with water cooling. You can't just slap 'the latest' into the shuttle and send a crew out into one of the most hostile environments known to man.
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> Uhm, it gives the initial developer a very big right - the right to all consecutive derivative works.
It gives everyone the right to all consecutive derivative works. Pretty significant difference there.
"Linux needs to rally behind 1 distro"
I wasn't aware that the kernel had a persona.
Either you're talking about Linus Torvalds or you're talking about some ephemeral "Linux community"; expecting either to throw their support behind a single distro is wishful thinking.
"but wouldn't mind if someone wrote a free replacement"
Unless, of course, they are using BitKeeper, in which case the license explicitly forbids them from doing so.
None of those people ever applied communism. Stalin was a bonehead, Mao was insane, Lenin was ineffectual, Castro was screwed over by the US, Marx never implemented anything (being a philosopher) and Kim Jong Il is just a maniac.
You might as well condemn capitalism in the name of Pinochet or any of a number of banana republic dictators.
"theoretically"
When you're talking about the well-being of actual people, this isn't a word that anyone should use.
It costs money to "learn how to do something" in a way that actually counts.
Maybe that's true in Wonderful Ayn Rand Land, but in the real world, it becomes increasingly difficult to get any of those "grants, scholarships, free money, etc." unless you're young and can convince people you'll use the money well (high SAT scores, etc.). It's pretty damn difficult to walk in and get a job if you don't have an address or clean clothes or any schooling.
A large percentage of street youth, for example, are on the streets due to abuse at home or drug addiction. It takes a lot of work to get them into a job and a home.
In addition, only 1/4 of people earning the federal minimum wage are teenagers; 1/2 are under the age of 25. This doesn't take into account the many people earning a wage above the federal minimum wage and below the calculated living wage (~$12/hr).
The story about minimum wage earners being mostly young white kids working a few hours a week for pot money is a total myth.
Marxism involves the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Communism isn't Marxism and it certainly isn't Leninism, Maoism, or Stalinism. If a philosophy is named after a single man, you can be pretty sure it isn't communism.
> (I know, I lived in a communist state)
No, you didn't.
"Freeware" is not free in the sense of free software. Whether it's being provided for a fee or not has nothing to do with the issue; from a free software standpoint, charging $1000 for a proprietary application is no worse than charging $0 for it.
"Light-years ahead of anything Linux is offering" is only true if you're entirely ignorant of any security work done on linux. SELinux and grsecurity both offer features that NT entirely lacks.
And, as a response to my former post explained, "*incredibly* fine-grained" is also untrue. It's only fine-grained in comparison to UNIX permissions bits.
This is true. 'Very good' isn't the appropriate term, but I was directing my post at the numerous posters on this topic who apparently believe that Windows has no permissions at all, and now they're getting UNIX-style permissions.
And you're right -- WinNT permissions are a pain in the ass. I've had to use them far too many times for my enjoyment.
So, yes. I take 'very good' back.
Also:
> Try assigning filesystem rights to anything other that Users or Groups (for example, to an Application Object, or an OU in the Directory Service). Whoops, can't do that!
That is a feature I've wanted in Linux for a long time; it's possible with a rather irritating group setup, but insanely annoying when you have 20 applications you wish to thus control.
I'll keep that in mind next time I come across a problem like that. Thanks.
Personally, I don't give a flying fuck about "breaking into the Windows market." If Windows users don't believe in software freedom, that's their prerogative.
It's not special status on the machine. It's a fancy logo companies can slap on their boxes. Just like the mentioned Windows Logo program.
You might want to get your knee looked at -- I think it's jerking.
In Windows 98?
Perhaps because you shouldn't have to run a virtualization program and an entirely different OS instance just to run a program securely. I think that would be a neat concept, don't you?
Oh, and I've yet to find a modern game that didn't run like shit under VMware.
'Being root' and running a SUID CD burning application is rather different. In fact, it's entirely different, since you're granted no special rights as a user.
/etc/fstab is for, specifically the user flag. That is indeed a bogus claim.
You do not have to be root to mount anything. That's what
Most programs can be installed as a regular user under $HOME. I've done it many times on systems where I have no root access. This includes everything from Lua to GTK+. In fact, very few Linux programs require root access to install and use properly.
Either you haven't used Linux, or you haven't bothered to learn how to use it properly.
I did some work on my girlfriend's computer (installed a new CD burner, nearly broke the case, etc.) and once everything was back on, Windows decided that the CD drive was E: rather than D:. This would have been all right, except that a few of her games apparently had the CD drive letter in their configurations and refused to run without the CD in drive D:.
I had to actually re-install one of them. Some software developers do really idiotic things.
Find a manufacturer that supports Linux. Buy from them. Tell other manufacturers that you are not buying from them because they do not support Linux.
FreeBSD's laptop support isn't significantly better than Linux's.
And OS X is limited by the fact that many people would have to buy a new laptop to use it, which you could do for Linux as well.
NTFS already has mount points. The interface to use them isn't entirely obvious, but they're there.
(Not that I don't agree with the general sentiment that Windows-style drive letters should be eliminated.)
Note that the discussion isn't about using literal Unix-style permissions -- the title is rather misleading. NTFS permissions are very good; in some ways, they are superior to classic Unix permissions (but not necessarily to Posix ACLs).
Instead, the Windows security model is (apparently) going to be more Unix-like, in that the demarcation between administrator (root) and normal user will be more strict. Mostly, this means making software developers allow their programs to be installed and run with limited permissions, unlike the current admin-fest.
There are many ways that Microsoft could fuck this up, but I hope they don't. Unlike some people, I have no investment in constantly repairing ruined systems.
Your signature is the most hilarious thing I have ever read. Bravo.
Actually, I'm pretty sure that Red Hat is 100% free software. What you're paying for is support and packaging.
Note that CentOS and White Box provide repackagings of RHEL for free. As far as I know, Red Hat hasn't complained.
I don't have mod points, but I'd like to commend you on writing one of the best posts I have ever read on Slashdot.
People seem to treat the space shuttle like it's their overclocked P4 1-million with water cooling. You can't just slap 'the latest' into the shuttle and send a crew out into one of the most hostile environments known to man.
Excellent post.