WARNING. Weather Watcher installs a "Netscape $9.95 Internet Access" shortcut on your desktop. There's no telling what else it does, since I can't see the source code.
There, I said it. I'll say it again: Linux is doomed.
I am an incredibly good C programmer. I wrote a driver for my employer's modem software, and I submitted it to the kernel. The "administrators" rejected it because it "might not be free enough." They insisted that I pore over 37 densely-worded pseudo-legalese licences before submitting it.
Could I use the Vovida Software License? Ooh, and then there's the Motosoto License! Let me get this straight: you have a team of pretend lawyers insisting that such and such is "free enough," and you wonder why nothing's getting done.
Fuck that. I'm going with Microsoft. They know what to do with free software.
No, you can't. Nintendo has sent out many cease and desist letters under the DCMA. In fact, I have my own letter linked right here. Read it, weep, and donate to my legal defence fund using Paypal.
I find it deeply, deeply ironical that you have chosen the forum of Slashdot to decry the so-called "corporate" impact of groupthink.
Just think where we'd be without open source groupthink.
No more "(1998..2008) is the Year of Linux" articles.
People accepting Linux's flaws rather than saying "My grandma uses Linux; why can't you?"
People understanding the difference between user-run executables (the so-called "Windows security holes" people gripe about) and exploitable buffers (as found in dozens of Linux projects; patch 'em yourself).
An end to the endless, tiresome, embarrassing debates wherein a small faction tries to take on the groupthink and is shouted down. Does this sound familiar?
User: Can we import from closed-source program X? My company uses program X, but we would switch if a convertor were available. Open source developer: STFU. We don't support closed-source anything. It's your own fault for locking yourself in. Write your own convertor and release it under the GPL. User: But I don't know how to extend your codebase. Your documentation is five versions out of date. Open source developer: STFU and STFW. *plonk*
"Openness means dirty laundry IS aired in public." This is strictly a bad thing. We don't need to have CIOs potentially exposed to Richard M. Stallman and his self-aggrandizement. We don't want to have our critical customers exposed to the egos that rewrite dictionaries and spam mailing lists with idiotic rants about "anti-idiotarianism."
Frankly, I think the Open Source movement's greatest enemy is its own membership. When a professional software developer lets his ego get the best of him, he gets fired. When an open source developer starts ranting, he starts public embarrassing flame wars that only undermine investors' confidence in the viability of Linux tools.
Great. That's just what we need: more infighting among the open-source elite.
I don't mean to go on a rant here, but look what we're up against. Many times, clients who would otherwise enjoy the flexibility of Linux are appalled by the infighting and bickering that takes place among projects. Consider the dozens of distributions, forks, and delays caused by a licence not being "free enough." My clients want to have good-quality software. In the real world, good-quality software comes with no strings attached.
In short, please work on developing good software. As long as it's free as in $0.00, I'll be happy.
Sincerely, Seth Finklestein Impatient Consultant
Re:Anyone else read that as 'Nebulon'?
on
2003 Nebula Awards
·
· Score: 3, Informative
Moving to an untested system... paying for it by firing the baggage handlers who could help you recover from problems if the system proves to have bugs... what could go wrong?
Shut the fuck up, michael. No, really, shut up. You know absolutely nothing about any of the so-called "issues" that you like to opine about. If you think your editorial comments are so damn important, then post them as comments and let the moderators have their way with you.
Honestly, you alone are the reason why I don't read Slashdot any more.
I make enough money to buy more televisions than you. I simply choose to enjoy my television programmes in a more free fashion. They're already being provided for free over the airwaves -- assuming that you've paid your licence fee. Are you trying to tell me that it is "thievery" to simply avoid watching the adverts?
I shall inform the Queen the next time you go to the loo during an advert break on your so-called "programmes."
That's why I just keep QuickTime running in the backgound. There's no convoluted "Taskbar" or "Tray icon" to get in the way. Furthermore, because QuickTime is a component of Mac OS X, the player takes up only 200 kiB of RAM!
I don't actually own a so-called "television," so I watch all my shows using the Internet. The iSight produces images and video that flow just as smoothly as the liberated videos I download daily. And for less than $150, you simply cannot beat the price.
1. Not allowing a person to upgrade a DVD/CD drive to a Superdrive. I bought my PowerMac two months before the superdrive was released. I get to use stupid DVD-RAM disks, but I can't burn DVD's unless I buy a whole new computer.
Or you could just buy an superiour quality DVD recorder from a third-party. Unlike Microsoft, Apple allows you to use all standards-compliant hardware with their DVD burning software.
2. Apple keeps its iSync API locked up. There are millions of really cool things I could do to make Apple able to synchronize with things like LDAP servers, competing browsers, PC's, etc. But then Apple could use it as a leverage-point to keep people subscribing to the overpriced.Mac program.
Funny that you mention LDAP; Apple supports LDAP in its acclaimed Mail application, so you don't need to write so much as a speck of code to enable it. Getting LDAP support to work is easy as pie.
I don't subscribe to.Mac, yet I can still use every iApp with ease. Perhaps Joe Sixpack needs his hand held, but I don't.
3. USB video cameras, like the ubiquitous Logitech QuickCam, just don't work (well) and Apple seems to have put blocks into place to refuse iChat AV from working with anything but their iSight hardware product. (I exaggerate a little bit here, but not much.)
Such is the price of progress. Face it: USB cameras simply don't have the throughput to push television-quality video the likes of which iChat AV with Pixlet can support. Would you take vacation photos with a so-called "camera phone"? I know I wouldn't. My wife and children enjoy seeing me using iSight: it's a high-quality multivisual experience. Sorry that your piece-of-junk QuickCam won't work with it.
When I switched to Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" last year, one of the key reasons was the complete lack of adware and spyware on the Mac OS platform. My computer is my own, and is not for sale to the highest bidder. That's why I don't use RealPlayer. It's my choice.
Frankly, RealPlayer should not pressure Apple to do anything. Real represent all that is evil with software: they took a mediocre player (RealPlayer G2) and made it into a horrible mess of marketroid-fueled insanity. You can't even "quit" RealPlayer without being assaulted with pop-up ads begging you to buy the so-called "Gold" version.
Apple respects the consumer. That's why I pray they will never, ever, bow to this so-called "pressure" from Real.
Open standards, Ian. It's all about open standards. If I write a Perl script (Perl is open-source) to parse OpenOffice's XML (whose schema is wide open), then I can easily adapt it to any other XML-based format.
Contrast this with Microsoft Office, whose mysterious closed-source data model is ever-changing and proprietary. Nobody with any brains would develop for it.
As the cybersecurity czar for a large retail chain's corporate offices, I can confirm that Sarbanes-Oxley presents a clear and present danger to your rights. Here are a few examples of the tyranny it allows:
Administrators can read all of your e-mail, print it out, and use it against you -- even if it's your own personal messages.
No encryption. I'll repeat that: no encryption. Under Sarbanes-Oxley, we set up a proxy server to fool the users into thinking they were using 128-bit encryption on sites such as personal finance (i.e. banking). What actually happened was that their data was encrypted to the proxy, which decrypts the data, logs it, re-encrypts it, and forwards the data on to its destination. Classic man-in-the-middle attack. Even superiour browsers like Firefox don't warn users about this.
All instant messages logged. Frankly, this upsets me greatly. I can talk to my co-workers without microphones picking up my every word (yet), but I can't type words to them?!
Frankly, this corporate tyranny must stop. Please vote Nader in 2004.
Slashdot Mirror
WARNING. Weather Watcher installs a "Netscape $9.95 Internet Access" shortcut on your desktop. There's no telling what else it does, since I can't see the source code.
Avoid Weather Watcher at all costs.
Linux is doomed.
There, I said it. I'll say it again: Linux is doomed.
I am an incredibly good C programmer. I wrote a driver for my employer's modem software, and I submitted it to the kernel. The "administrators" rejected it because it "might not be free enough." They insisted that I pore over 37 densely-worded pseudo-legalese licences before submitting it.
Could I use the Vovida Software License? Ooh, and then there's the Motosoto License! Let me get this straight: you have a team of pretend lawyers insisting that such and such is "free enough," and you wonder why nothing's getting done.
Fuck that. I'm going with Microsoft. They know what to do with free software.
Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
Bitter Developer
I'm afraid that under the DCMA, the United States would be able to:
In conclusion, please do not violate the DCMA.
Two words for you.
.
Michael FUCKING Sims
Need I say more?
Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
EFF Pioneer Award Winner
No, you can't. Nintendo has sent out many cease and desist letters under the DCMA. In fact, I have my own letter linked right here. Read it, weep, and donate to my legal defence fund using Paypal.
I find it deeply, deeply ironical that you have chosen the forum of Slashdot to decry the so-called "corporate" impact of groupthink.
Just think where we'd be without open source groupthink.
"Openness means dirty laundry IS aired in public." This is strictly a bad thing. We don't need to have CIOs potentially exposed to Richard M. Stallman and his self-aggrandizement. We don't want to have our critical customers exposed to the egos that rewrite dictionaries and spam mailing lists with idiotic rants about "anti-idiotarianism."
Frankly, I think the Open Source movement's greatest enemy is its own membership. When a professional software developer lets his ego get the best of him, he gets fired. When an open source developer starts ranting, he starts public embarrassing flame wars that only undermine investors' confidence in the viability of Linux tools.
Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
Flaming For Peace
Great. That's just what we need: more infighting among the open-source elite.
I don't mean to go on a rant here, but look what we're up against. Many times, clients who would otherwise enjoy the flexibility of Linux are appalled by the infighting and bickering that takes place among projects. Consider the dozens of distributions, forks, and delays caused by a licence not being "free enough." My clients want to have good-quality software. In the real world, good-quality software comes with no strings attached.
In short, please work on developing good software. As long as it's free as in $0.00, I'll be happy.
Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
Impatient Consultant
"Nebulon" is mentioned in this cartoon on the Homestar Runner web page. Please note that you'll need to have Macromedia Flash installed in order to view it.
Moving to an untested system... paying for it by firing the baggage handlers who could help you recover from problems if the system proves to have bugs... what could go wrong?
Shut the fuck up, michael. No, really, shut up. You know absolutely nothing about any of the so-called "issues" that you like to opine about. If you think your editorial comments are so damn important, then post them as comments and let the moderators have their way with you.
Honestly, you alone are the reason why I don't read Slashdot any more.
I'm sorry, but I'm not familiar with the term "outsourcing." Perhaps you mean rightsourcing.
I know this is going to sound silly, but I read the title as "The Novell as Software"! Did anyone else make that mental typo, or "mypo"?
Hi "Mike." (If you're wondering why the name is in quotes, just read the pablum that this coward posts.)
Air America, supported by as much as $60 million from investors including RealNetworks Inc. Chairman Rob Glaser.
Any other questions, "Mike"?
Dear Sir,
I make enough money to buy more televisions than you. I simply choose to enjoy my television programmes in a more free fashion. They're already being provided for free over the airwaves -- assuming that you've paid your licence fee. Are you trying to tell me that it is "thievery" to simply avoid watching the adverts?
I shall inform the Queen the next time you go to the loo during an advert break on your so-called "programmes."
That's why I just keep QuickTime running in the backgound. There's no convoluted "Taskbar" or "Tray icon" to get in the way. Furthermore, because QuickTime is a component of Mac OS X, the player takes up only 200 kiB of RAM!
I don't actually own a so-called "television," so I watch all my shows using the Internet. The iSight produces images and video that flow just as smoothly as the liberated videos I download daily. And for less than $150, you simply cannot beat the price.
I'll need to see the source code before I'm inclined to believe that.
Sorry. Real lost my trust years ago, and it'll take a tarball of C code to restore it.
Air America and RealNetworks are allied on political lines. Maria Cantwell, one of Real's founders, is a prominent Democrat. I have it on good authority that Air America pays absolutely zero dollars for its so-called "webcasting" software.
1. Not allowing a person to upgrade a DVD/CD drive to a Superdrive. I bought my PowerMac two months before the superdrive was released. I get to use stupid DVD-RAM disks, but I can't burn DVD's unless I buy a whole new computer.
.Mac program.
.Mac, yet I can still use every iApp with ease. Perhaps Joe Sixpack needs his hand held, but I don't.
Or you could just buy an superiour quality DVD recorder from a third-party. Unlike Microsoft, Apple allows you to use all standards-compliant hardware with their DVD burning software.
2. Apple keeps its iSync API locked up. There are millions of really cool things I could do to make Apple able to synchronize with things like LDAP servers, competing browsers, PC's, etc. But then Apple could use it as a leverage-point to keep people subscribing to the overpriced
Funny that you mention LDAP; Apple supports LDAP in its acclaimed Mail application, so you don't need to write so much as a speck of code to enable it. Getting LDAP support to work is easy as pie.
I don't subscribe to
3. USB video cameras, like the ubiquitous Logitech QuickCam, just don't work (well) and Apple seems to have put blocks into place to refuse iChat AV from working with anything but their iSight hardware product. (I exaggerate a little bit here, but not much.)
Such is the price of progress. Face it: USB cameras simply don't have the throughput to push television-quality video the likes of which iChat AV with Pixlet can support. Would you take vacation photos with a so-called "camera phone"? I know I wouldn't. My wife and children enjoy seeing me using iSight: it's a high-quality multivisual experience. Sorry that your piece-of-junk QuickCam won't work with it.
When I switched to Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" last year, one of the key reasons was the complete lack of adware and spyware on the Mac OS platform. My computer is my own, and is not for sale to the highest bidder. That's why I don't use RealPlayer. It's my choice.
Frankly, RealPlayer should not pressure Apple to do anything. Real represent all that is evil with software: they took a mediocre player (RealPlayer G2) and made it into a horrible mess of marketroid-fueled insanity. You can't even "quit" RealPlayer without being assaulted with pop-up ads begging you to buy the so-called "Gold" version.
Apple respects the consumer. That's why I pray they will never, ever, bow to this so-called "pressure" from Real.
Open standards, Ian. It's all about open standards. If I write a Perl script (Perl is open-source) to parse OpenOffice's XML (whose schema is wide open), then I can easily adapt it to any other XML-based format.
Contrast this with Microsoft Office, whose mysterious closed-source data model is ever-changing and proprietary. Nobody with any brains would develop for it.
I want to embed my graphs in it now.
OpenOffice supports this. It's just as easy as doing it in Word.
And when Accounting change the graph, it should email me.
Also easy. Because OpenOffice files are open XML files, you can easily write a script that e-mails the luser when a graph's contents change.
Some of the graphs are generated from this old DLL.
Hi, security risk? It's Seth. What's that you say? Old DLLs?
And when you click here, it should bring up foo.xls with sheet 3 selected.
Again, easily done. You clearly have no experience working with OpenOffice (which is superior).
As a VA Software stock holder, I have the right to know the way they run their company. As a matter of fact, it is my fucking business.
As the cybersecurity czar for a large retail chain's corporate offices, I can confirm that Sarbanes-Oxley presents a clear and present danger to your rights. Here are a few examples of the tyranny it allows:
Frankly, this corporate tyranny must stop. Please vote Nader in 2004.
Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
Czar
I think he was referring to the fact that whiny liberals are under the misguided impression that Nader cost Gore the 2000 election. See, liberals don't understand how awful Al Gore would have been as a president, and instead turn to blaming everyone besides their unbelievably lame Democratic nominee.
This world needs fewer whiny liberals and more whiny libertarians. Vote Harry Browne in 2004!
Sincerely,
Seth Finklestein
Political Blogmeister