The MVP initiative will be a big part of Microsoft's efforts to promote a sense of "community" among users and developers,
It's hard to have the same sense of "community" when people all know that they are connected solely through the exchange of cash.
Linux and its community have a symbiotic relationship,
Symbiotic? I'm afraid not. Symbiotic means EACH could not survive without the other. Even if linux vanished overnight, the free software community does have other alternative open source operating systems to use. And even if all central kernel development stopped, we still have millions of copies of kernel source floating around and a new effort would begin. "Linux" (as a concept) doesn't really depend on the community; it IS the community.
Lee said: "You don't have that same thing at Microsoft, but there are people who are passionate and technical who are committed to doing a great job."
Not to sound like I'm trolling or flaming, but most companies I've seen that are "dedicated" to Microsoft only do so because it is perceived as financially risky to do otherwise.
Re:dreaming of centralized cookies and bookmarks
on
Roll Your Own Browser
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
This is the same issue as the "roaming profile" problem.
It would seem that the easiest way to implement something like this would be to have a small (probably USB-based) device like one of those USB keyring "drives" that you use to store this kind of basic information. Then have a standard in which different systems (KDE, Gnome, Windows, browsers, email clients, etc.) will check for the device and try to load preferences from it.
Since you could encrypt the information on the device and require a password to access it, it would be fairly secure, plus you don't have to trust someone else's distributed network.
Aside from project management, I would also consider project specifications as being a contributing factor.
I know security can suffer heavily if a project starts to get into a time crunch, but in how many projects was security even a consideration in the first place?
If anyone starts working on a network-based project on a base install of any operating system (Windows, Linux, even OpenBSD), then there are problems well before the project's deadline approaches.
StallMan (real name: Richard Stallman) Stalwart leader of the FSF, he fires his GPL Virus Cannon at all software in sight.
The Penguin (real name: Linus Torvalds) Hacker extraordinaire. Uses Linux-grip action to bring monopolies to their knees. Annoyed that StallMan keeps calling it "GNU/Linux-grip action".
And their arch-enemies:
Mr. Big (real name: Bill Gates) Leader of Micro$oft, Mr. Big uses his vast resources of time, money, and attorneys to make sure his Evil Windows Empire retains complete control. Also likes to eat kittens. Raw.
The Luddite (real name: Jack Valenti) The Luddite is stringently opposed to any new technology that it enables people to have control over the music they purchase. Powers are similar to Mr. Big's. Mr. Big and The Luddite may team up to form an organization too powerful for StallMan and The Penguin to take on.
And don't forget: The Citizens (real name: all of us) We are the supreme power. Ultimately, it is not up to StallMan and The Penguin to stop the minions of Microsoft and the ??AA from controlling us. Fight back.
Electric signals can be transmitted at least four times faster than the speed of light...
This is known because researchers observed the results of the experiment a month before it was actually attempted.
At first, they were confused by their output terminal spewing phrases like "Hello world!", "Is this thing on?", "How can we tell if it's working??", "What's WRONG with this FSCKING THING??", "FSCK IT! I'm going home!!!" late last month. Earlier this week, one researcher was sending keyed kignals into the system, and becoming frustrated at the lack of output, until he and a colleague accidentally picked up a stack of printed logs from 4 weeks ago and discovered the system had worked before it had been turned on.
Neither researcher could be reached for comment, as they both suddenly became multi-quadrillionaires and are living on private islands in the South Pacific.
I tagged along and did something similar to them. I wonder how many Slashdotter's we can get to inundate them with requests for something besides a.doc file?
The issue of open standards is one that keeps coming to the forefront of any discussion regarding making both commercial AND open source software viable choices in the software arena.
I see a lot of people saying "It will never happen." If all you do is keep saying that, you're right. It will become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If anyone has any ideas about what we can do to promote "Sincere Choice", please let me know. Complaining in Slashdot is not much of a start, especially if this is as far as it goes. So, to help get started, here are a few ideas for everyone to try:
Try out different open source packages for various applications. Run through them and find bugs. Check the project's website and report those bugs.
If you're proficient at programming, contribute code to an open source project.
Encourage people to run other OSes. For the non-techies, try Lycoris or Elx.
Find out which congresspersons are sympathetic to this issue and write to them. Find out which one's aren't and write to them, too. Find out which one's are on the fence and write to them as well.
Contribute money, time, or both to some organization like the EFF, CDT, GNU/FSF, or by purchasing or donating to your favorite open source application and/or linux distro.
If you are in a tech position at a company or government agency, point out the benefits of going to an open source platform for your organization.
Put plugs on your personal websites.
Actively boycott companies who violate these principals. (Note: This does NOT mean companies who sell software. This means companies who try to monopolize the market [Microsoft] or support the DMCA [Adobe].)
If DRM has to exist, it needs to exist with more than one entity (i.e. not even one goverment) controlling it.
While I agree with the sentiment, the problem is that many "monopolies" are actually clusters of companies ("trusts") that collaborate to control markets by fixing prices and manipulating supply/demand.
It doesn't matter if you have 50 companies in charge of it if they're all run by corporate pigs whose only goal is to leech every dime they can out of regular citizens.
Having a silly shoot-'em-up where you shoot "evil terrorists" isn't a commentary at all. Commentary points things out. Commentary presents a view. Commentary is intended to make people think.
These games do not have the subtlety of a good political cartoon. Hell, even a bad political cartoon (such as you might see in USA Today *shudder*) makes more of a statement than "I wanna beat up Bin Laden".
The best example of a political cartoon in Flash form are the "Napster Bad!" line of cartoons on Camp Chaos. The one with Sheryl Crow and Nutty McShithead ("MP3s: Good or Goblin") is hilarious.
>>EVERYTHING would have to be output as ASCII text.
Except for mainframes which use EBCDIC.
At some point people simply MUST upgrade. However, software that easily maintains backwards compatibility with older file formats doesn't force everyone to upgrade when a new version of the software comes out.
Also, if some of the software choices ARE open source, then upgrading periodically only costs some time, not thousands of dollars in new license fees.
bytesmythe
Re:Newton dead? -- Stupid link...
on
Newton Won't Die
·
· Score: 2, Funny
True, but Microsoft opening up their format is about as likely as getting hit in the foot by a meteorite.
Well, maybe that was a bad example...
I do think that solution would work equally well, but, barring some kind of court order, it ain't gonna happen. I have checked around before for open document standards, but never found anything that seemed poised to take off. Do you know of any progress being made in the open document standards arena?
"Perens maintains that a complete ban on state purchases of proprietary closed-source software isn't necessary."
Well, I would guess an actual BAN wouldn't be necessary. If any software could use the data, chances are pretty high that open source software would become the norm rather than the exception. We only use MS Word because everyone else does. If everyone moves to a format that ANY word processor can use, I guarantee Microsoft is going to lose a motherlode of license revenue.
I imagine if anyone did come up with an open standard file format, Microsoft wouldn't bother supporting it. Or better yet, they'd make the xlator module buggy so it corrupts files saved in other formats. You know, kind of like it does when you save as HTML.;)
Slashdot Mirror
Don't forget:
PIN number
SCSI interface
ASCII code
(At least I've never heard anyone say LED diode...)
The MVP initiative will be a big part of Microsoft's efforts to promote a sense of "community" among users and developers,
It's hard to have the same sense of "community" when people all know that they are connected solely through the exchange of cash.
Linux and its community have a symbiotic relationship,
Symbiotic? I'm afraid not. Symbiotic means EACH could not survive without the other. Even if linux vanished overnight, the free software community does have other alternative open source operating systems to use. And even if all central kernel development stopped, we still have millions of copies of kernel source floating around and a new effort would begin. "Linux" (as a concept) doesn't really depend on the community; it IS the community.
Lee said: "You don't have that same thing at Microsoft, but there are people who are passionate and technical who are committed to doing a great job."
Not to sound like I'm trolling or flaming, but most companies I've seen that are "dedicated" to Microsoft only do so because it is perceived as financially risky to do otherwise.
This is the same issue as the "roaming profile" problem.
It would seem that the easiest way to implement something like this would be to have a small (probably USB-based) device like one of those USB keyring "drives" that you use to store this kind of basic information. Then have a standard in which different systems (KDE, Gnome, Windows, browsers, email clients, etc.) will check for the device and try to load preferences from it.
Since you could encrypt the information on the device and require a password to access it, it would be fairly secure, plus you don't have to trust someone else's distributed network.
Aside from project management, I would also consider project specifications as being a contributing factor.
I know security can suffer heavily if a project starts to get into a time crunch, but in how many projects was security even a consideration in the first place?
If anyone starts working on a network-based project on a base install of any operating system (Windows, Linux, even OpenBSD), then there are problems well before the project's deadline approaches.
Chapter 1 - Fdisking your machine
Chapter 2 - Installing linux
Chapter 3 - Updating OpenSSL libraries
What else do you need? Oh, yeah...
Chapter 4 - Unplugging your network connection
(That should lock it down from outside pretty well.)
Chapter 5 - Removing your harddrive and pounding it with a big ass sledgehammer.
(Now it's secure from the INSIDE, too.)
See? Good network security really isn't so hard.
How do you put an NDA on GPLed software? Could you provide some links to more information about this?
You mean like:
StallMan (real name: Richard Stallman)
Stalwart leader of the FSF, he fires his GPL Virus Cannon at all software in sight.
The Penguin (real name: Linus Torvalds)
Hacker extraordinaire. Uses Linux-grip action to bring monopolies to their knees. Annoyed that StallMan keeps calling it "GNU/Linux-grip action".
And their arch-enemies:
Mr. Big (real name: Bill Gates)
Leader of Micro$oft, Mr. Big uses his vast resources of time, money, and attorneys to make sure his Evil Windows Empire retains complete control. Also likes to eat kittens. Raw.
The Luddite (real name: Jack Valenti)
The Luddite is stringently opposed to any new technology that it enables people to have control over the music they purchase. Powers are similar to Mr. Big's. Mr. Big and The Luddite may team up to form an organization too powerful for StallMan and The Penguin to take on.
And don't forget:
The Citizens (real name: all of us)
We are the supreme power. Ultimately, it is not up to StallMan and The Penguin to stop the minions of Microsoft and the ??AA from controlling us. Fight back.
For maximum benefit, the code should be something like:
if-down eth0
Soon it'll be "A sucker is CLONED every minute."
Read this for more details
This is known because researchers observed the results of the experiment a month before it was actually attempted.
At first, they were confused by their output terminal spewing phrases like "Hello world!", "Is this thing on?", "How can we tell if it's working??", "What's WRONG with this FSCKING THING??", "FSCK IT! I'm going home!!!" late last month. Earlier this week, one researcher was sending keyed kignals into the system, and becoming frustrated at the lack of output, until he and a colleague accidentally picked up a stack of printed logs from 4 weeks ago and discovered the system had worked before it had been turned on.
Neither researcher could be reached for comment, as they both suddenly became multi-quadrillionaires and are living on private islands in the South Pacific.
I tagged along and did something similar to them. I wonder how many Slashdotter's we can get to inundate them with requests for something besides a .doc file?
Any other ideas?
You can forget Microsoft ever taking part in THIS initiative...
Also,
Damn those lying physics frauds. Everything we know is wrong!
While I agree with the sentiment, the problem is that many "monopolies" are actually clusters of companies ("trusts") that collaborate to control markets by fixing prices and manipulating supply/demand.
It doesn't matter if you have 50 companies in charge of it if they're all run by corporate pigs whose only goal is to leech every dime they can out of regular citizens.
Sure it does: mind reading. ;)
You mean like this guy?
Having a silly shoot-'em-up where you shoot "evil terrorists" isn't a commentary at all. Commentary points things out. Commentary presents a view. Commentary is intended to make people think.
These games do not have the subtlety of a good political cartoon. Hell, even a bad political cartoon (such as you might see in USA Today *shudder*) makes more of a statement than "I wanna beat up Bin Laden".
The best example of a political cartoon in Flash form are the "Napster Bad!" line of cartoons on Camp Chaos. The one with Sheryl Crow and Nutty McShithead ("MP3s: Good or Goblin") is hilarious.
>>EVERYTHING would have to be output as ASCII text.
Except for mainframes which use EBCDIC.
At some point people simply MUST upgrade. However, software that easily maintains backwards compatibility with older file formats doesn't force everyone to upgrade when a new version of the software comes out.
Also, if some of the software choices ARE open source, then upgrading periodically only costs some time, not thousands of dollars in new license fees.
bytesmythe
Try this link:
Newton
Dunno why the first added a space into the middle of the link. It wasn't there when I pasted it.
I beg to differ:
a ti cians/Newton.html
http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathem
True, but Microsoft opening up their format is about as likely as getting hit in the foot by a meteorite.
Well, maybe that was a bad example...
I do think that solution would work equally well, but, barring some kind of court order, it ain't gonna happen. I have checked around before for open document standards, but never found anything that seemed poised to take off. Do you know of any progress being made in the open document standards arena?
bytesmythe
From the article:
;)
"Perens maintains that a complete ban on state purchases of proprietary closed-source software isn't necessary."
Well, I would guess an actual BAN wouldn't be necessary. If any software could use the data, chances are pretty high that open source software would become the norm rather than the exception. We only use MS Word because everyone else does. If everyone moves to a format that ANY word processor can use, I guarantee Microsoft is going to lose a motherlode of license revenue.
I imagine if anyone did come up with an open standard file format, Microsoft wouldn't bother supporting it. Or better yet, they'd make the xlator module buggy so it corrupts files saved in other formats. You know, kind of like it does when you save as HTML.
bytesmythe