I think in general privacy laws and government regulation of privacy is a good thing. The problem with self-regulation of privacy is that personal information is a lucrative commodity. It is hard to get companies to do what's right when most people don't even realize how much information they are giving up or what their rights are. I think well crafted legislation can provide a good framework for companies to better their privacy policies as well as provide redress for consumers who are adversely affected by bad policies. Good laws also provide a way for privacy advocacy groups to benchmark companies by providing a baseline as well as providing standards to hold companies to.
The key here will be that the laws need to be broad enough to deal with the rapidly changing business methods as well as provide room for companies to try different methods of achieving the results. At some point you can push companies far enough that they will then try to advertise on how great their privacy is versus some other company, so it's good to set the bar and allow companies to rise above it as well as just meeting it.
I have been reading these types of posts all the way down the page now and I have to reply. Rob and Hemos have time and time again stated that this is NOT a Linux advocacy site. It is NOT an open-source rally site. It is a "News for Nerds" site. If a large percentage of what matters to nerds happens to concern open source then so be it. There are probably many geeks out there who 1) don't use linux, 2) don't care for open source, or 3) care about open source but don't like GPL (or other OS licences)
CmdrTaco's source code is a priviledge not a right. Where is the uproar that Carmack has only just recently released the source to Quake 1. Quake II came out 2 years ago. Rob's attitude, while not winning anything for Mr. Congeniality, is understood after being yapped at time in and time out.
Remember that the main reason you are here is for the news, not the code. If Rob shut the site down for a week or four to bang out the source code to it, I think a lot of people would be pissed off. More than those who are pissed off that the code isn't released yet. The code is his baby right now. Let him bring it to a level that he feels comfortable with before letting others have a whack at it.
My first reaction to this outrage, then after thinking about it and looking at other poster's opinions I came to understand it, but I still wasn't satisified.
I think that in situations that the company MANDATES a non-traditional office there need to be certain guidelines, and their should be strong responsibilities of the office to assist that worker and to ensure that they are taking care of that worker and their safety.
When the company has an ELECTIVE policy of non-traditional office, there should be a system set up by the company to provide stipends and equiptment for the use of the home office. When you work at the office you are given a networked PC, a desk, a networked phone, necessary office supplies, etc. There should be definate policy to provide the telecommuter with the office supplies that they would have normally recieved at the office, but the responsibility should be on the employee to request what they need when it is their decision to telecommute.
I'm going to get a lot of argument for this but I think in certain situations that year versioning is a "Good Thing (TM)"
Any product that has a built in shelf life or has major changes that are tied to the year of release should have year versioning. Mostly this is for financial software such as TurboTax (TurboTax 98, TurboTax 99, TurboTax 2000) TurboTax is useless for the most part the year after it is released, due to changes in the IRS tax code and the forms, and the calculations etc (You can bet Intuit is NOT a supporter of the flat tax. TurboTax is a little cash cow)
But I agree that for things such as Office and Windows, we should see an actual numbering system.
I like the way that BeOS does it RX.Y.Z Where X is the main version release, Y is the minor upgrades, and Z is little updates like drivers and bug fixes (very similar to other companies use of the "SE" title:)
TC
Re:More important things - and the Power Rangers..
on
When Does Y2K Begin?
·
· Score: 1
The person(s) who set the date were religious and set the date upon the death of Jesus
I'm sorry but I have to be nitpicky here. Even though I don't put much stock in it I have 10 years of religious education, and I hate gross inaccuracies.
The Gregorian calendar was set on the BIRTH date of Christ. Hence BC is Before Christ, and AD is Anno Domini, which means "in the year of our lord."
This, of course, is still inaccurate due to that fact that they miscalculated the date by 4 years.
Whoa there. I think you are getting ahead of yourself. Its truly sad that the most pervasive legacy of Microsoft is that it has become the embodiment of all that is wrong with commercialism. Also since MS is so large people believe that any company must eventually walk to the dark side. Believe it or not there are companies out there who care about their customer base, quality of product etc. Now to argue directly against your rally that the GPL should be changed so that makers of proprietary software cannot bundle GPL with their costly software and thus nullify the "freeness" of the software. First, this is exactly the case with commercial non-open unices. Used 'ls' on a Digital Unix machine lately? Second if you really want the GPL software bundled with the for-cost propriatery system, download it elsewhere. Since it is GPL the source is available somewhere. Third, you are confusing the "freeness" of the software. We've all heard the free as in speech vs. beer stuff before, so let me put it in a different manner. If you want the whole package you are going to have to get the whole deal, like going to a restaurant that gives free beer with every steak dinner. You can still get it free by going over to your buddy's house and mooching or you can get that really juicy steak and enjoy your free beer. That's my $0.02. Gimme two seconds while I get into my asbestos suit. TC
Just a quick not about not getting out to civilization. They crossed the river, continued south and ended up at the SAME place they originally crossed the river from. This when they HAD a compass. I believe that was to show the Blair Witch's involvement in keeping them in the woods. Also, it is incredibly easy to go in circles if you don't keep your head on straight. All you have to do is come into an area you've been in from a new perspective and you can think its a new area.
It's been mentioned several times that what you said is exactly what they did to Mozilla. The main reason it took longer than expected is they got pissed with the lousy code and re-wrote it from scratch. Gecko is completely re-done from the orginal browsing engine that came with it.
Your analogy is a bit off. The difference here is that with a company they are paying you for your work. Geocities is not paying you. They are already using your IP as a conduit for ad money (that is how they can give "free" web space) but now they want to own your IP too. (or sublicense whatever, IANAL)
Please don't blame Be for this problem, it isn't their fault. Apple has flat out refused to release to them their specs on the chip and the motherboards and how they interact. The reason the intel version is doing so well is that intel went so far as to send a team of intel engineers to Be to assist them.
1) Be has to much on their agenda right now than to reverse engineer the G3 specs.
2) There may be some possible legal issues to Be rev. eng. the specs if they decide to do it. Linux can do it because it is not a corporation, but Be is. How the G3 works is IP for apple and if someone who has deep pockets uses it without their permission.... LAWSUIT. (I am not a lawyer so I'm not positive on all this)
3) Even without 1 and 2 Be has stated that it will not rev. eng. the specs because they cannot be 100% sure it will work and won't risk their customers stability on it.
TC
Re:"This car is crap, it crashed into a wall!"
on
Scott Hacker Responds
·
· Score: 1
No, Linux is not ready for the masses to be messing with pre 1.0 versions of software. But that's the beauty of the system. It gives more "advanced" users - ones who actually can program and understand how libraries work - the ability to do so.
Can we say elitest? Tone down the ego a bit. Did you realize you just made Scot Hacker's point for him. You are saying that Linux is a hacker's only OS (which I don't think is truly accurate). You are saying it is not usable and should not be used by the average user. If this is what you are saying than what exactly is your argument with the article? I have used Linux, Windows, MacOS, and BeOS. I was impressed with Linux becuase it was powerful and it could do so much, but only if you had the time and the patience to get into the guts of the system. Now before you accuse me of being in the sub-moron level of user, I am a fairly compentent programer, and am studying for a minor in Computer Science. Just because I can understand how to tweak Linux doesn't mean I want to. I personally like the ease of Mac and Windows as well as Be. With Mac though, I feel like I treading through 6 inches of sludge. Windows I can navigate pretty efficiently as long as I'm only doing one thing at a time, and as long as I reboot every 2 hours. Finally, with Be, while I don't have all my everyday apps yet, it is a breeze to use. It's very intuitive and FAST.
My parting comment to you is to watch who you call a moron. My Dad, while being an incredibly smart and successful businessman is not very capable when it comes to computers. He can use his favorite apps with ease but when it comes to the OS he's out of luck. Dumb with computers != Dumb in life.
Multi-user support is almost completely ready to run. They have had the architecture built in from day 1. Currently the filesystem has support for unix-like permissions, but they are all the default and owned by "baron" (an inside joke). As soon as Be feels it is worth doing they will flesh it out and "activate" multi-user support. Right now though they have bigger fish to fry, like more graphics card support.
Ok.. Guilty as charged. My point was not about the typecasting though. I think typecasting is necessary to a degree. Different OSes serve different needs. To use the car analogy everybody else is using, if you want to drive REALLY fast you get a Viper or Porsche or something in that range. If you want something to tow a boat you get a truck. There is nothing wrong with using an item for what it does best. To tell me that linux runs equal to Windows/Mac/Be for easy of use as a desktop application is like saying I'll get the same performance towing the boat by putting a trailer hitch on my Porche.
but do I have to remind you about System 7?
*shudder* ok, you win on that one (I don't know how I forgot, I was a mac user as well as a PC user for most of my life)
Are you saying you have no time to learn?
Yes, this is exactly what I am saying. I have enough to do in a given day without having to take a good amount of time to learn how to do everything i need to do to run my OS. For me, my computer is a tool. Use should be transparent. I am not saying that Linux doesn't make a good desktop for those who know how to use it, but for the average person (or more to the point "adult") uses the computer as a tool. You should feel familiar in a new desktop OS, and you shouldn't have to re-learn the way to do everything.
but please, for the love of all that's holy, ixnay on the "it works right out of the box" thing
I have to agree/disagree with you on this point. On the one hand you are right. There is a bit more to it than just installing it. You must check and see if you hardware is supported. If it isn't well, then its a bit more complicated. But.... If you are running supported hardware then it's ease of use and installation is amazing. Windows tries to say it can do this, but for all their talk windows is clunky and burdensome. Be installs in less than half the time it takes Windows, and asks you far fewer questions. It truly auto detects most of your hardware (aside from networking mostly) and sets fairly good defaults. Yes, you do have to go in and change control panal settings for optimization, but it doesn't take the hour to two hours that windows/mac setups can take.
First, I have lurked around for a while, and I have been fairly impressed with linux, the users, and what can be done in the OSS model.
I think, though, that a lot of linux users are missing the point. Linux is a GREAT server OS. If I ever had to run a high traffic server I would run linux. But Linux is NOT a GREAT desktop OS. It can be a good one, but can anyone really say its great? (I shall define great as being able to be used by most users immediately after install). I have tried linux. I don't have the time to invest into setting it up or tweaking it so that it works. I have also tried Be. I was able to use it, go online, and start d/l software immediately without the help of a friend directing me. (btw I consider myself pretty technically literate, I am an MIS major with a CS minor). Be doesn't as yet have many apps for the general user, but that's because it is set up for being a Audio/Visual niche operating system. (Be is being smart. Remember they are a company that has to make money to put out a good product. Going head to head with the Redmond giant is suicide. Linux could do it because they don't need to come in on budget or have to make money) Look at linux 1-2 years ago. Where was StarOffice then?
A lot of people have stated that Be has no apps or they can't use the apps they have on linux. Just because Be is closed-source doesn't mean that you can't create apps for it or port apps to it. Be comes with a fully integrated BASH command line interface. It comes with a variety of GNU tools, most notably gcc. If you do some research you may notice that it is nearly fully POSIX compliant (they are not fully POSIX yet because they want to put their time into getting more hardware supported).
Have any of you checked out the specs on Be? Be uses a 64-bit Journaling File System. It has pervasive multi-threading, pre-emptive multi-tasking, and excellent use of SMP. It already has a security/multi-user architecture set-up waiting for a time when it will be usefull. Many have said that they could not use X. Well if you go to the BeWine page you will see that they have ported X-Windows over and are working on a port of Wine as well.
I will finish with this last thought. Please remember that the OSS dev model transends all OS's. Just because an OS isn't open source does not mean you can't design a good app for it. The only reason there aren't a lot of OS apps on Be is because THEY HAVEN'T BEEN WRITTEN YET (and/or ported). Before you start thinking of how to flame me, remember that linux too was once really young with no apps, and that it took time before mainstream users started to notice it.
Slashdot Mirror
I think in general privacy laws and government regulation of privacy is a good thing. The problem with self-regulation of privacy is that personal information is a lucrative commodity. It is hard to get companies to do what's right when most people don't even realize how much information they are giving up or what their rights are. I think well crafted legislation can provide a good framework for companies to better their privacy policies as well as provide redress for consumers who are adversely affected by bad policies. Good laws also provide a way for privacy advocacy groups to benchmark companies by providing a baseline as well as providing standards to hold companies to.
The key here will be that the laws need to be broad enough to deal with the rapidly changing business methods as well as provide room for companies to try different methods of achieving the results. At some point you can push companies far enough that they will then try to advertise on how great their privacy is versus some other company, so it's good to set the bar and allow companies to rise above it as well as just meeting it.
I have been reading these types of posts all the way down the page now and I have to reply. Rob and Hemos have time and time again stated that this is NOT a Linux advocacy site. It is NOT an open-source rally site. It is a "News for Nerds" site. If a large percentage of what matters to nerds happens to concern open source then so be it. There are probably many geeks out there who 1) don't use linux, 2) don't care for open source, or 3) care about open source but don't like GPL (or other OS licences)
CmdrTaco's source code is a priviledge not a right. Where is the uproar that Carmack has only just recently released the source to Quake 1. Quake II came out 2 years ago. Rob's attitude, while not winning anything for Mr. Congeniality, is understood after being yapped at time in and time out.
Remember that the main reason you are here is for the news, not the code. If Rob shut the site down for a week or four to bang out the source code to it, I think a lot of people would be pissed off. More than those who are pissed off that the code isn't released yet. The code is his baby right now. Let him bring it to a level that he feels comfortable with before letting others have a whack at it.
My first reaction to this outrage, then after thinking about it and looking at other poster's opinions I came to understand it, but I still wasn't satisified.
I think that in situations that the company MANDATES a non-traditional office there need to be certain guidelines, and their should be strong responsibilities of the office to assist that worker and to ensure that they are taking care of that worker and their safety.
When the company has an ELECTIVE policy of non-traditional office, there should be a system set up by the company to provide stipends and equiptment for the use of the home office. When you work at the office you are given a networked PC, a desk, a networked phone, necessary office supplies, etc. There should be definate policy to provide the telecommuter with the office supplies that they would have normally recieved at the office, but the responsibility should be on the employee to request what they need when it is their decision to telecommute.
TC
I'm going to get a lot of argument for this but I think in certain situations that year versioning is a "Good Thing (TM)"
:)
Any product that has a built in shelf life or has major changes that are tied to the year of release should have year versioning. Mostly this is for financial software such as TurboTax (TurboTax 98, TurboTax 99, TurboTax 2000) TurboTax is useless for the most part the year after it is released, due to changes in the IRS tax code and the forms, and the calculations etc (You can bet Intuit is NOT a supporter of the flat tax. TurboTax is a little cash cow)
But I agree that for things such as Office and Windows, we should see an actual numbering system.
I like the way that BeOS does it RX.Y.Z Where X is the main version release, Y is the minor upgrades, and Z is little updates like drivers and bug fixes (very similar to other companies use of the "SE" title
TC
The person(s) who set the date were religious and set the date upon the death of Jesus
I'm sorry but I have to be nitpicky here. Even though I don't put much stock in it I have 10 years of religious education, and I hate gross inaccuracies.
The Gregorian calendar was set on the BIRTH date of Christ. Hence BC is Before Christ, and AD is Anno Domini, which means "in the year of our lord."
This, of course, is still inaccurate due to that fact that they miscalculated the date by 4 years.
TC
The berman owns the fish.
Proof at: http://www.wpi.edu/~tcollins/riddle.pdf
tc
Whoa there. I think you are getting ahead of yourself. Its truly sad that the most pervasive legacy of Microsoft is that it has become the embodiment of all that is wrong with commercialism. Also since MS is so large people believe that any company must eventually walk to the dark side. Believe it or not there are companies out there who care about their customer base, quality of product etc. Now to argue directly against your rally that the GPL should be changed so that makers of proprietary software cannot bundle GPL with their costly software and thus nullify the "freeness" of the software. First, this is exactly the case with commercial non-open unices. Used 'ls' on a Digital Unix machine lately? Second if you really want the GPL software bundled with the for-cost propriatery system, download it elsewhere. Since it is GPL the source is available somewhere. Third, you are confusing the "freeness" of the software. We've all heard the free as in speech vs. beer stuff before, so let me put it in a different manner. If you want the whole package you are going to have to get the whole deal, like going to a restaurant that gives free beer with every steak dinner. You can still get it free by going over to your buddy's house and mooching or you can get that really juicy steak and enjoy your free beer. That's my $0.02. Gimme two seconds while I get into my asbestos suit. TC
Just a quick not about not getting out to civilization. They crossed the river, continued south and ended up at the SAME place they originally crossed the river from. This when they HAD a compass. I believe that was to show the Blair Witch's involvement in keeping them in the woods. Also, it is incredibly easy to go in circles if you don't keep your head on straight. All you have to do is come into an area you've been in from a new perspective and you can think its a new area.
TC
It's been mentioned several times that what you said is exactly what they did to Mozilla. The main reason it took longer than expected is they got pissed with the lousy code and re-wrote it from scratch. Gecko is completely re-done from the orginal browsing engine that came with it.
TC
It's really simple. If its good, they own it and can sell it. If its bad you are responsible, but since they own they can delete it.
TC
Your analogy is a bit off. The difference here is that with a company they are paying you for your work. Geocities is not paying you. They are already using your IP as a conduit for ad money (that is how they can give "free" web space) but now they want to own your IP too. (or sublicense whatever, IANAL)
TC
Please don't blame Be for this problem, it isn't their fault. Apple has flat out refused to release to them their specs on the chip and the motherboards and how they interact. The reason the intel version is doing so well is that intel went so far as to send a team of intel engineers to Be to assist them.
1) Be has to much on their agenda right now than to reverse engineer the G3 specs.
2) There may be some possible legal issues to Be rev. eng. the specs if they decide to do it. Linux can do it because it is not a corporation, but Be is. How the G3 works is IP for apple and if someone who has deep pockets uses it without their permission.... LAWSUIT. (I am not a lawyer so I'm not positive on all this)
3) Even without 1 and 2 Be has stated that it will not rev. eng. the specs because they cannot be 100% sure it will work and won't risk their customers stability on it.
TC
No, Linux is not ready for the masses to be messing with pre 1.0 versions of software. But that's the beauty of the system. It gives more "advanced" users - ones who actually can program and understand how libraries work - the ability to do so.
Can we say elitest? Tone down the ego a bit. Did you realize you just made Scot Hacker's point for him. You are saying that Linux is a hacker's only OS (which I don't think is truly accurate). You are saying it is not usable and should not be used by the average user. If this is what you are saying than what exactly is your argument with the article? I have used Linux, Windows, MacOS, and BeOS. I was impressed with Linux becuase it was powerful and it could do so much, but only if you had the time and the patience to get into the guts of the system. Now before you accuse me of being in the sub-moron level of user, I am a fairly compentent programer, and am studying for a minor in Computer Science. Just because I can understand how to tweak Linux doesn't mean I want to. I personally like the ease of Mac and Windows as well as Be. With Mac though, I feel like I treading through 6 inches of sludge. Windows I can navigate pretty efficiently as long as I'm only doing one thing at a time, and as long as I reboot every 2 hours. Finally, with Be, while I don't have all my everyday apps yet, it is a breeze to use. It's very intuitive and FAST.
My parting comment to you is to watch who you call a moron. My Dad, while being an incredibly smart and successful businessman is not very capable when it comes to computers. He can use his favorite apps with ease but when it comes to the OS he's out of luck. Dumb with computers != Dumb in life.
TC
Multi-user support is almost completely ready to run. They have had the architecture built in from day 1. Currently the filesystem has support for unix-like permissions, but they are all the default and owned by "baron" (an inside joke). As soon as Be feels it is worth doing they will flesh it out and "activate" multi-user support. Right now though they have bigger fish to fry, like more graphics card support.
TC
I find you guilty of typecasting, as charged.
Ok.. Guilty as charged. My point was not about the typecasting though. I think typecasting is necessary to a degree. Different OSes serve different needs. To use the car analogy everybody else is using, if you want to drive REALLY fast you get a Viper or Porsche or something in that range. If you want something to tow a boat you get a truck. There is nothing wrong with using an item for what it does best. To tell me that linux runs equal to Windows/Mac/Be for easy of use as a desktop application is like saying I'll get the same performance towing the boat by putting a trailer hitch on my Porche.
but do I have to remind you about System 7?
*shudder* ok, you win on that one (I don't know how I forgot, I was a mac user as well as a PC user for most of my life)
Are you saying you have no time to learn?
Yes, this is exactly what I am saying. I have enough to do in a given day without having to take a good amount of time to learn how to do everything i need to do to run my OS. For me, my computer is a tool. Use should be transparent. I am not saying that Linux doesn't make a good desktop for those who know how to use it, but for the average person (or more to the point "adult") uses the computer as a tool. You should feel familiar in a new desktop OS, and you shouldn't have to re-learn the way to do everything.
but please, for the love of all that's holy, ixnay on the "it works right out of the box" thing
I have to agree/disagree with you on this point. On the one hand you are right. There is a bit more to it than just installing it. You must check and see if you hardware is supported. If it isn't well, then its a bit more complicated. But.... If you are running supported hardware then it's ease of use and installation is amazing. Windows tries to say it can do this, but for all their talk windows is clunky and burdensome. Be installs in less than half the time it takes Windows, and asks you far fewer questions. It truly auto detects most of your hardware (aside from networking mostly) and sets fairly good defaults. Yes, you do have to go in and change control panal settings for optimization, but it doesn't take the hour to two hours that windows/mac setups can take.
TC
First, I have lurked around for a while, and I have been fairly impressed with linux, the users, and what can be done in the OSS model.
I think, though, that a lot of linux users are missing the point. Linux is a GREAT server OS. If I ever had to run a high traffic server I would run linux. But Linux is NOT a GREAT desktop OS. It can be a good one, but can anyone really say its great? (I shall define great as being able to be used by most users immediately after install). I have tried linux. I don't have the time to invest into setting it up or tweaking it so that it works. I have also tried Be. I was able to use it, go online, and start d/l software immediately without the help of a friend directing me. (btw I consider myself pretty technically literate, I am an MIS major with a CS minor). Be doesn't as yet have many apps for the general user, but that's because it is set up for being a Audio/Visual niche operating system. (Be is being smart. Remember they are a company that has to make money to put out a good product. Going head to head with the Redmond giant is suicide. Linux could do it because they don't need to come in on budget or have to make money) Look at linux 1-2 years ago. Where was StarOffice then?
A lot of people have stated that Be has no apps or they can't use the apps they have on linux. Just because Be is closed-source doesn't mean that you can't create apps for it or port apps to it. Be comes with a fully integrated BASH command line interface. It comes with a variety of GNU tools, most notably gcc. If you do some research you may notice that it is nearly fully POSIX compliant (they are not fully POSIX yet because they want to put their time into getting more hardware supported).
Have any of you checked out the specs on Be? Be uses a 64-bit Journaling File System. It has pervasive multi-threading, pre-emptive multi-tasking, and excellent use of SMP. It already has a security/multi-user architecture set-up waiting for a time when it will be usefull.
Many have said that they could not use X. Well if you go to the BeWine page you will see that they have ported X-Windows over and are working on a port of Wine as well.
I will finish with this last thought. Please remember that the OSS dev model transends all OS's. Just because an OS isn't open source does not mean you can't design a good app for it. The only reason there aren't a lot of OS apps on Be is because THEY HAVEN'T BEEN WRITTEN YET (and/or ported). Before you start thinking of how to flame me, remember that linux too was once really young with no apps, and that it took time before mainstream users started to notice it.
Let the moderation begin.
TC