And you, of course, are a Microsoft user. Nope, all of these posts are made from Slackware 7. If you read my userinfo you would know that (but who reads userinfo anyway... I know I don't.) I wasn't advocating microsoft, I was pointing out that they know they aren't secure.
Problem: let's say my software is over 1 gig (like many OS's). No one wants to download it, so I sell it for a nominal fee, maybe $4 for the 2 cd's. I think a proportion needs to be made between the amount of profit made by selling software/the amount of damages caused by said software. Coming up with such a proportion would be difficult if not imposibble though.
Wait: here's another analogy:-). I create software that makes my toaster work better. My friends all say "Great, can I have a copy" and I decide to GPL it and put it on my public ftp server. I nolonger use my new toaster software, when I discover a proprietary product that I like better. I take it off of my ftp server, but it's still other people's ftp servers because it was gpl'd. People continue to use my toaster software because it's nifty and they don't want to have to pay extra on their toasters. It turns out there's a bug in my toaster software that makes one out of every 1,000,000 toasters explode. There is no way I could've known about the bug beforehand, as I stopped development. There is now no way I could patch it, as I'm no longer the source for my popular toaster software... it's all over and no one looks at my ftp site anymore now that it doesn't have the toaster software. Even if I released a patched version, which i wouldn't because I'm no longer the developer, no one would use it... all the ftp sites have the buggy version. So toasters keep exploding, but I can't be liable. Someone point out any flaws in my logic please.
I think it should all come down to whether the software was guaranteed or not. If software is sold as "Super-Secure Server" and there's a thing in it that says "May not actually be secure and probably isn't" then i dunno it gets confusing and these things should be decided on a case-by-case deal. Let's say software says it will do something and there's a line in the license that says "Not guaranteed to serve a particular purpose" then that line isn't really valid is it because there's somewhere else (whether it's in the license or not) that says it does such and such. Of course if it doesn't do such and such, you should be able to sue for the price of the software. Back to case-by-case, that's how it should be. I could see a situation where someone is learning to program and puts a program up that says "OK I'm trying to get it to do such and such and it works for me and you can try it if you want" then that's not a guarantee. A license shouldn't be able to contradict itself. That's that. Whoa you read my rant!:-)
What is this word "consumer" you use... the whole point of GPL and other such licenses is freeness. If software is free you're not buying it. And 99.9% of computer usage is not quite as important as a life, which could be put at stake by this loose seatbelt. The other 0.1% generally writes their own software. The writers of those pieces of software are always held accountable, they lose their jobs if their software fails.
The difference is that the EULA is so ridiculous that it is practically invalid. EULA's and similar licenses usually say that we have no rights and the software can be yanked out from under us at someone's whim, and we have no legal recourse if anything goes wrong, and we do not own the software, which means that we cannot do practically anything. These types of agreements (shrinkwrap licenses) would not hold up in court. The GPL says that if anything goes wrong, you have no legal recourse, but it also says that you have complete and total rights to redistribute software and such. This is much less of a one-sided agreement and much more likely to hold up in court.
I got no problem with BSD and I'd use it if I had the time to download it... the fact is that right now I have linux on CD.:-). Yea I have a cablemodem but I don't have enough hard drive space. Maybe I could find a way... i'm gonna see what I can do about it right now.
Oops I'm wrong this can be tech-related... see the post before me:-) This post is not off topic, because it is an addendum. Moderators: If a reply to a post has something to do with the original post, can it really be off topic?
I was under the impression that slashdot was for technology news and such... I don't know if this even really qualifies as "News for Nerds".
I'd appreciate it if this wasn't moderated down, but I know it will be. Oh well. At least don't do it for "Troll", cuz I'm not trolling. (Subliminal message to moderators: You know you want to...)
If Open Source applications such as AbiWord were packaged and sold on the shelves at cost of distribution, people would realize that software for Linux is available and of high-quality.
I don't think so... The main attraction of Linux is that you can get anything for free. What needs to be developed is an easier way of getting these things, something like an online store without money... now I have no problem with the current system, "Search Engines" (hehe), but the average person would like a place he can go online to just browse what's available and say "Ooh that looks nice, I think I'll get that..." rather than knowing beforehand what he needs.
Even though there are numerous applications for Linux available, there really aren't that many of comparable quality and usability to their Windows counterparts in areas which the average user needs. For example, there is nothing for Linux that is comparable to something like Quicken for Windows, a popular financial application. While there are small applications being developed, there aren't any commercial applications developed that serve that purpose. Some Linux users seem to fear the commercialization of software, but in a sense, it is required for the further advancement and acceptance of Linux.
Picky picky picky... Yes financial software is one area where linux is deficient, the other (more prominent) area being web browsers. We've just about solved the web browser problem, with Opera and Konquerer on the way, and especially Mozilla. M12 looks great, and it seems to be almost as powerful as netscape 4.7 (and it IS more stable:-). I've noticed that I can now successfully login to slashdot with it and the only thing I can't seem to do is moderating. I think with M13 or M14 (assuming they exist... i mean they might reach the 1.0 stage before then:-) I'll be switching over.
For the most part, I agree with everything else in the article... I've felt the wrath of printer support, especially with the HP 722c's. Back in RH6.0 I was able to get mine working... slightly... After that, I haven't been able to. I'm now on Slackware 7 and I still can't. (The driver is available, at PPA for the masses.) BUT... I am extremely impressed in the amount of drivers available for linux, in the most recent kernel there is a working driver for the SB1000 Cable Modem, a Hybrid Cable Modem card used in some areas (like mine) where fiber optic cable is not yet available. This is such an obscure device I didn't think there would be a driver, but lo and behold there was a driver and a HOWTO!!! You don't need to go looking for drivers in linux, almost everything is included with the kernel. Recompiling a kernel is not hard, either. Try it some time!
What's this? Why do we need a standard UI for app development to continue? I've never had any problem finding apps that I need, and that's that. I don't even use one of the more popular GUI's... I use E with no GNOME or KDE... just straight E. I've never had trouble running KDE apps or GNOME apps, because I have the libs installed. Now if you ask me, I think there should be an easier way to upgrade libraries automatically, and get new libraries when you need them. Hey there probably is, someone provide a link:-).
Not that I need help compiling new libraries:-) I've been doing it the RIGHT way (tarballs) for about 6 months.
OK you have a good point but McDonalds is a famous name, and it was created (I assume) by a guy named McDonald. Plus, Mickey'd's doesn't attack people who sing "Old McDonald Had a farm..." so they're not that evil.
That's what I said... build lead domes. If you're enclosed in enough lead you won't die from radiation. (Instead you'll die from lots of big explosions that superheat the lead and make your eyeballs explode. They might not actually penatrate the lead, but they'll make sure you explode:-)
But if you're far out enough it doesn't have to... you just avoid all contact with humans by buying a 500 acre plot, building 4 30-ft thick stone walls around it, and living inside them. Oh don't forget the lead domes... wouldn't want to be contaminated by nuclear stupidity:-)
No one can own a name... it's just wrong. The name Leonardo has been around for Centuries. We have famous actors named Leonardo, we have famous scientists that were named Leonardo, and now, I see, we have famous turtles named leonardo.
You cannot own the word Leonardo... it's a name. Leo DiCaprio could be attacked too, I guess. Hey why don't you dig up Leonardo DaVinci and beat him up, he's infringing too!
If this madness doesn't stop, I'm founding my own planet, one with no patents or such. (Or a BETTER patent system... one that exists to protect IP and to do nothing else... no "giving huge corporations the edge" or that crap... maybe they'll have to start protecting their ideas with good, old fashioned security.)
But let's think about this for one more moment... they're claiming to own the word Leonardo... !!!... Utter stupidity.
The Linux operating system is generally installed on partition type 83 (Linux native) or 82 (Linux swap).
Since when do we install linux on a swap partition? Giggle...
Re:BSD has lost, Linux won the unix war. READ ON
on
FreeBSD 3.4 released
·
· Score: 1
Wait a minute... there is a whole bunch of things in this post that pisses me off...
per the previous intel/freebsd hype story... this is pure hogwash, intel should be sued by the linux community.
For what? Is that what you think linux is about? Linux is not about suing.
its a known fact that linux is far more secure out of the box, scales better, runs faster, and has more support.
I'd like to hear the source of this "known fact". All of MY sources say OpenBSD is the securest OS out there.
freebsd and any other bsd for that matter cannot stand up to the superiority and mass appeal of linux.
Huh? In my opinion, once the people convert to linux then other people will show them how similar and interchangable all the Unixes are.
linux has won the unix war. it crushes *BSD, Solaris, IRIX, AIX, etc. no other os can match its superior SMP scalability, security, and more advanced features.
Huh again? SMP? As far as I know, linux does NOT scale well past 4 processors... i'm not a comp science degree so correct me if i'm wrong, but that's what I've heard.
can you say GNOME???
Linux, the choice of a GNU generation
LOL what does GNOME have to do with anything you've said before... is gnome even tied to linux? It's my understanding (flame me if i'm wrong) that pretty much anything Open source is useable on pretty much any platform that has X. Now someone who has gnome running on a BSD box let me know and prove me right:-). And as far as "Linux, the choice of a GNU generation" isn't gnu developing their own OS, Hurd? I know absolutely nothing about hurd and thus have no clue, but Gnu is not tied to linux... last time i heard Debian was thinking of a BSD port... don't know how they'd go about that but anyway... i'm done ranting.
See the problem with netscape is that it is just as bloated as IE. Of course IE runs constantly so it seems less bloated than netscape, because when you're looking at the speed of IE, it's the speed of IE alone, but the speed of netscape is hampered by IE running in the background. Of course us linux guys don't have to deal with that:-).
Required functionality usually means being able to use Microsoft Word documents. Since no vendor but Microsoft produces such a thing
Last time I checked, Staroffice worked fine with.doc files. I'll agree that netscape sucks, but you can't very well run internet explorer on a free software OS, can you? Maybe this undermines the whole law... I can't use IE in linux (or some other OSS operating system), and I need the functionality of IE, so therefore linux is no longer required. How about "I need to play Duke Nukem (hehe)... That is required. Therefore I can't use Linux." or "As a pawn of Microsoft, I am incapable of using any software not derived by them." As you can see, the "required functionality" clause can turn useless pretty quick:-) wait i'm ranting... ok sorry:-)
We all love free software... but personally I don't like the idea of forcing it. I'll admit forcing people to use free software does have some useful applications... no backdoored programs for example. I wasn't able to make much sense out of the article... I speak spanish, english, german, not portuguese. Anyway I don't think that "forced" and "free software" should be in the same sentence. The idea of free software is freedom, isn't it?
Slashdot Mirror
And you, of course, are a Microsoft user. Nope, all of these posts are made from Slackware 7. If you read my userinfo you would know that (but who reads userinfo anyway... I know I don't.) I wasn't advocating microsoft, I was pointing out that they know they aren't secure.
Problem: let's say my software is over 1 gig (like many OS's). No one wants to download it, so I sell it for a nominal fee, maybe $4 for the 2 cd's. I think a proportion needs to be made between the amount of profit made by selling software/the amount of damages caused by said software. Coming up with such a proportion would be difficult if not imposibble though.
Wait: here's another analogy :-). I create software that makes my toaster work better. My friends all say "Great, can I have a copy" and I decide to GPL it and put it on my public ftp server. I nolonger use my new toaster software, when I discover a proprietary product that I like better. I take it off of my ftp server, but it's still other people's ftp servers because it was gpl'd. People continue to use my toaster software because it's nifty and they don't want to have to pay extra on their toasters. It turns out there's a bug in my toaster software that makes one out of every 1,000,000 toasters explode. There is no way I could've known about the bug beforehand, as I stopped development. There is now no way I could patch it, as I'm no longer the source for my popular toaster software... it's all over and no one looks at my ftp site anymore now that it doesn't have the toaster software. Even if I released a patched version, which i wouldn't because I'm no longer the developer, no one would use it... all the ftp sites have the buggy version. So toasters keep exploding, but I can't be liable. Someone point out any flaws in my logic please.
Difference: A combination lock claims security. Microsoft win98 doesn't.
I think it should all come down to whether the software was guaranteed or not. If software is sold as "Super-Secure Server" and there's a thing in it that says "May not actually be secure and probably isn't" then i dunno it gets confusing and these things should be decided on a case-by-case deal. Let's say software says it will do something and there's a line in the license that says "Not guaranteed to serve a particular purpose" then that line isn't really valid is it because there's somewhere else (whether it's in the license or not) that says it does such and such. Of course if it doesn't do such and such, you should be able to sue for the price of the software. Back to case-by-case, that's how it should be. I could see a situation where someone is learning to program and puts a program up that says "OK I'm trying to get it to do such and such and it works for me and you can try it if you want" then that's not a guarantee. A license shouldn't be able to contradict itself. That's that. Whoa you read my rant! :-)
What is this word "consumer" you use... the whole point of GPL and other such licenses is freeness. If software is free you're not buying it. And 99.9% of computer usage is not quite as important as a life, which could be put at stake by this loose seatbelt. The other 0.1% generally writes their own software. The writers of those pieces of software are always held accountable, they lose their jobs if their software fails.
The difference is that the EULA is so ridiculous that it is practically invalid. EULA's and similar licenses usually say that we have no rights and the software can be yanked out from under us at someone's whim, and we have no legal recourse if anything goes wrong, and we do not own the software, which means that we cannot do practically anything. These types of agreements (shrinkwrap licenses) would not hold up in court. The GPL says that if anything goes wrong, you have no legal recourse, but it also says that you have complete and total rights to redistribute software and such. This is much less of a one-sided agreement and much more likely to hold up in court.
Even worse, if modified clients can't connect, then what's the point of open sourcing something???
I got no problem with BSD and I'd use it if I had the time to download it... the fact is that right now I have linux on CD. :-). Yea I have a cablemodem but I don't have enough hard drive space. Maybe I could find a way... i'm gonna see what I can do about it right now.
Oops I'm wrong this can be tech-related... see the post before me :-) This post is not off topic, because it is an addendum. Moderators: If a reply to a post has something to do with the original post, can it really be off topic?
I was under the impression that slashdot was for technology news and such... I don't know if this even really qualifies as "News for Nerds".
I'd appreciate it if this wasn't moderated down, but I know it will be. Oh well. At least don't do it for "Troll", cuz I'm not trolling. (Subliminal message to moderators: You know you want to...)
Let me know if I left anything out.
If Open Source applications such as AbiWord were packaged and sold on the shelves at cost of distribution, people would realize that software for Linux is available and of high-quality.
:-). I've noticed that I can now successfully login to slashdot with it and the only thing I can't seem to do is moderating. I think with M13 or M14 (assuming they exist... i mean they might reach the 1.0 stage before then :-) I'll be switching over.
I don't think so... The main attraction of Linux is that you can get anything for free. What needs to be developed is an easier way of getting these things, something like an online store without money... now I have no problem with the current system, "Search Engines" (hehe), but the average person would like a place he can go online to just browse what's available and say "Ooh that looks nice, I think I'll get that..." rather than knowing beforehand what he needs.
Even though there are numerous applications for Linux available, there really aren't that many of comparable quality and usability to their Windows counterparts in areas which the average user needs. For example, there is nothing for Linux that is comparable to something like Quicken for Windows, a popular financial application. While there are small applications being developed, there aren't any commercial applications developed that serve that purpose. Some Linux users seem to fear the commercialization of software, but in a sense, it is required for the further advancement and acceptance of Linux.
Picky picky picky... Yes financial software is one area where linux is deficient, the other (more prominent) area being web browsers. We've just about solved the web browser problem, with Opera and Konquerer on the way, and especially Mozilla. M12 looks great, and it seems to be almost as powerful as netscape 4.7 (and it IS more stable
For the most part, I agree with everything else in the article... I've felt the wrath of printer support, especially with the HP 722c's. Back in RH6.0 I was able to get mine working... slightly... After that, I haven't been able to. I'm now on Slackware 7 and I still can't. (The driver is available, at PPA for the masses.) BUT... I am extremely impressed in the amount of drivers available for linux, in the most recent kernel there is a working driver for the SB1000 Cable Modem, a Hybrid Cable Modem card used in some areas (like mine) where fiber optic cable is not yet available. This is such an obscure device I didn't think there would be a driver, but lo and behold there was a driver and a HOWTO!!! You don't need to go looking for drivers in linux, almost everything is included with the kernel. Recompiling a kernel is not hard, either. Try it some time!
yebyen@adelphia.net
What's this? Why do we need a standard UI for app development to continue? I've never had any problem finding apps that I need, and that's that. I don't even use one of the more popular GUI's... I use E with no GNOME or KDE... just straight E. I've never had trouble running KDE apps or GNOME apps, because I have the libs installed. Now if you ask me, I think there should be an easier way to upgrade libraries automatically, and get new libraries when you need them. Hey there probably is, someone provide a link :-).
:-) I've been doing it the RIGHT way (tarballs) for about 6 months.
Not that I need help compiling new libraries
I don't see anything that specifies frenchness... only "It's not in english".
OK you have a good point but McDonalds is a famous name, and it was created (I assume) by a guy named McDonald. Plus, Mickey'd's doesn't attack people who sing "Old McDonald Had a farm..." so they're not that evil.
That's what I said... build lead domes. If you're enclosed in enough lead you won't die from radiation. (Instead you'll die from lots of big explosions that superheat the lead and make your eyeballs explode. They might not actually penatrate the lead, but they'll make sure you explode :-)
But if you're far out enough it doesn't have to... you just avoid all contact with humans by buying a 500 acre plot, building 4 30-ft thick stone walls around it, and living inside them. Oh don't forget the lead domes... wouldn't want to be contaminated by nuclear stupidity :-)
No one can own a name... it's just wrong. The name Leonardo has been around for Centuries. We have famous actors named Leonardo, we have famous scientists that were named Leonardo, and now, I see, we have famous turtles named leonardo.
You cannot own the word Leonardo... it's a name. Leo DiCaprio could be attacked too, I guess. Hey why don't you dig up Leonardo DaVinci and beat him up, he's infringing too!
If this madness doesn't stop, I'm founding my own planet, one with no patents or such. (Or a BETTER patent system... one that exists to protect IP and to do nothing else... no "giving huge corporations the edge" or that crap... maybe they'll have to start protecting their ideas with good, old fashioned security.)
But let's think about this for one more moment... they're claiming to own the word Leonardo... !!!... Utter stupidity.
The Linux operating system is generally installed on partition type 83 (Linux native) or 82 (Linux swap).
Since when do we install linux on a swap partition? Giggle...
Wait a minute... there is a whole bunch of things in this post that pisses me off...
:-). And as far as "Linux, the choice of a GNU generation" isn't gnu developing their own OS, Hurd? I know absolutely nothing about hurd and thus have no clue, but Gnu is not tied to linux... last time i heard Debian was thinking of a BSD port... don't know how they'd go about that but anyway... i'm done ranting.
per the previous intel/freebsd hype story... this is pure hogwash, intel should be sued by the linux community.
For what? Is that what you think linux is about? Linux is not about suing.
its a known fact that linux is far more secure out of the box, scales better, runs faster, and has more support.
I'd like to hear the source of this "known fact". All of MY sources say OpenBSD is the securest OS out there.
freebsd and any other bsd for that matter cannot stand up to the superiority and mass appeal of linux.
Huh? In my opinion, once the people convert to linux then other people will show them how similar and interchangable all the Unixes are.
linux has won the unix war. it crushes *BSD, Solaris, IRIX, AIX, etc. no other os can match its superior SMP scalability, security, and more advanced features.
Huh again? SMP? As far as I know, linux does NOT scale well past 4 processors... i'm not a comp science degree so correct me if i'm wrong, but that's what I've heard.
can you say GNOME???
Linux, the choice of a GNU generation
LOL what does GNOME have to do with anything you've said before... is gnome even tied to linux? It's my understanding (flame me if i'm wrong) that pretty much anything Open source is useable on pretty much any platform that has X. Now someone who has gnome running on a BSD box let me know and prove me right
See the problem with netscape is that it is just as bloated as IE. Of course IE runs constantly so it seems less bloated than netscape, because when you're looking at the speed of IE, it's the speed of IE alone, but the speed of netscape is hampered by IE running in the background. Of course us linux guys don't have to deal with that :-).
Required functionality usually means being able to use Microsoft Word documents. Since no vendor but Microsoft produces such a thing
.doc files. I'll agree that netscape sucks, but you can't very well run internet explorer on a free software OS, can you? Maybe this undermines the whole law... I can't use IE in linux (or some other OSS operating system), and I need the functionality of IE, so therefore linux is no longer required. How about "I need to play Duke Nukem (hehe)... That is required. Therefore I can't use Linux." or "As a pawn of Microsoft, I am incapable of using any software not derived by them." As you can see, the "required functionality" clause can turn useless pretty quick :-) wait i'm ranting... ok sorry :-)
Last time I checked, Staroffice worked fine with
We all love free software... but personally I don't like the idea of forcing it. I'll admit forcing people to use free software does have some useful applications... no backdoored programs for example. I wasn't able to make much sense out of the article... I speak spanish, english, german, not portuguese. Anyway I don't think that "forced" and "free software" should be in the same sentence. The idea of free software is freedom, isn't it?