Actually, the God clause is not traditional. The original pledge of allegiance read as following:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
The phrase "under god" was added in the McCarthyist 1950s as an attempt to distinguish the United States from "godless Communism," a convenient excuse for the religious conservatives then in power. It is not part of the original Pledge, and hence does not reflect any opinions our founding fathers may or may not have had. It just reflects the opinions of the McCarthyists.
I haven't been following the vixie-cron thing extremely closely, but it was my understanding that the BSDs were not completely vulnerable. The vixie-cron bug itself still existed, but the method of exploit was through sendmail, and the BSDs have fixed these sendmail problems, while most GNU/Linux distributions have not.
How can you claim that the first distribution was named "Linux"? I haven't heard this before. Sure, the kernel is named Linux, but I see no evidence of there being a complete distribution being called simply "Linux." AFAIK, Linus himself has never created a distribution, just a kernel. All the distributions I've seen have been either "Somebody's GNU/Linux" or "Somebody's Linux," or homebrew systems built around the Linux kernel.
Mostly agree with you, except for the native binaries issue. FreeBSD runs Linux binaries natively, not through emulation, so FreeBSD's native binaries are a superset of Linux's native binaries.
You seem to have hit on the head what the BSD fans have been saying for a long time. BSD is for serious work, while Linux is for home users who are adventurous and, like yourself, have fun with library incompatibilities, distro wars, crap filesystems, etc.
And before somebody accuses me of being a BSD zealot, I use neither BSD nor Linux.
Well, you say that "Debian" is an OS. However, there is no distribution called "Debian." It is called "Debian GNU/Linux." Therefore, it'd be the "Debian GNU/LInux OS." You seem to have just disproven your point.
So then why do Linux advocates compare the "Linux OS" to the "Windows NT OS"? Either you compare the "GNU/Linux OS" to the "Windows NT OS", or you compare the "Linux OS" to the "Win32 OS."
If the kernel is the OS, then I'd appreciate it if you start referring to the "Win32 OS" from now on.
Using an accurate name is not "bad" because it upsets other people. It's not name-calling, it's simply an accurate name. I'd be more worried about the Linux kiddies and their "Microsucks winbloze" bullshit - that's immature name-calling.
If you'd prefer, I can refer to it as the GNU OS, since that's what it mostly is (and will be 100% whenever Hurd finally finishes and the Linux kernel can be replaced). Then, if people inquire, I can point out the detail that I use the Linux kernel along with my GNU OS.
Anyway, I presume you dislike Debian GNU/Linux for this reason. Red Hat user?
So what? Sure, the myth about Linus single-handedly developing Linux from nothingness into Linux 2.2.10 is a compelling one, but it's still a lie.
Lying to get more market share doesn't sound like a very good thing to me. If it takes that to get market share, fuck market share. I'd rather have integrity. That's something Richard M. Stallman has plenty of.
As for all your whining bullshit about Stallman hurting Free Software, let me remind you that without Stallman, much of this Free Software you want to gain more market share wouldn't exist. Without GCC, there would be no Free Software UNIX-like operating system, since there'd be no way to compile software on it, or even to compile the kernel.
I haven't seen any important BSD holes reported to Bugtraq lately. Most have been simple local DoS attacks, which are not really a problem unless you're a shell provider or have untrusted local users. None have been remote exploits, the only category of exploits that are really critical. Compare that to the Red Hat exploits over the last few weeks...
IMHO it hasn't improved. Sure, some technical aspects of the magazine have improved, but it's mostly a dry technical journal these days. The personality that used to characterize Phrack is pretty much non-existant, and the editorial style has shifted towards one of "I know more about buffer overflows than you" arrogance. Take a look at the Phrack Loopback responses during the first 10 years to the recent ones. A much higher percentage of responses are along the lines of "you're an idiot, we at Phrack Staff are much smarter than you."
Either that or find a better editor. For years Phrack came out 4-5 times a year, without getting any money for it either. Now route puts it out maybe once a year.
Well, it's not really the same Phrack. Somewhere along the line Knight Lightning and Taran King gave it up, but other people started up a new magazine with the same name (due to its popularity). KL and TK eventually "blessed" this new Phrack, and it continued for a while, though certainly not the same magazine as the original. Then sometime 2-3 years ago route (daemon9) managed to take over the magazine (I have no clue what happened to the previous editor(s)) and turned it into his personal ego zone. Reading his responses to the reader emailed questions, it's sickening that somebody like that managed to get control of a magazine that used to be run by nice people...
This is another good example of the vagueness and lack of enforceability rampant in Linux licensing. EGCS, until its recent merger with GCC, was not a "GNU compiler," so it could not take advantage of the exception. However, nobody seemed to pay any attention to that. It's only now, that Compaq makes a compiler, that people care.
However, Compaq has most likely written their own libraries, so the point is moot.
Due to the Linux kernel's buggy nature, almost nothing can compile it correctly. IIRC, you need GCC-2.9.5. The latest version of GCC (the merged former EGCS tree) won't compile it correctly. (This is a kernel bug, not a GCC/EGCS bug).
Sure, you can look at the assembly output, but then you can't use anything you gain from that viewing in another product. Doing so would leave you extremely legally vulnerable - you've been "tainted" by viewing their code.
That's why reverse-engineering is done with a clear-room implementation. However, even that would be illegal with the license agreement. Documenting the specifics of the optimizations and passing them on to a coder is not part of "testing" a compiler.
Yes, the half they got write was the "GNU" half. The GNU Project's goal was (and is) a completely free UNIX-like operating system, which they named the GNU OS (or just plain GNU). Currently, plugging the Linux kernel into this (mostly completed) OS provides you with a mostly functional OS known as GNU/Linux.
Well you can go to http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=userinfo&nick=hand le (where handle is their slashdot username), and if the person chose to make their email address public, it'll be listed there.
The Sun/AOL thing is still around. It's a joint venture type deal between Sun and Netscape (owned by AOL) originally known as the "Sun-Netscape Alliance," and it's been renamed to "iPlanet" for some reason. They're still around, since I saw an ad for iPlanet in last week's Forbes magazine. The ad touted Sun, AOL, and Netscape's history of innovation and delivery of great products based on great ideas, but didn't really mention what exactly it was that iPlanet would be doing.
My high school offers C++ as the language for first-year CS students, and it doesn't seem to be a major problem. In fact, all high schools wishing to participate in the AP curriculum/tests must offer C++ to their CS students, since the AP CS test is only offered in C++ (changed from Pascal about 2 years ago).
I've seen a few well-reasoned posts comparing Linux and BSD, while being more favorable towards BSD, be moderated up in recent days. However, well-reasoned posts giving NT's advantages over Linux are almost always moderated down, unless they have some sort of disclaimer on them such as "I like Linux as much as the next guy, but NT still has a few advantages for now." If a post simply goes through and mentions 25 different reasons that NT is better than Linux, and recommends that Linux not be used for serious applications at the moment, it'll be moderated down, even if the 25 reasons are correct, and the post as a whole is well-reasoned. If, on the other hand, the "NT" and "Linux" in this situation are reversed, and the final assessment is that Linux is ready for prime-time, it'll almost always be moderated up.
Perhaps you didn't notice that Perl isn't part of the GNU project, nor even distributed under the GNU GPL. Many people think Perl sucks. Many others like Perl. No one group is inherently superior to the other - it's a matter of preference.
As for his dislike of Linux, perhaps this signifies the passing of the torch to the Linux Jihad generation. All opponents of the penguin must be destroyed! Hail Tux! Death to nonbelievers! A curse upon that fiendish daemon Chuck!
Apparently you haven't had any contact with RMS. I've been lurking on the license-discuss list at OSI for the last few months, and RMS routinely replies to mails mentioning "Linux" without saying "please call it the GNU/Linux system" or anything of that nature. He uses "GNU/Linux" is his own emails, as do some other people, but he doesn't force others to do so. He certainly doesn't legally require them to do so.
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You forgot "make clean" and "make install" and whatnot. When compiling a kernel is a 5+ step affair, things are not good.
Actually, the God clause is not traditional. The original pledge of allegiance read as following:
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
The phrase "under god" was added in the McCarthyist 1950s as an attempt to distinguish the United States from "godless Communism," a convenient excuse for the religious conservatives then in power. It is not part of the original Pledge, and hence does not reflect any opinions our founding fathers may or may not have had. It just reflects the opinions of the McCarthyists.
I haven't been following the vixie-cron thing extremely closely, but it was my understanding that the BSDs were not completely vulnerable. The vixie-cron bug itself still existed, but the method of exploit was through sendmail, and the BSDs have fixed these sendmail problems, while most GNU/Linux distributions have not.
How can you claim that the first distribution was named "Linux"? I haven't heard this before. Sure, the kernel is named Linux, but I see no evidence of there being a complete distribution being called simply "Linux." AFAIK, Linus himself has never created a distribution, just a kernel. All the distributions I've seen have been either "Somebody's GNU/Linux" or "Somebody's Linux," or homebrew systems built around the Linux kernel.
To add to that, the author also missed that Linus didn't write the Linux kernel from scratch. He extended Minix.
Mostly agree with you, except for the native binaries issue. FreeBSD runs Linux binaries natively, not through emulation, so FreeBSD's native binaries are a superset of Linux's native binaries.
You seem to have hit on the head what the BSD fans have been saying for a long time. BSD is for serious work, while Linux is for home users who are adventurous and, like yourself, have fun with library incompatibilities, distro wars, crap filesystems, etc.
And before somebody accuses me of being a BSD zealot, I use neither BSD nor Linux.
Well, you say that "Debian" is an OS. However, there is no distribution called "Debian." It is called "Debian GNU/Linux." Therefore, it'd be the "Debian GNU/LInux OS." You seem to have just disproven your point.
So then why do Linux advocates compare the "Linux OS" to the "Windows NT OS"? Either you compare the "GNU/Linux OS" to the "Windows NT OS", or you compare the "Linux OS" to the "Win32 OS."
If the kernel is the OS, then I'd appreciate it if you start referring to the "Win32 OS" from now on.
Using an accurate name is not "bad" because it upsets other people. It's not name-calling, it's simply an accurate name. I'd be more worried about the Linux kiddies and their "Microsucks winbloze" bullshit - that's immature name-calling.
If you'd prefer, I can refer to it as the GNU OS, since that's what it mostly is (and will be 100% whenever Hurd finally finishes and the Linux kernel can be replaced). Then, if people inquire, I can point out the detail that I use the Linux kernel along with my GNU OS.
Anyway, I presume you dislike Debian GNU/Linux for this reason. Red Hat user?
So what? Sure, the myth about Linus single-handedly developing Linux from nothingness into Linux 2.2.10 is a compelling one, but it's still a lie.
Lying to get more market share doesn't sound like a very good thing to me. If it takes that to get market share, fuck market share. I'd rather have integrity. That's something Richard M. Stallman has plenty of.
As for all your whining bullshit about Stallman hurting Free Software, let me remind you that without Stallman, much of this Free Software you want to gain more market share wouldn't exist. Without GCC, there would be no Free Software UNIX-like operating system, since there'd be no way to compile software on it, or even to compile the kernel.
I haven't seen any important BSD holes reported to Bugtraq lately. Most have been simple local DoS attacks, which are not really a problem unless you're a shell provider or have untrusted local users. None have been remote exploits, the only category of exploits that are really critical. Compare that to the Red Hat exploits over the last few weeks...
IMHO it hasn't improved. Sure, some technical aspects of the magazine have improved, but it's mostly a dry technical journal these days. The personality that used to characterize Phrack is pretty much non-existant, and the editorial style has shifted towards one of "I know more about buffer overflows than you" arrogance. Take a look at the Phrack Loopback responses during the first 10 years to the recent ones. A much higher percentage of responses are along the lines of "you're an idiot, we at Phrack Staff are much smarter than you."
Either that or find a better editor. For years Phrack came out 4-5 times a year, without getting any money for it either. Now route puts it out maybe once a year.
Well, it's not really the same Phrack. Somewhere along the line Knight Lightning and Taran King gave it up, but other people started up a new magazine with the same name (due to its popularity). KL and TK eventually "blessed" this new Phrack, and it continued for a while, though certainly not the same magazine as the original. Then sometime 2-3 years ago route (daemon9) managed to take over the magazine (I have no clue what happened to the previous editor(s)) and turned it into his personal ego zone. Reading his responses to the reader emailed questions, it's sickening that somebody like that managed to get control of a magazine that used to be run by nice people...
This is another good example of the vagueness and lack of enforceability rampant in Linux licensing. EGCS, until its recent merger with GCC, was not a "GNU compiler," so it could not take advantage of the exception. However, nobody seemed to pay any attention to that. It's only now, that Compaq makes a compiler, that people care.
However, Compaq has most likely written their own libraries, so the point is moot.
Due to the Linux kernel's buggy nature, almost nothing can compile it correctly. IIRC, you need GCC-2.9.5. The latest version of GCC (the merged former EGCS tree) won't compile it correctly. (This is a kernel bug, not a GCC/EGCS bug).
Sure, you can look at the assembly output, but then you can't use anything you gain from that viewing in another product. Doing so would leave you extremely legally vulnerable - you've been "tainted" by viewing their code.
That's why reverse-engineering is done with a clear-room implementation. However, even that would be illegal with the license agreement. Documenting the specifics of the optimizations and passing them on to a coder is not part of "testing" a compiler.
Yes, the half they got write was the "GNU" half. The GNU Project's goal was (and is) a completely free UNIX-like operating system, which they named the GNU OS (or just plain GNU). Currently, plugging the Linux kernel into this (mostly completed) OS provides you with a mostly functional OS known as GNU/Linux.
Well you can go to http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=userinfo&nick=hand le (where handle is their slashdot username), and if the person chose to make their email address public, it'll be listed there.
The Sun/AOL thing is still around. It's a joint venture type deal between Sun and Netscape (owned by AOL) originally known as the "Sun-Netscape Alliance," and it's been renamed to "iPlanet" for some reason. They're still around, since I saw an ad for iPlanet in last week's Forbes magazine. The ad touted Sun, AOL, and Netscape's history of innovation and delivery of great products based on great ideas, but didn't really mention what exactly it was that iPlanet would be doing.
My high school offers C++ as the language for first-year CS students, and it doesn't seem to be a major problem. In fact, all high schools wishing to participate in the AP curriculum/tests must offer C++ to their CS students, since the AP CS test is only offered in C++ (changed from Pascal about 2 years ago).
I've seen a few well-reasoned posts comparing Linux and BSD, while being more favorable towards BSD, be moderated up in recent days. However, well-reasoned posts giving NT's advantages over Linux are almost always moderated down, unless they have some sort of disclaimer on them such as "I like Linux as much as the next guy, but NT still has a few advantages for now." If a post simply goes through and mentions 25 different reasons that NT is better than Linux, and recommends that Linux not be used for serious applications at the moment, it'll be moderated down, even if the 25 reasons are correct, and the post as a whole is well-reasoned. If, on the other hand, the "NT" and "Linux" in this situation are reversed, and the final assessment is that Linux is ready for prime-time, it'll almost always be moderated up.
Perhaps you didn't notice that Perl isn't part of the GNU project, nor even distributed under the GNU GPL. Many people think Perl sucks. Many others like Perl. No one group is inherently superior to the other - it's a matter of preference.
As for his dislike of Linux, perhaps this signifies the passing of the torch to the Linux Jihad generation. All opponents of the penguin must be destroyed! Hail Tux! Death to nonbelievers! A curse upon that fiendish daemon Chuck!
Apparently you haven't had any contact with RMS. I've been lurking on the license-discuss list at OSI for the last few months, and RMS routinely replies to mails mentioning "Linux" without saying "please call it the GNU/Linux system" or anything of that nature. He uses "GNU/Linux" is his own emails, as do some other people, but he doesn't force others to do so. He certainly doesn't legally require them to do so.