GNOME (notice it's an acronym): GNU Network Object Model Environment. It's a good name that describes its purpose; to be a complete network based computing environment. The reason it doesn't seem to conform to a name for a GUI is because GNOME is intended to be much more than merely a GUI.
I haven't followed Evolution, but I suspect it's a reference to the next advancement of email systems. Just as Evolution, the natural process, tends to weed out the weakest species, this program is probably intended to make all other email systems obsolete (Natural Selection at work).
Apache: This web server began life as a series of patches to the NCSA web server, thereby earning the reputation as "a patchy" server. Apache is a clever evolution (pun intended) of the term.
Free software developers have historically had a knack for clever names which a lot of people don't research enough to understand. But that doesn't stop them from bitching, obviously.
I fail to see how clever naming which escapes your grasp (even assuming that the names were bad) has any relevance to the fanciful notion that OSS developers have a "general lock of concern for making useable software." If you want to be a snob, that's you're business. But don't disparage the people who are gracious enough to provide you will free and Free software, much of which comes from great personal effort.
If you think that the effort to learn how to use a tool is too great, you have several options:
1) Suggest to the author how it can be better. Free software authors always welcome useful feedback, and may use your suggestion(s). Pay the author for his time, and I'm sure you'll get a great response. If you're just in it because you don't want to pay for software, then stop whining.
2) Pay someone to make your changes. Free software gives you complete freedom to do this. If you're just in it because you don't want to pay for software, then stop whining.
3) Buy a commercial alternative that perfectly meets your requirement for a simple name. Does it work? Great! If you're just in it because you don't want to pay for software, then stop whining.
4) Learn to program and make the changes yourself. Not worth your time? Review the above options.
You brought to mind an odd scenerio that plays out like this (you're "Whiner" by the way):
Whiner: I'm sooo hungry. Somebody please feed me. I have such a craving for a little meat.
Good Samaritan: Here's some steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, and an extra bottle of cola. My neighbors and I have spent the last several years building a self-sufficient food-production system. We've had to work hard to find alternatives to common production methods and certain many common ingredients in order to avoid legal problems, so this isn't perfect, but it is very healthy and rather tasty. You're welcome to take all you can carry. We'll even show you how you can make your own self-sufficient food production system so you'll never go hungry again.
Whiner (punching good samaritan repeatedly): You bitch! I want a little meat, and I want it now! I didn't ask for side items, and I certainly don't want to know how to be self-sufficient! Just give me what I want, when I want it, and shut your trap!
I'm agonized to have to inform you that the usual anti-GPL FUD we've been foistering upon the world has once again been discredited. Epson corporation was found to have violated the GPL in the company's Linux based proprietary scanning application, and had merely to remove the offending code from the application. Unfortunately for us, no FSF lawsuit was filed to force Epson to give away its I.P. as we've been claiming for some time would happen in cases of GPL violations. Those damned hippies just politely asked Epson to correct the situation.
We should wake up the slugs...err...public relations department and have them think up new anti-GPL lies...err...messages.
******************
On a serious note, this is exactly how companies -should- act when found to be violating the GPL. Just admit that it happened, correct the violation, and everyone is happy. Nobody gets sued, the company gets a round of applause for playing nice, and life goes on. Congratulations Epson! You're a model of corporate integrity.
" Java is not even cold on the client, must less dead."
That's correct. In fact, I've been given the task of beginning to convert all of our old applications over to Java. This is going to be a huge endeavor (thanks to NetBeans, much less than originally anticipated), but it's going to be worth it. The closs-platform nature of Java made it an easy sell since the tech. department head has come to really hate Microsoft. Java's high ease-of-use makes this transition relatively painless. All of its other little (largely unnoticed until not available to the users) perks far outweigh its few problems (even the relatively sluggish GUI).
I agree with you on every count. I've tried writing simple games (with technical success, but no real success). The main reasons are as you stated: it takes a LONG time and a LOT of effort to write any decent game, and most artists and musicians will not touch the idea of contributing freely-distributable material to a free game. To that end, freely distributable games usually look rather poor and are limited in playability.
I thought that I would buy a console to fill my gaming needs. I went through a Game Cube and a PS2 (I won't buy the X-Box for ethical reasons), and I came to a conclusion: consoles suck compared to my Linux PC. I came to a second conclusion: I don't miss games as much as I thought I would when I left Windows. I bought 8 of the most recent console games (4 GC, 4 PS2). There were two games that didn't suck (by the way, Medal of Honor and Final Fantasy X suck badly): Batman Vengeance and the Wave Runner game on GC (WaveRacer: Bluestorm IIRC).
I normally hate racing games, but the GC game avoided all the pitfalls of regular racing games. The game made the Wave Runners feel like they were really zipping through the water. In most racing games (Nascar for example), it feels like the vehicles are in idle. This kind of game is probably doable by the people who can make free 3D games. There was an old Windows game called Big Red Racing that succeeded similarly.
Batman Vengeance was a pleasant surprise. I hadn't expected it to be any more than a kid's game, but the gameplay was extremely well done. The cutscenes were short and sweet, and added directly to the game suspense. I also think that something similar to this (without trademarked characters) is within the reach of Linux game developers.
PLEASE disembowel anyone who makes another Tetris-alike or scrolling space shooter! It's better to have no games than one more of those.
Don't be discouraged by your lack of free high-quality graphics and music. Originality, simplicity, and playability are what are most important.
Actually, it's not infighting in any way, shape, or form. This article is from eWeek, not from any Linux site. eWeek is a balanced site. It keeps an even mix of brain-damaged and not-brain-damaged stories. This story falls into the former category, so be on the lookout for its counterbalance.
As I almost did while I was laughing really hard at this statement:
"Windows 2000 Advanced Server supports load balancing clusters of up to 32."
As opposed to the load balancing cluster of 10,000 (yes, ten thousand) Linux machines that Google uses.
Re:An even better solution...
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DRM Helmet
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· Score: 1
I don't think you've carried this out to its logical conclusion. The logical conclusion for the MPAA and RIAA to keep people from accessing content for which they haven't bought a license is to kill any humanoid or animal (I'm sure some animals like content too; we can't let them get enjoyment for free) that hasn't paid the **AA tax.
I supposed the **AA will call that "plugging the life-form hole."
This looks at first glance to be travelling down the same failed road as Professor Felton's attempt to get a court to issue a ruling saying that he was not violating the law by giving his SDMI speech.
The judge in that case refused to issue the order because Felton hadn't actually been sued. Since Craig et. al. haven't actually been sued, this case looks like it will suffer the same fate. In other words, you can't sue unless you have suffered actual monetary damages.
That's really strange to hear. My workplace is a mixed bag of Unix and Windows, with Windows controlling Internet access through a Microsoft proxy. I've been running Mozilla at work since 0.7 with no problems getting through the proxy.
Larry has jumped off the deep end
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Apocalypse 5 Released
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Larry is mistaken if he thinks this is going to be in any way benefitial. All this does is change the syntax and add yet another layer of difficulty to what is already a mess.
1) This isn't any easier to read. I've been programming since 1985 and went through more programming languages and idioms than I can recall, and regex is the only system I have attempted to learn and met with complete failure. If regex is to be redesigned (and despite my inability to learn it, I don't think it should be broken), at least make it comprehensible.
2) This creates a giant rift in regex, with multiple, mutually incompatible versions across operating environments. What works on system A may not work on system B. Some vendors may choose to implement these extentions, and some may not. This is a disaster. Though regex may not have been completely compatible across systems up to now (and to be honest, I have no idea how compatible the various regex implementations are), adding yet another dialect can be nothing but bad.
This will reduce the number of standards by four, and will (if done right) produce distributions that adhere to a single standard (LSB). This will have several benefits:
1) Greatly reduce dependency hell since all these distributions will be guaranteed to have a predefined set of libraries.
2) Greatly reduce the storage space consumed by hosting RPMs. Instead of needing storage space for four separate complete sets of RPMs, only one set of RPMs need to be hosted. These will be guaranteed to work on all four distributions.
3) Greatly reduce the effort needed to support multiple sets of RPMs. Now there will be four different companies that will be supporting the exact same binary code base. For those entities paying for support contracts, the support pool and support options will be quadrupled.
There are undoubtedly many more benefits to a standards compliant body of distributions.
I live in a rural area where DSL and cable aren't available (therefore not viable), and I researched both StarBand and DirecPC. Starband was my first choice because of the two way system (DirecPC was only one-way at the time). However, StarBand required a one year contract whereas DirecPC required no contract.
DirecPC has been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I went from 2.4K per second on my dialup modem to an average of 80K per second on the download (the upload still requires a dialup modem, and we have peaked at 125K per second on very large downloads).
Via home networking, I was able to replace two separate ISP subscriptions (at $21.95 each) into one subscription ($50). We got a local ISP subscription for the uplink ($14.95) because DirecPC doesn't have a local dialup for our area. Our third user had to have his own dialup account anyway, so we didn't incur extra cost for this; it was already a fixed cost.
So in essence, we spend an extra $6 for broadband opposed to what we were spending on dialup. This part was a no brainer for our household. The equipment was $200, and the installation fee was waived (DirecPC was running a special).
On the downside, we do sometimes lose our satellite signal during severe weather or during extremely thick (think flash-flood-level torrents) rain. We unplug everything during severe weather anyway, so that's not an issue, and we've only lost the signal once in two months. Not too shabby.
By far the worst part of this is that DirecPC requires a Windows computer to connect to the satellite (read below for the exception). This is because of the proprietary USB signal used by the satellite modem. Since we have only one Windows user in the house, his Win98 computer acts as the server. And it does so very poorly. I typically have to resume a 5-6 megabyte download 30-40 times before getting it all, and some web pages fail to download completely on the first attempt. I have narrowed the problem down to Win98's ability to forward packets in a network.
There is a (slight) silver lining to this, and is the exception to requiring Windows. Helius.com provides a Red Hat 7.0 driver for $200 (one time expense), so I'm building a Red Hat server to replace the absolutely awful Windows server. Helius offers a free trial download for the driver so I can test it out before plunking down the money.
Aside from those two drawbacks, DirecPC has been well worth the money as opposed to complete dialup.
"You can imagine a call to Windows tech support from someone using Windows that has had the Start button removed."
You know, you have a point there. I think that in order to protect everyone from having to ever think again, we should take this to its natural conclusion. Since very few people know what a soffet is, I propose that the world forcefully aggregates all building materials and building technologies to a single company (how about Black & Decker, since that's a well-known company).
I further propose that any attempt to produce any non-B&D tools, machinery, or compatible technologies be punishable by multimillion dollar fines since any new construction will obviously be infringing on B&D's intellectual property. After all, it's well known that building materials and techniques were all invented by Black & Decker.
Any improvements to existing technology must also be banned because it might hurt Black & Decker's profits and the resulting tools may confuse non-builders who believe that complex projects should build themselves.
Also, Black & Decker should be allowed to automatically seek out and destroy competing tools in order to ease the confusion of the end user. After all, swinging a hammer with a blue grip is much different from swinging a hammer with a red grip. Such disparity in the end user's experience is harmful to the industry. Imagine what would happen if the end-user bought a toolbox with a big Black & Decker logo on the side, but found a non-Black & Decker hammer inside. Oh the horror.
Yep, these things come and go in cycles. Remember back in the 80s when home computer disk drives and other peripherals were mostly black? People cheered when beige (and other cream colors) accessories started appearing because black looked antique.
"Unisys sounds like it has little to lose since it's been sitting on its corporate butt so long that even the oldest of us have forgotten what they've recently done in the computing world."
Unisys' last "contribution" to the computing world was to put the brakes on progress by patenting LZW and extorting money out of developers.
Both Konqueror and Nautilus are separate from the underlying operating system and can be removed, replaced, or just not used. Neither is tied to the kernel, and neither is fundamentally integrated into the operating system core. Both are merely applications, not an integrated part of the kernel.
Microsoft has intertwined the browser code with the operating system code inside the very core of Windows. The Windows core code jumps directly into the browser code to perform operating system tasks. Even if you disable Internet Explorer and choose to use another browser, Internet Explorer is still handling fundamental Windows functions behind the scenes. You have no choice in the matter. You are using Internet Explorer to carry out core operating system functions, and the primary reason MS did this was to crush all other web browsers (particularly Netscape).
"But moving to Intel hardware meant getting third-party applications moved to new computers and finding a new operating system to run them on. Microsoft's NT was offered as one option, but Feeney says most members had already tried and rejected that path."
I love this part of the article. I get the image in my head of studio execs shaking NT off their hands in the same way a person reflexively shakes his hand violently when he discovers he just laid it in a pile of animal dung.
If someone smashes my car with a brick and threatens to do the same to me and my neighbors unless the neighborhood/local government/federal government meets some demands is terrorism.
If somebody smashes my car window and runs, that's vandalism. If somebody erases my hard drive, that's vandalism. If somebody erases millions of hard drives with a virus and threatens to send more viruses unless some government capitulates, that's extortion. If somebody sends a Windows virus that has the capability of blowing up your monitor, and threatens to detonate it unless the Government capitulates to demands, that is terrorism.
Your dictionary definition is a bit misleading to good sense. Calling someone a terrorist because he writes some stupid Windows virus that erases millions of hard drives is absurd. He is a vandal, to be sure. But a terrorist? That's really absurd, even if he does it to affect government policy.
"I would say that some viruses ARE terrorism. What about the big ol' DDoS we had a year or so ago? It was a smallish group targetting a list of victims for political means. Sounds like terrorism to me."
For an act to represent terrorism, it must have one identifying quality: people must be severely and physically injured (or killed).
Mere property damage or economic loss is not terrorism, it is vandalism. To place computer crimes under the label of terrorism is bone-headedly stupid to the extreme. DDoS attacks don't kill people (unless you DDoS essential life support systems, in which case the facility housing it should be shut down because it's being run with major incompetence).
There's a good reason we in Missouri considered Ashcroft to be an idiot.
Your analogy is a flawed mix of perspectives. The tax that you pay for police protection is a payment that guarantees your right to use the police for your protection. Your analogy to a crime tax would be valid if every citizen had to pay extra money to compensate the government for lost revenue due to rampant usage of government facilities without paying for them. Oh wait...we -do- use government facilities without having to pay for them. We can even cross state lines and make use of other states' facilities without paying for them. Hmmm....come to think of it, we -do- pay taxes for use of government facilities. And oddly enough, we -don't- get arrested for using those facilities that taxes have paid for.
The tax that gets paid to RIAA to compensate it for revenue it's not getting for copies is a tax that should guarantee your right to copy. You're paying the RIAA for copies you're making (even if you're not making any copies), so you should be able to make a copy.
According to longstanding copyright law, you should not distribute your copies to the public at large (though the Home Recording Act allows you and your friends to do so amongst yourselves).
Since the RIAA negotiated and agree to the AHRA in exchange for receiving tax revenue as compensation, it should not have any right to sue for unauthorized copies. Furthermore, if the RIAA begins to distribute music that cannot be copied, the copying tax should be revoked.
I have often heard claims that there is higher quality music than is found in the RIAA. To date, every such claim has been based on the quality of the music from a technical perspective. All such music I've sampled may have been of higher merit artistically, but the actual appeal of the music has been very low.
From a musically pure perspective, modern popular music (and I include times from the 50s through the 00s) may have been bad music, but it appealed to basic musical instincts of the population at large and to social issues (real or perceived). In short, it may have been bad music, but it was very appealing bad music.
Alternative musicians that want to capture a large audience are going to have to swallow their pride about producing "better" music, and instead produce pop music. Most importantly, alternative musicians are going to need to market themselves. Pop music is not popular because it is good (though some of it -is- good). Pop music is popular because of the massive marketing engine that is RIAA.
As we've learned in the world of software, quality is irrelevent in the face of superior marketing. The same is true with music. You can be the most talented musician who ever lived, but you will live you entire life as an unknown unless you have a good marketing plan.
If the developer of a GPL project loses interest, the project does not disappear. The whole project remains, sitting ready for the next developer (or group of developers) that finds it interesting or decides that a lot of work can be saved by modifying what the original author did rather than rewriting the whole thing from scratch. On the other side of the source, a closed source developer that loses interest in a project, doesn't want to support it anymore, or goes out of business really does cause the project to be lost forever. That is one of the many reasons I turned to Open Source: I got tired of having the rug pulled out from under my favorite apps.
Releasing work that is entirely your own (or to which you own the full right to copy and distribute) has no effect whatsoever on your right to sell closed versions of the same. If it's your software, you can do whatever you want with it. You don't have to follow your own license if you don't want to. You don't need your own formal permission to copy/use/distribute your own work. Licenses spell out how other people can and can't use your work. You can release a GPL version, a BSD version, and a hundred other versions if you want. And you can sell a closed version. Or you can just sell a closed version and not open it at all. It seems that most people who complain about the GPL do so because they want to profit on another person's work while shutting out everyone else (including the original author!)
You can even arrange to sell closed versions of other people's Open Source work if you can negotiate terms. This is exactly as it works in the closed source world. The only difference is that in the Open Source world if some author won't let you close his source for your project, you haven't lost anything. You can either release your derivitive openly (assuming the other author's license requires that) and incorporate the other author's work, or you can reproduce the needed functionality (even using the original source to figure out how it's done). In the closed source world, if the copyright holder refuses to let you use his source, you still have to rewrite the functionality from scratch. And you don't have as much reference material. I certainly consider the Open Source scenerio to be much preferable.
If money is your motivation for writing software, then there is nothing in this world that requires you to GPL your work. If you can get people to buy your software, then sell it. Nothing is stopping you from doing so.
What are my reasons for writing Open Source software?
1) I have benefited enormously from the open works of others. I have learned a great deal about software design and was able to view the works of others when I was unable to reproduce those works. In short, the programming education I have received from viewing and tearing apart the works of others has been more beneficial than all my formal schoolwork put together. It's been priceless. Knowing that this system can only work if people contribute back to the pool, and having gotten much more out of it than I could ever hope to match, it is my way of saying thanks to everyone who has helped me.
2) My own software would take MUCH longer to write if I didn't leverage the work of others (in many cases, my software would never work if it hadn't been for the open work of others). It just makes sense. And since I chose to use their software, I chose to abide by their license. Contributing my derivitive work back to the public is required, but it is such a small price to pay that I don't ever consider it a burden.
3) I get to use your software, and you get to use my software. And neither of us has to worry about the BSA. It's a sweet deal.
4) Having been burned by almost every piece commecial software I have ever owned....err....licensed, and knowing that I will not be at the mercy of any Open Source organization, I actively spurn closed software in favor of Open Source both on principle and out of fear of closed source companies. Open Source gives me complete peace of mind. Money just can't buy that. I want to help provide that same peace of mind to users of my software.
5) The spirit of cooperation among Open Source developers is addictive. The vast majority of them are accessible and like to talk about how they implemented their solutions. It's a mutual learning environment.
I've used the outline mode in both Word and Word Perfect (since 6.1). To me, the outline function in Word Perfect is much more intuitive and functional than than in Word.
Slashdot Mirror
GNOME (notice it's an acronym): GNU Network Object Model Environment. It's a good name that describes its purpose; to be a complete network based computing environment. The reason it doesn't seem to conform to a name for a GUI is because GNOME is intended to be much more than merely a GUI.
I haven't followed Evolution, but I suspect it's a reference to the next advancement of email systems. Just as Evolution, the natural process, tends to weed out the weakest species, this program is probably intended to make all other email systems obsolete (Natural Selection at work).
Apache: This web server began life as a series of patches to the NCSA web server, thereby earning the reputation as "a patchy" server. Apache is a clever evolution (pun intended) of the term.
Free software developers have historically had a knack for clever names which a lot of people don't research enough to understand. But that doesn't stop them from bitching, obviously.
I fail to see how clever naming which escapes your grasp (even assuming that the names were bad) has any relevance to the fanciful notion that OSS developers have a "general lock of concern for making useable software." If you want to be a snob, that's you're business. But don't disparage the people who are gracious enough to provide you will free and Free software, much of which comes from great personal effort.
If you think that the effort to learn how to use a tool is too great, you have several options:
1) Suggest to the author how it can be better. Free software authors always welcome useful feedback, and may use your suggestion(s). Pay the author for his time, and I'm sure you'll get a great response. If you're just in it because you don't want to pay for software, then stop whining.
2) Pay someone to make your changes. Free software gives you complete freedom to do this. If you're just in it because you don't want to pay for software, then stop whining.
3) Buy a commercial alternative that perfectly meets your requirement for a simple name. Does it work? Great! If you're just in it because you don't want to pay for software, then stop whining.
4) Learn to program and make the changes yourself. Not worth your time? Review the above options.
You brought to mind an odd scenerio that plays out like this (you're "Whiner" by the way):
Whiner: I'm sooo hungry. Somebody please feed me. I have such a craving for a little meat.
Good Samaritan: Here's some steak, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, and an extra bottle of cola. My neighbors and I have spent the last several years building a self-sufficient food-production system. We've had to work hard to find alternatives to common production methods and certain many common ingredients in order to avoid legal problems, so this isn't perfect, but it is very healthy and rather tasty. You're welcome to take all you can carry. We'll even show you how you can make your own self-sufficient food production system so you'll never go hungry again.
Whiner (punching good samaritan repeatedly): You bitch! I want a little meat, and I want it now! I didn't ask for side items, and I certainly don't want to know how to be self-sufficient! Just give me what I want, when I want it, and shut your trap!
From: S.B.
To: B.G.
Subject: New FUD Needed
I'm agonized to have to inform you that the usual anti-GPL FUD we've been foistering upon the world has once again been discredited. Epson corporation was found to have violated the GPL in the company's Linux based proprietary scanning application, and had merely to remove the offending code from the application. Unfortunately for us, no FSF lawsuit was filed to force Epson to give away its I.P. as we've been claiming for some time would happen in cases of GPL violations. Those damned hippies just politely asked Epson to correct the situation.
We should wake up the slugs...err...public relations department and have them think up new anti-GPL lies...err...messages.
******************
On a serious note, this is exactly how companies -should- act when found to be violating the GPL. Just admit that it happened, correct the violation, and everyone is happy. Nobody gets sued, the company gets a round of applause for playing nice, and life goes on. Congratulations Epson! You're a model of corporate integrity.
" Java is not even cold on the client, must less dead."
That's correct. In fact, I've been given the task of beginning to convert all of our old applications over to Java. This is going to be a huge endeavor (thanks to NetBeans, much less than originally anticipated), but it's going to be worth it. The closs-platform nature of Java made it an easy sell since the tech. department head has come to really hate Microsoft. Java's high ease-of-use makes this transition relatively painless. All of its other little (largely unnoticed until not available to the users) perks far outweigh its few problems (even the relatively sluggish GUI).
I agree with you on every count. I've tried writing simple games (with technical success, but no real success). The main reasons are as you stated: it takes a LONG time and a LOT of effort to write any decent game, and most artists and musicians will not touch the idea of contributing freely-distributable material to a free game. To that end, freely distributable games usually look rather poor and are limited in playability.
I thought that I would buy a console to fill my gaming needs. I went through a Game Cube and a PS2 (I won't buy the X-Box for ethical reasons), and I came to a conclusion: consoles suck compared to my Linux PC. I came to a second conclusion: I don't miss games as much as I thought I would when I left Windows. I bought 8 of the most recent console games (4 GC, 4 PS2). There were two games that didn't suck (by the way, Medal of Honor and Final Fantasy X suck badly): Batman Vengeance and the Wave Runner game on GC (WaveRacer: Bluestorm IIRC).
I normally hate racing games, but the GC game avoided all the pitfalls of regular racing games. The game made the Wave Runners feel like they were really zipping through the water. In most racing games (Nascar for example), it feels like the vehicles are in idle. This kind of game is probably doable by the people who can make free 3D games. There was an old Windows game called Big Red Racing that succeeded similarly.
Batman Vengeance was a pleasant surprise. I hadn't expected it to be any more than a kid's game, but the gameplay was extremely well done. The cutscenes were short and sweet, and added directly to the game suspense. I also think that something similar to this (without trademarked characters) is within the reach of Linux game developers.
PLEASE disembowel anyone who makes another Tetris-alike or scrolling space shooter! It's better to have no games than one more of those.
Don't be discouraged by your lack of free high-quality graphics and music. Originality, simplicity, and playability are what are most important.
Actually, it's not infighting in any way, shape, or form. This article is from eWeek, not from any Linux site. eWeek is a balanced site. It keeps an even mix of brain-damaged and not-brain-damaged stories. This story falls into the former category, so be on the lookout for its counterbalance.
As I almost did while I was laughing really hard at this statement:
"Windows 2000 Advanced Server supports load balancing clusters of up to 32."
As opposed to the load balancing cluster of 10,000 (yes, ten thousand) Linux machines that Google uses.
I don't think you've carried this out to its logical conclusion. The logical conclusion for the MPAA and RIAA to keep people from accessing content for which they haven't bought a license is to kill any humanoid or animal (I'm sure some animals like content too; we can't let them get enjoyment for free) that hasn't paid the **AA tax.
I supposed the **AA will call that "plugging the life-form hole."
This looks at first glance to be travelling down the same failed road as Professor Felton's attempt to get a court to issue a ruling saying that he was not violating the law by giving his SDMI speech.
The judge in that case refused to issue the order because Felton hadn't actually been sued. Since Craig et. al. haven't actually been sued, this case looks like it will suffer the same fate. In other words, you can't sue unless you have suffered actual monetary damages.
That's really strange to hear. My workplace is a mixed bag of Unix and Windows, with Windows controlling Internet access through a Microsoft proxy. I've been running Mozilla at work since 0.7 with no problems getting through the proxy.
Larry is mistaken if he thinks this is going to be in any way benefitial. All this does is change the syntax and add yet another layer of difficulty to what is already a mess.
1) This isn't any easier to read. I've been programming since 1985 and went through more programming languages and idioms than I can recall, and regex is the only system I have attempted to learn and met with complete failure. If regex is to be redesigned (and despite my inability to learn it, I don't think it should be broken), at least make it comprehensible.
2) This creates a giant rift in regex, with multiple, mutually incompatible versions across operating environments. What works on system A may not work on system B. Some vendors may choose to implement these extentions, and some may not. This is a disaster. Though regex may not have been completely compatible across systems up to now (and to be honest, I have no idea how compatible the various regex implementations are), adding yet another dialect can be nothing but bad.
This will reduce the number of standards by four, and will (if done right) produce distributions that adhere to a single standard (LSB). This will have several benefits:
1) Greatly reduce dependency hell since all these distributions will be guaranteed to have a predefined set of libraries.
2) Greatly reduce the storage space consumed by hosting RPMs. Instead of needing storage space for four separate complete sets of RPMs, only one set of RPMs need to be hosted. These will be guaranteed to work on all four distributions.
3) Greatly reduce the effort needed to support multiple sets of RPMs. Now there will be four different companies that will be supporting the exact same binary code base. For those entities paying for support contracts, the support pool and support options will be quadrupled.
There are undoubtedly many more benefits to a standards compliant body of distributions.
I live in a rural area where DSL and cable aren't available (therefore not viable), and I researched both StarBand and DirecPC. Starband was my first choice because of the two way system (DirecPC was only one-way at the time). However, StarBand required a one year contract whereas DirecPC required no contract.
DirecPC has been a mixed blessing. On the one hand, I went from 2.4K per second on my dialup modem to an average of 80K per second on the download (the upload still requires a dialup modem, and we have peaked at 125K per second on very large downloads).
Via home networking, I was able to replace two separate ISP subscriptions (at $21.95 each) into one subscription ($50). We got a local ISP subscription for the uplink ($14.95) because DirecPC doesn't have a local dialup for our area. Our third user had to have his own dialup account anyway, so we didn't incur extra cost for this; it was already a fixed cost.
So in essence, we spend an extra $6 for broadband opposed to what we were spending on dialup. This part was a no brainer for our household. The equipment was $200, and the installation fee was waived (DirecPC was running a special).
On the downside, we do sometimes lose our satellite signal during severe weather or during extremely thick (think flash-flood-level torrents) rain. We unplug everything during severe weather anyway, so that's not an issue, and we've only lost the signal once in two months. Not too shabby.
By far the worst part of this is that DirecPC requires a Windows computer to connect to the satellite (read below for the exception). This is because of the proprietary USB signal used by the satellite modem. Since we have only one Windows user in the house, his Win98 computer acts as the server. And it does so very poorly. I typically have to resume a 5-6 megabyte download 30-40 times before getting it all, and some web pages fail to download completely on the first attempt. I have narrowed the problem down to Win98's ability to forward packets in a network.
There is a (slight) silver lining to this, and is the exception to requiring Windows. Helius.com provides a Red Hat 7.0 driver for $200 (one time expense), so I'm building a Red Hat server to replace the absolutely awful Windows server. Helius offers a free trial download for the driver so I can test it out before plunking down the money.
Aside from those two drawbacks, DirecPC has been well worth the money as opposed to complete dialup.
"You can imagine a call to Windows tech support from someone using Windows that has had the Start button removed."
You know, you have a point there. I think that in order to protect everyone from having to ever think again, we should take this to its natural conclusion. Since very few people know what a soffet is, I propose that the world forcefully aggregates all building materials and building technologies to a single company (how about Black & Decker, since that's a well-known company).
I further propose that any attempt to produce any non-B&D tools, machinery, or compatible technologies be punishable by multimillion dollar fines since any new construction will obviously be infringing on B&D's intellectual property. After all, it's well known that building materials and techniques were all invented by Black & Decker.
Any improvements to existing technology must also be banned because it might hurt Black & Decker's profits and the resulting tools may confuse non-builders who believe that complex projects should build themselves.
Also, Black & Decker should be allowed to automatically seek out and destroy competing tools in order to ease the confusion of the end user. After all, swinging a hammer with a blue grip is much different from swinging a hammer with a red grip. Such disparity in the end user's experience is harmful to the industry. Imagine what would happen if the end-user bought a toolbox with a big Black & Decker logo on the side, but found a non-Black & Decker hammer inside. Oh the horror.
Yep, these things come and go in cycles. Remember back in the 80s when home computer disk drives and other peripherals were mostly black? People cheered when beige (and other cream colors) accessories started appearing because black looked antique.
Here we go again.
> besides, jp2 is faster to type than jpeg2.
:)
We can compromise on jpg2 then.
"Unisys sounds like it has little to lose since it's been sitting on its corporate butt so long that even the oldest of us have forgotten what they've recently done in the computing world."
Unisys' last "contribution" to the computing world was to put the brakes on progress by patenting LZW and extorting money out of developers.
I'm sure we've all learned humorous little estimation tricks, and here's mine:
:)
1) Estimate how long it will take.
2) Double it.
3) Use the next highest measure of time.
Here's an example: You estimate that it will take about 5 hours to make a program change.
1) Estimate is 5 hours.
2) Double it to 10 hours.
3) The next highest unit of measurement is days.
The end result is that it will take 10 days to finish the job. I've always liked this one.
P.S.
Yes, I know it's nowhere near accurate. But it's still fun.
Both Konqueror and Nautilus are separate from the underlying operating system and can be removed, replaced, or just not used. Neither is tied to the kernel, and neither is fundamentally integrated into the operating system core. Both are merely applications, not an integrated part of the kernel.
Microsoft has intertwined the browser code with the operating system code inside the very core of Windows. The Windows core code jumps directly into the browser code to perform operating system tasks. Even if you disable Internet Explorer and choose to use another browser, Internet Explorer is still handling fundamental Windows functions behind the scenes. You have no choice in the matter. You are using Internet Explorer to carry out core operating system functions, and the primary reason MS did this was to crush all other web browsers (particularly Netscape).
"But moving to Intel hardware meant getting third-party applications moved to new computers and finding a new operating system to run them on. Microsoft's NT was offered as one option, but Feeney says most members had already tried and rejected that path."
I love this part of the article. I get the image in my head of studio execs shaking NT off their hands in the same way a person reflexively shakes his hand violently when he discovers he just laid it in a pile of animal dung.
[dictionary definition omitted]
If someone smashes my car with a brick and threatens to do the same to me and my neighbors unless the neighborhood/local government/federal government meets some demands is terrorism.
If somebody smashes my car window and runs, that's vandalism. If somebody erases my hard drive, that's vandalism. If somebody erases millions of hard drives with a virus and threatens to send more viruses unless some government capitulates, that's extortion. If somebody sends a Windows virus that has the capability of blowing up your monitor, and threatens to detonate it unless the Government capitulates to demands, that is terrorism.
Your dictionary definition is a bit misleading to good sense. Calling someone a terrorist because he writes some stupid Windows virus that erases millions of hard drives is absurd. He is a vandal, to be sure. But a terrorist? That's really absurd, even if he does it to affect government policy.
"I would say that some viruses ARE terrorism. What about the big ol' DDoS we had a year or so ago? It was a smallish group targetting a list of victims for political means. Sounds like terrorism to me."
For an act to represent terrorism, it must have one identifying quality: people must be severely and physically injured (or killed).
Mere property damage or economic loss is not terrorism, it is vandalism. To place computer crimes under the label of terrorism is bone-headedly stupid to the extreme. DDoS attacks don't kill people (unless you DDoS essential life support systems, in which case the facility housing it should be shut down because it's being run with major incompetence).
There's a good reason we in Missouri considered Ashcroft to be an idiot.
Your analogy is a flawed mix of perspectives. The tax that you pay for police protection is a payment that guarantees your right to use the police for your protection. Your analogy to a crime tax would be valid if every citizen had to pay extra money to compensate the government for lost revenue due to rampant usage of government facilities without paying for them. Oh wait...we -do- use government facilities without having to pay for them. We can even cross state lines and make use of other states' facilities without paying for them. Hmmm....come to think of it, we -do- pay taxes for use of government facilities. And oddly enough, we -don't- get arrested for using those facilities that taxes have paid for.
The tax that gets paid to RIAA to compensate it for revenue it's not getting for copies is a tax that should guarantee your right to copy. You're paying the RIAA for copies you're making (even if you're not making any copies), so you should be able to make a copy.
According to longstanding copyright law, you should not distribute your copies to the public at large (though the Home Recording Act allows you and your friends to do so amongst yourselves).
Since the RIAA negotiated and agree to the AHRA in exchange for receiving tax revenue as compensation, it should not have any right to sue for unauthorized copies. Furthermore, if the RIAA begins to distribute music that cannot be copied, the copying tax should be revoked.
I have often heard claims that there is higher quality music than is found in the RIAA. To date, every such claim has been based on the quality of the music from a technical perspective. All such music I've sampled may have been of higher merit artistically, but the actual appeal of the music has been very low.
From a musically pure perspective, modern popular music (and I include times from the 50s through the 00s) may have been bad music, but it appealed to basic musical instincts of the population at large and to social issues (real or perceived). In short, it may have been bad music, but it was very appealing bad music.
Alternative musicians that want to capture a large audience are going to have to swallow their pride about producing "better" music, and instead produce pop music. Most importantly, alternative musicians are going to need to market themselves. Pop music is not popular because it is good (though some of it -is- good). Pop music is popular because of the massive marketing engine that is RIAA.
As we've learned in the world of software, quality is irrelevent in the face of superior marketing. The same is true with music. You can be the most talented musician who ever lived, but you will live you entire life as an unknown unless you have a good marketing plan.
If the developer of a GPL project loses interest, the project does not disappear. The whole project remains, sitting ready for the next developer (or group of developers) that finds it interesting or decides that a lot of work can be saved by modifying what the original author did rather than rewriting the whole thing from scratch. On the other side of the source, a closed source developer that loses interest in a project, doesn't want to support it anymore, or goes out of business really does cause the project to be lost forever. That is one of the many reasons I turned to Open Source: I got tired of having the rug pulled out from under my favorite apps.
Releasing work that is entirely your own (or to which you own the full right to copy and distribute) has no effect whatsoever on your right to sell closed versions of the same. If it's your software, you can do whatever you want with it. You don't have to follow your own license if you don't want to. You don't need your own formal permission to copy/use/distribute your own work. Licenses spell out how other people can and can't use your work. You can release a GPL version, a BSD version, and a hundred other versions if you want. And you can sell a closed version. Or you can just sell a closed version and not open it at all. It seems that most people who complain about the GPL do so because they want to profit on another person's work while shutting out everyone else (including the original author!)
You can even arrange to sell closed versions of other people's Open Source work if you can negotiate terms. This is exactly as it works in the closed source world. The only difference is that in the Open Source world if some author won't let you close his source for your project, you haven't lost anything. You can either release your derivitive openly (assuming the other author's license requires that) and incorporate the other author's work, or you can reproduce the needed functionality (even using the original source to figure out how it's done). In the closed source world, if the copyright holder refuses to let you use his source, you still have to rewrite the functionality from scratch. And you don't have as much reference material. I certainly consider the Open Source scenerio to be much preferable.
If money is your motivation for writing software, then there is nothing in this world that requires you to GPL your work. If you can get people to buy your software, then sell it. Nothing is stopping you from doing so.
What are my reasons for writing Open Source software?
1) I have benefited enormously from the open works of others. I have learned a great deal about software design and was able to view the works of others when I was unable to reproduce those works. In short, the programming education I have received from viewing and tearing apart the works of others has been more beneficial than all my formal schoolwork put together. It's been priceless. Knowing that this system can only work if people contribute back to the pool, and having gotten much more out of it than I could ever hope to match, it is my way of saying thanks to everyone who has helped me.
2) My own software would take MUCH longer to write if I didn't leverage the work of others (in many cases, my software would never work if it hadn't been for the open work of others). It just makes sense. And since I chose to use their software, I chose to abide by their license. Contributing my derivitive work back to the public is required, but it is such a small price to pay that I don't ever consider it a burden.
3) I get to use your software, and you get to use my software. And neither of us has to worry about the BSA. It's a sweet deal.
4) Having been burned by almost every piece commecial software I have ever owned....err....licensed, and knowing that I will not be at the mercy of any Open Source organization, I actively spurn closed software in favor of Open Source both on principle and out of fear of closed source companies. Open Source gives me complete peace of mind. Money just can't buy that. I want to help provide that same peace of mind to users of my software.
5) The spirit of cooperation among Open Source developers is addictive. The vast majority of them are accessible and like to talk about how they implemented their solutions. It's a mutual learning environment.
I'm sure I left some out.
I've used the outline mode in both Word and Word Perfect (since 6.1). To me, the outline function in Word Perfect is much more intuitive and functional than than in Word.