Don't you think that the way RMS defines Freedom is a bit over zealous.
I mean if I am a software company I definitely would be evil if I prohibit your from deciphering/reverse engineering the file format, but as a profit making company I think I'm not wrong if I prohibit you from making copies and distributing my software. After all that's how I make money - by selling the software.
I think the *real* issue with BitKeeper was that it did not allow you to access the Metadata using third party software (IIRC). Now - *that's* the real evil, locking up the user's data, NOT disallowing users from distributing the software for free.
Yeah, imagine if they did this for Windows. The software catalog would only be several hundred thousand entires long. And there'd be no legal issues with shipping an incomplete library, right? "You included RealPlayer but not Winamp! Sue! Sue! Sue!"
Of course, if Microsoft would be maintaining the repository only Windows Media Player would make it and Microsoft would make it freakin' difficult for RealPlayer to get in. But in the case of Gentoo, the maintainers have not problem in pulling in Xine, MPlayer, ZPlayer, what have you even if they left it out in one release!
It's not about being popular, it's about having the right kind of attitute!
'Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?'
What?? Cell phone in the US of A are not supposed to work in houses? Here in India they very much do!
What the hell is this guy talking about? Why can't the customers expect their cellphones to work everywhere? Infact, one of the cellular operators in India lost out on a major chunk of its market share because its cellphones didn't work (or worked sporadically) within houses - especially basements.
Had it been some security flaw in Windows, everyone would've been beating the shit out of M$ and Bill Gates all over Slashdot.
Now, isn't THAT an accident. People dont (usually) introduce bugs intentionally. But here on Slashdot that kind of stuff is blasted.
But here, 15,000 people died - because some son-of-a-bitch American firm wanted to have cheap investment and greater profit - and that's why they didn't install even minimum security measures.
It's homicide I'd say!
And look at the hypocrisy. If it's Saddam Hussain with his "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (whatever they were) - America burns down a whole country!
And when it's an American CEO with large pockets, he isn't even being extradited for a ghastly crime.
Sickening!
Nandz. PS: I'm an Indian, btw. I can expect a thread about offshore outsourcing and job-stealing now!
And please don't say use StarOffice/OpenOffice. I've been stuck with them for the past week or so. Everytime either of them starts my machine come down to a crawl! It's frustrating!
Besides that, they *still* dont have a proper Numbering/Bullets subsystem/module. Try doing anything even remotely complex with bullets and you'll end up with freaking results!
On a totally separate note, I was thinking yesterday about how much porn is out there already. Most categories are filled, but I wonder about what kind of porn still needs to be shot. What kind of porn would you like to see which is currenly not available?;-)
Many people had advised me against Gentoo on server machines due to the fact that it might be unstable. Everyone used to recommend Redhat for servers cuz it was supposed to be more stable.
I have a server running on Gentoo, and another one on Redhat. Both on machine with exactly the same config, running same stuff (LAMP). The one with Gentoo is waaaay faster than the one with Redhat.
Somehow I saw it coming... Some big MS conspiracy thing. Get someone everyone believes to say - "Switch to Firefox!"
And when Firefox starts getting all the media - SWOOSH! Here come the BIG Firefox bug. So you see other browsers AND open source programs are really buggy.
Welcome to MS software. Glad to have all your money.
That reminds me of one thing - the BPO companies have started preferring middle aged applicants over fresh graduates - due to the high attrition rate encountered due to the job-hopping nature of younger people.
Older folks are supposed to be more stabe in call centers, et al.
I kinda agree with him. When someone is trying to make money out of something - he is out to market the product. Not to tell people that you can give it away for free... that would be plain stupid.
If someone is aware of the GPL, and basically cares about licensing he/she will eventually come to know about it.
You dont have to go around every tom, dick and harry that your product is "free" and you dont need to necessarily buy it from us!
I agree with you. I am adminstering a DNS server for my univ and it so happened that even before I could get my hands on BIND I was introduced to TinyDNS by some holy soul. Installing and configuring it is a cakewalk.
Then someday I had to configure BIND. I went crazy. It's got so many unnecessary things that you need to look into....
That's really good. No more compatibilty issues to worry about and the open source folks can now actually concentrate on their product and not mimic MS office suites.
After they've blocked the compatibility two opposite forces will act:
1) People will stop migrating to Linux because all of their old data will become inaccessible. 2) The current Linux and Windows users, both, who need to exchange data - will start pressing for a common open file format.
Is this great new? How is this going to affect the end users. I guess it's because whenever someone mails me a.DOC file - I have to first open it in Openoffice. If it's a simple file - then I try opening it in KWord and save it to a PS file - so that I dont have to wait forever for it to open in Openoffice.
Just yesterday there was this story on Slashdot about a new version of OSSTMM (Open Source Security Testing Methodology Manual) being released. I noticed, only 6 replies to that.
And as soon as there is some story even vaguely hinting the words Windows, Linux and security - there are 100+ replies.
When will we stop comparing Linux with windows and start doing our own thing?
Slashdot Mirror
For 90% of the users out there, its features are more then enough..
Where the hell do these people keep coming up with such numbers?
"Over 48.7% of all statistics are useless"
Nandz.
I gotted modded down as "flamebait"?! I thought this was funny... someone mod me funny... puhlease!!!
Nandz.
There must be an army of uselss nerds out there!!
Nandz.
Microsoft sued over a patent concerning *its own* products! CLASSIC!
Nandz.
Don't you think that the way RMS defines Freedom is a bit over zealous.
I mean if I am a software company I definitely would be evil if I prohibit your from deciphering/reverse engineering the file format, but as a profit making company I think I'm not wrong if I prohibit you from making copies and distributing my software. After all that's how I make money - by selling the software.
I think the *real* issue with BitKeeper was that it did not allow you to access the Metadata using third party software (IIRC). Now - *that's* the real evil, locking up the user's data, NOT disallowing users from distributing the software for free.
Nandz.
Yeah, imagine if they did this for Windows. The software catalog would only be several hundred thousand entires long. And there'd be no legal issues with shipping an incomplete library, right? "You included RealPlayer but not Winamp! Sue! Sue! Sue!"
Of course, if Microsoft would be maintaining the repository only Windows Media Player would make it and Microsoft would make it freakin' difficult for RealPlayer to get in. But in the case of Gentoo, the maintainers have not problem in pulling in Xine, MPlayer, ZPlayer, what have you even if they left it out in one release!
It's not about being popular, it's about having the right kind of attitute!
Nandz.
'Why in the world would you think your (cell) phone would work in your house?'
What?? Cell phone in the US of A are not supposed to work in houses? Here in India they very much do!
What the hell is this guy talking about? Why can't the customers expect their cellphones to work everywhere? Infact, one of the cellular operators in India lost out on a major chunk of its market share because its cellphones didn't work (or worked sporadically) within houses - especially basements.
Nandz.
Does anyone find these comic strips funny? Or making ANY sense at all? No wonder people aren't coming to your website.
Nandz.
You've just done the smartest thing :-)
Nandz.
If it wasn't enough getting screwed due to its own vulnerabiliites IE can now get screwed due to other software's vulnerabilities as well!
Fucking great! IE's a screw magnet!
Nandz.
This line of arguing is so damn hypocrticial.
Had it been some security flaw in Windows, everyone would've been beating the shit out of M$ and Bill Gates all over Slashdot.
Now, isn't THAT an accident. People dont (usually) introduce bugs intentionally. But here on Slashdot that kind of stuff is blasted.
But here, 15,000 people died - because some son-of-a-bitch American firm wanted to have cheap investment and greater profit - and that's why they didn't install even minimum security measures.
It's homicide I'd say!
And look at the hypocrisy. If it's Saddam Hussain with his "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (whatever they were) - America burns down a whole country!
And when it's an American CEO with large pockets, he isn't even being extradited for a ghastly crime.
Sickening!
Nandz.
PS: I'm an Indian, btw. I can expect a thread about offshore outsourcing and job-stealing now!
isGnot?
I was wondering why you left it out?
Nandz.
And please don't say use StarOffice/OpenOffice. I've been stuck with them for the past week or so. Everytime either of them starts my machine come down to a crawl! It's frustrating!
;-)
Besides that, they *still* dont have a proper Numbering/Bullets subsystem/module. Try doing anything even remotely complex with bullets and you'll end up with freaking results!
On a totally separate note, I was thinking yesterday about how much porn is out there already. Most categories are filled, but I wonder about what kind of porn still needs to be shot. What kind of porn would you like to see which is currenly not available?
Nandz.
Took me while to understand....but har! har! har! once I finally did :-)
Many people had advised me against Gentoo on server machines due to the fact that it might be unstable. Everyone used to recommend Redhat for servers cuz it was supposed to be more stable.
I have a server running on Gentoo, and another one on Redhat. Both on machine with exactly the same config, running same stuff (LAMP). The one with Gentoo is waaaay faster than the one with Redhat.
Though neither of them crash!
Somehow I saw it coming... Some big MS conspiracy thing. Get someone everyone believes to say - "Switch to Firefox!"
And when Firefox starts getting all the media - SWOOSH! Here come the BIG Firefox bug. So you see other browsers AND open source programs are really buggy.
Welcome to MS software. Glad to have all your money.
Well, GMail might decide to scrap the "get invited" thing, and whaddya know the whole world might have a GMail account.
Yahoo! and Hotmail should improve their services rather than play these underhand tricks.
Nandz.
They want e-mails about donations to be sent at spender@grsecurity.com .... :-)
Nandz.
That reminds me of one thing - the BPO companies have started preferring middle aged applicants over fresh graduates - due to the high attrition rate encountered due to the job-hopping nature of younger people.
Older folks are supposed to be more stabe in call centers, et al.
Nandz.
My default threshold is +3.
And all I'm getting today is crap!
Nandz.
I kinda agree with him. When someone is trying to make money out of something - he is out to market the product. Not to tell people that you can give it away for free... that would be plain stupid.
If someone is aware of the GPL, and basically cares about licensing he/she will eventually come to know about it.
You dont have to go around every tom, dick and harry that your product is "free" and you dont need to necessarily buy it from us!
Nandz.
I agree with you. I am adminstering a DNS server for my univ and it so happened that even before I could get my hands on BIND I was introduced to TinyDNS by some holy soul. Installing and configuring it is a cakewalk.
Then someday I had to configure BIND. I went crazy. It's got so many unnecessary things that you need to look into....
TinyDNS rocks.
Nandz.
That's really good. No more compatibilty issues to worry about and the open source folks can now actually concentrate on their product and not mimic MS office suites.
:)
After they've blocked the compatibility two opposite forces will act:
1) People will stop migrating to Linux because all of their old data will become inaccessible.
2) The current Linux and Windows users, both, who need to exchange data - will start pressing for a common open file format.
Let's see which camp wins
Nandz.
Is this great new? How is this going to affect the end users. I guess it's because whenever someone mails me a .DOC file - I have to first open it in Openoffice. If it's a simple file - then I try opening it in KWord and save it to a PS file - so that I dont have to wait forever for it to open in Openoffice.
Gtg for my class - will continue this post later.
Nandz.
Just yesterday there was this story on Slashdot about a new version of OSSTMM (Open Source Security Testing Methodology Manual) being released. I noticed, only 6 replies to that.
And as soon as there is some story even vaguely hinting the words Windows, Linux and security - there are 100+ replies.
When will we stop comparing Linux with windows and start doing our own thing?
Nandz