ssh sessions survive a linux network reset, unless you've some seriously funky network hardware.
Coo. I've seen ssh session cope with me restarting local network connections, but I didn't think they'd survive cycling the remote sshd process. I suppose it might depend on what runlevels you have sshd running in.
Same difference... you've still shutdown all your network services which to the users means you've had downtime. It's a reboot in all but name.
mmm... I can see that in a few specific cases, like if you have a lot of users who log on over ssh. Less so for webservers and remote filesystems where you bounce the runlevels fast enough, the interruption will probably never be noticed.
Of course, the context where the Curse Of A Thousand Reboots really bites is for the home computer. I mean, I only have one user on this machine. Rarely I'll have two, never any more than that. So if I cycle runlevels, no-one is going to be put out bar me - and I'm the one doing it.
In General, I find that the people inconvienced by a compulsory reboot are not networked users.
Of course, even if you have remote users, your downtime is going to be a lot less if you don't have to go through POST, bios initialisation, device scanning and all the rest of it. And of course you only have to do it once, becaue you're controlling the process, so you don't get fifteen reboots in a row because windows brute forces everything.
So, I think "all but name" is overstating the case. By rather a lot, actually.
Could be right - IANAL and all that. Certainly, if Sony can persuade the judge that they acted in good faith that might work as a defence.
I reckon it'd be a hard sell though.
Otherwise I can't understand how the hell could they sell something like this.
That's an interesting question. My first thought was that Sony had grown arrogant enough to no longer care about negative publicity. But I can't make myself believe that - no corporation that thinks like that is going long remain in business.
On the other hand, if the Sony execs have come to believe that all their listeners are downloading illegally, then they quite possibly see there as being no downside - no honest punters left to alienate. If all their customers are thieves, they'd be fools not to install locks on the doors and windows, right?
It's sad to think that the bunker mindset has set in so thoroughly, but I find it much easier to swallow that scenario than I do either sony-as-victim or sony-uncaring-of-PR.
I wonder if the most receptive audience for RIAA propaganda might not be the executives of their member record labels. What seems to us like shallow and self interested distortions might ring horribly true to a record exec.
It's certainly explain the *AA tactics - inflating the threat posed by filesharers
in order to build themselves a political powerbase at the expense of their member organisations. All they have to do is keep their paymasters scared so they'll continue
to sign bigger and bigger cheques.
Quite. I wasn't at all convinced that I'd read the message the way the
author had intended. I didn't want to make any rash accusations
because I felt it likely I was misunderstanding the point.
That's why I began my reply with "That sounds like..." rather than,
(to pick an example at random), "Eh? WTF are you talking about?"
I'm not. I'm replying to a post joking that some enginering positions would soon be open at Sony. My reply is pendantic: No they won't, because Sony didn't do the enginering.
Ah, I see. I didn't pick up on that at all. I thought it was a bit of an odd arguement to make:)
Remember: Sony didn't write the rootkit. They bought it from someone else.
That sounds like you're letting Sony off the hook, but I don't think it works like that. I mean, suppose I were to sell you a poisoned soda and that as a result you nearly die. Would it matter if I bought the poison from someone else?
Not to mention trying to conceal its presence and lying about its function.
I think Sony stand to take a hiding over this one.
Until Nielsen or some other group begins collecting reliable and independent stats on viewership of video downloads, you won't see any advertisers that are willing to pay big money for ads on downloaded video.
Does Neilsen still work on polls plus power consumption? 'Cause I foresee problems getting this off the gound...
Neilsen Suit: Pardon me sir, I wonder if you might tell me which of these shows you download
L337 D00D: Why, none all all. These shows are only available via unauthorised downloads. That would be against the law, exposing myself to the risk of lawsuits, and depriving the content generators of the revenue needed to create new quality programs.
Neilsen Suit: Thank you for your time
Then the L337 D00d goes back to see if the latest Battlestar torrent has finished downloading and the Neilsen Suit reports that no one is watching any downloaded TV.
I think there's money to be made here, but it's going to need a new business model.
Microsoft acts just like any corporate in America, and gets flamed on slashdot!
Well, quite. Anyone would think Slashdot had some sort of technological focus or something. Oh, wait...
Bill must be real cut up about it.
You got us. The only reason we do this is because we want to hurt Bill Gates' feelings. All that stuff about corporate ethics, abuse of monopoly and the relative merits of open vs closed development models? It's all a hollow sham. What we really wanted all along was to make the richest man in the world cry like a little girl.
And we'd have got away with it too, if it wasn't for you pesky kids!
Are we so zealous that we want to keep these pieces of hardware from working with Linux?
With respect, I think there's more than one question to be considered there:
Are we so zealous that we want to exclude binary only drivers from the kernel tree?
Is it reasonable to assume that manufacturers will continue to boycott the kernel unless we gant them access on their terms?
Is it reasonable to assume that in-kernel binary drivers will be superior to current solutions in the majority of cases?
If so, which do we value most, kernel integrity or manufacturer buy-in?
As I see it:
There are advantages to keeping the core kernel open. If we allow closed drivers we risk a tragedy-of -the-commons situation, where each binary submission has an incentive to exploit the architecutre to the maximum and little to respect the priorities of others. Furthermore, with binary modules, it will be difficult to identify the culprits in cases of abuse. Personally, keeping the kernel open would seem more a matter of practicality than zealotry.
I believe the kernel developers can safely stick to their guns and insist on access, either on their terms or not at all. After all, the commercial world has come in supplication here. This means that they see value in having access, and that value will only increase with linux deployment. Linux got to it's current level of developement with hardware support that was limited to non-existent in the majority of cases. I expect we can continue to grow without granting concessions.
It's by no means clear that allowing binary only driver will improve matters. As many others on this list point out, poor drivers are the source of much of the Windows system's legendary instability. And while I feel that Bill, Steve and Company invoke this excuse perhaps a little more often than circumstances strictly warrant, I also think we'd be fools to court the same problems.
Kernel integrity for those reasons stated above.
And after all, this is a deal that will be easier to revisit in the future than it will be to revoke once granted. The pressure to allow binary submissions will continue for as long as Linux as a noticable commercial deploymen. The kernel devs can afford to wait and see here. I expect that's just what they'll do.
First of all, I haven't heard the tales of VCs going mad throwing cash at every tom dick and harry, just so long as they could pronounce "e-commerce". Bubbles only work if people invest in them.
Certainly we've seen some investment in open source companies, and a bit of lively trading to control some of the commercial distros. We're still a long way from the giddy days of dot com madness. How many paper open source millionaires ("on paper", don't forget the magic words) live in your neighbourhood? Anyone living next door to Mark Shuttleworth needn't bother answering.
If this was a bubble, I'd expect to see a slew of new distros, all being made to be bought, and being bought faster than people could make them. I'd expect to see some serious money being sunk into projects like MenuetOS, SkyOS and the like. I'd expect to see cash being sunk into moribund sourceforge projects just to get in on the ground floor.
Instead, what I'm mainly seeing is some fairly modest support from industry in those sectors where the sponsor has a well defined use for the software, I see Novell desperately trying to reinvent itself (and it may yet succeed) and a bit of consolidation going on among some of the commercial distros. That could turn into a feeding frenzy as people try to gain control of Linux - if it wasn't for the fact that for every distro bought out, a new one will likely pop up to replace it.
So, no, I don't think there is a bubble, let alone on due to burst. But you know, even it there was a bubble, and just supposing that it was to burst... so what? It's not like Microsoft are going to come along and buy up all the free software after the VCs lose their shirts. The software will remain free, people will continue to work on it, and people will continue to make money offering corporate support contracts.
If they really want Microsoft then they need to negotiate,
I never suggested the South Koreans had any need nor any desire to negotiate. It did seem to be the inference you wanted us to draw from your previous post. Assuming you weren't just raising the UK and the IRA in an attempt to derail the discussion of course.
If Korea switches to Linux they will have a heck of a lot of technologists ready to support Chinese companies when they switch over to their new OS
True enough. There's also the fact that licencing fees represent money down the drain for nations other than the US. There has to be a lot of political will to establish a self-sustaining userbase for some sort of free OS.
[O/T: About the sig: have you tried coLinux? DamnSmallLinux on a bootable usbkey? There's an email address on my web page, if you want to talk about it ]
It's not like somebody is in a position to decide all South Koreans will now switch to Linspire.
Very true. But that doesn't mean it isn't possible for MS to shoot themselves in the foot over this. They might even go so far as to adopt OpenDocument. That'd teach Microsoft:)
On the other hand, they could ban the sale of windows software and PCs with windows pre-installed until such time as they've had a chance to investigate this piracy business properly. They could give away free linux disks (probably NOT Linspire, I agree) to anyone who wanted them...
The interesting thing isn't so much the chance of Linspire getting its hands on 5 million. It's more that tjhe Linspire offer establishes a competitive market for this sort of licencing deal. It makes it harder for MS to insist on aritarily high fees or to use those fees as leverage to gain stategic concessions.
And if nothing else, the Linspire offer makes a pointed reminder that there are alternaitives to Microsoft. And bearing in mind the vigor of Linspire's past attempts to compete with Redmond, that may have been the idea all along...
Now, now. Don't mince your words, say what you mean:)
Personally, I always interpretted the "no negaotiation" business to mean non-negotiation in hostage and blackmail situations. Trying to address the complaints of your aggressors and find some common ground between opposing positions is always going to be a good idea.
But so long as you conceed the aptness of the terrorism analogy, does that mean that you think South Korea owes Redmond some concessions?
but I don't think South Korea, as a whole, is going to jump on this...
It's an interesting dilemma for the S. Korean Govt. Giving in to Microsoft would be like negotiating with terrorists - if you cave in to them, it sends the message that blackmail works, and they'll do it again.
Consequently, South Korea's might feel their best interests like in making the switch, trading the short term inconvenience of the migration against getting out from under the thumb of one of the planet's more rapacious corporations.
The one zealots in question makes a great deal of sense when he argues the benefits of free software.
The other one... well, he wrote the first two versions of the GPL, which has been moderately successful after all is said and done:)
C'mon. lighten up. It's not like there's a shortage of alternatives if Stallman implodes. But given that he's done a good job so far, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. The man has his blind spots, but he wrote the licence that enabled an enitre movement. Let's see what he has to say first.
He also says "There are Open Source zealots who believe that unless an application is part of a stack which includes 100% Open Source services and components, that it can not claim to be Open Source. [...] But does this "stack" argument actually make any sense?""
That is always going to be a value judgement, don't you think?
For instance, Stallman would say that proprietary software is inherently immoral, as is any act that helps perpetuate it. That would probably include writing free software for unfree platforms, but would still be better than writing unfree software for any platform
Darl McBride will tell you that Free Software
is immoral, since it impinges on his god given right to extort 695 bucks from everyone on the planet who ever installed Linux. This is giving McBride more credit than he deserves, but purely for the purposes of illustration.
Linus seems more interested in getting the software to work than in the theology of the project. The Torvalds school of thought probably doesn't care much except where there are strong technical issues.
The point is that none of these positions "make sense". None of them are rational. They are all (for those involved) core beliefs - the assumptions upon which logic and rational thought is founded.
A better question is "how useful are these beliefs?" or "Might there be more benefit to be gained from a less extreme stance?"
Turn on the task manager. Look to see that Word, etc. aren't installed. Check the start up time.
Well, aren't running anyway. Of course, that doesn't make a lot of difference on Windows, since MS apps.exe files tend to be tiny files, with most of the code living in numerous.dll files. These can be loaded at runtime, and I don't know how to check for this using the task manager.
Windows also has this, (possibly undeserved), reputation for grabbing the majority of the memory for use by MS apps at boot time and yeilding it but grudgingly to non-MS apps. In which case you wouldn't necessarily notice a difference in any event.
Admittedly, that last bit has the ring of urban legend to it, so I'm not convinced. Then again, MS have pulled similar tricks in the past, which is why I'm interested in a way to tell how much preloading may have gone on. Sadly, I'm no further forward on that point.
Notice that Word 2003 already supports XML. Then realize you've been lied to by the OO.o worshippers.
I don't mean to sound ungracious, but that's slightly more information than I asked for. Specifically, I had hoped for a way to check which.dll files were loaded at boot time, rather than guidance on how to change my belief patterns - thank you all the same.
And I do realise that Word 2003 already uses an XML file format. I also realise that said format is due to be withdraw in favour of the MSXML format in Office-12 because the Word 2003 one isn't up to the job. So there's no particular reason to stick with that version of Word.
Tell me, do you regard a half-truth told with intent to deceive as being any less offensive than an outright lie? You may want to re-evaluate the source of your data.
Slashdot Mirror
Coo. I've seen ssh session cope with me restarting local network connections, but I didn't think they'd survive cycling the remote sshd process. I suppose it might depend on what runlevels you have sshd running in.
Like you say, I'll have to try it and see...
mmm... I can see that in a few specific cases, like if you have a lot of users who log on over ssh. Less so for webservers and remote filesystems where you bounce the runlevels fast enough, the interruption will probably never be noticed.
Of course, the context where the Curse Of A Thousand Reboots really bites is for the home computer. I mean, I only have one user on this machine. Rarely I'll have two, never any more than that. So if I cycle runlevels, no-one is going to be put out bar me - and I'm the one doing it.
In General, I find that the people inconvienced by a compulsory reboot are not networked users.
Of course, even if you have remote users, your downtime is going to be a lot less if you don't have to go through POST, bios initialisation, device scanning and all the rest of it. And of course you only have to do it once, becaue you're controlling the process, so you don't get fifteen reboots in a row because windows brute forces everything.
So, I think "all but name" is overstating the case. By rather a lot, actually.
I reckon it'd be a hard sell though.
Otherwise I can't understand how the hell could they sell something like this.
That's an interesting question. My first thought was that Sony had grown arrogant enough to no longer care about negative publicity. But I can't make myself believe that - no corporation that thinks like that is going long remain in business.
On the other hand, if the Sony execs have come to believe that all their listeners are downloading illegally, then they quite possibly see there as being no downside - no honest punters left to alienate. If all their customers are thieves, they'd be fools not to install locks on the doors and windows, right?
It's sad to think that the bunker mindset has set in so thoroughly, but I find it much easier to swallow that scenario than I do either sony-as-victim or sony-uncaring-of-PR.
I wonder if the most receptive audience for RIAA propaganda might not be the executives of their member record labels. What seems to us like shallow and self interested distortions might ring horribly true to a record exec.
It's certainly explain the *AA tactics - inflating the threat posed by filesharers in order to build themselves a political powerbase at the expense of their member organisations. All they have to do is keep their paymasters scared so they'll continue to sign bigger and bigger cheques.
You know? I think I believe it...
That's why I began my reply with "That sounds like..." rather than, (to pick an example at random), "Eh? WTF are you talking about?"
Ah, I see. I didn't pick up on that at all. I thought it was a bit of an odd arguement to make :)
That sounds like you're letting Sony off the hook, but I don't think it works like that. I mean, suppose I were to sell you a poisoned soda and that as a result you nearly die. Would it matter if I bought the poison from someone else?
Not to mention trying to conceal its presence and lying about its function.
I think Sony stand to take a hiding over this one.
Does Neilsen still work on polls plus power consumption? 'Cause I foresee problems getting this off the gound...
Neilsen Suit: Pardon me sir, I wonder if you might tell me which of these shows you download
L337 D00D: Why, none all all. These shows are only available via unauthorised downloads. That would be against the law, exposing myself to the risk of lawsuits, and depriving the content generators of the revenue needed to create new quality programs.
Neilsen Suit: Thank you for your time
Then the L337 D00d goes back to see if the latest Battlestar torrent has finished downloading and the Neilsen Suit reports that no one is watching any downloaded TV.
I think there's money to be made here, but it's going to need a new business model.
Well, quite. Anyone would think Slashdot had some sort of technological focus or something. Oh, wait...
Bill must be real cut up about it.
You got us. The only reason we do this is because we want to hurt Bill Gates' feelings. All that stuff about corporate ethics, abuse of monopoly and the relative merits of open vs closed development models? It's all a hollow sham. What we really wanted all along was to make the richest man in the world cry like a little girl.
And we'd have got away with it too, if it wasn't for you pesky kids!
With respect, I think there's more than one question to be considered there:
As I see it:
And after all, this is a deal that will be easier to revisit in the future than it will be to revoke once granted. The pressure to allow binary submissions will continue for as long as Linux as a noticable commercial deploymen. The kernel devs can afford to wait and see here. I expect that's just what they'll do.
FREE SPACE ELEVATOR WITH EVERY PURCHASE!!
I mean, how can it go wrong?
Certainly we've seen some investment in open source companies, and a bit of lively trading to control some of the commercial distros. We're still a long way from the giddy days of dot com madness. How many paper open source millionaires ("on paper", don't forget the magic words) live in your neighbourhood? Anyone living next door to Mark Shuttleworth needn't bother answering.
If this was a bubble, I'd expect to see a slew of new distros, all being made to be bought, and being bought faster than people could make them. I'd expect to see some serious money being sunk into projects like MenuetOS, SkyOS and the like. I'd expect to see cash being sunk into moribund sourceforge projects just to get in on the ground floor.
Instead, what I'm mainly seeing is some fairly modest support from industry in those sectors where the sponsor has a well defined use for the software, I see Novell desperately trying to reinvent itself (and it may yet succeed) and a bit of consolidation going on among some of the commercial distros. That could turn into a feeding frenzy as people try to gain control of Linux - if it wasn't for the fact that for every distro bought out, a new one will likely pop up to replace it.
So, no, I don't think there is a bubble, let alone on due to burst. But you know, even it there was a bubble, and just supposing that it was to burst... so what? It's not like Microsoft are going to come along and buy up all the free software after the VCs lose their shirts. The software will remain free, people will continue to work on it, and people will continue to make money offering corporate support contracts.
I just think that if Koreak decideds to play hardall, MS could lose out here. Big time.
I never suggested the South Koreans had any need nor any desire to negotiate. It did seem to be the inference you wanted us to draw from your previous post. Assuming you weren't just raising the UK and the IRA in an attempt to derail the discussion of course.
True enough. There's also the fact that licencing fees represent money down the drain for nations other than the US. There has to be a lot of political will to establish a self-sustaining userbase for some sort of free OS.
[O/T: About the sig: have you tried coLinux? DamnSmallLinux on a bootable usbkey? There's an email address on my web page, if you want to talk about it ]
Very true. But that doesn't mean it isn't possible for MS to shoot themselves in the foot over this. They might even go so far as to adopt OpenDocument. That'd teach Microsoft :)
On the other hand, they could ban the sale of windows software and PCs with windows pre-installed until such time as they've had a chance to investigate this piracy business properly. They could give away free linux disks (probably NOT Linspire, I agree) to anyone who wanted them...
The interesting thing isn't so much the chance of Linspire getting its hands on 5 million. It's more that tjhe Linspire offer establishes a competitive market for this sort of licencing deal. It makes it harder for MS to insist on aritarily high fees or to use those fees as leverage to gain stategic concessions.
And if nothing else, the Linspire offer makes a pointed reminder that there are alternaitives to Microsoft. And bearing in mind the vigor of Linspire's past attempts to compete with Redmond, that may have been the idea all along...
Now, now. Don't mince your words, say what you mean :)
Personally, I always interpretted the "no negaotiation" business to mean non-negotiation in hostage and blackmail situations. Trying to address the complaints of your aggressors and find some common ground between opposing positions is always going to be a good idea.
But so long as you conceed the aptness of the terrorism analogy, does that mean that you think South Korea owes Redmond some concessions?
Just because it's funny doesn't mean they're joking.
It's an interesting dilemma for the S. Korean Govt. Giving in to Microsoft would be like negotiating with terrorists - if you cave in to them, it sends the message that blackmail works, and they'll do it again.
Consequently, South Korea's might feel their best interests like in making the switch, trading the short term inconvenience of the migration against getting out from under the thumb of one of the planet's more rapacious corporations.
This could get very interesting :D
The other one... well, he wrote the first two versions of the GPL, which has been moderately successful after all is said and done :)
C'mon. lighten up. It's not like there's a shortage of alternatives if Stallman implodes. But given that he's done a good job so far, I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on this one. The man has his blind spots, but he wrote the licence that enabled an enitre movement. Let's see what he has to say first.
Umm, no... they'll be equally vulnerable as anyone else foolish or unfortunate to be infected with this particular piece of malware.
Honestly, why take a perfectly good and telling point and then weaken it with some unsupportable moralising sneer?
Unless of course you have inside information not mentioned in TFA, in which case, do please share.
Is the name not a reference to their policy on IP? They pull in ideas from all over, but none of them ever make it back over the threshold....
That is always going to be a value judgement, don't you think?
For instance, Stallman would say that proprietary software is inherently immoral, as is any act that helps perpetuate it. That would probably include writing free software for unfree platforms, but would still be better than writing unfree software for any platform
Darl McBride will tell you that Free Software is immoral, since it impinges on his god given right to extort 695 bucks from everyone on the planet who ever installed Linux. This is giving McBride more credit than he deserves, but purely for the purposes of illustration.
Linus seems more interested in getting the software to work than in the theology of the project. The Torvalds school of thought probably doesn't care much except where there are strong technical issues.
The point is that none of these positions "make sense". None of them are rational. They are all (for those involved) core beliefs - the assumptions upon which logic and rational thought is founded.
A better question is "how useful are these beliefs?" or "Might there be more benefit to be gained from a less extreme stance?"
Well, aren't running anyway. Of course, that doesn't make a lot of difference on Windows, since MS apps .exe files tend to be tiny files, with most of the code living in numerous .dll files. These can be loaded at runtime, and I don't know how to check for this using the task manager.
Windows also has this, (possibly undeserved), reputation for grabbing the majority of the memory for use by MS apps at boot time and yeilding it but grudgingly to non-MS apps. In which case you wouldn't necessarily notice a difference in any event.
Admittedly, that last bit has the ring of urban legend to it, so I'm not convinced. Then again, MS have pulled similar tricks in the past, which is why I'm interested in a way to tell how much preloading may have gone on. Sadly, I'm no further forward on that point.
Notice that Word 2003 already supports XML. Then realize you've been lied to by the OO.o worshippers.
I don't mean to sound ungracious, but that's slightly more information than I asked for. Specifically, I had hoped for a way to check which .dll files were loaded at boot time, rather than guidance on how to change my belief patterns - thank you all the same.
And I do realise that Word 2003 already uses an XML file format. I also realise that said format is due to be withdraw in favour of the MSXML format in Office-12 because the Word 2003 one isn't up to the job. So there's no particular reason to stick with that version of Word.
Tell me, do you regard a half-truth told with intent to deceive as being any less offensive than an outright lie? You may want to re-evaluate the source of your data.
Or even my ignorance. Then again, I've already betrayed my inability to spell check. How much worse can it get?