With yet another mistake, does anyone still trust closed-source electronic voting?
Open source, closed source, it does not matter. Open source is not a cure for solid software development practices, and open source is not a synonym for solid software development practices. Likewise "closed-source" does not equate to poor practices.
One of the strengths of open source is the price. Free software probably means more people are using it than would otherwise, so the software is being tested more, and the pool of people available to fix bugs is also larger. This works for software that is generally useful, but consider voting software. Who is going to install the full voting suite (voting software is much more than a voting terminal) and then hold mock elections in their home? Granted, the importance of such software may bring out more people willing to try the software but you are still relying on people to do this in their leisure time.
The "many eyes" argument is merely a shotgun approach to quality control. What is needed is strong leadership implemeting a plan which includes rigorous and ongoing testing. Open source does not guarantee this any more than closed source guarantees its absence.
The software was released before it was ready. That's obvious. It seems to me that a closed source shop would be theoretically better positioned to meet an immutable deadline (such as an election date). At least when you own your employees you can mandate overtime and crack the whip harder. When the software is open source you cannot enter "crunch mode" and make the scattered developers put in long hours.
The fault was not in the development model but in the failure of the project leadership.
Only a few years late. Maybe Mozilla.org/Opera should patent the technology to make it hard for Bill 'embrace and extend' Gates to kill those XCam ads....
Late? I believe pop up ads are still around. Why not be glad that surfing the web will be better for many people instead of throwing out some suggestion to block the implementation? Childish...
I visit There from time to time (as BlackCloud). I want to make a few remarks:
The landscape is much more interesting and varied than he makes it out to be (once you've had your fill of two-tone landscapes). See below for a link to take your own tour.
Who would want to socialize with someone so lacking in personality as starting avatars seem to be?? On one had he equates personality with the initial garb, on the other he complains about the consumer aspect of the game.
My original character sported, aside from a perfectly trapezoidal head, a red mohawk that cost most of my starting money. After that I only had enough money for some cheap black pants. Needless to say, I wouldn't make many friends in There. Notice he said "wouldn't", not "didn't". One of the most popular people I know in There dresses badly, has a freakish head with a wild white afro and sports a pot belly. Why is he popular? He's funny and a great conversationalist. No one is ignored in There because of how they look.
uessing muscular chest skins and leather-esque pants are hot commodities in There... among 40-50 year old truck drivers, anyway. This isn't any different than an 22 year old guy pretending to be a female elf from the safety of his parents' basement.
There Inc. is charging people to create content, and charging other people to use that content. Yes, and it makes sense for a couple of reasons. All uploaded content is reviewed before being allowed into the game to keep out obscene or copyrighted material. I suspect the fee (besides paying for the review) also keeps inflation in check. If creating content was free, and you could sell said content at whatever price, soon there would be a glut of money. Content would be a way to manufacture money. There's economy was designed by real economists, by the way.
Once you pay the cover charge required by many of There's events Many, but not most.
however don't even think about joining a group that already has more than eight people in it... nobody could communicate with that many people at once! How is this a problem with the game?
Many emotes cause your character to do some action, or an icon to spring from various parts of their body. They've introduced dance moves recently too:) The emotes are suprisingly effective at making the game more immersive.
Well, since the other plan doesn't come with an activation fee, I'm going to guess it's just a clever way of saying they're "activating" their need for more money. The other plan doesn't come with a monthly stipend either. The exchange rate is $1 = T$1787, so each month you get $4.95 worth of T$. The monthly charge is also $4.95, so you get the game for the price of the activation fee. That's not a bad deal since money is useful (though not necessary) in There. Every virtual world needs some form of exchange.
This is evidenced by the sheer amount of benches and loveseats scattered around the land I found them a more convenient place to chat 1 on 1. Standing is fine too but sitting prevents interruptions...one you have 2 people in a conversation no one else can join.
There, Inc. is capitalizing on our society's tendency to believe that being attractive I wish I could find the link to the article I read here on Slashdot about Everquest. It gave some stats the showed players overwhelmingly favored the more attractive races (like elves) compared to the uglier ones (such as gnomes). And in There you can be as good looking or ugly as you want to be. If you spend a little time in There you'll see it's personality that makes one popular, and generosity (you can loan anything you have, from clothes to vehicles, and recall those items whenever you want).
Unlike most North Americans, most Europeans where in the middle of the cold war
The cold war was about ICBMs and long range bombers. The whole world was in the middle of the cold war. You're naive if you think it was about Europe.
Go, get a passport and travel a bit.
Been there, done that. Traveled through Europe by train, including Berlin...back when there were 2 of them. Spent time in Saudi Arabia too, Taif and Jeddah specifically. Thanks for asking.
But in reality the US supplied just as much, if not more, materials to Iraq than the Europeans did
Do you have a source to back up this statement?
you honestly think the US went in there out of the good of their heart?
Yes, and for national security. Do you doubt that Iraq backed terrorists? Heck, it used to pay money to the families of suicide bombers.
Actually the Computer was invented in Germany, too bad, so was TV btw, but heck, who really cares right?
Ah, but we made the computer useful and ubiquitous. You can keep the television:)
but hey, it's all about stereotypes here, isn't it? No real arguments, so use stereotypes.
But hey, at least I provided links to back up my statements. But hey, pay attention as there were no stereotypes in my post. It's a fact that France and Germany have more vacation time and shorter work weeks. Your statement that US workers are less productive is an opinion...possibly a stereotype? But hey, that's ok, this is slashdot. No need for facts.
Most Europeans (except the British) have first hand experience of war and real lack of freedom.
That's not true. Most europeans have no concept of war. Most of those that have experienced the privations of war are dead (except in those countries that can't resist a good civil war).
Countries like the US and Britain think it is a good idea to invade a defenceless country and even worse, try to make out that those that do not want to kill defenceless people are cowards
Oh please, get off your high horse. France didn't get involved because it was still owed a lot of money from arms sales in the 1980's and illegal sales in the 1990's.(the war referred to in the following quote is the Iran/Iraq war)
In 1987 the Paris-based Le Monde estimated that, between 1981 and 1985, the value of French arms transfers to Iraq was US$5.1 billion, which represented 40 percent of total French arms exports. Paris, however, was forced to reschedule payment on most of its loans to Iraq because of Iraq's hard-pressed wartime economy and did so willingly because of its longer range strategic interests...French military sales to Iraq were important for at least two reasons. First, they represented high-performance items. Iraq received attack helicopters, missiles, military vehicles, and artillery pieces from France. Iraq also bought more than 400 Exocet AM39 air-to-surface missiles and at least 200 AS30 laserguided missiles between 1983 and 1986. Second, unlike most other suppliers, France adopted an independent and unambiguous arms sales policy towards Iraq. France did not tie French arms commitments to Baghdad's politico-military actions...(source)
More recently, France helped move missile material from China: "The French connection - brokering the deal among the Chinese producer, the Syrian land transporter and the Iraqi buyer - is no great secret to the world's arms merchants. French intelligence has long been aware of it. The need for a French export license as well as UN sanctions approval may have been averted by disguising it as a direct offshore sale from China to Syria." (source)
France didn't get involved because it was owed money and knew once the deals were exposed wouldn't receive a franc.
That is why countries like France and Germany do not want to go to war for oil.
Really? So by implication the US and GB went to war for oil. Can you support this? I'm not aware of any "oil dividend" either nation has received...no spoils of war. You shouldn't spout rhetoric unless you can support it.
The real reason france and germany didn't go to war is because going to war would interfere with vacation time.
Germany has the shortest work week of any industrialized nation in the world. Depending upon the source, the average German work week ranges between 35 and 38.5 hours. In addition, Germany has a number of national holidays, which decrease the calendar work year that already includes between four and six weeks vacation. (source)
Of course, the french have that 35 hour work week with a similar amount of vacation time. See, that's why all the useful things like the Internet and computer you are using and the airplane you take on vacation were invented in the US.
From the article, "Bluetooth works over a range of about 10 metres..."
I hardly think spam is going to be a problem. It's not economically feasible for generic spam (no economy of scale) and I think localized messages (for example, a restaurant sending you a message saying "eat here") would annoy rather than entice, thus costing the offender business. The blujackq.com faq says
On most models the phone will bleep the same tone as when a text message is received, and it will show a message similar to "name of contact has just been received by Bluetooth". If the user then accepts it, the contact will appear in their phonebook. From here the user can see what is written in the other fields too.
The potential to drive away customers by angering them is enormous. Of course, this could be used to good advantage by a competitor...
GMT games has "Project 500" (P500) where they take preorders for games in development/planning and begin preparations for printing after 500 orders have been made (no money is charged at preorder time). This page explains how the system works in detail. It's been very beneficial to the company, providing stability and allowing for planned growth.
You make no sense. If you can't afford the equipment, how will the programmers' work help you? It sounds as if all they needed was perserverence and intelligence, not any specialized hardware besides the target platform.
From one of the articles: I have come to realize about the Linux community, where there is a will there is usually a Linux programmer working on the way
That is so cool. It's just like the Windows community, where at sites like download.com or jumbo.com there is free, shareware, and commercial software for everything.
BG is taking the 'pass the buck' approach to security.
Did you read the interview? He's not...he's just stating the truth. No code is perfect, and it is possible to avoid security problems, therefore, perfect code is not required to avoid security problems. You know, even flawless code can be rendered insecure by users (poor password choices, e.g.)
least pretend that their intent is to make their products as secure as possible?
You should read the interview. Gates states, "There are things we're doing that are making code closer to perfect, in terms of tools and security audits..." and goes on to cite rough statistics.
The employee is free to leave for any reason at any time with any amount of notice. The employer is free to terminate the employee for any (legal) reason at any time with any amount of notice.
That is the whole story. There is nothing sinister here. The company exercised its mutually agreed upon rights. This is no different than if the employee decided to quit for a new job, to go back to school, or because he didn't like the flavor of the doughnuts in the snack room. This story is about rights, but every party acted within their rights and no one's rights were infringed upon. You may not like the company's decision but that doesn't make it a violation.
In other words...nothing to see here. Move along please.
Coming from an AC, that means a lot. You clearly have strength of conviction behind your words to post anonymously.
But I digress. What you fail to understand is that to the people who make decisions about Linux in the workplace there is no difference. They will hear about this little issue and be concerned. They won't think, "Oh, that's just Mandrake, we're running RH so no problem."
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, not really.
With yet another mistake, does anyone still trust closed-source electronic voting?
Open source, closed source, it does not matter. Open source is not a cure for solid software development practices, and open source is not a synonym for solid software development practices. Likewise "closed-source" does not equate to poor practices.
One of the strengths of open source is the price. Free software probably means more people are using it than would otherwise, so the software is being tested more, and the pool of people available to fix bugs is also larger. This works for software that is generally useful, but consider voting software. Who is going to install the full voting suite (voting software is much more than a voting terminal) and then hold mock elections in their home? Granted, the importance of such software may bring out more people willing to try the software but you are still relying on people to do this in their leisure time.
The "many eyes" argument is merely a shotgun approach to quality control. What is needed is strong leadership implemeting a plan which includes rigorous and ongoing testing. Open source does not guarantee this any more than closed source guarantees its absence.
The software was released before it was ready. That's obvious. It seems to me that a closed source shop would be theoretically better positioned to meet an immutable deadline (such as an election date). At least when you own your employees you can mandate overtime and crack the whip harder. When the software is open source you cannot enter "crunch mode" and make the scattered developers put in long hours.
The fault was not in the development model but in the failure of the project leadership.
God bless you for posting this truth. Let us all drink the Kool-Aid of open sourcedness.
Let's see. IE is not on Linux. Galeon is not on Windows. You're a real genius now, aren't you?
Only a few years late. Maybe Mozilla.org/Opera should patent the technology to make it hard for Bill 'embrace and extend' Gates to kill those XCam ads....
Late? I believe pop up ads are still around. Why not be glad that surfing the web will be better for many people instead of throwing out some suggestion to block the implementation? Childish...
I visit There from time to time (as BlackCloud). I want to make a few remarks:
The landscape is much more interesting and varied than he makes it out to be (once you've had your fill of two-tone landscapes). See below for a link to take your own tour.
Who would want to socialize with someone so lacking in personality as starting avatars seem to be?? On one had he equates personality with the initial garb, on the other he complains about the consumer aspect of the game.
My original character sported, aside from a perfectly trapezoidal head, a red mohawk that cost most of my starting money. After that I only had enough money for some cheap black pants. Needless to say, I wouldn't make many friends in There. Notice he said "wouldn't", not "didn't". One of the most popular people I know in There dresses badly, has a freakish head with a wild white afro and sports a pot belly. Why is he popular? He's funny and a great conversationalist. No one is ignored in There because of how they look.
uessing muscular chest skins and leather-esque pants are hot commodities in There... among 40-50 year old truck drivers, anyway. This isn't any different than an 22 year old guy pretending to be a female elf from the safety of his parents' basement.
There Inc. is charging people to create content, and charging other people to use that content. Yes, and it makes sense for a couple of reasons. All uploaded content is reviewed before being allowed into the game to keep out obscene or copyrighted material. I suspect the fee (besides paying for the review) also keeps inflation in check. If creating content was free, and you could sell said content at whatever price, soon there would be a glut of money. Content would be a way to manufacture money. There's economy was designed by real economists, by the way.
Once you pay the cover charge required by many of There's events Many, but not most.
however don't even think about joining a group that already has more than eight people in it... nobody could communicate with that many people at once! How is this a problem with the game?
Many emotes cause your character to do some action, or an icon to spring from various parts of their body. They've introduced dance moves recently too :) The emotes are suprisingly effective at making the game more immersive.
Well, since the other plan doesn't come with an activation fee, I'm going to guess it's just a clever way of saying they're "activating" their need for more money. The other plan doesn't come with a monthly stipend either. The exchange rate is $1 = T$1787, so each month you get $4.95 worth of T$. The monthly charge is also $4.95, so you get the game for the price of the activation fee. That's not a bad deal since money is useful (though not necessary) in There. Every virtual world needs some form of exchange.
This is evidenced by the sheer amount of benches and loveseats scattered around the land I found them a more convenient place to chat 1 on 1. Standing is fine too but sitting prevents interruptions...one you have 2 people in a conversation no one else can join.
There, Inc. is capitalizing on our society's tendency to believe that being attractive I wish I could find the link to the article I read here on Slashdot about Everquest. It gave some stats the showed players overwhelmingly favored the more attractive races (like elves) compared to the uglier ones (such as gnomes). And in There you can be as good looking or ugly as you want to be. If you spend a little time in There you'll see it's personality that makes one popular, and generosity (you can loan anything you have, from clothes to vehicles, and recall those items whenever you want).
Take a look around there yourself at this site
It looks like There is also going to do some open source work
It is a little bit different if you live with the Abstract notion of someone dropping "The Bomb(TM)" on you
:)
There is nothing abstract about seeing B-52s flying overhead after taking off from the SAC base 2 miles away. Can you say "ground zero"?
Can we take the Airbag and Seatbelt back as well? Both were developed by Mercedes-Benz
Maybe M-B invented the airbag, maybe not. But it took an American to make it better.
I am at work right now
Aha! And you said europeans are more productive because they don't hang about the water cooler. When in Rome?
Cheers!
Unlike most North Americans, most Europeans where in the middle of the cold war
:)
The cold war was about ICBMs and long range bombers. The whole world was in the middle of the cold war. You're naive if you think it was about Europe.
Go, get a passport and travel a bit.
Been there, done that. Traveled through Europe by train, including Berlin...back when there were 2 of them. Spent time in Saudi Arabia too, Taif and Jeddah specifically. Thanks for asking.
But in reality the US supplied just as much, if not more, materials to Iraq than the Europeans did
Do you have a source to back up this statement?
you honestly think the US went in there out of the good of their heart?
Yes, and for national security. Do you doubt that Iraq backed terrorists? Heck, it used to pay money to the families of suicide bombers.
Actually the Computer was invented in Germany, too bad, so was TV btw, but heck, who really cares right?
Ah, but we made the computer useful and ubiquitous. You can keep the television
but hey, it's all about stereotypes here, isn't it? No real arguments, so use stereotypes.
But hey, at least I provided links to back up my statements. But hey, pay attention as there were no stereotypes in my post. It's a fact that France and Germany have more vacation time and shorter work weeks. Your statement that US workers are less productive is an opinion...possibly a stereotype? But hey, that's ok, this is slashdot. No need for facts.
Most Europeans (except the British) have first hand experience of war and real lack of freedom.
That's not true. Most europeans have no concept of war. Most of those that have experienced the privations of war are dead (except in those countries that can't resist a good civil war).
Countries like the US and Britain think it is a good idea to invade a defenceless country and even worse, try to make out that those that do not want to kill defenceless people are cowards
Oh please, get off your high horse. France didn't get involved because it was still owed a lot of money from arms sales in the 1980's and illegal sales in the 1990's.(the war referred to in the following quote is the Iran/Iraq war)
In 1987 the Paris-based Le Monde estimated that, between 1981 and 1985, the value of French arms transfers to Iraq was US$5.1 billion, which represented 40 percent of total French arms exports. Paris, however, was forced to reschedule payment on most of its loans to Iraq because of Iraq's hard-pressed wartime economy and did so willingly because of its longer range strategic interests...French military sales to Iraq were important for at least two reasons. First, they represented high-performance items. Iraq received attack helicopters, missiles, military vehicles, and artillery pieces from France. Iraq also bought more than 400 Exocet AM39 air-to-surface missiles and at least 200 AS30 laserguided missiles between 1983 and 1986. Second, unlike most other suppliers, France adopted an independent and unambiguous arms sales policy towards Iraq. France did not tie French arms commitments to Baghdad's politico-military actions...(source)
More recently, France helped move missile material from China: "The French connection - brokering the deal among the Chinese producer, the Syrian land transporter and the Iraqi buyer - is no great secret to the world's arms merchants. French intelligence has long been aware of it. The need for a French export license as well as UN sanctions approval may have been averted by disguising it as a direct offshore sale from China to Syria." (source)
France didn't get involved because it was owed money and knew once the deals were exposed wouldn't receive a franc.
That is why countries like France and Germany do not want to go to war for oil.
Really? So by implication the US and GB went to war for oil. Can you support this? I'm not aware of any "oil dividend" either nation has received...no spoils of war. You shouldn't spout rhetoric unless you can support it.
The real reason france and germany didn't go to war is because going to war would interfere with vacation time.
Germany has the shortest work week of any industrialized nation in the world. Depending upon the source, the average German work week ranges between 35 and 38.5 hours. In addition, Germany has a number of national holidays, which decrease the calendar work year that already includes between four and six weeks vacation. (source)
Of course, the french have that 35 hour work week with a similar amount of vacation time. See, that's why all the useful things like the Internet and computer you are using and the airplane you take on vacation were invented in the US.
From the article, "Bluetooth works over a range of about 10 metres..."
I hardly think spam is going to be a problem. It's not economically feasible for generic spam (no economy of scale) and I think localized messages (for example, a restaurant sending you a message saying "eat here") would annoy rather than entice, thus costing the offender business. The blujackq.com faq says
On most models the phone will bleep the same tone as when a text message is received, and it will show a message similar to "name of contact has just been received by Bluetooth". If the user then accepts it, the contact will appear in their phonebook. From here the user can see what is written in the other fields too.
The potential to drive away customers by angering them is enormous. Of course, this could be used to good advantage by a competitor...
do you honestly think that moderators are going to look at every poster's history before they mod? You're pretty dumb...
Since your post has been modded down, apparently I'm not that dumb.
Duh...I just noticed the guy's user name. zontroll...and all he does is post amazon.com referral links...hmmm.
Go away you referral spammer. Mods, be sure to look at poster's past comments...all he does is submit amazon referral links.
GMT games has "Project 500" (P500) where they take preorders for games in development/planning and begin preparations for printing after 500 orders have been made (no money is charged at preorder time). This page explains how the system works in detail. It's been very beneficial to the company, providing stability and allowing for planned growth.
You make no sense. If you can't afford the equipment, how will the programmers' work help you? It sounds as if all they needed was perserverence and intelligence, not any specialized hardware besides the target platform.
From one of the articles: I have come to realize about the Linux community, where there is a will there is usually a Linux programmer working on the way
That is so cool. It's just like the Windows community, where at sites like download.com or jumbo.com there is free, shareware, and commercial software for everything.
No, it's a female contraceptive. Just hold one between your knees...
BG is taking the 'pass the buck' approach to security.
Did you read the interview? He's not...he's just stating the truth. No code is perfect, and it is possible to avoid security problems, therefore, perfect code is not required to avoid security problems. You know, even flawless code can be rendered insecure by users (poor password choices, e.g.)
least pretend that their intent is to make their products as secure as possible?
You should read the interview. Gates states, "There are things we're doing that are making code closer to perfect, in terms of tools and security audits..." and goes on to cite rough statistics.
Oh man, how did I get that one wrong...doh! I'm going to have to blame this one on the cold medicine I'm taking...
The page title is 'Mr. Softee Courting Google' despite the article heading.
That's because "Mister Softee" is the nickname for Microsoft among stock traders (from the symbol MSFT).
I'm sure this is Melinda Gates' least favorite nickname for Bill...
Plus there are no penguins in Antarctica...
Funny...to me it sounds like an allergy medicine. Claria...clears your head and reports back to us what you've been sniffing.
The employee is free to leave for any reason at any time with any amount of notice. The employer is free to terminate the employee for any (legal) reason at any time with any amount of notice.
That is the whole story. There is nothing sinister here. The company exercised its mutually agreed upon rights. This is no different than if the employee decided to quit for a new job, to go back to school, or because he didn't like the flavor of the doughnuts in the snack room. This story is about rights, but every party acted within their rights and no one's rights were infringed upon. You may not like the company's decision but that doesn't make it a violation.
In other words...nothing to see here. Move along please.
Oh give me a home
where the buffalo roam
and the deer and the antelope play...
Hmmm...maybe I can play "Deer Hunter" on my Antelope PC.
I heard that just installing Mandrake linux causes 32 of the 64 bits to fall off...pass it on...
You can't be very bright...
Coming from an AC, that means a lot. You clearly have strength of conviction behind your words to post anonymously.
But I digress. What you fail to understand is that to the people who make decisions about Linux in the workplace there is no difference. They will hear about this little issue and be concerned. They won't think, "Oh, that's just Mandrake, we're running RH so no problem."