"My associate recently installed a cable modem in her home and was shocked to find that 'Network Neighborhood' was, literally, her neighborhood! She could see the desktops of all her connected neighbors. This seems like an enormous oversight on the part of cable modem companies, or maybe they just don't care (more likely the latter.)"
Heh... yeah, what an oversight on the part of the cable modem companies, allowing customers to share their C drives with the world... Certainly not the customer's fault...
This is going to be a big deal. I imagine people will learn pretty quickly, though. They'll have to.:)
You should be able to run a Masq box, and they should never know about it. That would be a "server" pointing in to your LAN, not out to the cable company. Do it right, and they'll never know. And they shouldn't care about that in the first place....
I'm sure that depends on your provider, but I believe that RoadRunner prohibits servers. The policy is fairly vague, actually. I mean... if you fire up an IRC client, you're probably running an identd server, right?
I imagine that the "no server" rule is so that people won't set up warez/porn/mp3 servers on their cable accounts, but...
I'll take the upload/download limits on my ADSL over cable's "no server" rules any day! That way I pay for what I use, and there's not some schmuck clogging the lines since they have unmetered service.
I found this page detailing some votes on new servers for dal.net. Each proposed new server has information on the machine (including the OS), whether it was voted up or down, and why. Most Linux servers were rejected, with this sort of rationale:
I think khairan.dal.net should not be linked to DALnet because: 1. Dual admin.. especially the bs co-admin who just owns the machine 2. Single T1 3. Machine runs linux
but this one was accepted. However, the voters had several concerns:
"To summarize, my only real problem with this machine is that it is running Linux and our own experience has proved to us that Linux is not stable enough to handle a large client load, and we are not the only ones who have experienced this same problem."
"Although I would like to add that the fact they have and use Linux for the server worries me.;)"
They used to rock a little more.:/ When I signed up, everyone got a shell account. In the last few months, though, they raised my monthly price and yanked the shell account. In return I got a bunch of web space I don't need. That's what made me start looking elsewhere... hard to resist the pull of ADSL when it costs about the same.
Illuminati Online is my current ISP - for a brief history, check out http://www.io.com/io/history.html. Quite a history, too, what with the Secret Service raids and all that.
I've been with them for about 5 years, and they've been great, but I'm leaving soon for more bandwidth. But they're a good shop - runs on Linux & Apache, EFF supporters... I'll miss 'em.
This looks like it came from a template for a standard Beta Testing agreement. It's what I would expect from a large company like Corel, which is new to the Open Source game.
It's also in clear violation of the GPL, and one of the reasons that I'm not too excited about the Corel distribution.
Red Hat is beta testing, too - sign up for the mailing list, grab the beta from one of the mirrors, and offer some feedback to a company that gets it.
I expect that there will be a quick retraction and apology from Corel, but this sort of thing does not breed confidence.
Miguel (and whatever infinite energy source he runs on) have made HUGE contributions to free software, moving Gnome from a new idea to a significant desktop environment in an amazingly short time. I know that many people have contributed to Gnome, but Miguel is The Man.:)
The brand-spankin' new Austin-Bergstrom International Airport had this same problem. Pretty silly looking.
This seems to me like the perfect place for Open Source. Who knows how much each airport pays for this app? I bet it's a BUNDLE.
Charge 'em 70% of the going rate to write a GPL'd version, and write it for Linux. Phenomenal uptime, multi-headed monitors (soon) and suddenly travellers across the world start seeing Linux in airports. And some GPL programmers make some money.
And why not release something like this under the GPL? It's not like people choose their airports based on the features of the departure/arrival screens... no competetive advantage there.
Take your cameras to the airport. Let's start a whole gallery of these things.:-)
www.gzilla.com - it's a GPL'd browser. The current dynamically linked executable is about 500k. I need to check it out when I get home... has anyone else used it?
Is all this leading up to a new revenue stream for Slashdot? "Get your Official Cmmdr. Taco Meta-Kharma Decoder ring! Only $9.95!"
On more serious notes,
1) I think this is all looking really good, and 2) I don't want to see much more of it.
You can legislate forever, but you're never going to codify every possible violation. Try not to let the jerks force you into too many coding contortions, as you'll probably just wind up creating more loopholes, and make it more complicated for everyone. (Think IRS)
I'd get them both. In his GTK+ intro chapter, Havoc says
If you've already read the Gtk+ Tutorial from http://www.gtk.org/, or the book
Developing Linux Applications with Gtk+ and Gdk (also from New Riders), you may be able to skip or just skim this chapter. If you haven't used Gtk+ before, this chapter is going to be very fast; read with care.
I got the book from FatBrain last week, and I've been plowing through it. I'm new to Linux development, and I don't have a whole lot of programming experience outside of Linux, either. This book is not an easy read.:-) If you're new to programming, skip it for now. If you're new to GTK/Gnome, I'd at least read the online GTK and Gnome tutorials first, and maybe have the GTK book by Eric Harlow(?), also from New Riders, on hand to cover GTK in a bit more depth.
Don't get me wrong - it's a great book, chock full of good information. It's also the only book in print at this time which covers Gnome development, as far as I know. But if you're brand new to this whole business, it might be a tough read. I'm very glad to have it, though, because someday I'm gonna understand it all.:-)
My bad. That should have read "Would anyone be developing *free* software..." - which is what the "free beer who cares about free speech" people seem to want.
I'm concerned by all the comments on this story saying "Well, it's free, and that's good enough for me. Who cares if it's open source."
On a case-by-case basis, this works just fine. Take yer free stuff and be happy. But when you look at the big picture, it falls apart. I don't think I need to go into specifics on this - just think about this scenario:
Torvalds Software, Ltd. releases the Linux Kernel (c)(tm)(r)($) for free, but with restrictions on it's commercial use and redistribution. Xfree86 Partners, Inc. releases their version of the X-Windows system, but you can't make any modifications to it. Gnu Gurus, LLC has a whole nifty suite of Unix-compatible tools, and their down-rev versions are always available in binary form, for free download. These three things together are a good foundation for a "free" Unix system.
But - given that foundation, do you think Linux would be anywhere near where it is today? Would anyone be developing any software for this thing, closely held by some companies, under licenses which may someday change radically?
To me, accepting "Free Beer" software is akin to saying "That's enough - we can stop moving forward now" because if enough of the "foundations" of Linux become less-than free, I really believe that the whole thing will slowly fall apart in the future. I think that "free beer" software, much more so than traditional commercial software, contributes to this complacency.
Sometimes, if there's no alternative and I have a task I must accomplish, I'll use non-free software, but I try to avoid it for the reasons above.
For better or worse, Slashdot is has certainly changed a lot. Example? Check this old article: Alan Cox Joins RedHat.
Postings by none other than Alan himself, Bob Young, Jim Pick, Rasterman, and someone at Transmeta. And absolutely no mention of any bodily fluid.:/
Rob, I hate to see it, but I hope that your new code to deal with the trolls helps with the recent problems. I was saddened by the posts I saw yesterday. It's amazing how callous people can be. Sad little boys...
Ok, I know this is kinda lame, and I apologize ahead of time, but I cringe when I see this sort of thing. It makes Slashdot look a bit unprofessional... Somebody feel free to moderate this down to a one.:-)
But - You guys really need a grammar checker and/or a copy editor.
...to answer even more questions then the interview.
At the Apple Store, it's $6500 as part of a bundle:
$6,498.00 450MHz G4 1MB L2 128MB SDRAM 20GB Ultra ATA Zip drive DVD-ROM/DVD Video ATI RAGE 128 AGP 10/100BASE-T 56K internal modem Apple Cinema Display Accepting orders Oct 1
Is this sort of like "Buy this monitor and get a free G4?":-)
I like the "Red Hat Linux Free Edition" idea - people used to shareware (sorry) will grasp that they're missing something if it's "free" - this time, though, instead of functionality, it's support.
I've always wondered why RH ISOs weren't more prevalent on the 'net - I always assumed that RH didn't want to make it *too* simple to burn a RH cd? And I couldn't blame them for that.:-)
I didn't see prices or support info on your site - the pages were gone (404). Since you have the details.. are you Robb? Just curious. If your support is good, then yeah - it's a deal.
A company which has made great alliances with hardware companies, opening up specs to Linux developers early on. (Remember how Linux beat MS on the Merced?) A company which *PAYS* some of the best hackers in the world to make Linux better. A company which seems to fully support the LSB. A company which releases every bit of code under the GPL. A company that lets their software proliferate around the world, for free.
Their name is Red Hat. And the only thing that seems to be different from yesterday is that people who aren't Red Hat can't call their product Red Hat. How is this going to affect Linux in any tangible way?
Red Hat is built on support. That's ultimately the only place that they're going to make their money, because no one would pay the $79 unless they were getting good support in return. They have to make people trust them and know that they will be there when needed.
Now, if MacMillan (or whoever) sells a box that says "Red Hat", a lot of people will be fooled. They'll call Red Hat and get (gasp) turned down because it's not really Red Hat(tm) Linux. That will make them mad, they'll think "Red Hat has bad service!"
"Red Hat" *is* their trademark, and I guess they have the right to control it. I understand their concern over consumer confusion (assuming that's what it's all about.) People will still be able to sell copies of their distro, but they can't say that it's Red Hat because "Red Hat" means more than a CD - it's the infrastructure they're trying to build that supports the distro.
When it boils down to it, no one really has the right to call their distro "Red Hat" except for Red Hat. I'm interested to see what happens to distros that say "based on Red Hat...."
Slashdot Mirror
This is going to be a big deal. I imagine people will learn pretty quickly, though. They'll have to. :)
You should be able to run a Masq box, and they should never know about it. That would be a "server" pointing in to your LAN, not out to the cable company. Do it right, and they'll never know. And they shouldn't care about that in the first place....
I'm sure that depends on your provider, but I believe that RoadRunner prohibits servers. The policy is fairly vague, actually. I mean... if you fire up an IRC client, you're probably running an identd server, right?
I imagine that the "no server" rule is so that people won't set up warez/porn/mp3 servers on their cable accounts, but...
I'll take the upload/download limits on my ADSL over cable's "no server" rules any day! That way I pay for what I use, and there's not some schmuck clogging the lines since they have unmetered service.
Or this one. ;-)
This was in 1998, I believe.
They used to rock a little more. :/ When I signed up, everyone got a shell account. In the last few months, though, they raised my monthly price and yanked the shell account. In return I got a bunch of web space I don't need. That's what made me start looking elsewhere... hard to resist the pull of ADSL when it costs about the same.
I've been with them for about 5 years, and they've been great, but I'm leaving soon for more bandwidth. But they're a good shop - runs on Linux & Apache, EFF supporters... I'll miss 'em.
It's also in clear violation of the GPL, and one of the reasons that I'm not too excited about the Corel distribution.
Red Hat is beta testing, too - sign up for the mailing list, grab the beta from one of the mirrors, and offer some feedback to a company that gets it.
I expect that there will be a quick retraction and apology from Corel, but this sort of thing does not breed confidence.
Miguel (and whatever infinite energy source he runs on) have made HUGE contributions to free software, moving Gnome from a new idea to a significant desktop environment in an amazingly short time. I know that many people have contributed to Gnome, but Miguel is The Man. :)
The brand-spankin' new Austin-Bergstrom International Airport had this same problem. Pretty silly looking.
:-)
This seems to me like the perfect place for Open Source. Who knows how much each airport pays for this app? I bet it's a BUNDLE.
Charge 'em 70% of the going rate to write a GPL'd version, and write it for Linux. Phenomenal uptime, multi-headed monitors (soon) and suddenly travellers across the world start seeing Linux in airports. And some GPL programmers make some money.
And why not release something like this under the GPL? It's not like people choose their airports based on the features of the departure/arrival screens... no competetive advantage there.
Take your cameras to the airport. Let's start a whole gallery of these things.
Paper on how they work, and how they might be cracked is here
www.gzilla.com - it's a GPL'd browser. The current dynamically linked executable is about 500k. I need to check it out when I get home... has anyone else used it?
Is all this leading up to a new revenue stream for Slashdot? "Get your Official Cmmdr. Taco Meta-Kharma Decoder ring! Only $9.95!"
On more serious notes,
1) I think this is all looking really good, and
2) I don't want to see much more of it.
You can legislate forever, but you're never going to codify every possible violation. Try not to let the jerks force you into too many coding contortions, as you'll probably just wind up creating more loopholes, and make it more complicated for everyone. (Think IRS)
I got the book from FatBrain last week, and I've been plowing through it. I'm new to Linux development, and I don't have a whole lot of programming experience outside of Linux, either. This book is not an easy read. :-) If you're new to programming, skip it for now. If you're new to GTK/Gnome, I'd at least read the online GTK and Gnome tutorials first, and maybe have the GTK book by Eric Harlow(?), also from New Riders, on hand to cover GTK in a bit more depth.
:-)
Don't get me wrong - it's a great book, chock full of good information. It's also the only book in print at this time which covers Gnome development, as far as I know. But if you're brand new to this whole business, it might be a tough read. I'm very glad to have it, though, because someday I'm gonna understand it all.
Kudos to Havoc and to New Riders!
My bad. That should have read "Would anyone be developing *free* software..." - which is what the "free beer who cares about free speech" people seem to want.
I'm concerned by all the comments on this story saying "Well, it's free, and that's good enough for me. Who cares if it's open source."
On a case-by-case basis, this works just fine. Take yer free stuff and be happy. But when you look at the big picture, it falls apart. I don't think I need to go into specifics on this - just think about this scenario:
Torvalds Software, Ltd. releases the Linux Kernel (c)(tm)(r)($) for free, but with restrictions on it's commercial use and redistribution. Xfree86 Partners, Inc. releases their version of the X-Windows system, but you can't make any modifications to it. Gnu Gurus, LLC has a whole nifty suite of Unix-compatible tools, and their down-rev versions are always available in binary form, for free download. These three things together are a good foundation for a "free" Unix system.
But - given that foundation, do you think Linux would be anywhere near where it is today? Would anyone be developing any software for this thing, closely held by some companies, under licenses which may someday change radically?
To me, accepting "Free Beer" software is akin to saying "That's enough - we can stop moving forward now" because if enough of the "foundations" of Linux become less-than free, I really believe that the whole thing will slowly fall apart in the future. I think that "free beer" software, much more so than traditional commercial software, contributes to this complacency.
Sometimes, if there's no alternative and I have a task I must accomplish, I'll use non-free software, but I try to avoid it for the reasons above.
Postings by none other than Alan himself, Bob Young, Jim Pick, Rasterman, and someone at Transmeta. And absolutely no mention of any bodily fluid. :/
Rob, I hate to see it, but I hope that your new code to deal with the trolls helps with the recent problems. I was saddened by the posts I saw yesterday. It's amazing how callous people can be. Sad little boys...
But - You guys really need a grammar checker and/or a copy editor.
"than" not "then"
At the Apple Store, it's $6500 as part of a bundle:
:-)
$6,498.00
450MHz G4
1MB L2
128MB SDRAM
20GB Ultra ATA
Zip drive
DVD-ROM/DVD Video
ATI RAGE 128 AGP
10/100BASE-T
56K internal modem
Apple Cinema Display
Accepting orders Oct 1
Is this sort of like "Buy this monitor and get a free G4?"
I like the "Red Hat Linux Free Edition" idea - people used to shareware (sorry) will grasp that they're missing something if it's "free" - this time, though, instead of functionality, it's support.
:-)
I've always wondered why RH ISOs weren't more prevalent on the 'net - I always assumed that RH didn't want to make it *too* simple to burn a RH cd? And I couldn't blame them for that.
I didn't see prices or support info on your site - the pages were gone (404). Since you have the details.. are you Robb? Just curious. If your support is good, then yeah - it's a deal.
Hey, great plan. That way Alan Cox will have to go look for another job and quit hacking the kernel full time. :/
Look at the situation - we have:
A company which has made great alliances with hardware companies, opening up specs to Linux developers early on. (Remember how Linux beat MS on the Merced?)
A company which *PAYS* some of the best hackers in the world to make Linux better.
A company which seems to fully support the LSB.
A company which releases every bit of code under the GPL.
A company that lets their software proliferate around the world, for free.
Their name is Red Hat. And the only thing that seems to be different from yesterday is that people who aren't Red Hat can't call their product Red Hat. How is this going to affect Linux in any tangible way?
Now, if MacMillan (or whoever) sells a box that says "Red Hat", a lot of people will be fooled. They'll call Red Hat and get (gasp) turned down because it's not really Red Hat(tm) Linux. That will make them mad, they'll think "Red Hat has bad service!"
"Red Hat" *is* their trademark, and I guess they have the right to control it. I understand their concern over consumer confusion (assuming that's what it's all about.) People will still be able to sell copies of their distro, but they can't say that it's Red Hat because "Red Hat" means more than a CD - it's the infrastructure they're trying to build that supports the distro.
When it boils down to it, no one really has the right to call their distro "Red Hat" except for Red Hat. I'm interested to see what happens to distros that say "based on Red Hat...."