Well, yeah, they could...but that really isn't the point. We don't mind so much them getting to use MS tools, or other ones under the *control* of people that the US government is comfortable with. I don't think any administration is so foolish as to think they can completely keep software out of the hands of terrorists. What these folks *are* stupid enough to think is that if they can deny terrorists a good *development* strategy, this would be useful. Now I'm not convinced of this...seems to me that they can do whatever they want with MSVC++...but I guess it is true that if you want to hack/crack/destroy/whack/busticate stuff, it is nice to a) have a *nix, and b) have as low-level access to the real nuts/bolts as possible. Looking at it that way, proprietary software has somewhat less utility.
So I would have to say that terrorists have many reasons to be highly attracted to open-source....old Bin Laden no doubt has an XP tablet pc, but his real hacker guys probably have a free *nix. Of course, I would say that *everyone* has many reasons to be highly attracted to open-source...I know I am;-). On the other hand, many folks here have already extolled the reasons why this is not an excuse to try to kill/limit OSS. So I won't get into that.
But I will get into the fact that this all boils down to the same exact control question that we whine and bitch about futily every day on this board, usually in conjuntion with the Devil's Millenium Control Act...it is just an issue of wether we want speech/code/media to remain public/free, or wether we want it all concentrated in the hands of "centrally trusted" distributers. Now the focus has gone from simple college pirates to terrorism; no suprise, I guess..."well, hell, it worked for all the rest of the freedom-stealing legislation we wanted to pass, let's try it here!" I could tell you what the greatest historical political thinkers all thought about this question of trusted vs. free, but I don't want to start sounding too awful self-righteous, and I could tell you what it seems to me that the current U.S. government seems to think as a whole, but I'd hate to get that cynical.
Canada is looking more attractive every day......
Hunter.
(all information contained in this post and pertaining to analysis of the DMCA or other thoughts concerning the DMCA was produced for the sole purpose of creating "interoperable thoughts.";-)
Well, I don't know about *necessary*, but I already have an ltsp client in front of my toilet, and I really like it. I mean, sure, it gets less use than some of the other terminals in the house (I wired up 7 of them with old auction-purchased p-75's) but when you gotta go, at least you can still play kbounce....it sure beats an almanac.
Well, that sounds reasonable on the surface....but as it turns out, it isn't.
First I think the idea that Windows is blameless because "these people just can't use a computer" is just a struggle to let MS off a hook they hung themselves on years ago. Basically, it's this: computers are complex. If you want non-professionals to be able to interface them, you really only have 2 choices: make it a closed box that does a few things well and simply (i.e. like a mac) or defer the setup and administration to someone who knows what he/she is doing, and set up a simpler, more limited interface for everyone else (i.e. like a *nix)...which is really just a decentralized option #1...the user is still left with a relatively few things to do, which work well and are simple.
Of course, that simple interface the admin sets up is everything. Yet Linux/Unix have many options here, and they pretty much cover all the bases.
And by the way, some of these WM's are much simpler than Windows ever was or will be. But more on that later...
The point is, Microsoft never chose one of the two options. They told the world they could have their cake and eat it to, made a system that *looks* simple, but has a ton of complexity hidden from view and waiting to break. As a consequence, most users don't have any clue how Windows works, but they feel comfortable enough that they poke around everywhere anyway. Most of us have terrible stories about windows users doing things they shouldn't have, and wouldn't have been *allowed* to do on another system. Take for example the fellow I talked to who just went through his system deleting everything he didn't recognize to save space. A *nix would not let this happen.
Someone once told me that Windows lends itself to "cowboy admining." He was right...the design encourages people who don't know enough to do what they are doing to go and do it anyway. And this goes for users too.
Oh, and that's just the part that deals with the users. It ignores the fact that sometimes parts of windows just break without any explanation, for no reason, when nothing was changed. Don't ask me to explain it.....I haven't seen the code.
But here is the main point: If a true guru, who knows both Windows and Linux extremely well, were to exert the same amount of time and energy setting up a Windows box and a Linux box for his two mothers (it's a hypothetical, give me a break!) I feel quite strongly that he would have less trouble thereafter with the Linux box. He would set that machine up with a simple window manager that allowed extremely simple running of a few programs, run ssh and vnc, and leave it alone forever.
But this isn't just a guess...my mother used Windows on a computer I set up for her for years. So did my father. But then when it came time to get my grandmother on the internet, I was assigned the task, and I figured "what the hell." I set her up a nice gnustep desktop with less than a dozen places to click, each corresponding to a program she really would use. That was 2 years ago. She is 81, and uses email, web, icq (not that much...although I do see her online and chat with her sometimes) and some games.
In those 2 years, I have not had to touch that machine.
My parents were both quite impressed. They had limited interest in Linux already, and had seen it on my computers, but they assumed it was beyond their technical skills. Seeing Granny using it daily changed their minds. When Mom's computer broke in an unpredictable way for the 30th time during that same 2 years, she asked me if we could avoid continued problems by switching her to linux. She has been running Mandrake 9 with KDE for about 6 months now, and I have not had to fix her machine in all that time. Dad, for his part, wants to make the switch, but I don't want anything to do with his rather old and crufty laptop, so we agreed that when he is ready for an upgrade, I will pick the hardware for him, and put linux on it.
Surely wine will be safely dead by 2012, a casualty of Microsoft's continued changing of the.dll's and the win api...coupled with wine's own weak licensing causing their to have more forks than users.
...Attorney General John Ashcroft is holding billionaire Bill Gates without the benefit of a lawyer for allegedly "subsidizing terrorist activities." This news comes on the heels of the discovery of many thousand X-Boxen, sold by Mr. Gates at below manufacturing cost, in use in a massive Mandrake CLIC cluster. UN weapons inspectors believe the cluster to have been used in the manufacture of Weapons of Mass Destruction, and cited the presence of a copy of "Halo."
Federal authorities say they will seek the death penalty, but many observers think it is more likely that they will settle for a generous campaign contribution.
IT departments HATE non-stop tiny changes, each of which requires new testing, and likely breaks several of their applications. This can be seen in the reality that many shops still use NT 4.0 even with its successor 2000, and its successor XP, available. Hell, most IT departments shun at even installing service packs.
Well...yeah, which I think was the previous point: service packs = annoying.
Microsoft has oft been berated for doing what Apple now is the champion of, which is pushing minor changes as new versions (see 95, 98, 98SE, Me) and getting people to pay up. People don't like being "behind" when applications start using some esoteric feature of XP that adds little value, but suddenly renders obsolete their 2000 base.
This is your big mistake. Yeah, people have traditionally skipped out on MS's upgrade path because it wasn't worth the money or energy. But now software assurance really changes the game: now that MS has forced these people to keep paying, they up and decide to wait a decade between releases (for real...if longhorn is 6 years behind 2k). Suddenly the businesses are paying an annual fee that they calculated as only moderately unreasonable, because they were figuring on MS's usual 1-2 year upgrade cycle, and they are going to feel royally screwed. Why? Because they *were* screwed! Pay us every year for a decade for one piece of software! It's unbelievable.
Those businesses who didn't go with SA won out, and this isn't too terrible for them...they can keep running 2k and thumbing their nose at the SA sheep. But still, in 2012 win2k sure will seem a bit out of date. Can you imagine where Linux will be by the time Blackcomb comes out? Wow.
IT departments HATE non-stop tiny changes, each of which requires new testing, and likely breaks several of their applications. This can be seen in the reality that many shops still use NT 4.0 even with its successor 2000, and its successor XP, available. Hell, most IT departments shun at even installing service packs.
Well...yeah, which I think was the previous point: service packs = annoying.
<I>Microsoft has oft been berated for doing what Apple now is the champion of, which is pushing minor changes as new versions (see 95, 98, 98SE, Me) and getting people to pay up. People don't like being "behind" when applications start using some esoteric feature of XP that adds little value, but suddenly renders obsolete their 2000 base.</I>
This is your big mistake. Yeah, people have traditionally skipped out on MS's upgrade path because it wasn't worth the money or energy. But now software assurance really changes the game: now that MS has forced these people to keep paying, they up and decide to wait a decade between releases (for real...if longhorn is 6 years behind 2k). Suddenly the businesses are paying an annual fee that they calculated as only moderately unreasonable, because they were figuring on MS's usual 1-2 year upgrade cycle, and they are going to feel royally screwed. Why? Because they *were* screwed! Pay us every year for a decade for one piece of software! It's unbelievable.
Those businesses who didn't go with SA won out, and this isn't too terrible for them...they can keep running 2k and thumbing their nose at the SA sheep. But still, in 2012 win2k sure will seem a bit out of date. Can you imagine where Linux will be by the time Blackcomb comes out? Wow.
Yes...there are several handwriting engines for Linux...although they definately don't have the same level of maturity that the MS ones do. Check out handhelds.org; the ARM linux guys seem to be the ones most active in this work (naturally). I've used a couple different ones on my IPaq with some success...it's just unfortunate that we aren't (yet) matching the free-range power of the pocketpc transcriber. That thing really is amazing. Not an excuse for keeping pocketpc on your handheld...but...
The hard drive is some ancient technology that is the *easily* #1 cause of all computer failures.
And here, this whole time, I thought windows (lack of) memory protection was the #1 cause.
silly me.
No....it still happens....its just the same people (the US)
And when necessary, they drop the dime to your local authorities, ala Echelon.
Isn't it ironic, that the Internet that we cheered (and sometimes still cheer) for setting us all free by being bigger and more widespread than any single government, now has the potential to actually enslave us by making every government bigger and more widespread?
--paranoid bastard.
Well, it certainly seems like there are big questions as to the fairness of the tests, on many levels.
So how about a *real* price/performance testing?
Tell both companies to write the app however they feel, tell them what it needs to do, and have them deliver a solution that would cost a customer a *total* of $10,000, $50,000, and $100,000. Including hardware, os, 3rd party software, etc.
This eliminates Sun's posturing about old versions, the pet-store program not being designed for performance, the platform not being the right one, and the app-server.....etc.
On the other hand, if I'm reading the margin for.net's win right, it sounds like j2ee might actually *win* such a competition...so I guess this sort of test is in violation of MS's EULA.
Slashdot Mirror
Hrmf. You've gone and busted my bubble. I had my eye on this nice Sun box on Ebay...but I thought I could use it to compile code and run a webserver.
Thanks for the heads-up though; I'm really glad I have you around to tell me just what can't be done in Solaris.
If I'm not mistaken, the limit for physical memory without paging is 4GB. *Windows* has had an arbitrary limit of 2GB for some time.
;-)
(Of course...I could be mistaken
Well, yeah, they could...but that really isn't the point. We don't mind so much them getting to use MS tools, or other ones under the *control* of people that the US government is comfortable with. I don't think any administration is so foolish as to think they can completely keep software out of the hands of terrorists. What these folks *are* stupid enough to think is that if they can deny terrorists a good *development* strategy, this would be useful. Now I'm not convinced of this...seems to me that they can do whatever they want with MSVC++...but I guess it is true that if you want to hack/crack/destroy/whack/busticate stuff, it is nice to a) have a *nix, and b) have as low-level access to the real nuts/bolts as possible. Looking at it that way, proprietary software has somewhat less utility.
;-). On the other hand, many folks here have already extolled the reasons why this is not an excuse to try to kill/limit OSS. So I won't get into that.
;-)
So I would have to say that terrorists have many reasons to be highly attracted to open-source....old Bin Laden no doubt has an XP tablet pc, but his real hacker guys probably have a free *nix. Of course, I would say that *everyone* has many reasons to be highly attracted to open-source...I know I am
But I will get into the fact that this all boils down to the same exact control question that we whine and bitch about futily every day on this board, usually in conjuntion with the Devil's Millenium Control Act...it is just an issue of wether we want speech/code/media to remain public/free, or wether we want it all concentrated in the hands of "centrally trusted" distributers. Now the focus has gone from simple college pirates to terrorism; no suprise, I guess..."well, hell, it worked for all the rest of the freedom-stealing legislation we wanted to pass, let's try it here!" I could tell you what the greatest historical political thinkers all thought about this question of trusted vs. free, but I don't want to start sounding too awful self-righteous, and I could tell you what it seems to me that the current U.S. government seems to think as a whole, but I'd hate to get that cynical.
Canada is looking more attractive every day......
Hunter.
(all information contained in this post and pertaining to analysis of the DMCA or other thoughts concerning the DMCA was produced for the sole purpose of creating "interoperable thoughts."
Well, I don't know about *necessary*, but I already have an ltsp client in front of my toilet, and I really like it. I mean, sure, it gets less use than some of the other terminals in the house (I wired up 7 of them with old auction-purchased p-75's) but when you gotta go, at least you can still play kbounce....it sure beats an almanac.
Well, that sounds reasonable on the surface....but as it turns out, it isn't.
...which is really just a decentralized option #1...the user is still left with a relatively few things to do, which work well and are simple.
First I think the idea that Windows is blameless because "these people just can't use a computer" is just a struggle to let MS off a hook they hung themselves on years ago. Basically, it's this: computers are complex. If you want non-professionals to be able to interface them, you really only have 2 choices: make it a closed box that does a few things well and simply (i.e. like a mac) or defer the setup and administration to someone who knows what he/she is doing, and set up a simpler, more limited interface for everyone else (i.e. like a *nix)
Of course, that simple interface the admin sets up is everything. Yet Linux/Unix have many options here, and they pretty much cover all the bases.
And by the way, some of these WM's are much simpler than Windows ever was or will be. But more on that later...
The point is, Microsoft never chose one of the two options. They told the world they could have their cake and eat it to, made a system that *looks* simple, but has a ton of complexity hidden from view and waiting to break. As a consequence, most users don't have any clue how Windows works, but they feel comfortable enough that they poke around everywhere anyway. Most of us have terrible stories about windows users doing things they shouldn't have, and wouldn't have been *allowed* to do on another system. Take for example the fellow I talked to who just went through his system deleting everything he didn't recognize to save space. A *nix would not let this happen.
Someone once told me that Windows lends itself to "cowboy admining." He was right...the design encourages people who don't know enough to do what they are doing to go and do it anyway. And this goes for users too.
Oh, and that's just the part that deals with the users. It ignores the fact that sometimes parts of windows just break without any explanation, for no reason, when nothing was changed. Don't ask me to explain it.....I haven't seen the code.
But here is the main point: If a true guru, who knows both Windows and Linux extremely well, were to exert the same amount of time and energy setting up a Windows box and a Linux box for his two mothers (it's a hypothetical, give me a break!) I feel quite strongly that he would have less trouble thereafter with the Linux box. He would set that machine up with a simple window manager that allowed extremely simple running of a few programs, run ssh and vnc, and leave it alone forever.
But this isn't just a guess...my mother used Windows on a computer I set up for her for years. So did my father. But then when it came time to get my grandmother on the internet, I was assigned the task, and I figured "what the hell." I set her up a nice gnustep desktop with less than a dozen places to click, each corresponding to a program she really would use. That was 2 years ago. She is 81, and uses email, web, icq (not that much...although I do see her online and chat with her sometimes) and some games.
In those 2 years, I have not had to touch that machine.
My parents were both quite impressed. They had limited interest in Linux already, and had seen it on my computers, but they assumed it was beyond their technical skills. Seeing Granny using it daily changed their minds. When Mom's computer broke in an unpredictable way for the 30th time during that same 2 years, she asked me if we could avoid continued problems by switching her to linux. She has been running Mandrake 9 with KDE for about 6 months now, and I have not had to fix her machine in all that time. Dad, for his part, wants to make the switch, but I don't want anything to do with his rather old and crufty laptop, so we agreed that when he is ready for an upgrade, I will pick the hardware for him, and put linux on it.
So don't give m
http://www.nue.tu-berlin.de/wer/liebchen/lpac.html
.shn.
This cpen codec (Lossless Predictive Audio Compression) is also lossless, but has a much better compression ratio than
I thought that after the sale of Xenix to SCO, MS made a non-competition agreement stating that they could not develop or sell UNIX type systems....
I know I read that *somewhere*...anybody have information about that?
Surely wine will be safely dead by 2012, a casualty of Microsoft's continued changing of the .dll's and the win api...coupled with wine's own weak licensing causing their to have more forks than users.
WINE: use only in moderation.
Hunter.
Federal authorities say they will seek the death penalty, but many observers think it is more likely that they will settle for a generous campaign contribution.
IT departments HATE non-stop tiny changes, each of which requires new testing, and likely breaks several of their applications. This can be seen in the reality that many shops still use NT 4.0 even with its successor 2000, and its successor XP, available. Hell, most IT departments shun at even installing service packs.
Well...yeah, which I think was the previous point: service packs = annoying.
Microsoft has oft been berated for doing what Apple now is the champion of, which is pushing minor changes as new versions (see 95, 98, 98SE, Me) and getting people to pay up. People don't like being "behind" when applications start using some esoteric feature of XP that adds little value, but suddenly renders obsolete their 2000 base.
This is your big mistake. Yeah, people have traditionally skipped out on MS's upgrade path because it wasn't worth the money or energy. But now software assurance really changes the game: now that MS has forced these people to keep paying, they up and decide to wait a decade between releases (for real...if longhorn is 6 years behind 2k). Suddenly the businesses are paying an annual fee that they calculated as only moderately unreasonable, because they were figuring on MS's usual 1-2 year upgrade cycle, and they are going to feel royally screwed. Why? Because they *were* screwed! Pay us every year for a decade for one piece of software! It's unbelievable.
Those businesses who didn't go with SA won out, and this isn't too terrible for them...they can keep running 2k and thumbing their nose at the SA sheep. But still, in 2012 win2k sure will seem a bit out of date. Can you imagine where Linux will be by the time Blackcomb comes out? Wow.
IT departments HATE non-stop tiny changes, each of which requires new testing, and likely breaks several of their applications. This can be seen in the reality that many shops still use NT 4.0 even with its successor 2000, and its successor XP, available. Hell, most IT departments shun at even installing service packs.
Well...yeah, which I think was the previous point: service packs = annoying.
<I>Microsoft has oft been berated for doing what Apple now is the champion of, which is pushing minor changes as new versions (see 95, 98, 98SE, Me) and getting people to pay up. People don't like being "behind" when applications start using some esoteric feature of XP that adds little value, but suddenly renders obsolete their 2000 base.</I>
This is your big mistake. Yeah, people have traditionally skipped out on MS's upgrade path because it wasn't worth the money or energy. But now software assurance really changes the game: now that MS has forced these people to keep paying, they up and decide to wait a decade between releases (for real...if longhorn is 6 years behind 2k). Suddenly the businesses are paying an annual fee that they calculated as only moderately unreasonable, because they were figuring on MS's usual 1-2 year upgrade cycle, and they are going to feel royally screwed. Why? Because they *were* screwed! Pay us every year for a decade for one piece of software! It's unbelievable.
Those businesses who didn't go with SA won out, and this isn't too terrible for them...they can keep running 2k and thumbing their nose at the SA sheep. But still, in 2012 win2k sure will seem a bit out of date. Can you imagine where Linux will be by the time Blackcomb comes out? Wow.
Yes...there are several handwriting engines for Linux...although they definately don't have the same level of maturity that the MS ones do. Check out handhelds.org; the ARM linux guys seem to be the ones most active in this work (naturally). I've used a couple different ones on my IPaq with some success...it's just unfortunate that we aren't (yet) matching the free-range power of the pocketpc transcriber. That thing really is amazing. Not an excuse for keeping pocketpc on your handheld...but...
But...it *is* cool to run Linux on a watch....my watch has apache, postfix, and webmin. ...now if I could just get XClock to work......
"Data...click 'End Now' and cross your fingers..."
The hard drive is some ancient technology that is the *easily* #1 cause of all computer failures.
And here, this whole time, I thought windows (lack of) memory protection was the #1 cause. silly me.
No....it still happens....its just the same people (the US) And when necessary, they drop the dime to your local authorities, ala Echelon. Isn't it ironic, that the Internet that we cheered (and sometimes still cheer) for setting us all free by being bigger and more widespread than any single government, now has the potential to actually enslave us by making every government bigger and more widespread? --paranoid bastard.
Well, it certainly seems like there are big questions as to the fairness of the tests, on many levels.
.net's win right, it sounds like j2ee might actually *win* such a competition...so I guess this sort of test is in violation of MS's EULA.
So how about a *real* price/performance testing?
Tell both companies to write the app however they feel, tell them what it needs to do, and have them deliver a solution that would cost a customer a *total* of $10,000, $50,000, and $100,000. Including hardware, os, 3rd party software, etc.
This eliminates Sun's posturing about old versions, the pet-store program not being designed for performance, the platform not being the right one, and the app-server.....etc.
On the other hand, if I'm reading the margin for
curses, foiled again.