If some company contract a consultor to fix errors on spreadsheets, it will spend money that would be more usefull spent on investing on the company, or on research, or marketing... The money is lost, if there were no errors, the company would have more money for it other spents.
For the contractor pespective, he received money to fix spreadsheet errors, but if there weren't errors, he would spend his time doing other usefull work. Also, he would have more other work (that not fixing) to do, because the money that companies saved on the fix would be spent another way. So, he doesn't loose anything.
Conclusion, the company lost money on the fix, the consultor did not gain (more) money because of it. So, the money was lost. That is the simple picture.
On the more complex picture, the money saved by the better programming would not be all spent on programming, so the consultor would loose some money to other professionals working for the company. Also, the company would grow faster, so tere would be more money for everybody on the future.
I don't think that Mozilla is exactly a model for security. At my company, we've had to deploy three complete updates since the release of Firefox 1.0.
Firefox isn't a model for security, but it is adequate for most of the users, IE is not. Most people don't wat to exchange other qualities by security improvements if it is already fine.
Of course, IE is far from a model citizen, but IE6-SP2 is much better, and *security* is the focus of IE7 according to the developers.
MS developpers have been focusing on security for years now, see what they have done. Yes, IE6-SP2 is safer than IE6 (could they create something less safe than IE6?) but is far from secure yet. MS have the balls just to fix a few easy bugs, not to rewrite features or to change a flawed design. While they keep acting this way, people would better stay out of MS products.
GOTOs can destroy compiler optimization. Also, it destroys the flow logic of most of the programs that uses it, making it harder to read (but not all programs).
Exceptions are what was created to avoid GOTOs on error handling, it solves problems 1 and 2 that you point, but C doesn't have them (C is old, C++ has).
Several people use GOTOs on interruption handling, it makes their code a mess and very hard to maintain. But slightly faster.
So, if you know how to use GOTOs (and most important, how to not use), go ahead and use them. But if you are just an old BASIC programer that dont want to take time to learn how to program on a real structurate language, get out of the way.
Your comparation is a bit flawed. We are not making use of illegaly gathered data and we are not charging MPAA for anything based on our data without going into a court.
Tapping other people internet data is a crime, asking for money using that tapped data is, at least, dubious. Just creating an oppinoin based on the information that we don't trust MPAA and it is been investigated (all legaly gathered) is completely legal.
Also, if they really saw people "stealing", their property, they must have enoght information for incriminating them, what they want by asking info from the ISP is to create a mechanism for observing permanently the net traffic just in case anyone pirates something and they don't see it by other means.
Following MS way, it will be probably more like ln -s. Forguet about forcing it to do anything for you. Also, make shure that you don't need that "-f" option, because undocummented errors can destroy the file system on the case that the developers have not thaught about the file be already there.
Mechanical, electronical and all the "old" technologies have a nice patent system. Keep it.
Drougs need patents, and 20 years is fair for most of the cases (there should be an option for the cases that 20 years is too much time). But labs shouldn't be able to patent other uses if their drugs. Once the drug is patented, no further patents should be allowed.
Genetic enginering products sould not be pattenteable, unless they are a transgenic organism (no gens, no proteins, no techiniques...).
And software should not be pattenteable.
This fix most of the abuses I have seen on the patent system. Copyright system is not so bad as patent, but needs short protection times.
I don't know what version of NT was installed (I wasn't admin) but the system couldn't run my processes because it was spending all the time idle. Yes, it stayed idle while my processes wait.
At some places it was common sense by the time that the Earth was spherical. Some cultures had even a few comprovations (that you can classify as scientifical) of this fact.
I think that the bigest danger is some worm/trojan/... making itself invisible and spying your system forever (at least, with Windows people have to format their HDs some times).
I even add that command line is hard to learn. Because of this, it intuitively is designed for advanced users. If you don't know what you are doing, you will not be able to use it!
Anyway, modern versions rm often refuse to errase '/' so easily.
Not touching on the merit of Symantec, the artcle made a lot of BS out of a perfectly reasonble comment.
If you RTFA, you'll see on the last page, that the observation that Symantec made (and the only fact that supports tha role article) is that the number of security problems deteccted on FF increased when its adoption increased and, differently from previous times, more of them are been discovered from FF than from IE.
They didn't even made any previsions about future trends of the frequency of problems (that usualy increase a lot when a FOSS project start to spread and, then, reduce) or about them being fixed.
I am not shure yet, but I gess the aquisiton is bad. But you proposal (M$ makeing inroads into web and graphical designing) is even worse. If people are already complaining about little competition on this market, they will be much more frustaded if suddenly some programs start to compete by illegal (or, at least, imoral) tatics.
The meissner effect is a consequence of zero resistance, and superconductors are substance that have zero resistance. So, the most essential thing about a superconductor is zero resistance.
But near zero resistance is different than zero resistance. A material with nonzero resistance is not superconductor (doesn't matter how low its resistance is), don't shows the messner effect (can't be used to make maglev trains, super strong magnets...) and is useless for storing energy. Of course, reducing the resistance improves the energy transportation.
The tecnologies we have now for fotonics produce an incredible amount of hot (if you use milions of switches). Can't compete with CMOS. And there is no teoric limitation on either field that makes one more attractive than the other for low consumation.
The point is that Linus is not in chage, FOSS doesn't have anyone in charge. People just follow him, if he start to make bad decisions, people will follow another one.
Was Linus wrong for using a propietry tool for the development of the kernel and essentially forcing all kernel developers to follow him?
I think he wasn't. There was no free option, and, if you remember, even GNU built their system on top of a proprietary kernel. But he made a mistake, he should have created (or asked for someone to create) a project to replace BK on the long run.
Is McVoy behaving like a spoilt kid and taking his ball home because somebody didn't want to play his game?
It is his ball, he takes it any place he wants. He have this right, and there is nothing imoral on that.
I think Tridge also did nothing wrong, so, we have a single mistake here: Linus not thinking about replacing BK on the long run.
I'm not sure whether it's the intensity of the LEDs, or the fact that the eyes are more sensitive to blue light. Probably some combination of both - they chose blue strobes on cop cars for a reason I guess - but whatever, it's damned annoying.
Most peoples eyes are less sensible to blue than yelow. But the normal reaction of a person is to pay attention to blue lights. Maybe this is because they are so rare, and yelow lights are so common.
Oh, no, thank you very much. First, I don't want those system resources wasted trying to figure out what the icon should look like every time I update or save the file, let along when I move stuff into and out of the folder. Individual icons for items? Sure! But why are we wasting all the extra time that could be used making the OS faster.
I use a similar feature on Konqueror, and think it is very usefull (mostly for images, not so much for text). And it just makes the system slower when loading the icons, with the konqueror window recently open. I can deal with this very short time window.
Someone criticized the "downtime" thing. Frankly, in order to get a good backup, any other processes running on data should not be in flux or the backup itself could be corrupt. So even in most conventional backup schemes, there is a period of time in which backups run and nothing else does.
It may be a concern while you backup databases, but for usual files there is no corrupt state. I don't know how Windows stores its configurations, so, I don't know if it can have a trustable backup tool without downtime. If it uses a database, there is a big problem there to fix.
Another point is that I do not see where it will support operating systems other that Windows.
Even if it does, nobody will use, because the UNIX world alread have tools for that that are better (no downtime) and simpler. Some people who don't know those tools often create a fast, reliable backup system without downtime and that saves disk space with 2 or 3 lines of code. So nobody have the need for this backup system. Also, if you take the time to set Samba, you script can backup Windows machines without modifications, assuming that Windows doesn't store its configurations on a database.
Even if Hurd is usable in 20 years (I hope it is), it will not replace Linux. Hurd is a slow but (potentialy) full of features system, this is good for desktops and reserach, but bad for servers.
No, not just scientific fraud. It is a paper with no real content been marked as science.
It is a fraud, but the fraudulent people are not the ones who wrote and submitted the paper (there is not rule against writting crap). The fraudulent people are the ones that accepted it for a conference whitout revewing.
Slashdot Mirror
It doesn't work that way.
If some company contract a consultor to fix errors on spreadsheets, it will spend money that would be more usefull spent on investing on the company, or on research, or marketing... The money is lost, if there were no errors, the company would have more money for it other spents.
For the contractor pespective, he received money to fix spreadsheet errors, but if there weren't errors, he would spend his time doing other usefull work. Also, he would have more other work (that not fixing) to do, because the money that companies saved on the fix would be spent another way. So, he doesn't loose anything.
Conclusion, the company lost money on the fix, the consultor did not gain (more) money because of it. So, the money was lost. That is the simple picture.
On the more complex picture, the money saved by the better programming would not be all spent on programming, so the consultor would loose some money to other professionals working for the company. Also, the company would grow faster, so tere would be more money for everybody on the future.
If it is small and doesn't loop, I don't think I'll block it.
Lets see if google continue to "do no evil"...
I don't think that Mozilla is exactly a model for security. At my company, we've had to deploy three complete updates since the release of Firefox 1.0.
Firefox isn't a model for security, but it is adequate for most of the users, IE is not. Most people don't wat to exchange other qualities by security improvements if it is already fine.
Of course, IE is far from a model citizen, but IE6-SP2 is much better, and *security* is the focus of IE7 according to the developers.
MS developpers have been focusing on security for years now, see what they have done. Yes, IE6-SP2 is safer than IE6 (could they create something less safe than IE6?) but is far from secure yet. MS have the balls just to fix a few easy bugs, not to rewrite features or to change a flawed design. While they keep acting this way, people would better stay out of MS products.
GOTOs can destroy compiler optimization. Also, it destroys the flow logic of most of the programs that uses it, making it harder to read (but not all programs).
Exceptions are what was created to avoid GOTOs on error handling, it solves problems 1 and 2 that you point, but C doesn't have them (C is old, C++ has).
Several people use GOTOs on interruption handling, it makes their code a mess and very hard to maintain. But slightly faster.
So, if you know how to use GOTOs (and most important, how to not use), go ahead and use them. But if you are just an old BASIC programer that dont want to take time to learn how to program on a real structurate language, get out of the way.
Your comparation is a bit flawed. We are not making use of illegaly gathered data and we are not charging MPAA for anything based on our data without going into a court.
Tapping other people internet data is a crime, asking for money using that tapped data is, at least, dubious. Just creating an oppinoin based on the information that we don't trust MPAA and it is been investigated (all legaly gathered) is completely legal.
Also, if they really saw people "stealing", their property, they must have enoght information for incriminating them, what they want by asking info from the ISP is to create a mechanism for observing permanently the net traffic just in case anyone pirates something and they don't see it by other means.
Yeah, and now, at /., we have a blog about a blog about blogs...
Just wait untill we talk about it acknowleding us... I gues there are not so many blogs about blogs about blogs about blogs out there.
Following MS way, it will be probably more like ln -s. Forguet about forcing it to do anything for you. Also, make shure that you don't need that "-f" option, because undocummented errors can destroy the file system on the case that the developers have not thaught about the file be already there.
What I think is fair is:
Mechanical, electronical and all the "old" technologies have a nice patent system. Keep it.
Drougs need patents, and 20 years is fair for most of the cases (there should be an option for the cases that 20 years is too much time). But labs shouldn't be able to patent other uses if their drugs. Once the drug is patented, no further patents should be allowed.
Genetic enginering products sould not be pattenteable, unless they are a transgenic organism (no gens, no proteins, no techiniques...).
And software should not be pattenteable.
This fix most of the abuses I have seen on the patent system. Copyright system is not so bad as patent, but needs short protection times.
I don't know what version of NT was installed (I wasn't admin) but the system couldn't run my processes because it was spending all the time idle. Yes, it stayed idle while my processes wait.
At some places it was common sense by the time that the Earth was spherical. Some cultures had even a few comprovations (that you can classify as scientifical) of this fact.
chmod 777 -R /
That is useless if you run as root.
I think that the bigest danger is some worm/trojan/... making itself invisible and spying your system forever (at least, with Windows people have to format their HDs some times).
I even add that command line is hard to learn. Because of this, it intuitively is designed for advanced users. If you don't know what you are doing, you will not be able to use it!
Anyway, modern versions rm often refuse to errase '/' so easily.
Not touching on the merit of Symantec, the artcle made a lot of BS out of a perfectly reasonble comment.
If you RTFA, you'll see on the last page, that the observation that Symantec made (and the only fact that supports tha role article) is that the number of security problems deteccted on FF increased when its adoption increased and, differently from previous times, more of them are been discovered from FF than from IE.
They didn't even made any previsions about future trends of the frequency of problems (that usualy increase a lot when a FOSS project start to spread and, then, reduce) or about them being fixed.
I am not shure yet, but I gess the aquisiton is bad. But you proposal (M$ makeing inroads into web and graphical designing) is even worse. If people are already complaining about little competition on this market, they will be much more frustaded if suddenly some programs start to compete by illegal (or, at least, imoral) tatics.
Anyway, there is a need to remove the doubt from the license. Every possibility of court process can be used as FUD against FOSS.
The meissner effect is a consequence of zero resistance, and superconductors are substance that have zero resistance. So, the most essential thing about a superconductor is zero resistance.
But near zero resistance is different than zero resistance. A material with nonzero resistance is not superconductor (doesn't matter how low its resistance is), don't shows the messner effect (can't be used to make maglev trains, super strong magnets...) and is useless for storing energy. Of course, reducing the resistance improves the energy transportation.
The tecnologies we have now for fotonics produce an incredible amount of hot (if you use milions of switches). Can't compete with CMOS. And there is no teoric limitation on either field that makes one more attractive than the other for low consumation.
The point is that Linus is not in chage, FOSS doesn't have anyone in charge. People just follow him, if he start to make bad decisions, people will follow another one.
I think is a slightly different way:
Was Linus wrong for using a propietry tool for the development of the kernel and essentially forcing all kernel developers to follow him?
I think he wasn't. There was no free option, and, if you remember, even GNU built their system on top of a proprietary kernel. But he made a mistake, he should have created (or asked for someone to create) a project to replace BK on the long run.
Is McVoy behaving like a spoilt kid and taking his ball home because somebody didn't want to play his game?
It is his ball, he takes it any place he wants. He have this right, and there is nothing imoral on that.
I think Tridge also did nothing wrong, so, we have a single mistake here: Linus not thinking about replacing BK on the long run.
I'm not sure whether it's the intensity of the LEDs, or the fact that the eyes are more sensitive to blue light. Probably some combination of both - they chose blue strobes on cop cars for a reason I guess - but whatever, it's damned annoying.
Most peoples eyes are less sensible to blue than yelow. But the normal reaction of a person is to pay attention to blue lights. Maybe this is because they are so rare, and yelow lights are so common.
Oh, no, thank you very much. First, I don't want those system resources wasted trying to figure out what the icon should look like every time I update or save the file, let along when I move stuff into and out of the folder. Individual icons for items? Sure! But why are we wasting all the extra time that could be used making the OS faster.
I use a similar feature on Konqueror, and think it is very usefull (mostly for images, not so much for text). And it just makes the system slower when loading the icons, with the konqueror window recently open. I can deal with this very short time window.
Someone criticized the "downtime" thing. Frankly, in order to get a good backup, any other processes running on data should not be in flux or the backup itself could be corrupt. So even in most conventional backup schemes, there is a period of time in which backups run and nothing else does.
It may be a concern while you backup databases, but for usual files there is no corrupt state. I don't know how Windows stores its configurations, so, I don't know if it can have a trustable backup tool without downtime. If it uses a database, there is a big problem there to fix.
Another point is that I do not see where it will support operating systems other that Windows.
Even if it does, nobody will use, because the UNIX world alread have tools for that that are better (no downtime) and simpler. Some people who don't know those tools often create a fast, reliable backup system without downtime and that saves disk space with 2 or 3 lines of code. So nobody have the need for this backup system. Also, if you take the time to set Samba, you script can backup Windows machines without modifications, assuming that Windows doesn't store its configurations on a database.
I could barely extract a single coherent, definite statement out of that.
I could:
"Show me charts and stats and benchmarks that prove Linux superior to Windows in every measure and I'll not argue with you."
Even if Hurd is usable in 20 years (I hope it is), it will not replace Linux. Hurd is a slow but (potentialy) full of features system, this is good for desktops and reserach, but bad for servers.
No, not just scientific fraud. It is a paper with no real content been marked as science.
It is a fraud, but the fraudulent people are not the ones who wrote and submitted the paper (there is not rule against writting crap). The fraudulent people are the ones that accepted it for a conference whitout revewing.