You also forgot one important thing: it would be obvious to a Windows fanatic that you will reboot your machine. To people using a UNIX variant, that's not such a sure thing, but people who use Windows once a day reboot twice a day. The author of the article probably figures the rebooting requirement is a given.
This might be the first Insightful post I've seen that should have been (-1, Flamebait) or maybe (-1, Troll).
DNS is supposed to be a way for humans to communicate with computers about internet hosts. The intent is not for some human to be able to read it, but for all humans.
You claim that all humans should be able to read a random hostname. What about an average grandmother who happens to only read Chinese? She can't read cnn.com, and that's about as simple as possible when it comes to domain names. Your scheme has already failed. As an aside, if you can't read the URL because it's written in a traditional Chinese charset, what are the chances you can make any use of the content? What's the point in making sure that you can read this URL? I'm assuming you can't read the content of that page--it's not English.
This has worked until now because hostnames were limited to only ~37 characters. Regardless of native language, any computer operator can quickly learn to handle the [a-z][0-9] glyphs.
This has worked until now because computers still have high barriers to entry for non-English-speakers. Characters in the ASCII set are just as much "funny-looking squiggles" to an average Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Isreali, or Indian person as any of their native character sets would be to the average English-speaker! At the moment, maybe every computer-user in the world can recognize and copy ASCII characters, even if they don't understand them, but the current trend of bringing computers to anyone and everyone means that there will eventually be more computer-users who can't read ASCII than who can.
Basically anyone literate in one language can copy ASCII characters from a signpost onto a notepad, and then punch those into a keyboard. Even if her culture doesn't use the ASCII set in normal daily activities (which about everyone in America, Europe, and Japan does), then the shapes are at least simple enough to copy geometrically.
If your criteria for acceptable charsets is that they are "geometrically simple", then why leave out any of the accented characters in the French or Spanish alphabets? They're just as easy as any ASCII character. Or for that matter, go have a look at the Russian version of Google. Those characters are certainly "funny-looking squiggles" to me, but they're also certainly "geometrically simple", and if I had a pencil and paper, I could copy them down.
Just because the internet is currently mostly English (it still is, right?) there's no rational reason to hinder its expansion into other languages--other than some kind of ethnocentric blindness to other people's needs.
It might depend on the definition of marketplace here. You're right--I've read the same interviews--Linus doesn't seem to care what the business-driven marketplace wants. However, the people who actually use Linux form a marketplace of sorts. The kernel has traditionally improved in the direction that user-demand plots. Laptop functionality improves as people start using Linux on laptops. The number of supported architectures increases as people try to make Linux run on new, previously unsupported architectures. Linus is never going to include something in the kernel because IBM says it will make sales of Linux-driven mainframes improve, but that doesn't mean that developments in the kernel aren't driven by a market.
I think you have a good point. It seems people often project their own ideals and desires onto the leaders of the Free and Open Source movements. For example, I've read interviews with Linus where he says he doesn't care if Linux takes the desktop, and to point out the obvious, 1991 is pre-Windows so Linux wasn't (and in many ways still isn't) an attempt to get rid of Windows or Microsoft. Linux is an attempt to build a good kernel. Other people have taken the results of that attempt and started a movement. It's these people who want to see the end of Windows and Microsoft--not necessarily anyone who actually contributes to Linux. I've never talked to Linus in any medium, so I'll try not to put words in his mouth, but my impression of him is that he's just some guy with a hobby. He's a brilliant guy with a hobby that is important to many people, but he's still just some guy with a hobby. It's people outside of Linux that want Linux to take over--I think the people inside Linux just want Linux to be an optimal kernel.
They'll probably just get craftier. If you're not lazy like me, you can look up the bug in Mozilla's BugZilla that discusses the proper way to block pop-ups. The summary for my fellow couch-potatoes is that it's a hard problem. You have to block window.open in body onLoad, top-level scripts, onMouseOver events, image onLoad events, timeOuts set from all of those, etc. etc. Blocking pop-ups is a real pain in the ass. (This is, of course, assuming that you want to allow other forms of JavaScript, and allow user actions to open ``wanted'' pop-ups (so that pop-ups will load when you click on a link, button, etc.))
IANA Economist, but I would think the problem with controlling piracy is the amount of money people can make by selling pirated software on the blackmarket.
I doubt the piracy problem is due to a fundamental disagreement with 'Credit where credit is due'--which I think is the underlying philosophy behind copyright--I think the piracy problem is due to the fact that no one can afford to spend a third of their annual income on a piece of software (even if its a super high quality piece like Office). The pirates exist because they can prosper by selling software that they can acquire at little to no cost. By swamping the market with software that is free (as in beer) to everyone (the end user, as well as the distributor), Vietnam will probably eliminate the market upon which the pirates depend. If the pirates can't make money, then they won't be pirates, and you don't have a piracy problem.
I've just realised my post has nothing to do with your post, so I'll get back on topic. Going back to the whole 'Credit where credit is due' bit, I think the GPL will do fine. I'll give credit to anyone who deserves it if the act doesn't cost me anything, but as soon as there's a price attached, I'll have to consider my actions--how much is it worth to me to give someone else credit, and what risks do I entertain by not giving that credit? Is a third of my annual salary acceptable?
Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic. I do tend to believe that most people are inherently good. I do not, however, believe anyone will have to raise up in arms to protect the fate of the most holy GPL.
I would guess you probably don't have to worry too much, but to be safe, rather than sorry, you should try to ascertain whether sshd is even running on your machine. If it's not, you have nothing to worry about. If it is, you should turn it off, and then upgrade to the latest version.
If you get yourself to a command line and type in
ps aux | grep sshd
You should see whether or not you have an ssh server running. If you do, you probably want to turn it off until you can get your system updated.
Hopefully someone who uses Debian or Lindows can tell you how to turn off sshd, I've never used either OS, so I'm not sure.
As a guess, look for something in your interface that talks about managing network servers, daemons, or services. You want to stop sshd (it might be listed as just ssh), and prevent it from starting up again when you reboot your machine.
If you're behind a firewall that filters port 22, you're probably fine either way since ssh listens on port 22, and the firewall is blocking access.
Hopefully someone else with more knowledge can fill in my gaps. In a lot of ways I'm still a GNU/Linux newbie, myself.
The only intuitive interface is the nipple. Everything else is learned--and that includes MacOS 1 through X, Windows 1.0 through LongHorn, GNOME, KDE, CLI, etc.
I don't know who originally said that, but they got it right, damnit! I have no trouble picking up new user interfaces but that's only because I'm already comfortable with a range of them. It's quite likely that one user interface is easier to pick up than another--I have no evidence to pick one out, but lots of people claim OS X is the easiest--but I'm fed up with people assuming that this interface or that interface is inherently more intuitive than another--they're all at least moderately difficult until you're comfortable with it.
I saw this too, and was going to complain, but if third party code is responsible for half of all Windows crashes, who's responsible for the other half?
This isn't supposed to be a troll, or a Microsoft bash, I'm just explaining 'cause I got caught by the same thought pattern. Of course, the actual article title is way more inflammatory than the parent's suggested title, but this is/. afterall, so what can you expect?
Just so everyone out there knows, the New York Times has yet to contact me in any way, beyond confirming my registration. I don't understand the constant fear of registration. Anybody who's posting as a non-AC is already registered for/. what's wrong with registering for the NYT?
IANAL, but my interpretation of response #9 is that you must state, under penalty of perjury, that you represent the copyright holder. Truthfully saying that you represent yourself, and then falsely claiming to be the copyright holder, probably doesn't get you out of the perjury charge.
It only introduces a delay the first time, since you can whitelist that sender the moment they respond, and automatically accept anything they send thereafter.
As for point two, I'm sure you could word the response email in such a way that even the most thick-headed of recipients could figure it out....
Ian
Re:Good start, but not useful yet
on
Qt On DirectFB
·
· Score: 3, Informative
There's also an implementation of GDK, or something. (I don't completely understand GDK vs. GTK.) Take a look at the GTK+ link on DirectFB's homepage. Apparently we can also run GNOME apps on DirectFB.
All jokes about the wasting of his freshman year, and the innumerable popups (Long Live Mozilla!) aside, this was a rather interesting article.
I'd like to have seen the copyright numbers graphed next to some population numbers to see how they compare. Do the number of copyrights registered in the US correlate with the number of people in the US?
Also, the number of copyrights seems to follow a fairly linear trend until 1950, and then it suddenly becomes quadratic until 1991. Why? Was there some huge up-swing in population growth at that point, or something? (The baby-boomers wouldn't have started registering copyrighted works until much later, would they?) Did everyone suddenly discover acid and become that much more creative?
You're right, you won't get screened by the firewall--unless you "look like a terrorist" (whatever the hell that means) and happen to be crossing a border into the US, in which case you get detained indefinitely, without access to a lawyer, and, if you're one of the lucky few, you get shipped to some secret hideaway in the Caribbean.
I don't think Clarke is trying to tout music sharing as free speech. He just recognizes that his tool, which is designed soley to gaurantee the continued existence of free speech, has the side-effect of allowing some rule-breakers to share music. The thing is, Clarke feels, and I agree with him, that the continued existence of free speech is more important than the nasty side effect of copyright infringement.
Ian
Re:What does the NDA encompass?
on
My Visit to SCO
·
· Score: 1
Sorry to harp, but we should really get it right. Releasing code (or anything else) under the GPL does not put that code into the public domain. The original author(s) still holds the copyrights to the code. By licensing the code under the GPL, (s)he is merely giving other people the right to copy/modify/redistribute it with the restriction that the newly copied/modified/redistributed code also be licensed under the GPL. If the code were actually in the public domain, I believe you could take the code and use it for a purpose of your choosing with licensing restrictions of your choosing, although IANAL.
Perhaps this is (-1, Offtopic), but why suggest SQL Server with an Access front end, when you can suggest an Open Source/Free server, such as PostgreSQL, or MySQL, and an Access front end?
I've never tried it myself, but I've heard that PostgreSQL can be an ODBC datasource on Windows machines.
If you've already got Access, and you already have a viable data structure and forms/reports that work with it, you should be able to move the data to Postgres, change the tables in Access to ODBC links, and pretend like nothing changed....
Actually, some of the Halloween Documents were written by ESR. From the Halloween Documents FAQ:
Halloween I, II, III and VII are real; IV, V and VI are satire/commentary consequent on various Microsoft statements.
I suppose Halloween VIII is also "real" and ESR just hasn't updated the FAQ yet since much of Halloween VIII is a reproduction of an actual memo. (Not so for IV, V, and VI.)
I agree with your argument in general, that devaluing human life leads to all sorts of atrocities. I'm not sure that I agree with the more vaguely expressed opinion that human beings are better than (or more special than) animals.
Perhaps the correct course of action is to treat animals like human beings, rather than treat human beings like animals. What makes us so special that we cannot give equal rights to "lesser" animals? (Who are we to even be parceling out "rights" to begin with?) Now, this is mostly rhetorical. I have only questions and no answers. I'm no PETA member, and I value the benefits we have reaped from experimenting on rats, chimps, etc. I also don't think it's a good idea to start farming human clones for their organs. But, through all this, I'm not sure that animals are necessarily any less special than human beings.
There seems to be an overriding belief amongst most people (myself included most of the time) that human beings are inherently special. Our use of tools was once held as the deliniation between human and animal--until Jane Goodall discovered chimps using tools in the wild (there may have been someone before her, I don't know). We believe our ability to act rationally, or to communicate with complex language, or to feel compassion, or whatever, divides us from the animals but most (maybe all--it's too late at night to search for links) of these "special abilities" have been observed in animals.
I guess my point is that we might have things backwards. I'm fascinated by the things that human beings can do with their minds and bodies, but I'm equally fascinated by the understanding that my pet dog seems to have of me. I don't think we can just assume that human beings are inherently better than all other life forms.
Who knows? Maybe we're all just a bunch of quantum cruft anyway....
I don't think the skill required is really at issue.
The issue is more about what the distro does for you, and what it leaves up to you.
I have run SuSE, Mandrake, RedHat, and Gentoo, and I find I know more about my Gentoo system than about any of the others. With Gentoo, if I want to do something, I have to spend more time figuring out how to do it than I would with say, Mandrake. (Most of the time this extra effort is spent tweaking the configuration files since Google will usually give you the name of the tool you need if you don't already know it.) Since I spend time learning about the apps on my system, and reading about how to configure them this way or that, I have a much better understanding of what my system is doing and I'm more confident with my choices. Of course, if I hadn't started with a "simpler" distro, I wouldn't have survived the Gentoo install, so both types of distros have their advantages.
Note to religious leaders: "simpler" means that I can have RedHat up and running with a reasonable configuration in about 45 minutes, after which I can start trying to figure out what the hell this command line interface thing is. "Simpler" does _not_ mean Mickey Mouse. At 45 minutes into a Gentoo install, I'm trying to tell XFree86 the refresh rate of my monitor after being threatened that the screen might explode if I get it wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
You also forgot one important thing: it would be obvious to a Windows fanatic that you will reboot your machine. To people using a UNIX variant, that's not such a sure thing, but people who use Windows once a day reboot twice a day. The author of the article probably figures the rebooting requirement is a given.
Ian
This might be the first Insightful post I've seen that should have been (-1, Flamebait) or maybe (-1, Troll).
DNS is supposed to be a way for humans to communicate with computers about internet hosts. The intent is not for some human to be able to read it, but for all humans.
You claim that all humans should be able to read a random hostname. What about an average grandmother who happens to only read Chinese? She can't read cnn.com, and that's about as simple as possible when it comes to domain names. Your scheme has already failed. As an aside, if you can't read the URL because it's written in a traditional Chinese charset, what are the chances you can make any use of the content? What's the point in making sure that you can read this URL? I'm assuming you can't read the content of that page--it's not English.
This has worked until now because hostnames were limited to only ~37 characters. Regardless of native language, any computer operator can quickly learn to handle the [a-z][0-9] glyphs.
This has worked until now because computers still have high barriers to entry for non-English-speakers. Characters in the ASCII set are just as much "funny-looking squiggles" to an average Chinese, Arabic, Russian, Isreali, or Indian person as any of their native character sets would be to the average English-speaker! At the moment, maybe every computer-user in the world can recognize and copy ASCII characters, even if they don't understand them, but the current trend of bringing computers to anyone and everyone means that there will eventually be more computer-users who can't read ASCII than who can.
Basically anyone literate in one language can copy ASCII characters from a signpost onto a notepad, and then punch those into a keyboard. Even if her culture doesn't use the ASCII set in normal daily activities (which about everyone in America, Europe, and Japan does), then the shapes are at least simple enough to copy geometrically.
If your criteria for acceptable charsets is that they are "geometrically simple", then why leave out any of the accented characters in the French or Spanish alphabets? They're just as easy as any ASCII character. Or for that matter, go have a look at the Russian version of Google. Those characters are certainly "funny-looking squiggles" to me, but they're also certainly "geometrically simple", and if I had a pencil and paper, I could copy them down.
Just because the internet is currently mostly English (it still is, right?) there's no rational reason to hinder its expansion into other languages--other than some kind of ethnocentric blindness to other people's needs.
Ian
It might depend on the definition of marketplace here. You're right--I've read the same interviews--Linus doesn't seem to care what the business-driven marketplace wants. However, the people who actually use Linux form a marketplace of sorts. The kernel has traditionally improved in the direction that user-demand plots. Laptop functionality improves as people start using Linux on laptops. The number of supported architectures increases as people try to make Linux run on new, previously unsupported architectures. Linus is never going to include something in the kernel because IBM says it will make sales of Linux-driven mainframes improve, but that doesn't mean that developments in the kernel aren't driven by a market.
Ian
If you don't like Bill's orders, you can quit. He doesn't have that much control.
I think you have a good point. It seems people often project their own ideals and desires onto the leaders of the Free and Open Source movements. For example, I've read interviews with Linus where he says he doesn't care if Linux takes the desktop, and to point out the obvious, 1991 is pre-Windows so Linux wasn't (and in many ways still isn't) an attempt to get rid of Windows or Microsoft. Linux is an attempt to build a good kernel. Other people have taken the results of that attempt and started a movement. It's these people who want to see the end of Windows and Microsoft--not necessarily anyone who actually contributes to Linux. I've never talked to Linus in any medium, so I'll try not to put words in his mouth, but my impression of him is that he's just some guy with a hobby. He's a brilliant guy with a hobby that is important to many people, but he's still just some guy with a hobby. It's people outside of Linux that want Linux to take over--I think the people inside Linux just want Linux to be an optimal kernel.
Ian
They'll probably just get craftier. If you're not lazy like me, you can look up the bug in Mozilla's BugZilla that discusses the proper way to block pop-ups. The summary for my fellow couch-potatoes is that it's a hard problem. You have to block window.open in body onLoad, top-level scripts, onMouseOver events, image onLoad events, timeOuts set from all of those, etc. etc. Blocking pop-ups is a real pain in the ass. (This is, of course, assuming that you want to allow other forms of JavaScript, and allow user actions to open ``wanted'' pop-ups (so that pop-ups will load when you click on a link, button, etc.))
Ian
IANA Economist, but I would think the problem with controlling piracy is the amount of money people can make by selling pirated software on the blackmarket.
I doubt the piracy problem is due to a fundamental disagreement with 'Credit where credit is due'--which I think is the underlying philosophy behind copyright--I think the piracy problem is due to the fact that no one can afford to spend a third of their annual income on a piece of software (even if its a super high quality piece like Office). The pirates exist because they can prosper by selling software that they can acquire at little to no cost. By swamping the market with software that is free (as in beer) to everyone (the end user, as well as the distributor), Vietnam will probably eliminate the market upon which the pirates depend. If the pirates can't make money, then they won't be pirates, and you don't have a piracy problem.
I've just realised my post has nothing to do with your post, so I'll get back on topic. Going back to the whole 'Credit where credit is due' bit, I think the GPL will do fine. I'll give credit to anyone who deserves it if the act doesn't cost me anything, but as soon as there's a price attached, I'll have to consider my actions--how much is it worth to me to give someone else credit, and what risks do I entertain by not giving that credit? Is a third of my annual salary acceptable?
Perhaps I'm being overly optimistic. I do tend to believe that most people are inherently good. I do not, however, believe anyone will have to raise up in arms to protect the fate of the most holy GPL.
Ian
I would guess you probably don't have to worry too much, but to be safe, rather than sorry, you should try to ascertain whether sshd is even running on your machine. If it's not, you have nothing to worry about. If it is, you should turn it off, and then upgrade to the latest version.
If you get yourself to a command line and type in
ps aux | grep sshdYou should see whether or not you have an ssh server running. If you do, you probably want to turn it off until you can get your system updated.
Hopefully someone who uses Debian or Lindows can tell you how to turn off sshd, I've never used either OS, so I'm not sure.
As a guess, look for something in your interface that talks about managing network servers, daemons, or services. You want to stop sshd (it might be listed as just ssh), and prevent it from starting up again when you reboot your machine.
If you're behind a firewall that filters port 22, you're probably fine either way since ssh listens on port 22, and the firewall is blocking access.
Hopefully someone else with more knowledge can fill in my gaps. In a lot of ways I'm still a GNU/Linux newbie, myself.
Good luck!
Ian
The only intuitive interface is the nipple. Everything else is learned--and that includes MacOS 1 through X, Windows 1.0 through LongHorn, GNOME, KDE, CLI, etc.
I don't know who originally said that, but they got it right, damnit! I have no trouble picking up new user interfaces but that's only because I'm already comfortable with a range of them. It's quite likely that one user interface is easier to pick up than another--I have no evidence to pick one out, but lots of people claim OS X is the easiest--but I'm fed up with people assuming that this interface or that interface is inherently more intuitive than another--they're all at least moderately difficult until you're comfortable with it.
Ian
Just curious--how do they know that the command module didn't pick the bugs up after the external temperature returned to something normal?
Ian
I saw this too, and was going to complain, but if third party code is responsible for half of all Windows crashes, who's responsible for the other half?
This isn't supposed to be a troll, or a Microsoft bash, I'm just explaining 'cause I got caught by the same thought pattern. Of course, the actual article title is way more inflammatory than the parent's suggested title, but this is /. afterall, so what can you expect?
Ian
Just so everyone out there knows, the New York Times has yet to contact me in any way, beyond confirming my registration. I don't understand the constant fear of registration. Anybody who's posting as a non-AC is already registered for /. what's wrong with registering for the NYT?
Ian
IANAL, but my interpretation of response #9 is that you must state, under penalty of perjury, that you represent the copyright holder. Truthfully saying that you represent yourself, and then falsely claiming to be the copyright holder, probably doesn't get you out of the perjury charge.
Ian
It only introduces a delay the first time, since you can whitelist that sender the moment they respond, and automatically accept anything they send thereafter.
As for point two, I'm sure you could word the response email in such a way that even the most thick-headed of recipients could figure it out....
Ian
There's also an implementation of GDK, or something. (I don't completely understand GDK vs. GTK.) Take a look at the GTK+ link on DirectFB's homepage. Apparently we can also run GNOME apps on DirectFB.
Ian
All jokes about the wasting of his freshman year, and the innumerable popups (Long Live Mozilla!) aside, this was a rather interesting article.
I'd like to have seen the copyright numbers graphed next to some population numbers to see how they compare. Do the number of copyrights registered in the US correlate with the number of people in the US?
Also, the number of copyrights seems to follow a fairly linear trend until 1950, and then it suddenly becomes quadratic until 1991. Why? Was there some huge up-swing in population growth at that point, or something? (The baby-boomers wouldn't have started registering copyrighted works until much later, would they?) Did everyone suddenly discover acid and become that much more creative?
Ian
You're right, you won't get screened by the firewall--unless you "look like a terrorist" (whatever the hell that means) and happen to be crossing a border into the US, in which case you get detained indefinitely, without access to a lawyer, and, if you're one of the lucky few, you get shipped to some secret hideaway in the Caribbean.
Ian
I don't think Clarke is trying to tout music sharing as free speech. He just recognizes that his tool, which is designed soley to gaurantee the continued existence of free speech, has the side-effect of allowing some rule-breakers to share music. The thing is, Clarke feels, and I agree with him, that the continued existence of free speech is more important than the nasty side effect of copyright infringement.
Ian
Sorry to harp, but we should really get it right. Releasing code (or anything else) under the GPL does not put that code into the public domain. The original author(s) still holds the copyrights to the code. By licensing the code under the GPL, (s)he is merely giving other people the right to copy/modify/redistribute it with the restriction that the newly copied/modified/redistributed code also be licensed under the GPL. If the code were actually in the public domain, I believe you could take the code and use it for a purpose of your choosing with licensing restrictions of your choosing, although IANAL.
Ian
You forgot
* Switch to something open
Ian
Perhaps this is (-1, Offtopic), but why suggest SQL Server with an Access front end, when you can suggest an Open Source/Free server, such as PostgreSQL, or MySQL, and an Access front end?
I've never tried it myself, but I've heard that PostgreSQL can be an ODBC datasource on Windows machines.
If you've already got Access, and you already have a viable data structure and forms/reports that work with it, you should be able to move the data to Postgres, change the tables in Access to ODBC links, and pretend like nothing changed....
Of course, I've never done any of this, so YMMV
Ian
Actually, some of the Halloween Documents were written by ESR. From the Halloween Documents FAQ:
Halloween I, II, III and VII are real; IV, V and VI are satire/commentary consequent on various Microsoft statements.
I suppose Halloween VIII is also "real" and ESR just hasn't updated the FAQ yet since much of Halloween VIII is a reproduction of an actual memo. (Not so for IV, V, and VI.)
I agree with your argument in general, that devaluing human life leads to all sorts of atrocities. I'm not sure that I agree with the more vaguely expressed opinion that human beings are better than (or more special than) animals.
Perhaps the correct course of action is to treat animals like human beings, rather than treat human beings like animals. What makes us so special that we cannot give equal rights to "lesser" animals? (Who are we to even be parceling out "rights" to begin with?) Now, this is mostly rhetorical. I have only questions and no answers. I'm no PETA member, and I value the benefits we have reaped from experimenting on rats, chimps, etc. I also don't think it's a good idea to start farming human clones for their organs. But, through all this, I'm not sure that animals are necessarily any less special than human beings.
There seems to be an overriding belief amongst most people (myself included most of the time) that human beings are inherently special. Our use of tools was once held as the deliniation between human and animal--until Jane Goodall discovered chimps using tools in the wild (there may have been someone before her, I don't know). We believe our ability to act rationally, or to communicate with complex language, or to feel compassion, or whatever, divides us from the animals but most (maybe all--it's too late at night to search for links) of these "special abilities" have been observed in animals.
I guess my point is that we might have things backwards. I'm fascinated by the things that human beings can do with their minds and bodies, but I'm equally fascinated by the understanding that my pet dog seems to have of me. I don't think we can just assume that human beings are inherently better than all other life forms.
Who knows? Maybe we're all just a bunch of quantum cruft anyway....
Ian
What they should have put on the list is the !@#!~ scrollbar! Why the hell did they put only one invention per page?!?!?
</rant>
Other than that, not a bad article....
I don't think the skill required is really at issue.
The issue is more about what the distro does for you, and what it leaves up to you.
I have run SuSE, Mandrake, RedHat, and Gentoo, and I find I know more about my Gentoo system than about any of the others. With Gentoo, if I want to do something, I have to spend more time figuring out how to do it than I would with say, Mandrake. (Most of the time this extra effort is spent tweaking the configuration files since Google will usually give you the name of the tool you need if you don't already know it.) Since I spend time learning about the apps on my system, and reading about how to configure them this way or that, I have a much better understanding of what my system is doing and I'm more confident with my choices. Of course, if I hadn't started with a "simpler" distro, I wouldn't have survived the Gentoo install, so both types of distros have their advantages.
Note to religious leaders: "simpler" means that I can have RedHat up and running with a reasonable configuration in about 45 minutes, after which I can start trying to figure out what the hell this command line interface thing is. "Simpler" does _not_ mean Mickey Mouse. At 45 minutes into a Gentoo install, I'm trying to tell XFree86 the refresh rate of my monitor after being threatened that the screen might explode if I get it wrong.
Ian