Last I checked people ARE switching to firefox in droves. EVERYTHING starts out by being used by a more tech oriented crowd and then filters out to the ignorant masses.
In the case of firefox, it's already infiltrated the ignorant masses who believe they are part of the tech crowd (Microsoft "Tech"s, MCSE's, some college students, etc). Once something has that level of penetration it's general acceptance is a given.
I'll give you a clue, with some exceptions, the ignorant masses stay ignorant and choose not to learn for one reason. The reason is that people like to do things they are good at, and when you lack mental firepower learning something new becomes a chore.
We geeks don't want to accept this, we try studying usability and such. Ultimately however, it turns out that no matter how easy the software is to use, most people can't handle it. This means they use what the nearest computer literate individual sets up for them and is willing to help them use.
Kernel and Operating system are synonms and do NOT include application software.
The FSF did NOT author the Linux operating system and therefore how they would like to be credited for it is a non-issue. They did however author a bit of software that some distributions choose to bundle with the linux operating system and might have some ground to take issue there if they are looking for credit.
The OS is the kernel. Since the GNU project produces user level applications they should be given credit for their individual developments and possibly on the distribution end. When a CS course teaches OS design, they teach you how to write a kernel. The reason is simple, an OS is not a user interface, it's a hardware interface.
I'm sorry but most of those things are not artful, they are all technical capabilities or intentional design flaws to allow a playable game. Performance vs resource designs are part of arriving at the design choice that is optimal for your goal, just as with a specific algorithm, there is already a correct choice and hopefully you discover it.
As a coder I can understand why coders would want to call what we do art, but it's really not. It's not art anymore than building a home made jet engine is. Yes it's fun, it's something you can become enraptured in and find passion and pride in. But when it's all done, you have a jet, you have a functional application with inherient value of some sort.
As a poet I assure you, creating art is nothing like this. You are not creating something from nothing. You are engaging in an excercise of futility such as digging and filling holes in the sand and attributing value to your futility.
Although games aren't inheriently useful, game engines are graphic engines that definately could be used for something useful. While you may desire to draw mustaches on my artwork or rewrite my poetry or change the ending to my book, it will in no way benefit mankind if you do. If you upgrade a graphics engine it just might.
"right now every commercial offering has copy protection"
Perhaps. That is an excellent arguement for getting rid of copy protection. History has shown copy protection on games to be a very expensive excercise in futility anyway.
music, art, even fiction books are all part of the arts and cannot be compared to non-artforms like software and technical matter. They are completely different animals.
You discover the optimal software algorithm, there is already a right answer before you ever compose it. Nobody discovers art and withholding art does not hinder the progress of mankind like withholding technology does.
Netscape - Pros Had a decent interface. Excellent plugin architecture. Supported advanced Javascript Supported standards compliant web technologies Total page render time as fast as competitors. Avoided msdhtml, msjavascript/jscript, VBScript, ActiveX.
Netscape - Cons Code was garbage. In the end they bloated the crap out of it (we'll call this aoldom and it no longer counts as Netscape from the moment aol bid on it).
IE - Pros Decent enough interface. Bundled with the OS and handy. right-click view source opens in text editor.
I dunno, neither is sounding especially hot to me. But if I have to pick one it's the one with the most pros and that is Netscape pre-aol (post-aol doesn't count, only bloat was added then).
Don't confuse the issue, 95% of the users didn't use IE because it was good, they used it because it was good enough and bundled with the OS. You act as if the two things are seperate;)
I've never heard of someone attempting to use VNC maliciously. There are a number of trojans to serve this purpose that hide themselves, vnc isn't even slightly hidden.
All three failed to detect and remove the spyware on the system. This is particularly depressing when you realize that nothing uncommon was installed on the test system, this is just the crap everyone and their sister is infected with.
This would be false. It's not the gui front end most people recognize as IE that is the problem. It's the renderer and trust model behind it.
The same flawed engine is used to display your folders (turn on the location bar and type in a url, see what happens), your desktop, and your email in Outlook express and even most 3rd party apps. If you use AOL, it uses IE to render web pages. When you view a help file, guess what it's IE. It is impossible to avoid IE on a windows system.
By choosing a browser which uses it's own renderer and an email application that does the same, you ARE at least reducing the opportunity for 3rd party sources to access the renderer and it helps a great deal. The problem your left with then is that apps like firefox are still dependent on IE's trust model (the entire trust model of the OS is built around it) when running on windows. This is why almost every major "exploit in firefox" only affects firefox on windows.
There are plenty of other broken pieces in windows, but I've tried to stick to examples of why simply not using IE still leaves you vulnerable on windows.
On windows your best bet is to run as an unpriv'd user as much as the OS allows, use 3rd party email and browser apps (that use a different renderer). And don't forget to stick it behind a firewall that isn't running windows or better just keep it off the network. Also never put a disk in a windows box that came from outside your network unless it is from a known publisher and you've scanned it for viruses on a disconnected machine. Aside from that, you really just have to pray.
None of that is saying any particular other OS is secure, that's another matter entirely. I'm just saying that clearly windows is NOT and you CANNOT remove the components needed to lock it down.
Windows is a distribution, an operating system IS a kernel.
Semantics aside however, your right, comparing apples to apples gives a better comparison.
The minimal windows install versus a minimal redhat install is a better comparison and there aren't many linux distros in which you'll ever find remote exploits in the core minimal install.
It's still not perfect though, pretty well everything can be stripped from a linux box to harden it. A windows box cannot be hardened since most remote exploits are in core services and you can't remove or replace them in windows (the most famous example being IE).
What cracks me up is that 2K/XP are touted as being an excellent step toward security and yet it's NT based systems which suffer from the most severe viruses and exploits.
If you guys won't RTFA fine, but at least read the summary. This scheme includes modifications of the lines to eliminate the interference problems.
Now debate the costs of replacing the lines, debate the speed, debate whether it's ethical to send nude shots of your gf over the same lines the power Grandma's toaster. But for the love of god quite repeating the same damn statement about RFI again and again!
Their scheme called for modifications to shield the lines. I know, I know it's a crime but if you won't RTFA at least read the story summary!
Seriously though, modifying the lines assures that this won't be a last mile solution. The reason for the last mile problem is that there aren't enough last mile customers to make line modifications a viable choice.
Yes but even if the EULA is upheld all they can do is cancel your account. The legal expenses are alot scarier than the consquences of a TOS violation;) What they threaten and the actual damage are two entirely different things.
With that said I agree. I don't know if I'd be as confident if I were the one getting the threats of suits for millions.
Because the only legal basis Blizzard had for shutting it down to begin with was the EULA on the client and EULA aren't even firmly established legal ground AFAIK. The WoW emulator guys simply caved at the first threat, it's not like Blizzard actually fought and won.
Re:!Windows Emulator, Wine Is Not an Emulator.
on
Does Linux Have Game?
·
· Score: 1
Actually that is the popular use of the word. But for the anal such as yourself, emulation is something which emulates or pretends to be something else. The win32 api port that we call wine does not pretend anything, it simply is an api port like any other.
An API port is not emulating that API, it is that API implemented on another platform. If I write a story in English and that story is translated to German, the translation is NOT an emulation of my original story, it's a port.
Re:!Windows Emulator, Wine Is Not an Emulator.
on
Does Linux Have Game?
·
· Score: 1
"If you intend on using the ROM for a console game (such example consoles are the NES, SNES, Genesis, Playstation, Gamboy, and so on), you use a program loader which loads and executes a ROM, and a set of libraries that implements the console API calls using their UNIX or X11 or Windows or Linux or DOS or Nokia equivalents."
Really? I don't know of any console emulators that work this way. All the console emulators I've ever heard of emulate the console hardware. Show me a single NES, SNES, or Genesis emulator that doesn't emulate the console hardware and I'll show you your wrong (Try to pick a popular one, the point of the excercise isn't to see if I can find info on the inner workings of an obscure program). Mame is also a hardware emulator.
Opengl for instance, is just an API. That API is implemented on multiple platforms. By your logic Opengl is an emulator. Just because the DirectX API isn't open or properly documented, resulting in a less than perfect implementation by 3rd parties, does not mean 3rd party implementations are emulators. The same holds true for the win32 api.
The difference between emulation and api implementation is simple. In both cases your porting an API, but with emulation it's a hardware API. Emulation IS software pretending to be HARDWARE period. With hardware emulation there is always a performance loss. Software can theoretically be perfectly ported from one platform to another without any performance loss.
People claim there is a hit translating to opengl in Cedegra. That isn't true, on windows win32 api and DirectX calls translate to other platform specific code as well. Most of the api's used in that platform specific code will map to other dlls and windows code. Same thing.
Performance loss on Cedegra is related to unimplemented or poorly implemented calls. In most cases it's because the Cedegra team has chosen to use Opengl rather than writing their implementation from scratch and taking advantage of the DirectX Hardware acceleration designed into the video card, instead they are using Opengl acceleration. You can see this clearly in the ati and nvidia performance differences on linux. ATI cards are highly optimized for DirectX, Nvidia are best optimized for OpenGL, the result is that ATI's are the best cards for most windows games and Nvidia yield the best performance on linux and Mac for gaming.
So in summary, neither wine nor winex are emulation. WineX is a poor implementation which translates to opengl in order to speed development time but it is not emulation.
Slashdot Mirror
Last I checked people ARE switching to firefox in droves. EVERYTHING starts out by being used by a more tech oriented crowd and then filters out to the ignorant masses.
In the case of firefox, it's already infiltrated the ignorant masses who believe they are part of the tech crowd (Microsoft "Tech"s, MCSE's, some college students, etc). Once something has that level of penetration it's general acceptance is a given.
I'll give you a clue, with some exceptions, the ignorant masses stay ignorant and choose not to learn for one reason. The reason is that people like to do things they are good at, and when you lack mental firepower learning something new becomes a chore.
We geeks don't want to accept this, we try studying usability and such. Ultimately however, it turns out that no matter how easy the software is to use, most people can't handle it. This means they use what the nearest computer literate individual sets up for them and is willing to help them use.
Kernel and Operating system are synonms and do NOT include application software.
The FSF did NOT author the Linux operating system and therefore how they would like to be credited for it is a non-issue. They did however author a bit of software that some distributions choose to bundle with the linux operating system and might have some ground to take issue there if they are looking for credit.
The OS is the kernel. Since the GNU project produces user level applications they should be given credit for their individual developments and possibly on the distribution end. When a CS course teaches OS design, they teach you how to write a kernel. The reason is simple, an OS is not a user interface, it's a hardware interface.
GNU Hurd is an OS. Linux is an OS.
The sounds produced when you play the guitar are art, the strumming method which produces them is knowledge.
I'm sorry but most of those things are not artful, they are all technical capabilities or intentional design flaws to allow a playable game. Performance vs resource designs are part of arriving at the design choice that is optimal for your goal, just as with a specific algorithm, there is already a correct choice and hopefully you discover it.
As a coder I can understand why coders would want to call what we do art, but it's really not. It's not art anymore than building a home made jet engine is. Yes it's fun, it's something you can become enraptured in and find passion and pride in. But when it's all done, you have a jet, you have a functional application with inherient value of some sort.
As a poet I assure you, creating art is nothing like this. You are not creating something from nothing. You are engaging in an excercise of futility such as digging and filling holes in the sand and attributing value to your futility.
Although games aren't inheriently useful, game engines are graphic engines that definately could be used for something useful. While you may desire to draw mustaches on my artwork or rewrite my poetry or change the ending to my book, it will in no way benefit mankind if you do. If you upgrade a graphics engine it just might.
"right now every commercial offering has copy protection"
Perhaps. That is an excellent arguement for getting rid of copy protection. History has shown copy protection on games to be a very expensive excercise in futility anyway.
music, art, even fiction books are all part of the arts and cannot be compared to non-artforms like software and technical matter. They are completely different animals.
You discover the optimal software algorithm, there is already a right answer before you ever compose it. Nobody discovers art and withholding art does not hinder the progress of mankind like withholding technology does.
You might actually look at the front page of irs.gov before posting about them protecting profit margins.
Netscape - Pros
Had a decent interface.
Excellent plugin architecture.
Supported advanced Javascript
Supported standards compliant web technologies
Total page render time as fast as competitors.
Avoided msdhtml, msjavascript/jscript, VBScript, ActiveX.
Netscape - Cons
Code was garbage.
In the end they bloated the crap out of it (we'll call this aoldom and it no longer counts as Netscape from the moment aol bid on it).
IE - Pros
Decent enough interface.
Bundled with the OS and handy.
right-click view source opens in text editor.
IE - Cons
Code is garbage.
msdhtml, msjavascript, msjscript, activex, vbscript, etc
Crap plugin architecture.
I dunno, neither is sounding especially hot to me. But if I have to pick one it's the one with the most pros and that is Netscape pre-aol (post-aol doesn't count, only bloat was added then).
Duh to us maybe, remember the average joe is a fscking idiot and half the people on Earth are even dumber.
Don't confuse the issue, 95% of the users didn't use IE because it was good, they used it because it was good enough and bundled with the OS. You act as if the two things are seperate ;)
Netscape was always technically superior to IE.
I've never heard of someone attempting to use VNC maliciously. There are a number of trojans to serve this purpose that hide themselves, vnc isn't even slightly hidden.
You did remember to turn off the hide known file extensions "feature" right? Otherwise what looks like claria.exe is really claria.exe.txt
All three failed to detect and remove the spyware on the system. This is particularly depressing when you realize that nothing uncommon was installed on the test system, this is just the crap everyone and their sister is infected with.
This would be false. It's not the gui front end most people recognize as IE that is the problem. It's the renderer and trust model behind it.
The same flawed engine is used to display your folders (turn on the location bar and type in a url, see what happens), your desktop, and your email in Outlook express and even most 3rd party apps. If you use AOL, it uses IE to render web pages. When you view a help file, guess what it's IE. It is impossible to avoid IE on a windows system.
By choosing a browser which uses it's own renderer and an email application that does the same, you ARE at least reducing the opportunity for 3rd party sources to access the renderer and it helps a great deal. The problem your left with then is that apps like firefox are still dependent on IE's trust model (the entire trust model of the OS is built around it) when running on windows. This is why almost every major "exploit in firefox" only affects firefox on windows.
There are plenty of other broken pieces in windows, but I've tried to stick to examples of why simply not using IE still leaves you vulnerable on windows.
On windows your best bet is to run as an unpriv'd user as much as the OS allows, use 3rd party email and browser apps (that use a different renderer). And don't forget to stick it behind a firewall that isn't running windows or better just keep it off the network. Also never put a disk in a windows box that came from outside your network unless it is from a known publisher and you've scanned it for viruses on a disconnected machine. Aside from that, you really just have to pray.
None of that is saying any particular other OS is secure, that's another matter entirely. I'm just saying that clearly windows is NOT and you CANNOT remove the components needed to lock it down.
Windows is a distribution, an operating system IS a kernel.
Semantics aside however, your right, comparing apples to apples gives a better comparison.
The minimal windows install versus a minimal redhat install is a better comparison and there aren't many linux distros in which you'll ever find remote exploits in the core minimal install.
It's still not perfect though, pretty well everything can be stripped from a linux box to harden it. A windows box cannot be hardened since most remote exploits are in core services and you can't remove or replace them in windows (the most famous example being IE).
What cracks me up is that 2K/XP are touted as being an excellent step toward security and yet it's NT based systems which suffer from the most severe viruses and exploits.
Come on now, we are talking about people who heed slashdot for god sake.
12:43 central and attempts to look at messages or metamod give only 503 errors.
If you guys won't RTFA fine, but at least read the summary. This scheme includes modifications of the lines to eliminate the interference problems.
Now debate the costs of replacing the lines, debate the speed, debate whether it's ethical to send nude shots of your gf over the same lines the power Grandma's toaster. But for the love of god quite repeating the same damn statement about RFI again and again!
Their scheme called for modifications to shield the lines. I know, I know it's a crime but if you won't RTFA at least read the story summary!
Seriously though, modifying the lines assures that this won't be a last mile solution. The reason for the last mile problem is that there aren't enough last mile customers to make line modifications a viable choice.
Yes but even if the EULA is upheld all they can do is cancel your account. The legal expenses are alot scarier than the consquences of a TOS violation ;) What they threaten and the actual damage are two entirely different things.
With that said I agree. I don't know if I'd be as confident if I were the one getting the threats of suits for millions.
Seriously guys, we all know the first order of business is to port this to Mono and Linux.
The big thing the modder on their forums don't seem to get is that open source allows people to send patches to the maintainers, not simply fork.
Because the only legal basis Blizzard had for shutting it down to begin with was the EULA on the client and EULA aren't even firmly established legal ground AFAIK. The WoW emulator guys simply caved at the first threat, it's not like Blizzard actually fought and won.
Actually that is the popular use of the word. But for the anal such as yourself, emulation is something which emulates or pretends to be something else. The win32 api port that we call wine does not pretend anything, it simply is an api port like any other.
An API port is not emulating that API, it is that API implemented on another platform. If I write a story in English and that story is translated to German, the translation is NOT an emulation of my original story, it's a port.
"If you intend on using the ROM for a console game (such example consoles are the NES, SNES, Genesis, Playstation, Gamboy, and so on), you use a program loader which loads and executes a ROM, and a set of libraries that implements the console API calls using their UNIX or X11 or Windows or Linux or DOS or Nokia equivalents."
Really? I don't know of any console emulators that work this way. All the console emulators I've ever heard of emulate the console hardware. Show me a single NES, SNES, or Genesis emulator that doesn't emulate the console hardware and I'll show you your wrong (Try to pick a popular one, the point of the excercise isn't to see if I can find info on the inner workings of an obscure program). Mame is also a hardware emulator.
Opengl for instance, is just an API. That API is implemented on multiple platforms. By your logic Opengl is an emulator. Just because the DirectX API isn't open or properly documented, resulting in a less than perfect implementation by 3rd parties, does not mean 3rd party implementations are emulators. The same holds true for the win32 api.
The difference between emulation and api implementation is simple. In both cases your porting an API, but with emulation it's a hardware API. Emulation IS software pretending to be HARDWARE period. With hardware emulation there is always a performance loss. Software can theoretically be perfectly ported from one platform to another without any performance loss.
People claim there is a hit translating to opengl in Cedegra. That isn't true, on windows win32 api and DirectX calls translate to other platform specific code as well. Most of the api's used in that platform specific code will map to other dlls and windows code. Same thing.
Performance loss on Cedegra is related to unimplemented or poorly implemented calls. In most cases it's because the Cedegra team has chosen to use Opengl rather than writing their implementation from scratch and taking advantage of the DirectX Hardware acceleration designed into the video card, instead they are using Opengl acceleration. You can see this clearly in the ati and nvidia performance differences on linux. ATI cards are highly optimized for DirectX, Nvidia are best optimized for OpenGL, the result is that ATI's are the best cards for most windows games and Nvidia yield the best performance on linux and Mac for gaming.
So in summary, neither wine nor winex are emulation. WineX is a poor implementation which translates to opengl in order to speed development time but it is not emulation.