"No it doesn't. WTH are you talking about? All it merely does it combine attacks against all known security flaws into a single package. It is also a trojan horse meaning that it uses user idiocy to get itself installed.
Hmm... I suppose user idiocy is a flaw that Windows has that Linux doesn't."
Most viruses out there are spreading nowadays without the user actually having to even click once. They are using known vulnerabilities in Windows for the most part. This rules out what you said about user idiocy: you can still get a virus in Windows by just connecting to the internet, even if you have a recently updated antivirus.
If Linux was the one being attacked by these many viruses, I would be the first to point a finger at it. But how can someone argue that right now? It has been a struggle to keep up with all the people getting viruses in the last few months just because they had XP on their PCs.
Maybe it's because Windows is so popular. I don't know and I honestly don't care. That way of reasoning is not going to make Windows look less vulnerable to me.
"That's largely down to the platform-independent UI code, though. Replace it with native widgets tied to Gnome and performance should be perfectly respectable."
It mostly depends on what respectable means to you. I seriously don't want to end up buying a computer 10 years in the future from now that runs programs as fast as the PC I am using right now. I think there is a certain degree of speed loss you can accept in exchange of a better development environment, which depends highly on the kind of application you are coding. But I refuse to accept the main principle of Java, which is to make computers compatible by running all code with an emulator (of a virtual computer). Especially when the compatibility it claims to have is not respected by all systems.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to get Java lovers angry here. I realize that my opinion is no more than that, an opinion. But think about it: wouldn't you prefer libraries that allow easy transitions from a Windows C code to the equivalent Mac C code? or to Linux C code?
I know many people finds java to be great because they don't need to compile their code and test it for several systems. But if they could do the same thing with lower-level languages like C... wouldn't they find that much better?
"But what exactly is the barrier to a significant userbase? Linux is free and you can install it on a partition on your HD; you don't have to get rid of Windows to run or even try Linux. So what is the barrier? If you can't even get people to take something for free you know you have a problem."
Indeed, Linux has a problem there. Consider a common Windows gamer. Why would he be interested in even installing linux to give it a try? It's not like Linux is going to improve his gaming experience. Installing an OS that sometimes even geeks have problems with is not exactly what a gamer wants to spend his day doing either. It doesn't matter if linux is free... they want something they can install and use with two or three mouse clicks... they don't even dream about using the keyboard to tell the PC to do something (other than move the player around the screen).
As good as Linux is for some kinds of works, it is still ages behind when it comes to desktop computing. But a great effort is being made to improve on this side too.
My suggestion is for linux developers to work on making easier installers, less complicated interfaces and sometimes more self-configuring applications. Having default configurations that make the linux experience more user friendly and such, without having to go through the hassle of setting up things an "ignorant" user wouldn't care about.
No, that's wrong. You can never stop people from suing you. By placing a "beware of dog" sign, you are making sure that people will know there's a dog before doing something stupid like sticking their arms in. In other words if the sign is there and someone sues you because your dog bite him, you are probably going to win, but if the sign was there, you would probably be found guilty.
A disclaimer is no different. You are just letting people know about the degree of support you are offering to them before they start using your product, and what they can or can't do. They can still sue you, but at least you can prove that they knew your conditions before using your program.
I was wondering if given these patents it would be possible to remain on safe grounds by clearly prohibiting downloads of your program from the USA (this is NOT against USA, I love the country... but I hate those patents).
Considering that I don't live in the US, and that in my country there are no software patent laws, is there any way I can excempt myself from being subject to such laws?
"Not to agree or disagree, but then how come MS is always behind schedule on all versions of their operating systems? 2000 was supposed to be like XP, but they couldn't make it in time. Are you suggesting that they release nothing for several years? how many people complain about how long it takes Debian on their release cycles?"
Not being on schedule doesn't mean they are doing things the right way.
In my personal experience (working as a programmer) I've had some project managers that put speed above all things. They want the product done faster than light, even if with big flaws. Once the product is done, everything can be fixed, right? Wrong! I've had to face hours and hours of fixing their mistakes in the past just because when they were making the decisions they didn't want to hear about those flaws.
Let's face it, no program is perfect, especially upon release. But purposedly ignoring design flaws is the worst thing you can do when coding. Sometimes, the "shortest path" will help you on the short term, but will slow you down enormously on the long run. And all that time you will loose rewriting code is probably the main reason why you will not on schedule on future releases. Believe me, you better fix the big flaws as soon as you find them.
Plus not being on schedule is not a good reason to release a poor product. And if the product is poor it means someone made the wrong decisions anyway. I am not saying that I can make the perfect product, but if you know you're coding on top of faulty code and you don't fix it first, I can assure you you are NOT saving time. You are just adding code that will probably have to be changed in the future because of that single flaw.
"It's always easy to point at flaws or pick apart people's arguments. Microsoft has done enough that it's a lightning rod for us on Slashdot. But let's say we were hired make many of the design decisions. We have people complaining about losing support for their old hardware/software, you have people wanting features, people wanting stability, etc... You have so many different types of requests and you have the business side, it becomes easy to see mistakes, but much harder to necessarily see solutions. For every solution you think you have to a problem, I'm sure others would see other problems that would arise elsewhere. How do you manage and balance all of that? Thankfully, that's not my job..."
Most of it comes from experience in my opinion. A manager that doesn't want to hear about serious flaws from the programmers will surely not find the solutions either. In my humble opinion, good code is modular code. That is maybe the golden reason why Linux is so good. In Windows they are now changing a few features for security reasons and now most programs won't run at all. It's all broken. I mean, would they be suffering as much if Windows was a bit more modular or if they considered security an important issue at first? I think not.
All I'm saying is: you can't make a perfect program, but try as hard as you can from the early development stage. Don't ignore the problems, always try to fix them the proper way.
I am all for rewrites if they are necessary. But I am completely against the logic that coding faster is better. During the creation process of a program, you may stumble upon flaws in previous decision regarding the structure of your code. It seems to me like many coders (and companies like MS) think it is better to ignore those flaw since they can be fixed in a second version. They go on and on improving the application until such flaws become a real, serious problem. So they end up spending much more time rewriting parts of their code than they would have spent if they gave these problems the proper importance when they were first discovered.
It is all about quality versus quantity. Microsoft sticks to the second one and Linux to the first one. So this means the while Microsoft has to reinvent the weel time after time, the Linux coders can actually spend their time improving on top of a very solid base.
"What the directive says is _not_ that some company's private stormtroopers can bash your door in, whenever they see fit."
I get a feeling I will get modded down: but isn't this a problem of slashdot rather than a problem with it's readers? Shouldn't the headlines we read on the front page give us enough to understand (or nearly understand) what happened without having to go through all of the links posted? AFAICR slashdot should be "news for nerds" and not "links for nerds".
From the news item:
"...a new European Union law that 'allows companies to raid homes, seize property and ask courts to freeze bank accounts to protect trademarks or intellectual property they believe are being abused or stolen.'"
While the quote is not WRONG, it sounds quite misleading to me. It would make you think that corporations can just knock on your door an seize your stuff. But the company still has to show proof that such infringement may have taken place, and the final decision is made by a court.
Why not? Your idea that linux' only goals are "stability, security, and control" look correct to you and shortsighted to me, your opinion against mine. And while the current userbase may find it more than enough to have programs that run in command line, there are a lot of advantages on having a GUI on such programs. The phrase "Linux is harder to use than Windows" means that there IS SOMETHING BETTER in Windows or Mac as opposed to Linux. In other words, Linux could improve on the ease of use. Of course, this may not be a problem of yours, which is totally acceptable, but it may be a problem of mine and other 1000 people.
But claiming that to have something implemented in your program of choice you have to work on it, or else shut up is something I can't quite understand. Contributing to a project doesn't give you any more rights to whine about it than being an end-user of such program. If you don't like criticism then you should either ignore what people says or avoid releasing your programs to the public. You can't release something and then expect everyone to love it or shut up.
"Don't get in *my* face about how Linux needs to become so much more usable for it to take over the desktop. MAYBE THAT'S NOT MY GOAL JUST BECAUSE IT'S YOURS."
And this is the very reason why I won't be expecting you to do the work or think like I do. But does that mean I have no right to suggest or comment and that I must love your program? Hell no! If I think that something can be improved I will suggest that it is improved, and not "shut up" because it is not your personal goal. The fact is that by not working on the application I am making suggestions for, I have less chances of seeing my suggestions implemented, but that doesn't mean I won't propose them.
"Soooo... let me get this straight. YOU think it's a problem because OTHER PEOPLE don't want to do the job YOU just said YOU don't want to do but YOU'RE currently griping about?"
Don't get me wrong, I realize it can be irritating to hear people whine when they're not willing to contribute themselves on making linux better. But unfortunately this IS a problem in linux. CD burning software without a GUI? Why should an average user choose that over a nifty program with an intuitive graphical interface?
Whining is no good. Suggesting is better. But the "you want it you code it" reply doesn't make a program less incomplete. It is also not the kind of reply an end user would want to hear... especially when they are not programmers.
It always strucks me to see that definitions that were meant to "label" a group of people in certain ways, can assume completely different meanings on the long run. An example of this, is the original meaning of the word hacker (from http://www.joabj.com/CityPaper/hacker.html):
"To these hackers though, these computers presented a whole new realm of possibilities. In the ensuring decade, they prodded the TX-O, and, later, the PDP-6 to play chess, hum Bach, emulate ping pong, act as a adding machine, and play space war games... All these applications were called hacks. Such work was seen as frivolous. These programs were written for no other reason than to be simply to have them be admired and improved upon by other programmers. In hindsight, its obvious these hackers were radically rethinking the way computers could be used."
And nowadays it has assumed a completely evil meaning. The same goes for these so called "script kiddies". I mean, as far as I remember a script kiddie was someone uncapable of making discoveries of security holes himself. One with little if any knowledge on computer security (or even programming) but with a good library of programs to let them achieve their goals. Their final goal being to be recognized as hackers without all the process of properly learning the stuff. The article above talks about script kiddies as kids who are good at creating programs, which gives the term a one hundred and eighty twist.
No way it's going to work. As stupid as it may sound, people will rather get spam and send mails for free rather than pay for the emails they send. And who will we be paying anyway? Our country's government? Microsoft? Who?
The solution to spam, in my humble opinion, is not in paying for the email service. One thing that came to my mind while reading this is that it would be interesting to be able to set up a sort of login/password mechanism for incoming mails. Something very generic, where you can assign logins and passwords to people (or groups of people) you know, or even public ones you could publicate on semi-private sites (like forums, etc). The moment you start getting spam, you just eliminate the login/password combination that's getting it. If such a system was implemented on the mail server side (where the server bounces mails without the proper l/p combinations), a lot of bandwidth could be saved, as the mail wouldn't even be transfered to it.
"If you are willing to give up freedom for security you deserve neither;)"
Err, who said anything about freedom? Being tracked because of my cell phone is maybe going to break into my privacy but it's not going to make me less free.
Do you think address books make you less free because people knows where you live?
Don't get me wrong: I wasn't saying that I want everyone to know where I am, but I think that there's a point in the middle. All extremisms are bad IMHO.
I don't like the idea of being tracked either, but isn't it nice to know that such technology is helping against terrorism? I mean, does it make sense to refuse stuff like this and then blame the authorities for not being able to catch these criminals?
Just another point of view. I get the feeling that staying somewhere in the middle is the best choice.
"I can't whether you're suggesting that a name cannot be copyrighted (lawyers for the mouse from Anaheim would disagree) or is copyrighted by default..."
I was just explaining that the copyright is something you get "by default" over your work. I'm not 100% sure of the limitations of copyrights but I am pretty sure that you don't own, nor can get in any way, the copyright of your name.
What you can get are the patents, which you can pay for. But as far as I know you can't patent your name either.
"...the Database and Collections of Information Misappropriation Act (HR3261) makes it a crime for anyone to copy and redistribute a substantial portion of data collected by commercial database companies and list publishers."
Apparently what this bill tries to do is to protect the database as it would protect a history book. By writing a history book you don't have the copyright over each fact listed in your book, but over the book as a whole, or in big portions of it. Both the history book and the database are an assembly of factual information (with some errors and mistakes here and there). Both the database and the book require several hours of work.
My opinion goes against this bill, Diego Rey
PS: I think that the thing that makes them different is that a history book, as factual as it can seem, has a lot of the author's personality. A database holds nothing more than facts.
Then I realized that if I can only be rich by restricting the freedom of my fellow human beings, I don't want to be rich.
And I am grateful to God that I was able to earn a decent living - without having to in any way violate the rights of my fellow human beings.
Making people pay for the software you make or close-sourcing your project has little if anything to do with violating their rights. If they think your program doesn't suit them they are still free not to buy it, and eventually go for an open source one. Your own source code is not part of your client's rights unless they pay for it, or you decide to give it for free.
Each programmer should be free to make his own choice: after all, that's what FREEDOM and RIGHTS are about. Making the wrong choice will eventually punish you, but as long as your business model works (in full respect of your clients) I can't see the problem.
Wow... Either you are a troll and you're just saying these things to invoke flame, or you are completely clueless.
You are the clueless one. Let me tell you why...
Having had my Win2k system up for over two months at a time, playing games frequently, I can pretty much assure you that Windows no longer degrades over time either. You are thinking of Win9x, which has been discontinued.
I suppose Microsoft likes to fall back in their improvements then, given that Windows XP DOES slow down over time, and that Windows XP is their latest OS. I am not thinking about 9x at all here.
For instance I found it impossible to run XP for more than 6 months without a clean reinstall in such a period of time.
No, no they can not. Not unless your hardware is broken.
Even if they didn't, a simple program that crashes can bring down your entire system, as windows doesn't have protected memory. That's not possible in Mac OS X.
You clearly don't know what the term "exponentially" means.
It was properly used. What I meant there was that getting a job done on a computer that really lets you concentrate on working is going to be less than the time it takes you to get the same problem solved in a computer that makes you worry about making it work as well. I said exponentially because the harder the work, the bigger this difference in time will be.
I'm sure you can find the meaning of "exponential" in your favourite dictionary... but if you have any more doubts just feel free to ask.
Equally fast. I'm not sure what Macs you're talking about but the PowerBook G4, the Cube, the G3 266 Beige and the PowerPC 6100/66 were all great boxes at the time I bought them. The only one that wasn't too fast was the Cube at the time, but it made up for all that for it's great design and some cool features like build in firewire (which I was looking for at the time).
It all depends on what you're looking for. I found Macs not to require as many expansion slots as PCs, as you always get them with a audio cards, video cards, Gigahertz ethernet, firewire, plenty of usb connectors... and the best thing is I used to use an "unsupported" voodoo 3 back in the days when it was quite a good card.
No matter what people say I have worked extensively with Macs and PCs, and the difference between ANY version of Windows and ANY version of Mac OS is incredible when it comes to speed. Please keep in mind that now that Mac OS X is out, the speed of the Mac OS system does not degrade over time as Windows still does.
The time it gets to get a job done in Mac OS X is exponentially lower than it is in Windows XP. Simple tasks like opening docs, moving files, etc can still crash XP for instance. Since I got Mac OS X I haven't had a single OS crash here. So, that's what I mean with optimizations.
And as you stated earlier, speed is a subjective concept. To me the most important thing is how long it takes me to get a job done, and Macs are great at that.
But seriously, I'd rather believe you're an over-exuberant Mac fanboy than a troll, so let me explain to you that nothing is cut-an-dried when it comes to statements like which processor is "more optimized".
Believe what you want, that's your problem, not mine. Hell I could think you're a troll as well, but I don't see what that has to do with the discussion.
The fact is that the x86 architecture at the core of the Pentium and Athlon processors IS complex, IS large and inefficient (outdated you could say). A CPU that supports 8 bit instructions just for backward compatibility is doomed to be such. And by optimized I didn't mean faster, which is what you seem to have understood.
Slashdot Mirror
Woah, saying "linux" nowadays is like shouting "bomb!" inside of an american airport.
Diego Rey
Most viruses out there are spreading nowadays without the user actually having to even click once. They are using known vulnerabilities in Windows for the most part. This rules out what you said about user idiocy: you can still get a virus in Windows by just connecting to the internet, even if you have a recently updated antivirus.
If Linux was the one being attacked by these many viruses, I would be the first to point a finger at it. But how can someone argue that right now? It has been a struggle to keep up with all the people getting viruses in the last few months just because they had XP on their PCs.
Maybe it's because Windows is so popular. I don't know and I honestly don't care. That way of reasoning is not going to make Windows look less vulnerable to me.
Diego Rey
It mostly depends on what respectable means to you. I seriously don't want to end up buying a computer 10 years in the future from now that runs programs as fast as the PC I am using right now. I think there is a certain degree of speed loss you can accept in exchange of a better development environment, which depends highly on the kind of application you are coding. But I refuse to accept the main principle of Java, which is to make computers compatible by running all code with an emulator (of a virtual computer). Especially when the compatibility it claims to have is not respected by all systems.
Don't get me wrong, I don't want to get Java lovers angry here. I realize that my opinion is no more than that, an opinion. But think about it: wouldn't you prefer libraries that allow easy transitions from a Windows C code to the equivalent Mac C code? or to Linux C code?
I know many people finds java to be great because they don't need to compile their code and test it for several systems. But if they could do the same thing with lower-level languages like C... wouldn't they find that much better?
Diego Rey
Indeed, Linux has a problem there. Consider a common Windows gamer. Why would he be interested in even installing linux to give it a try? It's not like Linux is going to improve his gaming experience. Installing an OS that sometimes even geeks have problems with is not exactly what a gamer wants to spend his day doing either. It doesn't matter if linux is free... they want something they can install and use with two or three mouse clicks... they don't even dream about using the keyboard to tell the PC to do something (other than move the player around the screen).
As good as Linux is for some kinds of works, it is still ages behind when it comes to desktop computing. But a great effort is being made to improve on this side too.
My suggestion is for linux developers to work on making easier installers, less complicated interfaces and sometimes more self-configuring applications. Having default configurations that make the linux experience more user friendly and such, without having to go through the hassle of setting up things an "ignorant" user wouldn't care about.
But that's just my opinion,
Diego Rey
No, that's wrong. You can never stop people from suing you. By placing a "beware of dog" sign, you are making sure that people will know there's a dog before doing something stupid like sticking their arms in. In other words if the sign is there and someone sues you because your dog bite him, you are probably going to win, but if the sign was there, you would probably be found guilty.
A disclaimer is no different. You are just letting people know about the degree of support you are offering to them before they start using your product, and what they can or can't do. They can still sue you, but at least you can prove that they knew your conditions before using your program.
Diego Rey
An open source secretary.
Diego Rey
I was wondering if given these patents it would be possible to remain on safe grounds by clearly prohibiting downloads of your program from the USA (this is NOT against USA, I love the country... but I hate those patents).
Considering that I don't live in the US, and that in my country there are no software patent laws, is there any way I can excempt myself from being subject to such laws?
Diego Rey
Not being on schedule doesn't mean they are doing things the right way.
In my personal experience (working as a programmer) I've had some project managers that put speed above all things. They want the product done faster than light, even if with big flaws. Once the product is done, everything can be fixed, right? Wrong! I've had to face hours and hours of fixing their mistakes in the past just because when they were making the decisions they didn't want to hear about those flaws.
Let's face it, no program is perfect, especially upon release. But purposedly ignoring design flaws is the worst thing you can do when coding. Sometimes, the "shortest path" will help you on the short term, but will slow you down enormously on the long run. And all that time you will loose rewriting code is probably the main reason why you will not on schedule on future releases. Believe me, you better fix the big flaws as soon as you find them.
Plus not being on schedule is not a good reason to release a poor product. And if the product is poor it means someone made the wrong decisions anyway. I am not saying that I can make the perfect product, but if you know you're coding on top of faulty code and you don't fix it first, I can assure you you are NOT saving time. You are just adding code that will probably have to be changed in the future because of that single flaw.
Most of it comes from experience in my opinion. A manager that doesn't want to hear about serious flaws from the programmers will surely not find the solutions either. In my humble opinion, good code is modular code. That is maybe the golden reason why Linux is so good. In Windows they are now changing a few features for security reasons and now most programs won't run at all. It's all broken. I mean, would they be suffering as much if Windows was a bit more modular or if they considered security an important issue at first? I think not.
All I'm saying is: you can't make a perfect program, but try as hard as you can from the early development stage. Don't ignore the problems, always try to fix them the proper way.
Diego Rey
I am all for rewrites if they are necessary. But I am completely against the logic that coding faster is better. During the creation process of a program, you may stumble upon flaws in previous decision regarding the structure of your code. It seems to me like many coders (and companies like MS) think it is better to ignore those flaw since they can be fixed in a second version. They go on and on improving the application until such flaws become a real, serious problem. So they end up spending much more time rewriting parts of their code than they would have spent if they gave these problems the proper importance when they were first discovered.
It is all about quality versus quantity. Microsoft sticks to the second one and Linux to the first one. So this means the while Microsoft has to reinvent the weel time after time, the Linux coders can actually spend their time improving on top of a very solid base.
Diego Rey
I get a feeling I will get modded down: but isn't this a problem of slashdot rather than a problem with it's readers? Shouldn't the headlines we read on the front page give us enough to understand (or nearly understand) what happened without having to go through all of the links posted? AFAICR slashdot should be "news for nerds" and not "links for nerds".
From the news item:
While the quote is not WRONG, it sounds quite misleading to me. It would make you think that corporations can just knock on your door an seize your stuff. But the company still has to show proof that such infringement may have taken place, and the final decision is made by a court.
Diego Rey
Can't SCO be sued for swindling? I mean, as far as I know nobody can sell licenses for program they have no rights on...
Diego Rey
Why not? Your idea that linux' only goals are "stability, security, and control" look correct to you and shortsighted to me, your opinion against mine. And while the current userbase may find it more than enough to have programs that run in command line, there are a lot of advantages on having a GUI on such programs. The phrase "Linux is harder to use than Windows" means that there IS SOMETHING BETTER in Windows or Mac as opposed to Linux. In other words, Linux could improve on the ease of use. Of course, this may not be a problem of yours, which is totally acceptable, but it may be a problem of mine and other 1000 people.
But claiming that to have something implemented in your program of choice you have to work on it, or else shut up is something I can't quite understand. Contributing to a project doesn't give you any more rights to whine about it than being an end-user of such program. If you don't like criticism then you should either ignore what people says or avoid releasing your programs to the public. You can't release something and then expect everyone to love it or shut up.
And this is the very reason why I won't be expecting you to do the work or think like I do. But does that mean I have no right to suggest or comment and that I must love your program? Hell no! If I think that something can be improved I will suggest that it is improved, and not "shut up" because it is not your personal goal. The fact is that by not working on the application I am making suggestions for, I have less chances of seeing my suggestions implemented, but that doesn't mean I won't propose them.
Diego Rey
Don't get me wrong, I realize it can be irritating to hear people whine when they're not willing to contribute themselves on making linux better. But unfortunately this IS a problem in linux. CD burning software without a GUI? Why should an average user choose that over a nifty program with an intuitive graphical interface?
Whining is no good. Suggesting is better. But the "you want it you code it" reply doesn't make a program less incomplete. It is also not the kind of reply an end user would want to hear... especially when they are not programmers.
Diego Rey
And nowadays it has assumed a completely evil meaning. The same goes for these so called "script kiddies". I mean, as far as I remember a script kiddie was someone uncapable of making discoveries of security holes himself. One with little if any knowledge on computer security (or even programming) but with a good library of programs to let them achieve their goals. Their final goal being to be recognized as hackers without all the process of properly learning the stuff. The article above talks about script kiddies as kids who are good at creating programs, which gives the term a one hundred and eighty twist.
Diego Rey
No way it's going to work. As stupid as it may sound, people will rather get spam and send mails for free rather than pay for the emails they send. And who will we be paying anyway? Our country's government? Microsoft? Who?
The solution to spam, in my humble opinion, is not in paying for the email service. One thing that came to my mind while reading this is that it would be interesting to be able to set up a sort of login/password mechanism for incoming mails. Something very generic, where you can assign logins and passwords to people (or groups of people) you know, or even public ones you could publicate on semi-private sites (like forums, etc). The moment you start getting spam, you just eliminate the login/password combination that's getting it. If such a system was implemented on the mail server side (where the server bounces mails without the proper l/p combinations), a lot of bandwidth could be saved, as the mail wouldn't even be transfered to it.
Just an idea,
Diego Rey
Err, who said anything about freedom? Being tracked because of my cell phone is maybe going to break into my privacy but it's not going to make me less free.
Do you think address books make you less free because people knows where you live?
Don't get me wrong: I wasn't saying that I want everyone to know where I am, but I think that there's a point in the middle. All extremisms are bad IMHO.
Diego Rey
I don't like the idea of being tracked either, but isn't it nice to know that such technology is helping against terrorism? I mean, does it make sense to refuse stuff like this and then blame the authorities for not being able to catch these criminals?
Just another point of view. I get the feeling that staying somewhere in the middle is the best choice.
Diego Rey
I was just explaining that the copyright is something you get "by default" over your work. I'm not 100% sure of the limitations of copyrights but I am pretty sure that you don't own, nor can get in any way, the copyright of your name.
What you can get are the patents, which you can pay for. But as far as I know you can't patent your name either.
Diego Rey
You can't copyright your name. You HAVE copyright over your work, such as a book, or a writing without having to pay or do anything.
Diego
Apparently what this bill tries to do is to protect the database as it would protect a history book. By writing a history book you don't have the copyright over each fact listed in your book, but over the book as a whole, or in big portions of it. Both the history book and the database are an assembly of factual information (with some errors and mistakes here and there). Both the database and the book require several hours of work.
My opinion goes against this bill,
Diego Rey
PS: I think that the thing that makes them different is that a history book, as factual as it can seem, has a lot of the author's personality. A database holds nothing more than facts.
It all depends on the license. Taking "portions" of a software could mean violating the terms of it.
Diego Rey
Making people pay for the software you make or close-sourcing your project has little if anything to do with violating their rights. If they think your program doesn't suit them they are still free not to buy it, and eventually go for an open source one. Your own source code is not part of your client's rights unless they pay for it, or you decide to give it for free.
Each programmer should be free to make his own choice: after all, that's what FREEDOM and RIGHTS are about. Making the wrong choice will eventually punish you, but as long as your business model works (in full respect of your clients) I can't see the problem.
Diego Rey
You are the clueless one. Let me tell you why...
I suppose Microsoft likes to fall back in their improvements then, given that Windows XP DOES slow down over time, and that Windows XP is their latest OS. I am not thinking about 9x at all here.
For instance I found it impossible to run XP for more than 6 months without a clean reinstall in such a period of time.
Even if they didn't, a simple program that crashes can bring down your entire system, as windows doesn't have protected memory. That's not possible in Mac OS X.
It was properly used. What I meant there was that getting a job done on a computer that really lets you concentrate on working is going to be less than the time it takes you to get the same problem solved in a computer that makes you worry about making it work as well. I said exponentially because the harder the work, the bigger this difference in time will be.
I'm sure you can find the meaning of "exponential" in your favourite dictionary... but if you have any more doubts just feel free to ask.
Diego Rey
Equally fast. I'm not sure what Macs you're talking about but the PowerBook G4, the Cube, the G3 266 Beige and the PowerPC 6100/66 were all great boxes at the time I bought them. The only one that wasn't too fast was the Cube at the time, but it made up for all that for it's great design and some cool features like build in firewire (which I was looking for at the time).
It all depends on what you're looking for. I found Macs not to require as many expansion slots as PCs, as you always get them with a audio cards, video cards, Gigahertz ethernet, firewire, plenty of usb connectors... and the best thing is I used to use an "unsupported" voodoo 3 back in the days when it was quite a good card.
No matter what people say I have worked extensively with Macs and PCs, and the difference between ANY version of Windows and ANY version of Mac OS is incredible when it comes to speed. Please keep in mind that now that Mac OS X is out, the speed of the Mac OS system does not degrade over time as Windows still does.
The time it gets to get a job done in Mac OS X is exponentially lower than it is in Windows XP. Simple tasks like opening docs, moving files, etc can still crash XP for instance. Since I got Mac OS X I haven't had a single OS crash here. So, that's what I mean with optimizations.
And as you stated earlier, speed is a subjective concept. To me the most important thing is how long it takes me to get a job done, and Macs are great at that.
Diego Rey
Believe what you want, that's your problem, not mine. Hell I could think you're a troll as well, but I don't see what that has to do with the discussion.
The fact is that the x86 architecture at the core of the Pentium and Athlon processors IS complex, IS large and inefficient (outdated you could say). A CPU that supports 8 bit instructions just for backward compatibility is doomed to be such. And by optimized I didn't mean faster, which is what you seem to have understood.
Diego Rey