If you validate against firefox instead of against the standard then your pages could well get broken in future versions.
Unforuntately this is exactly what a lot of web developers do - check it works in IE and that's it, even if it breaks every rule in the standard.
Yeah sure, that's the current situation. I too am hoping xhtml gets adopted into the mainstream. As well as validation, I'm in love of/need of xml namespaces. Every aspect of web design would be made simpler with xhtml.
That said, I don't see why this has to be the case. While Microsoft has any notable part of the browser market, of course they will remain incompatible. I don't need to explain how it locks people into using their products.
Yeah there are some minor rendering bugs that have remained unfixed for months in firefox. But if it had a monopoly, I suggest that this wouldn't be the case. Web developers will always know that firefox is aiming at adhering to the standards, so they will validate against them. If a feature doesn't work at a particular point in time, you've got 4 choices: leave it in and let people experience the bug, work around it and potentially require a change in the future, take the feature out, or submit a patch yourself. But you've got choice. If there are 3 dominant browers then it's likely each will have nuances that you have to work around.. requiring 3 times the work. And if one or more of them are propriatry, your situation is even more diar.
I for one would prefer to have several browsers with different security holes rather than several browsers with the same security holes.
Why is that? I bet if everyone was using the same browser, any holes that were discovered would be fixed pretty quickly. Everyone would have the same interest. I'd suggest that there would be more people interested in its security than in working against it. Sure, this is pure speculation on my part. But there would also be a commercial incentive to produce security products for firefox. You'd still have multiple layers of security. And you'd still have diversity in those layers.
If my browser is written in Haskell and walks the DOM in reverse, it might not be possible at all. And that would stifle innovation.
This (as i see it) is really the core of your argument. The thing is, if you are doing things in an obscure way, you might not be able to make your plugins work with ANY api. Whether it's implemented in one browser or many. That isn't something specific to a monoculture. Hopefully (as much as i hate to say it) the advent of.net will alleiviate some of those concerns.
If there is a demand for a non-firefox compatible extension (although my arguments are not specific to firefox being the monopoly leader), it will be built. You can even build it yourself!
From the other side of the coin, if there are say, 3 browsers with 33% of the market each, and one doesn't choose to support an api, what then? Now you're targetting to at least 2 browsers. Everytime someone comes up with a reason why an opensource monoculture would be bad, they fail to look at the alternatives.
Yours is the best argument against an open source monoculture I've seen (whether it be a true monoculture or close enough).
I don't think that your catchup argument is too strong.. You're constantly playing catchup to new standards as it is. That's the world of a software developer. And if you choose to make your product have a compatible licence, you actually get an added advantage of being able to cut and paste large sections of code.
As far as bugs go, this was very thought provoking. My hope is that the bugs get fixed due to the nature of open source. Firefox follows standards. If the bug breaks the standard, then it will be fixed. Because of the open source nature of firefox, the more important the bug, the sooner it gets fixed.
If you validate against firefox instead of against the standard then your pages could well get broken in future versions. And with auto-update, more people will be using future versions than not.
With the extensions there is a more serious issue though; a commercial company could create its own propriety extension, and require that you use it to view their website. Which would be a big problem.
That could always happen. That's more a problem with software in general. At least with open source, we've got the code to the backend-glue the propriatry plugin uses, so you could embed it in whatever application you want.
Making other browsers able to use the firefox extensions might be impossible without completely rewriting them.
Then don't make other browsers use the firefox extensions. Just write a compatible implementation. You've got the source.
The extension system might make it impossible for me to alter firefox enough to get it how I like it.
You've got the source to the extension system! Change it! Or if you can't, then pay someone to do it!
What's wrong with a monoculture if 1) anyone can improve upon the product in question and 2) anyone can adopt those improvements to produce compatible products?
The open source nature of firefox ensures both of these things. As long as these conditions are met, a monoculture can be toppled by a better product, and there is no stagnation.
I'm interested to hear what these "more benign" problems you speak of are. Or did you just read somewhere that 'monoculture = evil' without considering the reasons why?
What's stopping all of firefox's extentions from becoming standard?
Is it some commercial interest?
Is it some law?
If not, it's fine for firefox to have 100% marketshare. There is nothing to stop anyone from improving on it, and there is nothing to stop anyone adopting those improvements.
It's like saying, "oh just dangle the baby over the balcony. Don't worry, trust me, the instant you do that, the hands of God will come down and protect him. Then you can let him go so he can."
One of the major problems with asking the programmer to think about usability is he's offering his time for free. And lets face it, usability isn't trivial. It could quite possibily (and i'd even go as far as to say most likely) take more time just getting the interface right than the whole rest of the program (depending on what it is).
This is where i can see something like XUL playing a great helping hand. The interface is decoupled from the code enough that any web designer can fix usability problems. It leverages the power of open source. I just wish more people would understand this and help with work on XUL (documenting/testing etc.)..
The broadband adapter was announced at one point, but you certainly can't buy them here.
Broadband adapters are availiable direct from Nintendo Australia only.
Price includes postage. Call +61 3 9730 9822 during business hours
Last time i checked they were $60.
I think if Linux had 90% of the market we would be back at square one.
I was with you until this point. I think Open source has an advantage in a monopolistic situation. There isn't a vendor that can force you to upgrade. If there is a bug, you can fix it as fast as it takes someone to pay someone to fix it. Which is pretty quick. If Linux had 90% of the market, noone would be locked in to anything. If you don't like ANYTHING, you can improve it yourself.
Open source gives more power to each user with more users. Closed source gives more power to a company with more users.
This is the biggest load of crap i've heard in ages. How many people just give away their invites to complete strangers? I know i got mine from a complete random. How could google be sure these connections are anything? how could they work out what type of relationships these are?
Nonsense. Intelligence or being informed is not a prerequisite to freedom. If people can be asked to die for their country or to pay taxes or to be subjugated to the laws of the land, then they should have a chance to exercise their opinion over the leaders even if they just close their eyes and point.
Disclaimer: I'm not american or living in america.
But if voters aren't informed, then everyone looses their freedom. Patriot Act anyone? Just because you fight in the army doesn't mean you get a say in how it runs.
It seems to me that the american elections are no more than a popularity contest. How can that be good for a country? The only way a country moves forward is by smart people making good decisions. You can't make a good decision unless you are well informed.
What about patents? I can't find where the legal aspect has been discussed. While technically feasible it doesn't mean jack if it's not legally feasible.
Anyone got any info regarding what would be possible without any patent licensing?
but a lot of programs put some or
all of their buffers in heap memory instead, and the heap can be attacked as well
How would you put function arguments on the heap?
You wouldn't directly. You'd allocate a buffer from the heap, then push a pointer to it on the stack.
Sorry by your response i've realised I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you meant that you don't need a stack, because all buffers were on the heap. And so I was giving the example of function arguments as a counterexample. But now after re-reading, I get what you mean:)
There are still some scenarios that aren't protected by a stack canary, but it is rather effective overall, and actually protects against a few scenarios that the NX bit doesn't cover
What scenarios are these?
I was actually asking about the scenarios that the NX bit doesn't cover that stack canaries do? I've done penetration testing against stackguarded machines, but never come across the NX bit (changed my career before there were any NX protected user machines).
There is no fixed target. It is a cat-and-mouse game.
I've got to disagree. How about sex? Sex sells. It's in our nature. We're not going to just stop wanting to reproduce because we see sex everywhere. If we adapted to not wanting sex, we'd die out. So it's not going to happen.
Sometimes cliche's work too - and that's the product of something being repeated ad nausium.
Slashdot Mirror
or no swap at all.. ram is cheap these days.
what's wrong with using the contructs in most programming languages? | & ^ etc.
I'd personally love to see google add an option to have the search bar on the taskbar.
Also it would be nice to see them add search plugin supports for supporting more filetypes.
Okay I'll work from bottom up.
Unforuntately this is exactly what a lot of web developers do - check it works in IE and that's it, even if it breaks every rule in the standard.Yeah sure, that's the current situation. I too am hoping xhtml gets adopted into the mainstream. As well as validation, I'm in love of/need of xml namespaces. Every aspect of web design would be made simpler with xhtml.
That said, I don't see why this has to be the case. While Microsoft has any notable part of the browser market, of course they will remain incompatible. I don't need to explain how it locks people into using their products.
Yeah there are some minor rendering bugs that have remained unfixed for months in firefox. But if it had a monopoly, I suggest that this wouldn't be the case. Web developers will always know that firefox is aiming at adhering to the standards, so they will validate against them. If a feature doesn't work at a particular point in time, you've got 4 choices: leave it in and let people experience the bug, work around it and potentially require a change in the future, take the feature out, or submit a patch yourself. But you've got choice. If there are 3 dominant browers then it's likely each will have nuances that you have to work around.. requiring 3 times the work. And if one or more of them are propriatry, your situation is even more diar.
I for one would prefer to have several browsers with different security holes rather than several browsers with the same security holes.
Why is that? I bet if everyone was using the same browser, any holes that were discovered would be fixed pretty quickly. Everyone would have the same interest. I'd suggest that there would be more people interested in its security than in working against it. Sure, this is pure speculation on my part. But there would also be a commercial incentive to produce security products for firefox. You'd still have multiple layers of security. And you'd still have diversity in those layers.
If my browser is written in Haskell and walks the DOM in reverse, it might not be possible at all. And that would stifle innovation.
This (as i see it) is really the core of your argument. The thing is, if you are doing things in an obscure way, you might not be able to make your plugins work with ANY api. Whether it's implemented in one browser or many. That isn't something specific to a monoculture. Hopefully (as much as i hate to say it) the advent of .net will alleiviate some of those concerns.
If there is a demand for a non-firefox compatible extension (although my arguments are not specific to firefox being the monopoly leader), it will be built. You can even build it yourself!
From the other side of the coin, if there are say, 3 browsers with 33% of the market each, and one doesn't choose to support an api, what then? Now you're targetting to at least 2 browsers. Everytime someone comes up with a reason why an opensource monoculture would be bad, they fail to look at the alternatives.
Yours is the best argument against an open source monoculture I've seen (whether it be a true monoculture or close enough).
I don't think that your catchup argument is too strong.. You're constantly playing catchup to new standards as it is. That's the world of a software developer. And if you choose to make your product have a compatible licence, you actually get an added advantage of being able to cut and paste large sections of code.
As far as bugs go, this was very thought provoking. My hope is that the bugs get fixed due to the nature of open source. Firefox follows standards. If the bug breaks the standard, then it will be fixed. Because of the open source nature of firefox, the more important the bug, the sooner it gets fixed.
If you validate against firefox instead of against the standard then your pages could well get broken in future versions. And with auto-update, more people will be using future versions than not.
With the extensions there is a more serious issue though; a commercial company could create its own propriety extension, and require that you use it to view their website. Which would be a big problem.
That could always happen. That's more a problem with software in general. At least with open source, we've got the code to the backend-glue the propriatry plugin uses, so you could embed it in whatever application you want.
Making other browsers able to use the firefox extensions might be impossible without completely rewriting them.
Then don't make other browsers use the firefox extensions. Just write a compatible implementation. You've got the source.
The extension system might make it impossible for me to alter firefox enough to get it how I like it.
You've got the source to the extension system! Change it! Or if you can't, then pay someone to do it!
What's wrong with a monoculture if 1) anyone can improve upon the product in question and 2) anyone can adopt those improvements to produce compatible products?
The open source nature of firefox ensures both of these things. As long as these conditions are met, a monoculture can be toppled by a better product, and there is no stagnation.
I'm interested to hear what these "more benign" problems you speak of are. Or did you just read somewhere that 'monoculture = evil' without considering the reasons why?
You're asking the wrong questions.
What's stopping XUL from becoming a standard?
What's stopping all of firefox's extentions from becoming standard?
Is it some commercial interest?
Is it some law?
If not, it's fine for firefox to have 100% marketshare. There is nothing to stop anyone from improving on it, and there is nothing to stop anyone adopting those improvements.
Try telling that to Michael Jackson!
you don't have to use it as a phone, dude.
Finally someone who gets it.
repeat after me: USABILITY EFFECTS EVERYONE.
One of the major problems with asking the programmer to think about usability is he's offering his time for free. And lets face it, usability isn't trivial. It could quite possibily (and i'd even go as far as to say most likely) take more time just getting the interface right than the whole rest of the program (depending on what it is).
This is where i can see something like XUL playing a great helping hand. The interface is decoupled from the code enough that any web designer can fix usability problems. It leverages the power of open source. I just wish more people would understand this and help with work on XUL (documenting/testing etc.)..
Broadband adapters are availiable direct from Nintendo Australia only. Price includes postage. Call +61 3 9730 9822 during business hours Last time i checked they were $60.
Nar it's cause netcraft confirms it, Steve Jobs is dying.
I think if Linux had 90% of the market we would be back at square one.
I was with you until this point. I think Open source has an advantage in a monopolistic situation. There isn't a vendor that can force you to upgrade. If there is a bug, you can fix it as fast as it takes someone to pay someone to fix it. Which is pretty quick. If Linux had 90% of the market, noone would be locked in to anything. If you don't like ANYTHING, you can improve it yourself.
Open source gives more power to each user with more users. Closed source gives more power to a company with more users.
Like most people on slashdot?
Thanks, I'll be here until the internet dies
it's called tabbed browsing.
This is the biggest load of crap i've heard in ages. How many people just give away their invites to complete strangers? I know i got mine from a complete random. How could google be sure these connections are anything? how could they work out what type of relationships these are?
What kind of troll are you?
w0rd.
this election more than any other makes me proud not to be american.
and australia. and new zealand. and any other country with and inkling of a clue.
Disclaimer: I'm not american or living in america.
But if voters aren't informed, then everyone looses their freedom. Patriot Act anyone? Just because you fight in the army doesn't mean you get a say in how it runs.
It seems to me that the american elections are no more than a popularity contest. How can that be good for a country? The only way a country moves forward is by smart people making good decisions. You can't make a good decision unless you are well informed.
What about patents? I can't find where the legal aspect has been discussed. While technically feasible it doesn't mean jack if it's not legally feasible.
Anyone got any info regarding what would be possible without any patent licensing?
Sorry by your response i've realised I misunderstood what you were saying. I thought you meant that you don't need a stack, because all buffers were on the heap. And so I was giving the example of function arguments as a counterexample. But now after re-reading, I get what you mean :)
I was actually asking about the scenarios that the NX bit doesn't cover that stack canaries do? I've done penetration testing against stackguarded machines, but never come across the NX bit (changed my career before there were any NX protected user machines).
I've got to disagree. How about sex? Sex sells. It's in our nature. We're not going to just stop wanting to reproduce because we see sex everywhere. If we adapted to not wanting sex, we'd die out. So it's not going to happen.
Sometimes cliche's work too - and that's the product of something being repeated ad nausium.
Why can't the NX bit be set on the heap?