First of all, a monoculture is bad. It's bad for operating systems, it's bad for GUI environments, it's bad for everything.
That being said, defaults are good. RedHat defaulting to gnome/bluecurve is good, because it gives you a consistant look-and-feel across applications, which is what users want. Mandrake defaulting to kde/galaxy is also good, for the same reason. Now all we need to do is choose which distro is the "default":)
Freedom of choice is what keeps linux alive; if everybody was forced to use GNOME, lots of people would feel alienated and flee to some other OS. Same with forcing KDE, XFCE, or whatever. In order for our community to survive, we need to be able to choose whatever we want. But, if some distro wants to standardize on just one GUI, one office app, one browser, etc etc etc just to make the former windows users happy, that's great, just don't force anybody into using it.
the real evil lies with the fact that RealPlayer don't have a gcc 3.2 version of their plugin (I assume).
Moreover, if the RealPlayer plugin was open source, we could simply recompile it with gcc 3.2, and this whole thing would be a total nonissue.
Instead, we've got to wait for Real to release a new version of the plugin for us. I see this as a failing of the closed source development model. If everything was open source, there would be no problem here.
What you have to understand is that capitalism is a great way of dealing with scarcity.
A problem arises, then, when you enter the digital world: there is no more scarcity. Making a perfect replica of a file is so easy that anybody can, and does, do it. The only costs are the electricity required to run your computer.
Think about the basic economics here: if something is in short supply and high demand, the prices on it will be high; if there is too much supply and insufficient demand, the prices will be low. On the internet, everything is in infinite supply; therefore, no matter what the demand, prices ought to always be zero. Organizations like the RIAA exist to create an artificial scarcity, so they can raise the prices.
I think, more or less, once there is no more scarcity in something, socialism is the only feasable way of managing society. This idea will be shot down so quickly, but artists should go onto some kind of "artist welfare" program where they are basically paid by the government to be creative all day, create music/paintings/movies/whatever, and then the fruits of their labor are distributed, for free, to anybody that wants it.
In theory, the AI would be paying more attention, over a longer period of time. The person sitting next to you doesn't know everything you've ever done, etc.
I have a feeling this would be similar to bayesian/heuristic spam filters; they notice trends to determine what is and isn't spam -- this thing will notice trends to determine what you want to do.
Without patenting there wouldn't be much you could do now could you.
Well, there are things you could do -- like, continue to innovate -- that would keep you competitive, instead of relying on the law as a crutch for your stagnant software business.
Am I the only person that thought the screenshots were really ugly? I'm seeing a lot of posts saying how great everything looks...
First of all, they're using the worst Mozilla theme ever. It doesn't match anything else and sticks out like a sore thumb. And their gnome theme is just so ugly.
I dunno, I guess I'm just used to bluecurve. If it's going to be gnome, it's gotta be bluecurve. Otherwise, just give me blackbox:)
It would be more effective to just PGP sign your messages. Then you could claim "anything not signed wasn't written by me". At least that way, you have some cryptography backing you up; with the way you propose, any idiot can spoof your email sig.
And notice that out of 10 paragraphs, 6 start with Taroon?
My immediate reaction to this was "You're kidding, right? What the hell kind of word is 'Taroon'?"
Then I glanced at the article, saw that you were right, and that made me sad.
I don't care what the rest of the article said, if I wrote an essay for my English course and started 60% of the paragraphs with the same word, my prof would fail me. Period.
As a longtime Slashdotter, I know why I'm supposed to hate Microsoft, [etc], and now SCO, but what has IBM done? I thought that they were The Good Guys (TM)
Before Microsoft, IBM was the official Evil Empire. Then Microsoft came along and took over that role. I think IBM is still evil, just less so than Microsoft.
In this case, IBM is really only our friend in the sense that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". SCO's attack on linux is hurting IBM's business, so IBM is out to get them. That's good for us, but don't think that IBM won't turn their backs on us in the future.
That's the problem. The secure room in Langley didn't have the laser trip wires on the ventilation grates.
Now, it's been a while since I've seen the movie, so I may be wrong here -- but I seem to remember that there were laser tripwires on the ventilation grates, he just put some kind of mirror contraption over them, so that the lasers would be diverted around the grate, so he could fit through without tripping them.
Scantrons would never work, and should not be trusted for something as important as a vote in an electrion.
Back in highschool, a friend of mine was filling in his name on a scantron sheet for a test (his name is Kevin Sopko), and the scantron registered his name as "So ko Kevi" (it didn't pick up 2 letters).
I cringe at the thought of using scantron for an election.
If the music was exceptional, than word would spread and the band could develop a fan base without relying on a record label.
I'm not so sure about that -- if you don't know the name of the band to search for, it's pretty hard to find their stuff, especially if you're not looking for it. Maybe it's great and you just don't know? They need some better advertising, at least:)
Windows has been the de facto virus target, but that doesn't seem to have increased code quality...
Well, we'll never know, because the source code isn't open for our perusal. But then again, that's part of my point. Anybody who feels like it can fix a bug in Linux (and in theory, the more linux users there are, the more people there would be looking at and working on the code), but you have to work for Microsoft to fix a bug in Windows.
Even better, lets get all the BSD routers out there to implement rules to drop packets coming from a computer running any of SCO's products. That'll show 'em!
Slashdot Mirror
First of all, a monoculture is bad. It's bad for operating systems, it's bad for GUI environments, it's bad for everything.
:)
That being said, defaults are good. RedHat defaulting to gnome/bluecurve is good, because it gives you a consistant look-and-feel across applications, which is what users want. Mandrake defaulting to kde/galaxy is also good, for the same reason. Now all we need to do is choose which distro is the "default"
Freedom of choice is what keeps linux alive; if everybody was forced to use GNOME, lots of people would feel alienated and flee to some other OS. Same with forcing KDE, XFCE, or whatever. In order for our community to survive, we need to be able to choose whatever we want. But, if some distro wants to standardize on just one GUI, one office app, one browser, etc etc etc just to make the former windows users happy, that's great, just don't force anybody into using it.
Or, Eric S. Raymond, "I descry a norm."
Depends what you think the 'norm' is... I considered the closed source development model to be the 'norm', which ESR decries.
What? A piece of BETA software is less than PERFECT? Oh my Ghod!
You're perfectly welcome to continue using Mozilla 1.4 until there is a new real plugin that is compatible with mozilla 1.5BETA.
the real evil lies with the fact that RealPlayer don't have a gcc 3.2 version of their plugin (I assume).
Moreover, if the RealPlayer plugin was open source, we could simply recompile it with gcc 3.2, and this whole thing would be a total nonissue.
Instead, we've got to wait for Real to release a new version of the plugin for us. I see this as a failing of the closed source development model. If everything was open source, there would be no problem here.
Did anybody else read that as "... a team of made-up people ..."?
Do we stay with our current system of capitalism
What you have to understand is that capitalism is a great way of dealing with scarcity.
A problem arises, then, when you enter the digital world: there is no more scarcity. Making a perfect replica of a file is so easy that anybody can, and does, do it. The only costs are the electricity required to run your computer.
Think about the basic economics here: if something is in short supply and high demand, the prices on it will be high; if there is too much supply and insufficient demand, the prices will be low. On the internet, everything is in infinite supply; therefore, no matter what the demand, prices ought to always be zero. Organizations like the RIAA exist to create an artificial scarcity, so they can raise the prices.
I think, more or less, once there is no more scarcity in something, socialism is the only feasable way of managing society. This idea will be shot down so quickly, but artists should go onto some kind of "artist welfare" program where they are basically paid by the government to be creative all day, create music/paintings/movies/whatever, and then the fruits of their labor are distributed, for free, to anybody that wants it.
In theory, the AI would be paying more attention, over a longer period of time. The person sitting next to you doesn't know everything you've ever done, etc.
I have a feeling this would be similar to bayesian/heuristic spam filters; they notice trends to determine what is and isn't spam -- this thing will notice trends to determine what you want to do.
Without patenting there wouldn't be much you could do now could you.
Well, there are things you could do -- like, continue to innovate -- that would keep you competitive, instead of relying on the law as a crutch for your stagnant software business.
As long as one company in a given field registers patents, they all must.
"If some people can get guns, then everybody needs a gun."
Sad, but true.
"Due to Software Patents, this website is not running anymore! ... Click here to go to the GIMP website..."
Riiiiight...
Personally, I am in favor of action #2: removing the SCO-specific code from FSF products.
"GCC isn't done until SCO won't run!"
Gee, that sounds oddly familiar...
Lol, that's a good one :)
The best tennis players have more than the average number of legs, because some people have less than two legs, bringing the average down.
Actually, the patent on GIFs has now expired, so it's pretty much a nonissue.
Am I the only person that thought the screenshots were really ugly? I'm seeing a lot of posts saying how great everything looks...
:)
First of all, they're using the worst Mozilla theme ever. It doesn't match anything else and sticks out like a sore thumb. And their gnome theme is just so ugly.
I dunno, I guess I'm just used to bluecurve. If it's going to be gnome, it's gotta be bluecurve. Otherwise, just give me blackbox
It would be more effective to just PGP sign your messages. Then you could claim "anything not signed wasn't written by me". At least that way, you have some cryptography backing you up; with the way you propose, any idiot can spoof your email sig.
That would be one Ronald Wilson Reagan, my friend :)
And notice that out of 10 paragraphs, 6 start with Taroon?
My immediate reaction to this was "You're kidding, right? What the hell kind of word is 'Taroon'?"
Then I glanced at the article, saw that you were right, and that made me sad.
I don't care what the rest of the article said, if I wrote an essay for my English course and started 60% of the paragraphs with the same word, my prof would fail me. Period.
Here spins Patrick Henry
As a longtime Slashdotter, I know why I'm supposed to hate Microsoft, [etc], and now SCO, but what has IBM done? I thought that they were The Good Guys (TM)
Before Microsoft, IBM was the official Evil Empire. Then Microsoft came along and took over that role. I think IBM is still evil, just less so than Microsoft.
In this case, IBM is really only our friend in the sense that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". SCO's attack on linux is hurting IBM's business, so IBM is out to get them. That's good for us, but don't think that IBM won't turn their backs on us in the future.
That's the problem. The secure room in Langley didn't have the laser trip wires on the ventilation grates.
Now, it's been a while since I've seen the movie, so I may be wrong here -- but I seem to remember that there were laser tripwires on the ventilation grates, he just put some kind of mirror contraption over them, so that the lasers would be diverted around the grate, so he could fit through without tripping them.
Scantrons would never work, and should not be trusted for something as important as a vote in an electrion.
Back in highschool, a friend of mine was filling in his name on a scantron sheet for a test (his name is Kevin Sopko), and the scantron registered his name as "So ko Kevi" (it didn't pick up 2 letters).
I cringe at the thought of using scantron for an election.
If the music was exceptional, than word would spread and the band could develop a fan base without relying on a record label.
:)
I'm not so sure about that -- if you don't know the name of the band to search for, it's pretty hard to find their stuff, especially if you're not looking for it. Maybe it's great and you just don't know? They need some better advertising, at least
Windows has been the de facto virus target, but that doesn't seem to have increased code quality...
Well, we'll never know, because the source code isn't open for our perusal. But then again, that's part of my point. Anybody who feels like it can fix a bug in Linux (and in theory, the more linux users there are, the more people there would be looking at and working on the code), but you have to work for Microsoft to fix a bug in Windows.
However I'm beginning to wonder if filmmakers simply fantasize about a technology and then portray it as real on the screen.
What? You mean they lie in movies? No way!
Even better, lets get all the BSD routers out there to implement rules to drop packets coming from a computer running any of SCO's products. That'll show 'em!