but once you step outside the repository, it's tough going
Not really. I've installed plenty of non-repository packages and it's rare to see more than one or two dependencies not already in the repositories. Things can get messy when you want to install something that is mutually exclusive with what's in the repositories (potentially forcing uninstalls of packages that have lots of dependencies) but that's rare.
Also, you may not have heard of the "checkinstall" package. It's an easy way to turn any install into a package and deserves to be more widely known. e.g. Just do "checkinstall make install" and answer some easy questions. Allows most unmanaged software to be installed in a controlled way. It insures no existing managed files will be overwritten and allows uninstallation just like any other package. Dependencies can be explicitly specified also if needed though I normally don't bother.
The notion that copyright infringement was a form of theft became current in English language and in English thought while the Black Flag still flew over the Caribbean.
So what? The times they are a-changin'. We have a more sophisticated understanding of intellectual "property" and similar doublespeak these days.
It made perfect sense to Dickens, who had some choice things to say about the American character in this context. Copy Wrong: Internet Piracy and Dickens and Melville
He's not exactly an objective bystander.
The geek wastes time and pursuing the linguistic argument, the philosophical argument, which were lost long ago.
The argument has never ended and the cartel's current attempt to control what others think is looking pretty shaky.
The legal argument doesn't take him much farther - at least the states - where copyright infringement can put him in a federal penitentiary on a felony charge.
I wonder who bought that law.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
You're automatically assuming that everybody wants one "Linux". You're wrong. It's way more complicated than that. Your push is just one more example of "if only we had control everything would be more efficient" beloved of growing bureaucracies everywhere.
Instead you should be concentrating on standards, one at a time, as many people already are. Everything from the Linux Standard Base to the Free Desktop Project to the Linux Embedded Consortium. Keep in mind that if you're going to promote standards, one at a time, that in a free market each player needs a transition path and to not to be disadvantaged by the standard. For example, if all distributions standardized on the apt package manager that would be a disadvantage for all distributions not using apt. The only way to get a standard in package managers, or anything else, is to have it sufficiently superior, technically and otherwise, so that important projects are willing to absorb the transition cost and to accept being relatively disadvantaged during the transition compared to other projects.
In any case complaints about "having to support too many distributions" are exaggerated; when you've got software packages as complex and big as open office and java running on a variety of platforms, not to mention the thousands of small projects on freshmeat running on a variety of platforms, that's an existence proof that the problems are exaggerated.
In addition, for better or worse, every business wants to "differentiate" too, just like the car industry where I can't use a Toyota spare part in a Ford. After market car parts companies probably don't want to deal with all the different cars either but they do anyway.
Some closed source embedded device driver developers are unhappy the Linux binary device driver interfaces are changeable. Linux kernel developers have already explained why that is the case ( http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/stable_api_nonsense .html ). It's pretty pointless making an open source OS if some vendors want to obviate the whole point of it by adding close source device drivers, particularly when kernel developers have offered, for free ( http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/free_drivers.html ), to support the device drivers themselves.
There's always room for improvement but you're never going to get a free market to "standardize" entirely on anything.
I spent a couple of weeks on a boat there and visited several islands. I've also been fortunate enough to visit wildlife areas all over the world.
Glad you like it (I did) but I think you're seriously underestimating just how much the vegetation and animal populations have changed - see wikipedia and this for a summary. I stand by my point that the animals are wary; not surprising considering how much they've been hunted by seamen and feral animals. Sounds like your experience was different.
The population is growing fast and your 10,000 population figure is probably a little out of date. According to these slides there is currently a total population of 30,000 with about 2/3 being legal residents.
It's a nice place but hardly the pristine wonder that many people think it is.
The rats, cats, dogs, goats, donkeys and many other animals and plants left there for hundreds of years by passing seamen have made sure of that. Not to mention the food hunting they've done. The animals are a bit less wary of people than in other places but not by much. It's managed better than before by the Ecuadoran government but the shear quantity of tourists (100,000+/year) and residents (30,000) make it difficult.
The Galapagos Islands are worth a visit for the interesting plants and animals there but are vastly overrated because of the Charles Darwin connection. There are many places in the world with similarly unique flora and fauna.
This mean, open or closed, 99% of the population have to rely on the judgement of others as to whether the system is fair.
True, but with open source they can trust a larger group of people, not just the vendor. No single point of failure.
In contrast, pretty much anyone can understand a pencil and paper ballot,
Agreed. Wasn't arguing that electronic voting systems are necessarily better than pencil and paper, just that if you want an electronic voting system then open source is better than closed source.
Electronic voting systems do have some advantages (e.g. flexibility, speed, sophistication). The question is whether those advantages outweigh pencil and paper's advantages (e.g. simplicity, transparency, reliability). That's a value judgment. My feeling is that electronic voting systems could work, but only with a much better implementation than even the best government bureaucracies are currently capable of.
Open source voting machines are useless, unless you can verify that the software and hardware in use at the time you cast your vote is trustworthy. If you can't, it might as well be a closed-source system.
Nonsense. Open source voting machines don't allow you to walk on water but they do improve the transparency of the process. Yes, you need to verify the voting hardware/software also but regardless of that it doesn't change change the fact that open source makes it harder to compromise.
Just like "security in depth" we need "openness in depth" in the voting process. Closed doors and closed source will be a weak link anywhere in the chain of the voting process.
---
Open source software is everything that closed source software is. Plus the source is available.
Please stop spreading this lie. Most advertising is a shell game that pays for nothing. Instead, we're paying twice over, once in time attention to watch/avoid the ad and second in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad. And please, no nonsense about "well I'm not paying twice"; on average you are.
In game advertising is merely way to fraudulently hide from the game purchaser the true price of the game. It should be illegal.
Your hand waving about how it will improve the quality of the game is nonsense considering how much advertising "improves" TV.
So yes, BOYCOTT ALL GAMES WITH ADVERTISING, and starve the marketing parasites of as much oxygen as possible.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Is it really so bad if you are playing a game, stroll into the town and see a McDonalds sign hangin on Ye' Ol Tavern?
Yes. You seem to think the advertising will be limited and "tasteful". You couldn't be more wrong. You just need to look at TV to see that.
And even if it was limited in-game advertising is a just a fraudulent shell game to hide how much you're really paying for a product.
---
"Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.
Bull. Some authors try to bring all the important verifiable facts at their disposal to the attention of the reader so that the reader can make their own evaluation. Then you have the marketing parasites who selectively leave out information, even though they're aware of it, so that the reader is unable to make an objective evaluation.
Yes, choosing the important verifiable facts is a point of view but if you can't tell the difference between that and the average marketing parasite's spiel then you're farther gone than I thought.
---
Astroturfing "marketers" are liars, fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.
Because for the first time, virtually any copyrighted work can be perfectly copied at the click of a button, and distributed with close to zero effort.
This applies equally to the vendor. Nothing stopping them improving the efficiency of their distribution channels to match pirates.
Copying is a tool; it applies equally to vendor, consumer, pirate, whatever and does not suddenly justify DRM which messes the balance by making the average citizen guilty until proven innocent.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
Superficial change was made to a fundamentally broken system. They're hoping the complaints will go away so they won't have to deal with the real issues.
Well guess what? The complaints are not going to go away until they start addressing the fundamentals. Like how much benefit, if any, patents actually bring rather than the wholesale hand waving they usually engage in.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
It might have something to do with it being a very successful method.
You're doing the standard PTO evidence-free hand waving. We can't even measure success let alone evaluate whether the IP law we currently have is better than the virtually infinite number of possible alternatives, including no patents at all. It would great to see even basic science driving the high impact decisions about what forms of IP law to create, if any.
I would support IP laws if there were actual evidence for them. There isn't any.
And before you spout any silliness about "number of patents issued" let me remind you the same argument applies to "number of thefts" or "amount of taxes". It's the broken window fallacy amongst other problems.
---
Creating simple artificial scarcity with copyright and patents on things that can be copied billions of times at minimal cost is a fundamentally stupid economic idea.
Your reasoning shows nothing of the kind. You're using the typical and deceptive PTO language of implicitly equating "invention" with "patent". Why do you automatically assume that something would not have been invented if it couldn't be patented? That's hand waving and your argument at best is circular reasoning (patents are good because they're good).
... they merely seem obvious when you know how they work.
PTO propaganda. People, and experts in a field, aren't stupid; they are perfectly capable of evaluating after the fact, with more information at their disposal, whether something is innovative or not.
What's really outrageous is the idea that bureaucrats in a minor government department should be allowed to be gatekeepers on all of technology.
and their desire that only their customers have access to their updates.
Since those updates are pointless for anybody not running windows it's all about maintaining their "Windows Disingenuous Disadvantage" deceptive marketing practices.
M$ reaps what it sows.
---
WGA. Guilty until proven innocent. For millions. Again and again.
I think you might have just triggered Godwin's Law there. On to the next article...
I was aware of that possible interpretation when I wrote it. However I decided to include it anyway as it's relevant; the archetypal example of "just doing my job". Besides, you've just reopened the thread...
---
Like trademarks, and for much the same reason, copyright should be lost if a product line becomes generic.
Testing with source code or inspection doesn't work either.
It works better than closed source.
The only thing that works is a verifiable paper trail, so arguing about open vs. closed source on voting machines is totally moot.
Nonsense. This is a false dichotomy, beloved of marketing parasites everywhere.
To take just one example closed code could randomly not provide or make inaccessible options so the voter is not even aware their vote is being biased. Even something as simple as changing the colors on the display slightly.
Openness in the code helps. A paper trail helps also. All aspects of the voting process should be open to promote confidence in the voting system.
---
Astroturfing "marketers" are liars, fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.
Companies lobby all the time to get laws changed in their favor. This is just "business as usual."
So what? This doesn't change whether particular law change lobbying is ethical or not. In this case it is clearly unethical; openness in every aspect of the voting process is needed for obvious reasons, despite M$' self-serving attempt to obscure that.
Or to put it another way: Why does getting paid to do something automatically make it ethical and right?
The "I was only doing my job" excuse went out at Nuremberg and you're being disingenuous trying to promote it now.
Yes, financing reform is needed. Doesn't change the fact that people at M$ are being unethical also.
---
"Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.
This is a great comparison. However, remember that Microsoft's code is proprietary and is how they make their living.
Which is irrelevant to the whether the source is visible or not.
M$ has done a great job the last few decades of obscuring that simple fact to keep their anti-competitive lockin.
The law could mandate that all delivered software come with the source and it wouldn't change the industry much other than substantially decrease the current non-accountability of software vendors and increase the openness of the market. Not something that companies with anti-competitive business models want; a free, open and fair market.
---
"Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.
I feel the speed of light barrier is going to keep us from reaching Star Trek, ever.
Star Trek, as a prediction of the future, is pathetic.
In that time frame genetic engineering, cyborgs and general personal mind and body enhancement alone make that scenario is a joke, let alone more sophisticated autonomous robot vehicles and networking plus scientific discoveries we haven't even thought of yet. Yes, I know they have plot devices to avoid these things. Doesn't make it any less pathetic.
If you want to get a better idea of what the future may hold look at some SF decent authors such as John Varley or William Gibson, just for starters. Most written SF, as distinct from fantasy, is better than the escapist crap you see at the movies. There are a few decent ideas in TV series like "Outer Limits" and "Twilight Zone" but most TV SF is generally an ideas desert also, basically just fantasies written for today's, not tomorrow's, society and technology with silly makeup and costumes. Sad really.
My bet for star colonisation is some form of seriously enhanced cyborg+robot starship with a self-replicating factory and frozen/encoded DNA bank. For intra-system colonization Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy is one possibility. Overly optimistic but gets a few things right.
---
"Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.
They can do a black-bag job and install a keystroke logger or Trojan on your computer (we know this has already happened in at least one bookmaking case).
No. They tell M$ that they must download an anonymous software package in their next online update. If we're very lucky just to specific classes of computers. Oh, and by the way, for reasons of national security M$ can't tell anybody what they've been ordered to do. Only a very small number of people at M$ would need to know about this. Two even; the boss to authorize it and the right technical person to inject the binary into the build. The package might be a dormant back door, a key logger, a keyword spotter, microphone recorder, whatever.
A back door to every windows PC on earth. Hundreds of millions of them. Possibly in Linux closed/binary drivers as well. Chinese, North Korean, diplomatic targets, business intelligence, treaty negotiation targets, domestic political targets, RIAA targets, whatever. The cost is too low and the payback too large to think they're not doing it. Particularly with a record like ECHELON, COINTELPRO and the protective camouflage of large scale botnets.
If you are a government or business organization competing in any way with US interests you should be concerned about this. Cryptography is useless if they have the keys to your computer.
modern, productive, and efficient IDE *should* be...
Don't confuse a complex IDE with productivity. They are often not the same.
So called "rich development tools" frequently integrate badly with the rest of the environment and lose any benefits they might have because of it. They also fair badly when the GUI designer doesn't anticipate all possible needs; almost always the case. I find my productivity in a non-integrated environment is much the same as an IDE and often superior due to flexibility, scripting and the like. In other words IDE's often don't provide the benefits they purport to.
The "integration" in IDE is frequently just a marketing buzzword for "we own all the pieces" = "we own you".
---
Don't be a programmer-bureaucrat; someone who substitutes marketing buzzwords and software bloat for verifiable improvements.
Slashdot Mirror
but once you step outside the repository, it's tough going
Not really. I've installed plenty of non-repository packages and it's rare to see more than one or two dependencies not already in the repositories. Things can get messy when you want to install something that is mutually exclusive with what's in the repositories (potentially forcing uninstalls of packages that have lots of dependencies) but that's rare.
Also, you may not have heard of the "checkinstall" package. It's an easy way to turn any install into a package and deserves to be more widely known. e.g. Just do "checkinstall make install" and answer some easy questions. Allows most unmanaged software to be installed in a controlled way. It insures no existing managed files will be overwritten and allows uninstallation just like any other package. Dependencies can be explicitly specified also if needed though I normally don't bother.
---
Terrorism. The all-purpose excuse.
The notion that copyright infringement was a form of theft became current in English language and in English thought while the Black Flag still flew over the Caribbean.
So what? The times they are a-changin'. We have a more sophisticated understanding of intellectual "property" and similar doublespeak these days.
It made perfect sense to Dickens, who had some choice things to say about the American character in this context. Copy Wrong: Internet Piracy and Dickens and Melville
He's not exactly an objective bystander.
The geek wastes time and pursuing the linguistic argument, the philosophical argument, which were lost long ago.
The argument has never ended and the cartel's current attempt to control what others think is looking pretty shaky.
The legal argument doesn't take him much farther - at least the states - where copyright infringement can put him in a federal penitentiary on a felony charge.
I wonder who bought that law.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
You're automatically assuming that everybody wants one "Linux". You're wrong. It's way more complicated than that. Your push is just one more example of "if only we had control everything would be more efficient" beloved of growing bureaucracies everywhere.
Instead you should be concentrating on standards, one at a time, as many people already are. Everything from the Linux Standard Base to the Free Desktop Project to the Linux Embedded Consortium. Keep in mind that if you're going to promote standards, one at a time, that in a free market each player needs a transition path and to not to be disadvantaged by the standard. For example, if all distributions standardized on the apt package manager that would be a disadvantage for all distributions not using apt. The only way to get a standard in package managers, or anything else, is to have it sufficiently superior, technically and otherwise, so that important projects are willing to absorb the transition cost and to accept being relatively disadvantaged during the transition compared to other projects.
In any case complaints about "having to support too many distributions" are exaggerated; when you've got software packages as complex and big as open office and java running on a variety of platforms, not to mention the thousands of small projects on freshmeat running on a variety of platforms, that's an existence proof that the problems are exaggerated.
In addition, for better or worse, every business wants to "differentiate" too, just like the car industry where I can't use a Toyota spare part in a Ford. After market car parts companies probably don't want to deal with all the different cars either but they do anyway.
Some closed source embedded device driver developers are unhappy the Linux binary device driver interfaces are changeable. Linux kernel developers have already explained why that is the case ( http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/stable_api_nonsense .html ). It's pretty pointless making an open source OS if some vendors want to obviate the whole point of it by adding close source device drivers, particularly when kernel developers have offered, for free ( http://www.kroah.com/log/linux/free_drivers.html ), to support the device drivers themselves.
There's always room for improvement but you're never going to get a free market to "standardize" entirely on anything.
---
Monopolies = Industrial feudalism
They're _usually_ submitted by nerds
No, they're usually submitted by marketers. They fraudulently astroturf wholesale in the comments as well.
You just need to look at the quantity of "product announcements" before products are even released to see that.
Vista and iPhone are recent examples. Practically daily content-free propaganda, sorry "stories", for months beforehand.
---
Paid marketers are the worst zealots.
And how. Who inherits his museum? Maybe all he wanted to do was give his inheritance an easy boost.
---
Monopolies = Industrial feudalism
I spent a couple of weeks on a boat there and visited several islands. I've also been fortunate enough to visit wildlife areas all over the world.
Glad you like it (I did) but I think you're seriously underestimating just how much the vegetation and animal populations have changed - see wikipedia and this for a summary. I stand by my point that the animals are wary; not surprising considering how much they've been hunted by seamen and feral animals. Sounds like your experience was different.
The population is growing fast and your 10,000 population figure is probably a little out of date. According to these slides there is currently a total population of 30,000 with about 2/3 being legal residents.
---
DRM. You don't control it means you don't own it.
it truly is a land of wonders.
It's a nice place but hardly the pristine wonder that many people think it is.
The rats, cats, dogs, goats, donkeys and many other animals and plants left there for hundreds of years by passing seamen have made sure of that. Not to mention the food hunting they've done. The animals are a bit less wary of people than in other places but not by much. It's managed better than before by the Ecuadoran government but the shear quantity of tourists (100,000+/year) and residents (30,000) make it difficult.
The Galapagos Islands are worth a visit for the interesting plants and animals there but are vastly overrated because of the Charles Darwin connection. There are many places in the world with similarly unique flora and fauna.
---
Monopolies = Industrial feudalism
This mean, open or closed, 99% of the population have to rely on the judgement of others as to whether the system is fair.
True, but with open source they can trust a larger group of people, not just the vendor. No single point of failure.
In contrast, pretty much anyone can understand a pencil and paper ballot,
Agreed. Wasn't arguing that electronic voting systems are necessarily better than pencil and paper, just that if you want an electronic voting system then open source is better than closed source.
Electronic voting systems do have some advantages (e.g. flexibility, speed, sophistication). The question is whether those advantages outweigh pencil and paper's advantages (e.g. simplicity, transparency, reliability). That's a value judgment. My feeling is that electronic voting systems could work, but only with a much better implementation than even the best government bureaucracies are currently capable of.
---
DRM. You don't control it means you don't own it.
process transparency matters even more than open-source transparency
The two are not mutually exclusive as you imply. We need both.
---
Open source software is everything that closed source software is. Plus the source is available.
Open source voting machines are useless, unless you can verify that the software and hardware in use at the time you cast your vote is trustworthy. If you can't, it might as well be a closed-source system.
Nonsense. Open source voting machines don't allow you to walk on water but they do improve the transparency of the process. Yes, you need to verify the voting hardware/software also but regardless of that it doesn't change change the fact that open source makes it harder to compromise.
Just like "security in depth" we need "openness in depth" in the voting process. Closed doors and closed source will be a weak link anywhere in the chain of the voting process.
---
Open source software is everything that closed source software is. Plus the source is available.
Please stop spreading this lie. Most advertising is a shell game that pays for nothing. Instead, we're paying twice over, once in time attention to watch/avoid the ad and second in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad. And please, no nonsense about "well I'm not paying twice"; on average you are.
In game advertising is merely way to fraudulently hide from the game purchaser the true price of the game. It should be illegal.
Your hand waving about how it will improve the quality of the game is nonsense considering how much advertising "improves" TV.
So yes, BOYCOTT ALL GAMES WITH ADVERTISING, and starve the marketing parasites of as much oxygen as possible.
---
The majority of modern marketing is nothing more than an arms race to get mind share. Everybody loses except the parasitic marketing "industry".
Is it really so bad if you are playing a game, stroll into the town and see a McDonalds sign hangin on Ye' Ol Tavern?
Yes. You seem to think the advertising will be limited and "tasteful". You couldn't be more wrong. You just need to look at TV to see that.
And even if it was limited in-game advertising is a just a fraudulent shell game to hide how much you're really paying for a product.
---
"Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.
That describes "NPOV" articles too.
Bull. Some authors try to bring all the important verifiable facts at their disposal to the attention of the reader so that the reader can make their own evaluation. Then you have the marketing parasites who selectively leave out information, even though they're aware of it, so that the reader is unable to make an objective evaluation.
Yes, choosing the important verifiable facts is a point of view but if you can't tell the difference between that and the average marketing parasite's spiel then you're farther gone than I thought.
---
Astroturfing "marketers" are liars, fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.
Because for the first time, virtually any copyrighted work can be perfectly copied at the click of a button, and distributed with close to zero effort.
This applies equally to the vendor. Nothing stopping them improving the efficiency of their distribution channels to match pirates.
Copying is a tool; it applies equally to vendor, consumer, pirate, whatever and does not suddenly justify DRM which messes the balance by making the average citizen guilty until proven innocent.
---
DRM'ed content breaks the copyright bargain, the first sale doctrine and fair use provisions. It should not be possible to copyright DRM'ed content.
Change was made to a bad system.
Superficial change was made to a fundamentally broken system. They're hoping the complaints will go away so they won't have to deal with the real issues.
Well guess what? The complaints are not going to go away until they start addressing the fundamentals. Like how much benefit, if any, patents actually bring rather than the wholesale hand waving they usually engage in.
---
Scientific, evidence based IP law. Now there's a thought.
It might have something to do with it being a very successful method.
You're doing the standard PTO evidence-free hand waving. We can't even measure success let alone evaluate whether the IP law we currently have is better than the virtually infinite number of possible alternatives, including no patents at all. It would great to see even basic science driving the high impact decisions about what forms of IP law to create, if any.
I would support IP laws if there were actual evidence for them. There isn't any.
And before you spout any silliness about "number of patents issued" let me remind you the same argument applies to "number of thefts" or "amount of taxes". It's the broken window fallacy amongst other problems.
---
Creating simple artificial scarcity with copyright and patents on things that can be copied billions of times at minimal cost is a fundamentally stupid economic idea.
shows that patents do in fact foster competition
Your reasoning shows nothing of the kind. You're using the typical and deceptive PTO language of implicitly equating "invention" with "patent". Why do you automatically assume that something would not have been invented if it couldn't be patented? That's hand waving and your argument at best is circular reasoning (patents are good because they're good).
PTO propaganda. People, and experts in a field, aren't stupid; they are perfectly capable of evaluating after the fact, with more information at their disposal, whether something is innovative or not.
What's really outrageous is the idea that bureaucrats in a minor government department should be allowed to be gatekeepers on all of technology.
---
Monopolies = Industrial feudalism
and their desire that only their customers have access to their updates.
Since those updates are pointless for anybody not running windows it's all about maintaining their "Windows Disingenuous Disadvantage" deceptive marketing practices.
M$ reaps what it sows.
---
WGA. Guilty until proven innocent. For millions. Again and again.
I think you might have just triggered Godwin's Law there. On to the next article...
I was aware of that possible interpretation when I wrote it. However I decided to include it anyway as it's relevant; the archetypal example of "just doing my job". Besides, you've just reopened the thread...
---
Like trademarks, and for much the same reason, copyright should be lost if a product line becomes generic.
Testing with source code or inspection doesn't work either.
It works better than closed source.
The only thing that works is a verifiable paper trail, so arguing about open vs. closed source on voting machines is totally moot.
Nonsense. This is a false dichotomy, beloved of marketing parasites everywhere.
To take just one example closed code could randomly not provide or make inaccessible options so the voter is not even aware their vote is being biased. Even something as simple as changing the colors on the display slightly.
Openness in the code helps. A paper trail helps also. All aspects of the voting process should be open to promote confidence in the voting system.
---
Astroturfing "marketers" are liars, fraudulently misrepresenting company propaganda as objective third party opinion.
Companies lobby all the time to get laws changed in their favor. This is just "business as usual."
So what? This doesn't change whether particular law change lobbying is ethical or not. In this case it is clearly unethical; openness in every aspect of the voting process is needed for obvious reasons, despite M$' self-serving attempt to obscure that.
Or to put it another way: Why does getting paid to do something automatically make it ethical and right?
The "I was only doing my job" excuse went out at Nuremberg and you're being disingenuous trying to promote it now.
Yes, financing reform is needed. Doesn't change the fact that people at M$ are being unethical also.
---
"Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.
This is a great comparison. However, remember that Microsoft's code is proprietary and is how they make their living.
Which is irrelevant to the whether the source is visible or not.
M$ has done a great job the last few decades of obscuring that simple fact to keep their anti-competitive lockin.
The law could mandate that all delivered software come with the source and it wouldn't change the industry much other than substantially decrease the current non-accountability of software vendors and increase the openness of the market. Not something that companies with anti-competitive business models want; a free, open and fair market.
---
"Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.
I feel the speed of light barrier is going to keep us from reaching Star Trek, ever.
Star Trek, as a prediction of the future, is pathetic.
In that time frame genetic engineering, cyborgs and general personal mind and body enhancement alone make that scenario is a joke, let alone more sophisticated autonomous robot vehicles and networking plus scientific discoveries we haven't even thought of yet. Yes, I know they have plot devices to avoid these things. Doesn't make it any less pathetic.
If you want to get a better idea of what the future may hold look at some SF decent authors such as John Varley or William Gibson, just for starters. Most written SF, as distinct from fantasy, is better than the escapist crap you see at the movies. There are a few decent ideas in TV series like "Outer Limits" and "Twilight Zone" but most TV SF is generally an ideas desert also, basically just fantasies written for today's, not tomorrow's, society and technology with silly makeup and costumes. Sad really.
My bet for star colonisation is some form of seriously enhanced cyborg+robot starship with a self-replicating factory and frozen/encoded DNA bank. For intra-system colonization Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy is one possibility. Overly optimistic but gets a few things right.
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"Advertising supported" just means you're paying twice over, once in time to watch/avoid the ad and twice in the increased price of the product to pay for the ad.
They can do a black-bag job and install a keystroke logger or Trojan on your computer (we know this has already happened in at least one bookmaking case).
No. They tell M$ that they must download an anonymous software package in their next online update. If we're very lucky just to specific classes of computers. Oh, and by the way, for reasons of national security M$ can't tell anybody what they've been ordered to do. Only a very small number of people at M$ would need to know about this. Two even; the boss to authorize it and the right technical person to inject the binary into the build. The package might be a dormant back door, a key logger, a keyword spotter, microphone recorder, whatever.
A back door to every windows PC on earth. Hundreds of millions of them. Possibly in Linux closed/binary drivers as well. Chinese, North Korean, diplomatic targets, business intelligence, treaty negotiation targets, domestic political targets, RIAA targets, whatever. The cost is too low and the payback too large to think they're not doing it. Particularly with a record like ECHELON, COINTELPRO and the protective camouflage of large scale botnets.
If you are a government or business organization competing in any way with US interests you should be concerned about this. Cryptography is useless if they have the keys to your computer.
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DRM. Your vendor is your administrator.
modern, productive, and efficient IDE *should* be ...
Don't confuse a complex IDE with productivity. They are often not the same.
So called "rich development tools" frequently integrate badly with the rest of the environment and lose any benefits they might have because of it. They also fair badly when the GUI designer doesn't anticipate all possible needs; almost always the case. I find my productivity in a non-integrated environment is much the same as an IDE and often superior due to flexibility, scripting and the like. In other words IDE's often don't provide the benefits they purport to.
The "integration" in IDE is frequently just a marketing buzzword for "we own all the pieces" = "we own you".
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Don't be a programmer-bureaucrat; someone who substitutes marketing buzzwords and software bloat for verifiable improvements.