"Well, they have *a* shell under Windows 2000, with an add on product that they actually purchased from another company. The company was Interix, so now the product is Microsoft Interix 2.2....[snip]... While I'll admit it feels kind of dirty to use this product"
Any reason you can't use Cygwin, now owned and maintained by Redhat. From the intro page:
Using Cygwin, developers can manage
heterogeneous environments in a consistent, efficient way. Cygwin brings a standard UNIX/Linux shell environment, including many of its most useful commands, to the Windows platform so IT managers can effectively deploy trained staff, and leverage existing investments in UNIX/Linux source code and shell scripts.
The tools only take up about 100 megs of space and provide you with bash, ksh, and tcsh as shells, and most of the tools you're familiar with in a GNU *NIX environment, including the compilers. They support Win 95/95/NT4.0-sp3 natively, which would lead me to believe you could get it to run on M$ Millenium without too much difficulty. But wait! We're not finished! Would you like a free Xserver for your Windoze boxen? Check this out!
A more informative site on Cygwin, it's current status, new bulletins, FAQs, etc (it's project center site) is as follows:
I think a project whose job would be to take many modern day UNIX configuration files (/etc/*) and translate them into XML formatted files would be quite useful.
This is a very interesting suggestion, and it may actually receive some enthusiasm. There are actually a couple software projects that I can think of that use an XML-like configuration file (take note of the "<DIRECTORY>" directives). Apache(example) and ProFTPd(example). Xinetd has a configuration file format that could easily be XML'ified, as could SAMBA.
Frankly, providing a generic, hierarchical, XML-formatted configuration file parser would be EXTREMELY useful. Personally, I'm ready to rip out Apache's or Proftpd's config parsers for my own projects and modify them accordingly.
Another interesting software project to take a look at if XML configuration files is something that appeals to you is Everybuddy, an all-in-one Internet Messanger client.
How would it be handled with all of those failed/aborted downloads? If it's 10 cents per track, and I get 65% of the track, do I get charged 6.5 cents??
There are other things to consider as well. The issue of payment collection and distribution comes to mind. The Mojo server would need to have micropayment tracking capabilities and financial rules built in to it's database. You've got many things to consider to become a clearing house for this type of transaction. If you're an avid Napster user, imagine having to send out a check to each person you've downloaded a file from!
The Mojo server will most definitely need to serve as the user clearinghouse, requiring payment from each user for the sum of their downloads, and sending out checks to each person for the sum of their completed upload requests.
What about customer service? Let's say I download a file and it turns out to be an awful mp3, or a corrupted tarball. Napster doesn't allow us to verify the integrity of the file or the person who created the file before/after download. Even if it did -- perhaps by requiring PGP/OpenPG signatures for each file -- you would still run into problems where the customer (person downloading) is unsatisified with the quality or content of the file. Who are they supposed to complain to? How do they get their money back?
Let's assume they cannot for the moment. Mojo would most likely need to provide a rating system similar to eBay. Users could rate Providers.
The Mojo/Micropayment-Napster clone may work, but only if it's well thought out and covers all the bases.
Don't get me wrong, I'm an avid sylus fan -- I couldn't live without my PalmPilot III. Although handwriting recognition software is a great form of input, it is slow and tedious. For short commands and tasks that don't demand a lot of input, stylus pads are wonderful.
There is another option that mobile computer enthusiasts have known about for some time now. It's not revolutionary, but it's certainly useful. Feast your eyes on the twiddler.
Welcome to Handykey Corporation, makers of the Twiddler(tm). A combination keyboard and mouse that weighs 4 ounces and fits in the palm of your hand. The Twiddler(tm) is an enabling technology of wearable computing.
And for you Palm Pilot enthusiasts, check out the TwiddleHack. With a portable sync cable, a little solder, battery case, and a couple watch batteries, you've got yourself a one-handed keyboard for your Pilot!
I've read a couple comments now about how someone wants to add this new component or that new drive to the Tivo, but really, how difficult would it be to simply build a new computer with a video capture card, an IR remote control, a nice A3D digital (or optical) output soundcard (like the Aureal Vortex), a huge IDE harddrive, a network card and a 3D card? All of a sudden, you've got yourself a Linux entertainment center...
I mean, come on. For $600 retail, you could easily do what Tivo does on your own. OK. Maybe not that easily, there's the matter of the controlling software and making it as user-friendly as the TIVO's UI presentation. You could still manage the functionality with a little brain-power and a few work-arounds. Plus, you could play your favorite games as well!;-)
Not to decry this feature - it's extremely useful - but I do this all the time. With Emacs. Now why use Emacs?...[snip]...It's this extensibility that makes me realise that I shall never really pick up another editor for anything complex. For all you VI users who are gnashing (sic!) your teeth over this, I use vi as well, but more often than not for simpler editing tasks.
Turn your browsers to http://www.vim.org if you want an extensible, programmable VI editor. VIM stands for "VI iMproved", and it certainly is. With syntax and keyword highlighting, smart indenting, macros, piping and shell escapes, you've got almost everything you could possibly need in an editor without the overhead of the EmacsOS.
My personal preference reason for using VI is mode-based editing. It saves my poor pinky fingers from having to camp on the control keys. Even though I understand EmacsOS has a VI emulation mode (it really DOES do everything, including controlling your toaster and microwave), I'd rather use the Real Thing (tm). Since VIM gives me everything I desire from the Emacs programming environment, including a nice X/GTK front-end, I'll be able to avoid having to brush up on my Emacs knowledge for a little longer.
Lars' last point was the quantity of Napster. This is just silly. Ok, Lars, why don't you tell us exactly what the cut-off on copied tapes is? If one is ok, is 10? Can I copy 20 of my friend's records? 100?
This statement is purely argumentative and misses the point that Lars is hinting toward, but not outright stating. Reproduction of media has time, cost, and scope of influence to consider when making this argument. Tapes are cumbersome, outdated, expensive, and is certainly limited-life media format. MP3's living in Internet space are sleek, extremely mobile, easily reproducable, and almost eternal. If you really take the time to add it all up, MP3's and the Internet have won the distribution contest hands down.
So, it turns out that Lars does have a point hidden in this ad hoc-ish style interview. Computers and the Internet -- not simply Napster -- have changed the rules. Subsequently, so have the definitions of bootlegging, which Metallica supports, and piracy, the unauthorized mass distribution of copyright protected materials.
The fact that Metallica went after Napster is simply an ends to a mean. They disagree with the forum/environment/service/whathaveyou Napster provides and the manner in which it provides it. This discussion isn't really about what constitutes a legal media or distribution path, or the business practices of record companies, rather how to protect copyright holders in this new technological environment.
Look outside the box at the larger picture.
On a side note, I'll take Lars' implied advice. Bootleg all you want (tape, mp3, whatever), just don't make a professional habit of it.
Here is a very real situation that is challenging my roommate, a systems administrator for a remanufacturing company. Although most, if not all, of the PC's and servers that run at his site run Linux (Debian, Redhat, and Mandrake), there is one situation he cannot avoid. Distributors, OEMs, and customers often send parts catalogs in the form of Win32 database embedded programs.
He has tried in the past to run these odd programs under the Wine libs, but without success. Because these catalogs are critical to the operation of the business, he is getting pressured to come up with a solution. There are really only a few options he can try, each has it's own advantages and disadvantages:
Run a few dedicated Windows boxes and provide physical access
Adv: No worries about whether the program(s) will run or not
Dis: Limited resources for people to use. Therefore, use-by-demand becomes an issue.
Dis: Inconvenience of having to provide physical workspace for said machines, and inconvenience for workers to leave their traditional work environments to use the computer "lab" to do work.
Provide remote access to dedicated Windows boxen via VNC
Adv: Users have access to Windows apps w/o having to leave their traditional work environment
Dis: VNC is not the most efficient use of your network.
Dis: Concurrent use becomes a problem with limited resources.
Personal Opinion: VNC is great for remote management, but is quite annoying when trying to operate for extended periods of time.
Purchase and run a Windows Terminal Server + Citrix Metaframe box.
Adv: Citrix provides platform independent clients. (It runs in Linux wonderfully!)
Adv: Concurrent use issues are handled by the server's licensing management utilities
Adv: Citrix's ICA protocol is MUCH more efficient and thinner than VNC's.
Adv: Only one box to administrate
Dis: It's Windoze...
Dis: Licensing for M$ AND Citrix...$$$$
Dis: You NEED a box with LOTS of RAM, fast disk speed, and lots of Network bandwidth/speed. More $$$$$$.....
Personal Opinion: YANTMTA (Yet another NT Machine to Administrate). M$ TSE is OK to administrate, but there are a lot of quirks you have to work around. It's VERY challenging trying to get the server to run flawlessly (quite impossible, actually). Some software simply does not run well in the TSE environment. Tie in the issues of authentication/authentification...you need to use Windows PDC #@$%@#$ again...
Of course, if Wine were to run these applications flawlessly (or at least adequately) under Linux, a simple NFS containing the programs in question would provide network access to all machines on the network. His problems would be solved.
The point of this whole excerpt is this, although Wine may not be necessary in all cases, as Linux native software is available as alternatives to Windows software, it is certainly can be advantageous. It will always have a place in your Linux/*NIX "bag-o-tricks".
You must remember that Micro$oft is much bigger than just Windows 2000, NT, 9x, 3x, Office, and IE. They are also MSN, HotMail, part of Apple, etc. Splitting up M$ into babyM$'s would also involve splitting up company assets.
In saying that, the M$ IE company would more than likely also control much of the Internet publishing and ventures of M$ proper. M$ Windows would most likely take on some of the hardware investments and windows.com. M$ Office/Apps would likely take on investments into application companies, etc and office.com.
There's much to M$, and it'll take a lot more than what the grossly simplified newslines convey would be the solution. IMHO, three vertically split babyM$'s, who's interaction is limited to the same scope and influence as the competition is a great solution.
I've submitted this very same question to Ask Slashdot once before. It's nice to see it actually surface and get a little attention, although I see not a lot of attention.
My first impression of EDI was why? But, as I read in to it a little more, I was increasingly impressed with the concepts, just discouraged by the implementation. EDI, for people who don't know, stands for Electronic Document Interchange. It has been around for quite a while and developed out of a military need for efficient, standardized documentation during WWII. No, it wasn't electronic then, but it didn't take long to adapt it.
If you've ever looked at a raw EDI document, you'll find that it is simply an ASCII flat file whose datafields are defined by a standard document template. It's amusing that they use the word "standard" to describe the template, because with each company you interface, you must have a copy of their "template" to tranlate the document with your EDI software. If you use the same software, GREAT! Just pass the template around. If not, you will normally have to hire an EDI consultant to create the template for you. The company we were going through would charge between $500 - 750 a pop (per business-to-business exchange) for 3 or four document templates (Purchase Orders, Order Acknowledgements, and Invoices are the basics).
The "markup" for the EDI document is supposed to be "universal", but my impression is that they've perhaps standardized on a few notations and styles. You could probably be able to pick out key fields in an EDI document by browsing the raw source file, but you would more than likely need to have your tranlsation specs sitting next to you to confirm.
Frankly, EDI is lightyears behind XML in readability/parseability but quite a bit ahead as an established business-to-business document exchange standard. Perhaps we'll see a migration of EDI to XML happen in the near future. It seems like the next logical step.
This leads in to my next comment, and a brainchild yet to be born. I would love to see an EDI to XML translation library pop up out of the Open Source community. (Which leads, of course, to the XML to DB import/export library...) Unfortunately, I'm quite busy and can't lend my hand in this venture, and as he previous post suggests, it's quite expensive to obtain copies of the "standards" documents.
I did have some links relating to EDI, but since I left my last job, I've had little need to follow up or maintain the list... IOW, I've misplaced it. Look into the XML&EDI scene on google, you should be able to find a few links.
Short and to the point... Has anyone researched what it would take to put together an ad campaign for the Open Source Movement or the FSF? Do you think we could entice companies like VA Linux and/or Corel to develop ads over (non-)technical media, such as television, cable, newspapers, or magazines not traditionally associated with Linux?
Micro$oft has worked for years in the media to promote their propeganda and create a lifestyle change for millions of businesses and end-users.
Yes, it would cost a lot of money, but what about the periodical "Public Service Announcement"? You know the one's I'm talking about, where famous actors lecture parents on spending time with their children followed by the "shooting star" logo.
My point is this, if we want to change the way consumers view the software/hardware industry, we need to bring these concerns to the forefront of their minds, concerns they may not even know exist.
I don't agree. XFree86 4.0 is definitely not the end of Linux or the ethic of those who develop for it. Linux has become something bigger than any of use had every dreamed, it has become commercialized. This tells us something that we should be proud of: the Open Source community is winning.
In not so many words, you are arguing that modularizing the X code and allowing for plugin binary drivers will place the leverage back in the hands of hardware providers to say, "We don't have to give you the source. Nyaaa." True, but focus on the world that these hardware providers come from. They're the citizens of the "Dog eat dog" world of Windows, the evil spawn child of Microsoft. As citizens of that world, they must find a way to protect their market share, or to get a larger slice of the pie if they're going to survive.
Enter stage right XFree86 4.0 and Linux. The growing number of users of the Linux other Open Source operating systems is growing. No longer can the hardware providers ignore the consumer demand for hardware support on diverse platforms. Until now, the creation of drivers for the XFree86 platform has been a veritable nightmare of hack and rehack. Much of progress made in our current version of X have been the result of reverse engineering, not open standard API. We, as a consumer group, have been wholely ignored, but now that we provide the hardware vendors with hooks into our operating environment API, the porting path may not look so ugly. The vendors won't simply turn their heads in fear that the time invested would produce little profit margin. A cleaner, faster, more stable environment gives them the comfort they need to plunge into the development of these drivers.
The advent of XFree86 4.0 is not the downfall of Linux, it is another step in the direction of support and commercial acceptance. I, for one, would like to see new hardware be released WITH Linux support rather than wait the traditional year or so before I can use it on my Linux machine.
Some of the people responding to this thread have a clue as to what the real discussion is: protection of intellectual property. It's really not about whether the GNU GPL protects you sufficiently or not, it's about how we view the idea of intellectual property rights.
In today's world of cut-throat business policies, like those exibited by Microsoft, Sun, etc, we find ourselves at the mercy of large corporations and how they dictate the growing technological market. To say that a copyright license will protect your intellectual property from theft is simply laughable. You only need to go so far as the Court headlines about Microsoft stealing Java to see my point. The Sun licensing scheme didn't prevent Microsoft from muscling it's way into the programming lanaguage and transmutating it into a Borg-centric tool.
Face it. In an Open Source community, or any community where you are allowed to read the source code of the product, you are never protected from plagerism. Any programmer who reads your code is influenced by it. "Hey, that's pretty slick." Or, "Why the heck did she do it THAT way?!" You remember what you looked at, use it, or discard it. It's all about interface and learning.
But that's not what we're talking about, right? We're trying to protect our hard-earned, sweat-driven software that consumed hours of our time to write, all in exchange for "free beer". You released it Open Source (BSD style, GNU, Artistic License, whatever) so that others could view your handiwork and say words like, "Awesome!", "Cool!", and "ooooooooo."
What you don't want is some corporate suit to look at it and say, "mmmmmmmoneyyyyyy." Or do you? Mr. Corporate Suit looks at the code, finds the list of individuals who wrote it, and thinks to himself, "These kids know what they're doing. We've got a project coming up that could use their skill..." Now he's seeing money in YOU, the developer -- that is if he's pure in heart and morals, which we all know is a recessive genetic trait not often expressed in the "suits" of the world.
So, how should we look at this? Openly. Recognize that there is always potential for criminal behavior in any community you participate in. Realize that your code is NOT safe from that threat and decide if you want to release it or not. Paranoid schizos need not apply for an Open Source developer's position... Also realize that by releasing your code Open Source, you give EVERYONE the ability to use, change, and improve the software, as well as police others.
As long as there is commercialism in the software industry, there will be an Open Source movement (OSM). You can either be part of it, or just take advantage of it. Just don't let your fear of stolen Intellectual property be a barrier to you, stopping you from contributing to the OSM. Instead, use the OSM as a shield against commercial monopolies in the software industry.
Think about it. What drives software prices down? 1) Better software 2) Equivalent software that is cheaper, i.e. competition 3) Lack of sales. 4) Extreme volume of sales. If you create a piece of software that rivals or surpasses that which is commercially available, you have done your part to drive down market prices and give people alternatives. Who cares if some company steals your code. They'll make a few bucks on it, but it'll still be your intellectual property, free for the world to use and continue to improve....Why pay for something when you can have it for free?...
All of the comments I have read on this thread seem to be missing on some of the deeper issues that touch more than just law and limitations. We are in an age where technology can accomplish what the convention could not. The question is not whether the government can or cannot pass legislation to regulate the behavior of the masses, but if they should use technology and the computer chip to replace the reasoning and experience of a seasoned police officer.
There is not a reasonable, thinking adult out there that would agree that a computer could apply the same logic to a situation that the human brain could. Yes, there are advances in Artificial Intelligence, but they are far from perfect, and definitely far from reliable.
Assuming that this automotive speed daemon (Oh, I see the puns now) does limit the speed of a driver, what type of interaction with the driver would be present? Would a display pop up on his/her windshield HUD informing them of an emminant slowdown if they are to continue at their present speed, exceeding the speed limit? If the satellite does slow down the vehicle, how will it decide when it is safe to do so for the driver and all involved? Would you, as a driver, appreciate having been regulated by an inatimate object, or would you prefer to know that there is someone observing and approving this proactive approach to slowing you down?
*rofl* I could just imagine an interface of the classic "Frogger" being used by the traffic controllers at command central!
This topic is far from closed. As technology advances, people will see new ways of regulating and enforcing policy decisions, business, public, or private, that they could not otherwise do. Ethics debates will ever be present and will have to evolve with our continued advancement. Right or wrong, technology is here to stay and it's going to be used. We just have to be wise in how it is used.
Think about it. If the manufacturers would have provided DVD drivers as loadable kernel modules for the Linux community, there would be far less attention given to the decryption of the DVD's CSS encryption scheme. We simply want to play movies from an excellent media (in comparison to what is currently available...VHS or huge MPEG files) on the Operating System of our choice.
Of course, someone will always pick up the challenge from statements like, "The Copyrights are guaranteed because we've encrypted the data on the disks," and,"no one will break the cypher." Some recreational hacker or perhaps the evil black market dealer.
And if this event doesn't prove that it's time for the U.S. to go 100% metric, I don't know what will. Oy!
This statement is all right and good except that it is a bit naive. Although the US is non-standard by following it's own measurement systems for lenght, volume, and weight, it is not necessarily bad. Ask just about any professional machinist what measurement system (s)he uses and you'll find more often than not that they use the US "Standard" system over the Metric. A machinst friend of mine claimed, "it's more accurate." Now, as someone acquainted with the more complicated mathematics, I understand measurement systems as nothing more than numbers. Accuracy in and of itself does not lie in the system used to express the measurement. Speaking practically, however, it seems that the US has found its niches. Its not surprising either, we've had a couple hundred years to get used to it.
As a scientist, I realize that the US mesurement system is not used in all aspects of life in the US. Step into any chemist's lab and you'll find beakers labled liters and milliliters. You'll find scales labeled Kilograms, grams, and micrograms. Factors of 10 are convenient indeed when it comes to science.
Hey, I'm all for such a conversion, but such a conversion would never be 100%; at least not for quite a few years. Just think about how the less honest business "entrepeneaurs" would take advantage of the mass confusion caused by such a conversion. Gas would be sold in liters instead of gallons, a two or ten cent raise in price per liter may go unnoticed (initially). Everything would be thrown out of context for US residents. Every industry would be impacted. For the price of conversion, the rewards would be ill received.
Yes, it's simple to say that the US should convert to metric, just not so simple to implement.
Why do people always get this wrong? They were not picked out because of giving the browser away for free, but for BUNDLING IT into the OS, thereby leveraging their dominant/monopoly position in the OS market to obtain an unfair advantage in the browser market.
We know this, but we're talking about publicity and FUD. Sun is fighting a publicity war as much as it's fighting a server/OS war. Release free software, open up it's code to Open Source development. Even if they can knock down M$ a few pegs, don't you think they'd want to step around the issue carefully. The average consumer and occassional headline browser is going to remember that M$ was sued for anti-trust and monopoly issues, and that part of that was a result of the spotlight on the browser wars?
Yes, the more correct statement is as you placed it above. M$ used their market power to push out competition by giving away software for free (embedding/integrating it into their OS as a feature enhancement). Could Sun not do the same from the desktop application arena? Sun wants a piece of the action. They want to sell their thick server/thin client solutions. Why not give away a desktop application for free to muscle their way into server/OS market. Gain recognition, give the consumer a good feeling, and persuade them to move over to an NC environment running on their hardware and software over a PC environment running on M$ software.
Why jeapordize a possible influx into a larger market by drawing the public's attention as Micro$oft did? By using Micro$oft's own tactics, which are well publicized and recognized by the majority of dedicated computer consumers, Sun would most likely get more than a few fingers pointing their way. "The DOJ nailed M$ for it! Precidence! Sun should be hit too!" Slow down distribution and fewer fingers would be doing the pointing...
Publicity, FUD, and market share. Who said capatilism was boring?
What is the real goal here? I presume, like many others, that the goal is to "cut off Microsoft's air supply," by going after their big cash cow, Office.
If that is true, the current license (as well as the SCSL, under which the source, when released, will be licensed) doesn't accomplish the goal, due to its limitations on redistribtion.
I believe the answer lies in a few motivations. One, as one/.'er quoted earlier, Sun is as much of a control freak as Micro$oft. I will not reitterate any of the points for this, since it seems pretty self evident.
Two, Sun may be jumpy about the whole licensing issue in the wake of the DOJ lawsuit against M$. M$ was partially picked out because it gave away Internet Explorer for free, whereas NetScrape was still being sold commercially. If Sun tries the same aggressive "push-out" with free software that M$ did to NetScrape, we may see another lawsuit in our news headlines.
I agree that Sun won't get the effect that it's striving for, but I believe its because they're remaining conservative in order to save their own arses.
Thank you! You pulled the words right out of my mouth. Everyone's so worried about the distribution side of things that they fail to recognize the real violations of the GPL license, the alteration of GPL code itself.
Yes, Corel screwed up. They made a blanket copyright statement to cover their entire distribution, a distribution that contains GPL software. What we should be doing, folks, is pointing out that this is inappropriate and give Corel a possible solution, not breathing down their necks.
The best possible solution I see is to have two separate license statements. One would cover the Corel Linux GPL distribition. The second would cover their specially licensed Corel add-ons. RedHat did this when they packaged MetroX with their 4.2 version. During the installation process for the MetroX desktop, you had to read through and confirm that you agreed with the license. It wasn't GPL, and RedHat didn't treat it as such.
Of course, this brings up another interesting question. Is it right or even lawful for someone to take a GPL program, modify the code, and use it "in-house" without contributing those modifications back to the GPL community? The answer is an emphatic "no!" At this point, we can only assume that Corel is adhering to GPL policy and that they goofed in their distribution license statement.
I've been browsing through these comments, and I'd be surprised if someone actually filters their way down to this one. Still, I think there is very important point that has to be recognized when using the "role-playing" defense of action in this case. It doesn't apply very well. Why? Child pornography is child pornography. The motive for making this law was to protect children from sexual abuse by prohibiting the sale or consumption of child pornography material. Pictures, videos, audio, printed, and yes, real-time chat. How does real-time chat really differ from any other media?
Child pornography is child pornography. The US deemed it unlawful to partake in actions which constitute or contribute to a child pornographic environment. A chat-room (or channel) is an environment. Fantasizing and role-playing a child pornographic scene is still child pornography even if you have two 45 year old people chatting to eachother.
That is one possible stance the prosecutor will try to take to defend the unlawful entrapment countercharges. Frankly, I think it'll be a strong argument. Not because of any virtue of it's own -- it clearly takes many liberties with the definition of the law concerning child pornography and how one defines pornographic material -- but simply because this topic involves protecting those who cannot protect themselves, the children. The prosecutor will play the sympathies of the jurors (if it ever gets to that) or to the judge. If any of these people are parents, the defendant will have a tough time of it.
The defendant will have a tough time with this one, regardless of his guilt or innocense. The way it's been presented to me, he seems pretty guilty, but I'm not the investigator or the judge.
but its just sorta the standard tirade on "Girls can be Geeks Too" (which no geek argues with in theory, we just never be able to find girl geeks of our own;)
Speak for yourself.;) They're out there, boys; you just have to do a little footwork out there to find one. Once you have, your life will never be the same. Imagine having a conversation with your girlfriend about the intricacies of structured C programming and having her not only participate but reciprocate as well!
I'm one of the blessed few to find such a woman, and I remind her how lucky I am every chance I get.
You're missing some numbers with your estimation of generations for inbreeding. Let's say they are, optimistically, able to get usable clones from each of the preserved specimens. Let's say they're able to create three males and three females. That's three mating pairs, right? Wrong. You actually have nine mating pairs. Each male can seed each female. Remember, we're not talking about creating a population naturally. The technique is called artifical insemination.
Let's say these impregnated females have no complications. It's likely, since they are marsupials, they will have only one joey. (If they had a litter, reproduction would be much quicker). Technically, then, the first generation joeys/pups would sum up as 9. This goes on and we could build quite a population (assuming everything goes well).
Yet, you may be correct in the assumption that inbreeding will start at the third generation. Even if we have 9 offspring in the first generation, one half of a DNA string will between mates will begin matching by the third generation. Still, we're only breeding first generation with first generation, second with second, and so on. With artifical insemination, you can breed first with second or third.
Let's say your first pair produce a female offspring. A second male from the parent generation can be bred with this first generation female. His DNA could combine with one of two gene strands, the offsprings mother or father (with the exception of the Y-chromosome). This, of course, doesn't take into effect any of the natural mutation processes that happen to genes during oogenesis or spermatogenesis, such as crossovers. So start with the six gene-pairs of the parents (that's twelve distinct germ lines), add in natural or induced mutation of germ cell creation, and you've got the potential for one hell of a gene pool.
Remember that genetics just isn't as simple as it used to be. The Hardy-Weinberg principle doesn't really apply to artifically guided reproduction -- we're simply not dealing with natural animal populations here. A robust genepool CAN be created from just six animals.
Of course, this doesn't bring into question the behavioral problems of cloning a species that has no "mother" or "father" to learn hunting or living skills from. Instinct can only go so far...
Nothing new here. As a openly displayed computer geek, I'm often approached with the question, "Should I get a computer?" To which I always reply, "What do you plan on doing with it?" More times than not, younger people will say, "To play cool games!"
"Buy a console system." Why? Why would I advise a person to purchase what is obviously a few lightyears behind powerful processors and graphics cards available for the personal PC? Maintenance. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). [Enter favorite cost-related buzz word here.] With a console system, you don't have to worry about upgrades or whether your system will be obsolete in two years (it already is, but us "computer geeks" won't tell you).
Of course,/.'ers are the wrong people to try to market for console game systems. So why are we having this discussion?! *grin*
Bruce quoted someone as asking, "Doesn't it bother you that Red Hat is selling your code?" His reply, however, didn't address one important point about the GPL license (assuming he altered GPL code). He may own his code, but by GPL, no one can sell it. They may sell the distribution and the support of the software, but they cannot charge for the software itself!
I feel this point is missed entirely too much, as is the general public's misconception that RedHat is Linux rather than just a distribution and support company. How do we encourage journalists and "would-be" writers to include that small, yet important tidbit of information?
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Any reason you can't use Cygwin, now owned and maintained by Redhat. From the intro page:
The tools only take up about 100 megs of space and provide you with bash, ksh, and tcsh as shells, and most of the tools you're familiar with in a GNU *NIX environment, including the compilers. They support Win 95/95/NT4.0-sp3 natively, which would lead me to believe you could get it to run on M$ Millenium without too much difficulty. But wait! We're not finished! Would you like a free Xserver for your Windoze boxen? Check this out!
A more informative site on Cygwin, it's current status, new bulletins, FAQs, etc (it's project center site) is as follows:
Enjoy your unholy marriage of M$ and *NIX. ;-) Oh, yeah. Did I mention, it's FREE ! Isn't GPL Licensed software wonderful?!
There are other things to consider as well. The issue of payment collection and distribution comes to mind. The Mojo server would need to have micropayment tracking capabilities and financial rules built in to it's database. You've got many things to consider to become a clearing house for this type of transaction. If you're an avid Napster user, imagine having to send out a check to each person you've downloaded a file from!
The Mojo server will most definitely need to serve as the user clearinghouse, requiring payment from each user for the sum of their downloads, and sending out checks to each person for the sum of their completed upload requests.
What about customer service? Let's say I download a file and it turns out to be an awful mp3, or a corrupted tarball. Napster doesn't allow us to verify the integrity of the file or the person who created the file before/after download. Even if it did -- perhaps by requiring PGP/OpenPG signatures for each file -- you would still run into problems where the customer (person downloading) is unsatisified with the quality or content of the file. Who are they supposed to complain to? How do they get their money back?
Let's assume they cannot for the moment. Mojo would most likely need to provide a rating system similar to eBay. Users could rate Providers.
The Mojo/Micropayment-Napster clone may work, but only if it's well thought out and covers all the bases.
Sorry, just dreaming now. I'd love to have a Twiddler w/Bluetooth capabilities.
Don't get me wrong, I'm an avid sylus fan -- I couldn't live without my PalmPilot III. Although handwriting recognition software is a great form of input, it is slow and tedious. For short commands and tasks that don't demand a lot of input, stylus pads are wonderful.
There is another option that mobile computer enthusiasts have known about for some time now. It's not revolutionary, but it's certainly useful. Feast your eyes on the twiddler.
And for you Palm Pilot enthusiasts, check out the TwiddleHack. With a portable sync cable, a little solder, battery case, and a couple watch batteries, you've got yourself a one-handed keyboard for your Pilot!
I've read a couple comments now about how someone wants to add this new component or that new drive to the Tivo, but really, how difficult would it be to simply build a new computer with a video capture card, an IR remote control, a nice A3D digital (or optical) output soundcard (like the Aureal Vortex), a huge IDE harddrive, a network card and a 3D card? All of a sudden, you've got yourself a Linux entertainment center...
I mean, come on. For $600 retail, you could easily do what Tivo does on your own. OK. Maybe not that easily, there's the matter of the controlling software and making it as user-friendly as the TIVO's UI presentation. You could still manage the functionality with a little brain-power and a few work-arounds. Plus, you could play your favorite games as well! ;-)
Turn your browsers to http://www.vim.org if you want an extensible, programmable VI editor. VIM stands for "VI iMproved", and it certainly is. With syntax and keyword highlighting, smart indenting, macros, piping and shell escapes, you've got almost everything you could possibly need in an editor without the overhead of the EmacsOS.
My personal preference reason for using VI is mode-based editing. It saves my poor pinky fingers from having to camp on the control keys. Even though I understand EmacsOS has a VI emulation mode (it really DOES do everything, including controlling your toaster and microwave), I'd rather use the Real Thing (tm). Since VIM gives me everything I desire from the Emacs programming environment, including a nice X/GTK front-end, I'll be able to avoid having to brush up on my Emacs knowledge for a little longer.
Lars' last point was the quantity of Napster. This is just silly. Ok, Lars, why don't you tell us exactly what the cut-off on copied tapes is? If one is ok, is 10? Can I copy 20 of my friend's records? 100?
This statement is purely argumentative and misses the point that Lars is hinting toward, but not outright stating. Reproduction of media has time, cost, and scope of influence to consider when making this argument. Tapes are cumbersome, outdated, expensive, and is certainly limited-life media format. MP3's living in Internet space are sleek, extremely mobile, easily reproducable, and almost eternal. If you really take the time to add it all up, MP3's and the Internet have won the distribution contest hands down.
So, it turns out that Lars does have a point hidden in this ad hoc-ish style interview. Computers and the Internet -- not simply Napster -- have changed the rules. Subsequently, so have the definitions of bootlegging, which Metallica supports, and piracy, the unauthorized mass distribution of copyright protected materials.
The fact that Metallica went after Napster is simply an ends to a mean. They disagree with the forum/environment/service/whathaveyou Napster provides and the manner in which it provides it. This discussion isn't really about what constitutes a legal media or distribution path, or the business practices of record companies, rather how to protect copyright holders in this new technological environment.
Look outside the box at the larger picture.
On a side note, I'll take Lars' implied advice. Bootleg all you want (tape, mp3, whatever), just don't make a professional habit of it.
Here is a very real situation that is challenging my roommate, a systems administrator for a remanufacturing company. Although most, if not all, of the PC's and servers that run at his site run Linux (Debian, Redhat, and Mandrake), there is one situation he cannot avoid. Distributors, OEMs, and customers often send parts catalogs in the form of Win32 database embedded programs.
He has tried in the past to run these odd programs under the Wine libs, but without success. Because these catalogs are critical to the operation of the business, he is getting pressured to come up with a solution. There are really only a few options he can try, each has it's own advantages and disadvantages:
Of course, if Wine were to run these applications flawlessly (or at least adequately) under Linux, a simple NFS containing the programs in question would provide network access to all machines on the network. His problems would be solved.
The point of this whole excerpt is this, although Wine may not be necessary in all cases, as Linux native software is available as alternatives to Windows software, it is certainly can be advantageous. It will always have a place in your Linux/*NIX "bag-o-tricks".
You must remember that Micro$oft is much bigger than just Windows 2000, NT, 9x, 3x, Office, and IE. They are also MSN, HotMail, part of Apple, etc. Splitting up M$ into babyM$'s would also involve splitting up company assets.
In saying that, the M$ IE company would more than likely also control much of the Internet publishing and ventures of M$ proper. M$ Windows would most likely take on some of the hardware investments and windows.com. M$ Office/Apps would likely take on investments into application companies, etc and office.com.
There's much to M$, and it'll take a lot more than what the grossly simplified newslines convey would be the solution. IMHO, three vertically split babyM$'s, who's interaction is limited to the same scope and influence as the competition is a great solution.
I've submitted this very same question to Ask Slashdot once before. It's nice to see it actually surface and get a little attention, although I see not a lot of attention.
My first impression of EDI was why? But, as I read in to it a little more, I was increasingly impressed with the concepts, just discouraged by the implementation. EDI, for people who don't know, stands for Electronic Document Interchange. It has been around for quite a while and developed out of a military need for efficient, standardized documentation during WWII. No, it wasn't electronic then, but it didn't take long to adapt it.
If you've ever looked at a raw EDI document, you'll find that it is simply an ASCII flat file whose datafields are defined by a standard document template. It's amusing that they use the word "standard" to describe the template, because with each company you interface, you must have a copy of their "template" to tranlate the document with your EDI software. If you use the same software, GREAT! Just pass the template around. If not, you will normally have to hire an EDI consultant to create the template for you. The company we were going through would charge between $500 - 750 a pop (per business-to-business exchange) for 3 or four document templates (Purchase Orders, Order Acknowledgements, and Invoices are the basics).
The "markup" for the EDI document is supposed to be "universal", but my impression is that they've perhaps standardized on a few notations and styles. You could probably be able to pick out key fields in an EDI document by browsing the raw source file, but you would more than likely need to have your tranlsation specs sitting next to you to confirm.
Frankly, EDI is lightyears behind XML in readability/parseability but quite a bit ahead as an established business-to-business document exchange standard. Perhaps we'll see a migration of EDI to XML happen in the near future. It seems like the next logical step.
This leads in to my next comment, and a brainchild yet to be born. I would love to see an EDI to XML translation library pop up out of the Open Source community. (Which leads, of course, to the XML to DB import/export library...) Unfortunately, I'm quite busy and can't lend my hand in this venture, and as he previous post suggests, it's quite expensive to obtain copies of the "standards" documents.
I did have some links relating to EDI, but since I left my last job, I've had little need to follow up or maintain the list... IOW, I've misplaced it. Look into the XML&EDI scene on google, you should be able to find a few links.
Micro$oft has worked for years in the media to promote their propeganda and create a lifestyle change for millions of businesses and end-users.
Yes, it would cost a lot of money, but what about the periodical "Public Service Announcement"? You know the one's I'm talking about, where famous actors lecture parents on spending time with their children followed by the "shooting star" logo.
My point is this, if we want to change the way consumers view the software/hardware industry, we need to bring these concerns to the forefront of their minds, concerns they may not even know exist.
I don't agree. XFree86 4.0 is definitely not the end of Linux or the ethic of those who develop for it. Linux has become something bigger than any of use had every dreamed, it has become commercialized. This tells us something that we should be proud of: the Open Source community is winning.
In not so many words, you are arguing that modularizing the X code and allowing for plugin binary drivers will place the leverage back in the hands of hardware providers to say, "We don't have to give you the source. Nyaaa." True, but focus on the world that these hardware providers come from. They're the citizens of the "Dog eat dog" world of Windows, the evil spawn child of Microsoft. As citizens of that world, they must find a way to protect their market share, or to get a larger slice of the pie if they're going to survive.
Enter stage right XFree86 4.0 and Linux. The growing number of users of the Linux other Open Source operating systems is growing. No longer can the hardware providers ignore the consumer demand for hardware support on diverse platforms. Until now, the creation of drivers for the XFree86 platform has been a veritable nightmare of hack and rehack. Much of progress made in our current version of X have been the result of reverse engineering, not open standard API. We, as a consumer group, have been wholely ignored, but now that we provide the hardware vendors with hooks into our operating environment API, the porting path may not look so ugly. The vendors won't simply turn their heads in fear that the time invested would produce little profit margin. A cleaner, faster, more stable environment gives them the comfort they need to plunge into the development of these drivers.
The advent of XFree86 4.0 is not the downfall of Linux, it is another step in the direction of support and commercial acceptance. I, for one, would like to see new hardware be released WITH Linux support rather than wait the traditional year or so before I can use it on my Linux machine.
Some of the people responding to this thread have a clue as to what the real discussion is: protection of intellectual property. It's really not about whether the GNU GPL protects you sufficiently or not, it's about how we view the idea of intellectual property rights.
In today's world of cut-throat business policies, like those exibited by Microsoft, Sun, etc, we find ourselves at the mercy of large corporations and how they dictate the growing technological market. To say that a copyright license will protect your intellectual property from theft is simply laughable. You only need to go so far as the Court headlines about Microsoft stealing Java to see my point. The Sun licensing scheme didn't prevent Microsoft from muscling it's way into the programming lanaguage and transmutating it into a Borg-centric tool.
Face it. In an Open Source community, or any community where you are allowed to read the source code of the product, you are never protected from plagerism. Any programmer who reads your code is influenced by it. "Hey, that's pretty slick." Or, "Why the heck did she do it THAT way?!" You remember what you looked at, use it, or discard it. It's all about interface and learning.
But that's not what we're talking about, right? We're trying to protect our hard-earned, sweat-driven software that consumed hours of our time to write, all in exchange for "free beer". You released it Open Source (BSD style, GNU, Artistic License, whatever) so that others could view your handiwork and say words like, "Awesome!", "Cool!", and "ooooooooo."
What you don't want is some corporate suit to look at it and say, "mmmmmmmoneyyyyyy." Or do you? Mr. Corporate Suit looks at the code, finds the list of individuals who wrote it, and thinks to himself, "These kids know what they're doing. We've got a project coming up that could use their skill..." Now he's seeing money in YOU, the developer -- that is if he's pure in heart and morals, which we all know is a recessive genetic trait not often expressed in the "suits" of the world.
So, how should we look at this? Openly. Recognize that there is always potential for criminal behavior in any community you participate in. Realize that your code is NOT safe from that threat and decide if you want to release it or not. Paranoid schizos need not apply for an Open Source developer's position... Also realize that by releasing your code Open Source, you give EVERYONE the ability to use, change, and improve the software, as well as police others.
As long as there is commercialism in the software industry, there will be an Open Source movement (OSM). You can either be part of it, or just take advantage of it. Just don't let your fear of stolen Intellectual property be a barrier to you, stopping you from contributing to the OSM. Instead, use the OSM as a shield against commercial monopolies in the software industry.
Think about it. What drives software prices down? 1) Better software 2) Equivalent software that is cheaper, i.e. competition 3) Lack of sales. 4) Extreme volume of sales. If you create a piece of software that rivals or surpasses that which is commercially available, you have done your part to drive down market prices and give people alternatives. Who cares if some company steals your code. They'll make a few bucks on it, but it'll still be your intellectual property, free for the world to use and continue to improve....Why pay for something when you can have it for free?...
All of the comments I have read on this thread seem to be missing on some of the deeper issues that touch more than just law and limitations. We are in an age where technology can accomplish what the convention could not. The question is not whether the government can or cannot pass legislation to regulate the behavior of the masses, but if they should use technology and the computer chip to replace the reasoning and experience of a seasoned police officer.
There is not a reasonable, thinking adult out there that would agree that a computer could apply the same logic to a situation that the human brain could. Yes, there are advances in Artificial Intelligence, but they are far from perfect, and definitely far from reliable.
Assuming that this automotive speed daemon (Oh, I see the puns now) does limit the speed of a driver, what type of interaction with the driver would be present? Would a display pop up on his/her windshield HUD informing them of an emminant slowdown if they are to continue at their present speed, exceeding the speed limit? If the satellite does slow down the vehicle, how will it decide when it is safe to do so for the driver and all involved? Would you, as a driver, appreciate having been regulated by an inatimate object, or would you prefer to know that there is someone observing and approving this proactive approach to slowing you down?
*rofl* I could just imagine an interface of the classic "Frogger" being used by the traffic controllers at command central!
This topic is far from closed. As technology advances, people will see new ways of regulating and enforcing policy decisions, business, public, or private, that they could not otherwise do. Ethics debates will ever be present and will have to evolve with our continued advancement. Right or wrong, technology is here to stay and it's going to be used. We just have to be wise in how it is used.
Think about it. If the manufacturers would have provided DVD drivers as loadable kernel modules for the Linux community, there would be far less attention given to the decryption of the DVD's CSS encryption scheme. We simply want to play movies from an excellent media (in comparison to what is currently available...VHS or huge MPEG files) on the Operating System of our choice.
Of course, someone will always pick up the challenge from statements like, "The Copyrights are guaranteed because we've encrypted the data on the disks," and ,"no one will break the cypher." Some recreational hacker or perhaps the evil black market dealer.
Who cares?!! We just want to watch our movies...
This statement is all right and good except that it is a bit naive. Although the US is non-standard by following it's own measurement systems for lenght, volume, and weight, it is not necessarily bad. Ask just about any professional machinist what measurement system (s)he uses and you'll find more often than not that they use the US "Standard" system over the Metric. A machinst friend of mine claimed, "it's more accurate." Now, as someone acquainted with the more complicated mathematics, I understand measurement systems as nothing more than numbers. Accuracy in and of itself does not lie in the system used to express the measurement. Speaking practically, however, it seems that the US has found its niches. Its not surprising either, we've had a couple hundred years to get used to it.
As a scientist, I realize that the US mesurement system is not used in all aspects of life in the US. Step into any chemist's lab and you'll find beakers labled liters and milliliters. You'll find scales labeled Kilograms, grams, and micrograms. Factors of 10 are convenient indeed when it comes to science.
Hey, I'm all for such a conversion, but such a conversion would never be 100%; at least not for quite a few years. Just think about how the less honest business "entrepeneaurs" would take advantage of the mass confusion caused by such a conversion. Gas would be sold in liters instead of gallons, a two or ten cent raise in price per liter may go unnoticed (initially). Everything would be thrown out of context for US residents. Every industry would be impacted. For the price of conversion, the rewards would be ill received.
Yes, it's simple to say that the US should convert to metric, just not so simple to implement.
We know this, but we're talking about publicity and FUD. Sun is fighting a publicity war as much as it's fighting a server/OS war. Release free software, open up it's code to Open Source development. Even if they can knock down M$ a few pegs, don't you think they'd want to step around the issue carefully. The average consumer and occassional headline browser is going to remember that M$ was sued for anti-trust and monopoly issues, and that part of that was a result of the spotlight on the browser wars?
Yes, the more correct statement is as you placed it above. M$ used their market power to push out competition by giving away software for free (embedding/integrating it into their OS as a feature enhancement). Could Sun not do the same from the desktop application arena? Sun wants a piece of the action. They want to sell their thick server/thin client solutions. Why not give away a desktop application for free to muscle their way into server/OS market. Gain recognition, give the consumer a good feeling, and persuade them to move over to an NC environment running on their hardware and software over a PC environment running on M$ software.
Why jeapordize a possible influx into a larger market by drawing the public's attention as Micro$oft did? By using Micro$oft's own tactics, which are well publicized and recognized by the majority of dedicated computer consumers, Sun would most likely get more than a few fingers pointing their way. "The DOJ nailed M$ for it! Precidence! Sun should be hit too!" Slow down distribution and fewer fingers would be doing the pointing...
Publicity, FUD, and market share. Who said capatilism was boring?
If that is true, the current license (as well as the SCSL, under which the source, when released, will be licensed) doesn't accomplish the goal, due to its limitations on redistribtion.
I believe the answer lies in a few motivations. One, as one /.'er quoted earlier, Sun is as much of a control freak as Micro$oft. I will not reitterate any of the points for this, since it seems pretty self evident.
Two, Sun may be jumpy about the whole licensing issue in the wake of the DOJ lawsuit against M$. M$ was partially picked out because it gave away Internet Explorer for free, whereas NetScrape was still being sold commercially. If Sun tries the same aggressive "push-out" with free software that M$ did to NetScrape, we may see another lawsuit in our news headlines.
I agree that Sun won't get the effect that it's striving for, but I believe its because they're remaining conservative in order to save their own arses.
Yes, Corel screwed up. They made a blanket copyright statement to cover their entire distribution, a distribution that contains GPL software. What we should be doing, folks, is pointing out that this is inappropriate and give Corel a possible solution, not breathing down their necks.
The best possible solution I see is to have two separate license statements. One would cover the Corel Linux GPL distribition. The second would cover their specially licensed Corel add-ons. RedHat did this when they packaged MetroX with their 4.2 version. During the installation process for the MetroX desktop, you had to read through and confirm that you agreed with the license. It wasn't GPL, and RedHat didn't treat it as such.
Of course, this brings up another interesting question. Is it right or even lawful for someone to take a GPL program, modify the code, and use it "in-house" without contributing those modifications back to the GPL community? The answer is an emphatic "no!" At this point, we can only assume that Corel is adhering to GPL policy and that they goofed in their distribution license statement.
Child pornography is child pornography. The US deemed it unlawful to partake in actions which constitute or contribute to a child pornographic environment. A chat-room (or channel) is an environment. Fantasizing and role-playing a child pornographic scene is still child pornography even if you have two 45 year old people chatting to eachother.
That is one possible stance the prosecutor will try to take to defend the unlawful entrapment countercharges. Frankly, I think it'll be a strong argument. Not because of any virtue of it's own -- it clearly takes many liberties with the definition of the law concerning child pornography and how one defines pornographic material -- but simply because this topic involves protecting those who cannot protect themselves, the children. The prosecutor will play the sympathies of the jurors (if it ever gets to that) or to the judge. If any of these people are parents, the defendant will have a tough time of it.
The defendant will have a tough time with this one, regardless of his guilt or innocense. The way it's been presented to me, he seems pretty guilty, but I'm not the investigator or the judge.
Speak for yourself. ;) They're out there, boys; you just have to do a little footwork out there to find one. Once you have, your life will never be the same. Imagine having a conversation with your girlfriend about the intricacies of structured C programming and having her not only participate but reciprocate as well!
I'm one of the blessed few to find such a woman, and I remind her how lucky I am every chance I get.
Let's say these impregnated females have no complications. It's likely, since they are marsupials, they will have only one joey. (If they had a litter, reproduction would be much quicker). Technically, then, the first generation joeys/pups would sum up as 9. This goes on and we could build quite a population (assuming everything goes well).
Yet, you may be correct in the assumption that inbreeding will start at the third generation. Even if we have 9 offspring in the first generation, one half of a DNA string will between mates will begin matching by the third generation. Still, we're only breeding first generation with first generation, second with second, and so on. With artifical insemination, you can breed first with second or third.
Let's say your first pair produce a female offspring. A second male from the parent generation can be bred with this first generation female. His DNA could combine with one of two gene strands, the offsprings mother or father (with the exception of the Y-chromosome). This, of course, doesn't take into effect any of the natural mutation processes that happen to genes during oogenesis or spermatogenesis, such as crossovers. So start with the six gene-pairs of the parents (that's twelve distinct germ lines), add in natural or induced mutation of germ cell creation, and you've got the potential for one hell of a gene pool.
Remember that genetics just isn't as simple as it used to be. The Hardy-Weinberg principle doesn't really apply to artifically guided reproduction -- we're simply not dealing with natural animal populations here. A robust genepool CAN be created from just six animals.
Of course, this doesn't bring into question the behavioral problems of cloning a species that has no "mother" or "father" to learn hunting or living skills from. Instinct can only go so far...
"Buy a console system." Why? Why would I advise a person to purchase what is obviously a few lightyears behind powerful processors and graphics cards available for the personal PC? Maintenance. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). [Enter favorite cost-related buzz word here.] With a console system, you don't have to worry about upgrades or whether your system will be obsolete in two years (it already is, but us "computer geeks" won't tell you).
Of course, /.'ers are the wrong people to try to market for console game systems. So why are we having this discussion?! *grin*
I feel this point is missed entirely too much, as is the general public's misconception that RedHat is Linux rather than just a distribution and support company. How do we encourage journalists and "would-be" writers to include that small, yet important tidbit of information?