Think about it? Will any piece of bent wire do? Not really. It has to be stiff enough and springy enough, else the wire will just give and not hold the papers together. I would not be surprised to find that after the wire for the paper clip has been bent into the right shape that it would be treated somehow to stiffen it up, to compensate for weaknesses induced by the bending.
By comparison, what does 1-click shopping entail? CGI? Web fill-out forms? Been done. Cookies? I suspect any webmaster could have done what Amazon did, but that Amazon just happened to do it first. For the patent to be an honest patent, it should have been something that others in the field would not be likely to come up with. That's the rub.
You never know until you try whether the boycott will work or not. If no one does anything, then for sure, no progress will be made.
It seems to me that the real key is publicity. Basically, what needs to happen is for the public at large to become aware of the USPO's and Amazon's folly. If only geeks and Slashdotters are aware of what's going on, then you're right; the financial debt to Amazon will be miniscule, because there are relatively few geeks in this world. If the public knows what's going on, then 1) there are far more people to potentially hit Amazon in the wallet, and 2) there is the possibility of public embarassment. If possibility (2) came to pass, that would likely be more potent than (1).
So, instead of sitting on our hands knowing we'll be doomed, maybe we could actually try letting our non-geek friends and neighbors know what's what. We may not win, but we will surely lose if we do nothing.
Do you work for or with MS? (How else would you know?)
Take a closer look at that statement on "balance"
on
Stopping the FUD
·
· Score: 1
From the Counter-FUD site:
Will not attempt to be completely 'balanced'--it's our aim to "locate, summarize, and link stories from the same mainstream press that refute the FUD points"--but we hope to never intentionally depict Linux as better than it actually is, or depict any Microsoft product as worse than it actually is.
The site's purpose is to counter FUD against Linux. In that sense it is not "balanced" since it's Linux focused. However, as the quote shows, the site will not try to make Linux look better than it is, or Microsoft look worse than it is. Read more carefully.
"What the courts could regard as theft is that the GPL compromises ones right to the product of one's own labour, ie. changes that one has made to the source." It isn't just the labor of the one who changed the source that is at issue, since one also has to consider the labor of the one who made the source available in the first place. The court could very well take the stance that the one who writes the original code is the one who has the right to give permission in how it is used (assuming that the rights didn't already belong to the original author's employer, or something like that.)
"Newbies won't be attracted to Linux if it has 7 desktops that are incompatible"
How are the desktops incompatible? The desktop doesn't care what apps you run. Even KDE and GNOME apps don't care if KDE or GNOME are running so long as they are installed.
"Furthermore as a vendor who do you support?"
I don't understand the question--do you mean the vendor supporting different toolkits? Why would a vendor care?
Actually, Linux was initially (emphasis on initially) based on Minix, probably because it was the only x86 Unix that Mr. Torvalds could afford. (I don't think FreeBSD was quite out yet. AFAIK, there was a 386BSD, but there were some issues I think with AT&T and the guys at Berkeley.)
1) Who has produced the better browser? 2) Do we want MS to set the "standards" on the Web?
It seems to be that IE 5 is arguably better. I suspect this is partly because it supports XML (which is what the article was talking about), perhaps partly because MS "cheated" with some of its APIs (maybe, maybe not, but it would be typical MS), and partly because Netscape just plain old dropped the ball.
On the other hand, we know that MS's style is to try to lock customers into its product line and make it difficult for them to get out of it. Do we really want MS to do this on the web? I don't think so. So, I'd say the webmasters ought to try to insure that Netscape, lousy as it is, is still a usuable option for their sites, just to keep MS at least somewhat at bay. If you don't like what I just said, I'm sorry. I can't say that I like it, either.
Hopefully, Netscape or Mozilla will catch up, or the DOJ will put MS in a position where they can't use IE to advance a monopoly.
"I'm afraid I can't find any that denounces slavery, oh well"
Neither can I exactly, but look at the verses just below the Colossians 3.22 verse:
Col. 4.1:
"Masters, treat your slaves fairly and justly, for you know that you also have a Master in heaven."
Also look at Ephesians 6.5-9:
"Slaves, obey your earthly masters . . . in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ . . . And, masters, *do the same to them.* . . . "
Look at that last part real closely--"do the same to them." Think about that. He just told his slaves to be submissive to their masters. For the masters to do the same unto the slaves, they would have to be in essence submissive to their slaves. That pretty much destroys the standard master-slave relationship, since the master can no longer be domineering or lord it over the slaves.
Certainly what Paul commanded to the masters was a far cry from what the slaveowners did to the black slaves in the South. Maybe that's part of what disturbed the abolitionists so badly.
I suppose I have a more cussed view of things. I believe in God, because I believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead. I won't get into the details of why I find that to be the case, but I'll point you to a couple books which get into fair detail: Josh McDowell's "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" and Clark Pinnock's "Reason Enough." I treat faith as going beyond the evidence, but not per se against it. If the Resurrection happened, then whether I believe it happened or whether you believe it happened doesn't make it any less a part of the fabric of reality. "Everyone needs to determine for themselves what they believe in," may be true, but only if one acknowledges that what one determines for oneself is not arbitrary, but may very well be wrong.
"That religious experience is unintelligible proves nothing whatsoever. *All* experience is unintelligible; try explaining 'blue' to a blind man."
"Sure, but we can define "blue" as light with a wavelength from XXX to YYY nanometers. Blue light is both repeatable (every time I turn my blue LED, durned if I don't see blue) and measurable (use your favorite color meter). It's no problem for science."
The problem with your assertion is that is it in some sense backwards. Blue light was first identified by its color--then its wavelength was found. The only reason one can say that light is blue because its wavelength is so many nanometers is because someone measured the range of wavelengths associated with light that was already perceived as blue beforehand. That puts you back where you started. How did one perceive that the light was blue in the first place?
"agreed, one other reason i think free software has a disadvantage over commercial software is that commercial software has to GO 4 GOLD and be GREAT to survive and be the best it can"
Except that money isn't good for motivating someone to do quality work. Money and quality don't correlate too well. Is there free stuff of high-quality? Yes: Linux, the *BSDs, Apache, the GNU versions of the Unix utilities, TeX. Are there commercial products of mediocre or lower quality? Yes:Microsoft Word (screwed up centering of figures, applied a character to text without asking me or allowing me to revoke it), Applixware 4.3.7, (the import of an Applix Spreadsheet into Applix Words simply failed), Corel WordPerfect 7 suite under Windows 3.1 (screwed up the import of graphics from Quattro Pro into WordPerfect).
"It has no, "DO THIS FEATURE" in 3months or die attitude. "
Actually, that attitude tends to both bloat software and reduce its quality. If you try to stuff 6 months or more of work into three months, you generally get slipshod work in which corners had to be cut to make deadline. Look at Fred Brooks's "The Mythical Man-Month". It talks extensively about this subject.
"I think perhaps it depends on your definition of geek. Personally, I define it as "Someone who values intelligence above all physical qualities."
"So, basically, smart people. Am I being too broad?"
I'd say so. A geek also has a tendency to not quite fit in socially. That doesn't mean that geeks can't be social at all, but that it's not as natural for them or that it doesn't come as easily, especially if one is talking about being social with normal people, as opposed to those about on one's own wavelength.
The cracker exploited two holes, one in the CGI script, the other having to do with cron. Red Hat had a security update for cron that would have plugged the hole that the cracker exploited.
There was a cartoon in a religious satire magazine called the Door that had a cartoon showing a guy who had overturned some tables of "Jesus junk" (a.k.a Christianized trinkets of various sorts) at a Christian bookstore. The caption read (paraphrase), "Well, I asked myself, what would Jesus do?" There are a lot of little baubles and T-shirts that seem fairly artless, and although they are generally well-intentioned, they often come off as crass rather than worshipful.
It's not just that there is a lack of alternatives, but that Microsoft makes a concerted effort to squelch them, by FUD (which pretty much amounts to libel or slander, at least in terms of intent), by withholding bug fixes, by hiding some of their APIs from software makers so that Microsoft software runs better on Windows than their competitors' software, and by veiled threats. It's not just that Microsoft has big marketshare, but that it has tight control of many parts of the computer market, especially the desktop. That's waht makes Microsoft effectively a monopoly.
Here's the reason for wharfs/docks, etc.
on
GNUstep 0.6.0
·
· Score: 1
The idea for wharfs or docks is more or less to have quick access to the apps that you use the most. Apps that aren't so popular can still be accessed by the root menu, which "ideally" is supposed to act sort of like a "Start" menu and have entries for all the apps one has (I leave "ideally" in quotes because I'm sure many of you would question the value of using the root menu as a "Start" menu.)
Slashdot Mirror
Think about it? Will any piece of bent wire do? Not really. It has to be stiff enough and springy enough, else the wire will just give and not hold the papers together. I would not be surprised to find that after the wire for the paper clip has been bent into the right shape that it would be treated somehow to stiffen it up, to compensate for weaknesses induced by the bending.
By comparison, what does 1-click shopping entail? CGI? Web fill-out forms? Been done. Cookies? I suspect any webmaster could have done what Amazon did, but that Amazon just happened to do it first. For the patent to be an honest patent, it should have been something that others in the field would not be likely to come up with. That's the rub.
You never know until you try whether the boycott will work or not. If no one does anything, then for sure, no progress will be made.
It seems to me that the real key is publicity. Basically, what needs to happen is for the public at large to become aware of the USPO's and Amazon's folly. If only geeks and Slashdotters are aware of what's going on, then you're right; the financial debt to Amazon will be miniscule, because there are relatively few geeks in this world. If the public knows what's going on, then 1) there are far more people to potentially hit Amazon in the wallet, and 2) there is the possibility of public embarassment. If possibility (2) came to pass, that would likely be more potent than (1).
So, instead of sitting on our hands knowing we'll be doomed, maybe we could actually try letting our non-geek friends and neighbors know what's what. We may not win, but we will surely lose if we do nothing.
Do you work for or with MS? (How else would you know?)
From the Counter-FUD site:
Will not attempt to be completely 'balanced'--it's our aim to "locate, summarize, and link stories from the same mainstream press that refute the FUD points"--but we hope to never intentionally depict Linux as better than it actually is, or depict any Microsoft product as worse than it actually is.
The site's purpose is to counter FUD against Linux. In that sense it is not "balanced" since it's Linux focused. However, as the quote shows, the site will not try to make Linux look better than it is, or Microsoft look worse than it is. Read more carefully.
"Jesus saves, he shoots, he scores!" and its variants hardly strike me as blasphemy. Kind of old, and perhaps a bit disrespectful, but mildly amusing.
Frankly, I think most of the "Christian" Right is more blasphemous then that silly pun.
Or am I just feeding a troll?
"What the courts could regard as theft is that the GPL compromises ones right to the product of one's own labour, ie. changes that one has made to the source." It isn't just the labor of the one who changed the source that is at issue, since one also has to consider the labor of the one who made the source available in the first place. The court could very well take the stance that the one who writes the original code is the one who has the right to give permission in how it is used (assuming that the rights didn't already belong to the original author's employer, or something like that.)
Ghostview or gv should be available. Also try xpdf, at http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf. It's GPL, and it works pretty well.
"Newbies won't be attracted to Linux if it has 7 desktops that are incompatible"
How are the desktops incompatible? The desktop doesn't care what apps you run. Even KDE and GNOME apps don't care if KDE or GNOME are running so long as they are installed.
"Furthermore as a vendor who do you support?"
I don't understand the question--do you mean the vendor supporting different toolkits? Why would a vendor care?
I'd hate to think that you'd have to find yourself needing to change the password because you gave it away on Slashdot.
Actually, Linux was initially (emphasis on initially) based on Minix, probably because it was the only x86 Unix that Mr. Torvalds could afford. (I don't think FreeBSD was quite out yet. AFAIK, there was a 386BSD, but there were some issues I think with AT&T and the guys at Berkeley.)
There are two issues:
1) Who has produced the better browser?
2) Do we want MS to set the "standards" on the Web?
It seems to be that IE 5 is arguably better. I suspect this is partly because it supports XML (which is what the article was talking about), perhaps partly because MS "cheated" with some of its APIs (maybe, maybe not, but it would be typical MS), and partly because Netscape just plain old dropped the ball.
On the other hand, we know that MS's style is to try to lock customers into its product line and make it difficult for them to get out of it. Do we really want MS to do this on the web? I don't think so. So, I'd say the webmasters ought to try to insure that Netscape, lousy as it is, is still a usuable option for their sites, just to keep MS at least somewhat at bay. If you don't like what I just said, I'm sorry. I can't say that I like it, either.
Hopefully, Netscape or Mozilla will catch up, or the DOJ will put MS in a position where they can't use IE to advance a monopoly.
Next thing you'll be telling me is that the Earth is one big giant computer trying to figure out the question to . . . no, wait . . . Hmm.
"I'm afraid I can't find any that denounces slavery, oh well"
Neither can I exactly, but look at the verses just below the Colossians 3.22 verse:
Col. 4.1:
"Masters, treat your slaves fairly and justly, for you know that you also have a Master in heaven."
Also look at Ephesians 6.5-9:
"Slaves, obey your earthly masters . . . in singleness of heart, as you obey Christ . . .
And, masters, *do the same to them.* . . . "
Look at that last part real closely--"do the same to them." Think about that. He just told his slaves to be submissive to their masters. For the masters to do the same unto the slaves, they would have to be in essence submissive to their slaves. That pretty much destroys the standard master-slave relationship, since the master can no longer be domineering or lord it over the slaves.
Certainly what Paul commanded to the masters was a far cry from what the slaveowners did to the black slaves in the South. Maybe that's part of what disturbed the abolitionists so badly.
I suppose I have a more cussed view of things. I believe in God, because I believe that Jesus actually rose from the dead. I won't get into the details of why I find that to be the case, but I'll point you to a couple books which get into fair detail: Josh McDowell's "Evidence that Demands a Verdict" and Clark Pinnock's "Reason Enough." I treat faith as going beyond the evidence, but not per se against it. If the Resurrection happened, then whether I believe it happened or whether you believe it happened doesn't make it any less a part of the fabric of reality. "Everyone needs to determine for themselves what they believe in," may be true, but only if one acknowledges that what one determines for oneself is not arbitrary, but may very well be wrong.
"That religious experience is unintelligible
proves nothing whatsoever. *All* experience is
unintelligible; try explaining 'blue' to a blind man."
"Sure, but we can define "blue" as light with a wavelength from XXX to YYY nanometers. Blue light is both repeatable (every time I turn my blue LED, durned if I don't see blue) and measurable (use your favorite color meter). It's no problem for science."
The problem with your assertion is that is it in some sense backwards. Blue light was first identified by its color--then its wavelength was found. The only reason one can say that light is blue because its wavelength is so many nanometers is because someone measured the range of wavelengths associated with light that was already perceived as blue beforehand. That puts you back where you started. How did one perceive that the light was blue in the first place?
"agreed, one other reason i think free software has a disadvantage over commercial software is that commercial software has to GO 4 GOLD and be GREAT to survive and be the best it can"
Except that money isn't good for motivating someone to do quality work. Money and quality don't correlate too well. Is there free stuff of high-quality? Yes: Linux, the *BSDs, Apache, the GNU versions of the Unix utilities, TeX. Are there commercial products of mediocre or lower quality? Yes:Microsoft Word (screwed up centering of figures, applied a character to text without asking me or allowing me to revoke it), Applixware 4.3.7, (the import of an Applix Spreadsheet into Applix Words simply failed), Corel WordPerfect 7 suite under Windows 3.1 (screwed up the import of graphics from Quattro Pro into WordPerfect).
"It has no, "DO THIS FEATURE" in 3months or die attitude. "
Actually, that attitude tends to both bloat software and reduce its quality. If you try to stuff 6 months or more of work into three months, you generally get slipshod work in which corners had to be cut to make deadline. Look at Fred Brooks's "The Mythical Man-Month". It talks extensively about this subject.
"The price for the Linux version has yet to be set in stone, I`m open to feedback on this."
$99 seems an OK price to me. It's not cheap, but it's not a price that one looks at and goes "Yikes, I can't afford that!"
"I think perhaps it depends on your definition of geek. Personally, I define it as "Someone who values intelligence above all physical qualities."
"So, basically, smart people. Am I being too broad?"
I'd say so. A geek also has a tendency to not quite fit in socially. That doesn't mean that geeks can't be social at all, but that it's not as natural for them or that it doesn't come as easily, especially if one is talking about being social with normal people, as opposed to those about on one's own wavelength.
And when he said it, it was thoroughly tongue-in-cheek.
The cracker exploited two holes, one in the CGI script, the other having to do with cron. Red Hat had a security update for cron that would have plugged the hole that the cracker exploited.
Because between one month and the next, some cracker could have found a new exploit.
There was a cartoon in a religious satire magazine called the Door that had a cartoon showing a guy who had overturned some tables of "Jesus junk" (a.k.a Christianized trinkets of various sorts) at a Christian bookstore. The caption read (paraphrase), "Well, I asked myself, what would Jesus do?" There are a lot of little baubles and T-shirts that seem fairly artless, and although they are generally well-intentioned, they often come off as crass rather than worshipful.
Actually, I believe that IP can stand for either "Intellectual Property" or "Internet Protocol."
It's not just that there is a lack of alternatives, but that Microsoft makes a concerted effort to squelch them, by FUD (which pretty much amounts to libel or slander, at least in terms of intent), by withholding bug fixes, by hiding some of their APIs from software makers so that Microsoft software runs better on Windows than their competitors' software, and by veiled threats. It's not just that Microsoft has big marketshare, but that it has tight control of many parts of the computer market, especially the desktop. That's waht makes Microsoft effectively a monopoly.
The idea for wharfs or docks is more or less to have quick access to the apps that you use the most. Apps that aren't so popular can still be accessed by the root menu, which "ideally" is supposed to act sort of like a "Start" menu and have entries for all the apps one has (I leave "ideally" in quotes because I'm sure many of you would question the value of using the root menu as a "Start" menu.)