Another neat thing on the hardware side would be to integrate a GPS module with a cell phone (or two way pager) module.
There should be two slot for module on this thing!
Remove duplicate commands/apps
on
Linux Lite?
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· Score: 2
The author have a good point.
All distribution should be secure at install, it should be up to the user to enable some ports, etc. If the user as enough knowledge to enable the ports he wants, he should have enough knowledge to make hes system secure.
There is a liability issue with this, if a system is not secure out of the box, one could sue the distributor if another one break into the system. Unless the license agreement state that the distibutor shall not be responsible for this.
One thing that all the distros should do, is to clean up the apps and command duplicates.
Why when I install linux I have 3 or 4 word processor, 3 or 4 text editor, several web browsers, 2 or 3 administration utilities than have the same functions, etc.
A default linux installation with most distos take at 500megs to 1gig. This is a lot more bloat that Windows9x/NT.
Why also the installation wizard like Lizard can only be invoked at installation and I have to use another utilities when I add new hardware? There should be a way to invoke the installation wizard to update the configuration.
Maybe Linux with Apache would be more appropriate as a web server that MacOS with WebStar, but wich one is more secure out of the box?
If they choose NT in the first place, it's probably because the webmaster have little knowledge about Linux or *BSD. They wanted to have a web server that is easily administered.
Linux/Apache does not offer a platform that is easily administered and it is not secure out of the box. You have to tweak the system configuration to disable some services and install several patches to make it really secure. Even with some graphics tools for Apache, this is a combo that is far less easy to maintain than IIS or WebStar.
Because there where too many security issues with NT/IIS, they choose the most secure platform that is easy to administer wich is MacOS/WebStar.
This is the best option for them, Linux/Apache will be the best option for somebody else.
Stop thinking that Linux/* is the best solution for everybody. This is not a perfect platform nor any other platform is perfect. You want people to be able to choose their OS, then stop commenting theyre choice with "they should use Linux", "Linux is the best", "Linux/Apache can be made as secure as MacOS/WebStar", "Linux all the way",...
I'm running Linux on my latop, I have two Win98 box at home, at work I use a NT box and a Solaris box... Diversity is great!!!
It seems that a lot of people are blinded by theyre Microsoft hate. (note that I don't like them very much either) It seems that to asume that because some symbol have NSA in it, it refer to The NSA, one must have a lot of paranoia. I don't say that this has nothing to do with the NSA. But we should not forget that maybe it's for other purpose than for the NSA use. It could be (any reasonnable person will akcknoledge the possibility) that the symbol name with NSA it it is a pure coincidence. I don't refute the accusation, I just want to raise a point that Microsoft WILL raise when they will defend themself of the allegations. SeeU!
They don't have to crunch all the work units themself, they just have to crunch the *interesting* work units, those that return results that could be interpreted as alien radio transmission. And they still do that right now, look at the faq and you'll see it's in their protocol.
Even if they do not open the source, some people WILL decompile it, reverse engineer the communication protocol and will produce wrong-behaving clients!
The author claim that if he have faster code, he will shutdown his computer at night.
I don't think it's gonna happen. People will still make their seti@home software run at night. Having fatser code will only enable them to do even more workunits.
Also the number of people who have 3dnow pr P3 is a lot smaller than the number of people who have P2, Pentium, PowerPC, Alpha, Sparc,...
Optimizing for 3dnow will only enable a small amount of people to get faster performance.
I'm in favor of opening the source code for seti@home, they should not fear having code out there that produce false result because they could easily recompute the workunit with their version to see if it's true. And if too many bad result came from one person, they could easily cancel his account.
Opening the source will enable other people to correct bugs (the windows version is really not stable enough to run 24hrs/day) and optimize the code (again the window version is more than 2 times slower than the linux version - ok the gfx take more time to compute, but it should not be more than 2 timer slower - I've tested the 2 versions on my laptop).
Opening the source will also enable other scientist (with computer programming knowledge) to check the source to make sure that the computation are done right.
It's kind of contreversial for scientist to release closed thing. Science it about peer-review, all their work whould be peer-reviewable including the source code of their programs.
Note that they should not only open the source of the client but of all the other part of the system. This would enable other people to adapt the application to work with other projects and to enable amateur radio-astronomer to analise theire own observation with well-know algorithm and maybe to set-up their own distributed system to analyse the data they collect.
Maybe it's time for NASA to consider the option of going private.
Considering the lack of goverment involvement in the Space Agency, NASA should explore all the possibilities it has to keep it's budget from the control of uninterested politicians.
Right now NASA is probably the biggest player in space exploration, but other agencies, like the European Space Agency, are getting really close to NASA. The lack of endorsment from the congress will weaken even more this position.
What NASA could do is to negociate with the goverment a path to privacy. The goverment could still subvention the space agency, with less and less money over the years, and the space agency could gain money from investisor and from other countries who want to become player in space exploration. There is already different kind of deal for sharing ressources with other space agencies, so it will not be that different.
This could shift the focus to programs that cost less and have a better return value on the investement (less human in space, more robots in space). And this could be a good thing (I don't think it requires human intervention to put a payload into orbit). The developement of more cost effective space transportation system will also be required (they are already under developement).
This would not be an easy path, but it is a good one. Look at the Seti project. It has gone from a public budget to 0$ to a private generated budget and it's alive and kicking! (I know that the NASA budget is a lot bigger than the Seti budget, but this example shows how the private sector is interested in space related science).
One thing every body must keep in mind with the copyright law, is that the intent of the law is to protect a work as a whole, not as snippet of the work.
That mean that even if every line of code is copyrighted in a work, you cannot sue someone if he copied a small part of your code.
Note that the small part is not considered small in regards of the amount of line of codes but as it's weigth in the whole work. For example, in an data compression application, the code related to the compression engine has more weigth that the code related to the UI (because the main purpose of the application is to compress data and not to present a nice UI).
So to respond to the question, if the generated code (wich is hardcoded in the original GPL'd application) will be protected by the license only if it represent a part that weight a lot (functionnaly) in the original code (wich is probably not the case because it is the conversion engine that is the purpose of the application). In the case that the generated code represent a big part of the work, then it would be advisable to use another license (or an exception to the license) for that part.
Slashdot Mirror
Great idea, you should send it to handspring!
Another neat thing on the hardware side would be to integrate a GPS module with a cell phone (or two way pager) module.
There should be two slot for module on this thing!
The author have a good point.
All distribution should be secure at install, it should be up to the user to enable some ports, etc. If the user as enough knowledge to enable the ports he wants, he should have enough knowledge to make hes system secure.
There is a liability issue with this, if a system is not secure out of the box, one could sue the distributor if another one break into the system. Unless the license agreement state that the distibutor shall not be responsible for this.
One thing that all the distros should do, is to clean up the apps and command duplicates.
Why when I install linux I have 3 or 4 word processor, 3 or 4 text editor, several web browsers, 2 or 3 administration utilities than have the same functions, etc.
A default linux installation with most distos take at 500megs to 1gig. This is a lot more bloat that Windows9x/NT.
Why also the installation wizard like Lizard can only be invoked at installation and I have to use another utilities when I add new hardware? There should be a way to invoke the installation wizard to update the configuration.
Maybe Linux with Apache would be more appropriate as a web server that MacOS with WebStar, but wich one is more secure out of the box?
...
If they choose NT in the first place, it's probably because the webmaster have little knowledge about Linux or *BSD. They wanted to have a web server that is easily administered.
Linux/Apache does not offer a platform that is easily administered and it is not secure out of the box. You have to tweak the system configuration to disable some services and install several patches to make it really secure. Even with some graphics tools for Apache, this is a combo that is far less easy to maintain than IIS or WebStar.
Because there where too many security issues with NT/IIS, they choose the most secure platform that is easy to administer wich is MacOS/WebStar.
This is the best option for them, Linux/Apache will be the best option for somebody else.
Stop thinking that Linux/* is the best solution for everybody. This is not a perfect platform nor any other platform is perfect. You want people to be able to choose their OS, then stop commenting theyre choice with "they should use Linux", "Linux is the best", "Linux/Apache can be made as secure as MacOS/WebStar", "Linux all the way",
I'm running Linux on my latop, I have two Win98 box at home, at work I use a NT box and a Solaris box... Diversity is great!!!
It seems that a lot of people are blinded by theyre Microsoft hate. (note that I don't like them very much either) It seems that to asume that because some symbol have NSA in it, it refer to The NSA, one must have a lot of paranoia. I don't say that this has nothing to do with the NSA. But we should not forget that maybe it's for other purpose than for the NSA use. It could be (any reasonnable person will akcknoledge the possibility) that the symbol name with NSA it it is a pure coincidence. I don't refute the accusation, I just want to raise a point that Microsoft WILL raise when they will defend themself of the allegations. SeeU!
They don't have to crunch all the work units themself, they just have to crunch the *interesting* work units, those that return results that could be interpreted as alien radio transmission. And they still do that right now, look at the faq and you'll see it's in their protocol.
Even if they do not open the source, some people WILL decompile it, reverse engineer the communication protocol and will produce wrong-behaving clients!
The author claim that if he have faster code, he will shutdown his computer at night.
...
I don't think it's gonna happen. People will still make their seti@home software run at night. Having fatser code will only enable them to do even more workunits.
Also the number of people who have 3dnow pr P3 is a lot smaller than the number of people who have P2, Pentium, PowerPC, Alpha, Sparc,
Optimizing for 3dnow will only enable a small amount of people to get faster performance.
I'm in favor of opening the source code for seti@home, they should not fear having code out there that produce false result because they could easily recompute the workunit with their version to see if it's true. And if too many bad result came from one person, they could easily cancel his account.
Opening the source will enable other people to correct bugs (the windows version is really not stable enough to run 24hrs/day) and optimize the code (again the window version is more than 2 times slower than the linux version - ok the gfx take more time to compute, but it should not be more than 2 timer slower - I've tested the 2 versions on my laptop).
Opening the source will also enable other scientist (with computer programming knowledge) to check the source to make sure that the computation are done right.
It's kind of contreversial for scientist to release closed thing. Science it about peer-review, all their work whould be peer-reviewable including the source code of their programs.
Note that they should not only open the source of the client but of all the other part of the system. This would enable other people to adapt the application to work with other projects and to enable amateur radio-astronomer to analise theire own observation with well-know algorithm and maybe to set-up their own distributed system to analyse the data they collect.
This is not true, congress could pass a law that will make the agency private. It is not a big deal.
And congress will pass that kind of law if it will reduce the need of spending more money on the space agency.
SeeU!
Maybe it's time for NASA to consider the option of going private.
Considering the lack of goverment involvement in the Space Agency, NASA should explore all the possibilities it has to keep it's budget from the control of uninterested politicians.
Right now NASA is probably the biggest player in space exploration, but other agencies, like the European Space Agency, are getting really close to NASA. The lack of endorsment from the congress will weaken even more this position.
What NASA could do is to negociate with the goverment a path to privacy. The goverment could still subvention the space agency, with less and less money over the years, and the space agency could gain money from investisor and from other countries who want to become player in space exploration. There is already different kind of deal for sharing ressources with other space agencies, so it will not be that different.
This could shift the focus to programs that cost less and have a better return value on the investement (less human in space, more robots in space). And this could be a good thing (I don't think it requires human intervention to put a payload into orbit). The developement of more cost effective space transportation system will also be required (they are already under developement).
This would not be an easy path, but it is a good one. Look at the Seti project. It has gone from a public budget to 0$ to a private generated budget and it's alive and kicking! (I know that the NASA budget is a lot bigger than the Seti budget, but this example shows how the private sector is interested in space related science).
SeeU!
One thing every body must keep in mind with the copyright law, is that the intent of the law is to protect a work as a whole, not as snippet of the work.
That mean that even if every line of code is copyrighted in a work, you cannot sue someone if he copied a small part of your code.
Note that the small part is not considered small in regards of the amount of line of codes but as it's weigth in the whole work. For example, in an data compression application, the code related to the compression engine has more weigth that the code related to the UI (because the main purpose of the application is to compress data and not to present a nice UI).
So to respond to the question, if the generated code (wich is hardcoded in the original GPL'd application) will be protected by the license only if it represent a part that weight a lot (functionnaly) in the original code (wich is probably not the case because it is the conversion engine that is the purpose of the application). In the case that the generated code represent a big part of the work, then it would be advisable to use another license (or an exception to the license) for that part.