Sorry, I still wasn't done (damned submit button right next to preview...)
SO... Replication and backup. You're right about replication. But in reading this I'm not very sold on it's robustness. Online backup? Nope. See the part about "LOCK TABLES"? Not cool if you want to, you know, do anything transactional.
Triggers are scheduled for implementation in MySQL version 5.1. A trigger is effectively a type of stored procedure, one that is invoked when a particular event occurs.
Well, at least they have the definition down.
And your "excellent post"??? Come on. There are literally dozens of ways to prevent that from happening -- or at least mitigating it's impact -- in a highly transactional environment. Transactional replication to a hot stand-by is what's always worked best for me, but that's because I'm knowledgable. On top of that, if the best pieces of evidence you can come up with in building a case against SQL Server are your CEO's nephew and an AC's anectdote on/. you should really examine your point.
What it comes down to is this: Leave the database commentary to real DBAs, kid. You can waste your time coming up with (not so) witty names like "sewer server" and talking out of your ass about database issues if you want, but in the meantime, I'll be building real solutions with real RDBMSs, and using the knowlege you wish you could effectively pretend to have gained from reading a bogus whitepaper.
As for your assertions about the features I mentioned: Perhaps I do need to get out more, but you should practice your reading comprehension skills. And I'm not sure why you think you'll be modded down, but my guess is that it'll be because you're, well, wrong. I'll explain:
It supports constraints, you say? Wrong. It supports constraint syntax. It doesn't actually execute the constraints (gee, that's helpful, isn't it?). Example:
... How companies like this "Reasoning" sell people on this bullshit. Do they actually get paid for writing this pointless tripe?
What a joke. How about this:
I'll write 15 lines of code that do absolutely nothing right now, in a language of "Reasoning's" choice, and it'll completely bug-free. Does that mean I'm infinitely better than mySQL? Despite the fact that my code does absolutely nothing???
Please. Any of these bullshit whitepapers that don't take feature set into account are WORTHLESS.
Reminds me of that line in Tommy Boy(?): "Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time."
Ehrrm, here at work, we have a SQL server running, and it crashes almost daily
Then you should consider replacing the DBA before you should consider replacing the product. Even for SQL Server, "almost daily"? Come on. Somebody needs to be fired.
That's not really the point though. The point is that mySQL IS NOT A COMMERCIAL-GRADE DATABASE. Period. It's just not. Maybe it will be at some point, but right now, today, it's not. Why?
mySQL has no robust replication and/or backup feature, no real, ANSI stored procedures, no REAL constraints (column, table, named, foreign key), is not ACID compliant, and no triggers... with mySQL you have to deal with that lame backtick crap, and (for God's sake) case sensitivity (is this like early 90's Sybase like System 7 or something that we're talking about?) It doesn't support views, nor subselects, and it just added transactions I mean COME ON!!!
I'm sorry, you can rip on MSSQL all you want, but at least it has a feature set (not to mention standards compliance) that lets it fit in nicely in the small-to-midsize RDBMS space. And whether you're willing (or able) to admit it or not, in a scenario that requires complete, 100% data recovery in the event of a catastrophic failure, smart people put their careers on SQL Server (or any other commercial-grade RDBMS) over mySQL any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
So comparing mySQL to SQL Server bothers you? Me too, but for the right reasons.
That'll be nice to have. Notes (oh, how I loathe thee...) already has the ability to view your mailbox in a "discussion thread" fashion, but it -- much like the rest of Notes IMHO-- is pretty half-assed, rinky-dink, and counter-intuitive.
Anyway, using the "conversation" idea in viewing Person A ---> Person B ---> Person A emails is cool, I guess. But it's really compelling to me in Group Member A ---> Group ---> Group Member B ---> Group ---> Group Member A ---> Group Member B etc. etc. scenarios if all the messages are threaded under one "conversation". Then you're talking about really kind of combining discussion boards and email; the "Reply To All" is the "board", and email to individual participants are like side conversations, all wrapped together into one logical "conversation" when you're viewing it. Very interesting.
Putting a little usability expertise behind the whole email experience makes a whole lotta sense in terms of making it more efficient from a screen-to-brain-to-keyboard perspective.
You're right. It's only his $26 BILLION (sorry, $6.2 billion is just what they've given out so far) that comprises the endowment.
"Mr. Gates did not get on the philanthropic exploits... blah blah blah"
So? Just as I don't know "the amount of money or time" that you've committed to charities, you don't have a clue as to what Mr. Gates' motives are, and the smarmy, self-important intimation that you do is part of what angers me. And "guilt-tripping"? Is that a joke? Bill Gates can either be an emotionless corporate hard-heart, hell-bent on world domination, or he can be swayed by the "guilt" laid on him by people. He can't be both. Pick one.
And does he "go around to countries asking them" for contracts? I'd like to see any evidence of that beyond anecdotal/. rants. Even if that has some basis in fact (which it could), it doesn't change the fact that countless people have benefitted with their lives from the grants. And it doesn't stand to reason that Gates would say "Hey, here's $200 million. But first, sign this $4 million contract." I'm no math major, but that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
Speaking of not making sense, let's examine part of what you're saying:
"He doesn't run the Foundation." "He does run the Foundation and uses it to get Microsoft contracts."
Huh?
"You don't know me... blah blah blah."
You're right. And you don't know Bill Gates. Maybe you should take some of your own advice, and not speculate as to the intentions of another person.
But, given the size of the entire endowment, I think it's safe to guess you (just like I and most of the rest of the population of the world) haven't given 56% of their net worth to charity. That, unlike your assumptions, has at least some statistical validity to it (somewhere... I'm not about to look up average charitable donations by household as a percentage of income, but I'll betcha 50 bucks it's a whole shitload less than 56%. Feel free to look it up, though, if you think that statistical assumption is wrong).
Either way, I suppose I don't really care what you donate. I think it's absurd for you dismiss the significance of the donations as being executed for personal reasons of ego, while ignoring the benefits they've caused -- regardless of their source. I don't think it's any better of you to criticize Mr. Gates like you do than it would be for you to say to me "Bah, whatever chartitable donations you've made have only been to make yourself feel good and only for your benefit" or something to that effect. And that'd get me wicked-pissed off.
"Gates is almost completely focused on...expanding Microsoft's monopoly."
Yeah, I guess that little "almost" in there is the 6.2 BILLION DOLLARS in grants and donations. I guess this is what prevents him from being "completely" focused on Microsoft's monopoly, right?
I'm not exactly a Microsoft apologist, but for you to sit there an dismiss such a huge amount of philanthropy as a PR campaign or tantamount to billionaire one-upmanship angers the shit outta me -- regardless of who's in question.
Maybe I'll be more inclined listen to you bitch when you donate 13% of your net worth to charity.
That's actually a sweet feature, but I would've thought they'd concentrate on other things first. I'd think that ANSI-92 compliance, real stored-procedures, replication, online backup, subqueries (especially for lazy folks like me), etc. are more important. (I'm sure somebody's said that already.)
Still, that's a nice feature, no doubt. Plus, I'm sure this was probably a bit easier to make happen than any of those higher-level things. Regardless, I'm not throwing stones, but I'd like to see more progress on the road to making mySQL a more enterprise-level DB. I'm mostly a MSSQL Server weenie, and with some improvement in that area, mySQL could really be a viable alternative in the small-to-midsize commercial database space. Even for free and with the ability to write UDFs in Java, I still gotta pick SQL Server. I'd like to be able get rid of that cost, but alas... Maybe Postgre...
Take a step back and realize that wrestling the desktop out of Microsoft's cold, dead hands isn't the ultimate goal. I don't care if OSS ever becomes mainstream. I like it despite its flaws.
That's cool. I'm just so used to hearing the same old (and SOOOO witty) "Micro$haft Sux and people who use it are idiots!!!" that I just assumed you were one of those people. If you're not interested in making OSS stuff mainstream, then yeah, you're totally right, and more power to you. The community will do what the community will do; I'm just frustrated by the fact that that notion collides head on with so many people's perceived "goal" of winning marketshare from Microsoft.
What really pisses me off is the fact that at once, people can be both so vehement in their zeal for winning business away from Microsoft, while also so incredibly unwilling or utterly unable to accept the very criticisms that would help them affect positive changes toward reaching that goal.
You use that same argument when trying to sell OSS solutions to major customers?
CIO: "I don't like this aspect of [whatever]."
You: "I'm passionate, and don't feel I need to defend myself from that attack."
CIO: "Okay... Uh... Well when will this aspect improve?"
You: "Uh, when it needs to, of course."
CIO: "Am I supposed to consider that acceptable?"
You: "That's the way it works."
And you're probably one of the people that's actually shocked that Windows runs 95% (or whatever) of the desktops in the world. From now on, I'll be damned sure to ignore the incessant bitching and moaning here on/. about Microsoft's marketshare, as OSS will make it to the consumer desktop in meaningful numbers "when it needs to". And, if people like you continue to have the same childish inability to understand criticism, that will happen about a week after never.
Re-read point #4 (if you even read it in the first place) and tell me you're not exemplifying his complaint with your post.
Say I go around every night checking people's front doors to see if they lock them when they go to sleep. After a period of time, I discover that you forget to do so, every night. The responsible thing for me to do isn't go to the local newspaper and print a story that says, "IshanCaspian of 123 Main Street doesn't lock his door at night. I guess somebody could use that information to break in and kill his children in their sleep, but either way, the impact of disclosing this information should force him to lock his door." Maybe you'll see the article, or maybe you won't before somebody uses the information in a nefarious way. But to simply put the information out there and just let what happens happen is for me to ignore the potential harm it could cause.
You say, "Microsoft's reputation will suffer a bit from this", but what about the people who live in your house but aren't responsible for locking the door? What about all the people who don't even use a computer at work could lose their jobs as a result of a successful, costly exploit?
What you're missing is that harming Microsoft's -- or any vendor's or developer's -- reputation shouldn't be the primary goal of discovering vulnerabilities. The goal is to protect valuable information and data from malicious people. It's a shame that you allow your anti-Microsoft feelings cloud that reality.
I'm sure that's easy to say if you ignore the realities of the potential consequences that come along with discovering vulnerabilities that could lead to costly exploits. While forcing Microsoft to write more secure code is potentially a long term benefit of releasing vulnerabilities publicly before notifying MS, the risk of exposing people's livelihoods to immediate loss is palpable and dramatic. And I'm sure that anyone who was to, say, lose their job due to a company's financial losses resultant to an exploit wouldn't give one half a damn about the agenda behind irresponsibly publicizing vulnerabilities before taking the more conscientious approach of privately notifying [insert vendor/developer/other-responsible-party here] so that fixes may be made while mitigating the risk of loss.
You can isolate yourself in the world of technological slingshot activism if you like. But that doesn't change the fact that countless people -- who have no knowledge of operating systems or the available choices thereof -- can have their lives and livelihoods impacted for the worse by reckless use of discoveries related to technology vulnerabilities, regardless of their nature or origin.
Publicly disclosing vulnerability discoveries without proper prior notifications is the wrong thing to do, not because of the technology changes doing so could affect, but because of the increased potential of creating avoidable and costly losses to parties far outside the responsible technology cognoscenti.
Re:They named it after the spanish word Monada
on
Microsoft's new CLI
·
· Score: 1
Uhh... I thought it was a like mathmatecial or physics thing...
Main Entry: monad
Pronunciation: 'mO-"nad
Function: noun
Etymology: Late Latin monad-, monas, from Greek, from monos
Date: 1615
1 a : UNIT, ONE b : ATOM 1 c : an elementary individual substance which reflects the order of the world and from which material properties are derived
2 : a flagellated protozoan (as of the genus Monas)
- monadic/mO-'na-dik, m&-/ adjective
- monadism/'mO-"na-"di-z&m/ noun
Of course, in highschool, I aced physics and took French, so maybe you're right...
People love to talk about it, but if there's one piece of credible evidence, one quote with source, one shred of corroboration to that claim, I'd like to see it.
... let the Linux --> XP article be a poor attempt at satire by Roblimo. Because if it's serious, with Linux advocates like that, Windows doesn't need any more supporters.
We saw some of those today in our SAV console. They were all false-positives though (it freaked out on one of our scanning tools... thought our scan was an attack).
I want to guess that Symantec just updated their heuristics engine or something last night or today, and it's kicking off quite a few false alarms. Talk about bad timing.
That's cool with me. But don't be too fucking shocked when 5 years from now Linux is still regarded as being as "fringe" at the desktop as it is today. Because if all OSS programmers think like you and continue doing just "whatever the fuck you feel like doing", and "whatever the fuck you feel like doing" isn't making Linux a better, more usable, more desirable OS for average desktop users, I can only hope you aren't planning on making/continuing to make a career out of it.
And please... Comparing Gentoo on PS2 to the entire OSS movement? Are you high? The OSS movement is fundamentally and extraordinarily important (duh); putting an OS on a game console, a toaster, or a toilet for no tangible reason whatsoever is completely feckless, not to mention a bit dun.
You're still missing the point. Nobody had to "teach" her or "setup" anything for her on WinXP. And you're kidding yourself if you think the average user can use and manage a Linux system as easily as they can a Windows system.
What it comes down to is that all the major Linux distros are still "OSs for Geeks", not an "OS For the Masses". And until the usability issues are addressed (and it's dumbed-down, to a degree probably), it won't have the market share people want for it. Read this.
The question is whether or not you want it to be dumbed-down to the point where it can be an "OS For the Masses".
I guess that's not a bad idea. But at the same time, look at how set-top devices have done in the past... not good. Then again, sold as an add-on to a gaming console... could work.
That's absolutely true. The fact they ported Gentoo to PS2 doesn't mean they aren't contributing other things (of real, actual importance). But you have to agree that on it's face, this sort of trite, meaningless effort sends a sort of weird message when Linux still has so much unrealized potential in both usability and market share.
And people wonder why Linux is hurting for desktop market share.
Clearly what you don't understand is that my mother is not retarded, she's an average user. If people like you could get your heads out of your asses and understand that to gain prevalence, applications and OSs have to be developed for use by the lowest common denominator, Linux would be on desktops all over the place. The unfortunate truth, however, is it appears that too many people appear to have your same lack of forethought and emphasis on usability.
Absolutely. Sometimes it seems priorities are so f'd up... I can install Linux on XBox, PS2, or even friggin teletype machine, but my mom still can't figure out how to check her email w/ RedHat as easily as she can with Windows because it "looks scary". Know what I mean?
Slashdot Mirror
SO... Replication and backup. You're right about replication. But in reading this I'm not very sold on it's robustness. Online backup? Nope. See the part about "LOCK TABLES"? Not cool if you want to, you know, do anything transactional.
Triggers? Wrong again.
Well, at least they have the definition down.
And your "excellent post"??? Come on. There are literally dozens of ways to prevent that from happening -- or at least mitigating it's impact -- in a highly transactional environment. Transactional replication to a hot stand-by is what's always worked best for me, but that's because I'm knowledgable. On top of that, if the best pieces of evidence you can come up with in building a case against SQL Server are your CEO's nephew and an AC's anectdote on
What it comes down to is this: Leave the database commentary to real DBAs, kid. You can waste your time coming up with (not so) witty names like "sewer server" and talking out of your ass about database issues if you want, but in the meantime, I'll be building real solutions with real RDBMSs, and using the knowlege you wish you could effectively pretend to have gained from reading a bogus whitepaper.
Cheers!
As for your assertions about the features I mentioned: Perhaps I do need to get out more, but you should practice your reading comprehension skills. And I'm not sure why you think you'll be modded down, but my guess is that it'll be because you're, well, wrong. I'll explain:
It supports constraints, you say? Wrong. It supports constraint syntax. It doesn't actually execute the constraints (gee, that's helpful, isn't it?). Example:
Stored procedures? Uh, wrong again. Read for yourself.
Doesn't sound current to me.
... How companies like this "Reasoning" sell people on this bullshit. Do they actually get paid for writing this pointless tripe?
What a joke. How about this:
I'll write 15 lines of code that do absolutely nothing right now, in a language of "Reasoning's" choice, and it'll completely bug-free. Does that mean I'm infinitely better than mySQL? Despite the fact that my code does absolutely nothing???
Please. Any of these bullshit whitepapers that don't take feature set into account are WORTHLESS.
Reminds me of that line in Tommy Boy(?): "Hey, if you want me to take a dump in a box and mark it guaranteed, I will. I got spare time."
Ehrrm, here at work, we have a SQL server running, and it crashes almost daily
Then you should consider replacing the DBA before you should consider replacing the product. Even for SQL Server, "almost daily"? Come on. Somebody needs to be fired.
That's not really the point though. The point is that mySQL IS NOT A COMMERCIAL-GRADE DATABASE. Period. It's just not. Maybe it will be at some point, but right now, today, it's not. Why?
mySQL has no robust replication and/or backup feature, no real, ANSI stored procedures, no REAL constraints (column, table, named, foreign key), is not ACID compliant, and no triggers... with mySQL you have to deal with that lame backtick crap, and (for God's sake) case sensitivity (is this like early 90's Sybase like System 7 or something that we're talking about?) It doesn't support views, nor subselects, and it just added transactions I mean COME ON!!!
I'm sorry, you can rip on MSSQL all you want, but at least it has a feature set (not to mention standards compliance) that lets it fit in nicely in the small-to-midsize RDBMS space. And whether you're willing (or able) to admit it or not, in a scenario that requires complete, 100% data recovery in the event of a catastrophic failure, smart people put their careers on SQL Server (or any other commercial-grade RDBMS) over mySQL any day of the week and twice on Sunday.
So comparing mySQL to SQL Server bothers you? Me too, but for the right reasons.
That'll be nice to have. Notes (oh, how I loathe thee...) already has the ability to view your mailbox in a "discussion thread" fashion, but it -- much like the rest of Notes IMHO-- is pretty half-assed, rinky-dink, and counter-intuitive.
Anyway, using the "conversation" idea in viewing Person A ---> Person B ---> Person A emails is cool, I guess. But it's really compelling to me in Group Member A ---> Group ---> Group Member B ---> Group ---> Group Member A ---> Group Member B etc. etc. scenarios if all the messages are threaded under one "conversation". Then you're talking about really kind of combining discussion boards and email; the "Reply To All" is the "board", and email to individual participants are like side conversations, all wrapped together into one logical "conversation" when you're viewing it. Very interesting.
Putting a little usability expertise behind the whole email experience makes a whole lotta sense in terms of making it more efficient from a screen-to-brain-to-keyboard perspective.
"Bill Gates does not run... blah blah blah"
/. rants. Even if that has some basis in fact (which it could), it doesn't change the fact that countless people have benefitted with their lives from the grants. And it doesn't stand to reason that Gates would say "Hey, here's $200 million. But first, sign this $4 million contract." I'm no math major, but that doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense.
You're right. It's only his $26 BILLION (sorry, $6.2 billion is just what they've given out so far) that comprises the endowment.
"Mr. Gates did not get on the philanthropic exploits... blah blah blah"
So? Just as I don't know "the amount of money or time" that you've committed to charities, you don't have a clue as to what Mr. Gates' motives are, and the smarmy, self-important intimation that you do is part of what angers me. And "guilt-tripping"? Is that a joke? Bill Gates can either be an emotionless corporate hard-heart, hell-bent on world domination, or he can be swayed by the "guilt" laid on him by people. He can't be both. Pick one.
And does he "go around to countries asking them" for contracts? I'd like to see any evidence of that beyond anecdotal
Speaking of not making sense, let's examine part of what you're saying:
"He doesn't run the Foundation."
"He does run the Foundation and uses it to get Microsoft contracts."
Huh?
"You don't know me... blah blah blah."
You're right. And you don't know Bill Gates. Maybe you should take some of your own advice, and not speculate as to the intentions of another person.
But, given the size of the entire endowment, I think it's safe to guess you (just like I and most of the rest of the population of the world) haven't given 56% of their net worth to charity. That, unlike your assumptions, has at least some statistical validity to it (somewhere... I'm not about to look up average charitable donations by household as a percentage of income, but I'll betcha 50 bucks it's a whole shitload less than 56%. Feel free to look it up, though, if you think that statistical assumption is wrong).
Either way, I suppose I don't really care what you donate. I think it's absurd for you dismiss the significance of the donations as being executed for personal reasons of ego, while ignoring the benefits they've caused -- regardless of their source. I don't think it's any better of you to criticize Mr. Gates like you do than it would be for you to say to me "Bah, whatever chartitable donations you've made have only been to make yourself feel good and only for your benefit" or something to that effect. And that'd get me wicked-pissed off.
And I thought I was a cynic.
...expanding Microsoft's monopoly."
"Gates is almost completely focused on
Yeah, I guess that little "almost" in there is the 6.2 BILLION DOLLARS in grants and donations. I guess this is what prevents him from being "completely" focused on Microsoft's monopoly, right?
I'm not exactly a Microsoft apologist, but for you to sit there an dismiss such a huge amount of philanthropy as a PR campaign or tantamount to billionaire one-upmanship angers the shit outta me -- regardless of who's in question.
Maybe I'll be more inclined listen to you bitch when you donate 13% of your net worth to charity.
That's actually a sweet feature, but I would've thought they'd concentrate on other things first. I'd think that ANSI-92 compliance, real stored-procedures, replication, online backup, subqueries (especially for lazy folks like me), etc. are more important. (I'm sure somebody's said that already.)
Still, that's a nice feature, no doubt. Plus, I'm sure this was probably a bit easier to make happen than any of those higher-level things. Regardless, I'm not throwing stones, but I'd like to see more progress on the road to making mySQL a more enterprise-level DB. I'm mostly a MSSQL Server weenie, and with some improvement in that area, mySQL could really be a viable alternative in the small-to-midsize commercial database space. Even for free and with the ability to write UDFs in Java, I still gotta pick SQL Server. I'd like to be able get rid of that cost, but alas... Maybe Postgre...
Take a step back and realize that wrestling the desktop out of Microsoft's cold, dead hands isn't the ultimate goal. I don't care if OSS ever becomes mainstream. I like it despite its flaws.
That's cool. I'm just so used to hearing the same old (and SOOOO witty) "Micro$haft Sux and people who use it are idiots!!!" that I just assumed you were one of those people. If you're not interested in making OSS stuff mainstream, then yeah, you're totally right, and more power to you. The community will do what the community will do; I'm just frustrated by the fact that that notion collides head on with so many people's perceived "goal" of winning marketshare from Microsoft.
What really pisses me off is the fact that at once, people can be both so vehement in their zeal for winning business away from Microsoft, while also so incredibly unwilling or utterly unable to accept the very criticisms that would help them affect positive changes toward reaching that goal.
You use that same argument when trying to sell OSS solutions to major customers?
/. about Microsoft's marketshare, as OSS will make it to the consumer desktop in meaningful numbers "when it needs to". And, if people like you continue to have the same childish inability to understand criticism, that will happen about a week after never.
CIO: "I don't like this aspect of [whatever]."
You: "I'm passionate, and don't feel I need to defend myself from that attack."
CIO: "Okay... Uh... Well when will this aspect improve?"
You: "Uh, when it needs to, of course."
CIO: "Am I supposed to consider that acceptable?"
You: "That's the way it works."
And you're probably one of the people that's actually shocked that Windows runs 95% (or whatever) of the desktops in the world. From now on, I'll be damned sure to ignore the incessant bitching and moaning here on
Re-read point #4 (if you even read it in the first place) and tell me you're not exemplifying his complaint with your post.
A more accurate metaphor is this:
Say I go around every night checking people's front doors to see if they lock them when they go to sleep. After a period of time, I discover that you forget to do so, every night. The responsible thing for me to do isn't go to the local newspaper and print a story that says, "IshanCaspian of 123 Main Street doesn't lock his door at night. I guess somebody could use that information to break in and kill his children in their sleep, but either way, the impact of disclosing this information should force him to lock his door." Maybe you'll see the article, or maybe you won't before somebody uses the information in a nefarious way. But to simply put the information out there and just let what happens happen is for me to ignore the potential harm it could cause.
You say, "Microsoft's reputation will suffer a bit from this", but what about the people who live in your house but aren't responsible for locking the door? What about all the people who don't even use a computer at work could lose their jobs as a result of a successful, costly exploit?
What you're missing is that harming Microsoft's -- or any vendor's or developer's -- reputation shouldn't be the primary goal of discovering vulnerabilities. The goal is to protect valuable information and data from malicious people. It's a shame that you allow your anti-Microsoft feelings cloud that reality.
I'm sure that's easy to say if you ignore the realities of the potential consequences that come along with discovering vulnerabilities that could lead to costly exploits. While forcing Microsoft to write more secure code is potentially a long term benefit of releasing vulnerabilities publicly before notifying MS, the risk of exposing people's livelihoods to immediate loss is palpable and dramatic. And I'm sure that anyone who was to, say, lose their job due to a company's financial losses resultant to an exploit wouldn't give one half a damn about the agenda behind irresponsibly publicizing vulnerabilities before taking the more conscientious approach of privately notifying [insert vendor/developer/other-responsible-party here] so that fixes may be made while mitigating the risk of loss.
You can isolate yourself in the world of technological slingshot activism if you like. But that doesn't change the fact that countless people -- who have no knowledge of operating systems or the available choices thereof -- can have their lives and livelihoods impacted for the worse by reckless use of discoveries related to technology vulnerabilities, regardless of their nature or origin.
Publicly disclosing vulnerability discoveries without proper prior notifications is the wrong thing to do, not because of the technology changes doing so could affect, but because of the increased potential of creating avoidable and costly losses to parties far outside the responsible technology cognoscenti.
You know what is "a good thing, especially in terms of the science of technology"? Checking your facts.
Bill Gates never made the infamous "640k" statement.
People love to talk about it, but if there's one piece of credible evidence, one quote with source, one shred of corroboration to that claim, I'd like to see it.
... let the Linux --> XP article be a poor attempt at satire by Roblimo. Because if it's serious, with Linux advocates like that, Windows doesn't need any more supporters.
Doh...
MS Blaster Worm:
Patch Released: July 16, 2003
Major Exploit Starts: August 11, 2003
You know what I meant.
Huh?
Nimda:
Patch Released: August 15, 2001
Major Exploit Starts: September 18, 2001
SQL Slammer Worm:
Patch Released: July 24, 2002
Major Exploit Starts: January 25, 2003
MS Blaster Worm:
Patch Released: July 16, 2003
Patch Released: August 11, 2003
We saw some of those today in our SAV console. They were all false-positives though (it freaked out on one of our scanning tools... thought our scan was an attack).
I want to guess that Symantec just updated their heuristics engine or something last night or today, and it's kicking off quite a few false alarms. Talk about bad timing.
That's cool with me. But don't be too fucking shocked when 5 years from now Linux is still regarded as being as "fringe" at the desktop as it is today. Because if all OSS programmers think like you and continue doing just "whatever the fuck you feel like doing", and "whatever the fuck you feel like doing" isn't making Linux a better, more usable, more desirable OS for average desktop users, I can only hope you aren't planning on making/continuing to make a career out of it.
And please... Comparing Gentoo on PS2 to the entire OSS movement? Are you high? The OSS movement is fundamentally and extraordinarily important (duh); putting an OS on a game console, a toaster, or a toilet for no tangible reason whatsoever is completely feckless, not to mention a bit dun.
You're still missing the point. Nobody had to "teach" her or "setup" anything for her on WinXP. And you're kidding yourself if you think the average user can use and manage a Linux system as easily as they can a Windows system.
What it comes down to is that all the major Linux distros are still "OSs for Geeks", not an "OS For the Masses". And until the usability issues are addressed (and it's dumbed-down, to a degree probably), it won't have the market share people want for it. Read this.
The question is whether or not you want it to be dumbed-down to the point where it can be an "OS For the Masses".
I guess that's not a bad idea. But at the same time, look at how set-top devices have done in the past... not good. Then again, sold as an add-on to a gaming console... could work.
That's absolutely true. The fact they ported Gentoo to PS2 doesn't mean they aren't contributing other things (of real, actual importance). But you have to agree that on it's face, this sort of trite, meaningless effort sends a sort of weird message when Linux still has so much unrealized potential in both usability and market share.
And people wonder why Linux is hurting for desktop market share.
Clearly what you don't understand is that my mother is not retarded, she's an average user. If people like you could get your heads out of your asses and understand that to gain prevalence, applications and OSs have to be developed for use by the lowest common denominator, Linux would be on desktops all over the place. The unfortunate truth, however, is it appears that too many people appear to have your same lack of forethought and emphasis on usability.
Absolutely. Sometimes it seems priorities are so f'd up... I can install Linux on XBox, PS2, or even friggin teletype machine, but my mom still can't figure out how to check her email w/ RedHat as easily as she can with Windows because it "looks scary". Know what I mean?
Now if only they could port it to 95% of the desktop market share.
*grin*