I don't control moderation. Obviously a lot of people disagree with me, so in theory I should be at -1. Or maybe the silent majority agrees with me and moderated up for that reason. Or maybe my post was just interesting and they thought it to be worth reading. I don't know, and I don't care. Your post, however, is clearly, at minimum, off-topic.
then people will be waiting for the new computer rather than going out and buying a computer now
Tripe and nonsense. Everyone knows new products will be coming out continuously, and you can't wait forever to buy one of them. Only people who are absolutely enthralled with one specific design would wait for that to become available. Everyone else picks the time to buy, and looks for the best product at that time (or, in case of the computer hardware industry, the worst product at that time).
It's just like an open-source zealot to jump on the "Quick, let's punish them! Boycott their products and fill their President's inbox with complaints!"
I've finally figured out the true Slashdot way. Disagreement == opponent is an "open source zealot." Funny, I thought that kind of reaction was limited to the playground.
I didn't think we were even talking about software anyway...
Hey, I like contract law too. In fact, I advocate a "governement" in which all contracts, no matter how silly, are absolutely enforcible under penalty of banishment. Until I establish such a place, however, it's best to prevent obvious abuses of the current legal system, such as those perpetrated by Apple.
It's time to punish Apple for these tactics. If they spent half as much time and effort trying to develop their products as they do trying to squash ordinary rumours, maybe MacOS X would have shipped by now. The rule of law exists to protect against egregious offenses that threaten life or property. There is no way you can possibly tell me that rumours and leaks threaten Apple's property. So they're making a computer in a cube shape. So what? I challenge Apple to explain how it can harm them for people to know that ahead of time. Maybe I've made a computer in the shape of a giant penis. Is that really something I wouldn't want my competitors to know about?
Apple hasn't learned the difference between an employee shipping their competitor the fab mask for a new chip and a few people leaking vague rumours to the press about upcoming designs. In truth, Apple's tactics are nothing but blatant abuse of a legal system too foolish to know that it must be prevented. Therefore I urge you not to do business with Apple until they check their lawyers at the door and recognize the proper purpose of a legal system.
I am hereby leaking a huge new piece of information about Apple: their next product, so new and hot that nobody but I and a few trusted Apple employees know about it, will be - get ready, mac junkies, here it is - A COMPUTER. It'll have a CPU (sources confirm it will be a PowerPC CPU), dynamic random-access memory (a new Apple (TM) (R) innovation (R)), and probably will ship with one of several optional mass-storage devices. Apple, my name is Keith M Wesolowski, I live in Reno, Nevada, USA, and I don't have, want, or need a lawyer. Do your worst!
Innovation, innovate, and the concept of doing what everyone else did 20 years ago are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other buzzwords, euphemisms, and blatant lies are trademarks of their respective owners.
Well-written C++ is a major source of easy to fix/modify/understand code.
Assuming there is such a thing, that might be true except that no two compilers do c++ the same way, and no compiler at all properly implements all of the recently announced ISO standard. So no matter what you think of the features of the language, using it is guaranteed to give you portability headaches for at least another 3-5 years, when compilers should be implementing a uniform set of language and ABI standards.
As for bloat, consider the following two programs. Both are minimally trivial programs with identical functionality. I strongly suspect that using more of the c++ features will increase the bloat, but this isn't meant to be a comprehensive comparison, just a simple test with one minimal program on one compiler.
#include <stdio.h> int main (void) { printf ("Hello, World!\n"); return 0; }
#include <iostream> int main (void) { cout << "Hello, World!" << endl; return 0; }
Compile both with gcc 2.95.2 on i386-peecee-linux with default (ie no) options. Strip them. Result:
text data bss dec hex filename 847 224 24 1095 447 hw 1488 304 68 1860 744 hwcc
C++ loses in every segment. So much for no bloat.
If you like c++, fine. Say you like it because it has feature [foo]. But don't pretend you aren't trading away code size and speed, to say nothing of portability, for [foo], because that's just dishonest.
I take a different approach. Install a base development system and a compiler. Build gcc from source. Uninstall everything but the barebones; cut deep. Build everything you want - kernel first, then libs, then apps - from clean sources. It's a lot more up to date, and I don't have to worry about what kind of funky patches Red Hat was smoking. Naturally this begs the question; why not just build my own distro, or use a different one? One word: kickstart. It's far, far easier to kickstart 40 workstations from the same barebones setup and NFS mount a full system on them than it is to maintain the same 40 workstations with any other setup.
To other distro maintainers: when you can duplicate the effects of kickstart (or roboinst or jumpstart, etc), I'll use your distro. I hate Red Hat, but you're just not getting the job done for me. Sorry.
The new feature in this release is a gnome-uninstallation detector. Previous releases would install GNOME parts aven if you specifically excluded it, and simply prevent you from uninstalling it by listing it in the dependencies of every package, such as the kernel.
This release, however, makes it even harder to uninstall gnome. A variant of SGI's fam (file access monitor), recently Freed, is run instead of regular init by the patched Red Hat kernel. It watches for changes to any of the gnome files, and if you attempt to remove one (via any method), it sends SIGCANTREMOVEGNOME to the process in question, which causes it to be terminated, and the binary associated with it to be removed and zeroed on disk.
This major new Innovation [TM] brought to you by Red Hat [TM][R] makes for a safer, friendlier [TM] Computing Experience [TM].
In the next version, we plan to expand this feature to also monitor X and GNOME configuration files, to ensure that not only can GNOME not be removed, but it can't be disabled by rogue systems administrators or hackers either.
SEC disclaimer: FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This release makes forward-looking statements, which is surely a mistake; at the rate our stock price is falling, this release might not even make it out the door before we're bought out by SGI in a stock swap valued at seven dollars and thirty-one cents.
Because this allows developers to make Mozilla on at least 3 platforms simaltaneously (BeOS, OS2, ect, ports are pretty far along).
There are already other cross-platform widget sets. Spending six months reinventing the wheel is foolish and bloats the code.
One can write cross platform network apps quickly
Great. This could be done before Mozilla, too. The only cross-platform network app the Mozilla team needs to worry about is a browser.
Mozilla needs to have editing capabilities for 1) mail composition, and 2) filling out web-based forms.
No, it doesn't. Mail is plain text (yes, it is), and web-based forms should definitely be plain text as well. If the user wants to edit HTML, put in a hook that fires up an arbitrary editor to do it (such as rxvt -e vi).
The Chat client was developed by an independent programmer. The AIM client is being developed by AOL in a proprietarty way.
What's the point? Neither has any place in the browser. If you hit an irc://... URL, run an arbitrary program (such as rxvt -r irc). If I want an IRC client or an "Instant Messaging" client (such as rxvt -e talk), I'll get them elsewhere.
ww3c recomendations. Lots of work being done by outside developers. Mozilla allows Cascading Style sheet to format XML (and soon, XSLT). This is more than cool. This is the future.
Probably. This actually belongs in a browser at least.
Done by outside developers.
No excuse for feature bloat. Linus gets hundreds of patches a day. He applies maybe 10 of them. The fact that the core team didn't have to do the work doesn't mean they should just accept any old patch that comes their way.
The Suck guy would rather just have a browser that works.
So would the rest of the world. Nobody's ever made one, and the Mozilla team won't either. Mozilla is trying to combine an OS, a windowing system, a widget set, a database, a layout engine, and a game console all into one. Somewhere along the line a browser was considered but it was boring and nobody wanted to do it.
But for what platform?
All of them. Very simple, really. If it doesn't build or work on any one platform, it's as broken as if it didn't build or work on all platforms. [Of course, this is not quite true. The farther from standards a platform is, the more excusable it is that it not work on that platform.]
pretty good stability, speed, and footprint, and hardly anything that blocks regular, daily use
My turn to ask "what platform?" I can assure you that it compiles infrequently and works never on sparc-sun-linux. Which is intriguing given that it works considerably better (though still poorly) on i386-peecee-linux. Since the platforms look exactly the same to non-kernel developers writing portable code, it is obvious that, despite the "cross-platform" promise of Mozilla, they aren't bothering to write portable code. Of course, it's hard to blame them really: since most of them work for AOL, they've been told that portability means "it compiles on windows 95 AND windows NT." As for footprint, I find that a 12 MB dynamically linked binary is absurd. Especially when 90+% of it is code I'll never use.
Since I'm being fairly brutal, I feel I should provide an alternative. So here are my rules for developing a web browser that works (for that matter, anything that works):
No extensions. Adhere to the standard. Implement it faithfully, and nothing more.
Portable code. This doesn't mean write wrapper libraries for every external feature you use. It does mean knowing and understanding standards like POSIX, and following them. Yes, there are subtle breakages in several platforms, but getting a standards-compliant base is step one. All the world is NOT [anything]. Hint: Work to minimize #ifdefs.
No C++. C++ is itself a major source of code bloat and nonportability.
For the love of God, remember what you're writing and stick to it. Don't wander off and implement something completely unrelated and then graft it on because you think it looks cool.
Use external programs and libraries as often as possible, especially for non-core functionality. This not only reduces code size, it gives users much greater freedom and choice in how they end up using your product.
The Mozilla team has broken every single one of those rules, with predicatable results. Guys, I'll ask my doctor to cure cancer; you just write a browser.
I should have been more clear. Those parts of the brain, to whatever extent they are still in use, are responsible only for bad elements of human behavior such as territorialism and mating instincts. This is probably an example of such.
I mean they are already calling for artists to design startup and shutdown screens when they don't have a kernel! Talk about jumping the gun!
Well, I don't think that's altogether bad. I mean, when you get down to it, the splash screens are probably the most reliable and important parts of DOS, so doing them first makes sense.
Obviously your flippant attitude towards this multi-billion dollar effort called 'Win98' suggests advocacy of alternative OSs.
I suppose, if "none" is considered an alternative. Since when does the amount of money sunk into a project have any impact on its value?
I will hazard the guess that you are a Linux advocate.
*bzzzt* Try again.
Furthermore, in response to your overtly hostile tone, I will infer that you are in fact a lowly zealot.
While I see nothing wrong with zealotry, you lose yet again. Three strikes, you're out.
When we start getting into unified driver models, shell consistency, robust and dependable API's that create another strata of sophistication (like COM is above the HAL), only then will Linux become a worthwhile user experience.
Look. I use Linux. I use several other OSs as well, but since you have chosen to assume incorrectly that I only use (and advocate) Linux, I'll just address this and move on. All of the things you mention decrease performance. They enforce policy in kernel space. They (potentially) violate standards - written, published, open standards - like POSIX. If you don't like Linux, don't use it. Please. I don't care what you use. Quite frankly, I think you deserve the complete and utter shit that is winDOS.
because you are causing much more damage to OSS and Linux
*shrug* If I am, so what? How many other people use and/or like Linux means precisely zero to me. I don't care about widespread adoption of Linux, or of anything else. I would like only to see bad technology die the death. To me, that means pretty much all peecee-based computing, regardless of OS, and the concept of home and "general business" computing in general. This stuff is crap, it doesn't improve productivity, and the main economic effect it has is the creation of needless tech support jobs. I happen to consider Microsoft products an enabler of this trend, as well as particularly bad technology in a pure sense. Therefore I would prefer them to go away. That's not to say I'd mourn if Linux dropped from 20 million users to 1000 tomorrow, because I'd still have the option to use it, or not, as I see fit. In fact, a lot fewer people would ask me stupid questions about Linux, and I'd have more free time.
Exactly what would *NIX without a shell look like?
rm/bin/sh and find out for yourself. My point, actually, is that you can have one, some, or none of a number of available interfaces. With winDOS that is not the case.
In fact, the keyword here is *evolved*.
You don't have to tell me twice. It's obvious that there was no actual design effort put into that pile of crap.
In other words, 90% of the PC users are not using Windows because they are "brainwashed".
That's right. They're using it because it came with their computer and either they're unaware of alternatives or installing software - any software - is too difficult for them. So they use the OS that came with their computer until it breaks, then they get a new computer.
DOS/Win is the real hobbiest OS.
Nonsense. It's clearly targeted at business and the ignorant. Hobbyists are well aware of, and often make use of, various alternatives.
Windows evolved from DOS, which was originally designed to run on woefully underpowered PCs.
Most of the underpowered aspect came from limitations of DOS itself. By 1986 or so DOS, not the hardware, was the limiting factor. That was only about 25% of the way into the history of this "OS." The true hardware limitations of the architecture are still in place thanks to Intel's worship of backwards-compatibility. So you end up with an underpowered OS trying to work around archaic bits of hardware. Both were designed in the early 80s, and neither has ever left that era. Yet that same misdesigned hardware now can run several OS's originally designed for more powerful hardware. Why has Microsoft failed to catch up?
Your point about evolution is well taken. There are known disadvantages to evolution of, for the prime example, life. Much of the human brain, for example, is wasted space. It holds the R-complex and limbic systems, which are really just reptile and mammalian brains, respectively. They hold no knowledge or useful information, but are still there because of evolution. If you want a sillier example, think about the appendix and tailbone. As humans, thinking beings, we have the luxury of tearing down existing designs when improving them. Nature does not have this luxury, which is why we are stuck with vestigial parts and primitive brains. We should take advantage of this opportunity to actually design our creations, several times if necessary, and get them right as much as possible from the start. Evolved software always ends up with the distinctly bad odour of cruft and backwards-compatibility with hardware and other software that should have died out aeons ago. Why apologize for those who make that mistake?
Yeah. The more I think about this, and read the comments, the more certain I am that this is a hoax. If it's not a hoax, it's drug-inspired. There's just no way that any rational human being could be serious about an effort of this magnitude and uselessness.
As if WINE weren't misguided enough... Look, there are two major reasons a product can fail: it's misdesigned, or it's misimplemented. It's certainly possible to make a product that is both, which is what Microsoft has been doing for many years. Even supposing that this project were able to implement every documented and undocumented interface to that "OS," and do so perfectly without a single bug (who am I kidding?), that wouldn't change the fundamental fact that Windows is a bad idea.
The concept of an OS that makes the fundamental assumption that it's smarter than the user is a bad idea. The concept of an OS without a security model is a bad idea. The concept of an OS that cannot be separated from its user interface is a bad idea. Why are these people reimplementing something that has so many fundamentally bad ideas in it?
The hardware equivalent of this is going back and reimplementing the ENIAC. It's slow, it's hard to use, it's obsolete, and it's, well, archaic. We've moved on. You'd think it's possible to have learned something in 20 years. Apparently not. A perfect example comes courtesy of their web site: they plan to use the FAT filesystem. They claim that it's familiar and well understood. That it may be, but so are a dozen other filesystems. If you're going to select a filesystem based on familiarity and simplicity, why not choose the Minix fs? Or the version 7 fs? Or ext2? These filesystems have been documented thoroughly in books, in presentations, and in readily available code. The kicker, of course, is that they all offer substantially more features and performance than FAT. They are fundamentally better-designed filesystems. There is absolutely no reason one could not, were one so inclined, implement WinDOS using one of those filesystems in a manner which is entirely transparent to the user.
Because of the obvious irrationality this group exudes, an example of which is discussed above, I'm seriously questioning whether this is simply a hoax. It makes no sense to do this at all. Windows is a fundamentally inferior operating system. The world has moved on. It's bad enough to reinvent the wheel, but it's excusable if you are simply enhancing a previous, working, round wheel (ie all the reimplementations of Unix and Unix-like operating systems). This is taking a triangular wheel and trying to reimplement it faithfully. What gives, guys?
Fine -- they get a workstation (Ultra 60s now) and periodically I have to do a complete wipe and rebuild, normally about every six months.
Uhmmm...root == responsibility. Shouldn't they be the ones doing the complete reinstall? I'd hand them the media and the instruction book and tell them to have at it. Such is the price of root. You can't have it both ways.
I'm honored to have my trade compared with that of a janitor. If you were in an area recently affected by one of several janitors' strikes, you too would appreciate the job they do. But, I must say, you got one wrong:
Feels the need to get to know and talk to everybody since he's so familar with all your files, email, etc.
Trust me, we don't want to get to know you. We'd rather you didn't exist at all. We don't care what's in your files, what kind of mail you get, or what porn sites turn you on. We mostly just wish you wouldn't call up telling us about either a) Problems we were fixing when you interrupted us, or b) Problems that are actually ID 10T related. And believe me, we don't feel the need to talk to you. Leave us alone.
Have I made my point yet? Sysadmin is just a high tech janitor. He creates... nothing.
Agreed. We don't create much (though sometimes we get to set up a new shop, which is great fun), but rather we maintain existing investments.
And certainly not deserrving[sic] of much higher pay.
Agreed. Sysadmins should be paid maybe 20-30% more than regular janitors (simply because of the experience/education required). What that really means is that janitors are underpaid.
And here's one more:
8) Not having a good one makes it hard to get any work done (because nothing works). 8a) Not having a good one makes it hard to get nay work done (because of the stink and clutter).
Sometimes it is not for a sys-admin to decide what NOS is run on the network.... sometimes orders come from above and you need to conform a bit to keep a good job.
A good sysadmin can change jobs in a day and usually come out ahead.
Sysadmin is like policeman. You might well go through your entire life without needing one, in which case the cost seems extravagant. But if you ever do need one, nothing less than a seasoned professional will do.
At best it should be treated as additional duties assigned to one of the programmers or other tech staff member, or even outsorce the job as needed to a temp service.
*sigh* You are completely clueless. There's nothing worse than a system run by a non-sysadmin. Programmers make the worst sysadmins on the planet. A monkey could do a better job of it. Honestly, you're better off with no sysadmin at all than with someone who really does something else but got forced into the job because nobody else wanted it.
Yet in some ways your analysis is correct: the really good sysadmins really don't have anything to do all day. They've already spent twelve 100-hour weeks setting everything up so perfectly that it runs itself, never needs fixing, and will last till the day the machines burn out. The programmer-sysadmins, on the other hand, seem to spend an awful lot of time fixing problems with the systems. Funny how that is. The fact that everything is working really is attributable to the admins. I've seen shops where things usually don't work right. Trust me, it's plenty possible to be a sufficiently lousy sysadmin that nothing ever works right. Of course, invariably those people are programmers or managers or brownnosing idiots or CIS/MIS fuckwits who are stuck doing sysadmin work until they can get back to their real jobs.
Go thank your admins for the fact you you never see them and the fact that they never do anything. That's the way it should be.
He may be a great guy, but I question his sanity and/or intelligence. What kind of sysadmin would be willing to work with that particular pile of shit Redmond markets as an OS?
I actually enjoy having my users get viruses. My systems are untouched and winDOS support gets to take care of fixing the problem! HA!
Furthermore I've yet to run across a company that has a resonably competent system administrator.... Beats having to hire a sysadmin for $125,000 a year, doesn't it?
You've hit the nail right on the head. Fact: any company that relies on its computing resources for its business (read: everyone with more than about 1 employee) and does not hire a competent systems administrator is reckless and irresponsible.
If the management of a widget manufacturer buys inferior widget components to save money, and then finds themselves unable to sell widgets, the shareholders will most likely dismiss them. In some countries, there may be legal proceedings as well. Why? They failed to protect shareholder value. Instead of paying a fair price for a necessary input, they tried to cut corners. How is this case any different? Yes, competent systems administrators are expensive. The greenest of us are paid $60k a year. A 20-year Unix guru veteran administrator is worth $200k or more. But evaluate that cost against the costs associated with a security breach. For a small firm, and a simple skript-kiddie breach, the costs might simply be some lost time spent fixing the system, maybe a few hundreds or thousands of dollars - each time. For a medium-sized firm, or for a more insidious or far-reaching breach, costs will rapidly exceed even the most extravagantly paid sysadmins' employment costs.
Managers who fail to hire competent workers for necessary positions are guilty of mismanagement. Managers who fail to provide their staff with the tools they need to do their jobs (software upgrades, operating systems with adequate security models, etc.) are guilty of mismanagement. These are the guilty parties.
The fact that competent systems administrators are hard to find and expensive provides no justification for insisting that every software vendor try to divine all their millions of customers' security needs and provide for them out of the box. First, it's impossible to make everyone happy. What may seem lax to me looks fascist to most. Some people don't need any security at all - those with non-networked machines with no sensitive or valuable data. Second, there will always be bugs, errors, and omissions in software. Even OpenBSD issues patches and updates from time to time. If you are going to have a system, you must maintain it by applying vendor patches as needed. While this is not difficult, it does imply some measure of competence and vigilance.
All that said, there are differences in security between various vendors' offerings. Some systems (*cough*solaris*cough*) cannot be secured by any means, because the vendor is so lax about providing updates for known problems. Other vendors ship systems in intentionally insecure configurations (sgi). Others try to ship secure systems, but invariably fail to do so. Creating and maintaining a secure environment requires a competent administration staff regardless of the vendor and operating platform you select. While some vendors make it easier to do so by providing full source, frequent updates, and perhaps even auditing their code base, no amount of effort on their part can provide a level of security appropriate for every possible customer.
This provides an interesting opportunity for ISPs. Customers without the necessary interest or competence to maintain an appropriate level of security could purchase firewalling and other services from their ISP. This way, regardless of the type of system they have selected, they can be reasonably sure that a breach will not occur. Naturally such services would cost much less than hiring a full-time administrator. This model seems especially viable for home users, who often have no experience, hardware, or interest needed to provide sufficient security. But such offerings are generally made either to large customers, or to home users as a mandatory, no-extra-charge component (blocking port 25 for example). Hopefully this will change, as ISPs broaden their offerings.
Regardless of how you feel about staffing policies and distribution management (ever put one together?), it is irrational to expect what you do from vendors. No Linux distribution can possibly meet the needs of every possible user. Especially out of the box with no configuration. While some security measures should probably be included, I would much prefer choosing myself which additional measures should be taken. I do not appreciate vendors who try to box me into a certain security model. For example, a vendor might ship a distribution in such a way that Kerberos provides the entire security model. What, then, if I am on a network that uses OpenSSH DSA as the primary authentication security model? I am forced to strip out as much Kerberos as I can - often recompiling packages - and then add on my desired security measures. It's much easier to start with a system that has no preconceived ideas about security models, and then add on whatever I feel is appropriate for my circumstances. I don't expect - or want - distributors to try to guess my needs and provide only for the needs they assume. That is the mark of Microsoft and so many other failed vendors. The vendors who are succeeding today provide a wide range of flexible options to their customers. The one-size-fits-all, out of the box and go mentality is evil and shall not earn my business, now or ever.
As any sysadmin will tell you: Maintin it, or unplug it. There is no excuse.
We don't need or want binary compatibility. First, having binary compatibility holds back adoption of new software. Suppose for example that the "standard" adopts gcc 2.95.2 and glibc 2.1.3 as base components for compatibility purposes. How many people, then, will use gcc 3.0 when it comes out? Isn't anyone annoyed that libc 5 still exists? When old technology is superceded, it should be replaced, not used forever in the name of compatibility. A secondary problem here is that not all platforms can use version X of tool Y. For example, glibc 2.2pre works fine on MIPS, but 2.1 is hopelessly broken. La de da, all the world's a peecee, ho hum.
Even if that weren't a problem, binary compatibility, were it implemented across various distributions, would only encourage more closed-source development targeting Linux. This just gives would-be binary-only vendors a good excuse.
Just say no to binary-only vendors' initiatives. And just say no to any distribution that goes along with it.
So you're suggestion is that I should up and QUIT my chosen profession which happens to be a PDA and Mobile electronics analyst where I'm senior editor of a *very large* site devoted to the subject. A site that is my *full time job* where 99% of the products and services we cover have direct ties to the most popular PIM on earth, Outlook 97/98/2000.
I'm suggesting that you have a choice. That "my employer forces me to" is a whine and a cop-out, not a valid excuse. If you choose to work for them, you make a choice. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. So what I'm suggesting is that you have roughly three choices: a) change your company's direction, b) not complain about Microsoft because you are keeping them in business, or c) quit and do something else.
Quite frankly, I don't care which you choose. It doesn't affect me either way. BTW, you aren't impressing me with your title and so forth. If you don't like Microsoft, you are a whore for doing that job. Accept it along with your Lexus and your trophy wife. I'm not trying to bait you. I'm trying to show you that what you see as a "practical" decision, or maybe not a decision at all, is in fact a conscious disregard for whatever values you may have in exchange for money.
I make a nice living too. I just don't sell out for it. There is no Microsoft in my life, nor will there ever be. I don't intend to pump gas, but if that's my only choice, I'll gladly take it.
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I don't control moderation. Obviously a lot of people disagree with me, so in theory I should be at -1. Or maybe the silent majority agrees with me and moderated up for that reason. Or maybe my post was just interesting and they thought it to be worth reading. I don't know, and I don't care. Your post, however, is clearly, at minimum, off-topic.
Tripe and nonsense. Everyone knows new products will be coming out continuously, and you can't wait forever to buy one of them. Only people who are absolutely enthralled with one specific design would wait for that to become available. Everyone else picks the time to buy, and looks for the best product at that time (or, in case of the computer hardware industry, the worst product at that time).
I've finally figured out the true Slashdot way. Disagreement == opponent is an "open source zealot." Funny, I thought that kind of reaction was limited to the playground.
I didn't think we were even talking about software anyway...
Hey, I like contract law too. In fact, I advocate a "governement" in which all contracts, no matter how silly, are absolutely enforcible under penalty of banishment. Until I establish such a place, however, it's best to prevent obvious abuses of the current legal system, such as those perpetrated by Apple.
Apple hasn't learned the difference between an employee shipping their competitor the fab mask for a new chip and a few people leaking vague rumours to the press about upcoming designs. In truth, Apple's tactics are nothing but blatant abuse of a legal system too foolish to know that it must be prevented. Therefore I urge you not to do business with Apple until they check their lawyers at the door and recognize the proper purpose of a legal system.
I am hereby leaking a huge new piece of information about Apple: their next product, so new and hot that nobody but I and a few trusted Apple employees know about it, will be - get ready, mac junkies, here it is - A COMPUTER. It'll have a CPU (sources confirm it will be a PowerPC CPU), dynamic random-access memory (a new Apple (TM) (R) innovation (R)), and probably will ship with one of several optional mass-storage devices. Apple, my name is Keith M Wesolowski, I live in Reno, Nevada, USA, and I don't have, want, or need a lawyer. Do your worst!
Innovation, innovate, and the concept of doing what everyone else did 20 years ago are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other buzzwords, euphemisms, and blatant lies are trademarks of their respective owners.
Assuming there is such a thing, that might be true except that no two compilers do c++ the same way, and no compiler at all properly implements all of the recently announced ISO standard. So no matter what you think of the features of the language, using it is guaranteed to give you portability headaches for at least another 3-5 years, when compilers should be implementing a uniform set of language and ABI standards.
As for bloat, consider the following two programs. Both are minimally trivial programs with identical functionality. I strongly suspect that using more of the c++ features will increase the bloat, but this isn't meant to be a comprehensive comparison, just a simple test with one minimal program on one compiler.
#include <stdio.h>
int main (void) {
printf ("Hello, World!\n");
return 0;
}
#include <iostream>
int main (void) {
cout << "Hello, World!" << endl;
return 0;
}
Compile both with gcc 2.95.2 on i386-peecee-linux with default (ie no) options. Strip them. Result:
text data bss dec hex filename
847 224 24 1095 447 hw
1488 304 68 1860 744 hwcc
C++ loses in every segment. So much for no bloat.
If you like c++, fine. Say you like it because it has feature [foo]. But don't pretend you aren't trading away code size and speed, to say nothing of portability, for [foo], because that's just dishonest.
To other distro maintainers: when you can duplicate the effects of kickstart (or roboinst or jumpstart, etc), I'll use your distro. I hate Red Hat, but you're just not getting the job done for me. Sorry.
This release, however, makes it even harder to uninstall gnome. A variant of SGI's fam (file access monitor), recently Freed, is run instead of regular init by the patched Red Hat kernel. It watches for changes to any of the gnome files, and if you attempt to remove one (via any method), it sends SIGCANTREMOVEGNOME to the process in question, which causes it to be terminated, and the binary associated with it to be removed and zeroed on disk.
This major new Innovation [TM] brought to you by Red Hat [TM][R] makes for a safer, friendlier [TM] Computing Experience [TM].
In the next version, we plan to expand this feature to also monitor X and GNOME configuration files, to ensure that not only can GNOME not be removed, but it can't be disabled by rogue systems administrators or hackers either.
SEC disclaimer: FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS: This release makes forward-looking statements, which is surely a mistake; at the rate our stock price is falling, this release might not even make it out the door before we're bought out by SGI in a stock swap valued at seven dollars and thirty-one cents.
There are already other cross-platform widget sets. Spending six months reinventing the wheel is foolish and bloats the code.
One can write cross platform network apps quickly
Great. This could be done before Mozilla, too. The only cross-platform network app the Mozilla team needs to worry about is a browser.
Mozilla needs to have editing capabilities for 1) mail composition, and 2) filling out web-based forms.
No, it doesn't. Mail is plain text (yes, it is), and web-based forms should definitely be plain text as well. If the user wants to edit HTML, put in a hook that fires up an arbitrary editor to do it (such as rxvt -e vi).
The Chat client was developed by an independent programmer. The AIM client is being developed by AOL in a proprietarty way.
What's the point? Neither has any place in the browser. If you hit an irc://... URL, run an arbitrary program (such as rxvt -r irc). If I want an IRC client or an "Instant Messaging" client (such as rxvt -e talk), I'll get them elsewhere.
ww3c recomendations. Lots of work being done by outside developers. Mozilla allows Cascading Style sheet to format XML (and soon, XSLT). This is more than cool. This is the future.
Probably. This actually belongs in a browser at least.
Done by outside developers.
No excuse for feature bloat. Linus gets hundreds of patches a day. He applies maybe 10 of them. The fact that the core team didn't have to do the work doesn't mean they should just accept any old patch that comes their way.
The Suck guy would rather just have a browser that works.
So would the rest of the world. Nobody's ever made one, and the Mozilla team won't either. Mozilla is trying to combine an OS, a windowing system, a widget set, a database, a layout engine, and a game console all into one. Somewhere along the line a browser was considered but it was boring and nobody wanted to do it.
But for what platform?
All of them. Very simple, really. If it doesn't build or work on any one platform, it's as broken as if it didn't build or work on all platforms. [Of course, this is not quite true. The farther from standards a platform is, the more excusable it is that it not work on that platform.]
pretty good stability, speed, and footprint, and hardly anything that blocks regular, daily use
My turn to ask "what platform?" I can assure you that it compiles infrequently and works never on sparc-sun-linux. Which is intriguing given that it works considerably better (though still poorly) on i386-peecee-linux. Since the platforms look exactly the same to non-kernel developers writing portable code, it is obvious that, despite the "cross-platform" promise of Mozilla, they aren't bothering to write portable code. Of course, it's hard to blame them really: since most of them work for AOL, they've been told that portability means "it compiles on windows 95 AND windows NT." As for footprint, I find that a 12 MB dynamically linked binary is absurd. Especially when 90+% of it is code I'll never use.
Since I'm being fairly brutal, I feel I should provide an alternative. So here are my rules for developing a web browser that works (for that matter, anything that works):
The Mozilla team has broken every single one of those rules, with predicatable results. Guys, I'll ask my doctor to cure cancer; you just write a browser.
I should have been more clear. Those parts of the brain, to whatever extent they are still in use, are responsible only for bad elements of human behavior such as territorialism and mating instincts. This is probably an example of such.
Well, I don't think that's altogether bad. I mean, when you get down to it, the splash screens are probably the most reliable and important parts of DOS, so doing them first makes sense.
I suppose, if "none" is considered an alternative. Since when does the amount of money sunk into a project have any impact on its value?
I will hazard the guess that you are a Linux advocate.
*bzzzt* Try again.
Furthermore, in response to your overtly hostile tone, I will infer that you are in fact a lowly zealot.
While I see nothing wrong with zealotry, you lose yet again. Three strikes, you're out.
When we start getting into unified driver models, shell consistency, robust and dependable API's that create another strata of sophistication (like COM is above the HAL), only then will Linux become a worthwhile user experience.
Look. I use Linux. I use several other OSs as well, but since you have chosen to assume incorrectly that I only use (and advocate) Linux, I'll just address this and move on. All of the things you mention decrease performance. They enforce policy in kernel space. They (potentially) violate standards - written, published, open standards - like POSIX. If you don't like Linux, don't use it. Please. I don't care what you use. Quite frankly, I think you deserve the complete and utter shit that is winDOS.
because you are causing much more damage to OSS and Linux
*shrug* If I am, so what? How many other people use and/or like Linux means precisely zero to me. I don't care about widespread adoption of Linux, or of anything else. I would like only to see bad technology die the death. To me, that means pretty much all peecee-based computing, regardless of OS, and the concept of home and "general business" computing in general. This stuff is crap, it doesn't improve productivity, and the main economic effect it has is the creation of needless tech support jobs. I happen to consider Microsoft products an enabler of this trend, as well as particularly bad technology in a pure sense. Therefore I would prefer them to go away. That's not to say I'd mourn if Linux dropped from 20 million users to 1000 tomorrow, because I'd still have the option to use it, or not, as I see fit. In fact, a lot fewer people would ask me stupid questions about Linux, and I'd have more free time.
You know what they say about assuming things.
rm /bin/sh and find out for yourself. My point, actually, is that you can have one, some, or none of a number of available interfaces. With winDOS that is not the case.
In fact, the keyword here is *evolved*.
You don't have to tell me twice. It's obvious that there was no actual design effort put into that pile of crap.
In other words, 90% of the PC users are not using Windows because they are "brainwashed".
That's right. They're using it because it came with their computer and either they're unaware of alternatives or installing software - any software - is too difficult for them. So they use the OS that came with their computer until it breaks, then they get a new computer.
DOS/Win is the real hobbiest OS.
Nonsense. It's clearly targeted at business and the ignorant. Hobbyists are well aware of, and often make use of, various alternatives.
Windows evolved from DOS, which was originally designed to run on woefully underpowered PCs.
Most of the underpowered aspect came from limitations of DOS itself. By 1986 or so DOS, not the hardware, was the limiting factor. That was only about 25% of the way into the history of this "OS." The true hardware limitations of the architecture are still in place thanks to Intel's worship of backwards-compatibility. So you end up with an underpowered OS trying to work around archaic bits of hardware. Both were designed in the early 80s, and neither has ever left that era. Yet that same misdesigned hardware now can run several OS's originally designed for more powerful hardware. Why has Microsoft failed to catch up?
Your point about evolution is well taken. There are known disadvantages to evolution of, for the prime example, life. Much of the human brain, for example, is wasted space. It holds the R-complex and limbic systems, which are really just reptile and mammalian brains, respectively. They hold no knowledge or useful information, but are still there because of evolution. If you want a sillier example, think about the appendix and tailbone. As humans, thinking beings, we have the luxury of tearing down existing designs when improving them. Nature does not have this luxury, which is why we are stuck with vestigial parts and primitive brains. We should take advantage of this opportunity to actually design our creations, several times if necessary, and get them right as much as possible from the start. Evolved software always ends up with the distinctly bad odour of cruft and backwards-compatibility with hardware and other software that should have died out aeons ago. Why apologize for those who make that mistake?
Yeah. The more I think about this, and read the comments, the more certain I am that this is a hoax. If it's not a hoax, it's drug-inspired. There's just no way that any rational human being could be serious about an effort of this magnitude and uselessness.
The concept of an OS that makes the fundamental assumption that it's smarter than the user is a bad idea. The concept of an OS without a security model is a bad idea. The concept of an OS that cannot be separated from its user interface is a bad idea. Why are these people reimplementing something that has so many fundamentally bad ideas in it?
The hardware equivalent of this is going back and reimplementing the ENIAC. It's slow, it's hard to use, it's obsolete, and it's, well, archaic. We've moved on. You'd think it's possible to have learned something in 20 years. Apparently not. A perfect example comes courtesy of their web site: they plan to use the FAT filesystem. They claim that it's familiar and well understood. That it may be, but so are a dozen other filesystems. If you're going to select a filesystem based on familiarity and simplicity, why not choose the Minix fs? Or the version 7 fs? Or ext2? These filesystems have been documented thoroughly in books, in presentations, and in readily available code. The kicker, of course, is that they all offer substantially more features and performance than FAT. They are fundamentally better-designed filesystems. There is absolutely no reason one could not, were one so inclined, implement WinDOS using one of those filesystems in a manner which is entirely transparent to the user.
Because of the obvious irrationality this group exudes, an example of which is discussed above, I'm seriously questioning whether this is simply a hoax. It makes no sense to do this at all. Windows is a fundamentally inferior operating system. The world has moved on. It's bad enough to reinvent the wheel, but it's excusable if you are simply enhancing a previous, working, round wheel (ie all the reimplementations of Unix and Unix-like operating systems). This is taking a triangular wheel and trying to reimplement it faithfully. What gives, guys?
Uhmmm...root == responsibility. Shouldn't they be the ones doing the complete reinstall? I'd hand them the media and the instruction book and tell them to have at it. Such is the price of root. You can't have it both ways.
Feels the need to get to know and talk to everybody since he's so familar with all your files, email, etc.
Trust me, we don't want to get to know you. We'd rather you didn't exist at all. We don't care what's in your files, what kind of mail you get, or what porn sites turn you on. We mostly just wish you wouldn't call up telling us about either a) Problems we were fixing when you interrupted us, or b) Problems that are actually ID 10T related. And believe me, we don't feel the need to talk to you. Leave us alone.
Have I made my point yet? Sysadmin is just a high tech janitor. He creates... nothing.
Agreed. We don't create much (though sometimes we get to set up a new shop, which is great fun), but rather we maintain existing investments.
And certainly not deserrving[sic] of much higher pay.
Agreed. Sysadmins should be paid maybe 20-30% more than regular janitors (simply because of the experience/education required). What that really means is that janitors are underpaid.
And here's one more:
8) Not having a good one makes it hard to get any work done (because nothing works).
8a) Not having a good one makes it hard to get nay work done (because of the stink and clutter).
-- Your Friendly Janitor
A good sysadmin can change jobs in a day and usually come out ahead.
Whoring: Just don't do it!
At best it should be treated as additional duties assigned to one of the programmers or other tech staff member, or even outsorce the job as needed to a temp service.
*sigh* You are completely clueless. There's nothing worse than a system run by a non-sysadmin. Programmers make the worst sysadmins on the planet. A monkey could do a better job of it. Honestly, you're better off with no sysadmin at all than with someone who really does something else but got forced into the job because nobody else wanted it.
Yet in some ways your analysis is correct: the really good sysadmins really don't have anything to do all day. They've already spent twelve 100-hour weeks setting everything up so perfectly that it runs itself, never needs fixing, and will last till the day the machines burn out. The programmer-sysadmins, on the other hand, seem to spend an awful lot of time fixing problems with the systems. Funny how that is. The fact that everything is working really is attributable to the admins. I've seen shops where things usually don't work right. Trust me, it's plenty possible to be a sufficiently lousy sysadmin that nothing ever works right. Of course, invariably those people are programmers or managers or brownnosing idiots or CIS/MIS fuckwits who are stuck doing sysadmin work until they can get back to their real jobs.
Go thank your admins for the fact you you never see them and the fact that they never do anything. That's the way it should be.
I'm sorry I'm so far behind in handling user requests. I like you though, so I've taken care of this particular request for you right away.
I'm happy to delete your home directory for you. You did back it up, right?
I actually enjoy having my users get viruses. My systems are untouched and winDOS support gets to take care of fixing the problem! HA!
You've hit the nail right on the head. Fact: any company that relies on its computing resources for its business (read: everyone with more than about 1 employee) and does not hire a competent systems administrator is reckless and irresponsible.
If the management of a widget manufacturer buys inferior widget components to save money, and then finds themselves unable to sell widgets, the shareholders will most likely dismiss them. In some countries, there may be legal proceedings as well. Why? They failed to protect shareholder value. Instead of paying a fair price for a necessary input, they tried to cut corners. How is this case any different? Yes, competent systems administrators are expensive. The greenest of us are paid $60k a year. A 20-year Unix guru veteran administrator is worth $200k or more. But evaluate that cost against the costs associated with a security breach. For a small firm, and a simple skript-kiddie breach, the costs might simply be some lost time spent fixing the system, maybe a few hundreds or thousands of dollars - each time. For a medium-sized firm, or for a more insidious or far-reaching breach, costs will rapidly exceed even the most extravagantly paid sysadmins' employment costs.
Managers who fail to hire competent workers for necessary positions are guilty of mismanagement. Managers who fail to provide their staff with the tools they need to do their jobs (software upgrades, operating systems with adequate security models, etc.) are guilty of mismanagement. These are the guilty parties.
The fact that competent systems administrators are hard to find and expensive provides no justification for insisting that every software vendor try to divine all their millions of customers' security needs and provide for them out of the box. First, it's impossible to make everyone happy. What may seem lax to me looks fascist to most. Some people don't need any security at all - those with non-networked machines with no sensitive or valuable data. Second, there will always be bugs, errors, and omissions in software. Even OpenBSD issues patches and updates from time to time. If you are going to have a system, you must maintain it by applying vendor patches as needed. While this is not difficult, it does imply some measure of competence and vigilance.
All that said, there are differences in security between various vendors' offerings. Some systems (*cough*solaris*cough*) cannot be secured by any means, because the vendor is so lax about providing updates for known problems. Other vendors ship systems in intentionally insecure configurations (sgi). Others try to ship secure systems, but invariably fail to do so. Creating and maintaining a secure environment requires a competent administration staff regardless of the vendor and operating platform you select. While some vendors make it easier to do so by providing full source, frequent updates, and perhaps even auditing their code base, no amount of effort on their part can provide a level of security appropriate for every possible customer.
This provides an interesting opportunity for ISPs. Customers without the necessary interest or competence to maintain an appropriate level of security could purchase firewalling and other services from their ISP. This way, regardless of the type of system they have selected, they can be reasonably sure that a breach will not occur. Naturally such services would cost much less than hiring a full-time administrator. This model seems especially viable for home users, who often have no experience, hardware, or interest needed to provide sufficient security. But such offerings are generally made either to large customers, or to home users as a mandatory, no-extra-charge component (blocking port 25 for example). Hopefully this will change, as ISPs broaden their offerings.
Regardless of how you feel about staffing policies and distribution management (ever put one together?), it is irrational to expect what you do from vendors. No Linux distribution can possibly meet the needs of every possible user. Especially out of the box with no configuration. While some security measures should probably be included, I would much prefer choosing myself which additional measures should be taken. I do not appreciate vendors who try to box me into a certain security model. For example, a vendor might ship a distribution in such a way that Kerberos provides the entire security model. What, then, if I am on a network that uses OpenSSH DSA as the primary authentication security model? I am forced to strip out as much Kerberos as I can - often recompiling packages - and then add on my desired security measures. It's much easier to start with a system that has no preconceived ideas about security models, and then add on whatever I feel is appropriate for my circumstances. I don't expect - or want - distributors to try to guess my needs and provide only for the needs they assume. That is the mark of Microsoft and so many other failed vendors. The vendors who are succeeding today provide a wide range of flexible options to their customers. The one-size-fits-all, out of the box and go mentality is evil and shall not earn my business, now or ever.
As any sysadmin will tell you: Maintin it, or unplug it. There is no excuse.
Even if that weren't a problem, binary compatibility, were it implemented across various distributions, would only encourage more closed-source development targeting Linux. This just gives would-be binary-only vendors a good excuse.
Just say no to binary-only vendors' initiatives. And just say no to any distribution that goes along with it.
Then you failed to grasp the whole point of the post. It really is just that simple.
Whoring: Just don't do it.
I'm suggesting that you have a choice. That "my employer forces me to" is a whine and a cop-out, not a valid excuse. If you choose to work for them, you make a choice. Nobody is forcing you to do anything. So what I'm suggesting is that you have roughly three choices: a) change your company's direction, b) not complain about Microsoft because you are keeping them in business, or c) quit and do something else.
Quite frankly, I don't care which you choose. It doesn't affect me either way. BTW, you aren't impressing me with your title and so forth. If you don't like Microsoft, you are a whore for doing that job. Accept it along with your Lexus and your trophy wife. I'm not trying to bait you. I'm trying to show you that what you see as a "practical" decision, or maybe not a decision at all, is in fact a conscious disregard for whatever values you may have in exchange for money.
I make a nice living too. I just don't sell out for it. There is no Microsoft in my life, nor will there ever be. I don't intend to pump gas, but if that's my only choice, I'll gladly take it.
Whoring: Just don't do it.