Guys, I have used FreeBSD for a decade on multiple machines, some running CURRENT, and thus have had the privilege of not only listening to PHK's reasoned discussions, but also engaging in such discussions with him. I also supported his paid development project a few years ago, so you can be sure that I am *not* an unbiased contributor to this article.
That said, I am pretty sure that PHK didn't just decide over coffee or beer to sue Lenovo without giving the matter serious thought, research and consideration. Certainly, what MS charges OEMs and distributors for licenses is far less than the retail price you or I would pay, so I don't personally think that money is the issue at all. I haven't asked him personally so can't say with authority, but I would imagine that this is more about OS choice (or none) during the configure/customize process when shopping online and opting out of a MS OS up-front rather than any monetary settlement. It's the principle of the issue, not the money. At least that's how I see it and how I would like to see the outcome. Give consumers a choice to opt out of a forced MS OS, even if there is no financial benefit.
This saying was born from an era when government work was head-and-shoulders above par, exceeding even the most stringent of standards. Only in the modern lexicon has it taken a derogatory connotation, mostly due to lazy-ass government workers who can't be disciplined or fired for shoddy work.
Yup. In fact, back in the day, the IPv6 support in FreeBSD was the determining factor in my choice to run FreeBSD rather than any then-current distribution of GNU/Linux. Being focused on networking, I didn't have a dog in the OS race, I just needed IPv6 support, and FreeBSD won hands-down. I have enjoyed the blessings of FreeBSD ever since. Even so many years later, IPv6 support on my DD-WRT (Linux) access point is quite non-intuitive and hackish.
Big shout-out to the fine KAME team, especially the late Itojun.
# managing multiple history files in bash # for each in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f; do ln -s.bash_history.bash_history.dev.ttyp${each}; done # # then add the following to the.bash_profile # SHELLID=$(tty | sed 's!/!.!g') HISTFILE=${HISTFILE}${SHELLID}
That works for my FreeBSD servers very well, allowing all open shells to read from and write to a common history file. Unless you are on a really busy box where you are sharing with hundreds of users, this may be useful to you. It certainly has been to me.
You know, I love capitalism and letting the market do it's thing, but in those few cases where you have a great company that does all the right things and takes the profits from their admittedly expensive product and invests it in neat tech like Mindstorms, or my beloved Ferrari F1 cars, this makes me sad. All this will really do is take the R&D money out of Lego's pockets and send it to the lowest bidder. I, and I hope many others, will stick with the Lego brand if for no other reason than the superior products and devotion to expanding minds instead of pockets.
I have seen their manufacturing plants on TV (can't remember if it was How Do They Do It? or one of the other shows like it) and the tolerances, rate of part rejection, etc. are just astounding. Also, the white rooms where the creative minds sit and play with Lego pieces all day, dreaming up new toys... it is simply wonderful.
and why is it ok for Apple to reject an app because they were working on something similar themselves? Or because an app was more functional (for some users) than the built-in app? Both cases are as evil as denying Opera's browser, all worthy of antitrust investigation. This is about choice and I would prefer to decide which app works best for me rather than Apple making that decision, thank you very much comrade.
Yes, I own an iphone and love it, even though I am growing irritated that I can't use TCPMP to watch flv, avi, mpg2, etc. When the bar of irritation reaches a certain level then I will likely jailbreak.
Thanks for pointing out the technological elitism of/. patrons. Without having any data to back it up, I am not uncomfortable stating that those folks who are meeting with architects to hash out building elevation details or what-not would be more at ease sketching on a sheet of paper with a pencil than trying to grasp a stylus and do the same with a pressure-sensitive tablet or screen. Oh yeah, they would probably find it easier to use a rubber eraser. Then again, who cares about making the customer feel comfortable, right?
I am a data network guy, but I was thinking that this would be useful for an architect. Imagine that you are showing a draft of a building elevation to a customer, and by sliding a sheet of tracing paper over it, you can reveal more detail, or even let the customer sketch changes they desire on the tracing paper! As a customer, I think it would great to sketch what I am thinking rather than trying to explain it in words to the designer or architect.
If I can think of that, surely there are some real market research folk who can think of even more and better angles.
Only here on/. is years worth of programming effort deemed worthy of piracy simply because the brand "Microsoft" is on the box, and considered "insightful" to boot.
We are doomed. Why don't you shelve the Microsoft hatred for a few minutes and think.
You know, I have been using IPv6 in some way for about 9 years now, starting back with the stack for NT from MS Research and FreeBSD with KAME. There was a lot, and there is still more, to learn, and what sucks for early adopters (and huge advocates) of IPv6 like me is having to swim upstream against the current of "we have plenty of IPv6 space", "we have NAT", "IPv6 sucks", etc. It sure does get old. If you naysayers would put half the effort you spend bitching on/. into urging your ISP or your IT organization (or both!) to become IPv6-aware, we could see some real progress.
While I am a huge advocate of IPv6 adoption, I don't agree with the wasteful manner with which the networks are being allocated. It is as if the architects got flashed by the MIB and can't remember anything about the relatively easy acquisition of a IPv4/8 20 years ago, so let's cut this huge address space by less than half and use a/64 for the host. Ridiculous! If past lessons had been learned and remembered, we wouldn't see this kind of early waste, and IPv6 could well last a couple hundred years, or longer, addressing all parts of this solar system and perhaps beyond.
There is a lot going on in Asia/Pacific (AP) with IPv6, and emerging countries will be far better off since they are just building out infrastructure from scratch and can be dual-stack capable from the start (akin to cellular networks versus thousands of miles of copper). Here in the US, the price for being so technologically advanced early on and having spent (I loathe to refer to networking gear purchases as "investments") so much capital on gear to-date means that hard business cases need to be made to justify to the bean-counters that IPv6 is worth the effort. Couple that with the usual short-sighted executive management in most companies and you will be hard-pressed to get funding for IPv6 ventures. Fortunately, the word is getting out to even the executives that IPv6 is not just a rumor and projects are starting to gain momentum, but I fear that for most in the US it will be a never-ending game of catch-up.
And millions of users have no trouble at all running Windows Update, so perhaps it is the hamstrung state of your particular machines. You mention your "colleagues" and that you all have "brand-new XP SP2 machines", so would it be too far fetched to assume that you are in a corporate environment, and further that your company's IT policies dictate some hugely obtrusive big-brother grabage which would prevent Windows Update from running smoothly? Ever heard of that beast called Tivoli? If I didn't roll my own XP installation I would likely be in the same boat as you. Fortunately, I am not, Mr. A.C.
Education in this country is broken, and this is a great attempt by a very successful software company to change the tide. It's sad that the bulk of the replies to this article are coming from MS haters who have nothing more to contribute than stale jokes about reboots, BSOD, etc. Why don't you catch up with reality? I haven't had a BSOD since I started using XP, and I only had BSODs under 2k when caused by lame ass drivers from third party hardware vendors. That is reality, whether you like it or not. Personally, I use FreeBSD on all of my personal machines and run Windows XP on the laptop provided by my employer, so keep that in mind when you come at me with the "he's drinking the MS kool-aid" rhetoric.
You LINUX sheep are so typical in your responses. Why can't you just love your distribution of choice and stop hating MS? There is nothing that MS can do that you can see in any other light than negative (at best) or illegal and malevolent (at worst). For all of your bitching about how horrible MS is, you likely haven't spent near as much time helping your local alma mater better their education processes. Typical armchair quarterbacks.
So, maybe this new antiseptic, all-digital approach isn't right, but who are any of us to sit here and say that it is worse than the status quo for education in this country? Do you have a better idea? I hear some say "just give the money to the school system, we don't need your management style", and I think that is about the most ignorant thing they could do. There is no shortage of money in the education system, though it is disproportionately focused on administration and not on the educators. Pumping more cash into the system will not help one iota, just as throwing money at any situation without a focused plan to use that money, and a way to make those in charge of those disbursements _ACCOUNTABLE_FOR_THE_USE_OF_THE_MONEY_, is a terrible way to manage any process, business, or endeavor in general.
I am excited to see some change in the education system in this country, and if it fails then at least they tried, hopefully learned a lot from the experience, and aren't too discouraged to not try again with an improved approach.
... is the sterilization of the sport. Not only are they going to a standard ECU (regardless of the supplier, I know how popular MS bashing is around here), but they are going to a single tire (or tyre) supplier next year. A single supplier of anything, IMHO, is bad for the sport. This is supposed to be the pinnacle of motor racing, no holds barred. If a team has the cash to innovate, then why stifle that innovation to placate lesser funded teams? It doesn't make any sense. The competition among suppliers is exactly what drives creative engineering and innovation. Look at the chassis for a good example. Where the FIA has mandated a.6L smaller enginge (3.0L V10 -> 2.4L V8) this year with ~200 less BHP (~950 -> ~750, and Honda claimed 1000 BHP last year!!!!), the teams' engineers have not only raised the cornering speeds of the cards this year but have almost reclaimed the loss of performance by being creative with their aero work. I have no doubt that if Max had his way, there would one day be a spec chassis, perish the thought.
I dream of a day in the future when Max is gone, Bernie is gone, and innovation and competition among vendors & manufacturers will return to F1. Until that day, we are watching the sad downward spiral of what was once a great sport. It makes me sad.
Yes, yes... Republicans are evil and want to take away your social security because they want everyone dead so that they can steal their money... blah blah blah. Maybe you didn't hear about the existing commercial efforts for space travel? Try Googling for VIRGIN GALACTIC.
Regarding the 'criminally responsible' comment, you can rest assured that there are plenty of ambulance-chasing attorneys in this great litigious country of ours to run with this rediculous angle. Unfortunately, the prosecution of real crimes will be delayed and our tax dollars will be wasted in the process. What do you think the astronauts are doing for a living? Making ham sandwiches? They know the dangers as do their families.
If you have lived in Florida for any length of time you would realize that weather can, and often does, change in the span of minutes. With the hours needed to prepare for a launch, they could have GUESSED but not KNOWN that the weather was going to be bad exactly when their window was going to close. The paranoid should appreciate the opportunity to test all of the systems in preparation for a launch, but maybe I am guilty of a 'glass is half full' attitude.
Sometimes, folks who think they know a whole lot need to just sit back and trust the folks who REALLY DO KNOW A LOT.
I was in junior high school when it happened, in English class. the principal's voice came over the intercom, asking me to come to the office. why just me? because at the time there was no Internet access to be had, and the only way for us to access information quickly was a connection that I knew most about. In the agriculture department of our school we had a decent Apple IIe (or ][e for you purists), and with the attached Hayes modem we had access to AgriData, an online service that provided information about all things agriculture related. In addition to agriculture data, there were also a steady stream of AP news stories, fresh off the AP wire. For the rest of the day, I sat there at the computer, printing out AP articles on the old dot matrix printer and running them to the office for the principal to read to the school.
I still tear up a little when thinking about it. One of those things, even 20 years gone, that makes the hair on the back of your neck stiffen and your whole body shudder a little. God bless them.
Slashdot Mirror
Guys, I have used FreeBSD for a decade on multiple machines, some running CURRENT, and thus have had the privilege of not only listening to PHK's reasoned discussions, but also engaging in such discussions with him. I also supported his paid development project a few years ago, so you can be sure that I am *not* an unbiased contributor to this article.
That said, I am pretty sure that PHK didn't just decide over coffee or beer to sue Lenovo without giving the matter serious thought, research and consideration. Certainly, what MS charges OEMs and distributors for licenses is far less than the retail price you or I would pay, so I don't personally think that money is the issue at all. I haven't asked him personally so can't say with authority, but I would imagine that this is more about OS choice (or none) during the configure/customize process when shopping online and opting out of a MS OS up-front rather than any monetary settlement. It's the principle of the issue, not the money. At least that's how I see it and how I would like to see the outcome. Give consumers a choice to opt out of a forced MS OS, even if there is no financial benefit.
*SIGH*
This saying was born from an era when government work was head-and-shoulders above par, exceeding even the most stringent of standards. Only in the modern lexicon has it taken a derogatory connotation, mostly due to lazy-ass government workers who can't be disciplined or fired for shoddy work.
Yup. In fact, back in the day, the IPv6 support in FreeBSD was the determining factor in my choice to run FreeBSD rather than any then-current distribution of GNU/Linux. Being focused on networking, I didn't have a dog in the OS race, I just needed IPv6 support, and FreeBSD won hands-down. I have enjoyed the blessings of FreeBSD ever since. Even so many years later, IPv6 support on my DD-WRT (Linux) access point is quite non-intuitive and hackish.
Big shout-out to the fine KAME team, especially the late Itojun.
# managing multiple history files in bash .bash_history .bash_history.dev.ttyp${each}; done .bash_profile
#
for each in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 a b c d e f; do ln -s
#
# then add the following to the
#
SHELLID=$(tty | sed 's!/!.!g')
HISTFILE=${HISTFILE}${SHELLID}
That works for my FreeBSD servers very well, allowing all open shells to read from and write to a common history file. Unless you are on a really busy box where you are sharing with hundreds of users, this may be useful to you. It certainly has been to me.
You know, I love capitalism and letting the market do it's thing, but in those few cases where you have a great company that does all the right things and takes the profits from their admittedly expensive product and invests it in neat tech like Mindstorms, or my beloved Ferrari F1 cars, this makes me sad. All this will really do is take the R&D money out of Lego's pockets and send it to the lowest bidder. I, and I hope many others, will stick with the Lego brand if for no other reason than the superior products and devotion to expanding minds instead of pockets.
I have seen their manufacturing plants on TV (can't remember if it was How Do They Do It? or one of the other shows like it) and the tolerances, rate of part rejection, etc. are just astounding. Also, the white rooms where the creative minds sit and play with Lego pieces all day, dreaming up new toys... it is simply wonderful.
Quality before quantity, please.
and why is it ok for Apple to reject an app because they were working on something similar themselves? Or because an app was more functional (for some users) than the built-in app? Both cases are as evil as denying Opera's browser, all worthy of antitrust investigation. This is about choice and I would prefer to decide which app works best for me rather than Apple making that decision, thank you very much comrade.
Yes, I own an iphone and love it, even though I am growing irritated that I can't use TCPMP to watch flv, avi, mpg2, etc. When the bar of irritation reaches a certain level then I will likely jailbreak.
Thanks for pointing out the technological elitism of /. patrons. Without having any data to back it up, I am not uncomfortable stating that those folks who are meeting with architects to hash out building elevation details or what-not would be more at ease sketching on a sheet of paper with a pencil than trying to grasp a stylus and do the same with a pressure-sensitive tablet or screen. Oh yeah, they would probably find it easier to use a rubber eraser. Then again, who cares about making the customer feel comfortable, right?
*sigh*
I am a data network guy, but I was thinking that this would be useful for an architect. Imagine that you are showing a draft of a building elevation to a customer, and by sliding a sheet of tracing paper over it, you can reveal more detail, or even let the customer sketch changes they desire on the tracing paper! As a customer, I think it would great to sketch what I am thinking rather than trying to explain it in words to the designer or architect.
If I can think of that, surely there are some real market research folk who can think of even more and better angles.
This is very neat tech.
Nice.
Only here on /. is years worth of programming effort deemed worthy of piracy simply because the brand "Microsoft" is on the box, and considered "insightful" to boot.
We are doomed. Why don't you shelve the Microsoft hatred for a few minutes and think.
Oh, wait...
You know, I have been using IPv6 in some way for about 9 years now, starting back with the stack for NT from MS Research and FreeBSD with KAME. There was a lot, and there is still more, to learn, and what sucks for early adopters (and huge advocates) of IPv6 like me is having to swim upstream against the current of "we have plenty of IPv6 space", "we have NAT", "IPv6 sucks", etc. It sure does get old. If you naysayers would put half the effort you spend bitching on /. into urging your ISP or your IT organization (or both!) to become IPv6-aware, we could see some real progress.
/8 20 years ago, so let's cut this huge address space by less than half and use a /64 for the host. Ridiculous! If past lessons had been learned and remembered, we wouldn't see this kind of early waste, and IPv6 could well last a couple hundred years, or longer, addressing all parts of this solar system and perhaps beyond.
While I am a huge advocate of IPv6 adoption, I don't agree with the wasteful manner with which the networks are being allocated. It is as if the architects got flashed by the MIB and can't remember anything about the relatively easy acquisition of a IPv4
There is a lot going on in Asia/Pacific (AP) with IPv6, and emerging countries will be far better off since they are just building out infrastructure from scratch and can be dual-stack capable from the start (akin to cellular networks versus thousands of miles of copper). Here in the US, the price for being so technologically advanced early on and having spent (I loathe to refer to networking gear purchases as "investments") so much capital on gear to-date means that hard business cases need to be made to justify to the bean-counters that IPv6 is worth the effort. Couple that with the usual short-sighted executive management in most companies and you will be hard-pressed to get funding for IPv6 ventures. Fortunately, the word is getting out to even the executives that IPv6 is not just a rumor and projects are starting to gain momentum, but I fear that for most in the US it will be a never-ending game of catch-up.
Optimistically I forge on...
And millions of users have no trouble at all running Windows Update, so perhaps it is the hamstrung state of your particular machines. You mention your "colleagues" and that you all have "brand-new XP SP2 machines", so would it be too far fetched to assume that you are in a corporate environment, and further that your company's IT policies dictate some hugely obtrusive big-brother grabage which would prevent Windows Update from running smoothly? Ever heard of that beast called Tivoli? If I didn't roll my own XP installation I would likely be in the same boat as you. Fortunately, I am not, Mr. A.C.
Education in this country is broken, and this is a great attempt by a very successful software company to change the tide. It's sad that the bulk of the replies to this article are coming from MS haters who have nothing more to contribute than stale jokes about reboots, BSOD, etc. Why don't you catch up with reality? I haven't had a BSOD since I started using XP, and I only had BSODs under 2k when caused by lame ass drivers from third party hardware vendors. That is reality, whether you like it or not. Personally, I use FreeBSD on all of my personal machines and run Windows XP on the laptop provided by my employer, so keep that in mind when you come at me with the "he's drinking the MS kool-aid" rhetoric.
You LINUX sheep are so typical in your responses. Why can't you just love your distribution of choice and stop hating MS? There is nothing that MS can do that you can see in any other light than negative (at best) or illegal and malevolent (at worst). For all of your bitching about how horrible MS is, you likely haven't spent near as much time helping your local alma mater better their education processes. Typical armchair quarterbacks.
So, maybe this new antiseptic, all-digital approach isn't right, but who are any of us to sit here and say that it is worse than the status quo for education in this country? Do you have a better idea? I hear some say "just give the money to the school system, we don't need your management style", and I think that is about the most ignorant thing they could do. There is no shortage of money in the education system, though it is disproportionately focused on administration and not on the educators. Pumping more cash into the system will not help one iota, just as throwing money at any situation without a focused plan to use that money, and a way to make those in charge of those disbursements _ACCOUNTABLE_FOR_THE_USE_OF_THE_MONEY_, is a terrible way to manage any process, business, or endeavor in general.
I am excited to see some change in the education system in this country, and if it fails then at least they tried, hopefully learned a lot from the experience, and aren't too discouraged to not try again with an improved approach.
... is the sterilization of the sport. Not only are they going to a standard ECU (regardless of the supplier, I know how popular MS bashing is around here), but they are going to a single tire (or tyre) supplier next year. A single supplier of anything, IMHO, is bad for the sport. This is supposed to be the pinnacle of motor racing, no holds barred. If a team has the cash to innovate, then why stifle that innovation to placate lesser funded teams? It doesn't make any sense. The competition among suppliers is exactly what drives creative engineering and innovation. Look at the chassis for a good example. Where the FIA has mandated a .6L smaller enginge (3.0L V10 -> 2.4L V8) this year with ~200 less BHP (~950 -> ~750, and Honda claimed 1000 BHP last year!!!!), the teams' engineers have not only raised the cornering speeds of the cards this year but have almost reclaimed the loss of performance by being creative with their aero work. I have no doubt that if Max had his way, there would one day be a spec chassis, perish the thought.
I dream of a day in the future when Max is gone, Bernie is gone, and innovation and competition among vendors & manufacturers will return to F1. Until that day, we are watching the sad downward spiral of what was once a great sport. It makes me sad.
Yes, yes... Republicans are evil and want to take away your social security because they want everyone dead so that they can steal their money... blah blah blah. Maybe you didn't hear about the existing commercial efforts for space travel? Try Googling for VIRGIN GALACTIC.
Regarding the 'criminally responsible' comment, you can rest assured that there are plenty of ambulance-chasing attorneys in this great litigious country of ours to run with this rediculous angle. Unfortunately, the prosecution of real crimes will be delayed and our tax dollars will be wasted in the process. What do you think the astronauts are doing for a living? Making ham sandwiches? They know the dangers as do their families.
*yawn*
If you have lived in Florida for any length of time you would realize that weather can, and often does, change in the span of minutes. With the hours needed to prepare for a launch, they could have GUESSED but not KNOWN that the weather was going to be bad exactly when their window was going to close. The paranoid should appreciate the opportunity to test all of the systems in preparation for a launch, but maybe I am guilty of a 'glass is half full' attitude.
Sometimes, folks who think they know a whole lot need to just sit back and trust the folks who REALLY DO KNOW A LOT.
I was in junior high school when it happened, in English class. the principal's voice came over the intercom, asking me to come to the office. why just me? because at the time there was no Internet access to be had, and the only way for us to access information quickly was a connection that I knew most about. In the agriculture department of our school we had a decent Apple IIe (or ][e for you purists), and with the attached Hayes modem we had access to AgriData, an online service that provided information about all things agriculture related. In addition to agriculture data, there were also a steady stream of AP news stories, fresh off the AP wire. For the rest of the day, I sat there at the computer, printing out AP articles on the old dot matrix printer and running them to the office for the principal to read to the school.
I still tear up a little when thinking about it. One of those things, even 20 years gone, that makes the hair on the back of your neck stiffen and your whole body shudder a little. God bless them.