The 'serendipity' you describe also applies to the space program - although one can make a reasonable argument for NASA being purely military in essense anyway. OTOH, it should be relatively easy to comprehend that, say, setting one's sights on 'getting to Mars' would produce the same kind of serendipity.
I'm in favor of a strong military. I'm not certain I'm in favor of the US spending more on the military than all other countries combined, and twice as much as the next 24 largest spenders. I'm not certain I believe that level of expenditure is necessary to maintain our freedom.
Also, let us not confuse 'an open mind' with gullibility, ok?
"It took 20 years before jet engine technology was really usable."
I'm not sure whether you're high, or the History channel. The Messerschmitt 262 was the first warbird with jet engines, and had it entered the fray just a few months earlier, it might have changed the course of history. The jet engine was eminently useful in that application at that time.
No, I wouldn't. I was using the term "getting root" as a slang for entering a system. We're dealing with semantics here. SELinux wants to say there is no root, but it really doesn't matter what they call it, there are still accounts and the same exploits that lead to the compromising of one acccount can cascade into the compromising of other accounts.
Way to dodge! Unfortunately, 'getting root' has a very specific meaning. Compromising a user account with an ID other than 0 is NOT 'getting root', no matter how much you would like it to be for the purpose of the current discussion. And you obviously didn't read the FAQ I linked to. The compromise of a given account doesn't extend to another account - that's the whole purpose of the system.
Of course it does. Buffer-overflow exploit? Hello?
Think very carefully, and I'm certain you'll be able to grasp this one. A 'buffer overflow exploit' compromises the system that is an endpoint for a network, not the data stream between that system and another. An 'isolated data stream' is what one might capture with a sniffer - eavesdropping - and the security of that stream has to do with ecryption, not the operating system that generated the stream.
It's nice to know that you're not in charge of our national computer resources. Let me explain.
It makes absolutely no difference if you compromise a system, if the data is encrypted appropriately. I assure you that the vast majority of 'secrets' that the NSA might acquire by compromising systems is encrypted. Hell, I'm pretty sure that I don't have anything the NSA might be interested in, but many documents in my home dir are encrypted with GnuPG.
Regardless, no, I don't really believe that the NSA is spending the bulk of its resources locating exploits in common desktop operating systems. I believe that the bulk of the computing resources possessed by the NSA are probably involved in data mining and visualization activities. Searching databases of oil consumption, food consumption, weather patterns, airline traffic patterns, money movements... combining and recombining, presenting different visualizations and comparisons, watching for underlying patterns.
I never asserted anything of the kind. SELinux is about implementing access control, which has little if anthing to do with enhancing the kind of security being discussed here, i.e., getting root.
Well, this would indicate to me that you have no idea what issues SELinux might or might not address. Perhaps you should research the topics of your closely held opinions somewhat. From the FAQ:
It [SELinux] has no concept of a "root" super-user, and does not share the well-known shortcomings of the traditional Linux security mechanisms (such as a dependence on setuid/setgid binaries).
I would say this rather soundly addresses the concept of "getting root", wouldn't you?
Linux tends to be more focused on utility and performance.
This is exactly the situation that SELinux hopes to address, isn't it?
The question you should be asking yourself is why organizations like the NSA and DARPA, which are after all dedicated to eavesdropping and intelligence gathering, would want to spend time and resources making the computer systems of target nations more secure.
Come on, that one is too easy... the security of the parent system has absolutely nothing to do with the security of an isolated data stream - i.e., email, instant messenger, http, ftp - you name it. SELinux also does little to address the security of daemons like, say, MySQL - it simply isolates the components so that a compromise of the apache code doesn't translate to a compromise of the system.
There is also the fact that the NSA and DARPA don't have to work to compromise our security - after all, the RIAA and MPAA may engineer us into a government-controlled cryptographic system with government (or copyright holder!) held keys - for Intellectual Properties enforcement, of course.
Hrm... So you assert that SELinux fixes trivial security issues in order to encourage users to select Linux (less secure) over OpenBSD (more secure), and all this without introducing any trojan code into SELinux.
The question I have is this: If there are hundreds of invisible exploits in the SELinux kernel, how are we to know that the same situation doesn't exist in OpenBSD?
Furthermore, how are we to be certain that OpenBSD (oft touted as the most secure OS in the world, and I'll certainly grant it's one of the most secure out of the box OS's I've ever seen) isn't some clandestine creation of the NSA created to lull paranoid psychotics into believing that they were secured against intrusion?
I know that here in the midwest, the red-tailed hawk has recovered in population - you never saw them at all when I was a child.
I've also seen the nests with crushed eggs that collapsed under the weight of the mother 'way back in the gradeschool days, from people who weren't aware of any political agenda behind DDT.
I'm not one to reject out of hand the concept of the government putting political and corporate concerns above and ahead of the health of their citizens. Perhaps you can tell me, then, if it wasn't the DDT used extensively here in the country's breadbasket, what, exactly, was it that caused the fragility of the Raptor's eggs back then, and where did it go?
You get this result because you're doing it all wrong. It's about marketing, and it's the failure to understand it that keeps Free Software and Opensource in general from superceding much competition immediately.
The key, for you, for me, for anyone who would advance the cause of good software is to identify the goals of management, and show them a scenario in which not only is the better software the best win, that the choice of another alternative is a clear loss.
Find out what the company goals are - read those corporate 'rah-rah' emails for content and figure out what the Vice President of Fecundity is trying to convey. Usually it's about cost cutting.
Then, in the next meeting, lay out the ways that Linux/*BSD/other opensource/fsf type tool meet this goal, and the way that other alternatives don't.
If you can't figure out a way that Linux/*BSD/etc meets those corporate goals better than commercial alternatives, then perhaps you either shouldn't be a Linux supporter, or it's the wrong choice.
Sun's certainly in a pickle, eh? I've got both in my datacenters - Linux/Xeon/Opteron boxen and USparc boxen - and the X86-based crap stomps the peewadding out of the equivalent Slowlaris stuff. The kicker is that the often cited and once true dependability of Sun hardware is waning in their attempts to bring cost into line. It's sad, really. I like the dependability of the Sparc platform, but it's fading. *sigh*.
On another note, however, Gentoo on a dual 450 U60 is a great desktop!
At that time IBM was still smarting from some close brushes with the Sherman Antitrust Acts. I think they 'threw the game' on the desktop to avoid further attention from the Government, thinking they would be able to retain the server market, simply 'misunderestimating' the connection of the desktop to the server market (I.E., that Micro$oft was going to be able to convince businesses that it was a good idea to put a single user desktop system on midrange servers.).
LOL - I would suggest that he probably knows his grandmother better than you do, and would be the one to determine whether it was a horrible thing to say. I know for certain that my grandmother - and my wife's grandmother - eventually reached a point where they were still taking care of themselves, and contributing to the world, but more easily confused than when they were younger, particularly by non-referential complexity like a computer GUI. Particularly since they didnt' grow up with the paradigm like many alive now did.
Hell, I'm just now 40 and have to think more carefully than I did when I was 20 in order to grasp complex concepts. It's an inescapable product of growing older, and anyone that tells you different is either extremely rare and lucky (like, unknown to science) or a liar. Just like presbyopia, arthritis, degradation of fine motor control, etc... these things happen, get over it, cuz you're next. >;)
Re:Linux will be mainstream competition in a year.
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Linux Going Mainstream
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I predict that in 1-2 years every single slashdotter will be dating sexy intelligent tall blonde swedish models who are nearly as good as we are at perl and understand the true nature of Tux (rather than just thinking he is cute)
Wow - Inga really liked that post - she was looking over my shoulder, doublechecking some perl code I was hacking on, when I checked out slashdot on a whim, and here you were! She says "bye", since she has to go change out of the bikini and into some lingerie for the catalog photographers in the back yard garden - they are going to shoot pictures of her on top of the Ferrarri.
LOL! If it wasn't for slashdot's automated notification of a reply to a message, I wouldn't even realize you posted, since you're an AnonCow. Get a login, be somebody, maybe someone will notice.
The appellations applied to MicroSloth (M$) are similar to the tried and true American Tradition of referring to Ford as "Found On Road Dead", or other folksy, sentimental euphemisms. If that's too tough for you to grasp, I'm really sorry. If you're so invested in your worldview that you're offended by humor, I pity you.
Not only that, many of the 'edutainment' games I've purchased for my 3-year-old are flash and shockwave based; but I have to have windows anyway because the install programs only work in Windows. How stupid is that?
"Aside from the massive cost of desktop conversions, network migration, and the hugely massive time and expense of user retraining?"
Desktop Conversions: I'm not sure about anyone else, but my company ( a multinational telecommunications company ) rolls out new desktops of MicroSloth crap at least twice a year, and spends the intervening six months trying to make the stuff they just did work - the same crowd that says "You can't have XP because it will bring down the network."
Network Migration: What the hell, guy, are you still running NetBEUI or something? Linux has done SMB (through Samba) for-freaking-ever (in computer years, anyway). Outside of that, even MicroSloth doesn't really attempt to take on Linuxs' networking pedigree.
User Retraining: I would hope that your computer users are somewhat more savvy than, say, my grandfather - who converted to Linux eight months ago; or my wife, who converted over a year ago; or my Aunt Jill, who converted seven months ago and uses her home PC for work tasks. All in all I've had far fewer 'help me' calls from them since upgrading them. The hardest 'retraining task' was getting them to understand network logins and remember their passwords.
Consultants: LOL... Consultants won't recommend Linux conversion, on the whole, not yet. Mostly because their purpose is not to solve a company's technical problems, but to bill hours (and yes, I've been a consultant and I have been told that I 'solved a problem too rapidly').
When you combine all of these costs, double them, and then subtract the cost of troubleshooting and fixing SoBig, MyDoom, and the other litany of M$-based crapola, and, as the previous poster mentioned, the recovered gaming time (since you can't play a lot of the popular games on Linux) and reduced support hours, I think Linux becomes a clear win.
That ought to work, at least in England. The BBC article says that, "Linux is unique in that it is open source," so they've apparently never heard of OpenBSD, FreeBSD, NetBSD, kOS, etc, etc.:-)
I think that's because Linux bits are lighter than *BSD, so Linux washes up on the shore all the time, whereas the heavier (but more correct) *BSD bits sink to the ocean floor.
Re:Lets hope that the result is progress
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Google v. Microsoft
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"Last week, Microsoft released a test version of a special set of software buttons for its browser designed to direct users to its MSN search and related services."...
Anyone reading this should almost certainly be thinking "Netscape"... Even if it's remotely executed, they can make the search engine appear to be part of the browser, and most users will never know the difference. I think the whole point will be to make the search process more transparent and less intrusive for users. All we can hope for is that users realize that they are being fed CRAP by MicroSloth. *sigh*.
I never tire of hearing about the 'generosity' of a 'rich person' - i.e., movie star, CEO, you name it - who gave $5000 to a charity - while pulling away from the curb in a car that costs $150k. Not that he/she shouldn't be able to buy that car, I'm just pointing out that $5k from that person is like $5.00 from me (who drives a $5500 truck) and nobody is crowing about my philanthropy.
Add to that the fact that one would be hard-pressed to find any corporate entity that doesn't donate money to charity, and it's easy to see that there is some benefit in monetary terms, be it through the percieved goodwill of the populace or tax deductions based on those contributions.
Re:Slashdotted Reuters?
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SCO Offline
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LOL! Although I deserved that, sometimes one can actually read something and still miss an important point. Doesn't happen to me often, but *shrug*... Sorry! Please forgive my inattentiveness...:)
I've been working with lots of 'Joe Average' types in the past couple of years, and there have been many abortive attempts to 'Linuxise' my offerings (to friends, family, and moonlighting clients). My wife was a ginea pig for me, switching from her blue-screen plagued windows install on a toshiba 8100 laptop to RedHat 8 + Ximian. She's never looked back. Encouraged by this success, I've brought several other family members and a couple of moonlight clients (barter system - including a veterinarian and a law firm) over to the 'free side'. Very few have experienced any real trouble.
In short, right now, if a given person doesn't absolutely require windows-based apps (like custom applications or games, etc), Linux is ready for the desktop of Joe Average Computer User. The small business office or home user that's not a gamer can recieve significant value increase from Linux, and I have at least 22 happy customers right now.
As one who develops enterprise level data-center solutions for high end customers (hardware and infrastructure, not usually code) I'd have to say I'm just not buying this 'holier than thou' BSD tirade.
While it's true that "Linux" is not the answer to every question, neither is *BSD, or Slowlaris, or AIX... etc.
Yes, many people are "Linux Zealots". Many are "Windows Zealots". But, for my money, if not in numbers, certainly in snobbery quotient, *BSD zealots win...:)
Face it, all of them, from AmigaDOS to ZeOS (wasn't there one called that?), there are zealots - that doesn't mean that everyone who uses Linux is a zealot, or incapable of seeing past the end of his/her floppy disk.
You make a valid point; RAM is extremely important to Gnome/KDE performance. I'm not certain what the baseline system is in 'developing countries' - but let me point out that I can run Gnome convincingly on a p5-133mmx laptop (compared to win95, that shipped with it). It dual boots - BOTH feel extremely slow with the 64 mb RAM (it's gnome 1.4 on RH 7.3) compared to more modern offerings, but the performance is certainly on a par with the OS that shipped with the box. I think working on 2Ghz+ machines with 1 GB RAM biases us; and since many of us would not consider putting Windows of any sort on a p5-133 (too damn slow) we forget what it used to be like.
On the other hand, Ximian D2 on RH9 is awesome on my wife's Toshiba 8100 733Mhz pIII laptop with 256 MB RAM - MUCH faster than XP or 2000 on the same machine, and many times as stable on that hardware platform.
In any case, chosing XFCE or ICEwm doesn't prohibit our developing country linux user from useing Gnome applications, including things like the gnome panel on top of ICEWM, etc. The nicest thing about Gnome (I prefer KDE from a global perspective, but on slower machines I like gnome for this reason) is that I can pick and chose components much more easily than I can with KDE. I can run the WM of choice, and run the panel, and even nautilus, without the entire gnome infrastructure.
After the initial recount was finished (with Bush still in the lead), this deadline passed and the results were certified. Gore then sued to force a selective recount in counties where he stood to gain the most votes after the deadline for certification, effectively changing the existing Florida election law.
Motivated by the declarations that voters - specifically black voters - were denied the right to vote. The 'scrub' of the voting roles targeted disproportionately high numbers of black voters, who, in Fla, statistically vote Democrat. Violations of the Constitutional prohibition against racial discrimination supercede state laws *of any type*.
Mrs. Harris and Gov. Bush didn't "order local elections supervisors" to purge votor registries - they didn't even have the authority to do that.
LOL! As you say, any 5th grade student should know that the legislative branch makes the laws, and the executive branch executes them... So the Fla legislature says, "Remove persons convicted of felonies in FLa and other states that don't return the vote to ex-cons from our voting roles." Then the executive branch proceeds to do so - but the exectutive branch in this case had considerable control over how that was accomplished - with the results we saw in Fla. - the exclusion of thousands of eligible black voters - at a disproportionately high rate when compared to white voters.
If you can't see how he doesn't profit from three high-on-emotion, low-on-fact-but-we-hate-republicans books on this very subject, then maybe you don't understand what a vested interest is.
Ok, I deserved that one. I don't believe that anyone is 'objective' in the absolute sense; yes, I'm certain Mr. Palast has an agenda, and I'll certainly agree that he expresses things in the most inflammatory language possible - this does not, however, invalidate the foundations of his complaints.
You do realize that Dick Cheney divested himself of all financial ties to Halliburton (with the exception of an insured retirement annuity, which doesn't change no matter how much or how little money Halliburton makes)?
Slashdot Mirror
I'm in favor of a strong military. I'm not certain I'm in favor of the US spending more on the military than all other countries combined, and twice as much as the next 24 largest spenders. I'm not certain I believe that level of expenditure is necessary to maintain our freedom.
Also, let us not confuse 'an open mind' with gullibility, ok?
I'm not sure whether you're high, or the History channel. The Messerschmitt 262 was the first warbird with jet engines, and had it entered the fray just a few months earlier, it might have changed the course of history. The jet engine was eminently useful in that application at that time.
Way to dodge! Unfortunately, 'getting root' has a very specific meaning. Compromising a user account with an ID other than 0 is NOT 'getting root', no matter how much you would like it to be for the purpose of the current discussion. And you obviously didn't read the FAQ I linked to. The compromise of a given account doesn't extend to another account - that's the whole purpose of the system.
Think very carefully, and I'm certain you'll be able to grasp this one. A 'buffer overflow exploit' compromises the system that is an endpoint for a network, not the data stream between that system and another. An 'isolated data stream' is what one might capture with a sniffer - eavesdropping - and the security of that stream has to do with ecryption, not the operating system that generated the stream.
It's nice to know that you're not in charge of our national computer resources. Let me explain.
It makes absolutely no difference if you compromise a system, if the data is encrypted appropriately. I assure you that the vast majority of 'secrets' that the NSA might acquire by compromising systems is encrypted. Hell, I'm pretty sure that I don't have anything the NSA might be interested in, but many documents in my home dir are encrypted with GnuPG.
Regardless, no, I don't really believe that the NSA is spending the bulk of its resources locating exploits in common desktop operating systems. I believe that the bulk of the computing resources possessed by the NSA are probably involved in data mining and visualization activities. Searching databases of oil consumption, food consumption, weather patterns, airline traffic patterns, money movements... combining and recombining, presenting different visualizations and comparisons, watching for underlying patterns.
Well, this would indicate to me that you have no idea what issues SELinux might or might not address. Perhaps you should research the topics of your closely held opinions somewhat. From the FAQ:
I would say this rather soundly addresses the concept of "getting root", wouldn't you?
This is exactly the situation that SELinux hopes to address, isn't it?
Come on, that one is too easy... the security of the parent system has absolutely nothing to do with the security of an isolated data stream - i.e., email, instant messenger, http, ftp - you name it. SELinux also does little to address the security of daemons like, say, MySQL - it simply isolates the components so that a compromise of the apache code doesn't translate to a compromise of the system.
There is also the fact that the NSA and DARPA don't have to work to compromise our security - after all, the RIAA and MPAA may engineer us into a government-controlled cryptographic system with government (or copyright holder!) held keys - for Intellectual Properties enforcement, of course.
The question I have is this: If there are hundreds of invisible exploits in the SELinux kernel, how are we to know that the same situation doesn't exist in OpenBSD?
Furthermore, how are we to be certain that OpenBSD (oft touted as the most secure OS in the world, and I'll certainly grant it's one of the most secure out of the box OS's I've ever seen) isn't some clandestine creation of the NSA created to lull paranoid psychotics into believing that they were secured against intrusion?
I've also seen the nests with crushed eggs that collapsed under the weight of the mother 'way back in the gradeschool days, from people who weren't aware of any political agenda behind DDT.
I'm not one to reject out of hand the concept of the government putting political and corporate concerns above and ahead of the health of their citizens. Perhaps you can tell me, then, if it wasn't the DDT used extensively here in the country's breadbasket, what, exactly, was it that caused the fragility of the Raptor's eggs back then, and where did it go?
The key, for you, for me, for anyone who would advance the cause of good software is to identify the goals of management, and show them a scenario in which not only is the better software the best win, that the choice of another alternative is a clear loss.
Find out what the company goals are - read those corporate 'rah-rah' emails for content and figure out what the Vice President of Fecundity is trying to convey. Usually it's about cost cutting.
Then, in the next meeting, lay out the ways that Linux/*BSD/other opensource/fsf type tool meet this goal, and the way that other alternatives don't.
If you can't figure out a way that Linux/*BSD/etc meets those corporate goals better than commercial alternatives, then perhaps you either shouldn't be a Linux supporter, or it's the wrong choice.
On another note, however, Gentoo on a dual 450 U60 is a great desktop!
At that time IBM was still smarting from some close brushes with the Sherman Antitrust Acts. I think they 'threw the game' on the desktop to avoid further attention from the Government, thinking they would be able to retain the server market, simply 'misunderestimating' the connection of the desktop to the server market (I.E., that Micro$oft was going to be able to convince businesses that it was a good idea to put a single user desktop system on midrange servers.).
Hell, I'm just now 40 and have to think more carefully than I did when I was 20 in order to grasp complex concepts. It's an inescapable product of growing older, and anyone that tells you different is either extremely rare and lucky (like, unknown to science) or a liar. Just like presbyopia, arthritis, degradation of fine motor control, etc... these things happen, get over it, cuz you're next. >;)
Wow - Inga really liked that post - she was looking over my shoulder, doublechecking some perl code I was hacking on, when I checked out slashdot on a whim, and here you were! She says "bye", since she has to go change out of the bikini and into some lingerie for the catalog photographers in the back yard garden - they are going to shoot pictures of her on top of the Ferrarri.
The appellations applied to MicroSloth (M$) are similar to the tried and true American Tradition of referring to Ford as "Found On Road Dead", or other folksy, sentimental euphemisms. If that's too tough for you to grasp, I'm really sorry. If you're so invested in your worldview that you're offended by humor, I pity you.
Not only that, many of the 'edutainment' games I've purchased for my 3-year-old are flash and shockwave based; but I have to have windows anyway because the install programs only work in Windows. How stupid is that?
Desktop Conversions: I'm not sure about anyone else, but my company ( a multinational telecommunications company ) rolls out new desktops of MicroSloth crap at least twice a year, and spends the intervening six months trying to make the stuff they just did work - the same crowd that says "You can't have XP because it will bring down the network."
Network Migration: What the hell, guy, are you still running NetBEUI or something? Linux has done SMB (through Samba) for-freaking-ever (in computer years, anyway). Outside of that, even MicroSloth doesn't really attempt to take on Linuxs' networking pedigree.
User Retraining: I would hope that your computer users are somewhat more savvy than, say, my grandfather - who converted to Linux eight months ago; or my wife, who converted over a year ago; or my Aunt Jill, who converted seven months ago and uses her home PC for work tasks. All in all I've had far fewer 'help me' calls from them since upgrading them. The hardest 'retraining task' was getting them to understand network logins and remember their passwords.
Consultants: LOL... Consultants won't recommend Linux conversion, on the whole, not yet. Mostly because their purpose is not to solve a company's technical problems, but to bill hours (and yes, I've been a consultant and I have been told that I 'solved a problem too rapidly').
When you combine all of these costs, double them, and then subtract the cost of troubleshooting and fixing SoBig, MyDoom, and the other litany of M$-based crapola, and, as the previous poster mentioned, the recovered gaming time (since you can't play a lot of the popular games on Linux) and reduced support hours, I think Linux becomes a clear win.
I think that's because Linux bits are lighter than *BSD, so Linux washes up on the shore all the time, whereas the heavier (but more correct) *BSD bits sink to the ocean floor.
Anyone reading this should almost certainly be thinking "Netscape"... Even if it's remotely executed, they can make the search engine appear to be part of the browser, and most users will never know the difference. I think the whole point will be to make the search process more transparent and less intrusive for users. All we can hope for is that users realize that they are being fed CRAP by MicroSloth. *sigh*.
I never tire of hearing about the 'generosity' of a 'rich person' - i.e., movie star, CEO, you name it - who gave $5000 to a charity - while pulling away from the curb in a car that costs $150k. Not that he/she shouldn't be able to buy that car, I'm just pointing out that $5k from that person is like $5.00 from me (who drives a $5500 truck) and nobody is crowing about my philanthropy.
Add to that the fact that one would be hard-pressed to find any corporate entity that doesn't donate money to charity, and it's easy to see that there is some benefit in monetary terms, be it through the percieved goodwill of the populace or tax deductions based on those contributions.
LOL! Although I deserved that, sometimes one can actually read something and still miss an important point. Doesn't happen to me often, but *shrug*... Sorry! Please forgive my inattentiveness... :)
On a side note, what happened to all the sites I saw three days ago that said the payload wouldn't work properly?
And what about the variant that was supposed to target Microsoft?
I've been working with lots of 'Joe Average' types in the past couple of years, and there have been many abortive attempts to 'Linuxise' my offerings (to friends, family, and moonlighting clients). My wife was a ginea pig for me, switching from her blue-screen plagued windows install on a toshiba 8100 laptop to RedHat 8 + Ximian. She's never looked back. Encouraged by this success, I've brought several other family members and a couple of moonlight clients (barter system - including a veterinarian and a law firm) over to the 'free side'. Very few have experienced any real trouble.
In short, right now, if a given person doesn't absolutely require windows-based apps (like custom applications or games, etc), Linux is ready for the desktop of Joe Average Computer User. The small business office or home user that's not a gamer can recieve significant value increase from Linux, and I have at least 22 happy customers right now.
While it's true that "Linux" is not the answer to every question, neither is *BSD, or Slowlaris, or AIX... etc.
Yes, many people are "Linux Zealots". Many are "Windows Zealots". But, for my money, if not in numbers, certainly in snobbery quotient, *BSD zealots win... :)
Face it, all of them, from AmigaDOS to ZeOS (wasn't there one called that?), there are zealots - that doesn't mean that everyone who uses Linux is a zealot, or incapable of seeing past the end of his/her floppy disk.
Guys, Guys, it was Sarcasm... sheesh. Use the editor that works the way you think, and learn to recognize humor... *sigh*
On the other hand, Ximian D2 on RH9 is awesome on my wife's Toshiba 8100 733Mhz pIII laptop with 256 MB RAM - MUCH faster than XP or 2000 on the same machine, and many times as stable on that hardware platform.
In any case, chosing XFCE or ICEwm doesn't prohibit our developing country linux user from useing Gnome applications, including things like the gnome panel on top of ICEWM, etc. The nicest thing about Gnome (I prefer KDE from a global perspective, but on slower machines I like gnome for this reason) is that I can pick and chose components much more easily than I can with KDE. I can run the WM of choice, and run the panel, and even nautilus, without the entire gnome infrastructure.
However...
Motivated by the declarations that voters - specifically black voters - were denied the right to vote. The 'scrub' of the voting roles targeted disproportionately high numbers of black voters, who, in Fla, statistically vote Democrat. Violations of the Constitutional prohibition against racial discrimination supercede state laws *of any type*.
LOL! As you say, any 5th grade student should know that the legislative branch makes the laws, and the executive branch executes them... So the Fla legislature says, "Remove persons convicted of felonies in FLa and other states that don't return the vote to ex-cons from our voting roles." Then the executive branch proceeds to do so - but the exectutive branch in this case had considerable control over how that was accomplished - with the results we saw in Fla. - the exclusion of thousands of eligible black voters - at a disproportionately high rate when compared to white voters.
Ok, I deserved that one. I don't believe that anyone is 'objective' in the absolute sense; yes, I'm certain Mr. Palast has an agenda, and I'll certainly agree that he expresses things in the most inflammatory language possible - this does not, however, invalidate the foundations of his complaints.
And stock options. See this article.
Not to mention the fact that under Cheney's stewardship Halliburton violated several US laws about trading with sanctioned countries like Iraq.