I think a useful example of what you are talking about is the history of Radio. Not too long ago, when the radio industry was just starting up, it was fairly commonplace for individuals to set up small transmitters and create their own "stations". Of course, this created complete anarchy, and generally these small operators would step all over each other. If someone stronger than you started jamming your broadcast with their own signal, you just hopped to a different frequency. Once on the air, you could transmit anything you liked -- make up your own shows, read poetry, sing songs, give political commentary -- sort of like the Internet is now.
Of course, the government stepped in to create some kind of order and started regulating the radio spectrum. On the one hand, we have solved the "problem" of the anarchy and the rule of the airwaves by whomever had the money to afford the strongest transmitter, but what do we have left? Endless stations broadcasting Brittney Spiers's latest new single?
Of course, if someone says that a law is supposed to protect our privacy, then it MUST be good for us, just like the way all true Americans know how the Patriot Act MUST be there to protect us!!
I read Groklaw a lot, and I happen to like PJ's style. Sure, she's a bit "Over the Top", but I still think she's funny. I don't take her rants too seriously, but she is good at research. You have to admit that, no matter how much PJ may or may not "spin" the stories, she always puts up the original source material, so it's ultimately up to you to form your own opinions. She also tries to enforce some level of civility in the posts. Some people call that censorship. Others call it keeping out the obvious Trolls. One thing it does have is that the signal-to-noise ratio is several orders of magnitude better than on a lot of other popular Blog sites.
> Harvey Danger is not a person, but the name of the band.
Sort of figured that, but in another sense, the "who" is still the name of the band name, just as I might have said, "Who are 'The Beatles?'" (Oh, and yes, I *DO* know who they were....)
I have to say I don't have any idea who Harvey Danger is, or what style the music is like or if I'll like his songs, however I'm just curious enough to download the album and listen to it. If I like it, I might buy the album, or one of his others (if there are any), or maybe even think about a concert.
I guess distributing on the Internet really is a way to touch more listeners.
The record company measures a "gold" album by how many people have paid money for the album. The artist measures "gold" by how many people have listened to his or her work.
There is a difference between saying ALL stories, and ALL REAL stories. There are certainly interesting stories that really are simply about technology, but they are quickly out-dated. For a story to have staying power, it has to be an honest reflection on how that technology affects us as human beings, and how human beings react to it.
My original assertion was that, it doesn't matter as much if the "science" in SF is real, logical, or even plausible. The purpose is to set up a novel situation, and then explore how people might react to it. Some people may like "hard" science better than impossible fabrications such as FTL drives and androids that think and feel like human beings, but then again, some people like "impossible" stories about elves and magic. That doesn't mean one style is better than the other
All the really Good stories -- the ones that last for generations -- are ultimately about people and how they (we) deal with the world around them. Comedy, tragedy, fantasy, SF, history -- they aren't really about laughs or dragons or things that happened in the past. Those are just the bits and pieces of the framework, just as the special effects in a Great movie aren't an end in themselves.
I happen to like SF because I like the kinds of situations presented, and the way SF looks at how people deal with the ambiguities of technology. I like it better when the "science" is at least plausible, but that's not going to stop me from reading a story about computing machines, written back when people assumed that computers would fill entire buildings.
Well, I have a pretty run-of-the-mill personal site, but I have a large number of pictures, so I get a lot of Google hits. (No, it is NOT porn...) I'm running around 11% Firefox and Mozila, and about 83% IE. The IE traffic has been steadily dropping.
See: AWSTATS page. (Yes, it will be dog slow if everyone hits it at the same time...)
I don't know for sure, but I strongly suspect Linus isn't running a "distro". I suspect he has a smattering of this and that, and he probably DOESN'T keep upgrading all his software (other than the kernel, obviously) every time a new release comes out. Changing software all the time just makes the system unpredictable and you can't tell if if it's the kernel you just changed, or some other piece of software...
Anyone out there remember the old Wire Recorder? It predated the Tape Recorder, putting the same sort of magnetic signal on an extremely fine steel wire. I actually had one at one time. I remember an episode of "Hogan's Heroes" where Hogan received a pair of knitted socks from home. Once Schultz let him have the socks, they took them in and ran them through a hidden wire recorder -- the wire had been hidden in one of the strands of yarn in the socks and contained some sort of secret message...
> Hmmm, there are some downsides: viruses, spyware, malware, trojan horses,.....
I have no doubt there is some validity in this theory, however I have not yet seen this happening. People always have said that, as FOSS software gains market share, it will start to attract more attacks.
Firefox is now at close to 10% of the market by all indications that I have seen. I have yet to hear of any major successful threats against it. I'm sure some will come, but only time will tell if the virus writers like IE because it's popular, or because it's so full of easy security holes...
One of the things that really annoyed me at first about OOo, but which I eventually started to like is the auto word completion. As long as I'm on a reasonably fast computer (I use a *LOT* of old computers) where all the constant repainting doesn't bog things down, I am actually starting to use it on a regular basis. You have to learn to ignore it when it is wrong, and watch for the word it's guessing at. When I am typing straight text (i.e., not trying to create an outline or something more complex), I think it gives me a slight advantage.
For most users, the Internet is either (1) the funny circle-E thing (IE icon), or (2) their NetZero/WalMart/Netscape.com modem connection.
I rebuilt my wife's computer a while ago with Linux and installed Firefox. I even put the same desktop background on it that she had on her old Windows box. I told her, "Click here for the Internet." (She is not completely computer illiterate, and *DOES* understand the difference between the computer and the Internet.)
However, it wasn't until several weeks later that she even realized the computer wasn't running Windows.
(Now, if the CUPS project could get its act together so the freaking printing wasn't so unreliable, I'd be all set....)
I agree, the article was pretty sloppy on its historical details, especially in the Minix reference (that one has been hashed out in countless forums), but I think it still had some interesting points.
In particular, the comments on the possible rise of the IBM Power architecture were interesting. I'm not holding my breath waiting for POWER to take over the World, but there's a good chance it could start to take a significant chunk out of the Wintel monopoly. Seriously, I doubt that it will take off in the desktop or home markets as the author seems to imply, but I could see it as a really exciting change in the server market!!
> And the whole kernel compiling is a horrific concept to non-techies.
Huh??? Which century are you living in? I used to build custom kernels all the time, but it's been several years since I had to compile a kernel. I suspect that the average user needs to recompile a Linux kernel almost as often as they need to re-compile their Windows kernel. Granted, most distros come with horribly bloated kernels with every module in the universe installed, and building a custom kernel is much more efficient. but it is hardly necessary.
I care because, as Linux gains traction in the market,
Manufacturers start releasing Linux drivers for their hardware along side of the Windows and MAC drivers
Web sites stop building their sites to only work with IE on Windows
PC manufacturers sell more systems with Linux pre-installed for the average user (which makes my job of playing everyone's Professional Geek easier).
PC manufacturers reject the idea of hardware which *ONLY* works on Windows (read: winmodem, Windows only printers, etc.)
It becomes easier to convince average users that yes, your little home PC really does work better (fewer viruses, spyware, etc.) with Linux
Budget ISPs (like WalMart, BlueFrog, Nescape, NetZero, etc.) release dialers and connection utilities for Linux, so I don't have to custom configure a system if a friend wants to use a dial-up provider instead of spending $45/month for a Cable or DSL service he or she only uses once in a while
At work, I don't have to fight with the IT group every time they try to re-image my workstation with the latest "Standard" XP image, or explain yet again why I really *DON'T* need to update my anti-virus software on a daily basis in order to keep their network free of virus threats.
I could go on, but these are a few reasons off the top of my head why I think it really does matter that Linux is continuing to gain traction on the desktop. There really are advantages to gaining momentum. Linux was my primary OS long before it was "Popular" or "Politically Correct", but I can see plenty of advances that have come about because Linux is now on everybody's radar screen.
Do I think that 2005 will be the magical "Tipping Point" for Linux? I don't really think we are going to see a mad rush for Linux on computers sold at stores like CompUSA, Best Buy and WalMart, or even online stores like Dell, but there is certainly a smell of change in the air...
MS Linux that works with MS Office, but gives allllll the shiny benefits of Linux (with the backing of MS!)
Huh? You have heard of the GPL, right? I *seriously* doubt that they would do this, because they would still be required to release the source code to all their modifications, and that would effectively expose all their precious little API's, especially for Office.
Besides, why would anyone want to run MS Office on Linux? OpenOffice runs better, and it's free. MS will never give up that cash cow!
Doesn't Freaking Matter
on
Linux, Inc.
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· Score: 1
Ok then...what about the FSF? And the BSD folks who wrote the other set of base tools.
They don't "own" Linux either. Owning a copyright to a GNU based work doesn't mean you can stop people from using it. BSD is the same, only different. You can take a copy of that and make a closed product out of it, but you still can't stop other people from using, or adding to, the original source.
It's sort of like the parable about the guy who took a feather pillow and went down the streets of his village, putting one feather from the pillow on the front doorstep of each house. The next day, he went out to try to gather all the feathers back. Of course, he could no longer do it, since the feathers had blown away.
Point is, once the source is out there, it's forever gone from your control, unless someone violates the original terms of the license (see: SCO). That's the power of FREE software. Oh yes, MS could take a lot of wind out of the sails by pressuring companies to abandon it, and they are certain to start trying legal moves to stop it (read: PATENTS), but it's still a useless effort. Every software engineer in the World has access to Linux. If it isn't developed here, it will be in Brazil, and China, and India, and South Africa, and Germany, and Saudi Arabia, and Japan, and.....
This sounds like a great step, however I am wondering what happens if the collecting spider is running from a 'bot running on a hijacked machine. We are seeing more and more SPAM coming from SMTP engines installed through viruses and worms. It seems a natural next step to use these armies of zombies to run spiders. Then, the honeypot picks up the IP address of the harvester, but not of the real person behind the SPAM.
I've never run knoppix myself (though I've heard great things about it), but I have a feeling it's really tweaked to run in a small footprint. After all, you have to cram the entire OS, drivers and applications into 800Meg.
Honestly, I don't think it was the P90 that hurt me on that box as much as it was the 24Meg RAM, and crusty old hard drives.
> ust a K62300 with 128Megs as my main desktop and it is plenty fast running DSL.
Define "plenty fast"...;-)
Seriously, it depends a lot on expectations. With 128Meg, the box I built ran OK, but it took a long time to load anything. Once applications were up, they ran "OK". However, I'm used to a Dual PIII/500 "Frankenstein Monster" with about 800Meg RAM. It's pretty old, but it's still a lot faster than the K6. Certainly not as fast as my GHz desktop I use at work, but snappy enough that it'll keep me happy for quite a while. The way I work, I usually have five or more desktops active, and 20 to 30 windows open, some of which are rather greedy Java apps. Also, I didn't really do any tuning, such as tweaking the kernel or doing anything other than shutting down unused daemons. It's pretty much out-of-the-box Fedora Core2.
So, yes. A 128Meg box is usable, as long as you have time to wait for things to load, and you have someone to do some fine tuning of the hardware and software to squeeze out a little more performance. If you're looking for a $100 computer for developing nations, it would work just fine, but I think you might have a hard time selling it in the average US household.
You took the words right out of my mouth.... I've got a little Internet gateway (NAT) box running on an old P90 with 28Meg of RAM, and I can even run an Apache server, DHCP and a couple of other server utilities, and it's humming along very nicely, but I think if I tried to bring up X, even at VGA resolution, I'd be sitting there for a week waiting for the swap file! You can run great little Linux servers on bone-yard hardware, but not desktops.
Actually, I did build a FC2 system a little while ago based on an AMD K6-2 chip and 128Meg RAM, and it did "run", but it was painfully slow. I could even bring up Firefox and OO at the same time, if I went out to get a cup of coffee while it was loading. So, technically, yes you could build a usable system on 128Meg, but you wouldn't want to spend too much time sitting in front of it.
Another thing to remember is that, using 64bit in user-land can actually slow down some applications. You're pushing around twice as much data for every single operation. I have a 64bit ULTRASparc running Linux (Aurora). The OS is compiled in 64bit, but most of the applications are still running in 32bit mode. Many applications break when you compile them in 64bit mode. Others work, but slower. Don't think I've seen any actually run faster. Unfortunately, I don't have anywhere near 2Gig RAM on that box, so I can't really take advantage of the addressing space extensions.
> the projects are encouraged in a certain direction.
True enough, but isn't the major advantage of F/OSS that, even if company Foo wants to pour money into developing feature "X", if I want feature "Y", I can still develop that on my own? Granted, it might take more time, and it might even be more difficult, but I'm still free to build any extensions I want, as long as I have the time and resources. Company Foo doesn't "own" the project. They just get to encourage people to develop features they need faster than they might have been developed otherwise...
Slashdot Mirror
Of course, the government stepped in to create some kind of order and started regulating the radio spectrum. On the one hand, we have solved the "problem" of the anarchy and the rule of the airwaves by whomever had the money to afford the strongest transmitter, but what do we have left? Endless stations broadcasting Brittney Spiers's latest new single?
Yea, right.
I read Groklaw a lot, and I happen to like PJ's style. Sure, she's a bit "Over the Top", but I still think she's funny. I don't take her rants too seriously, but she is good at research. You have to admit that, no matter how much PJ may or may not "spin" the stories, she always puts up the original source material, so it's ultimately up to you to form your own opinions. She also tries to enforce some level of civility in the posts. Some people call that censorship. Others call it keeping out the obvious Trolls. One thing it does have is that the signal-to-noise ratio is several orders of magnitude better than on a lot of other popular Blog sites.
Sort of figured that, but in another sense, the "who" is still the name of the band name, just as I might have said, "Who are 'The Beatles?'" (Oh, and yes, I *DO* know who they were....)
I guess distributing on the Internet really is a way to touch more listeners.
The record company measures a "gold" album by how many people have paid money for the album. The artist measures "gold" by how many people have listened to his or her work.
What I will be interested in seeing is how many of those stories are still being read 50 or 100 years from now.
My original assertion was that, it doesn't matter as much if the "science" in SF is real, logical, or even plausible. The purpose is to set up a novel situation, and then explore how people might react to it. Some people may like "hard" science better than impossible fabrications such as FTL drives and androids that think and feel like human beings, but then again, some people like "impossible" stories about elves and magic. That doesn't mean one style is better than the other
I happen to like SF because I like the kinds of situations presented, and the way SF looks at how people deal with the ambiguities of technology. I like it better when the "science" is at least plausible, but that's not going to stop me from reading a story about computing machines, written back when people assumed that computers would fill entire buildings.
See: AWSTATS page. (Yes, it will be dog slow if everyone hits it at the same time...)
I don't know for sure, but I strongly suspect Linus isn't running a "distro". I suspect he has a smattering of this and that, and he probably DOESN'T keep upgrading all his software (other than the kernel, obviously) every time a new release comes out. Changing software all the time just makes the system unpredictable and you can't tell if if it's the kernel you just changed, or some other piece of software...
Yea, the stuff of great spy stories.... ;-)
I have no doubt there is some validity in this theory, however I have not yet seen this happening. People always have said that, as FOSS software gains market share, it will start to attract more attacks.
Firefox is now at close to 10% of the market by all indications that I have seen. I have yet to hear of any major successful threats against it. I'm sure some will come, but only time will tell if the virus writers like IE because it's popular, or because it's so full of easy security holes...
One of the things that really annoyed me at first about OOo, but which I eventually started to like is the auto word completion. As long as I'm on a reasonably fast computer (I use a *LOT* of old computers) where all the constant repainting doesn't bog things down, I am actually starting to use it on a regular basis. You have to learn to ignore it when it is wrong, and watch for the word it's guessing at. When I am typing straight text (i.e., not trying to create an outline or something more complex), I think it gives me a slight advantage.
I rebuilt my wife's computer a while ago with Linux and installed Firefox. I even put the same desktop background on it that she had on her old Windows box. I told her, "Click here for the Internet." (She is not completely computer illiterate, and *DOES* understand the difference between the computer and the Internet.)
However, it wasn't until several weeks later that she even realized the computer wasn't running Windows.
(Now, if the CUPS project could get its act together so the freaking printing wasn't so unreliable, I'd be all set....)
In particular, the comments on the possible rise of the IBM Power architecture were interesting. I'm not holding my breath waiting for POWER to take over the World, but there's a good chance it could start to take a significant chunk out of the Wintel monopoly. Seriously, I doubt that it will take off in the desktop or home markets as the author seems to imply, but I could see it as a really exciting change in the server market!!
Huh??? Which century are you living in? I used to build custom kernels all the time, but it's been several years since I had to compile a kernel. I suspect that the average user needs to recompile a Linux kernel almost as often as they need to re-compile their Windows kernel. Granted, most distros come with horribly bloated kernels with every module in the universe installed, and building a custom kernel is much more efficient. but it is hardly necessary.
- Manufacturers start releasing Linux drivers for their hardware along side of the Windows and MAC drivers
- Web sites stop building their sites to only work with IE on Windows
- PC manufacturers sell more systems with Linux pre-installed for the average user (which makes my job of playing everyone's Professional Geek easier).
- PC manufacturers reject the idea of hardware which *ONLY* works on Windows (read: winmodem, Windows only printers, etc.)
- It becomes easier to convince average users that yes, your little home PC really does work better (fewer viruses, spyware, etc.) with Linux
- Budget ISPs (like WalMart, BlueFrog, Nescape, NetZero, etc.) release dialers and connection utilities for Linux, so I don't have to custom configure a system if a friend wants to use a dial-up provider instead of spending $45/month for a Cable or DSL service he or she only uses once in a while
- At work, I don't have to fight with the IT group every time they try to re-image my workstation with the latest "Standard" XP image, or explain yet again why I really *DON'T* need to update my anti-virus software on a daily basis in order to keep their network free of virus threats.
I could go on, but these are a few reasons off the top of my head why I think it really does matter that Linux is continuing to gain traction on the desktop. There really are advantages to gaining momentum. Linux was my primary OS long before it was "Popular" or "Politically Correct", but I can see plenty of advances that have come about because Linux is now on everybody's radar screen.Do I think that 2005 will be the magical "Tipping Point" for Linux? I don't really think we are going to see a mad rush for Linux on computers sold at stores like CompUSA, Best Buy and WalMart, or even online stores like Dell, but there is certainly a smell of change in the air...
Huh? You have heard of the GPL, right? I *seriously* doubt that they would do this, because they would still be required to release the source code to all their modifications, and that would effectively expose all their precious little API's, especially for Office.
Besides, why would anyone want to run MS Office on Linux? OpenOffice runs better, and it's free. MS will never give up that cash cow!
They don't "own" Linux either. Owning a copyright to a GNU based work doesn't mean you can stop people from using it. BSD is the same, only different. You can take a copy of that and make a closed product out of it, but you still can't stop other people from using, or adding to, the original source.
It's sort of like the parable about the guy who took a feather pillow and went down the streets of his village, putting one feather from the pillow on the front doorstep of each house. The next day, he went out to try to gather all the feathers back. Of course, he could no longer do it, since the feathers had blown away.
Point is, once the source is out there, it's forever gone from your control, unless someone violates the original terms of the license (see: SCO). That's the power of FREE software. Oh yes, MS could take a lot of wind out of the sails by pressuring companies to abandon it, and they are certain to start trying legal moves to stop it (read: PATENTS), but it's still a useless effort. Every software engineer in the World has access to Linux. If it isn't developed here, it will be in Brazil, and China, and India, and South Africa, and Germany, and Saudi Arabia, and Japan, and .....
This sounds like a great step, however I am wondering what happens if the collecting spider is running from a 'bot running on a hijacked machine. We are seeing more and more SPAM coming from SMTP engines installed through viruses and worms. It seems a natural next step to use these armies of zombies to run spiders. Then, the honeypot picks up the IP address of the harvester, but not of the real person behind the SPAM.
Honestly, I don't think it was the P90 that hurt me on that box as much as it was the 24Meg RAM, and crusty old hard drives.
Define "plenty fast"... ;-)
Seriously, it depends a lot on expectations. With 128Meg, the box I built ran OK, but it took a long time to load anything. Once applications were up, they ran "OK". However, I'm used to a Dual PIII/500 "Frankenstein Monster" with about 800Meg RAM. It's pretty old, but it's still a lot faster than the K6. Certainly not as fast as my GHz desktop I use at work, but snappy enough that it'll keep me happy for quite a while. The way I work, I usually have five or more desktops active, and 20 to 30 windows open, some of which are rather greedy Java apps. Also, I didn't really do any tuning, such as tweaking the kernel or doing anything other than shutting down unused daemons. It's pretty much out-of-the-box Fedora Core2.
So, yes. A 128Meg box is usable, as long as you have time to wait for things to load, and you have someone to do some fine tuning of the hardware and software to squeeze out a little more performance. If you're looking for a $100 computer for developing nations, it would work just fine, but I think you might have a hard time selling it in the average US household.
You took the words right out of my mouth.... I've got a little Internet gateway (NAT) box running on an old P90 with 28Meg of RAM, and I can even run an Apache server, DHCP and a couple of other server utilities, and it's humming along very nicely, but I think if I tried to bring up X, even at VGA resolution, I'd be sitting there for a week waiting for the swap file! You can run great little Linux servers on bone-yard hardware, but not desktops.
Actually, I did build a FC2 system a little while ago based on an AMD K6-2 chip and 128Meg RAM, and it did "run", but it was painfully slow. I could even bring up Firefox and OO at the same time, if I went out to get a cup of coffee while it was loading. So, technically, yes you could build a usable system on 128Meg, but you wouldn't want to spend too much time sitting in front of it.
Another thing to remember is that, using 64bit in user-land can actually slow down some applications. You're pushing around twice as much data for every single operation. I have a 64bit ULTRASparc running Linux (Aurora). The OS is compiled in 64bit, but most of the applications are still running in 32bit mode. Many applications break when you compile them in 64bit mode. Others work, but slower. Don't think I've seen any actually run faster. Unfortunately, I don't have anywhere near 2Gig RAM on that box, so I can't really take advantage of the addressing space extensions.
True enough, but isn't the major advantage of F/OSS that, even if company Foo wants to pour money into developing feature "X", if I want feature "Y", I can still develop that on my own? Granted, it might take more time, and it might even be more difficult, but I'm still free to build any extensions I want, as long as I have the time and resources. Company Foo doesn't "own" the project. They just get to encourage people to develop features they need faster than they might have been developed otherwise...