OK... it's not at work, but it's on the way to and from work.
Think about it. You have to get to work anyway. Why not use that time getting in shape? I've ridden to work on a regualr basis for close to 20 years (less a couple breaks for various reasons). I've gone anywhere from 3 miles to 20 miles (one way). Right now, I'm going 8 miles each way, which I think is about optimal. When I was 5 miles from work, I rode through the year, including upstate NY winters. Going 20 miles was hard, and I only did it two or three times a week.
It's not for everyone, and it takes some hard work and dedication, but it does keep you in shape, and it's a great way to use what would otherwise be wasted time stewing in traffic behind the wheel of a car.
Sometimes I wonder about that, looking at his latest string of big name cases...;-)
> Why would you think it's valid if the work in question is a derivative of someone else's work, as SCO claims?
Doesn't matter. There is a heck of a lot of code in the linux kernel (something like 99.99% of it by SCO's count) that predates any contributions from Caldera (legally or otherwise) to which they can make no claim. If they are in violation of copyright, then the copyright owners can go after them.
Of course, it's probably a heck of a lot more complicated than that, which is why SCO is paying big bucks for Boies to weezle his way through all the loopholes. However, I think they are skating on thinner and thinner ice. It almost looks like they are baiting the Linux developers into some sort of complicated legal trap, which is probably why IBM legal department is still keeping its head down, giving them no target to shoot at.
> Actually, the GPL doesn't prevent you from charging for gpl'd code.
True enough. However, it does prevent you from removing the rights of your customers to re-distribute the code. In other words, you can charge anything you like for the code, but you can't slap a license on it prohibiting the further distribution of the GPL'ed code.
It all depends on how they word the actual license.
> Paying the fee actually opens companies to liability from Linux developers. Because now they have received a copy of Linux code in violation of the GPL
Looking at the GPL, it sounds like the end users are still safe, unless they try to pass it along and make their customers pay. The GPL states that, even if the software is distributed in violation of the GPL, the software itself remains free, and the end users regain all of the rights the original author put on the software. The only one guilty of violating the contract is the distributor (in this case, SCO) who violated the terms. So, this will open SCO to being liable for distributing software that they do not have rights to, but it still protects the end users.
> In fact, if they actually make anyone pay to run linux, then they can be sued by the contributor of every other piece of code for copyright violation. After all, they distributed the rest of the code without a valid license to do so.
Does anyone else get the feeling that this is just the sort of thing people like RMS and the IBM legal department have been quietly waiting for? If SCO is stupid enough to try to enforce this, then they will have the "smoking gun" they need to really slam SCO into the ground, on the basis of clear and continuing violation of a legal contract (the GPL). Basically, they (RMS, etc.) have been patiently waiting for SCO to tie its own noose and stick its head in it, before they trigger the trap door...
>... isn't the concept of ethics linked to the presence of free will?
I will now admit that I haven't read the article yet, but from the blirb, it sounded like the point was not so much to give "ethics" to machines and their decisions, but rather to create a repository of human ethics, and to create a machine (AI) that could tell us what the ethical "Right Thing" would be for us to do in a given situation.
Of course, the more I think about it, the more the whole thing smells of poppycock. Ethics is all a matter of making decisions between conflicting motives. Before you can create perfect ethics, you have to decide which motives are important and which are not, or which are less important. Is it more important to save the life of the President of the US than it is to save the life of some lowly factory worker, since the President is the leader of a nation, and exercises great power and influence over many people? Technically, I could argue that a General in the army is more important than some Private, but I'd have a hard time supporting that on "moral" grounds.
Hey, I'm all for people preaching about Family Values and what-not, and I actually think they are important, but anything with the label, "The Ultimate Guide to Family Values" has got to be smoking some serious dope. Even among conservatives, there are differences of opinion on what exactly constitute "Family Values", so to make the claim of "Ultimate Truth" tells me this bloke doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
> What I am most afraid of is that the court system won't be able to understand the issues at heart and will make a really ignorant ruling.
Based on what happened in the AT&T / BSD case, I think there is a significant chance that the judge will have enough sense to see the facts and the case will come to a reasonable outcome. The BSD people had to make changes to (re-write?) three files, but the entire rest of the code base was janked out from under AT&T. We could end up seeing a lot more UNIX code entering the Open Source arena, if it really is found that SCO (like AT&T before it) is the one stealing copyrighted code.
On the other hand, looking at what happened in the DOJ vs. Microsoft case, we could be screwed....
At this kind of margin, I agree that they will probably have little or no extra cash to donate back to the community.
However, don't count out the value of getting more "desktops" out there in the hands of ordinary users! Every system sold (assuning these boxes are reasonably well built, and configured with software that works well together so the whole thing doesn't just backfire) is another new Linux user. Every new Linux user is another step towards the kind of market share that will get the attention of real, honest, money making businesses. And, if you get their attention, they are going to start looking for Linux developers to build things for these boxes.
It might not be money in my pocket now, but it's more likely I'll have a fun job developing real stuff for Linux and OSS in the future...
My wife, who is no dummy, still has a hard time figuring out the difference between a "single-click" and a "double-click" on the mouse. She uses a computer only when she needs to (mostly word processing and email), and the stuff you and I have hard wired into our brains regarding basic GUI patterns simply haven't been used enough times to sink in. She learns a very narrow path to what she wants to accomplish, and never deviates from that path.
(Of course, if the simplest thing goes wrong, such as a floppy left in the A: drive so the computer won't reboot, she has to call me to fix it, but that just makes me feel needed...;-)
> you will actually get the original.tar.bz2 file file and all the individual patches.
I don't think so. Red Hat at least puts in a lot of small modifications to the actual source code, sometimes back-patching fixes for security updates, or making changes to integrate better with certain applications. (They've got changes to the NFS client support that I find particularly irksome.) They usually do a pretty good job of keeping up with new kernels when they come up, rolling their changes forward, so they aren't really "forking" the code, but they are definitely NOT the same as the tar files you download from kernel.org.
> Odds are that most people are running vendor kernels...
Of course, anyone running a stock, vendor kernel is unlikely to be interested in downloading and building a brand new 2.4.21 kernel.
Having said that, I agree that it's highly unlikely that the patch will cleanly install against a vendor kernel, since they usually have lots of little mods in them.
It's pretty obvious what the point is of popping up an add over another page. It's very much in-your-face, and clear to see, even if it is obnoxioux.
My question is: What is the point of a Popunder? I mean, it's behind your browser window. You probably don't see it until you close the main window. What does it do? Does it allow the advertiser to gather some sort of information from the main window on the browser?
Re:Gator's memory footprint and other amusements
on
Gator Examined
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· Score: 1, Funny
Pfffth! I act as the IT guru for a really tiny, grossly underfunded private school, and the office staff was complaining about how slow the computer there was running. I tried it and found that, even considering the old processor it had, the system was really slow. Then I discovered that that system had Gator installed in it, piggybacked off another "free" application that one of the people had installed*. I finally installed AdAware and used it to purge the system. Fortunately, it was able to remove the Gator crap and all its brethren without breaking anything else.
I was truly amazed at how much quicker the system ran after that was cleaned out.
[*] The application was actually a fairly useful image editing package, which they were using to create fliers and stuff.
Well, it's obvious he reads a lot better than you do. Look at the quote again:
"I think there are at least two public exploits in circulation right now,... And I know there are some that are not public."
It says that there are some exploits which are well understood, and probably well documented, and then some others that are not public. In other words, he knows something exists, but that doesn't mean he knows the details of the exploits. Any time a system is broken into, the exploit leaves a trail of breadcrumbs as it were. You can generally tell if one breakin uses the same vector as another known one, or if it is something new. So, the quote says they have evidence of other exploits, but not necessarily any other details about them.
Besides... what is the advantage of publishing the nature of the exploits? The security vulnerabilities are well known, and already patched. Are you a kiddie looking for another 'sploit script to download and start using on other people's systems?
I don't actually administer the mail server, but I'll pass along the ideas. I don't know if it's just a matter of resources to fix it (i.e., too many other pans in the fire), or other problems (we've got clients still using Win95 on old laptops in some situations), but it's worth looking into.
> What are the "legitimate business reasons" for operating an open relay?
Even though any system can connect, the relay isn't really "open" in the sense that it only accepts email from the outside to addresses in a particular domain, or from users in the domain to addresses on the outside. It has to be open though to support a widely dispersed service and support group for the business, since they don't always know where they are going to be able to connect to the Internet.
The details are a little more complicated than that, but those are the basics.
The one loophole I can think of in this argument though is, if an ISP blocks email from an address in the block list, a customer of that ISP might them complain that he or she is not receiving legitimate mail from that address.
One thing to remember: As much as we all detest SPAM, it is entirely possible for the block list publishers to go overboard. For example, blocking all "open relays" as if they were the same as spam originators. I know of a site that allows outside systems to transfer mail through them. Even though the site carefully filters email for legitimate from or to addresses, it is included on some block lists as an "open relay" because anyone can connect to them. There are legitimate business reasons for what they are doing (they do NOT send commercial solicitations of any kind, solicited or otherwise), so they put up with the black-listing.
Point is - Look before you shoot. Not everything in the world can be as easily classified and pigeonholed as we'd like to think.
One of the countless side-effects of the spread of the Internet is the way that legal issues are spilling over national boundaries. Witness the spread of IP law and international support for patent and copyright enforcement. Witness the World Court and the UN. This spread is being pushed to a large extent by the US, and by US corporations (e.g., Microsoft trying to twist the arm of the Chinese government to make them crack down on software piracy), but the US is by no means the ONLY source.
True, it's hard to enforce laws outside of your borders, but where economic and military power come into play, there are ways to get your point across....
> I finally feel, for the first time in my 28 years, that humanity is actually doing something DIFFERENT and NEW...
HA! You really think this power is going to turn out to be cheap? Look, oil is relatively cheap to produce. It's all the power hungry nations and corporations that make it expensive. Changing sources of power ain't gonna change basic Human Nature. Doesn't matter how cheap the sources are. As long as it still takes 100Bn to build a plant, it's going to cost you big bucks to buy power. Look at software fer crying out loud. That's FREE to produce, once you've built the first copy. Does that mean everyone is out there giving away software? Sure, some are, but there's still a lot of money changing hands, either for the software itself or for the services involved in getting it working.
I'd love to see this work, if only to reduce the polution put out by oil and coal fired power plants, but I'm under no illusion that power is going to be free in the future.
Hearing about this bug, I thought I should run another Windows Update on my game box... just to be safe. Well, it ran as normal, but when I rebooted (as you ALWAYS have to do after an update), I noticed something strange. I didn't get the usual login prompt.
Aparrently, the update apparently broke my Windows Networking! I tried it on a couple other computers, and they all did the same thing. Network was still working fine for TCP/IP, but I couldn't see any other computers in the "Neighborhood".
Only way to fix it was to turn off file and folder sharing, reboot, turn it back on again, reload crap off the Win98 disk, and reboot again.
Anyone else see this, or am I just missing something obvious???
Slashdot Mirror
Think about it. You have to get to work anyway. Why not use that time getting in shape? I've ridden to work on a regualr basis for close to 20 years (less a couple breaks for various reasons). I've gone anywhere from 3 miles to 20 miles (one way). Right now, I'm going 8 miles each way, which I think is about optimal. When I was 5 miles from work, I rode through the year, including upstate NY winters. Going 20 miles was hard, and I only did it two or three times a week.
It's not for everyone, and it takes some hard work and dedication, but it does keep you in shape, and it's a great way to use what would otherwise be wasted time stewing in traffic behind the wheel of a car.
Sometimes I wonder about that, looking at his latest string of big name cases... ;-)
> Why would you think it's valid if the work in question is a derivative of someone else's work, as SCO claims?
Doesn't matter. There is a heck of a lot of code in the linux kernel (something like 99.99% of it by SCO's count) that predates any contributions from Caldera (legally or otherwise) to which they can make no claim. If they are in violation of copyright, then the copyright owners can go after them.
Of course, it's probably a heck of a lot more complicated than that, which is why SCO is paying big bucks for Boies to weezle his way through all the loopholes. However, I think they are skating on thinner and thinner ice. It almost looks like they are baiting the Linux developers into some sort of complicated legal trap, which is probably why IBM legal department is still keeping its head down, giving them no target to shoot at.
True enough. However, it does prevent you from removing the rights of your customers to re-distribute the code. In other words, you can charge anything you like for the code, but you can't slap a license on it prohibiting the further distribution of the GPL'ed code.
It all depends on how they word the actual license.
hehehehe.... You even sound good enough to be masquerading as an employee of SCO.
Looking at the GPL, it sounds like the end users are still safe, unless they try to pass it along and make their customers pay. The GPL states that, even if the software is distributed in violation of the GPL, the software itself remains free, and the end users regain all of the rights the original author put on the software. The only one guilty of violating the contract is the distributor (in this case, SCO) who violated the terms. So, this will open SCO to being liable for distributing software that they do not have rights to, but it still protects the end users.
Does anyone else get the feeling that this is just the sort of thing people like RMS and the IBM legal department have been quietly waiting for? If SCO is stupid enough to try to enforce this, then they will have the "smoking gun" they need to really slam SCO into the ground, on the basis of clear and continuing violation of a legal contract (the GPL). Basically, they (RMS, etc.) have been patiently waiting for SCO to tie its own noose and stick its head in it, before they trigger the trap door...
I will now admit that I haven't read the article yet, but from the blirb, it sounded like the point was not so much to give "ethics" to machines and their decisions, but rather to create a repository of human ethics, and to create a machine (AI) that could tell us what the ethical "Right Thing" would be for us to do in a given situation.
Of course, the more I think about it, the more the whole thing smells of poppycock. Ethics is all a matter of making decisions between conflicting motives. Before you can create perfect ethics, you have to decide which motives are important and which are not, or which are less important. Is it more important to save the life of the President of the US than it is to save the life of some lowly factory worker, since the President is the leader of a nation, and exercises great power and influence over many people? Technically, I could argue that a General in the army is more important than some Private, but I'd have a hard time supporting that on "moral" grounds.
Hey, I'm all for people preaching about Family Values and what-not, and I actually think they are important, but anything with the label, "The Ultimate Guide to Family Values" has got to be smoking some serious dope. Even among conservatives, there are differences of opinion on what exactly constitute "Family Values", so to make the claim of "Ultimate Truth" tells me this bloke doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
I had a good friend (old UNIX hacker) who used to always tell me, "GUI's make you stupid!"
Of course, he then went on to programming in a Windows world.
Based on what happened in the AT&T / BSD case, I think there is a significant chance that the judge will have enough sense to see the facts and the case will come to a reasonable outcome. The BSD people had to make changes to (re-write?) three files, but the entire rest of the code base was janked out from under AT&T. We could end up seeing a lot more UNIX code entering the Open Source arena, if it really is found that SCO (like AT&T before it) is the one stealing copyrighted code.
On the other hand, looking at what happened in the DOJ vs. Microsoft case, we could be screwed....
However, don't count out the value of getting more "desktops" out there in the hands of ordinary users! Every system sold (assuning these boxes are reasonably well built, and configured with software that works well together so the whole thing doesn't just backfire) is another new Linux user. Every new Linux user is another step towards the kind of market share that will get the attention of real, honest, money making businesses. And, if you get their attention, they are going to start looking for Linux developers to build things for these boxes.
It might not be money in my pocket now, but it's more likely I'll have a fun job developing real stuff for Linux and OSS in the future...
(Of course, if the simplest thing goes wrong, such as a floppy left in the A: drive so the computer won't reboot, she has to call me to fix it, but that just makes me feel needed... ;-)
I don't think so. Red Hat at least puts in a lot of small modifications to the actual source code, sometimes back-patching fixes for security updates, or making changes to integrate better with certain applications. (They've got changes to the NFS client support that I find particularly irksome.) They usually do a pretty good job of keeping up with new kernels when they come up, rolling their changes forward, so they aren't really "forking" the code, but they are definitely NOT the same as the tar files you download from kernel.org.
Of course, anyone running a stock, vendor kernel is unlikely to be interested in downloading and building a brand new 2.4.21 kernel.
Having said that, I agree that it's highly unlikely that the patch will cleanly install against a vendor kernel, since they usually have lots of little mods in them.
It's pretty obvious what the point is of popping up an add over another page. It's very much in-your-face, and clear to see, even if it is obnoxioux.
My question is: What is the point of a Popunder? I mean, it's behind your browser window. You probably don't see it until you close the main window. What does it do? Does it allow the advertiser to gather some sort of information from the main window on the browser?
I was truly amazed at how much quicker the system ran after that was cleaned out.
[*] The application was actually a fairly useful image editing package, which they were using to create fliers and stuff.
Well, it's obvious he reads a lot better than you do. Look at the quote again:
It says that there are some exploits which are well understood, and probably well documented, and then some others that are not public. In other words, he knows something exists, but that doesn't mean he knows the details of the exploits. Any time a system is broken into, the exploit leaves a trail of breadcrumbs as it were. You can generally tell if one breakin uses the same vector as another known one, or if it is something new. So, the quote says they have evidence of other exploits, but not necessarily any other details about them.Besides... what is the advantage of publishing the nature of the exploits? The security vulnerabilities are well known, and already patched. Are you a kiddie looking for another 'sploit script to download and start using on other people's systems?
I don't actually administer the mail server, but I'll pass along the ideas. I don't know if it's just a matter of resources to fix it (i.e., too many other pans in the fire), or other problems (we've got clients still using Win95 on old laptops in some situations), but it's worth looking into.
Even though any system can connect, the relay isn't really "open" in the sense that it only accepts email from the outside to addresses in a particular domain, or from users in the domain to addresses on the outside. It has to be open though to support a widely dispersed service and support group for the business, since they don't always know where they are going to be able to connect to the Internet.
The details are a little more complicated than that, but those are the basics.
One thing to remember: As much as we all detest SPAM, it is entirely possible for the block list publishers to go overboard. For example, blocking all "open relays" as if they were the same as spam originators. I know of a site that allows outside systems to transfer mail through them. Even though the site carefully filters email for legitimate from or to addresses, it is included on some block lists as an "open relay" because anyone can connect to them. There are legitimate business reasons for what they are doing (they do NOT send commercial solicitations of any kind, solicited or otherwise), so they put up with the black-listing.
Point is - Look before you shoot. Not everything in the world can be as easily classified and pigeonholed as we'd like to think.
True, it's hard to enforce laws outside of your borders, but where economic and military power come into play, there are ways to get your point across....
HA! You really think this power is going to turn out to be cheap? Look, oil is relatively cheap to produce. It's all the power hungry nations and corporations that make it expensive. Changing sources of power ain't gonna change basic Human Nature. Doesn't matter how cheap the sources are. As long as it still takes 100Bn to build a plant, it's going to cost you big bucks to buy power. Look at software fer crying out loud. That's FREE to produce, once you've built the first copy. Does that mean everyone is out there giving away software? Sure, some are, but there's still a lot of money changing hands, either for the software itself or for the services involved in getting it working.
I'd love to see this work, if only to reduce the polution put out by oil and coal fired power plants, but I'm under no illusion that power is going to be free in the future.
Can't say anything about the validity of the reactor, but I can say it makes a very cool desktop background!
Aparrently, the update apparently broke my Windows Networking! I tried it on a couple other computers, and they all did the same thing. Network was still working fine for TCP/IP, but I couldn't see any other computers in the "Neighborhood".
Only way to fix it was to turn off file and folder sharing, reboot, turn it back on again, reload crap off the Win98 disk, and reboot again.
Anyone else see this, or am I just missing something obvious???