FWIW, I think he's probably right from a technical standpoint. In practice, however, the macrokernel has been far easier to work with. Witness the huge success that macrokernel designs have had over microkernel designs. Even Apple, whose original macs were microkernels, eventually switched over to a macrokernel because of the difficulties of updating the original one.
And lets not forget their belief that ideas may be owned. You'll find it in point number one at this document, published on the the AdTI website. It contains all sorts of factual errors, misconceptions, and outright lies. It was this quote, in particular, that really set me off:
"Unfortunately however, the belief in free exchange characterizes a core disagreement with models (ie. proprietary software) that strive to own and protect ideas, to later leverage their value in the marketplace. Thus, mixing the open source world and the patent world has all the makings of an explosive relationship."
Last time I checked, ideas themselves are not property and cannot be owned. Now, one may secure a right to capitilize exclusively on a new idea (patents), and one my reserve the right to copy original works (copyright), but nobody can own an idea. You may as well try to own the wind.
In my mind, this is the crux of the matter. Many proprietary software companies want to be able to own ideas, to say, that's my idea and you can't use it unless you fork over all of your dough. They hire pundits and paid-for researchers to make absurd claims as though they are obvious truths.
Yep, though one might point out that successfully removing baseball bats from society won't stop beatings from happening anyway. Folks will just use the heavy end of a pool cue, or a tire iron.
Restrictions like the DMCA provides are ineffectual and just plain silly.
Personally, I think that the justice system is tremendously flawed. If you commit a felony, you will be paying for it for the rest of your life. Far longer than the prison term which was supposed to result in having paid your debt to society.
In essence, committing a felony (any felony) in this country means that you will be ostracized for life. In most cases, you can no longer vote, own a weapon, or travel to a foreign country. For some felonies, you must register as a convicted felon in any community you move into. To me, that means a felony conviction is a life sentence, regardless of any prison time that you may serve. That, friends, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment; except that it is no longer unusual.
Possession of child pornography is not illegal because of the content of the image, but because a child was abused in the making of it, and by possessing such an image, the accused is aiding or abetting the abuse of a child. For this reason, hand drawn (or computer generated) fictional images of child pornography are not illegal because no child was harmed in the production of that image.
Remember, the law is not supposed to regulate morality. It is supposed to be used to protect the rights of people.
FYI, the term lolita refers strictly to kiddie porn. It comes from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita that described a sexual relationship between a middle aged man and a twelve year old girl. The book was a best seller.
So anytime you see porn described as "lolita" porn, the chances are excellent that it contains illegal images. Stay far away from that stuff.
Anyone else is welcome to make their own operating system from scratch, build up market share, and tell other people what can and can't happen on their software!
Bzzt! Wrong.
Once you sell a product, it is no longer yours and you do not have the right to dictate what the customer does with it. For instance, if a company like Dell were to buy a million copies of Windows, those copies then belong to Dell and Microsoft should not be allowed to dictate what can and cannot be installed on them.
This, incidently, is why Microsoft has been trying to push the idea of leasing software. That way all rights are retained by Microsoft, including the right to dictate what is installed, or even whether the customer may continue to use the product at all if some condition has not been met.
Just to be clear, point number three was the big one. The fact that Microsoft was able to forbid competition in it's market, and then did so, was what really got them in trouble. If they had allowed computer manufacturers and resellers to install third party browsers in Windows, they would not have had any problems with the DoJ.
Boy, you better hope you have no skeletons in your closet, or that none of your family or friends do. What would you say if it were your brother or your son or daughter that had been caught? Would you call for pulling out his toenails as a deterrent? What other cruel or unusual punishment would you want for your kids when they show an unfortunate lasp of judgement?
Just because somebody you don't know committed a crime you feel passionately about does not mean that person does not have rights or that they should somehow be set aside in the interest of wanton revenge. This my friend, is called being civilized.
Heh, I only use windows when absolutely forced to do so. I normally run some flavor of Linux. I'll be the first to admit that there are many things in Windows that I don't know about.
Bullshit. Harsh penalties do *nothing* to deter crime.
Texas is the death penalty capital of the world. By your logic that would also make it the safest place in the world, yet people are murdered here every day. A person can be imprisoned for years (years!) if caught with trace amounts of cocaine, yet the crack epidemic is as strong as ever. Community services do more for crime prevention than the prison system can ever do. Prisons are necessary of course, if only to separate the truly incalcitrant, but the current reliance on them as a deterance is simply pig-headed.
The point is, discipline is necessary, but not without compassion. Strict adherance to discipline for the sake of revenge mearly engenders hatred in those being disciplined. Unless you kill that person, he will always be a problem. Compassion can divert that hatred so that lessons can truly be learned. Community based organizations can provide that, the prison system cannot.
They should just give the boy (if proven guilty) an appropriate penalty followed by a period of community service. Get the boy involved in his community and he will not be such a problem. That is the only answer to such things.
(Hey mods, mod the parent underrated. His opinion may be wrong, but it is valid non-the-less. It doesn't deserve a troll mod.)
That would be OK so long as he makes sure she really gets it. A simple explanation is not enough, your mom needs to really understand and be able to secure her own network in the future.
If he can do that, I'd consider his debt paid. Then I'd consider hiring him as a consultant.
Would you rather pay them your hard earned cash first and then find out if it really does work correctly on your hardware? It's true that, as their customer, you are paying them to develop a robust Linux solution that works with your hardware, but unlike some other vendors, they don't make you buy it before you find out if it's worth the money. A live evaluation CD is a statement of confidence in their product, and a sign of respect for their customers.
Somebody mod that guy up! He managed to teach me a basic operation that I hadn't know about in my eight years of using MS products. Admitedly, I've been concentrating on Linux for he past three years so that's probably why I missed that particular feature.
While that is a good suggestion, it's also very annoying. If I run as a regular user and want to install something, I have to actually log out, log back in as Administrator, install the software, log out, and then log back in under the normal account.
Why can't Windows just prompt for the Administator password when I want to install something? Not offering that practically ensures that almost nobody will use the normal user settings. It simply makes it too difficult to install software.
I see a lot of posts bitching about wasted resources. How it's been done and failed, and why don't these guys put their skills to use on a real project. Get some perspective people. Linux is cool precisely because there is tremendous duplication of effort. It is this duplication that leads to improvements for everyone. If everybody and their brother can release a distro, as that is indeed possible, the chances for innovation improve dramatically. If there are only a few projects, each with vast armies of volunteer developers, then the admins of each product become a bottleneck for distribution of good ideas. It's not that those folks want to stifle innovation, but that there is simply no way for a small group of folks to handle thousands of good ideas at one time.
That's a big why diversity in software is such a good idea; there are many more chances for innovation. For an example of what happens when there is lack of diversity, look at Internet Explorer and the innovation we (don't) see there.
So quit moaning about yet another distro. Go out and see what they really have to offer, there just might be something there, and even if there's not, it hasn't hurt anything.
Personally, I'd like something like that because I'd be able to run Visual Source Safe under an NTFS file system instead of via Wine on a FAT32 partition. VSS in Wine really sucks, and keeping source code on FAT32 does too.
Dude, if you're looking for performance, go with a flat screen CRT monitor. ViewSonic is my favorite, but there are several other excellent brands. My PF790 has been going strong for a few years now and doesn't show any sign of giving up. It also supports fast refresh rates at very high resolutions. There are several on the market that have very good performance for only 2 or 3 hundred bucks.
LCDs are nice and are very easy on the eyes, but they are simply not comparable to a really good CRT for sheer performance.
Slashdot Mirror
FWIW, I think he's probably right from a technical standpoint. In practice, however, the macrokernel has been far easier to work with. Witness the huge success that macrokernel designs have had over microkernel designs. Even Apple, whose original macs were microkernels, eventually switched over to a macrokernel because of the difficulties of updating the original one.
Last time I checked, ideas themselves are not property and cannot be owned. Now, one may secure a right to capitilize exclusively on a new idea (patents), and one my reserve the right to copy original works (copyright), but nobody can own an idea. You may as well try to own the wind.
In my mind, this is the crux of the matter. Many proprietary software companies want to be able to own ideas, to say, that's my idea and you can't use it unless you fork over all of your dough. They hire pundits and paid-for researchers to make absurd claims as though they are obvious truths.
Ahem! But it is censorship. Whether it is illegal censorship is another matter.
Why would you need an overseas mirror? Please correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the gag rule apply only to the ACLU?
The fan and the exrement are fine. What's missing is Darl's presence downwind.
Yep, though one might point out that successfully removing baseball bats from society won't stop beatings from happening anyway. Folks will just use the heavy end of a pool cue, or a tire iron.
Restrictions like the DMCA provides are ineffectual and just plain silly.
Q: Why do french streets have oak trees planted on each side?
A: So germans can march in the shade.
Personally, I think that the justice system is tremendously flawed. If you commit a felony, you will be paying for it for the rest of your life. Far longer than the prison term which was supposed to result in having paid your debt to society.
In essence, committing a felony (any felony) in this country means that you will be ostracized for life. In most cases, you can no longer vote, own a weapon, or travel to a foreign country. For some felonies, you must register as a convicted felon in any community you move into. To me, that means a felony conviction is a life sentence, regardless of any prison time that you may serve. That, friends, constitutes cruel and unusual punishment; except that it is no longer unusual.
Possession of child pornography is not illegal because of the content of the image, but because a child was abused in the making of it, and by possessing such an image, the accused is aiding or abetting the abuse of a child. For this reason, hand drawn (or computer generated) fictional images of child pornography are not illegal because no child was harmed in the production of that image.
Remember, the law is not supposed to regulate morality. It is supposed to be used to protect the rights of people.
Say, do you know if it's possible to block IE at the firewall?
FYI, the term lolita refers strictly to kiddie porn. It comes from Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita that described a sexual relationship between a middle aged man and a twelve year old girl. The book was a best seller.
So anytime you see porn described as "lolita" porn, the chances are excellent that it contains illegal images. Stay far away from that stuff.
Anyone else is welcome to make their own operating system from scratch, build up market share, and tell other people what can and can't happen on their software!
Bzzt! Wrong.
Once you sell a product, it is no longer yours and you do not have the right to dictate what the customer does with it. For instance, if a company like Dell were to buy a million copies of Windows, those copies then belong to Dell and Microsoft should not be allowed to dictate what can and cannot be installed on them.
This, incidently, is why Microsoft has been trying to push the idea of leasing software. That way all rights are retained by Microsoft, including the right to dictate what is installed, or even whether the customer may continue to use the product at all if some condition has not been met.
Just to be clear, point number three was the big one. The fact that Microsoft was able to forbid competition in it's market, and then did so, was what really got them in trouble. If they had allowed computer manufacturers and resellers to install third party browsers in Windows, they would not have had any problems with the DoJ.
Boy, you better hope you have no skeletons in your closet, or that none of your family or friends do. What would you say if it were your brother or your son or daughter that had been caught? Would you call for pulling out his toenails as a deterrent? What other cruel or unusual punishment would you want for your kids when they show an unfortunate lasp of judgement?
Just because somebody you don't know committed a crime you feel passionately about does not mean that person does not have rights or that they should somehow be set aside in the interest of wanton revenge. This my friend, is called being civilized.
Sorry? Where are you going with this? Why would anyone want to do that?
Heh, I only use windows when absolutely forced to do so. I normally run some flavor of Linux. I'll be the first to admit that there are many things in Windows that I don't know about.
Bullshit. Harsh penalties do *nothing* to deter crime.
Texas is the death penalty capital of the world. By your logic that would also make it the safest place in the world, yet people are murdered here every day. A person can be imprisoned for years (years!) if caught with trace amounts of cocaine, yet the crack epidemic is as strong as ever. Community services do more for crime prevention than the prison system can ever do. Prisons are necessary of course, if only to separate the truly incalcitrant, but the current reliance on them as a deterance is simply pig-headed.
The point is, discipline is necessary, but not without compassion. Strict adherance to discipline for the sake of revenge mearly engenders hatred in those being disciplined. Unless you kill that person, he will always be a problem. Compassion can divert that hatred so that lessons can truly be learned. Community based organizations can provide that, the prison system cannot.
They should just give the boy (if proven guilty) an appropriate penalty followed by a period of community service. Get the boy involved in his community and he will not be such a problem. That is the only answer to such things.
(Hey mods, mod the parent underrated. His opinion may be wrong, but it is valid non-the-less. It doesn't deserve a troll mod.)
That would be OK so long as he makes sure she really gets it. A simple explanation is not enough, your mom needs to really understand and be able to secure her own network in the future.
If he can do that, I'd consider his debt paid. Then I'd consider hiring him as a consultant.
Would you rather pay them your hard earned cash first and then find out if it really does work correctly on your hardware? It's true that, as their customer, you are paying them to develop a robust Linux solution that works with your hardware, but unlike some other vendors, they don't make you buy it before you find out if it's worth the money. A live evaluation CD is a statement of confidence in their product, and a sign of respect for their customers.
Nice tip. It works in XP too!
Somebody mod that guy up! He managed to teach me a basic operation that I hadn't know about in my eight years of using MS products. Admitedly, I've been concentrating on Linux for he past three years so that's probably why I missed that particular feature.
While that is a good suggestion, it's also very annoying. If I run as a regular user and want to install something, I have to actually log out, log back in as Administrator, install the software, log out, and then log back in under the normal account.
Why can't Windows just prompt for the Administator password when I want to install something? Not offering that practically ensures that almost nobody will use the normal user settings. It simply makes it too difficult to install software.
Talk about stupidity....
YARTHMS.
(Yet Another Reason to Hate Microsoft)
I see a lot of posts bitching about wasted resources. How it's been done and failed, and why don't these guys put their skills to use on a real project. Get some perspective people. Linux is cool precisely because there is tremendous duplication of effort. It is this duplication that leads to improvements for everyone. If everybody and their brother can release a distro, as that is indeed possible, the chances for innovation improve dramatically. If there are only a few projects, each with vast armies of volunteer developers, then the admins of each product become a bottleneck for distribution of good ideas. It's not that those folks want to stifle innovation, but that there is simply no way for a small group of folks to handle thousands of good ideas at one time.
That's a big why diversity in software is such a good idea; there are many more chances for innovation. For an example of what happens when there is lack of diversity, look at Internet Explorer and the innovation we (don't) see there.
So quit moaning about yet another distro. Go out and see what they really have to offer, there just might be something there, and even if there's not, it hasn't hurt anything.
Personally, I'd like something like that because I'd be able to run Visual Source Safe under an NTFS file system instead of via Wine on a FAT32 partition. VSS in Wine really sucks, and keeping source code on FAT32 does too.
WTF do they have against animal porn anyway? I mean, animals have libidos too, don't they?
Openprojects is now freenode.net and yes, it does support the /list command.
Dude, if you're looking for performance, go with a flat screen CRT monitor. ViewSonic is my favorite, but there are several other excellent brands. My PF790 has been going strong for a few years now and doesn't show any sign of giving up. It also supports fast refresh rates at very high resolutions. There are several on the market that have very good performance for only 2 or 3 hundred bucks.
LCDs are nice and are very easy on the eyes, but they are simply not comparable to a really good CRT for sheer performance.