... anything, Gator included, that monitors a users habits or actions by any method and in any way is by definition spyware. Whether the person agrees to it or not is immaterial; the law cannot enforce a contract that is illegal.
How is agreeing to the Gator contract illegal? It's simple, at least insofar as Canadian law is concerned. You cannot agree to allow someone to monitor your activites by way of cookies due to the recent ammendments to the Canadian wiretap acts (there are several).
The case then becomes an arguement over whether Gator monitors cookies. As it's not open-source, we may never be sure, but as far as I am concerned, it does. On my network, Gator is something that is expressely disallowed.
You speak as if I should have some unexplainable hatred of FreeBSD. For that matter, I don't hate Windows, I just despise the business practices of Microsoft.
To haul it all back to the point of my comment, we should press "freely-available" software, not just "open-source" software.
Unless I misread the FreeBSD license it only stipulates three things: 1) this software is freely distributable and you can do what you want with it, 2) you can't remove any copyright notices or the like and 3) no one is responsible for the code. Freer even thant the GPL.
IMHO, it's best to get it at the government level first, for then it's much easier to convince big business to use software. As well, the government represents the people, and should be accountable to the people, and it sure would represent us if it was using free software, and could certainly be held more accountable for it's software with open-source as opposed to proprietary (sp.?), closed-source systems.
However, it looks to me that any useful part of this article is buried in beauraucrateese, yes it's a word. However, it's a start, I just worry about whether it's in the right direction. The Linux community as a whole should make sure that the direction is "free" software and not simply "open-source" software. For this, the FreeBSD license is the best. I know that I'll be using it for anything and everything I can in the future.
I agree there, but taking quotes out of context is (unfortunately) a common thing in news media. Actually, as far as news media, slashdot is fairly good for having it less - it doesn't mean I condone it when they do take something out of context, but it's something done much more often elsewheres.
Perhaps, but if he's any sort of legitamate journallist he'd be checking his facts before he posted something, especially something that borders on libel (hell, it would be libel if not for all that "freedom of the press" stuff) It does not speak well of someone who cruxifies one group for something he himself does. On one hand he claims that "Linux priests" push the system with no hard facts, on the other, he himself is pushing on us his perception of the Linux community.
... it's flamebait, but I get the feeling that this is an honest misconception (and a common one, as you'll noticeif you step into the Windows world for any length of time) and not an intentional attack. Just goes to show that the Microsoft FUD machine is in working order, I suppose. We have struggled with the "zealots" as you call them, they're the same people that troll on slashdot. However, he makes some claims that I'd like to refute.
First of all, he makes a distinction about the "Pros", as he calls them, that have technical knowledge but don't press any system, and the "Priests", with which he gives an image of a person who endlessly pushes something without any facts. That we push Linux without facts to back it is both inflammatory and fundamentally untrue. To write an article such as that without checking his facts shows that he does not follow the most basic principle of journalism: always check your facts. In fact, he comes off as one of these aforementioned "preists" as he pushes forward his perception of the Linux community without any facts to back up his claim. The truth and reality of it is that most of the people that push Linux, myself included have used other Operating Systems (OSes) in the past. We switch to Linux because we find technical facts such as the multitudes that are posted here daily compell us to change. Or, in my case, they are so disallusioned with one OS that they switch to another - and I found the Linux worked better than I could have ever hoped for. To make such a baseless distinction as to call those that push Linux basing the push on nothing and tghat the real "Pros" don't push Linux is both wrong and highly inflamatory.
Persoanlly, I take offence to this article. (And yes, I did, to my grave misfortune, RTFA)
Am I such a pansy that I have a moral qualms about someone dying? If so, then please, call me a pansy all you like. Killing period is wrong, no matter how you rationalize it, for all the rationalizations I've heard are excuses and not reasons.
... but who wants to guess that colleteral damage, as the military has come to calling it, or the slaughter of innocent civvies, as I tend to call it, will still happen? A gun is still a gun, and there's still the possiblity of human error. And that's a very real possibility.
Unless I miss my mark, or am on something myself, it seems to me that saying that client-server computing is a sumberging technology is saying that the internet is becoming obsolete...
There's a loaded question. I tend to think that soul is generally synonomous (sp.?) with a conscience with one difference - whereas the mind can be said to have the awareness of the world through the senses, I'd say that the soul can be said to have an awareness of the spiritual.
Can a computer be spiritual? If so, I'd like to see it. That'd be a hell of an AI.
I approve of Open-Source in the public sector for one fundamental reason. The People (used in the broad collective sense) should be able to know what their government is doing and how their doing it, and with the source freely available, it's a lot easier to do a much more detailed analysis of their software side (not to mention more legal) than poking around with their M$ products.
I say more power to Massachusetts. One MS beats down another ^_^
Given how far back on the technology curve MS seems to be as a whole and Bill Gate's own decrying of 64-bit apps, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for Win64. I wouldn't count on it working either. High-priority MS items often have a ton of bugs - imagine how many a low-priority MS item is going to have...
... Adobe's failing to innovate. It can't come up with anything fresh and new - and it's loosing customers over it. 7.0 is my last upgrade unless something life-changing happens to the Adobe Photoshop programming team. I've pretty much switched over to the GIMP as much as I can.
This is the entire way a lot of artists even get exposure... by giving their mustic for free. And some of them are quite good:
Justin Durban AKA Edgen (here), Scott Buckley (here), and Heather Dale (here), to name a few.
Of course they still sell CDs, but it's not a matter of buying their CDs to listen to the music, it's a matter of buying the CDs to support the artist. And that's something I have no problem doing.
... that the lawsuit is explicitly for kernel version 2.6 and up. Those of us who developed our own brands of Linux on previous kernel versions (myself included, I had 2.4 and messed around so much in the code that I didn't want to go 2.6 when it came around) are competely unaffected.
Knowing that, the worse it does is set us back a kernel version (or about 3-4 years). Sure, it hurts, but it won't sink Linux any more than being years behind the technology curve has ever affected Microsoft.
"Proactive fixes" sounds to me much like Microsoft is simply fixing bugs that have been in the system for ages.
As for Linux kernel bugs, being mucking around in it meself and all, I can tell you that it's easy to forget to code tight in one section and have it lead top a security compromise. You can call that a "stupid" bug if you want, but thats where 99% of the Windows bugs likely arise from.
And don't tell me Microsoft's priority is security. It's very low on the list, I'm sure. Their top priority is, and always has been, to make money. That is why the ideal of Open Source Programming appeals to me - when you remove profit as the top priority, you an focus on things like security and your user base.
Just my $0.02
The problem is that you can switch of a client-side message. You cannot switch off a nameserver-side message. Therefore you have their preference forced on you, all while gaining millions upon billions of domains for free where competitors have to pay around $9 for a single domain to use in a similar way. By way of the Fair Competition Law, they have to play by the same rules as everyone else.
If they don't play by the rules, then they should fully expect to face the consequences of their actions.
... for every time something that could vaguely be percieved as a threat to Microsoft suddenly get posted on Slashdot as going to die/possibly dying/dying soon. The truth is, for every thing that competes with Microsoft and gets squashed, there's at least five other things that keep going. The biggest example is in the Haloween docuements. I'm still waiting for Microsost to act on that one...
As much as we all hat to admit it, Microsoft does have competition. Just not a lot. It's loosing it's monopoly hold and Windows is on life support. We as Linux developers have to be ready to cater to the masses when Windows finally falls.
Slashdot Mirror
... they forgot to supeona God.
... anything, Gator included, that monitors a users habits or actions by any method and in any way is by definition spyware. Whether the person agrees to it or not is immaterial; the law cannot enforce a contract that is illegal.
How is agreeing to the Gator contract illegal? It's simple, at least insofar as Canadian law is concerned. You cannot agree to allow someone to monitor your activites by way of cookies due to the recent ammendments to the Canadian wiretap acts (there are several).
The case then becomes an arguement over whether Gator monitors cookies. As it's not open-source, we may never be sure, but as far as I am concerned, it does. On my network, Gator is something that is expressely disallowed.
You speak as if I should have some unexplainable hatred of FreeBSD. For that matter, I don't hate Windows, I just despise the business practices of Microsoft. To haul it all back to the point of my comment, we should press "freely-available" software, not just "open-source" software.
Unless I misread the FreeBSD license it only stipulates three things: 1) this software is freely distributable and you can do what you want with it, 2) you can't remove any copyright notices or the like and 3) no one is responsible for the code. Freer even thant the GPL.
IMHO, it's best to get it at the government level first, for then it's much easier to convince big business to use software. As well, the government represents the people, and should be accountable to the people, and it sure would represent us if it was using free software, and could certainly be held more accountable for it's software with open-source as opposed to proprietary (sp.?), closed-source systems.
However, it looks to me that any useful part of this article is buried in beauraucrateese, yes it's a word. However, it's a start, I just worry about whether it's in the right direction. The Linux community as a whole should make sure that the direction is "free" software and not simply "open-source" software. For this, the FreeBSD license is the best. I know that I'll be using it for anything and everything I can in the future.
I agree there, but taking quotes out of context is (unfortunately) a common thing in news media. Actually, as far as news media, slashdot is fairly good for having it less - it doesn't mean I condone it when they do take something out of context, but it's something done much more often elsewheres.
Perhaps, but if he's any sort of legitamate journallist he'd be checking his facts before he posted something, especially something that borders on libel (hell, it would be libel if not for all that "freedom of the press" stuff) It does not speak well of someone who cruxifies one group for something he himself does. On one hand he claims that "Linux priests" push the system with no hard facts, on the other, he himself is pushing on us his perception of the Linux community.
Sounds like hypocrisy to me.
... it's flamebait, but I get the feeling that this is an honest misconception (and a common one, as you'll noticeif you step into the Windows world for any length of time) and not an intentional attack. Just goes to show that the Microsoft FUD machine is in working order, I suppose. We have struggled with the "zealots" as you call them, they're the same people that troll on slashdot. However, he makes some claims that I'd like to refute.
First of all, he makes a distinction about the "Pros", as he calls them, that have technical knowledge but don't press any system, and the "Priests", with which he gives an image of a person who endlessly pushes something without any facts. That we push Linux without facts to back it is both inflammatory and fundamentally untrue. To write an article such as that without checking his facts shows that he does not follow the most basic principle of journalism: always check your facts. In fact, he comes off as one of these aforementioned "preists" as he pushes forward his perception of the Linux community without any facts to back up his claim. The truth and reality of it is that most of the people that push Linux, myself included have used other Operating Systems (OSes) in the past. We switch to Linux because we find technical facts such as the multitudes that are posted here daily compell us to change. Or, in my case, they are so disallusioned with one OS that they switch to another - and I found the Linux worked better than I could have ever hoped for. To make such a baseless distinction as to call those that push Linux basing the push on nothing and tghat the real "Pros" don't push Linux is both wrong and highly inflamatory.
Persoanlly, I take offence to this article. (And yes, I did, to my grave misfortune, RTFA)
Am I such a pansy that I have a moral qualms about someone dying? If so, then please, call me a pansy all you like. Killing period is wrong, no matter how you rationalize it, for all the rationalizations I've heard are excuses and not reasons.
Excuse me for being ethical and moral.
... but who wants to guess that colleteral damage, as the military has come to calling it, or the slaughter of innocent civvies, as I tend to call it, will still happen? A gun is still a gun, and there's still the possiblity of human error. And that's a very real possibility.
Unless I miss my mark, or am on something myself, it seems to me that saying that client-server computing is a sumberging technology is saying that the internet is becoming obsolete...
I have one, but I'm not exactly your standard home user. I'm a power user - I have to have at least one of anything :)
There's a loaded question. I tend to think that soul is generally synonomous (sp.?) with a conscience with one difference - whereas the mind can be said to have the awareness of the world through the senses, I'd say that the soul can be said to have an awareness of the spiritual.
Can a computer be spiritual? If so, I'd like to see it. That'd be a hell of an AI.
I approve of Open-Source in the public sector for one fundamental reason. The People (used in the broad collective sense) should be able to know what their government is doing and how their doing it, and with the source freely available, it's a lot easier to do a much more detailed analysis of their software side (not to mention more legal) than poking around with their M$ products.
I say more power to Massachusetts. One MS beats down another ^_^
Here's a classic debate topic for you: a computer may gain sentience, but would it ever gain a soul?
... company has monopoly. Company has losts of customers. Company sees sagging bottom line. Company raises prices.
The next step? Company doesn't have as many customers.
Given how far back on the technology curve MS seems to be as a whole and Bill Gate's own decrying of 64-bit apps, I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for Win64. I wouldn't count on it working either. High-priority MS items often have a ton of bugs - imagine how many a low-priority MS item is going to have...
... Adobe's failing to innovate. It can't come up with anything fresh and new - and it's loosing customers over it. 7.0 is my last upgrade unless something life-changing happens to the Adobe Photoshop programming team. I've pretty much switched over to the GIMP as much as I can.
This is the entire way a lot of artists even get exposure... by giving their mustic for free. And some of them are quite good: Justin Durban AKA Edgen (here), Scott Buckley (here), and Heather Dale (here), to name a few. Of course they still sell CDs, but it's not a matter of buying their CDs to listen to the music, it's a matter of buying the CDs to support the artist. And that's something I have no problem doing.
... that the lawsuit is explicitly for kernel version 2.6 and up. Those of us who developed our own brands of Linux on previous kernel versions (myself included, I had 2.4 and messed around so much in the code that I didn't want to go 2.6 when it came around) are competely unaffected.
Knowing that, the worse it does is set us back a kernel version (or about 3-4 years). Sure, it hurts, but it won't sink Linux any more than being years behind the technology curve has ever affected Microsoft.
"Proactive fixes" sounds to me much like Microsoft is simply fixing bugs that have been in the system for ages. As for Linux kernel bugs, being mucking around in it meself and all, I can tell you that it's easy to forget to code tight in one section and have it lead top a security compromise. You can call that a "stupid" bug if you want, but thats where 99% of the Windows bugs likely arise from. And don't tell me Microsoft's priority is security. It's very low on the list, I'm sure. Their top priority is, and always has been, to make money. That is why the ideal of Open Source Programming appeals to me - when you remove profit as the top priority, you an focus on things like security and your user base. Just my $0.02
The problem is that you can switch of a client-side message. You cannot switch off a nameserver-side message. Therefore you have their preference forced on you, all while gaining millions upon billions of domains for free where competitors have to pay around $9 for a single domain to use in a similar way. By way of the Fair Competition Law, they have to play by the same rules as everyone else.
If they don't play by the rules, then they should fully expect to face the consequences of their actions.
... like the companies want to keep people away from future "patches" that may override such annoying services in the future.
Ditto.
... for every time something that could vaguely be percieved as a threat to Microsoft suddenly get posted on Slashdot as going to die/possibly dying/dying soon. The truth is, for every thing that competes with Microsoft and gets squashed, there's at least five other things that keep going. The biggest example is in the Haloween docuements. I'm still waiting for Microsost to act on that one...
As much as we all hat to admit it, Microsoft does have competition. Just not a lot. It's loosing it's monopoly hold and Windows is on life support. We as Linux developers have to be ready to cater to the masses when Windows finally falls.
When, not if