I've done a lot of reading on Copyright law, and as such, knew what you posted already. But I simply hadn't put it together, so I'll put it down here for others that might have missed it too:
None of those 4 reserved rights above say ANYTHING about the copyright holder being able to dictate what means are used to VIEW the copyrighted work. Sure, they control distribution and reproduction, but NOT PRIVATE VIEWING. (Sorry for yelling, I'm trying to make an important point here.)
So to all of you that make the argument that "I created the content, and I have every right to only let people view it that own a brand XYZ computer!" is simply wrong. That isn't one of your rights as a copyright holder. You control only the reproduction and distribution (and public display/preparation of derivative works, irrelevant here).
And, this allows me to get back to one of my central points about DRM:
I will accept DRM the day it doesn't infringe on ANY allowances for Fair Use. Ideally, I would use DRM that only took hold when I tried to copy a copyrighted work and give it (or sell it) to someone else. But if it tries to take hold when I switch computers, or change media players, or buy a new MP3/Ogg player, we've left the realm where I'm infringing on the copyright holder's rights and now the copyright holder is infringing on my rights.
Microsoft has been peddling crap for years and it hasn't really made people switch, by and large.
This is Yet Another Form of DRM, which in general is a Bad Thing, IMHO. I always hated CD keys for any software that could be used offline (like and OS, or most non-MMO games). When Windows XP went to not only requiring a key, but also requiring an online activation, as well as not letting me change my hardware too much without checking in, that sealed the deal. I only use Linux on all my machines now.
But as to your point: if you'd told people in 1991 that their OS wouldn't let them install without a secret key, and without going online to verify their system, they would've said market forces would prevent such a crappy product from being a success. If you'd told them that it would analyze your hardware, and only let you upgrade a certain number of times or in a certain way before it forced you to check back in with the company who wrote it, they would've called you insane. But here we are, and people are buying it like there is no tomorrow.
So, as much as I'd like to think the consumers will rise up and say "No more! I want to decide when I upgrade my hardware, I want to decide if I have to contact Microsoft, and I want to decide where, when and how I enjoy media I pay for!", there is no indication that it will ever happen.
Of course, I feel the same about iTunes and Apple. Every around here lauds Apple's success at making DRM "work", but I stand by, thinking "It only works if you use an iPod, and if you run Windows or OS X, and only if you want Apple to dictate which devices can play your music." Sure, there is Crossover Office that pseudo-supports iTunes under Linux, and there is JHymn, so you can crack all the DRM on every file you download, but c'mon - why support a product that goes out of its way NOT to support you?
And really, it is kind of sad, because it doesn't do anything to stop pirates (all the songs on iTunes are available on peer to peer networks already, so what are we trying to prevent?), and just hinders me from having a Linux client, playing the songs on my JetAudio X5 or my Neuros, or streaming them to my MythTV box in the living room so we can listen to the music during dinner.
I'm not a huge Star Wars 1-3 fan, but I saw all of them in the theaters. The best line in all 3 was Padme's line in the Senate Hall:
"So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause..."
Normally, I'm all about fair treatment of citizens across the world, regardless of their country of origin. But in this case, I really believe the US should retain control.
First off, no one is saying that the US is doing a bad job; they want change because they don't think it "feels right" that the US is controlling everything. This requires a certain amount of faith that a body like the UN can do as good of a job as the US has been doing. I would hate to have a switch take place, and then find that suddenly the services we take for granted are poorly managed and suffer outages.
Secondly, I wouldn't trust a lot of countries in the world to handle the internet in "the right way." One of the thing that makes the internet great is the freedom of speech that is granted by default, and is only selectively taken away based on your jurisdiction. That is a value that the internet has inherited from the US, and it would be a dark day if some international organization (be it the UN or another) adopted a stricter policy on monitoring, "consumer protection", etc. What has made the internet so amazing is the freedom associated with it.
Anyway, unless there is a legitimate gripe in how the internet is being run, I'd suggest leaving well enough alone.
I always find this kind of thing amusing. This is really a manifestation of the fact that normal people are just basically fed up with computers. Worm writers are an outlet for this frustration, which gets us here, repsonding to an op-ed recommending the death penalty for a 17 year old who wrote a program.
Why amusing? Because "normal" people don't seem to turn their anger on some of the root causes. I mean, admit it, the prevalence of worms is really a symptom, not a cause. Anyone who isn't "new here" knows where I'm going with this, but I'll say it anyway: turn an eye towards Redmond for the real culprit.
For folks that a tire of having to run anti-virus, anti-spyware and constantly download and install "service packs" that break programs that they've already paid for, this one is for you. May we all learn to take security seriously in the *design* of the software, rather than tacking it on as an afterthought. Treating security like it is a trivial toy just so you can tack another bullet on the box is the real crime.
I'm serious when I say that I look forward to the "next generation" of operating systems that will hopefully take security FAR more seriously than this generation did. I'm not talking about Longhorn, I'm talking about the operating systems my children will be using (children I don't have yet). Will worms and viruses still exist? Sure. They always will. But at least we'll have some doors with locks, and perhaps a security system by then; right now, most of us live in a tent that we bought that advertised "Sturdy, intruder repellent vinyl!".
Compare an Athlon64 with a Pentium 4 in terms of heat. AMD chips used to be the king of heat 4 years ago...they were dethroned by Intel and the Pentium 4 line some time back...
I agree: if you're searching, something has gone wrong. But when I choose an OS, I would rather have a methodology that I can use when something goes wrong, rather than simply have to give up.
There are a couple aspects to the 4 computers I've installed Gentoo on that were what I would consider "slight problems". Were they annoying? You betcha. But at the end of the day (literally), I have scanners, fully accelerated Xorg, NFS, USB 2.0, Firewire, wireless networking, SATA, sound, DVD burning, and hosts of other "cool" features working completely flawlessly and with excellent stability on all 4.
And I really appreciate Linux for that...it was the community that so many lovingly refer to as the "omgwtfbbqlol" posts that make that possible. Sure, there is your fair share of those types of posts, but when I have a problem, there are literally thousands of people on hand whose problem are similar that I can learn from. In the one case where this wasn't so, I did the work to figure the problem out, and I posted it for others to read, learn from and refine.
Neal Stephonson said in well In the Beginning Was the Command Line. He was describing the state of operating systems, and had an analogy with car dealerships. Windows was the coventional "everyone has one" stationwagon dealership, Apple sells hermitically sealed, sylish, almost "magical" cars, BeOS weighed in with "fully operational Batmobiles", and finally, Linux, which isn't a dealership at all, rather a little camp set up with lots of tents. In the camp, the people are building tanks, and giving them away free by the side of the road. They have a "PR guy" with a bullhorn, trying to alert the customers going to the other dealerships of their product:
Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!" Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!" Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!" Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music." Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!" Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!" Bullhorn: "But..." Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
The moral? That one line about "But you don't know how to maintain a station wagon, either!". The reason I took all this space setting this up is that this an extremly important point. All the people that point ou that newbies don't know how to use Linux are correct. What they're forgetting is that they don't know how to use Windows, either. I'm not here to debate the point, but any self-respecting computer geek can tesitify to the number of Windows-related support calls they get from family and friends. Why do you think they make a "No, I won't fix your computer." t-shirt? A hint: they aren't talking about Linux machines.
So, finally, my point: the argument that you finally "give up and get an OS that just works" is a cop out. There are no operating systems that "just work". Once you accept that (and I have, after working for years with Windows, Mac OS X and various flavors of Linux), the question then becomes whether you want commuity out there to help you. I find that when I google for a Linux issue, I'll get 10 times the documentation I will for problems in Windows, and maybe 20 times as much as I will for problems in Mac OS X. And that's worth a lot to me.
When my wife's scanner stopped working under OS X, it was black magic. One day it worked, the next, it just stopped. No logge
I don't really want or need to explain this to a stranger on the street, whether in 30 seconds or 30 minutes. This simply isn't a consumer level concern.
It is the developers I care about understanding this concept, and I think most of them do. If you don't understand the difference between "open source" and "free", I suggest you read the first couple of parapgraphs over at the fsf's website.
As a Mac user, I wouldn't expect you to use the concepts very often - Mac is an inherently proprietary, locked-in platform - both from a hardware and a software perspective. Most Linux users and software developers do understand, which is why the story made it to the front page of Slashdot in the first place.
I was lucky enough to go to JavaOne, and was sitting in the room as he said this, and it indeed annoyed me.
Politics aside, Richard Stallman makes a very clear distinction between Open Source software and Free software. When people refer to FOSS (Free Open Source Software), they have added BOTH "free" AND "open source" to their acronym - this is to make a clear distinction between software that is merely open source, and software that is both free (as in speech) and open source.
Sure, free means "free of charge" as well as "free speech". I wouldn't dare argue that one definition is more valid than another.
But in the context of "FOSS" or "F/OSS" or even "FLOSS" (Free/Libre Open Source Software), the whole reason to add "Free" to the more traditional "OSS" was to convey "Free as in speech."
Why does it matter? I think Sun wants to confuse the community, and make people think that they are on a bandwagon that they *are not on*. I think Jonathan Schwartz knows what the "free" in FOSS means, and intentionally misused it to make people think that he was really buying into FOSS, when in fact, he hasn't, at least with respect to the the JVM and class files. This is the exact reason Apache Harmony was created.
If this doesn't make sense, try downloading the "Free" Sun JDK from anywhere other than java.sun.com. Try getting it to come bundled with a Linux distribution. You can't do these things, because it *isn't* free, they just don't make you pay for it (at least, for now).
The only other point I want to make is that the "free beer" definition buys you something right *now* - the ability to download the Sun JDK without them charging you for it. If you're getting it without paying, what's the big deal? The big deal is that tomorrow, they *could* start charging for it. And then you can only run as long as it takes for you to need some new feature, or support for new hardware or a new OS. Then you pay.
If it were really free, you don't just get it now, but you also get a guarantee that it will always be available free in some form, as long as people need it and are willing to work on it. And really, that is a big difference.
Generics are key - they move what would be a lot of runtime errors to compile time. As any developer knows, its a whole lot easier to debug compile time errors.
J2SE 5 actually is quite a good platform - they have improved performance, and almost all the sytactic sugar features they implemented are "free" from a performance perspective, while streamlining the code.
The only exeception I know of is the enum's.values() call, which can be expensive if you put it inside your loop.
Four (4) servers? Are you joking? The plural of "anecdote" isn't "data".
Don't say someone's post is crap because you have 4 data points.
At Google, they keep track of how many computers fail PER SECOND in their server rooms. Failure is normal, and unless you're running a few hundred servers of different brands and models, you can't really use your personal experience to say one brand has "fucked up their hardware." Have you even looked at their high end Ultra 20s? Or the new SunFires? Sun makes a pretty decent product these days.
Oh, and by the way, how did Sun "fuck up Java"? I think I missed that article...
I just got out of the opening session for JavaOne here in San Francisco.
They annouced the open sourcing, but also went into features for the next version of Java (Mustang, or Java SE 6).
One of the big ones that folks applauded was that Mustang will have native widget support on Day 1 for Longhorn. Anyway, they know about the "look and feel" issues and obviously have plans for it. It is a lot like the performance gripes people have about Java: sure, it used to be a big issue, but honestly, Sun works to improve things pretty diligently.
That said, someone needs to teach Sun what the "Free" in Free Open Source Software means. They did a whole speech about how it's important that their software remain cost free. No notion whatsoever of Free speech. Oh well...
A step forward, for sure, but if you do this too much, it sort of invalidates the point of running as a user, rather than an admin.
I'd be particualrly scared of running IE this way, for example. It's the programs that can get hijacked that you *don't* want to be running as admin. Of course, IE may run fine with non-elevated rights - I don't know because I don't use Windows.
This is a very interesting point though: merely making a feature available isn't enough. You have to (and I'm talking about Microsoft here) make the developers aware so that they support the new default. In short: you have to actually *believe* tat it is the right way to handle things, rather than paying lip service to the notion of security.
Anyway, they'll eventually come around, I expect, and this is a good start.
Flash is too slow? The article I read said it was much faster, but maybe they were only dealing with reads.
I thought flash was slow, too, but then I reconsidered. Since I only ever use flash over a USB connection, I assumed it was the flash that was slow, when it might have been the connection.
Anyone used flash on anything but USB? Not sure what native speed would be...
Huh? It's not like tons of people aren't already use flash media on airplanes. I doubt this is an issue. I mean, go figure...any non-harddrive MP3 player, plus all those USB sticks and digital cameras. Sounds like FUD to me.
What I'm worried about? Flash tends to go bad after a few thousand writes. Have they gotten around this in the new tech? I read an article about it a couple days ago, but no mention was made about it.
Eh, I'd say the media drove the "newer" definition, and it is therefore the definition "normal" people buy into. That doesn't mean the old definition is invalid by any means.
Actually, wikipedia has a pretty damn good entry for the word.
Actually, the judge distinguishes quite clearly between the Terms of Service an the End User License Agreement. The ToS are stated to be relating to Battle.net, whereas the EULA is the click-through "OK" during install. Neither was available at point of sale, and the judge found both to be binding.
While the case does focus on games that go online through battle.net, nothing about his discussion of EULAs is unique to online software.
I'll admit it is a pain, but if you care about this stuff, I highly recommend reading the court's memo and order. The ramifications of it are enourmous. I'm watching the appeal very closely. There are already some great amicus briefs on the case website at the EFF that point out numerous flaws in the judges reasoning. I haven't done ay background research on this judge, but he seemed biased in his memo, to say the least.
For example, what I said was accurate - he found that doctrine of first sale doesn't apply to software, since solfware isn't sold, it is licensed. This would mean that copyright holders continue to retain their copyright rights over copies that are already in the hands of buyers. This would make it illegal to sell your used PS2, XBox or Gamecube games back to a "trade-in" store, for example.
You should probably check out the Bnetd case over at eff.org. The last ruling handed down (30 Sept 2004) stated that not only does first sale doctrine not apply to software (since the software isn't sold, it is licensed), but also that the EULA does not have to be present at point of sale to be enforceable. All it has to do is make you click "OK" at some point during the install. Despite being widely regarded as a form of adhesion contract, this setup has been validated in a few court cases.
Hopefully the judge for the appeal will not be so myopic in his ruling.
Well, the security of computer systems doesn't rely on paper, or pencil sharpeners. If you had pencil sharpeners exploding in your office, you'd start thinking pretty hard about switching brands.
Sure, a web browser is a tool, but it is a *software* tool. And the thing about software is there is more to it than meets the eye. There is an entire multi-million dollar industry designed around protecting computer systems from security holes in IE (Anti-spyware and anti-virus). This is not the case with paper, or pencil sharpeners, or other tools you mention.
So stop with the errant sophistry in a meek attempt to invalidate my argument - it may fool some readers, but comparing a keyboard and web browser simply isn't valid in this context.
I have no desire to engage in flamewars, and I don't even advocate a particular browser over another (though IE has certainly made my shitlist). What I don't approve of are specious arguments like yours with (dare I say?) silly statements like a browser is just a "window to the web". That reflects a rather naive notion of how client/server architecture works, and a disregard for the axiom that network software MUST be designed with security in mind, not as an afterthought. Of course, as long as we have people that think that way, we'll still have zombie-nets of tens of thousands of exploited computers waiting to execute DDoS attacks for the highest bidder. And you're right, that IS sad.
The phrase "doesn't suck" is usually used by those that remark on its performance from a user perspective: does it support flash? java? How fast does it load? Did I have to pay a lot for it? Does the team fix bugs as they come up? These are all end-user issues.
But if you ask a normal internet user about web standards, they have no clue what you're talking about. All they care is that the page renders properly. Which, for a lot of people, means everyone but IE is broken, when in fact, the opposite is true. IE is the browser that breaks the standards more than any other. This is not and end user issue - it is a developer issue that is transparent to end users.
The same is true of an open source browser. Most users don't care if it is Free Software, so long as it is free software. Another developer issue.
And lastly, cross platform. The VAST majority of users care if it runs on Windows. Maybe some care if it runs on Linux. But in general, you don't hear a of people saying "That browser sucks because it only runs on Windows." or "That browser sucks because it isn't open source." or even "That browser sucks because it doesn't properly support web standards."
I'll tell you what you do hear: "That browser sucks because it takes forever to load and is bloated." and "It sucks because it doesn't work with flash."
That was the dichotomy I was drawing, and it is no way false. It is the line between end-user issues, and developer issues. End users DO care about developer issues, they just don't know it, because it is a long-term concern, and most users only care about right here, right now.
Re-read my post and look for one "war metaphor". I wasn't the one talking about attacking from cover of darkness. I did use the word "ally", but that's not a war metaphor, it's exactly what is going on - in business, you must figure out who is competing with you, and who can help you.
You are a poor student of history if you think the standards are out there, and don't require comparisons to other browsers. Do you even understand why Netscape chose to open source their browser? Do you know what was at stake in the competition between MS and Netscape? It's not about war, it's about monopolistic market control, and the "browser war" wasn't about the end user, it was about control of the server market, and about whether the standards were ever going to even matter (they almost don't, even now). Netscape's choice to open source their browser allowed Apache and Linux to become real competitors in the server space. Without ANY other standards compliant browser, IE literally becomes the standard. If Microsoft controls all of the client software, Microsoft can then lock in the server software to only work with the client.
Luckily, this didn't happen in with the web. But it did with email (just look at exchange and outlook) and with SMB protocol (SAMBA, luckily, hasn't been sued yet). Sure, outlook/exchange isn't all of email, but there are tons of corporations that cannot bring themselves to switch away from Windows Server for an otherwise better product because they need to run Exchange. This could have been so with IIS and Internet Explorer. I believe that products should compete on the basis of price and features, not on the basis of vendor lock-in. This may be unrealistic, but at least it is a goal.
You're wrong that I'm part of a crusade, and wrong that I'd want you to join it, if I were. I have no interest in war metaphors, as you may think. But I do want to see better choice for the customer, and we can't get there if we continue to feed monopolies.
Well, perhaps you are only interested in a "browser that doesn't suck", but other people (i.e. me) may be interested in how well a browser supports web standards, whether it is open source, and how many platforms it runs on. This is on top of "does it suck?" features like security and plug-in support. Mozilla will only scare MS into being "good enough" to take back market share. And it isn't "good enough" that I (or many people, for that matter) are interested in. For example, "good enough" doesn't buy you web standards. Many small browsers allying themselves to pressure the big guys does. And standards are a good thing.
Finally, there is nothing remotely "silly" about a web browser. You may only use it to make snide comments on Slashdot, but web browsers support hundreds of billions of dollars in business, which, I would argue, is far from silly. The security and availability of such a program is quite important, really.
I mean sure...the crackers DO cause all the problems, but you have to develop a system that allows for the existance of the inevitable. Yeah, communism is a great idea, but unless it can be modified to account for the fact that there will be people trying to leech off the system, it won't go very far. Similarly with computers: it's a bit foolish to complain that we wouldn't have to have information security if we didn't have all those darn criminals cracking our computers. There will always be people who want to leech because they're selfish, and there will always be criminal crackers. Part of running a society, or a computer system, is making it resilient to those that don't follow the rules.
He didn't say the market hadn't been good to them, he said the market wasn't mature. And it isn't. The market for toasters is mature. And maybe cars. But not desktop operating systems or search engines.
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I've done a lot of reading on Copyright law, and as such, knew what you posted already. But I simply hadn't put it together, so I'll put it down here for others that might have missed it too:
None of those 4 reserved rights above say ANYTHING about the copyright holder being able to dictate what means are used to VIEW the copyrighted work. Sure, they control distribution and reproduction, but NOT PRIVATE VIEWING. (Sorry for yelling, I'm trying to make an important point here.)
So to all of you that make the argument that "I created the content, and I have every right to only let people view it that own a brand XYZ computer!" is simply wrong. That isn't one of your rights as a copyright holder. You control only the reproduction and distribution (and public display/preparation of derivative works, irrelevant here).
And, this allows me to get back to one of my central points about DRM:
I will accept DRM the day it doesn't infringe on ANY allowances for Fair Use. Ideally, I would use DRM that only took hold when I tried to copy a copyrighted work and give it (or sell it) to someone else. But if it tries to take hold when I switch computers, or change media players, or buy a new MP3/Ogg player, we've left the realm where I'm infringing on the copyright holder's rights and now the copyright holder is infringing on my rights.
Microsoft has been peddling crap for years and it hasn't really made people switch, by and large.
This is Yet Another Form of DRM, which in general is a Bad Thing, IMHO. I always hated CD keys for any software that could be used offline (like and OS, or most non-MMO games). When Windows XP went to not only requiring a key, but also requiring an online activation, as well as not letting me change my hardware too much without checking in, that sealed the deal. I only use Linux on all my machines now.
But as to your point: if you'd told people in 1991 that their OS wouldn't let them install without a secret key, and without going online to verify their system, they would've said market forces would prevent such a crappy product from being a success. If you'd told them that it would analyze your hardware, and only let you upgrade a certain number of times or in a certain way before it forced you to check back in with the company who wrote it, they would've called you insane. But here we are, and people are buying it like there is no tomorrow.
So, as much as I'd like to think the consumers will rise up and say "No more! I want to decide when I upgrade my hardware, I want to decide if I have to contact Microsoft, and I want to decide where, when and how I enjoy media I pay for!", there is no indication that it will ever happen.
Of course, I feel the same about iTunes and Apple. Every around here lauds Apple's success at making DRM "work", but I stand by, thinking "It only works if you use an iPod, and if you run Windows or OS X, and only if you want Apple to dictate which devices can play your music." Sure, there is Crossover Office that pseudo-supports iTunes under Linux, and there is JHymn, so you can crack all the DRM on every file you download, but c'mon - why support a product that goes out of its way NOT to support you?
And really, it is kind of sad, because it doesn't do anything to stop pirates (all the songs on iTunes are available on peer to peer networks already, so what are we trying to prevent?), and just hinders me from having a Linux client, playing the songs on my JetAudio X5 or my Neuros, or streaming them to my MythTV box in the living room so we can listen to the music during dinner.
I'm not a huge Star Wars 1-3 fan, but I saw all of them in the theaters. The best line in all 3 was Padme's line in the Senate Hall:
"So this is how liberty dies, with thunderous applause..."
And so it is.
I'm with rwven on this one.
Normally, I'm all about fair treatment of citizens across the world, regardless of their country of origin. But in this case, I really believe the US should retain control.
First off, no one is saying that the US is doing a bad job; they want change because they don't think it "feels right" that the US is controlling everything. This requires a certain amount of faith that a body like the UN can do as good of a job as the US has been doing. I would hate to have a switch take place, and then find that suddenly the services we take for granted are poorly managed and suffer outages.
Secondly, I wouldn't trust a lot of countries in the world to handle the internet in "the right way." One of the thing that makes the internet great is the freedom of speech that is granted by default, and is only selectively taken away based on your jurisdiction. That is a value that the internet has inherited from the US, and it would be a dark day if some international organization (be it the UN or another) adopted a stricter policy on monitoring, "consumer protection", etc. What has made the internet so amazing is the freedom associated with it.
Anyway, unless there is a legitimate gripe in how the internet is being run, I'd suggest leaving well enough alone.
I always find this kind of thing amusing. This is really a manifestation of the fact that normal people are just basically fed up with computers. Worm writers are an outlet for this frustration, which gets us here, repsonding to an op-ed recommending the death penalty for a 17 year old who wrote a program.
Why amusing? Because "normal" people don't seem to turn their anger on some of the root causes. I mean, admit it, the prevalence of worms is really a symptom, not a cause. Anyone who isn't "new here" knows where I'm going with this, but I'll say it anyway: turn an eye towards Redmond for the real culprit.
For folks that a tire of having to run anti-virus, anti-spyware and constantly download and install "service packs" that break programs that they've already paid for, this one is for you. May we all learn to take security seriously in the *design* of the software, rather than tacking it on as an afterthought. Treating security like it is a trivial toy just so you can tack another bullet on the box is the real crime.
I'm serious when I say that I look forward to the "next generation" of operating systems that will hopefully take security FAR more seriously than this generation did. I'm not talking about Longhorn, I'm talking about the operating systems my children will be using (children I don't have yet). Will worms and viruses still exist? Sure. They always will. But at least we'll have some doors with locks, and perhaps a security system by then; right now, most of us live in a tent that we bought that advertised "Sturdy, intruder repellent vinyl!".
Compare an Athlon64 with a Pentium 4 in terms of heat. AMD chips used to be the king of heat 4 years ago...they were dethroned by Intel and the Pentium 4 line some time back...
There are a couple aspects to the 4 computers I've installed Gentoo on that were what I would consider "slight problems". Were they annoying? You betcha. But at the end of the day (literally), I have scanners, fully accelerated Xorg, NFS, USB 2.0, Firewire, wireless networking, SATA, sound, DVD burning, and hosts of other "cool" features working completely flawlessly and with excellent stability on all 4.
And I really appreciate Linux for that...it was the community that so many lovingly refer to as the "omgwtfbbqlol" posts that make that possible. Sure, there is your fair share of those types of posts, but when I have a problem, there are literally thousands of people on hand whose problem are similar that I can learn from. In the one case where this wasn't so, I did the work to figure the problem out, and I posted it for others to read, learn from and refine.
Neal Stephonson said in well In the Beginning Was the Command Line. He was describing the state of operating systems, and had an analogy with car dealerships. Windows was the coventional "everyone has one" stationwagon dealership, Apple sells hermitically sealed, sylish, almost "magical" cars, BeOS weighed in with "fully operational Batmobiles", and finally, Linux, which isn't a dealership at all, rather a little camp set up with lots of tents. In the camp, the people are building tanks, and giving them away free by the side of the road. They have a "PR guy" with a bullhorn, trying to alert the customers going to the other dealerships of their product:
Hacker with bullhorn: "Save your money! Accept one of our free tanks! It is invulnerable, and can drive across rocks and swamps at ninety miles an hour while getting a hundred miles to the gallon!"
Prospective station wagon buyer: "I know what you say is true...but...er...I don't know how to maintain a tank!"
Bullhorn: "You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!"
Buyer: "But this dealership has mechanics on staff. If something goes wrong with my station wagon, I can take a day off work, bring it here, and pay them to work on it while I sit in the waiting room for hours, listening to elevator music."
Bullhorn: "But if you accept one of our free tanks we will send volunteers to your house to fix it for free while you sleep!"
Buyer: "Stay away from my house, you freak!"
Bullhorn: "But..."
Buyer: "Can't you see that everyone is buying station wagons?"
The moral? That one line about "But you don't know how to maintain a station wagon, either!". The reason I took all this space setting this up is that this an extremly important point. All the people that point ou that newbies don't know how to use Linux are correct. What they're forgetting is that they don't know how to use Windows, either. I'm not here to debate the point, but any self-respecting computer geek can tesitify to the number of Windows-related support calls they get from family and friends. Why do you think they make a "No, I won't fix your computer." t-shirt? A hint: they aren't talking about Linux machines.
So, finally, my point: the argument that you finally "give up and get an OS that just works" is a cop out. There are no operating systems that "just work". Once you accept that (and I have, after working for years with Windows, Mac OS X and various flavors of Linux), the question then becomes whether you want commuity out there to help you. I find that when I google for a Linux issue, I'll get 10 times the documentation I will for problems in Windows, and maybe 20 times as much as I will for problems in Mac OS X. And that's worth a lot to me.
When my wife's scanner stopped working under OS X, it was black magic. One day it worked, the next, it just stopped. No logge
It is the developers I care about understanding this concept, and I think most of them do. If you don't understand the difference between "open source" and "free", I suggest you read the first couple of parapgraphs over at the fsf's website.
As a Mac user, I wouldn't expect you to use the concepts very often - Mac is an inherently proprietary, locked-in platform - both from a hardware and a software perspective. Most Linux users and software developers do understand, which is why the story made it to the front page of Slashdot in the first place.
I was lucky enough to go to JavaOne, and was sitting in the room as he said this, and it indeed annoyed me.
Politics aside, Richard Stallman makes a very clear distinction between Open Source software and Free software. When people refer to FOSS (Free Open Source Software), they have added BOTH "free" AND "open source" to their acronym - this is to make a clear distinction between software that is merely open source, and software that is both free (as in speech) and open source.
Sure, free means "free of charge" as well as "free speech". I wouldn't dare argue that one definition is more valid than another.
But in the context of "FOSS" or "F/OSS" or even "FLOSS" (Free/Libre Open Source Software), the whole reason to add "Free" to the more traditional "OSS" was to convey "Free as in speech."
Why does it matter? I think Sun wants to confuse the community, and make people think that they are on a bandwagon that they *are not on*. I think Jonathan Schwartz knows what the "free" in FOSS means, and intentionally misused it to make people think that he was really buying into FOSS, when in fact, he hasn't, at least with respect to the the JVM and class files. This is the exact reason Apache Harmony was created.
If this doesn't make sense, try downloading the "Free" Sun JDK from anywhere other than java.sun.com. Try getting it to come bundled with a Linux distribution. You can't do these things, because it *isn't* free, they just don't make you pay for it (at least, for now).
The only other point I want to make is that the "free beer" definition buys you something right *now* - the ability to download the Sun JDK without them charging you for it. If you're getting it without paying, what's the big deal? The big deal is that tomorrow, they *could* start charging for it. And then you can only run as long as it takes for you to need some new feature, or support for new hardware or a new OS. Then you pay.
If it were really free, you don't just get it now, but you also get a guarantee that it will always be available free in some form, as long as people need it and are willing to work on it. And really, that is a big difference.
Generics are key - they move what would be a lot of runtime errors to compile time. As any developer knows, its a whole lot easier to debug compile time errors.
.values() call, which can be expensive if you put it inside your loop.
J2SE 5 actually is quite a good platform - they have improved performance, and almost all the sytactic sugar features they implemented are "free" from a performance perspective, while streamlining the code.
The only exeception I know of is the enum's
I guess we just disagree.
Talk about crap.
Four (4) servers? Are you joking? The plural of "anecdote" isn't "data".
Don't say someone's post is crap because you have 4 data points.
At Google, they keep track of how many computers fail PER SECOND in their server rooms. Failure is normal, and unless you're running a few hundred servers of different brands and models, you can't really use your personal experience to say one brand has "fucked up their hardware." Have you even looked at their high end Ultra 20s? Or the new SunFires? Sun makes a pretty decent product these days.
Oh, and by the way, how did Sun "fuck up Java"? I think I missed that article...
Meh.
This is sometimes an issue, sometimes not.
I just got out of the opening session for JavaOne here in San Francisco.
They annouced the open sourcing, but also went into features for the next version of Java (Mustang, or Java SE 6).
One of the big ones that folks applauded was that Mustang will have native widget support on Day 1 for Longhorn. Anyway, they know about the "look and feel" issues and obviously have plans for it. It is a lot like the performance gripes people have about Java: sure, it used to be a big issue, but honestly, Sun works to improve things pretty diligently.
That said, someone needs to teach Sun what the "Free" in Free Open Source Software means. They did a whole speech about how it's important that their software remain cost free. No notion whatsoever of Free speech. Oh well...
A step forward, for sure, but if you do this too much, it sort of invalidates the point of running as a user, rather than an admin.
I'd be particualrly scared of running IE this way, for example. It's the programs that can get hijacked that you *don't* want to be running as admin. Of course, IE may run fine with non-elevated rights - I don't know because I don't use Windows.
This is a very interesting point though: merely making a feature available isn't enough. You have to (and I'm talking about Microsoft here) make the developers aware so that they support the new default. In short: you have to actually *believe* tat it is the right way to handle things, rather than paying lip service to the notion of security.
Anyway, they'll eventually come around, I expect, and this is a good start.
Flash is too slow? The article I read said it was much faster, but maybe they were only dealing with reads.
I thought flash was slow, too, but then I reconsidered. Since I only ever use flash over a USB connection, I assumed it was the flash that was slow, when it might have been the connection.
Anyone used flash on anything but USB? Not sure what native speed would be...
Huh? It's not like tons of people aren't already use flash media on airplanes. I doubt this is an issue. I mean, go figure...any non-harddrive MP3 player, plus all those USB sticks and digital cameras. Sounds like FUD to me.
What I'm worried about? Flash tends to go bad after a few thousand writes. Have they gotten around this in the new tech? I read an article about it a couple days ago, but no mention was made about it.
Actually, wikipedia has a pretty damn good entry for the word.
Best sig ever.
Actually, the judge distinguishes quite clearly between the Terms of Service an the End User License Agreement. The ToS are stated to be relating to Battle.net, whereas the EULA is the click-through "OK" during install. Neither was available at point of sale, and the judge found both to be binding.
While the case does focus on games that go online through battle.net, nothing about his discussion of EULAs is unique to online software.
I'll admit it is a pain, but if you care about this stuff, I highly recommend reading the court's memo and order. The ramifications of it are enourmous. I'm watching the appeal very closely. There are already some great amicus briefs on the case website at the EFF that point out numerous flaws in the judges reasoning. I haven't done ay background research on this judge, but he seemed biased in his memo, to say the least.
For example, what I said was accurate - he found that doctrine of first sale doesn't apply to software, since solfware isn't sold, it is licensed. This would mean that copyright holders continue to retain their copyright rights over copies that are already in the hands of buyers. This would make it illegal to sell your used PS2, XBox or Gamecube games back to a "trade-in" store, for example.
You should probably check out the Bnetd case over at eff.org. The last ruling handed down (30 Sept 2004) stated that not only does first sale doctrine not apply to software (since the software isn't sold, it is licensed), but also that the EULA does not have to be present at point of sale to be enforceable. All it has to do is make you click "OK" at some point during the install. Despite being widely regarded as a form of adhesion contract, this setup has been validated in a few court cases.
Hopefully the judge for the appeal will not be so myopic in his ruling.
You're my hero.
I still like Zen though, just not the middle-class variety. =)
Well, the security of computer systems doesn't rely on paper, or pencil sharpeners. If you had pencil sharpeners exploding in your office, you'd start thinking pretty hard about switching brands.
Sure, a web browser is a tool, but it is a *software* tool. And the thing about software is there is more to it than meets the eye. There is an entire multi-million dollar industry designed around protecting computer systems from security holes in IE (Anti-spyware and anti-virus). This is not the case with paper, or pencil sharpeners, or other tools you mention.
So stop with the errant sophistry in a meek attempt to invalidate my argument - it may fool some readers, but comparing a keyboard and web browser simply isn't valid in this context.
I have no desire to engage in flamewars, and I don't even advocate a particular browser over another (though IE has certainly made my shitlist). What I don't approve of are specious arguments like yours with (dare I say?) silly statements like a browser is just a "window to the web". That reflects a rather naive notion of how client/server architecture works, and a disregard for the axiom that network software MUST be designed with security in mind, not as an afterthought. Of course, as long as we have people that think that way, we'll still have zombie-nets of tens of thousands of exploited computers waiting to execute DDoS attacks for the highest bidder. And you're right, that IS sad.
Not really.
The phrase "doesn't suck" is usually used by those that remark on its performance from a user perspective: does it support flash? java? How fast does it load? Did I have to pay a lot for it? Does the team fix bugs as they come up? These are all end-user issues.
But if you ask a normal internet user about web standards, they have no clue what you're talking about. All they care is that the page renders properly. Which, for a lot of people, means everyone but IE is broken, when in fact, the opposite is true. IE is the browser that breaks the standards more than any other. This is not and end user issue - it is a developer issue that is transparent to end users.
The same is true of an open source browser. Most users don't care if it is Free Software, so long as it is free software. Another developer issue.
And lastly, cross platform. The VAST majority of users care if it runs on Windows. Maybe some care if it runs on Linux. But in general, you don't hear a of people saying "That browser sucks because it only runs on Windows." or "That browser sucks because it isn't open source." or even "That browser sucks because it doesn't properly support web standards."
I'll tell you what you do hear: "That browser sucks because it takes forever to load and is bloated." and "It sucks because it doesn't work with flash."
That was the dichotomy I was drawing, and it is no way false. It is the line between end-user issues, and developer issues. End users DO care about developer issues, they just don't know it, because it is a long-term concern, and most users only care about right here, right now.
Re-read my post and look for one "war metaphor". I wasn't the one talking about attacking from cover of darkness. I did use the word "ally", but that's not a war metaphor, it's exactly what is going on - in business, you must figure out who is competing with you, and who can help you.
You are a poor student of history if you think the standards are out there, and don't require comparisons to other browsers. Do you even understand why Netscape chose to open source their browser? Do you know what was at stake in the competition between MS and Netscape? It's not about war, it's about monopolistic market control, and the "browser war" wasn't about the end user, it was about control of the server market, and about whether the standards were ever going to even matter (they almost don't, even now). Netscape's choice to open source their browser allowed Apache and Linux to become real competitors in the server space. Without ANY other standards compliant browser, IE literally becomes the standard. If Microsoft controls all of the client software, Microsoft can then lock in the server software to only work with the client.
Luckily, this didn't happen in with the web. But it did with email (just look at exchange and outlook) and with SMB protocol (SAMBA, luckily, hasn't been sued yet). Sure, outlook/exchange isn't all of email, but there are tons of corporations that cannot bring themselves to switch away from Windows Server for an otherwise better product because they need to run Exchange. This could have been so with IIS and Internet Explorer. I believe that products should compete on the basis of price and features, not on the basis of vendor lock-in. This may be unrealistic, but at least it is a goal.
You're wrong that I'm part of a crusade, and wrong that I'd want you to join it, if I were. I have no interest in war metaphors, as you may think. But I do want to see better choice for the customer, and we can't get there if we continue to feed monopolies.
Well, perhaps you are only interested in a "browser that doesn't suck", but other people (i.e. me) may be interested in how well a browser supports web standards, whether it is open source, and how many platforms it runs on. This is on top of "does it suck?" features like security and plug-in support. Mozilla will only scare MS into being "good enough" to take back market share. And it isn't "good enough" that I (or many people, for that matter) are interested in. For example, "good enough" doesn't buy you web standards. Many small browsers allying themselves to pressure the big guys does. And standards are a good thing.
Finally, there is nothing remotely "silly" about a web browser. You may only use it to make snide comments on Slashdot, but web browsers support hundreds of billions of dollars in business, which, I would argue, is far from silly. The security and availability of such a program is quite important, really.
I mean sure...the crackers DO cause all the problems, but you have to develop a system that allows for the existance of the inevitable. Yeah, communism is a great idea, but unless it can be modified to account for the fact that there will be people trying to leech off the system, it won't go very far. Similarly with computers: it's a bit foolish to complain that we wouldn't have to have information security if we didn't have all those darn criminals cracking our computers. There will always be people who want to leech because they're selfish, and there will always be criminal crackers. Part of running a society, or a computer system, is making it resilient to those that don't follow the rules.
He didn't say the market hadn't been good to them, he said the market wasn't mature. And it isn't. The market for toasters is mature. And maybe cars. But not desktop operating systems or search engines.