So while Intel is sitting there, fretting about giving away secrets, Apple is producing one portable computer after another that will, reports say, give you a Wi-Fi Network with Yellow Dog Linux that runs just fine. In fact, if the 12" IBM ThinkPad X31 had real support for Wi-Fi under Linux, I might not have even considered the 12" iBook G4. As it stands... sorry, IBM. Better luck in four or five years.
Maybe it is because I'm not a market droid, but what good is a product to a company when they are too afraid to sell it?
The thing that is really cool about Python is that it is so easy to learn the basics - "fits your brain" indeed. I have a non-IT day job and after years of programming nothing more demanding than our video recorder, I wanted to learn a new language. The problem: The only time I really have to study is on Berlin public transport.
That didn't work with Java -- I couldn't even remember that long initialization thingy at the start from sitting to sitting. Freshing up C was to much of a problem, since I was never good enough for it to go subconscious and it takes forever to even say "Hallo World" -- and I have neither the time nor the problems that require such a low level language. Perl looked fun for a while, but two months later I couldn't figure out what I had been trying to do.
So at some point I found Python, and used Learning Python, First Edition as my introduction. If the Second Edition is even close, go for it. Beautiful language, very friendly people on the Tutor list, and if I'm forced to take a few weeks off from the keyboard, I can come right back and still be productive.
No, I will never be a real programmer, let alone a "Hacker", but I am able to get the computer to do the few simple things that I want it to do. Thanks to
Guido van Rossum and his cast of thousands for a free, simple but powerful language that lets us mere mortals do just that.
Why was this modded insightful, given that it is almost totally wrong?
Mozilla Firebird runs wonderfully under KDE (which is how I can bring you this wonderful message) and OpenOffice does, too. Last time I checked, neither were part of the Gnome core applications.
The part about Gimp is obviously true, and I would add that -- as far as I understand it -- the best stable video cutting software on Linux, Kino, is Gnome-based despite the name, too.
Please, there is enough FUD in the world without adding to it from the inside.
...only mine are stronger: If SuSE dumps KDE, I dump SuSE (and probably switch to Gentoo). I have found KDE to be so better suited to how I work, I usually just install Gnome to see what's new, and then never touch it again.
Yes, I did write SuSE and tell them that. I would be nice to think that those kind of emails make a difference.
Note to self: Never post in the early morning before brushing teeth. Apple might be in bloom with OS X, but they still will have not have to "peddle" hard. Argh.
After ten years with Linux and x86 machines, I'm in the process of looking at an iBook for my next laptop instead of trying to force Linux on another unwilling, designed-in-the-Soviet-Union Toshiba or Acer. Three things have surprised me so far:
First, how much catching up Mac OS X still has to do in some respects to Linux. For example, one article in the German magazine "MacWelt" talks about defragmenting the harddisk (!) with Panther. There are all kinds of small things like multiple desktops that I can't seem to find (some of which are of course going to be due to my lack of experience). Of course, in some areas like multimedia Panther simply shreds Linux. When is there going to be a KDE version of iMovie, an Mac fan might ask with some justification.
Second, it is depressing to see how obsessed with money the Mac people still are. This is almost as bad as the Windows crowd. Going through the magazines, program after program is shareware, US$ 30 here, US$ 60 there. The sad part is that these programs are usually small, ridiculously simple tools that Linux includes for free. One good thing about getting KDE to run on the Quartz graphic engine is that it might give the average Apple user a clue to how bad greed is for software development.
Third, the lack of choice. You get one way of doing things with Apple -- a good, well designed, clever, well thought out, ergonomic way, for sure, but that is it. You have to get over feelings like "but where are the other browsers?" or "where are all the other desktops?" at the beginning if you have been using Linux for any period of time. Yeah, you know you're getting what you're getting into, but actually sitting there with one program of a certain time is still a shock.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm going to spend serious money for that iBook. Apple is on the right track here: Printing with CUPS, X11 now included, and bash as the default terminal, so I can go back to blackbox when I'm tried of all the bells and whistles. But when you get past the cool design and ignore the far, far superior multimedia tools, Tux can hold its beak high and proud. Apple is going to have to peddle really hard if they want to continue to want money for their OS.
Why is it that Slashdot for all its geeky power will not let you spell a simple world like uber correctly? It takes to little dots above the u, called "umlauts", but I am unable to get them to display right. Even the codes won't work on preview.
One thing that the American Slashdotters might want to keep in mind is that this is an American-only problem. The German legal system has already made clear what it thinks of SCO's claim, and for some reason I don't think that China -- to take an obviously extreme case -- is going to give a wet firecracker about SCO wanting money for their versions. They'll just do a Bush and say that for reasons of national security, copyrights etc. can be ignored in information infrastructure.
In fact, a lot of countries might be happy about SCO winning the case, because it would do bad things to Linux in the U.S., leaving them them to use high-quality software at a low price, while the U.S. has to pay through the nose for either Microsoft, OS X or SCO-Linux.
Whatever the outcome, this will not be the end of Linux, just Linux U.S.A.. Everybody else is just going to go on as before.
Even if this is a true DOS attack, why is this news? Imagine if Microsoft or Google or IBM put out a press release everytime somebody attacked their servers. If you are a big or a loud company, these things will happen. Don't whine, fix it and get on with life.
> You don't own Win98. It's licensed to you by M$.
Ah, but this is where it gets interesting for those of us who don't live in the U.S.: German law doesn't recognize this little license trick that Microsoft plays in America. I own that copy of Windows98 on my laptop, because I bought that laptop and didn't rent it out or lease it or whatever. In theory at least, I can resell it, too -- but who would buy it?
(Before somebody asks, yes, it boots SuSE by default and we use it as a portable X Terminal to the real computer downstairs and the next laptop is going to be an Apple anyway)
As Bruce Schneier pointed out in his book Secrets and Lies (which you should have read before turning on your computer for the first time), that "biometric" data has to be stored in digital form. Now, if somebody steals that digital data, what are you going to do? He now has the digital equivalent of your retina-picture, so you are going to need new eyes...
If you haven't read this book, rush out and do so now. It explains a lot of things very clearly, though it does make you sick to your stomach when you hear the politicos talk...
Remember Fight Club? Remember Edward Norton's real job?
In the real world, I'm a recall campaign coordinator in a shirt and tie, sitting in the dark with a mouthfull of blood and changing the overheads and slides as my boss tells Microsoft how he chose a particular shade of pale cornflower blue for an icon.
This is from the book, in case you're wondering; if I remember, the chickened out in the film and didn't make the guy a MS rep.
This will give A times B times C equals X a totally new twist every time I see that film...
Does it strike anybody else as strange that the name of Phoenix' PR person for killing the BIOS is the same as the evil guy in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness? The guy whose last words were "The Horror! The Horror!" and who built a small religion around himself? Put up skulls on fence posts around his house?
The poor guy has probably heard those jokes as many times as I have heard stupid comments about Treasure Island, so my heart goes out to him, but still. Phoenix picked somebody named "Mr. Kurtz" to install a BIOS that benefits Microsoft before all? Is everybody sure this is not a parody?
(For those of you have given up on reading anything but Slashdot, this is the book that Apolocalypse Now was based on. Read the book, watch the film, the the Buffy episode that made fun of it)
It is very simple: If SuSE drops KDE, I drop SuSE.
Not to start a war here, but I am tired of having Gnome being pushed for reasons of company politics. Gnome may be right for some people, but it just doesn't do it for me.
If this keeps up, they will get me to install Gentoo yet...
MS Windows. Everybody's clothes are bright blue and yellow because the rebellion's marketing department decided that black leather was just not the family image they are trying to project. Trinity never falls in love with Neo [Gates] because of his glasses and haircut and leaves in disgust after the first film -- but Neo doesn't notice or care. The rebels win when they do this really vicious embrace-and-extend trick and take over the agents. In the end, nobody can tell the difference between the Old Matrix and Matrix XP, except that the world goes blue for a few minutes once a day and everything suddenly seems terribly expensive.
OS X. Everybody wears perfectly designed flower power clothes and smiles in a warm, friendly way. The only exception is Trinity, who wanders around talking about her homework and seems, well, stoned. Neo [Jobs] and the crew jack out a small but unbelievably well trained elite that kicks everybody's ass. Still, they never manage to make significant inroads and when the rebellion almost dies due to lack of interest, the machines actually have to help them out. In the end, everybody just goes to the Merovingian's really cool parties, forgets the war and has great sex for the whole third film.
Linux. Everybody wears black leather, all obviously hand made by people with widely different tastes. Neo [Linus] never really seems to give a damn about the war, but all around him, agents tend to explode and people jack out in droves just the same. His lines are actually funny. Trinity really is the best hand-to-hand fighter, but you never get to see her in action, so teenagers show little interest in the series until the third film. There is no final battle because at some point the machine empire just falls apart, as there is nobody left to supply them with power.
FreeBSD. Everybody has really cool black leather trimmed with red. The rebels are a very small, tight-knit group who are invulnerable, but nobody can agree who Neo is and Trinity never shows up, either. Every time somebody wins a fight against the machines, a different rebel gives them the spoils back and adds some of the rebel's own technology as a free gift. In the end, the rebels hold their own with ease, but the machines' power keeps growing unchecked. The last scene is an agent saying: "The rebels? I thought they were dead."
OS/360. The rebels wear the same suits as the machines, just cleaner, and call each other by their last names. Nobody can tell who Neo is, though Trinity is probably the one in the skirt. They don't sleep, ever, they don't smile, ever, and they don't so much fight as just silently march over their enemies. Each rebel can do really weird stuff like make virtual copies of any other character that fight for him, and the machines are finally defeated by the endless resources the rebels throw at them. Unfortunately, nobody really understands what happened because the rebel's terminology is so strange, and the film bombs.
...if all the software in question was open source, so you could just sit down and rewrite the parts that aren't working?
Tell me again why Apple is less of an evil company than MS. Better design, yes. Better PR, yes. Better product, yes. But better attitude? No, not when push comes to shove.
You forgot three words that I'm unhappy [sic] to supply:
Civil litigation in the U.S.A. is not always about achieving equitible settlement. Its very often about intimidation, marketing, public relations, bragging rights, money, etc.
I just don't believe people still call this crap "justice". I wonder how much of SAP's rank in the world of commercial software is just because they're based in Germany and don't have to deal with the U.S. legal system every single day, don't have to keep a huge standing army of lawyers, don't have to deforest half the globe for letters to other company's lawyers.
I'm aware that this is a subpoena and not an attack on Linus, but from a PR point of view, this is really, really dumb and must be making the people on SCO' side cringe: Linus is just too nice of a guy (at least in the public eye outside of Redmond) to draw into this; this will be sort of like sending a subpeona to Ghandi for a lot of people. Note that even Microsoft has avoided major attacks against "Saint Linus of the Penguin". I wonder if HP will still stand up for their "friends" at SCO and send them money for that road show after this.
You know, it isn't exactly normal to announce who you are going to subpoena. For one thing, the party might go on a 2-year world cruise on a raft or something, and then you might find them hard to timely serve. Not that I'm trying to give Linus any suggestions, of course. But a guy might just find himself pining for the fjords.
Given the snail's pace of the U.S. legal system in this case, he might just decide to stay in Europe.
Oh my God, what is Slashdot coming to? Half of the plot is given away in the posting itself, and the other half in the messages, and nobody is bitching about the lack of a spoiler warning?
Jeez. Next thing you know, they'll be posting that Ahab gets the whale or the Martians get killed by bugs, and people will just shrug. Sigh.
Every time there is a Slashdot posting about X, some idiot comes out with the urban myths that a) nobody uses network transparency, and (even worse) b) it slows the machine down. If you too feel this urge, a) take a look at projects like The Linux Terminal Server Project, which is really, really cool, and b) read up on the technology on X.
I mean, really. This is sort of on the level of "BSD is dead" by now. Oh, wait...
I have had some people say they thought the film was not good, and in each case, they had missed three important things:
1. What "Merv" said about the Oracle's eyes
2. The changes in Smith's eye color during the film
3. Who was left on the ground after the Smiths exploded (like, when did Neo grow breasts).
If you have people who don't like the film, ask them about "eye color" (or "colour", depending). Chances are, they'll just stare at you.
The US Govt was set up that way, and of all of the branches of Government, the judicial branch to this day remains mostly neutral and unbiased.
Which doesn't mean doodoo because the whole judical system is disfunctional. As has been pointed out before, the American legal system is a major part of the problem here. Other countries that are not stuck in the 18th Century such as Germany were able to cut the crap very quickly: Dear SCO, put up or shut up. End of story, no more bullshitting, while we're still screwing around, sending letters, writing memos, spending a fortune on lawyers.
The only good news for Linux in this special case is that the overriding principle of modern American law -- the guy with the most money wins -- means that SCO is going to get stomped by IBM. But this is basically going to be in spite of the legal system, not because of it. Where would your bets be if Microsoft was sueing instead of SCO?
Finally, in your last comment, you seem to link the courts to drafting DMCA and to the war in Iraq... both of which the judicial system had NOTHING to do with.
Sorry, most of the world does see a link because of the way U.S. courts decided that the government can do just whatever they feel like in Guantanamo. This, again, is incomprehensible to non-Americans: Why aren't U.S. soldiers bound by U.S. laws on their own bases? Why can they disregard just about every human right on the planet just because they happen to be in Cuba, and not only get away with it, but also get legal backing?
There is a good reason why Europe and other countries now just laugh in Americans' faces when they hear "Defender of the Free World" or "Protector of Human Rights". And the judical system is part of that problem.
For most businesses, the free Open Office is all they need. There are significant benefits to Open Office. It is much less quirky than Microsoft Office, for example.
One of the most important and in my mind underrated announcements was that Abiword and KWord will be switching to the Open Office file format. If OSS can hammer it into people's heads that this is the format things should be done in, it at least will end the problem of explaining to people why Abiword (small things, any OS) combined with Open Office (large things, any OS) is a valid replacement for MS Word.
That is, if the Abiword people can stop their program from crashing once a session...
Slashdot Mirror
Maybe it is because I'm not a market droid, but what good is a product to a company when they are too afraid to sell it?
That didn't work with Java -- I couldn't even remember that long initialization thingy at the start from sitting to sitting. Freshing up C was to much of a problem, since I was never good enough for it to go subconscious and it takes forever to even say "Hallo World" -- and I have neither the time nor the problems that require such a low level language. Perl looked fun for a while, but two months later I couldn't figure out what I had been trying to do.
So at some point I found Python, and used Learning Python, First Edition as my introduction. If the Second Edition is even close, go for it. Beautiful language, very friendly people on the Tutor list, and if I'm forced to take a few weeks off from the keyboard, I can come right back and still be productive.
No, I will never be a real programmer, let alone a "Hacker", but I am able to get the computer to do the few simple things that I want it to do. Thanks to Guido van Rossum and his cast of thousands for a free, simple but powerful language that lets us mere mortals do just that.
Mozilla Firebird runs wonderfully under KDE (which is how I can bring you this wonderful message) and OpenOffice does, too. Last time I checked, neither were part of the Gnome core applications.
The part about Gimp is obviously true, and I would add that -- as far as I understand it -- the best stable video cutting software on Linux, Kino, is Gnome-based despite the name, too.
Please, there is enough FUD in the world without adding to it from the inside.
When it becomes a crime to own a compiler, only criminals will have compilers.
Maybe our self-declared gun freak ESR was on the right track after all, eh?
Yes, I did write SuSE and tell them that. I would be nice to think that those kind of emails make a difference.
Note to self: Never post in the early morning before brushing teeth. Apple might be in bloom with OS X, but they still will have not have to "peddle" hard. Argh.
First, how much catching up Mac OS X still has to do in some respects to Linux. For example, one article in the German magazine "MacWelt" talks about defragmenting the harddisk (!) with Panther. There are all kinds of small things like multiple desktops that I can't seem to find (some of which are of course going to be due to my lack of experience). Of course, in some areas like multimedia Panther simply shreds Linux. When is there going to be a KDE version of iMovie, an Mac fan might ask with some justification.
Second, it is depressing to see how obsessed with money the Mac people still are. This is almost as bad as the Windows crowd. Going through the magazines, program after program is shareware, US$ 30 here, US$ 60 there. The sad part is that these programs are usually small, ridiculously simple tools that Linux includes for free. One good thing about getting KDE to run on the Quartz graphic engine is that it might give the average Apple user a clue to how bad greed is for software development.
Third, the lack of choice. You get one way of doing things with Apple -- a good, well designed, clever, well thought out, ergonomic way, for sure, but that is it. You have to get over feelings like "but where are the other browsers?" or "where are all the other desktops?" at the beginning if you have been using Linux for any period of time. Yeah, you know you're getting what you're getting into, but actually sitting there with one program of a certain time is still a shock.
Don't get me wrong -- I'm going to spend serious money for that iBook. Apple is on the right track here: Printing with CUPS, X11 now included, and bash as the default terminal, so I can go back to blackbox when I'm tried of all the bells and whistles. But when you get past the cool design and ignore the far, far superior multimedia tools, Tux can hold its beak high and proud. Apple is going to have to peddle really hard if they want to continue to want money for their OS.
Hey guys, what is the problem?
In fact, a lot of countries might be happy about SCO winning the case, because it would do bad things to Linux in the U.S., leaving them them to use high-quality software at a low price, while the U.S. has to pay through the nose for either Microsoft, OS X or SCO-Linux.
Whatever the outcome, this will not be the end of Linux, just Linux U.S.A.. Everybody else is just going to go on as before.
Even if this is a true DOS attack, why is this news? Imagine if Microsoft or Google or IBM put out a press release everytime somebody attacked their servers. If you are a big or a loud company, these things will happen. Don't whine, fix it and get on with life.
Ah, but this is where it gets interesting for those of us who don't live in the U.S.: German law doesn't recognize this little license trick that Microsoft plays in America. I own that copy of Windows98 on my laptop, because I bought that laptop and didn't rent it out or lease it or whatever. In theory at least, I can resell it, too -- but who would buy it?
(Before somebody asks, yes, it boots SuSE by default and we use it as a portable X Terminal to the real computer downstairs and the next laptop is going to be an Apple anyway)
If you haven't read this book, rush out and do so now. It explains a lot of things very clearly, though it does make you sick to your stomach when you hear the politicos talk...
This will give A times B times C equals X a totally new twist every time I see that film ...
The poor guy has probably heard those jokes as many times as I have heard stupid comments about Treasure Island, so my heart goes out to him, but still. Phoenix picked somebody named "Mr. Kurtz" to install a BIOS that benefits Microsoft before all? Is everybody sure this is not a parody?
(For those of you have given up on reading anything but Slashdot, this is the book that Apolocalypse Now was based on. Read the book, watch the film, the the Buffy episode that made fun of it)
Not to start a war here, but I am tired of having Gnome being pushed for reasons of company politics. Gnome may be right for some people, but it just doesn't do it for me.
If this keeps up, they will get me to install Gentoo yet...
Remember if operating systems were airlines"? How about a new list: "If operating systems were Matrix films":
MS Windows. Everybody's clothes are bright blue and yellow because the rebellion's marketing department decided that black leather was just not the family image they are trying to project. Trinity never falls in love with Neo [Gates] because of his glasses and haircut and leaves in disgust after the first film -- but Neo doesn't notice or care. The rebels win when they do this really vicious embrace-and-extend trick and take over the agents. In the end, nobody can tell the difference between the Old Matrix and Matrix XP, except that the world goes blue for a few minutes once a day and everything suddenly seems terribly expensive.
OS X. Everybody wears perfectly designed flower power clothes and smiles in a warm, friendly way. The only exception is Trinity, who wanders around talking about her homework and seems, well, stoned. Neo [Jobs] and the crew jack out a small but unbelievably well trained elite that kicks everybody's ass. Still, they never manage to make significant inroads and when the rebellion almost dies due to lack of interest, the machines actually have to help them out. In the end, everybody just goes to the Merovingian's really cool parties, forgets the war and has great sex for the whole third film.
Linux. Everybody wears black leather, all obviously hand made by people with widely different tastes. Neo [Linus] never really seems to give a damn about the war, but all around him, agents tend to explode and people jack out in droves just the same. His lines are actually funny. Trinity really is the best hand-to-hand fighter, but you never get to see her in action, so teenagers show little interest in the series until the third film. There is no final battle because at some point the machine empire just falls apart, as there is nobody left to supply them with power.
FreeBSD. Everybody has really cool black leather trimmed with red. The rebels are a very small, tight-knit group who are invulnerable, but nobody can agree who Neo is and Trinity never shows up, either. Every time somebody wins a fight against the machines, a different rebel gives them the spoils back and adds some of the rebel's own technology as a free gift. In the end, the rebels hold their own with ease, but the machines' power keeps growing unchecked. The last scene is an agent saying: "The rebels? I thought they were dead."
OS/360. The rebels wear the same suits as the machines, just cleaner, and call each other by their last names. Nobody can tell who Neo is, though Trinity is probably the one in the skirt. They don't sleep, ever, they don't smile, ever, and they don't so much fight as just silently march over their enemies. Each rebel can do really weird stuff like make virtual copies of any other character that fight for him, and the machines are finally defeated by the endless resources the rebels throw at them. Unfortunately, nobody really understands what happened because the rebel's terminology is so strange, and the film bombs.
Tell me again why Apple is less of an evil company than MS. Better design, yes. Better PR, yes. Better product, yes. But better attitude? No, not when push comes to shove.
Then again, Groklaw has this nice quote:
Given the snail's pace of the U.S. legal system in this case, he might just decide to stay in Europe.
Jeez. Next thing you know, they'll be posting that Ahab gets the whale or the Martians get killed by bugs, and people will just shrug. Sigh.
I mean, really. This is sort of on the level of "BSD is dead" by now. Oh, wait...
Neo was supposed to go collect a bunch of people to start the next Zion. Can't do that if they are all dead.
I have had some people say they thought the film was not good, and in each case, they had missed three important things:
1. What "Merv" said about the Oracle's eyes
2. The changes in Smith's eye color during the film
3. Who was left on the ground after the Smiths exploded (like, when did Neo grow breasts).
If you have people who don't like the film, ask them about "eye color" (or "colour", depending). Chances are, they'll just stare at you.
Which doesn't mean doodoo because the whole judical system is disfunctional. As has been pointed out before, the American legal system is a major part of the problem here. Other countries that are not stuck in the 18th Century such as Germany were able to cut the crap very quickly: Dear SCO, put up or shut up. End of story, no more bullshitting, while we're still screwing around, sending letters, writing memos, spending a fortune on lawyers.
The only good news for Linux in this special case is that the overriding principle of modern American law -- the guy with the most money wins -- means that SCO is going to get stomped by IBM. But this is basically going to be in spite of the legal system, not because of it. Where would your bets be if Microsoft was sueing instead of SCO?
Finally, in your last comment, you seem to link the courts to drafting DMCA and to the war in Iraq... both of which the judicial system had NOTHING to do with.
Sorry, most of the world does see a link because of the way U.S. courts decided that the government can do just whatever they feel like in Guantanamo. This, again, is incomprehensible to non-Americans: Why aren't U.S. soldiers bound by U.S. laws on their own bases? Why can they disregard just about every human right on the planet just because they happen to be in Cuba, and not only get away with it, but also get legal backing?
There is a good reason why Europe and other countries now just laugh in Americans' faces when they hear "Defender of the Free World" or "Protector of Human Rights". And the judical system is part of that problem.
One of the most important and in my mind underrated announcements was that Abiword and KWord will be switching to the Open Office file format. If OSS can hammer it into people's heads that this is the format things should be done in, it at least will end the problem of explaining to people why Abiword (small things, any OS) combined with Open Office (large things, any OS) is a valid replacement for MS Word.
That is, if the Abiword people can stop their program from crashing once a session...