I mean, clearly they are simply trying to find some specific area that Windows beats Linux at and have this fact 'endorsed' by an organisation with some respect inside the OSS community.
Would that hurt the reputation of Linux or OSS at all? Seriously: we do have more shortcomings there than holes in a piece of swiss cheese; yet this doesn't deter companies and individuals from adopting OSS and Linux nonetheless.
If Microsoft were to launch a PR campaign pointing at those missing parts; so what? That would only spur more OSS developers to close the gaps more rapidly; and we'll get an even better system in the near future. Not that I'm implying the current developers were too slow; but you get the point.
The number of hours I've wasted writing some hack for ps when I could have just grabbed files out of/proc on Linux is depressing.
Just look at it from the porter's side:/proc misuse is one of the linuxisms that *is* the most difficult to stamp out, or at least to work around, out while porting the apps or scripts to other Unices, like Solaris, or *BSD. It's sad how many Linux developers are sticking to/proc.
The US Pentagon Building is a highly guarded target.
Good point; and rightly so! Yet it was possible for a big slow airliner, hardly vertically maneuverable with enough precision, piloted by a terrorist who was presumably an amateur-pilot, to crash such a plane into the rather low side wall (!) of such a prime target absolutely unhindered. No patriots or other AAA were fired at the approaching BIG plane even though it crossed the Pentagon's vital and last security perimeter. They may be better guarded now, but their security failed miserably back 9/11.
Now, how many really vulnerable targets are protected like the Pentagon?
however, you have not demonstrated that it has had the effect that its users desire.
What do they desire? From their perspective, they are fighting a war against us; and we, by fighting back the way we do (I'm not suggesting we shouldn't; it's the WAY we do it that I'm questioning), do more harm to our society than terrorists could ever have done by themselves. They managed to make us loose reputation in the parts of the world where they would like to have strongholds; and we've lost a good deal of influence nearly everywhere else we go, including with our allies. That's exactly what they wanted and WE are doing them the favor by acting just like they anticipated we would act. So yes, we must fight back, but much more intelligently than we're currently doing.
This is about preventign the enemy from communicating and sharign information to conduct terrorist operations.
Shutting down websites *is* certainly one way to slow down the information flow within such organizations; but it's not very effective. They could also piggy back their data unto spam messages, and use the huge number of Windows zombies to spread their news. The problem with that is that using spam to communicate would effectively thwart traffic analysis that could still be used with static websites.
Al Jazeera continues to grow unimpeeded by the west.
Yes, but they are a television network run from a pro western country that we already control (sort of)...
Well, current terrorism did lead to very significant changes: we keep spending billions of dollars every year on security which could have been put to much better use elsewhere. We've forfeited many civilian liberties, just to appease Joe Sixpack who's getting all panicky. And the mentalities have turned to the worst too. That's a lot of changes we've made to our society just because of a few terrorist attacks (they've had a lot more in Europe before 9/11 but they nowhere overreacted like the world did since then); and THAT's sadly encouraging more terrorists to do more of the same.
Terrorism by itself doesn't do much actual physical damage (outside the crime scene); it's our hysteria that does. Judging by the actual hype, this current wave of terrorism *is* pretty effective by all means.
Oh yeah, Apache + mod_cobol running on a mainframe! Say an S/390 running Linux, and on top of that another mainframe emulation to support the legacy cobol runtime environment!
When was it since you've last tried Zope? They've made some pretty good improvements as of lately. Or are you referring to Plone, which IS really, really slow?
IMHO you're right. That's much more realistic than "MS-GNU".
3) an emulation layer for Win32, allowing practically all existing Win32 apps to run unchanged, which they could bundle with the new OS
That's probably the catch. If such an emulation layer existed for BSD, what would prevent GNU/Linux hackers from writing a bsdlator, similar to BSD's linuxulator, so that all Win32 apps (which would actually be BSD compatible) will also run on Linux? That's not in Microsoft's best interest. Or is it?
How about "BSOD"? That's "O" for "Open".
LOL! But what about the new logo? Beastie with Windows wings?
The codec might be, but the call handling protocol isn't.
Call handling protocols are pretty easy to reverse engineer! That's certainly no big deal. Of course, it is most likely patented... OTOH, if it's a trade secret; there won't be any patent on it (except submarine patents?).
Hmmm.... I guess, getting an OSS version of skype won't be so difficult. The catch is the central call setup server architecture (not unlike bittorrent trackers), which is under Skype control.
A trackerless, decentralized SIP architecture, with a widespread OSS client would be great to have. Anything like that already in the works?
There is none right now. At least not if you need performance, reliability AND a secure solution. The problem is performance, and Cisco is the only router vendor that makes appropriate hardware suitable to big backbones, CIXen etc... Small end users could use Juniper or even OpenBSD based routers, but as soon as requirements go up, there's no competition to Cisco (right now). Plus: most CCIE and CCNA personnel won't settle for anything else than Cisco equipment. Getting trained netadmins is much more difficult than finding a new hardware vendor!
Yes, classic it is; but it's also the only logical one, isn't it? They fix the problem and you fetch a new IOS image. We're doing this in the OSS community all the time too; just we fetch newest sources and compile ourselves.
Make them call it Microsoft Bloated Buggy Pile Of Evil And Mind Crushing Pig Shit That Makes Baby Jesus Cry
Waitaminute... that would be: MBBPOEAMCPSTMBJC (tm)(R). Quick, hurry up and grab mbbpoeamcpstmbjc.com before someone else does! BG: Quick! Someone file a patent on "an apparatus to creating acronyms out of long-winded trademarks" with the USPTO!
You need much more than a mere jacket here. Every exposed part of the body (head, chest, arms, legs,...) would need protection. OTOH, such a (thick) tin foil armor would also help short-circuit tasers!
And no: it would not get hot because of the beam. Its energy would be diverted to the ground. But wearing such a thing would be quite a pain in hot areas.
A metal armor like they were used a few hundred years ago in Europe would be pretty effective. The point here is that you must protect the whole body, not just the chest. Think of a giant tin foil armor.
The real killer is stuff like KDE - multi-day compile times, anyone?
Same here under FreeBSD. Qt/KDE recompiles are a huge time sink of a regular portupgrade -a run; esp. on mini-ITX. Same for firefox/mozilla/thunderbird updates! Worse is only a complete GNOME upgrade (yikes!).
But seriously, gcc sucks big time (speedwise) when compiling C++ code like Qt or KDE or Mozilla. Absolutely rock bottom performance. One ought to force GCC developers to use only slower (.le. 500 Mhz) CPUs for a while, so that they'll learn to value fast compile times for a change.:-(
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I mean, clearly they are simply trying to find some specific area that Windows beats Linux at and have this fact 'endorsed' by an organisation with some respect inside the OSS community.
Would that hurt the reputation of Linux or OSS at all? Seriously: we do have more shortcomings there than holes in a piece of swiss cheese; yet this doesn't deter companies and individuals from adopting OSS and Linux nonetheless.
If Microsoft were to launch a PR campaign pointing at those missing parts; so what? That would only spur more OSS developers to close the gaps more rapidly; and we'll get an even better system in the near future. Not that I'm implying the current developers were too slow; but you get the point.
The number of hours I've wasted writing some hack for ps when I could have just grabbed files out of /proc on Linux is depressing.
Just look at it from the porter's side: /proc misuse is one of the linuxisms that *is* the most difficult to stamp out, or at least to work around, out while porting the apps or scripts to other Unices, like Solaris, or *BSD. It's sad how many Linux developers are sticking to /proc.
Calculating mere Pi digits? Bah... how wimpy!
The guy didn't ask the real question: about Life, the Universe, and Everything...
The US Pentagon Building is a highly guarded target.
Good point; and rightly so! Yet it was possible for a big slow airliner, hardly vertically maneuverable with enough precision, piloted by a terrorist who was presumably an amateur-pilot, to crash such a plane into the rather low side wall (!) of such a prime target absolutely unhindered. No patriots or other AAA were fired at the approaching BIG plane even though it crossed the Pentagon's vital and last security perimeter. They may be better guarded now, but their security failed miserably back 9/11.
Now, how many really vulnerable targets are protected like the Pentagon?
How about thttpd? It is used by a lot of companies to serve static content where Apache would be overwhelmed.
however, you have not demonstrated that it has had the effect that its users desire.
What do they desire? From their perspective, they are fighting a war against us; and we, by fighting back the way we do (I'm not suggesting we shouldn't; it's the WAY we do it that I'm questioning), do more harm to our society than terrorists could ever have done by themselves. They managed to make us loose reputation in the parts of the world where they would like to have strongholds; and we've lost a good deal of influence nearly everywhere else we go, including with our allies. That's exactly what they wanted and WE are doing them the favor by acting just like they anticipated we would act. So yes, we must fight back, but much more intelligently than we're currently doing.
If the cornea is too thin for LASIK, consider using LASEK.
This is about preventign the enemy from communicating and sharign information to conduct terrorist operations.
Shutting down websites *is* certainly one way to slow down the information flow within such organizations; but it's not very effective. They could also piggy back their data unto spam messages, and use the huge number of Windows zombies to spread their news. The problem with that is that using spam to communicate would effectively thwart traffic analysis that could still be used with static websites.
Al Jazeera continues to grow unimpeeded by the west.
Yes, but they are a television network run from a pro western country that we already control (sort of)...
Terrorism has rarely led to significant change,
Well, current terrorism did lead to very significant changes: we keep spending billions of dollars every year on security which could have been put to much better use elsewhere. We've forfeited many civilian liberties, just to appease Joe Sixpack who's getting all panicky. And the mentalities have turned to the worst too. That's a lot of changes we've made to our society just because of a few terrorist attacks (they've had a lot more in Europe before 9/11 but they nowhere overreacted like the world did since then); and THAT's sadly encouraging more terrorists to do more of the same.
Terrorism by itself doesn't do much actual physical damage (outside the crime scene); it's our hysteria that does. Judging by the actual hype, this current wave of terrorism *is* pretty effective by all means.
Oh yeah, Apache + mod_cobol running on a mainframe! Say an S/390 running Linux, and on top of that another mainframe emulation to support the legacy cobol runtime environment!
When was it since you've last tried Zope? They've made some pretty good improvements as of lately. Or are you referring to Plone, which IS really, really slow?
I say just blow up the moon, that little bastard is just slowing us down.
It'll happen soon enough, once we have moonbase alpha there...
* the 'sun' is that awfully bright thing that hurts your eyes when you let in the pizza guy.
How did you manage to fry your UltraSparc III? Did you spill some coke on it while stumbling to the door, to let the pizza guy in?
how about "MS-BSD"?
IMHO you're right. That's much more realistic than "MS-GNU".
3) an emulation layer for Win32, allowing practically all existing Win32 apps to run unchanged, which they could bundle with the new OS
That's probably the catch. If such an emulation layer existed for BSD, what would prevent GNU/Linux hackers from writing a bsdlator, similar to BSD's linuxulator, so that all Win32 apps (which would actually be BSD compatible) will also run on Linux? That's not in Microsoft's best interest. Or is it?
How about "BSOD"? That's "O" for "Open".
LOL! But what about the new logo? Beastie with Windows wings?
The codec might be, but the call handling protocol isn't.
Call handling protocols are pretty easy to reverse engineer! That's certainly no big deal. Of course, it is most likely patented... OTOH, if it's a trade secret; there won't be any patent on it (except submarine patents?).
Hmmm.... I guess, getting an OSS version of skype won't be so difficult. The catch is the central call setup server architecture (not unlike bittorrent trackers), which is under Skype control.
A trackerless, decentralized SIP architecture, with a widespread OSS client would be great to have. Anything like that already in the works?
non-open protocol
Yes, but the iLBC codec used by Skype is open, right?
A little rose of humour blooms in the darkest depths of the Pentagon's labyrinths!
What about Shub-Internet?
Here's what happens, I think:
This is absolutely correct and consistent with previous experiences with WBM.
There is none right now. At least not if you need performance, reliability AND a secure solution. The problem is performance, and Cisco is the only router vendor that makes appropriate hardware suitable to big backbones, CIXen etc... Small end users could use Juniper or even OpenBSD based routers, but as soon as requirements go up, there's no competition to Cisco (right now). Plus: most CCIE and CCNA personnel won't settle for anything else than Cisco equipment. Getting trained netadmins is much more difficult than finding a new hardware vendor!
classic response from Cisco!
Yes, classic it is; but it's also the only logical one, isn't it? They fix the problem and you fetch a new IOS image. We're doing this in the OSS community all the time too; just we fetch newest sources and compile ourselves.
How about "Windows Fiasco!"?
No, you've got the case wrong: "Windows(tm)(R) FiaSCO(2tm)(2R)"
One (tm), (R) for FiaSCO, and another (tm), (R) for the SCO part of FiaSCO.
Make them call it Microsoft Bloated Buggy Pile Of Evil And Mind Crushing Pig Shit That Makes Baby Jesus Cry
Waitaminute... that would be: MBBPOEAMCPSTMBJC (tm)(R). Quick, hurry up and grab mbbpoeamcpstmbjc.com before someone else does! BG: Quick! Someone file a patent on "an apparatus to creating acronyms out of long-winded trademarks" with the USPTO!
Looks like a serial number already.You need much more than a mere jacket here. Every exposed part of the body (head, chest, arms, legs, ...) would need protection. OTOH, such a (thick) tin foil armor would also help short-circuit tasers!
And no: it would not get hot because of the beam. Its energy would be diverted to the ground. But wearing such a thing would be quite a pain in hot areas.
A metal armor like they were used a few hundred years ago in Europe would be pretty effective. The point here is that you must protect the whole body, not just the chest. Think of a giant tin foil armor.
The real killer is stuff like KDE - multi-day compile times, anyone?
Same here under FreeBSD. Qt/KDE recompiles are a huge time sink of a regular portupgrade -a run; esp. on mini-ITX. Same for firefox/mozilla/thunderbird updates! Worse is only a complete GNOME upgrade (yikes!).
But seriously, gcc sucks big time (speedwise) when compiling C++ code like Qt or KDE or Mozilla. Absolutely rock bottom performance. One ought to force GCC developers to use only slower (.le. 500 Mhz) CPUs for a while, so that they'll learn to value fast compile times for a change. :-(