The OSS revolution is a practical one, not an ideological one (though some ideologues like Stallman can be useful).
It's funny you make this comment, given Stallman is the leader of the Free Software revolution, not the Open Source Software revolution. The OSS revolution was created precisely because of a disagreement over this obsessive focus over ideology: OSS's ideology focused more on the practical effects of open software, though with the ideological assumption that open source will always end up producing cheaper and better code.
But I would claim that the ideology of OSS can be proven wrong simply by pointing out places were there's niche proprietary software used in appliances (note, not embedded work); the constant rewriting of such small code snippits doesn't really leave room for different development model to cause measurable quality or price differentiations. Not surprisingly the OSS camp is inclined to simply call FS people "nuts" because they desire for even firmware and bioses to be open. So, I whole-heartedly agree the ideology of Stallman can be useful. It's just the ideology of free software, not open source software.
Actually, a trade secret (which you at least make mention of lower down) is covered under IP. You fail to recognize that the FDA requires all food to include an ingredients list of their composition. Coca-Cola was allowed to exclude actually defining what a key ingredient was precisely because it was a trade secret. So, while you're right that without something like the FDA forcing disclosure or specific government law recognizing trade secrets, there wouldn't be any government protection, clearly both of those exist.
Oh, and as for your claim that without trade secret law there'd be NDAs and general tort law to produce the same effective thing, the same argument could be made about copyright. Of course, you'd then realize that such would effectively mean that disclosure would hold all parties who receive the "trade secret"/"copyrighted work" culpable. Without such a requirement, the person who signed the NDA would be punished and the "trade secret"/"copyrighted work" would effectively be covered under no contract after passing sufficient hands, meaning anyone could use it. So, one would have to revert back to having some nature of IP laws to recognize that embodied ideas are a sort of property that can be stolen and that only the original maker has any rights to benefit from it. It's not like, after all, you making a copy of something when you're not under any contract somehow magically makes you culpable for things the contract holder agreed to.
I find it telling I'm marked as "Overrated" while you've got a nice karma bonus.
Telling how? That when you repost with a link to backup your statistics, only one of your posts is effectively modded up? Or that another user has earned enough karma to spend it self-boosting their own comments? You do realize you could karma boost your own posts if you have karma, right: you know, the karma you earned from your other post with said link.
All I'm saying is, it's silly to jump to any conclusions when there is opposing evidence, opposing opinion, and a lack of any hard proven link.
I can only hope you're joking. It's silly to *not* jump to "any conclusions" when there is "opposing opinion". There isn't any opposing evidence, that I'm aware of, that CO2 and water vapor are greenhouse gases. Nor is there any opposing evidence, that I'm aware of, that humans are emitting a net amount of said gases. So, if the temperature is rising at all, the question isn't if humans are involved. It's only how much.
Science is about taking all the available evidence, creating a hypothesis, testing it, then drawing a conclusion. Quite frequently these conclusions are reached while there's opposing evidence (look at the einstein vs quantum position on gravity). And it's basically impossible that there won't be at least *some* opposing opinion. So, very clearly scientists will "jump" to conclusions. It's a basic necessity of the process. The only part of your argument, which you only vaguely point at, is that one can't simply ignore directly conflicting evidence in the long term. And to that extent, most scientists are more inclined to believe that the gap you speak of is more an anomaly due to aspects of the Earth we don't understand than any sort of proof that humans aren't involved in Earth-wide climate change.
As a small note, while it might very well be the case that your quoted 0.27% human contributed figure for greenhouse gas emissions is correct, arguing that that somehow rules out humans being partially, let alone majorly, responsible rather ignores something quite obvious. That is, while natural causes may be releasing a lot of greenhouse gases, natural processes are *also* absorbing such greenhouse gases. There are many who believe that the Earth's climate has many relatively stable climate points, and a simple nudge one way or the other will cause a radical shift (not necessarily in the way the nudge was going)--some of these theories are based upon said gas bubble and the occurance of ice ages.
One way of thinking about it is a top spinning on a set of stairs. Humans releasing locked-up greenhouse gases might effectively speed up the top, knocking it off the step it's been on. Or it's possible that some natural causes will do it, even if we go out of our way to try to stop it. Hell, maybe a climate shift will be better, overall, for humans.
What is the truth, there are least some truths that are clear, which I started out with. Going so far as to completely dismiss any of this based upon some people using incomplete theories seems rather ludicrous--as ludicrous as dismissing gravity. Conclusions in science aren't always final (very few are, actually). The thing to really be fighting against is dogmatic obsession and claiming it as fact, on both sides. Of course from that position, one realizes that the real questions that should be answered: is there going to be a drastic change if temperatures continue to increase, will the results be overall advantegous or not, and if they're not, is there some means to stopping the temperature increase? It's just a shame neither side wants to listen to what evidence is found (this article seems to at least answer question one some, and to some extent it tells about question two) instead of going off about whether humans are primarily responsible.
All of the suppliers that we use give us large volume discounts. If they start losing some of our business, they'll try to keep us, but they'll also jack up their prices. Loyalty is rewarded in every aspect of business.
Loyalty may be rewarded in business, but loyalty is something measured over time. Purchase rates are a measurement of space. If a company is effectively punished not for decreasing their purchase rate but instead for purchasing also from a competitor, it's generally regarded as anti-competitive practices, not any sign of a business trying to instill loyalty. Seeing how there doesn't seem to be a move away from Windows on the desktop in most places (which means that with ever growing companies, there's even more Windows purchases each upgrade cycle), but instead Linux and other free software are making end-roads into the server market where Windows never existed, it's even further ludicrous to claim that reducing rewards is somehow a measurement of loyalty (short of loyalty to supporting Microsoft as a monopoly).
It's at this point I'd like to draw a strong analogy of Microsoft to Coca-Cola. Why? Because both are a clear example of using IP to drastically mark-up the innate sale price of a consumer good, then using this drastic mark-up and the exclusiveness to have a flexible difference between the sale price to consumers and the sale price to distributors. It's this flexible difference that gives Microsoft and Coca-Cola the undue control over distributors, allowing a form of anti-competitiveness impossible in industries without the same sort of IP protection. After all, while one company that makes bolts can surely try to punish you for buying bolts from a separate company, the non-exclusiveness of bolts allows you to completely dump them for another company who won't try to screw you over in the same way (of course, an ideolistic view ignoring logistics like shipping). In the end, the almighty dollar will mean that bolt companies more obsessed with loyalty and screwing over the disloyal will run out of customers because their bolt prices will be too high.
So long as their IP protection for Microsoft and Coca-Cola, though, this cycle of price reduction can't begin. So, we can either motivate everyone to switch to screws instead of bolts, and hope that screws have enough competition without creating another Microsoft, or we can motivate everyone to switch towards a system that cuts the IP exclusiveness out of the equation. The second it was realized that computer code could function, not just be humanly interpreted, the ability to copyright it should have been expressibly outlawed. This is what makes recipes and computer code different than music and books. It's also the reason why software patents, assuming you think patents are okay, are the sort of IP that makes sense for recipes and computer code.
Oh, and as a small aside, yes I realize that Munich was a clear example of MS actually losing sales. And they were, at least in the short term, promised discounts to lure them to stay. So, if anything, Microsoft seemed to actually be rewarding talk of disloyalty. But yea, in the end, Microsoft was hoping they'd kill Linux, et al; I'm sure at that point, they'd go back and punish all those who were disloyal or spoke of being disloyal. Really, if you're girlfriend was threatening to have sex with another guy, would you be more inclined to dump her or would you throw lots of money to get her to stay? The only reasons I'd throw money at her is if a) I was really pathetic and desperate or b) I was for sure I'd end up marrying her and hence be able to do worse and use her examples of wanting to cheat as an excuse. There's nothing healthy about such a relationship.
It's now estimated in 2006, compared to 2002 when it was estimated to be RTM before mid-2005 by 90% of analyists. I guess, though, that the closer your estimate is to the present date, the more likely it is to be close. But, it wouldn't amaze me too much if it was bumped back to early 2007. Having stated that, 2008 doesn't sound very probable. But that's mostly due to the fact that Longhorn has dropped key features it was promising. So, be it 4 or 5 years off, there's some serious issues with the whole announcement/availability cycle at MS; it's just a shame the media doesn't just shut up about it, given that 4 years of hype will almost certainly disappoint. Maybe that'll be the push to actually get people to switch away from MS Windows.
Perhaps you could share with us your incredibly accurate estimation technique?
Can I second that? Ninety percent of analyst back in 2002 were predicting that Longhorn would release before mid-2005. Now there's estimates of sometime in 2006, and that's after cutting out a lot of the release-date functionality (avalon, winfx, winfs, etc may be release sooner, later, or not at all, but only a fraction of which will show up in Vista/Longhorn). The simple fact is, like the sibling poster states, that Microsoft releases production announcements way too early.
Their whole business model is based upon it. My understanding is one of the early jobs of Microsoft was the development of a BASIC interpreter, which they stated they had already finished, but it took months for them to actually write and deliver it. Windows 95 started out as Windows 93. MS-DOS 5.0 was the same. The simple fact is that as more complex software was needed, it took even longer from product announcement, fors omething not even started, to product completion and sale. So, witness that Longhorn was spoken about in 2002 and *may* be released in 2006, with not all the promised features.
So, the real silver bullet is to ignore MS's release dates. Really, until a company has a reputation on delivering near product announcement (there's no way 4 years qualifies as near in the computer world) and producing it without rushing it through, which invariable causes all sorts of stability and security issues, there's no reason to listen to them until there's a product on the shelf..and quite possibly a few years for the kinks to be worked out. Once one starts looking beyond the fantasy painted by marketing, it's a lot easier to look around and make an informed decision. As for what MS can do? Well, that's already been pretty well outlined.:)
>>If the underlaying closed source API has bugs there's nothing much you can do about it.
>Does this mean that any system with bugs is not worth developing for?
Is that a strawman I sense? The statement clearly points out a quasi-fact. That is, closed source is not modifiable. Of course, you can modify closed source. It's just generally very difficult. So, a better, valid question is "is it fair to choose which system to develop on based on the ease of fixing bugs?". Of course, it's also a valid (but somewhat unrelated) question to ask "is it fair to choose a system based on the number of bugs?". In the long-term, the former question is more important than the latter.
>And if this is true does it mean that developers who code third party software should be absolved of any wrong doing?
I'm really not sure how you're making such a connection to the original connection. By this, I mean I don't understand how being concerned about bugs in the system would somehow make one not concerned, let alone remove culpability, simply based on who developed software. If you're trying to point out that the original poster probably believes that all code should be open, as that's the only way to make it easy to fix bugs (though obfuscated code doesn't make open source a panacea), then I can somewhat see a connection.
>That's just nonsense to me. MS may not have a great product out there on the terms of security but the kind of retards at AOL who are coding weakly and creating a number of the exploits being used certainly are at fault.
Of course. But even if AOL didn't have a lot of "retards" working for them, they're still stuck developing for a system that puts them at the mercy of closed source system software--they're stuck, btw, because the majority of their market is composed of Windows users, and trying to force users to switch to another OS to use your software has been historically a dead-end.
>If we hold ourselves to only the highest acheivements of the worst developers we're all going to be in trouble.
For our own development, of course. But the highest development of any developer cannot outweigh the flaws of the underlying system. One can only work their best to try to mitigate the damage.
>And what of those that have to use Windows? You may sit high and mighty and laugh about this but some of us are paid to code for Windows. Are we suppose to go find all those Linux jobs that I keep hearing of just because MS writes bad code?
No, but it helps to recognize that no matter what you do, your code won't fix problems in MS's code.
>That's like quiting a company after finding that a CEO high up embezzeled (sp??) funds.
Well, this seems quite out there. Recognizing that Windows is flawed fundamentally in various ways means learning to accept it. A better analogy would be if a CEO high up embezzled funds, but instead of accepting it and trying to deal with it--after all, one crummy CEO doesn't make a bad company--instead going on and on about how it was all some big misunderstanding and talking about how lots of people take money that isn't theirs. Denial doesn't fix problems. Neither does running away. Coming to terms with the fact that one doesn't have full control over their system, short of a lot of hard work, might comfort you. Or it could be just like accepting that you're going to die some day. There's always religion, right?
PS - With things like closed source BIOSs, various firmware, and hardware one probably didn't construct themselves, it's not like GNU/Linux users are in some aura of control. Though, I'd claim they're probably in more control of their system.
You're right. The XBox division has been turning a profit for 2 years. Unfortunately, net loss is still around $4 billion from 2001 to now. My understanding is they didn't even expect to see a net profit for any quarter until later. Given how much an XBox 360 is going to cost and how much it costs to make, it would seem that MS is still going to be dumping hardware in favor of trying to make up for it with game sales. So, I'd expect that hole to get bigger. But yea, they're probably post a net profit in some later quarter when hardware sales go down.
But, here's an interesting misconception from the grandparent:
It seems so odd that they'd use their monopoly on desktop productivity software to try to build a videogame empire:...
Microsoft isn't trying to make a video game empire. As has been stated many times, Microsoft is more interested in being a home electronics empire. The XBox was just a stepping stone, with support for games and DVD playing (two places in Sony's turf). The XBox 360 seems a further extension of that. And Microsoft's push to get its media format on both new generation video discs only further cements its long term survival. It wouldn't suprise me if Microsoft's long term goal is to take over one of the MPAA companies or to simply join. After all, what better way to form a long-term monopoly than to not only own the software for every system in use but also the content, in an information age?
In the end, the XBox is merely an experiment of diversification. If it doesn't work out, they'll try something else. One thing is for certain: they're going to make damn sure to use their $40 billion to get a good footing in some other industry. Growth in desktop (and even server, assuming they ever get higher penetration rates) computing is a dead-end street. The only way for Microsoft to survive in the long-term, and keep their stockholders happy, is to be involved in a variety of industries. If Microsoft's business practices weren't so scummy, I'd be trully excited about what sort of things Microsoft can do by embrace and extending all varities of otherwise unrelated activities.
Partially true and partially false. While the OS can't accurately know what a thread is about to do, it can make predictions on what a thread is about to do. Tasks that are heavily i/o based will block before their quantum of processor time is up, while cpu heavy tasks will use up their entire quantum. Given that i/o and cpu tasks are generally orthoginal and HT relies heavily on orthoginality for performance improvements, an HT-aware scheduler simple loads i/o intenstive threads on one virtual cpu and cpu intensive threads on another virtual cpu. So, simply tracking past quantum usage should be a basis to make relatively intelligent decisions on scheduling.
the upgrade never happens while the users are working (it's not possible with Windows)
Close, but no cigar. Since at least Windows 2000 (probably sooner in the NT line), it's been possible to open up files in a non-exclusive fashion. This is fundamentally the method by which a lot of system DLLs are now replacable with requiring a reset. The issue, however, is that while it's possible to open files not exclusively, the default is to open them exclusively (backwards compatibility/locking reasons). So, without the source to all those programs you use and modifying them, yes, it does seem impossible.
However, since opening a file is a system API, there's fundamentally nothing stopping you from creating a fake DLL. Now, this fake DLL would be a wrapper with an exclude (or include) list involving whether to defaulty set exclusive access or not. The only worry, then, is updating a dll that happens to be closed and reopened by a running application. And the simple truth is that, you're in the same boat in any OS for that problem. So, maybe scheduled auto-updating is the answer for at least some applications.
This is precisely the reason I disabled "FocusOnMap" in IceWM. Sure, it's a little more annoying to have to click each new X-app that I launch from the taskbar/hotkeys, but I never have to worry about the above mentioned problem. Oh, and I'm sure that there are other WMs with a similar feature. I just happen to like/use IceWM.
See, in order for people to hear what you're saying, you have to put it in some kind of medium.
Obviously.
And media are private, for-profit entities, which means more money=more message.
Yes and no. You see, TV and radio aren't the only media. As craptastic as a lot of government influence has been, things like the internet and telephones are still around which allow for people to interact with others. Of course, something like the Do-Not-Call list has drastically reduced the effect of telephones. On the upside, it's still perfectly possible to have people out on street corners advertising your ideas (and here comes talk of loitering laws..). Really, the internet is the most free haven for individuals to speak out, thanks in part to this ruling, which reverses the utter crap the grandparent was talking original about.
In fact, given that the total amount of effective media is limited (there are only so many channels and only so many primetime hours, for instance),
Only so many channels, in part because the FCC (ie, the government) has restricted who can broadcast. Yes, it'd be rather chaotic if one's voice carried half-way across the state, but the government stepping in to solve the problem has effective created these few media companies you speak of. And as for time, well, there's this crazy idea of "on demand". Not everyone wants to watch the news at the same time.
people (or corporations, since the Supreme Court stupidly decided that legally they are people too) with lots and lots of money can drive up the price for media spots high enough that the spots/slots become totally inaccessible to smaller parties. Therefore, you get censoring in effect if not in law.
On the airwaves, yes. And the long and short of it is to stop feeding the beast that is TV. That means pushing people to start using a more distributed network. It's the only real way to end the effective censorship you speak of. Slapping laws in place is a hack which clearly don't even work. We're still stuck with two parties, one a lot of people are deeply questioning and another a lot of people question what it stands for. The real naivity is to ignore just how many places were government is the cause of all the problems you notice, and how now they also want to be the cure. Would you praise an oil company for always quickly cleaning up the oil spills it makes, which occur quite frequently? I know I wouldn't.
...I was merely playing devil's advocate, but I still would like to know what is so wrong with putting a closed source OS on that was offered for free in the first place? Why not give people the choice of OSs pre-installed? They *are* promoting freedom of choice aren't they?
Then let me play devil's advocate and as, is giving people the choice to be slaves "freedom of choice"? There are time when including more choices is actually less freedom of choice. This would be the case when you start including draconian EULAs.
Has it been considered that the extra step taken to install another OS may be too time consuming if a school buys 100 of them? Or maybe they are scared about installing a new OS? Or what if there's a support contract that will be voided by putting on a different OS?
I think the real truth is that their sponsors are mostly IT companies. Linux would seem to be the "safe" option that doesn't have the potential to create another Microsoft. Installing Apple as the main OS would clearly be like giving Apple the keys to the project. Installing it as a secondary OS might still have that same effect.
Finally, one of the main sponsors is Red Hat, and they obviously set out to emulate Apple's "hook 'em while they're young" approach. So, they've no real incentive to let Apple or MS or any competitor in on the action. The only really good part in all of that is, since there's now been a reinteration of using only open source code, there's no way Red Hat can do any proprietary lock-in either. So, no matter how familiar the students become with Red Hat, they can still move onto buying and using other Linux distros if they're a better option. So, any *BSD or virtually any Linux distro will offer more freedom of choice in the long term. Well, that's the wishful thinking approach.
I use Windows 2000 Professional, so the activation code is a non-issue with me. Furthermore, I disagree with the article's author regarding the process of installing software in Linux being more intuitive than the process of installing software in Windows.
Matching the available software to your particular version of Windows isn't typically much of an issue. Unless you're using an older version of Windows, any new Windows software is XP-compatible (unless it's something developed by some freak of nature who intentionally writes software for Windows 3.1 only in his parents' basement.
And with a Linux distro there's zero matching, as all available software is kept in a nice list. Anything on the list is installable. Complaining that various software *isn't* in the list would be something worth mentioning, though.
As for needing to know the software's title, isn't that pretty much a requirement in a Linux environment, as well? The software summaries given in the typical Linux distro do not go into full detail about a program's feature set, so I don't even feel as though this is a relevant issue.
Furthermore, I highly doubt that the average newbie Linux user could figure out what he/she needs without visiting a forum or randomly installing/uninstalling various software packages until he/she finds the one that has the desired functionality. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that they'd hafta ask around more when looking for Linux software.
Why would it be any more? Because people already know Windows and Word? You run into the exact same problems with Linux as you do with Windows, as far as having to know the name of software to install it. The major plus to Linux disros is, again, that there's a list. Further, virtuall all distros include descriptions in these lists. Now, obviously, you're still stuck to actually installing a lot of this software to "test it out", just like you are with Windows software. And you'll probably want to rely on friends to have some clue on what's "best" without going through all the options. But I can't really see how Linux could be marked any worse in figuring out what you need. It's only worse in that you can't click a link on a website, but you have to go through your list instead.
If a certain software title isn't included within a particular Linux distro (*cough*Opera*cough), you must then download and execute the software, also as an admin (by providing root's password). Furthermore, do note that any software installer can potentially include a virus of some sort. I seem to remember hearing about a particular Korean Firefox package for Linux containing a little something...
Right, this is a legitimiate complaint. And the answer, by many distros, is to include said software indirectly. For Gentoo, one has to manually d/l some software. But still, Gentoo's package manager is the one that actually installs it and keeps track of it. And yes, if you're not willing to manually go through all your software and build from scratch (and with all the various firmwares, it's really not even possible on most systems), you're going to have to rely on others. Linux isn't immune from viruses. It's just been lucky to have a community that's quick to discover viruses and, more importantly, connected enough to have a web of trust and accountability.
As for wizard installers, I like being able to choose how much of a particular package I'd like to install. Furthermore, what's wrong with it prompting for an installation directory? I, personally, like to choose the installation directory for certain applications, as it helps from an organization standpoint.
I somewhat agree, except generally wizards don't just install into a directory, but that's more to do with the registry/Application Data, so I'll respond more below.
I can't believe that Linux users actually break a(?) using a Windows wizard installation into multiple steps. You know, you don't have to change a thing. You can click Next or OK t
Some want to play with the OS, some want to play with music programs, some want to play with art programs, some want to do word processing, some may want to do programming. We can't presuppose their intents and desires.
And shock of shock, there's open source software for all of that, plus more. Just because one is able to fiddle with the OS in all sorts of ways doesn't mean that there can't be a default setup which many will use, be comfortable with, and end up using basically as a gateway for all those programs you just listed. The simple truth is that for such children there will have to be other children/adults to help them setup anything remotely complex, just like is done with proprietary software in schools in the US right now.
The fact that there's room to grow for some doesn't magically make it overtly complicated for the general use. The main legitimate reasons why Linux, FreeBSD, etc aren't usable for the desktop for the majority of people is that people would have to actually install Linux, come to grips with installing software the Linux way, and further come to grips with not being able to install any software they happen to see online. So, basically Linux's major stumbling blocks is the preinstalled state of Windows (no matter how easy you try to make a Linux installer, asking such complex questions necessary to do a multiboot setup is over the head of the majority of people; and most don't want to lose everything they have on their Windows partition already), the ubiquity of the Windows install method (whatever possessed Microsoft to not make an.install type is beyond me), and the ubiquity of Windows software (something the students would have faced as well if they went along with OS X).
Forcing them to use open source software is as bad as forcing them to use closed-source software.
It's funny you say that, given that people who were complaining about AOL's internet classic TV apparently being proprietary format were being told, to paraphrase, "you have no right to bitch about this, unlike DVDs you pay for, because it's free". So, I extend the same exact comment.
Unless whoever gives them the hardware makes them sign a contract to not install OS X, Windows, or something equivalent, there's really nothing stopping Apple or Microsoft from just offering the students their software free. They can even help to install the software. But, you know, God forbid Linux be preinstalled and Apple/Microsoft be installed afterwards. It's against the status quo, so it must be some sort of force and conspiracy.
So, if I'm reading you correctly, it'd be copyright infringement by Microsoft if Microsoft planned/appreciated the benefit from piracy of their operating system? To some extent, that seems like a thought crime. After all, car makers must know some are used for drug smuggling, some gun makers must known guns are used for murder, and some ice cream sellers must know some of their ice cream is going to be used by a pedophile. I really just don't see where the line will actually be drawn; will it have to be conscious appreciation and can even your disgust over the immorality of actions be enough to some counter any subconscious appreciation? Inquiring minds want to know.
Actually, given the history, I don't see that as a problem.
Just imagine this scenario. Imagine you have a security system on your property, but the actual security box is on your neighbor's property. Now, if someone decides to tamper with your security box, essentially leaving you wide open for a break-in, the best you can do is bitch at your neighbor and start a fight. You can't directly assess risk, since you're only an outside observer and will unlikely be fully told all your neighbor's activities, to plan ahead. And even if you could assess all risks, you can't do anything about it prehence except bitch at your neighbor to do something about it and pray.
So, not only does such a setup leave you very vulnerable to your neighbor, even if they have no ill will towards you nor use their position of power to bargain, but it also leaves you helpless when something eventually *does* happen. Now, having stated all this, I think it's a bit extreme to apply this to everything; for example, just because your neighbor is a plumber and you're a crappy one doesn't mean you spend tons of money learning to be a better plumber. You should learn to be a better plumber because it's cheaper in the long run, or you should just hire some other plumber. Trying to build up a wall of self-sufficiency doesn't make a lot of sense. Being *able* to build up a wall of self-sufficiency is another matter, but then market forces tend to take care of that sort of thing. Of course, the key part of any transaction is the long-term payment, so I'd surely prefer buying a service from someone I know can be punished in some way if they defraud me or fail to provide said service. It's just not an absolute preference.
In short, the onus should not be on me to make it work -- the onus should be on the OS to work without my intervention.
Wrong. The onus should be on hardware makers to make drivers for every popular platform. You see, in the real world we have these things called applications. Now, these applications are what cause people to choose an OS in the first place, in many cases. This means that users who are out to run said application will choose their OS first, then select hardware to match it.
Any sane hardware manufacturer realizes this. They're not in the business of selling software. They're there to sell hardware, and that means supporting as many popular OSs as possible. So, when it comes time to supporting Windows and Macs, hardware manufacturers are basically willing to bend over backwards to be labelled as officially supported, though the use of trademark logos (made for Windows, for example).
When it comes to Linux, most hardware manufacturers are simply a bit out of the loop. The best way to guarantee basically eternal support is to release a source code driver--this simply wouldn't work with Windows, and just look at how many driver models Windows has which manufacturers have had to target in the past, so all this talk about long-term API stability is pretty much bunk. Sure, some hardware makers are afraid that if they open their source that someone can come along and clone them for a fraction of the price, but the simple truth is that that's quite often actually *beneficial* to hardware maker and consumer (look at Dell/Compaq for an example).
Yes, it'd be great if Linux supported even more hardware. But it's just as much a requirement--for better sales--for hardware makers to write drivers for Linux as Windows, even if the whole concept is foreign to them. Hell, a lot of people are even suggesting simply giving out specs and letting the community write drivers; imagine if in the Windows world it was that common to be so generous about offering one's time/money--time is money. The second people start demanding that hardware be given out freely you'll start to have a point, but it's really driver support that makes hardware sell. Hardware makers not bending over backwards for the consumer hurts them and the consumer. The long term answer is for hardware makers to change. Until then, you've got to be an informed consumer; it's not like you can just assume hardware will always be designed to work on your Windows.
The problem seems to be that americans like to drive drunk and so won't support laws that actually keep drunk drivers off the road.
Except that's not the case. The problem fundamentally is that, as you later go on to demonstrate, only about half of the people you speak of are actually drunk when in accidents. The other half are simply bad drivers, for whatever cause (I believe something like 16% is due to mechanical failure). Instead of adequately punishing bad drivers, the push to punish drunk drivers has quickly extended into trying to punish basically anyone, anywhere in public, for alcohol possession. It even seems to be a common practice for the police to hang around bars at closing time, not to stop drunk drivers but to stop people walking home drunk (public intoxication). There just seems to be a real fear that if there ever is a law to truly punish drunk drivers as harshly as would need be (ie, months or years of jail time), that it would quickly extend to just about anything involve alcohol consumption in or around the public.
This is the main reason that I'd rather see harsher laws for bad driving, regardless of whether alcohol is being consumed. And I'd love it if they'd remove all public intoxication/open container laws. Harsher punishments for assault and battery, littering, etc are the steps that should be taken. It is, after all, the basis of this country to punish actions, not one's state of mind. Of course, those people who think alcohol is the source of all evil (like those who similarly feel the same about drugs) and belief drunkards would simply sidestep violating the law (or at least, being caught), it's hard to convince them that the law should be written so that not violating it is sufficient that no one is being harmed. And as for being caught, there should be more thought into means of catching people in the act (loaned video cameras, for example), since it's not like anti-alcohol laws somehow remove the need for this.
Finally, I totally agreement with your assessment about alcohol related acts not being accidents. Choosing to ingest something that one knows can have a profound affect on one's judgement makes one responsible for the acts carried out while under its influence (good luck pleading ignorance to the fact that alcohol can make you do stupid things). The same basis could be used for drugs and sleep deprivation (obviously not a result of ingestion, but it is an altered state of mind). Instead of living in fear that alcohol/drugs will make everone go crazy and turn a country into chaos, the real answer is people enforcing responsibility and accountability for taking such substances; such would do more to stop people from drinking or taking drugs than any other action. Sadly, there are too many people too willing to claim to take responsibility but never hold themselves accountable. That's a basic problem of modern American society--not to say this is a new thing or a purely American thing.
>The traffic accidents of which you speak did not:
>1) Cause billions of dollars of damage in less than an hour's time and shut down an entire industry for days.
I'm not sure it was billions of dollars for the buildings (and, btw, that's the only fair measure; take 400,000 people / 2 people/car * $10,000/car and you're looking at ~$2 billion loss, btw; it's the people who survive all those accidents demanding more cars which apparently benefit society (look up the economic theory of the broken glass window on why it's not really a benefit, btw)). Millions, sure. As for shutting down an industry for days, that's just a silly statement. More below on that.
>2) Generally result from malicious intent from people who have declared they will not be happy until millions of Americans are dead
Yes, well, boohoo. Malicious intent that kills a person isn't nearly as destructive as accidents that kill 100. Until terrorists can actually do the sort of damage to make the numbers even *remotely* match, their wants aren't very relevant.
>3) Paralyze an entire nation's ability to move people and goods
The only thing that paralyzed the movement of people and goods was governmental interference. You see, there were only four planes involved in 9/11. There were literally hundreds in the air not affected. Instead of resolving to carry on, under the real and obvious fact that a) not acting like normal would be bowing to fear (the only power that the attacks had any real chance of enforcing, given how clearly they don't have the army to enact a real war) and b) the fact that people now knew what was involved if their plane was hijacked, so would be utterly less likely to just play along, the President of the United States made a solemn pledge to fight back. And then almost immediately the airlines were given huge loans, and 9/11 began being used as a fear campaign to enact far-reaching change, like what this whole article is about. And it's not like the media's push for sensationalism, to sell, helped.
But that leads to your next point:
>4) Happen as the result of an accident
Yes, car accidents are by definition accidents. But what about the countless accidents caused by "road rage"? Few end in death, but certainly such has created a good bit of fear. In fact, this site points out just how overblown the whole "epidemic" of "road rage" has been exaggerated. Road rage might even, possibly, be responsible for 2,000 deaths over the 10 years period original cited. Of course, the number is probably a lot lower than that (perhaps 500), but who cares; sensationalism sells, be it from the White House lawn, the Capitol floor, or the newsroom desk.
This is the true evil of the post-9/11 world. Terrorism relies on one chief element: sensationalism. Without it, 4,000 dead people, a few destroyed skyscrapers, and four downed planes just turn into a week long tragedy. And while certainly the media grabbed onto this tragedy with open arms, it's been primarily the Bush administration that will not let this tragedy die. Why? Because without the fear of terrorism there's nothing much behind the Bush Presidency. It's little surprise that whenever any difficult questions come up, the talk turns to "the war on terror". Nor is it surprising that such fake news like "The Daily Show" would talk about 9/11 as Bush's security blanket. What Bush can't offer in strong leadership in the war on terror, he can always simply push an eye-for-an-eye of fear to justify extraordinary actions.
But let me end here, as I'm now more ranting about the Bush administration. My general point is, accident or not, malice or not, wants do not equate actions. The observable actions indicate that we have a lot more to fear from simple car accidents than terrorists. Most importantly, the simple fact that so many people die and so many cars are lost so reguarly indicates that nothing about a few planes were what stopped industry
They should treat consumer information databases the same way they treat stalking.
You mean wait until the person ends up getting a restraining order and winds up dead before really doing anything, and even then the restraining order is only useful as a hint on a possible suspect?
The best analogy I can think of is if a company were to leak your information, you to get a court order for them to do "clean up", and then having the court order as part of the proof to sue them when you credit score tanks because someone decided to misuse it. Ie, what you're suggesting isn't far off from what we have now.
>>The real way to stop cheating is to never provide clients with more information than they should have and have the server run the state machine
>Unfortunately the problem is more complex than this. Look at some of the cheats that are happening, and you'll see what I mean.
>"See through walls" cheats (like display driver hacks)? Well, if you wait till the client can "see" the opponent without walls before sending the opponent's information through the network, you'll have horrible lag problems. Enemies will appear randomly popping out next to corners. Network latency is always going to make that a tough problem.
Yes, network latency is a problem. Never the less, what I'm saying is the only way to guarantee that people don't cheat from the above. There's always man-in-the-middle attacks if you provide more information than you should.
>Aimbot cheats? If you can see your enemy to the point where you can fire your weapon, so can your aimbot. The server doesn't know who pulled the trigger.
>Gold-farming cheats? If a human can mouse and keyboard his way around your landscape, so can a program. Again, server side control has nothing to do with it.
These two do bring up an interesting point. As much as aimbots ruin the FPS experience (gold-farming possible also, though as a former MUD player such sounds more like scripting to overcome a mundane task), I'm reluctant to label all program assistance as cheating. Why? Because cheating fundamentally has to have an element of fraud. So, while certainly most aimbot users are taking part in fraud, I find it hard to believe most gold-farmers are doing anything intentionally to deceive others--the closest analogy I can quickly think of is many different companies selling donuts and the ones who make them by machine not differentiating themselves from the ones who make them by hand (ie, it seems to require a more personal context to ascertain if there was anything untoward involved). A less akward analogy would point out that there's nothing stopping someone from designing a robot to do effectively the same thing (though I imagine it'd be a lot harder), and any thoughts about the user on the other end being a human player all the time would become a simple presumption.
But I can imagine the real complaint isn't with fraud or cheating. The problem is with the gaming experience (aimbots "force" everyone to use aimbots, and so differentiation on skill is removed in the competition; gold-mining bots likely cause an altered inflation rate, which demands the use of a gold-mining bot oneself just to stay competitive). Given that you, the user, are interested in enjoying the gaming experience, such considerations are very important. And certainly my suggestions do nothing to resolve these very complex problems. And there's no simple software solution, DRMed or otherwise, that can resolve such problems. But for those cases I was trying to address, primarily those of users peaking on the local game state to obtain more information than was intended or alterting the local game state in a non-standard fashion to cause the server's and others' game states to alter non-standardly as well, my suggestions do offer actual solutions.
Let me put this in simple terms. The free market is based not only on an unregulated market based on supply and demand. Two other key components are rational actors and those actors being adequately informed. Clearly, in the real world there isn't perfect information. So, various metrics are used by the consumer. Manipulating these metrics to intentionall disinform individuals is clearly antithetic to the free market. This is instead a clearer example of capitalism, which doesn't have the requirement of an informed actor. This is one reason I see capitalism as crooked and cringe when people speak of the free market and capitalism as synonymous.
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The OSS revolution is a practical one, not an ideological one (though some ideologues like Stallman can be useful).
It's funny you make this comment, given Stallman is the leader of the Free Software revolution, not the Open Source Software revolution. The OSS revolution was created precisely because of a disagreement over this obsessive focus over ideology: OSS's ideology focused more on the practical effects of open software, though with the ideological assumption that open source will always end up producing cheaper and better code.
But I would claim that the ideology of OSS can be proven wrong simply by pointing out places were there's niche proprietary software used in appliances (note, not embedded work); the constant rewriting of such small code snippits doesn't really leave room for different development model to cause measurable quality or price differentiations. Not surprisingly the OSS camp is inclined to simply call FS people "nuts" because they desire for even firmware and bioses to be open. So, I whole-heartedly agree the ideology of Stallman can be useful. It's just the ideology of free software, not open source software.
Coca-Cola has no legal IP protection at all,
Actually, a trade secret (which you at least make mention of lower down) is covered under IP. You fail to recognize that the FDA requires all food to include an ingredients list of their composition. Coca-Cola was allowed to exclude actually defining what a key ingredient was precisely because it was a trade secret. So, while you're right that without something like the FDA forcing disclosure or specific government law recognizing trade secrets, there wouldn't be any government protection, clearly both of those exist.
Oh, and as for your claim that without trade secret law there'd be NDAs and general tort law to produce the same effective thing, the same argument could be made about copyright. Of course, you'd then realize that such would effectively mean that disclosure would hold all parties who receive the "trade secret"/"copyrighted work" culpable. Without such a requirement, the person who signed the NDA would be punished and the "trade secret"/"copyrighted work" would effectively be covered under no contract after passing sufficient hands, meaning anyone could use it. So, one would have to revert back to having some nature of IP laws to recognize that embodied ideas are a sort of property that can be stolen and that only the original maker has any rights to benefit from it. It's not like, after all, you making a copy of something when you're not under any contract somehow magically makes you culpable for things the contract holder agreed to.
I find it telling I'm marked as "Overrated" while you've got a nice karma bonus.
Telling how? That when you repost with a link to backup your statistics, only one of your posts is effectively modded up? Or that another user has earned enough karma to spend it self-boosting their own comments? You do realize you could karma boost your own posts if you have karma, right: you know, the karma you earned from your other post with said link.
All I'm saying is, it's silly to jump to any conclusions when there is opposing evidence, opposing opinion, and a lack of any hard proven link.
I can only hope you're joking. It's silly to *not* jump to "any conclusions" when there is "opposing opinion". There isn't any opposing evidence, that I'm aware of, that CO2 and water vapor are greenhouse gases. Nor is there any opposing evidence, that I'm aware of, that humans are emitting a net amount of said gases. So, if the temperature is rising at all, the question isn't if humans are involved. It's only how much.
Science is about taking all the available evidence, creating a hypothesis, testing it, then drawing a conclusion. Quite frequently these conclusions are reached while there's opposing evidence (look at the einstein vs quantum position on gravity). And it's basically impossible that there won't be at least *some* opposing opinion. So, very clearly scientists will "jump" to conclusions. It's a basic necessity of the process. The only part of your argument, which you only vaguely point at, is that one can't simply ignore directly conflicting evidence in the long term. And to that extent, most scientists are more inclined to believe that the gap you speak of is more an anomaly due to aspects of the Earth we don't understand than any sort of proof that humans aren't involved in Earth-wide climate change.
As a small note, while it might very well be the case that your quoted 0.27% human contributed figure for greenhouse gas emissions is correct, arguing that that somehow rules out humans being partially, let alone majorly, responsible rather ignores something quite obvious. That is, while natural causes may be releasing a lot of greenhouse gases, natural processes are *also* absorbing such greenhouse gases. There are many who believe that the Earth's climate has many relatively stable climate points, and a simple nudge one way or the other will cause a radical shift (not necessarily in the way the nudge was going)--some of these theories are based upon said gas bubble and the occurance of ice ages.
One way of thinking about it is a top spinning on a set of stairs. Humans releasing locked-up greenhouse gases might effectively speed up the top, knocking it off the step it's been on. Or it's possible that some natural causes will do it, even if we go out of our way to try to stop it. Hell, maybe a climate shift will be better, overall, for humans.
What is the truth, there are least some truths that are clear, which I started out with. Going so far as to completely dismiss any of this based upon some people using incomplete theories seems rather ludicrous--as ludicrous as dismissing gravity. Conclusions in science aren't always final (very few are, actually). The thing to really be fighting against is dogmatic obsession and claiming it as fact, on both sides. Of course from that position, one realizes that the real questions that should be answered: is there going to be a drastic change if temperatures continue to increase, will the results be overall advantegous or not, and if they're not, is there some means to stopping the temperature increase? It's just a shame neither side wants to listen to what evidence is found (this article seems to at least answer question one some, and to some extent it tells about question two) instead of going off about whether humans are primarily responsible.
All of the suppliers that we use give us large volume discounts. If they start losing some of our business, they'll try to keep us, but they'll also jack up their prices. Loyalty is rewarded in every aspect of business.
Loyalty may be rewarded in business, but loyalty is something measured over time. Purchase rates are a measurement of space. If a company is effectively punished not for decreasing their purchase rate but instead for purchasing also from a competitor, it's generally regarded as anti-competitive practices, not any sign of a business trying to instill loyalty. Seeing how there doesn't seem to be a move away from Windows on the desktop in most places (which means that with ever growing companies, there's even more Windows purchases each upgrade cycle), but instead Linux and other free software are making end-roads into the server market where Windows never existed, it's even further ludicrous to claim that reducing rewards is somehow a measurement of loyalty (short of loyalty to supporting Microsoft as a monopoly).
It's at this point I'd like to draw a strong analogy of Microsoft to Coca-Cola. Why? Because both are a clear example of using IP to drastically mark-up the innate sale price of a consumer good, then using this drastic mark-up and the exclusiveness to have a flexible difference between the sale price to consumers and the sale price to distributors. It's this flexible difference that gives Microsoft and Coca-Cola the undue control over distributors, allowing a form of anti-competitiveness impossible in industries without the same sort of IP protection. After all, while one company that makes bolts can surely try to punish you for buying bolts from a separate company, the non-exclusiveness of bolts allows you to completely dump them for another company who won't try to screw you over in the same way (of course, an ideolistic view ignoring logistics like shipping). In the end, the almighty dollar will mean that bolt companies more obsessed with loyalty and screwing over the disloyal will run out of customers because their bolt prices will be too high.
So long as their IP protection for Microsoft and Coca-Cola, though, this cycle of price reduction can't begin. So, we can either motivate everyone to switch to screws instead of bolts, and hope that screws have enough competition without creating another Microsoft, or we can motivate everyone to switch towards a system that cuts the IP exclusiveness out of the equation. The second it was realized that computer code could function, not just be humanly interpreted, the ability to copyright it should have been expressibly outlawed. This is what makes recipes and computer code different than music and books. It's also the reason why software patents, assuming you think patents are okay, are the sort of IP that makes sense for recipes and computer code.
Oh, and as a small aside, yes I realize that Munich was a clear example of MS actually losing sales. And they were, at least in the short term, promised discounts to lure them to stay. So, if anything, Microsoft seemed to actually be rewarding talk of disloyalty. But yea, in the end, Microsoft was hoping they'd kill Linux, et al; I'm sure at that point, they'd go back and punish all those who were disloyal or spoke of being disloyal. Really, if you're girlfriend was threatening to have sex with another guy, would you be more inclined to dump her or would you throw lots of money to get her to stay? The only reasons I'd throw money at her is if a) I was really pathetic and desperate or b) I was for sure I'd end up marrying her and hence be able to do worse and use her examples of wanting to cheat as an excuse. There's nothing healthy about such a relationship.
It's now estimated in 2006, compared to 2002 when it was estimated to be RTM before mid-2005 by 90% of analyists. I guess, though, that the closer your estimate is to the present date, the more likely it is to be close. But, it wouldn't amaze me too much if it was bumped back to early 2007. Having stated that, 2008 doesn't sound very probable. But that's mostly due to the fact that Longhorn has dropped key features it was promising. So, be it 4 or 5 years off, there's some serious issues with the whole announcement/availability cycle at MS; it's just a shame the media doesn't just shut up about it, given that 4 years of hype will almost certainly disappoint. Maybe that'll be the push to actually get people to switch away from MS Windows.
Perhaps you could share with us your incredibly accurate estimation technique?
:)
Can I second that? Ninety percent of analyst back in 2002 were predicting that Longhorn would release before mid-2005. Now there's estimates of sometime in 2006, and that's after cutting out a lot of the release-date functionality (avalon, winfx, winfs, etc may be release sooner, later, or not at all, but only a fraction of which will show up in Vista/Longhorn). The simple fact is, like the sibling poster states, that Microsoft releases production announcements way too early.
Their whole business model is based upon it. My understanding is one of the early jobs of Microsoft was the development of a BASIC interpreter, which they stated they had already finished, but it took months for them to actually write and deliver it. Windows 95 started out as Windows 93. MS-DOS 5.0 was the same. The simple fact is that as more complex software was needed, it took even longer from product announcement, fors omething not even started, to product completion and sale. So, witness that Longhorn was spoken about in 2002 and *may* be released in 2006, with not all the promised features.
So, the real silver bullet is to ignore MS's release dates. Really, until a company has a reputation on delivering near product announcement (there's no way 4 years qualifies as near in the computer world) and producing it without rushing it through, which invariable causes all sorts of stability and security issues, there's no reason to listen to them until there's a product on the shelf..and quite possibly a few years for the kinks to be worked out. Once one starts looking beyond the fantasy painted by marketing, it's a lot easier to look around and make an informed decision. As for what MS can do? Well, that's already been pretty well outlined.
Family of bears accused of defecating in forested areas
Was this before or after they drank the blood of a little blonde haired girl, who had it coming for trespassing and theft?
>>If the underlaying closed source API has bugs there's nothing much you can do about it.
>Does this mean that any system with bugs is not worth developing for?
Is that a strawman I sense? The statement clearly points out a quasi-fact. That is, closed source is not modifiable. Of course, you can modify closed source. It's just generally very difficult. So, a better, valid question is "is it fair to choose which system to develop on based on the ease of fixing bugs?". Of course, it's also a valid (but somewhat unrelated) question to ask "is it fair to choose a system based on the number of bugs?". In the long-term, the former question is more important than the latter.
>And if this is true does it mean that developers who code third party software should be absolved of any wrong doing?
I'm really not sure how you're making such a connection to the original connection. By this, I mean I don't understand how being concerned about bugs in the system would somehow make one not concerned, let alone remove culpability, simply based on who developed software. If you're trying to point out that the original poster probably believes that all code should be open, as that's the only way to make it easy to fix bugs (though obfuscated code doesn't make open source a panacea), then I can somewhat see a connection.
>That's just nonsense to me. MS may not have a great product out there on the terms of security but the kind of retards at AOL who are coding weakly and creating a number of the exploits being used certainly are at fault.
Of course. But even if AOL didn't have a lot of "retards" working for them, they're still stuck developing for a system that puts them at the mercy of closed source system software--they're stuck, btw, because the majority of their market is composed of Windows users, and trying to force users to switch to another OS to use your software has been historically a dead-end.
>If we hold ourselves to only the highest acheivements of the worst developers we're all going to be in trouble.
For our own development, of course. But the highest development of any developer cannot outweigh the flaws of the underlying system. One can only work their best to try to mitigate the damage.
>And what of those that have to use Windows? You may sit high and mighty and laugh about this but some of us are paid to code for Windows. Are we suppose to go find all those Linux jobs that I keep hearing of just because MS writes bad code?
No, but it helps to recognize that no matter what you do, your code won't fix problems in MS's code.
>That's like quiting a company after finding that a CEO high up embezzeled (sp??) funds.
Well, this seems quite out there. Recognizing that Windows is flawed fundamentally in various ways means learning to accept it. A better analogy would be if a CEO high up embezzled funds, but instead of accepting it and trying to deal with it--after all, one crummy CEO doesn't make a bad company--instead going on and on about how it was all some big misunderstanding and talking about how lots of people take money that isn't theirs. Denial doesn't fix problems. Neither does running away. Coming to terms with the fact that one doesn't have full control over their system, short of a lot of hard work, might comfort you. Or it could be just like accepting that you're going to die some day. There's always religion, right?
PS - With things like closed source BIOSs, various firmware, and hardware one probably didn't construct themselves, it's not like GNU/Linux users are in some aura of control. Though, I'd claim they're probably in more control of their system.
You're right. The XBox division has been turning a profit for 2 years. Unfortunately, net loss is still around $4 billion from 2001 to now. My understanding is they didn't even expect to see a net profit for any quarter until later. Given how much an XBox 360 is going to cost and how much it costs to make, it would seem that MS is still going to be dumping hardware in favor of trying to make up for it with game sales. So, I'd expect that hole to get bigger. But yea, they're probably post a net profit in some later quarter when hardware sales go down.
...
But, here's an interesting misconception from the grandparent:
It seems so odd that they'd use their monopoly on desktop productivity software to try to build a videogame empire:
Microsoft isn't trying to make a video game empire. As has been stated many times, Microsoft is more interested in being a home electronics empire. The XBox was just a stepping stone, with support for games and DVD playing (two places in Sony's turf). The XBox 360 seems a further extension of that. And Microsoft's push to get its media format on both new generation video discs only further cements its long term survival. It wouldn't suprise me if Microsoft's long term goal is to take over one of the MPAA companies or to simply join. After all, what better way to form a long-term monopoly than to not only own the software for every system in use but also the content, in an information age?
In the end, the XBox is merely an experiment of diversification. If it doesn't work out, they'll try something else. One thing is for certain: they're going to make damn sure to use their $40 billion to get a good footing in some other industry. Growth in desktop (and even server, assuming they ever get higher penetration rates) computing is a dead-end street. The only way for Microsoft to survive in the long-term, and keep their stockholders happy, is to be involved in a variety of industries. If Microsoft's business practices weren't so scummy, I'd be trully excited about what sort of things Microsoft can do by embrace and extending all varities of otherwise unrelated activities.
Partially true and partially false. While the OS can't accurately know what a thread is about to do, it can make predictions on what a thread is about to do. Tasks that are heavily i/o based will block before their quantum of processor time is up, while cpu heavy tasks will use up their entire quantum. Given that i/o and cpu tasks are generally orthoginal and HT relies heavily on orthoginality for performance improvements, an HT-aware scheduler simple loads i/o intenstive threads on one virtual cpu and cpu intensive threads on another virtual cpu. So, simply tracking past quantum usage should be a basis to make relatively intelligent decisions on scheduling.
the upgrade never happens while the users are working (it's not possible with Windows)
Close, but no cigar. Since at least Windows 2000 (probably sooner in the NT line), it's been possible to open up files in a non-exclusive fashion. This is fundamentally the method by which a lot of system DLLs are now replacable with requiring a reset. The issue, however, is that while it's possible to open files not exclusively, the default is to open them exclusively (backwards compatibility/locking reasons). So, without the source to all those programs you use and modifying them, yes, it does seem impossible.
However, since opening a file is a system API, there's fundamentally nothing stopping you from creating a fake DLL. Now, this fake DLL would be a wrapper with an exclude (or include) list involving whether to defaulty set exclusive access or not. The only worry, then, is updating a dll that happens to be closed and reopened by a running application. And the simple truth is that, you're in the same boat in any OS for that problem. So, maybe scheduled auto-updating is the answer for at least some applications.
This is precisely the reason I disabled "FocusOnMap" in IceWM. Sure, it's a little more annoying to have to click each new X-app that I launch from the taskbar/hotkeys, but I never have to worry about the above mentioned problem. Oh, and I'm sure that there are other WMs with a similar feature. I just happen to like/use IceWM.
See, in order for people to hear what you're saying, you have to put it in some kind of medium.
Obviously.
And media are private, for-profit entities, which means more money=more message.
Yes and no. You see, TV and radio aren't the only media. As craptastic as a lot of government influence has been, things like the internet and telephones are still around which allow for people to interact with others. Of course, something like the Do-Not-Call list has drastically reduced the effect of telephones. On the upside, it's still perfectly possible to have people out on street corners advertising your ideas (and here comes talk of loitering laws..). Really, the internet is the most free haven for individuals to speak out, thanks in part to this ruling, which reverses the utter crap the grandparent was talking original about.
In fact, given that the total amount of effective media is limited (there are only so many channels and only so many primetime hours, for instance),
Only so many channels, in part because the FCC (ie, the government) has restricted who can broadcast. Yes, it'd be rather chaotic if one's voice carried half-way across the state, but the government stepping in to solve the problem has effective created these few media companies you speak of. And as for time, well, there's this crazy idea of "on demand". Not everyone wants to watch the news at the same time.
people (or corporations, since the Supreme Court stupidly decided that legally they are people too) with lots and lots of money can drive up the price for media spots high enough that the spots/slots become totally inaccessible to smaller parties. Therefore, you get censoring in effect if not in law.
On the airwaves, yes. And the long and short of it is to stop feeding the beast that is TV. That means pushing people to start using a more distributed network. It's the only real way to end the effective censorship you speak of. Slapping laws in place is a hack which clearly don't even work. We're still stuck with two parties, one a lot of people are deeply questioning and another a lot of people question what it stands for. The real naivity is to ignore just how many places were government is the cause of all the problems you notice, and how now they also want to be the cure. Would you praise an oil company for always quickly cleaning up the oil spills it makes, which occur quite frequently? I know I wouldn't.
...I was merely playing devil's advocate, but I still would like to know what is so wrong with putting a closed source OS on that was offered for free in the first place? Why not give people the choice of OSs pre-installed? They *are* promoting freedom of choice aren't they?
Then let me play devil's advocate and as, is giving people the choice to be slaves "freedom of choice"? There are time when including more choices is actually less freedom of choice. This would be the case when you start including draconian EULAs.
Has it been considered that the extra step taken to install another OS may be too time consuming if a school buys 100 of them? Or maybe they are scared about installing a new OS? Or what if there's a support contract that will be voided by putting on a different OS?
I think the real truth is that their sponsors are mostly IT companies. Linux would seem to be the "safe" option that doesn't have the potential to create another Microsoft. Installing Apple as the main OS would clearly be like giving Apple the keys to the project. Installing it as a secondary OS might still have that same effect.
Finally, one of the main sponsors is Red Hat, and they obviously set out to emulate Apple's "hook 'em while they're young" approach. So, they've no real incentive to let Apple or MS or any competitor in on the action. The only really good part in all of that is, since there's now been a reinteration of using only open source code, there's no way Red Hat can do any proprietary lock-in either. So, no matter how familiar the students become with Red Hat, they can still move onto buying and using other Linux distros if they're a better option. So, any *BSD or virtually any Linux distro will offer more freedom of choice in the long term. Well, that's the wishful thinking approach.
- Sony rootkit infringes cookies from girl scouts?
There, fixed that for you.
I use Windows 2000 Professional, so the activation code is a non-issue with me. Furthermore, I disagree with the article's author regarding the process of installing software in Linux being more intuitive than the process of installing software in Windows.
Matching the available software to your particular version of Windows isn't typically much of an issue. Unless you're using an older version of Windows, any new Windows software is XP-compatible (unless it's something developed by some freak of nature who intentionally writes software for Windows 3.1 only in his parents' basement.
And with a Linux distro there's zero matching, as all available software is kept in a nice list. Anything on the list is installable. Complaining that various software *isn't* in the list would be something worth mentioning, though.
As for needing to know the software's title, isn't that pretty much a requirement in a Linux environment, as well? The software summaries given in the typical Linux distro do not go into full detail about a program's feature set, so I don't even feel as though this is a relevant issue.
Furthermore, I highly doubt that the average newbie Linux user could figure out what he/she needs without visiting a forum or randomly installing/uninstalling various software packages until he/she finds the one that has the desired functionality. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that they'd hafta ask around more when looking for Linux software.
Why would it be any more? Because people already know Windows and Word? You run into the exact same problems with Linux as you do with Windows, as far as having to know the name of software to install it. The major plus to Linux disros is, again, that there's a list. Further, virtuall all distros include descriptions in these lists. Now, obviously, you're still stuck to actually installing a lot of this software to "test it out", just like you are with Windows software. And you'll probably want to rely on friends to have some clue on what's "best" without going through all the options. But I can't really see how Linux could be marked any worse in figuring out what you need. It's only worse in that you can't click a link on a website, but you have to go through your list instead.
If a certain software title isn't included within a particular Linux distro (*cough*Opera*cough), you must then download and execute the software, also as an admin (by providing root's password). Furthermore, do note that any software installer can potentially include a virus of some sort. I seem to remember hearing about a particular Korean Firefox package for Linux containing a little something...
Right, this is a legitimiate complaint. And the answer, by many distros, is to include said software indirectly. For Gentoo, one has to manually d/l some software. But still, Gentoo's package manager is the one that actually installs it and keeps track of it. And yes, if you're not willing to manually go through all your software and build from scratch (and with all the various firmwares, it's really not even possible on most systems), you're going to have to rely on others. Linux isn't immune from viruses. It's just been lucky to have a community that's quick to discover viruses and, more importantly, connected enough to have a web of trust and accountability.
As for wizard installers, I like being able to choose how much of a particular package I'd like to install. Furthermore, what's wrong with it prompting for an installation directory? I, personally, like to choose the installation directory for certain applications, as it helps from an organization standpoint.
I somewhat agree, except generally wizards don't just install into a directory, but that's more to do with the registry/Application Data, so I'll respond more below.
I can't believe that Linux users actually break a(?) using a Windows wizard installation into multiple steps. You know, you don't have to change a thing. You can click Next or OK t
Some want to play with the OS, some want to play with music programs, some want to play with art programs, some want to do word processing, some may want to do programming. We can't presuppose their intents and desires.
.install type is beyond me), and the ubiquity of Windows software (something the students would have faced as well if they went along with OS X).
And shock of shock, there's open source software for all of that, plus more. Just because one is able to fiddle with the OS in all sorts of ways doesn't mean that there can't be a default setup which many will use, be comfortable with, and end up using basically as a gateway for all those programs you just listed. The simple truth is that for such children there will have to be other children/adults to help them setup anything remotely complex, just like is done with proprietary software in schools in the US right now.
The fact that there's room to grow for some doesn't magically make it overtly complicated for the general use. The main legitimate reasons why Linux, FreeBSD, etc aren't usable for the desktop for the majority of people is that people would have to actually install Linux, come to grips with installing software the Linux way, and further come to grips with not being able to install any software they happen to see online. So, basically Linux's major stumbling blocks is the preinstalled state of Windows (no matter how easy you try to make a Linux installer, asking such complex questions necessary to do a multiboot setup is over the head of the majority of people; and most don't want to lose everything they have on their Windows partition already), the ubiquity of the Windows install method (whatever possessed Microsoft to not make an
Forcing them to use open source software is as bad as forcing them to use closed-source software.
It's funny you say that, given that people who were complaining about AOL's internet classic TV apparently being proprietary format were being told, to paraphrase, "you have no right to bitch about this, unlike DVDs you pay for, because it's free". So, I extend the same exact comment.
Unless whoever gives them the hardware makes them sign a contract to not install OS X, Windows, or something equivalent, there's really nothing stopping Apple or Microsoft from just offering the students their software free. They can even help to install the software. But, you know, God forbid Linux be preinstalled and Apple/Microsoft be installed afterwards. It's against the status quo, so it must be some sort of force and conspiracy.
So, if I'm reading you correctly, it'd be copyright infringement by Microsoft if Microsoft planned/appreciated the benefit from piracy of their operating system? To some extent, that seems like a thought crime. After all, car makers must know some are used for drug smuggling, some gun makers must known guns are used for murder, and some ice cream sellers must know some of their ice cream is going to be used by a pedophile. I really just don't see where the line will actually be drawn; will it have to be conscious appreciation and can even your disgust over the immorality of actions be enough to some counter any subconscious appreciation? Inquiring minds want to know.
Actually, given the history, I don't see that as a problem.
Just imagine this scenario. Imagine you have a security system on your property, but the actual security box is on your neighbor's property. Now, if someone decides to tamper with your security box, essentially leaving you wide open for a break-in, the best you can do is bitch at your neighbor and start a fight. You can't directly assess risk, since you're only an outside observer and will unlikely be fully told all your neighbor's activities, to plan ahead. And even if you could assess all risks, you can't do anything about it prehence except bitch at your neighbor to do something about it and pray.
So, not only does such a setup leave you very vulnerable to your neighbor, even if they have no ill will towards you nor use their position of power to bargain, but it also leaves you helpless when something eventually *does* happen. Now, having stated all this, I think it's a bit extreme to apply this to everything; for example, just because your neighbor is a plumber and you're a crappy one doesn't mean you spend tons of money learning to be a better plumber. You should learn to be a better plumber because it's cheaper in the long run, or you should just hire some other plumber. Trying to build up a wall of self-sufficiency doesn't make a lot of sense. Being *able* to build up a wall of self-sufficiency is another matter, but then market forces tend to take care of that sort of thing. Of course, the key part of any transaction is the long-term payment, so I'd surely prefer buying a service from someone I know can be punished in some way if they defraud me or fail to provide said service. It's just not an absolute preference.
In short, the onus should not be on me to make it work -- the onus should be on the OS to work without my intervention.
Wrong. The onus should be on hardware makers to make drivers for every popular platform. You see, in the real world we have these things called applications. Now, these applications are what cause people to choose an OS in the first place, in many cases. This means that users who are out to run said application will choose their OS first, then select hardware to match it.
Any sane hardware manufacturer realizes this. They're not in the business of selling software. They're there to sell hardware, and that means supporting as many popular OSs as possible. So, when it comes time to supporting Windows and Macs, hardware manufacturers are basically willing to bend over backwards to be labelled as officially supported, though the use of trademark logos (made for Windows, for example).
When it comes to Linux, most hardware manufacturers are simply a bit out of the loop. The best way to guarantee basically eternal support is to release a source code driver--this simply wouldn't work with Windows, and just look at how many driver models Windows has which manufacturers have had to target in the past, so all this talk about long-term API stability is pretty much bunk. Sure, some hardware makers are afraid that if they open their source that someone can come along and clone them for a fraction of the price, but the simple truth is that that's quite often actually *beneficial* to hardware maker and consumer (look at Dell/Compaq for an example).
Yes, it'd be great if Linux supported even more hardware. But it's just as much a requirement--for better sales--for hardware makers to write drivers for Linux as Windows, even if the whole concept is foreign to them. Hell, a lot of people are even suggesting simply giving out specs and letting the community write drivers; imagine if in the Windows world it was that common to be so generous about offering one's time/money--time is money. The second people start demanding that hardware be given out freely you'll start to have a point, but it's really driver support that makes hardware sell. Hardware makers not bending over backwards for the consumer hurts them and the consumer. The long term answer is for hardware makers to change. Until then, you've got to be an informed consumer; it's not like you can just assume hardware will always be designed to work on your Windows.
The problem seems to be that americans like to drive drunk and so won't support laws that actually keep drunk drivers off the road.
Except that's not the case. The problem fundamentally is that, as you later go on to demonstrate, only about half of the people you speak of are actually drunk when in accidents. The other half are simply bad drivers, for whatever cause (I believe something like 16% is due to mechanical failure). Instead of adequately punishing bad drivers, the push to punish drunk drivers has quickly extended into trying to punish basically anyone, anywhere in public, for alcohol possession. It even seems to be a common practice for the police to hang around bars at closing time, not to stop drunk drivers but to stop people walking home drunk (public intoxication). There just seems to be a real fear that if there ever is a law to truly punish drunk drivers as harshly as would need be (ie, months or years of jail time), that it would quickly extend to just about anything involve alcohol consumption in or around the public.
This is the main reason that I'd rather see harsher laws for bad driving, regardless of whether alcohol is being consumed. And I'd love it if they'd remove all public intoxication/open container laws. Harsher punishments for assault and battery, littering, etc are the steps that should be taken. It is, after all, the basis of this country to punish actions, not one's state of mind. Of course, those people who think alcohol is the source of all evil (like those who similarly feel the same about drugs) and belief drunkards would simply sidestep violating the law (or at least, being caught), it's hard to convince them that the law should be written so that not violating it is sufficient that no one is being harmed. And as for being caught, there should be more thought into means of catching people in the act (loaned video cameras, for example), since it's not like anti-alcohol laws somehow remove the need for this.
Finally, I totally agreement with your assessment about alcohol related acts not being accidents. Choosing to ingest something that one knows can have a profound affect on one's judgement makes one responsible for the acts carried out while under its influence (good luck pleading ignorance to the fact that alcohol can make you do stupid things). The same basis could be used for drugs and sleep deprivation (obviously not a result of ingestion, but it is an altered state of mind). Instead of living in fear that alcohol/drugs will make everone go crazy and turn a country into chaos, the real answer is people enforcing responsibility and accountability for taking such substances; such would do more to stop people from drinking or taking drugs than any other action. Sadly, there are too many people too willing to claim to take responsibility but never hold themselves accountable. That's a basic problem of modern American society--not to say this is a new thing or a purely American thing.
>The traffic accidents of which you speak did not:
>1) Cause billions of dollars of damage in less than an hour's time and shut down an entire industry for days.
I'm not sure it was billions of dollars for the buildings (and, btw, that's the only fair measure; take 400,000 people / 2 people/car * $10,000/car and you're looking at ~$2 billion loss, btw; it's the people who survive all those accidents demanding more cars which apparently benefit society (look up the economic theory of the broken glass window on why it's not really a benefit, btw)). Millions, sure. As for shutting down an industry for days, that's just a silly statement. More below on that.
>2) Generally result from malicious intent from people who have declared they will not be happy until millions of Americans are dead
Yes, well, boohoo. Malicious intent that kills a person isn't nearly as destructive as accidents that kill 100. Until terrorists can actually do the sort of damage to make the numbers even *remotely* match, their wants aren't very relevant.
>3) Paralyze an entire nation's ability to move people and goods
The only thing that paralyzed the movement of people and goods was governmental interference. You see, there were only four planes involved in 9/11. There were literally hundreds in the air not affected. Instead of resolving to carry on, under the real and obvious fact that a) not acting like normal would be bowing to fear (the only power that the attacks had any real chance of enforcing, given how clearly they don't have the army to enact a real war) and b) the fact that people now knew what was involved if their plane was hijacked, so would be utterly less likely to just play along, the President of the United States made a solemn pledge to fight back. And then almost immediately the airlines were given huge loans, and 9/11 began being used as a fear campaign to enact far-reaching change, like what this whole article is about. And it's not like the media's push for sensationalism, to sell, helped.
But that leads to your next point:
>4) Happen as the result of an accident
Yes, car accidents are by definition accidents. But what about the countless accidents caused by "road rage"? Few end in death, but certainly such has created a good bit of fear. In fact, this site points out just how overblown the whole "epidemic" of "road rage" has been exaggerated. Road rage might even, possibly, be responsible for 2,000 deaths over the 10 years period original cited. Of course, the number is probably a lot lower than that (perhaps 500), but who cares; sensationalism sells, be it from the White House lawn, the Capitol floor, or the newsroom desk.
This is the true evil of the post-9/11 world. Terrorism relies on one chief element: sensationalism. Without it, 4,000 dead people, a few destroyed skyscrapers, and four downed planes just turn into a week long tragedy. And while certainly the media grabbed onto this tragedy with open arms, it's been primarily the Bush administration that will not let this tragedy die. Why? Because without the fear of terrorism there's nothing much behind the Bush Presidency. It's little surprise that whenever any difficult questions come up, the talk turns to "the war on terror". Nor is it surprising that such fake news like "The Daily Show" would talk about 9/11 as Bush's security blanket. What Bush can't offer in strong leadership in the war on terror, he can always simply push an eye-for-an-eye of fear to justify extraordinary actions.
But let me end here, as I'm now more ranting about the Bush administration. My general point is, accident or not, malice or not, wants do not equate actions. The observable actions indicate that we have a lot more to fear from simple car accidents than terrorists. Most importantly, the simple fact that so many people die and so many cars are lost so reguarly indicates that nothing about a few planes were what stopped industry
They should treat consumer information databases the same way they treat stalking.
You mean wait until the person ends up getting a restraining order and winds up dead before really doing anything, and even then the restraining order is only useful as a hint on a possible suspect?
The best analogy I can think of is if a company were to leak your information, you to get a court order for them to do "clean up", and then having the court order as part of the proof to sue them when you credit score tanks because someone decided to misuse it. Ie, what you're suggesting isn't far off from what we have now.
>>The real way to stop cheating is to never provide clients with more information than they should have and have the server run the state machine
>Unfortunately the problem is more complex than this. Look at some of the cheats that are happening, and you'll see what I mean.
>"See through walls" cheats (like display driver hacks)? Well, if you wait till the client can "see" the opponent without walls before sending the opponent's information through the network, you'll have horrible lag problems. Enemies will appear randomly popping out next to corners. Network latency is always going to make that a tough problem.
Yes, network latency is a problem. Never the less, what I'm saying is the only way to guarantee that people don't cheat from the above. There's always man-in-the-middle attacks if you provide more information than you should.
>Aimbot cheats? If you can see your enemy to the point where you can fire your weapon, so can your aimbot. The server doesn't know who pulled the trigger.
>Gold-farming cheats? If a human can mouse and keyboard his way around your landscape, so can a program. Again, server side control has nothing to do with it.
These two do bring up an interesting point. As much as aimbots ruin the FPS experience (gold-farming possible also, though as a former MUD player such sounds more like scripting to overcome a mundane task), I'm reluctant to label all program assistance as cheating. Why? Because cheating fundamentally has to have an element of fraud. So, while certainly most aimbot users are taking part in fraud, I find it hard to believe most gold-farmers are doing anything intentionally to deceive others--the closest analogy I can quickly think of is many different companies selling donuts and the ones who make them by machine not differentiating themselves from the ones who make them by hand (ie, it seems to require a more personal context to ascertain if there was anything untoward involved). A less akward analogy would point out that there's nothing stopping someone from designing a robot to do effectively the same thing (though I imagine it'd be a lot harder), and any thoughts about the user on the other end being a human player all the time would become a simple presumption.
But I can imagine the real complaint isn't with fraud or cheating. The problem is with the gaming experience (aimbots "force" everyone to use aimbots, and so differentiation on skill is removed in the competition; gold-mining bots likely cause an altered inflation rate, which demands the use of a gold-mining bot oneself just to stay competitive). Given that you, the user, are interested in enjoying the gaming experience, such considerations are very important. And certainly my suggestions do nothing to resolve these very complex problems. And there's no simple software solution, DRMed or otherwise, that can resolve such problems. But for those cases I was trying to address, primarily those of users peaking on the local game state to obtain more information than was intended or alterting the local game state in a non-standard fashion to cause the server's and others' game states to alter non-standardly as well, my suggestions do offer actual solutions.
Let me put this in simple terms. The free market is based not only on an unregulated market based on supply and demand. Two other key components are rational actors and those actors being adequately informed. Clearly, in the real world there isn't perfect information. So, various metrics are used by the consumer. Manipulating these metrics to intentionall disinform individuals is clearly antithetic to the free market. This is instead a clearer example of capitalism, which doesn't have the requirement of an informed actor. This is one reason I see capitalism as crooked and cringe when people speak of the free market and capitalism as synonymous.