The code is still available under the GPL. All that has to happen is for someone to fork it and come up with a new name. CUPS will then become irrelevant.
Why? Nothing has really changed, except Apple now owns copyright to the project instead of Michael, the original developer.
They didn't buy 'it', they hired it'd primary(only?) developer.
It's gpl, I could go make a form of it right now and do my own thing with it.
Yes, they did buy CUPS in addition to hiring the primary developer. The developer, Michael R. Sweet, had required that the copyright of any contributed source be transferred to him. Thus he owned the whole package and has full right to sell it to whomever he pleases. Apple purchased CUPS from him, thus obtaining the copyright to CUPS.
You are not wrong about CUPS being under GPL -- it's just that as the new owner, Apple is now the one licensing the software to you under the GPL, not Michael. The GPL operates within the framework of Copyright. When a project is licensed under the GPL, someone still owns it that copyright and is granting you rights to use it under a certain license. They can't recall code that has already been released under the GPL, but nothing prevents them from closing the project and making all future additions or changes under a different license as long as the own rights to the source in its entirety at that point.
It's also possible that it was just a preventative measure. Not because they're "afraid" per se (since they can buy it at any time) but rather as a matter of convenience. Apple probably didn't want to end up in a situation where they're frantically trying to buy CUPS and meanwhile are unable to use the latest version of it until the deal goes through. Just a case of fixing a potential "problem" before it actually becomes one.
Can we please stop getting all warm and cosy about candidates because they throw out "tech-savvy" words and we're supposed to be nerds?
I can't speak for anyone else, but personally I've been thinking we needed open-source election software (if we are to use electronic voting) ever since the whole Bush election debacle originally occurred. Am I supposed to not care when a candidate makes a statement in support of that idea? The fact that this idea also happens to be popular today with geeks on Slashdot doesn't make it wrong.
And yes, I fully realize he would not be in a position to mandate open-source voting kiosks even if elected. But it is reasonable to judge our candidates based on their views (in addition to their track records, of course), right?
I understand your point. What I was said regarding transparency was more about avoiding a "black box" where nobody knows what's going on in the back end. With closed-source electronic voting, we have to trust that whoever made it isn't stacking the deck in favor of a certain candidate, or hasn't written in a back door that allows the results to be changed at will. With accusations of stolen elections flying in previous elections, that's a lot of trust to put in a company's proprietary software.
As of this week he has become the first presidential candidate to support 'open source code' for election systems in addition to voter verified paper records.
That's the kind of stuff I like to hear. Putting aside whether or not elections were "stolen" in the past (how can it be proven one way or another?) it's important to have as much transparency as possible in the voting system. That way we can at least reduce the likelihood of election fraud.
You make some good points. Currently the iPhone is in a state much like the original iPod: Early adopters are willing to pay a premium to be the first to own one, but others who "express an interest" aren't going to purchase -- yet. As with the original iPod, that condition is temporary. Prices will decrease. The current config will drop to a lower price point and a fancier one with more memory and a few others features will be introduced. Or it will be offered with a significant rebate when purchasing a new Mac. Something like that. In time it will be more affordable and hopefully available with other carriers. When that time comes, I will gladly buy one. I am just not willing to pay the steep initial price to be the first on the block to have one.
This is an honest question, then: What makes a Blackberry OK and an iPhone not OK? They'd both allow outside access to corporate communications, but one is doing it via an open standard and one is doing it with a proprietary protocol. Perhaps I am just naive about this, but to me if a company does not trust an employee with the information it sends to their inbox, it should seriously reevaluate either whether the employee should be privy to that information at all. It's not as if they can't print it out in the office and take it home, or write it down with a pen and paper.
Yup, Apple has redefined how you make a product. It's not about the features it has, but rather those it doesn't have.
That's one way of looking at it, and certainly a valid perspective. But the other way of looking at it is that Apple makes devices that do very specific things and they aim to be the best at what they do. In the example of the iPod, since you brought it up, I actually own a video-capable iPod but I have never used the feature except once or twice for the novelty when it was brand new. Likewise, I have no desire to listen to the radio -- that's exactly why I use an iPod. It can do a number of other things I don't need, and don't really care about. I like it because it's very good at its primary function of being an MP3 player and does so in style. The rest is fluff and I couldn't really care less about it.
As for the points you make about the iPhone, I agree it's unfortunate that there is no true SDK for third-party software. The rest I consider superfluous. Java, Flash, GPS, those tiny qwerty keyboards? Those are the last things I'd look for in a modern phone. If it allows me to efficiently work with my mail and calendar on the go and occasionally access the web, that's what I want and what I think the majority of users want. Any site that requires more than this I wouldn't even want to try using on a phone-like device.
What I am arguing against is not being feature complete, but rather feature creep. I want the devices I use to be capable of doing the tasks for which it was intended and do them well. It seems to me that piling on other secondary features just diminishes the product's ability to perform its primary functions. Devices that try to do everything tend not to be very good at any of those things. Honestly, I think it's just a red herring to claim about things like a lack of GPS and Java on a cell phone. Those are not central to its function of being a portable communications device, and don't matter for most things.
Lest you think I am trying to make myself feel better about blowing money on an iPhone, I'll say right now that I'm not getting one because they're too expensive. I just like the philosophy of having a clearly defined set of tasks for a product and sticking to that, making sure that it is best at what it does.:)
Seriously, an IT department should support a set list of systems, not everything a user brings to work and wants to use - thats how costs spiral out of control (as noted in the FA) and also how IT eventually gets blamed for the cost overruns et al.
It's one thing to officially "support" a client and quite another to block it from accessing your system entirely. That is what many of these corporate IT groups apparently do because they don't even offer IMAP access to their server which seems ludicrous to me.
The funny thing is, any email service worth its salt, proprietary or otherwise, supports IMAP. The article states that many administrators refuse to enable that because they consider it a security risk. It seems rather silly to me, but apparently they're afraid it opens another angle of attack, or fear employees will use it to leak trade secrets.
Yet another person mistaking a feature check list as an all comprehesive judgement on a phone, regardless of feature usability, convenience, or UI.
I think you missed the point of the grandparent post. Re-read the first sentence and you'll see that (s)he has the same opinion as you. The message in its entirety said "I think people will buy the iPhone because of its beauty, and not functionality. There are a number of phones that come standard with the features loaded in the iPhone." (Emphasis mine.) It seems obvious to me that the point was that the iPhone's appeal lies in its style, UI, etc., rather than in a laundry list of features.
This is exactly the response Microsoft hoped for. They aim to scare MS shops that are considering Linux so that they only deal with the distributions that deal with Microsoft. On the surface it my seem bad because this has the potential to fracture the community somewhat. But it may also be a very positive thing in that it gives the distributions a chance to show their true colors and let us know where they stand. We'll see which distos are willing to be wrapped around Microsoft's finger and which ones aren't.
Just how obvious does the corruption in the White House have to be before you demand a change of government?
In short the people who care don't have power and the people who have power don't care.
Of the people who disagree with any given administration (the current or any other, just speaking generally here) most don't think they can do anything to make a difference. They show up every four years (if that) to vote for the president, grumble a bit when their guy doesn't win, but overall feel pretty powerless to make a change. Even if they wanted to, it's not as if the average person can just stand up and move to impeach the leaders they don't like. On the other side, our elected representatives are slow to do anything themselves because they are too concerned with preserving their political careers by not making waves.
To paraphrase a certain someone....
"Real men don't stash copies of their possibly illegal movies in other countries. They leak them to BitTorrent and let the world mirror them." -Michael Moore
People get too hung up on the names, in my opinion. If Firefox was just called "Netscape The Next Generation" and this thing was just called "AOL's branded version of Netscape TNG", the only real difference between today would be that no one could claim that Netscape was dead.
Indeed, at some point the discussion is just a matter of semantics. Netscape as a brand basically committed suicide a few years ago, but the source they released in the form of Mozilla has made a big difference to the the Web by making a standards-compliant, cross-platform available browser available to the world. Regardless of the brand's status, Netscape is still very much alive.
Okay. Now let's say that, in your example, people with the differently-coloured eyes become excellent carriers for that plague. If we had wiped out those undesirable genes, the plague would never have taken hold in the first place.
Possibly, but that's not an argument for eliminating some characteristics because we consider them to be less than ideal. Ultimately for the survival of the species, it's less important when something can take hold in a minority if the majority of the population is resistant. But the reverse situation is extremely important -- we're screwed if something comes along that can take out the majority and we have no remaining minorities with genetic abnormalities that might allow them to resist it and be able to continue the species.
More importantly, genetic engineering/selection might ultimately end up being necessary. As various microbes evolve into more drug-resistant forms, we're going to need something to ensure our own survival. Nanotechnology also shows promise, but we still don't really know enough about it to know what its limitations are.
Granted, it may be necessary in some cases, but the threat we're fixing by genetic engineering would have to be both devastating and slow-moving at the same time. If a truly unstoppable plague is sweeping the planet and decimating the population, we don't have much time to (1) find out what genes to tweak to make people survive it and (2) start cranking out engineered babies who can survive.
I'm in no hurry to test the exploits but I suspect they'd work in Flock as well -- after all, Flock is essentially Firefox with a new theme and a few extra extensions bundled in.
Along a similar vein, I like keeping what technology I do have out of the way. Instead of having a big TV (I don't even watch TV so it doesn't matter) I have a projector on an end table. When I want to watch a movie it's bigger than any screen I could ever afford, and when I'm not, all I have is a little black box in the corner. Less truly is more, in some cases.
Instead of ringing a bell, the bell-push could IM you...
...and then set up your IM client so when it receives a message from your front door it plays a recording of a bell!!;)
It's a novel idea, but at some point this is just ridiculous. Personally I wouldn't like needing to have my computer running and be sitting near it just receive an IM saying someone is at my front door. That's just sad.
I love tech as much as the next person, but when the existing tools do the job satisfactorily without any difficulty, attention, or maintenance required, there's no good reason to replace them with a computer.
Frankly, I'd be interested in hearing any sound arguments (beyond "It's just so wrong") that eugenics is bad for the species.
Disclaimer 1: I don't know much about Eugenics so the following may be totally wrong.
Disclaimer 2: I know that 28 Weeks Later was just a movie. Bear with me, I just bring it up to illustrate my theory.
One way Eugenics is potentially bad for the species is that by weeding out undesirable characteristics we reduce genetic diversity. And if diversity decreases and some terrible disease hits the species it might be able to take a bigger bite out of the population.
If you saw the movie 28 Weeks Later you may recall that the kid that was resistant to the so-called "Rage Virus" also had some genetic anomaly that led to each of his eyes being a different color. They seemed to imply that these two things were somehow connected. So let's say we encountered some similar situation in reality, but we had determined that having differently colored eyes (as an example) is undesirable. It's entirely possible that by eliminating that trait we also wiped out the few people who would have survived the next big plague.
The idea is if anyone else has access to your computer it's entirely possible and not that difficult to set up some kind of eavesdropping. If someone nefarious has physical access to your computer, all bets are off unless your OS is stored on a read-only device. And even then there certainly would be ways to do it via a pass-through device your keyboard could be plugged into.
I agree that they're at least decent. I won't pretend they're top-of-the-line but I've heard much worse from the cheap-o end of the earbud / headphone marktet.
Saying that GNU/Linux and Mac have the same problems Windoze does is a serious insult. I'm tired of hearing people tell me how much my OS needs an antivirus and spyware checker.
That is far from what was intended in my (the grandparent) post. I think you read in between the lines and found something that wasn't supposed to be there. Despite what you may think, I was not implying that Linux and Mac systems "have the same problems" as Windows. That is an absurd statement. Perhaps I should have spelled it out and ended my first sentence with "if you run Windows" but I thought that goes without saying in a community like Slashdot.
Believe it or not, I actually agree with everything you said. In the original post I simply intended to say that any computer could fall victim to a keylogger, whatever the platform and whatever the status of your antivirus and antispyware protection. And you should absolutely use those things... if you run Windows.;)
Slashdot Mirror
Yes, they did buy CUPS in addition to hiring the primary developer. The developer, Michael R. Sweet, had required that the copyright of any contributed source be transferred to him. Thus he owned the whole package and has full right to sell it to whomever he pleases. Apple purchased CUPS from him, thus obtaining the copyright to CUPS.
You are not wrong about CUPS being under GPL -- it's just that as the new owner, Apple is now the one licensing the software to you under the GPL, not Michael. The GPL operates within the framework of Copyright. When a project is licensed under the GPL, someone still owns it that copyright and is granting you rights to use it under a certain license. They can't recall code that has already been released under the GPL, but nothing prevents them from closing the project and making all future additions or changes under a different license as long as the own rights to the source in its entirety at that point.
It's also possible that it was just a preventative measure. Not because they're "afraid" per se (since they can buy it at any time) but rather as a matter of convenience. Apple probably didn't want to end up in a situation where they're frantically trying to buy CUPS and meanwhile are unable to use the latest version of it until the deal goes through. Just a case of fixing a potential "problem" before it actually becomes one.
I can't speak for anyone else, but personally I've been thinking we needed open-source election software (if we are to use electronic voting) ever since the whole Bush election debacle originally occurred. Am I supposed to not care when a candidate makes a statement in support of that idea? The fact that this idea also happens to be popular today with geeks on Slashdot doesn't make it wrong.
And yes, I fully realize he would not be in a position to mandate open-source voting kiosks even if elected. But it is reasonable to judge our candidates based on their views (in addition to their track records, of course), right?
I understand your point. What I was said regarding transparency was more about avoiding a "black box" where nobody knows what's going on in the back end. With closed-source electronic voting, we have to trust that whoever made it isn't stacking the deck in favor of a certain candidate, or hasn't written in a back door that allows the results to be changed at will. With accusations of stolen elections flying in previous elections, that's a lot of trust to put in a company's proprietary software.
I think we'll soon be seeing an announcement of Google Lander Beta.
You make some good points. Currently the iPhone is in a state much like the original iPod: Early adopters are willing to pay a premium to be the first to own one, but others who "express an interest" aren't going to purchase -- yet. As with the original iPod, that condition is temporary. Prices will decrease. The current config will drop to a lower price point and a fancier one with more memory and a few others features will be introduced. Or it will be offered with a significant rebate when purchasing a new Mac. Something like that. In time it will be more affordable and hopefully available with other carriers. When that time comes, I will gladly buy one. I am just not willing to pay the steep initial price to be the first on the block to have one.
This is an honest question, then: What makes a Blackberry OK and an iPhone not OK? They'd both allow outside access to corporate communications, but one is doing it via an open standard and one is doing it with a proprietary protocol. Perhaps I am just naive about this, but to me if a company does not trust an employee with the information it sends to their inbox, it should seriously reevaluate either whether the employee should be privy to that information at all. It's not as if they can't print it out in the office and take it home, or write it down with a pen and paper.
That's one way of looking at it, and certainly a valid perspective. But the other way of looking at it is that Apple makes devices that do very specific things and they aim to be the best at what they do. In the example of the iPod, since you brought it up, I actually own a video-capable iPod but I have never used the feature except once or twice for the novelty when it was brand new. Likewise, I have no desire to listen to the radio -- that's exactly why I use an iPod. It can do a number of other things I don't need, and don't really care about. I like it because it's very good at its primary function of being an MP3 player and does so in style. The rest is fluff and I couldn't really care less about it.
As for the points you make about the iPhone, I agree it's unfortunate that there is no true SDK for third-party software. The rest I consider superfluous. Java, Flash, GPS, those tiny qwerty keyboards? Those are the last things I'd look for in a modern phone. If it allows me to efficiently work with my mail and calendar on the go and occasionally access the web, that's what I want and what I think the majority of users want. Any site that requires more than this I wouldn't even want to try using on a phone-like device.
What I am arguing against is not being feature complete, but rather feature creep. I want the devices I use to be capable of doing the tasks for which it was intended and do them well. It seems to me that piling on other secondary features just diminishes the product's ability to perform its primary functions. Devices that try to do everything tend not to be very good at any of those things. Honestly, I think it's just a red herring to claim about things like a lack of GPS and Java on a cell phone. Those are not central to its function of being a portable communications device, and don't matter for most things.
Lest you think I am trying to make myself feel better about blowing money on an iPhone, I'll say right now that I'm not getting one because they're too expensive. I just like the philosophy of having a clearly defined set of tasks for a product and sticking to that, making sure that it is best at what it does. :)
The funny thing is, any email service worth its salt, proprietary or otherwise, supports IMAP. The article states that many administrators refuse to enable that because they consider it a security risk. It seems rather silly to me, but apparently they're afraid it opens another angle of attack, or fear employees will use it to leak trade secrets.
This is exactly the response Microsoft hoped for. They aim to scare MS shops that are considering Linux so that they only deal with the distributions that deal with Microsoft. On the surface it my seem bad because this has the potential to fracture the community somewhat. But it may also be a very positive thing in that it gives the distributions a chance to show their true colors and let us know where they stand. We'll see which distos are willing to be wrapped around Microsoft's finger and which ones aren't.
In short the people who care don't have power and the people who have power don't care.
Of the people who disagree with any given administration (the current or any other, just speaking generally here) most don't think they can do anything to make a difference. They show up every four years (if that) to vote for the president, grumble a bit when their guy doesn't win, but overall feel pretty powerless to make a change. Even if they wanted to, it's not as if the average person can just stand up and move to impeach the leaders they don't like. On the other side, our elected representatives are slow to do anything themselves because they are too concerned with preserving their political careers by not making waves.
To paraphrase a certain someone.... "Real men don't stash copies of their possibly illegal movies in other countries. They leak them to BitTorrent and let the world mirror them." -Michael Moore
I'm in no hurry to test the exploits but I suspect they'd work in Flock as well -- after all, Flock is essentially Firefox with a new theme and a few extra extensions bundled in.
Along a similar vein, I like keeping what technology I do have out of the way. Instead of having a big TV (I don't even watch TV so it doesn't matter) I have a projector on an end table. When I want to watch a movie it's bigger than any screen I could ever afford, and when I'm not, all I have is a little black box in the corner. Less truly is more, in some cases.
...and then set up your IM client so when it receives a message from your front door it plays a recording of a bell!! ;)
It's a novel idea, but at some point this is just ridiculous. Personally I wouldn't like needing to have my computer running and be sitting near it just receive an IM saying someone is at my front door. That's just sad.
I love tech as much as the next person, but when the existing tools do the job satisfactorily without any difficulty, attention, or maintenance required, there's no good reason to replace them with a computer.
Disclaimer 1: I don't know much about Eugenics so the following may be totally wrong.
Disclaimer 2: I know that 28 Weeks Later was just a movie. Bear with me, I just bring it up to illustrate my theory.
One way Eugenics is potentially bad for the species is that by weeding out undesirable characteristics we reduce genetic diversity. And if diversity decreases and some terrible disease hits the species it might be able to take a bigger bite out of the population.
If you saw the movie 28 Weeks Later you may recall that the kid that was resistant to the so-called "Rage Virus" also had some genetic anomaly that led to each of his eyes being a different color. They seemed to imply that these two things were somehow connected. So let's say we encountered some similar situation in reality, but we had determined that having differently colored eyes (as an example) is undesirable. It's entirely possible that by eliminating that trait we also wiped out the few people who would have survived the next big plague.
The idea is if anyone else has access to your computer it's entirely possible and not that difficult to set up some kind of eavesdropping. If someone nefarious has physical access to your computer, all bets are off unless your OS is stored on a read-only device. And even then there certainly would be ways to do it via a pass-through device your keyboard could be plugged into.
I agree that they're at least decent. I won't pretend they're top-of-the-line but I've heard much worse from the cheap-o end of the earbud / headphone marktet.
That is far from what was intended in my (the grandparent) post. I think you read in between the lines and found something that wasn't supposed to be there. Despite what you may think, I was not implying that Linux and Mac systems "have the same problems" as Windows. That is an absurd statement. Perhaps I should have spelled it out and ended my first sentence with "if you run Windows" but I thought that goes without saying in a community like Slashdot.
Believe it or not, I actually agree with everything you said. In the original post I simply intended to say that any computer could fall victim to a keylogger, whatever the platform and whatever the status of your antivirus and antispyware protection. And you should absolutely use those things... if you run Windows. ;)