When you add one line of other people's GPLed code to you work, you must give away all of your own code in that product. Not share proportionately or fairly with the author who wrote that one other line, but give it all away, to the entire world, forever.
Yet you advocate the MIT X and BSD licenses as being "true" sharing licenses. These licenses allow you to take and take and take from the work of others and "not share proportionately or fairly" or at all with the original authors.
So, it could be said that these other "Open" licenses discriminate against programmers who wish their works to be extended only by those who are willing to share those extensions back to the original author.
Yes, you can say that the GPL discriminates against programmers who wish to profit from the works of others and give nothing back. It does so in favor of users who need real software reuse and the accretive benefits of a large body of code.
Every license is targeted to a certain advantage, a certain group. That's the reason for licenses. Even the absence of a license (Public Domain) is advantageous to some while detrimental to others.
I think it's about time that we, as an industry, put the emphasis on the poor user who just needs to get work done. God knows they've been ignored long enough.
This boogeyman about how the GPL is going to put programmers out of work is just fantasy. Somehow, with the explosive growth in the use of GPLd software in the last few years, the acute deficit in programming personnel grows worse every day. Most programmers do maintenance work or custom contract work. These programmers will be helped by a large body of code from which to draw.
Other programmers who wish to sell only proprietary works can continue to do so. These programmers may find that they are at a competitive disadvantage against the body of GPLd work, but maybe not. If they can't compete, then it clearly shows that the user has benefitted. The user will be able to get products at a low cost that can always be self-maintained, or contract with programmers to maintain them for them, that is of high enough quality that commercially licensed software can't compete. Finally, it is possible for the user to benefit from true software reuse. I guess there's no cloud that doesn't have a silver lining for someone, eh?
One of the ways the free market operates is that feedback about goods on sale becomes public knowledge. So if a company rips one person off, they can tell everyone else before the whole market gets ripped off.
The fact that Microsoft has been able to get away with ripping off people for so long is exactly because they don't operate in a free market.
The low Microsoft quality and high profits are the best indication that they are, in fact, a monopoly.
Since then I have been personally reassured by Larry Augustin that VA Linux has no desire to mess with the content on any Andover site, including Slashdot.
Next time we have Larry Augustin up for an interview, somebody remember this statement and ask the question:
"If you don't want to make any content changes to any Andover site, why, exactly, did you buy Andover?"
My guess is that the VA/Andover merger has to do with VA Linux wanting to increase their Linux mindshare, of emphasizing, in everyone's minds, that VA Linux means Linux, everything about Linux, all the time. If that's the case, it's a good answer, after all modern marketing is all about creating a "brand".
If you have a basic question for alt.foo.foobar, how do you find the FAQ?
Every new Usenet user should be directed to read, or at least be aware of, the Informational Post in news.lists.misc. This should direct you to how to find a FAQ for most groups.
If this doesn't help, once you are aware of the existence of FAQs, only the greenest Internet Newbie wouldn't think to try a handy Web Search engine to look for "alt.foo.foobar +FAQ".
If this doesn't locate the FAQ, then there probably isn't one and the Newbie should ask the question anyway.
Now, there still exists the problem of ISPs/Universities/(Other Organization that gives Usenet access) that don't direct Newbies to the most basic information.
-Jordan Henderson
Re:Yeah, usenet is dead, long live usenet
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I work for a large "technology" co that has recently started a mailing list to discuss stuff internally which is much better suited to a set of newsgroups. Every time I bring this up I just get a bunch of blank stares.
Yeah. When I worked for a Fortune 500 Energy company, I attended a demonstration of a crude Web-based discussion forum that some IT group was going to roll out. It had absolutely no advantage over NNTP.
I asked if they considered NNTP and they said they had, but that they really wanted to roll it out on Windows NT Server. I was pretty amazed by that answer. First, the presenter didn't know that you could run an NNTP server on Windows NT Server (Exchange Server, which they were running, comes with one) and second, that they would let the choice of platform dictate that they would have to introduce a new application. There were PLENTY of underutilized UNIX servers in this company and there was no IT dictum that the UNIX servers not be used where appropriate. In fact, UNIX servers were pressed into use as Web Servers in this company quite often.
In discussions during a break I gathered that only one other person that I talked to in the audience had ever heard of NNTP or newsgroups, I take that back, several people had seen the Newsgroup configuration in their browser and wondered what that was all about.
THIS is an example of why you MUST have good IT management who really knows technology and not just paper pushing, PowerPoint Presentation generating morons. Any competent management would have shot down this new application before it passed the memo writing stage. Competent management would have gone for NNTP on the low end or perhaps a KM tool like Lotus Notes on the high end, but they wouldn't have let new applications proliferate for bad reasons.
Just as the Web essentially killed Gopher and WAIS (please, no email about how you profitably use these in your little corner of the world, if you still use these, you are in a pretty small group), Web-based discussion could kill Usenet. It's true and it would be a sad day.
I think it would mean that the Internet had completely succumbed to Banner Ads, SPAM, one-click shopping, TV (streaming Video) and other nonsense. It would mean that the Internet is nothing but a commercial vehicle.
That's the wonderful thing about Usenet. It connected people everywhere with similar interests and there was no question about commercialism.
In a way, Usenet was a "free ride" for people to connect without paying anything. Maybe everybody pays in their ISP or for supporting institutions (like Universities) that support Usenet, but with less interest in Usenet will this be supportable? I'm not sure the world of the future will be so kind to those people who just want to connect.
Maybe it's time for subscription-supported discussion and Web sites. Adbusters is perhaps in the vanguard here. I'd like to see other such media with less of an anti-pop-culture theme, to discuss all sorts of subjects of interest.
There is a place for publicly supported media. Even with their political slant, I find NPR to be the best source of News and discussion on the Radio.
What really happened to cyber-cash initiatives of a few years ago? I know they pretty much died for lack of interest, but I'd sure like to be able to read interesting articles and pay some pittance for each article.
-Jordan Henderson
Re:My rather short disagreement
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*complaints I've heard from countless sysadmin types about bandwidth requirements
These sysadmin types are whiners. I've heard complaints about Usenet bandwidth since 1985, but it's still somehow managed to survive.
The solution to this problem is well known. Don't carry all the groups. You'll get the occassional complaint, but it's always pretty easy to add groups later. This is more problematic if you are feeding news downstream, but even here it's pretty easy to select some large percent not to carry.
There are several technical groups that I often visit. I have to admit that Slashdot really has cut into my Newsgroup reading, though, and it's a shame. Note to self, more Newsgroup reading, less Slashdot
About SPAM. Yes, this is a problem. It can be a problem with mailing lists also. When I get a SPAM attack, I just select those emails I want to read and dump my mailbox out. It's not dissimilar to how I handle junk snail mail. SPAM in newsgroups can be annoying, but killfiles can help with the worst repeat offenders. I don't generally read a whole group anyway, I cherry pick for interesting subjects or authors I enjoy.
As long as I can still find Dennis Richie expounding on many geeky subjects (science AND computers) with a dejanews search, I'm still convinced that Usenet carries a lot of value. Do a dejanews search for dmr@bell-labs.com, include old posts and enjoy. See, there ARE interesting discussions in Usenet.
I guess it is possible that web-based forums could supplant Usenet. The Web pretty much supplanted Gopher and WAIS. Maybe with the latest CERT advisory (see this if you've been under a rock in the last week), we'll see renewed interest in Newsgroups, although I'm not at all sure that with many people's newsreaders being based on browsers that they are immune to these attacks.
Andover always struck me as a company that saw Linux as a money-making opportunity, and Rob's comments about their occasional early attempt to influence his content only affirmed that.
VA, on the other hand, has always done the right thing by the community, and since it has always been a Linux company (unlike Andover, who were a failing "tech" company before/.)...
VA is not just a money-making opportunity? It could be argued that now it's VA that is the failing "tech" company. They've still failed to produce a profit, right?
Weren't you even a little concerned about Larry Augustin's answers in the recent Slashdot interview. He appeared to dodge at least one pointed question about lack of support for AMD processors and it's relationship to Intel's investment in VA. But, read the whole thing, he sure comes off as a businessman interested in making money first and foremost. In fact, the publicly traded nature of VA probably requires a fudiciary responsibility on Augustin's part to try and make money. Nothing wrong with this. I'm just pointing this out to you as you seem to believe differently.
Disclaimer: I work for Compaq. I have absolutely NOTHING to do with PC or PC Server sales marketing, support or service. However, I do work for Compaq. Compaq DOES view itself as a direct competitor to VA, so take this into account when reading the above.
For the record, Compaq is a company concerned primarily with making money. I don't deny it and I'm not casting aspersions in the direction of VA Linux for also being such a company.
I must admit I can't back this up, but I seem to have heard as part of the whole DOJ/MS trial hoopla that the budget for the DOJ's Anti-trust department was stretched thin these days. Perhaps there's also a budget-caused staff shortage for the departments that should be overseeing CityBank style Mega-Mergers?
Congress only sets broad budgets for the DOJ, not individual activities within the DOJ. It can't allocate how much is spent on Anti-Trust. That's an executive function. I think you'll find that the DOJ has RECORD budgets lately. If the Anti-Trust division is short of funds, it is Clinton who is starving the Anti-Trust budgets.
You don't seem to understand what happened with Citibank/Traveler's. The DOJ, at some expense, actually went out of their way to hand Citibank an exemption to current law. Had they just prosecuted based on the current law they could have easily recovered the cost of prosecution in fines.
Living in British Columbia, I certainly wish we had more fiscal responsibility in our government. It's too bad that it is hard to find a party that believes in fiscal responsibility as well as a good balance between the rights of individuals, corporate strength, and the collective good. Libertarians seem to have learned the lessons of the 20th Century well, but seem to want to repeat those of the 19th century instead.
I'm no Libertarian. Neither am I a Republican, actually. I'm just pointing out the injustice of how Clinton gets a pass on policies in the Press for which Reagan would have been on a skewer.
We are probably philosophically much alike in that I'm for fiscal responsibility (like balanced budgets, only made possible by the Republican Congress, even though the Press continues to hand the credit to Clinton) and, as you can tell, I'm quite wary of corporate strength and concerned about the rights of individuals.
Perhaps, but it ismostly a Republican Congress which have passed the laws that made this possible.
Really? That's fascinating. Now, which laws specifically have made this possible.
What needs to happen is that there should be oversight by the FTC and the DOJ on the Mega-Mergers. If Clinton cared a bit, you'd hear him preaching from the Bully Pulpit about how Congress is allowing this to happen.
There's even the amazing case of the Citibank/Traveler's Merger that was illegal at the time that it was started. They started doing business together while the Banking regulations CLEARLY forbade these sorts of conglomerations of banking and insurance services.
The US Federal Reserve and the DOJ (both under the Executive Branch) gave them a waiver.
Congress later approved a change in the Banking regulations that made this Merger legal, and Clinton signed it into law.
With the loss of the Presidential line-item veto, the White House has less control over national policy than before.
Oh yes, that Presidential line-item veto that the Republican Congress voted into law in 1997 and the Supreme Court found unconstitutional in 1998?
Give me a BREAK! Reagan was BEGGING for a line-item veto for YEARS to get the profligate spending of the Democratic Congress under rein (the real cause of the huge deficits for which Reagan is blamed, profligate spending, not tax cuts, tax revenue nearly doubled in the '80s). The Republicans in a major feat of bi-partisanship, you know that bi-partisanship that the press will tell you the Republicans NEVER display, approved a line-item veto for Clinton.
So, today Clinton has pretty much exactly those powers that Reagan, the same powers he had in 1995, and 1996 and since 1998 and it's because of the loss of the line-item veto that the White House has less control over national policy than before? That line-item veto that was in place for about a YEAR!?
That's an interesting read of history.
Clinton preaches about every other potential danger to the people. How come he doesn't recommend new legislation or direct the DOJ to tie up these Mega-Mergers? Why? Because he's the biggest friend the big multinationals has ever had.
Democrats are amazing. If it's the good economy, well that's ALL Clinton. If it's anything bad, it's the Republican Congress. And the press is complicit in the lies.
Anybody hear about the 107 months of economic recovery? The longest good economy ever? Next month it will be 108 months, that's 9 YEARS of good economy. Clinton has been in for just over 8 YEARS.
Remember 1992? The worst economy in 50 years that Clinton told us about and the Press never challenged him on? According to the news today, we were in a good, recovering economy for the last 10 months of the Bush Presidency. Where was the Press then?
But I shouldn't have to worry about buffer overrun errors and the like... The subsystems I develop on should be robust.
Maybe I don't understand what you're saying here. You shouldn't have to be wary of clients, either, but it's a good practice to do so.
It's not hard to put code in place to check for buffer overruns from any source, even if that's a subsystem on which you develop. This is just a safe programming practice. You want to know, as soon as possible, when a component is not working as you expect. Buffer size checking helps with this.
By doing this you increase both robustness AND security in that if some code fails to check the incoming client messages adequately, you still have a good chance of catching it when the incoming message is not the expected length. This might help catch the <form> exploit described in the CERT, for example.
In the short story True Names by Vernor Vinge, there was an unusual Network persona that was an AI construct. (I think it was in True Names, it may have been another story in the collection True Names and Other Dangers.)
In this story, there was a virtual reality you could immerse yourself into and interact with other characters who had also plugged-in. The story's protagonist hung out with a group of characters that included a highly stylized Robot who gave you it's responses through a printout.
Everyone thought that the Robot was another person who just picked this odd persona. The Robot character would come into the room, sit and listen for a few minutes and then leave. Upon returning, it would produce an answer to a question asked before.
It turned out that the Robot was really an AI construct that just couldn't process a realistic response in Real Time.
The problem with national champions is that they know they are too politically important to be allowed to fail.
The US has many firms, but less all the time due to mergers, that are deemed too politically important to be allowed to fail.
Chrysler was bailed out once upon a time. Citibank, just a few years ago.
This is a danger of the new wave of Mega-Mergers that's never mentioned. Funny how the press STILL paints the '80s as the decade of greed and Mega-Mergers while the '90s and now the '00s (the oughts?) has REALLY seen a dramatic increase in huge mergers, CEO salaries and growing disparity between haves and have-nots.
Don't be fooled. The Media likes Clinton and gives him a pass on this stuff. If Reagan had been president when this was happening every TV News Show would have had nothing BUT how the economy is being manipulated for the benefit of the super-rich.
...because too many recently naturalized citizens voted Democrat in 1996.
Seeing as the Democrats get so much soft-money free advertising from the Labor Unions, it seems to me that this might be a bi-partisan issue.
What justification besides racism and fear of competition is there for our not allowing free entry for people with marketable skills into our country?
Heck, let's do what the Canadians do and charge them what it costs to process them through. Actually, I believe the Canadians actually make some money off of immigrants, which I'm not advocating.
However, it is first and foremost "news for nerds"... That's why we see stories about Processors, Satelites, Planets, and anything else.
"News for Nerds" has to be understood in context. Like it or not, there is an editorial bent to Slashdot. Articles are already posted by a non-secret cabal of people who are predominantly Open Source supporters who dislike and distrust Microsoft. These people clearly don't define people who have bought-in to the Microsoft Mindset as being Nerds. If you like and support Microsoft, in the minds of those who originally wrote "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." you are not a Geek, you're mainstream. There really is (or has been) a counter-culture element to Slashdot.
Actually, there's is pro-MS sentiment among the traditional Slashdot denizen, where MS supports Open Source or Open Standards. Even Bruce Perens supported MS in the recent AIM controversy. And, even a closed minded fanatic like me supports MS in their serious adoption of the Open XML Standard.
Why should it be suprising that finally there's a less biased moderator out there who can mark someone as a troll for bashing microsoft? I personally dislike seeing posts marked up simply bcause the take a swipe at MSFT or say something good about Linux, regardless as to whether or not it's actually true or not.
Unlike most other Media, Slashdot has an "Open Editorial Policy" that includes Moderators. These people also tend (although clearly less and less so) to be Open Source supporters who dislike and distrust Microsoft. This situation is not unfair. These people just have an opinion and a world-view. "Bias" is the perjorative term for people with a certain world-view.
One could just as easily accuse the Moderator who gave the 'Troll' Moderation originally as having a bias. After all, the humorous post that someone felt was a troll wasn't actually met with the flames you'd expect from a troll. That post was light humor that even the most rabid MS supporter would not take seriously. I think the Moderator just didn't like it and wanted to mark it down. If one wanted to put labels on opinions one might call that bias.
The day that moderation falls into the hands of a "secret cabal with opensource credentials" is the day i never come back here again.
And the secret cabal wouldn't miss you at all, I'm sure. Hey, take heart, there's always comp.os.advocacy.windows!
Right now, this place is fun simply for the fact that there's a wide range of opinions and ideas. It would suffer horribly if people realized there was no point in disagreeing with anybody because the "secret cabal of moderators" would mark them down to -1, effectively out of sight.
Well, first of all, as I said, there already is in place a cabal of editors who support a certain Open Source/Anti-MS bent to articles. Every media has some editorial policy.
Now, let me say that I have to agree with others who've pointed out the problems with my half-baked idea of allowing a "secret cabal of Open Source Supporters as Moderators", but, once upon a time, the Moderators effectively were a small group of Open Source/Anti-MS people, yet dissent was fostered. Fostered enough that Moderators of opinions that went against the prevailing opinions were even eventually allowed.
There is a real potential problem here. MS supporters in the population at large greatly outnumber Open Source supporters, and they have more resources. As these MS supporters continue to find and colonize Slashdot, there is the possibility that Slashdot will lose it's distinctiveness and become just another ZDNet Talkback Forum.
If it were the way you described it, it'd be simply a site dedicated to patting the backs of open source developers. How much fun would that be?
I dunno. As I said, Slashdot was once run for, by and about Open Source Advocates. There was plenty of good technical discussion, lots of heated debate and less hot grits down the pants. You hear a lot of nostalgia for the good old days of Slashdot. I guess I'd be sad if I saw that Slashdot was becoming dominated by people who wanted to discuss fashion at the Emmy's or some other nonsense.
I'm sad now that I see so many flames that get moderated up whenever a Slashdot article poster states an honest and well-founded, but anti-MS opinion in the articles. Gee Microsoftheads, you've got just about every other Technical media locked down, must you have this one too?
What is the correct use for a +1 bonus. I often check "No Score +1 Bonus", but I'm sometimes not sure.
My general rule is that if what I'm making a top-level comment on the story, and I think my Comment is not just a joke, or maybe not a real funny joke (why do I do it at all in this case?), I go ahead and take the +1 bonus. If I'm responding to something 2 or above, I leave the +1 Bonus in place. Otherwise, I remove the +1 bonus. Sometimes I forget to check 'No +1 Score Bonus' when I should by these criteria..
It is annoying when someone responds to a posting rated at 0 with a rating of 2 so that I (I assume that most people, like me, browse at 1 or above) see the response but not the original. Then, if I want the context I have to go check the below threshold Comments.
I often wish that 'No Score +1 Bonus' were the default.
I somewhat hope that this gets marked down as 'Offtopic'. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be many articles involving Moderation and Meta-Moderation lately so that we can vent these issues out. It seems like it sure is time for such an article with all the Moderator abuse I've seen lately. For example, the other day on the Mozilla M13 story there was a post that gave a link to the mirrors and someone marked it as 'Offtopic' (!?).
Wow, somebody moderated this as 'Troll'. Hard to believe.
Now, you can look at it as a Troll if you squint just right, but it's still hard to fathom that something poking fun at Microsoft could be so moderated here.
It's not abuse, but it is disturbing. It looks like this place is changing. There is at least one frequent poster who posts with impunity from microsoft.com and is frequently, and usually validly IMO, moderated up. Now, there's really nothing evil or wrong about this. It's just that things are clearly changing.
Is it impossible that there's a coordinated PR offensive against Slashdot (and possibly other Open Source advocacy sites) by MS sympathizers? After the Holloween Memos, where the author openly fretted about what to do about Linux and Open Source, I wouldn't put anything past 'em.
Obligatory on-topic comment: With this story clearly showing that MS will do everything in their power to hide their true intentions, it's just not hard to believe that there is a coordinated PR attack going on.
Perhaps Moderation (and even Meta-Moderation) should be limited to a secret cabal who actually have demonstrated Open Source credentials rather than just posers (like me!). A lot of people would scream that this is unfair, but I don't see anything wrong with assuring that this place's editorial policy stays consistent over time.
Like it or not, Moderators do serve editorial functions and any media has a right to choose it's editors.
Of course, if this, admittedly drastic, step were taken I'm not sure that Meta Moderation would be needed at all.
- Short story anthologies, especially older ones. I would look through them first just in case, so you can recommend some stories she might want to skip for a year or two.
I think this is a really excellent suggestion. I don't have it anymore, but I used to have a volume titled something like The Greatest Science Fiction Short Stories of All Time. I believe this collection had Heinlein's The Roads Must Roll (kinda political, but interesting) and Nightfall. There was a wonderful old short story about a scientist who had created a super fast-evolving species that he was subjecting to all sorts of stresses to push them along. Another story I enjoyed was about an intelligent Sea Creature species that was developing "space flight" into the atmosphere and lithosphere.
Also, the short story collections from Amazing magazine and the yearly Hugo collections are great resources, too.
Bristling with ideas, short stories are a wonderful way to introduce a teen to Science Fiction.
Don't get me wrong, character development and plot are important and I do believe that Science Fiction is best when it's engrossing and involved, like any good literature, something for which a short story may not be the best vehicle. But, if you and your niece enjoy the story, you may be able to follow it up with other works by the same author or other works set in the same "Universe".
I would also recommend things that some may consider not to be exactly science fiction, but encourage the same kind of thought processes. To this end, I highly recommend LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven. It's pretty short also, almost novella length.
Being a niece, I might seek out female Science Fiction authors to help encourage her to perhaps someday write herself. At least it will help defend her against an implied bias that Women don't really get Science Fiction. Science Fiction tends to be a male dominated genre, but some of the best is written by Women. Almost anything by LeGuin would be good. Of course, there are many others to choose from here. You could seek out those who write under male psuedonyms, Marion Zimmer Bradley, for example, has written a number of short stories under male pseudonyms (there are many many others). Perhaps you could read it first and surprise her with the information about the background of the author.
Well, I did say "Windows 98 SE box that pretty much everything you needed to make Windows 98 into Windows 98 SE was available free on the net."
Did MS make it clear that the most everything that Windows 98 SE had that Windows 98 didn't was available for free? Most people won't use Internet Connection Sharing.
Slashdot Mirror
Yet you advocate the MIT X and BSD licenses as being "true" sharing licenses. These licenses allow you to take and take and take from the work of others and "not share proportionately or fairly" or at all with the original authors.
So, it could be said that these other "Open" licenses discriminate against programmers who wish their works to be extended only by those who are willing to share those extensions back to the original author.
Yes, you can say that the GPL discriminates against programmers who wish to profit from the works of others and give nothing back. It does so in favor of users who need real software reuse and the accretive benefits of a large body of code.
Every license is targeted to a certain advantage, a certain group. That's the reason for licenses. Even the absence of a license (Public Domain) is advantageous to some while detrimental to others.
I think it's about time that we, as an industry, put the emphasis on the poor user who just needs to get work done. God knows they've been ignored long enough.
This boogeyman about how the GPL is going to put programmers out of work is just fantasy. Somehow, with the explosive growth in the use of GPLd software in the last few years, the acute deficit in programming personnel grows worse every day. Most programmers do maintenance work or custom contract work. These programmers will be helped by a large body of code from which to draw.
Other programmers who wish to sell only proprietary works can continue to do so. These programmers may find that they are at a competitive disadvantage against the body of GPLd work, but maybe not. If they can't compete, then it clearly shows that the user has benefitted. The user will be able to get products at a low cost that can always be self-maintained, or contract with programmers to maintain them for them, that is of high enough quality that commercially licensed software can't compete. Finally, it is possible for the user to benefit from true software reuse. I guess there's no cloud that doesn't have a silver lining for someone, eh?
-Jordan Henderson
The fact that Microsoft has been able to get away with ripping off people for so long is exactly because they don't operate in a free market.
The low Microsoft quality and high profits are the best indication that they are, in fact, a monopoly.
-Jordan Henderson
One word: Hypocrisy.
So, I guess it's just fine to practice this sort of underhanded dealing yourself, but if someone does it to you, it's wrong?
-Jordan Henderson
Next time we have Larry Augustin up for an interview, somebody remember this statement and ask the question:
"If you don't want to make any content changes to any Andover site, why, exactly, did you buy Andover?"
My guess is that the VA/Andover merger has to do with VA Linux wanting to increase their Linux mindshare, of emphasizing, in everyone's minds, that VA Linux means Linux, everything about Linux, all the time. If that's the case, it's a good answer, after all modern marketing is all about creating a "brand".
But, I'd like to hear the answer from Larry.
-Jordan Henderson
Sheesh, when was Slashdot NOT News for Linuxnerds?
Didn't Slashdot BEGIN as Rob Malda's stream-of-consciousness diary about the joys and sorrows of setting up and running Linux?
I agree. Why, at this moment I'm responding to some clueless guy who is making silly statements on what Slashdot once was and what it has become.
-Jordan Henderson
Uhh, the primary problem with MS is that it uses it's dominance in diverse product lines so that it doesn't have to compete.
A "new, little" MS to compete with the "old, big" MS is exactly what we need.
-Jordan Henderson
Every new Usenet user should be directed to read, or at least be aware of, the Informational Post in news.lists.misc. This should direct you to how to find a FAQ for most groups.
If this doesn't help, once you are aware of the existence of FAQs, only the greenest Internet Newbie wouldn't think to try a handy Web Search engine to look for "alt.foo.foobar +FAQ".
If this doesn't locate the FAQ, then there probably isn't one and the Newbie should ask the question anyway.
Now, there still exists the problem of ISPs/Universities/(Other Organization that gives Usenet access) that don't direct Newbies to the most basic information.
-Jordan Henderson
Yeah. When I worked for a Fortune 500 Energy company, I attended a demonstration of a crude Web-based discussion forum that some IT group was going to roll out. It had absolutely no advantage over NNTP.
I asked if they considered NNTP and they said they had, but that they really wanted to roll it out on Windows NT Server. I was pretty amazed by that answer. First, the presenter didn't know that you could run an NNTP server on Windows NT Server (Exchange Server, which they were running, comes with one) and second, that they would let the choice of platform dictate that they would have to introduce a new application. There were PLENTY of underutilized UNIX servers in this company and there was no IT dictum that the UNIX servers not be used where appropriate. In fact, UNIX servers were pressed into use as Web Servers in this company quite often.
In discussions during a break I gathered that only one other person that I talked to in the audience had ever heard of NNTP or newsgroups, I take that back, several people had seen the Newsgroup configuration in their browser and wondered what that was all about.
THIS is an example of why you MUST have good IT management who really knows technology and not just paper pushing, PowerPoint Presentation generating morons. Any competent management would have shot down this new application before it passed the memo writing stage. Competent management would have gone for NNTP on the low end or perhaps a KM tool like Lotus Notes on the high end, but they wouldn't have let new applications proliferate for bad reasons.
-Jordan Henderson
Is this what people are talking about when they say "the viral nature of the GPL"?
-Jordan Henderson
I think it would mean that the Internet had completely succumbed to Banner Ads, SPAM, one-click shopping, TV (streaming Video) and other nonsense. It would mean that the Internet is nothing but a commercial vehicle.
That's the wonderful thing about Usenet. It connected people everywhere with similar interests and there was no question about commercialism.
In a way, Usenet was a "free ride" for people to connect without paying anything. Maybe everybody pays in their ISP or for supporting institutions (like Universities) that support Usenet, but with less interest in Usenet will this be supportable? I'm not sure the world of the future will be so kind to those people who just want to connect.
Maybe it's time for subscription-supported discussion and Web sites. Adbusters is perhaps in the vanguard here. I'd like to see other such media with less of an anti-pop-culture theme, to discuss all sorts of subjects of interest.
There is a place for publicly supported media. Even with their political slant, I find NPR to be the best source of News and discussion on the Radio.
What really happened to cyber-cash initiatives of a few years ago? I know they pretty much died for lack of interest, but I'd sure like to be able to read interesting articles and pay some pittance for each article.
-Jordan Henderson
These sysadmin types are whiners. I've heard complaints about Usenet bandwidth since 1985, but it's still somehow managed to survive.
The solution to this problem is well known. Don't carry all the groups. You'll get the occassional complaint, but it's always pretty easy to add groups later. This is more problematic if you are feeding news downstream, but even here it's pretty easy to select some large percent not to carry.
There are several technical groups that I often visit. I have to admit that Slashdot really has cut into my Newsgroup reading, though, and it's a shame. Note to self, more Newsgroup reading, less Slashdot
About SPAM. Yes, this is a problem. It can be a problem with mailing lists also. When I get a SPAM attack, I just select those emails I want to read and dump my mailbox out. It's not dissimilar to how I handle junk snail mail. SPAM in newsgroups can be annoying, but killfiles can help with the worst repeat offenders. I don't generally read a whole group anyway, I cherry pick for interesting subjects or authors I enjoy.
As long as I can still find Dennis Richie expounding on many geeky subjects (science AND computers) with a dejanews search, I'm still convinced that Usenet carries a lot of value. Do a dejanews search for dmr@bell-labs.com, include old posts and enjoy. See, there ARE interesting discussions in Usenet.
I guess it is possible that web-based forums could supplant Usenet. The Web pretty much supplanted Gopher and WAIS. Maybe with the latest CERT advisory (see this if you've been under a rock in the last week), we'll see renewed interest in Newsgroups, although I'm not at all sure that with many people's newsreaders being based on browsers that they are immune to these attacks.
-Jordan Henderson
It'll be interesting to see if Penguin Computing (and other non-VA Linux focused PC Server companies) will still have banner ads.
-Jordan Henderson
VA, on the other hand, has always done the right thing by the community, and since it has always been a Linux company (unlike Andover, who were a failing "tech" company before /.) ...
VA is not just a money-making opportunity? It could be argued that now it's VA that is the failing "tech" company. They've still failed to produce a profit, right?
Weren't you even a little concerned about Larry Augustin's answers in the recent Slashdot interview. He appeared to dodge at least one pointed question about lack of support for AMD processors and it's relationship to Intel's investment in VA. But, read the whole thing, he sure comes off as a businessman interested in making money first and foremost. In fact, the publicly traded nature of VA probably requires a fudiciary responsibility on Augustin's part to try and make money. Nothing wrong with this. I'm just pointing this out to you as you seem to believe differently.
I think clues to the motivation for this merger can be found in this interesting article.
Disclaimer: I work for Compaq. I have absolutely NOTHING to do with PC or PC Server sales marketing, support or service. However, I do work for Compaq. Compaq DOES view itself as a direct competitor to VA, so take this into account when reading the above.
For the record, Compaq is a company concerned primarily with making money. I don't deny it and I'm not casting aspersions in the direction of VA Linux for also being such a company.
-Jordan Henderson
Congress only sets broad budgets for the DOJ, not individual activities within the DOJ. It can't allocate how much is spent on Anti-Trust. That's an executive function. I think you'll find that the DOJ has RECORD budgets lately. If the Anti-Trust division is short of funds, it is Clinton who is starving the Anti-Trust budgets.
You don't seem to understand what happened with Citibank/Traveler's. The DOJ, at some expense, actually went out of their way to hand Citibank an exemption to current law. Had they just prosecuted based on the current law they could have easily recovered the cost of prosecution in fines.
I'm no Libertarian. Neither am I a Republican, actually. I'm just pointing out the injustice of how Clinton gets a pass on policies in the Press for which Reagan would have been on a skewer.
We are probably philosophically much alike in that I'm for fiscal responsibility (like balanced budgets, only made possible by the Republican Congress, even though the Press continues to hand the credit to Clinton) and, as you can tell, I'm quite wary of corporate strength and concerned about the rights of individuals.
-Jordan Henderson
Really? That's fascinating. Now, which laws specifically have made this possible.
What needs to happen is that there should be oversight by the FTC and the DOJ on the Mega-Mergers. If Clinton cared a bit, you'd hear him preaching from the Bully Pulpit about how Congress is allowing this to happen.
There's even the amazing case of the Citibank/Traveler's Merger that was illegal at the time that it was started. They started doing business together while the Banking regulations CLEARLY forbade these sorts of conglomerations of banking and insurance services.
The US Federal Reserve and the DOJ (both under the Executive Branch) gave them a waiver.
Congress later approved a change in the Banking regulations that made this Merger legal, and Clinton signed it into law.
Oh yes, that Presidential line-item veto that the Republican Congress voted into law in 1997 and the Supreme Court found unconstitutional in 1998?
Give me a BREAK! Reagan was BEGGING for a line-item veto for YEARS to get the profligate spending of the Democratic Congress under rein (the real cause of the huge deficits for which Reagan is blamed, profligate spending, not tax cuts, tax revenue nearly doubled in the '80s). The Republicans in a major feat of bi-partisanship, you know that bi-partisanship that the press will tell you the Republicans NEVER display, approved a line-item veto for Clinton.
So, today Clinton has pretty much exactly those powers that Reagan, the same powers he had in 1995, and 1996 and since 1998 and it's because of the loss of the line-item veto that the White House has less control over national policy than before? That line-item veto that was in place for about a YEAR!?
That's an interesting read of history.
Clinton preaches about every other potential danger to the people. How come he doesn't recommend new legislation or direct the DOJ to tie up these Mega-Mergers? Why? Because he's the biggest friend the big multinationals has ever had.
Democrats are amazing. If it's the good economy, well that's ALL Clinton. If it's anything bad, it's the Republican Congress. And the press is complicit in the lies.
Anybody hear about the 107 months of economic recovery? The longest good economy ever? Next month it will be 108 months, that's 9 YEARS of good economy. Clinton has been in for just over 8 YEARS.
Remember 1992? The worst economy in 50 years that Clinton told us about and the Press never challenged him on? According to the news today, we were in a good, recovering economy for the last 10 months of the Bush Presidency. Where was the Press then?
-Jordan Henderson
Maybe I don't understand what you're saying here. You shouldn't have to be wary of clients, either, but it's a good practice to do so.
It's not hard to put code in place to check for buffer overruns from any source, even if that's a subsystem on which you develop. This is just a safe programming practice. You want to know, as soon as possible, when a component is not working as you expect. Buffer size checking helps with this.
By doing this you increase both robustness AND security in that if some code fails to check the incoming client messages adequately, you still have a good chance of catching it when the incoming message is not the expected length. This might help catch the <form> exploit described in the CERT, for example.
-Jordan Henderson
In this story, there was a virtual reality you could immerse yourself into and interact with other characters who had also plugged-in. The story's protagonist hung out with a group of characters that included a highly stylized Robot who gave you it's responses through a printout.
Everyone thought that the Robot was another person who just picked this odd persona. The Robot character would come into the room, sit and listen for a few minutes and then leave. Upon returning, it would produce an answer to a question asked before.
It turned out that the Robot was really an AI construct that just couldn't process a realistic response in Real Time.
-Jordan Henderson
The US has many firms, but less all the time due to mergers, that are deemed too politically important to be allowed to fail.
Chrysler was bailed out once upon a time. Citibank, just a few years ago.
This is a danger of the new wave of Mega-Mergers that's never mentioned. Funny how the press STILL paints the '80s as the decade of greed and Mega-Mergers while the '90s and now the '00s (the oughts?) has REALLY seen a dramatic increase in huge mergers, CEO salaries and growing disparity between haves and have-nots.
Don't be fooled. The Media likes Clinton and gives him a pass on this stuff. If Reagan had been president when this was happening every TV News Show would have had nothing BUT how the economy is being manipulated for the benefit of the super-rich.
-Jordan Henderson
Seeing as the Democrats get so much soft-money free advertising from the Labor Unions, it seems to me that this might be a bi-partisan issue.
What justification besides racism and fear of competition is there for our not allowing free entry for people with marketable skills into our country?
Heck, let's do what the Canadians do and charge them what it costs to process them through. Actually, I believe the Canadians actually make some money off of immigrants, which I'm not advocating.
-Jordan Henderson
"News for Nerds" has to be understood in context. Like it or not, there is an editorial bent to Slashdot. Articles are already posted by a non-secret cabal of people who are predominantly Open Source supporters who dislike and distrust Microsoft. These people clearly don't define people who have bought-in to the Microsoft Mindset as being Nerds. If you like and support Microsoft, in the minds of those who originally wrote "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters." you are not a Geek, you're mainstream. There really is (or has been) a counter-culture element to Slashdot.
Actually, there's is pro-MS sentiment among the traditional Slashdot denizen, where MS supports Open Source or Open Standards. Even Bruce Perens supported MS in the recent AIM controversy. And, even a closed minded fanatic like me supports MS in their serious adoption of the Open XML Standard.
Unlike most other Media, Slashdot has an "Open Editorial Policy" that includes Moderators. These people also tend (although clearly less and less so) to be Open Source supporters who dislike and distrust Microsoft. This situation is not unfair. These people just have an opinion and a world-view. "Bias" is the perjorative term for people with a certain world-view.
One could just as easily accuse the Moderator who gave the 'Troll' Moderation originally as having a bias. After all, the humorous post that someone felt was a troll wasn't actually met with the flames you'd expect from a troll. That post was light humor that even the most rabid MS supporter would not take seriously. I think the Moderator just didn't like it and wanted to mark it down. If one wanted to put labels on opinions one might call that bias.
And the secret cabal wouldn't miss you at all, I'm sure. Hey, take heart, there's always comp.os.advocacy.windows!
Well, first of all, as I said, there already is in place a cabal of editors who support a certain Open Source/Anti-MS bent to articles. Every media has some editorial policy.
Now, let me say that I have to agree with others who've pointed out the problems with my half-baked idea of allowing a "secret cabal of Open Source Supporters as Moderators", but, once upon a time, the Moderators effectively were a small group of Open Source/Anti-MS people, yet dissent was fostered. Fostered enough that Moderators of opinions that went against the prevailing opinions were even eventually allowed.
There is a real potential problem here. MS supporters in the population at large greatly outnumber Open Source supporters, and they have more resources. As these MS supporters continue to find and colonize Slashdot, there is the possibility that Slashdot will lose it's distinctiveness and become just another ZDNet Talkback Forum.
I dunno. As I said, Slashdot was once run for, by and about Open Source Advocates. There was plenty of good technical discussion, lots of heated debate and less hot grits down the pants. You hear a lot of nostalgia for the good old days of Slashdot. I guess I'd be sad if I saw that Slashdot was becoming dominated by people who wanted to discuss fashion at the Emmy's or some other nonsense.
I'm sad now that I see so many flames that get moderated up whenever a Slashdot article poster states an honest and well-founded, but anti-MS opinion in the articles. Gee Microsoftheads, you've got just about every other Technical media locked down, must you have this one too?
-Jordan Henderson
Yes, my Comment does look pretty Funny in retrospect. Didn't mean it that way when I wrote it. It's pretty paranoid, all in all.
I never saw this use of a +1 Moderation to actually criticize a Comment before. Put me right in my place.
Sheesh, I seriously need to think about getting a life.
-Jordan Henderson
My general rule is that if what I'm making a top-level comment on the story, and I think my Comment is not just a joke, or maybe not a real funny joke (why do I do it at all in this case?), I go ahead and take the +1 bonus. If I'm responding to something 2 or above, I leave the +1 Bonus in place. Otherwise, I remove the +1 bonus. Sometimes I forget to check 'No +1 Score Bonus' when I should by these criteria..
It is annoying when someone responds to a posting rated at 0 with a rating of 2 so that I (I assume that most people, like me, browse at 1 or above) see the response but not the original. Then, if I want the context I have to go check the below threshold Comments.
I often wish that 'No Score +1 Bonus' were the default.
I somewhat hope that this gets marked down as 'Offtopic'. On the other hand, there doesn't seem to be many articles involving Moderation and Meta-Moderation lately so that we can vent these issues out. It seems like it sure is time for such an article with all the Moderator abuse I've seen lately. For example, the other day on the Mozilla M13 story there was a post that gave a link to the mirrors and someone marked it as 'Offtopic' (!?).
-Jordan Henderson
Now, you can look at it as a Troll if you squint just right, but it's still hard to fathom that something poking fun at Microsoft could be so moderated here.
It's not abuse, but it is disturbing. It looks like this place is changing. There is at least one frequent poster who posts with impunity from microsoft.com and is frequently, and usually validly IMO, moderated up. Now, there's really nothing evil or wrong about this. It's just that things are clearly changing.
Is it impossible that there's a coordinated PR offensive against Slashdot (and possibly other Open Source advocacy sites) by MS sympathizers? After the Holloween Memos, where the author openly fretted about what to do about Linux and Open Source, I wouldn't put anything past 'em.
Obligatory on-topic comment: With this story clearly showing that MS will do everything in their power to hide their true intentions, it's just not hard to believe that there is a coordinated PR attack going on.
Perhaps Moderation (and even Meta-Moderation) should be limited to a secret cabal who actually have demonstrated Open Source credentials rather than just posers (like me!). A lot of people would scream that this is unfair, but I don't see anything wrong with assuring that this place's editorial policy stays consistent over time.
Like it or not, Moderators do serve editorial functions and any media has a right to choose it's editors.
Of course, if this, admittedly drastic, step were taken I'm not sure that Meta Moderation would be needed at all.
-Jordan Henderson
I think this is a really excellent suggestion. I don't have it anymore, but I used to have a volume titled something like The Greatest Science Fiction Short Stories of All Time. I believe this collection had Heinlein's The Roads Must Roll (kinda political, but interesting) and Nightfall. There was a wonderful old short story about a scientist who had created a super fast-evolving species that he was subjecting to all sorts of stresses to push them along. Another story I enjoyed was about an intelligent Sea Creature species that was developing "space flight" into the atmosphere and lithosphere.
Also, the short story collections from Amazing magazine and the yearly Hugo collections are great resources, too.
Bristling with ideas, short stories are a wonderful way to introduce a teen to Science Fiction.
Don't get me wrong, character development and plot are important and I do believe that Science Fiction is best when it's engrossing and involved, like any good literature, something for which a short story may not be the best vehicle. But, if you and your niece enjoy the story, you may be able to follow it up with other works by the same author or other works set in the same "Universe".
I would also recommend things that some may consider not to be exactly science fiction, but encourage the same kind of thought processes. To this end, I highly recommend LeGuin's The Lathe of Heaven. It's pretty short also, almost novella length.
Being a niece, I might seek out female Science Fiction authors to help encourage her to perhaps someday write herself. At least it will help defend her against an implied bias that Women don't really get Science Fiction. Science Fiction tends to be a male dominated genre, but some of the best is written by Women. Almost anything by LeGuin would be good. Of course, there are many others to choose from here. You could seek out those who write under male psuedonyms, Marion Zimmer Bradley, for example, has written a number of short stories under male pseudonyms (there are many many others). Perhaps you could read it first and surprise her with the information about the background of the author.
-Jordan Henderson
Did MS make it clear that the most everything that Windows 98 SE had that Windows 98 didn't was available for free? Most people won't use Internet Connection Sharing.
-Jordan Henderson