The point, I believe, is that there should be NO classified information because the act of GATHERING said information is prohibited BY LAW.
It wasn't illegal to bomb Normandy because we were at war. A REAL war as opposed to this farce we call a "war on terror". Building the bomb also falls into this context.
What doesn't fit is the government actively spying on its own citizens, without any oversight whatsoever. There is no just cause for this. There is no reason. In fact, it is blatantly against the law to do so without a warrant.
Classified or not, the law takes precedence. That's what it's there for. It's to prevent crap like this from happening in the firt place.
Um...wait...oh yeah. Sorry, I must apologize. That's the way it would work in a government that actually respected the great ideals this country was founded on. Let me rephrase for modern times:
Laws or not, the government takes precedence. That's what it's there for.
Or, in Joe Sixpack Fox News Lingo:
OMG!!1!! Terrorist are going to eat you!!!1!! Feddies will save U!!!!!1111!
There are other types of harm that are not physical that can be quite devastating.
While I'm sure living next to the Enron guys would just be swell, having your life savings wiped out a few years before you retire would be quite devastating.
Punishment should fit the crime, but we seem to be a little lacking in that regard. I agree, child predators, murderers, etc. should be seperated out. I also agree the toker with the poker fetish should be allowed to live in peace.
But I do not agree with the so-called white-collar criminals not getting a good chunk of hard time. I want their holdings and estates liquidated and used as reimbursement. They destroyed people's lives, and they should get everything they deserve including a couple of tits tatooed on their backs.
Even better, we should pay them to not do anything at all. At this point, it's better.
Maybe that's what they really want, so they're purposely screwing things up to the point we just say, "Here, take the money! I don't care! Just don't do anything!"
We pay farmers not to grow, why can't we pay congress to NOT legislate?
Thinking is deadly to the current econo-poloitical environment. Thinking leads people to question. Thinking leads people to independence.
And that is exactly what a vast majority of corporations and politicians don't want. They want everyone to have the same goals. They want everyone to have the same dreams. They want everyone to agree on fads.
And TV, much like the pied piper, has conditioned a majority to do just that. And may $diety$ help you if you do happen to go "against the grain".
I'm not as worried about the science aspect as much as I'm worried about the lack of fundamental critical thinking skills.
This was a conversation between me and a coworker after he had read about some cool new idea that was making somebody rich....
Coworker: Damn. Why can't I come up with an idea like that? Me: Like what? Coworker: This kid just came up with a cool new idea and he's making serious cash off it. Me: Well, you know good ideas are like bars of gold buried in a steaming pool of shit. Coworker (incredulously): What, eventually the gold floats to the top? Me: No. Eventually someone is stupid enough to dive in and find it. And when they do, everyone else stands there saying, "Damn, now why didn't I think of that?".
"I wish software engineers would be more like bridge engineers as well, but the cost of failure (and the cost of fixing in the event of a failure) are so different between bridges & software that its not likely to change."
The old bridge anaolgy. Ok. So you're building 1-mile long bridge across a ravine. You have you engineers test the geology, you design, and you build it to spec right?
No. Software is more like building a bridge to a place that no really knows. The customer for your bridge won't let you test the geology for stability using your own tools, you have to use their's. Only their tools don't do what they think it does.
Mid-way through the project, your steel-reinforced concrete pylons are replaced by aluminum girders, despite your protests that they simply will not cary the load.
Later on, you find out from one of your engineers that the tools you had to use from the customer did not show the lava-spewing volcano in the path of the bridge. In the meantime, an earthquake occured at the start of the bridge and shifted the whole thing by a half-mile.
Finally, the customer has figured out where they "really meant" the bridge to go. To your surprise, they wanted the bridge built in the next state over. Oh, they also no longer need a suspension bridge. And it needs to be gold not green. And you have to build it out of wood.
In a mad effort, your team picks up what they can from the bridge, haul it over to the new location, cut it back, quickly add on wood where possible, then paint the whole mess gold.
In an ideal world, the cutomer would come to the table with a list of requirements. These requirements would be used to guide R&D to come up with a conops. The developer and customer would work things out at a high level until it was agreed upon. The developer would then create a user-level design matched to the requirements/conops, possibly with some prototyped functionality. Again this would be discussed until and agreement was reached. Then the developer would create a solid technical design based off the prototypes, user-level design, conops, and requirements. This represents the UNCHANGING blue-print for the software. The customers would get exactly what they wanted, and you would produce a solid software product.
But in all my years of software developement, I've never seen this "ideal" happen. This includes much lauded CMMI certified places.
Another completely useless way of transmitting power without loss would be to use electron tunneling to over come the potential well from the power station to your house.
Unfortunately, you need so much energy to do that it would probably shred space-time, and turn the solar system into a quark-gluon plasma.
The only real way to transmit electricity with the least loss is to have your own home power station. Solar cells or a bio-diesel generator would be decent choices.
"If you're trying for 8x10" pictures, 8Mp is "enough"."
Don't know what camera you're using, but with a Nikon D70 6 MP camera I can blow up pictures a good deal larger than 8x10 and still have it look just fine. I'm not saying you could create a poster out of it but you can definately do larger than 8x10 with no significant loss of picture quality.
As was stated earlier, it all depends on the sensor size. A 6MP DSLR will give you much better pictures than a 6MP PAS.
And thus begins the downfall of freedom and liberty.
Security over privacy? No. Cowardice. If this poll is to be believed then the majority of people in this country are ignorant cowards. They have no idea what it means to be free, nor appreciate what others have done to give them their liberties and freedoms.
Why did the founding fathers even bother fighting for this country, when the people of today are so full of fear that they are practically giving away their freedoms? It's sickening.
Is this what the "guiding light" of the world is supposed to be, inching closer and closer to the very thing that we used to loathe becoming?
How long before spying on email and internet usage become "ok in the name of fighting terrorism"? How long before voicing an opposing view becomes a crime because it "encourages terrorism"?
Courage is remaining steadfast in the face of adversity. Courage is keeping your freedoms and liberty under threats foriegn and domestic. Courage is what built this country out of blood, sweat, and tears.
And for what? To have a bunch of cowards huddled in a corner liked whipped puppies crying, "Do whatever you want, just make the terrorists stop!".
Disgusting, pitiful, and shameful.
A real patriot is willing to be attacked by terrorists to maintain our freedom. A real patriot is willing to die to maintain our freedom.
Check out the CDC website to find out your odds of death by various means. Where is terrorism? Hmmmm....let's see...no not plane crash....not lightening strike....hmmmm... oh look, it's right there just above getting killed by A FUCKING ASTEROID!
I've got about a 10,000 times better chance of dying just walking down my stairs in the morning. In fact, you are way way WAY more likely to commit suicide than die by terroism.
Really. It's not the form of government that's flawed, it's the people in it. Because people run the government (no mater which form), eventually the money and power consolidates to a certain elite class and you get a fascist type of government (either outright or through corruption). And in order to maintain that wealth and power, the elite will do any number of actions to ensure it stays that way.
Do people honestly think because we're the USA that it can't possibly happen here?
It's pretty simple, really. People will use what they know, and hey will use what works.
If linux is so great, one wonders, then why haven't we seen a flood of unwashed masses coming in to be baptized by the OSS community? Is it the MS monopoly? Is everyone just brainwashed?
It can surely be argued that Linux has all the functionality, and in a large part it does. But you may have to recompile a pogram with certain conf flags. Or you may have to get the latest kernel. Or you may be SOL because there are no drivers for your video card/wirless card. Thus, the problem. People are not going to use any OS that can not do what they want it to do. Period.
Windows users use windows because that is what plays their games, supports their peripherals, and handles their movies/mp3's etc. without much of a hassle. Developers use windows because when you're trying to sell a product you want to hit the largest market possible.
People want their machines to be BOTH tool and toy. They want to do their work AND play their games. It's not an either/or for most people.
I'm pro-linux as much as the next guy (on slashdot anyway), but I still ask the same question: What is the goal of Linux? If you want market share, to displace Windows, then an OS like linux will need to start playing on the same field (i.e. through some mechanism allow binary only drivers). If not, then Linux will just be that "other OS" that most people don't use because they want their webcam to "just work".
I honestly believe that if linux allowed binary only drivers, then MS would start panicking as users migrated from windows to Mandriva or Ubuntu, as their would be no reason not to. Sure, doing so flies in the face of OSS, but once enough of the user base gets behind Linux, then it would have some serious clout with the companies.
I don't have much of a problem either way. It's just sometimes it seems there is a conflicting voice rising from the community.
Every single adult male is a child molesting, sex obsessed, cock throttling pervert. But your status changes once your married though...
In that case you're a closet child molesting, sex obsessed, cock throttling pervert.
It's funny in a sad kind of way. If I go to the park with my son, and get involved with "kid's games" other parents get ancy. Same situation, but my wife is playing with the kids, no problems.
Welcome to America, were all men are immediately considered to be sexual predators.
Which gets to the crux of th problem: the customers. It doesn't matter how carefully you plan or how many peer reviews you have, the customer will always come back and say "We want this feature".
You don't get any additional time or costs. If you stick to your guns and say no, there's more than a few companies who would be more than happy to agree to do it, and maybe even at a lower cost and shorter time frame.
Of course, you know where it will end up; a broken buggy program that just barely works. But all the "I told you so's" in the world won't change the fact that you're unemployed.
The customers don't want a 100% bug free super product. They want a product that works. In this sense, it's sort of like biological evolution. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be good enough.
It's the customers that drive the market, and until the mentality changes we will keep seeing sub par programs that are just "good enough".
*sigh* I'm not sure what makes me more sad, that crap like this is actually happening in the "land of the free" or that you simply don't get why this is so bad.
You are more likely to be killed by lightening than a terrorist. Remember that when the last of your freedoms are stripped away.
Even better, how many people online are actually terrorists? How many people in the world are terrorists?
Our laws are funny, in a sad sick twisted kinda way. I'm always amazed that our freedom and ideals aren't being taken away by a foriegn power, but by our own damn people.
Perhaps future generations will think back on what the United States was, laugh nervously, then change the subject.
"So, not everyone living in an irradiated area will have their flesh falling off, but for us long-lifed humans, the life would be filled with more misery and an early ending."
And you know this how? Experience?
Some who survived Hiroshima and the generations following seem to contradict your statement. In fact, they seem to be healthier than normal.
Radiation isn't necessarily harmful. Lot's of radiation suddenly is usually harmful (unless you're a cockroach).
In the end, natural selection will choose the winners, namely those that could withstand higher radiation and live the longest. So at worst, you'd have x number of generations that would have issues but eventually you'd end up with a stable species.
Another thing to keep in mind, we humans are still just trying to deal with the problems in our own genetics for living past our warranty date. It really hasn't been all that long that we've been able to live to our 70's on average, and we notice all sorts of problems as we get older.
"We need to be able to include everyone in this community."
"Why? Just that. Why?"
Well, it would certainly cut down on the number linux people bitching and complaining about Windows Lusers.
It would seem, according the article, switching to linux has no incentive for the average user. (Please note I said average, not expert. This means those people who vaguely know that a virus/spyware/malware is, write a few documents, surf the web, write email, and of course play games.)
Staying with windows means they can keep doing what they're doing. Switching to linux means that something(s) may not work right or work the way they are expecting, and asking questions gets you cyber-bullied.
Terms like "source code", "kernel", and "mount" are like foriegn language to the average user. Sure the info may be out on the net, but how would an average user even know what to look for? RTFM? A lot of the docs I've seen are mainly written for those that know (at least to some degree) what they're doing. Some distros are starting to get the hang of it (Mandriva to name one), but what hapens when you can't get the desktop to start up (something the average user expects)? They've got a blinking cursor with an error message. Assuming you've never used the command line before (average user), how does one proceed?
On the messageboard/newsgroup:
avguser: "Hi, I just installed xxxxxx linux and I get this error about an xserver thing and a blinking cursor. Can anyone tell me what's wrong?"
linuxguru: "Ha ha n00b. RTFM, you baby."
Do you know how the average user will proceed? "F*ck this, I'm going back to Windows."
The real question is what does the linux community want? Do you actually want more people to use linux or do you just want a certain "elite" segment of the population to use linux?
If it's the former, then linux needs a better public image. Right now, linux still has the stigma of being for uber-nerds, and this pretty much frightens most people away. The more user-friendly distros are starting to melt this away, but the user community could be a little more friendly/welcoming if said article is to be believed.
If it's the latter, then the linux community needs to stop the intelluctual elitest bigotry and just say "Hey, if you can't code, don't bother". Let the average user have the average operating system and quitcherbitchin about how much Windows/Mac/etc. suck. The "linux snobs" don't have much right to derride people for their OS choice if they're just going to be dicks when they try out linux
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The point, I believe, is that there should be NO classified information because the act of GATHERING said information is prohibited BY LAW.
It wasn't illegal to bomb Normandy because we were at war. A REAL war as opposed to this farce we call a "war on terror". Building the bomb also falls into this context.
What doesn't fit is the government actively spying on its own citizens, without any oversight whatsoever. There is no just cause for this. There is no reason. In fact, it is blatantly against the law to do so without a warrant.
Classified or not, the law takes precedence. That's what it's there for. It's to prevent crap like this from happening in the firt place.
Um...wait...oh yeah. Sorry, I must apologize. That's the way it would work in a government that actually respected the great ideals this country was founded on. Let me rephrase for modern times:
Laws or not, the government takes precedence. That's what it's there for.
Or, in Joe Sixpack Fox News Lingo:
OMG!!1!! Terrorist are going to eat you!!!1!! Feddies will save U!!!!!1111!
~X~
There are other types of harm that are not physical that can be quite devastating.
While I'm sure living next to the Enron guys would just be swell, having your life savings wiped out a few years before you retire would be quite devastating.
Punishment should fit the crime, but we seem to be a little lacking in that regard. I agree, child predators, murderers, etc. should be seperated out. I also agree the toker with the poker fetish should be allowed to live in peace.
But I do not agree with the so-called white-collar criminals not getting a good chunk of hard time. I want their holdings and estates liquidated and used as reimbursement. They destroyed people's lives, and they should get everything they deserve including a couple of tits tatooed on their backs.
~X~
No no. Gambler's are terrorist. They also just happen to eat children, rape animals, and kill governors.
"You just made a bet online! Off to Gitmo with you!"
~X~
Even better, we should pay them to not do anything at all. At this point, it's better.
Maybe that's what they really want, so they're purposely screwing things up to the point we just say, "Here, take the money! I don't care! Just don't do anything!"
We pay farmers not to grow, why can't we pay congress to NOT legislate?
~X~
Thinking is deadly to the current econo-poloitical environment. Thinking leads people to question. Thinking leads people to independence.
And that is exactly what a vast majority of corporations and politicians don't want. They want everyone to have the same goals. They want everyone to have the same dreams. They want everyone to agree on fads.
And TV, much like the pied piper, has conditioned a majority to do just that. And may $diety$ help you if you do happen to go "against the grain".
I'm not as worried about the science aspect as much as I'm worried about the lack of fundamental critical thinking skills.
~X~
This was a conversation between me and a coworker after he had read about some cool new idea that was making somebody rich....
Coworker: Damn. Why can't I come up with an idea like that?
Me: Like what?
Coworker: This kid just came up with a cool new idea and he's making serious cash off it.
Me: Well, you know good ideas are like bars of gold buried in a steaming pool of shit.
Coworker (incredulously): What, eventually the gold floats to the top?
Me: No. Eventually someone is stupid enough to dive in and find it. And when they do, everyone else stands there saying, "Damn, now why didn't I think of that?".
~X~
"I wish software engineers would be more like bridge engineers as well, but the cost of failure (and the cost of fixing in the event of a failure) are so different between bridges & software that its not likely to change."
The old bridge anaolgy. Ok. So you're building 1-mile long bridge across a ravine. You have you engineers test the geology, you design, and you build it to spec right?
No. Software is more like building a bridge to a place that no really knows. The customer for your bridge won't let you test the geology for stability using your own tools, you have to use their's. Only their tools don't do what they think it does.
Mid-way through the project, your steel-reinforced concrete pylons are replaced by aluminum girders, despite your protests that they simply will not cary the load.
Later on, you find out from one of your engineers that the tools you had to use from the customer did not show the lava-spewing volcano in the path of the bridge. In the meantime, an earthquake occured at the start of the bridge and shifted the whole thing by a half-mile.
Finally, the customer has figured out where they "really meant" the bridge to go. To your surprise, they wanted the bridge built in the next state over. Oh, they also no longer need a suspension bridge. And it needs to be gold not green. And you have to build it out of wood.
In a mad effort, your team picks up what they can from the bridge, haul it over to the new location, cut it back, quickly add on wood where possible, then paint the whole mess gold.
In an ideal world, the cutomer would come to the table with a list of requirements. These requirements would be used to guide R&D to come up with a conops. The developer and customer would work things out at a high level until it was agreed upon. The developer would then create a user-level design matched to the requirements/conops, possibly with some prototyped functionality. Again this would be discussed until and agreement was reached. Then the developer would create a solid technical design based off the prototypes, user-level design, conops, and requirements. This represents the UNCHANGING blue-print for the software. The customers would get exactly what they wanted, and you would produce a solid software product.
But in all my years of software developement, I've never seen this "ideal" happen. This includes much lauded CMMI certified places.
~X~
Another completely useless way of transmitting power without loss would be to use electron tunneling to over come the potential well from the power station to your house.
Unfortunately, you need so much energy to do that it would probably shred space-time, and turn the solar system into a quark-gluon plasma.
The only real way to transmit electricity with the least loss is to have your own home power station. Solar cells or a bio-diesel generator would be decent choices.
~X~
"If you're trying for 8x10" pictures, 8Mp is "enough"."
Don't know what camera you're using, but with a Nikon D70 6 MP camera I can blow up pictures a good deal larger than 8x10 and still have it look just fine. I'm not saying you could create a poster out of it but you can definately do larger than 8x10 with no significant loss of picture quality.
As was stated earlier, it all depends on the sensor size. A 6MP DSLR will give you much better pictures than a 6MP PAS.
~X~
And thus begins the downfall of freedom and liberty.
Security over privacy? No. Cowardice. If this poll is to be believed then the majority of people in this country are ignorant cowards. They have no idea what it means to be free, nor appreciate what others have done to give them their liberties and freedoms.
Why did the founding fathers even bother fighting for this country, when the people of today are so full of fear that they are practically giving away their freedoms? It's sickening.
Is this what the "guiding light" of the world is supposed to be, inching closer and closer to the very thing that we used to loathe becoming?
How long before spying on email and internet usage become "ok in the name of fighting terrorism"? How long before voicing an opposing view becomes a crime because it "encourages terrorism"?
Courage is remaining steadfast in the face of adversity. Courage is keeping your freedoms and liberty under threats foriegn and domestic. Courage is what built this country out of blood, sweat, and tears.
And for what? To have a bunch of cowards huddled in a corner liked whipped puppies crying, "Do whatever you want, just make the terrorists stop!".
Disgusting, pitiful, and shameful.
A real patriot is willing to be attacked by terrorists to maintain our freedom. A real patriot is willing to die to maintain our freedom.
Have we really fallen so far?
~X~
The terrorist threat IS minimal.
Check out the CDC website to find out your odds of death by various means. Where is terrorism? Hmmmm....let's see...no not plane crash....not lightening strike....hmmmm... oh look, it's right there just above getting killed by A FUCKING ASTEROID!
I've got about a 10,000 times better chance of dying just walking down my stairs in the morning. In fact, you are way way WAY more likely to commit suicide than die by terroism.
So how is terrorism a major threat?
~X~
The history of the human race is very much like the movie industry. It's the same tired act over and over again, only with better special effects.
*sigh*
~X~
It's the people, stupid.
Really. It's not the form of government that's flawed, it's the people in it. Because people run the government (no mater which form), eventually the money and power consolidates to a certain elite class and you get a fascist type of government (either outright or through corruption). And in order to maintain that wealth and power, the elite will do any number of actions to ensure it stays that way.
Do people honestly think because we're the USA that it can't possibly happen here?
~X~
Yeah, but the trade-off is your heating bill will go down due the raging inferno of flame and molten metal spewing out of the back of your computer.
~X~
It's pretty simple, really. People will use what they know, and hey will use what works.
If linux is so great, one wonders, then why haven't we seen a flood of unwashed masses coming in to be baptized by the OSS community? Is it the MS monopoly? Is everyone just brainwashed?
It can surely be argued that Linux has all the functionality, and in a large part it does. But you may have to recompile a pogram with certain conf flags. Or you may have to get the latest kernel. Or you may be SOL because there are no drivers for your video card/wirless card. Thus, the problem. People are not going to use any OS that can not do what they want it to do. Period.
Windows users use windows because that is what plays their games, supports their peripherals, and handles their movies/mp3's etc. without much of a hassle. Developers use windows because when you're trying to sell a product you want to hit the largest market possible.
People want their machines to be BOTH tool and toy. They want to do their work AND play their games. It's not an either/or for most people.
I'm pro-linux as much as the next guy (on slashdot anyway), but I still ask the same question: What is the goal of Linux? If you want market share, to displace Windows, then an OS like linux will need to start playing on the same field (i.e. through some mechanism allow binary only drivers). If not, then Linux will just be that "other OS" that most people don't use because they want their webcam to "just work".
I honestly believe that if linux allowed binary only drivers, then MS would start panicking as users migrated from windows to Mandriva or Ubuntu, as their would be no reason not to. Sure, doing so flies in the face of OSS, but once enough of the user base gets behind Linux, then it would have some serious clout with the companies.
I don't have much of a problem either way. It's just sometimes it seems there is a conflicting voice rising from the community.
~X~
Didn't you get the memo?
Every single adult male is a child molesting, sex obsessed, cock throttling pervert. But your status changes once your married though...
In that case you're a closet child molesting, sex obsessed, cock throttling pervert.
It's funny in a sad kind of way. If I go to the park with my son, and get involved with "kid's games" other parents get ancy. Same situation, but my wife is playing with the kids, no problems.
Welcome to America, were all men are immediately considered to be sexual predators.
~X~
Which gets to the crux of th problem: the customers. It doesn't matter how carefully you plan or how many peer reviews you have, the customer will always come back and say "We want this feature".
;P
You don't get any additional time or costs. If you stick to your guns and say no, there's more than a few companies who would be more than happy to agree to do it, and maybe even at a lower cost and shorter time frame.
Of course, you know where it will end up; a broken buggy program that just barely works. But all the "I told you so's" in the world won't change the fact that you're unemployed.
The customers don't want a 100% bug free super product. They want a product that works. In this sense, it's sort of like biological evolution. It doesn't have to be perfect, it just has to be good enough.
It's the customers that drive the market, and until the mentality changes we will keep seeing sub par programs that are just "good enough".
But I'm not bitter.
~X~
You NEED to be eaten by a large grue. :)
~X~
You don't get it. You just....don't get it.
*sigh* I'm not sure what makes me more sad, that crap like this is actually happening in the "land of the free" or that you simply don't get why this is so bad.
You are more likely to be killed by lightening than a terrorist. Remember that when the last of your freedoms are stripped away.
~X~
"It ain't so"
American Public: "That's good enoug for us."
And the country continues to devolve into fascism.
~X~
Even better, how many people online are actually terrorists? How many people in the world are terrorists?
Our laws are funny, in a sad sick twisted kinda way. I'm always amazed that our freedom and ideals aren't being taken away by a foriegn power, but by our own damn people.
Perhaps future generations will think back on what the United States was, laugh nervously, then change the subject.
~X~
So in short, you just want to do what you want to do and get paid for it.
Good luck with that.
~X~
"So, not everyone living in an irradiated area will have their flesh falling off, but for us long-lifed humans, the life would be filled with more misery and an early ending."
And you know this how? Experience?
Some who survived Hiroshima and the generations following seem to contradict your statement. In fact, they seem to be healthier than normal.
Radiation isn't necessarily harmful. Lot's of radiation suddenly is usually harmful (unless you're a cockroach).
In the end, natural selection will choose the winners, namely those that could withstand higher radiation and live the longest. So at worst, you'd have x number of generations that would have issues but eventually you'd end up with a stable species.
Another thing to keep in mind, we humans are still just trying to deal with the problems in our own genetics for living past our warranty date. It really hasn't been all that long that we've been able to live to our 70's on average, and we notice all sorts of problems as we get older.
~X~
"We need to be able to include everyone in this community."
"Why? Just that. Why?"
Well, it would certainly cut down on the number linux people bitching and complaining about Windows Lusers.
It would seem, according the article, switching to linux has no incentive for the average user. (Please note I said average, not expert. This means those people who vaguely know that a virus/spyware/malware is, write a few documents, surf the web, write email, and of course play games.)
Staying with windows means they can keep doing what they're doing. Switching to linux means that something(s) may not work right or work the way they are expecting, and asking questions gets you cyber-bullied.
Terms like "source code", "kernel", and "mount" are like foriegn language to the average user. Sure the info may be out on the net, but how would an average user even know what to look for? RTFM? A lot of the docs I've seen are mainly written for those that know (at least to some degree) what they're doing. Some distros are starting to get the hang of it (Mandriva to name one), but what hapens when you can't get the desktop to start up (something the average user expects)? They've got a blinking cursor with an error message. Assuming you've never used the command line before (average user), how does one proceed?
On the messageboard/newsgroup:
avguser: "Hi, I just installed xxxxxx linux and I get this error about an xserver thing and a blinking cursor. Can anyone tell me what's wrong?"
linuxguru: "Ha ha n00b. RTFM, you baby."
Do you know how the average user will proceed? "F*ck this, I'm going back to Windows."
The real question is what does the linux community want? Do you actually want more people to use linux or do you just want a certain "elite" segment of the population to use linux?
If it's the former, then linux needs a better public image. Right now, linux still has the stigma of being for uber-nerds, and this pretty much frightens most people away. The more user-friendly distros are starting to melt this away, but the user community could be a little more friendly/welcoming if said article is to be believed.
If it's the latter, then the linux community needs to stop the intelluctual elitest bigotry and just say "Hey, if you can't code, don't bother". Let the average user have the average operating system and quitcherbitchin about how much Windows/Mac/etc. suck. The "linux snobs" don't have much right to derride people for their OS choice if they're just going to be dicks when they try out linux
~X~
Getting a million dollar tax bill from the IRS is getting fucked.
Getting a 900 million dollar tax bill from the IRS is getting ORAFUCKED (fucked in every orifice).
~X~