Yes, that is really lame. One would have expected that they'd have rewarded you for hacking the school network. It would, of course, have been a completely different thing if you had cracked the school network, but since it was the complete opposite, I can only agree that they were really lame.
I don't know what Unix system you use, but on my GNU/Linux system (which uses the same APIs), based on GNU libc, the get*ent APIs are implemented using nameswitch modules, which can do lookups in LDAP, NIS,/etc/passwd,/etc/passwd.db, a MySQL database, or anything else. And indeed, it will be on the complexity order of whatever that algorithm chooses -- it's not a flat search.
I will agree that there are a lot of things that should be done with the Unix "directory services", but not that which you describe. The greatest problem is that Unix still uses numeric UIDs, whereas it should be using symbolic UIDs (such as Kerberos principles).
I, too, am a home DSL user, but I don't block any addresses at all. I believe in an open information infrastructure, and I find it extremely annoying when others are treating home ISP IP pools differently or otherwise violating RFCs (by block ICMP echoes etc.).
As for crackers, I haven't had a problem. I just keep my Linux systems just reasonable patched (I have a couple of FC systems that haven't been upgraded in a couple of months, and a couple of RH9 systems that haven't been upgraded in years, and none have had security problems so far).
As for Spam, that was my greatest problem until recently, since I'm running my own mail server. I used to be receiving around 150 spams per day, which spamassassin would filter down to around 5-10 per day, which was extremely annoying (especially when being away from home for more than a couple of days). However, I installed milter-greylist a couple of months ago, and now I might be getting a Spam every other week or so. Greylisting really is awesome. It's kind of annoying that it takes half an hour or so to get "invitation" mails for mailing lists, account registration sites, etc., but what can I say? It's just so worth it.
It really doesn't take that much, and I just don't really have any problems at all. Sure, my systems would likely not stand up to a directed, manual attack, but then again: I'm just a home user on DSL.
But I won't do that on my workstation. Screwing with dependencies sucks. 9 times out of 10 when I go to install or upgrade some package, it requires a new version of x, which requires a new version of x, y, and z, which each require a new version of h-i-j-k-l-m-n-o-p, and half of the packages refuse to install and only break my system with I try to force them.
What distro are you using? Red Hat 9? Last I looked, Fedora Core, Mandrake, Debian, Ubuntu, Gentoo, and probably all others as well, do have automatic dependency resolving systems. Ever heard of yum, apt, urpmi or portage?
I know you were joking, but it really isn't very strange, and doesn't have to be explained by the fact that the *AA are assholes (which is still a fact nonetheless, of course).
Think about it: Just because organized crime syndicates are the largest pirates of movies/music, should that mean the the *AA should just ignore every other form of pirating until they've shut down the pirating syndicates? That would be analogous to the police ignoring every case of petty theft until they've managed to shut down organized thief syndicates, and I don't think any of us would like to see that happen.
I'm sure that the *AA are devoting resources to fighting organized crime as well, but that doesn't mean that they can just leave the petty pirates in peace (one also has to consider that it's probably much easier for them to go after petty pirates, thanks to the current state of the law, and whatever makes a dent in the pirating at the end of the day...). No matter how nice that would be.
It's more about avoiding taking responsibility for writing what is still for the average end-user crappy, hard to use, esoteric, inaccessible software which is what the OSS community would rather do[...]
If code is truly good and important, it doesn't matter if it is open or not. I don't use Xine, FC3, MTR, or a dozen other things because they are open. I'd pay like Windows software and not care if the code was open anyhow. I use them because I want them.
That is you, right, Darl? Didn't you say you were trying to quit Slashdot? Something along the lines of "the long-haired smellies"?
Well, now that you're here: I think you forgot "unamerican".
His point is that 22% of the code in a typical "Linux" distribution is written by the GNU, more than (pulling a number out my ass) any 3 other "authors" (or organisations) put together, wheras less than 1% is Linux.
I doubt that actual code share is his point at all, although it most likely does play into the greater whole.
The thing isn't just the amount of code, however: GNU is the very foundation of the philosophical and legal framework that underlies the free software community. GNU was the very starting point of it all. A Linux, or GNU/Linux, or GNU/MIT/KDE/Whatever/Linux system is a direct descendent of the project goal set out in the GNU manifesto. The fact that all of the software in the system wasn't developed directly under the GNU banner is really kind of irrelevant.
Really? In my dictionary, stealing refers to deny someone of something already in his or her possession. It refers neither to copying someone else's possessions, nor denying someone of potential future possessions.
Regardlessly of whether I agree that copyright infringement is morally wrong or not, let's call it by what it is: "Copyright infringement" -- not "stealing". Calling "copyright infringment" "stealing" is just the RIAA's way of demonizing it more than it has to be.
Tell the truth, you downloaded the latest Brittany Spears album didn't you?
What do you do when someone cybersquats on your name, in.xxx, with nasty goatse-like material?
This is why non-technical people shouldn't be in control over DNS issues. A domain name isn't like a trademark. It's really an arbitrary -- it's only by convention and convenience that it happens to coincide with company names.
Companies do not have (or should at least not have) any right to exact control over future potential domain names just because part of those names happen to coincide with their names, nor should they be feeling that they should have any reason to do so.
In short: Domain names are mechanisms, not content!
Firefox is just way too dumbed down for my taste, last time I looked.
Of course, you're free to use the Mozilla Suite however much you may want, but what has happened to Firefox isn't that it has been "dumbed down". It has simply been made a web browser, which I think is A Good Thing.
Seamonkey (the Mozilla Suite), however useful, isn't exactly "well designed" in that it's too monolithical. If you want the web browser, you get the e-mail client, calendar, Usenet client and fries on the side with it, whether you want to or not. For those of us using other programs for mailing/Usenet posting/calendaring/whatever-else, that's just a waste of resources.
The same thing goes for the plug-in architecture of Firefox. Those who don't want/need mouse gestures don't have to waste resources on them, for example. The plug-ins also allow for a more distributed development model, since people can contribute Firefox functionality as a plug-in, without having to contribute the code to the Mozilla Foundation.
As for Firefox going submarine, that's not going to happen. The Firefox/Thunderbird/Sunbird suite is the official replacement of Seamonkey, which will stop being developed after a certain point (I don't remember when, however). And then there's the issue if why they'd actaully want to do that...
Sure, it might not be a production server for Google or Amazon, but all my servers are slower than that and have no problems at all with the workload I have.
64 MBs of DRAM might be just a slight bit on the low end, but I really don't see a problem running a LAMP server on it. Or a mail server, for that matter. I actually don't really see what kind of a server you could not run on it (except possibly Tomcat;).
Not really. Microsoft gets accused of anti-trust violations, malfeasance, and generally being bad regardlessly of whether WGA works under WINE on Linux. If it does, however, they get made fun of as well.:)
Re:What about MIME types/file associations?
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I have no freaking idea where this thing is actually stored.
I also had trouble finding that, until I tried Autopackage. As it turns out, both Gnome and KDE use Freedesktop's MIME specification and store the files in ~/.local.
The ~/.local directory is quite a wise addition, and is a user-specific directory equivalent to/usr (with bin, lib, share, etc.). Autopackage uses it to install per-user programs, and Freedesktop uses it to install per-user MIME-settings (in ~/.local/share/mime and ~/.local/share/applications).
While that idea seems good, I guess the worst downside of it would be that it would only fit in one of your two ears. When I listen to music, I usually prefer listening with both ears.
Of course, it could still be quite nice with only one hearphone that you plug into the other ear. Having only one cable would probably reduce the number of knits you get on it...
For those who read TFA, why did MSN decide to help out Novell all of a sudden, and how? Did they finally disclose the MAPI protocol so that the Outlook Connection for Evolution finally works as it should?
Oh... Wait, I get it -- this wasn't a computer-related article, right?
Part of the reasons MS's product releases take so long and are so complex is their obligation to be backwardly compatible with all previous versions. And they've done a great job of it. (I have software that was written in 1994 for Windows 3.1 and it still runs fine on XP.)
Except that's backwards. You are speaking of making new operating systems run old applications, whereas the article is speaking of a new application not running on old operating systems. As you can see, it's the exact opposite.
This approached worked great for Apple when they went to OS X.
Eh? I haven't used OSX, but according to everything I've heard (and read on Apple's site), OSX includes a backward compatibility layer called "Classic", which emulates OS9 for applications that need it. Which, mind you, is also better than what Microsoft has done with backwards compatibility -- In OSX, the backward compatibility is implemented cleanly in an isolated module, while Windows is a mess of new and old functionality intermixed with each other in what is lovingly known as "the Win32 API".
Cutting the cord and telling Windows user's they must have XP is tough love, but will likely result in a more stable product and faster maintenance releases.
According to what I read in the previous Slashdot article that covered this issue, IE7 will only require WXPSP2/W2k3SP1 because they use a new security API that was introduced in the service packs (I forgot the name of that API, though). Thus, it's not because they cut compatibility stuff that would otherwise make IE7 work on older platforms, but only they are using newer APIs. And, if I know MicroSoft right, they won't go in and clean up the cruft just because of that.
Having the patent doesn't mean they're going to go sue AOL, Yahoo, etc. if their messengers have custom emoticons.
Right -- they probably won't sue AOL, Yahoo or any other company with lawyers to stand up to them.
It seems far more likely that they may try and send C&D letters or sue, for example, the Gaim developers, however, who have no lawyers and far lesser resources to stand up in court. The Gaim developers may choose to cease and desist just to not have to pay the court costs. Just like how the PearPC developers still haven't sued Maui StreamX (that was their name, right?).
But what are these toolbars (both Google's and Yahoo's) really good for? It seems that they give the user the power to "search directly from the toolbar" and similar things. But Firefox already has a search field in the default address toolbar! It seems to me that they are only taking up screen real estate.
I'm not trying to troll, and I'm glad to see that corporations are acknowledging Firefox in this way -- I've just never understood why anyone would want to use these toolbars. Does someone use this, and can he or she clarify, in that case?
Carnegie Mellon wrote a highly layered version of UNIX called the Mach microkernel.
But Mach is not Unix, and has never been. It can be like Unix if you bolt a Unix server onto it, and that's how it is commonly used, but that is in no way necessary.
Just FYI, Mach is also the microkernel under the GNU Hurd (although there are plans to move to L4 instead).
From what I've read (it was linked from a previous story on Slashdot about a benchmark of OSX vs. Linux, but I'm too lazy to find it), the reason why OSX is so sluggish is because the kernel is very coarsely locked. Up until 10.3, there was only the BKL, and every thread which wanted to run in the BSD kernel had to lock it, which meant that only one thread could be in the kernel at one time. In 10.3, there were two locks: One for the network part of the kernel, and one for the rest of the kernel, which is of course still horribly coarse. In 10.4, I believe they made a little bit better again, but it still doesn't beat Linux by far in fine-grained locking, with preemptible kernel threads, preemptible BKL, object-specific locks and what not.
There may be other factors as well, of course, but that seems enough to me.
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I will agree that there are a lot of things that should be done with the Unix "directory services", but not that which you describe. The greatest problem is that Unix still uses numeric UIDs, whereas it should be using symbolic UIDs (such as Kerberos principles).
As for crackers, I haven't had a problem. I just keep my Linux systems just reasonable patched (I have a couple of FC systems that haven't been upgraded in a couple of months, and a couple of RH9 systems that haven't been upgraded in years, and none have had security problems so far).
As for Spam, that was my greatest problem until recently, since I'm running my own mail server. I used to be receiving around 150 spams per day, which spamassassin would filter down to around 5-10 per day, which was extremely annoying (especially when being away from home for more than a couple of days). However, I installed milter-greylist a couple of months ago, and now I might be getting a Spam every other week or so. Greylisting really is awesome. It's kind of annoying that it takes half an hour or so to get "invitation" mails for mailing lists, account registration sites, etc., but what can I say? It's just so worth it.
It really doesn't take that much, and I just don't really have any problems at all. Sure, my systems would likely not stand up to a directed, manual attack, but then again: I'm just a home user on DSL.
Think about it: Just because organized crime syndicates are the largest pirates of movies/music, should that mean the the *AA should just ignore every other form of pirating until they've shut down the pirating syndicates? That would be analogous to the police ignoring every case of petty theft until they've managed to shut down organized thief syndicates, and I don't think any of us would like to see that happen.
I'm sure that the *AA are devoting resources to fighting organized crime as well, but that doesn't mean that they can just leave the petty pirates in peace (one also has to consider that it's probably much easier for them to go after petty pirates, thanks to the current state of the law, and whatever makes a dent in the pirating at the end of the day...). No matter how nice that would be.
Well, now that you're here: I think you forgot "unamerican".
The thing isn't just the amount of code, however: GNU is the very foundation of the philosophical and legal framework that underlies the free software community. GNU was the very starting point of it all. A Linux, or GNU/Linux, or GNU/MIT/KDE/Whatever/Linux system is a direct descendent of the project goal set out in the GNU manifesto. The fact that all of the software in the system wasn't developed directly under the GNU banner is really kind of irrelevant.
Regardlessly of whether I agree that copyright infringement is morally wrong or not, let's call it by what it is: "Copyright infringement" -- not "stealing". Calling "copyright infringment" "stealing" is just the RIAA's way of demonizing it more than it has to be.
Let's just hope not.Companies do not have (or should at least not have) any right to exact control over future potential domain names just because part of those names happen to coincide with their names, nor should they be feeling that they should have any reason to do so.
In short: Domain names are mechanisms, not content!
Seamonkey (the Mozilla Suite), however useful, isn't exactly "well designed" in that it's too monolithical. If you want the web browser, you get the e-mail client, calendar, Usenet client and fries on the side with it, whether you want to or not. For those of us using other programs for mailing/Usenet posting/calendaring/whatever-else, that's just a waste of resources.
The same thing goes for the plug-in architecture of Firefox. Those who don't want/need mouse gestures don't have to waste resources on them, for example. The plug-ins also allow for a more distributed development model, since people can contribute Firefox functionality as a plug-in, without having to contribute the code to the Mozilla Foundation.
As for Firefox going submarine, that's not going to happen. The Firefox/Thunderbird/Sunbird suite is the official replacement of Seamonkey, which will stop being developed after a certain point (I don't remember when, however). And then there's the issue if why they'd actaully want to do that...
Be a little nicer now.
64 MBs of DRAM might be just a slight bit on the low end, but I really don't see a problem running a LAMP server on it. Or a mail server, for that matter. I actually don't really see what kind of a server you could not run on it (except possibly Tomcat ;).
Not really. Microsoft gets accused of anti-trust violations, malfeasance, and generally being bad regardlessly of whether WGA works under WINE on Linux. If it does, however, they get made fun of as well. :)
The ~/.local directory is quite a wise addition, and is a user-specific directory equivalent to /usr (with bin, lib, share, etc.). Autopackage uses it to install per-user programs, and Freedesktop uses it to install per-user MIME-settings (in ~/.local/share/mime and ~/.local/share/applications).
Which blog would that be, good Sir? Neither the ARCchart site nor the TechWeb site so much as even contains the phrase "the porting process".
Whoever modded this funny? I know many have questionable opinions about Slashdot moderators, but I didn't know they were fundamentalists.
Of course, it could still be quite nice with only one hearphone that you plug into the other ear. Having only one cable would probably reduce the number of knits you get on it...
Oh... Wait, I get it -- this wasn't a computer-related article, right?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't SATA-I support 150 MB/s, and SATA-II doubles that, which means that it would support 300 MB/s, not 375?
It seems far more likely that they may try and send C&D letters or sue, for example, the Gaim developers, however, who have no lawyers and far lesser resources to stand up in court. The Gaim developers may choose to cease and desist just to not have to pay the court costs. Just like how the PearPC developers still haven't sued Maui StreamX (that was their name, right?).
I'm not trying to troll, and I'm glad to see that corporations are acknowledging Firefox in this way -- I've just never understood why anyone would want to use these toolbars. Does someone use this, and can he or she clarify, in that case?
Just FYI, Mach is also the microkernel under the GNU Hurd (although there are plans to move to L4 instead).
There may be other factors as well, of course, but that seems enough to me.