Freedom is a real pain in the ass, isn't it? Free software shouldn't exist because the licensing is just too... too... free! Heaven forbid should somebody have a problem with software that was designed to be given away.
I could inject some philosophical stuff here, but I'm going to be alittle more simple - So what? Even if RMS is a communist with an attitude and wants to see all software licensed under the GPL.. does it matter? I'm looking at the whole picture here and I see alot of quality software being made, used, reused, and distributed. I don't know what you call it - but I call those results.
Sure... right after we finish editting the HTML spec to no longer allow images, boldface tags, italics, frames support... actually.. funny.. it looks like the ASCII plain text standard! HTML 5.0 - Now With Politically Correct Extensions!
You hit the nail on the head, although it's C|Net, not CNN. Anyway, I'm not suprised people aren't creating taylored-to-slashdot sites just to get the targetted ad revenue.
It's amazing, isn't it? Due to a loophole in the way things work, Yahoo can actually legally do this. So can Slashdot. Or CNN. Infact, any business can. But why? The simple answer is that constitutional rights only cover what the government can do. A government official (which includes the police), or anybody on public property, can excercise free speech. Unfortunately, that's where it ends. When you're in my home and say something I don't agree with - I'm within my legal rights to give you the boot. You can do the same to me. Infact, to some extent (IANAL - any out there reading this?) your employer can tell you what you can and cannot say.
Now, don't take this the wrong way - I draw a distinct line between "legal" and "moral". The two are not synonimous in my book. Yahoo should not be calling their message boards "public forums" when infact they are not. I think it is morally reprehensible that they're silently deleting messages to protect their butts. Ironically, by doing this they may be exposing themselves to more damages than if they had left the situation alone! ie: If you could have stopped somebody from posting a libellous thing, and didn't, doesn't that implicate you as well?
Censorship is a thorny issue... welcome to the private side of it.
Step 1: Figure out what you want to sell. Step 2: Dup a bunch of venture capital vultures to sponsor you. Step 3: Create prototype of product (if it compiles - ship it!) Step 4: Put large glossy advertisements everywhere about how great your product will be, and how it's better than everything else on the market. Step 5: Have Jesse Berst write an article slamming linux (conversely, if your product uses linux, have him praise the "paradigm shift in the third wave post-modern computing era - ie: linux"). Step 6: Claim you're "going up against Microsoft" to maximize public appeal and get your stock up. Step 7: Release product at exorbinant price. Step 8: Sell all your stock, leave country. Step 9: Your company gets bought by Microsoft. Step 10: Microsoft repeats step 4,5, and 7. Also claims it's "new" and "innovative". Step 11: Slashdot gets around to posting about how aweful M$' latest release is. Step 12: People buy it anyway. It's Microsoft, afterall...
--
Re:Need better input and output devices.
on
3D Window Manager
·
· Score: 1
Well... how good do you play quake with a mouse? Quake is a 3d environment... what makes you think you couldn't have a window manager that emulated that type of environment? You wander around, find what you're looking for. Combine that with right clicking to pull up a shotgun and shoot zombied processes and you got yourself the most geeky wm to date. =)
The gloves-as-a-input-device has been tried. Ever use a touch-screen? If you have then you'll know that if you use it for more than a few minutes you get guerilla-arms - you get tired quickly. What good is a 3d environment if you can't use it for more than 10 minutes at a time? Goggles would be cool... especially if you combined it with a kind of augmented reality. You could literally virtually redesign your bedroom to/be/ your window manager.
However, this technology is *far* from pointless. And the stuff about a mouse being a less than ideal input device... yes... I consider/every/ input device categorically to be less than ideal. Until they can wire my brain directly to my computer input... there won't be an optimal solution. That doesn't mean we should stop using computers just because we don't have "the best" possible solution available. Use what you have... that's the engineering motto.
Bingo. This is exactly what I was talking about when I asked Bruce earlier this week what he thought of digital signatures. Physical copies of your signature are there to be evaluated. They've been a legally viable method of verification for a/long/ time.. and the cost of forging a signature generally exceeds the benefits of the forgery. Is it perfect? No. But binding us to weak-crypto to please some wrinkled prunes in congress would only result in fradulent activity on an unimaginable scale if such a scheme was cracked. And the government, being what it is, would not admit to it until many many lives had been destroyed or a few large businesses sunk over fradulent signatures.
Unfortunately it was licensed under the YA*L (Yet Another F* License), creating a storm of controversy on slashdot and several hundred hatemails being sent to linuxone for not being truely "open sores".
As a result, XClock2000 never gained acceptance in the linux community... especially after Rasterman made EClock, an enlightened clock with psychadellic mode and groovy mode for telling you the time (it may be alittle distorted - that's not a bug though, it's a feature).
Have you ever wanted a linux distribution so simple you didn't even need to use a mouse? A linux distribution so simple even a lobotomized flatworm could understand it's installation instructions? Presenting.... LinuxNULL(tm)(r)(c)!
Package includes a CD packed using our patented ReMark technology. Now you can have 100% file compression/without/ the wait! Also includes 1 year of free support courtesy of the Benevolent Operators For Helplines. If you act now we'll also include a special-edition doll of Richard Stallman, creator of "that other movement"! No longer do you need to step your l^Husers through a long and tedious install - with our patented RM technology you'll wipe out all the problems those other operating systems have.
God, not another "Wonderful technology YOU can't have(tm)". Only about 20% of homes in the US can get any form of DSL. Now they're talking about giving them another kind of DSL? How about focusing your efforts on reaching the other 80% of the market that wants it instead of the 20% that already has it?! *grumbling*
How many of you begged and pleaded with your local telco to get DSL? How many of you called up the PUC, or the CLECs in your area? How many of you honestly did the number crunching to see if you could get a frame relay to your house? Probably alot of you.
Great technology.... (bastards). Sorry.. I just get really emotional sometimes (bastards). *sigh*
That's a pretty confusing scheme. If I understand it correctly, MS is saying that anybody who accesses your W2K server (and isn't logged in via guest/anonymous) counts as a "seat".. and you're required to pay for each seat.
Sooo... Apache can handle 20 concurrent (authenticated) users for free... and according to MS you'll need to pay for the "Internet Connector" to get the same thing, except that it'll cost you about $2,000 to do it, NOT INCLUDING the cost of the server(s)!
I have the distinct impression small businesses and web-design shops are going to take the brunt of this new pricing scheme.
Why do we need another group to act in our best interests? The people that most want to lead the community are usually the ones least likely to be able to do it (the right way).
My question is what prompted you to choose linux over another unix solution? While cost may have been a factor, I find it difficult to believe your government was that strapped for cash. =)
I understand security plays an important role in your decision - and I'll understand if you turn down this part of the question - I'm just curious as to why you picked linux specifically instead of, say, NetBSD?
Pfft. That just shows what you know. In five years time they'll have disk drives the size of washing machines, a new kind of space age cereal that doesn't turn soggy when you put it in milk, and slashdot will still be slow! The MS Campus will be squashed by a asteroid of unknown origin that is shaped like a penguin in mid 2003. Bill Gates' home will short out and electrocute him when his server farm of NT servers running the place all BSOD at once. Linus Torvalds will be president, the first system ever to boot up on the moon will be linux where Slash2000 will broadcast live at 296 bytes/second (stalled). Oh yeah.. and vi will be the word processor of choice.
Okay, I admit it. Talking about the FreeBSD convention is a sensitive issue. When I was 9 years old this huge daemon appeared at the foot of my bed and told me that "I would do something no geek has ever done before". I thought I did that when I drank 3 cases of mtn dew and coded for 4 days straight without sleep. Of course, I've been debugging it ever since, but that's not the point. Now I know what my true destiny is.... I must install FreeBSD on my system. If I `make` it, they will come....
Information should be free. Because information is knowledge. Because knowledge is power. When all people have access to all information then all people will be equal. I'm rather tired of the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer" mandate of capitalism. Do you think this is a viable long-term solution? Our world is dying from pollution, from overpopulation, and consumption. If we gave power back to the people to recognize this, to act together to stop it, the tidal forces of change would rip through this country the likes of which haven't been seen since the Civil War. That is the power of information.
By claiming intellectual "property" and putting the barriers around information, we seriously undermine the effectiveness of this country in the global economy. Countries that freely share information will evolve their technology at a rate which will far outpace our own efforts - witness our own movement. We freed the code... as a result within a matter of years we've gone from novel idea to the forefront of the information revolution.
No matter what you call it - censorship, intellectual property, copyright, infodollars... it all points to the same thing - disadvantaging one group to advantage another group. Haven't we evolved beyond the need to form hierarchys of power? Information should be free. It's the ultimate personal freedom, it's a country's most valuable commodity, and the wind in the sails of progress. Why should we deny ourselves access to this?
Backup. Reality Checkpoint - we don't have any other way to make platform-independent transparent images.
gif and jpeg are the only two de facto image standards that interoperate with (most) modern browsers today. Does MSIE support the png format? Last time I looked it didn't. the png format also has a few bugs (maybe it's gimp ! png, but I'm not sure). If you're running a site that has any complex documents on it, you may very well wind up redesigning large portions of your site to make your site gif free.
I have to say you're severely marginalizing the effects of what Katz refers to as "the Hellmouth". That article was a wake up call of every definition to the geek community. It turned the heads of alot of people.. and during that day I watched in complete awe as thousands of geeks came forward to solemnly confirm that this was far more widespread than the columbine massacre. It was the first time I was able to personally witness and take part in the rapid-action decentralized communication of the 'net. That was an eye-opening experience, and it rewrote atleast a dozen rules of journalism in a matter of hours.
So you'll excuse me if I'm alittle upset at your proclimation that we need to lighten up. If we don't take things like this seriously, we're opening pandora's box..
Slashdot Mirror
What next, breast implants for this guy?
--
I could inject some philosophical stuff here, but I'm going to be alittle more simple - So what? Even if RMS is a communist with an attitude and wants to see all software licensed under the GPL.. does it matter? I'm looking at the whole picture here and I see alot of quality software being made, used, reused, and distributed. I don't know what you call it - but I call those results.
--
Oh god... move me to a free country...
--
RTFP (Read the F* Post)....
--
You hit the nail on the head, although it's C|Net, not CNN. Anyway, I'm not suprised people aren't creating taylored-to-slashdot sites just to get the targetted ad revenue.
--
Maybe. But I don't consider my living room to be a public forum either.
--
A government official (which includes the police), or anybody on public property, cannot prevent you from excercising free speech.
--
It's amazing, isn't it? Due to a loophole in the way things work, Yahoo can actually legally do this. So can Slashdot. Or CNN. Infact, any business can. But why? The simple answer is that constitutional rights only cover what the government can do. A government official (which includes the police), or anybody on public property, can excercise free speech. Unfortunately, that's where it ends. When you're in my home and say something I don't agree with - I'm within my legal rights to give you the boot. You can do the same to me. Infact, to some extent (IANAL - any out there reading this?) your employer can tell you what you can and cannot say.
Now, don't take this the wrong way - I draw a distinct line between "legal" and "moral". The two are not synonimous in my book. Yahoo should not be calling their message boards "public forums" when infact they are not. I think it is morally reprehensible that they're silently deleting messages to protect their butts. Ironically, by doing this they may be exposing themselves to more damages than if they had left the situation alone! ie: If you could have stopped somebody from posting a libellous thing, and didn't, doesn't that implicate you as well?
Censorship is a thorny issue... welcome to the private side of it.
--
Step 1: Figure out what you want to sell.
Step 2: Dup a bunch of venture capital vultures to sponsor you.
Step 3: Create prototype of product (if it compiles - ship it!)
Step 4: Put large glossy advertisements everywhere about how great your product will be, and how it's better than everything else on the market.
Step 5: Have Jesse Berst write an article slamming linux (conversely, if your product uses linux, have him praise the "paradigm shift in the third wave post-modern computing era - ie: linux").
Step 6: Claim you're "going up against Microsoft" to maximize public appeal and get your stock up.
Step 7: Release product at exorbinant price.
Step 8: Sell all your stock, leave country.
Step 9: Your company gets bought by Microsoft.
Step 10: Microsoft repeats step 4,5, and 7. Also claims it's "new" and "innovative".
Step 11: Slashdot gets around to posting about how aweful M$' latest release is.
Step 12: People buy it anyway. It's Microsoft, afterall...
--
The gloves-as-a-input-device has been tried. Ever use a touch-screen? If you have then you'll know that if you use it for more than a few minutes you get guerilla-arms - you get tired quickly. What good is a 3d environment if you can't use it for more than 10 minutes at a time? Goggles would be cool... especially if you combined it with a kind of augmented reality. You could literally virtually redesign your bedroom to /be/ your window manager.
However, this technology is *far* from pointless. And the stuff about a mouse being a less than ideal input device... yes... I consider /every/ input device categorically to be less than ideal. Until they can wire my brain directly to my computer input... there won't be an optimal solution. That doesn't mean we should stop using computers just because we don't have "the best" possible solution available. Use what you have... that's the engineering motto.
--
Bingo. This is exactly what I was talking about when I asked Bruce earlier this week what he thought of digital signatures. Physical copies of your signature are there to be evaluated. They've been a legally viable method of verification for a /long/ time.. and the cost of forging a signature generally exceeds the benefits of the forgery. Is it perfect? No. But binding us to weak-crypto to please some wrinkled prunes in congress would only result in fradulent activity on an unimaginable scale if such a scheme was cracked. And the government, being what it is, would not admit to it until many many lives had been destroyed or a few large businesses sunk over fradulent signatures.
--
As a result, XClock2000 never gained acceptance in the linux community... especially after Rasterman made EClock, an enlightened clock with psychadellic mode and groovy mode for telling you the time (it may be alittle distorted - that's not a bug though, it's a feature).
--
Have you ever wanted a linux distribution so simple you didn't even need to use a mouse? A linux distribution so simple even a lobotomized flatworm could understand it's installation instructions? Presenting.... LinuxNULL(tm)(r)(c)!
Package includes a CD packed using our patented ReMark technology. Now you can have 100% file compression /without/ the wait! Also includes 1 year of free support courtesy of the Benevolent Operators For Helplines. If you act now we'll also include a special-edition doll of Richard Stallman, creator of "that other movement"! No longer do you need to step your l^Husers through a long and tedious install - with our patented RM technology you'll wipe out all the problems those other operating systems have.
--
How many of you begged and pleaded with your local telco to get DSL? How many of you called up the PUC, or the CLECs in your area? How many of you honestly did the number crunching to see if you could get a frame relay to your house? Probably alot of you.
Great technology.... (bastards). Sorry.. I just get really emotional sometimes (bastards). *sigh*
--
Sooo... Apache can handle 20 concurrent (authenticated) users for free... and according to MS you'll need to pay for the "Internet Connector" to get the same thing, except that it'll cost you about $2,000 to do it, NOT INCLUDING the cost of the server(s)!
I have the distinct impression small businesses and web-design shops are going to take the brunt of this new pricing scheme.
--
My tongue is firmly in my cheek right now.
--
I think I'll submit some of these. >:)
--
Why do we need another group to act in our best interests? The people that most want to lead the community are usually the ones least likely to be able to do it (the right way).
--
I understand security plays an important role in your decision - and I'll understand if you turn down this part of the question - I'm just curious as to why you picked linux specifically instead of, say, NetBSD?
--
Pfft. That just shows what you know. In five years time they'll have disk drives the size of washing machines, a new kind of space age cereal that doesn't turn soggy when you put it in milk, and slashdot will still be slow! The MS Campus will be squashed by a asteroid of unknown origin that is shaped like a penguin in mid 2003. Bill Gates' home will short out and electrocute him when his server farm of NT servers running the place all BSOD at once. Linus Torvalds will be president, the first system ever to boot up on the moon will be linux where Slash2000 will broadcast live at 296 bytes/second (stalled). Oh yeah.. and vi will be the word processor of choice.
Mrrrf.
--
Okay, I admit it. Talking about the FreeBSD convention is a sensitive issue. When I was 9 years old this huge daemon appeared at the foot of my bed and told me that "I would do something no geek has ever done before". I thought I did that when I drank 3 cases of mtn dew and coded for 4 days straight without sleep. Of course, I've been debugging it ever since, but that's not the point. Now I know what my true destiny is.... I must install FreeBSD on my system. If I `make` it, they will come....
--
Signal 11
0F 3A SIGSEGV Lane
Silicon Lane, CPU 01101
--
Information should be free. Because information is knowledge. Because knowledge is power. When all people have access to all information then all people will be equal. I'm rather tired of the "rich get richer and the poor get poorer" mandate of capitalism. Do you think this is a viable long-term solution? Our world is dying from pollution, from overpopulation, and consumption. If we gave power back to the people to recognize this, to act together to stop it, the tidal forces of change would rip through this country the likes of which haven't been seen since the Civil War. That is the power of information.
By claiming intellectual "property" and putting the barriers around information, we seriously undermine the effectiveness of this country in the global economy. Countries that freely share information will evolve their technology at a rate which will far outpace our own efforts - witness our own movement. We freed the code... as a result within a matter of years we've gone from novel idea to the forefront of the information revolution.
No matter what you call it - censorship, intellectual property, copyright, infodollars... it all points to the same thing - disadvantaging one group to advantage another group. Haven't we evolved beyond the need to form hierarchys of power? Information should be free. It's the ultimate personal freedom, it's a country's most valuable commodity, and the wind in the sails of progress. Why should we deny ourselves access to this?
--
Backup. Reality Checkpoint - we don't have any other way to make platform-independent transparent images.
gif and jpeg are the only two de facto image standards that interoperate with (most) modern browsers today. Does MSIE support the png format? Last time I looked it didn't. the png format also has a few bugs (maybe it's gimp ! png, but I'm not sure). If you're running a site that has any complex documents on it, you may very well wind up redesigning large portions of your site to make your site gif free.
--
I have to say you're severely marginalizing the effects of what Katz refers to as "the Hellmouth". That article was a wake up call of every definition to the geek community. It turned the heads of alot of people.. and during that day I watched in complete awe as thousands of geeks came forward to solemnly confirm that this was far more widespread than the columbine massacre. It was the first time I was able to personally witness and take part in the rapid-action decentralized communication of the 'net. That was an eye-opening experience, and it rewrote atleast a dozen rules of journalism in a matter of hours.
So you'll excuse me if I'm alittle upset at your proclimation that we need to lighten up. If we don't take things like this seriously, we're opening pandora's box..
--