There's no chance to accumulate knowledge of defects unless as many as possible report the defects. If 75% are dying in shipment, then there's a reason not to buy it.
A big game going on is to take returns, and having not tested an item at all, resell it as new. A HUGE secondary market for returns games the system because no one audits this. The vendors don't want to see products ever again, so out-they-go, UNMARKED as to their returned status. Only a few of them have the integrity to test returns, then either remanufacture/refurbish or destroy returned products. It's just not cost-efficient for them to devolve products or re-use parts. What happens? A low-ranking reseller puts them back onto the market, perhaps through a different distribution mechanism.
So, like other answers here, READ THE BAD REVIEWS FIRST. Yes, some people are idiots and reject products for clearly insane reasons, but until we complain, no one knows.
At the street level, the forks don't make much difference. Most stuff is well-behaved and work well.
Nothing went wrong. Ubuntu tried to push its X-replacement but we all know where that went. In the meantime, we just got work done anyway. Linus could pay attention to UI/UX a bit more as he's left that to others in a big way.
Gnome is fine. KDE is fine. What's difficult are UIs that look over your shoulder, sniff your pits, and monetize your interactions. Looking at you Microsoft, Apple, and Google. Get your ass out of our business. If the desktop goes into the cloud, ALL will be tracked and sold.
And without those samples, they won't know who you are. You and I have the choices of putting our phones in Faraday bags, and thwarting the surveillance economy at ever turn if we think about it. Most will not.
But this is about choices, and fealty to the results of those choices. Government deadlocks will prohibit meaningful moves towards privacy unless that fealty is revoked.
No, no one should be suprised-- but they will be. Alexa isn't the only one, just the one currently exposed. How does one improve Alexa? Certainly training.
Or, recycling it.
Humanity has long desired servants. The servants are controlled by their masters, who are not you.
I'm with you. The fetid stench of industry propaganda and spin control whaffs strongly from this piece.
And the bad news couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people, those beloved telcos and cable companies, hallowed for their integrity, visibility of billing, advocacy of the consumer, and friend to local networks.
There's another point, unmentioned, but related. Where do you compute, and can you trust the cloud, philosophically?
Microcomputing became popular in the late 1970s and early 80s because time-share systems and mini/mainframes were centrist in philosophy. Distributed thinking, even autonomous thinking spawned great software, and let to lots of hardware development, not to mention industrial computing.
You can't do this if you're totally in the cloud. Edge devices start to deteriorate from entropy-- the same old stuff, just vaguely prettier screens. You can't plug in USB to many clouds, and if you can, the ability for diverse devices (drivers, configurations, etc) simply are not available. Everyone gets the same cloud with different lipstick.
I don't want 100% of my stuff in Microsoft's cloud, where it'll spill-out, get deleted, become unavailable, get fed through someone's AI analyzer for fun and profit, etc. I don't trust Microsoft any farther than I can throw them-- their financial interests are to their shareholders, not me-- just like the social media tyrants and the surveillance governments. Paranoid? Maybe, but look at how staggering the leaks are, then think again.
My problem is the characterization. We're used to this Darwinian success motif pushed by VCs, and so when things don't go so well for a while, it's perceived as blood in the water.
Debian is my personal preference, but I use Mint here and there. I grew up with init.d, but systemd is only a minor PITA compared to other problems that distros have.
Doing a distro is tough work, largely thankless. A few grumpy posts appear, and bored journalists start sniffing for blood.
Dev is tough. Herding devs is double tough. Keeping up a pace like LeFebvre does is a soulful mission. Tie it to the waffling that Ubuntu does, and it's a wonder he's not bald from tearing his hair out.
Let the Linux-Desktop-Is-Dead crowd crow like they usually do. The rest of us plough ahead.
This is all part of the PR avalanche that follows any conference. It goes like this:
1. Chest-thumping We Are The Greatest __________ 2. Lob volleys of crap at competition. 3. Parade the business partners, all with canned quotes. 4. Steal the future, declare financial prowess, mention growth. 5. Parade the business partners again. 6. Love fest at 6pm, free beer and maybe finger food. 7. Sign up those devs, see #6. 8. Schmooze Schmooze Schmooze 9. Joint press releases + show floor + geek games 10. Pack it up for next time. Rinse, repeat.
MicroFoscus is trying to make money from SUSE's departure. Can a vastly diffuse organization where parts are in the UK, US, and EU actually make it? Maybe. There's good quality software, but they have all the pinache of a dead sponge. They need some Elon Dust (tm) or at least a heartbeat.
Who gives a flying fuck if you splatter your guts and metal all over the highway! NOT ME!
My insurance rates go up because of your let-the-throttle-fly attitude, no, no not me.
Find a highway as soon as you can. Let 'er rip, dude. Use a dashcam so we can see just what kind of guts you have, bubba!
NO ONE SHOULD LIMIT YOU! YOU ARE FREE! LIBERATED! JUST DO WHAT THE HELL YOU WANT! I WiSH I HAD YOUR BALLS!!!!
Your nanny should've smacked you upside-the head a few more times to knock some sense into your thick, over-testosteroned skull so that you might survive, but hey, please become a Darwin Award statistic.
There's an aggregate amount of blood sweat and tears now evaporated into the ether because someone either deliberately or accidentally didn't do their job. Either way, it's a middle finger flipped at users.
This falls into the YouHadOneJob categroy, no matter what or how you value the assets lost.
Apple has a monopoly on its turf. Defending that monopoly is Apple's Job #1. Each and every characteristic must be defended. It's pretty brilliant if you think about it, and totally unfair to competition. It makes stacks of money almost unparalleled in the history of business, creating a cash pool across the planet that is the envy of many businesses.
Not that it's fair or just or competitive.
Various economic shocks have made the DoJ insensitive to these things. Legislation that worked great in the 1940s has no meaning here. The US courts used to be the model of justice and even consumer-side law for decades, but now it's been broadsided by the realities of modern media and distribution infrastructure.
If the EU doesn't fall apart somehow, it might be able to lead the anti-trust fight, but tiny Spotify is not going to be the David to Apple's Goliath because Google/Android provides a sufficient straw-man competitor that Apple will argue endlessly that they do have competition. Apple's legal team is financed by one of the largest pools of cash ever amassed in the history of this planet. That's how monopolies are protected, a hundred small battles at a time.
Good question! I have no answer. I doubt they have an answer, either, except that money crossing international boundaries might be of interest to them, usually in the context of money laundering.
First, thanks for calling me a dumbfuck and a hand-wringer. I'm neither of those. I'm also not a farmer, and a vegetarian, so your cows can do what they like.
My meaningful message is that one ham radio transmission of a bitcoin across international boundaries is neither a test of crypto or especially interesting. No laws will be tested because they're not being tested now, or in that context. Mighty libertarians may rejoice for a moment, because another boundary has been "breached" and how sweet that might be to them.
This test won't be even snorted at by those that might litigate it because it's not useful as a test for anything, which was my point.
US Hams aren't allowed to conduct business with their amateur licenses. They can sell ham gear, but it's not for advertising or other business like activities.
I sending bitcoin via amateur radio actually legal? Probably not. Does exporting money over international boundaries violate US Treasury Dept rules? Maybe.
While an interesting proof-of-concept, there are also RFCs involving data-over-carrier-pigeons, and other slower than electricity methods, like mail.
Nice headline, but otherwise contextually meaningless in international bitcoin transactions.
Your understanding of FOSS is typical, and it's pretty myopic. This context doesn't allow you to understand that there are motives in FOSS beyond pecuniary interest. It's not a business model. If you can wrap your head around that fact, and get it out of your wallet, you can get closer to the actual context.
What's-in-it-for-me is a natural desire. How-can-I-help is a more evolved thought process. You can make money both ways.
No one has revealed the answer to the question-- is that required API proprietary, or did Microsoft make the details available, or help port it to a neutral spot, or make it available in binary forms, etc? I don't know that answer to that. A community-focused vendor lifts the community, and yes, themselves. Red Hat is pretty good (although not perfect) at doing this for API kits.
It's a state of mind, rather than wallet. With so many interesting and potentially useful code contributions, the casual observer might conclude that they were doing it for themselves and their own benefit *strictly*. There is no evidence that other vendors were included, just that other major vendors certainly didn't announce support, and support has been provided before on each and every one of the now-excluded browser platforms.
If the required API is proprietary, that might be a reason. Opaque APIs are potentially full of bad things, can't be fixed in the open source crowd-sourced fixes, can't be seen for their backdoors, can't be understood for their (potentially excellent) code quality, etc.
They're opaque. This is one of the important basic differences between visible source and closed source, no matter the license.
Slashdot Mirror
There's no chance to accumulate knowledge of defects unless as many as possible report the defects. If 75% are dying in shipment, then there's a reason not to buy it.
A big game going on is to take returns, and having not tested an item at all, resell it as new. A HUGE secondary market for returns games the system because no one audits this. The vendors don't want to see products ever again, so out-they-go, UNMARKED as to their returned status. Only a few of them have the integrity to test returns, then either remanufacture/refurbish or destroy returned products. It's just not cost-efficient for them to devolve products or re-use parts. What happens? A low-ranking reseller puts them back onto the market, perhaps through a different distribution mechanism.
So, like other answers here, READ THE BAD REVIEWS FIRST. Yes, some people are idiots and reject products for clearly insane reasons, but until we complain, no one knows.
At the street level, the forks don't make much difference. Most stuff is well-behaved and work well.
Nothing went wrong. Ubuntu tried to push its X-replacement but we all know where that went. In the meantime, we just got work done anyway. Linus could pay attention to UI/UX a bit more as he's left that to others in a big way.
Gnome is fine. KDE is fine. What's difficult are UIs that look over your shoulder, sniff your pits, and monetize your interactions. Looking at you Microsoft, Apple, and Google. Get your ass out of our business. If the desktop goes into the cloud, ALL will be tracked and sold.
Still another Russian troll.
And without those samples, they won't know who you are. You and I have the choices of putting our phones in Faraday bags, and thwarting the surveillance economy at ever turn if we think about it. Most will not.
But this is about choices, and fealty to the results of those choices. Government deadlocks will prohibit meaningful moves towards privacy unless that fealty is revoked.
No, no one should be suprised-- but they will be. Alexa isn't the only one, just the one currently exposed. How does one improve Alexa? Certainly training.
Or, recycling it.
Humanity has long desired servants. The servants are controlled by their masters, who are not you.
That would require courage and principles in the face of profits.
I'm with you. The fetid stench of industry propaganda and spin control whaffs strongly from this piece.
And the bad news couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of people, those beloved telcos and cable companies, hallowed for their integrity, visibility of billing, advocacy of the consumer, and friend to local networks.
There's another point, unmentioned, but related. Where do you compute, and can you trust the cloud, philosophically?
Microcomputing became popular in the late 1970s and early 80s because time-share systems and mini/mainframes were centrist in philosophy. Distributed thinking, even autonomous thinking spawned great software, and let to lots of hardware development, not to mention industrial computing.
You can't do this if you're totally in the cloud. Edge devices start to deteriorate from entropy-- the same old stuff, just vaguely prettier screens. You can't plug in USB to many clouds, and if you can, the ability for diverse devices (drivers, configurations, etc) simply are not available. Everyone gets the same cloud with different lipstick.
I don't want 100% of my stuff in Microsoft's cloud, where it'll spill-out, get deleted, become unavailable, get fed through someone's AI analyzer for fun and profit, etc. I don't trust Microsoft any farther than I can throw them-- their financial interests are to their shareholders, not me-- just like the social media tyrants and the surveillance governments. Paranoid? Maybe, but look at how staggering the leaks are, then think again.
It's difficult to believe Kaspersky anyway, after their debacle with the US Gov. Don't trust anyone, just put your phone in a Faraday bag.
Such things would be "Sub Prime".
Only you and Alexa will know.
MX can be truly fun, the systemd issue aside.
My problem is the characterization. We're used to this Darwinian success motif pushed by VCs, and so when things don't go so well for a while, it's perceived as blood in the water.
Debian is my personal preference, but I use Mint here and there. I grew up with init.d, but systemd is only a minor PITA compared to other problems that distros have.
Doing a distro is tough work, largely thankless. A few grumpy posts appear, and bored journalists start sniffing for blood.
Dev is tough. Herding devs is double tough. Keeping up a pace like LeFebvre does is a soulful mission. Tie it to the waffling that Ubuntu does, and it's a wonder he's not bald from tearing his hair out.
Let the Linux-Desktop-Is-Dead crowd crow like they usually do. The rest of us plough ahead.
This is all part of the PR avalanche that follows any conference. It goes like this:
1. Chest-thumping We Are The Greatest __________
2. Lob volleys of crap at competition.
3. Parade the business partners, all with canned quotes.
4. Steal the future, declare financial prowess, mention growth.
5. Parade the business partners again.
6. Love fest at 6pm, free beer and maybe finger food.
7. Sign up those devs, see #6.
8. Schmooze Schmooze Schmooze
9. Joint press releases + show floor + geek games
10. Pack it up for next time. Rinse, repeat.
MicroFoscus is trying to make money from SUSE's departure. Can a vastly diffuse organization where parts are in the UK, US, and EU actually make it? Maybe. There's good quality software, but they have all the pinache of a dead sponge. They need some Elon Dust (tm) or at least a heartbeat.
No one doubts the posts were deleted to prevent being part of discovery or a subpoena. It's entirely a laughable lie, IMHO.
Many ACs are just Russian trolls.
And what Loretta Lynch goes down on is not my business. I'm guessing: not you.
Go on, cowboy. Let that testosterone fly!
There should never be constraints on YOU!
Who gives a flying fuck if you splatter your guts and metal all over the highway! NOT ME!
My insurance rates go up because of your let-the-throttle-fly attitude, no, no not me.
Find a highway as soon as you can. Let 'er rip, dude. Use a dashcam so we can see just what kind of guts you have, bubba!
NO ONE SHOULD LIMIT YOU! YOU ARE FREE! LIBERATED! JUST DO WHAT THE HELL YOU WANT! I WiSH I HAD YOUR BALLS!!!!
Your nanny should've smacked you upside-the head a few more times to knock some sense into your thick, over-testosteroned skull so that you might survive, but hey, please become a Darwin Award statistic.
There's an aggregate amount of blood sweat and tears now evaporated into the ether because someone either deliberately or accidentally didn't do their job. Either way, it's a middle finger flipped at users.
This falls into the YouHadOneJob categroy, no matter what or how you value the assets lost.
No one will fall on their sword over this one. Rupert Murdoch bought MySpace, and I'm sure its failure has been a thorn in the side of it management.
No one will lose their jobs. You're data's gone. Move on. That's the message. Here now, look over there while we build a new site to suck you in.
The actual logic is: Follow the money.
Apple has a monopoly on its turf. Defending that monopoly is Apple's Job #1. Each and every characteristic must be defended. It's pretty brilliant if you think about it, and totally unfair to competition. It makes stacks of money almost unparalleled in the history of business, creating a cash pool across the planet that is the envy of many businesses.
Not that it's fair or just or competitive.
Various economic shocks have made the DoJ insensitive to these things. Legislation that worked great in the 1940s has no meaning here. The US courts used to be the model of justice and even consumer-side law for decades, but now it's been broadsided by the realities of modern media and distribution infrastructure.
If the EU doesn't fall apart somehow, it might be able to lead the anti-trust fight, but tiny Spotify is not going to be the David to Apple's Goliath because Google/Android provides a sufficient straw-man competitor that Apple will argue endlessly that they do have competition. Apple's legal team is financed by one of the largest pools of cash ever amassed in the history of this planet. That's how monopolies are protected, a hundred small battles at a time.
Give him a break. He can't even conjugate verbs.
Good question! I have no answer. I doubt they have an answer, either, except that money crossing international boundaries might be of interest to them, usually in the context of money laundering.
First, thanks for calling me a dumbfuck and a hand-wringer. I'm neither of those. I'm also not a farmer, and a vegetarian, so your cows can do what they like.
My meaningful message is that one ham radio transmission of a bitcoin across international boundaries is neither a test of crypto or especially interesting. No laws will be tested because they're not being tested now, or in that context. Mighty libertarians may rejoice for a moment, because another boundary has been "breached" and how sweet that might be to them.
This test won't be even snorted at by those that might litigate it because it's not useful as a test for anything, which was my point.
US Hams aren't allowed to conduct business with their amateur licenses. They can sell ham gear, but it's not for advertising or other business like activities.
I sending bitcoin via amateur radio actually legal? Probably not. Does exporting money over international boundaries violate US Treasury Dept rules? Maybe.
While an interesting proof-of-concept, there are also RFCs involving data-over-carrier-pigeons, and other slower than electricity methods, like mail.
Nice headline, but otherwise contextually meaningless in international bitcoin transactions.
Your understanding of FOSS is typical, and it's pretty myopic. This context doesn't allow you to understand that there are motives in FOSS beyond pecuniary interest. It's not a business model. If you can wrap your head around that fact, and get it out of your wallet, you can get closer to the actual context.
What's-in-it-for-me is a natural desire. How-can-I-help is a more evolved thought process. You can make money both ways.
No one has revealed the answer to the question-- is that required API proprietary, or did Microsoft make the details available, or help port it to a neutral spot, or make it available in binary forms, etc? I don't know that answer to that. A community-focused vendor lifts the community, and yes, themselves. Red Hat is pretty good (although not perfect) at doing this for API kits.
It's a state of mind, rather than wallet. With so many interesting and potentially useful code contributions, the casual observer might conclude that they were doing it for themselves and their own benefit *strictly*. There is no evidence that other vendors were included, just that other major vendors certainly didn't announce support, and support has been provided before on each and every one of the now-excluded browser platforms.
If the required API is proprietary, that might be a reason. Opaque APIs are potentially full of bad things, can't be fixed in the open source crowd-sourced fixes, can't be seen for their backdoors, can't be understood for their (potentially excellent) code quality, etc.
They're opaque. This is one of the important basic differences between visible source and closed source, no matter the license.