Why do I care if I visit a web site and "non-free" JavaScript runs in my browser?
Right now you shouldn't care, I agree.
Now let's jump in time, say 10 years from now, and suppose that the vision of the "software as service" supporters turns out to be completely true. There is no operating system, no Windows, no Linux, no OSX, you just buy a "Google Machine (TM)", you switch it on and it shows a browser (without saying that it's a browser) with google.com loaded (but you don't know that either). Your Google Machine is always connected wireless to the "cloud", you type "write a document" to the box and an empty document appears and fills your screen. What is happening in your computer is that javascript code is being executed (but you don't know that). This code communicates with google servers where some other code is running. Everything is cloud and javascript.
So, do you care now?
Call him crazy but Stallman tries to see where technology goes and predict how this can create a threat to our freedom. Don't think about today, think about the future.
I bet when Stallman was announcing GNU in the early 80s, many people were thinking "why do I care if binary proprietary code runs on my computer" (well most people didn't even have computers).
I'm really surprised that phishing and viruses are confused with spam, they are very different things:
- viruses/phising: really "dangerous" messages. Opening them might lead to a comprimised bank account, PC, etc. In this case fake viruses/phising emails might help, educating people not to open such emails.
- SPAM: useless but harmless messages that are merely an annoyance to 99.9% of people. The problem is not opening such emails but the mere fact that you receive them. If someone opens spam then he might be actually interested in the advertised products, which is not bad, the problem is only that the same email is sent to thousands of people who are not. Sending fake spam to educate people not to open spam is just stupid. I don't think spam has anything to do with this article, the word has been just incorrectly used.
I was under the impression that the reason for child pornography laws was to protect children from exploitation. It may not be possible to prosecute the people abusing children if they are in a foreign country, but you can help to reduce their market by prosecuting the people who buy their products.
Of course, these laws are about sexual abuse. Because our whole economy is based on products built by abused children on the other side of the planet.
This is excellent, *thank you*. How could I not know this? I use pushd/popd often, which is more flexible (can store a whole stack of dirs) but not nearly as easy to use.
I've seen Windows people go slack-jawed in astonishment as I ssh to the other side of the world and run X programs over forwarding.
The astonishment is only about how *paifully slow* it is. Seriously, to run GUIs nothing in the unix world can beat terminal services. VNC can come close, but not quite.
Still, most of the time you *don't want* to run GUIs, and then the efficiency and ease of use of ssh has no match.
In the netherlands you can get an Eee PC 901 for 49.95 euros plus 34.95 euros per month for 2 years. Or even for free with a 59.95 euros/month contract. translation of t-mobile page
So, basically, you say that the only problem is that people started asking too many questions about the state of the economy, instead of just being happy and continue the farce that worked so well for so many years. If only Bush managed to convince people to forget about the whole thing, the economy would magically rise again. And you try to convince us that "this is how things are".
Well, let me tell you something: that's not how things are. This is how things became when we based our economic system on greed, and started rewarding easy profit made from "moving things around" instead of actually producing things. Perception is not a healthy basis for an economy, this is just gambling. And the sad part is that we allowed these crooks to make big money by screwing our lives, and we gave them so much power that when the situation got out of control we had to pay them even more to avoid the consequences.
With a 750GB hard drive selling under $100, what has changed?
This is assuming that you have a 750GB drive. I don't. My laptop has 4GB of RAM and about 60GB of SSD disk. So no, I won't waste 8GB for useless swap. And even conventional hard drives for laptops are often not much bigger, MacBook Air come with 64GB, for example.
My experience: I used a laptop with 2GB ram for 2 years, as my main computer. I was doing quite heavy stuff, like running MySQL/Apache/memcached all the time, lots of open files, often Eclipse and often VirtualBox (which is memory hungry). I didn't see the machine swapping even ONCE, except from cases when I had some bug in my code which allocated infinite memory, in which case no amount of swap could help me. My new laptop does the same. All the servers I monitor do the same.
So my advice: start with a swap *file*, not partition, of 512MB. This way you have the flexibility to change it very easily and contrary to what some people might say, there's no performance penalty (especially if it's never used!). Quite probably is won't even swap. If it starts swapping you can increase it, or keep less programs open or buy more RAM. In most cases, when the PC swaps it will become so slow that you'll have to do something to make it stop.
The above assumes you're not interested in hibernation. If you are, then allocate a swap partition of 1x RAM, to be sure you can always hibernate. In theory you can hibernate in swap files, but in practice you'll regret trying.
I hope Canonical will just sell the install media (and download) with the codecs already in it. That would work really well for a lot of people. A boxed Ubuntu with all codecs on the store shelves for about $30 - $45 right next to the Windows Vista boxes (on sale for JUST $199!) would probably do quite well.
The really important problem with that is that it would make the CD illegal to copy! This is an important right that people have right now with any ubuntu cd, no matter how they got it (you can buy an ubuntu cd even today). This would be a large and dangerous step away from the concept of free software.
What canonical is doing, instead, is offering the codecs as a paid download, so the only thing you can't copy is the download package (which still sucks, IMHO, but is definitely better). I also agree that retail boxes are important, maybe canonical could sell such boxes with a coupon to download the codecs for free, so the CD would still be 100% free.
[deep-voice] Terrorists have installed a trigger mechanism on a HP EliteBook 6930p, which will detonate when the laptop shuts down or suspends. Now Jack has 24 hours to find the Chinese bad-asses who stole the charger. [/deep-voice]
Under blanket licensing, how do I reward artists with good music preferentially to those who suck?
By going to their concerts and buying their merchandise. In fact, I firmly believe that concerts/merchandise is a viable business model for artists who choose to distribute their music for free. People get music+freedom, artists get free promotion plus they're getting paid (assuming they agree to be just well-paid, not greedy-rich).
I couldn't agree more. There 2 very different ways to use Ajax: 1) have a traditional site and embed small "Ajax goodies" here and there, like digg does with comments. 2) have a 100% Ajax site, like GMail.
Cleary, GWT is good for (2), not (1). Now ask yourself, how many full Ajax sites do you know? GMail, Yahoo mail, a couple more? So it's not a problem with GWT, it's just that the idea of a full Ajax site is not suitable for the open web, it is much more useful for intranet and web-apps use.
I couldn't agree more. In general the nesting is not visually clear at all, which is weird because slashdot's comment system is all about nested comments. For example if you collapse a parent with a child open, it's not clear at all that the child belongs to the parent.
In general, I would love to have a continuous tree line where all posts, collapsed or not, are attached to the line. Like a classical tree widget.
That would make software "free", but the people who create it less so. Shouldn't I be allowed to choose how I distribute my software? Let the market decide.
No you shouldn't. The analogy with people's freedom is very good in these cases. Even at your own will, you cannot give up your freedom and become and slave. This makes you less free but at the same time protects your freedom.
So, the ultimate goal, is that all copyright laws should be abolished. This would end the need for any free licence (GPL is just a way to achieve the same goals under a copyright system). Today we have the opportunity to give to any single person on earth a copy of all intellectual works. It is in society's best interest to do it. It is *not* society's best interest to protect the business models of some individuals. Abolishing copyright will ruin some businesses in the same way that abolishing slavery ruined a huge business of slave trade. I wouldn't have a single regret about it.
And if you're such a big fan of free market, think about that: what is so different about people's freedom that creates a need to protect it, when other goods are traded in the open market? Why people should be free? Let the market decide, those who "deserve" it will earn it.
Slashdot Mirror
Why do I care if I visit a web site and "non-free" JavaScript runs in my browser?
Right now you shouldn't care, I agree.
Now let's jump in time, say 10 years from now, and suppose that the vision of the "software as service" supporters turns out to be completely true. There is no operating system, no Windows, no Linux, no OSX, you just buy a "Google Machine (TM)", you switch it on and it shows a browser (without saying that it's a browser) with google.com loaded (but you don't know that either). Your Google Machine is always connected wireless to the "cloud", you type "write a document" to the box and an empty document appears and fills your screen. What is happening in your computer is that javascript code is being executed (but you don't know that). This code communicates with google servers where some other code is running. Everything is cloud and javascript.
So, do you care now?
Call him crazy but Stallman tries to see where technology goes and predict how this can create a threat to our freedom. Don't think about today, think about the future.
I bet when Stallman was announcing GNU in the early 80s, many people were thinking "why do I care if binary proprietary code runs on my computer" (well most people didn't even have computers).
Actually my electric razor does charge over USB.
My razor charges over mini-donuts.
I'm really surprised that phishing and viruses are confused with spam, they are very different things:
- viruses/phising: really "dangerous" messages. Opening them might lead to a comprimised bank account, PC, etc. In this case fake viruses/phising emails might help, educating people not to open such emails.
- SPAM: useless but harmless messages that are merely an annoyance to 99.9% of people. The problem is not opening such emails but the mere fact that you receive them. If someone opens spam then he might be actually interested in the advertised products, which is not bad, the problem is only that the same email is sent to thousands of people who are not. Sending fake spam to educate people not to open spam is just stupid. I don't think spam has anything to do with this article, the word has been just incorrectly used.
I was under the impression that the reason for child pornography laws was to protect children from exploitation. It may not be possible to prosecute the people abusing children if they are in a foreign country, but you can help to reduce their market by prosecuting the people who buy their products.
Of course, these laws are about sexual abuse. Because our whole economy is based on products built by abused children on the other side of the planet.
You posted the censored version. Here's the original one.
find -type f -ls .
does the same easier and faster. Not sure if it's POSIX though.
bash: Showers: command not found
you sure about the spelling?
This is excellent, *thank you*. How could I not know this? I use pushd/popd often, which is more flexible (can store a whole stack of dirs) but not nearly as easy to use.
I've seen Windows people go slack-jawed in astonishment as I ssh to the other side of the world and run X programs over forwarding.
The astonishment is only about how *paifully slow* it is. Seriously, to run GUIs nothing in the unix world can beat terminal services. VNC can come close, but not quite.
Still, most of the time you *don't want* to run GUIs, and then the efficiency and ease of use of ssh has no match.
grep -rl keyword .
Much faster. You run only grep and only once, not once per file.
grep --exclude-dir=.svn
This is also life saving when greping in svn working copies.
In the netherlands you can get an Eee PC 901 for 49.95 euros plus 34.95 euros per month for 2 years. Or even for free with a 59.95 euros/month contract. translation of t-mobile page
The legend says that his program could reach 16.5 ilps (infinite loops per second).
So, basically, you say that the only problem is that people started asking too many questions about the state of the economy, instead of just being happy and continue the farce that worked so well for so many years. If only Bush managed to convince people to forget about the whole thing, the economy would magically rise again. And you try to convince us that "this is how things are".
Well, let me tell you something: that's not how things are. This is how things became when we based our economic system on greed, and started rewarding easy profit made from "moving things around" instead of actually producing things. Perception is not a healthy basis for an economy, this is just gambling. And the sad part is that we allowed these crooks to make big money by screwing our lives, and we gave them so much power that when the situation got out of control we had to pay them even more to avoid the consequences.
This is madness. It has to stop.
With a 750GB hard drive selling under $100, what has changed?
This is assuming that you have a 750GB drive. I don't. My laptop has 4GB of RAM and about 60GB of SSD disk. So no, I won't waste 8GB for useless swap. And even conventional hard drives for laptops are often not much bigger, MacBook Air come with 64GB, for example.
My experience: I used a laptop with 2GB ram for 2 years, as my main computer. I was doing quite heavy stuff, like running MySQL/Apache/memcached all the time, lots of open files, often Eclipse and often VirtualBox (which is memory hungry). I didn't see the machine swapping even ONCE, except from cases when I had some bug in my code which allocated infinite memory, in which case no amount of swap could help me. My new laptop does the same. All the servers I monitor do the same.
So my advice: start with a swap *file*, not partition, of 512MB. This way you have the flexibility to change it very easily and contrary to what some people might say, there's no performance penalty (especially if it's never used!). Quite probably is won't even swap. If it starts swapping you can increase it, or keep less programs open or buy more RAM. In most cases, when the PC swaps it will become so slow that you'll have to do something to make it stop.
The above assumes you're not interested in hibernation. If you are, then allocate a swap partition of 1x RAM, to be sure you can always hibernate. In theory you can hibernate in swap files, but in practice you'll regret trying.
I hope Canonical will just sell the install media (and download) with the codecs already in it. That would work really well for a lot of people. A boxed Ubuntu with all codecs on the store shelves for about $30 - $45 right next to the Windows Vista boxes (on sale for JUST $199!) would probably do quite well.
The really important problem with that is that it would make the CD illegal to copy! This is an important right that people have right now with any ubuntu cd, no matter how they got it (you can buy an ubuntu cd even today). This would be a large and dangerous step away from the concept of free software.
What canonical is doing, instead, is offering the codecs as a paid download, so the only thing you can't copy is the download package (which still sucks, IMHO, but is definitely better). I also agree that retail boxes are important, maybe canonical could sell such boxes with a coupon to download the codecs for free, so the CD would still be 100% free.
Of course we only managed to track some of the hackers' nicks: "f3t4", "0u20" and "5Yr74k1", but we're quite sure they're Greek.
[deep-voice] Terrorists have installed a trigger mechanism on a HP EliteBook 6930p, which will detonate when the laptop shuts down or suspends. Now Jack has 24 hours to find the Chinese bad-asses who stole the charger. [/deep-voice]
the reason why we read and post to Slashdot, because we're a social species
Actually, the reason why geeks read and post to Slashdot is because we're an anti-social species.
Under blanket licensing, how do I reward artists with good music preferentially to those who suck?
By going to their concerts and buying their merchandise. In fact, I firmly believe that concerts/merchandise is a viable business model for artists who choose to distribute their music for free. People get music+freedom, artists get free promotion plus they're getting paid (assuming they agree to be just well-paid, not greedy-rich).
Next week's news: the involvement of the band's manager to the leakage wasn't revealed by TorrentFreak but by the band's marketing director.
I couldn't agree more. There 2 very different ways to use Ajax:
1) have a traditional site and embed small "Ajax goodies" here and there, like digg does with comments.
2) have a 100% Ajax site, like GMail.
Cleary, GWT is good for (2), not (1). Now ask yourself, how many full Ajax sites do you know? GMail, Yahoo mail, a couple more? So it's not a problem with GWT, it's just that the idea of a full Ajax site is not suitable for the open web, it is much more useful for intranet and web-apps use.
I read slashdot directly from HTML source using vi. h-j-k-l works fine here.
I couldn't agree more. In general the nesting is not visually clear at all, which is weird because slashdot's comment system is all about nested comments. For example if you collapse a parent with a child open, it's not clear at all that the child belongs to the parent.
In general, I would love to have a continuous tree line where all posts, collapsed or not, are attached to the line. Like a classical tree widget.
Well said, my Commander.
That would make software "free", but the people who create it less so. Shouldn't I be allowed to choose how I distribute my software? Let the market decide.
No you shouldn't. The analogy with people's freedom is very good in these cases. Even at your own will, you cannot give up your freedom and become and slave. This makes you less free but at the same time protects your freedom.
So, the ultimate goal, is that all copyright laws should be abolished. This would end the need for any free licence (GPL is just a way to achieve the same goals under a copyright system). Today we have the opportunity to give to any single person on earth a copy of all intellectual works. It is in society's best interest to do it. It is *not* society's best interest to protect the business models of some individuals. Abolishing copyright will ruin some businesses in the same way that abolishing slavery ruined a huge business of slave trade. I wouldn't have a single regret about it.
And if you're such a big fan of free market, think about that: what is so different about people's freedom that creates a need to protect it, when other goods are traded in the open market? Why people should be free? Let the market decide, those who "deserve" it will earn it.