It's due primarily to the insecurity of the underlying "open" protocols: TCP/IP. If it were based on more secure, closed protocols, Outlook would be far more secure. You can only build a solid house on a solid foundation.
Are you insane, stupid, or just a troll?
TCP/IP is not itself intrinsically insecure. TCP/IP has proven to be reliable, flexible, and *very* secure, if used appropriately. (That is, if security is an issue and man-in-the-middle attacks are a concern, use appropriate cryptographic techniques to secure and authenticate your communication.)
The MS-Outlook exploits are based on stupid decisions in the design process. Until Microsoft built a mail client, it was a truism that email was not a carrier of viruses. The arbitrary execution of untrusted code is the root cause of MS-Outlook exploits, *not* some imaginary issue with TCP/IP. In fact, it doesn't matter whether the email is delivered via IPX, NetBUEI, or TCP/IP. MS-Outlook is insecure.
On the web, IIS has proven to be significantly less secure than Apache; and since Apache accounts for over 65% of all web server installs, and the source code is available, it seems a more likely target for virus writers.
As far as the "print the lock diagram on the door" concept goes: I don't care. The concepts and principles of lock building are available to any thief. If your lock is so poorly-designed that a diagram printed on the door will offer compromise, then an able thief will be able to get past it without the diagram. Anyone who doesn't know much about locks won't be able to make use of the information anyway. At most, it will provide a starting point for education.
Yes, you can only build a solid house on a solid foundation; but nothing stops you from building a poor house on a solid foundation, either. In fact, I guarantee that if you are ignorant of construction principles and are unschooled in the use of the appropriate tools, you *will* build a poor house, no matter the quality of the foundation. And if the architect designed an unsafe house, you will build an unsafe house no matter how handy you are with the tools.
Apple is making money off the closed source development they are doing.
That is so massively oversimplified, it borders on ludicrous. Apple had for years tried to develop an operating system to replace their venerable OS 7/8/9. They spent millions of dollars on Copeland and successors. It wasn't until they moved to a BSD core, with tons of supporting open source software, that they had a product they could even sell.
Quartz is a damned good product, but it is a thin layer on top of Darwin. The *system* part of the system is almost entirely Free software. Without the free software, OS X would be nothing. Nothing at all. So Apple is making money off free software.
Really, the thing that sells for Apple is their cool-assed hardware. The iPod, the G5 towers, the powerbook-- these are all kick-ass hardware platforms. Hell, I purchased a powerbook just so I could run Linux on it. This hardware is so much better than anything you can get on the PC side of the street. PC hardware is pathetic. You can compare processors all you want, but it doesn't matter unless you do something cool with those processors. And PCs are way behind everyone else in this field, whether it's Apple for just a few bucks more, or Sun for quite a few bucks more.
OS X is good. I like it. I prefer Linux, but that's just me. But the Apple hardware is fucking great, and *that's* where Apple shines.
This will be done by children who will be unaware of your own self-imposed mental handicaps and defeatest attitudes, children who scoff at your scoffing, who have disdain for your disdain. Your world of text programming languages is passing, and will one day be a mere footnote.
This is all well and good; but, please, what are the benefits? What do we gain?
Hieroglyphics were graphics-based, and I doubt there are any who would claim we should move back go glyphs. Smileys and emoticons are rudimentary examples of graphics interspersed with text may be either silly or helpful; me, I find them silly and rather redundant, and add very little content. Similarly, those "Walk" and "Don't Walk" graphic symbols are useful, but only in a very limited context.
In the matter of expressive grammar, or precise syntax, what do graphics gain us?
As robustness of graphic symbol manipulation goes up, so does complexity, in a nonlinear fashion. Simplicity is an important factor in any system, especially systems we use for design and implementation. A system must be just complex enough to provide complete unfettered expressiveness.
The simplest espression of graphical manipulation in the computer realm concerns logic gates. There are not many people who continue to design via logic gates; a lot of hardware these days is designed with textual programming languages.
Granted, this is only one example of the opposite happening, moving from on-screen symbol manipulation to text-based programming languages.
Of course, mathematics is a perfect example of symbol manipulation that is perfectly simple, yet infinitely expressive. However, very few people use Mathematica as a programming environment.
Yes, just because I can't imagine it doesn't make it impossible; but just because *you* can't imagine it, doesn't make it so.
Just my opinion, of course, but I feel it isn't pride or blindness to the future that makes me hesitant to accept graphical symbol manipulation as a future language; it is history itself, as I perceive it.
Yes, but Gtk+ doesn't restrict you to C, whereas Qt is almost entirely C++ (except for some scripting language bindings, like Ruby, Perl, and Python).
I despise C++. Hate it. It is an abomination both to C, and to OO programming. The syntax extensions to C are complex, as is the OO model. The only thing I think C++ did right is the templating system.
I prefer Objective C, which takes a minimalist approach, and the late dynamic binding makes templating irrelevent. It's a much cleeaner language.
So, the issue comes down to choice. I know a lot of people prefer C++ to Objective C. You can't account for taste-- it seems more people prefer Budweiser to any other beer, and McDonald's to any other food source, and MS-Windows to any other desktop OS. But the point is, there is choice. I know I don't want to declare a single standard language for all programmers to use, and I distrust anyone who does.
If they standardize on any one toolkit, we are screwed as developers. Instead, they should concentrate on standardizing protocols. And, from a comment Nat Friedman made somewhere along the line in this topic, that's exactly what Novell is doing.
I'm not sure OOO is for everybody, I'm not sure if it's there yet.
I'd have to disagree. OOo is quite well-suited for almost any task for which MS-Office is usually conscripted. The casual home user is the *best* place for OOo right now. I installed it on my step-mother's machine (she's 1500 miles away), and she uses it all the time. Never called me once. I set the default save file type as MS-Word (for the word processor) and MS-Excel (spreadsheet, of course), and she hops between home and work with no problem whatsoever.
I agree that OOo still has a long way to go, but I think most office suites have a long way to go. I think we're going the wrong way, really, but that's the path chosen. Broken by design, but the entire industry is that way; whaddayagonnado?
How exactly is OOo's XML format lock-in any different to MS's?
Uhm... it's well-documented, and tracks an emerging standard (the first of its kind). That is, it's agreed-upon by many other companies, not just Microsoft.
Also, Microsoft does not publish its XML schema.
MS-Office 2003 is a nightmare to use in an heterogenous environment. Its export to third-party schemas is hardly more than a check-box on a PR sheet somewhere; it doesn't work quite right, so the published document isn't a very good XSLT translation of the original document.
Microsoft, by obfuscating their XML schema and making it no more readable than their original binary format, is the one paying lip-service. But as long as people are willing to accept intentionally-broken garbage, they will continue to sell intentionally-broken garbage.
(Yes, I used hackers instead of crackers, get over it, the work hacker is used by popular culture that way)
By that logic, scientists should start using "theory" instead of "hypothesis," simply because popular culture uses it that way. Or "velocity" when they mean "speed." Or "light years" when they mean "months" (as in time). Or maybe they should start using "pounds" as a unit of mass.
Or in the computer industry, maybe we should start using the word "CPU" when we mean "computer case." Or "RAM" when we mean "hard drive." Or "cup holder" when we mean CD/DVD drive. Or.... getting the idea?
Just because the public uses a word incorrectly does not mean folks in the industry need to follow suit.
You obviously haven't been looking at the new Republican party. They've been paying lip service to those ideals while increasing the size of government and government intervention in every aspect of our lives since Ronny Ray-gun stepped into office.
God, I thought I was the only one who thought this way. I've been more libertarian (small 'l', not Libertarian Party which should be the Randian party, which is just plain stupid to me) than anything; I voted for Nader last election, because I knew my vote wasn't worth much going to Gore (the lesser of two evils in my mind).
But, in spite of that, I have several friends who are staunch republicans. I thought I understood their position: people should be able to stand on their own feet with only minimal help (no coddling), the government should stay the hell out of our lives (amen, brother!), drugs are bad for society and so should be outlawed (I don't agree, but I *understand*), etc.
Now it seems our current Republican incumbent is trashing all those ideals. Small government? Hah! Instead of a "tax-and-spend" liberal, we've got a "cut taxes for the rich and spend" "conservative." How is that conservative?!? If I have a reduction in income at home, I sure as hell can't start spending even *more* money. Fiscal responsibility just doesn't work that way.
Most conservatives I know are also a bit perplexed by this rampant fiscal irresponsibility; it just doesn't jibe with their own fiscal conservatism.
Very few of them are willing to admit Bush's administration is a whack-job, though. They agree with me in principle, but...
Oh, hell, I don't know. Maybe they feel so much safer with Bush running the show. Don't ask me why. Now, not only is the middle-east pissed at us, but so are most of Europe, a large chunk of Northern Africa, quite a bit of Central America, and Quebec.
At this rate, all we need to do is anger a couple of Antarctic research stations, and we can people who hate us on every continent.
You can't swear and flash your tits on a public station any more than you can in a public park.
Okay, it wasn't Soviet Russia, as it was in the early '80s (after the Union fell), but funny story:
I was in a park in Khaborovsk, sitting near a monument (every Russian park seems to have a monument of some sort) on a bench, when a bunch of kids came up to me. They were only a few years younger than me, college-age kids it seemed. They had some good Russian beer and some terrible Russian champagne.
We sat in the park for several hours, and between their bad english and my (even worse) russian, we were able to talk; we talked about American freedom, and American pop culture, and how much they wanted to come to America (for the freedom).
They were *amazed* when I told them that, in America, you are not allowed to drink in most public parks. I told them that, in America, you are not allowed to curse on TV, nor are you allowed to show female breasts. (I did mention that on cable TV, you can show anything you want-- nudity, cursing, copulation.)
There's a *lot* of stuff on broadcast TV that offends me, most of it dealing with Religion. I am offended that that President of the US lied to the American people on TV. (Which President? Most of them.) I am offended that CHiPS and Threes Company were once popular TV shows.
What the fuck is wrong with our us, as a society? We can show the dead and mutilated bodies of Saddam Hussein's sons, we can broadcast over and over bombs destroying real live people, but we can't say certain words because they are offensive?
As I said, there are *no* games on the XBox with great graphics. Halo was there at the beginning, and nothing has really surpassed it; on the PS2, the graphics just get better as time goes on.
But you missed my point entirely: the games suck. There aren't that many good games. WHERE ARE THE GOOD GAMES?
That is fallacious logic. Yes, one vote from many does not affect the outcome, in general; but for democracy to work, the citizens must speak. In our case, as a representational democracy, we speak both by electing our representatives ("voting," as it were) and by telling our representatives our opinions.
Let me counter your flawed logic with some flawed logic of my own: if nobody voted, we would not have a democracy at all.
(This is flawed on many levels: first, we really don't have a democracy; and secondly, the logic itself is flawed. But we work with what we have.)
This project is only economical if you have old laptops sitting around. If that's the case, you probably won't have enough CPU/RAM to install the latest version of debian.
I have built picture frames out of old pentium-class laptops ('bout $100 off ebay, or cheaper if you shop around your own town), and they have no problems running the latest Debian. Just don't run X!
I use zgv to cycle through the pictures. Works great, *and* is less filling.
All right. I know I am not the only one here who thinks this: I'm so tired of the phrase "Road Warrior." I like and respect Cory Doctorow, but he is not a "Road Warrior." Neither are those wanna-be geeks who go out to sell technology instead of do technology.
Until I see some souped-up buggies with frickin' lasers, I don't want to hear about road warriors. I hate that phrase more than I hate iSomething, or eOtherthing. Hell, I even hate it more than I hate "My Foo." All that was clever the first time, cold pancakes with no syrup the second time, and absolutely grating the third time.
Linux's existence is evidence that MS does not control access.
Linux's existence proves that MS *does* control access to the field.
Look at the history of the PC in recent years. BeOS was a superior OS to Microsoft's offerings at the time. Be offered their OS to the major distributors for no license fee at all. Who took them up on it? Nobody. Not Dell, Gateway, or Compaq. Nobody.
Why? Michael Dell said it was because their MS agreement basically disallowed them from providing another desktop operating system. This is de facto regulation of the market, forbidding entry into the market by controlling the entry points.
The *only* reason Linux has market share at all is because of the open nature of the development and distribution. The fact it takes a freely-available OS to even take a couple of percentage points away from MS (we won't even talk about "competing" until Linux installations come with 30 percentage points of MS-Windows installations) indicates there is something dreadfully wrong with our industry.
The XBox has the greatest visual capabilities, no doubt about it...
I doubt it, at least. So far, from what I've seen, the XBox has lousy graphics. Knights of the Old Republic has terrible frame rates, and the visuals aren't all the great. Halo isn't bad, but other games haven't really surpassed Halo for quality. Compare that to Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando, which gets a solid 60fps on even the most detailed scenes.
The problem is the dev kit, and the design. Sony designed the PS2 for graphics, not for ease-of-development. The XBox is essentially a cheap PC, and is programmed like a cheap PC; the PS2 is a high-end graphics card (not PC-like, more SGI-like) with a rather wimpy general processor. The way you code for something like that is completely different than for a cheap PC.
Take a look at the success of the Sony method; as time went on, games for the Playstation got better and better as developers learned to use the power of the machine. Although the Dreamcast had better hardware, the Playstation kept up fairly well.
Nintendo seems to be the only one to get it completely right, with an easy-to-use dev kit coupled to a decent game platform, with a nice balance of CPU power and graphics capability. But, more importantly, their games are well-designed. Metroid, the various Mario Bros titles, Zelda, etc, all *play* well. The XBox suffers from too few good games, and the PS2 suffers from too many crappy games. (There are some really good ones there, but the market seems glutted with bad ones, and it's hard to tell the good from the bad on the shelf.)
Of course, most of that is my opinion. I could very well be wrong.
And look at OS X... think of how fundamentally different it is than OS 9. Then think of XP versus 2000 or 98. Not that much of a difference.
Mac OS X is based heavily on NeXTStep. Really, it isn't *that* much more innovative than NeXTStep. Considering how long ago the NeXT was introduced, shouldn't we have much better operating systems?
Personally, I think the NeXT is proof that Microsoft has set us back at least a decade. Although there are differences in application, and the underlying hardware has improved immensely, both Apple and Microsoft are only now approaching the abilities of the old NeXTs.
Oh, well. I guess youth and exuberant ignorance will re-write history; OS X is "groundbreaking," and Microsoft paved the way for commodity computing. (Never mind the revolution was already well underway.)
Although I acknowledge that there are good reasons for suing a doctor, most of them are not. Doctors are human, they're doing the best they can.
Hospitals are like assembly lines. They try to push through the maximum number of cases to increase the billables. This pressure to perform increases the chance of something going wrong.
I work in a hospital. The number one concern in the hospital is not the welfare of the patient, although that is what we claim; it is the ability to bill for the services provided to the patient. Now, our hospital really *is* concerned about the welfare of our patients, but that doesn't reduce the waiting time to see the doctor, nor the quick manner in which the doctor performs services.
What most people overlook, though, is that medicine is an imprecise science. Many things are easy to diagnose and treat, but many others are transient, or poorly described by the patient (doctors rely heavilly on patient information), or even just strange. Plus, you have to consider that patients are constantly asking for drugs the pharmaceutical companies tell them to ask for, many of which are poorly-understood (by everyone, not just the doctors and patients).
It's not easy to be a good doctor in todays society, in which people are viewed as "consumers." But that doesn't excuse the doctors for slipshod treatment.
Fair competition does NOT mean that everyone has the same starting point. It just means they have the same field to play on.
Exactly! And there is only *one* company that can control access to the field. I find Microsoft's "We don't want government regulation in the computer indunstry!" rhetoric disingenuous; MS itself regulates the industry much more efficiently and ruthlessly than the government ever could.
So, people are trying to make a big thing of this memo when it's just par for the course, nothing surprising at all.
So, should we stop being outraged? Are you suggesting we should just roll over, let them rip out our intestines, simply because that is their nature?
I despise this attitude. "All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." Paraphrased from Edmund Burke. We are many; they are few. Sure, they hold more power, and so influence government far beyond their share; but if we do nothing, they will win!
We cannot cease our outrage simply because we are no longer surprised.
They also have said that these first two lawsuits will be against companies that hold SCO Unix licenses. (EV1.net servers or Lindows?)
Seems like they are saying they are going to sue someone who has already licensed Unixware or some other SCO-sold Unix OS, and *not* someone who has already licensed their "SCO IP," like EV1.
I bet they go after someone who has used SCO's OS in the past, but has been migrating to Linux. Nothing like a little retribution.
Of course, it's hard to tell with these bastards. They don't seem to be too.... stable. Mentally. Financially. Whatever.
Call this a troll, call it flamebait, but it is merely unvarnished truth.
See, this is exactly what I mean. You think you speak truth when in fact you are simply an idiot. Nothing I said was new-age. I merely pointed out that, in this case, both opinions might be right.
A lot of opinions do not have value-- for instance, the ones you express in your post.
Just because it is the opinion of the great smelly masses (which are not that great, and not that massive) that people who are successful in an economic fashion are somehow inhabiting the dark side, doesn't mean that it's true.
It isn't financial success I find vile-- it is the evil things that are often done to attain that success. Any time someone is willing to bring harm to another simply for personal profit, they are behaving in an evil fashion.
Do you defend those who will bring harm to others for profit?
I guess it depends on how you define "Evil." If by evil you mean they are willing to screw many individuals for their own profit, then most corporations are indeed evil. If you mean they are willing to use superior market share to destroy competition (thus hurting "consumers," who are really just individuals), then some are evil (I'm not convinced most, just a fairly large number).
If by evil you mean allow others to die so they can profit, then a slightly smaller number are evil.
The point is, there is some definition of "evil" for which a lot (if not most) corporations are evil.
My definition is simple: if a corporation is willing to harm others in its pursuit of profit, it is evil. By this definition, quite a few are evil. Since this is condoned (and encouraged!) by our government, it seems to get worse.
Now, you can argue that corporations don't make these decisions, individuals do, but that is simply prevarication. Groups of people will do things indivduals will not; this makes the group culpable. (Now, defining the individuals within the group may be difficult.)
So how do you as an individual get around this? Easy, instead of rushing in to buy something and then whining about it later, read some objective reviews of the products you buy, talk to people (either in the real world or online) about them, and lastly take all the advertising you see with a grain of salt.
This is excellent advice, and I certainly agree with it; but that doesn't change the economic reality that sometimes, there is only Hobson's Choice, at best. In some areas, if you want phone service, you must use the single provider in your area. This is just one example among many.
Further, consider how people have been reduced to "consumers." Between that and, "worker," that is our role in society-- to work, and to consume. Who profits most from this? I'll bet you dollars to donuts (Mmmmm.... Krispie Kreme....) it isn't the individual.
I don't take exception to your arguments. I take exception to the reference to the "uninformed opinions" so popluar here on/.. Simply because someone holds an opinion different from yours does not make them wrong; nor does your naive analysis of the corporate economy of America make you wrong. (Our economy is Capitalist like the Soviet Union was Communist-- that is, in name only.)
Just because you are right about unthinking consumerism driving shoddy workmanship in the electronic gadgets sector does not negate the evil nature of many corporations. Enron did not happen in a void.
Microsoft is many things, but stupid isn't one of them. They have a great technical community. Their coders are *very* important to the MS culture, and they have some of the best.
I've known too many MS employees to think the problem lies with their technical folks. These are smart, dedicated individuals who are proud of their work; and most of them may be justifiably proud.
The problem is the market. MS is able to push up schedules and avoid real innovation, because real innovation would change the product. Remember when Coke issued their "New Formula?" Remember the customer backlash? Same sort of market pressure applies here.
So they give their products a face lift once in a while so the average customer thinks they're getting something new. They react to the market pressure with things like.Net, providing their version of something that is already available. (In the case of.Net, improving on the weaknesses of the competing product while introducing its own set of weaknesses), giving their products stupid common names like Windows and Word and Access to help push the idea these products are the Platonic Ideal.
No, the problem is not the technical folks at all, and I think it an indictment of the corporate culture that managers and PR folks and marketters can so effectively hamstring their real talent.
But that's just my naive assessment. I could, of course, be wrong.
Slashdot Mirror
Makes you wonder how much crap they actually got away with.
All of it.
It's due primarily to the insecurity of the underlying "open" protocols: TCP/IP. If it were based on more secure, closed protocols, Outlook would be far more secure. You can only build a solid house on a solid foundation.
Are you insane, stupid, or just a troll?
TCP/IP is not itself intrinsically insecure. TCP/IP has proven to be reliable, flexible, and *very* secure, if used appropriately. (That is, if security is an issue and man-in-the-middle attacks are a concern, use appropriate cryptographic techniques to secure and authenticate your communication.)
The MS-Outlook exploits are based on stupid decisions in the design process. Until Microsoft built a mail client, it was a truism that email was not a carrier of viruses. The arbitrary execution of untrusted code is the root cause of MS-Outlook exploits, *not* some imaginary issue with TCP/IP. In fact, it doesn't matter whether the email is delivered via IPX, NetBUEI, or TCP/IP. MS-Outlook is insecure.
On the web, IIS has proven to be significantly less secure than Apache; and since Apache accounts for over 65% of all web server installs, and the source code is available, it seems a more likely target for virus writers.
As far as the "print the lock diagram on the door" concept goes: I don't care. The concepts and principles of lock building are available to any thief. If your lock is so poorly-designed that a diagram printed on the door will offer compromise, then an able thief will be able to get past it without the diagram. Anyone who doesn't know much about locks won't be able to make use of the information anyway. At most, it will provide a starting point for education.
Yes, you can only build a solid house on a solid foundation; but nothing stops you from building a poor house on a solid foundation, either. In fact, I guarantee that if you are ignorant of construction principles and are unschooled in the use of the appropriate tools, you *will* build a poor house, no matter the quality of the foundation. And if the architect designed an unsafe house, you will build an unsafe house no matter how handy you are with the tools.
Apple is making money off the closed source development they are doing.
That is so massively oversimplified, it borders on ludicrous. Apple had for years tried to develop an operating system to replace their venerable OS 7/8/9. They spent millions of dollars on Copeland and successors. It wasn't until they moved to a BSD core, with tons of supporting open source software, that they had a product they could even sell.
Quartz is a damned good product, but it is a thin layer on top of Darwin. The *system* part of the system is almost entirely Free software. Without the free software, OS X would be nothing. Nothing at all. So Apple is making money off free software.
Really, the thing that sells for Apple is their cool-assed hardware. The iPod, the G5 towers, the powerbook-- these are all kick-ass hardware platforms. Hell, I purchased a powerbook just so I could run Linux on it. This hardware is so much better than anything you can get on the PC side of the street. PC hardware is pathetic. You can compare processors all you want, but it doesn't matter unless you do something cool with those processors. And PCs are way behind everyone else in this field, whether it's Apple for just a few bucks more, or Sun for quite a few bucks more.
OS X is good. I like it. I prefer Linux, but that's just me. But the Apple hardware is fucking great, and *that's* where Apple shines.
This will be done by children who will be unaware of your own self-imposed mental handicaps and defeatest attitudes, children who scoff at your scoffing, who have disdain for your disdain. Your world of text programming languages is passing, and will one day be a mere footnote.
This is all well and good; but, please, what are the benefits? What do we gain?
Hieroglyphics were graphics-based, and I doubt there are any who would claim we should move back go glyphs. Smileys and emoticons are rudimentary examples of graphics interspersed with text may be either silly or helpful; me, I find them silly and rather redundant, and add very little content. Similarly, those "Walk" and "Don't Walk" graphic symbols are useful, but only in a very limited context.
In the matter of expressive grammar, or precise syntax, what do graphics gain us?
As robustness of graphic symbol manipulation goes up, so does complexity, in a nonlinear fashion. Simplicity is an important factor in any system, especially systems we use for design and implementation. A system must be just complex enough to provide complete unfettered expressiveness.
The simplest espression of graphical manipulation in the computer realm concerns logic gates. There are not many people who continue to design via logic gates; a lot of hardware these days is designed with textual programming languages.
Granted, this is only one example of the opposite happening, moving from on-screen symbol manipulation to text-based programming languages.
Of course, mathematics is a perfect example of symbol manipulation that is perfectly simple, yet infinitely expressive. However, very few people use Mathematica as a programming environment.
Yes, just because I can't imagine it doesn't make it impossible; but just because *you* can't imagine it, doesn't make it so.
Just my opinion, of course, but I feel it isn't pride or blindness to the future that makes me hesitant to accept graphical symbol manipulation as a future language; it is history itself, as I perceive it.
Yes, but Gtk+ doesn't restrict you to C, whereas Qt is almost entirely C++ (except for some scripting language bindings, like Ruby, Perl, and Python).
I despise C++. Hate it. It is an abomination both to C, and to OO programming. The syntax extensions to C are complex, as is the OO model. The only thing I think C++ did right is the templating system.
I prefer Objective C, which takes a minimalist approach, and the late dynamic binding makes templating irrelevent. It's a much cleeaner language.
So, the issue comes down to choice. I know a lot of people prefer C++ to Objective C. You can't account for taste-- it seems more people prefer Budweiser to any other beer, and McDonald's to any other food source, and MS-Windows to any other desktop OS. But the point is, there is choice. I know I don't want to declare a single standard language for all programmers to use, and I distrust anyone who does.
If they standardize on any one toolkit, we are screwed as developers. Instead, they should concentrate on standardizing protocols. And, from a comment Nat Friedman made somewhere along the line in this topic, that's exactly what Novell is doing.
Anyway, just my two bits.
- Tony
I'm not sure OOO is for everybody, I'm not sure if it's there yet.
I'd have to disagree. OOo is quite well-suited for almost any task for which MS-Office is usually conscripted. The casual home user is the *best* place for OOo right now. I installed it on my step-mother's machine (she's 1500 miles away), and she uses it all the time. Never called me once. I set the default save file type as MS-Word (for the word processor) and MS-Excel (spreadsheet, of course), and she hops between home and work with no problem whatsoever.
I agree that OOo still has a long way to go, but I think most office suites have a long way to go. I think we're going the wrong way, really, but that's the path chosen. Broken by design, but the entire industry is that way; whaddayagonnado?
How exactly is OOo's XML format lock-in any different to MS's?
Uhm... it's well-documented, and tracks an emerging standard (the first of its kind). That is, it's agreed-upon by many other companies, not just Microsoft.
Also, Microsoft does not publish its XML schema.
MS-Office 2003 is a nightmare to use in an heterogenous environment. Its export to third-party schemas is hardly more than a check-box on a PR sheet somewhere; it doesn't work quite right, so the published document isn't a very good XSLT translation of the original document.
Microsoft, by obfuscating their XML schema and making it no more readable than their original binary format, is the one paying lip-service. But as long as people are willing to accept intentionally-broken garbage, they will continue to sell intentionally-broken garbage.
(Yes, I used hackers instead of crackers, get over it, the work hacker is used by popular culture that way)
By that logic, scientists should start using "theory" instead of "hypothesis," simply because popular culture uses it that way. Or "velocity" when they mean "speed." Or "light years" when they mean "months" (as in time). Or maybe they should start using "pounds" as a unit of mass.
Or in the computer industry, maybe we should start using the word "CPU" when we mean "computer case." Or "RAM" when we mean "hard drive." Or "cup holder" when we mean CD/DVD drive. Or.... getting the idea?
Just because the public uses a word incorrectly does not mean folks in the industry need to follow suit.
You obviously haven't been looking at the new Republican party. They've been paying lip service to those ideals while increasing the size of government and government intervention in every aspect of our lives since Ronny Ray-gun stepped into office.
God, I thought I was the only one who thought this way. I've been more libertarian (small 'l', not Libertarian Party which should be the Randian party, which is just plain stupid to me) than anything; I voted for Nader last election, because I knew my vote wasn't worth much going to Gore (the lesser of two evils in my mind).
But, in spite of that, I have several friends who are staunch republicans. I thought I understood their position: people should be able to stand on their own feet with only minimal help (no coddling), the government should stay the hell out of our lives (amen, brother!), drugs are bad for society and so should be outlawed (I don't agree, but I *understand*), etc.
Now it seems our current Republican incumbent is trashing all those ideals. Small government? Hah! Instead of a "tax-and-spend" liberal, we've got a "cut taxes for the rich and spend" "conservative." How is that conservative?!? If I have a reduction in income at home, I sure as hell can't start spending even *more* money. Fiscal responsibility just doesn't work that way.
Most conservatives I know are also a bit perplexed by this rampant fiscal irresponsibility; it just doesn't jibe with their own fiscal conservatism.
Very few of them are willing to admit Bush's administration is a whack-job, though. They agree with me in principle, but...
Oh, hell, I don't know. Maybe they feel so much safer with Bush running the show. Don't ask me why. Now, not only is the middle-east pissed at us, but so are most of Europe, a large chunk of Northern Africa, quite a bit of Central America, and Quebec.
At this rate, all we need to do is anger a couple of Antarctic research stations, and we can people who hate us on every continent.
You can't swear and flash your tits on a public station any more than you can in a public park.
Okay, it wasn't Soviet Russia, as it was in the early '80s (after the Union fell), but funny story:
I was in a park in Khaborovsk, sitting near a monument (every Russian park seems to have a monument of some sort) on a bench, when a bunch of kids came up to me. They were only a few years younger than me, college-age kids it seemed. They had some good Russian beer and some terrible Russian champagne.
We sat in the park for several hours, and between their bad english and my (even worse) russian, we were able to talk; we talked about American freedom, and American pop culture, and how much they wanted to come to America (for the freedom).
They were *amazed* when I told them that, in America, you are not allowed to drink in most public parks. I told them that, in America, you are not allowed to curse on TV, nor are you allowed to show female breasts. (I did mention that on cable TV, you can show anything you want-- nudity, cursing, copulation.)
There's a *lot* of stuff on broadcast TV that offends me, most of it dealing with Religion. I am offended that that President of the US lied to the American people on TV. (Which President? Most of them.) I am offended that CHiPS and Threes Company were once popular TV shows.
What the fuck is wrong with our us, as a society? We can show the dead and mutilated bodies of Saddam Hussein's sons, we can broadcast over and over bombs destroying real live people, but we can't say certain words because they are offensive?
What kind of fucking priority is that?
As I said, there are *no* games on the XBox with great graphics. Halo was there at the beginning, and nothing has really surpassed it; on the PS2, the graphics just get better as time goes on.
But you missed my point entirely: the games suck. There aren't that many good games. WHERE ARE THE GOOD GAMES?
Geez. All I want are some good games.
That is fallacious logic. Yes, one vote from many does not affect the outcome, in general; but for democracy to work, the citizens must speak. In our case, as a representational democracy, we speak both by electing our representatives ("voting," as it were) and by telling our representatives our opinions.
Let me counter your flawed logic with some flawed logic of my own: if nobody voted, we would not have a democracy at all.
(This is flawed on many levels: first, we really don't have a democracy; and secondly, the logic itself is flawed. But we work with what we have.)
Oh, BTW, the FDIC mandated those thumbprints.
Nope. The courts ruled that banks *may* allow thumbprints. This is not an FDIC mandate at all, but merely an allowance.
No bank in my area requires thumbprints, and all are FDIC insured.
This project is only economical if you have old laptops sitting around. If that's the case, you probably won't have enough CPU/RAM to install the latest version of debian.
I have built picture frames out of old pentium-class laptops ('bout $100 off ebay, or cheaper if you shop around your own town), and they have no problems running the latest Debian. Just don't run X!
I use zgv to cycle through the pictures. Works great, *and* is less filling.
All right. I know I am not the only one here who thinks this: I'm so tired of the phrase "Road Warrior." I like and respect Cory Doctorow, but he is not a "Road Warrior." Neither are those wanna-be geeks who go out to sell technology instead of do technology.
Until I see some souped-up buggies with frickin' lasers, I don't want to hear about road warriors. I hate that phrase more than I hate iSomething, or eOtherthing. Hell, I even hate it more than I hate "My Foo." All that was clever the first time, cold pancakes with no syrup the second time, and absolutely grating the third time.
Frickin' lasers. Until then, zip it.
Linux's existence is evidence that MS does not control access.
Linux's existence proves that MS *does* control access to the field.
Look at the history of the PC in recent years. BeOS was a superior OS to Microsoft's offerings at the time. Be offered their OS to the major distributors for no license fee at all. Who took them up on it? Nobody. Not Dell, Gateway, or Compaq. Nobody.
Why? Michael Dell said it was because their MS agreement basically disallowed them from providing another desktop operating system. This is de facto regulation of the market, forbidding entry into the market by controlling the entry points.
The *only* reason Linux has market share at all is because of the open nature of the development and distribution. The fact it takes a freely-available OS to even take a couple of percentage points away from MS (we won't even talk about "competing" until Linux installations come with 30 percentage points of MS-Windows installations) indicates there is something dreadfully wrong with our industry.
The XBox has the greatest visual capabilities, no doubt about it...
I doubt it, at least. So far, from what I've seen, the XBox has lousy graphics. Knights of the Old Republic has terrible frame rates, and the visuals aren't all the great. Halo isn't bad, but other games haven't really surpassed Halo for quality. Compare that to Ratchet and Clank: Going Commando, which gets a solid 60fps on even the most detailed scenes.
The problem is the dev kit, and the design. Sony designed the PS2 for graphics, not for ease-of-development. The XBox is essentially a cheap PC, and is programmed like a cheap PC; the PS2 is a high-end graphics card (not PC-like, more SGI-like) with a rather wimpy general processor. The way you code for something like that is completely different than for a cheap PC.
Take a look at the success of the Sony method; as time went on, games for the Playstation got better and better as developers learned to use the power of the machine. Although the Dreamcast had better hardware, the Playstation kept up fairly well.
Nintendo seems to be the only one to get it completely right, with an easy-to-use dev kit coupled to a decent game platform, with a nice balance of CPU power and graphics capability. But, more importantly, their games are well-designed. Metroid, the various Mario Bros titles, Zelda, etc, all *play* well. The XBox suffers from too few good games, and the PS2 suffers from too many crappy games. (There are some really good ones there, but the market seems glutted with bad ones, and it's hard to tell the good from the bad on the shelf.)
Of course, most of that is my opinion. I could very well be wrong.
And look at OS X... think of how fundamentally different it is than OS 9. Then think of XP versus 2000 or 98. Not that much of a difference.
Mac OS X is based heavily on NeXTStep. Really, it isn't *that* much more innovative than NeXTStep. Considering how long ago the NeXT was introduced, shouldn't we have much better operating systems?
Personally, I think the NeXT is proof that Microsoft has set us back at least a decade. Although there are differences in application, and the underlying hardware has improved immensely, both Apple and Microsoft are only now approaching the abilities of the old NeXTs.
Oh, well. I guess youth and exuberant ignorance will re-write history; OS X is "groundbreaking," and Microsoft paved the way for commodity computing. (Never mind the revolution was already well underway.)
Although I acknowledge that there are good reasons for suing a doctor, most of them are not. Doctors are human, they're doing the best they can.
Hospitals are like assembly lines. They try to push through the maximum number of cases to increase the billables. This pressure to perform increases the chance of something going wrong.
I work in a hospital. The number one concern in the hospital is not the welfare of the patient, although that is what we claim; it is the ability to bill for the services provided to the patient. Now, our hospital really *is* concerned about the welfare of our patients, but that doesn't reduce the waiting time to see the doctor, nor the quick manner in which the doctor performs services.
What most people overlook, though, is that medicine is an imprecise science. Many things are easy to diagnose and treat, but many others are transient, or poorly described by the patient (doctors rely heavilly on patient information), or even just strange. Plus, you have to consider that patients are constantly asking for drugs the pharmaceutical companies tell them to ask for, many of which are poorly-understood (by everyone, not just the doctors and patients).
It's not easy to be a good doctor in todays society, in which people are viewed as "consumers." But that doesn't excuse the doctors for slipshod treatment.
Fair competition does NOT mean that everyone has the same starting point. It just means they have the same field to play on.
Exactly! And there is only *one* company that can control access to the field. I find Microsoft's "We don't want government regulation in the computer indunstry!" rhetoric disingenuous; MS itself regulates the industry much more efficiently and ruthlessly than the government ever could.
So, people are trying to make a big thing of this memo when it's just par for the course, nothing surprising at all.
So, should we stop being outraged? Are you suggesting we should just roll over, let them rip out our intestines, simply because that is their nature?
I despise this attitude. "All it takes for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing." Paraphrased from Edmund Burke. We are many; they are few. Sure, they hold more power, and so influence government far beyond their share; but if we do nothing, they will win!
We cannot cease our outrage simply because we are no longer surprised.
They also have said that these first two lawsuits will be against companies that hold SCO Unix licenses. (EV1.net servers or Lindows?)
Seems like they are saying they are going to sue someone who has already licensed Unixware or some other SCO-sold Unix OS, and *not* someone who has already licensed their "SCO IP," like EV1.
I bet they go after someone who has used SCO's OS in the past, but has been migrating to Linux. Nothing like a little retribution.
Of course, it's hard to tell with these bastards. They don't seem to be too.... stable. Mentally. Financially. Whatever.
Call this a troll, call it flamebait, but it is merely unvarnished truth.
See, this is exactly what I mean. You think you speak truth when in fact you are simply an idiot. Nothing I said was new-age. I merely pointed out that, in this case, both opinions might be right.
A lot of opinions do not have value-- for instance, the ones you express in your post.
Just because it is the opinion of the great smelly masses (which are not that great, and not that massive) that people who are successful in an economic fashion are somehow inhabiting the dark side, doesn't mean that it's true.
It isn't financial success I find vile-- it is the evil things that are often done to attain that success. Any time someone is willing to bring harm to another simply for personal profit, they are behaving in an evil fashion.
Do you defend those who will bring harm to others for profit?
I guess it depends on how you define "Evil." If by evil you mean they are willing to screw many individuals for their own profit, then most corporations are indeed evil. If you mean they are willing to use superior market share to destroy competition (thus hurting "consumers," who are really just individuals), then some are evil (I'm not convinced most, just a fairly large number).
/.. Simply because someone holds an opinion different from yours does not make them wrong; nor does your naive analysis of the corporate economy of America make you wrong. (Our economy is Capitalist like the Soviet Union was Communist-- that is, in name only.)
If by evil you mean allow others to die so they can profit, then a slightly smaller number are evil.
The point is, there is some definition of "evil" for which a lot (if not most) corporations are evil.
My definition is simple: if a corporation is willing to harm others in its pursuit of profit, it is evil. By this definition, quite a few are evil. Since this is condoned (and encouraged!) by our government, it seems to get worse.
Now, you can argue that corporations don't make these decisions, individuals do, but that is simply prevarication. Groups of people will do things indivduals will not; this makes the group culpable. (Now, defining the individuals within the group may be difficult.)
So how do you as an individual get around this? Easy, instead of rushing in to buy something and then whining about it later, read some objective reviews of the products you buy, talk to people (either in the real world or online) about them, and lastly take all the advertising you see with a grain of salt.
This is excellent advice, and I certainly agree with it; but that doesn't change the economic reality that sometimes, there is only Hobson's Choice, at best. In some areas, if you want phone service, you must use the single provider in your area. This is just one example among many.
Further, consider how people have been reduced to "consumers." Between that and, "worker," that is our role in society-- to work, and to consume. Who profits most from this? I'll bet you dollars to donuts (Mmmmm.... Krispie Kreme....) it isn't the individual.
I don't take exception to your arguments. I take exception to the reference to the "uninformed opinions" so popluar here on
Just because you are right about unthinking consumerism driving shoddy workmanship in the electronic gadgets sector does not negate the evil nature of many corporations. Enron did not happen in a void.
Microsoft is many things, but stupid isn't one of them. They have a great technical community. Their coders are *very* important to the MS culture, and they have some of the best.
.Net, providing their version of something that is already available. (In the case of .Net, improving on the weaknesses of the competing product while introducing its own set of weaknesses), giving their products stupid common names like Windows and Word and Access to help push the idea these products are the Platonic Ideal.
I've known too many MS employees to think the problem lies with their technical folks. These are smart, dedicated individuals who are proud of their work; and most of them may be justifiably proud.
The problem is the market. MS is able to push up schedules and avoid real innovation, because real innovation would change the product. Remember when Coke issued their "New Formula?" Remember the customer backlash? Same sort of market pressure applies here.
So they give their products a face lift once in a while so the average customer thinks they're getting something new. They react to the market pressure with things like
No, the problem is not the technical folks at all, and I think it an indictment of the corporate culture that managers and PR folks and marketters can so effectively hamstring their real talent.
But that's just my naive assessment. I could, of course, be wrong.