I can learn MS Office and friends at any two bit tech school (see OP). You're talking about a University, which is supposed to be a centre of learning and discovery.
When I started university, I knew nothing about computers and software, apart from how to load a game on my old Sinclair ZX81. The first essay I had to do I used a bitmap drawing program on a Mac, because I was able to find the text tool, and I couldn't imagine what else I would need. Suffice it to say, I was clueless.
Several years later and a Philosophy/Australian Studies degree in hand I was completely conversant with Macs and DOS 3.3. Apart from a look at a book every once in a while (no Internet for undergrads then) and an 'aha!' experience as I watched someone double click an icon to launch an app, I learnt everything through trial and error. My assignments were always completed on time(ish), and I didn't break anything.
My point is this. I went to Uni to learn, and that meant I had to learn a variety of tools. I didn't go to learn word processing or comp sci. I enrolled in a Philosophy course, not MS Office 101. But along the way I picked up computer skills that went far further than simply how to produce a document.
If you ever want to learn about human beings and what they're like, you're better off travelling around the world and experiencing different cultures, and not just staying home and looking over the back fence. Sometimes the journey is the destination.
Whoops, starting to sound like a philosophy graduate...
And of course the products will be sold in China. So this isn't outsourcing so much as insourcing overseas.
This could actually help reverse the flow of globalisation--the authors will speak the language(s) natively and all those cultural idiosyncracies will be an assumption, not an afterthought.
As a non-American, there's nothing I hate more (well there is, but more of that another time) than having American dictionaries installed as standard in all my software. I think this is a great plus for the Chinese.
This shows one good case where copyright should exist for a period beyond the life of an artist. Imagine a poor artist working minimum wage so he or she can devote more time to their chosen field. They may have a bit of a back catalogue that produces them some money, and they may have a great piece of work just about finished when he drinks that magical cup of tea, pops his clogs and shuffles off this mortal coil.
It would seem fair that his family should see the pay from the work the artist did while still alive. I think that's a Good Thing.
Whether or not a silent investor should be raking in the dough in 70 years' time, though, is a completely separate question.
I'm not sure how much easier XP would be to someone who has never used a computer than any of the Linuxen. For a start, it's doubtful XP will even run on this machine, and once product activation kicks in it'll be useless anyway. If you really wanted to go the Windows way, Win95 or 98 might do the trick, bearing in mind the possible legal problems.
And why won't they be able to configure Linux for themselves? Believe it or not, it's not necessarily that difficult, and if it's been set up before, there may not be a problem.
At the end of the day, as other posters have already noted, the hard drive will probably be overwritten and loaded up with whatever is most appropriate in Uganda. At the end of the day, we've got to let these folk make up their own minds about what to do.
During the late seventies a neurologist came out to Australia from some Eastern-bloc nation as a refugee. He'd said a couple of things a little too publicly and everyone thought he'd be better off elsewhere.
He was a brilliant doctor. However, the Ausralian authorities didn't recognise his credentials and he couldn't get work in his field. So he took advantage of free training that was offered and went to medical school.
It goes without saying that he did well. He completed his degree and started to do post-grad work in neurology. One day, a lecturer made a statement our Eastern friend disagreed with. He put up his hand and made his point. The lecturer, who obviously knew everything, disagreed, and told him to look in the text book.
"The text book doesn't say that."
"Yes it does. Go and have a look. Chapter twenty."
"Chapter twenty saysd nothing of the sort."
"How would you know?" sneered the lecturer. Have you read it?"
"You could say that. I wrote it."
True story (if somewhat embellished!). i don't care where you come from. If you can save my life, please do.
Given the current litigious nature of the computing world I wonder if Microsoft have other plans sitting on the shelf at the moment.
Scenario:
1337 haXXxXor sitting in mum'^H^H^H^H mom's basement having a squiz at the latest batch of code from MS. "Holy cow, Batman!" he thinks. "There's a hole the size of Texas waiting for me to walk in, park dad's Caddy and lay a few donuts. All in Bill's bedroom!"
1337 haXXxXor has another look to confirm what he sees. "I'd better message my 1337 buddy pr0ndo0d and see what he thinks."
A few minutes later a reply from pr0ndo0d pops up. "Hey 1337 haXXxXor, it's worse! That'll fit two Caddies and the USS Abraham Lincoln!"
1337 haXXxXor, being a responsible sort of a guy, decides he'd better do the right thing and let Bill know. He fires off an email to security@microsoft.com.
"Dear Mr Gates,
I believe I've found a bug in the IexpresslookClippy module which may allow unauthorised entry into the ReallyImportantPart.memoryRoutine... [lot's of technical stuff that we'd all like to know].
I have discussed the issue with a colleague and we both believe this is an issue of critical importance, and we would recommend that you fix the problem before 1337 hackers find out and exploit the apparent vulnerability.
Yours sincerely,
1337 haXXxXor"
1337 haXXxXor retires to bed, knowing he's done good and he's helped prevent a major catastrophe in the nuclear power plants that run this piece of software.
Ten minutes later, the DMCA police arrive, and arrest him for having told at least two people about a way of circumventing the security model underpinning the program.
Microsoft is losing a hell of a lot more money to privacy than to Open Source...
I'll assume you mean piracy.
Could you tell me where MS is losing money to 'pirates?' If I take one of their CDs, copy it, and give it to a friend who has no means of buying a copy, I've not cost MS anything, but I have extended their lock in. Nobody has lost anything, at least in a financial sense. The only ones to directly make $$$ at all out of this is the CD manufacturing company.
If I take a CD of Free software, burn it, and give it to the same friend, MS sees just as much money as before, and the Free Software movement gets just as much. My friend has received software he didn't pay for, and I suspect the BSA won't care.
The only difference this time is that MS doesn't assert it's dominance over my friend. And that's what they're ultimately after. I'm sure they'd rather have many people using knocked off software that they control rather than Free alternatives.
As the article pointed out, half of these organisations use FOSS to run their sites. The article has many arguments as to why they shouldn't, but I think this proves that none of them actually know what they're talking about, and are just regurgitating FUD. Fair enough, they can't all be expected to know the details, but if it's all that bad you'd thnk a bit of healthy (?) paranoia would have kicked in by now.
I'm also not sure how RMS will react when he reads that 'open source' software is software covered by the GPL.
Umm, I thought the idea of this software was that it stopped the music from being perpetuated. If the software was perpetuated, it wouldn't be doing it's job.
So you might say that this software is meant to be a vaccine more than a virus.
Given the EULA that these things will attempt to pass off on us, I wonder if they can (pseudo-legally, at least) get around *nix type security arrangements?
Hey! Buy this great CD! It rocks! It jives! It's phat. It's good, and reeeaaalll bad! Stick it up the establishment, throw down your oppressors and ROCK!!!!
. . . 4. A II 3 e vii) THE USER AGREES, IN THE EVENT OF SECURITY SYSTEMS ON MUSIC SYSTEM BLOCKING THE INSTALLATION OF SAID MUSIC PROTECTION SOFTWARE, TO SUPPLY AS NEEDED ALL PASSWORDS, ENCRYPTION/ DECRYPTION KEYS, USER NAMES, OPERATING SYSTEM DETAILS, CREDIT CARDS NUMBERS AND ALL OTHER INFORMATION NECESSARY TO INSTALL AFOREMENTIONED ON THE AFOREMENTIONED MACHINE OF AFOREMENTIONED USER, HERETOFORE AFOREMENTIONED. 4. A II 3 e viii) IN THE SITUATION THE SAID MUSIC PROTECTION SOFTWARE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE OPERATING SYSTEM, APIS, REGISTRATION DEVICES, OR OTHER SOFTWARE OR HARDWARE FEATURES OF THE COMPUTER ON WHICH THE SOFTWARE IS TO BE INSTALLED THE USER AGREES TO REMOVE ALL SOFTWARE FROM THE COMPUTER, INCLUDING OPERATING SYSTEMS, AND AGREES TO INSTALL THE PRESCRIBED OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARE WHICH CAN BE PURCHASED VIA WWW.MICROSOFT.COM. ANY NECESSARY SOFTWARE PURCHASES, SYSTEM UPGRADES, OR OTHER CHANGES IS THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE USER. THE PUBLISHER WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ASSOCIATED COST.
. . .
Yeah! Rock on!
I'd like to thank my girl, my wife, my manager, and most of all God who made all this possible.
Sorry, I just reread my post, and I think my sarcasm was a little subtle. I must use that 'preview' btton a little more often!
As others in this thread have noted, in many coutries it's illegal to install software without the user's express permission. That's got to be the great strength of the open source model--you can (potentially) find out exactly what software does before you install it. More to the point, you can read Slashdot and get lots of unqualified opinion instead!
It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. One thing I know won't happen, though, is that CD prices will drop. At the moment, those nasty evil piratez are stealing our market, so no cheap CDs. Copy protection will get rid of the evil piratez, but the number of sales we lose because people (or piratez) can't play them in their machines (or pirate zhips) will diminish our margins, so prices will have to go up.
Here in Australia we will pay around AUD$30 for a CD. By way of comparison, a teenager working at McDonald's might earn around $10 per hour (3 hours work to buy Britney). My well paying factory job I held until a few years ago brought me 15 dollars an hour. After tax and so forth, a new CD would have cost me about 10% of what I brought home. Out of interest, how does this stack up with other countries?
We've changed all sorts of things in the law with the guarantee of lower prices. None of them have evenuated. And we don't have any fair use copying rights on music or video at all (that's right, it's even illegal to tape tonight's episode of Neighbours, as well it should be).
Geez, it took me a while to get the CD player in my Linux box working properly. I presume the driver that gets installed is Windows only? Because if they can get a Linux driver to work straight off the disk when I'm in a normal user account, I want them on my team. That's a great piece of programming.
Now I don't believe that Revelation specifically speaks about the end times--it's a veiled story about the Roman Empire which had outlawed Christianity (during the reign of Domitian, IIRC, not long after the time of Nero). Christians had few rights, apart from being first in line at lion feeding time.
Essentially, the Book of Revelation is a diatribe against the loss of religious and political freedom, and how the true believer doesn't have to fear the state. Interestingly, they are also encouraged to stand against anything which would take away their freedom. As such, it is relevant to any situation where Christians are persecuted and aren't able to exercise their right to worship as they see fit. Ultimately, the oppressive regime will fall, but there will always be those faithful who make it through. Those who don't can still die gloriously, knowing they stood to the end. So although I read the book differently to you, I think we come to the same general conclusion.
I've never really thought about Revelation in secular terms, but there's no reason why it couldn't (broadly) be read that way. Even if people would take your freedom, live as a free person. Don't fear those who can harm the body, but can't touch the soul (or read through a tinfoil hat).
In my experience it's the users who think they kow it all about Windows that'll cause the problems. They're the ones who stand around the company helpdesk all day talking about the latest articles in IT magazines, annoying those who are actually trying to do some work. They're the ones who have all their little tweaks set up, and the ones who cause all the problems helpdesks lose their reputations trying to fix.
They're also the ones who know thatthey know more than the company IT department, and any big change like this is automatically, in their opinion wrong. Why move to Linux? I know better. I saw an article...
Having a locked down system like Linux can offer is probably the best thing for everyone, if it only keeps these types out.
POV-Ray doesn't have a GUI, but GUI front ends have been written for it. I've used the KDE Povray modeller which is sort of nice, but I found I had to learn the language first, by which time I found it easier to just use the language. It's not that reliable, either. Good try though.
How does the meteorite coming through the roof of a suburban home add to its value?
It doesn't. This is a good example of the difference between value and cost. It still isn't very valuable (unless it turns out to have a gold core or somethng) but it may cost a bit to buy.
Ultimately, it's worth whatever a collector will pay for it.
Slashdot Mirror
...a beowulf cluster of these.
Oh, that's right. It's called a forest.
(ducks)
I can learn MS Office and friends at any two bit tech school (see OP). You're talking about a University, which is supposed to be a centre of learning and discovery.
When I started university, I knew nothing about computers and software, apart from how to load a game on my old Sinclair ZX81. The first essay I had to do I used a bitmap drawing program on a Mac, because I was able to find the text tool, and I couldn't imagine what else I would need. Suffice it to say, I was clueless.
Several years later and a Philosophy/Australian Studies degree in hand I was completely conversant with Macs and DOS 3.3. Apart from a look at a book every once in a while (no Internet for undergrads then) and an 'aha!' experience as I watched someone double click an icon to launch an app, I learnt everything through trial and error. My assignments were always completed on time(ish), and I didn't break anything.
My point is this. I went to Uni to learn, and that meant I had to learn a variety of tools. I didn't go to learn word processing or comp sci. I enrolled in a Philosophy course, not MS Office 101. But along the way I picked up computer skills that went far further than simply how to produce a document.
If you ever want to learn about human beings and what they're like, you're better off travelling around the world and experiencing different cultures, and not just staying home and looking over the back fence. Sometimes the journey is the destination.
Whoops, starting to sound like a philosophy graduate...
And of course the products will be sold in China. So this isn't outsourcing so much as insourcing overseas.
This could actually help reverse the flow of globalisation--the authors will speak the language(s) natively and all those cultural idiosyncracies will be an assumption, not an afterthought.
As a non-American, there's nothing I hate more (well there is, but more of that another time) than having American dictionaries installed as standard in all my software. I think this is a great plus for the Chinese.
This shows one good case where copyright should exist for a period beyond the life of an artist. Imagine a poor artist working minimum wage so he or she can devote more time to their chosen field. They may have a bit of a back catalogue that produces them some money, and they may have a great piece of work just about finished when he drinks that magical cup of tea, pops his clogs and shuffles off this mortal coil.
It would seem fair that his family should see the pay from the work the artist did while still alive. I think that's a Good Thing.
Whether or not a silent investor should be raking in the dough in 70 years' time, though, is a completely separate question.
I'm not sure how much easier XP would be to someone who has never used a computer than any of the Linuxen. For a start, it's doubtful XP will even run on this machine, and once product activation kicks in it'll be useless anyway. If you really wanted to go the Windows way, Win95 or 98 might do the trick, bearing in mind the possible legal problems.
And why won't they be able to configure Linux for themselves? Believe it or not, it's not necessarily that difficult, and if it's been set up before, there may not be a problem.
At the end of the day, as other posters have already noted, the hard drive will probably be overwritten and loaded up with whatever is most appropriate in Uganda. At the end of the day, we've got to let these folk make up their own minds about what to do.
During the late seventies a neurologist came out to Australia from some Eastern-bloc nation as a refugee. He'd said a couple of things a little too publicly and everyone thought he'd be better off elsewhere.
He was a brilliant doctor. However, the Ausralian authorities didn't recognise his credentials and he couldn't get work in his field. So he took advantage of free training that was offered and went to medical school.
It goes without saying that he did well. He completed his degree and started to do post-grad work in neurology. One day, a lecturer made a statement our Eastern friend disagreed with. He put up his hand and made his point. The lecturer, who obviously knew everything, disagreed, and told him to look in the text book.
"The text book doesn't say that."
"Yes it does. Go and have a look. Chapter twenty."
"Chapter twenty saysd nothing of the sort."
"How would you know?" sneered the lecturer. Have you read it?"
"You could say that. I wrote it."
True story (if somewhat embellished!). i don't care where you come from. If you can save my life, please do.
Umm, when exactly is 12:00 in the afternoon? Or is that just a rounding problem?
Sorry. Late nights make me grumpy and pedantic.
Given the current litigious nature of the computing world I wonder if Microsoft have other plans sitting on the shelf at the moment.
Scenario:
1337 haXXxXor sitting in mum'^H^H^H^H mom's basement having a squiz at the latest batch of code from MS. "Holy cow, Batman!" he thinks. "There's a hole the size of Texas waiting for me to walk in, park dad's Caddy and lay a few donuts. All in Bill's bedroom!"
1337 haXXxXor has another look to confirm what he sees. "I'd better message my 1337 buddy pr0ndo0d and see what he thinks."
A few minutes later a reply from pr0ndo0d pops up. "Hey 1337 haXXxXor, it's worse! That'll fit two Caddies and the USS Abraham Lincoln!"
1337 haXXxXor, being a responsible sort of a guy, decides he'd better do the right thing and let Bill know. He fires off an email to security@microsoft.com.
"Dear Mr Gates,
I believe I've found a bug in the IexpresslookClippy module which may allow unauthorised entry into the ReallyImportantPart.memoryRoutine... [lot's of technical stuff that we'd all like to know].
I have discussed the issue with a colleague and we both believe this is an issue of critical importance, and we would recommend that you fix the problem before 1337 hackers find out and exploit the apparent vulnerability.
Yours sincerely,
1337 haXXxXor"
1337 haXXxXor retires to bed, knowing he's done good and he's helped prevent a major catastrophe in the nuclear power plants that run this piece of software.
Ten minutes later, the DMCA police arrive, and arrest him for having told at least two people about a way of circumventing the security model underpinning the program.
I wonder if it could happen?
Okay, not a coder, but tell me--
How are drivers or DirectX not programs?
A Beowulf cluster of these!
What? Oh, sorry.
I just type 'startx' and there's a whole heap of apps just waiting to go...
I'll assume you mean piracy.
Could you tell me where MS is losing money to 'pirates?' If I take one of their CDs, copy it, and give it to a friend who has no means of buying a copy, I've not cost MS anything, but I have extended their lock in. Nobody has lost anything, at least in a financial sense. The only ones to directly make $$$ at all out of this is the CD manufacturing company.
If I take a CD of Free software, burn it, and give it to the same friend, MS sees just as much money as before, and the Free Software movement gets just as much. My friend has received software he didn't pay for, and I suspect the BSA won't care.
The only difference this time is that MS doesn't assert it's dominance over my friend. And that's what they're ultimately after. I'm sure they'd rather have many people using knocked off software that they control rather than Free alternatives.
As the article pointed out, half of these organisations use FOSS to run their sites. The article has many arguments as to why they shouldn't, but I think this proves that none of them actually know what they're talking about, and are just regurgitating FUD. Fair enough, they can't all be expected to know the details, but if it's all that bad you'd thnk a bit of healthy (?) paranoia would have kicked in by now.
I'm also not sure how RMS will react when he reads that 'open source' software is software covered by the GPL.
Something ESR has trouble with. Well done, mum!
Umm, I thought the idea of this software was that it stopped the music from being perpetuated. If the software was perpetuated, it wouldn't be doing it's job.
So you might say that this software is meant to be a vaccine more than a virus.
Given the EULA that these things will attempt to pass off on us, I wonder if they can (pseudo-legally, at least) get around *nix type security arrangements?
Hey! Buy this great CD! It rocks! It jives! It's phat. It's good, and reeeaaalll bad! Stick it up the establishment, throw down your oppressors and ROCK!!!!
.
.
.
4. A II 3 e vii) THE USER AGREES, IN THE EVENT OF SECURITY SYSTEMS ON MUSIC SYSTEM BLOCKING THE INSTALLATION OF SAID MUSIC PROTECTION SOFTWARE, TO SUPPLY AS NEEDED ALL PASSWORDS, ENCRYPTION/ DECRYPTION KEYS, USER NAMES, OPERATING SYSTEM DETAILS, CREDIT CARDS NUMBERS AND ALL OTHER INFORMATION NECESSARY TO INSTALL AFOREMENTIONED ON THE AFOREMENTIONED MACHINE OF AFOREMENTIONED USER, HERETOFORE AFOREMENTIONED.
4. A II 3 e viii) IN THE SITUATION THE SAID MUSIC PROTECTION SOFTWARE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE OPERATING SYSTEM, APIS, REGISTRATION DEVICES, OR OTHER SOFTWARE OR HARDWARE FEATURES OF THE COMPUTER ON WHICH THE SOFTWARE IS TO BE INSTALLED THE USER AGREES TO REMOVE ALL SOFTWARE FROM THE COMPUTER, INCLUDING OPERATING SYSTEMS, AND AGREES TO INSTALL THE PRESCRIBED OPERATING SYSTEM SOFTWARE WHICH CAN BE PURCHASED VIA WWW.MICROSOFT.COM. ANY NECESSARY SOFTWARE PURCHASES, SYSTEM UPGRADES, OR OTHER CHANGES IS THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE USER. THE PUBLISHER WILL NOT BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY ASSOCIATED COST.
.
.
.
Yeah! Rock on!
I'd like to thank my girl, my wife, my manager, and most of all God who made all this possible.
Sorry, I just reread my post, and I think my sarcasm was a little subtle. I must use that 'preview' btton a little more often!
As others in this thread have noted, in many coutries it's illegal to install software without the user's express permission. That's got to be the great strength of the open source model--you can (potentially) find out exactly what software does before you install it. More to the point, you can read Slashdot and get lots of unqualified opinion instead!
It'll be interesting to see how it all plays out. One thing I know won't happen, though, is that CD prices will drop. At the moment, those nasty evil piratez are stealing our market, so no cheap CDs. Copy protection will get rid of the evil piratez, but the number of sales we lose because people (or piratez) can't play them in their machines (or pirate zhips) will diminish our margins, so prices will have to go up.
Here in Australia we will pay around AUD$30 for a CD. By way of comparison, a teenager working at McDonald's might earn around $10 per hour (3 hours work to buy Britney). My well paying factory job I held until a few years ago brought me 15 dollars an hour. After tax and so forth, a new CD would have cost me about 10% of what I brought home. Out of interest, how does this stack up with other countries?
We've changed all sorts of things in the law with the guarantee of lower prices. None of them have evenuated. And we don't have any fair use copying rights on music or video at all (that's right, it's even illegal to tape tonight's episode of Neighbours, as well it should be).
I can't wait for the DMCA.
Just how broken is this piece of code?
Umm, I may need to have a much closer look, but the only 'G' word I can find mentioned in the parent post is 'George.'
Most conversations are considered to have hit rock bottom once the 'F' word comes out. We don't normally let it get to 'G.'
Please explain?
You're thinking of Revelation 13.
Now I don't believe that Revelation specifically speaks about the end times--it's a veiled story about the Roman Empire which had outlawed Christianity (during the reign of Domitian, IIRC, not long after the time of Nero). Christians had few rights, apart from being first in line at lion feeding time.
Essentially, the Book of Revelation is a diatribe against the loss of religious and political freedom, and how the true believer doesn't have to fear the state. Interestingly, they are also encouraged to stand against anything which would take away their freedom. As such, it is relevant to any situation where Christians are persecuted and aren't able to exercise their right to worship as they see fit. Ultimately, the oppressive regime will fall, but there will always be those faithful who make it through. Those who don't can still die gloriously, knowing they stood to the end. So although I read the book differently to you, I think we come to the same general conclusion.
I've never really thought about Revelation in secular terms, but there's no reason why it couldn't (broadly) be read that way. Even if people would take your freedom, live as a free person. Don't fear those who can harm the body, but can't touch the soul (or read through a tinfoil hat).
Good call!
In my experience it's the users who think they kow it all about Windows that'll cause the problems. They're the ones who stand around the company helpdesk all day talking about the latest articles in IT magazines, annoying those who are actually trying to do some work. They're the ones who have all their little tweaks set up, and the ones who cause all the problems helpdesks lose their reputations trying to fix.
They're also the ones who know thatthey know more than the company IT department, and any big change like this is automatically, in their opinion wrong. Why move to Linux? I know better. I saw an article...
Having a locked down system like Linux can offer is probably the best thing for everyone, if it only keeps these types out.
def exclude (-(tag:"rant")(slashdot readers)}!!
POV-Ray doesn't have a GUI, but GUI front ends have been written for it. I've used the KDE Povray modeller which is sort of nice, but I found I had to learn the language first, by which time I found it easier to just use the language. It's not that reliable, either. Good try though.
It doesn't. This is a good example of the difference between value and cost. It still isn't very valuable (unless it turns out to have a gold core or somethng) but it may cost a bit to buy.
Ultimately, it's worth whatever a collector will pay for it.
I loved the comment made by the lady to the reporter. "Gee, if someone had been sleeping on the couch, it would've crowned 'em."
Nzers are truly the masters (and mistresses) of the understatement.