What if you had already purchased the item in another medium, for example you had purchased the CD version of Metallica's Master of Puppets in 1991. In 2000 your toddler took a ballpoint pen and scratched the disc to the point that 3 of the tracks were no longer playable. In this scenario, is downloading those 3 tracks via bittorrent unethical?
For IBM, this is less an Achille's Heel than a services-marketing bonus: Every organization to deploy business-critical apps on these boxen now requires dedicated, expert 24x7 support. Enter: IBM Global Services. A well-trained, dedicated, distributed support unit with direct access to engineers responsible for the product's design.
Each new organization to invest in *nix-based infrastructure represents increased opportunity for IBM's WebSphere and DB2 software units: It's much harder to sell WebSphere to an all-Microsoft shop.
In my opinion such things shouldn't be allowed to happen with the normal privilege levels, otherwise some exploit or some careless click on a trojan would result in the machine getting compromised. Just run a seemingly harmless executable and suddenly your file associations are changed, or some plugin is installed - and you may not even know what has happened. Whereas if you have to change privilege levels, it is harder for that sort of thing to happen without you knowing.
Close, but it's not the machine that's compromised, it's the the account under which the browser is run that's compromised. This is a subtle but important distinction:
The challenge both *nix and win* face is properly chrooting high-risk applications (web browsers and all contexts in which web browser libraries are embedded, like office programs, email programs, filesystem navigators, etc.) while facilitating access to end-user resources that may contain sensitive data, like address books, financial spreadsheets, autocomplete data, and devices the user is using (keyboard, nic, etc.). And doing so by default without inconvenience to the end user.
Such a configuration would provide optimal security. Not supporting the notion of a chroot jail, win* is inherently incapable of providing this level of security. This, along with the fact that running win* under a least-prvileged account carries with it several annoying inconveniences (not being able to view the calendar from the status bar, change the system date, sandbox activex controls, etc.) leave linux much farther ahead in terms of security.
Nice to see this in Firefox, but I must confess some disappointment with the latest release. There is plenty of room to the right of the menu bar for all of the Google Toolbar features, however Google chose instead to gobble up a 4th row of buttons along the top of the window. Google chose the shortest path from point A (IE toolbar) to point B (straight port), not taking the time to properly implement Firefox's UI guidelines: its buttons are neither dockable or aware of the "show icons, text or icons + text" user preference.
Nah, he's just gaming the system. I'm curious as to just how much capital is required to sustain such a venture. It would be interesting to see his balance sheet.
Actually it was the first relevant comment posted, putting into perspective the efficiency and cost savings of this solution. Few datacenter managers and even fewer VPs have the HVAC training needed to appreciate "1.5 tons of cooling".
Your option #3 would actually be quite viable if there existed in said mmorpg universe a democratic concept of justice, and a character with the following profile: charisma +20, law > +6 and alignment >= neutral-evil.
This is the crux of the problem. It is against Everyman's interest to supply himself with a single Vendor, as the power of that Vendor over him increases with each product supplied. Unfortunately Shareholders of that Vendor insist that Vendor grow and continue to grow.
M$ does not itself choose to expand into all markets, If it s engineers had any say in the matter they would select quality over coverage. But Its shareholders require coverage, as would shareholders of any company of this size.
Ultimately, what's bad for Everyman is bad for the Shareholder. Don't invest in M$, at least not for long-term gain. A Company can grow too large for its own good.
When asking one of my colleagues recently whether I should participate in another frivolous class-action suit, I got an interesting reply:
Judgements in these suits are not based on the size of the class. By participating in the suit, you decrease the size of the award given to each of the other participants.
By this logic, participation has no effect on the ethos of the suit itself, but a punitive effect on those participants who refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions and consider themselves entitled to restitution for their own carelessness.
I use GPG for one reason: to encrypt my password file, history file, cookies, auto-fill files and any email communications containing that password as a last measure of defense against would-be crackers and identity theives.
This is the only truly effective defense a consumer has against these types of criminals, and as such a consumer should not be regarded suspect for merely taking common-sense measures to protect himself. However, should a court require that I turn over keys to these files, I'd consult my attorney. If my attorney felt the information would not be abused (e.g., a cookie from an accidental click on a dodgy website being admitted by the prosecution team as evidence), I'd have no problem there.
One can find copyright-encumbered movie, music & software torrents using any major search engine. Yet the MPAA, RIAA & BSA have not filed suit against a single one. Why should Brian Cohen's search engine be any different?
If anything, this will just make it easier for *AA thugs to hunt down file-sharers.
The only trouble with freenet is that a very large portion of its userbase uses it for what most thinking-people consider distribution of immoral material. Unlike the Internet at large, by virtue of participating in the freenet you help propgate this material -- whether or not you choose to ignore it. If you are, say, a dissident with religious convictions, much of the material on freenet will offend you greatly.
I fail to see the difference between this and an F/OSS project that's abandoned by its maintainer, especially those that are waning in their usefulness.
The difference is that an F/OSS project can be picked up by another interested party at any time, ported to newer architectures, alternative platforms, etc. When a MS product transitions to unsupported status, it means (among other things) that MS will no longer guarantee backward compatibility for that product in future platform releases and patches. This essentially means that customers who haven't upgraded can expect to work much harder to certify the dozens of hotfixes, security updates and service packs released for the core platform. And, perhaps most importantly, security holes detected in the product will go unpatched indefinitely.
Slashdot Mirror
What if you had already purchased the item in another medium, for example you had purchased the CD version of Metallica's Master of Puppets in 1991. In 2000 your toddler took a ballpoint pen and scratched the disc to the point that 3 of the tracks were no longer playable. In this scenario, is downloading those 3 tracks via bittorrent unethical?
There is a distinction to be made between "having a low attack profile" and being "reasonably secure"?
For IBM, this is less an Achille's Heel than a services-marketing bonus: Every organization to deploy business-critical apps on these boxen now requires dedicated, expert 24x7 support. Enter: IBM Global Services. A well-trained, dedicated, distributed support unit with direct access to engineers responsible for the product's design. Each new organization to invest in *nix-based infrastructure represents increased opportunity for IBM's WebSphere and DB2 software units: It's much harder to sell WebSphere to an all-Microsoft shop.
Let's hope the World's Most Sophisticated, Innovative Software Company can handle a simple Slashdotting.
Close, but it's not the machine that's compromised, it's the the account under which the browser is run that's compromised. This is a subtle but important distinction:
The challenge both *nix and win* face is properly chrooting high-risk applications (web browsers and all contexts in which web browser libraries are embedded, like office programs, email programs, filesystem navigators, etc.) while facilitating access to end-user resources that may contain sensitive data, like address books, financial spreadsheets, autocomplete data, and devices the user is using (keyboard, nic, etc.). And doing so by default without inconvenience to the end user.
Such a configuration would provide optimal security. Not supporting the notion of a chroot jail, win* is inherently incapable of providing this level of security. This, along with the fact that running win* under a least-prvileged account carries with it several annoying inconveniences (not being able to view the calendar from the status bar, change the system date, sandbox activex controls, etc.) leave linux much farther ahead in terms of security.
Nice to see this in Firefox, but I must confess some disappointment with the latest release. There is plenty of room to the right of the menu bar for all of the Google Toolbar features, however Google chose instead to gobble up a 4th row of buttons along the top of the window. Google chose the shortest path from point A (IE toolbar) to point B (straight port), not taking the time to properly implement Firefox's UI guidelines: its buttons are neither dockable or aware of the "show icons, text or icons + text" user preference.
This isn't rocket science. When hiring offshore IT talent, does Google translate its requirements via http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en ?
Nah, he's just gaming the system. I'm curious as to just how much capital is required to sustain such a venture. It would be interesting to see his balance sheet.
Within the next, say 12 months we should have a 3rd choice: Running windows alongside linux via Xen on a dual-processor machine (http://wiki.xensource.com/xenwiki/XenFaq#head-fcb 85a149da66907086cc8ba4f0793ad01769b92).
Actually it was the first relevant comment posted, putting into perspective the efficiency and cost savings of this solution. Few datacenter managers and even fewer VPs have the HVAC training needed to appreciate "1.5 tons of cooling".
NTFS does support linking via the concept of filesystem 'junction points':
; EN-US;q205524
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb
Granted, this is nowhere near as elegant as ln -s.
Your option #3 would actually be quite viable if there existed in said mmorpg universe a democratic concept of justice, and a character with the following profile: charisma +20, law > +6 and alignment >= neutral-evil.
This is the crux of the problem. It is against Everyman's interest to supply himself with a single Vendor, as the power of that Vendor over him increases with each product supplied. Unfortunately Shareholders of that Vendor insist that Vendor grow and continue to grow.
M$ does not itself choose to expand into all markets, If it s engineers had any say in the matter they would select quality over coverage. But Its shareholders require coverage, as would shareholders of any company of this size.
Ultimately, what's bad for Everyman is bad for the Shareholder. Don't invest in M$, at least not for long-term gain. A Company can grow too large for its own good.
When asking one of my colleagues recently whether I should participate in another frivolous class-action suit, I got an interesting reply:
Judgements in these suits are not based on the size of the class. By participating in the suit, you decrease the size of the award given to each of the other participants.
By this logic, participation has no effect on the ethos of the suit itself, but a punitive effect on those participants who refuse to accept responsibility for their own actions and consider themselves entitled to restitution for their own carelessness.
Why is it that every article about a product of Danny Hillis' Brilliant Mind covers more about Danny Hillis' Brilliant Mind than the product itself?
I use GPG for one reason: to encrypt my password file, history file, cookies, auto-fill files and any email communications containing that password as a last measure of defense against would-be crackers and identity theives.
This is the only truly effective defense a consumer has against these types of criminals, and as such a consumer should not be regarded suspect for merely taking common-sense measures to protect himself. However, should a court require that I turn over keys to these files, I'd consult my attorney. If my attorney felt the information would not be abused (e.g., a cookie from an accidental click on a dodgy website being admitted by the prosecution team as evidence), I'd have no problem there.
*cough* Bram Cohen *cough*
One can find copyright-encumbered movie, music & software torrents using any major search engine. Yet the MPAA, RIAA & BSA have not filed suit against a single one. Why should Brian Cohen's search engine be any different?
If anything, this will just make it easier for *AA thugs to hunt down file-sharers.
1. Launch 1km-wide, lightweight white surface into LEO.
2. Attach laser projector via ~500m tether.
3. Sell ads to the highest bidder.
4. Profit!!!
The only trouble with freenet is that a very large portion of its userbase uses it for what most thinking-people consider distribution of immoral material. Unlike the Internet at large, by virtue of participating in the freenet you help propgate this material -- whether or not you choose to ignore it. If you are, say, a dissident with religious convictions, much of the material on freenet will offend you greatly.
And as tech journalists, the XBox probably didn't cost them anything.
I did this for several months, but the sound of the PC's fans in many cases interfered with the overall quality of the 5.1 theater. To really do this properly, you'd need a watercooled system, or one of these: http://www.logicsupply.com/product_info.php/cPath/ 49/products_id/166?referrer=googleAd
Other factors to consider:
Sophisticated troll.
Your plea omits one important appeal:
"Just say no to large gifts and other bribes sweetening this offer."
How much does it cost to rent/buy a public official in Brazil these days anyway?
http://csis.zoovy.com/product/0892064153
A few weeks ago I "upgraded" to Hoary from Debian Sid. I simply added
/etc/apt/sources.list, performed and apt-get upgrade and everything went smoothly.
deb http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hoary main restricted universe
deb-src http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ hoary main restricted universe
to
Question: Is there any reason I should rebuild my system with the Hoary installer? I am running a 2.2GHz system with kernel 2.6.11-1-686.
I fail to see the difference between this and an F/OSS project that's abandoned by its maintainer, especially those that are waning in their usefulness.
The difference is that an F/OSS project can be picked up by another interested party at any time, ported to newer architectures, alternative platforms, etc. When a MS product transitions to unsupported status, it means (among other things) that MS will no longer guarantee backward compatibility for that product in future platform releases and patches. This essentially means that customers who haven't upgraded can expect to work much harder to certify the dozens of hotfixes, security updates and service packs released for the core platform. And, perhaps most importantly, security holes detected in the product will go unpatched indefinitely.