Now, the Israelis have an amazingly well trained, organized, and efficient army, but Iran has more people, and would get religious and political extremists, terrorist backing, and financial support from other states in the theater.
You forget that the Iran-backed Hezb'Allah army just handed the Israeli Defence Force its first unequivocal defeat in its history, resulting in the resignation of the head of the IDF and nearly a change in government.
No, it's because they have repeatedly stated that they intend to eliminate the "great Satan" - namely, the United States - from the world power, and the West in general.
Not to contradict what you're saying, but context here is important. Shaitan (Satan to us) is, according to Iranian culture, the Great Tempter. He has a specific role, and is only one member of a pantheon of devils.
So while we might read this as a statement that the US is the Devil, in actual fact what was said is that the US is a devil, specifically the one that leads people into temptation, vice and lust. Unwrap the religious rhetoric from that, and some might say that's actually an accurate description of one aspect of US society.
Again, that's not to dispute that Iran hasn't seen the US as a principle adversary since the Revolution, and certainly not to say that they haven't been involved in numerous proxy wars, some of them involving terrorism. But we need to be clear that Iran isn't indulging in wild hand-waving and calling the US generically Evil; they're stating in very clear terms what they hate about America. From their perspective, it truly is a threat.
ActiveX. It's been a security nightmare since the day it was introduced.
Isn't that a bit like saying computers have been a security nightmare since the day they were invented? Sure, they're useful for lots of stuff and no-one has yet suggested an equally effective and significantly more secure alternative, but they do undeniably have security risks associated with them.
Well, for starters, computers have been a security nightmare since the day we first began using them. Heck, the first really big thing we did with them was crack codes. 8^)
But there's a difference between designing something that one knows has shortcomings, and designing something that actively [sic] subverts the existing security model, such as it is, and then willfully ignoring the screams of protest that arose, and then doing nothing about it for years. If Vint Cerf is right that over 100 million computers are currently part of botnets, we can chock most of them up to the same cavalier approach to automation and security that gave us ActiveX.
You may find that an acceptable price to pay for convenience. I never have and I never will.
Just because they are not using it to go after anyone yet, does not mean that they won't in the future.
Incorrect. Amazon gained notoriety for this patent when they took Barnes and Noble to court and won a decision barring their competitor from allowing one-click purchases. Barnes and Noble were then forced to implement a 'two-click' system. The entire affair was a farce, and remains a canonical example of why allowing software patents is the purest folly.
Do you think everyone who uses it does? How many serious vulnerabilities in IE are really open for years?
ActiveX. It's been a security nightmare since the day it was introduced.
Firefox is not perfect, but it is demonstrably more secure than MSIE. I provide technical support for numerous organisations, most of whose staff have extremely limited understanding about the Internet and its dangers. After I made a concerted effort to move everyone to Firefox in early 2004, I experienced a consistent and statistically significant reduction in calls related to spyware/trojan/virus infection. In quantitative terms, this represented a roughly 70% reduction in related calls. On two (two!) occasions, I was able to trace the problem directly to a weakness in the Firefox browser. The majority of others used email, chat and related vectors to attack the system.
As a counterpoint, I also support an Internet café that must perforce allow use of Internet Explorer. Until we applied positively draconian measures (for more restrictive than with my other clients), we had a roughly 5% known infection rate every day. Even making allowance for the differing use cases, there is a clear implication to be drawn from these data.
I'm not a Firefox fan (and I'm not the GP); I'm just a guy who's tried everything and found that, warts notwithstanding, Firefox is the best available option. MSIE once held that position, but those days are long past. Maybe IE7 will improve things. For the moment though, Firefox has every right to advertise itself as a more secure alternative, and the public at large has every right to keep them focused on backing that talk with action.
You've written far too well to be a troll, so I'll reply in the most respectful tone I can muster.
You are mistaken in every respect.
As the article has a quote about it, here's specifically WHY I am against "Net Neutrality" -- the ISP has no control over throttling particular sites or protocols that can have major negative effects on their overall user experience.
Net Neutrality, despite what the Telco shills will tell you, has nothing to do with ISPs, and nothing to do with their ability to manage their own networks.
Net Neutrality says one thing and one thing only: If you offer a service to more than one customer, you must offer it to all of them without prejudice. You can choose to throttle YouTube if you like, but you'd better not try to offer their competitors - and especially your sibling companies - a better deal, just because you like them.
The principle of Universal Service also applies here: If you take on the role of backbone provider, you have a responsibility that must trump any market instincts. You're supposed to be acting in the public interest, and where public interest and private interest conflict, public interest must trump private.
There is nothing stopping your ISP from shaping traffic today. They can choose to do it as they like, and you as a consumer are free to choose an ISP that manages your traffic in a manner suitable to your tastes and needs. Net neutrality is about the backbone providers. It has nothing to do with your ISP.
Sure, the telecom industry is scared of Net Neutrality because they WANT to ban Skype and VoIP, but that is why the FCC needs to back off on over-regulating the opportunity for competitors to enter the market.
Erm... what?! Your logic is exactly backwards. If the FCC backs off, the telcos are free to kill and/or swallow up their upstart competitors like Skype and Vonage. Enacting Net Neutrality legislation would enforce the current state of affairs that allow such new entrants in the market. The telcos want to change the rules precisely in order to head off these new players. Net Neutrality legislation is necessary to allow the FCC to stop this abuse of power.
I'm sure if YouTube/Google had it their way, they'd get special consideration for providing more bandwidth -- State-paid consideration maybe? I sure hope not.
This is exactly what the telcos have been doing. They are the beneficiaries of very generous state-paid consideration. In the context of YouTube this is an unproven and probably false bit of speculation.
Envision 2010: "Is your latency too low? Comcast Ultra offers you 50ms or less ping times across the board, guaranteed!"
Yes, but the unspoken part of the proposition is that $telco is actually slowing down certain sites that aren't paying them a tithe. This is precisely what the telcos have posited and lobbied for in Congress. Net Neutrality says that they are not allowed to hold their customers hostage in this way. They must provide the service without fear or favour.
The telcos don't want to increase capacity or reduce latency, they want to charge you more for what they've already adervtised, and then they want to charge the providers (YouTube et alia) again for bandwidth that YouTube and you have both already paid for. Put plainly, the telcos want something for nothing. That is wrong, and must be legislated against.
So, we take $15*12=$180. Office 2003 Small Business can be had for as little as $145. If you use Office at least once a month, then 'pay as you go' is simply not cheaper. Yet another example of 'cheaper is not always cheaper.'
Thanks for pointing that out. Now you begin to understand the plight of the poor throughout the world, and why a free market is not sufficient to alleviate poverty in any systematic way.
Terry Pratchett explained it well when he has Watch Commander Sam Vimes contemplate the price of things:
"Take boots, for example. A Captain in the City Watch of Ankh-Morpork earns 38 dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots costs fifty dollars. But an AFFORDABLE pair of boots, which are sort of OK for a season or two and then leak like hell when the cardboard gives out, costs about ten dollars.
"But the thing is that GOOD boots last for years and years. A man who can afford fifty Ankh-Morpork dollars has a pair of boots that'll still be keeping his feet dry in ten years' time, while a poor man who can only afford cheap boots will have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time AND STILL HAVE WET FEET."
The problem of predatory companies charging more per unit for smaller units of X exists everywhere in the world. There are good reasons to do so, in some cases. A tube of toothpaste, for example, has a fixed cost (the tube itself) that doesn't vary much no matter how much toothpaste is inside it. But the price gap usually goes far beyond any justifiable level, and represents a significant stumbling block for anyone aspiring to rise from the working poor.
I'm not offering this as an abstract argument, by the way, I've been living and working in a Least Developed Country for the last few years, first as a volunteer, then as a professional with a local firm. I've experienced this problem first hand, and I assure you its effects are insidious and demoralising.
All I have to add to the current discussion is this: 'Welcome, Bill Gates! You're officially a member of the Robber Baron Club. Your predatory business practices that penalise the weak and underprivileged are juxtaposed beautifully with your hand outs to the very people upon whom you prey. You've earned your place in the pantheon of American Captains of Industry. Your name now stands in good stead with the Rockefellers, Carnegies and DuPonts... and with all the leading lights of US corporatism. Ave, Bill! Morituri te salutant!'
Your ability to edit your photographs has improved.
Touché. 8^)
Point well taken: The qualities (not quality!) of the final product are more easily rendered and highlighted using modern digital tools. I don't aspire to high artistry, but I do like my photos to be clear and expressive. That's worth some time and money to me. Lightroom makes it easier than Photoshop - for me, at least - because it's got better support for the Nikon D80 RAW format that I choose to use. That means that I can change exposure levels and other basic settings, which in turn means that I can spend more time pointing the thing and less time fiddling with it.
Sorry, that came off too strong. I don't want to sound like an utter plebe, so suffice it to say that for those of us who can't afford the time and the money to get really good equipment and learn to use it properly, software like Lightroom does render (heh) a service.
Photoshop's preview checkbox is more effective as a toggle of "change on/change-off".
Indeed. I do that all the time. Still, I quite like Lightroom's split-screen before/after mode that Lightroom uses as well. Unfortunately, it only compares start and end point.
Don't take it personally, but the advent of "one click" photo-fixer software and sharing sites like Flickr have allowed eager photographers to crapflood the world with terrible pictures that people claim to have "improved!" with one piece of software or another.
I won't take it personally, unless you're talking about me. 8^)
I agree that Flickr is absolute crap for displaying photos, and that the general quality of the fare is little better than noise. But you didn't think I was going to link to my own photo site on Slashdot, did you?
And besides, you're preaching to the choir. I used to work as a writer/director/actor. Just imagine what my life has become since the advent of LiveJournal and Youtube!
Your point about editing is spot on, of course, when talking about any artistic endeavour whatsoever. I once offered the following advice: "Never write anything that you wouldn't be willing to scream through a bullhorn in a crowded theatre during a great movie." Unfortunately, 99% of everything is crap, so floods are inevitable. The only thing the Internet has done is make it all visible, all at once.
But we've wandered away from Lightroom itself. So I'll come back to my first motivation for using it: Support for the Nikon RAW format is currently far better in Lightroom than in Photoshop, and the interface expands on a few things PS does well, while grouping everything in a more intuitive manner.
None of this will make my photos better, no. But it goes a long way to mitigating some of my worst sins. 8^)
And if Ford saw business benefit to requiring Ford Gasoline in their engines, they would want to do so as well. Or if they wanted to create the Ford Expressway, allowing only Fords to be driven upon it.
It's seems unlikely that anyone would want to buy Ford cars, if they did that.
It does seem unusual, doesn't it, that consumers would continue to choose a product when it continually locks them in tighter and tighter to the MotherCorp? It is, alas, not at all unlikely. Standard Oil, Microsoft and AT&T are all textbook cases wherein people continue(d) buying a product that ultimately cost them more than the alternative.
The market is not free, practically speaking. There is a constant need to outside forces to provide a tempering influence on some of its worst excesses. Government is not a good candidate for this role, but it's the best available candidate, I'm afraid to say.
I have not checked this in version 1.0 yet but this actually led to problems in the beta. When adjusting exposure for instance, any change to the exposure slider in lightroom instantly reduced the resolution by 4x or so (so the image looked very blocky at 100%).
Interesting. I saw this as a feature. It made it very clear when subtle transitions had been completed. Some operations, like slightly changing the luminance of a particular hue, are sometimes difficult to perceive. Without this visual cue, I sometimes find myself moving too far and then backtracking.
I've found that hovering the mouse (in my case, the stylus) over the control and using arrow keys to increase/decrease values in known increments, I get decent control. I just wait for the image to resolve itself again, and adjust further if required. FTR, I run Lightroom in a virtual machine, so performance and responsiveness are an issue for me.
I find Lightroom to be a vast improvement over what I used before (i.e. Photoshop). In just a month or so of using it, my photos have improved significantly. For reference, here's an example from shortly before Christmas, and here's one from just last weekend. Lighting conditions, location and time of day for both were more or less identical for both.
Because we all know that non-Windows servers never get hacked.
No, most online, public-facing servers are at least theoretically hackable, depending on the value one assigns to 'hack'.
But that's not the point GP is making. The important element here is that, in many cases, if you can find an exploit in the Windows operating system, you can attack millions of them with little more effort than it would take to pwn one. This is a result of the Windows monoculture, and it's inherently unhealthy.
This is not the case with the other server operating systems available on the market. The number of different configurations and permutations that exist in the wild make even the juiciest targets of much more limited value. So someone who wants to conduct a large-scale, concerted attack against a number of servers would have to invest a vast amount of time and effort into succeeding.
Small-scale, targeted attacks are a different proposition entirely. With enough time and effort, it's often possible to penetrate even the more sophisticated security arrangements by exploiting a weakness in the specific implementation. But that's not at all germane to GP's point, which is that the systematic (systemic, too) breakdown of security in the US government's computing infrastructure can be largely attributed to its over-reliance on a very limited set of products whose security is questionable at best.
So he taped the front of a small box of Sun-Maid raisins over his badge. And used it like that for six months.
Feh, that's nothing. I made a counterfeit badge for myself, changing the 'Mitel Networks' (i.e. my employer's) logo to 'Myhell Networks'. Not only did I never get caught, but I never even got disciplined for having the same image flapping merrily in the OpenGL breeze as my screen-saver.
Did I mention that my unit had absolutely fantastic management? They invested trust in us, and relied on everyone to be creative, to challenge assumptions and to work hard. We were glad to do all that, and more. There's a moral in there somewhere....
Childish simplicity and idealism are the cornerstones of Slashdot.
You made a typo there. Let me fix it for you:
Childish simplicity and idealism are the cornerstones of our society.
Ever since the rise of the great French philosophers - Rousseau, Voltaire and co. - an idea has existed that there is such a thing as a higher good. Rousseau depicted it as a Social Contract, while Voltaire depicted it as an accommodation between the selfish venality of human nature and the coincidence of our interests.
Ironically, the Enlightenment was fueled in no small part by the revolutionary fires ignited by the birth of the United States of America. Few nations that once embraced its ideals have since drifted so far.
Terry Pratchett has more recently depicted these 'higher truths' as Lies to Children, that is, simplistic concepts that allow us to coexist fruitfully and peacefully in our world. As Death says to his adoptive Daughter, "I challenge you to show me a single atom of Justice anywhere in this universe."
Denigrating idealism is a dangerous game. As with all philosophical concepts, idealism and the sense of a Higher Truth do not always serve in the particular, but taken as guidelines or principles of governance, they are critical to the survival of the species. We cast them aside at our own peril.
Not to sound like Stallman here, but there have always been two camps - those who think software should be Free as in "we should be able to do what we want with the code for moral/ethical reasons" and those who see practical benefits as in "when people can do what they want with the code everyone benefits."
Or, to put it more simply, those two camps consist of those who focus on the cause, and those who focus on the effect.
It only find it unfortunate that some people think they can get to the effect without working for the cause. But the principle of Software Freedom is not an abstract thing. It is a practical requirement. It has a direct relationship with the ability to achieve technically sustainable software at least cost.
How do you tell a GPL advocate? Well, it's someone who reads the GPL. And how do you tell a GPL opponent? It's someone who understands the GPL.
I have mod points, but there's no moderation for stupid. So I'll do more than this deserves and reply to it.
Haha, have your laugh. Pretend any way you like, but your facile accusation is not just juvenile, it amounts to nothing more than 'I know you are but what am I?' - a school yard taunt.
Let's put the freshman humour away and go back to class for a minute. Enlighten us, if you please: What part of the GPL requires everyone who understands it to oppose it?
I'd really like to know, because Richard Stallman did at one point receive a MacArthur Foundation Genius award. And I suspect he understands perfectly what the GPL does. And last I checked, he doesn't oppose it. Nor, for that matter, does Eben Moglen. Nor do most of the smartest people in computer science and software development today. And nor, for that matter, do I.
So, do tell: What part of understanding the GPL results in such loathing?
'Canada's chronic failure to modernize its copyright regime has made it a global hub for bootleg movies, pirated software and tiny microchips that allow video-game users to bypass copyright protections'
Translation: "We have a stranglehold on the music and movie industries, we want control over video game consoles, as well."
No, a better translation would be:
The Conservative government needs a stick to shake at the Canadian public in order to cow them into accepting a digital media market that is more conducive to the desires of their corporate master. Conveniently, the media associations and their government cronies are happy to provide one.
On reflection, we may be talking at cross purposes here. I'm deliberately talking about the incorporation of new technologies into linux. This is an entirely separate issue of whether there are current patent infringments in windows, and in linux. I should have been clearer.
Fair enough. I'll readily grant that there are numerous and valid arguments to be made for the integration of proprietary and FOSS software components. Provided that neither is unduly compromised, I see no problem whatsoever with that.
But the agreement that Novell signed on behalf of its customers does not honour that proviso. It creates liability where there was none before, because of its implicit acknowledgement that Microsoft might have grounds to sue, and the implicit threat that people not using Novell might yet be sued.
There's no legal case to be made from this document. In other words, one cannot use the mere existence of this document, nor even any of the details therein, to establish the fact of patent liability. But that makes it more insidious, rather than less. It's the very fact that the agreement is premised on an unspoken threat that makes it so nasty. There's nothing that anyone else can challenge. This agreement is a textbook example of how to sow Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
The GPL is a distribution license. Everything that Novell distribute as GPL (OpenSUSE) will remain GPL, and Novell aren't going to put any MS patents in existing GPL software. They're not stupid. They can read. This agreement has absolutely nothing to do with GPL software.
You fundamentally misunderstand the substance of the agreement. Please do some research before posting again.
Also, no-one has yet explained to me how a company making an agreement with Microsoft to distribute proprietary software containing MS patents without MS suing that company's customers is doing an "end-run around the GPL"?
Numerous people have repeatedly gone to great lengths to explain exactly how this agreement is an end-run around the GPL. Novell spokesmen have even stated in the press that the decision to create a contract to indemnify Novell's customers, rather than Novell itself, was because the GPL does not allow software to be distributed under that license if it is further encumbered (e.g. by restrictive patent agreements).
Novell avoided direct conflict with the GPL language that precludes further encumbrances by not signing the agreement on their own behalf; instead they took the disingenuous step of 'acting on behalf of their customers'. At one and the same time, they managed to grab millions of dollars in cash, create an implicit liability for everyone who doesn't use Novell, and sign an agreement that is unsuitable for its purported use, but that has the convenient side-effect of casting FUD all over the commercial landscape.
I think that fits the definition of 'end-run', don't you?
One of the biggest leveling factors here is that the majority of people (>90%) have never touched a computer in their lives, so status quo just doesn't come into it. Experience shows us that new users here take to Linux just as readily as to Windows. Possibly even something local will be easier to sell than something foreign.
You make a really good point. Pride of ownership always makes the warts more acceptable ("She ain't pretty, but she's mine!"). Also, localisation is critical to success among people in rural areas. They're just plain old users, they don't care about getting an IT job, they just want to send an email. But if everything's in English, that makes it really hard. There is no way in heck that Microsoft will ever localise Outlook or Windows to the local language, but doing so with GNOME and Firefox is a simple matter of updating some text files.
So Local is not only easier to sell than Foreign, it's also easier to use.
Unless selling out = working with microsoft to provide non-GPL proprietory tools which allow better linux/windows interoperability and agreeing that both microsoft and linux code probably infringe on each other's patents and therefore agreeing not to sue each others' customers.
No, selling out == doing an end-run around the GPL by exploiting a legal technicality that subverts the intent of the license and leaves other Linux vendors in a position of increased liability. At one and the same time, it also subverts Novell's position in the market, because GPL 3 is virtually guaranteed to block this hole, making Novell's future status (and therefore its clients' as well) quite uncertain.
To my knowledge, there is no admission of infringement - or statement of non-infringement - of patents. The only thing it contains is an agreement not sue the others' customers. And this is the most insidious element of the agreement. It creates an atmosphere of FUD, and does nothing to clarify the two parties' relative positions.
Make no mistake - the only winner in this debacle is Microsoft.
How do you promote any software when Adobe Photoshop is the default image editor? When a software developer can choose any tool he wants with zero licensing and distribution costs, guess which platform wins out.
In the LDC I live in, it's getting to be a crap-shoot on the server side, and just about every geek I know (and that's a large percentage - I'm secretary of a national IT society) has a liveCD in his/her CD pouch. People aren't ready to move to it wholesale, but they like what they see, and everyone has plans to integrate Linux soon, if they haven't done so already.
One of the biggest leveling factors here is that the majority of people (>90%) have never touched a computer in their lives, so status quo just doesn't come into it. Experience shows us that new users here take to Linux just as readily as to Windows. That's not anecdote, by the way; that's evidence. I've installed and maintained three different computer centres in the last three years, and all of them ran Linux.
(Background: I live and work in what the UN classifies as a Least Developed Country. Everything I offer below is based on my experience here, building ICT capacity in this country and the region.)
They are here in the developed world by turning off automatic updates and further locking down their products while going after small businesses that aren't using officially licensed products.
The same thing is happening here. But when I brought this issue up in a national-level mailing list (to which the majority of IT professionals in this country are subscribed), the issue was treated as a technical one, not a moral or ethical issue. Put simply, the debate went only as far as how to stop WGA, but did not extend there. Pirated software is a fact of life here, and given that this country hasn't signed the Berne Conventions on Copyright yet, people have no compelling legal reason to change.
That said, geeks here know what FOSS is about, and they're very interested in it. I recently did a demo of XGL/Beryl, and everyone in the room was lusting after it. On the server side, people recognise that if you don't have Linux on your resume, you aren't competitive. So where the geeks are concerned, Linux is the New Frontier, and they really like it. It's quite interesting that there's a direct correlation between Internet access and interest in FOSS. It more or less parallels our experience in North America and western Europe.
And now, management are beginning to feel the pressure to move to FOSS. More on this below....
Yet, no matter what, people are not going to switch en mass to the free alternatives because they aren't ready for the desktop, people aren't comfortable with them, and the interoperability (while better) still isn't good enough to allow for people to "switch in a heartbeat".
You're overestimating the problem. I can tell you from experience that some of what you say is true, but not nearly to the degree that you assume. Geeks here actually really like Linux, and they love to get a chance to use it. I'm working a lot of overtime here providing Linux training to the people who run the government's IT infrastructure. Their intention is to reduce their dependance on Microsoft specifically because of licensing and support issues.
See, a Microsoft rep arrived recently and shook the government down. That is to say, he threatened to require that the government pay full retail for all its licenses unless it came to some terms. In the end, an agreement was reached wherein the government pays a flat fee for access to a number of supported applications, and it is required to buy an OEM OS license with every new PC.
Moving some of the servers from 2003 is seen as a gimme; the planning for that is already under way. There is a recommendation in place to move all standard workstations to OO.o, with exemptions being given to those who specifically require Microsoft (i.e. those who run VBA-powered automation utilities, or who create very sophisticated documents whose compatibility cannot be guaranteed).
Just about every business in town either has or is planning to integrate non-MS software into their systems. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the biggest one is cost.
So Microsoft is driving people away using exactly the tactics described in the GP post, and people are moving away, but you're right to say that there are interoperability issues (no thanks to MS), and that there is some trepidation. It's just not as bad as you seem to think.
People are planning the transition, and they are content to do it in small, achievable steps. But they are moving to FOSS.
When the odds of a disaster occuring approach that of the odds of being struck by lightning, my willingness to care about the difference decreases significantly.... It sounds like you aren't examining risk for 1 "vehicle", but rather a fleet of them; I would certainly expect your risk analysis to be different than what I'd use for my home pc.
Precisely. That's also why not many private houses have lightning rods, but most commercial buildings do. 8^)
Slashdot Mirror
You forget that the Iran-backed Hezb'Allah army just handed the Israeli Defence Force its first unequivocal defeat in its history, resulting in the resignation of the head of the IDF and nearly a change in government.
Not to contradict what you're saying, but context here is important. Shaitan (Satan to us) is, according to Iranian culture, the Great Tempter. He has a specific role, and is only one member of a pantheon of devils.
So while we might read this as a statement that the US is the Devil, in actual fact what was said is that the US is a devil, specifically the one that leads people into temptation, vice and lust. Unwrap the religious rhetoric from that, and some might say that's actually an accurate description of one aspect of US society.
Again, that's not to dispute that Iran hasn't seen the US as a principle adversary since the Revolution, and certainly not to say that they haven't been involved in numerous proxy wars, some of them involving terrorism. But we need to be clear that Iran isn't indulging in wild hand-waving and calling the US generically Evil; they're stating in very clear terms what they hate about America. From their perspective, it truly is a threat.
Well, for starters, computers have been a security nightmare since the day we first began using them. Heck, the first really big thing we did with them was crack codes. 8^)
But there's a difference between designing something that one knows has shortcomings, and designing something that actively [sic] subverts the existing security model, such as it is, and then willfully ignoring the screams of protest that arose, and then doing nothing about it for years. If Vint Cerf is right that over 100 million computers are currently part of botnets, we can chock most of them up to the same cavalier approach to automation and security that gave us ActiveX.
You may find that an acceptable price to pay for convenience. I never have and I never will.
Incorrect. Amazon gained notoriety for this patent when they took Barnes and Noble to court and won a decision barring their competitor from allowing one-click purchases. Barnes and Noble were then forced to implement a 'two-click' system. The entire affair was a farce, and remains a canonical example of why allowing software patents is the purest folly.
ActiveX. It's been a security nightmare since the day it was introduced.
Firefox is not perfect, but it is demonstrably more secure than MSIE. I provide technical support for numerous organisations, most of whose staff have extremely limited understanding about the Internet and its dangers. After I made a concerted effort to move everyone to Firefox in early 2004, I experienced a consistent and statistically significant reduction in calls related to spyware/trojan/virus infection. In quantitative terms, this represented a roughly 70% reduction in related calls. On two (two!) occasions, I was able to trace the problem directly to a weakness in the Firefox browser. The majority of others used email, chat and related vectors to attack the system.
As a counterpoint, I also support an Internet café that must perforce allow use of Internet Explorer. Until we applied positively draconian measures (for more restrictive than with my other clients), we had a roughly 5% known infection rate every day. Even making allowance for the differing use cases, there is a clear implication to be drawn from these data.
I'm not a Firefox fan (and I'm not the GP); I'm just a guy who's tried everything and found that, warts notwithstanding, Firefox is the best available option. MSIE once held that position, but those days are long past. Maybe IE7 will improve things. For the moment though, Firefox has every right to advertise itself as a more secure alternative, and the public at large has every right to keep them focused on backing that talk with action.
You've written far too well to be a troll, so I'll reply in the most respectful tone I can muster.
You are mistaken in every respect.
Net Neutrality, despite what the Telco shills will tell you, has nothing to do with ISPs, and nothing to do with their ability to manage their own networks.
Net Neutrality says one thing and one thing only: If you offer a service to more than one customer, you must offer it to all of them without prejudice. You can choose to throttle YouTube if you like, but you'd better not try to offer their competitors - and especially your sibling companies - a better deal, just because you like them.
The principle of Universal Service also applies here: If you take on the role of backbone provider, you have a responsibility that must trump any market instincts. You're supposed to be acting in the public interest, and where public interest and private interest conflict, public interest must trump private.
There is nothing stopping your ISP from shaping traffic today. They can choose to do it as they like, and you as a consumer are free to choose an ISP that manages your traffic in a manner suitable to your tastes and needs. Net neutrality is about the backbone providers. It has nothing to do with your ISP.
Erm... what?! Your logic is exactly backwards. If the FCC backs off, the telcos are free to kill and/or swallow up their upstart competitors like Skype and Vonage. Enacting Net Neutrality legislation would enforce the current state of affairs that allow such new entrants in the market. The telcos want to change the rules precisely in order to head off these new players. Net Neutrality legislation is necessary to allow the FCC to stop this abuse of power.
This is exactly what the telcos have been doing. They are the beneficiaries of very generous state-paid consideration. In the context of YouTube this is an unproven and probably false bit of speculation.
Yes, but the unspoken part of the proposition is that $telco is actually slowing down certain sites that aren't paying them a tithe. This is precisely what the telcos have posited and lobbied for in Congress. Net Neutrality says that they are not allowed to hold their customers hostage in this way. They must provide the service without fear or favour.
The telcos don't want to increase capacity or reduce latency, they want to charge you more for what they've already adervtised, and then they want to charge the providers (YouTube et alia) again for bandwidth that YouTube and you have both already paid for. Put plainly, the telcos want something for nothing. That is wrong, and must be legislated against.
Thanks for pointing that out. Now you begin to understand the plight of the poor throughout the world, and why a free market is not sufficient to alleviate poverty in any systematic way.
Terry Pratchett explained it well when he has Watch Commander Sam Vimes contemplate the price of things:
The problem of predatory companies charging more per unit for smaller units of X exists everywhere in the world. There are good reasons to do so, in some cases. A tube of toothpaste, for example, has a fixed cost (the tube itself) that doesn't vary much no matter how much toothpaste is inside it. But the price gap usually goes far beyond any justifiable level, and represents a significant stumbling block for anyone aspiring to rise from the working poor.
I'm not offering this as an abstract argument, by the way, I've been living and working in a Least Developed Country for the last few years, first as a volunteer, then as a professional with a local firm. I've experienced this problem first hand, and I assure you its effects are insidious and demoralising.
All I have to add to the current discussion is this: 'Welcome, Bill Gates! You're officially a member of the Robber Baron Club. Your predatory business practices that penalise the weak and underprivileged are juxtaposed beautifully with your hand outs to the very people upon whom you prey. You've earned your place in the pantheon of American Captains of Industry. Your name now stands in good stead with the Rockefellers, Carnegies and DuPonts... and with all the leading lights of US corporatism. Ave, Bill! Morituri te salutant!'
Touché. 8^)
Point well taken: The qualities (not quality!) of the final product are more easily rendered and highlighted using modern digital tools. I don't aspire to high artistry, but I do like my photos to be clear and expressive. That's worth some time and money to me. Lightroom makes it easier than Photoshop - for me, at least - because it's got better support for the Nikon D80 RAW format that I choose to use. That means that I can change exposure levels and other basic settings, which in turn means that I can spend more time pointing the thing and less time fiddling with it.
Sorry, that came off too strong. I don't want to sound like an utter plebe, so suffice it to say that for those of us who can't afford the time and the money to get really good equipment and learn to use it properly, software like Lightroom does render (heh) a service.
Indeed. I do that all the time. Still, I quite like Lightroom's split-screen before/after mode that Lightroom uses as well. Unfortunately, it only compares start and end point.
I won't take it personally, unless you're talking about me. 8^)
I agree that Flickr is absolute crap for displaying photos, and that the general quality of the fare is little better than noise. But you didn't think I was going to link to my own photo site on Slashdot, did you?
And besides, you're preaching to the choir. I used to work as a writer/director/actor. Just imagine what my life has become since the advent of LiveJournal and Youtube!
Your point about editing is spot on, of course, when talking about any artistic endeavour whatsoever. I once offered the following advice: "Never write anything that you wouldn't be willing to scream through a bullhorn in a crowded theatre during a great movie." Unfortunately, 99% of everything is crap, so floods are inevitable. The only thing the Internet has done is make it all visible, all at once.
But we've wandered away from Lightroom itself. So I'll come back to my first motivation for using it: Support for the Nikon RAW format is currently far better in Lightroom than in Photoshop, and the interface expands on a few things PS does well, while grouping everything in a more intuitive manner.
None of this will make my photos better, no. But it goes a long way to mitigating some of my worst sins. 8^)
It's seems unlikely that anyone would want to buy Ford cars, if they did that.
It does seem unusual, doesn't it, that consumers would continue to choose a product when it continually locks them in tighter and tighter to the MotherCorp? It is, alas, not at all unlikely. Standard Oil, Microsoft and AT&T are all textbook cases wherein people continue(d) buying a product that ultimately cost them more than the alternative.
The market is not free, practically speaking. There is a constant need to outside forces to provide a tempering influence on some of its worst excesses. Government is not a good candidate for this role, but it's the best available candidate, I'm afraid to say.
ITYM 'Poorly Hung Perl'. 8^)
Interesting. I saw this as a feature. It made it very clear when subtle transitions had been completed. Some operations, like slightly changing the luminance of a particular hue, are sometimes difficult to perceive. Without this visual cue, I sometimes find myself moving too far and then backtracking.
I've found that hovering the mouse (in my case, the stylus) over the control and using arrow keys to increase/decrease values in known increments, I get decent control. I just wait for the image to resolve itself again, and adjust further if required. FTR, I run Lightroom in a virtual machine, so performance and responsiveness are an issue for me.
I find Lightroom to be a vast improvement over what I used before (i.e. Photoshop). In just a month or so of using it, my photos have improved significantly. For reference, here's an example from shortly before Christmas, and here's one from just last weekend. Lighting conditions, location and time of day for both were more or less identical for both.
I had those once. Nasty. Someone should tell Steve that he can get a cream for that. Clears things up in no time.
8^)
No, most online, public-facing servers are at least theoretically hackable, depending on the value one assigns to 'hack'.
But that's not the point GP is making. The important element here is that, in many cases, if you can find an exploit in the Windows operating system, you can attack millions of them with little more effort than it would take to pwn one. This is a result of the Windows monoculture, and it's inherently unhealthy.
This is not the case with the other server operating systems available on the market. The number of different configurations and permutations that exist in the wild make even the juiciest targets of much more limited value. So someone who wants to conduct a large-scale, concerted attack against a number of servers would have to invest a vast amount of time and effort into succeeding.
Small-scale, targeted attacks are a different proposition entirely. With enough time and effort, it's often possible to penetrate even the more sophisticated security arrangements by exploiting a weakness in the specific implementation. But that's not at all germane to GP's point, which is that the systematic (systemic, too) breakdown of security in the US government's computing infrastructure can be largely attributed to its over-reliance on a very limited set of products whose security is questionable at best.
Feh, that's nothing. I made a counterfeit badge for myself, changing the 'Mitel Networks' (i.e. my employer's) logo to 'Myhell Networks'. Not only did I never get caught, but I never even got disciplined for having the same image flapping merrily in the OpenGL breeze as my screen-saver.
Did I mention that my unit had absolutely fantastic management? They invested trust in us, and relied on everyone to be creative, to challenge assumptions and to work hard. We were glad to do all that, and more. There's a moral in there somewhere....
You made a typo there. Let me fix it for you:
Childish simplicity and idealism are the cornerstones of our society.
Ever since the rise of the great French philosophers - Rousseau, Voltaire and co. - an idea has existed that there is such a thing as a higher good. Rousseau depicted it as a Social Contract, while Voltaire depicted it as an accommodation between the selfish venality of human nature and the coincidence of our interests.
Ironically, the Enlightenment was fueled in no small part by the revolutionary fires ignited by the birth of the United States of America. Few nations that once embraced its ideals have since drifted so far.
Terry Pratchett has more recently depicted these 'higher truths' as Lies to Children, that is, simplistic concepts that allow us to coexist fruitfully and peacefully in our world. As Death says to his adoptive Daughter, "I challenge you to show me a single atom of Justice anywhere in this universe."
Denigrating idealism is a dangerous game. As with all philosophical concepts, idealism and the sense of a Higher Truth do not always serve in the particular, but taken as guidelines or principles of governance, they are critical to the survival of the species. We cast them aside at our own peril.
Or, to put it more simply, those two camps consist of those who focus on the cause, and those who focus on the effect.
It only find it unfortunate that some people think they can get to the effect without working for the cause. But the principle of Software Freedom is not an abstract thing. It is a practical requirement. It has a direct relationship with the ability to achieve technically sustainable software at least cost.
I have mod points, but there's no moderation for stupid. So I'll do more than this deserves and reply to it.
Haha, have your laugh. Pretend any way you like, but your facile accusation is not just juvenile, it amounts to nothing more than 'I know you are but what am I?' - a school yard taunt.
Let's put the freshman humour away and go back to class for a minute. Enlighten us, if you please: What part of the GPL requires everyone who understands it to oppose it?
I'd really like to know, because Richard Stallman did at one point receive a MacArthur Foundation Genius award. And I suspect he understands perfectly what the GPL does. And last I checked, he doesn't oppose it. Nor, for that matter, does Eben Moglen. Nor do most of the smartest people in computer science and software development today. And nor, for that matter, do I.
So, do tell: What part of understanding the GPL results in such loathing?
Translation: "We have a stranglehold on the music and movie industries, we want control over video game consoles, as well."
No, a better translation would be:
The Conservative government needs a stick to shake at the Canadian public in order to cow them into accepting a digital media market that is more conducive to the desires of their corporate master. Conveniently, the media associations and their government cronies are happy to provide one.
Fair enough. I'll readily grant that there are numerous and valid arguments to be made for the integration of proprietary and FOSS software components. Provided that neither is unduly compromised, I see no problem whatsoever with that.
But the agreement that Novell signed on behalf of its customers does not honour that proviso. It creates liability where there was none before, because of its implicit acknowledgement that Microsoft might have grounds to sue, and the implicit threat that people not using Novell might yet be sued.
There's no legal case to be made from this document. In other words, one cannot use the mere existence of this document, nor even any of the details therein, to establish the fact of patent liability. But that makes it more insidious, rather than less. It's the very fact that the agreement is premised on an unspoken threat that makes it so nasty. There's nothing that anyone else can challenge. This agreement is a textbook example of how to sow Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt.
You fundamentally misunderstand the substance of the agreement. Please do some research before posting again.
Numerous people have repeatedly gone to great lengths to explain exactly how this agreement is an end-run around the GPL. Novell spokesmen have even stated in the press that the decision to create a contract to indemnify Novell's customers, rather than Novell itself, was because the GPL does not allow software to be distributed under that license if it is further encumbered (e.g. by restrictive patent agreements).
Novell avoided direct conflict with the GPL language that precludes further encumbrances by not signing the agreement on their own behalf; instead they took the disingenuous step of 'acting on behalf of their customers'. At one and the same time, they managed to grab millions of dollars in cash, create an implicit liability for everyone who doesn't use Novell, and sign an agreement that is unsuitable for its purported use, but that has the convenient side-effect of casting FUD all over the commercial landscape.
I think that fits the definition of 'end-run', don't you?
Possibly even something local will be easier to sell than something foreign.
You make a really good point. Pride of ownership always makes the warts more acceptable ("She ain't pretty, but she's mine!"). Also, localisation is critical to success among people in rural areas. They're just plain old users, they don't care about getting an IT job, they just want to send an email. But if everything's in English, that makes it really hard. There is no way in heck that Microsoft will ever localise Outlook or Windows to the local language, but doing so with GNOME and Firefox is a simple matter of updating some text files.
So Local is not only easier to sell than Foreign, it's also easier to use.
No, selling out == doing an end-run around the GPL by exploiting a legal technicality that subverts the intent of the license and leaves other Linux vendors in a position of increased liability. At one and the same time, it also subverts Novell's position in the market, because GPL 3 is virtually guaranteed to block this hole, making Novell's future status (and therefore its clients' as well) quite uncertain.
To my knowledge, there is no admission of infringement - or statement of non-infringement - of patents. The only thing it contains is an agreement not sue the others' customers. And this is the most insidious element of the agreement. It creates an atmosphere of FUD, and does nothing to clarify the two parties' relative positions.
Make no mistake - the only winner in this debacle is Microsoft.
In the LDC I live in, it's getting to be a crap-shoot on the server side, and just about every geek I know (and that's a large percentage - I'm secretary of a national IT society) has a liveCD in his/her CD pouch. People aren't ready to move to it wholesale, but they like what they see, and everyone has plans to integrate Linux soon, if they haven't done so already.
One of the biggest leveling factors here is that the majority of people (>90%) have never touched a computer in their lives, so status quo just doesn't come into it. Experience shows us that new users here take to Linux just as readily as to Windows. That's not anecdote, by the way; that's evidence. I've installed and maintained three different computer centres in the last three years, and all of them ran Linux.
(Background: I live and work in what the UN classifies as a Least Developed Country. Everything I offer below is based on my experience here, building ICT capacity in this country and the region.)
The same thing is happening here. But when I brought this issue up in a national-level mailing list (to which the majority of IT professionals in this country are subscribed), the issue was treated as a technical one, not a moral or ethical issue. Put simply, the debate went only as far as how to stop WGA, but did not extend there. Pirated software is a fact of life here, and given that this country hasn't signed the Berne Conventions on Copyright yet, people have no compelling legal reason to change.
That said, geeks here know what FOSS is about, and they're very interested in it. I recently did a demo of XGL/Beryl, and everyone in the room was lusting after it. On the server side, people recognise that if you don't have Linux on your resume, you aren't competitive. So where the geeks are concerned, Linux is the New Frontier, and they really like it. It's quite interesting that there's a direct correlation between Internet access and interest in FOSS. It more or less parallels our experience in North America and western Europe.
And now, management are beginning to feel the pressure to move to FOSS. More on this below....
You're overestimating the problem. I can tell you from experience that some of what you say is true, but not nearly to the degree that you assume. Geeks here actually really like Linux, and they love to get a chance to use it. I'm working a lot of overtime here providing Linux training to the people who run the government's IT infrastructure. Their intention is to reduce their dependance on Microsoft specifically because of licensing and support issues.
See, a Microsoft rep arrived recently and shook the government down. That is to say, he threatened to require that the government pay full retail for all its licenses unless it came to some terms. In the end, an agreement was reached wherein the government pays a flat fee for access to a number of supported applications, and it is required to buy an OEM OS license with every new PC.
Moving some of the servers from 2003 is seen as a gimme; the planning for that is already under way. There is a recommendation in place to move all standard workstations to OO.o, with exemptions being given to those who specifically require Microsoft (i.e. those who run VBA-powered automation utilities, or who create very sophisticated documents whose compatibility cannot be guaranteed).
Just about every business in town either has or is planning to integrate non-MS software into their systems. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the biggest one is cost.
So Microsoft is driving people away using exactly the tactics described in the GP post, and people are moving away, but you're right to say that there are interoperability issues (no thanks to MS), and that there is some trepidation. It's just not as bad as you seem to think.
People are planning the transition, and they are content to do it in small, achievable steps. But they are moving to FOSS.
Precisely. That's also why not many private houses have lightning rods, but most commercial buildings do. 8^)