The only thing that I can think, is that the author assumes that everyone reads the source, and waits until they grasp every nuance of the code, before installing it.
I do concede that having the sources open, does mean that once someone does look at it, they would most likely make efforts to educate people to avoid that program. But if someone sent me the source for an app, with a virus written into it, I'd never know.
I'm a MS user. I'll never say that with shame. I don't love the products. They are tools, that serve a purpose. I won a copy of W2Kpro a week or two before release, and have been running it completely successfully on machines at home, and at work. I had valid reasons for both, and have only had minor problems with either environment.
At home, my machine is a Dual P2-400 system. I like to play games, but under NT4sp6a, my options were somewhat limited. Now I can play almost anything that I want. There are glitches occasionally, but overall, I'm satisfied with game performance. The only major irritant I had, was finding CDR software that would run cleanly. Now, for the first time, I have my system burning at 8x with NO buffer underruns. It's actually running significantly better than NT4 was on the same hardware.
At work, I've got the company supplied Tecra 8000. I needed NT4 on a daily basis, to run the network. But I had to keep a stub 98 partition, so that I could play DVD's on the machine. Now, I have my 2k system, no 98 required. And except for some minor wierdness with DNS lookups, and poor sound playback with Quicktime 4(which works 100% fine on the desktop at home) it's rock solid.
I'd say based on my experiences, that 2k is a very sold OS. I'd also say that it's not perfect, and I freely admit, that there are certainly apps that don't run under it. But by and large, MS has released a very solid piece of code. It's as or more stable than NT4 was, and runs faster, on the same hardware. It's nice when an upgrade really does improve your system, with little or no penalties.
One theme I keep hearing in the forums here, is that some people are still having problems getting the original client up and running. Easy fix. If you copy the installer to someone, give them a copy of your gnutella.net file as well. It has every other "node" that you've discovered.
The other trick that we did in the office here, is we have one machine that's almost never used, running a copy of the client, set to connect (see the gnutellaNet config page on the app), to 100+ other clients. So it seems to be doing a good job of always looking around for new machines out there. When we install a new copy of the client on someones machine, we just have them connect to that machine as their first peer. Wham, all the clients copy across.
It was posted here, a bastion of Linuxdom. So I don't know that my odds went down that much. Especially since I would have overlooked it completely, were it not for slashdot, so I guess my odds went up quite a bit.
And further, how many Dual processor/Win2k users are gonna apply for the beta? Hopefully not too many.
I agree that the consumer probably does have some right to poke around with his property, but taking the information that you as a consumer get, and distributing that widely, is not the same. The construction of the application, and the data that underlies it, could be considered a trade secret. And taking a companies trade secret and publishing it, is not "free speech", it's intellectual property theft.
Frankly, I don't necessarily see that consumers have an absolute right to know what they are paying for. If someone objects to how this software is screening, or they object to not knowing how the software screens, then they are under no obligation to buy the software.
I'd say any company marketing a product like this, can make their design as proprietary, as they like. If you don't like the fact that you don't know the screen, don't buy the product. Or better yet, write your own, that has a completely open list of blocking criteria.
It seems that blocking software is here to stay, in one form or another. Why is it completely beneath the open software movement, to create a program that at least does it in an open manner?
I work for a tech company. And when I was hired, part of my emplyment agreement read:
"I hereby agree that all inventions created during the term of my employment (whether or not on the company's premises or using the companies equipment and materials or during regular business hours) shall be a work-for-hire and shall be the sole and exclusive property of the company, and I hereby assign to the company all of my right, title, and interest in any and all such inventions."
I'm not a developer, so this isn't all that restrictive to me, per se. But I would assume that Frankel, et al, signed something pretty similar when they sold off to AOL. It's alot of fun to demonize AOL as being jackbooted thugs, but it seems to me, that they are merely enforcing the terms of a contract that was entered into freely by both parties.
When AOL gave away the bag of cash, for WinAmp, they weren't just buying the existing code, they also hired Justin, and expected further code from him, I'm sure. At this point, I'd say that this was an incredibly reckless thing for him to do, as not only does AOL likely have the authority to close down this project, but it could probably also be used as justification to terminate his employment, and he could be sued for money back that AOL paid for his company even. I sure hope all that doesn't happen, but I wouldn't be too suprised if it did.
Fortunately, if AOL does do something like that, I'm sure that the Slashdot audience will react in a calm, thoughtful way to it.
The library is making the material available on a loan to you. If you chose to copy it using a Xerox, then you are committing piracy, the same as when you swap MP3's.
When you borrow something from a library, you use it for a brief period of time, then return it. When you rent a movie from the video store, you return it. If you want to keep these, you have to then go out, and buy them for yourselves.
When you download an MP3, you KEEP it. There is no incentive to go out and buy the item. You already own a copy.
That is the difference between Libraries and pirated copies.
I got about the same lack of response. I'm guessing it might be, because I'm behind a Firewall here. If anyone knows any troubleshooting tips on the program, I'd guess that this is as good a venue as anywhere, since the official pages, are a bit sparse (and understandably tho. This is the "bleeding edge", using a.x release.)
Typically when a company goes under, the assets (things like accounts recievable, and oh... satellites for example) become the property of the secured creditors. So the people that loaned money to Iridium, will have first dibs on the birds. Then once they are made whole (paid back, as if that will happen), the suppliers are in line next to get a chunk of the assets. Then once everyone that loaned money to the company is happy, the investors get what's left.
My guess would be, that the bondholders would be able to sell off the satellites for some other purpose, but I wouldn't expect them to be cut loose as space-salvage.
I would assume, that the equal protections coverage that's in the Constitution, will let Internet radio stations operate with the same freedom that airwave stations have.
Uhmmmm, just out of curiousity, what ocean separates Asia from Europe? And for that matter, what North, and South America seem to be physically connected as well. Just via a more narrow connecting point.
About 3 years ago, when I was still working at an Appre reseller, as a tech guy, I got a very vivid example of exactly how smoothly inegrated all the components of the Mac are.
A customer had a PowerMac 8000 series system, that they wanted to run the chinese language add-on, under OS8. They couldn't get it to work, so they brought it to us. Bear in mind, that this is an Apple provided OS, and an Apple provided application for that OS.
When they brought the machine in, it wasn't even booting anymore. So I dumped the HDD, and reloaded the OS clean from CD. Brand new install. Then I popped in the Chinese language pack, and loaded that. One reboot later, I had a machine that no longer would boot. It would restart, and drop a error on the screen, hanging completely.
No other software installed on the system. Just 2 "well integrated" pieces of dreck from Apple.
Ever since then, I've taken it with a grain of salt, that having one company control the hardware architecture, and the software that it runs so completely, is any better than the chaos in the PC market. Bad coding, and compatibility issues are everywhere. And Apple's not much better than any other big software house.
I'd take those stats with a large grain of salt, personally.
As has been mentioned in several other posts, those numbers discount the downloaded copies of Linux that people grab off the net. I would guess that they also probably discount the $1.99 specials that you can find, on copies of distro's.
On the flip side tho, last year, I bought a copy of SUSE, and a copy of RH for myself. And a copy of RH for my employer. The end result of those sales, is 0 running servers. They were experimented with briefly, then shelved. It's easy to do, when you only pay $20-$40 for the stuff. I doubt there are too many people throwing down $500 for something that they just want to experiment with a little. So I'd guess that there are far fewer copies of NT getting ignored.
Further, there doesn't seem to have been any effort to separate the Linux copies for workstations, and the copies that are actually on "servers". Whereas they seem to imply that the NT numbers don't include NTWS.
First and foremost, it's a list of Tech in general, not gadgets.
Secondly, too many of the items, are just an extended/improved version of a previous item. Personally I'd roll Tele-graph/phone/vision, into a more generalized communications category.
Thirdly, wtf is with the hand drier. Hasn't he noticed that every batroom that is cursed with one of those infernal machines, has snowdrifts of toilet seat covers on the floor, from the ppl that improvised a way around the stupid machine?
I watched Any Given Sunday, on Fri eve. And frankly, it had almost all the elements to be a great movie, in my opinion. The only thing that was lacking, was that it was an Oliver Stone movie. I think that this movie could have been absolutely awesome, if someone other than Stone had directed. My gf is a football fan, and the "Natural Born Killers" filming of the football scenes, gave her a massive headache.
I thought the story, and the casting was awesome. But the cinematography was atrocious.
Is how does one go about getting their slice of the cluster running away on RC5 keys? That was the first thought that went through my mind, when I saw the article.
In my comments, I never made any assumption of guilt or innocence on his part. I merely expressed a distaste for the phrasing that/. editors had used at the end of the original piece.
I don't think that there is anything "very sad" about this person getting arrested, unless and until ALL charges are proved utterly without cause. Then I would consider his arrest "very sad". But not until then.
Frankly, I'm a little offended at the "very sad" at the end of the piece.
At the very least, it is very poor editing on the part of/., and you just think that he's a sad person. That this is a sad statement on society at large, that people like this are running around, and that they are using the Internet to facilitate what used to be far more difficult to do in a small town.
Otherwise it makes the editorial staff of/. sound like they are sad that a fellow webster of any sort is being jailed. No matter how sick a person he is. And that is offensive to me. There are people that need to be removed from the main segment of society. Yes, I do think that treatment would be nice for this person. But if he's soliciting sex from what he believes to be an extrememely underage girl, he needs to be taken off the streets. And the fact that he was busted is not sad, in any way, shape, or form.
Newspapers issue revisions, and updates to story's in later editions, and in future papers. I think it would behoove/. to edit this piece to clarify what the editorial bent on this happening is.
WotC has been doing lots of different things, over the last couple years. The indecisiveness regarding Ars Magica, is just one example. And the Game Keeper, and WotC brand stores, were a terrible idea. It's generally considered bad form to compete with the resellers that are your lifeblood.
And as far as cash cows go, Magic provides a relatively steady income stream for them, but Pokemon is the current cash cow. They are raking in a ton of cash of that one, at the moment.
All that's required to vote absentee in Ca, is to fill out a little form included with the voter information book, and send that in. No "unique card" to mail in.
You do have to wonder sometimes, how they prevent massive vote fraud.
I'd start a movement around it, if I was that worried about it.
I do think the laws are flawed. But I don't think that just ignoring laws that are flawed, is a solution to problems. Anarchy is not a favorite of mine.
I was mostly just incensed, at an anonymous coward comparing poor downtrodden programmers, to Rosa Parks. I never realized before, what a mistreated underclass computer professionals are.
Slashdot Mirror
The only thing that I can think, is that the author assumes that everyone reads the source, and waits until they grasp every nuance of the code, before installing it.
I do concede that having the sources open, does mean that once someone does look at it, they would most likely make efforts to educate people to avoid that program. But if someone sent me the source for an app, with a virus written into it, I'd never know.
I'm a MS user. I'll never say that with shame. I don't love the products. They are tools, that serve a purpose. I won a copy of W2Kpro a week or two before release, and have been running it completely successfully on machines at home, and at work. I had valid reasons for both, and have only had minor problems with either environment.
At home, my machine is a Dual P2-400 system. I like to play games, but under NT4sp6a, my options were somewhat limited. Now I can play almost anything that I want. There are glitches occasionally, but overall, I'm satisfied with game performance. The only major irritant I had, was finding CDR software that would run cleanly. Now, for the first time, I have my system burning at 8x with NO buffer underruns. It's actually running significantly better than NT4 was on the same hardware.
At work, I've got the company supplied Tecra 8000. I needed NT4 on a daily basis, to run the network. But I had to keep a stub 98 partition, so that I could play DVD's on the machine. Now, I have my 2k system, no 98 required. And except for some minor wierdness with DNS lookups, and poor sound playback with Quicktime 4(which works 100% fine on the desktop at home) it's rock solid.
I'd say based on my experiences, that 2k is a very sold OS. I'd also say that it's not perfect, and I freely admit, that there are certainly apps that don't run under it. But by and large, MS has released a very solid piece of code. It's as or more stable than NT4 was, and runs faster, on the same hardware. It's nice when an upgrade really does improve your system, with little or no penalties.
One theme I keep hearing in the forums here, is that some people are still having problems getting the original client up and running. Easy fix. If you copy the installer to someone, give them a copy of your gnutella.net file as well. It has every other "node" that you've discovered.
The other trick that we did in the office here, is we have one machine that's almost never used, running a copy of the client, set to connect (see the gnutellaNet config page on the app), to 100+ other clients. So it seems to be doing a good job of always looking around for new machines out there. When we install a new copy of the client on someones machine, we just have them connect to that machine as their first peer. Wham, all the clients copy across.
It was posted here, a bastion of Linuxdom. So I don't know that my odds went down that much. Especially since I would have overlooked it completely, were it not for slashdot, so I guess my odds went up quite a bit.
And further, how many Dual processor/Win2k users are gonna apply for the beta? Hopefully not too many.
I agree that the consumer probably does have some right to poke around with his property, but taking the information that you as a consumer get, and distributing that widely, is not the same. The construction of the application, and the data that underlies it, could be considered a trade secret. And taking a companies trade secret and publishing it, is not "free speech", it's intellectual property theft.
Frankly, I don't necessarily see that consumers have an absolute right to know what they are paying for. If someone objects to how this software is screening, or they object to not knowing how the software screens, then they are under no obligation to buy the software.
I'd say any company marketing a product like this, can make their design as proprietary, as they like. If you don't like the fact that you don't know the screen, don't buy the product. Or better yet, write your own, that has a completely open list of blocking criteria.
It seems that blocking software is here to stay, in one form or another. Why is it completely beneath the open software movement, to create a program that at least does it in an open manner?
I work for a tech company. And when I was hired, part of my emplyment agreement read:
"I hereby agree that all inventions created during the term of my employment (whether or not on the company's premises or using the companies equipment and materials or during regular business hours) shall be a work-for-hire and shall be the sole and exclusive property of the company, and I hereby assign to the company all of my right, title, and interest in any and all such inventions."
I'm not a developer, so this isn't all that restrictive to me, per se. But I would assume that Frankel, et al, signed something pretty similar when they sold off to AOL. It's alot of fun to demonize AOL as being jackbooted thugs, but it seems to me, that they are merely enforcing the terms of a contract that was entered into freely by both parties.
When AOL gave away the bag of cash, for WinAmp, they weren't just buying the existing code, they also hired Justin, and expected further code from him, I'm sure. At this point, I'd say that this was an incredibly reckless thing for him to do, as not only does AOL likely have the authority to close down this project, but it could probably also be used as justification to terminate his employment, and he could be sued for money back that AOL paid for his company even. I sure hope all that doesn't happen, but I wouldn't be too suprised if it did.
Fortunately, if AOL does do something like that, I'm sure that the Slashdot audience will react in a calm, thoughtful way to it.
The library is making the material available on a loan to you. If you chose to copy it using a Xerox, then you are committing piracy, the same as when you swap MP3's.
When you borrow something from a library, you use it for a brief period of time, then return it. When you rent a movie from the video store, you return it. If you want to keep these, you have to then go out, and buy them for yourselves.
When you download an MP3, you KEEP it. There is no incentive to go out and buy the item. You already own a copy.
That is the difference between Libraries and pirated copies.
I got about the same lack of response. I'm guessing it might be, because I'm behind a Firewall here. If anyone knows any troubleshooting tips on the program, I'd guess that this is as good a venue as anywhere, since the official pages, are a bit sparse (and understandably tho. This is the "bleeding edge", using a .x release.)
Typically when a company goes under, the assets (things like accounts recievable, and oh... satellites for example) become the property of the secured creditors. So the people that loaned money to Iridium, will have first dibs on the birds. Then once they are made whole (paid back, as if that will happen), the suppliers are in line next to get a chunk of the assets. Then once everyone that loaned money to the company is happy, the investors get what's left.
My guess would be, that the bondholders would be able to sell off the satellites for some other purpose, but I wouldn't expect them to be cut loose as space-salvage.
I would assume, that the equal protections coverage that's in the Constitution, will let Internet radio stations operate with the same freedom that airwave stations have.
Uhmmmm, just out of curiousity, what ocean separates Asia from Europe? And for that matter, what North, and South America seem to be physically connected as well. Just via a more narrow connecting point.
About 3 years ago, when I was still working at an Appre reseller, as a tech guy, I got a very vivid example of exactly how smoothly inegrated all the components of the Mac are.
A customer had a PowerMac 8000 series system, that they wanted to run the chinese language add-on, under OS8. They couldn't get it to work, so they brought it to us. Bear in mind, that this is an Apple provided OS, and an Apple provided application for that OS.
When they brought the machine in, it wasn't even booting anymore. So I dumped the HDD, and reloaded the OS clean from CD. Brand new install. Then I popped in the Chinese language pack, and loaded that. One reboot later, I had a machine that no longer would boot. It would restart, and drop a error on the screen, hanging completely.
No other software installed on the system. Just 2 "well integrated" pieces of dreck from Apple.
Ever since then, I've taken it with a grain of salt, that having one company control the hardware architecture, and the software that it runs so completely, is any better than the chaos in the PC market. Bad coding, and compatibility issues are everywhere. And Apple's not much better than any other big software house.
I'd take those stats with a large grain of salt, personally.
As has been mentioned in several other posts, those numbers discount the downloaded copies of Linux that people grab off the net. I would guess that they also probably discount the $1.99 specials that you can find, on copies of distro's.
On the flip side tho, last year, I bought a copy of SUSE, and a copy of RH for myself. And a copy of RH for my employer. The end result of those sales, is 0 running servers. They were experimented with briefly, then shelved. It's easy to do, when you only pay $20-$40 for the stuff. I doubt there are too many people throwing down $500 for something that they just want to experiment with a little. So I'd guess that there are far fewer copies of NT getting ignored.
Further, there doesn't seem to have been any effort to separate the Linux copies for workstations, and the copies that are actually on "servers". Whereas they seem to imply that the NT numbers don't include NTWS.
That would be something for SJ to do, rather than the Woz.
First and foremost, it's a list of Tech in general, not gadgets.
Secondly, too many of the items, are just an extended/improved version of a previous item. Personally I'd roll Tele-graph/phone/vision, into a more generalized communications category.
Thirdly, wtf is with the hand drier. Hasn't he noticed that every batroom that is cursed with one of those infernal machines, has snowdrifts of toilet seat covers on the floor, from the ppl that improvised a way around the stupid machine?
I watched Any Given Sunday, on Fri eve. And frankly, it had almost all the elements to be a great movie, in my opinion. The only thing that was lacking, was that it was an Oliver Stone movie. I think that this movie could have been absolutely awesome, if someone other than Stone had directed. My gf is a football fan, and the "Natural Born Killers" filming of the football scenes, gave her a massive headache.
I thought the story, and the casting was awesome. But the cinematography was atrocious.
Is how does one go about getting their slice of the cluster running away on RC5 keys? That was the first thought that went through my mind, when I saw the article.
In my comments, I never made any assumption of guilt or innocence on his part. I merely expressed a distaste for the phrasing that /. editors had used at the end of the original piece.
I don't think that there is anything "very sad" about this person getting arrested, unless and until ALL charges are proved utterly without cause. Then I would consider his arrest "very sad". But not until then.
Frankly, I'm a little offended at the "very sad" at the end of the piece.
/., and you just think that he's a sad person. That this is a sad statement on society at large, that people like this are running around, and that they are using the Internet to facilitate what used to be far more difficult to do in a small town.
/. sound like they are sad that a fellow webster of any sort is being jailed. No matter how sick a person he is. And that is offensive to me. There are people that need to be removed from the main segment of society. Yes, I do think that treatment would be nice for this person. But if he's soliciting sex from what he believes to be an extrememely underage girl, he needs to be taken off the streets. And the fact that he was busted is not sad, in any way, shape, or form.
/. to edit this piece to clarify what the editorial bent on this happening is.
At the very least, it is very poor editing on the part of
Otherwise it makes the editorial staff of
Newspapers issue revisions, and updates to story's in later editions, and in future papers. I think it would behoove
WotC has been doing lots of different things, over the last couple years. The indecisiveness regarding Ars Magica, is just one example. And the Game Keeper, and WotC brand stores, were a terrible idea. It's generally considered bad form to compete with the resellers that are your lifeblood.
And as far as cash cows go, Magic provides a relatively steady income stream for them, but Pokemon is the current cash cow. They are raking in a ton of cash of that one, at the moment.
"Dude, even anarchy would be better than the current system in the USA."
Are you insane? You'd rather have no protection form anyone/thing. Than what we currently. have?
I freely admit that some of what the Gov't does, is pretty dumb. But I much prefer what we have now, to total anarchy.
All that's required to vote absentee in Ca, is to fill out a little form included with the voter information book, and send that in. No "unique card" to mail in.
You do have to wonder sometimes, how they prevent massive vote fraud.
I'd start a movement around it, if I was that worried about it.
I do think the laws are flawed. But I don't think that just ignoring laws that are flawed, is a solution to problems. Anarchy is not a favorite of mine.
I was mostly just incensed, at an anonymous coward comparing poor downtrodden programmers, to Rosa Parks. I never realized before, what a mistreated underclass computer professionals are.