I thought we were done with this piece of FUD, as it hasn't dared show its face on Slashdot for a while now, but I guess there are people who still don't get it, so let me try my hand at making things obvious.
So you think it's perfectly fair and reasonable to ask others, be it MS or random Joe Coder, to reinvent the wheel simply because the license on your software precludes their use of your code with theirs, possibly due to reasons outide their control. How was it, again, that you are better than MS?
So you think that the GPL is unfair and unreasonable. So ignore it! That's right, just pretend that the GPL isn't even there! It even says right in the GPL itself that you can do this. (Paragraph 5: "You are not required to accept this license.")
There's your answer. Act as if the GPL doesn't exist, and do whatever you want with the software (as long as it's legal, of course)! Comb through the source code. Check out how it works. Make a bazillion copies. Change it around, and make your own version of the program. Better yet, combine it with another brilliant program of yours to make a super-program. Sell it and make a million--
Oh, wait. That's against the law --you'd be breaking copyright. You wouldn't want to do something illegal, would you?
Fine, just bundle it for free when you sell your--
Oh, darn. That's not legal either.
Umm, be a nice guy in general and post it on the web for people to download? Donate the program to a charitable organization?
Nope, that's against the law, too. Damn.
Hmm, what to do? Well, maybe you can ask the original programmer to sell you the rights to the program, so you can use it. Or perhaps you could give royalties. With enough financial incentive, maybe the programmer would be willing to transfer the rights to you.
But sometimes software is created by more than one person, and you'd have to negotiate with each of the authors to get the rights to the complete program. Sometimes even contacting one of the original authors can be a big hassle.
If only there were some way for the authors to state ahead of time, under what sort of conditions they would be willing to give you the rights to their program. This way, if you didn't want to negotiate, you'd still have the option of just fulfilling their conditions, and they've already agreed ahead of time that you get their permission --without your even needing to contact them! You know, some sort of text that they could include with their program (or put up on their web site) that explains all this clearly. They could call it a "document of giving permission". Hey, come to think of it, someone should come up with a word in the English language that means a "document of giving permission".
I'll let you take it from there. Let us know if you come up with any great ideas.
You know what? Maybe they have won, if student pirating has been curbed to the extent that they want. And if more digital downloads are legal now than before, then that's great. It probably means that more companies are getting a clue about how to take advantage of the business model, but we'll let the RIAA save face.
All we want them to do is quit trying to stomp out every conceivable method of information transfer in the name of stopping piracy, and go back to their executive boardrooms and golf courses.
I am not disagreeing with you, but we need to be careful.
If it's true cooperation, then yes, it would be in the interests of both sides, and we should put aside any rancour.
But Microsoft has a long and established history of starting out with what appears to be cooperation, but then twisting it around for their own ends, at the expense of whoever they're cooperating with. If we don't trust them, that's not being vindictive; it's merely being cautious.
Microsoft is so large, and we've seen in the past that sometimes the left hand doesn't know what the left elbow is doing. How do we know that this Muglia guy represents a substantial policy shift at Microsoft? How do we know that Ballmer isn't going to "fucking bury" Linux (or Linus), and possibly that Muglia guy with him? Microsoft has consistently waged war with FOSS, whether in the open or using political coffers; how do we know they're not going to continue that?
The FOSS movement has not changed its stance: interoperate with us, we'll be glad to interoperate with you. The SAMBA team has bent over backwards to figure out how to interoperate with Microsoft, not to mention all the FOSS developers trying to work with the MS Word format.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has sequentially moved from "I don't care of I'm pronouncing 'Lie-nux' wrong" to "it's a cancer" to "it's un-American" (way to go for convincing overseas companies to use Microsoft) to "okay, it exists, but we have a lower TCO". Now they're saying, "Hey, FOSS is great. Say, can you change that FOSS license a little bit?" Meanwhile, they've campaigned against the Open Document Format, told Peru that not using Microsoft would be their death knell, and have alternately played the big bully (having been found to be guilty of monopoly abuse on three continents) and the poor helpless company (we're going to get crushed by the onrushing torrent of FOSS software, so won't the government please help out poor little Microsoft?)
Now they're sending love notes to FOSS? Well, you know what, Microsoft? Let's see you put some action behind the rhetoric. Open up the MS Word format. Or open-source your Visual Basic compiler. License your Windows Media Player under some sort of OSI license. Or, heck, give the French Prime Minister a call and ask him to meet with Richard Stallman. But these press releases? We've seen 'em all.
I, too, would be interested. It's been a while since I've done applied math, and it will be good to scrape off the rust.
It would probably be better to keep in touch via a Listserv of sorts, since time zone differences may prevent the group from coming online at the same time. Yahoo! Groups comes to mind as one possible simple way to do it, with discussions archived for people who come late to the group. IRC/IM can be used to supplement discussions.
I'll check your journal.
Since the course is about cryptography, might as well use OpenPGP. My public key will be in my journal.
So different distros will put their files in different places. (Actually, I can't believe programs will actually have the library locations hard-coded in, but whatever; I'll accept that the alternatives have some disadvantages.) So Ubuntu will store its WonderfulLibrary.so in/lib/UbuntuLib/, and Slackware will put it in/var/log/opt/etc/usr/lib/. So why can't we just massively symlink the bloody directories together? Someone create a script file with two hundred and ninety-six lines of:
ln -s/var/log/opt/etc/usr/lib/lib/UbuntuLib ln -s/var/log/opt/etc/usr/lib/usr/lib/ObscureSuSEdirectory ln -s/var/log/opt/etc/usr/lib/some/other/RedHat/lib/location... [etc, and vice-versa]
or whatever, and just make sure every possible library directory is symlinked to every other library directory, and we'll be done! It sounds like this way, a distro can meet the (file location requirements of) Linux Standards Base and still be backward-compatible. And we can actually have packages from one distro installing on another! Wouldn't that be great?
It seems so simple and so logical that I must be missing something. Someone please tell me why we're not taking advantage of that epitome of what makes the POSIX filesystems better than the Microsoft filesystems, the symlink?
First off: I think Microsoft must be desperate if they're trying *this* ridiculous tactic to denigrate ODF. What's next, "The colour scheme of ODF clashes with the Luna WinXP theme"?
Having said that, I think this is one more reason that the slow speed of OOo is a significant issue. It's not just a matter of user convenience. (sigh) If KWord could save files in MS Word format, I could be free of OOo.
There is something else about Microsoft's let's-pretend-to-be-like-them-and-divert-public-op inion strategy that worries me.
We have "Open Source", and then Microsoft comes out with "Shared Source". "Hey, let's fool people into thinking that we're just like the good guys!" says Microsoft. The average Joe is not going to know the technical definition of "open".
But what if Microsoft decided to abuse the term "Open"? Just as in the past companies have marketed their Things as "Thing-o-matic", and then "Thingtronic", then "Microcomputer Thing", then "Laser Thing", then "Internet Thing", then "Thing.com" and most recently "eThing" and "iThing", what if Microsoft came up with new products called... "OpenWord"? Or "OpenExcel"?
We can't stop them from using the term "open" since it's not something that can be trademarked. (Nor can the term "windows", but we never got to see a US court come to that conclusion.) No one can sue Microsoft for calling it "OpenExplorer". Heck, knowing Microsoft, they could probably even come up with "OpenWindows", and then when someone tried to sue them for using a previously used trademark, Microsoft might say, "But Your Honor, we must have the right to this trademark or else it would waste our 16 man-hours invested in this product, causing ruinous collapse for American economy!"
We could always say, "Well, you don't have the Official Approval of the Open Source Initiative", but when it comes to marketing, I don't think PHB's will care to figure out who OSI is.
Right now, I think the only thing stopping Microsoft is their pride, since using the word "Open" in a product name would be like admitting defeat. But I wouldn't put it past them.
i currently don't really worry about my email security (if someone wants to read my aunt's cookie recipes, thats fine by me). if i happened to be doing something important, i'd likely use some form of encryption
This reminds me of a joke that takes place in a courtroom:
Prosecutor: Did you see this woman in New York? Defendant: I refuse to answer that question! Prosecutor: Did you see this woman in Chicago? Defendant: I refuse to answer that question! Prosecutor: Did you see this woman in Atlanta? Defendant: What!? Atlanta?? I never saw her in Atlanta!
Moral of the story: if you don't pay attention to your email security except when you really need to, then when you do pay attention, someone else would also know to pay attention!
If someone wants to read my aunt's cookie recipes, that is not fine by me. Eat my {/dev/random}-XOR'd dust.
I'm not sure what value there is in using GPG/OpenPGP when none of my friends do. I can think of a few things:
- promoting awareness of GPG (on those rare occasions when people ask me about the GPG signature block),
- using GPG for fun with fellow geeks I meet (but GPG is not mandatory --I mean, face it, I like you geeks and all, but no way am I going to exchange credit card numbers with you)
Right now I've got my wife set up to optionally have GPG available (via Enigmail on Thunderbird), but she's hardly using it, and I don't blame her. I don't want to force her to use it, but to make it drop-dead easy to use when the need arises. The fact that she's not using it means that the need isn't there, a situation that's not solved by making her use it.
Anyone here using GPG for a substantial reason? That is, GPG lets you communicate something that you otherwise wouldn't? This could be giving credit card info to family, or just feeling more at ease talking about confidential stuff because you know it won't be intercepted. Let's hear some cases. Anyone?
Linux (and F/OSS in general) has been continually struggling with promotion, but this is not the same struggle as before. We are putting our energies toward solving a set of problems that have already been solved, but it's important to realize that Linux/FOSS is now facing a different and new problem.
When Linux faced technical problems, we needed hard core programmers willing to delve into the nitty gritty of making the processor run. The geeks of the world got together and hacked out a solid, stable kernel and the collection of GNU utilities.
When the problem was the UI, we needed people to know how to make things pretty and convenient. We built GNOME and KDE and Xfce on top of X.
When the problem was mindshare, we needed credible spokespeople to spread the news of Linux. The Economist and Time magazine and IBM (and SCO!) stepped in for us, and now the world has heard of Linux.
Now we're after market share and acceptance, and what we need is people who know what ordinary users want and need in order to take up Linux. Who would know what ordinary users want and need? Hint: I've already mentioned them twice in this paragraph.
Folks, Linux is now at the point where it's "ready to take over the desktop" --*if* we move in the right direction. The thing is, we're *not* moving in the right direction. We have been ready to make a left turn at the crossroads and start heading toward the desktop, but we just aren't making the turn. Of course, yes, we have sort of meandered towards it with cool new interfaces and a plethora of apps, but that's like making three right turns to turn left. We need to recognize that what it is that people want in order to make Linux "The Desktop".
"The Tipping Point", by Malcolm Gladwell, is a book about how and why little things can make the difference between some memes spreading like wildfire and others simply not taking hold. Although recently promoted by Barnes & Noble bookstores under their Sales/Marketing Books department, only a small section talks about how to get a product to catch on. The ideas are fascinating, and can be applied toward smoking cessation and other health promotion, or anything else where you want to leverage a small effort to make a big difference. Recommended read.
In the book, Gladwell talks about three different types of people needed to spread a meme epidemic: Connectors, Salespeople, and Mavens. Mavens are members of the potential market who are knowledgeable, and to whom other market members go to for advice. We do want to pay attention to what they say because others pay attention to what they say, even if they are not necessarily that knowledgeable (compared to us F/OSS geeks). In the same way that my gynaecologist friend has to watch Oprah because all her (female) patients watch that inane talk show and come to my friend with questions, so we need to pay attention to people like Mark Golden of WSJ and see what they're saying, rather than dismiss them with "Ahh, he won't even invest the time" or "It's not our fault, because the DVD is DRM-encumbered".
I'm not saying that those Linux problems will be easy to solve, but those are the problems that we have, and they loom closer than a lot of people here on Slashdot realize.
Just a note for those of you who would say, "Well, I don't care if Linux doesn't gain market share, because I just want it to tinker with, and I actually prefer if the unwashed masses would stay with their spyware-ridden proletariat systems!" Remember: market share is clout, and clout is what will make the hardware manufacturers release their specs so that we can have open source device drivers. Clout is what will get EU politicians to back off on software patents, and it is what will get universities to stop thinking that Microsoft is everything. Market share is what will improve Linux, so that you can go on with your happy tinkering.
Can someone point me to where Slashdot previously covered this? Also, I recall some years back that there was a router that decided to randomly re-route 12.5% of all requests to non-existent web pages to the router manufacturer's web page that said, "You're obviously lost on the Internet --don't you want to pay us money so we can surf the web for real?" Which company was that --was that Belkin?
I agree that the standards in general are lower in North America, from my experience as an immigrant.
Anecdotal evidence it may be, but I'm far from the only one who experienced this. Immigrating as a child to Canada from Asia (large city to large city), I was inserted into a third grade class. The educational standards seemed absurdly low to me.
In math, the Canadian 3rd Graders were just learning to multiply 1-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers, whereas I had already learned long division (3-digit divident, 2-digit divisor) in 2nd Grade. English class was not as easy, but still not too bad, even though I had only learned English as a second language in Asia. In general, I did well in school, and back in Hong Kong I had been labeled a problem student.
As the date of the reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese rule approached, a wave of Hong Kongers inundated Canada, and basically they were all shocked at the dramatically lower education standards on this side of the Pacific.
In the beginning, I even got in trouble with my parents for not doing my homework after school. They just wouldn't believe me when I told them that the school hadn't assigned any homework, and that there was part of the school day when they actually didn't teach anything and we just sat and did schoolwork that I would have expected to be done at home. (Incidentally, I also almost got in trouble when my parents found a grammatical error in the teacher's comments in my schoolwork and wondered whether I had forged the comment because it was unheard of for a teacher to make a grammatical mistake.) Gradually, my parents learned to accept that the school system really was that bad in Canada, and got me some high school level textbooks and taught me after school.
This is a great set-up to brag about what a smart geek I am, but fact is, I don't think I was really *that* much smarter than the average kid. I think that there's a lot of potential in the school kids that we could harness just by setting higher standards. Parents of today worry about their kids hanging out with the riff-raff after school, or just sitting at home with the Nintendo, so they end up signing them up for hockey practice or Boy Scouts or even supplemental tutoring like Kumon. Meanwhile, the kids of the have-nots languish in school, hang out at the mall and spray paint the alleyways. If we can get a solid dose of homework to be accepted as the norm, not just by the school staff but to parents and society in general, and if we can demand substantial and substantive learning rather than merely an adequate ranking in the scores of Standardized Testing of Ability to Fill In Computer Scan Cards, there is so much more that our society would be able to achieve!
If the show is going to be freely available, it would be great to get a copy, by the F/OS BitTorrent protocol, no less -- if simply to send a copy to my snarky relative who says "free" software is for "cheap" people.
Anyone putting up a torrent, or know where a torrent is available?
Agreed. Somehow clients don't appreciate the work done when they don't have to do it.
Tech support clients would be the equivalent of medical patients in my practice, and in any practice we see all sorts of people, including the needy/clingy/demanding type of person who wants everything done for him (== her). "I want an Xray!" "I want better medications!" "I want to see a specialist!" And all this after the patient declines to improve his eating habits and "forgets" to take medicine. (You can envision the equivalent scenario for tech support.)
I will often tell the patient quite frankly: "I will work very hard for you --I will bend over backwards, if necessary-- but I will NOT work harder than you." And I give them homework. Measure your blood sugar twice daily, or do your back exercises every night, or mark on your calendar when you feel the pain coming on, or whatever. Don't come back until you've done that.
Not only would this (hopefully) improve his problem, but it also gives him an appreciation for what you're doing for him. It makes him less whiney because now he doesn't feel as helpless --there's something that he can actually do about it! And, of course, if he's a real loser, he won't see you again because he's not going to do what you asked.
I realize that the OP was referring to cutting off support completely, not helping his client improve the problem. On this, I would agree with other posters who have suggested telling him the truth, and then setting him up with alternative means of support, telling the client up front that he probably won't get as good support from Geek Squad or whatever, but you can't support him any more.
Then set a deadline to cut off support: "I can support you for two more weeks, and then that's it." This is important. Tie the deadline to some milestone so that he won't push you to change it: "I start my night classes in two weeks, so that's why I can't do this any more after two weeks." (It is irrelevant whether this is the true reason; you just don't want the client to say, "Aww, how 'bout 3 weeks? How 'bout 4?")
And then if that doesn't work then... what I said, in the first part of this post.
I bought Mandrake 8.1 off the shelf (Wal-Mart) and have been a loyal Mandrake user until recently. When I started using it, it was one of the friendlier distros around, with good hardware detection. However, there did continue to be quirks.
Mandrake is no less user-friendly than it was before, but the standards have improved, and Knoppix overtook Mandrake in terms of hardware detection and user friendliness back when it was still v3.2. Ubuntu continues the momentum.
I finally got sick and tired of having to reinstall Mandrake every time a new version came out (no, the "upgrade" process didn't work). I stopped upgrading at Mdk 10.0-official.
Funny to say: I'm typing this on my Mandrake 10.0-o system. I wish I could upgrade, because I dearly want to run AmaroK (which requires Mdk 10.1), but this is the version that will work with my ATI Rage Fury Pro with video out (no other distro and no other driver will let me see my computer screen on TV). I think XFree86 works and Xorg doesn't, so I'm stuck here and I can't upgrade.
My other computer just upgraded from KUbuntu Breezy Badger to Dapper Drake. I love the new version of KDE, the new features in KMail, the new improved Krusader. But --it doesn't work with my HP PSC-1210 printer/scanner/copier. Breezy Badger used to work, until one day it quit for no reason at all. Upgrading didn't help. I can still dual-boot into Mdk 10.0 and the printer will work.
Also, CUPS (Common Unix Printer System) didn't work on Ubuntu, even back when it recognized the printer. My Mandrake computer couldn't detect CUPS on the Ubuntu system. When I tried to browse to localhost:631, the traditional CUPS web-based server, the web page told me, "We at Ubuntu have disabled this interface, because we designed this much better interface under KControl, so you don't need to fall back on this CUPS server. Run along now." Of course, the KControl interface didn't work.
Ubuntu has a very nice package system, but I must debunk the myths of "rpm hell" since Mandrake's "urpmi" also nicely auto-resolved package dependencies. The only criticism I have of Mandrake's packaging is not with the system itself (rpm), but the packages that demanded a full library upgrade across the board, causing packages that depended on older versions of the library to fail.
So, I guess you'll have judge which is better. I started out this post wanting to say how much better Ubuntu was, but on further reflection, Mandrake has actually worked better with my hardware.
Like jozi (uncle post to this post), I would much rather use the computer than have to figure out what's wrong with it. I like tinkering, but I like tinkering on my own time, and I'd rather tinker to improve my computer than tinker to fix problems that shouldn't have been there in the first place.
Not to be contrarian, but I'd like to present a different viewpoint. I have never subscribed to this "just put your ideas down now; worry about the grammar later" school of thought. Such a process makes a chore of having to go back and correct the ideas to make them presentable, as if grammar and other finer points of writing were unnecessary burdens imposed by the teacher and other excessively picky individuals. For me, putting my ideas on paper (or on screen) in a presentable way from the very start makes my ideas flow better because I am channelling them into a form that is understandable by others and hence by myself. In short, it helps me think.
Now, I admit that perhaps this way isn't for everybody. It just so happens that I've got a pretty good mastery of grammar, spelling, etc. --I won't claim that it's perfect, but it doesn't pose any extra burden for me to do it right. On the other hand, maybe it's because of this very demand for doing it right that has made it second nature to me. If the students don't have this habit ingrained yet, one semester won't be enough to change that; but I'd hate for anyone to aim for a "correct it later" attitude as the norm in writing.
You could compare it to programming. What are your first steps when you sit down to write a program? Yes, yes, of course there are doodles, sketches and diagrams. But when you get down to coding, I hope that you don't just code any old program and then go back later to fix compilation errors. I hope that you'll make sure it's clean, well-structured code that makes it easy to improve (as opposed to "correct") later.
I use Azureus but have been leery of the updates --I like to look at the changelog first rather than mindlessly clicking on the [OK to Autoupdate] button. That's why I'm still using v2.4.0.0 and ignoring the update available for v2.4.0.2.
Reading this Slashdot news today, I decided to try to autoupdate my Azureus (from Help > Check For Updates). It listed two updates with checkboxes that were available: the Core Update v2.4.0.2, and a new version of the Auto-Updater. Apparently with the new Auto-Updater, it can autoupdate automagically without giving you a chance to stop the auto update. That wasn't something I wanted --I *always* want to know when my software is changing on me-- so I unchecked the box.
And it automatically checked itself again.
Apparently I cannot choose not to update to the new automagic updater if I choose to update. The only thing I can do is not update at all and stay with 2.4.0.0 rather than 2.4.0.2.
Which got me to thinking: if I downloaded v2.4.0.2 directly (which I have already done, but I haven't installed it), would it already come built in with a way to upgrade itself to the commercial ad-driven version with no way for us to stop it?
Yeah, colour me paranoid. I'm glad it's GPL.
(And, yes, Azureus + the JVM have a huge memory footprint on my machine. Using Linux kernel 2.6.3 with Mandrake 10.0o)
You're saying that Open Source Software (OSS) has no chance in Pakistan (and, presumably, other places) because pirated software is also Zero Cost Software (0$S). That's why there needs to be a recognition that Open Source is more than just Zero Cost (OSS > 0$S). Right now the main advantage of Proprietary Illicit Non-Free Software (PI$S) is its availability and widespread mindshare. OSS has some advantages, such as being able to modify the program, and faster feedback from developers (not necessarily relevant in an area like Pakistan where, as you describe, people aren't on high-speed connections). And PI$S continues to have disadvantages like lack of backward compatibility (referring to Word97, Word2003, and other exponentially increasing Word(integer)'s).
I admit that OSS does have a struggle worldwide, but I wouldn't write it off just yet simply because of piracy.
Microsoft is a corporation with enormous resources, which they leveraged to dominate the worldwide personal computer market. Now we want them to release their patches: a) on time, AND b) with sufficient testing. What are you saying, they don't have enough resources to do this? They want to be remembered for bringing MS Windows to every man, woman and child, but don't want the responsibility of maintaining *their*[1] systems now that everyone is using it?
They have the capability and certainly the choice. Instead of bringing out WinXP, they could have shored up Win2k; or instead of WinFS, they could have shored up WinXP. And did they *have to* branch out into the Xbox market when they needed more work on their OS?
But if they don't want the responsibility, that's fine, they don't have to maintain it; let the people use some other OS, and they don't have to be responsible for it. Open up the formats for MS Word or MS Exchange, and we'll make our own Eudora for BeOS or AbiWord for OS X. Instead, they jealously guard their position as king of the dungheap, and keep making noises about "Yeah, this is the *last* patch you'll need, because *next* time, you'll be running Vista!" (and then, "Ooops, that last patch you got? Here's a patch for it.")
So, we don't need to apologize at all for demanding sufficient and timely patching, because the two really go hand-in-hand. Next thing you know, we might shock you by demanding an OS that's actually reliable.
[1] "their system": no, not yours. You don't own MS Windows; they simply deign to allow you to use it, per their EULA.
Maybe someone can clarify to me what exactly is bad about communism. My understanding is that it is an impractical and unachievable ideal: everyone works and pools his/her resources, which are doled out based on need. So, I, with my enormous geekthinking brain, would write Free Software worth, say, $100 per hour, while my intellectual weakling brethren would issue parking tickets, doing work worth $5 per hour. But they would need their three beers a day (medical reasons, of course) which they can't really afford, so the government takes from the pool of money (well, not really money but economic value) including what I generate, and assign it to them since they really need it. But that's okay! Because I don't really *need* my $100 per hour; I'm enjoying a simple lifestyle anyway, so why not give the excess to those in need?
The impracticality comes from the fact that I would actually prefer to keep my $100 per hour, because it's MINE! Mine mine mine mine! Besides, if I live in a country with no government retirement plan or health benefits (which would not be the case in an ideally communist government), then I'd want to save it away as a nest egg. The other factor is that those in control of deciding who gets doled how much, would invariably value themselves higher and say, "Those in government get more."
Even here I see only criticism of specific implementations of communism, rather than of communism itself. But the way the discussion goes on Slashdot sometimes, I get the sense that people feel that there are ideological and ethical problems even with an ideal implementation of communism, and I'm not sure what those are, so perhaps someone can explain. It's almost like communism was a trigger word, like "terrorism" or "child pornography" or the sound of a bell ringing.
In case you're wondering, you can download TweakUI, which is part of Microsoft PowerToys. It becomes part of the Control Panel settings, and lets you tweak the behaviour of the system, such as having applications flash [user-defined-number] times on the taskbar instead of grabbing the focus, or stopping data CD's and/or music CD's from autoplaying on insertion, etc.
At least, that was available for Win2k when I was still using Windows. I was recently reminded of this, having upgraded my wife's system from Win98 to Win2k --she hates the product activation of WinXP on our new computer, so we removed the WinXP-installed hard drive before ever turning the computer on. I think I remember reading somewhere that it also works for WinXP, but you should verify that.
For myself, I stop the focus grabbing by going to KDE Control Center > LookNFeel > Window Behaviour > Advanced > Focus stealing prevention level, where you can set it to one of five levels. This is on Mandrake 10.0o, which I think came out around the same time as WinXP.
I think people are getting hung up on the idea that an organization or community being "evil" necessarily means that its members are evil.
First, we should note two meanings of the word "evil". Crudely categorized, to some people "evil" means actually setting out to "do bad things" just for the sake of doing it, wreaking havoc and mayhem for no particular reason beyond just enjoyment. To others, "evil" can be simply a lack of conscience, ruthlessness; even if there is a specific purpose (e.g. "to make more money"), causing bad things to happen to others in fulfillment of this goal would be "evil". In my opinion, both of these definitions apply, but more people would agree upon the second definition in the case of Microsoft.
Now, this refers to the corporation/organization as a whole, composed of many individual parts. My point: YES, the whole organization can be considered as a unit, with its own intentions and decision-making characteristics. This is supported by the law, which defines the corporation as having a separate status, its own rights (much to the chagrin of many Slashdotters), and its mandated goals ("to increase shareholder value"). Thus the corporation can take action which is evil, even if its many individual parts aren't able to collectively see its aggregate evil.
For a comparison, take a typical "evil" dictator. He carries out various actions which, by themselves, aren't evil: improving conditions for his employees, increasing the nation's trade, recruiting to the armed forces to defend the country. But the consequences of his actions can be evil: he tithes the farmer's produce to feed his palace guards, and exports a large portion of the remaining produce to bolster the trade, leaving the common folk with but a fraction of their income. This leads to increased crime and unrest, but the ranks of the local police have dwindled, since the members are being recruited into the army instead.
So, as we foreigners look upon the land of this dictator, we see what evil he has wrought; but he himself may not see it, and indeed may *choose* not to see the consequences of his actions. Each of his underlings may not see the big picture, believing themselves simply to be taking their well-earned wages, improving foreign trade or loyally defending the country. That is why rulers of nations have advisors whose job it is to see the big picture, to bring the big picture to the guy in charge.
Michael Brundage, in his web text, says that Microsoft isn't evil because the people around him are ethical, and the upper management talks about ethics all the time, urging people to give to charitable causes. This has nothing to do with anything. The business leaders of Microsoft have collectively decided certain actions with regard to business with competitor companies, policies about marketing, and sales of its operating system. If I were one of the corporate bigwigs, I too would spout off all the time about donating to help the Poor Starving Children In Africa, if that's all that would take to blind people to the overall consequences of my companies actions.
Being a Microsoft employee, Mr. Brundage may actually find it harder than the rest of us to look at the bigger picture. We should not fall into the same trap, and maybe we should even help Mr. Brundage.
Thanks for the answer. Bear with me if this is starting to wander from the OP topic, but this is something I have long been trying to figure out.
As you mention, it would make sense for a Linux distro to have more than one version of a particular library. If OldButReliableApp v1.0 depended on SomeLibrary v1.0, but NewAndFancyApp v2.5 depended on SomeLibrary v3.5, then I'd want the two versions of the library to coexist.
For some reason, this wouldn't work on Mandrake 10.0o: the newer library displaced the old, at least when I managed it with the "urpmi" tool. I've never understood this. It seems that the name of the library is hardcoded into the application binary, so if OldButReliableApp needs "/usr/lib/SomeLibrary", heaven help you if you try to rename it to "/usr/lib/SomeLibrary_Old"! If the package manager installs NewAndFancyApp, which demands a newer version of "/usr/lib/SomeLibrary", then the old version gets wiped. Isn't this DLL Hell all over again? Why can't we do all this with symlinks instead? Or does Ubuntu allow multiple library versions?
In my case, I'm referring to XFree86 supporting the Video Out on my ATI Rage Fury Pro, whereas X.org is the newest and bestest. You ask, "Why not upgrade the hardware?" --which I could, although a good video card with TV out is a bit more than "practically free" --but I wanted Linux partly to escape the "upgrade trap" and run stuff on older hardware. If I have to stop using old hardware which had been working fine, such as my video card, just to run a new version of the software, I would be back in Windows hell where Microsoft dictates the demand for hardware.
I apologize for the somewhat tangential topic, but I imagine that I'm not the only one who might want this answered. Perhaps people in developing countries with less availability of hardware might be wondering the same thing.
I switched to Ubuntu from Mandrake v10.0o because I couldn't upgrade piecewise. Could someone tell me if I will encounter the same problem with Ubuntu?
I found that, often I would use SomeApplication v1.1, let's say, but then to upgrade to SomeApplication v1.2, I would need to upgrade SomeLibrary. This should automatically be done by the handy "urpmi" utility, Mandrake's answer to "yum", "apt" and "yast". But then it would spit out some error message. Turns out that upgrading the library from SomeLibrary v1.1.1.1 to v1.1.1.2 would break the rest of the applications.
And so, the only way to get the newer version of SomeApplication would be to install a newer version of Mandrake (now Mandriva). This was thrilling for the first three reinstalls (8.1 -> 9.0 -> 9.1 -> 10.0), but after while, I just wanted to get my work done and quit having to wipe partitions and reinstall. (Don't even get me started on the upgrading-from-install-CD farce.) So now my one computer is still using the ancient Mandrake 10.0, while my other runs (k)Ubuntu 5.10.
I'm hoping that Ubuntu won't be the same. In particular, I'm hoping that I can install Warty Warthog, which runs XFree86, and then upgrade everything except the X server (I have a ATI Rage Fury Pro card which doesn't work with Xorg). Is this going to work?
If not, then I would very well say that I, for one, will end up needing to compile from source.
Slashdot Mirror
Of course you don't see it. The message is hidden in the least significant bit of every letter.
So you think that the GPL is unfair and unreasonable. So ignore it! That's right, just pretend that the GPL isn't even there! It even says right in the GPL itself that you can do this. (Paragraph 5: "You are not required to accept this license.")
There's your answer. Act as if the GPL doesn't exist, and do whatever you want with the software (as long as it's legal, of course)! Comb through the source code. Check out how it works. Make a bazillion copies. Change it around, and make your own version of the program. Better yet, combine it with another brilliant program of yours to make a super-program. Sell it and make a million--
Oh, wait. That's against the law --you'd be breaking copyright. You wouldn't want to do something illegal, would you?
Fine, just bundle it for free when you sell your--
Oh, darn. That's not legal either.
Umm, be a nice guy in general and post it on the web for people to download? Donate the program to a charitable organization?
Nope, that's against the law, too. Damn.
Hmm, what to do? Well, maybe you can ask the original programmer to sell you the rights to the program, so you can use it. Or perhaps you could give royalties. With enough financial incentive, maybe the programmer would be willing to transfer the rights to you.
But sometimes software is created by more than one person, and you'd have to negotiate with each of the authors to get the rights to the complete program. Sometimes even contacting one of the original authors can be a big hassle.
If only there were some way for the authors to state ahead of time, under what sort of conditions they would be willing to give you the rights to their program. This way, if you didn't want to negotiate, you'd still have the option of just fulfilling their conditions, and they've already agreed ahead of time that you get their permission --without your even needing to contact them! You know, some sort of text that they could include with their program (or put up on their web site) that explains all this clearly. They could call it a "document of giving permission". Hey, come to think of it, someone should come up with a word in the English language that means a "document of giving permission".
I'll let you take it from there. Let us know if you come up with any great ideas.
You know what? Maybe they have won, if student pirating has been curbed to the extent that they want. And if more digital downloads are legal now than before, then that's great. It probably means that more companies are getting a clue about how to take advantage of the business model, but we'll let the RIAA save face.
All we want them to do is quit trying to stomp out every conceivable method of information transfer in the name of stopping piracy, and go back to their executive boardrooms and golf courses.
I am not disagreeing with you, but we need to be careful.
If it's true cooperation, then yes, it would be in the interests of both sides, and we should put aside any rancour.
But Microsoft has a long and established history of starting out with what appears to be cooperation, but then twisting it around for their own ends, at the expense of whoever they're cooperating with. If we don't trust them, that's not being vindictive; it's merely being cautious.
Microsoft is so large, and we've seen in the past that sometimes the left hand doesn't know what the left elbow is doing. How do we know that this Muglia guy represents a substantial policy shift at Microsoft? How do we know that Ballmer isn't going to "fucking bury" Linux (or Linus), and possibly that Muglia guy with him? Microsoft has consistently waged war with FOSS, whether in the open or using political coffers; how do we know they're not going to continue that?
The FOSS movement has not changed its stance: interoperate with us, we'll be glad to interoperate with you. The SAMBA team has bent over backwards to figure out how to interoperate with Microsoft, not to mention all the FOSS developers trying to work with the MS Word format.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has sequentially moved from "I don't care of I'm pronouncing 'Lie-nux' wrong" to "it's a cancer" to "it's un-American" (way to go for convincing overseas companies to use Microsoft) to "okay, it exists, but we have a lower TCO". Now they're saying, "Hey, FOSS is great. Say, can you change that FOSS license a little bit?" Meanwhile, they've campaigned against the Open Document Format, told Peru that not using Microsoft would be their death knell, and have alternately played the big bully (having been found to be guilty of monopoly abuse on three continents) and the poor helpless company (we're going to get crushed by the onrushing torrent of FOSS software, so won't the government please help out poor little Microsoft?)
Now they're sending love notes to FOSS? Well, you know what, Microsoft? Let's see you put some action behind the rhetoric. Open up the MS Word format. Or open-source your Visual Basic compiler. License your Windows Media Player under some sort of OSI license. Or, heck, give the French Prime Minister a call and ask him to meet with Richard Stallman. But these press releases? We've seen 'em all.
I, too, would be interested. It's been a while since I've done applied math, and it will be good to scrape off the rust.
It would probably be better to keep in touch via a Listserv of sorts, since time zone differences may prevent the group from coming online at the same time. Yahoo! Groups comes to mind as one possible simple way to do it, with discussions archived for people who come late to the group. IRC/IM can be used to supplement discussions.
I'll check your journal.
Since the course is about cryptography, might as well use OpenPGP. My public key will be in my journal.
This is one thing I've been trying to figure out.
/lib/UbuntuLib/, and Slackware will put it in /var/log/opt/etc/usr/lib/. So why can't we just massively symlink the bloody directories together? Someone create a script file with two hundred and ninety-six lines of:
/var/log/opt/etc/usr/lib /lib/UbuntuLib /var/log/opt/etc/usr/lib /usr/lib/ObscureSuSEdirectory /var/log/opt/etc/usr/lib /some/other/RedHat/lib/location ... [etc, and vice-versa]
So different distros will put their files in different places. (Actually, I can't believe programs will actually have the library locations hard-coded in, but whatever; I'll accept that the alternatives have some disadvantages.) So Ubuntu will store its WonderfulLibrary.so in
ln -s
ln -s
ln -s
or whatever, and just make sure every possible library directory is symlinked to every other library directory, and we'll be done! It sounds like this way, a distro can meet the (file location requirements of) Linux Standards Base and still be backward-compatible. And we can actually have packages from one distro installing on another! Wouldn't that be great?
It seems so simple and so logical that I must be missing something. Someone please tell me why we're not taking advantage of that epitome of what makes the POSIX filesystems better than the Microsoft filesystems, the symlink?
First off: I think Microsoft must be desperate if they're trying *this* ridiculous tactic to denigrate ODF. What's next, "The colour scheme of ODF clashes with the Luna WinXP theme"?
Having said that, I think this is one more reason that the slow speed of OOo is a significant issue. It's not just a matter of user convenience. (sigh) If KWord could save files in MS Word format, I could be free of OOo.
There is something else about Microsoft's let's-pretend-to-be-like-them-and-divert-public-op inion strategy that worries me.
... "OpenWord"? Or "OpenExcel"?
We have "Open Source", and then Microsoft comes out with "Shared Source". "Hey, let's fool people into thinking that we're just like the good guys!" says Microsoft. The average Joe is not going to know the technical definition of "open".
But what if Microsoft decided to abuse the term "Open"? Just as in the past companies have marketed their Things as "Thing-o-matic", and then "Thingtronic", then "Microcomputer Thing", then "Laser Thing", then "Internet Thing", then "Thing.com" and most recently "eThing" and "iThing", what if Microsoft came up with new products called
We can't stop them from using the term "open" since it's not something that can be trademarked. (Nor can the term "windows", but we never got to see a US court come to that conclusion.) No one can sue Microsoft for calling it "OpenExplorer". Heck, knowing Microsoft, they could probably even come up with "OpenWindows", and then when someone tried to sue them for using a previously used trademark, Microsoft might say, "But Your Honor, we must have the right to this trademark or else it would waste our 16 man-hours invested in this product, causing ruinous collapse for American economy!"
We could always say, "Well, you don't have the Official Approval of the Open Source Initiative", but when it comes to marketing, I don't think PHB's will care to figure out who OSI is.
Right now, I think the only thing stopping Microsoft is their pride, since using the word "Open" in a product name would be like admitting defeat. But I wouldn't put it past them.
Am I just getting worried over nothing?
This reminds me of a joke that takes place in a courtroom:
Prosecutor: Did you see this woman in New York?
Defendant: I refuse to answer that question!
Prosecutor: Did you see this woman in Chicago?
Defendant: I refuse to answer that question!
Prosecutor: Did you see this woman in Atlanta?
Defendant: What!? Atlanta?? I never saw her in Atlanta!
Moral of the story: if you don't pay attention to your email security except when you really need to, then when you do pay attention, someone else would also know to pay attention!
If someone wants to read my aunt's cookie recipes, that is not fine by me. Eat my {/dev/random}-XOR'd dust.
I'm not sure what value there is in using GPG/OpenPGP when none of my friends do. I can think of a few things:
- promoting awareness of GPG (on those rare occasions when people ask me about the GPG signature block),
- using GPG for fun with fellow geeks I meet (but GPG is not mandatory --I mean, face it, I like you geeks and all, but no way am I going to exchange credit card numbers with you)
Right now I've got my wife set up to optionally have GPG available (via Enigmail on Thunderbird), but she's hardly using it, and I don't blame her. I don't want to force her to use it, but to make it drop-dead easy to use when the need arises. The fact that she's not using it means that the need isn't there, a situation that's not solved by making her use it.
Anyone here using GPG for a substantial reason? That is, GPG lets you communicate something that you otherwise wouldn't? This could be giving credit card info to family, or just feeling more at ease talking about confidential stuff because you know it won't be intercepted. Let's hear some cases. Anyone?
Linux (and F/OSS in general) has been continually struggling with promotion, but this is not the same struggle as before. We are putting our energies toward solving a set of problems that have already been solved, but it's important to realize that Linux/FOSS is now facing a different and new problem.
When Linux faced technical problems, we needed hard core programmers willing to delve into the nitty gritty of making the processor run. The geeks of the world got together and hacked out a solid, stable kernel and the collection of GNU utilities.
When the problem was the UI, we needed people to know how to make things pretty and convenient. We built GNOME and KDE and Xfce on top of X.
When the problem was mindshare, we needed credible spokespeople to spread the news of Linux. The Economist and Time magazine and IBM (and SCO!) stepped in for us, and now the world has heard of Linux.
Now we're after market share and acceptance, and what we need is people who know what ordinary users want and need in order to take up Linux. Who would know what ordinary users want and need? Hint: I've already mentioned them twice in this paragraph.
Folks, Linux is now at the point where it's "ready to take over the desktop" --*if* we move in the right direction. The thing is, we're *not* moving in the right direction. We have been ready to make a left turn at the crossroads and start heading toward the desktop, but we just aren't making the turn. Of course, yes, we have sort of meandered towards it with cool new interfaces and a plethora of apps, but that's like making three right turns to turn left. We need to recognize that what it is that people want in order to make Linux "The Desktop".
"The Tipping Point", by Malcolm Gladwell, is a book about how and why little things can make the difference between some memes spreading like wildfire and others simply not taking hold. Although recently promoted by Barnes & Noble bookstores under their Sales/Marketing Books department, only a small section talks about how to get a product to catch on. The ideas are fascinating, and can be applied toward smoking cessation and other health promotion, or anything else where you want to leverage a small effort to make a big difference. Recommended read.
In the book, Gladwell talks about three different types of people needed to spread a meme epidemic: Connectors, Salespeople, and Mavens. Mavens are members of the potential market who are knowledgeable, and to whom other market members go to for advice. We do want to pay attention to what they say because others pay attention to what they say, even if they are not necessarily that knowledgeable (compared to us F/OSS geeks). In the same way that my gynaecologist friend has to watch Oprah because all her (female) patients watch that inane talk show and come to my friend with questions, so we need to pay attention to people like Mark Golden of WSJ and see what they're saying, rather than dismiss them with "Ahh, he won't even invest the time" or "It's not our fault, because the DVD is DRM-encumbered".
I'm not saying that those Linux problems will be easy to solve, but those are the problems that we have, and they loom closer than a lot of people here on Slashdot realize.
Just a note for those of you who would say, "Well, I don't care if Linux doesn't gain market share, because I just want it to tinker with, and I actually prefer if the unwashed masses would stay with their spyware-ridden proletariat systems!" Remember: market share is clout, and clout is what will make the hardware manufacturers release their specs so that we can have open source device drivers. Clout is what will get EU politicians to back off on software patents, and it is what will get universities to stop thinking that Microsoft is everything. Market share is what will improve Linux, so that you can go on with your happy tinkering.
Whew. Sorry a
Can someone point me to where Slashdot previously covered this? Also, I recall some years back that there was a router that decided to randomly re-route 12.5% of all requests to non-existent web pages to the router manufacturer's web page that said, "You're obviously lost on the Internet --don't you want to pay us money so we can surf the web for real?" Which company was that --was that Belkin?
I agree that the standards in general are lower in North America, from my experience as an immigrant.
Anecdotal evidence it may be, but I'm far from the only one who experienced this. Immigrating as a child to Canada from Asia (large city to large city), I was inserted into a third grade class. The educational standards seemed absurdly low to me.
In math, the Canadian 3rd Graders were just learning to multiply 1-digit numbers by 2-digit numbers, whereas I had already learned long division (3-digit divident, 2-digit divisor) in 2nd Grade. English class was not as easy, but still not too bad, even though I had only learned English as a second language in Asia. In general, I did well in school, and back in Hong Kong I had been labeled a problem student.
As the date of the reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese rule approached, a wave of Hong Kongers inundated Canada, and basically they were all shocked at the dramatically lower education standards on this side of the Pacific.
In the beginning, I even got in trouble with my parents for not doing my homework after school. They just wouldn't believe me when I told them that the school hadn't assigned any homework, and that there was part of the school day when they actually didn't teach anything and we just sat and did schoolwork that I would have expected to be done at home. (Incidentally, I also almost got in trouble when my parents found a grammatical error in the teacher's comments in my schoolwork and wondered whether I had forged the comment because it was unheard of for a teacher to make a grammatical mistake.) Gradually, my parents learned to accept that the school system really was that bad in Canada, and got me some high school level textbooks and taught me after school.
This is a great set-up to brag about what a smart geek I am, but fact is, I don't think I was really *that* much smarter than the average kid. I think that there's a lot of potential in the school kids that we could harness just by setting higher standards. Parents of today worry about their kids hanging out with the riff-raff after school, or just sitting at home with the Nintendo, so they end up signing them up for hockey practice or Boy Scouts or even supplemental tutoring like Kumon. Meanwhile, the kids of the have-nots languish in school, hang out at the mall and spray paint the alleyways. If we can get a solid dose of homework to be accepted as the norm, not just by the school staff but to parents and society in general, and if we can demand substantial and substantive learning rather than merely an adequate ranking in the scores of Standardized Testing of Ability to Fill In Computer Scan Cards, there is so much more that our society would be able to achieve!
If the show is going to be freely available, it would be great to get a copy, by the F/OS BitTorrent protocol, no less -- if simply to send a copy to my snarky relative who says "free" software is for "cheap" people.
Anyone putting up a torrent, or know where a torrent is available?
Agreed. Somehow clients don't appreciate the work done when they don't have to do it.
... what I said, in the first part of this post.
Tech support clients would be the equivalent of medical patients in my practice, and in any practice we see all sorts of people, including the needy/clingy/demanding type of person who wants everything done for him (== her). "I want an Xray!" "I want better medications!" "I want to see a specialist!" And all this after the patient declines to improve his eating habits and "forgets" to take medicine. (You can envision the equivalent scenario for tech support.)
I will often tell the patient quite frankly: "I will work very hard for you --I will bend over backwards, if necessary-- but I will NOT work harder than you." And I give them homework. Measure your blood sugar twice daily, or do your back exercises every night, or mark on your calendar when you feel the pain coming on, or whatever. Don't come back until you've done that.
Not only would this (hopefully) improve his problem, but it also gives him an appreciation for what you're doing for him. It makes him less whiney because now he doesn't feel as helpless --there's something that he can actually do about it! And, of course, if he's a real loser, he won't see you again because he's not going to do what you asked.
I realize that the OP was referring to cutting off support completely, not helping his client improve the problem. On this, I would agree with other posters who have suggested telling him the truth, and then setting him up with alternative means of support, telling the client up front that he probably won't get as good support from Geek Squad or whatever, but you can't support him any more.
Then set a deadline to cut off support: "I can support you for two more weeks, and then that's it." This is important. Tie the deadline to some milestone so that he won't push you to change it: "I start my night classes in two weeks, so that's why I can't do this any more after two weeks." (It is irrelevant whether this is the true reason; you just don't want the client to say, "Aww, how 'bout 3 weeks? How 'bout 4?")
And then if that doesn't work then
I bought Mandrake 8.1 off the shelf (Wal-Mart) and have been a loyal Mandrake user until recently. When I started using it, it was one of the friendlier distros around, with good hardware detection. However, there did continue to be quirks.
Mandrake is no less user-friendly than it was before, but the standards have improved, and Knoppix overtook Mandrake in terms of hardware detection and user friendliness back when it was still v3.2. Ubuntu continues the momentum.
I finally got sick and tired of having to reinstall Mandrake every time a new version came out (no, the "upgrade" process didn't work). I stopped upgrading at Mdk 10.0-official.
Funny to say: I'm typing this on my Mandrake 10.0-o system. I wish I could upgrade, because I dearly want to run AmaroK (which requires Mdk 10.1), but this is the version that will work with my ATI Rage Fury Pro with video out (no other distro and no other driver will let me see my computer screen on TV). I think XFree86 works and Xorg doesn't, so I'm stuck here and I can't upgrade.
My other computer just upgraded from KUbuntu Breezy Badger to Dapper Drake. I love the new version of KDE, the new features in KMail, the new improved Krusader. But --it doesn't work with my HP PSC-1210 printer/scanner/copier. Breezy Badger used to work, until one day it quit for no reason at all. Upgrading didn't help. I can still dual-boot into Mdk 10.0 and the printer will work.
Also, CUPS (Common Unix Printer System) didn't work on Ubuntu, even back when it recognized the printer. My Mandrake computer couldn't detect CUPS on the Ubuntu system. When I tried to browse to localhost:631, the traditional CUPS web-based server, the web page told me, "We at Ubuntu have disabled this interface, because we designed this much better interface under KControl, so you don't need to fall back on this CUPS server. Run along now." Of course, the KControl interface didn't work.
Ubuntu has a very nice package system, but I must debunk the myths of "rpm hell" since Mandrake's "urpmi" also nicely auto-resolved package dependencies. The only criticism I have of Mandrake's packaging is not with the system itself (rpm), but the packages that demanded a full library upgrade across the board, causing packages that depended on older versions of the library to fail.
So, I guess you'll have judge which is better. I started out this post wanting to say how much better Ubuntu was, but on further reflection, Mandrake has actually worked better with my hardware.
Like jozi (uncle post to this post), I would much rather use the computer than have to figure out what's wrong with it. I like tinkering, but I like tinkering on my own time, and I'd rather tinker to improve my computer than tinker to fix problems that shouldn't have been there in the first place.
Not to be contrarian, but I'd like to present a different viewpoint. I have never subscribed to this "just put your ideas down now; worry about the grammar later" school of thought. Such a process makes a chore of having to go back and correct the ideas to make them presentable, as if grammar and other finer points of writing were unnecessary burdens imposed by the teacher and other excessively picky individuals. For me, putting my ideas on paper (or on screen) in a presentable way from the very start makes my ideas flow better because I am channelling them into a form that is understandable by others and hence by myself. In short, it helps me think.
Now, I admit that perhaps this way isn't for everybody. It just so happens that I've got a pretty good mastery of grammar, spelling, etc. --I won't claim that it's perfect, but it doesn't pose any extra burden for me to do it right. On the other hand, maybe it's because of this very demand for doing it right that has made it second nature to me. If the students don't have this habit ingrained yet, one semester won't be enough to change that; but I'd hate for anyone to aim for a "correct it later" attitude as the norm in writing.
You could compare it to programming. What are your first steps when you sit down to write a program? Yes, yes, of course there are doodles, sketches and diagrams. But when you get down to coding, I hope that you don't just code any old program and then go back later to fix compilation errors. I hope that you'll make sure it's clean, well-structured code that makes it easy to improve (as opposed to "correct") later.
A funny thing is happening with the updates.
I use Azureus but have been leery of the updates --I like to look at the changelog first rather than mindlessly clicking on the [OK to Autoupdate] button. That's why I'm still using v2.4.0.0 and ignoring the update available for v2.4.0.2.
Reading this Slashdot news today, I decided to try to autoupdate my Azureus (from Help > Check For Updates). It listed two updates with checkboxes that were available: the Core Update v2.4.0.2, and a new version of the Auto-Updater. Apparently with the new Auto-Updater, it can autoupdate automagically without giving you a chance to stop the auto update. That wasn't something I wanted --I *always* want to know when my software is changing on me-- so I unchecked the box.
And it automatically checked itself again.
Apparently I cannot choose not to update to the new automagic updater if I choose to update. The only thing I can do is not update at all and stay with 2.4.0.0 rather than 2.4.0.2.
Which got me to thinking: if I downloaded v2.4.0.2 directly (which I have already done, but I haven't installed it), would it already come built in with a way to upgrade itself to the commercial ad-driven version with no way for us to stop it?
Yeah, colour me paranoid. I'm glad it's GPL.
(And, yes, Azureus + the JVM have a huge memory footprint on my machine. Using Linux kernel 2.6.3 with Mandrake 10.0o)
You're saying that Open Source Software (OSS) has no chance in Pakistan (and, presumably, other places) because pirated software is also Zero Cost Software (0$S). That's why there needs to be a recognition that Open Source is more than just Zero Cost (OSS > 0$S). Right now the main advantage of Proprietary Illicit Non-Free Software (PI$S) is its availability and widespread mindshare. OSS has some advantages, such as being able to modify the program, and faster feedback from developers (not necessarily relevant in an area like Pakistan where, as you describe, people aren't on high-speed connections). And PI$S continues to have disadvantages like lack of backward compatibility (referring to Word97, Word2003, and other exponentially increasing Word(integer)'s).
I admit that OSS does have a struggle worldwide, but I wouldn't write it off just yet simply because of piracy.
Microsoft is a corporation with enormous resources, which they leveraged to dominate the worldwide personal computer market. Now we want them to release their patches: a) on time, AND b) with sufficient testing. What are you saying, they don't have enough resources to do this? They want to be remembered for bringing MS Windows to every man, woman and child, but don't want the responsibility of maintaining *their*[1] systems now that everyone is using it?
They have the capability and certainly the choice. Instead of bringing out WinXP, they could have shored up Win2k; or instead of WinFS, they could have shored up WinXP. And did they *have to* branch out into the Xbox market when they needed more work on their OS?
But if they don't want the responsibility, that's fine, they don't have to maintain it; let the people use some other OS, and they don't have to be responsible for it. Open up the formats for MS Word or MS Exchange, and we'll make our own Eudora for BeOS or AbiWord for OS X. Instead, they jealously guard their position as king of the dungheap, and keep making noises about "Yeah, this is the *last* patch you'll need, because *next* time, you'll be running Vista!" (and then, "Ooops, that last patch you got? Here's a patch for it.")
So, we don't need to apologize at all for demanding sufficient and timely patching, because the two really go hand-in-hand. Next thing you know, we might shock you by demanding an OS that's actually reliable.
[1] "their system": no, not yours. You don't own MS Windows; they simply deign to allow you to use it, per their EULA.
Maybe someone can clarify to me what exactly is bad about communism. My understanding is that it is an impractical and unachievable ideal: everyone works and pools his/her resources, which are doled out based on need. So, I, with my enormous geekthinking brain, would write Free Software worth, say, $100 per hour, while my intellectual weakling brethren would issue parking tickets, doing work worth $5 per hour. But they would need their three beers a day (medical reasons, of course) which they can't really afford, so the government takes from the pool of money (well, not really money but economic value) including what I generate, and assign it to them since they really need it. But that's okay! Because I don't really *need* my $100 per hour; I'm enjoying a simple lifestyle anyway, so why not give the excess to those in need?
The impracticality comes from the fact that I would actually prefer to keep my $100 per hour, because it's MINE! Mine mine mine mine! Besides, if I live in a country with no government retirement plan or health benefits (which would not be the case in an ideally communist government), then I'd want to save it away as a nest egg. The other factor is that those in control of deciding who gets doled how much, would invariably value themselves higher and say, "Those in government get more."
Even here I see only criticism of specific implementations of communism, rather than of communism itself. But the way the discussion goes on Slashdot sometimes, I get the sense that people feel that there are ideological and ethical problems even with an ideal implementation of communism, and I'm not sure what those are, so perhaps someone can explain. It's almost like communism was a trigger word, like "terrorism" or "child pornography" or the sound of a bell ringing.
In case you're wondering, you can download TweakUI, which is part of Microsoft PowerToys. It becomes part of the Control Panel settings, and lets you tweak the behaviour of the system, such as having applications flash [user-defined-number] times on the taskbar instead of grabbing the focus, or stopping data CD's and/or music CD's from autoplaying on insertion, etc.
At least, that was available for Win2k when I was still using Windows. I was recently reminded of this, having upgraded my wife's system from Win98 to Win2k --she hates the product activation of WinXP on our new computer, so we removed the WinXP-installed hard drive before ever turning the computer on. I think I remember reading somewhere that it also works for WinXP, but you should verify that.
For myself, I stop the focus grabbing by going to KDE Control Center > LookNFeel > Window Behaviour > Advanced > Focus stealing prevention level, where you can set it to one of five levels. This is on Mandrake 10.0o, which I think came out around the same time as WinXP.
I think people are getting hung up on the idea that an organization or community being "evil" necessarily means that its members are evil.
First, we should note two meanings of the word "evil". Crudely categorized, to some people "evil" means actually setting out to "do bad things" just for the sake of doing it, wreaking havoc and mayhem for no particular reason beyond just enjoyment. To others, "evil" can be simply a lack of conscience, ruthlessness; even if there is a specific purpose (e.g. "to make more money"), causing bad things to happen to others in fulfillment of this goal would be "evil". In my opinion, both of these definitions apply, but more people would agree upon the second definition in the case of Microsoft.
Now, this refers to the corporation/organization as a whole, composed of many individual parts. My point: YES, the whole organization can be considered as a unit, with its own intentions and decision-making characteristics. This is supported by the law, which defines the corporation as having a separate status, its own rights (much to the chagrin of many Slashdotters), and its mandated goals ("to increase shareholder value"). Thus the corporation can take action which is evil, even if its many individual parts aren't able to collectively see its aggregate evil.
For a comparison, take a typical "evil" dictator. He carries out various actions which, by themselves, aren't evil: improving conditions for his employees, increasing the nation's trade, recruiting to the armed forces to defend the country. But the consequences of his actions can be evil: he tithes the farmer's produce to feed his palace guards, and exports a large portion of the remaining produce to bolster the trade, leaving the common folk with but a fraction of their income. This leads to increased crime and unrest, but the ranks of the local police have dwindled, since the members are being recruited into the army instead.
So, as we foreigners look upon the land of this dictator, we see what evil he has wrought; but he himself may not see it, and indeed may *choose* not to see the consequences of his actions. Each of his underlings may not see the big picture, believing themselves simply to be taking their well-earned wages, improving foreign trade or loyally defending the country. That is why rulers of nations have advisors whose job it is to see the big picture, to bring the big picture to the guy in charge.
Michael Brundage, in his web text, says that Microsoft isn't evil because the people around him are ethical, and the upper management talks about ethics all the time, urging people to give to charitable causes. This has nothing to do with anything. The business leaders of Microsoft have collectively decided certain actions with regard to business with competitor companies, policies about marketing, and sales of its operating system. If I were one of the corporate bigwigs, I too would spout off all the time about donating to help the Poor Starving Children In Africa, if that's all that would take to blind people to the overall consequences of my companies actions.
Being a Microsoft employee, Mr. Brundage may actually find it harder than the rest of us to look at the bigger picture. We should not fall into the same trap, and maybe we should even help Mr. Brundage.
Thanks for the answer. Bear with me if this is starting to wander from the OP topic, but this is something I have long been trying to figure out.
As you mention, it would make sense for a Linux distro to have more than one version of a particular library. If OldButReliableApp v1.0 depended on SomeLibrary v1.0, but NewAndFancyApp v2.5 depended on SomeLibrary v3.5, then I'd want the two versions of the library to coexist.
For some reason, this wouldn't work on Mandrake 10.0o: the newer library displaced the old, at least when I managed it with the "urpmi" tool. I've never understood this. It seems that the name of the library is hardcoded into the application binary, so if OldButReliableApp needs "/usr/lib/SomeLibrary", heaven help you if you try to rename it to "/usr/lib/SomeLibrary_Old"! If the package manager installs NewAndFancyApp, which demands a newer version of "/usr/lib/SomeLibrary", then the old version gets wiped. Isn't this DLL Hell all over again? Why can't we do all this with symlinks instead? Or does Ubuntu allow multiple library versions?
In my case, I'm referring to XFree86 supporting the Video Out on my ATI Rage Fury Pro, whereas X.org is the newest and bestest. You ask, "Why not upgrade the hardware?" --which I could, although a good video card with TV out is a bit more than "practically free" --but I wanted Linux partly to escape the "upgrade trap" and run stuff on older hardware. If I have to stop using old hardware which had been working fine, such as my video card, just to run a new version of the software, I would be back in Windows hell where Microsoft dictates the demand for hardware.
I apologize for the somewhat tangential topic, but I imagine that I'm not the only one who might want this answered. Perhaps people in developing countries with less availability of hardware might be wondering the same thing.
I switched to Ubuntu from Mandrake v10.0o because I couldn't upgrade piecewise. Could someone tell me if I will encounter the same problem with Ubuntu?
I found that, often I would use SomeApplication v1.1, let's say, but then to upgrade to SomeApplication v1.2, I would need to upgrade SomeLibrary. This should automatically be done by the handy "urpmi" utility, Mandrake's answer to "yum", "apt" and "yast". But then it would spit out some error message. Turns out that upgrading the library from SomeLibrary v1.1.1.1 to v1.1.1.2 would break the rest of the applications.
And so, the only way to get the newer version of SomeApplication would be to install a newer version of Mandrake (now Mandriva). This was thrilling for the first three reinstalls (8.1 -> 9.0 -> 9.1 -> 10.0), but after while, I just wanted to get my work done and quit having to wipe partitions and reinstall. (Don't even get me started on the upgrading-from-install-CD farce.) So now my one computer is still using the ancient Mandrake 10.0, while my other runs (k)Ubuntu 5.10.
I'm hoping that Ubuntu won't be the same. In particular, I'm hoping that I can install Warty Warthog, which runs XFree86, and then upgrade everything except the X server (I have a ATI Rage Fury Pro card which doesn't work with Xorg). Is this going to work?
If not, then I would very well say that I, for one, will end up needing to compile from source.