This is one of the occasions when i hate living in the country i live in atm. In Hungary, there is no free music, by the law.
How is this possible? Well, the law wants to "protect us" from big labels bullying people into non-paying contracts or giving music away free. Thing is, this is almost a century old law and is fundamentally broken in today's world. It works like this: the musician cannot excercise his own right to declare music public domain, because there is a for-profit organization called Artisjus which steps up, and "demands" money after every musical work. In today's reality this killed the amateur music in Hungary, because of the following:
An amateur musician makes some nice music, and puts it on his homepage for free download. The thing gets noticed, people are downloading it and Artisjus notices it aswell. Artisjus has a legal(!) right to collect around 100HUF ($0.5) after every downloads. That's right, from the artist. Then, Artisjus takes its fees, spins things around, and in the best case, the artist gets back 35-40 HUF as his "profit" from that original 100 he payed to distribute his OWN song he wanted to put into public domain. This is a good example how laws can be f*cked in some countries.
I don't want to sound "i told ya!!", but piracy is an uphill battle for the music and movie industry, because of one piece of technicality Bruce Schneier is always so fond of pointing out (rightly so): you cannot stop copying digital data if you can read it.
This whole thing comes from way back, its called the Neumann principle, which states that the executed programs are part of the data stored. This simple, but brilliant principle is a good thing for people wanting to excercise full control over their system, and it is probably a bad thing for people working with backup systems or in high profile security areas (think mission critical webservers).
My point is, that the RIAA cannot boo and make this go away with legal measures, it will be always possible to copy data while a Neumann-principle based computer exist, i'd hazard the guess that such computer will exist for a while...
"Folks with Aspergers/HP Autism don't typically react defensively."
Where did you get this from?
Actually, someone with Asperger's tend to be like this more than someone without it. Just think about it, Aspies feel awkward socially, wouldn't you logically expect them to be defensive? It is true that aspies value logic more than someone without Asperger's, but Asperger's is not about not having emotions, it is about the difficulty of expressing them.
A stealth startup is a risk. When it is done smartly, the cash is bigger, when it is done badly, the failure is bigger. If you get more feedback early on, you can be more sure in the product, but on the other hand you face risk from the competition.
Nothing new here, it's been like this for hundreds of years.
Except that you're ignoring speed, the need to be decentralised(i cannot stress this enough, it is very needed in an environment like the kernel is developed in) and low system requirements. Currently git needs only a few basic c libraries and bash.
Actually i was spending hours to grasp his ideas about GIT, it clearly shows that he gave it a lof of though. Actually i think another SCM already started integrating GIT code into their SCM.
Well, i was talking about GIT as a developer's tool, not about the git services offered by kernel.org, but the reasoning above is the cause for the increased file-count.
Answering your question, kernel.org holds a lot of stuff, not only kernel related things, but everything from distributions to various utilities, so yes.
I think someone suggested on the LKML in the early development talks, to use an SQL database. According to my foggy memory, Linus replied something along the lines of that solution being much worse in terms of productivity and speed than using simple files. Basically it would be adding another (unnecessary) layer.
Also, another necessity was to have files which can be handled without a lot of binary hacking, for example in a case when doing merges, recovery, rollback, etc. This is one of the reasons why there are a lot of files, not one big binary blob.
GIT is focused on trading more filespace for less bandwith. This is important for a lot of scattered developers who can afford 1-2 GB more on a harddrive, but 200-300 mb more would suck on a dsl or dialup connection.
"What interest do you have in "Acylphloroglucinol Derivatives from Mahurea palustris", or "Highly Stable Phenanthridinium Frameworks as a New Class of Tunable DNA Binding Agents with Cytotoxic Properties", or "Biomimetic Synthesis of Elysiapyrones A and B"?"
Um, scientific?
"Come on. This is not stuff that you should be forced to spend your tax money on"
To be honest, it is. I do not have any interest in these scientific data except very marginal one, but these data can be used to improve our knowledge about the universe, allowing us to have a better living standard, benefitting every one of us, while if it were to be locked away as private property, you wouldn't need to pay for this with your taxes (it would go down the drain elsewhere probably but its another issue), but you wouldn't enjoy the (in my opinion much more substantial, but more long term) benefits neither. Do you remember the shitting-our-pants-from-sputnik education and research program that was booming in the usa in the 60s, early 70s (lets forget about the reasons it was initiated for a second)? How much effect did it have on our living standard in only about 30 years? Well, a lot, it is enough to mention only one word: transistor. That scientific research and data that was produced/made in that time probably wouldn't have been possible as a collaboration of private enterprises. We would be still messing with vacuum tubes if not that research and we would be probably not having this conversation on slashdot now. This is not a socialist world view, it is a view which strives to improve the living standards of every human, not only a corporation's board members.
For your information, i am not a citizen of the USA, nor do i want to be. I believe though, that the brainwashed people are those who are willing to let their freedom slip away inch by inch and who feel completely okay that corporations are working in a selfish way, which is effectively hinders the advancement of your nation. Corporations have their uses, but basic scientific advancement is not one of them.
I'm an european, Dresden is simply closer, also the focus in teaching WW1-2 here is more on the european side. To be honest i simply wasn't aware of the scale of destruction in Tokyo.
...that the only thing would have been needed is some diplomacy to liberate a lot of people from soviet opression. You brought a few examples when the USA for some reason, not necessary out of goodwill stepped in an did something. I brought you an example when there would have been an easy situation to solve and the USA didn't. Watching and not taking action wasn't very human thing to do. This occasion proves that the USA didn't or still doesn't care about human life more than the USSR did, you are just protecting your own interests, so there is no moral high horse for you to sit on.
You mentioning Hungary is quite bad, because it was the USA who messed it up for the 10 million Hungarians at that time.
Let me explain, at that specific date in 1956, the world was occupied with another crisis: the Suez-channel conflict. When the Hungarian revolution happened, a new hungarian goverment has been created and declared independency from the soviet union and asked the support of the western world. You know how did the soviets react? They basically waited. Waited for what position would the USA take. That was basically the biggest blown opportunity to liberate a country in the last 50 years, because the USA reacted in a way that diplomatically signaled the soviets that they don't care. So well, Hungary became an independent country in 1990, only because the USA couldn't have focused on two things at once.
Quoting from the wikipedia article you linked:
'While Britain and France were intervening in the Suez crisis, the United States declared its position through John Foster Dulles in late October: "The United States does not consider Hungary an ally."
With this combination of political and foreign policy considerations, the Presidium decided to break the cease-fire and eliminate the Hungarian revolution.'
As someone familiar with the cold war actions taken by the USA and the former USSR, i'd welcome if you would not try to put the USA as some good guy. The past and present actions of the USA clearly show that it is not the case.
While slightly OT, the Dresden bombings was the biggest _blind and useless_ destruction during WWII, Hiroshima and Nagasaki included.
Why? Simple. While the japan A-bomb attacks can be justified in some twisted way by the reasoning that it forced Japan to capitulate, the Dresden bombings' target was to destroy the railway infrastructure nearby. The bombings killed a lot of people there and the railway was operating at full capacity just 3 days after the attack.
A government is an entity which should protect a group of people's interests, namely the citizens of a nation. This includes science.
Also, i believe that scientific knowledge is not even the property of humanity, let alone a corporation. It is fine that they want to sell that information as long as a free choice exists, but when they try to get rid of that free "competition", then we need to take a stand. Science should be open for everyone, the application of science is where companies should strive for profit.
It is possible to consider science the ultimate law of the universe, thus if viewed from this perspective restricting scientific knowledge would be the same as damaging a person's freedom.
"Combined with the fact that most script kiddie crackers, and even some of the more seasoned pros, lack basic VMS knowledge, you're looking at very reliable systems from a security standpoint."
Security by obscurity, security nontheless. But, as some wise man once said something like this: you can increase a system's security right down to unusability. Security only makes sense when you gain from using it. Personally i do not see the point using vms as a webserver, when you could run it for example on openbsd, which would probably decrease security a bit, but improve your productivity a lot. I'm sorry, the DCL-hating person speaks from me.;)
Slashdot Mirror
This is one of the occasions when i hate living in the country i live in atm. In Hungary, there is no free music, by the law.
How is this possible? Well, the law wants to "protect us" from big labels bullying people into non-paying contracts or giving music away free. Thing is, this is almost a century old law and is fundamentally broken in today's world. It works like this: the musician cannot excercise his own right to declare music public domain, because there is a for-profit organization called Artisjus which steps up, and "demands" money after every musical work. In today's reality this killed the amateur music in Hungary, because of the following:
An amateur musician makes some nice music, and puts it on his homepage for free download. The thing gets noticed, people are downloading it and Artisjus notices it aswell. Artisjus has a legal(!) right to collect around 100HUF ($0.5) after every downloads. That's right, from the artist. Then, Artisjus takes its fees, spins things around, and in the best case, the artist gets back 35-40 HUF as his "profit" from that original 100 he payed to distribute his OWN song he wanted to put into public domain. This is a good example how laws can be f*cked in some countries.
I don't want to sound "i told ya!!", but piracy is an uphill battle for the music and movie industry, because of one piece of technicality Bruce Schneier is always so fond of pointing out (rightly so): you cannot stop copying digital data if you can read it.
This whole thing comes from way back, its called the Neumann principle, which states that the executed programs are part of the data stored. This simple, but brilliant principle is a good thing for people wanting to excercise full control over their system, and it is probably a bad thing for people working with backup systems or in high profile security areas (think mission critical webservers).
My point is, that the RIAA cannot boo and make this go away with legal measures, it will be always possible to copy data while a Neumann-principle based computer exist, i'd hazard the guess that such computer will exist for a while...
A roman centurio could have said this too - much closer to the current state of the USA if you ask me...
WHOOOOOOOOOSH!
Yes, it was you missing the point completely.
I was merely trying to tell, that a commercial company bashes its competitor is not something to be treated seriously.
Buggy whip manufacturer calls automobiles a "passing fad".
"Folks with Aspergers/HP Autism don't typically react defensively."
Where did you get this from?
Actually, someone with Asperger's tend to be like this more than someone without it. Just think about it, Aspies feel awkward socially, wouldn't you logically expect them to be defensive? It is true that aspies value logic more than someone without Asperger's, but Asperger's is not about not having emotions, it is about the difficulty of expressing them.
Avalance is what happens when a lot of drag and dropping is going on.
Other people would call it active resistance.
Not that i agree with that.
A stealth startup is a risk. When it is done smartly, the cash is bigger, when it is done badly, the failure is bigger. If you get more feedback early on, you can be more sure in the product, but on the other hand you face risk from the competition.
Nothing new here, it's been like this for hundreds of years.
Except that you're ignoring speed, the need to be decentralised(i cannot stress this enough, it is very needed in an environment like the kernel is developed in) and low system requirements. Currently git needs only a few basic c libraries and bash.
Actually i was spending hours to grasp his ideas about GIT, it clearly shows that he gave it a lof of though. Actually i think another SCM already started integrating GIT code into their SCM.
Well, i was talking about GIT as a developer's tool, not about the git services offered by kernel.org, but the reasoning above is the cause for the increased file-count.
Answering your question, kernel.org holds a lot of stuff, not only kernel related things, but everything from distributions to various utilities, so yes.
I think someone suggested on the LKML in the early development talks, to use an SQL database. According to my foggy memory, Linus replied something along the lines of that solution being much worse in terms of productivity and speed than using simple files. Basically it would be adding another (unnecessary) layer.
Hm, i thought there is a thing called etcfs(?), a VMS styled revision system, for config files, but i don't really remember the details...
Also, another necessity was to have files which can be handled without a lot of binary hacking, for example in a case when doing merges, recovery, rollback, etc. This is one of the reasons why there are a lot of files, not one big binary blob.
GIT is focused on trading more filespace for less bandwith. This is important for a lot of scattered developers who can afford 1-2 GB more on a harddrive, but 200-300 mb more would suck on a dsl or dialup connection.
Please refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in _World_War_II for further information.
"What interest do you have in "Acylphloroglucinol Derivatives from Mahurea palustris", or "Highly Stable Phenanthridinium Frameworks as a New Class of Tunable DNA Binding Agents with Cytotoxic Properties", or "Biomimetic Synthesis of Elysiapyrones A and B"?"
Um, scientific?
"Come on. This is not stuff that you should be forced to spend your tax money on"
To be honest, it is. I do not have any interest in these scientific data except very marginal one, but these data can be used to improve our knowledge about the universe, allowing us to have a better living standard, benefitting every one of us, while if it were to be locked away as private property, you wouldn't need to pay for this with your taxes (it would go down the drain elsewhere probably but its another issue), but you wouldn't enjoy the (in my opinion much more substantial, but more long term) benefits neither. Do you remember the shitting-our-pants-from-sputnik education and research program that was booming in the usa in the 60s, early 70s (lets forget about the reasons it was initiated for a second)? How much effect did it have on our living standard in only about 30 years? Well, a lot, it is enough to mention only one word: transistor. That scientific research and data that was produced/made in that time probably wouldn't have been possible as a collaboration of private enterprises. We would be still messing with vacuum tubes if not that research and we would be probably not having this conversation on slashdot now. This is not a socialist world view, it is a view which strives to improve the living standards of every human, not only a corporation's board members.
For your information, i am not a citizen of the USA, nor do i want to be. I believe though, that the brainwashed people are those who are willing to let their freedom slip away inch by inch and who feel completely okay that corporations are working in a selfish way, which is effectively hinders the advancement of your nation. Corporations have their uses, but basic scientific advancement is not one of them.
I'm an european, Dresden is simply closer, also the focus in teaching WW1-2 here is more on the european side. To be honest i simply wasn't aware of the scale of destruction in Tokyo.
...that the only thing would have been needed is some diplomacy to liberate a lot of people from soviet opression. You brought a few examples when the USA for some reason, not necessary out of goodwill stepped in an did something. I brought you an example when there would have been an easy situation to solve and the USA didn't. Watching and not taking action wasn't very human thing to do. This occasion proves that the USA didn't or still doesn't care about human life more than the USSR did, you are just protecting your own interests, so there is no moral high horse for you to sit on.
You mentioning Hungary is quite bad, because it was the USA who messed it up for the 10 million Hungarians at that time.
Let me explain, at that specific date in 1956, the world was occupied with another crisis: the Suez-channel conflict. When the Hungarian revolution happened, a new hungarian goverment has been created and declared independency from the soviet union and asked the support of the western world. You know how did the soviets react? They basically waited. Waited for what position would the USA take. That was basically the biggest blown opportunity to liberate a country in the last 50 years, because the USA reacted in a way that diplomatically signaled the soviets that they don't care. So well, Hungary became an independent country in 1990, only because the USA couldn't have focused on two things at once.
Quoting from the wikipedia article you linked:
As someone familiar with the cold war actions taken by the USA and the former USSR, i'd welcome if you would not try to put the USA as some good guy. The past and present actions of the USA clearly show that it is not the case.
While slightly OT, the Dresden bombings was the biggest _blind and useless_ destruction during WWII, Hiroshima and Nagasaki included.
Why? Simple. While the japan A-bomb attacks can be justified in some twisted way by the reasoning that it forced Japan to capitulate, the Dresden bombings' target was to destroy the railway infrastructure nearby. The bombings killed a lot of people there and the railway was operating at full capacity just 3 days after the attack.
A government is an entity which should protect a group of people's interests, namely the citizens of a nation. This includes science.
Also, i believe that scientific knowledge is not even the property of humanity, let alone a corporation. It is fine that they want to sell that information as long as a free choice exists, but when they try to get rid of that free "competition", then we need to take a stand. Science should be open for everyone, the application of science is where companies should strive for profit.
It is possible to consider science the ultimate law of the universe, thus if viewed from this perspective restricting scientific knowledge would be the same as damaging a person's freedom.
You haven't seen Jean Luc paint or listen to music yet in Star Trek, did you? Oh well, what did i expect from a human...
/me snaps fingers
"Combined with the fact that most script kiddie crackers, and even some of the more seasoned pros, lack basic VMS knowledge, you're looking at very reliable systems from a security standpoint."
;)
Security by obscurity, security nontheless. But, as some wise man once said something like this: you can increase a system's security right down to unusability. Security only makes sense when you gain from using it. Personally i do not see the point using vms as a webserver, when you could run it for example on openbsd, which would probably decrease security a bit, but improve your productivity a lot. I'm sorry, the DCL-hating person speaks from me.
Exactly. Why would they bother when the sense of security does the trick? They only have to make that sense feel realistic enough...