Only two use cases I can see are restricting access to a subset of columns (in which case a server side procedure works fine), or to allow legacy apps to work within new schemas (although this sounds like a really messy solution, and has that whole "temporary fix that gets left in forever" feel to it).
Has nothing to do with the difficulty of using the system.
I guess the best way to put my opinion (and which makes me look even stupider) is I miss the fragmentation. I mean it's still there, but there seems to be an over-arching attitude to rally around a few "standards" for the benifit of making linux more practical for the masses.
Obviously standards are going to rise to the top regardless of an end goal, and of course you can still go off and do your own thing anyway, but at least in my circles that seems to be more and more looked down on.
I always liked the flexibility of Linux, and again, it's still there.. but there seems to be a divide between those who use the "mainstream" stuff (kde, gnome, ubuntu, whaever..) and those who run alternate stuff.
a) Do not buy commercial software for Linux (e.g., the new Steam-for-Linux, and Humble Bundles)
I've actually never had a problem with commercial software. I prefer to use open source, but if there is nothing practical I don't mind forking out some money for something that works.
d) Use Gentoo. I think some people managed to (eventually) compile a fully working system. Don't worry: your success will be in no way hurried by theirs, since you'll have to compile everything yourself anyway.
Already done;p
It's actually interesting because in the last few years gentoo has gotten a lot more user friendly. Usable default profiles, genkernel not sucking, the fading memory of stage 1 installs, and most upstream packages switching to more generic feature-level use flags. Installing a gentoo system is now surprisingly simple.
Kidding aside, this depresses me. In order for Linux to become more mainstream, a lot of the stuff that really drew my to linux and the open source community in the first place has to die.
I kinda wish Linux would have stayed as a niche toy for geeks..
It's one of those polarizing subjects. Some see absolutely no problem with this kind of thing, whilst others are mortified by it and can't understand why everyone else is ok with it. Both sides call each other idiots who "just don't get it" for whatever reason, no ones opinion changes, and life goes on.
Mainly related to buggy server or client or both I assume.. but connection would fail in the middle of retrival, or not retrieve some messages, or things would somehow get out of sync (despite that being precisely what it should prevent).
Even now, I use gmail and use getmail to backup using imap and I find I have to run my script several times to get all messages if there are a lot.
1) Please, please, please, for the love of the FSM, stop trying to integrate mail and scheduling. They are two different tasks.
I tend to think they are linked well enough. I want to schedule a meeting, I email it out to people, they add it to their calendar. Most of my scheduling is a combination of email and adding stuff to calendar, makes sense to integrate it.
Outlook is one of the few things Microsoft does right (at least from the user perspective) imo.
In short: universal access everywhere, but I decide what UI I'll be using.
You can always run your own mail server with one of the free webmail scripts out there. Assuming you can find one that doesn't suck (I've been considering this.. does anyone have any recommendations?)
If it's any conciliation, this post did drop down to 0 at one point.
I wish slashdot provided a moderation graph over time. It's amusing to watch moderation go up and down throughout the day, especially on issues like this where the community is largely divided on the subject.
Never said extremism was a bad thing. Infact in many posts I've said that the world needs extremists tugging on both ends. That said I wouldn't go to one for a pragmatic opinion.
The way I see it, what we have are extremists like RMS who serve as discussion points.
You don't have to read too many of the comments to see that the RMS opinion is taken for what it is. An extreme view point. I doubt anything he calls for is going to happen, but this might start discussion about this issue for the rational masses.
An idealist is merely a pragmatist who cares about the future.
Do you disagree and if so, why?
I generally associate idealism with people who base their views on unlikly (future) or inaccurate (current) realities. That is, "in an ideal world... thus my opinion is..". I generally associate pragmatism with compromise and choosing less favorable routes based on likely (future) or actual (current) realities.
I can accept that idealism pushes things in their desired direction, but if you make the argument that basing your opinions on something you are trying to achieve makes it non-extremist, then everything becomes pragmatic.
The RMS view that all software should be free is imo extremely unlikely to ever happen. Basing current decisions on that belief or goal to me takes one out of the realm of pragmatism.
The truth is I bought a video card which hasn't a proprietary driver...guess you didn't need to compromise:)
Last box I built I really tried to find a card that would do what I need and not require propriatary drivers. Admittedly not because I care about them being propriatary, but because they are a pain in the ass to deal with.
Couldn't come up with anything:(
If anyone actually knows of something that can: - handle 4 monitors (using 2 cards if necessary) - do opengl and have reasonable performance - cost less than my car
Yes, anyone who cares about privacy is a nut. Take a look at history, human nature, and the reasons that privacy is even important you naive imbecile.
And it's _exactly_ that style of argument that drowns out the good arguments for privacy. Extremists get ignored. A reasonable, well thought out, and balanced view on privacy and how it relates to the internet and current society might actually get somewhere. "You're all complete idiots" generally gets you lumped in as a nut who's opinions should be ignored.
I guess it's hard to argue that one mans views are extreme to someone who shares the same extreme views:S
So? You claimed that people didn't give a shit so it wasn't important. I pointed out the absurdity of it. Are you now trying to make a different point?
I will respond to this one. My argument was that people have _decided_ they don't give a shit. It's subtly different from not giving a shit. Obviously some have just gone with the crowd, but many users of social media understand the privacy implications, have thought about it, and decided that they are ok with the trade off.
As to the other stuff, no idea how to even respond. Arguing that RMS is a pragmatist throws an exception in my brain. I can't even mount a good argument that works within the mindspace necessary to reach that initial thought as it's contrary to every opinion I've developed about the man and my personal definition of pragmatism. Our views of reality are clearly incompatible, so I'm out!
We are never going to have an RMS style "all software is completely free" world. Hell I wouldn't want one. I wouldn't want an Apple style "everything is locked down" world either.
What we have now, the compromise solution, works great. There is lots of free software out there. There are still areas which lack serious free alternatives, but you can run a desktop or server on mostly open source. There is also decent sized and co-existing industry of closed source and propriatary software. Many of us (myself included) make a living in it.
Would I love all the software on my desktop to be completely free, sure. Am I happy with most of my software being free, with say propriatary video card drivers... yup!
Oh come on. The FSF and RMS specifically are pretty much the exact opposite of pragmatic. "All software that isn't completely free (and we have to specifically clarify what we mean by free because the common definition of free isn't free enough) is pure evil". I've seen the man speak, he is a lunatic and definitely an extremist.
Have you actually ever read anything about te FSF and its goals. The FSF explicitely states that Free Softwre is a social movement for the greater good. I'm pretty sure that spying on users and disrespecting their privacy is not for the greater good, even if they never explicitely state it.
That's thin. They don't explicitly state that they are against child slavery but by that argument we should claim free software is about protecting children in third world countries?
Just because people don't give a shit doesn't mean it's not important.
The fact that you strongly believe in a view point doesn't make it correct. You only have to look around to see that society in general is becoming more socially open. Yes, sometimes it bites people in the ass, but by enlarge it seems to be enhancing everyones social life to a point where the slight risk is probably worth it. We are moving into a time when privacy is becoming less and less valuable to most people, and social connection (which is valuable to most people) is growing.
This is probably a good thing, but extreme privacy nuts are foaming at the mouth. Arguments like "well, they are too stupid to understand the privacy issue" just show how much they don't get it.
I’m not a fan of ubuntu nor RMS, and I definitely don’t like the sounds of this feature, but since when was "free software" equated with "respects your privacy".
Culturally most of it does, and by consequence of having access to the code any privacy concerns can easily be detected / removed by end users if desired, but I still don't see the connection between free software and assumed privacy. If anything this seems like a dangerous assumption.
Also the usual stuff here applies about pragmatism and user choice. RMS states that this feature is "malicious" as a matter of fact, and throws around spooky words like "surveillance" and "spyware" like he's doing a Fox news special report. I'm all for having opinions, but the way RMS spouts them as absolute irrefutable fact has always annoyed me (even when I agree with them). Obviously most users probably don't share this view. It's probably a useful feature to most, it can easily be disabled by the sounds of it, will bring in some money, and I suspect most users don't give a shit about being "spied on" in this manner. Remember this is the facebook/twitter/whatever else generation. A lot of people _like_ sharing all the minutia of their day with the entire world. I don't get it, but it's their choice.
That's a really beautiful way of putting it, and I totally agree:)
Looking back, while I didn't realize it, I definitely fell under category one. I saw university as a requirement to get a job in computers. I looked at what it would cost, looked at how much debt I would have at the end, and looked at about how much I expected to make (I was way off.. but I was in high school so I think I should get some slack!). At this point, it almost becomes a business decision. The thought that I might actually get something out of the experience wasn't even there (and I like to think I did).
The kind who won't be gunning for your job after a few years?;p
Kidding aside, I pretty much gave my "I'm a wage slave but don't see that as a bad thing" bit in the interview for my current job and found out (years later) that it went over pretty well.. so I guess that's a plus for actually being honest in job interviews.
I have drive to create stuff, I don't have the drive to go through all the required "other stuff" of running a business.
I've found a nice middle ground. A job that lets me do mostly what I love, while someone else deals with all the "business stuff" (I keep up on the business knowledge required for the product, I'm talking about all the marketting/networking/sales shit), and a decent wage.
Some people have entrepreneurial drive, some don’t and probably never will. I am one without. I have no interest in starting my own business and no serious career ambition.
That said I make one hell of a wage slave. I love what I do, and I get shit done.
I guess my point is that college isn’t so much about learning to "knuckle under and get stuff done" as a required part of the process for us that lack the drive to go out and do our own thing and instead just want to get a job working for someone else and do the thing we are good at.
Slashdot Mirror
Only two use cases I can see are restricting access to a subset of columns (in which case a server side procedure works fine), or to allow legacy apps to work within new schemas (although this sounds like a really messy solution, and has that whole "temporary fix that gets left in forever" feel to it).
Has nothing to do with the difficulty of using the system.
I guess the best way to put my opinion (and which makes me look even stupider) is I miss the fragmentation. I mean it's still there, but there seems to be an over-arching attitude to rally around a few "standards" for the benifit of making linux more practical for the masses.
Obviously standards are going to rise to the top regardless of an end goal, and of course you can still go off and do your own thing anyway, but at least in my circles that seems to be more and more looked down on.
I always liked the flexibility of Linux, and again, it's still there.. but there seems to be a divide between those who use the "mainstream" stuff (kde, gnome, ubuntu, whaever..) and those who run alternate stuff.
a) Do not buy commercial software for Linux (e.g., the new Steam-for-Linux, and Humble Bundles)
I've actually never had a problem with commercial software. I prefer to use open source, but if there is nothing practical I don't mind forking out some money for something that works.
d) Use Gentoo. I think some people managed to (eventually) compile a fully working system. Don't worry: your success will be in no way hurried by theirs, since you'll have to compile everything yourself anyway.
Already done ;p
It's actually interesting because in the last few years gentoo has gotten a lot more user friendly. Usable default profiles, genkernel not sucking, the fading memory of stage 1 installs, and most upstream packages switching to more generic feature-level use flags. Installing a gentoo system is now surprisingly simple.
To make it popular of course!
Kidding aside, this depresses me. In order for Linux to become more mainstream, a lot of the stuff that really drew my to linux and the open source community in the first place has to die.
I kinda wish Linux would have stayed as a niche toy for geeks..
It's one of those polarizing subjects. Some see absolutely no problem with this kind of thing, whilst others are mortified by it and can't understand why everyone else is ok with it. Both sides call each other idiots who "just don't get it" for whatever reason, no ones opinion changes, and life goes on.
Mainly related to buggy server or client or both I assume.. but connection would fail in the middle of retrival, or not retrieve some messages, or things would somehow get out of sync (despite that being precisely what it should prevent).
Even now, I use gmail and use getmail to backup using imap and I find I have to run my script several times to get all messages if there are a lot.
1) Please, please, please, for the love of the FSM, stop trying to integrate mail and scheduling. They are two different tasks.
I tend to think they are linked well enough. I want to schedule a meeting, I email it out to people, they add it to their calendar. Most of my scheduling is a combination of email and adding stuff to calendar, makes sense to integrate it.
Outlook is one of the few things Microsoft does right (at least from the user perspective) imo.
Personally I've had terrible luck with IMAP.
Ultimately while I'm not usually a fan of web apps in general, they are a perfect solution for email (which is probably why webmail is so popular).
In short: universal access everywhere, but I decide what UI I'll be using.
You can always run your own mail server with one of the free webmail scripts out there. Assuming you can find one that doesn't suck (I've been considering this.. does anyone have any recommendations?)
If it's any conciliation, this post did drop down to 0 at one point.
I wish slashdot provided a moderation graph over time. It's amusing to watch moderation go up and down throughout the day, especially on issues like this where the community is largely divided on the subject.
Never said extremism was a bad thing. Infact in many posts I've said that the world needs extremists tugging on both ends. That said I wouldn't go to one for a pragmatic opinion.
The way I see it, what we have are extremists like RMS who serve as discussion points.
You don't have to read too many of the comments to see that the RMS opinion is taken for what it is. An extreme view point. I doubt anything he calls for is going to happen, but this might start discussion about this issue for the rational masses.
An idealist is merely a pragmatist who cares about the future.
Do you disagree and if so, why?
I generally associate idealism with people who base their views on unlikly (future) or inaccurate (current) realities. That is, "in an ideal world... thus my opinion is..".
I generally associate pragmatism with compromise and choosing less favorable routes based on likely (future) or actual (current) realities.
I can accept that idealism pushes things in their desired direction, but if you make the argument that basing your opinions on something you are trying to achieve makes it non-extremist, then everything becomes pragmatic.
The RMS view that all software should be free is imo extremely unlikely to ever happen. Basing current decisions on that belief or goal to me takes one out of the realm of pragmatism.
The truth is I bought a video card which hasn't a proprietary driver...guess you didn't need to compromise :)
Last box I built I really tried to find a card that would do what I need and not require propriatary drivers. Admittedly not because I care about them being propriatary, but because they are a pain in the ass to deal with.
Couldn't come up with anything :(
If anyone actually knows of something that can:
- handle 4 monitors (using 2 cards if necessary)
- do opengl and have reasonable performance
- cost less than my car
I'll be happy to use it :)
Yes, anyone who cares about privacy is a nut. Take a look at history, human nature, and the reasons that privacy is even important you naive imbecile.
And it's _exactly_ that style of argument that drowns out the good arguments for privacy. Extremists get ignored. A reasonable, well thought out, and balanced view on privacy and how it relates to the internet and current society might actually get somewhere. "You're all complete idiots" generally gets you lumped in as a nut who's opinions should be ignored.
I guess it's hard to argue that one mans views are extreme to someone who shares the same extreme views :S
So? You claimed that people didn't give a shit so it wasn't important. I pointed out the absurdity of it. Are you now trying to make a different point?
I will respond to this one. My argument was that people have _decided_ they don't give a shit. It's subtly different from not giving a shit. Obviously some have just gone with the crowd, but many users of social media understand the privacy implications, have thought about it, and decided that they are ok with the trade off.
As to the other stuff, no idea how to even respond. Arguing that RMS is a pragmatist throws an exception in my brain. I can't even mount a good argument that works within the mindspace necessary to reach that initial thought as it's contrary to every opinion I've developed about the man and my personal definition of pragmatism. Our views of reality are clearly incompatible, so I'm out!
Have a nice weekend :)
they reek of compromise
Which makes sense...
We are never going to have an RMS style "all software is completely free" world. Hell I wouldn't want one. I wouldn't want an Apple style "everything is locked down" world either.
What we have now, the compromise solution, works great. There is lots of free software out there. There are still areas which lack serious free alternatives, but you can run a desktop or server on mostly open source. There is also decent sized and co-existing industry of closed source and propriatary software. Many of us (myself included) make a living in it.
Would I love all the software on my desktop to be completely free, sure. Am I happy with most of my software being free, with say propriatary video card drivers... yup!
Free Software and the FSF is about pragmatism.
Oh come on. The FSF and RMS specifically are pretty much the exact opposite of pragmatic. "All software that isn't completely free (and we have to specifically clarify what we mean by free because the common definition of free isn't free enough) is pure evil". I've seen the man speak, he is a lunatic and definitely an extremist.
Have you actually ever read anything about te FSF and its goals. The FSF explicitely states that Free Softwre is a social movement for the greater good. I'm pretty sure that spying on users and disrespecting their privacy is not for the greater good, even if they never explicitely state it.
That's thin. They don't explicitly state that they are against child slavery but by that argument we should claim free software is about protecting children in third world countries?
Just because people don't give a shit doesn't mean it's not important.
The fact that you strongly believe in a view point doesn't make it correct. You only have to look around to see that society in general is becoming more socially open. Yes, sometimes it bites people in the ass, but by enlarge it seems to be enhancing everyones social life to a point where the slight risk is probably worth it. We are moving into a time when privacy is becoming less and less valuable to most people, and social connection (which is valuable to most people) is growing.
This is probably a good thing, but extreme privacy nuts are foaming at the mouth. Arguments like "well, they are too stupid to understand the privacy issue" just show how much they don't get it.
And if we just go a little bit further..
Culturally most of it does
I’m not a fan of ubuntu nor RMS, and I definitely don’t like the sounds of this feature, but since when was "free software" equated with "respects your privacy".
Culturally most of it does, and by consequence of having access to the code any privacy concerns can easily be detected / removed by end users if desired, but I still don't see the connection between free software and assumed privacy. If anything this seems like a dangerous assumption.
Also the usual stuff here applies about pragmatism and user choice. RMS states that this feature is "malicious" as a matter of fact, and throws around spooky words like "surveillance" and "spyware" like he's doing a Fox news special report. I'm all for having opinions, but the way RMS spouts them as absolute irrefutable fact has always annoyed me (even when I agree with them). Obviously most users probably don't share this view. It's probably a useful feature to most, it can easily be disabled by the sounds of it, will bring in some money, and I suspect most users don't give a shit about being "spied on" in this manner. Remember this is the facebook/twitter/whatever else generation. A lot of people _like_ sharing all the minutia of their day with the entire world. I don't get it, but it's their choice.
Not exactly like these players arn't getting anything out of the deal..
Even knowing the likely outcome, I suspect many would still do it for the kind of money they make.
That's a really beautiful way of putting it, and I totally agree :)
Looking back, while I didn't realize it, I definitely fell under category one. I saw university as a requirement to get a job in computers. I looked at what it would cost, looked at how much debt I would have at the end, and looked at about how much I expected to make (I was way off.. but I was in high school so I think I should get some slack!). At this point, it almost becomes a business decision. The thought that I might actually get something out of the experience wasn't even there (and I like to think I did).
The kind who won't be gunning for your job after a few years? ;p
Kidding aside, I pretty much gave my "I'm a wage slave but don't see that as a bad thing" bit in the interview for my current job and found out (years later) that it went over pretty well.. so I guess that's a plus for actually being honest in job interviews.
I have drive to create stuff, I don't have the drive to go through all the required "other stuff" of running a business.
I've found a nice middle ground. A job that lets me do mostly what I love, while someone else deals with all the "business stuff" (I keep up on the business knowledge required for the product, I'm talking about all the marketting/networking/sales shit), and a decent wage.
Some people have entrepreneurial drive, some don’t and probably never will. I am one without. I have no interest in starting my own business and no serious career ambition.
That said I make one hell of a wage slave. I love what I do, and I get shit done.
I guess my point is that college isn’t so much about learning to "knuckle under and get stuff done" as a required part of the process for us that lack the drive to go out and do our own thing and instead just want to get a job working for someone else and do the thing we are good at.