Anyhow... rumorville says that in the past years, they have managed to get a VW onto the bridge towers back home -- which is more impressive, IMHO, then tossing a car off the bridge.
The rumours are true. In our proud 20 years of E-week stunt history, the UBC Engineers have placed beetles in all sorts of places:
atop Gage Residence (a 17 story building, the highest on the UBC campus)
on a fountain in the middle of Stanley Park's Lost Lagoon
suspended below the Lions Gate Bridge
suspended above the Lions Gate Bridge
suspended below the Alex Fraser Bridge
suspended above the Alex Fraser Bridge
suspended between the Burrard and Granville Street Bridges
suspended above the entrance to the Massey Tunnel
suspended from the wall of the (then) new Vancouver Public Library
Other pranks of note:
the Grate Rosebowl Heist
borrowing the speaker's chair from the Provincial Legislature in Victoria
programming the UBC clock tower bells to play "The Engineers' Hymn"
hanging a giant red "E" on the side of Science World's geodesic dome
programming the traffic control lights on the Lions Gate Bridge to flash "UBC Engineers do it again"
However, I have to defend the quality of Stormix, and disagree that it's a 2nd-tier vendor in quality. (In market success is another matter -- guess it sounds like they're having at least some serious trouble right now... fmaxwell is completely correct in noting that a *combination* of factors is really what matters) Stormix (along with Mandrake) is one of the easiest distros to install, gets X working quickly, has intelligent disk tools, and seems to have an overall *clean* approach -- not as software heavy as SuSE or many others, it's true, but the result is a nice, useable system.
A common view seems to be that Storm's financial failure came in spite of its technical excellence, but I would suggest that it actually came because of it.
Let me explain: Stormix was basically Debian plus a newbie-friendly installation and some GUI configuration front-ends. In my opinion, this was a great idea for a project...but maybe not for a company.
You start with Debian, a system that automagically updates and configures itself, and then you make it accessible a broader range of users with pretty GUI tools.
What you end up with is a very happy user with a very nice system who has absolutely no need to ever purchase an upgrade or support.
To make it worse, Storm lacked a target market and the marketing ability to reach that market. RedHat is the server distribution, Mandrake is the newbie/desktop distribution, SuSE is the lots-of-software distribution, Debian is the Free distribution. What is Stormix?
Storm's existence was a big benefit to the larger Linux community. The consolation for us is that their GPL'ed work can continue...hopefully it will quickly make its way back into Debian. The big losers, I suppose, are the excellent technical people who worked at Storm. They certainly didn't deserve this fate. Their contributions are appreciated; best of luck to them.
...the menu utility that keeps the app menu across desktop managers consistent...
Actually, the update-menus tool actually comes from Debian. As someone who used Mandrake for several months before switching to Debian, I find it works much better in Debian.
The reason? While Mandrake has made its packages populate/usr/lib/menu/, the Mandrake user still often finds himself relying on Red Hat packages, and packages maintained by third parties. Thus, instead of having his menus automagically update themselves, he ends up with yet another set of text files to maintain by hand.
AFAIK, it is the only distro with a BSD-style/etc/rc.d rather than the mess'o'symlinks SysV-style. That makes administration much easier to learn without depending on a tool like `linuxconf`.
Perhaps it's easier to learn, but definately not easier to use.
If you just look at the SysV scripts without having a clue why they're set up that way, it might take a while to figure the logic out, but if you spend 2 minutes r'ing tfm, it's quite clear.
Once you know what's going on, it's so easy to decide that you do or don't want to run a service any more. Just run chkconfig on RedHat or update-rc.d on Debian. No script editing required. Starting or stopping a service at an arbitrary time is easier, too.
Most importantly, startup of unrelated programs is done in separate script files, so it's easy for a package to supply the scripts to do so -- just plunk the file in/etc/rc.d/init.d or/etc/init.d, and run chkconfig or update-rc.d to make the symlinks. And to uninstall, just do the opposite. How much fun would it be to do that in BSD-style? How many broken scripts would result?
Personally, I don't understand all the criticism of SysV-style. Not from an ease-of-use perspective, at least.
Sorry, I really wanted to install Debian, but after 3 hours of trying to configure X by hand I returned to Mandrake. I later even tried
to install Corel Linux and then apt-get the rest of Debian, but it only created inconsistencies and dependency problems (besides I only have access to very limited bandwith -modem-).
I, too, am a Mandrake user, but as soon as exams finish, I'm planning on switching over to Debian. I'm sick of RPMs, inconsistant packaging, and that damn Mandrake Update that, for the last couple of months, has only been showing me packages that I've already installed!
The thought of having to set up my own XF86Config doesn't concern me in the least, since I've already done it in Mandrake. I didn't like the job that the automated tool did (some ugly flicker), and I wanted to change the default keyboard settings, so I read the man page. It wasn't so scary.
Of course, I realize that not everyone wants to do that. It's been mentioned already in other threads, but have you considered trying Storm Linux? It's a much more faithful child of Debian than Corel, and I have yet to read one bad word about it. And it has more of the pointy-clicky tools you're looking for.
I also liked that section. This provision was quite cute:
g. Restriction on Binding Middleware Products to Operating System Products. Microsoft shall not, in any Operating System Product distributed six or more months after the effective date of this Final Judgment, Bind any Middleware Product to a Windows Operating System unless:
i.Microsoft also offers an otherwise identical version of that Operating System Product in which all means of End-User Access to that Middleware Product can readily be removed (a) by OEMs as part of standard OEM preinstallation kits and (b) by end users using add-remove utilities readily accessible in the initial boot process and from the Windows desktop; and
ii.when an OEM removes End-User Access to a Middleware Product from any Personal Computer on which Windows is preinstalled, the royalty paid by that OEM for that copy of Windows is reduced in an amount not less than the product of the otherwise applicable royalty and the ratio of the number of amount in bytes of binary code of (a) the Middleware Product as distributed separately from a Windows Operating System Product to (b) the applicable version of Windows.
Not only does Microsoft HAVE to provide a version of Windows with IE removed (or a simple method for the OEM/user to remove it themselves), but they cannot include the cost of IE in the cost of Windows. The must give the user the choice of whether to pay for IE or not. No more claiming that it's free (beer).
Who knows, maybe it will also reduce the bloat in IE...or maybe just increase the bloat in Windows...:)
Ok, but how did you here of these artists? Through Napster? I think not. There is AFAIK (I don't use it a lot) NO browsing function within Napster, you need to run a search, the search is obviously some band/song that you know and want a copy of their music. So how does this promote independant artists? You still have to have heard of them in order to get their music.
Not true. There are channels (actually, I think they call them "rooms" -- it's been a while since I've used the official client) for various music styles. You can enter a room, chat with others, and browse their collections (by user).
Ok, so now we know what Lars thinks. But, I think the question everyone really wants answered is, "what does Al think?"
Wonder no longer. Here are the brilliant insights of Weird Al Yankovic, courtesy of Ask Al Q&A's for May, 2000:
Jeremy McCarthy of Fairfield, CT asks:
Hey Al!!!!! What do u think about Napster? I just want to know if you approve.
I have very mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I'm concerned that the rampant downloading of my copyright-protected material over the Internet is severely eating into my album sales and having a decidedly adverse effect on my career. On the other hand, I can get all the Metallica songs I want for FREE! WOW!!!!!
Netscape decided to make Navigator free long ago so they could "push" people to their "Netcenter" or whatever its called portal, as well as trying to get people to use the "Shop" button on their browser.
I was under the impression that Netscape "decided" to make Navigator free because Microsoft had started including the cost of IE in Windows, thus pulling the market out from under Netscape.
So, the message to Microsoft would be, "You destroyed this market, now compete in it!"
Given that Netscape is about to release a product that could, once again, compete with Microsoft's, it would be nice to know that the market might be restored by forcing IE to be removed from (or licensed to?) Windows.
Okay, this might be a stupid question, since I'm not a layer, and have never even read this type of document before, but in the section at the top entitled "Facts," is that where the judge is supposed to write the underlying facts of the case?
I ask because this:
DeCSS
In October 1999, an individual or group, believed to be in Europe, managed to "hack'' CSS2 and began offering, via the Internet, a software utility called DeCSS that enables users to break the CSS copy protection system and hence to make and distribute digital copies of DVD movies.
strikes me as highly non-factual. Doesn't a DVD player + a DVD burner or a DVD player + hard drive enable users to make digital copies of DVD movies?
And doesn't the post office or the internet enable users to distribute digital copies of DVD movies?
You don't need DeCSS to do that.
It seems to me that if he starts on this incorrect premise, that DeCSS actually allows copying of otherwise uncopyable, copyrighted material, he is bound to reach an incorrect conclusion.
Unless the material is only copyrighted in its decrypted form? Then, byte-for-byte copying of DVD's is legal?
I don't think this is the case, but reading the "facts," I can't see any other possibilities.
It would seem that Corel's Linux strategy is to legitimize the platform as an alternative to Windows for the desktops of "ordinary users" (whoever they are), so that you can eventually sell them your big-name applications, like Corel WordPerfect Office and CorelDRAW, on this platform, without competition from Microsoft Office, Visio, etc.
However, we can expect that in the Linux "market," your applications will face a different kind of competition from Free Software. For example, KOffice (which also includes a vector drawing tool) will no doubt be competing with WP Office and CorelDraw; of course the Gimp will be competing with Photopaint.
We have all heard the advantages of the Open Source development models, but from your perspective, what are the particular challenges that Free Software offers you as a vendor of competing commercial, closed-source applications? How do you plan do deal with these challenges? Do you perceive these projects as less of a threat than your traditional competitors (eg. Microsoft), a similar threat, or even an asset?
I wish you the best of luck with all of Corel's endeavours!
My software engineering textbook (Ian Sommerville)defined an alpha release as the acceptance testing for a bespoke system developed for a single client. Whereas beta testing is a term used for a system marketed as a softare product to be tested by potential users who agree to use the system.... Anyway, any testing release of Mozilla, in my view, would be called a beta not an alpha.
But that book is entirely about making software to sell, as that definition shows. There's no way to directly apply it to open source, since the lines between users and developers are blurred.
BTW, that has got to be one of the worst textbooks I've ever been subjected to. I think I gave up on trying to stay awake reading it in about the second week of classes, so I'm focusing on the lecture notes.:)
I just wanted to point out that I don't think Canada is actually quite there yet. For some reason, it seems we still like to use imperial to measure our food and ourselves.
It is my generation that learned metric from day one in schools, and so when our kids want us to measure them, we'll be happy to use metric. Our parents were still more familiar with imperial, so that's what they used to measure us.
As for gas, speeds, temperatures, etc, our parents seem to have adapted well. No one really has any trouble visualizing these metric quantities anymore, do they?
Slashdot Mirror
Anyhow... rumorville says that in the past years, they have managed to get a VW onto the bridge towers back home -- which is more impressive, IMHO, then tossing a car off the bridge.
The rumours are true. In our proud 20 years of E-week stunt history, the UBC Engineers have placed beetles in all sorts of places:
Other pranks of note:
Happy E-week everybody! ERTW!
However, I have to defend the quality of Stormix, and disagree that it's a 2nd-tier vendor in quality. (In market success is another matter -- guess it sounds like they're having at least some serious trouble right now ... fmaxwell is completely correct in noting that a *combination* of factors is really what matters) Stormix (along with Mandrake) is one of the easiest distros to install, gets X working quickly, has intelligent disk tools, and seems to have an overall *clean* approach -- not as software heavy as SuSE or many others, it's true, but the result is a nice, useable system.
A common view seems to be that Storm's financial failure came in spite of its technical excellence, but I would suggest that it actually came because of it.
Let me explain: Stormix was basically Debian plus a newbie-friendly installation and some GUI configuration front-ends. In my opinion, this was a great idea for a project...but maybe not for a company.
You start with Debian, a system that automagically updates and configures itself, and then you make it accessible a broader range of users with pretty GUI tools.
What you end up with is a very happy user with a very nice system who has absolutely no need to ever purchase an upgrade or support.
To make it worse, Storm lacked a target market and the marketing ability to reach that market. RedHat is the server distribution, Mandrake is the newbie/desktop distribution, SuSE is the lots-of-software distribution, Debian is the Free distribution. What is Stormix?
Storm's existence was a big benefit to the larger Linux community. The consolation for us is that their GPL'ed work can continue...hopefully it will quickly make its way back into Debian. The big losers, I suppose, are the excellent technical people who worked at Storm. They certainly didn't deserve this fate. Their contributions are appreciated; best of luck to them.
Actually, the update-menus tool actually comes from Debian. As someone who used Mandrake for several months before switching to Debian, I find it works much better in Debian.
The reason? While Mandrake has made its packages populate /usr/lib/menu/, the Mandrake user still often finds himself relying on Red Hat packages, and packages maintained by third parties. Thus, instead of having his menus automagically update themselves, he ends up with yet another set of text files to maintain by hand.
AFAIK, it is the only distro with a BSD-style /etc/rc.d rather than the mess'o'symlinks SysV-style. That makes administration much easier to learn without depending on a tool like `linuxconf`.
Perhaps it's easier to learn, but definately not easier to use.
If you just look at the SysV scripts without having a clue why they're set up that way, it might take a while to figure the logic out, but if you spend 2 minutes r'ing tfm, it's quite clear.
Once you know what's going on, it's so easy to decide that you do or don't want to run a service any more. Just run chkconfig on RedHat or update-rc.d on Debian. No script editing required. Starting or stopping a service at an arbitrary time is easier, too.
Most importantly, startup of unrelated programs is done in separate script files, so it's easy for a package to supply the scripts to do so -- just plunk the file in /etc/rc.d/init.d or /etc/init.d, and run chkconfig or update-rc.d to make the symlinks. And to uninstall, just do the opposite. How much fun would it be to do that in BSD-style? How many broken scripts would result?
Personally, I don't understand all the criticism of SysV-style. Not from an ease-of-use perspective, at least.
Sorry, I really wanted to install Debian, but after 3 hours of trying to configure X by hand I returned to Mandrake. I later even tried to install Corel Linux and then apt-get the rest of Debian, but it only created inconsistencies and dependency problems (besides I only have access to very limited bandwith -modem-).
I, too, am a Mandrake user, but as soon as exams finish, I'm planning on switching over to Debian. I'm sick of RPMs, inconsistant packaging, and that damn Mandrake Update that, for the last couple of months, has only been showing me packages that I've already installed!
The thought of having to set up my own XF86Config doesn't concern me in the least, since I've already done it in Mandrake. I didn't like the job that the automated tool did (some ugly flicker), and I wanted to change the default keyboard settings, so I read the man page. It wasn't so scary.
Of course, I realize that not everyone wants to do that. It's been mentioned already in other threads, but have you considered trying Storm Linux? It's a much more faithful child of Debian than Corel, and I have yet to read one bad word about it. And it has more of the pointy-clicky tools you're looking for.
Maybe they'll release a video after the live WebCast, or a slashdot member will provide a very good report on the debate. *hint hint, clue clue*
Or maybe some hybrid of the two... :)
"Archives of the debate will be posted at its conclusion." (from http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/futureofip/webcast.as p
I also liked that section. This provision was quite cute:
Not only does Microsoft HAVE to provide a version of Windows with IE removed (or a simple method for the OEM/user to remove it themselves), but they cannot include the cost of IE in the cost of Windows. The must give the user the choice of whether to pay for IE or not. No more claiming that it's free (beer).
Who knows, maybe it will also reduce the bloat in IE...or maybe just increase the bloat in Windows... :)
Ok, but how did you here of these artists? Through Napster? I think not. There is AFAIK (I don't use it a lot) NO browsing function within Napster, you need to run a search, the search is obviously some band/song that you know and want a copy of their music. So how does this promote independant artists? You still have to have heard of them in order to get their music.
Not true. There are channels (actually, I think they call them "rooms" -- it's been a while since I've used the official client) for various music styles. You can enter a room, chat with others, and browse their collections (by user).
Ok, so now we know what Lars thinks. But, I think the question everyone really wants answered is, "what does Al think?"
Wonder no longer. Here are the brilliant insights of Weird Al Yankovic, courtesy of Ask Al Q&A's for May, 2000:
Al has spoken.
Netscape decided to make Navigator free long ago so they could "push" people to their "Netcenter" or whatever its called portal, as well as trying to get people to use the "Shop" button on their browser.
I was under the impression that Netscape "decided" to make Navigator free because Microsoft had started including the cost of IE in Windows, thus pulling the market out from under Netscape.
So, the message to Microsoft would be, "You destroyed this market, now compete in it!"
Given that Netscape is about to release a product that could, once again, compete with Microsoft's, it would be nice to know that the market might be restored by forcing IE to be removed from (or licensed to?) Windows.
Okay, this might be a stupid question, since I'm not a layer, and have never even read this type of document before, but in the section at the top entitled "Facts," is that where the judge is supposed to write the underlying facts of the case?
I ask because this:
strikes me as highly non-factual. Doesn't a DVD player + a DVD burner or a DVD player + hard drive enable users to make digital copies of DVD movies?And doesn't the post office or the internet enable users to distribute digital copies of DVD movies?
You don't need DeCSS to do that.
It seems to me that if he starts on this incorrect premise, that DeCSS actually allows copying of otherwise uncopyable, copyrighted material, he is bound to reach an incorrect conclusion.
Unless the material is only copyrighted in its decrypted form? Then, byte-for-byte copying of DVD's is legal?
I don't think this is the case, but reading the "facts," I can't see any other possibilities.
It would seem that Corel's Linux strategy is to legitimize the platform as an alternative to Windows for the desktops of "ordinary users" (whoever they are), so that you can eventually sell them your big-name applications, like Corel WordPerfect Office and CorelDRAW, on this platform, without competition from Microsoft Office, Visio, etc.
However, we can expect that in the Linux "market," your applications will face a different kind of competition from Free Software. For example, KOffice (which also includes a vector drawing tool) will no doubt be competing with WP Office and CorelDraw; of course the Gimp will be competing with Photopaint.
We have all heard the advantages of the Open Source development models, but from your perspective, what are the particular challenges that Free Software offers you as a vendor of competing commercial, closed-source applications? How do you plan do deal with these challenges? Do you perceive these projects as less of a threat than your traditional competitors (eg. Microsoft), a similar threat, or even an asset?
I wish you the best of luck with all of Corel's endeavours!
My software engineering textbook (Ian Sommerville)defined an alpha release as the acceptance testing for a bespoke system developed for a single client. Whereas beta testing is a term used for a system marketed as a softare product to be tested by potential users who agree to use the system.... Anyway, any testing release of Mozilla, in my view, would be called a beta not an alpha.
:)
But that book is entirely about making software to sell, as that definition shows. There's no way to directly apply it to open source, since the lines between users and developers are blurred.
BTW, that has got to be one of the worst textbooks I've ever been subjected to. I think I gave up on trying to stay awake reading it in about the second week of classes, so I'm focusing on the lecture notes.
I just wanted to point out that I don't think Canada is actually quite there yet. For some reason, it seems we still like to use imperial to measure our food and ourselves.
It is my generation that learned metric from day one in schools, and so when our kids want us to measure them, we'll be happy to use metric. Our parents were still more familiar with imperial, so that's what they used to measure us.
As for gas, speeds, temperatures, etc, our parents seem to have adapted well. No one really has any trouble visualizing these metric quantities anymore, do they?
BTW, Canada is masculine. It's "vive le canada."