Its not really suprising since to Microsoft, there is no difference between the operating system and the desktop environment.
No one is arguing that Microsoft should be able to decouple their windowing system and desktop environment from the operating system. In fact, unless you claim that the desktop environment is part of the overall operating system as in Windows, its next to impossible to win the argument that the browser is inseperable. Think of it as a pyramid with the browser at the top (application level). If the blocks below it aren't part of the OS (the desktop environment and the windowing system), how can he argue that the browser is?
Perhaps BEOS would have been a better candidate for that argument?
Madnick may have been fully aware that both KDE and Gnome are desktop environments and not operating systems but mentioned them anyway. Otherwise he would have had no answer and by mentioning SOMETHING he may have scored points with a less technically savy judge.
Because your a fucking communist. 1. If you're going to flame, please use correct grammar. "You are" is turned into a contraction by spelling "you're" not "your"
Go move to europe where all the other communists live.
2. Please capitalize the word "Europe". Also there are very few communists in Europe at the present time. Perhaps you meant socialists. Most communists live in Asia (China and North Korea are full of them). Even Russia isn't technically communist.
Your not man enough to be a capitalist
3. See #1 above about "You're". There's plenty of female capitalists as well.
I'm beginning to think you're a confused, uneducated little flamer.
The Writers Guild has determined that governmental organizations are buying limited quantities of original copyrighted works and lending them to the public without compensating writers for each viewing or "reading".
Its called a library. They're worried about used book sales?
Everything you said is true. However, it does not relate to the technical considerations of decoupling Internet Explorer from Windows.
I think that the comparison is appropriate in that most distributions do not include a separate package for konqueror. Konqueror is usually in the kdebase rpm for rpm based distributions. Moreover, konqueror handles both web browsing and file management for KDE just as IE does.
Some distro's package konqueror separately. The big difference is that it would simple to install KDE, delete the konqueror binaries and plug in a different file manager and web browser. KDE and the OS would continue to function.
I have a similar idea for my car. You could design an oil system so that once the car had been driven more than 3000 miles, the car automatically drained all the oil from the drain pan and left the engine without oil.
This would prevent a careless driver from driving with oil that no longer provided sufficient viscocity.
Yes. I'd send the message about going out for beers unencrypted.
First off, I have no illusions of grandeur that would lead me to believe that the government is that interested in me or my misdemeanor crimes. I refuse to even entertain the thought that possesion of beer would result in life in prison. Even during prohibition, personal use was ignored. Distribution was the only thing that was prosecuted.
Lets use a more appropriate example. Would I transmit a message to my friends that I was going to snort up some coke? I'd have the good sense to phrase it differently but sure I'd send it. Why? The government doesn't have time or the means to prosecute type of crime to the extent that you envision.
Will they prosecute when it smacks them in the face? Sure. Will they monitor everyone's email to do it. No chance.
Re:check your facts please....
on
Carnivore Update
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
OK, now prove it. No one likes their communications being monitored.
Ironic that to argue against the author's generalization, you make another one in return.
He is likely basing his conclusion on the national resolve following 9/11 to combat terrorism. One byproduct of that resolve as reported in the media is a perceived willingness to give up some privacy in exchange for increased security.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Go ahead. Read my email. You'll be bored and I'm no worst for wear. I use encryption for anything to do with banking which is the only thing I put on the net that's sensitive. The government isn't out to get me and unless you're either a terrorist or paranoid, they're not out to get you either.
Encrypt what's sensitive to you. You can bet the terrorists are too.
Similar to "Letters from a Nut"
on
He Writes Back
·
· Score: 2
There was a book published a few years ago by an anonymous author that consisted of his humerous letters to companies and their responses. He would string them along with outlandish requests and questions.
One of my favorites was when he wrote to a casino in Atlantic City asking to gamble dressed as a large lobster.
It may seem obvious but newsgroups seem to offer the relative anonymity that encourages distribution of this type of material.
Websites have to be hosted someplace. Content can be identified and prosecuted.
I'm still not sure why some newsgroups are carried by ISP's. What possible legal use could there be for alt.binaries.sex.children or similarly named groups?
This is not a flame or a troll but I think there's general concensus that certain material should be prosecuted and every effort made to eliminate its presence from the net. I'm not referring to all porn but pornography involving the exploitation of children.
Banning these websites may be a particularly ineffective way to achieve that goal but at a minimum something should be done about the newsgroups.
I was with the author all the way up until the point that he mentioned a legal framework for enforcement.
While all of those objectives are admirable, at the mention of involving governmental organizations in the enforcement of such standards I begin to get nervous. We live in a litigous society in the US as it is. Do we really want to enable a new class of lawsuits based upon violation of software installation standards.
Sure, publish some guidelines and get corporations to sign up agreeing to adhere. I'm just not sure I need or want legal protection to enforce it.
I certainly don't want to have my installation routines prescreened by the legal department before I can ship my code. Sheesh.
Ebay has a $25 deductible on their buyer protection insurance. Since you were bidding on a $45 item, if you were scammed you'd still be out $25 on a $45 item. For low cost items you're completely out of luck.
Actually, no this isn't entirely correct. Depending on the investment environment, the initial price set for a stock IPO can vary widely.
For example in a strong market an underwriter might set a target IPO price at $20 per share initially but based on the level of institutional demand raise the initial IPO price to $30 per share. This will yield an additional 50% working capital for the company going public.
The converse is also true leading to IPO's being delayed or cancelled altogether. Without sufficient institutional and investor interest, either the price of the initial offering must decline (decreasing the capital provided to the company) or the underwriter will cancel the IPO. All this happens prior to the actual IPO date
Re:Can't do without either
on
SuSE 7.3 vs XP
·
· Score: 2
Have you seen the level of "user friendliness" that KDE has achieved through their tight integration with Konqueror?
Actually yes, I use Konqueror and am aware of those features. It works great.
The level of integration I was referring to was the ability for absolute novices to attach their digital camera, automatically copy the files to a known place on their hard drive (My Pictures), select a picture, automatically resize it for email, and send it.
Keep in mind that I'm talking about your average AOL user. I am fully capable of copying my images from the camera, bringing them up in Gimp to resize them, and attaching them to an email. My 84 year old grandfather doesn't feel comfortable with all those steps. There's no reason a version of Linux couldn't do these things. It just won't be the version that plays particularly well to the/. crowd.
Re:Can't do without either
on
SuSE 7.3 vs XP
·
· Score: 1
For Windows, I believe its stable. I'm not running a server, I'm running a desktop so I don't feel qualified to comment on "five 9" reliability" or anything like that.
That said, I had to reboot ME about once every 3 days or it crashed all the time. I do not have to routinely reboot XP. Uptime reaching more than a month is easily achievable.
Re:Can't do without either
on
SuSE 7.3 vs XP
·
· Score: 1
The imaging software I'm referring to is built directly into the OS so it appears seamless to the non-techie user (in this case my wife). The digital photography features built into XP were actually one of the main selling points of Windows XP. You can even order hard copy prints of your photos directly through the software that's integrated into the operating system. Now that doesn't mean much to your average technical user but it makes a world of difference to my wife (or mother, grandfather etc. for that matter).
I have not yet seen an imaging application that was able to achieve the level of "user friendliness" that XP has achieved through their tight integration with Windows Explorer.
Can't do without either
on
SuSE 7.3 vs XP
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I've got two computers at home and I currently use both Linux (Mandrake 8.1) and Windows XP Home. I need both boxes to accomplish what I need to do.
The Windows box is still a necessity. I have a 4 year old who likes educational games and without Windows, they simply don't run. Windows XP has also proven very adept at guiding my non-techie wife through moving pictures between the digital camera and the hard drive. XP is a huge improvement over ME in both stability and capability. Before, emailing pictures from the digital camera was an ordeal for her. Now, she just selects the picture out of a "filmstrip" view and clicks "Email the Picture". XP automatically resizes it for her (if desired) and attaches it to an email in her preferred email client.
I also wouldn't do without Linux. I use it as a firewall/proxy/Samba server and occasionally run a webserver on it with DHCP. Windows doesn't come close to being as capable for these services on my home network. I use the Linux box whenever I want to automate something through scripting or to use the superb open source utilities that come preinstalled. Got to automatically crop a bunch of pictures to a specific file size, hard to beat Imagemagik from the command line on Linux. Please don't ask me to get it working on XP.
I don't think of it as an either or. I look forward to the day when Linux can meet all my needs. I've long since given up or even looking forward to the day when Windows can.
I have found that there is a significant tendency of professional software developers and businesses as a whole to dedicate virtually all their effort into the next major software release and neglect the mundane task of fixing the bugs in the last release.
Software maintenance is anything but interesting and where I work, we're known as "old people working on old stuff". The guys having all the fun are the folks that are engineering the new versions. Still, when we take over a code base from the developers, it is often in lousy shape. Over time with a dedicated and competent maintenance effort, you can significantly increase both the reliability of the software and its functionality (although the changes made during the software maintenance stage are necessarily minimal).
It shouldn't take a month dedicated to it. They're making enough money, there should be a significant workforce dedicated to fixing the bugs in the previous version. Diverting the entire workforce for a PR move is just plain silly.
Label this a flame if you want but I was absolutely disgusted by the tone and tenor of Rik's responses in that article. Regardless of the technical merits of his code or algorithms, Rik's repeated attacks on Linus will certainly not move the operating system forward.
When the author of the article ended with "Thank you for your kindness and the opportunity to get to know you better", I almost fell out of my chair laughing. The only thing that stopped me was that Rik's behavior really isn't funny. It isn't professional and it has no place in the open source or any other community. It speaks volumes about Rik's emotional maturity or more accurately his lack thereof.
U.S. spy-secrets will be revealed
A major three-letter intelligence agency will suffer a public and catastrophic breach of classified data because of exploits in Windows XP and ban its use completely. Previous security incidents involving the loss of classified data will also be revealed. Eyes (and heads) will roll.
Uh. No. Everyone repeat after me. There's no security like physical security. There's no security like physical security...
The three letter agency does not physically connect their classified systems to unclassified ones. No hacker in the world has ever gotten across the air gap between the networks. Regardless of how many terminals were running XP.
Sensitive information maybe. Tons of classified. Not a chance. They use physically disparate networks.
My recent problem was not too many dependencies but too few.
Recently, Mandrake added a kernel security update to their mandrakeupdate (urpmi) mirrors but placed a warning in the "details" section that states not to install the update through mandrakeupdate.
I'm not a total newbie but in an effort to bring my newly built system up to date quickly, I simply selected all security packages and installed them. Big mistake.
I know I should have known better but maybe there could have been at least one additional "dependency" to prevent users from using the wrong tool to install the RPM's for kernel updates and such.
Slashdot Mirror
Its not really suprising since to Microsoft, there is no difference between the operating system and the desktop environment.
No one is arguing that Microsoft should be able to decouple their windowing system and desktop environment from the operating system. In fact, unless you claim that the desktop environment is part of the overall operating system as in Windows, its next to impossible to win the argument that the browser is inseperable. Think of it as a pyramid with the browser at the top (application level). If the blocks below it aren't part of the OS (the desktop environment and the windowing system), how can he argue that the browser is?
Perhaps BEOS would have been a better candidate for that argument?
Madnick may have been fully aware that both KDE and Gnome are desktop environments and not operating systems but mentioned them anyway. Otherwise he would have had no answer and by mentioning SOMETHING he may have scored points with a less technically savy judge.
Because your a fucking communist.
1. If you're going to flame, please use correct grammar. "You are" is turned into a contraction by spelling "you're" not "your"
Go move to europe where all the other communists live.
2. Please capitalize the word "Europe". Also there are very few communists in Europe at the present time. Perhaps you meant socialists. Most communists live in Asia (China and North Korea are full of them). Even Russia isn't technically communist.
Your not man enough to be a capitalist
3. See #1 above about "You're". There's plenty of female capitalists as well.
I'm beginning to think you're a confused, uneducated little flamer.
The Writers Guild has determined that governmental organizations are buying limited quantities of original copyrighted works and lending them to the public without compensating writers for each viewing or "reading".
Its called a library. They're worried about used book sales?
Sheesh.
Everything you said is true. However, it does not relate to the technical considerations of decoupling Internet Explorer from Windows.
I think that the comparison is appropriate in that most distributions do not include a separate package for konqueror. Konqueror is usually in the kdebase rpm for rpm based distributions. Moreover, konqueror handles both web browsing and file management for KDE just as IE does.
Some distro's package konqueror separately. The big difference is that it would simple to install KDE, delete the konqueror binaries and plug in a different file manager and web browser. KDE and the OS would continue to function.
Yes, I was being sarcastic.
I don't know how to feel. I'm happy it got modded to 5 but I'm a little sick to my stomach that it got modded up as "insightful".
This is great.
I have a similar idea for my car. You could design an oil system so that once the car had been driven more than 3000 miles, the car automatically drained all the oil from the drain pan and left the engine without oil.
This would prevent a careless driver from driving with oil that no longer provided sufficient viscocity.
Yes. I'd send the message about going out for beers unencrypted.
First off, I have no illusions of grandeur that would lead me to believe that the government is that interested in me or my misdemeanor crimes. I refuse to even entertain the thought that possesion of beer would result in life in prison. Even during prohibition, personal use was ignored. Distribution was the only thing that was prosecuted.
Lets use a more appropriate example. Would I transmit a message to my friends that I was going to snort up some coke? I'd have the good sense to phrase it differently but sure I'd send it. Why? The government doesn't have time or the means to prosecute type of crime to the extent that you envision.
Will they prosecute when it smacks them in the face? Sure. Will they monitor everyone's email to do it. No chance.
OK, now prove it. No one likes their communications being monitored.
Ironic that to argue against the author's generalization, you make another one in return.
He is likely basing his conclusion on the national resolve following 9/11 to combat terrorism. One byproduct of that resolve as reported in the media is a perceived willingness to give up some privacy in exchange for increased security.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. Go ahead. Read my email. You'll be bored and I'm no worst for wear. I use encryption for anything to do with banking which is the only thing I put on the net that's sensitive. The government isn't out to get me and unless you're either a terrorist or paranoid, they're not out to get you either.
Encrypt what's sensitive to you. You can bet the terrorists are too.
There was a book published a few years ago by an anonymous author that consisted of his humerous letters to companies and their responses. He would string them along with outlandish requests and questions.
One of my favorites was when he wrote to a casino in Atlantic City asking to gamble dressed as a large lobster.
You can get the book from Barnes and Noble
It may seem obvious but newsgroups seem to offer the relative anonymity that encourages distribution of this type of material.
Websites have to be hosted someplace. Content can be identified and prosecuted.
I'm still not sure why some newsgroups are carried by ISP's. What possible legal use could there be for alt.binaries.sex.children or similarly named groups?
This is not a flame or a troll but I think there's general concensus that certain material should be prosecuted and every effort made to eliminate its presence from the net. I'm not referring to all porn but pornography involving the exploitation of children.
Banning these websites may be a particularly ineffective way to achieve that goal but at a minimum something should be done about the newsgroups.
I was with the author all the way up until the point that he mentioned a legal framework for enforcement.
While all of those objectives are admirable, at the mention of involving governmental organizations in the enforcement of such standards I begin to get nervous. We live in a litigous society in the US as it is. Do we really want to enable a new class of lawsuits based upon violation of software installation standards.
Sure, publish some guidelines and get corporations to sign up agreeing to adhere. I'm just not sure I need or want legal protection to enforce it.
I certainly don't want to have my installation routines prescreened by the legal department before I can ship my code. Sheesh.
Seems to indicate packages that should be immediately upgraded.
Security Bulletin here.
MRE - Meal Ready to Eat
MRE - Meal Refusing Exit
MRE - Meal Rejected by Ethiopians (no offense intended)
Better add one more thing to your calculation.
Ebay has a $25 deductible on their buyer protection insurance. Since you were bidding on a $45 item, if you were scammed you'd still be out $25 on a $45 item. For low cost items you're completely out of luck.
Actually, no this isn't entirely correct. Depending on the investment environment, the initial price set for a stock IPO can vary widely.
For example in a strong market an underwriter might set a target IPO price at $20 per share initially but based on the level of institutional demand raise the initial IPO price to $30 per share. This will yield an additional 50% working capital for the company going public.
The converse is also true leading to IPO's being delayed or cancelled altogether. Without sufficient institutional and investor interest, either the price of the initial offering must decline (decreasing the capital provided to the company) or the underwriter will cancel the IPO. All this happens prior to the actual IPO date
Have you seen the level of "user friendliness" that KDE has achieved through their tight integration with Konqueror?
/. crowd.
Actually yes, I use Konqueror and am aware of those features. It works great.
The level of integration I was referring to was the ability for absolute novices to attach their digital camera, automatically copy the files to a known place on their hard drive (My Pictures), select a picture, automatically resize it for email, and send it.
Keep in mind that I'm talking about your average AOL user. I am fully capable of copying my images from the camera, bringing them up in Gimp to resize them, and attaching them to an email. My 84 year old grandfather doesn't feel comfortable with all those steps. There's no reason a version of Linux couldn't do these things. It just won't be the version that plays particularly well to the
For Windows, I believe its stable. I'm not running a server, I'm running a desktop so I don't feel qualified to comment on "five 9" reliability" or anything like that.
That said, I had to reboot ME about once every 3 days or it crashed all the time. I do not have to routinely reboot XP. Uptime reaching more than a month is easily achievable.
The imaging software I'm referring to is built directly into the OS so it appears seamless to the non-techie user (in this case my wife). The digital photography features built into XP were actually one of the main selling points of Windows XP. You can even order hard copy prints of your photos directly through the software that's integrated into the operating system. Now that doesn't mean much to your average technical user but it makes a world of difference to my wife (or mother, grandfather etc. for that matter).
I have not yet seen an imaging application that was able to achieve the level of "user friendliness" that XP has achieved through their tight integration with Windows Explorer.
I've got two computers at home and I currently use both Linux (Mandrake 8.1) and Windows XP Home. I need both boxes to accomplish what I need to do.
The Windows box is still a necessity. I have a 4 year old who likes educational games and without Windows, they simply don't run. Windows XP has also proven very adept at guiding my non-techie wife through moving pictures between the digital camera and the hard drive. XP is a huge improvement over ME in both stability and capability. Before, emailing pictures from the digital camera was an ordeal for her. Now, she just selects the picture out of a "filmstrip" view and clicks "Email the Picture". XP automatically resizes it for her (if desired) and attaches it to an email in her preferred email client.
I also wouldn't do without Linux. I use it as a firewall/proxy/Samba server and occasionally run a webserver on it with DHCP. Windows doesn't come close to being as capable for these services on my home network. I use the Linux box whenever I want to automate something through scripting or to use the superb open source utilities that come preinstalled. Got to automatically crop a bunch of pictures to a specific file size, hard to beat Imagemagik from the command line on Linux. Please don't ask me to get it working on XP.
I don't think of it as an either or. I look forward to the day when Linux can meet all my needs. I've long since given up or even looking forward to the day when Windows can.
I have found that there is a significant tendency of professional software developers and businesses as a whole to dedicate virtually all their effort into the next major software release and neglect the mundane task of fixing the bugs in the last release.
Software maintenance is anything but interesting and where I work, we're known as "old people working on old stuff". The guys having all the fun are the folks that are engineering the new versions. Still, when we take over a code base from the developers, it is often in lousy shape. Over time with a dedicated and competent maintenance effort, you can significantly increase both the reliability of the software and its functionality (although the changes made during the software maintenance stage are necessarily minimal).
It shouldn't take a month dedicated to it. They're making enough money, there should be a significant workforce dedicated to fixing the bugs in the previous version. Diverting the entire workforce for a PR move is just plain silly.
For the one and probably only time in my life I'm just hoping for high legal fees.
Label this a flame if you want but I was absolutely disgusted by the tone and tenor of Rik's responses in that article. Regardless of the technical merits of his code or algorithms, Rik's repeated attacks on Linus will certainly not move the operating system forward.
When the author of the article ended with "Thank you for your kindness and the opportunity to get to know you better", I almost fell out of my chair laughing. The only thing that stopped me was that Rik's behavior really isn't funny. It isn't professional and it has no place in the open source or any other community. It speaks volumes about Rik's emotional maturity or more accurately his lack thereof.
U.S. spy-secrets will be revealed
...
A major three-letter intelligence agency will suffer a public and catastrophic breach of classified data because of exploits in Windows XP and ban its use completely. Previous security incidents involving the loss of classified data will also be revealed. Eyes (and heads) will roll.
Uh. No. Everyone repeat after me. There's no security like physical security. There's no security like physical security
The three letter agency does not physically connect their classified systems to unclassified ones. No hacker in the world has ever gotten across the air gap between the networks. Regardless of how many terminals were running XP.
Sensitive information maybe. Tons of classified. Not a chance. They use physically disparate networks.
Assuming an 8 hour workday, 5 days a week (yes, I know he works more than that), that translates to:
125 lines of code per hour
more than 2 lines of code per minute
That's not including coffee breaks, restroom time, foosball, or anything else I need to remain coherent to write code.
5000 lines of code per week over an extended period is a stunning achievement. Give the guy a break.
My recent problem was not too many dependencies but too few.
Recently, Mandrake added a kernel security update to their mandrakeupdate (urpmi) mirrors but placed a warning in the "details" section that states not to install the update through mandrakeupdate.
I'm not a total newbie but in an effort to bring my newly built system up to date quickly, I simply selected all security packages and installed them. Big mistake.
I know I should have known better but maybe there could have been at least one additional "dependency" to prevent users from using the wrong tool to install the RPM's for kernel updates and such.