Given russia's rather lax attitude towards IP ( which I can't fault them in ), it's questionable whether we will see changes committed back to the tree. But here's hoping!
Well, there's a difference between the Russian government, the Russian corporate sector, and the Russian people. Lax copyright enforcement merely means that it will be difficult to prevent commercial entities in Russia from creative closed-source forks of GPL software (or, conversely, that it will be difficult to induce them to contribute code improvements). But, really, companies that don't want to contribute to open-source software have never been the primary source of code improvements.
The primary source of code improvements is from enthusiasts, and from companies that understand the inherent advantages of building upon the FOSS software and the FOSS community. Both of these groups of people will operate in a lax-copyright regime much the same way they would elsewhere. Enthusiasts contribute to GPL projects not because of copyright law (or any other law) but because of a desire to be part of the process. Russian enthusiasts are no different than those from any other countries.
On the commercial end, I suppose it's less likely that a company leveraging the GPL will appear in a place where copyright law isn't enforced. But, on the other hand, many companies do business internationally, so being based in Russia may have little effect on their code contributions to GPL projects, or their desire to leverage FOSS code in general (and contribute to said code).
At the end of the day, from the "get more code" angle, having more people exposed to open-source software is always a good thing. The more people are involved, the more enthusiast coders you get, and the more community volunteers you get. Not to mention that when a large number of people are using FOSS software, companies will find it in their financial interest to support that software (in terms of hardware, software, and support), and even to support "the community." If Linux were truly widespread in Russia, I see no reason why companies wouldn't actively support FOSS with open-source code.
I think the sensible strategy, in terms of performance and security, is to use a lightweight minimalist PDF reader for 99% of your PDF needs, and then to only open up Adobe Acrobat when you absolutely need its extra features. Acrobat is a rather large program (some might say "bloated") and it supports a wide variety of features, plugins, etc. It's a fact of life that supporting all those additional features (which are rarely used in a document) increases the program's resource requirements, and make security vulnerabilities "more likely" (for every feature you add, there's another chance for a bug, and another attack vector).
So, again, I think the sensible strategy is to use a fast, minimalist PDF reader (which, hopefully, is simple enough that it fairly secure: that is, no plugins that can run arbitrary code). Then, when you encounter those PDFs that need those extra features, you load them using a Acrobat, assuming you trust them. In my experience, PDFs that use anything beyond the basic features are rare enough that this isn't much of a burden. It's a fallacy to think that every program that supports a given filetype needs to "do it all"--different programs have different uses.
I guess what I really wanted to point out in my original post is that I think it's a storage limit, rather than a time limit to avoid something so abstract as violating copyright...
But a per-video limit doesn't make much difference to storage space if they allow you to upload an unlimited number of videos. Anyways, according to the official YouTube blog, the reason is indeed copyright concerns:
we're constantly trying to balance the rights of copyright owners with the rights of our users. We poked around the system a bit and found that these longer videos were more likely to be copyrighted videos from tv shows and movies than the shorter videos posted.
The blog post also explains how to become "trusted" so that you can go past the 10-minute limit:
However, we also recognize that there are legit content creators out there who may have videos over 10 mins, so we've created a Premium Content Program for those of you with professional-produced videos.
So, basically, if you are a "big player," YouTube will waive the 10-minute restriction. If you are a small, independent YouTube user, you are stuck with the 10-minute restriction. And the official reason is copyright concerns.
they should at least create some mechanism whereby material that provably doesn't violate copyrights could have more than 10 minutes alloted to it....
YouTube evidently is able to serve up videos past the 10-minute limit. The official Google channel and the Google Talks channel have plenty of long videos. So, at least for those trusted channels the limit doesn't exist. I'm not sure if there is any way to get YouTube to trust your channel.
how you would prove it is another issue entirely, but I would imagine they could implement some type of peer review system.
Frankly the 10-minute limit is a small impediment to copyright infringement. People just split the work into multiple pieces (numbered "1/9" to "9/9" or whatever), and it's quite easy for a YouTube viewer to simply queue up all the pieces to play one after the other. So, really, what's the point of the 10-minute restriction?
One thing I can say is that community flagging isn't the answer. You can currently flag content on YouTube, but the fact is that a large portion of the community wants the copyrighted content on YouTube, and thus won't actively participate in flagging it as infringing (or conversely will actively flag infringing content as "okay")... not to speak of the fact that the viewer has no way of knowing whether permission was given for a particular posting. Some TV shows have YouTube channels where they post material, but how is a viewer supposed to tell the difference between sanctioned channels and unsanctioned ones?
Sorry for the confusion; I meant "first-party" admin tools. E.g., emerge, equery, etc-update, rc-update, etc. on Gentoo.
I believe that most of those commands have Ubuntu equivalents, such as aptitude, apt-get, apt-cache, etc. I'm guessing it's mostly just a matter of getting used to new conventions (instead of rc-update you use update-rc.d). However, I've not used Gentoo extensively so I may be unaware of some neat tools on Gentoo that don't have a Debian/Ubuntu equivalent.
Ubuntu, being based on Debian, inherits all of its admin tools (as far as I know), so I would guess that any Debian tool exists on Ubuntu (or could be added from repos easily). Then again, since you're already familiar with Linux, you might prefer Debian itself, especially for a server where the rock-solid stability is great. The only reason to pick Ubuntu over Debian is the faster release cycle, I guess (again, not critical and maybe even a disadvantage for a server).
The legislation "will weaken the patent system," said Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway and the AutoSyringe. "It will devalue patents..."
Umm... yeah. That's the idea: to weaken a system that is currently very strict and uncompromising. The end of the quote is:
"It will be a disincentive for people to invest in the future."
Well I guess that's what is being debated. On the one hand there you can argue that without strong patent protection there is a disincentive to invest in future ideas, because you can't protect your expected profits. On the other hand you can argue that with strong patent protection, there is a disincentive to invest in future ideas, because you can't be sure you won't infringe on other's patents, and have your profits sucked away.
It's not at all obvious that the current patent balance (or one involving even greater patent protection) is the optimal one. It is obvious that no matter how you set the patent system, some people will not like it, and will experience a "disincentive to create." But that's hardly relevant: the proper balance is one which encourages the greatest innovation and progress overall. And, when analyzing the overall benefit to society, it should be noted that there are distinct advantages to allowing an idea to be used widely (perhaps even gratis), and to offer companies some assurance that their product will not be destroyed simply because of an obscure patent of questionable validity.
The Ubuntu "server" version installs without a GUI by default (and has a few tweaks here and there to optimize it for server operation), so that's your best bet.
Does Ubuntu come with tools to aid administration on a headless server, or would I end up just using the standard Debian ones?
Not sure what kind of tools you mean, but the Ubuntu repositories are well-stocked. I've rarely encountered a server or admin package that wasn't in the repos. All the usual Linux admin tools are available (commandline and html based, e.g. webmin, phphmyadmin).
I just want to know if it's a sane choice for what I'm trying to do. I'm most familiar with the Gentoo Way...
I run a few (small-scale) servers using Ubuntu, and it works great. Of course, if you're already used to the Gentoo Way, there may be little reason for you to switch. Some of the details will of course be different. But if you're interested in Ubuntu and already proficient with Linux, it won't be a very difficult transition.
By the way, Ubuntu has a great user community, so you should feel free to ask any further questions you have on the Ubuntu Forums.
In addition to the domains where open-source is already firmly established (the Internet, as you mention, and many embedded device spaces, too), there are indeed many new domains where open-source is becoming more and more "necessary." Consider this (admittedly brief) writeup on a talk given by "Intel's Chief Linux and Open-Source Technologist." The writeup says:
He also mentioned that a major OEM is requiring that by next year their hardware suppliers must either have an open-source driver available or be able to provide an open-source driver within the next twelve months. The likely company that comes to mind is Dell but Dirk refused to comment any further.
If the speculation is correct (that Dell wants all hardware to have open-source drivers available within 12 months), that's a big deal. Such a push is an example of the benefits of open-source being pushed into a new market (in this case, the desktop commodity hardware space).
Here's a graph.However it doesn't show parity because different markets trade at slightly different values, as explained in this news item:
"Currency trading is an over-the-counter market," a Bank of Canada spokesperson told CBCNews.ca. "It's not like the TSX." So there can be small discrepancies depending on the trades the data source monitors.
However that article mentions that "The loonie briefly reached $1.0003 US on foreign exchange markets shortly before 11 a.m. ET, the Bank of Canada said." and TFA says "The Canadian dollar reached $1.0002, before retreating to trade at 99.93 U.S. cents at 11:01 a.m. in New York." So that narrows down the approximate moment when parity was reached.
At present it's just below parity (0.9986), but the expectation is for the Canadian dollar to exceed the US dollar in the near future.
You think the names are chosen randomly? Heck no! These are geeks we're talking about... they plan, discuss, make lists, and debate such minutia endlessly.
TFA is not wrong in what it says, but perhaps it misses a point. For years people were begging for a "user-friendly" Linux distribution, where the user would "not be inundated with choices" and so on. Ubuntu arose with the aim to be "Linux for human beings," where an ordinary person would be able (with some guidance) to install, learn, and productively use the OS. The aim of Ubuntu is to fill that niche.
TFA discusses needing to find the balance between "simplicity for beginners" and "power for advanced users." But he seems to think that each Linux distro should be finding that balance--rather than accepting that the point of having multiple distros is that each one can strike a different balance. Ubuntu, clearly, is a distro that favors simplicity, because it is trying to capture some of the "mass market" of beginners. If you want the installation to expose lots of details to you, then there are distros that will make that happen (e.g. Debian).
Now, having made the case that each distro can and should strike a different balance, I still find the argument misses the mark. I like to consider myself a "power user" who tries to do technical things (run webservers, programming, etc.), and Ubuntu (Kubuntu actually) is my distro of choice. Frankly, once you "know Linux" it's trivially easy to find and modify all the hidden features. Once you open a terminal, you have access to all the power, customization, and advanced features of any other Linux distro.
Furthermore, many experts may prefer Ubuntu's simplicity, because it lets you get to the tasks you actually care about (and care about customizing) faster. It's nice to be able to complete a full install in 15 minutes (yes, I timed it), with no hassles, and then fine tune it as needed. As I said before--it's not like the customizations are not there. Just open a terminal, edit a config file, just like any other distro.
This has been brought up and explained many times on Slashdot.
Simply put, the name "Gutsy Gibbon" (and "Feisty Fawn," etc.) are developer code-names, just like "Longhorn" was for Windows Vista. The final released version of Gutsy Gibbon will be called "Ubuntu 7.10". So, if you are talking to your CEO, you will presumably mention "Ubuntu 7.10 Server" and not "teh Gibbon!!" Note that you won't see the term "Gutsy Gibbon" mentioned in an installed OS (except in the sources file for aptitude, but a normal user is unlikely to ever see that).
You can hardly fault the developers for wanting to have codenames for the releases. It's a useful means of differentiating between pre-release and final versions. Now, I fully admit that many users of Ubuntu stick to the codenames afer the release. If you read ubuntuforums, lots of people will ask things like "are you running Feisty or Dapper?" and so on. I guess that just means that Linux enthusiasts enjoy the whimsical names.
So, the developers are not interested in dropping the codenames, since the community seems to enjoy them. But please bear in mind that they are not "names of releases"--they are codenames that do not appear on the official releases. (For instance, check the download page: it mentions "Ubuntu 7.04" and "Ubuntu 6.06".)
I'm not sure if this is the same article that you saw previously, but this paper discusses that topic:
Seth Lloyd, "Ultimate physical limits to computation" Nature 406, 1047-1054 (31 August 2000) | doi: 10.1038/35023282 (for those without access to Nature articles, this arXiv preprint appears to be the same article).
The article reviews the absolute maximum limits for computation, based on current understanding of thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics.
The basic conclusion of the paper is that a theoretical 1 kg computer (confined to a volume of 1 liter), operating perfectly at the edge of what is physically possible could compute 10^51 operations/second on 10^31 bits of information (as compared to our current computers: 10^10 operations/second on 10^10 bits). Naively scaling Moore's law from current sizes, this suggests that we will reach such limits in 250 years. Of course the paper repeatedly points out that this is for an unrealistically 'perfect' computer, that is somehow able to perfectly organize all its internal matter solely for performing the computation at hand. For instance when running a computation it effectively has a temperature of ~10^9 Kelvin, which is considerably hotter than any known material could withstand.
Nevertheless, it's interesting to see what the fundamental principles of relativity and quantum mechanics indicate as a boundary for any sort of computation. The article is an interesting read.
Of course, by "need" I mean what I would like to have. People keep talking about computers being "fast enough," but every time I have to wait for something to finish (whether it's a Photoshop filter, compiling code, running an optimization, or waiting for a Slashdot page with hundreds of comments to load), that's time I could have used a faster computer.
If my computer were 1000 times faster, then things that currently take minutes would finish "instantly." It's not just a matter of saving seconds here and there: having complex operations being effectively instantaneous changes one's workflow. (E.g. instead of trying different filter settings in Photoshop iteratively, it would be nice to have a live preview, even for the computationally-intensive filters; or, it would be nice to have complex multi-dimensional data-fitting finish so fast that you can try different models in realtime, rather than waiting hours for it to finish...)
All I'm saying is that there is indeed a use to having more and more computing power.
A realistic design for a quantum computer would probably have a classical CPU that does most of the work, with a quantum co-processor. Traditional things, like running the OS and dealing with hardware I/O, would probably still be classical. The quantum co-processor would be assigned computations by the CPU that can be accomplished much faster than on the classical CPU.
This abstraction would mean that most software wouldn't have to be written with any understanding of quantum computing: libraries and compilers would be designed to use CPU calls that launch the quantum co-processor, if available.
For many operations, the quantum CPU would not be needed. But for certain tasks, it would provide orders-of-magnitude speed boosts. If quantum co-processors became commonplace, we would see improvements in all kinds of parallel-processing tasks (matrix operations, simulations, graphics, maybe even search?).
Actually I see some technological trends in the opposite direction. Sites like Facebook enable people to be connected to each other more quickly and pervasively than ever before. Organizing events is easier. Photos from parties get posted and commented on within hours of the party ending! Keeping in touch with old friends is now so much easier than it used to be. I actually think that this increases socialization for many people. In particular, those on the "more awkward" end of the normal distribution (e.g. "geeks" and "nerds") now have an easier time of becoming socially connected (both online and offline). Sometimes it can actually be a bad thing, of course--people are spending time socializing online (and planning more offline social activities), which can disrupt other pursuits (e.g. learning!).
With regard to the library... I've never thought of the library as a social-hub. In general, for every hour that is saved by using a more efficient online resource, instead of walking to the library, that's an hour that can be spent doing something else (e.g. learning something new or hanging out with friends).
So, I'm not at all convinced that this technology is making people anti-social. For every anti-social anecdote I've seen, I've also seen instances where the technology is drawing people closer together, and helping forge friendships. Humans are social animals. Technology can't change that--if anything, it reinforces it.
This quote included in TFA is, I think, the best way to look at integrating new technologies with teaching:
Good teachers are good with or without IT and students learn a great deal from them. Poor teachers are poor with or without IT and students learn little from them.
It's a truism that's pretty obvious, but bears repeating. In my opinion, technology can only enhance the teaching/learning experience, since good teachers will have the wisdom to deploy it carefully. Less skilled teachers will deploy it poorly (e.g. using it as a gimmick instead of an useful tool), but then again those are precisely the teachers that would be wasting student's time with other tools (chalkboards, textbooks, etc.).
This is not to say that there have not been "growing pains" with integrating technology into teaching. Certainly I've seen otherwise competent professors make mistakes with over-zealously deploying an immature teaching tool. But, overall, I think the unsurprising conclusion is that all these new technologies provide advantages to those who are smart enough to exploit them properly.
My general view is that rather than try to integrate specific technologies (which then become gimmick-like), it's best to simply make generic resources available to students and teachers (e.g. computer labs, Wi-Fi, laptop loaner programs, site-wide software licenses, etc.). When resources are available, students will inherently gravitate towards using them in the most useful ways. For example, rather than explicitly integrating a particular piece of tech into a course (a particular software package, forcing students to use an online message board, etc.), my inclination would be to make a bunch of avenues for learning available, and see which ones the students inherently use.
How about we concern ourselves with our country, they concern themselves with theirs, and we're all set.
"We"? "They"? I'm sure people in Iran read slashdot, in which case this article is relevant to their country. I'm sure plenty of people in Germany (or wherever) read Slashdot, in which case the North American stories, by your metric, are irrelevant. So, are you arguing that all stories which are specific to a certain country should be expunged from Slashdot?
I just don't get why I'm supposed to care about the internal problems of every nation on Earth.
You are naive if you think that the affairs of other countries do not impact your life. Censorship of the Internet, even when it occurs locally, becomes a global issue... because the Internet is global. Being aware of what's going on throughout the world is important in a variety of ways--not the least of which being that it gives you much better perspective on issues within your own country.
If you find stories about other countries to be boring, then by all means do not read them. I, for one, read with a keen interest about all manner of international events. Whether they occur in Iran, Canada, the US, Germany, or anywhere else, they may be of interest to me. If they are tech-related, then they are certainly in keeping with the stated goal of Slashdot: "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters."
It doesn't bother us (well, me, at the very least) so much that someone who illegally copies content gets busted and has to pay for it.
Incidentally, it does bother me. Why? Because we all know that a huge number of people infringe copyright on a daily basis. In fact, among the Internet-using population, I would be willing to bet that most people (>90%) have infringed copyright at some point. (During a talk at Google, Cory Doctorow asked the audience, by show of hands, how many had infringed copyright in some way... every single hand went up.)
This bothers me because the few who get caught, tried, and convicted (or settle) for copyright infringement thereby represent a randomly-selected sub-group out of a larger population. This kind of selective enforcement is the antithesis of justice. This kind of inequality and randomized punishment should not be tolerated in a free country.
So, the solution is either to make detection and enforcement so robust that every single infringer gets caught and punished. Or, to change the laws so that we are no longer automatically turning most citizens into criminals. Personally, I find the fact that society at large disregards the current (strict) version of copyright law to be indicative of fundamental problems with said laws.
But regardless of the solution, I am very much bothered by the lack of justice we see today as a result of copyright law. Frankly we should all be bothered.
To clarify: the new restrictions prevent any non-iTunes application from writing the database on the iPod. So this doesn't just affect Linux users: it also affects Windows (or even Mac) users who don't want to use iTunes, preferring something else instead. TFA says:
This affects Linux users - there's no iTunes for Linux, so popular Linux iPod management tools like gtkpod and Rockbox will not work with the new range of iPods. Windows users who just plain don't like iTunes and perfer an alternative like Winamp, Ephpod or many of the other iPod management applications out there.
I understand Apple's desire to maintain control of the "entire experience" since this allows them to deliver end-to-end products that are "slick" and "user friendly." But countermeasures like this one really annoy me. It's one thing to not support users who choose to drastically depart from the carefully-controlled "entire experience." It's another to annoy those users, and effectively say "we don't want your money if you are not going to play by our rules."
I can only assume that Apple believes that they will make more money by forcing people to only use iTunes, although I don't see how that can be the case. I don't think many Linux users are going to go buy a Mac just so they can get their iPod working. Nor do they even have the option of using iTunes (with it's associated iTMS integration). So, instead, such users will just buy alternate media players.
And just who are you to demand that anyone grant "freedom" to the software that they - not you - spent countless hours coding?
Who are we to make such demands? You may as well ask: "Who are you to demand that you be granted freedom of speech?" or "Who are you to demand that companies don't treat you as a badly?" or whatever.
As citizens of free countries, we are all very much allowed to make loud demands for freedom from whomever we wish. It doesn't mean that the entities in question have to care about our demands, nor does it mean that the government should be stepping in to guarantee those freedoms that some citizens want. But we are damn well free to voice our desires to those companies.
To put it in a less adversarial way: Software authors undoubtedly have the legal right to release their software as binary-only. However for many people, open-source software is "better" (for pragmatic and even ethical reasons), and so they will encourage those software authors to release their software as open source ("encourage," not "force"). This is no different that any other interaction between customers and a company: we encourage companies to do all kinds of things that we want. It's up to them to decide which ones they think are worth doing.
You are coaxing a timid animal out of its hole only to start screaming at it when it pokes its head out, forcing it to run back into its hole out of fright. Knock it off, damn it!
Your analogy presupposes that the objective is to get "more software on Linux" in which case demands for source, as you point out, simply scare off potential developers. However not everyone shares that goal. For many, the goal is "make all software free" and those people are urging software developers (for Windows and Linux) to release source code. In that regard, getting more binary software on Linux isn't really a step forward. The fact is that most people with such goals are Linux users, so the requests for source code are statistically going to be higher for a binaries released for Linux than for Windows.
This is simply a manifestation of the diverse goals of the FOSS community (that diversity, incidentally, is not necessarily a bad thing).
String theory should be discarded. It's a fanciful religion that explains nothing, but creates a lot of stuff that needs explaining.
String theory is often made fun of for being useless because it makes no predictions. In fact, string theorists are often the ones making these jokes. However, they are ultimately jokes, and not entirely true. The problem is that the public at large has gotten the impression that string theory isn't science because it doesn't make predictions. That's not really true.
The fact is that what string theory aims to explain (the very fundamental nature of the universe; the events just after the big bang; the reconciliation of quantum mechanics and general relativity) are effects that are inherently difficult to measure. (Otherwise these questions would have been asked long ago.) The fact is that we are not yet able to measure at the extreme energies where string theory becomes relevant. So, the fact is that string theory does make predictions, but it is difficult for us to test these predictions yet.
Efforts are being made, however. Increasingly sensitive measurements of large-scale cosmological phenomena, and ever-more-powerful particle accelerators may give us experimental information about string theory. Already, in fact, a wide variety of "string theories" have been discarded because they do not match the accelerator data. That is, we are placing bounds on the theories, based on experiments. This is how science works.
Also important to keep in mind is that string theory meshes with our currently established theories (which, it goes without saying, have been verified experimentally to a very high precision). The agreement is not yet perfect (as TFA points out), but it's important to keep in mind that of the millions of crazy theories you could write down to explain "the universe," very few of them can reproduce more conventional theories (e.g. electromagnetic interactions) in the appropriate limits. The fact that string theory meshes with established knowledge is the thing that keeps physicists "hopeful" that they are going down the right track. That doesn't mean the theory is right, but it shows that it fits in with our current scientific understanding. That's how science works: by developing more detailed theories that nevertheless reproduce the more basic theories.
String Theory is Religon Not Science
That kind of exaggeration isn't very useful. Ultimately string theory aims to explain the universe through verifiable (falsifiable) predictions. These observations are difficult to make, but are being attempted. If the observations contradict string theory, physicists will discard it. If a better theory comes along that explains observations, physicists will gladly use that theory instead. Until that happens, there is no reason to ignore our current "best guess."
Indeed. This isn't a problem with TOR per se. If I'm reading the blog post correctly, the security issue he is really identifying is: "don't mix an anonymizer with identifiable actions."
Quite simply, TOR is a system to anonymize, so that the website you are going to can't tell who you are. (e.g. can't correlate between repeated visits, can't use your IP to track you down, etc.) As long as you a surfing in a non-identifiable way, even the exit node doesn't know anything about you, and can't determine which requests came from you, as opposed to someone else in the TOR network.
However, if you use TOR in an identifiable way, such as sending a plaintext email (which has plaintext "To" and "From" fields), then you're not using TOR properly. You are inherently exposing yourself, and the exit node can now learn quite a bit about you. If you are connecting to resources without encryption, then the exit node can sniff the data.
Normally, though, you wouldn't use TOR in combination with a secure site you are logging into, anyway. (What's the point in anonymizing your IP address if you log in with your easily-identifiable username, anyways? The site is obviously going to identify you!) So, really, you should not just turn TOR on and then forget about it, because you shouldn't be sending your email through TOR, nor logging into sites using TOR.
The lesson to learn from his blog post, which he doesn't state plainly enough, is that you should split your web-usage into categories: 1. When browsing in a non-identifiable way, use TOR if you want anonymity. 2. When accessing/logging-in to a trusted resource, don't use TOR. (This includes email, etc.) 3. If you need to access a specific resource while maintaining anonymity, use TOR but make sure you use strong end-to-end encryption for the entire session (and not merely encryption for the login phase).
This is, at least, my understanding. Corrections and clarifications are welcome.
Well, we can't confirm "the legend" in terms of whether Microsoft was truly intending for that to happen. But, the end result is the same:
Their products were copied without payment all over the place, and their market penetration did indeed increase to monopoly levels.
The reason they are now changing their strategy is simple: it's payback time. The first hit was free, now you have to pay for more. They succeeded in achieving the monopoly status. They don't need the "free advertising" of "piracy" any longer: they are now happy to demand payment for every single copy of their software that is sold, since we all "grew up" on it, and are essentially dependent on them.
In developing countries, their monopoly status is not guaranteed. If they prevent widespread copying too successfully, they will actually hurt themselves by forcing a competition on price (where Linux has the advantage). So Microsoft has been careful to not push the "anti-piracy" angle too strongly in those countries (yet...).
Slashdot Mirror
The primary source of code improvements is from enthusiasts, and from companies that understand the inherent advantages of building upon the FOSS software and the FOSS community. Both of these groups of people will operate in a lax-copyright regime much the same way they would elsewhere. Enthusiasts contribute to GPL projects not because of copyright law (or any other law) but because of a desire to be part of the process. Russian enthusiasts are no different than those from any other countries.
On the commercial end, I suppose it's less likely that a company leveraging the GPL will appear in a place where copyright law isn't enforced. But, on the other hand, many companies do business internationally, so being based in Russia may have little effect on their code contributions to GPL projects, or their desire to leverage FOSS code in general (and contribute to said code).
At the end of the day, from the "get more code" angle, having more people exposed to open-source software is always a good thing. The more people are involved, the more enthusiast coders you get, and the more community volunteers you get. Not to mention that when a large number of people are using FOSS software, companies will find it in their financial interest to support that software (in terms of hardware, software, and support), and even to support "the community." If Linux were truly widespread in Russia, I see no reason why companies wouldn't actively support FOSS with open-source code.
Lacking features can be a good thing.
I think the sensible strategy, in terms of performance and security, is to use a lightweight minimalist PDF reader for 99% of your PDF needs, and then to only open up Adobe Acrobat when you absolutely need its extra features. Acrobat is a rather large program (some might say "bloated") and it supports a wide variety of features, plugins, etc. It's a fact of life that supporting all those additional features (which are rarely used in a document) increases the program's resource requirements, and make security vulnerabilities "more likely" (for every feature you add, there's another chance for a bug, and another attack vector).
So, again, I think the sensible strategy is to use a fast, minimalist PDF reader (which, hopefully, is simple enough that it fairly secure: that is, no plugins that can run arbitrary code). Then, when you encounter those PDFs that need those extra features, you load them using a Acrobat, assuming you trust them. In my experience, PDFs that use anything beyond the basic features are rare enough that this isn't much of a burden. It's a fallacy to think that every program that supports a given filetype needs to "do it all"--different programs have different uses.
One thing I can say is that community flagging isn't the answer. You can currently flag content on YouTube, but the fact is that a large portion of the community wants the copyrighted content on YouTube, and thus won't actively participate in flagging it as infringing (or conversely will actively flag infringing content as "okay")... not to speak of the fact that the viewer has no way of knowing whether permission was given for a particular posting. Some TV shows have YouTube channels where they post material, but how is a viewer supposed to tell the difference between sanctioned channels and unsanctioned ones?
Ubuntu, being based on Debian, inherits all of its admin tools (as far as I know), so I would guess that any Debian tool exists on Ubuntu (or could be added from repos easily). Then again, since you're already familiar with Linux, you might prefer Debian itself, especially for a server where the rock-solid stability is great. The only reason to pick Ubuntu over Debian is the faster release cycle, I guess (again, not critical and maybe even a disadvantage for a server).
It's not at all obvious that the current patent balance (or one involving even greater patent protection) is the optimal one. It is obvious that no matter how you set the patent system, some people will not like it, and will experience a "disincentive to create." But that's hardly relevant: the proper balance is one which encourages the greatest innovation and progress overall. And, when analyzing the overall benefit to society, it should be noted that there are distinct advantages to allowing an idea to be used widely (perhaps even gratis), and to offer companies some assurance that their product will not be destroyed simply because of an obscure patent of questionable validity.
By the way, Ubuntu has a great user community, so you should feel free to ask any further questions you have on the Ubuntu Forums.
At present it's just below parity (0.9986), but the expectation is for the Canadian dollar to exceed the US dollar in the near future.
Don't believe me? Check out the "Ubuntu Development Code Names Wiki", from which future codenames will be chosen!
I agree with you.
TFA is not wrong in what it says, but perhaps it misses a point. For years people were begging for a "user-friendly" Linux distribution, where the user would "not be inundated with choices" and so on. Ubuntu arose with the aim to be "Linux for human beings," where an ordinary person would be able (with some guidance) to install, learn, and productively use the OS. The aim of Ubuntu is to fill that niche.
TFA discusses needing to find the balance between "simplicity for beginners" and "power for advanced users." But he seems to think that each Linux distro should be finding that balance--rather than accepting that the point of having multiple distros is that each one can strike a different balance. Ubuntu, clearly, is a distro that favors simplicity, because it is trying to capture some of the "mass market" of beginners. If you want the installation to expose lots of details to you, then there are distros that will make that happen (e.g. Debian).
Now, having made the case that each distro can and should strike a different balance, I still find the argument misses the mark. I like to consider myself a "power user" who tries to do technical things (run webservers, programming, etc.), and Ubuntu (Kubuntu actually) is my distro of choice. Frankly, once you "know Linux" it's trivially easy to find and modify all the hidden features. Once you open a terminal, you have access to all the power, customization, and advanced features of any other Linux distro.
Furthermore, many experts may prefer Ubuntu's simplicity, because it lets you get to the tasks you actually care about (and care about customizing) faster. It's nice to be able to complete a full install in 15 minutes (yes, I timed it), with no hassles, and then fine tune it as needed. As I said before--it's not like the customizations are not there. Just open a terminal, edit a config file, just like any other distro.
This has been brought up and explained many times on Slashdot.
Simply put, the name "Gutsy Gibbon" (and "Feisty Fawn," etc.) are developer code-names, just like "Longhorn" was for Windows Vista. The final released version of Gutsy Gibbon will be called "Ubuntu 7.10". So, if you are talking to your CEO, you will presumably mention "Ubuntu 7.10 Server" and not "teh Gibbon!!" Note that you won't see the term "Gutsy Gibbon" mentioned in an installed OS (except in the sources file for aptitude, but a normal user is unlikely to ever see that).
You can hardly fault the developers for wanting to have codenames for the releases. It's a useful means of differentiating between pre-release and final versions. Now, I fully admit that many users of Ubuntu stick to the codenames afer the release. If you read ubuntuforums, lots of people will ask things like "are you running Feisty or Dapper?" and so on. I guess that just means that Linux enthusiasts enjoy the whimsical names.
So, the developers are not interested in dropping the codenames, since the community seems to enjoy them. But please bear in mind that they are not "names of releases"--they are codenames that do not appear on the official releases. (For instance, check the download page: it mentions "Ubuntu 7.04" and "Ubuntu 6.06".)
I'm not sure if this is the same article that you saw previously, but this paper discusses that topic:
Seth Lloyd, "Ultimate physical limits to computation" Nature 406, 1047-1054 (31 August 2000) | doi: 10.1038/35023282 (for those without access to Nature articles, this arXiv preprint appears to be the same article).
The article reviews the absolute maximum limits for computation, based on current understanding of thermodynamics, relativity, and quantum mechanics.
The basic conclusion of the paper is that a theoretical 1 kg computer (confined to a volume of 1 liter), operating perfectly at the edge of what is physically possible could compute 10^51 operations/second on 10^31 bits of information (as compared to our current computers: 10^10 operations/second on 10^10 bits). Naively scaling Moore's law from current sizes, this suggests that we will reach such limits in 250 years. Of course the paper repeatedly points out that this is for an unrealistically 'perfect' computer, that is somehow able to perfectly organize all its internal matter solely for performing the computation at hand. For instance when running a computation it effectively has a temperature of ~10^9 Kelvin, which is considerably hotter than any known material could withstand.
Nevertheless, it's interesting to see what the fundamental principles of relativity and quantum mechanics indicate as a boundary for any sort of computation. The article is an interesting read.
Well, it's about 1/1000 of what I would "need."
Of course, by "need" I mean what I would like to have. People keep talking about computers being "fast enough," but every time I have to wait for something to finish (whether it's a Photoshop filter, compiling code, running an optimization, or waiting for a Slashdot page with hundreds of comments to load), that's time I could have used a faster computer.
If my computer were 1000 times faster, then things that currently take minutes would finish "instantly." It's not just a matter of saving seconds here and there: having complex operations being effectively instantaneous changes one's workflow. (E.g. instead of trying different filter settings in Photoshop iteratively, it would be nice to have a live preview, even for the computationally-intensive filters; or, it would be nice to have complex multi-dimensional data-fitting finish so fast that you can try different models in realtime, rather than waiting hours for it to finish...)
All I'm saying is that there is indeed a use to having more and more computing power.
A realistic design for a quantum computer would probably have a classical CPU that does most of the work, with a quantum co-processor. Traditional things, like running the OS and dealing with hardware I/O, would probably still be classical. The quantum co-processor would be assigned computations by the CPU that can be accomplished much faster than on the classical CPU.
This abstraction would mean that most software wouldn't have to be written with any understanding of quantum computing: libraries and compilers would be designed to use CPU calls that launch the quantum co-processor, if available.
For many operations, the quantum CPU would not be needed. But for certain tasks, it would provide orders-of-magnitude speed boosts. If quantum co-processors became commonplace, we would see improvements in all kinds of parallel-processing tasks (matrix operations, simulations, graphics, maybe even search?).
Actually I see some technological trends in the opposite direction. Sites like Facebook enable people to be connected to each other more quickly and pervasively than ever before. Organizing events is easier. Photos from parties get posted and commented on within hours of the party ending! Keeping in touch with old friends is now so much easier than it used to be. I actually think that this increases socialization for many people. In particular, those on the "more awkward" end of the normal distribution (e.g. "geeks" and "nerds") now have an easier time of becoming socially connected (both online and offline). Sometimes it can actually be a bad thing, of course--people are spending time socializing online (and planning more offline social activities), which can disrupt other pursuits (e.g. learning!).
With regard to the library... I've never thought of the library as a social-hub. In general, for every hour that is saved by using a more efficient online resource, instead of walking to the library, that's an hour that can be spent doing something else (e.g. learning something new or hanging out with friends).
So, I'm not at all convinced that this technology is making people anti-social. For every anti-social anecdote I've seen, I've also seen instances where the technology is drawing people closer together, and helping forge friendships. Humans are social animals. Technology can't change that--if anything, it reinforces it.
This quote included in TFA is, I think, the best way to look at integrating new technologies with teaching: It's a truism that's pretty obvious, but bears repeating. In my opinion, technology can only enhance the teaching/learning experience, since good teachers will have the wisdom to deploy it carefully. Less skilled teachers will deploy it poorly (e.g. using it as a gimmick instead of an useful tool), but then again those are precisely the teachers that would be wasting student's time with other tools (chalkboards, textbooks, etc.).
This is not to say that there have not been "growing pains" with integrating technology into teaching. Certainly I've seen otherwise competent professors make mistakes with over-zealously deploying an immature teaching tool. But, overall, I think the unsurprising conclusion is that all these new technologies provide advantages to those who are smart enough to exploit them properly.
My general view is that rather than try to integrate specific technologies (which then become gimmick-like), it's best to simply make generic resources available to students and teachers (e.g. computer labs, Wi-Fi, laptop loaner programs, site-wide software licenses, etc.). When resources are available, students will inherently gravitate towards using them in the most useful ways. For example, rather than explicitly integrating a particular piece of tech into a course (a particular software package, forcing students to use an online message board, etc.), my inclination would be to make a bunch of avenues for learning available, and see which ones the students inherently use.
You are naive if you think that the affairs of other countries do not impact your life. Censorship of the Internet, even when it occurs locally, becomes a global issue... because the Internet is global. Being aware of what's going on throughout the world is important in a variety of ways--not the least of which being that it gives you much better perspective on issues within your own country.
If you find stories about other countries to be boring, then by all means do not read them. I, for one, read with a keen interest about all manner of international events. Whether they occur in Iran, Canada, the US, Germany, or anywhere else, they may be of interest to me. If they are tech-related, then they are certainly in keeping with the stated goal of Slashdot: "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters."
This bothers me because the few who get caught, tried, and convicted (or settle) for copyright infringement thereby represent a randomly-selected sub-group out of a larger population. This kind of selective enforcement is the antithesis of justice. This kind of inequality and randomized punishment should not be tolerated in a free country.
So, the solution is either to make detection and enforcement so robust that every single infringer gets caught and punished. Or, to change the laws so that we are no longer automatically turning most citizens into criminals. Personally, I find the fact that society at large disregards the current (strict) version of copyright law to be indicative of fundamental problems with said laws.
But regardless of the solution, I am very much bothered by the lack of justice we see today as a result of copyright law. Frankly we should all be bothered.
I can only assume that Apple believes that they will make more money by forcing people to only use iTunes, although I don't see how that can be the case. I don't think many Linux users are going to go buy a Mac just so they can get their iPod working. Nor do they even have the option of using iTunes (with it's associated iTMS integration). So, instead, such users will just buy alternate media players.
What's Apple's angle here?
As citizens of free countries, we are all very much allowed to make loud demands for freedom from whomever we wish. It doesn't mean that the entities in question have to care about our demands, nor does it mean that the government should be stepping in to guarantee those freedoms that some citizens want. But we are damn well free to voice our desires to those companies.
To put it in a less adversarial way: Software authors undoubtedly have the legal right to release their software as binary-only. However for many people, open-source software is "better" (for pragmatic and even ethical reasons), and so they will encourage those software authors to release their software as open source ("encourage," not "force"). This is no different that any other interaction between customers and a company: we encourage companies to do all kinds of things that we want. It's up to them to decide which ones they think are worth doing. Your analogy presupposes that the objective is to get "more software on Linux" in which case demands for source, as you point out, simply scare off potential developers. However not everyone shares that goal. For many, the goal is "make all software free" and those people are urging software developers (for Windows and Linux) to release source code. In that regard, getting more binary software on Linux isn't really a step forward. The fact is that most people with such goals are Linux users, so the requests for source code are statistically going to be higher for a binaries released for Linux than for Windows.
This is simply a manifestation of the diverse goals of the FOSS community (that diversity, incidentally, is not necessarily a bad thing).
The fact is that what string theory aims to explain (the very fundamental nature of the universe; the events just after the big bang; the reconciliation of quantum mechanics and general relativity) are effects that are inherently difficult to measure. (Otherwise these questions would have been asked long ago.) The fact is that we are not yet able to measure at the extreme energies where string theory becomes relevant. So, the fact is that string theory does make predictions, but it is difficult for us to test these predictions yet.
Efforts are being made, however. Increasingly sensitive measurements of large-scale cosmological phenomena, and ever-more-powerful particle accelerators may give us experimental information about string theory. Already, in fact, a wide variety of "string theories" have been discarded because they do not match the accelerator data. That is, we are placing bounds on the theories, based on experiments. This is how science works.
Also important to keep in mind is that string theory meshes with our currently established theories (which, it goes without saying, have been verified experimentally to a very high precision). The agreement is not yet perfect (as TFA points out), but it's important to keep in mind that of the millions of crazy theories you could write down to explain "the universe," very few of them can reproduce more conventional theories (e.g. electromagnetic interactions) in the appropriate limits. The fact that string theory meshes with established knowledge is the thing that keeps physicists "hopeful" that they are going down the right track. That doesn't mean the theory is right, but it shows that it fits in with our current scientific understanding. That's how science works: by developing more detailed theories that nevertheless reproduce the more basic theories. That kind of exaggeration isn't very useful. Ultimately string theory aims to explain the universe through verifiable (falsifiable) predictions. These observations are difficult to make, but are being attempted. If the observations contradict string theory, physicists will discard it. If a better theory comes along that explains observations, physicists will gladly use that theory instead. Until that happens, there is no reason to ignore our current "best guess."
Indeed. This isn't a problem with TOR per se. If I'm reading the blog post correctly, the security issue he is really identifying is: "don't mix an anonymizer with identifiable actions."
Quite simply, TOR is a system to anonymize, so that the website you are going to can't tell who you are. (e.g. can't correlate between repeated visits, can't use your IP to track you down, etc.) As long as you a surfing in a non-identifiable way, even the exit node doesn't know anything about you, and can't determine which requests came from you, as opposed to someone else in the TOR network.
However, if you use TOR in an identifiable way, such as sending a plaintext email (which has plaintext "To" and "From" fields), then you're not using TOR properly. You are inherently exposing yourself, and the exit node can now learn quite a bit about you. If you are connecting to resources without encryption, then the exit node can sniff the data.
Normally, though, you wouldn't use TOR in combination with a secure site you are logging into, anyway. (What's the point in anonymizing your IP address if you log in with your easily-identifiable username, anyways? The site is obviously going to identify you!) So, really, you should not just turn TOR on and then forget about it, because you shouldn't be sending your email through TOR, nor logging into sites using TOR.
The lesson to learn from his blog post, which he doesn't state plainly enough, is that you should split your web-usage into categories:
1. When browsing in a non-identifiable way, use TOR if you want anonymity.
2. When accessing/logging-in to a trusted resource, don't use TOR. (This includes email, etc.)
3. If you need to access a specific resource while maintaining anonymity, use TOR but make sure you use strong end-to-end encryption for the entire session (and not merely encryption for the login phase).
This is, at least, my understanding. Corrections and clarifications are welcome.
Well, we can't confirm "the legend" in terms of whether Microsoft was truly intending for that to happen. But, the end result is the same:
Their products were copied without payment all over the place, and their market penetration did indeed increase to monopoly levels.
The reason they are now changing their strategy is simple: it's payback time. The first hit was free, now you have to pay for more. They succeeded in achieving the monopoly status. They don't need the "free advertising" of "piracy" any longer: they are now happy to demand payment for every single copy of their software that is sold, since we all "grew up" on it, and are essentially dependent on them.
In developing countries, their monopoly status is not guaranteed. If they prevent widespread copying too successfully, they will actually hurt themselves by forcing a competition on price (where Linux has the advantage). So Microsoft has been careful to not push the "anti-piracy" angle too strongly in those countries (yet...).