Re:Not quite
on
Is Linux Dead?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Well, with quotes from the article like "Until recently, interacting with Linux was almost entirely text-driven -- much like Windows' precursor, DOS." and "A Linux-based open-source program called Evolution looks pretty much like a standard Windows desktop" I would say the article is pretty wrong (unless 10 years ago was recently). They seem to get the market impact about right but as far as the technology... well, it seems like less than thorough job of research/reporting.
Re:Will everyone just chill. Isn't this just silly
on
Mundie Responds
·
· Score: 1
A good measured reaction, but you are missing something. The/. community and the open source community at large is about passion. It isn't that anyone thinks MS is a real concern, its that we are right and they are wrong. The reason to bother is because it is enjoyable. Moreover, it is really good for the community to react to this. Open Source will win because it is good for the consumer, but proprietary systems are better for programmers (financially speaking). If programmers are to code Open Source, there needs to be a reason. One (there are many) reason is because what's out there now is not extensible and is not quality software. If it is also from a monopoly that has prevented consumer choice for at least five years, that is all the more reason to code something better. Much like the KDE - GNOME debate or the VI - EMACS debate, it is fun, provides a purpose to code, and sparks inovation.
Much as angst_ridden_hipster said above, what is really threatening MS is that Open Source is not another competitor. We are not out to take down Microsoft, we are out to take down the current software model. Optimistically, I could even see Microsoft's recent actions from the light that they are scared of losing monopoly, but moreover hope to retain at least some of the market by being our enemy (if we recognize MS, that makes MS an option). There will be a time when noone cares what Microsoft says, but they are far to powerful for that now.
The key point is that Open Source is a lot of good things, but best of all it is a community. We love to code, but that doesn't mean that is all we do or want to do. If we want to have a villian and play the hero, what's the real harm?
Regardless of how free you want your software, this speaks to the benefits of the GPL. First, the bad part of forking is incompatability. This is pretty obvious. The good part is competition, as you mention. However, there is CURRENTLY competetion in Linux, without a fork. It is the best of both worlds. How? Because of all the distributions, for one. Second, because of all the kernel hackers (and GNU hackers, and XFree hackers, and...). If I have a more efficient scheduling algorithm than the one currently in the kernel, I get to put it in the kernel. Then you have a better algorithm, it gets in. Then Fred has some algorithm that kicks butt on SMP, but is slower on a uniprocessor box, so Freds gets put in and conditionally compiled. There is your competition, and it is indeed good! One just never has to worry about trying to port their application from HiQ-linux to zosima-linux, or all the other hastles of a 'real' fork.
That it 'can be done' is a pretty bold statement. I will grant it is possible, but remember there are little things like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal that have a lot to say about what you can observe on a "small enough scale". We can't simply observe a brain and reproduce it "artificially". Any sucessful attempt at doing so will require, at very least, a bit of luck.
If it is, in fact, possible for man to build a machine 'smarter' than himself, is it not necessarily true that this machine is capable of the same feat? It seems if we built a machine 'smarter' than ourselves we would necessarily create an omniscient machine indirectly, or at least a series of machines that exponentially approached omniscience. Man, I love recursion.
Re:Correcting the failure of software copyright
on
Embracing Insanity
·
· Score: 1
A very good post.
The scary things is that you make anologies to books, which are obviously free and alwasy will be... or not. The liscence agreement involved with many of the Ebooks distrubuted today is downright scary. Just look at the Microsoft Reader activation dialouge.
well, after blundering myself, at least I am trying to defend stupid mistakes:). I can't reproduce the layout, unfortunately, but just imagine there being a page fold instead of the punch-holes. This caused people to think the real ballot was to have two lines of holes.
Why was this issue not brought up earlier?
Another big point of confusion, and a possible reason this wasn't brought up before, is that the voters were mailed example ballots. Unfortunately, they looked like this:
Bush |
| Buchanon
Gore |
^
page fold
A number of people, studying the ballot ahead of time, presumed that there would be two rows of holes. Therefore, this is a UI problem gone doubly wrong.
multi-process management : don't need it in a game, simple threads work fine.
What about in a personal TV recorder / mp3 box / web console / game machine (ie, that the Indrema is NOT a game console but an Entertainment System)
filesystem : How hard is it to read ISO9660?
and DVDs and Tivo-like FS and a FS for MP3s/games...
virtual memory support : opps, can't have that without a HD. Even the X-box with a HD is not going to have VM.
NB: I do not know if they are actually using the VM... but if you want share/free ware games, do you really want them crashing your TIVO recording of The Simpsons?
device drivers : The system is supposed to be fixed. That's the beauty of console games, the hardware doesn't change. Why do you need loadable drivers?
But they let you swap out the GPU. Again, this is more than a console, it is a new device, and I wouldn't want to throw it away just for better gaming. Plus now you can online game when we switch to IPv6 or, more importantly, whatever device drivers you can't think of now that you might want.
In conclusion, you make intersting points but I don't think that you understand what Indrema is really trying to do.
Given that the presidential debates received coverage from only one network, and that the ratings from the debates were at an all time low, I would like to know why exactly people should care? Despite efforts such as MTV's "Rock the Vote" a large number of eligible voters have chosen to eschew the election on grounds that you are both subject to your financial contributors, and that there is no major relevant issues dividing you. Do you have a comment to these potential voters? Why is it that less than 50% of eligible voters vote on even a presidential election, resulting in less than 25% of the country deciding the next president? What do you have to say to the other 50% of America's registered voters? Why should we care if you get elected as opposed to your opposition?
From the article "...subsequently pirating the software is never a good option. Explain the risks: technical troubles, upgrade problems, viruses and the law."
Technical troubles, upgrade problems, viruses... I would say that eliminates all vendors to pirate from BUT Microsoft.
As it was mentioned above, Sun is concerned with far more than violating a license. While they might not be violating a license (which it appears they are not) they still have to deal with the PR nightmare of convincing everyone they are doing nothing wrong (and this is in light of them courting the OSS comunity). It is already on/., and the headline looks pretty bad for Sun... I can't say I blame them at all for holding the software close to their chest until things calm down.
USB serial is pretty good, so you might even be able to get a serial-serial type connection over USB. So far as I know, there hasn't been any real work on any of the USB NIC drivers yet, tho.
It is free (only as in beer, but better than nothing), small, and stand-alone. That means there are no tied in dlls so you can just put it up on your webpage and pick 'open' so you can have a shell even on locked down windows boxes. Plus it does telnet sessions a lot nicer than windows telnet (yeah, I know, what doesn't) so it makes for a nice 2 in 1.
Today's hardware is very powerful, simple servers like low-usage web servers, email servers, and file servers just don't need the latest 1GHZ machine. Simple machines like the Netwinder (I have NO clue how that performs as a high-usage content server, please don't read into that) can do the job fine. However, to get a simple Windows product that is comperable, you need to scale down to CE. Even if you were to scale down to a 386 (~$15) to do some simple stuff, that is much cheaper than a "Palm Pilot". Server != big machine.
Heh, first time I have ever heard someone talk about boycotting a product because it was sold out, and then reference Tom as an alternative. Well, to each his/her own.
Proving god through science. I think science is heading towards the proving of god's nonexistence
Curious, science is one of the primary indications that people use when justifying faith. (NB: faith is belief without proof, not without symptom). The point being that our ability to predict what will happen (science) speaks of an ordered system. Without getting into a well-visited argument, this clearly could be a symptom of a Creator. Regardless, religion is nothing more than a shared morality, sense of origin, and sense of purpose. Religion and science are the primary subsets of a world view. They are the two sides of the same coin. While they can't be derived from one another, it is absurd to discount attempts at a cohesive world view. That is why nobody uses science to prove God. Religion is used to reinforce science is used to reinforce religion.
If it takes 3 times as long to develop and test for one cranky platform that a small and easily discardable percentage of users have, it's much cheaper to lose their business
Okay, just about anyone can crank out simple html capable of being viewed on any STANDARD browser with all important content very quickly. It is companies hell-bent on "cute" pointless java and closed extensions that are losing business and wasting there own time. Sorry, but it is easier, more effecient, and cleaner to just create basic html, and maybe CGI if you need it. It takes more than 3x as long to develop all the aforementioned extensions that makes things incompatable. Personally, I just boycott all those crap sites anyways, most of those web developers don't have a clue what they are doing, and I have yet to see one with worthwhile content. Let them lose business.
The best thing to do, for now, is to put it away before even more people get sick of it. Notice how STOS went away for awhile, then there was Star Trek cartoon which went away (and is never mentioned, and I have never seen, must have been bad). Then Star Wars came out, Paramount realized it was sitting on a moneybag, and they began the bombardment. Personally, I am a bigger TNG fan, but I can't really make comparisons, TOS and TNG are different in so many ways. But that is the point, after people who grew up on TOS reached middle age: BOOM! Same thing will happen when TNG fans do the same. I just hope there will only be one show running at a time from now on. Curiously, I think that though DS9 and V were weak at first, they slowly got better. The main problem with that is that the character development went down and down with each series. (within each series, it increased with time, tho). For certain, it will go away for awhile. But it will be back.
I think your opinions are based on myth, and not experience. I have been members of several churches and have spoken with numerous others. Of course if you come storming into a church shouting "God is dead" your opinion will not be welcome. I don't really know how to respond to your example, however. Is the 'church elder' convinced man created God? If so, he probably wouldn't be in the church any longer. However, if he was questioning it, pondering it for himself after reading a thought-provoking work, his opinion would be deliberated, even if it was eventually denied (and no, it wouldn't be denied because "Christianity doesn't say so" but becuase those who accept the precept are no longer Christian.) A great deal of dialouge amungst Christians deals with interpretting various things that is stated in the Bible, or at service, and its application to realy life.
"How many Christians declared Darwin to be a sinner? Galileo?"
I don't know. And I am not stating that every Christian was right about everything. However, your using this example futher supports my point: your view is based on old, isolated examples, of Christianity. I highly suggest trying to speak with some Christians with an open mind and seeing for yourself if they are really as closed-minded as you suggest.
The problem is I am not speaking of aethiests as they *should be* by definition, but as they are in practice. All aethists I have encountered put forth rather unanimous, close-minded propositions, usually based on the precepts of:
God does not exist
If it isn't proven by science, it can't exist
Scientfic theories are laws (evolution, namely)
religion is a corruptive force
It is impossible to accept religion unless you are brainwashed
Unless organized religion is abolished, it will shortly cause WWIII
Note I could disect the word "Christian" to get Christ-like, and then say it was absurd we don't have free-thought because Christ (Whether you believe him to have been a fictional character or what not) very much practiced free thought.
Slashdot Mirror
Well, with quotes from the article like "Until recently, interacting with Linux was almost entirely text-driven -- much like Windows' precursor, DOS." and "A Linux-based open-source program called Evolution looks pretty much like a standard Windows desktop" I would say the article is pretty wrong (unless 10 years ago was recently). They seem to get the market impact about right but as far as the technology... well, it seems like less than thorough job of research/reporting.
Much as angst_ridden_hipster said above, what is really threatening MS is that Open Source is not another competitor. We are not out to take down Microsoft, we are out to take down the current software model. Optimistically, I could even see Microsoft's recent actions from the light that they are scared of losing monopoly, but moreover hope to retain at least some of the market by being our enemy (if we recognize MS, that makes MS an option). There will be a time when noone cares what Microsoft says, but they are far to powerful for that now.
The key point is that Open Source is a lot of good things, but best of all it is a community. We love to code, but that doesn't mean that is all we do or want to do. If we want to have a villian and play the hero, what's the real harm?
There are a decent number of people who use Linux because it is free software, other considerations aside.
Regardless of how free you want your software, this speaks to the benefits of the GPL. First, the bad part of forking is incompatability. This is pretty obvious. The good part is competition, as you mention. However, there is CURRENTLY competetion in Linux, without a fork. It is the best of both worlds. How? Because of all the distributions, for one. Second, because of all the kernel hackers (and GNU hackers, and XFree hackers, and ...). If I have a more efficient scheduling algorithm than the one currently in the kernel, I get to put it in the kernel. Then you have a better algorithm, it gets in. Then Fred has some algorithm that kicks butt on SMP, but is slower on a uniprocessor box, so Freds gets put in and conditionally compiled. There is your competition, and it is indeed good! One just never has to worry about trying to port their application from HiQ-linux to zosima-linux, or all the other hastles of a 'real' fork.
so, does this software block geek porn?
That it 'can be done' is a pretty bold statement. I will grant it is possible, but remember there are little things like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal that have a lot to say about what you can observe on a "small enough scale". We can't simply observe a brain and reproduce it "artificially". Any sucessful attempt at doing so will require, at very least, a bit of luck.
If it is, in fact, possible for man to build a machine 'smarter' than himself, is it not necessarily true that this machine is capable of the same feat? It seems if we built a machine 'smarter' than ourselves we would necessarily create an omniscient machine indirectly, or at least a series of machines that exponentially approached omniscience. Man, I love recursion.
I am starting to think that RMS wasn't all that far off
well, after blundering myself, at least I am trying to defend stupid mistakes :). I can't reproduce the layout, unfortunately, but just imagine there being a page fold instead of the punch-holes. This caused people to think the real ballot was to have two lines of holes.
A number of people, studying the ballot ahead of time, presumed that there would be two rows of holes. Therefore, this is a UI problem gone doubly wrong.
What about in a personal TV recorder / mp3 box / web console / game machine (ie, that the Indrema is NOT a game console but an Entertainment System)
filesystem : How hard is it to read ISO9660?
and DVDs and Tivo-like FS and a FS for MP3s/games...
virtual memory support : opps, can't have that without a HD. Even the X-box with a HD is not going to have VM.
NB: I do not know if they are actually using the VM... but if you want share/free ware games, do you really want them crashing your TIVO recording of The Simpsons?
device drivers : The system is supposed to be fixed. That's the beauty of console games, the hardware doesn't change. Why do you need loadable drivers?
But they let you swap out the GPU. Again, this is more than a console, it is a new device, and I wouldn't want to throw it away just for better gaming. Plus now you can online game when we switch to IPv6 or, more importantly, whatever device drivers you can't think of now that you might want.
In conclusion, you make intersting points but I don't think that you understand what Indrema is really trying to do.
Given that the presidential debates received coverage from only one network, and that the ratings from the debates were at an all time low, I would like to know why exactly people should care? Despite efforts such as MTV's "Rock the Vote" a large number of eligible voters have chosen to eschew the election on grounds that you are both subject to your financial contributors, and that there is no major relevant issues dividing you. Do you have a comment to these potential voters? Why is it that less than 50% of eligible voters vote on even a presidential election, resulting in less than 25% of the country deciding the next president? What do you have to say to the other 50% of America's registered voters? Why should we care if you get elected as opposed to your opposition?
From the article "...subsequently pirating the software is never a good option. Explain the risks: technical troubles, upgrade problems, viruses and the law."
Technical troubles, upgrade problems, viruses... I would say that eliminates all vendors to pirate from BUT Microsoft.
As it was mentioned above, Sun is concerned with far more than violating a license. While they might not be violating a license (which it appears they are not) they still have to deal with the PR nightmare of convincing everyone they are doing nothing wrong (and this is in light of them courting the OSS comunity). It is already on /., and the headline looks pretty bad for Sun... I can't say I blame them at all for holding the software close to their chest until things calm down.
How many millions will be lost because IT deparments can't prevent people from going to http://www.iloveyou.com or http://www.melissa.net???
I know I am being picky, but it is ctrl-shift-[
USB serial is pretty good, so you might even be able to get a serial-serial type connection over USB. So far as I know, there hasn't been any real work on any of the USB NIC drivers yet, tho.
It is free (only as in beer, but better than nothing), small, and stand-alone. That means there are no tied in dlls so you can just put it up on your webpage and pick 'open' so you can have a shell even on locked down windows boxes. Plus it does telnet sessions a lot nicer than windows telnet (yeah, I know, what doesn't) so it makes for a nice 2 in 1.
Today's hardware is very powerful, simple servers like low-usage web servers, email servers, and file servers just don't need the latest 1GHZ machine. Simple machines like the Netwinder (I have NO clue how that performs as a high-usage content server, please don't read into that) can do the job fine. However, to get a simple Windows product that is comperable, you need to scale down to CE. Even if you were to scale down to a 386 (~$15) to do some simple stuff, that is much cheaper than a "Palm Pilot". Server != big machine.
Heh, first time I have ever heard someone talk about boycotting a product because it was sold out, and then reference Tom as an alternative. Well, to each his/her own.
Curious, science is one of the primary indications that people use when justifying faith. (NB: faith is belief without proof, not without symptom). The point being that our ability to predict what will happen (science) speaks of an ordered system. Without getting into a well-visited argument, this clearly could be a symptom of a Creator. Regardless, religion is nothing more than a shared morality, sense of origin, and sense of purpose. Religion and science are the primary subsets of a world view. They are the two sides of the same coin. While they can't be derived from one another, it is absurd to discount attempts at a cohesive world view. That is why nobody uses science to prove God. Religion is used to reinforce science is used to reinforce religion.
Okay, just about anyone can crank out simple html capable of being viewed on any STANDARD browser with all important content very quickly. It is companies hell-bent on "cute" pointless java and closed extensions that are losing business and wasting there own time. Sorry, but it is easier, more effecient, and cleaner to just create basic html, and maybe CGI if you need it. It takes more than 3x as long to develop all the aforementioned extensions that makes things incompatable. Personally, I just boycott all those crap sites anyways, most of those web developers don't have a clue what they are doing, and I have yet to see one with worthwhile content. Let them lose business.
The best thing to do, for now, is to put it away before even more people get sick of it. Notice how STOS went away for awhile, then there was Star Trek cartoon which went away (and is never mentioned, and I have never seen, must have been bad). Then Star Wars came out, Paramount realized it was sitting on a moneybag, and they began the bombardment. Personally, I am a bigger TNG fan, but I can't really make comparisons, TOS and TNG are different in so many ways. But that is the point, after people who grew up on TOS reached middle age: BOOM! Same thing will happen when TNG fans do the same. I just hope there will only be one show running at a time from now on. Curiously, I think that though DS9 and V were weak at first, they slowly got better. The main problem with that is that the character development went down and down with each series. (within each series, it increased with time, tho). For certain, it will go away for awhile. But it will be back.
I think your opinions are based on myth, and not experience. I have been members of several churches and have spoken with numerous others. Of course if you come storming into a church shouting "God is dead" your opinion will not be welcome. I don't really know how to respond to your example, however. Is the 'church elder' convinced man created God? If so, he probably wouldn't be in the church any longer. However, if he was questioning it, pondering it for himself after reading a thought-provoking work, his opinion would be deliberated, even if it was eventually denied (and no, it wouldn't be denied because "Christianity doesn't say so" but becuase those who accept the precept are no longer Christian.) A great deal of dialouge amungst Christians deals with interpretting various things that is stated in the Bible, or at service, and its application to realy life.
"How many Christians declared Darwin to be a sinner? Galileo?"
I don't know. And I am not stating that every Christian was right about everything. However, your using this example futher supports my point: your view is based on old, isolated examples, of Christianity. I highly suggest trying to speak with some Christians with an open mind and seeing for yourself if they are really as closed-minded as you suggest.
Note I could disect the word "Christian" to get Christ-like, and then say it was absurd we don't have free-thought because Christ (Whether you believe him to have been a fictional character or what not) very much practiced free thought.