The article seems to be measuring the compression speed of each program with its native algorithm, it would have been better to do a set of programs with each algorithm first. As the article is comparing two variables at once, how good the algorithm is and how good the implementation in that program is, the results are slightly meaningless.
Having said that, do I really care in practice that much about if algorithm A is 5% faster than algorithm B? I personally do not, I care if the person receiving them can open them. So the second problem with the article is that it is one computer user on his own, in the real world you would just distribute.zip and.tar.gz because you know people will be able to open them. Proprietary algorithm X may be really efficient but if no one can open it, who cares?
More technically educated users are more likely to choose Firefox, as less technically educated users can only use what they are spoon fed.
If you look at the map in TFA, it is almost more-or-less a map of how much countries spend on equipping their schools properly and providing decent technical skills to their population. These countries will run ahead within the IT industry of Europe. Sadly my nation (UK) will probably not be one of them.
I am happy to buy movies, but if Hollywood will not sell films in a format that does not require handing over control of my PC, then I will just buy independent films, locally made films and so on. I have already been doing that with music for quite a while now, buying independent stuff from magnatune etc.
I am not sure that it will come to that though, I think they will still sell me DVDs for a long time to come. I can also just go to the cinema and watch it for half the price, or see it when it comes on TV. It has never been easier to 'just say no' to the new round of media formats.
To be honest, a lot of Hollywood movies have been pap recently, while some TV programmes have a higher budget than a movie would have done a decade ago, the balance has shifted so much that a movie would have to be quite good to beat my favourite TV programs.
"New high-def DVDs will include updated keys and instructions for older versions of the PC-playback software not to play discs until the software patch has been installed."
No one gives my computer instructions but me. So I will have nothing to do with either of these formats at all. I am just gonna say no and take my business elsewhere.
DVD is quite fine, and where it doesn't then there are hard drives. Hollywood can give me movies in a format I'll accept or they can e2fsck off.
Microsoft seem to have become a very large and well funded political lobbying group.
Sure they buy in lots of software and rebrand it, they also copy a load of stuff and then try to bundle into their existing products. However, have they actually developed anything in the last year or two that did not suck and then disappear?
People who like music, who are passionate about producing their product, do not need DRM. If your song/movie is good and you stand proudly behind it, then people will be happy to pay to come to your concert/film showing.
The only reason to use DRM is as a con trick, it is basically admitting that you think your own product is crap, so we will keep selling you the Beatles over and over again because we hate all modern music and we will keep selling you the one blockbuster because we think 90% of our films are dog poo.
People want to buy good music, to think people want to buy into the control mechanism itself is ridiculous, completely back to front:
It is like a Batman comic. Dr Evil unleashes a plague of killer wombats, while Dr Evil also has another life as the chief scientist of a drug company whose latest product is wombat prevention cream.
No, I have serious questions about this one point.
>As for installing another Linux distribution, would that even be possible at present?
Yeah certainly, you could do any of the Gentoo based ones or setup the bootloader yourself and install any. While out here everyone upgrades their laptop every three years, these things are going to be out there for a longer time.
>All this stuff can be disabled. Overwriting the OS should disable the anti-theft daemon, since the anti-theft system is implemented entirely in software.
Well if that is true then that is okay. If it is in software then it will not stop more than the causal thief.
In Britain, you cannot just make a car and bung it on the road. If it is not safe, or you do not maintain its safety, then it is not allowed on the road network. Lots of things work like this.
>However, if those users suddenly switched to Linux, it's doubtful that their practices would stop
I disagree. After all 60% of the servers run Linux so Linux is a target already. Linux is different. The security set up is different:
* It has far fewer system calls, a few robust ones that are closely maintained rather than lots of calls, many which can be forgotten or badny maintained.
* The kernel runs completely differently, e.g. memory access is more secure.
* the permissions and partitions work differently, i.e. the nonsuid bit, the nonexec bit and so on.
* many systems (such as Redhat ones) have mandatory access controls such as SELinux
* no activeX
* and so on and so on
Slashdot Mirror
From all us geeks out there, thanks for taking so much time out of your day job as a Professor to run the GPLv3 process.
See you in a decade for GPLv4!!
The article seems to be measuring the compression speed of each program with its native algorithm, it would have been better to do a set of programs with each algorithm first. As the article is comparing two variables at once, how good the algorithm is and how good the implementation in that program is, the results are slightly meaningless.
.zip and .tar.gz because you know people will be able to open them. Proprietary algorithm X may be really efficient but if no one can open it, who cares?
Having said that, do I really care in practice that much about if algorithm A is 5% faster than algorithm B? I personally do not, I care if the person receiving them can open them. So the second problem with the article is that it is one computer user on his own, in the real world you would just distribute
I am personally going to be looking at the Chinese's high definition format, if it is free of Treacherous computing then I'm in.
Maybe he meant Pearl the 1970s language, the Process and Experiment Automation Realtime Language?
The statistics are biased towards how you buy your computer, rather than what people actually use. How many of those other machines dual boot also?
More technically educated users are more likely to choose Firefox, as less technically educated users can only use what they are spoon fed.
If you look at the map in TFA, it is almost more-or-less a map of how much countries spend on equipping their schools properly and providing decent technical skills to their population. These countries will run ahead within the IT industry of Europe. Sadly my nation (UK) will probably not be one of them.
Lene Marlin is fantastic, worth it just for that.
It is all that Salmon they eat, makes them smarter and ahead of us lot.
What great Amiga games, I remember every one. So my reply is here:
:-)
Top 10 Most Influential Linux Games
Yes linux does really have ten games
Yup, cheers for sticking up for common sense.
I am happy to buy movies, but if Hollywood will not sell films in a format that does not require handing over control of my PC, then I will just buy independent films, locally made films and so on. I have already been doing that with music for quite a while now, buying independent stuff from magnatune etc.
I am not sure that it will come to that though, I think they will still sell me DVDs for a long time to come. I can also just go to the cinema and watch it for half the price, or see it when it comes on TV. It has never been easier to 'just say no' to the new round of media formats.
To be honest, a lot of Hollywood movies have been pap recently, while some TV programmes have a higher budget than a movie would have done a decade ago, the balance has shifted so much that a movie would have to be quite good to beat my favourite TV programs.
I read this bit:
"New high-def DVDs will include updated keys and instructions for older versions of the PC-playback software not to play discs until the software patch has been installed."
No one gives my computer instructions but me. So I will have nothing to do with either of these formats at all. I am just gonna say no and take my business elsewhere.
DVD is quite fine, and where it doesn't then there are hard drives. Hollywood can give me movies in a format I'll accept or they can e2fsck off.
I have the computer in this photo:
http://www.oreillyschool.com/images/photo5.jpg
It is the hottest laptop I have owned, this would really hurt.
Microsoft seem to have become a very large and well funded political lobbying group.
Sure they buy in lots of software and rebrand it, they also copy a load of stuff and then try to bundle into their existing products. However, have they actually developed anything in the last year or two that did not suck and then disappear?
It is a word processor, it cannot be "kick arse".
I personally do everything in plain text, so you can all fsck off!
Gentoo is fine, overblown completely.
Real keys, dual mode screen, mesh networking and Linux and its Python-based shell installed by default. Windows is painful enough without a low spec.
People who like music, who are passionate about producing their product, do not need DRM. If your song/movie is good and you stand proudly behind it, then people will be happy to pay to come to your concert/film showing.
The only reason to use DRM is as a con trick, it is basically admitting that you think your own product is crap, so we will keep selling you the Beatles over and over again because we hate all modern music and we will keep selling you the one blockbuster because we think 90% of our films are dog poo.
People want to buy good music, to think people want to buy into the control mechanism itself is ridiculous, completely back to front:
In Soviet Russia the Business Models You.
It is like a Batman comic. Dr Evil unleashes a plague of killer wombats, while Dr Evil also has another life as the chief scientist of a drug company whose latest product is wombat prevention cream.
>Are you just trolling?
No, I have serious questions about this one point.
>As for installing another Linux distribution, would that even be possible at present?
Yeah certainly, you could do any of the Gentoo based ones or setup the bootloader yourself and install any. While out here everyone upgrades their laptop every three years, these things are going to be out there for a longer time.
>All this stuff can be disabled. Overwriting the OS should disable the anti-theft daemon, since the anti-theft system is implemented entirely in software.
Well if that is true then that is okay. If it is in software then it will not stop more than the causal thief.
Don't get me wrong I think the project is the best thing since Tim Berners Lee invented the WWW, however:
"The sole purpose of these keys will be to verify the integrity of bundled software and content."
Sounds a bit like DRM? What if the child gets bored and decides to install another Linux distribution?
"If the lease expires, the XO's internet connectivity is turned off, and shortly thereafter the whole computer becomes a brick."
Er nice...
>Make the system more idiot-proof, and they'll make a better idiot
That is fantastic!
>but I don't *entirely* agree with it.
Well that means you must partially agree.
In Britain, you cannot just make a car and bung it on the road. If it is not safe, or you do not maintain its safety, then it is not allowed on the road network. Lots of things work like this.
>However, if those users suddenly switched to Linux, it's doubtful that their practices would stop
I disagree. After all 60% of the servers run Linux so Linux is a target already. Linux is different. The security set up is different:
* It has far fewer system calls, a few robust ones that are closely maintained rather than lots of calls, many which can be forgotten or badny maintained.
* The kernel runs completely differently, e.g. memory access is more secure.
* the permissions and partitions work differently, i.e. the nonsuid bit, the nonexec bit and so on.
* many systems (such as Redhat ones) have mandatory access controls such as SELinux
* no activeX
* and so on and so on
...Botnet disabled, job done!
>"Ask not what Brown can do for you. Ask what you can do for Brown!" Written on the wall of every aspiring Labour MP.
After all my Ubuntu Desktop is brown.