"So you think the difference between "investing" and "inventing" is semantics?"
For the most part, yes, as it is between "investing" and "discovering". Do you really think is per chance that USA has been granted more Nobel prizes than Zimbabwe?
"Okay, so what if I have a physical object which implements an algorithm?"
What so?
"Would an abacus be patentable"
Of course yes. But this doesn't mean that the algorithm or the generic method would be patentable. You patented your abacus, not the "calculus machine", not even "calculating by means of positional representation of cardinality". You patented a *thingie*; yours has four bars; mine five, bad luck; yours counts base10; mine base16, bad luck again.
"if I implemented an algorithm in clockwork it would be allowed, but if I instead used transistors, would it not?"
You are patenting the f* clock, not the algorithm. Indeed your patent proposition would read "f* clock that executes algorithm X"; I'm free to patent "The Uberclock, that is 100% more efficient than f* clock when executing the very same algorithm X". Doesn't seem so difficult to understand.
"Why does the public benefit so much more from granting a monopoly to the inventor of a physical thing than a process or method?"
"Because" -and that's really the point, the public benefits no more from patenting *anything*. Patents were born in the early days of the Industrial Revolution as a proper means for the owners of the *ideas* to have a chance over the owners of the *capital*. Little Joe wouldn't waste his time working on machine X knowing that as soon as he went with a working prototype Mr Tycoon would copycat it and taking all the money with him. On the other hand, due to the state of affairs Mr Tycoon had no real incentive to invent by himself: the world was already good to him.
Nowadays, companies big and short are everywhere, technological advances blightning fast and simple competition is enough incentive for them to use R+D to gain competitive advantage; patents are needed no more (much less in technology: what will be good for some patent on the drive on and HDD in twenty years from now? not much. So that's the benefit society gains from it: not much).
Now, for the unavoidable car comparations. 1) Patents in the early days of the Industrial Revolution are alike to a car's start engine: you use it to start the car's engine, but surely you let off the key once the engine is running. Allowing the start engine going on after the main engine is on would surely break them both. 2) In the early days it was about having *one* advantage; quite alike the first ABS. Current patent system results in an (maybe Renault, maybe Citroen, I can't remember) adverstiment about how its new model was awarded as the most secure of the year due to patents A, B and C and how that really did save lifes. The advertisement went on saying that they just couldn't deny these really life saving technologies from reaching everybody...thus the great pricetag for his model -where obviusly one would expect "well, if they are so great, shouldn't they be used on *all* cars not only yours? After all is about saving lives, isn't it?" Of course not: Mercedes will have the best braking system; BMW the strongest engines; Volvo the safest chasis... but you can be sure you won't be able to have simply the best possible car (that's the main idea of capitalism, isn't it?) just because all those brakes, engines, chasis... are patent covered by a lot of different companies. The patent system was great in order to invent *the* (first) car; it's become a terrible load nowadays.
"I predict the industry and anti-piracy lobby groups to focus on newer additions to the EU from Eastern Europe to do just this."
Be damn sure about it. It's *already* happening. Just alike RIAA or BSA, when you gain money in the hundreds of millions*1 basically with no effort you are aplenty of time for lobbying to support your 'statu quo'.
SGAE's (Spanish RIAA) current policy is spending vast amounts of money (it's easy to expend lots of money when you don't need *any* effort to earn it first) in marketing (both advertisements and lobying the two major political parties) so the public idea about filesharing and P2P goes from current "my mom told me sharing is good, isn't it?" towards "sharing is a crime, worse than robbery or injuries"*2; once the mass is convinced about that it will be plain easy to change current laws to abide to this fact.
Just today on Madrid's public TV channel*3 there were an "newsvertisement" about a K9 police group able to sniff for DVD on airports in order to raid against illegal importers. Till that, so well so good. But then it came something on the lines of "...but illegal DVD importers are not the only danger, isn't it? No: Spain is the first in the ranking of *illegal media download* with an stimated 300M*". That's on a *public* TV. No wonder there are so many media downloads when even the dumbest attorney in law perfectly knows that in Spain media download can't be illegal; it's impossible, and even upload can only be a civil offense at most (and I say "at most" for I don't know of just a single case that haven't been dismissed on first trial and SGAE, clever as they are, haven't recurred since they know it would make precedent if it reaches the supreme court).
*1 In the few years from the rise of mass CD home recorders SGAE's gains by means of the "private copy canon" went from about 13 to 130 million euros a year. Can there be a better bussiness plan? You gain *lots* of money out ot the bussiness efforts of other people doing strictly *nothing* just wait at home for the money to arrive. Even RIAA's bussiness model doesn't reach such "perfection" (after all they need to go over there rallying people). *2 No jokes: you should learn about SGAE's proposition for last IP law reformation: they really proposed retaining the private copy right so the can still get their canon -more than 100M a year from a country with less than 40M people is not a light thing, but making it illegal in all relevant situations, with jail charges worse than those from robbery, injuries and even some cases of child abuses). *3 It's specially funny it has been in Madrid, since its public TV is well known for being totally sold to one of the two major parties -the right wing one, think about USA republicans, that usually has been told to be against SGAE ideas (after all allowing for a "canon on culture" and "distorting the free market" by allowing "taxes" that benefit just some industries is not quite liberal) and its presidential candidate even stated that he would retire the "private copy canon" if he wins... of course he won't tell that he might do so... but if he does he will erradicate the private copy right with it.
I neither need it nor want it. You either take my word for it or not (on the other hand, whatever "prove" I can recall on this environment will end up on you taking my word of it, so you can save the whole issue).
Made up of very many entangled elements with non-trivial relationships so minor changes on one of them can distort the overall result in quite significant manners. Surely you can find more academic definitions, but that will be the point of all them.
"I working alone can create a web site, with backend database using ssl certs. Can anyone create a bridge alone?"
Hooray if that's your idea about countering an "illogical comment". What was that? Chewacca defense?
I think it's my turn now, take this: I'd never be able to count by hand and one by one a billion rice cakes; should we assume that counting rice cakes by hand is a complex operation? Is *that* your definition for "complex"?
"talk to a civil engineer for 5 mins and you will see how wrong you are."
I usually talk to civil engineers and -ho and behold, they tend to agree to my points of view regarding these issues.
"dude, talk to civil engineers working on government project, you will see how wrong you are. My sister in laws brother worked for a very large state agency and she left on agony over such burocracy, project mismanagement, and more."
Then he is wrong...and still he is right by your very assertion: if civil engineering is so mismanaged, overburocryfied and full of blunt people and *still* you don't see bridges falling apart more times than not as you can see software projects (and the bigger the project the more easier it'll wreak havoc), it must be software production is quite more complicated than rising bridges.
"No you don't. If they have a warrant, they can come in anyway. Opening the door just avoids property damage."
And that's the point. How long do think it'll take for a warrant alike the one for private property regarding passwords? If they have a warrant, they can inject penthotal anyway. Telling them the password just avoids brain damage.
"The desktop support for at least FreeBSD, and I'm not familiar enough with the other ones to say"
Your main point is fool then. You talk about consistency but then you say you talk about *exactly* FreeBSD and you can't talk about other flavours (because you *know* they are different enough not to be able to honestly talk about them). Well, then I have news for you: *any* Linux distribution is as consistent to itself from version to version as FreeBSD is to itself. And differences among Linux distributions are neither bigger not lesser than those among *BSD flavours, so stick with one and your "experience" will be as consistent as with FreeBSD.
"It is a serious issue to consider the idea of whether or not an OS should contain everything necessary for a basic system or if it's permissible to have just a kernel, plus all the base packages as a separate proposition."
I can swear Linux kernel and Apache (to name two as disparate as possible packages) are not "a separate proposition" on my distribution of choice. I would even bet that they two are viewed as "single entity" even more than they are on FreeBSD where you can find a "kernel and basic stuff" and "everything else" as two really different entities. Linux distributions just don't work that way.
"I like the fact that if I ask for help, I only have to say 6.2 p5 or 7.0RC1 and such for people to know enough about the OS environment to focus elsewhere."
Well, I like the fact that if I ask for help, I only have to say RHEL4u6 or RHEL4u1 and such for people to know enough about the OS environment, so what's your point again?
Oh, yes, and Linux distributions have generally better desktop support.
"But, it is mostly preference, I happen to think that FreeBSD is the best"
That's it. Because of your history, mates, interest or whatever you are hardly opinionated in favour of FreeBSD. That I respect (specially knowing how slim are differences between all those open unix-like systems), but please, don't support your position on obviously flawed arguments: this doesn't show anything positive about you nor helps the least to your OS of choice.
"I don't think that, at least the large, *BSDs are going anywhere in the foreseeable future"
I'd say you should reestate this phrase, since I think it means quite the opposite you wanted to say.
"The problem is, people switch distros quite regularly over the years. For a while Redhat was the defacto, or one derived from Debian, or Gentoo, or Ubuntu."
Yeah, well:
I've been on Debian since 2000, and Debian has always been "like Debian" just like you feel "FreeBSD has always felt like FreeBSD".
On the other hand, people switch from FreeBSD to NetBSD to OpenBSD to DragonFly, etc. regularly over the years. And you know what? Those changes have indeed quirks just like if you go from Debian to Red Hat or the other way around, so you are speaking nuts.
"Instead we're seeing enchancements off of the same base occur, such as PC-BSD and TrustedBSD, which leverage a common base and explore different directions. These changes, by and large, make there way back into FreeBSD-base."
If you really think there are more differences from Debian to Ubuntu (a Debian derivative) than from FreeBSD to PC-BSD (a FreeBSD derivative) you are stoned. Even more, from RHEL to CentOS there are even less differences than from FreeBSD to any of the derivatives you mention so, again, what the hell are you talking about?
"The "quirks" in FreeBSD are, most likely, the traditional way that UNIX (SysV or BSD) operated."
As if there were no "quirks" between Sys V5 and BSD themselves. I bet there are more diferences between "traditional" V5 and BSD than between two Linux distributions taken out of a bucket.
"BSDs were the system of choice for those coming from UNIX-based platforms"
Yeah, well, talk for yourself. I come from HP-Ux 9.x (quite a UNIX-based platform, you see) and I wouldn't change sysadmin-wise Debian for FreeBSD any day of the week so, since I'm a counterprobe, your argument is clearly at failure.
"Its quite amusing that now its those coming from Linux wondering why BSDs are different."
That's true for anything popular whose history is lost and moot. I'm old and certainly won't be amused by FreeBSD being "different", it is not, but I will see why youngster will think so, just as they will thing it's "different" the one that is attached to his old Telefunken vacuum-valves based Hi-Fi instead of preferring an MP3 player.
"it simply stems from the fact a standard layout emerged before Linux even began and, quite frankly, many users greatly prefer it."
Yeah, just like USA is attached to the old SECAM TV standard instead of using the obviously superior PAL one in use on all the "second TV generation" countries. Regarding technologies being second is a very nice chance to learn from the mistakes of the olders. There's nothing "greyback" in using punched cards instead of USB memory sticks; it's just oldfashioned and amusing.
"FreeBSD brings a stable OS to the desktop user. Since both userland and kernel are in the same source tree, and are developed concurrently, any changes in the kernel will be immediately reflected in the userland utilities"
Is it either KDE or Gnome on the main tree nowadays (or Enligthment or fluxbox, for that matter). If not, your argument is absolutly moot for any desktop user, you see.
And even then, since the window/desktop manager is all a desktop user is going/wanting to see, there's no real difference from *BSD, Linux or say, OpenSolaris.
"Besides that? I find that it is more consistent"
Yeah, well, having what? 80% of what a desktop user will need under/opt and/or/usr/local makes for a very consistent environment, yes.
"I know that when I install something from the ports tree, the configuration files can always be found in/usr/local/etc/"
Sure? Even if you install something within the main tree? Even if you go from FreeBSD to Open or NetBSD? If that's not the case, if you just know where to find things in FreeBSD your argument is -again, moot for I for sure can say exactly the same regarding Debian: I know exactly where to find *any* configuration file, no matter if they are on "main", "contrib" or "non-free"; they all will be under/etc; directly under/etc if the program only uses one config file or under/etc/programname if it needs more than one.
"which is a nice change from having to hunt in/var/www/httpd for Apache's configuration file and/opt/etc/ for the dhcp servers config file."
Bullshit. I challenge you to find just *one* config file on Debian GNU/Linux that is not under/etc. Apache's will be under/etc/apache or/etc/apache2 (and I bet you'll know which case will be each one) and dhcp server will be under/etc/dhcp or/etc/dhcp3. I even give you an easy ride since I know exactly one case (on more than 10.000 packages) for a service which configuration files are *not* under/etc (of course even in this case there's a symlink from under/etc/ to its real location). You just need to tell us which package is it. If you don't, we all will know you are just a troll talking from out your total ignorance and bias.
"If the password unlocks email that shows me being somewhere I said I wasn't, that's incriminating."
So what? If the key unlocks my front door that shows a dead body is within, that's incriminating. Still you will have to let the cops in if they show you a warrant.
"You don't have to 'let' them into your home - they need a search warrant for that."
Of course: And I expect a warrant to be needed for police to have any right to get my password too.
"Still, as long as the constitution holds out, they can ask you your password and you can plead the fifth."
I don't think you can call the fifth on any issue; "What time is it? -I won't tell you on holds of the fifth amendment!" I think you can call the fifth, but then the judge can call you nuts and disregard your plea.
"So I take it that upgrading from CentOS 4 -> CentOS 5 every few years on 130 machines (26,000 package upgrades at once) to ensure you have the 'latest' features is OK, whereas doing 130 updates once or twice a week with Gentoo is bad?"
Yes, you are right.
Even if the two approaches took just the same time after the five-year timeframe, what we will call the "CentOS-way" (not that it has any exclusivity with CentOS, it's just to follow your example) has to be considered *vastly* superior on *any* production environment. The ability to have a given time-frame for a job being done is a must on a corporate environment; while it's relatively easy to define a maintenance window of, say, two months each five years where you think about, design, test, announce and deploy a programmed upgrade on the "CentOS-way", it's not only going to be time-sucking but undoable most of the time the "Gentoo-way" (today is "upgrading monday" but the mail server's main hard disk is failing... well let's suspend today's upgrade, just to have much more problems next week since upgrading depency problems tend to grow exponentially), and will deal to bad press (people can expect minor problems the next two weeks after the "big update" each five years and, while mumbling, they will accept them and will forget for the next half decade); now try to get a satisfied user base with a system that is *guaranteed* to have minor problems almost always (and probably not so minor problems from time to time), not even considering unavoidable minor (or even major) changes each time "foobar" goes from 1.2.3 to 1.3.0 (and there will be at least one of such "foobars" almost weekly).
And then, I'd say that just considering context-switching time will deal to much more time on your "Gentoo-way" but that's nothing but cream on top of the cake.
All of this is just plain evident for everyone that has even the slightest exposure to any real production environment, so you telling that makes me highly suspicious you just hadn't such an exposure (i.e.: you are just making your opinions out of your basement's toy-computing experience). Of course, I may be wrong and then I'd be very courious about your "real life" experiencies regarding your "Gentoo-way" for systems administration and how do you avoid the previously described situations.
Your second paragraph is just too off-topic to be even considered.
Of course not. That doesn't mean that anything you take our your a** is an issue.
"VNCServer doesn't depend on any font packages"
Of course not, since it doesn't really need any local font package installed. What else would you expect?
"despite not being able to start without them, with the official explanation being that the user could be running a font server somewhere in their network."
Isn't it a valid explanation? Wouldn't vncserver start using a network font server? And then, you see, both vncserver and vnc4server do *recomend* the installation of xfonts-base, just look at it.
Any modern OS is a complex thing and if you want to administer one of then, you'd better expend some time learning its ins and outs. That being said the "ins and outs" of Debian regarding systems administration are probably the very best out there.
"So, it's purpose is to make management of the repositories easier, is it? Now I see the problem!"
I think you are trying to be ironic here. Think it twice then, since your assertion is to be very seriously considered. Obviously nothing is black and white but you can bet that the "pushing end" of any technology can be the strong factotum upon its success (you can't buy what is not in sale and no matter how good is say apt for the end user if there are no packages for it because package producers prefer using yum's format that's what they'll use).
"There's a reason why the popular distros are Debian based."
Like Red Hat, Fedora or SUSE you mean, don't you?
"Apt just plain works better than rpm"
Here you show your craptacular ignorance regarding what are you talking about. Therefore everything else you say is moot and completely disposable.
Just for your leisure: Apt and rpm are *NOT* comparable. Dpkg and rpm are.
Now, since neither rpm nor dpkg are there to deal with package dependency download/resolution can you please tell us what the hell are you talking about? Can you please tell us what are the tremendous differences between dpkg and rpm (the package managers) or between deb and rpm (the package formats) that should make us clearly prefer one over the other?
No, I don't. But I do know that if I steal a bottle of water on the supermartket there's one bottle less for anything else, and I see putting water in bottles is something that involves a cost for the one bottling it. On the other hand, companies putting water in bottles are nice enough not to calling me thieve if I manage to find drinkable water anywhere else.
"if I make something, like write code, or record the music, and it costs me money to do so, and I do so with the expectation of sale and copyright protection, then that means you aren't allowed to take it without the proper exchange of funds"
Sorry but that's pure bullshit. The fact that you have some expectations doesn't mean reality will have to go for them. I'll just repeat myself: If I bottle fresh air, which certainly involves a cost to me, and I do so with the expectation of sale and copyright protection, will that mean that you aren't allowed to find your own fresh air at your own expenditure without paying me something?
"If you don't want the product you don't have to buy it."
True....or I'll find it anywhere else. If you don't find it fair, just don't make it public. I have what I consider to be a best seller on my desk. You won't be able to "pirate" it. Do you know why? Because I didn't make it public. There's a Robert Heinlein saying that fits perfectly on this situation:
"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back." (Robert Heinlein Life Line, 1939)
The fact is that current RIAA members found a way to make hughe profits selling what was nothing but marketing material and entertainment due of the technological fact that distribution was a challeging problem. Currently distribution is a technical challenge no more but they are trying to use the big money ammounts massed in the past to perpetuate their (quite advantageous for them) situation. That's neither fair nor sustainable in the long run, nevertheless they try and (that's the most surprising part) they even manage to convince otherwise intelligent people that *their* point of view of the situation is *the* point of view. There weren't a need of DRM or intellectual property for an Homer to be or the wheel to be invented and I won't miss intellectual property (or patents for that matter) a second if they die tomorrow.
"I would be hard-pressed to find someone that hasn't borrowed a copy of MS Office or copied a song from a friend."
I'll assume that 1/3 of computers are considered world wide. Great news: in most parts of the world copying a song from a friend is not considered "copyright infringement" and it's perfectly legal.
"They're preemptive legal maneuvering against people who are ultimately caught. It's a good move because, 1) authorities can add fraud to the list of crimes committed, and 2) authorities can prove that the law was clear and defendants had been made aware of it. "
C'mon! So do you really think a "So you didn't know blowing up the Two Twin Towers was a crime? No, sir, I didn't" is such a good defense strategy some help it's needed in order for a criminal not to go out by the false door?
I'll tell you a different story: one of the questions comes to the words of "have you ever deal with drugs?" Since both alcohol and tobacco are both drugs albeit legal, you can get into problems either answering yes or not to the question. That's a neat trick from governments that want to be sure you are a criminal no matter what. So I don't like you political talking? Well, I remember you lied on your entry papers; now you are out of the country the next ten years without trial nor appealance. Kind of the typical film policeman that breaks the lights of your car in Midnowhere to get on you -only legal.
Slashdot Mirror
"So you think the difference between "investing" and "inventing" is semantics?"
For the most part, yes, as it is between "investing" and "discovering". Do you really think is per chance that USA has been granted more Nobel prizes than Zimbabwe?
"Okay, so what if I have a physical object which implements an algorithm?"
...thus the great pricetag for his model -where obviusly one would expect "well, if they are so great, shouldn't they be used on *all* cars not only yours? After all is about saving lives, isn't it?" Of course not: Mercedes will have the best braking system; BMW the strongest engines; Volvo the safest chasis... but you can be sure you won't be able to have simply the best possible car (that's the main idea of capitalism, isn't it?) just because all those brakes, engines, chasis... are patent covered by a lot of different companies. The patent system was great in order to invent *the* (first) car; it's become a terrible load nowadays.
What so?
"Would an abacus be patentable"
Of course yes. But this doesn't mean that the algorithm or the generic method would be patentable. You patented your abacus, not the "calculus machine", not even "calculating by means of positional representation of cardinality". You patented a *thingie*; yours has four bars; mine five, bad luck; yours counts base10; mine base16, bad luck again.
"if I implemented an algorithm in clockwork it would be allowed, but if I instead used transistors, would it not?"
You are patenting the f* clock, not the algorithm. Indeed your patent proposition would read "f* clock that executes algorithm X"; I'm free to patent "The Uberclock, that is 100% more efficient than f* clock when executing the very same algorithm X". Doesn't seem so difficult to understand.
"Why does the public benefit so much more from granting a monopoly to the inventor of a physical thing than a process or method?"
"Because" -and that's really the point, the public benefits no more from patenting *anything*. Patents were born in the early days of the Industrial Revolution as a proper means for the owners of the *ideas* to have a chance over the owners of the *capital*. Little Joe wouldn't waste his time working on machine X knowing that as soon as he went with a working prototype Mr Tycoon would copycat it and taking all the money with him. On the other hand, due to the state of affairs Mr Tycoon had no real incentive to invent by himself: the world was already good to him.
Nowadays, companies big and short are everywhere, technological advances blightning fast and simple competition is enough incentive for them to use R+D to gain competitive advantage; patents are needed no more (much less in technology: what will be good for some patent on the drive on and HDD in twenty years from now? not much. So that's the benefit society gains from it: not much).
Now, for the unavoidable car comparations.
1) Patents in the early days of the Industrial Revolution are alike to a car's start engine: you use it to start the car's engine, but surely you let off the key once the engine is running. Allowing the start engine going on after the main engine is on would surely break them both.
2) In the early days it was about having *one* advantage; quite alike the first ABS. Current patent system results in an (maybe Renault, maybe Citroen, I can't remember) adverstiment about how its new model was awarded as the most secure of the year due to patents A, B and C and how that really did save lifes. The advertisement went on saying that they just couldn't deny these really life saving technologies from reaching everybody
"TV companies in most of the world"
Maybe the world "public" is not the one to be used here (sorry, I'm not English speaking). I meant a government-owned TV channel.
"I predict the industry and anti-piracy lobby groups to focus on newer additions to the EU from Eastern Europe to do just this."
Be damn sure about it. It's *already* happening. Just alike RIAA or BSA, when you gain money in the hundreds of millions*1 basically with no effort you are aplenty of time for lobbying to support your 'statu quo'.
SGAE's (Spanish RIAA) current policy is spending vast amounts of money (it's easy to expend lots of money when you don't need *any* effort to earn it first) in marketing (both advertisements and lobying the two major political parties) so the public idea about filesharing and P2P goes from current "my mom told me sharing is good, isn't it?" towards "sharing is a crime, worse than robbery or injuries"*2; once the mass is convinced about that it will be plain easy to change current laws to abide to this fact.
Just today on Madrid's public TV channel*3 there were an "newsvertisement" about a K9 police group able to sniff for DVD on airports in order to raid against illegal importers. Till that, so well so good. But then it came something on the lines of "...but illegal DVD importers are not the only danger, isn't it? No: Spain is the first in the ranking of *illegal media download* with an stimated 300M*". That's on a *public* TV. No wonder there are so many media downloads when even the dumbest attorney in law perfectly knows that in Spain media download can't be illegal; it's impossible, and even upload can only be a civil offense at most (and I say "at most" for I don't know of just a single case that haven't been dismissed on first trial and SGAE, clever as they are, haven't recurred since they know it would make precedent if it reaches the supreme court).
*1 In the few years from the rise of mass CD home recorders SGAE's gains by means of the "private copy canon" went from about 13 to 130 million euros a year. Can there be a better bussiness plan? You gain *lots* of money out ot the bussiness efforts of other people doing strictly *nothing* just wait at home for the money to arrive. Even RIAA's bussiness model doesn't reach such "perfection" (after all they need to go over there rallying people).
*2 No jokes: you should learn about SGAE's proposition for last IP law reformation: they really proposed retaining the private copy right so the can still get their canon -more than 100M a year from a country with less than 40M people is not a light thing, but making it illegal in all relevant situations, with jail charges worse than those from robbery, injuries and even some cases of child abuses).
*3 It's specially funny it has been in Madrid, since its public TV is well known for being totally sold to one of the two major parties -the right wing one, think about USA republicans, that usually has been told to be against SGAE ideas (after all allowing for a "canon on culture" and "distorting the free market" by allowing "taxes" that benefit just some industries is not quite liberal) and its presidential candidate even stated that he would retire the "private copy canon" if he wins... of course he won't tell that he might do so... but if he does he will erradicate the private copy right with it.
"its actual a response to a possible panic caused by people using bad detectors"
Very typical from a politician mind. Why forbid *bad* detectors when you can forbid *all* detectors?
"prove it."
I neither need it nor want it. You either take my word for it or not (on the other hand, whatever "prove" I can recall on this environment will end up on you taking my word of it, so you can save the whole issue).
"What do you mean by complex?"
Made up of very many entangled elements with non-trivial relationships so minor changes on one of them can distort the overall result in quite significant manners. Surely you can find more academic definitions, but that will be the point of all them.
"I working alone can create a web site, with backend database using ssl certs.
Can anyone create a bridge alone?"
Hooray if that's your idea about countering an "illogical comment". What was that? Chewacca defense?
I think it's my turn now, take this: I'd never be able to count by hand and one by one a billion rice cakes; should we assume that counting rice cakes by hand is a complex operation? Is *that* your definition for "complex"?
"talk to a civil engineer for 5 mins and you will see how wrong you are."
I usually talk to civil engineers and -ho and behold, they tend to agree to my points of view regarding these issues.
"dude, talk to civil engineers working on government project, you will see how wrong you are.
...and still he is right by your very assertion: if civil engineering is so mismanaged, overburocryfied and full of blunt people and *still* you don't see bridges falling apart more times than not as you can see software projects (and the bigger the project the more easier it'll wreak havoc), it must be software production is quite more complicated than rising bridges.
My sister in laws brother worked for a very large state agency and she left on agony over such burocracy, project mismanagement, and more."
Then he is wrong
"No you don't. If they have a warrant, they can come in anyway. Opening the door just avoids property damage."
And that's the point. How long do think it'll take for a warrant alike the one for private property regarding passwords? If they have a warrant, they can inject penthotal anyway. Telling them the password just avoids brain damage.
"The desktop support for at least FreeBSD, and I'm not familiar enough with the other ones to say"
Your main point is fool then. You talk about consistency but then you say you talk about *exactly* FreeBSD and you can't talk about other flavours (because you *know* they are different enough not to be able to honestly talk about them). Well, then I have news for you: *any* Linux distribution is as consistent to itself from version to version as FreeBSD is to itself. And differences among Linux distributions are neither bigger not lesser than those among *BSD flavours, so stick with one and your "experience" will be as consistent as with FreeBSD.
"It is a serious issue to consider the idea of whether or not an OS should contain everything necessary for a basic system or if it's permissible to have just a kernel, plus all the base packages as a separate proposition."
I can swear Linux kernel and Apache (to name two as disparate as possible packages) are not "a separate proposition" on my distribution of choice. I would even bet that they two are viewed as "single entity" even more than they are on FreeBSD where you can find a "kernel and basic stuff" and "everything else" as two really different entities. Linux distributions just don't work that way.
"I like the fact that if I ask for help, I only have to say 6.2 p5 or 7.0RC1 and such for people to know enough about the OS environment to focus elsewhere."
Well, I like the fact that if I ask for help, I only have to say RHEL4u6 or RHEL4u1 and such for people to know enough about the OS environment, so what's your point again?
Oh, yes, and Linux distributions have generally better desktop support.
"But, it is mostly preference, I happen to think that FreeBSD is the best"
That's it. Because of your history, mates, interest or whatever you are hardly opinionated in favour of FreeBSD. That I respect (specially knowing how slim are differences between all those open unix-like systems), but please, don't support your position on obviously flawed arguments: this doesn't show anything positive about you nor helps the least to your OS of choice.
"I don't think that, at least the large, *BSDs are going anywhere in the foreseeable future"
I'd say you should reestate this phrase, since I think it means quite the opposite you wanted to say.
"The problem is, people switch distros quite regularly over the years. For a while Redhat was the defacto, or one derived from Debian, or Gentoo, or Ubuntu."
Yeah, well:
I've been on Debian since 2000, and Debian has always been "like Debian" just like you feel "FreeBSD has always felt like FreeBSD".
On the other hand, people switch from FreeBSD to NetBSD to OpenBSD to DragonFly, etc. regularly over the years. And you know what? Those changes have indeed quirks just like if you go from Debian to Red Hat or the other way around, so you are speaking nuts.
"Instead we're seeing enchancements off of the same base occur, such as PC-BSD and TrustedBSD, which leverage a common base and explore different directions. These changes, by and large, make there way back into FreeBSD-base."
If you really think there are more differences from Debian to Ubuntu (a Debian derivative) than from FreeBSD to PC-BSD (a FreeBSD derivative) you are stoned. Even more, from RHEL to CentOS there are even less differences than from FreeBSD to any of the derivatives you mention so, again, what the hell are you talking about?
"The "quirks" in FreeBSD are, most likely, the traditional way that UNIX (SysV or BSD) operated."
As if there were no "quirks" between Sys V5 and BSD themselves. I bet there are more diferences between "traditional" V5 and BSD than between two Linux distributions taken out of a bucket.
"BSDs were the system of choice for those coming from UNIX-based platforms"
Yeah, well, talk for yourself. I come from HP-Ux 9.x (quite a UNIX-based platform, you see) and I wouldn't change sysadmin-wise Debian for FreeBSD any day of the week so, since I'm a counterprobe, your argument is clearly at failure.
"Its quite amusing that now its those coming from Linux wondering why BSDs are different."
That's true for anything popular whose history is lost and moot. I'm old and certainly won't be amused by FreeBSD being "different", it is not, but I will see why youngster will think so, just as they will thing it's "different" the one that is attached to his old Telefunken vacuum-valves based Hi-Fi instead of preferring an MP3 player.
"it simply stems from the fact a standard layout emerged before Linux even began and, quite frankly, many users greatly prefer it."
Yeah, just like USA is attached to the old SECAM TV standard instead of using the obviously superior PAL one in use on all the "second TV generation" countries. Regarding technologies being second is a very nice chance to learn from the mistakes of the olders. There's nothing "greyback" in using punched cards instead of USB memory sticks; it's just oldfashioned and amusing.
"FreeBSD brings a stable OS to the desktop user. Since both userland and kernel are in the same source tree, and are developed concurrently, any changes in the kernel will be immediately reflected in the userland utilities"
/opt and/or /usr/local makes for a very consistent environment, yes.
/usr/local/etc/"
/etc; directly under /etc if the program only uses one config file or under /etc/programname if it needs more than one.
/var/www/httpd for Apache's configuration file and /opt/etc/ for the dhcp servers config file."
/etc. Apache's will be under /etc/apache or /etc/apache2 (and I bet you'll know which case will be each one) and dhcp server will be under /etc/dhcp or /etc/dhcp3. I even give you an easy ride since I know exactly one case (on more than 10.000 packages) for a service which configuration files are *not* under /etc (of course even in this case there's a symlink from under /etc/ to its real location). You just need to tell us which package is it. If you don't, we all will know you are just a troll talking from out your total ignorance and bias.
Is it either KDE or Gnome on the main tree nowadays (or Enligthment or fluxbox, for that matter). If not, your argument is absolutly moot for any desktop user, you see.
And even then, since the window/desktop manager is all a desktop user is going/wanting to see, there's no real difference from *BSD, Linux or say, OpenSolaris.
"Besides that? I find that it is more consistent"
Yeah, well, having what? 80% of what a desktop user will need under
"I know that when I install something from the ports tree, the configuration files can always be found in
Sure? Even if you install something within the main tree? Even if you go from FreeBSD to Open or NetBSD? If that's not the case, if you just know where to find things in FreeBSD your argument is -again, moot for I for sure can say exactly the same regarding Debian: I know exactly where to find *any* configuration file, no matter if they are on "main", "contrib" or "non-free"; they all will be under
"which is a nice change from having to hunt in
Bullshit. I challenge you to find just *one* config file on Debian GNU/Linux that is not under
"I thought BSD was dying? I've been on Slashdot for a decade and I precisely recall hearing that BSD was dying a few hundred thousand times."
And yes, it is.
It's only it's diying *very* slow motion. Just like Sean Connery on The Untouchables don't you remember it? Ratatatatatatttt Weahuheawhagghhh!
"If the password unlocks email that shows me being somewhere I said I wasn't, that's incriminating."
So what? If the key unlocks my front door that shows a dead body is within, that's incriminating. Still you will have to let the cops in if they show you a warrant.
"You don't have to 'let' them into your home - they need a search warrant for that."
Of course: And I expect a warrant to be needed for police to have any right to get my password too.
"Still, as long as the constitution holds out, they can ask you your password and you can plead the fifth."
I don't think you can call the fifth on any issue; "What time is it? -I won't tell you on holds of the fifth amendment!" I think you can call the fifth, but then the judge can call you nuts and disregard your plea.
"You forgot the one that's relevant to this case."
I think they fordgot it... or ford got them, I don't really know.
"I'd just go with the 5th ammendment defense - I don't have to tell you things that could incriminate me."
So, how exactly is revealing a password any more incriminating than say, allowing police into your home -which is "standard practice"?
-Don't tell us that you killed her -which would be incriminating, just tell us your password -which is something absolutly neutral.
"So I take it that upgrading from CentOS 4 -> CentOS 5 every few years on 130 machines (26,000 package upgrades at once) to ensure you have the 'latest' features is OK, whereas doing 130 updates once or twice a week with Gentoo is bad?"
Yes, you are right.
Even if the two approaches took just the same time after the five-year timeframe, what we will call the "CentOS-way" (not that it has any exclusivity with CentOS, it's just to follow your example) has to be considered *vastly* superior on *any* production environment. The ability to have a given time-frame for a job being done is a must on a corporate environment; while it's relatively easy to define a maintenance window of, say, two months each five years where you think about, design, test, announce and deploy a programmed upgrade on the "CentOS-way", it's not only going to be time-sucking but undoable most of the time the "Gentoo-way" (today is "upgrading monday" but the mail server's main hard disk is failing... well let's suspend today's upgrade, just to have much more problems next week since upgrading depency problems tend to grow exponentially), and will deal to bad press (people can expect minor problems the next two weeks after the "big update" each five years and, while mumbling, they will accept them and will forget for the next half decade); now try to get a satisfied user base with a system that is *guaranteed* to have minor problems almost always (and probably not so minor problems from time to time), not even considering unavoidable minor (or even major) changes each time "foobar" goes from 1.2.3 to 1.3.0 (and there will be at least one of such "foobars" almost weekly).
And then, I'd say that just considering context-switching time will deal to much more time on your "Gentoo-way" but that's nothing but cream on top of the cake.
All of this is just plain evident for everyone that has even the slightest exposure to any real production environment, so you telling that makes me highly suspicious you just hadn't such an exposure (i.e.: you are just making your opinions out of your basement's toy-computing experience). Of course, I may be wrong and then I'd be very courious about your "real life" experiencies regarding your "Gentoo-way" for systems administration and how do you avoid the previously described situations.
Your second paragraph is just too off-topic to be even considered.
"Debian isn't without some weird issues either"
Of course not. That doesn't mean that anything you take our your a** is an issue.
"VNCServer doesn't depend on any font packages"
Of course not, since it doesn't really need any local font package installed. What else would you expect?
"despite not being able to start without them, with the official explanation being that the user could be running a font server somewhere in their network."
Isn't it a valid explanation? Wouldn't vncserver start using a network font server? And then, you see, both vncserver and vnc4server do *recomend* the installation of xfonts-base, just look at it.
Any modern OS is a complex thing and if you want to administer one of then, you'd better expend some time learning its ins and outs. That being said the "ins and outs" of Debian regarding systems administration are probably the very best out there.
"So, it's purpose is to make management of the repositories easier, is it? Now I see the problem!"
I think you are trying to be ironic here. Think it twice then, since your assertion is to be very seriously considered. Obviously nothing is black and white but you can bet that the "pushing end" of any technology can be the strong factotum upon its success (you can't buy what is not in sale and no matter how good is say apt for the end user if there are no packages for it because package producers prefer using yum's format that's what they'll use).
"There's a reason why the popular distros are Debian based."
Like Red Hat, Fedora or SUSE you mean, don't you?
"Apt just plain works better than rpm"
Here you show your craptacular ignorance regarding what are you talking about. Therefore everything else you say is moot and completely disposable.
Just for your leisure:
Apt and rpm are *NOT* comparable. Dpkg and rpm are.
Now, since neither rpm nor dpkg are there to deal with package dependency download/resolution can you please tell us what the hell are you talking about? Can you please tell us what are the tremendous differences between dpkg and rpm (the package managers) or between deb and rpm (the package formats) that should make us clearly prefer one over the other?
"It's a bad example, for sure"
...or I'll find it anywhere else. If you don't find it fair, just don't make it public. I have what I consider to be a best seller on my desk. You won't be able to "pirate" it. Do you know why? Because I didn't make it public. There's a Robert Heinlein saying that fits perfectly on this situation:
I don't think it is.
"You don't steal bottled water do you?"
No, I don't. But I do know that if I steal a bottle of water on the supermartket there's one bottle less for anything else, and I see putting water in bottles is something that involves a cost for the one bottling it. On the other hand, companies putting water in bottles are nice enough not to calling me thieve if I manage to find drinkable water anywhere else.
"if I make something, like write code, or record the music, and it costs me money to do so, and I do so with the expectation of sale and copyright protection, then that means you aren't allowed to take it without the proper exchange of funds"
Sorry but that's pure bullshit. The fact that you have some expectations doesn't mean reality will have to go for them. I'll just repeat myself: If I bottle fresh air, which certainly involves a cost to me, and I do so with the expectation of sale and copyright protection, will that mean that you aren't allowed to find your own fresh air at your own expenditure without paying me something?
"If you don't want the product you don't have to buy it."
True.
"There has grown in the minds of certain groups in this country the idea that just because a man or corporation has made a profit out of the public for a number of years, the government and the courts are charged with guaranteeing such a profit in the future, even in the face of changing circumstances and contrary to public interest. This strange doctrine is supported by neither statute or common law. Neither corporations or individuals have the right to come into court and ask that the clock of history be stopped, or turned back." (Robert Heinlein Life Line, 1939)
The fact is that current RIAA members found a way to make hughe profits selling what was nothing but marketing material and entertainment due of the technological fact that distribution was a challeging problem. Currently distribution is a technical challenge no more but they are trying to use the big money ammounts massed in the past to perpetuate their (quite advantageous for them) situation. That's neither fair nor sustainable in the long run, nevertheless they try and (that's the most surprising part) they even manage to convince otherwise intelligent people that *their* point of view of the situation is *the* point of view. There weren't a need of DRM or intellectual property for an Homer to be or the wheel to be invented and I won't miss intellectual property (or patents for that matter) a second if they die tomorrow.
"If I'm selling something, and you take it without paying for it, however it gets into your possession, it's theft"
...or isn't it?
I'll take your word for it.
I sell fresh air; you take it without paying for it, however it gets into your breath, therefore it's theft.
"I would be hard-pressed to find someone that hasn't borrowed a copy of MS Office or copied a song from a friend."
I'll assume that 1/3 of computers are considered world wide. Great news: in most parts of the world copying a song from a friend is not considered "copyright infringement" and it's perfectly legal.
"They're preemptive legal maneuvering against people who are ultimately caught. It's a good move because, 1) authorities can add fraud to the list of crimes committed, and 2) authorities can prove that the law was clear and defendants had been made aware of it. "
C'mon! So do you really think a "So you didn't know blowing up the Two Twin Towers was a crime? No, sir, I didn't" is such a good defense strategy some help it's needed in order for a criminal not to go out by the false door?
I'll tell you a different story: one of the questions comes to the words of "have you ever deal with drugs?" Since both alcohol and tobacco are both drugs albeit legal, you can get into problems either answering yes or not to the question. That's a neat trick from governments that want to be sure you are a criminal no matter what. So I don't like you political talking? Well, I remember you lied on your entry papers; now you are out of the country the next ten years without trial nor appealance. Kind of the typical film policeman that breaks the lights of your car in Midnowhere to get on you -only legal.