Quality assurance is the #1 thing that open source software needs in spades. There's a lots of buggy stuff out in the OSS world. Sure, it is mildly nauseating that DHS is the one doing this, but still I am all for it.
Try fixing a bug in an OSS project sometimes, if you haven't. It can take ages to familiarize yourself with the project to be able to pinpoint the problem.
GCC is open source. If Linus is such a great expert on the issues with it then why isn't he fixing them? Probably because he doesn't have the skills.
You can't just go and fix every program, even if they are open source. It takes a lot of time to familiarize one with the code base. That is probably limiting Linus here too. His bug report is very precise, and that will greatly ease the job of the GCC developer who actually fixes the bug.
The problem with Linux and OSS in general is that these kind of weird problems can pop up any time and are partly the responsibility of the general public to test and report. With Windows and Mac, the extensive quality assurance catches a lot of this stuff and I do not have to worry about it in the first place. I am not saying that even commercial OSs are perfect, but they are much more smooth sailing. I still share your argument that with closed software, it is almost impossible to reach the engineers if there is a problem.
"The problem is that these things are a bitch to debug - they turn into these completely impossible kernel oopses or corruption, and we were just very lucky that this one case happened to be repeatable and pinpoint for two people. Are there others? We have no way of knowing.."
These days I interpret Linus' "meltdowns" just as some funny nerd rage. He uses that technique to strongly underline the importance of his point, it's never real anger. Often there's a dash of humor in the mix, such as in this case the comment "that compiler shouldn't have been allowed to graduate from kindergarten".
A Beowulf cluster generally consists of "ghetto hardware", for example cheap custom-built PCs or Raspberry Pis. If these are professional servers, they do not classify as such.
IRC should be steamrolled and a better system brought to replace it.
- It does not come with encryption
- Netsplits are handled crudely
- A lot of functionality (such as nickname registration or channel ownership) is not in the spec and is handled by hacky bots or modified servers
- It unnecessarily exposes the network layer to the user
- It can be confusing and overly technical to a newbie
- Linux and Apple good, Microsoft bad
- copyright assertion bad, piracy good (since digital stuff was meant to be free). Big exception: GPL violations must be vigorously prosecuted
- patents are bad (this one I mostly agree with)
- privacy violation by the government for security is totalitarian and alarming, similar techniques by Internet companies is a necessary evil (as a business model)
- H1-Bs and offshoring of US/Western European jobs to developing companies bad
- technologies or companies promising to make programming and/or system administration dramatically cheaper and easier = quackery
etc
Heh! I might as well add some:
- IPv6 is the best thing since sliced bread
- NAT is always terrible and one must run public IP addresses and a real firewall instead
- The Ribbon widget is awful
- Ubuntu Unity is crap
- Daylight saving time is a bad idea
- Internet Explorer is a buggy and non-standards-compliant web browser
- Everything must be open source and run the Linux kernel
Slashdot Mirror
Not a bad mistake! Actually I might add that SimCity 4 is also available at GOG.
Quality assurance is the #1 thing that open source software needs in spades. There's a lots of buggy stuff out in the OSS world. Sure, it is mildly nauseating that DHS is the one doing this, but still I am all for it.
Other websites: Celebrating the free release of a classic game.
Slashdot: Angry DRM rant.
An old laptop pulling 150-200w or more. Sure makes sense. 200w can power 4 50" LED TVs now...
That's ignorant talk. Most laptops pull 10W to 50W depending on the load. Even old ones.
You stole the words from my mouth. Goddamn they are taking long to come with the final product. :)
Interestingly, the Finnish stub of Nokia that was left, is doing fine. They still have a feasible telecommunication networks business.
Yes, but pinpointing the problem in GCC source code is another story.
Yeah, that can be a slight problem... :)
Try fixing a bug in an OSS project sometimes, if you haven't. It can take ages to familiarize yourself with the project to be able to pinpoint the problem.
GCC is open source. If Linus is such a great expert on the issues with it then why isn't he fixing them? Probably because he doesn't have the skills.
You can't just go and fix every program, even if they are open source. It takes a lot of time to familiarize one with the code base. That is probably limiting Linus here too. His bug report is very precise, and that will greatly ease the job of the GCC developer who actually fixes the bug.
Actually Visual Studio has Makefile support. :)
The problem with Linux and OSS in general is that these kind of weird problems can pop up any time and are partly the responsibility of the general public to test and report. With Windows and Mac, the extensive quality assurance catches a lot of this stuff and I do not have to worry about it in the first place. I am not saying that even commercial OSs are perfect, but they are much more smooth sailing. I still share your argument that with closed software, it is almost impossible to reach the engineers if there is a problem.
Nice article, that should explain a bunch of things to me.
Troll, troll, yeah, I'm so troll...
Another worrying thing which Linus says there is:
"The problem is that these things are a bitch to debug - they turn into these completely impossible kernel oopses or corruption, and we were just very lucky that this one case happened to be repeatable and pinpoint for two people. Are there others? We have no way of knowing.."
These days I interpret Linus' "meltdowns" just as some funny nerd rage. He uses that technique to strongly underline the importance of his point, it's never real anger. Often there's a dash of humor in the mix, such as in this case the comment "that compiler shouldn't have been allowed to graduate from kindergarten".
Can you explain what is the %rbp, and why are its offsets negative? If I set values 1, 2, 3, 4 to a bunch of variables, I get this assembly code:
movl $1, -4(%rbp)
movl $2, -8(%rbp)
movl $3, -12(%rbp)
movl $4, -16(%rbp)
A Beowulf cluster generally consists of "ghetto hardware", for example cheap custom-built PCs or Raspberry Pis. If these are professional servers, they do not classify as such.
Hey, nice one! Great answer.
IRC should be steamrolled and a better system brought to replace it.
- It does not come with encryption
- Netsplits are handled crudely
- A lot of functionality (such as nickname registration or channel ownership) is not in the spec and is handled by hacky bots or modified servers
- It unnecessarily exposes the network layer to the user
- It can be confusing and overly technical to a newbie
Yeah, but Slashdot has its own ideologies:
- Linux and Apple good, Microsoft bad
- copyright assertion bad, piracy good (since digital stuff was meant to be free). Big exception: GPL violations must be vigorously prosecuted
- patents are bad (this one I mostly agree with)
- privacy violation by the government for security is totalitarian and alarming, similar techniques by Internet companies is a necessary evil (as a business model)
- H1-Bs and offshoring of US/Western European jobs to developing companies bad
- technologies or companies promising to make programming and/or system administration dramatically cheaper and easier = quackery
etc
Heh! I might as well add some:
- IPv6 is the best thing since sliced bread
- NAT is always terrible and one must run public IP addresses and a real firewall instead
- The Ribbon widget is awful
- Ubuntu Unity is crap
- Daylight saving time is a bad idea
- Internet Explorer is a buggy and non-standards-compliant web browser
- Everything must be open source and run the Linux kernel
It does not depend on that, because then the amount of copies stored on SD cards would also be higher or lower.
It's more efficient to store 1 file on a central hard drive than store millions of redundant copies on millions of SD cards.
Transmitting a copy of that 1 file every time when it is accessed consumes enormous amount of energy.
I think you've giving vegetarianism a bad name there.
Bad name? I said that it is in principle a great idea.
Greenpeace is like vegetarianism: in principle a great idea but ruined by too many fanatics.