He's been researching it for months, and posting evidence as he finds it. This was a weird place in the saga to link to, but that wasn't Gettys' fault.
I think one of the take-aways is that all the techies have been mis-diagnosing "the problem" and he's one of the few who've stumbled across a more accurate diagnosis. Pretty much all we can do at this point is make sure as many techies know about it and understand it, so they can work on finding a real solution.
Note that I include the police when I mention the military. They've turned into the "standing army" the Founding Fathers were so afraid of.
Just because most people don't think about their fear doesn't mean it isn't there.
Maybe I am paranoid. Feel free to prove it. You could try exercising your Second Amendment rights. Maybe grab a hunting rifle and spend an afternoon strolling around Manhattan?
I don't care how other people choose to live their lives. But it disgusts me that so many other people expect me to join them in their sheep-hood.
My guess is that you didn't take the time to figure out the package managers. The last time I heard this complaint, it turned out that he hadn't noticed the "Quick Search" box in Synaptic.
Admittedly, that's a weakness in Synaptic's UI, because it isn't obvious. Still, I find that finding and installing the software that I use (which is an unusual sample) is much easier and likely to succeed on Linux than Windows.
No, that resource conflict is very alive and real. And it will pretty much never go away.
I can either work on new stuff, or I can upgrade/maintain old stuff. I can't do both at once.
The problems aren't as obvious with Mobile Linux precisely the reason you point out: companies are willing to shell out $ to get more resources involved.
Then you haven't been paying much attention. I have friends who have to replace some piece of hardware--be it a printer, a network card, or an under-powered video card--with every new Windows release.
Paraphrasing, they say that they can't have a stable ABI because of small differences in how C compilers compile things (alignment of structures, etc.). Has that problem *really* not been solved?
No, and it never really will, at this level. You can get by with bytecode running on a VM for the kinds of software you write with Java. But, sooner or later, that VM has to interface with actual hardware. Which is where this problem comes up.
Microsoft manage to do it!
Umm...no, they don't. It's been a while since I opened up Visual Studio. But, last time I looked, they had options for building for both ARM and Intel.
Several years back, it seems like they had quite a few more options (32-bit and 16-bit Intel, ARM, and SPARC, maybe?), but I'm pretty sure that's just because they were supporting a wider variety of hardware.
They then say they can't have a stable API (DPI?) because it would mean they have to maintain old code (true, but surely not too much work),
Spoken like someone who's never had to maintain old code. Much less had to choose between maintaining old vs. writing something new and interesting, in his spare time.
I've seen estimates that 90% of an established company's programming budget goes toward maintaining old code. It might be more efficient than the linux kernel development process. But it isn't any fun, and you aren't going to find anyone willing to do it in his spare time for free.
and people might accidentally use the old version. Seriously? I guess they haven't heard of documentation.
Have you read the linux kernel documentation?
And finally they say the solution is to get your driver into the main kernel tree. Not only would this be a hell of a lot more work than just shoving it on a website (subscribe to mailing lists, learn to use git properly, submit code for review, revise code, etc. etc.)
If you're competent to write hardware drivers, these things are nit-picky details.
but I seriously doubt they will just accept anything. What if I make a device that only I have? Will they accept a driver that is only useful for me?
As icebraining pointed out...if you have some super-secret hardware that you aren't sharing with the rest of the world, just stick with an existing kernel where you have a working driver. If/when you have a reason to change your kernel, plan on updating your driver.
One thing a lot of people miss/forget is that Linux has much better driver support these days than Windows. With every new Windows release, hardware manufacturers decide to just not support old hardware. So anyone still using that hardware pretty much has to throw it out and buy something new (although I've heard stories about people fooling Windows 7 into using XP drivers). That's another win for Linux.
But, really, everything you're complaining about are complete non-issues. Anyone who thinks they are is not qualified to be writing hardware drivers. Stick to Ring 3 until long after you've mastered them.
Yeah, it's an "appeal to authority" argument. But it's been my experience that he's absolutely correct.
The only ones who win in this scenario are the consultants who are getting paid by the hour. Well, and your competitors.
I totally understand the urge when you inherit code from someone else. Heck, a lot of times, I feel the same urge when I go back to look at code I wrote 6 months ago. There's a reason that snarled-up nightmare was written the way it was. Make sure you understand that reason before you just scrap it and decide to start over.
Otherwise, you're just going to wind up with a newer snarled-up nightmare. It'll just have a bunch of bugs that were fixed (and left uncommented) in the existing version.
I've heard run across several different conspiracy theories about the "real" reason behind Vietnam. Everything from rubber trees through tungsten to heroin. I've even seen speculation that it was for the sake of construction companies (apparently LBJ had his equivalent to Cheney's relationship to Halliburton.
Like pretty much everything else IRL, I'm sure the real answer is "a little of this and a little of that. And it happened long enough ago that any "facts" have had plenty of time to be sterilized. So we'll probably never know any more than we do today.
At first, I agreed with you whole-heartedly. The world would be a much better place if diplomats and politicians were more open and honest. Say what you mean, stand by what you said. That's what most of us are expected to do.
Then I remembered where and who we're talking about. Coming out openly against Mugabe seems like it would be a bad move for one's health.
So I'm willing to let this liar off the hook due to a self-defense verdict.
Except that most of those smart people's motivation was keeping the vast majority of Americans in the dark.
And the government gets to stack the courts against it by picking the judges.
In case you haven't been paying attention, these cases pretty much all get thrown out due to a lack of standing, or because Congress hasn't passed a law that allows us peons to sue the government about that particular grievance.
I ran across all kinds of stuff that had no business being classified when I was in the military. I doubt even the kind of people willing to go through the FOIA process had a clue about more than half of what was going on back then (way before 9/11).
I think it's pretty obvious that the government's gotten more paranoid and just defaults to classifying everything since then.
It's amazing how hard the government works at avoiding FOIA requests.
We aren't talking about a "prospective employer." This employee has a gun to our heads, and we really don't have any way to terminate it. It also has the power and authority to search our homes anytime it likes, without telling us about it.
Anytime you exchange something with someone else without a gun to your head, you're participating in the free market.
Admittedly, that doesn't happen very often (sales tax, corporations, union lobbyists, legal monopolies, the FCC, etc, etc all get the government's thumb into the pie). But actual manipulation by "private hands" is a totally different matter. They aren't allowed to murder you if you don't follow their rules.
Corporations are a partnership between the government and the individuals who "own" them. They are a legal fiction. They don't have any place in a free market.
Most conservatives don't understand that, but it's a vitally important point.
They stay silent because they're terrified of the military. They hope they're dead before the accountants show up.
Bush and Obama are both in-your-face big government statists.
The "two" parts of the system haven't changed. There are the people who want to live free and live their lives in peace. And there and the people who want to tell everyone else how to live their lives.
The Revolution and the Civil War were fought over those principles.
Personally, I don't want to see us all go through that again. I'm not sure it can be avoided. But I'd much prefer that we all just decided to stand up and declare our freedom.
Who is this "they"? Those are people like you and me, they just happened to go to law school and become politicians.
I probably wouldn't be so angry if they were actually lawyers who read the laws they were voting on and had some vague sort of right to an opinion.
But, for the most part, they aren't. All they care about is getting re-elected. So some corporate law-bot (who's been buying meals for "our" representative and finding cushy jobs for his relatives, etc, etc) hands "our" representative a bill, and that's the one that gets presented to his committee.
The only way to get enough power to make any sort of effective change
Good! It should take a lot of work for people to get enough power to make any sort of effective change.
It should. Except that, really, it only takes a ton of money for a corporation to drown out the voices of people who want meaningful change.
You know. Like those people who elected Obama.
I'd prefer that the people who just want to be left alone (you know...the mainly silent majority) be allowed to have their voice heard.
Every once in a while, they have to let some non-threat like the underwear-bomber slip through, so they can justify tightening up the net. It's all about keeping the sheeple terrified.
It has absolutely nothing to do with keeping people safe.
The problem with the idea of rewriting the Constitution now is that we've spent so long being brainwashed with the idea that we need a strong federal government that the vast majority of it believe that it's a good thing. They just disagree about which parts of our lives it should control.
We could put some teeth in it with an amendment, but what are the odds of getting it past? Any sort of total re-write would just wind up as a power grab. Just like the Constitution gave the federal government far more powers than the Articles of Confederation.
The Federalist Papers made some very important points. They feared the states were on the verge of war with each other. They pointed out the anarchy that Switzerland had experienced for so long. They were pretty firm in their stance that no federal government was possible without all the powers granted by the Constitution.
Of course, they were just marketing materials. They were far too optimistic about Americans paying attention, standing up for our rights, and jealously guarding our freedom. And the Anti-Federalist Papers prophesied that we'd wind up exactly where we are today.
It's just that, in light of what they wrote, it seems kind of ironic that Switzerland is, today, perhaps the model of what freedom's all about. (Or at least as close as we'll see in our lifetimes).
Um, dude, we pretty much have become a "feminist socialist technocracy." Those people running for office have managed some serious, meaningful changes. Like bringing us back to the brink of feudalism.
There's no reason to re-write the Constitution officially. Federal judges have already rewritten it into meaninglessness. For all intents and purposes, it has ceased to exist.
Keep on enjoying your TV. America had a pretty good run, but apathy destroyed it.
Slashdot Mirror
He's been researching it for months, and posting evidence as he finds it. This was a weird place in the saga to link to, but that wasn't Gettys' fault.
I'm no networking expert, but I trust his credentials enough that I believe him.
Especially when he's advocating something as major as replacing HTTP. And he's gotten people involved like Vincent Cerf.
Then again, maybe he's just senile and delusional. This is the internet.
That seemed to pretty much be his point, yes.
I think one of the take-aways is that all the techies have been mis-diagnosing "the problem" and he's one of the few who've stumbled across a more accurate diagnosis. Pretty much all we can do at this point is make sure as many techies know about it and understand it, so they can work on finding a real solution.
Note that I include the police when I mention the military. They've turned into the "standing army" the Founding Fathers were so afraid of.
Just because most people don't think about their fear doesn't mean it isn't there.
Maybe I am paranoid. Feel free to prove it. You could try exercising your Second Amendment rights. Maybe grab a hunting rifle and spend an afternoon strolling around Manhattan?
I don't care how other people choose to live their lives. But it disgusts me that so many other people expect me to join them in their sheep-hood.
My guess is that you didn't take the time to figure out the package managers. The last time I heard this complaint, it turned out that he hadn't noticed the "Quick Search" box in Synaptic.
Admittedly, that's a weakness in Synaptic's UI, because it isn't obvious. Still, I find that finding and installing the software that I use (which is an unusual sample) is much easier and likely to succeed on Linux than Windows.
No, that resource conflict is very alive and real. And it will pretty much never go away.
I can either work on new stuff, or I can upgrade/maintain old stuff. I can't do both at once.
The problems aren't as obvious with Mobile Linux precisely the reason you point out: companies are willing to shell out $ to get more resources involved.
Then you haven't been paying much attention. I have friends who have to replace some piece of hardware--be it a printer, a network card, or an under-powered video card--with every new Windows release.
Paraphrasing, they say that they can't have a stable ABI because of small differences in how C compilers compile things (alignment of structures, etc.). Has that problem *really* not been solved?
No, and it never really will, at this level. You can get by with bytecode running on a VM for the kinds of software you write with Java. But, sooner or later, that VM has to interface with actual hardware. Which is where this problem comes up.
Microsoft manage to do it!
Umm...no, they don't. It's been a while since I opened up Visual Studio. But, last time I looked, they had options for building for both ARM and Intel. Several years back, it seems like they had quite a few more options (32-bit and 16-bit Intel, ARM, and SPARC, maybe?), but I'm pretty sure that's just because they were supporting a wider variety of hardware.
They then say they can't have a stable API (DPI?) because it would mean they have to maintain old code (true, but surely not too much work),
Spoken like someone who's never had to maintain old code. Much less had to choose between maintaining old vs. writing something new and interesting, in his spare time.
I've seen estimates that 90% of an established company's programming budget goes toward maintaining old code. It might be more efficient than the linux kernel development process. But it isn't any fun, and you aren't going to find anyone willing to do it in his spare time for free.
and people might accidentally use the old version. Seriously? I guess they haven't heard of documentation.
Have you read the linux kernel documentation?
And finally they say the solution is to get your driver into the main kernel tree. Not only would this be a hell of a lot more work than just shoving it on a website (subscribe to mailing lists, learn to use git properly, submit code for review, revise code, etc. etc.)
If you're competent to write hardware drivers, these things are nit-picky details.
but I seriously doubt they will just accept anything. What if I make a device that only I have? Will they accept a driver that is only useful for me?
As icebraining pointed out...if you have some super-secret hardware that you aren't sharing with the rest of the world, just stick with an existing kernel where you have a working driver. If/when you have a reason to change your kernel, plan on updating your driver.
One thing a lot of people miss/forget is that Linux has much better driver support these days than Windows. With every new Windows release, hardware manufacturers decide to just not support old hardware. So anyone still using that hardware pretty much has to throw it out and buy something new (although I've heard stories about people fooling Windows 7 into using XP drivers). That's another win for Linux.
But, really, everything you're complaining about are complete non-issues. Anyone who thinks they are is not qualified to be writing hardware drivers. Stick to Ring 3 until long after you've mastered them.
Rewriting from scratch is almost always the wrong thing to do.
Things You Should Never Do, Part I
Yeah, it's an "appeal to authority" argument. But it's been my experience that he's absolutely correct.
The only ones who win in this scenario are the consultants who are getting paid by the hour. Well, and your competitors.
I totally understand the urge when you inherit code from someone else. Heck, a lot of times, I feel the same urge when I go back to look at code I wrote 6 months ago. There's a reason that snarled-up nightmare was written the way it was. Make sure you understand that reason before you just scrap it and decide to start over.
Otherwise, you're just going to wind up with a newer snarled-up nightmare. It'll just have a bunch of bugs that were fixed (and left uncommented) in the existing version.
I've heard run across several different conspiracy theories about the "real" reason behind Vietnam. Everything from rubber trees through tungsten to heroin. I've even seen speculation that it was for the sake of construction companies (apparently LBJ had his equivalent to Cheney's relationship to Halliburton.
Like pretty much everything else IRL, I'm sure the real answer is "a little of this and a little of that. And it happened long enough ago that any "facts" have had plenty of time to be sterilized. So we'll probably never know any more than we do today.
Is this possibly a hint about why international relationships are such an unmitigated disaster?
At first, I agreed with you whole-heartedly. The world would be a much better place if diplomats and politicians were more open and honest. Say what you mean, stand by what you said. That's what most of us are expected to do.
Then I remembered where and who we're talking about. Coming out openly against Mugabe seems like it would be a bad move for one's health.
So I'm willing to let this liar off the hook due to a self-defense verdict.
Except that most of those smart people's motivation was keeping the vast majority of Americans in the dark.
And the government gets to stack the courts against it by picking the judges.
In case you haven't been paying attention, these cases pretty much all get thrown out due to a lack of standing, or because Congress hasn't passed a law that allows us peons to sue the government about that particular grievance.
I ran across all kinds of stuff that had no business being classified when I was in the military. I doubt even the kind of people willing to go through the FOIA process had a clue about more than half of what was going on back then (way before 9/11).
I think it's pretty obvious that the government's gotten more paranoid and just defaults to classifying everything since then.
It's amazing how hard the government works at avoiding FOIA requests.
We aren't talking about a "prospective employer." This employee has a gun to our heads, and we really don't have any way to terminate it. It also has the power and authority to search our homes anytime it likes, without telling us about it.
I think he's just spent so much time as part of the "Ruling Class" that he's forgotten they're supposed to be accountable to us.
I think the problem with this line of thought is its logical conclusion: the idea that openness is inherently wrong.
How are we supposed to vote intelligently if we don't know what they're doing?
Anytime you exchange something with someone else without a gun to your head, you're participating in the free market.
Admittedly, that doesn't happen very often (sales tax, corporations, union lobbyists, legal monopolies, the FCC, etc, etc all get the government's thumb into the pie). But actual manipulation by "private hands" is a totally different matter. They aren't allowed to murder you if you don't follow their rules.
Corporations are a partnership between the government and the individuals who "own" them. They are a legal fiction. They don't have any place in a free market.
Most conservatives don't understand that, but it's a vitally important point.
They stay silent because they're terrified of the military. They hope they're dead before the accountants show up.
Bush and Obama are both in-your-face big government statists.
The "two" parts of the system haven't changed. There are the people who want to live free and live their lives in peace. And there and the people who want to tell everyone else how to live their lives.
The Revolution and the Civil War were fought over those principles.
Personally, I don't want to see us all go through that again. I'm not sure it can be avoided. But I'd much prefer that we all just decided to stand up and declare our freedom.
As long as we let them write
Who is this "they"? Those are people like you and me, they just happened to go to law school and become politicians.
I probably wouldn't be so angry if they were actually lawyers who read the laws they were voting on and had some vague sort of right to an opinion.
But, for the most part, they aren't. All they care about is getting re-elected. So some corporate law-bot (who's been buying meals for "our" representative and finding cushy jobs for his relatives, etc, etc) hands "our" representative a bill, and that's the one that gets presented to his committee.
The only way to get enough power to make any sort of effective change
Good! It should take a lot of work for people to get enough power to make any sort of effective change.
It should. Except that, really, it only takes a ton of money for a corporation to drown out the voices of people who want meaningful change.
You know. Like those people who elected Obama.
I'd prefer that the people who just want to be left alone (you know...the mainly silent majority) be allowed to have their voice heard.
Well, that, and the fact that dogs are effective.
Every once in a while, they have to let some non-threat like the underwear-bomber slip through, so they can justify tightening up the net. It's all about keeping the sheeple terrified.
It has absolutely nothing to do with keeping people safe.
The problem with the idea of rewriting the Constitution now is that we've spent so long being brainwashed with the idea that we need a strong federal government that the vast majority of it believe that it's a good thing. They just disagree about which parts of our lives it should control.
We could put some teeth in it with an amendment, but what are the odds of getting it past? Any sort of total re-write would just wind up as a power grab. Just like the Constitution gave the federal government far more powers than the Articles of Confederation.
The Federalist Papers made some very important points. They feared the states were on the verge of war with each other. They pointed out the anarchy that Switzerland had experienced for so long. They were pretty firm in their stance that no federal government was possible without all the powers granted by the Constitution.
Of course, they were just marketing materials. They were far too optimistic about Americans paying attention, standing up for our rights, and jealously guarding our freedom. And the Anti-Federalist Papers prophesied that we'd wind up exactly where we are today.
It's just that, in light of what they wrote, it seems kind of ironic that Switzerland is, today, perhaps the model of what freedom's all about. (Or at least as close as we'll see in our lifetimes).
According to his manifesto, he wants us out of the Middle East. And he wants us to quit resisting Sharia law.
So the government propaganda is partially truthful, but still strongly slanted.
Um, dude, we pretty much have become a "feminist socialist technocracy." Those people running for office have managed some serious, meaningful changes. Like bringing us back to the brink of feudalism.
There's no reason to re-write the Constitution officially. Federal judges have already rewritten it into meaninglessness. For all intents and purposes, it has ceased to exist.
Keep on enjoying your TV. America had a pretty good run, but apathy destroyed it.