How is this any different than what is currently happening?
How is this any different than a current human disease mutating to become more virulent? Or perhaps simply virulent? HIV didn't spring from SIV because of some transplant, it happened in the wild. The Hong Kong strain of influenza that caused such a scare didn't happen because of human meddling, it happened in the wild.
These things happen in nature, and are rare there, even when all these pathogens have the opportunity to do things like coinfect cells, swap genes, and mutate like crazy. What makes you think that it's so likely as to happen simply due to a transplant?
The problem, as you mention, is immunosuppression, which prevents the body from fighting off any infection that could get in to their transplant. The point of research like this (if it even works, that remains to be seen) is that you don't have to fully immunosuppress, if at all. I'm confident that one day short term immunosuppression will be enough for most transplants, and these people will be able to live normal, healthy lives. Then the chance of this happening drops even further, to the point where all the scaremongering over mutation becomes pointless. Mutations happen, you can't stop them, but that doesn't mean they're really more likely or more dangerous due to science.
I'm pretty skeptical of this one myself. One sugar isn't all that's going to trigger an immune reaction to cause graft rejection. The MHC molecules are perhaps the biggest known issue, given that the pig has very different MHC molecules than a human. Hell, even different humans have different MHC molecules, which is why kidney donors should be related to the receiver.
While sugars do play a role in cell recognition, it's not nearly so important in graft rejection because graft rejection is mediated by the immune system, which focuses more on protein-protein interactions. Knocking out a sugar might help with graft rejection (this seems dubious to me) but seriously... don't you think that a pig should be producing plenty of other molecules with slightly different epitopes to be recognized by human antibodies?
At the most, I'd imagine that this would delay acute graft rejection in a very well done transplant. But I still think immunosuppression, very likely over the remainder of the patient's life, would be necessary.
Not all new music sucks, you just have to look around a bit harder to find it, as it's not all over MTV or the radio.
If you want a political bend to go along with your new music, a good place to start is with Radiohead. Another one is Mos Def and Blackstar (which is Mos and Talib Kwali) who are this generation's Public Enemy, and they are incredible.
As far as I know, the punk scene has degenerated politically, but Joe Strummer (of the Clash) is putting out incredible new stuff with his new band The Mescaleros. There's a band I happened to catch live at a music festival called The International Noise Conspiracy, who are a really fun act to see (communist/socialst propaganda from Sweden, how can you not love a song named "Capitalism Stole My Virginity"?)
Also, if you've looked at the American radioscape lately, a lot of the Nu-Metal junk has faded away. The focus these days is on more standard rock, with bands like Jimmy Eat World, the Strokes, the White Stripes, and the Hives all doing a great job kicking the crap out of Fred Durst and his various imitators. Some of the stuff (particularly The White Stripes) is really outstanding work. There's still a lot of pop out there, but that's never going to change (hence the name). There's a lot of good non-political music out there too, that I didn't mention, that is just off to the side of mainstream, but is actually very good. As for the political/social stuff, I don't think there's a whole lot right now, but who knows? The new Rage Against the Machine album should be out soon.
Really? If I could demo it, like the Loki demo, to confirm for myself that this works, I'd definitely buy it. I've also had a lot of problems with both Wine and WineX's handling of sound on my card. It could be OSS drivers, but I can't get ALSA working even after many attempts. Anyhow, if you guys could get a demo out, especially for borderline cases like mine, it could be really helpful.
Maybe it's just me, but somehow I doubt it. My computer is simply too old to run these games. Yes, even the relatively paltry PII 500 requirement is just a little too much for me. I think a lot of Linux users are more content with their old hardware than most people, particularly hardcore gamers. We simply know how to get more mileage out of our hardware. While I'd love to be able to run these (I love the Loki Kohan demo) but new hardware is simply out of my range. I don't think I'm the only one either.
The article does say that Redhat is working with the NSA on something, although they don't tell you what it is. While they say that Redhat has the money to get certified, I'd be surprised if they really wanted to put forth that money to get it done. Then again, I have no idea what the cost/benefits ratio really is, so maybe that's something they're working on.
Either way, the SELinux stuff is GPL'ed, so I'd bet Redhat has taken it up and continued to work on it. There will be competition with Windows for the secure government desktops, and I know that the NSA understands the value in having the source GPL'ed. They just want to be able to cast the "guilt" on to Redhat when talking to Microsoft.
Passing bills mandating the use of open source [com.com] in the government takes away the freedom of the government to do its job as efficiently as possible. We're taking away from their freedom.
Since when was the job of a democracy ever meant to be efficiency? I had always thought that was one of the points of a dictatorship.
And as for taking away "their" freedom, since when did the government ever become "theirs"? I thought it was our government. You know, "of the people, for the people, and by the people" and all that stuff. Limiting what our government can do is a very very good thing, a case in point being the bill of rights. Over time, the government tends to accumulate more and more power to itself, until you end up with a situation like today. Limiting the government at their software uses might be a relatively small thing, but it's a very important act in the philosophy of the US, which is supposed to place the power in the hands of the people rather than the government.
Tim's freedom to choose your own license still extends to every individual and corporation. Companies can still run whatever they want. But the government is yours and mine, and we have the power to mandate what goes on its desks. There is no mystical "they" deciding that closed software is all right. It's us. Make your decision, I've made mine.
From what I understand, what would have to be ported would largely be the Gdk and Qt libraries. Once these were ported, the majority of the desktop environments' jobs would be finished.
Yes, I know that, but for people who either don't have a fast connection, or don't have a connection at all, this is a problem. There's a reason why people buy boxed sets of Mandrake or order full sets of Debian ISO's.
I think articles like this are pretty funny in a way. How often do you have to install or reinstall Linux if you're an average user? You know, the type who would use it just on their desktop? I've had the same Debian install for a long time now, and I feel no real need to do a reinstall. Maybe it's just that I don't rush out and buy a new computer every year or two that I need a reinstall, but seriously... once it's installed, it's installed. Granted, an easy install is important (and I'm eagerly awaiting the debian-install project to bear some great results) but the reality is that installs are such a small fraction of how a computer is used.
I can't speak for gentoo, but I know that Debian depends on a net install if you want a full system from one CD. The whole of Debian 3.0 is huge, with tons of packages. One CD isn't enough for a much more than a basic install of Debian.
Well, that's misleading math. First off, not every cell divides every time. Some organs, like eyes, stop or slow cell division once they reach a certain point. Others keep dividing rapidly throughout the life of the organism.
Another thing is controlled apoptosis, which is cell suicide. This is very very common in development, and is necessary to get the organism to look the way it does. That's why you've got fingers instead of webs. You know the little webs at the base of the area between your digits? Those are remnants of the cells that died during your development. Many of the cells that did divide continually go through apoptosis, so they're not around in the mature organsim.
And I don't know about making flies 50% bigger, although I'd be willing to bet a lot on it's having been done (I hate working with the little buggers myself, so I don't really keep up on them) but I know for a fact that it's been done in mice and plants. Maybe not 50% bigger, but definitely bigger.
All right, I'm not a certified engineer, but I know how to read and compare writing (I do have a degree in that one), and I don't think that you managed to address the points that the parent's article was actually making.
2. Reg backups. Free software to do this. Hey it's free, what we all want right?
Ok, that's reasonable for a registry corruption, but there's still the fact that, as the author states in his article, "The registry file is a single, very vulnerable, point of failure." This is a design flaw, and while you can backup the registry, it's still generally acknowledged as a design flaw that hasn't been corrected. Single points of failure at this level simply shouldn't exist, because they don't need to. The proof is in *NIX, which has it's various config files. Granted, this has its problems too, but those are also design flaws. It's a benefits tradeoff, and your free programs to backup the registry are just workarounds.
Oh, and the "free" that "we all want" is probably free as in Freedom, not as in beer.
You also neglect this technical problem in XP: "If you say no to some of the requests, some functions of Windows XP will not work (such as networking)." If you deny internet access to many components, XP will cease to function properly. Did you notice the long list he had of components that needed 'net access? Windows Media Player!?! That's a technical flaw that's borderline malicious. There is also no technical solution things like "Run DLL as an app" not telling you which DLL needs to be run. These programs should not be calling home unless they need to in order to function properly for the user's benefit. They way they work now is simply frivolous.
There's also that technical problem of the large number of Internet Explorer bugs that remain open. Granted, you can solve these by working around it using Mozilla, but given the massive market share of IE, the requirement that IE be bundled in with every copy of windows, and the general mindshare of IE, I'd say this is a pretty big flaw.
And yeah MS wants in your PC, but Apple owns your pc everytime you update. Good for the goose is good for the gander. But apple is *SPECIAL*
Funny, I don't see Apple mentioned anywhere in the article. Let's talk about Redhat or Debian instead. They don't own much of anything when you update. Neither does FreeBSD or OpenBSD. Hey, for that matter, neither does Apple really. They own nothing. They've given you the source to their entire OS subsystem. There's no clauses in iTunes that give Apple permission to modify the contents of your hard drive without your consent. There's no automatic mac.com registration upon install. Apple's entire marketing message is that the computer empowers the user, and that the user can actually use their computer to be productive. Apple doesn't want control over their users, they honestly want to empower them, which is why they've made OSX the great system that it is. Microsoft, on the other hand, has never shown any leanings in this direction. Honestly, when you look at it, Windows is the only OS in the world that really tries this hard to be owned by someone other than the user.
You acknowledge that the article contains valid points, which is true, but you seem to forget just how valid those points are. I agree with you about the backups, but the registry is still a big issue (especially because most XP users don't even know it exists) and the privacy issues are a major concern. By turning its users in to slaves, Microsoft is hurting everyone, themselves included.
You know, you're not legally allowed to sell yourself in to slavery in this country. No way, no how. It's simply against the law.
You also can't legally have consentual torture. This is a big issue for a lot of people in the S/M crowd, since this is what they do.
Basically, you are not allowed to waive some of your basic freedoms, no matter how much you want to. Same thing goes for killing yourself, suicide is technically illegal.
While these people might be purposely signing themselves in to a bad deal, perhaps the same ideas can extend to them? For a lot of these artists, what they are accepting is a sort of consentual slavery, with the way the industry is structured.
I think OSX is great. I used the old, slow version (10.0.something I think) for a little while, and aside from the speed it lives up to everything that people say about it here. I haven't used it since, but I think if you can afford a machine with a lot of RAM it's a great OS. It's really the best desktop OS on the market, in just about everything except game quantity.
I think Apple has become a much better company ever since Jobs came back. He really turned the place around. I'm just wondering what will happen to it once he leaves again. He can't stay forever, and I get the feeling that no one else in the world will be able to properly manage it. It's sad really, but I think once Steve leaves for good, it's going to be a long and slow demise for Apple. I could be wrong, and I really hope that I am.
doesn't this depend on who's 'accurate' definition you use?
I would use a definition of terrorist that took in to account the root of the word: terror. I think any accurate definition would take this in to acccount. If the person does not mean to cause, or does not in fact cause, actual mass terror, they are not a terorrist. This wasn't a goal, nor was it an affect, of the American revolutionaries.
Funny thing is, Lightwave users are not really in a different world from Linux users. Comparing Lightwave to 3D Studio MAX is very much like comparing Linux to Windows. Lightwave is very much supported by the community. A good chunk of the plug-ins I have are free little apps that people write and give away. A good deal of LW's evolution came from it's users! Sadly, this isn't so true with MAX. It's very much like Lin vs. Win, where LW's Lin and Max's Win.
That's cool. It reminds me of my old Mac days, where we were all the dying breed and had to support ourselves. The only problem with it is that potentially the parent company can really mess things up, as Apple managed to do, which is what drove me to Linux in the end. They've made amends but it taught me a valuable lesson. Hopefully the Lightwave creators don't fuck up like Apple did (although it's kind of hard to fuck up quite as bad as Apple managed to do:-)
They think I'm crippling myself using Windows and have no concept of the idea that I'm actually kicking mucho butto with it.
Bizarre. Win2k is a really good system for the most part, as anyone who's used it will agree. Either way, a I think a lot of the people who will bash on you for not using Linux are the types who just got it installed for themselves and are feeling really cool about it. It's the idiots who don't even understand Linux that are the most vocal and adamant about it. Just forget them and keep kicking animated ass.
Obviously you have no idea as to why the American Revolution was fought. It was fought over money. Wealthy colonial landowners were sick of being taxed by powers that they had grown to consider foreign. So they fought to gain self-governance.
This is not terrorism.
Terrorism is concerned with striking fear in to the heart of ordinary people. American Revolutionaries didn't give a rat's ass about ordinary British soldiers. They also didn't hide their demands, but presented them as the Declaration of Independance. They established official foreign contact with other nations to establish their legitimacy. These things were done out in the open with the very clear intention to establish their own government separate from the British crown. They didn't want to frighten the British in to submission, they simply wanted the British to leave them alone.
While the term terrorist had been overused, the American Revolutionaries didn't fit any accurate definition of the word.
This doesn't negate the message at all. While somehow I doubt many people actually would trash you for not using Linux to do your work (anyone who would isn't a real advocate) that doesn't mean that you can't use Free Software in your daily routine.
So you want to stick with Windows 2000? Ok, then how about using Mozilla for your internet experience? It's better (read: more practical) than IE in various ways.
Try using Open Office instead of Microsoft Office. Does Open Office not do what you need it to? Fine, then file a bug report with the team (wishlist bugs are great too) and move on and try the next release some time in the future. Consider using Abiword if you want something lighter.
Do you use the internet for MP3 or other sorts of file trading? Try using Gnucleus, it's a very well done program. If you can't find what you need on the network, maybe then go and try one of the other networks, like KaZaA and whatnot.
Linux won't solve the world's problems, and if it doesn't solve yours then don't use it. For some of us, it's great. It makes my life a lot easier on the desktop, but that's just because of my own personal uses, as yours are obviously different. But just because Linux itself won't work for you doesn't mean that you shouldn't consider using Free Software on your chosen OS. I personally try and keep all the programs I listed above and a few others on any Windows box I use regularly. They are very good programs, and like you said, it's the apps that matter to you.
So then, perhaps all the commercial distros need to include some kind of notice in their install process that there is no warranty, perhaps offering to display the GPL or any other licenses too if the user wants. Where I'd say this becomes more interesting is a project like Debian, which is definitely not commercial. To be safe, a notice about the warranty would probably be a good idea in the install, but I agree with Bruce that a click-through is a bad idea. A simple notice saying "There's no warranty here, so use it at your own risk" ought to be sufficient to keep everyone out of court. You as a user do not have to agree that there is no warranty, and thus there is no contract, and the distributer does not need to be held liable.
Can't the software author potentially be held reliable even without the UCITA? Since the software isn't public domain and is copyrighted, is the copyright holder responsible for the software? If not, is the distributor responsible?
Unlike the copyright issue, the disclaimer of liability doesn't seem to give any additional rights to the user, so it seems that they would have to agree to something that said "hey, it's not our problem, it's yours", even if it is just a sign like they have at parking lots.
I don't fully understand the issue, and while we haven't had any problems up to now with Free Software, what's to prevent them from happening in the future? The only way argument I can think of is that the source code is provided, and thus you are responsible for the product, but that wouldn't hold water with something like a car. Can you or anyone else shed some light on this?
With all the talk in this review and on this discussion about how Mozilla doesn't act like a Windows app, why doesn't someone start a project to embed Gecko in a fully native Win32 shell? You can even code it in C# and.Net with all the trimmings. Galeon did this for the Gnome platform, why shouldn't the massive legions of Windows developers do the same?
Yes, I know about being able to use Gecko as the IE renderer, but still... why not make a fully compatible app? I suspect a lot of people would use it, and it would very likely take some of the preassure of the Mozilla project. This is what Mozilla was built for! So, do one of these complainers around here today want to take up the challenge?
Very interesting, thanks for the background. I've read a lot about the Star, but nothing about how it actually worked (beyond the contextual menus thing) and I've never had a chance to play with smalltalk. It'd be interesting to see this system in a full-fledged modern effect. You're right about the meshing with the Mac version of the UI that made it difficult, and windows has the same problem (only it's compounded by everything else). I'd actually really like to try a fully modern system with that as the philosophy. I don't think that could be bolted on to Linux as is without a lot of work though. Interesting thing to think about, nonetheless.
You're probably right. I think I got my company names mixed up, and I read his book right as it came out, so that portion is a bit fuzzy. Ah well, I should have been modded down I guess. Thanks for clarifying for me.
The problem with this, and it wasn't just a problem with OpenDoc, but it continues to be a problem to day with component models, is that the interface does change right out from under you.
I really like the idea of having a document-centric model. It just makes sense. But in the practice of using OpenDoc, it brought back the concept of modes. Unlike the command vs edit modes of vi, one of the greatest achievments of the Mac was to eliminate modes. You just opened up MacWord and typed your letter. Wanted to adjust formatting? No "format" mode, just edit it from the menu. The menu didn't change ever.
OpenDoc was confusing because it brought back those modes. You've got your word processor mode. You've got your vector drawing mode. You have your web browser mode. Etc, etc. This is bad, because the interface becomes a constantly changing thing. With separate apps, there are clear divisions between things, but not so with a document-centric model, because it's all data in the document. What if you just want to view the picture rather than edit it? What if you want to use the text in a page layout fashion rather than plain ASCII editing? Data is mutable and it makes the UI mutable too.
Honestly, I can't think of anything worse for the end user than a constantly shifting UI. You can set it up so that the UI components are your choice, but they are, by necessity, still shifting within a multi-type document. This difficulty on the user was particularly apparent in OpenDoc when you looked at the menubar to see what you were running and it didn't tell you. Strange problems abound in that UI (although it's been so long I don't remember a lot of my gripes). It was great tech, and great theory, but OpenDoc still had major problems that were never solved, mainly due to being killed in its infancy.
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How is this any different than what is currently happening?
How is this any different than a current human disease mutating to become more virulent? Or perhaps simply virulent? HIV didn't spring from SIV because of some transplant, it happened in the wild. The Hong Kong strain of influenza that caused such a scare didn't happen because of human meddling, it happened in the wild.
These things happen in nature, and are rare there, even when all these pathogens have the opportunity to do things like coinfect cells, swap genes, and mutate like crazy. What makes you think that it's so likely as to happen simply due to a transplant?
The problem, as you mention, is immunosuppression, which prevents the body from fighting off any infection that could get in to their transplant. The point of research like this (if it even works, that remains to be seen) is that you don't have to fully immunosuppress, if at all. I'm confident that one day short term immunosuppression will be enough for most transplants, and these people will be able to live normal, healthy lives. Then the chance of this happening drops even further, to the point where all the scaremongering over mutation becomes pointless. Mutations happen, you can't stop them, but that doesn't mean they're really more likely or more dangerous due to science.
I'm pretty skeptical of this one myself. One sugar isn't all that's going to trigger an immune reaction to cause graft rejection. The MHC molecules are perhaps the biggest known issue, given that the pig has very different MHC molecules than a human. Hell, even different humans have different MHC molecules, which is why kidney donors should be related to the receiver.
While sugars do play a role in cell recognition, it's not nearly so important in graft rejection because graft rejection is mediated by the immune system, which focuses more on protein-protein interactions. Knocking out a sugar might help with graft rejection (this seems dubious to me) but seriously... don't you think that a pig should be producing plenty of other molecules with slightly different epitopes to be recognized by human antibodies?
At the most, I'd imagine that this would delay acute graft rejection in a very well done transplant. But I still think immunosuppression, very likely over the remainder of the patient's life, would be necessary.
Not all new music sucks, you just have to look around a bit harder to find it, as it's not all over MTV or the radio.
If you want a political bend to go along with your new music, a good place to start is with Radiohead. Another one is Mos Def and Blackstar (which is Mos and Talib Kwali) who are this generation's Public Enemy, and they are incredible.
As far as I know, the punk scene has degenerated politically, but Joe Strummer (of the Clash) is putting out incredible new stuff with his new band The Mescaleros. There's a band I happened to catch live at a music festival called The International Noise Conspiracy, who are a really fun act to see (communist/socialst propaganda from Sweden, how can you not love a song named "Capitalism Stole My Virginity"?)
Also, if you've looked at the American radioscape lately, a lot of the Nu-Metal junk has faded away. The focus these days is on more standard rock, with bands like Jimmy Eat World, the Strokes, the White Stripes, and the Hives all doing a great job kicking the crap out of Fred Durst and his various imitators. Some of the stuff (particularly The White Stripes) is really outstanding work. There's still a lot of pop out there, but that's never going to change (hence the name). There's a lot of good non-political music out there too, that I didn't mention, that is just off to the side of mainstream, but is actually very good. As for the political/social stuff, I don't think there's a whole lot right now, but who knows? The new Rage Against the Machine album should be out soon.
Really? If I could demo it, like the Loki demo, to confirm for myself that this works, I'd definitely buy it. I've also had a lot of problems with both Wine and WineX's handling of sound on my card. It could be OSS drivers, but I can't get ALSA working even after many attempts. Anyhow, if you guys could get a demo out, especially for borderline cases like mine, it could be really helpful.
Maybe it's just me, but somehow I doubt it. My computer is simply too old to run these games. Yes, even the relatively paltry PII 500 requirement is just a little too much for me. I think a lot of Linux users are more content with their old hardware than most people, particularly hardcore gamers. We simply know how to get more mileage out of our hardware. While I'd love to be able to run these (I love the Loki Kohan demo) but new hardware is simply out of my range. I don't think I'm the only one either.
The article does say that Redhat is working with the NSA on something, although they don't tell you what it is. While they say that Redhat has the money to get certified, I'd be surprised if they really wanted to put forth that money to get it done. Then again, I have no idea what the cost/benefits ratio really is, so maybe that's something they're working on.
Either way, the SELinux stuff is GPL'ed, so I'd bet Redhat has taken it up and continued to work on it. There will be competition with Windows for the secure government desktops, and I know that the NSA understands the value in having the source GPL'ed. They just want to be able to cast the "guilt" on to Redhat when talking to Microsoft.
And as for taking away "their" freedom, since when did the government ever become "theirs"? I thought it was our government. You know, "of the people, for the people, and by the people" and all that stuff. Limiting what our government can do is a very very good thing, a case in point being the bill of rights. Over time, the government tends to accumulate more and more power to itself, until you end up with a situation like today. Limiting the government at their software uses might be a relatively small thing, but it's a very important act in the philosophy of the US, which is supposed to place the power in the hands of the people rather than the government.
Tim's freedom to choose your own license still extends to every individual and corporation. Companies can still run whatever they want. But the government is yours and mine, and we have the power to mandate what goes on its desks. There is no mystical "they" deciding that closed software is all right. It's us. Make your decision, I've made mine.
From what I understand, what would have to be ported would largely be the Gdk and Qt libraries. Once these were ported, the majority of the desktop environments' jobs would be finished.
Yes, I know that, but for people who either don't have a fast connection, or don't have a connection at all, this is a problem. There's a reason why people buy boxed sets of Mandrake or order full sets of Debian ISO's.
I think articles like this are pretty funny in a way. How often do you have to install or reinstall Linux if you're an average user? You know, the type who would use it just on their desktop? I've had the same Debian install for a long time now, and I feel no real need to do a reinstall. Maybe it's just that I don't rush out and buy a new computer every year or two that I need a reinstall, but seriously... once it's installed, it's installed. Granted, an easy install is important (and I'm eagerly awaiting the debian-install project to bear some great results) but the reality is that installs are such a small fraction of how a computer is used.
I can't speak for gentoo, but I know that Debian depends on a net install if you want a full system from one CD. The whole of Debian 3.0 is huge, with tons of packages. One CD isn't enough for a much more than a basic install of Debian.
Well, that's misleading math. First off, not every cell divides every time. Some organs, like eyes, stop or slow cell division once they reach a certain point. Others keep dividing rapidly throughout the life of the organism.
Another thing is controlled apoptosis, which is cell suicide. This is very very common in development, and is necessary to get the organism to look the way it does. That's why you've got fingers instead of webs. You know the little webs at the base of the area between your digits? Those are remnants of the cells that died during your development. Many of the cells that did divide continually go through apoptosis, so they're not around in the mature organsim.
And I don't know about making flies 50% bigger, although I'd be willing to bet a lot on it's having been done (I hate working with the little buggers myself, so I don't really keep up on them) but I know for a fact that it's been done in mice and plants. Maybe not 50% bigger, but definitely bigger.
Ok, that's reasonable for a registry corruption, but there's still the fact that, as the author states in his article, "The registry file is a single, very vulnerable, point of failure." This is a design flaw, and while you can backup the registry, it's still generally acknowledged as a design flaw that hasn't been corrected. Single points of failure at this level simply shouldn't exist, because they don't need to. The proof is in *NIX, which has it's various config files. Granted, this has its problems too, but those are also design flaws. It's a benefits tradeoff, and your free programs to backup the registry are just workarounds.
Oh, and the "free" that "we all want" is probably free as in Freedom, not as in beer.
You also neglect this technical problem in XP: "If you say no to some of the requests, some functions of Windows XP will not work (such as networking)." If you deny internet access to many components, XP will cease to function properly. Did you notice the long list he had of components that needed 'net access? Windows Media Player!?! That's a technical flaw that's borderline malicious. There is also no technical solution things like "Run DLL as an app" not telling you which DLL needs to be run. These programs should not be calling home unless they need to in order to function properly for the user's benefit. They way they work now is simply frivolous.
There's also that technical problem of the large number of Internet Explorer bugs that remain open. Granted, you can solve these by working around it using Mozilla, but given the massive market share of IE, the requirement that IE be bundled in with every copy of windows, and the general mindshare of IE, I'd say this is a pretty big flaw.
Funny, I don't see Apple mentioned anywhere in the article. Let's talk about Redhat or Debian instead. They don't own much of anything when you update. Neither does FreeBSD or OpenBSD. Hey, for that matter, neither does Apple really. They own nothing. They've given you the source to their entire OS subsystem. There's no clauses in iTunes that give Apple permission to modify the contents of your hard drive without your consent. There's no automatic mac.com registration upon install. Apple's entire marketing message is that the computer empowers the user, and that the user can actually use their computer to be productive. Apple doesn't want control over their users, they honestly want to empower them, which is why they've made OSX the great system that it is. Microsoft, on the other hand, has never shown any leanings in this direction. Honestly, when you look at it, Windows is the only OS in the world that really tries this hard to be owned by someone other than the user.
You acknowledge that the article contains valid points, which is true, but you seem to forget just how valid those points are. I agree with you about the backups, but the registry is still a big issue (especially because most XP users don't even know it exists) and the privacy issues are a major concern. By turning its users in to slaves, Microsoft is hurting everyone, themselves included.
You know, you're not legally allowed to sell yourself in to slavery in this country. No way, no how. It's simply against the law.
You also can't legally have consentual torture. This is a big issue for a lot of people in the S/M crowd, since this is what they do.
Basically, you are not allowed to waive some of your basic freedoms, no matter how much you want to. Same thing goes for killing yourself, suicide is technically illegal.
While these people might be purposely signing themselves in to a bad deal, perhaps the same ideas can extend to them? For a lot of these artists, what they are accepting is a sort of consentual slavery, with the way the industry is structured.
I think OSX is great. I used the old, slow version (10.0.something I think) for a little while, and aside from the speed it lives up to everything that people say about it here. I haven't used it since, but I think if you can afford a machine with a lot of RAM it's a great OS. It's really the best desktop OS on the market, in just about everything except game quantity.
I think Apple has become a much better company ever since Jobs came back. He really turned the place around. I'm just wondering what will happen to it once he leaves again. He can't stay forever, and I get the feeling that no one else in the world will be able to properly manage it. It's sad really, but I think once Steve leaves for good, it's going to be a long and slow demise for Apple. I could be wrong, and I really hope that I am.
Bizarre. Win2k is a really good system for the most part, as anyone who's used it will agree. Either way, a I think a lot of the people who will bash on you for not using Linux are the types who just got it installed for themselves and are feeling really cool about it. It's the idiots who don't even understand Linux that are the most vocal and adamant about it. Just forget them and keep kicking animated ass.
Obviously you have no idea as to why the American Revolution was fought. It was fought over money. Wealthy colonial landowners were sick of being taxed by powers that they had grown to consider foreign. So they fought to gain self-governance.
This is not terrorism.
Terrorism is concerned with striking fear in to the heart of ordinary people. American Revolutionaries didn't give a rat's ass about ordinary British soldiers. They also didn't hide their demands, but presented them as the Declaration of Independance. They established official foreign contact with other nations to establish their legitimacy. These things were done out in the open with the very clear intention to establish their own government separate from the British crown. They didn't want to frighten the British in to submission, they simply wanted the British to leave them alone.
While the term terrorist had been overused, the American Revolutionaries didn't fit any accurate definition of the word.
This doesn't negate the message at all. While somehow I doubt many people actually would trash you for not using Linux to do your work (anyone who would isn't a real advocate) that doesn't mean that you can't use Free Software in your daily routine.
So you want to stick with Windows 2000? Ok, then how about using Mozilla for your internet experience? It's better (read: more practical) than IE in various ways.
Try using Open Office instead of Microsoft Office. Does Open Office not do what you need it to? Fine, then file a bug report with the team (wishlist bugs are great too) and move on and try the next release some time in the future. Consider using Abiword if you want something lighter.
Do you use the internet for MP3 or other sorts of file trading? Try using Gnucleus, it's a very well done program. If you can't find what you need on the network, maybe then go and try one of the other networks, like KaZaA and whatnot.
Linux won't solve the world's problems, and if it doesn't solve yours then don't use it. For some of us, it's great. It makes my life a lot easier on the desktop, but that's just because of my own personal uses, as yours are obviously different. But just because Linux itself won't work for you doesn't mean that you shouldn't consider using Free Software on your chosen OS. I personally try and keep all the programs I listed above and a few others on any Windows box I use regularly. They are very good programs, and like you said, it's the apps that matter to you.
So then, perhaps all the commercial distros need to include some kind of notice in their install process that there is no warranty, perhaps offering to display the GPL or any other licenses too if the user wants. Where I'd say this becomes more interesting is a project like Debian, which is definitely not commercial. To be safe, a notice about the warranty would probably be a good idea in the install, but I agree with Bruce that a click-through is a bad idea. A simple notice saying "There's no warranty here, so use it at your own risk" ought to be sufficient to keep everyone out of court. You as a user do not have to agree that there is no warranty, and thus there is no contract, and the distributer does not need to be held liable.
Can't the software author potentially be held reliable even without the UCITA? Since the software isn't public domain and is copyrighted, is the copyright holder responsible for the software? If not, is the distributor responsible?
Unlike the copyright issue, the disclaimer of liability doesn't seem to give any additional rights to the user, so it seems that they would have to agree to something that said "hey, it's not our problem, it's yours", even if it is just a sign like they have at parking lots.
I don't fully understand the issue, and while we haven't had any problems up to now with Free Software, what's to prevent them from happening in the future? The only way argument I can think of is that the source code is provided, and thus you are responsible for the product, but that wouldn't hold water with something like a car. Can you or anyone else shed some light on this?
With all the talk in this review and on this discussion about how Mozilla doesn't act like a Windows app, why doesn't someone start a project to embed Gecko in a fully native Win32 shell? You can even code it in C# and .Net with all the trimmings. Galeon did this for the Gnome platform, why shouldn't the massive legions of Windows developers do the same?
Yes, I know about being able to use Gecko as the IE renderer, but still... why not make a fully compatible app? I suspect a lot of people would use it, and it would very likely take some of the preassure of the Mozilla project. This is what Mozilla was built for! So, do one of these complainers around here today want to take up the challenge?
Very interesting, thanks for the background. I've read a lot about the Star, but nothing about how it actually worked (beyond the contextual menus thing) and I've never had a chance to play with smalltalk. It'd be interesting to see this system in a full-fledged modern effect. You're right about the meshing with the Mac version of the UI that made it difficult, and windows has the same problem (only it's compounded by everything else). I'd actually really like to try a fully modern system with that as the philosophy. I don't think that could be bolted on to Linux as is without a lot of work though. Interesting thing to think about, nonetheless.
You're probably right. I think I got my company names mixed up, and I read his book right as it came out, so that portion is a bit fuzzy. Ah well, I should have been modded down I guess. Thanks for clarifying for me.
The problem with this, and it wasn't just a problem with OpenDoc, but it continues to be a problem to day with component models, is that the interface does change right out from under you.
I really like the idea of having a document-centric model. It just makes sense. But in the practice of using OpenDoc, it brought back the concept of modes. Unlike the command vs edit modes of vi, one of the greatest achievments of the Mac was to eliminate modes. You just opened up MacWord and typed your letter. Wanted to adjust formatting? No "format" mode, just edit it from the menu. The menu didn't change ever.
OpenDoc was confusing because it brought back those modes. You've got your word processor mode. You've got your vector drawing mode. You have your web browser mode. Etc, etc. This is bad, because the interface becomes a constantly changing thing. With separate apps, there are clear divisions between things, but not so with a document-centric model, because it's all data in the document. What if you just want to view the picture rather than edit it? What if you want to use the text in a page layout fashion rather than plain ASCII editing? Data is mutable and it makes the UI mutable too.
Honestly, I can't think of anything worse for the end user than a constantly shifting UI. You can set it up so that the UI components are your choice, but they are, by necessity, still shifting within a multi-type document. This difficulty on the user was particularly apparent in OpenDoc when you looked at the menubar to see what you were running and it didn't tell you. Strange problems abound in that UI (although it's been so long I don't remember a lot of my gripes). It was great tech, and great theory, but OpenDoc still had major problems that were never solved, mainly due to being killed in its infancy.