"Wait... so... you're equating OSS programmers to slaves?"
no, he's making a point about "not caring about ideology," and i agree with him.
his point is that "not caring about ideology" = not caring about right and wrong = amoral. you don't care about reasons, or consequences; you just want the tastiest ice cream, the shiniest skin for your desktop GUI. it's the mindset of an animal; it can't grasp issues of morality, it just wants food.
you said, in your original post, that "your name is not [gandhi]" - yes, that's correct. gandhi is remembered and revered by millions, won a nobel peace prize, and is considered a great man, one of the most influential people on the planet in recent history, and an example of the best humanity can produce. i agree; you are certainly not gandhi.
life is more comfortable aboard the death star than on ice planet hoth.
since this is slashdot, i'd better spell it out: microsoft ("the empire") has more money and resources; it's no big deal for them to support every bleeding edge tech that comes down the pike, and with their market share, of course more professional grade software runs natively on it.
open source ("the rebellion") often has to make do, jury-rig, wait a few months; there are hardships.
my reasons for using open-source stuff aren't so much about technology - one has to admit that windows is (finally) pretty stable and capable these days - but about doing the right thing. microsoft are greedy and immoral, and yeah, it is as simple as that; though the path of least resistance is just to "follow the herd" and "go with the flow," it's not right to support their ethical abuses.
personally, i'll take a tauntaun skin over a bunk on the death star any day; i may sleep a little colder, but i'll sleep soundly.
Regarding the story "Linux cyber-battle turns nasty" ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3457823.stm ) which appears on your website today ( 05-02-2004 ):
It is entirely possible that the "MyDoom virus" was created to discredit the open source community by generating bad press such as this story.
That this didn't occur to Stephen Evans, the story's author, is inexcusably bad journalism. Furthermore, even if it should turn out that the author of the virus is an open source zealot, to tar and feather the entire open source community for the actions of a single individual is at best unfair, and again, very bad journalism.
Elsewhere in the article, Evans uses such language as, "It's hard to see how any website could withstand that kind of clever evil" and "It is about malice not money."
It is, of course, not the place of a journalist to draw conclusions or make value judgements; journalism is meant to be impartial, and report facts.
Evans' piece violates these time honored principles cavalierly; one must question his motives in doing so.
At any rate, this piece does not meet the high standards of journalism one associates with the BBC; I sincerely hope that Evans will be reprimanded for his irresponsibility and that the editors will be more critical of his work in future.
it seems pretty obvious that, since he was actually doing something with the site, was actually using it, that his intent was not merely to turn around and sell the name, he was not just "squatting." every domain squatter i've ever seen buys domain names en masse and puts up a generic page saying, "this domain is for sale;" that's clearly not the case here.
he agrees that he thought the phonetic similarity to "Microsoft," a bit of wordplay, was amusing, but that's a separate issue.
his site didn't look like a Microsoft page, didn't offer the same services or products as a Microsoft page, in short, had nothing in common with Microsoft's website. there's no way that anybody with enough intelligence to recognize that the little plastic mouse moves the cursor on the screen could possibly confuse the two.
summary: he was not squatting, did not act in "bad faith," and is no threat to Microsoft in any way.
"
standing and hugging each other with vigorous congradulations"
congratulations
"
I was fortunate enough to be able to congradulate some of the higher ups"
congratulate
"
On behalf of all of us"
(if you believe that this imbecile speaks for anyone, you're a fool)
"
on MER"
at MER
"
I'd like to thank everyone that's supported this mission"...
...who's supported the mission
"
especially those slashdotters that have"
who have
"
vigorously defended the purpose and existance"
existence
"
of mars."
the purpose of mars? are you stupid?
the existence of mars? was there any doubt that mars exists?
"
What we are doing is hard, but not impossible, and we will continue to try until we prevail. Today we had what I hope was the first of many victories on mars."
who the fuck are you, george bush? prevail? victories on mars? it's not a war, at least, not yet
"
Any surveys that say that any of those areas are 'very important' are immediately assumed to be from zealots, and the[ir] answers are given less credence if not ignored completely. I haven't submitted my response yet (still debating on whether or not I want to help them), but when I do, the answer to all four of those questions will be #2 out of the 5 point scale."
wait, here's a wacky idea; how about telling the truth? it's frightening that simple honesty rarely even enters peoples' minds any more...
"Thank you for trolling, please drive through. And install Fedora Core while you're at it."
My post was not intended as a troll. Trolls are generally defined as insincere posts, written purely with the intent of provoking reactions; often they are copied and pasted en masse from previous posts.
My post, on the other hand, represents my sincere beliefs and opinions. Furthermore, it is original; I spent an hour or so of my time writing and editing it in an attempt to accurately convey my views. Your glib dismissal of my work is inaccurate, inappropriate, and rude.
As for Fedora: we'll see. Maybe, in time, Fedora will become a worthy successor to its predecessors; for now, though, it's beta, unknown, untested, and has no clearly defined support channel (i refer to.rpm updates) or development roadmap. At best, it's based on Redhat 9, a flaky, unstable release in my (considerable) experience. Fine for tinkering with, perhaps, but most certainly not ready for use where a stable system is required, for example, production servers or my laptop. Again, your advice is poorly thought through and inappropriate.
...it's FatBits, from MacPaint on my old Macintosh. 8-)
1984, 128KB RAM, 400MB 3.5" floppy, no HD, 9" diagonal B&W screen ($2499 the day it came out)... Andy Herzfeld was brilliant... those were the days... 8-)
"An attack is not the only thing to which you can respond. One can-- and should!-- also respond to threats, implicit or explicit. This is called 'defense.'"
"Implicit or explicit?" That sounds like "real or imagined." The problem is that YOU decide you feel threatened, regardless of whether a REAL threat exists.
"I have no problem at all with the US being the world's bully..."
No; bullies never have a problem being bullies, do they? You may not have a problem with the US being the world's bully, but the rest of the world does. May the human race be saved from people like you.
The best form of DEFENSE is ATTACK and the most VITAL element of ATTACK is SURPRISE. Therefore... the BEST way to protect yourself AGAINST any ASSAILANT is to ATTACK him before he attacks YOU... Or
BETTER... BEFORE the THOUGHT of doing so has EVEN OCCURRED TO HIM!!! SO YOU MAY BE ABLE TO RENDER YOUR ASSAILANT UNCONSCIOUS BEFORE he is EVEN aware of your very existence!
"Twirlip," let me make your error absolutely clear for you: you say,
"If it reaches a point where the possibility that an enemy might act becomes sufficiently real, and the danger posed by that enemy's capabilities become sufficiently great, then the only reasonable course of action is to respond with military force. To do anything less is to... well, is to be Poland circa 1939." (Emphasis added)
Here's your mistake: to respond means "to act in response." That means AFTER you've been attacked. See? If a bully picks a fight with you, you have every right to fight back; but if you throw the first punch, you're the bully.
"...if you're using a Windows box, I've got to assume one of three things is happening:
You're ready to have a hair-trigger response to the constant stream of security patches and updates you'll need to use. You probably have up-to-date virus protection software, and you probably work in an office with really paranoid, on-the-ball IT staff.
For whatever reason, you don't care that your files could get mangled, erased, and resent: Maybe nothing's that critical, maybe you're just playing around, maybe you make constant backups.
You're completely irresponsible."
That's really unfair. What you say makes sense when applied to the slashdot population, but what about my mom? What about your dentist? Most people who use computers aren't IT professionals who can dedicate an hour every day to reading several security-related websites and downloading and installing software patches, and they shouldn't have to be.
"Remember when push-scooters first started to become fashionable?"
yes, fondly. it was in the mid '60s. or did you think scooters had been invented in the '90s?
my point is that things go in and out of fashion. ten years from now scooters will be "uncool" again; then, around 2030 or so, there'll be '90s or '00s nostalgia, and then it'll be YOUR turn to post a cranky reply to some snot-nosed kid.
and as far as "segway" goes: i also remember hula-hoops...
...can someone explain why spam even exists? I mean, everybody I know - without exception - hates it and considers it a blight. What makes spammers think they can generate business by pissing people off? I honestly don't get it. 8-(
"The phrase to which I alluded was not the title of the article, but was in the summary that followed:
'how your room looks like.'"
understood. the purpose of my post was only informational, and not intended to refute your points. as it happens, i agree with everything you said in that thread, and as you see, added you to my short list of "friends."
even though the popular opinion of such things is low, i sometimes can't resist ranting about poor language myself - but i do it anonymously, to protect my meager karma. 8-)
Just for the record, if anyone cares, "How Looks Your Geekroom?" is a literal translation of the German "Wie sieht dein Geekroom* aus?" It's apparent that the author did the best he could; he translated the WORDS, which is relatively simple, but not the GRAMMAR, which is a considerably more complicated undertaking. As a native English speaker who is currently learning German, I feel his pain.;-)
*"Geekroom" has no German equivalent, and is a "loan word," as etymologists call them. English has them too; "gesundheit" and "kindergarten" come to mind. I reckon you know what I mean ("reckon" comes from the German "rechnen," "to count"). 8-)
as a 40 year resident of nj (jackson, ocean county), i'm here to tell you this guy's full of shit. nj is as bad as all the jokes say, and deserves its reputation.
Slashdot Mirror
"Wait... so... you're equating OSS programmers to slaves?"
no, he's making a point about "not caring about ideology," and i agree with him.
his point is that "not caring about ideology" = not caring about right and wrong = amoral. you don't care about reasons, or consequences; you just want the tastiest ice cream, the shiniest skin for your desktop GUI. it's the mindset of an animal; it can't grasp issues of morality, it just wants food.
you said, in your original post, that "your name is not [gandhi]" - yes, that's correct. gandhi is remembered and revered by millions, won a nobel peace prize, and is considered a great man, one of the most influential people on the planet in recent history, and an example of the best humanity can produce. i agree; you are certainly not gandhi.
you're running a 4-year-old OS? what's your IP address?
I do a fresh OS installation every 6 months, on May 1 and November 1 - that's when new releases of OpenBSD come out. 8-)
For the record, my first 10 programs installed are:
"don't make decisions like that for the rest of us."
he's not. he's expressing his view; that's allowed. your misrepresentation of his post is disingenuous at best.
life is more comfortable aboard the death star than on ice planet hoth.
since this is slashdot, i'd better spell it out: microsoft ("the empire") has more money and resources; it's no big deal for them to support every bleeding edge tech that comes down the pike, and with their market share, of course more professional grade software runs natively on it.
open source ("the rebellion") often has to make do, jury-rig, wait a few months; there are hardships.
my reasons for using open-source stuff aren't so much about technology - one has to admit that windows is (finally) pretty stable and capable these days - but about doing the right thing. microsoft are greedy and immoral, and yeah, it is as simple as that; though the path of least resistance is just to "follow the herd" and "go with the flow," it's not right to support their ethical abuses.
personally, i'll take a tauntaun skin over a bunk on the death star any day; i may sleep a little colder, but i'll sleep soundly.
i don't think anybody will disagree with that.
Regarding the story "Linux cyber-battle turns nasty" ( http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3457823.stm ) which appears on your website today ( 05-02-2004 ):
It is entirely possible that the "MyDoom virus" was created to discredit the open source community by generating bad press such as this story.
That this didn't occur to Stephen Evans, the story's author, is inexcusably bad journalism. Furthermore, even if it should turn out that the author of the virus is an open source zealot, to tar and feather the entire open source community for the actions of a single individual is at best unfair, and again, very bad journalism.
Elsewhere in the article, Evans uses such language as, "It's hard to see how any website could withstand that kind of clever evil" and "It is about malice not money."
It is, of course, not the place of a journalist to draw conclusions or make value judgements; journalism is meant to be impartial, and report facts.
Evans' piece violates these time honored principles cavalierly; one must question his motives in doing so.
At any rate, this piece does not meet the high standards of journalism one associates with the BBC; I sincerely hope that Evans will be reprimanded for his irresponsibility and that the editors will be more critical of his work in future.
> I leave it to the Lord to punish SCO. Eternal doom proposed.
I can't wait that long.
it seems pretty obvious that, since he was actually doing something with the site, was actually using it, that his intent was not merely to turn around and sell the name, he was not just "squatting." every domain squatter i've ever seen buys domain names en masse and puts up a generic page saying, "this domain is for sale;" that's clearly not the case here.
he agrees that he thought the phonetic similarity to "Microsoft," a bit of wordplay, was amusing, but that's a separate issue.
his site didn't look like a Microsoft page, didn't offer the same services or products as a Microsoft page, in short, had nothing in common with Microsoft's website. there's no way that anybody with enough intelligence to recognize that the little plastic mouse moves the cursor on the screen could possibly confuse the two.
summary: he was not squatting, did not act in "bad faith," and is no threat to Microsoft in any way.
shame on you, Microsoft.
we get signal?
truly
congratulations
congratulate
(if you believe that this imbecile speaks for anyone, you're a fool)
at MER
...who's supported the mission
who have
existence
the purpose of mars? are you stupid?
the existence of mars? was there any doubt that mars exists?
who the fuck are you, george bush? prevail? victories on mars? it's not a war, at least, not yet
wait, here's a wacky idea; how about telling the truth? it's frightening that simple honesty rarely even enters peoples' minds any more...
your post is the best one i've read so far on this thread.
but...
"anal orpheus[sic]?"
you've gotta be kidding me...
A rude coward wrote:
"Thank you for trolling, please drive through. And install Fedora Core while you're at it."
My post was not intended as a troll. Trolls are generally defined as insincere posts, written purely with the intent of provoking reactions; often they are copied and pasted en masse from previous posts.
My post, on the other hand, represents my sincere beliefs and opinions. Furthermore, it is original; I spent an hour or so of my time writing and editing it in an attempt to accurately convey my views. Your glib dismissal of my work is inaccurate, inappropriate, and rude.
As for Fedora: we'll see. Maybe, in time, Fedora will become a worthy successor to its predecessors; for now, though, it's beta, unknown, untested, and has no clearly defined support channel (i refer to .rpm updates) or development roadmap. At best, it's based on Redhat 9, a flaky, unstable release in my (considerable) experience. Fine for tinkering with, perhaps, but most certainly not ready for use where a stable system is required, for example, production servers or my laptop. Again, your advice is poorly thought through and inappropriate.
I stand by my original post.
"...non-technical businesspeople are retarded..."
Amen, brother!
8-)
...it's FatBits, from MacPaint on my old Macintosh. 8-)
1984, 128KB RAM, 400MB 3.5" floppy, no HD, 9" diagonal B&W screen ($2499 the day it came out)... Andy Herzfeld was brilliant... those were the days... 8-)
"Twirlip of the Mists" wrote: "Implicit or explicit?" That sounds like "real or imagined." The problem is that YOU decide you feel threatened, regardless of whether a REAL threat exists. No; bullies never have a problem being bullies, do they? You may not have a problem with the US being the world's bully, but the rest of the world does. May the human race be saved from people like you.
"Twirlip of the Mists" wrote: By way of rebuttal, here's an excerpt from an advertisement for "LLAP-Goch, the Secret Welsh ART of Self-Defence" (from Monty Python's excellent "Papperbok"):
"Twirlip," let me make your error absolutely clear for you: you say,
Here's your mistake: to respond means "to act in response." That means AFTER you've been attacked. See? If a bully picks a fight with you, you have every right to fight back; but if you throw the first punch, you're the bully.That's really unfair. What you say makes sense when applied to the slashdot population, but what about my mom? What about your dentist? Most people who use computers aren't IT professionals who can dedicate an hour every day to reading several security-related websites and downloading and installing software patches, and they shouldn't have to be.
"Remember when push-scooters first started to become fashionable?"
yes, fondly. it was in the mid '60s. or did you think scooters had been invented in the '90s?
my point is that things go in and out of fashion. ten years from now scooters will be "uncool" again; then, around 2030 or so, there'll be '90s or '00s nostalgia, and then it'll be YOUR turn to post a cranky reply to some snot-nosed kid.
and as far as "segway" goes: i also remember hula-hoops...
...can someone explain why spam even exists? I mean, everybody I know - without exception - hates it and considers it a blight. What makes spammers think they can generate business by pissing people off? I honestly don't get it. 8-(
"The phrase to which I alluded was not the title of the article, but was in the summary that followed:
'how your room looks like.'"
understood. the purpose of my post was only informational, and not intended to refute your points. as it happens, i agree with everything you said in that thread, and as you see, added you to my short list of "friends."
even though the popular opinion of such things is low, i sometimes can't resist ranting about poor language myself - but i do it anonymously, to protect my meager karma. 8-)
cheers!
Just for the record, if anyone cares, "How Looks Your Geekroom?" is a literal translation of the German "Wie sieht dein Geekroom* aus?" It's apparent that the author did the best he could; he translated the WORDS, which is relatively simple, but not the GRAMMAR, which is a considerably more complicated undertaking. As a native English speaker who is currently learning German, I feel his pain.
*"Geekroom" has no German equivalent, and is a "loan word," as etymologists call them. English has them too; "gesundheit" and "kindergarten" come to mind. I reckon you know what I mean ("reckon" comes from the German "rechnen," "to count"). 8-)
"Aha! That explains the bad opinion! Jackson! Own a trailer?"
unfortunately, your view of jackson is pretty accurate.
"anyone who doesn't like [new jersey] can stay the hell out."
i agree. and also with: "america: love it or leave it." that's why i moved to europe. 8-)
as a 40 year resident of nj (jackson, ocean county), i'm here to tell you this guy's full of shit. nj is as bad as all the jokes say, and deserves its reputation.
how's this going to affect my porn wgets?