Hmm, I don't know, the Vorbis team seems to have found some hardware that plays Vorbis files. I don't see any "h4x0ring" (installing software codecs is now considered a hacker challenge? I know that I will be avoiding what systems you've been using) involved with the out-of-the-box players.
Yes, MP3 is popular, but that doesn't mean that distros should be putting themselves in a legally risky position in order to support it. Ogg is slowly gaining popularity; it didn't reach the immediate success of MP3 because it arrived to the party late.
Well, perhaps "stopped" was the wrong word. "Extreme decline" better describes betamax availability, in that I have to look real hard to find someone selling a new betamax device.
"The GPL only applies to individual programs, not entire Linux distributions. You could legally make a Linux distro with just the Linux kernel, and closed-source userspace."
No, actually, you cannot, that is illegal, that is in violation of the GPL, and if you could do that in the past, Stallman would have revised the GPL the next day to stop you. If that type of thing were not a violation of the GPL, Microsoft could make Windows with GPL packages out of the box and it wouldn't be a problem (and Microsoft would love to do just that). For situations where it makes sense to allow that kind of thing, there is the LGPL, which is what packages like libc are released under, and there are plenty of commercial programs linked against LGPL libraries.
Red Hat has acquired many software companies over the past few years, and has had to re-license the acquired code as GPL before including it in RHEL; this requires a large amount of time and money spent having the Red Hat legal staff check everything over. If that wasn't necessary, if Red Hat could legally include non-GPL code in RHEL, then as a corporation, Red Hat would be forced to save money and maximize profit by not performing that check (yes, corporations are required to maximize their profits, by law [well, supreme court decision, which is functionally the law]).
Considering that we live in a country where electronic records are considered "documents," I don't think anyone can actually claim that internet communications are not protected by the 4th amendment. Alas, it falls on deaf ears.
IIRC, the deCSS problem wasn't a patent one, it was a DMCA one; that is, deCSS is a deliberate attempt to circumvent a copy protection scheme without a contract with the copyright holder. Of course, I don't know if someone also patented the algorithm, which would make it more of a double whammy.
Well, admittedly, I don't really like Eclipse. For Java/EJB, I would go with Netbeans, and for just about anything else, its Emacs or KDevelop (KDevelop for Qt, GTK, or wx projects, especially if those projects are fairly large).
"1) Charge for the version of the distro that includes the software, pay the licence fee to the licensor, disallow redistribution of the licensed code
2) Give the distro away for free, pay the licence fee to the licensor, disallow redistribution of the licensed code"
OK, you do that, and if the FSF has no problem with you doing it, then I'll be surprised. You could include it as an extras disc or repo, but not as part of the distribution itself. You cannot make a Linux distro with non-redistributable code included in it, that is the point of the GPL. If you could do such a thing, then Microsoft would be distributing GNU code with Windows, overtly, and just demanding that you not redistribute Microsoft's code. Microsoft does make an add-on calls "services for UNIX," that includes GPL code, but you have to obtain it separately.
"Superior or not, that doesn't help me with all the music I have in mp3 (and no, I'm not about to re-rip it)."
Lucky for you, oggenc and mpg123 can be used to re-encode your music. Actually, you might want to do this anyway, to free up some disc space (I am in the process, because my disc is beginning to get a bit full).
"The OP's point is valid - the experience is not as good out of the box as that of OS X or Windows, with regards to music playing."
No, that is not true, because out of the box, Windows doesn't have ogg support, so my collection of ogg-encoded music would be difficult to play. Not sure about OS X's ogg support, so I won't comment on it, but it really depends on how your music in encoded. By the way, Wikipedia distributes its media content in Vorbis format, so if you are using a system without Vorbis support, your use of Wikipedia is diminished (this is remedied by the Java media player, of course).
That disc is not a part of the distro -- it isn't on the distribution disc, and that disc cannot ship as part of a GPL package. It is common to maintain non-free repositories (Livna, for example) or sell non-free add-ons (as Mandriva does), but they must remain separate from the distro itself (Red Hat is so worried about legal trouble from Livna that they don't even officially mention it, and it is hosted in France). The GPP's point was that he had to go and install extra software to get MP3 support; getting a non-free disc from Novell counts as installing extra software. The system doesn't have MP3 support out-of-the-box, and it cannot, until the MP3 patents expire.
A lot of good, actually. Until Betamax stopped being produced.
Really though, I doubt that Vorbis is going to go the way of Betamax. PNG is a case-in-point: it was created for the same reasons Vorbis was created, and it remains a widely used format (and it is technically superior to GIF).
Well, that is the price you pay for living in a country where software patents are allowed. MP3 is a patented format, so you can never truly listen to an MP3 for free. Part of the cost of Mac OS X is MP3 support, same for Windows Vista. A Linux distro can never distribute software that requires royalties, and so, technically, no Linux distro can legally distribute MP3 software in the US.
Lucky for you, there is Ogg Vorbis, which is technically superior to MP3 anyway, in terms of quality per byte.
The Chinese know better than to allow foreigners to see what is really happening. The oldest trick in the dictator book is that, when you are doing something that looks bad in terms of international politics, you don't let people who you don't have jurisdiction over (or won't have jurisdiction over after some period of time) see anything other than smiles. Westerners see advanced technology, clean, white offices, and citizens living normal lives, but ask those English teachers and engineers where they went, and you'll hear the same few locations over and over. Now, examine the rest of the country, and a different picture is painted. It's not just China; the USSR, Nazi Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Iran, various African nations, etc. Foreign visitors don't see prisons or torture, nor do they see the fearful citizens. They see universities, computer centers, engineering design labs, and so on.
Hardly matters. If the Chinese government had a real need to block those techniques, they wouldn't need that report to discover them. A well-rounded programmer or IT pro. could tell them the weaknesses of whatever system is in place. What it really boils down to is that there are not enough people employing these "under the radar" methods for the Chinese government to care. If 50% of the population was using steganography to sneak forbidden messages around, you can bet that with or without this sort of report, the Chinese government would be scrutinizing every image, audio, and video file transferred over their piece of the Internet.
"Yes I'm sure being unable to install legitimate software that someone wants causes you a great deal less stress."
As a matter of fact, yes, it does cause less stress. Most of the people I deal with just say, "I need this installed," have me check it over and install it, and that's it. Compare with the stress of having people repeatedly complain that spyware just "appeared" on their system, because they wanted to reinstall the weather bug that had to be removed the last time they complained about spyware.
"Linux would be even more secure if it got rid of a GUI. It'd be a lot less convenient, but then again being unable to install legitimate software is damn inconvenient too."
I agree, and I have seen plenty of cases where a GUI was just an unnecessary complexity in a system. The Queens Borough Public Library system uses a console-based application for almost everything that the librarians have to do: check in/check out books, register library cards, check balances/late fees/availability, etc. It works extremely well, even though most of the librarians I've met barely know anything about computers, and most people would say that they "need" a GUI or they will not be able to use the computer. As an engineer, I would say that unless a GUI presents a legitimate advantage to the system, it is just another thing that can go wrong.
Again, it is not that you are unable to, it is just a more complex procedure than click-click-click and you're done, and as a result, you are less likely to randomly install every piece of malware that looks cool. If you take the time to figure out the configure/make/install process, you will not only be much more capable with your computer, but much more able to identify what software you shouldn't be installing. If you are unable to figure the process out, then stick with the repositories, which contain software packages that someone else took the time to verify and build.
Yes, it is not the 3-click install procedure that Windows users are used to, but that fact has saved me a lot of headaches in terms of helping people who use Linux. When helping a Windows user, the first question I ask after, "Is everything plugged in," is always, "What software have you been installing?" Spyware has become popular on Windows because of the simplistic installation process, and despite all the antivirus, antispyware, and other protection schemes, it remains a serious issue. That issue just isn't there for Linux users (well, not entirely true, but it is significantly diminished).
Aside from that, in my experience most home users really don't need to install software that isn't in the repositories anyway. Web/Office/Entertainment is there already, with the exception of gaming (which will be there eventually). Unfortunately, first-time Linux users view this as a weakness, and experienced Linux users view anyone who thinks software should be easier to install as a fool. The truth is that it is a trade-off: convenience is traded for security.
Amendment #8: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."The damages were determined by a government institution that is bound by the constitution. Actually, there have been many court cases challenged on constitutional grounds, most famously the Scopes Monkey Trial, an early case regarding the teaching of evolution in schools.
IP Innovation LLC probably bought the patent. This is what makes their parent company, Acacia, a straight up patent troll: they only produce patent lawsuits. They don't develop software, they don't distribute software, they simply pervert the patent system by making money on other people's inventions without inventing anything of their own. Somehow, I find it to be very unlikely that the person who first thought of virtual desktops will get one penny out of any loss Red Hat will (hopefully never) suffer.
Re:Integration to 3rd party still nearly inexistan
on
OpenOffice.org 2.3 Review
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· Score: 5, Interesting
OOo provides an API for programming Java OLE objects. The problem is not OOo, it is a lack of third party developers actually using this feature. A lot of applications suffer from this problem, actually. Hopefully, with the opening of Java, somebody will write OOo KDE and OOo GNOME wrappers for OLE objects.
Personally, I hold out more hope for KOffice, which is built on KParts. If KOffice 2.0 is as good as the developers say it will be, I will be switching.
Despite all the vulnerabilities, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 has top ratings for security from the NSA, when configured with SELinux in Enforcing mode (and buffer overflow protection, and other features) [Windows does not and has never had these security ratings]. Basically, if you are running a publicly accessible web server, you should have these features configured on your system (the easiest way would be to use Red Hat, but you can certainly get those features on any Linux system). Also, you should be reviewing the code you are planning to deploy before deploying it -- this not only helps keep things secure, but can also help detect potential bugs.
I see lots of attempts on PERL and PHP scripts, many of which I cannot identify, in the logs for my personal web server. lbc.php, prx.php, awstats.pl, to name a few. Just another reason to keep SELinux in enforcing mode.
"The other thin Linux distros must do is to make the default install beautiful. I knoe beauty lies in the hands of the beholder but an ugly app does not help matters in this way at all.The upcoming KDE release looks promising."
Fedora? Ubuntu? Mandriva? We aren't talking about the BSD installers here...and Beryl has definitely gotten a lot of people I know interested in Linux.
"Last but not least; Marketing. Linux distros can do a better job at marketing."
Marketing to whom? Red Hat does an excellent job of marketing, just not to consumers. How do you think Red Hat got to the top?
Here's a hint: it's 100% Apple's doing. AT&T didn't release the firmware update. My guess is that Steve Jobs hasn't made peace with the fact that Apple isn't a monopoly and will never be a monopoly, so he is just trying to piss off third party developers until Apple becomes an entirely separate market, with a separate Internet, separate power grid, and separate civilization. Really, why else would Apple deliberately thwart so many other 3rd party developments, like open source DAAP access (yes, I know, Apple didn't deliberately brick these phones, this update just consequentially bricks them).
Yes, although that program is very limited: it only works with Gmail, and it is only a Firefox extension. My mail client works with most mail servers, except for the "free" ones (but I get email accounts from my ISP and University, and I had an email account from my former employer. And I could potentially run my own mail server, and Gmail supports POP3 (but sadly, not IMAP)). And there are many other advantages to mail clients, including increased security, secondary antispam filters, integration with productivity software and office software, etc. etc. etc.
Still, that extension is at least a step in the right direction.
Hmm...it would be like...writing a small piece of code, that had some sort of SecurityManager object, and had to get user approval to do anything other than display data and communicate with the web server it came from...
You seeing the point? We already have technologies that do all that, but because the first attempt was bad, people just lost interest and moved on. What we should have done was improve applets, not go and copy XMLHTTPRequest from Microsoft.
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Yes, MP3 is popular, but that doesn't mean that distros should be putting themselves in a legally risky position in order to support it. Ogg is slowly gaining popularity; it didn't reach the immediate success of MP3 because it arrived to the party late.
Well, perhaps "stopped" was the wrong word. "Extreme decline" better describes betamax availability, in that I have to look real hard to find someone selling a new betamax device.
No, actually, you cannot, that is illegal, that is in violation of the GPL, and if you could do that in the past, Stallman would have revised the GPL the next day to stop you. If that type of thing were not a violation of the GPL, Microsoft could make Windows with GPL packages out of the box and it wouldn't be a problem (and Microsoft would love to do just that). For situations where it makes sense to allow that kind of thing, there is the LGPL, which is what packages like libc are released under, and there are plenty of commercial programs linked against LGPL libraries.
Red Hat has acquired many software companies over the past few years, and has had to re-license the acquired code as GPL before including it in RHEL; this requires a large amount of time and money spent having the Red Hat legal staff check everything over. If that wasn't necessary, if Red Hat could legally include non-GPL code in RHEL, then as a corporation, Red Hat would be forced to save money and maximize profit by not performing that check (yes, corporations are required to maximize their profits, by law [well, supreme court decision, which is functionally the law]).
Considering that we live in a country where electronic records are considered "documents," I don't think anyone can actually claim that internet communications are not protected by the 4th amendment. Alas, it falls on deaf ears.
IIRC, the deCSS problem wasn't a patent one, it was a DMCA one; that is, deCSS is a deliberate attempt to circumvent a copy protection scheme without a contract with the copyright holder. Of course, I don't know if someone also patented the algorithm, which would make it more of a double whammy.
Well, admittedly, I don't really like Eclipse. For Java/EJB, I would go with Netbeans, and for just about anything else, its Emacs or KDevelop (KDevelop for Qt, GTK, or wx projects, especially if those projects are fairly large).
2) Give the distro away for free, pay the licence fee to the licensor, disallow redistribution of the licensed code"
OK, you do that, and if the FSF has no problem with you doing it, then I'll be surprised. You could include it as an extras disc or repo, but not as part of the distribution itself. You cannot make a Linux distro with non-redistributable code included in it, that is the point of the GPL. If you could do such a thing, then Microsoft would be distributing GNU code with Windows, overtly, and just demanding that you not redistribute Microsoft's code. Microsoft does make an add-on calls "services for UNIX," that includes GPL code, but you have to obtain it separately.
"Superior or not, that doesn't help me with all the music I have in mp3 (and no, I'm not about to re-rip it)."
Lucky for you, oggenc and mpg123 can be used to re-encode your music. Actually, you might want to do this anyway, to free up some disc space (I am in the process, because my disc is beginning to get a bit full).
"The OP's point is valid - the experience is not as good out of the box as that of OS X or Windows, with regards to music playing."
No, that is not true, because out of the box, Windows doesn't have ogg support, so my collection of ogg-encoded music would be difficult to play. Not sure about OS X's ogg support, so I won't comment on it, but it really depends on how your music in encoded. By the way, Wikipedia distributes its media content in Vorbis format, so if you are using a system without Vorbis support, your use of Wikipedia is diminished (this is remedied by the Java media player, of course).
That disc is not a part of the distro -- it isn't on the distribution disc, and that disc cannot ship as part of a GPL package. It is common to maintain non-free repositories (Livna, for example) or sell non-free add-ons (as Mandriva does), but they must remain separate from the distro itself (Red Hat is so worried about legal trouble from Livna that they don't even officially mention it, and it is hosted in France). The GPP's point was that he had to go and install extra software to get MP3 support; getting a non-free disc from Novell counts as installing extra software. The system doesn't have MP3 support out-of-the-box, and it cannot, until the MP3 patents expire.
Really though, I doubt that Vorbis is going to go the way of Betamax. PNG is a case-in-point: it was created for the same reasons Vorbis was created, and it remains a widely used format (and it is technically superior to GIF).
I would just cite emacs, but since you seem to be interested in something more...graphical...I'll just list these three:
* Eclipse
* KDevelop
* Netbeans
Lucky for you, there is Ogg Vorbis, which is technically superior to MP3 anyway, in terms of quality per byte.
The Chinese know better than to allow foreigners to see what is really happening. The oldest trick in the dictator book is that, when you are doing something that looks bad in terms of international politics, you don't let people who you don't have jurisdiction over (or won't have jurisdiction over after some period of time) see anything other than smiles. Westerners see advanced technology, clean, white offices, and citizens living normal lives, but ask those English teachers and engineers where they went, and you'll hear the same few locations over and over. Now, examine the rest of the country, and a different picture is painted. It's not just China; the USSR, Nazi Germany, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Iran, various African nations, etc. Foreign visitors don't see prisons or torture, nor do they see the fearful citizens. They see universities, computer centers, engineering design labs, and so on.
Hardly matters. If the Chinese government had a real need to block those techniques, they wouldn't need that report to discover them. A well-rounded programmer or IT pro. could tell them the weaknesses of whatever system is in place. What it really boils down to is that there are not enough people employing these "under the radar" methods for the Chinese government to care. If 50% of the population was using steganography to sneak forbidden messages around, you can bet that with or without this sort of report, the Chinese government would be scrutinizing every image, audio, and video file transferred over their piece of the Internet.
As a matter of fact, yes, it does cause less stress. Most of the people I deal with just say, "I need this installed," have me check it over and install it, and that's it. Compare with the stress of having people repeatedly complain that spyware just "appeared" on their system, because they wanted to reinstall the weather bug that had to be removed the last time they complained about spyware.
"Linux would be even more secure if it got rid of a GUI. It'd be a lot less convenient, but then again being unable to install legitimate software is damn inconvenient too."
I agree, and I have seen plenty of cases where a GUI was just an unnecessary complexity in a system. The Queens Borough Public Library system uses a console-based application for almost everything that the librarians have to do: check in/check out books, register library cards, check balances/late fees/availability, etc. It works extremely well, even though most of the librarians I've met barely know anything about computers, and most people would say that they "need" a GUI or they will not be able to use the computer. As an engineer, I would say that unless a GUI presents a legitimate advantage to the system, it is just another thing that can go wrong.
Again, it is not that you are unable to, it is just a more complex procedure than click-click-click and you're done, and as a result, you are less likely to randomly install every piece of malware that looks cool. If you take the time to figure out the configure/make/install process, you will not only be much more capable with your computer, but much more able to identify what software you shouldn't be installing. If you are unable to figure the process out, then stick with the repositories, which contain software packages that someone else took the time to verify and build.
Aside from that, in my experience most home users really don't need to install software that isn't in the repositories anyway. Web/Office/Entertainment is there already, with the exception of gaming (which will be there eventually). Unfortunately, first-time Linux users view this as a weakness, and experienced Linux users view anyone who thinks software should be easier to install as a fool. The truth is that it is a trade-off: convenience is traded for security.
Amendment #8: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."The damages were determined by a government institution that is bound by the constitution. Actually, there have been many court cases challenged on constitutional grounds, most famously the Scopes Monkey Trial, an early case regarding the teaching of evolution in schools.
I recommend the problems of Apollonius, or the problem of the Pythagoreans.
IP Innovation LLC probably bought the patent. This is what makes their parent company, Acacia, a straight up patent troll: they only produce patent lawsuits. They don't develop software, they don't distribute software, they simply pervert the patent system by making money on other people's inventions without inventing anything of their own. Somehow, I find it to be very unlikely that the person who first thought of virtual desktops will get one penny out of any loss Red Hat will (hopefully never) suffer.
Personally, I hold out more hope for KOffice, which is built on KParts. If KOffice 2.0 is as good as the developers say it will be, I will be switching.
Despite all the vulnerabilities, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 has top ratings for security from the NSA, when configured with SELinux in Enforcing mode (and buffer overflow protection, and other features) [Windows does not and has never had these security ratings]. Basically, if you are running a publicly accessible web server, you should have these features configured on your system (the easiest way would be to use Red Hat, but you can certainly get those features on any Linux system). Also, you should be reviewing the code you are planning to deploy before deploying it -- this not only helps keep things secure, but can also help detect potential bugs.
I see lots of attempts on PERL and PHP scripts, many of which I cannot identify, in the logs for my personal web server. lbc.php, prx.php, awstats.pl, to name a few. Just another reason to keep SELinux in enforcing mode.
"The other thin Linux distros must do is to make the default install beautiful. I knoe beauty lies in the hands of the beholder but an ugly app does not help matters in this way at all.The upcoming KDE release looks promising." Fedora? Ubuntu? Mandriva? We aren't talking about the BSD installers here...and Beryl has definitely gotten a lot of people I know interested in Linux. "Last but not least; Marketing. Linux distros can do a better job at marketing." Marketing to whom? Red Hat does an excellent job of marketing, just not to consumers. How do you think Red Hat got to the top?
Here's a hint: it's 100% Apple's doing. AT&T didn't release the firmware update. My guess is that Steve Jobs hasn't made peace with the fact that Apple isn't a monopoly and will never be a monopoly, so he is just trying to piss off third party developers until Apple becomes an entirely separate market, with a separate Internet, separate power grid, and separate civilization. Really, why else would Apple deliberately thwart so many other 3rd party developments, like open source DAAP access (yes, I know, Apple didn't deliberately brick these phones, this update just consequentially bricks them).
Still, that extension is at least a step in the right direction.
You seeing the point? We already have technologies that do all that, but because the first attempt was bad, people just lost interest and moved on. What we should have done was improve applets, not go and copy XMLHTTPRequest from Microsoft.