This story is about *linux the kernel*, the only real linux and not "linux the operating system"
Actually this story is about Windows and KVM...
Thanks, I knew that. KVM is a loadable kernel module for linux, the kernel. It is not one of the distros people call "linux", which is the point. KVM can run Windows, just like other kernel modules can do lots of different things. As far as licensing is concerned, loadable kernel modules are derived works of the kernel.
This story is about *linux the kernel*, the only real linux and not "linux the operating system"; although obviously the word is colloquially used to refer to an operating system (even occasionally by me). Are you new here or are you just slinging mud at something you don't understand, perhaps on the company payroll?
That said, I don't think this story is really news. Every time FOSS projects gain better Windows compatibility in some aspect, it shouldn't be news...let alone wishy-washy bullshit about M$ and FOSS holding hands...
There's also oldbar, hide unvisited, and a few others just from a quick search of addons. I found the "awesomebar" annoying, actually. But that's why it's nice to be able to tweak the browser interface as much as XUL will let you.
You sir, are completely correct and I stand corrected. While I do feel there is a little more we could do in terms of education and ease of use for end users, you hit the key points on the head here.
That is probably the nicest reply I've gotten to any critical post I've made on slashdot. Kudos.
Your anecdote about Macs is now a true statement? Why, because there are more Mac users at conferences you've been to? At least I wouldn't go so far to claim that my FTFY is truth-with-a-capital-T because of my experience.
Oh and thanks for the put-down...guess I'm not technical or sophisticated or a developer, and neither are all the other linux users I've met over the years. Anyway, I'm done with this thread.
Would you? Really? Cause I have been using Linux exclusively for my servers, desktops and notebooks for years and I didn't know there was a "laptop" ubuntu. Or suse. Or redhat.
Actually, I still don't know that. But I will take your word for it that something like that exists in some niche under a rock. Everything does. Linux distros are like porn on the net, if you can think of it, someone has done it. And heck, there are probably even supported ones from the three distros above maybe. Just I never heard of them because I haven't cared enough to look.
Which brings us to the odds of "the average computer user" having heard of them: Zero. Zip. None, Nil.
There are all kinds of laptop/netbook distros out there, quite high-profile ones. The big distros also have options available like laptop-mode. You can mock this if you like, but the average user might mock you for knowing about ubuntu or suse or redhat, too.
It's no surprise that laptop hardware, which is changing at an extraordinary rate in a short period of time, has some compatibility problems with FOSS distros. Only a very small handful of hardware manufacturers test for FOSS distros or provide information to FOSS developers to ensure decent compatibility; an even smaller number employs FOSS developers to ensure a high level of compatibility. These same hardware manufacturers work directly with Microsoft, divulging all of their "trade secrets". This post summarizes the issue well.
Plus, they have absolutely no conditioning for it, coming from either Mac or Win, where you don't need a magic special install to make your laptop work with your OS. You just do it.
So basically this isn't negating the OP's point, but instead reinforcing it. It is just another reason for people who aren't geeks to say: linux, I tried that but my battery life cut in half, so I put Win back on my machine.
The "magic special install" you need for Mac OSX is an Apple computer. It better damn well work as advertised, since everything's coming from the same vendor (even so, I know OSX has had its share of problems on Apple's hardware). Microsoft, like Apple, has "magic special information" that is necessary to make hardware work correctly with software. Even so, we know Microsoft's record on this...they couldn't even get file copying right with Vista (something hardly magical).
Common scenario: Microsoft or Apple screws something up and the user says "well what're you gonna do?" and lives with it. A *nix distro screws something up and the user is up in arms, as if they'd been betrayed since they took the effort to switch to the distro in the first place.
All the documentation, community advice, workarounds, and solutions in the world may not help a user with that mindset, and there's not much the FOSS community can do about the problem. If hardware manufacturers start working more closely with the community, the situation will improve. And indeed it has over the years, immensely.
I never write anything down anymore... I just lose the paper on my desk anyway. When I find out something I want to remember, I write it on the web somewhere anywhere and let google index it for me.
Note to self: portablexdr is the name of the lgpl xdr library I want to use.
I can't imagine how this is practical, and I'm astonished that the notion of trusting everything to the "cloud" has gone this far. But if you do trust the Web to hold your todo list and random thoughts, why not use a CMS like a blog or wiki or a service like PasteBay or Google Docs?
Maybe it seems quaint and old-fashioned, but I prefer a text file or note in my phone or post-it note. Do you never go anywhere without the Internet? Does your network never go down?
And that's one of the insane concepts that many experts hate about Wikipedia.
They say that democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
[citation needed]
Seriously though, Wikipedia works well enough to provide information on an ever-increasing range of topics. If some of the topics don't make the cut, or if editors are becoming more protective of the articles, there are alternative wikis, blogs, and forums all over the Web that seem to fill the gap. Wikipedia has helped to spread the concept of a "do-it-yourself" reference to communities across the globe, and that's a good thing. With LAMP apps that are easy to install and configure, I don't see that trend slowing any time soon.
Those adults were as stupid as the ones from South Park...maybe a good idea for an episode? Especially since the recent ones have been really lacking...
Yeah, I'm actually surprised no one has brought up the importance of copyleft in comparison to non-copyleft free licenses. That's the first thing that came to my mind...
However, props if you guys can distance yourself from GNU and the FSF. That will do wonders for notability.
Yeah, mad props yo. Let's forget those who began the movement...they're just hippies and commies and smelly anyway. Then we can be, um, "notable" and shit. Like Apple and Microsoft. Awww yeahhh.
Although I agree that Scientology is especially egregious in their tactics in the late 20th and early 21st century, it doesn't take much research to see how terrible and vicious other (now respected) religious groups have been in the past. There are many groups whose beliefs are now considered valid and fine who carried out terrible massacres and savage wars in the past. The Catholic church has done horrible things and protestant Christians have carried out similar violence, if one is to look at history. The Thirty Years' War is just one example.
It's an utterly stupid and non-descriptive name for a search engine, anyway.
I'm no M$ fanboi, but I'm gonna have to let them off the hook for the name choice. Yahoo! and Google are also utterly stupid and non-descriptive names for search engines. Microsoft is trying to create buzz and picked a word that people might actually use as a verb, like Google. I don't think that'll happen, but I guess one never knows. I can think of worse names; at least they didn't use a Web 2.0 name generator for this...
It boggles my mind that most of these comments ignore the very explicit political and philosophical goals of the FSF and GNU. So many are quick to "push politics aside" while reaping the benefits of battles won through hard, serious activism. How about actually reading RMS's writing (RTFRMS?), for a start?
The Wired article is pretty bad, which I expect, but the/. summary doesn't provide any context that could make this a good forum for discussing the very important cultural shift we're all experiencing. This link in particular seems appropriate, since the term "Dot-Communism" is thrown around.
Open Source (I think that is what it's about) is not communism, it is open source. Putting labels or trying to over-simplify things hinders correct thinking.
"Open source" was invented as a marketing term for free software and would not exist without the free software movement, which has had explicit political goals since its inception. From free software comes free culture, and free spectrum is hopefully on the way. If you're interested, Eben Moglen's writing and speeches cover these issues and much more (text/audio/video).
Whether coining and pushing "open source" has helped or hindered free software is subject to debate, but there's no doubt that stressing the business merits of sharing source code makes freedom a secondary concern. There are open source licenses that are not recognized by the FSF as free software licenses, and there are companies using the term "open source" for licenses that aren't recognized by the OSI.
Discussing philosophy and politics does not hinder "correct thinking"; discussions of philosophy and politics are an essential byproduct of human thinking and socializing.
Anarchism is a rich branch of the socialist tradition, and socialism is certainly not "state control" (contrary to what Cold War and current recession propaganda would have you believe).
From the MSDN blog: If nothing else, memcpy_s makes you think about the size of the target buffer. . . Of course, you can easily make a call to memcpy_s() insecure by getting the buffer sizes wrong.
I don't know a lot about C, but this seems a bit absurd to me. If a C programmer gets the target buffer size wrong with memcpy(), they're going to start being less sloppy with memcpy_s()?
Johnson: Colonel, you better take a look at this radar. Colonel: What is it, son? Johnson: I don't know, sir, but it looks like a giant-- Jet Pilot: Dick! Dick: Yeah? Jet Pilot: Take a look outta starboard. Dick: Oh, my God! it looks like a huge-- Bird-Watching Woman: Pecker! Bird-Watching Man:[raising binoculars] Oh, where? Bird-Watching Woman: Wait! that's not a woodpecker, it looks like someone's-- Army Sergeant: Privates! We have reports of an unidentified flying object! It is a long, smooth shaft, complete with-- Baseball Umpire: 2 balls!
Slashdot Mirror
Read the blog article, and I think that a better title for this slashdot article would be "minor design failure."
Totally agree...the blog post is just okay, and I'm still not sure why this is news on /.
This story is about *linux the kernel*, the only real linux and not "linux the operating system"
Actually this story is about Windows and KVM...
Thanks, I knew that. KVM is a loadable kernel module for linux, the kernel. It is not one of the distros people call "linux", which is the point. KVM can run Windows, just like other kernel modules can do lots of different things. As far as licensing is concerned, loadable kernel modules are derived works of the kernel.
This story is about *linux the kernel*, the only real linux and not "linux the operating system"; although obviously the word is colloquially used to refer to an operating system (even occasionally by me). Are you new here or are you just slinging mud at something you don't understand, perhaps on the company payroll?
That said, I don't think this story is really news. Every time FOSS projects gain better Windows compatibility in some aspect, it shouldn't be news...let alone wishy-washy bullshit about M$ and FOSS holding hands...
There's also oldbar, hide unvisited, and a few others just from a quick search of addons. I found the "awesomebar" annoying, actually. But that's why it's nice to be able to tweak the browser interface as much as XUL will let you.
Just encrypt the entire drive or where your documents are stored. It's trivial to encrypt your home folder in Ubuntu...for Windows, take a look here.
You sir, are completely correct and I stand corrected. While I do feel there is a little more we could do in terms of education and ease of use for end users, you hit the key points on the head here.
That is probably the nicest reply I've gotten to any critical post I've made on slashdot. Kudos.
Your anecdote about Macs is now a true statement? Why, because there are more Mac users at conferences you've been to? At least I wouldn't go so far to claim that my FTFY is truth-with-a-capital-T because of my experience.
Oh and thanks for the put-down...guess I'm not technical or sophisticated or a developer, and neither are all the other linux users I've met over the years. Anyway, I'm done with this thread.
Yet, the technical or sophisticated user tends to go with linux. Why is that? Don't believe me? Visit a developer's conference
There, fixed that for ya :P
Would you? Really? Cause I have been using Linux exclusively for my servers, desktops and notebooks for years and I didn't know there was a "laptop" ubuntu. Or suse. Or redhat.
Actually, I still don't know that. But I will take your word for it that something like that exists in some niche under a rock. Everything does. Linux distros are like porn on the net, if you can think of it, someone has done it. And heck, there are probably even supported ones from the three distros above maybe. Just I never heard of them because I haven't cared enough to look.
Which brings us to the odds of "the average computer user" having heard of them: Zero. Zip. None, Nil.
There are all kinds of laptop/netbook distros out there, quite high-profile ones. The big distros also have options available like laptop-mode. You can mock this if you like, but the average user might mock you for knowing about ubuntu or suse or redhat, too.
It's no surprise that laptop hardware, which is changing at an extraordinary rate in a short period of time, has some compatibility problems with FOSS distros. Only a very small handful of hardware manufacturers test for FOSS distros or provide information to FOSS developers to ensure decent compatibility; an even smaller number employs FOSS developers to ensure a high level of compatibility. These same hardware manufacturers work directly with Microsoft, divulging all of their "trade secrets". This post summarizes the issue well.
Plus, they have absolutely no conditioning for it, coming from either Mac or Win, where you don't need a magic special install to make your laptop work with your OS. You just do it.
So basically this isn't negating the OP's point, but instead reinforcing it. It is just another reason for people who aren't geeks to say: linux, I tried that but my battery life cut in half, so I put Win back on my machine.
The "magic special install" you need for Mac OSX is an Apple computer. It better damn well work as advertised, since everything's coming from the same vendor (even so, I know OSX has had its share of problems on Apple's hardware). Microsoft, like Apple, has "magic special information" that is necessary to make hardware work correctly with software. Even so, we know Microsoft's record on this...they couldn't even get file copying right with Vista (something hardly magical).
Common scenario: Microsoft or Apple screws something up and the user says "well what're you gonna do?" and lives with it. A *nix distro screws something up and the user is up in arms, as if they'd been betrayed since they took the effort to switch to the distro in the first place.
All the documentation, community advice, workarounds, and solutions in the world may not help a user with that mindset, and there's not much the FOSS community can do about the problem. If hardware manufacturers start working more closely with the community, the situation will improve. And indeed it has over the years, immensely.
I never write anything down anymore... I just lose the paper on my desk anyway. When I find out something I want to remember, I write it on the web somewhere anywhere and let google index it for me.
Note to self: portablexdr is the name of the lgpl xdr library I want to use.
I can't imagine how this is practical, and I'm astonished that the notion of trusting everything to the "cloud" has gone this far. But if you do trust the Web to hold your todo list and random thoughts, why not use a CMS like a blog or wiki or a service like PasteBay or Google Docs?
Maybe it seems quaint and old-fashioned, but I prefer a text file or note in my phone or post-it note. Do you never go anywhere without the Internet? Does your network never go down?
Les Paul comes from before guitars were game controllers.
My wii guitar hero controller is shaped kinda like a Gibson Les Paul, actually.
And that's one of the insane concepts that many experts hate about Wikipedia.
They say that democracy is three wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner.
[citation needed]
Seriously though, Wikipedia works well enough to provide information on an ever-increasing range of topics. If some of the topics don't make the cut, or if editors are becoming more protective of the articles, there are alternative wikis, blogs, and forums all over the Web that seem to fill the gap. Wikipedia has helped to spread the concept of a "do-it-yourself" reference to communities across the globe, and that's a good thing. With LAMP apps that are easy to install and configure, I don't see that trend slowing any time soon.
There's no reason to point the finger at Russia, it could just have easily been the United States or a non-state actor.
Those adults were as stupid as the ones from South Park...maybe a good idea for an episode? Especially since the recent ones have been really lacking...
Yeah, I'm actually surprised no one has brought up the importance of copyleft in comparison to non-copyleft free licenses. That's the first thing that came to my mind...
However, props if you guys can distance yourself from GNU and the FSF. That will do wonders for notability.
Yeah, mad props yo. Let's forget those who began the movement...they're just hippies and commies and smelly anyway. Then we can be, um, "notable" and shit. Like Apple and Microsoft. Awww yeahhh.
Although I agree that Scientology is especially egregious in their tactics in the late 20th and early 21st century, it doesn't take much research to see how terrible and vicious other (now respected) religious groups have been in the past. There are many groups whose beliefs are now considered valid and fine who carried out terrible massacres and savage wars in the past. The Catholic church has done horrible things and protestant Christians have carried out similar violence, if one is to look at history. The Thirty Years' War is just one example.
It's an utterly stupid and non-descriptive name for a search engine, anyway.
I'm no M$ fanboi, but I'm gonna have to let them off the hook for the name choice. Yahoo! and Google are also utterly stupid and non-descriptive names for search engines. Microsoft is trying to create buzz and picked a word that people might actually use as a verb, like Google. I don't think that'll happen, but I guess one never knows. I can think of worse names; at least they didn't use a Web 2.0 name generator for this...
Who elected this guy to define anarchism and maintain its FAQ???
Who elected these people to define anarchism and maintain its Wikipedia article??? :P
It boggles my mind that most of these comments ignore the very explicit political and philosophical goals of the FSF and GNU. So many are quick to "push politics aside" while reaping the benefits of battles won through hard, serious activism. How about actually reading RMS's writing (RTFRMS?), for a start?
/. summary doesn't provide any context that could make this a good forum for discussing the very important cultural shift we're all experiencing. This link in particular seems appropriate, since the term "Dot-Communism" is thrown around.
The Wired article is pretty bad, which I expect, but the
Open Source (I think that is what it's about) is not communism, it is open source. Putting labels or trying to over-simplify things hinders correct thinking.
"Open source" was invented as a marketing term for free software and would not exist without the free software movement, which has had explicit political goals since its inception. From free software comes free culture, and free spectrum is hopefully on the way. If you're interested, Eben Moglen's writing and speeches cover these issues and much more (text/audio/video).
Whether coining and pushing "open source" has helped or hindered free software is subject to debate, but there's no doubt that stressing the business merits of sharing source code makes freedom a secondary concern. There are open source licenses that are not recognized by the FSF as free software licenses, and there are companies using the term "open source" for licenses that aren't recognized by the OSI.
Discussing philosophy and politics does not hinder "correct thinking"; discussions of philosophy and politics are an essential byproduct of human thinking and socializing.
Socialism is state control. What we have on the web is anarchy. Fun, friendly anarchy.
I think you need to take a look at An Anarchist FAQ :)
Anarchism is a rich branch of the socialist tradition, and socialism is certainly not "state control" (contrary to what Cold War and current recession propaganda would have you believe).
...ought to be enough for anybody.
From the MSDN blog:
If nothing else, memcpy_s makes you think about the size of the target buffer. . . Of course, you can easily make a call to memcpy_s() insecure by getting the buffer sizes wrong.
I don't know a lot about C, but this seems a bit absurd to me. If a C programmer gets the target buffer size wrong with memcpy(), they're going to start being less sloppy with memcpy_s()?
Johnson: Colonel, you better take a look at this radar.
Colonel: What is it, son?
Johnson: I don't know, sir, but it looks like a giant--
Jet Pilot: Dick!
Dick: Yeah?
Jet Pilot: Take a look outta starboard.
Dick: Oh, my God! it looks like a huge--
Bird-Watching Woman: Pecker!
Bird-Watching Man: [raising binoculars] Oh, where?
Bird-Watching Woman: Wait! that's not a woodpecker, it looks like someone's--
Army Sergeant: Privates! We have reports of an unidentified flying object! It is a long, smooth shaft, complete with--
Baseball Umpire: 2 balls!