Popularity may be the wrong phrase, but it is about hearts and minds. If you cannot convince the moderates that releasing under the GPL is the way to go, then where are you?
Let me give an example. About a year ago, a developer I worked with upgraded his systems. He was left with a Frankenstein machine, which upon some inspection, was a perfect Linux candidate. "You should put Linux on it," and he did. After a bit of debate, he decided to work on his latest project, "porting" to Unix/Linux and Qt as he went. He would have NEVER done this, had he seen this article. He wanted to get his feet wet, and as a moderate, he would have honestly been scared by the GPL.
That's heart and mind lost. I don't buy that, "If you don't get it, we don't want you" crap. We want everyone.
Offending the moderates
on
Freedom or Power?
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
I think RMS and the FSF are going to start losing ground, because they're going to fall into the trap of many politicians who want to change the world: they're going to offend the moderates.
I'm speaking as a USian, of course. As everyone knows, despite the media's obsession with polarized (right and left) politics, the US population is really a vast pool of people with relatively moderate views. Sure, some of them are sharply polarized about *issues* (abortion rights, the economy, whatever), but by and large, they're in the middle of the political spectrum. The first thing a candidate does is hit up his support of the issues while trying to not appear too far to one side, lest he offend the moderates.
There are a lot of people who like the GPL, because it prevents proprietary lock-in and helps create a sense of empowerment and community. The problem, I feel, is that once you put the GPL in your code, you're putting it (and yourself) into the "camp" of the FSF. You're now essentially signing on to the RMS/FSF game plan, even if all you wanted was to see your code not get folded into a proprietary product, and let as many people as possible play with things.
MS kept saying, once you start down the path of the GPL, there's no going back. I hate to say it, but maybe they're right. For all their talk about a software "ecosystem", contrasted against stuff like this, it makes me think they (MS) might have been right after all.
You may be pushing for +1, funny, but don't forget the lesson of the Codetalkers.
In WWII, the US Marines code "network" was cracked wide open by the japanese. So, they found a valuable asset: Native Americans speaking in their own language.
Not one of the Codetalker transmissions were ever broken, and they were speaking in "plaintext" the entire time (albeit with a modified vocabulary).
Encryption is as much an exercise in creativity and problem-solving as it it math.
Generally speaking - and your mileage will vary - the PPC world is quite simple:
Buy a box. Use it. When it doesn't work anymore, buy a new one. Give the old one to your kids. Repeat.
This is, of course, my experience. Since everything on PPC is so tightly "bonded", there's little need to get a new [video|sound|SCSI|etc] card every year. Although many people would disagree, what each model ships with is already somewhere around the "high end". Most often, every other year or so, they release a new, higher-end component (like, from ATI Rage to Radeon). But mostly, people just add things like zip drives, external hard drive space, or random components (new mouse, USB hub, etc etc).
I, too, have had nothing but success with the Linksys.
What's cool, is that you can use cURL and wget to skank the various pages and things. There's a file called Gozila.js which contains all the javascript functions, and you can use that to basically figure out how the guts work.
For example, I use it as my DHCP server for my home lan. I have a dual-boot (win98/Linux) desktop, and a Linux laptop. Let's say I'm on my laptop, and my desktop (downstairs, in the other room, etc) is booted into windows, and gets a dynamic IP. Well, each of my roommates has various machines on, too. So, I would look at the client table page, and figure out which machine was mine. then I'd VNC into it, reboot, and Linux is the default. the Linux side of things uses a fixed IP.
So, after some experimentation, I learned that you can use cURL/wget to pull the DHCP table out. Then, some grepping, and you have your machine. A simple click on my desktop, and I can reboot the machine into Linux. *I* was proud of myself.
Perhaps it's an overly geeky solution, but I was impressed at the "openness" of the device for simple tasks like this.
>With Borders, if you don't like it, you can shop elsewhere.
Until B&N and every other bookstore starts doing it.
I mean, if Borders starts getting SPECTACULAR results from it - a very low false positive rate, decent PR, etc - then you can be sure others will adopt it.
That's why it bothers me. While I agree with you, before long, there won't be many places to shop that don't implement this - if it works.
Re the last comment (allowing them back in your store): you know, I agree with you here, too, but the whole point of the judicial system was SUPPOSED to be for rehabilitation. Yes, you lock up violent offenders and such, but for "the rest of them", it's supposed to make you not want to go to jail anymore, fly straight and narrow.
It's probably a tangential, "offtopic" argument, but have we just completely surrendered any notion of rehabilitation? Once a criminal, always a criminal? Must they wear that scarlet letter forever? Given the rates of recitivism (sp?), maybe.
Solar flares are not the fault of the satellite provider.
Traffic jams are often not the fault of the state, but morons rubbernecking. The state, in nearly every case I can remember, mentions to me in advance when they're going to tear the roads up, so I can plan an alternate route.
I've never taken the time to write an angry post about the editorial content... but sheesh.
First, if you lost cablemodem service for almost a WEEK, WHILE BEING LIED TO about the cause, wouldn't you be a little mad? This was the case here in Fairfax. They tried to say it was "sheduled router upgrades", only to backpedal a couple days later after everyone figured it out (and they had to implore their users to patch, and their email system was down, etc etc).
Second, I guess I'm wacky, but if I pay for something, I want what I paid for, as other people have said here. I pay $45 a month for cable service. I don't call and complain if it goes out during a storm for a couple hours. But if its down for DAYS, their tech support line is TURNED OFF, and no one will tell me when it's coming back up, I expect to not have to pay for this service! I am not being given anything but a blinking data light. Some of us do not maintain multiple backup dial-up accounts; yes, I'll freely admin I'm spoiled by broadband, but at the same time, I can't justify spending $25 a month in case I lose my connection for a week.All the DSL providers in my area are dead or dying; roadrunner is my only option besides modeming (which is a bad scene in and of itself, die to "multiplexed lines" or some such nonsense which means I get 28.8 tops).
Third, if no one says anything and just rolls over, then the company will not be challenged to provide a high level of service, since they will know customers will just take it.
McAfee StrikeBack(tm) contains an [ActiveX|DLL] vulnerability, causing [mailcious email|specially formatted string on port XXX] to [crash the box|get root|return false results to unintended targets]. Users are advised to [upgrade|disable until upgrade posted|other].
Not that I'm against it, as such, but we're talking about the Keystone Kops of security, here.
In GDW's old role-playing game "2300AD", the tantalum was the primary element in the creation of FTL drives. The Congo became a power center and the nations of the world scrambled to get enough of the stuff, while the recently united African nations on the Congo region charged them out the ass.
When the game was written (late 80s sometime?) was all this going on?
RoadRunner Fairfax VA unusable
on
Code Redux
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
Here in Fairfax, our cable modem dropped out around 6pm Sunday night; it came back up after about an hour, but ever since then, I've had faster speeds on dial-up.
The phone system reports that SirCam has taken out their email servers, and that Code Red [I|II] is causing serious performance problems. They expect to have it done by tomorrow - except that today, when I called, they no longer are saying that, merely begging users to patch their systems.
Phone tech support is turned off, at least in my wanderings in the phone system.
I've told this story here before, but I'll tell it again.
Simply put, educators don't want Linux any more than the leader of, say, MSNBC does.
Once, a while ago, I volunteered my time and about a half-dozen old 386's. Rather, I should say, I tried to, because no one wanted them. "They need to be Pentium II's", they would say (not even the standard at the time! Most people still had plain-jane P5's!). "They need to run Word. We're teaching job skills here". I tried to say, learning to use a computer is much more than selecting text and printing. No dice. I eventually junked the machines because no one would take them, and spent my now free time doing nothing.
The point is - and I do have one - is that encouraging Free Software is important, sure, but its going to fall on dead ears. People want Word. People know what Word is. People at large are not interested in the ethics of software. Most of them don't want to see MS broken up.
Is it just me, or has every company that had the Traveller license suffered somehow? I can think of 4 or 5 different incarnations (Traveller, Traveller:TNE, Megatraveller, GURPS Traveller, and I think there was another edition in there somewhere). It's a great game (any game that uses hex for attributes is cool!), I'd hate to see it orphaned AGAIN. SJGames has produced excellent material for it.
I don't follow. My IP was different yesterday than it is today (cable modem). Yesterday, at 11.22.33.44 I searched for "literacy rates in medieval europe". Today with IP 11.22.33.34 I searched for "websieve".
Even the most brilliant marketing gonzo will look at that and say big deal.
I truly don't understand what the conspiracy bits are getting set for. The information is interesting but useless, unless you're doing some kind of zeigeist master's thesis.
Slashdot Mirror
Popularity may be the wrong phrase, but it is about hearts and minds. If you cannot convince the moderates that releasing under the GPL is the way to go, then where are you?
Let me give an example. About a year ago, a developer I worked with upgraded his systems. He was left with a Frankenstein machine, which upon some inspection, was a perfect Linux candidate. "You should put Linux on it," and he did. After a bit of debate, he decided to work on his latest project, "porting" to Unix/Linux and Qt as he went. He would have NEVER done this, had he seen this article. He wanted to get his feet wet, and as a moderate, he would have honestly been scared by the GPL.
That's heart and mind lost. I don't buy that, "If you don't get it, we don't want you" crap. We want everyone.
I think RMS and the FSF are going to start losing ground, because they're going to fall into the trap of many politicians who want to change the world: they're going to offend the moderates.
I'm speaking as a USian, of course. As everyone knows, despite the media's obsession with polarized (right and left) politics, the US population is really a vast pool of people with relatively moderate views. Sure, some of them are sharply polarized about *issues* (abortion rights, the economy, whatever), but by and large, they're in the middle of the political spectrum. The first thing a candidate does is hit up his support of the issues while trying to not appear too far to one side, lest he offend the moderates.
There are a lot of people who like the GPL, because it prevents proprietary lock-in and helps create a sense of empowerment and community. The problem, I feel, is that once you put the GPL in your code, you're putting it (and yourself) into the "camp" of the FSF. You're now essentially signing on to the RMS/FSF game plan, even if all you wanted was to see your code not get folded into a proprietary product, and let as many people as possible play with things.
MS kept saying, once you start down the path of the GPL, there's no going back. I hate to say it, but maybe they're right. For all their talk about a software "ecosystem", contrasted against stuff like this, it makes me think they (MS) might have been right after all.
It's still a boat. When someone bicycles across, call me.
My theory has been for some time that once the bottom finally falls out of VA, Big Blue will swoop in and get it cheap.
YMMV.
This has been at my local CompUSA (Fairfax, VA) for over a week. Anyone have any ideas as to why?
http://www.snopes.com/religion/jedi.htm
contains the complete info on this BORING (IMHO) urban legend.
"When space travel ramps up, it'll be the corporations that name everything. The IBM Stellar Sphere. The Microsoft Galaxy. Planet Starbucks."
You may be pushing for +1, funny, but don't forget the lesson of the Codetalkers.
In WWII, the US Marines code "network" was cracked wide open by the japanese. So, they found a valuable asset: Native Americans speaking in their own language.
Not one of the Codetalker transmissions were ever broken, and they were speaking in "plaintext" the entire time (albeit with a modified vocabulary).
Encryption is as much an exercise in creativity and problem-solving as it it math.
Codetalker stuff:
http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq61-1.htm
Generally speaking - and your mileage will vary - the PPC world is quite simple:
Buy a box. Use it. When it doesn't work anymore, buy a new one. Give the old one to your kids. Repeat.
This is, of course, my experience. Since everything on PPC is so tightly "bonded", there's little need to get a new [video|sound|SCSI|etc] card every year. Although many people would disagree, what each model ships with is already somewhere around the "high end". Most often, every other year or so, they release a new, higher-end component (like, from ATI Rage to Radeon). But mostly, people just add things like zip drives, external hard drive space, or random components (new mouse, USB hub, etc etc).
I, too, have had nothing but success with the Linksys.
What's cool, is that you can use cURL and wget to skank the various pages and things. There's a file called Gozila.js which contains all the javascript functions, and you can use that to basically figure out how the guts work.
For example, I use it as my DHCP server for my home lan. I have a dual-boot (win98/Linux) desktop, and a Linux laptop. Let's say I'm on my laptop, and my desktop (downstairs, in the other room, etc) is booted into windows, and gets a dynamic IP. Well, each of my roommates has various machines on, too. So, I would look at the client table page, and figure out which machine was mine. then I'd VNC into it, reboot, and Linux is the default. the Linux side of things uses a fixed IP.
So, after some experimentation, I learned that you can use cURL/wget to pull the DHCP table out. Then, some grepping, and you have your machine. A simple click on my desktop, and I can reboot the machine into Linux. *I* was proud of myself.
Perhaps it's an overly geeky solution, but I was impressed at the "openness" of the device for simple tasks like this.
I bow to you. I was trying to get the first joke in.
Server, server, whereforeart thou, server?
Deny thy slashdotting and accept mine HTTP connects!
5 comments and I can't seem to connect. mayhap I shall bite my thumb at RoadRunner?
the program doesn't exist.
I understand not wanting to be the next DMCA victim, but really, if the code isn't out there, then, it doesn't exist in my eyes.
>With Borders, if you don't like it, you can shop elsewhere.
Until B&N and every other bookstore starts doing it.
I mean, if Borders starts getting SPECTACULAR results from it - a very low false positive rate, decent PR, etc - then you can be sure others will adopt it.
That's why it bothers me. While I agree with you, before long, there won't be many places to shop that don't implement this - if it works.
Re the last comment (allowing them back in your store): you know, I agree with you here, too, but the whole point of the judicial system was SUPPOSED to be for rehabilitation. Yes, you lock up violent offenders and such, but for "the rest of them", it's supposed to make you not want to go to jail anymore, fly straight and narrow.
It's probably a tangential, "offtopic" argument, but have we just completely surrendered any notion of rehabilitation? Once a criminal, always a criminal? Must they wear that scarlet letter forever? Given the rates of recitivism (sp?), maybe.
Solar flares are not the fault of the satellite provider.
Traffic jams are often not the fault of the state, but morons rubbernecking. The state, in nearly every case I can remember, mentions to me in advance when they're going to tear the roads up, so I can plan an alternate route.
Try again.
I've never taken the time to write an angry post about the editorial content... but sheesh.
First, if you lost cablemodem service for almost a WEEK, WHILE BEING LIED TO about the cause, wouldn't you be a little mad? This was the case here in Fairfax. They tried to say it was "sheduled router upgrades", only to backpedal a couple days later after everyone figured it out (and they had to implore their users to patch, and their email system was down, etc etc).
Second, I guess I'm wacky, but if I pay for something, I want what I paid for, as other people have said here. I pay $45 a month for cable service. I don't call and complain if it goes out during a storm for a couple hours. But if its down for DAYS, their tech support line is TURNED OFF, and no one will tell me when it's coming back up, I expect to not have to pay for this service! I am not being given anything but a blinking data light. Some of us do not maintain multiple backup dial-up accounts; yes, I'll freely admin I'm spoiled by broadband, but at the same time, I can't justify spending $25 a month in case I lose my connection for a week.All the DSL providers in my area are dead or dying; roadrunner is my only option besides modeming (which is a bad scene in and of itself, die to "multiplexed lines" or some such nonsense which means I get 28.8 tops).
Third, if no one says anything and just rolls over, then the company will not be challenged to provide a high level of service, since they will know customers will just take it.
Sorry, Taco, but you're a helmet.
I can just see it now:
McAfee StrikeBack(tm) contains an [ActiveX|DLL] vulnerability, causing [mailcious email|specially formatted string on port XXX] to [crash the box|get root|return false results to unintended targets]. Users are advised to [upgrade|disable until upgrade posted|other].
Not that I'm against it, as such, but we're talking about the Keystone Kops of security, here.
In GDW's old role-playing game "2300AD", the tantalum was the primary element in the creation of FTL drives. The Congo became a power center and the nations of the world scrambled to get enough of the stuff, while the recently united African nations on the Congo region charged them out the ass.
When the game was written (late 80s sometime?) was all this going on?
Here in Fairfax, our cable modem dropped out around 6pm Sunday night; it came back up after about an hour, but ever since then, I've had faster speeds on dial-up.
The phone system reports that SirCam has taken out their email servers, and that Code Red [I|II] is causing serious performance problems. They expect to have it done by tomorrow - except that today, when I called, they no longer are saying that, merely begging users to patch their systems.
Phone tech support is turned off, at least in my wanderings in the phone system.
Anyone else having these problems?
Here is a discussion of Otzi.
l
Apparently there was a hoax based around the idea that arrows weren't the only thing coming from behind him.
(read the story, you'll get the joke)
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_229.htm
From the article: "New York based AOL..."
That's odd... what's that big-ass building down the street from me (Dulles)? Is AOL no longer based on NoVA as a result of the merger?
I've told this story here before, but I'll tell it again.
Simply put, educators don't want Linux any more than the leader of, say, MSNBC does.
Once, a while ago, I volunteered my time and about a half-dozen old 386's. Rather, I should say, I tried to, because no one wanted them. "They need to be Pentium II's", they would say (not even the standard at the time! Most people still had plain-jane P5's!). "They need to run Word. We're teaching job skills here". I tried to say, learning to use a computer is much more than selecting text and printing. No dice. I eventually junked the machines because no one would take them, and spent my now free time doing nothing.
The point is - and I do have one - is that encouraging Free Software is important, sure, but its going to fall on dead ears. People want Word. People know what Word is. People at large are not interested in the ethics of software. Most of them don't want to see MS broken up.
Is it just me, or has every company that had the Traveller license suffered somehow? I can think of 4 or 5 different incarnations (Traveller, Traveller:TNE, Megatraveller, GURPS Traveller, and I think there was another edition in there somewhere). It's a great game (any game that uses hex for attributes is cool!), I'd hate to see it orphaned AGAIN. SJGames has produced excellent material for it.
I don't follow. My IP was different yesterday than it is today (cable modem). Yesterday, at 11.22.33.44 I searched for "literacy rates in medieval europe". Today with IP 11.22.33.34 I searched for "websieve".
Even the most brilliant marketing gonzo will look at that and say big deal.
I truly don't understand what the conspiracy bits are getting set for. The information is interesting but useless, unless you're doing some kind of zeigeist master's thesis.
If they hadn't burned their house down, then no one would have to sleep in the gym!
Say hi to Booger and Takashi for me!