Frankly, slashdot staff is known for some yellowish view on submissions. And many people have talked about this. However, in this case I do not think that you people are seeing the whole picture. You blame the/. for overweighting the whistleblower stuff. I think that they are doing not enough here. Yes/. should be blamed to chenge the submission in such a way. But please stick in this fault and not in M$'s plans.
Frankly I am a damn anti-M$. And have reasons for such. 15 years people. Seeing some inside stories and a lot of outside ones. And I have always been too swift on public. On private I say Hell of them. But now I'll try to hold up some lines.
Does M$ needs to check their soft? YES! THANKS GOD THEY START TO REALISE IT!!! And certification is a good process to allow such things.
However Microsoft is on its own again. Yes, it gives power to some Versign to process certifications. But why is this needed. Why do we need another company to check certifications. Why not to give chances for users. Ranging from something similar to MD5/PGP checksums and over a database where one may get more detailed information about the characteristics of the package? If you are a good admin then you'll need exactly this last one option. You will surely want to see what was tampered and how. Only having this information, then you will be able to take measures necessary to protect your network and the potential victims of the exploit (specially if there was planned, objective, intentional and criminal intent).
Now M$ does everything for the lazy admin. "Oh it does not pass certification... BANG!" And the happy lazy admin waits until someone circumvents this and gets him on the hot seat. That what will happen if such scheme will be used. So "thanx but no thanx".
On the other side. You people seem to ignore a factor. Microsoft gives always cheese on a mousetrap. So do you think that, if you pay for freedom, M$ will keep these terms? You have to certify everything. So, in a possible future, someone may restrict the certification process and you're TRAPPED. You don't go anywhere. Much the same way we all have to pay for a M$ tax (my institution paid no less than $3500 once) you may be forced to accept such things as "you're soft didn't pass certification". And frankly, can you tell me that this will not happen from start? Verisign is an organisation that only issues certificates. It has no test labs, network control systems, staff with a good knowledge of software. Yes, they may issue certificates based only in the assurance that they may track the developer. But, in this virtual world, what is an address or a surname? Buy a mobile for $50, get a Verisign number addressed to Dock 3 Amsterdam, place it on the name of Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov and create havoc on the net. I hardly believe that Verisign will get over this without the help of our dear M$.
Besides. Who is M$ to forbid me the right to install a virus? Yes, I WANNA INSTALL IT! I wanna see how it acts and rips off the data on my HDD. I wanna see the how's and when's of it. Because no one knows about it and I have mission critical workstations that need to be protected. You may say that I am talking some nonsense. But when I don't know the original infector and I catch the virus on other program then it will be possible that this certification stuff will hang on my neck. I want the right to turn it off and I don't need M$ to think for me. Specially when millions of dollars or top-critical information is in question.
Ok people you're right that/. gets too yellow sometimes. Flame them at will. But don't start telling me about "oh poor M$". Specially on this stuff. I know the viper too well to know that they will not stop here.
Well look at this GREAT future! Yes, this is an extrapolation of this certification stuff. But think well. Technically someone may lead things to such extreme...
1) Certifying things like patents. So why do we need courts, suits and such stuff? Courts will only deal with hackers, crackers and bad boys who use pirated/cracked soft.
2) Certifying application packages. Somehow this is a consequence of the first. No more need for these patent battles, wild concurrency that creates consumer confusion. No need for DOJ probes, FTC certifications. Everything is in the system itself.
3) Certifying computers. How many poor users suffer from this mess of hardware configurations that don't go well with soft. Let's certify them. And even no WTO's will be needed. Why to give certifications to the bad boys on the other side of the Ocean?
4) Certifying docs. Isn't this great? Amazon's will be assured that it is selling you its book and you are not reading some pirated copy. And no Phracks, hack mailists, underground chats like Slashdot. Consequently no need for FBI's and similar stuff.
So, in the end, why do we need the US? Frankly I don't see any need on it except to support a huge army that will fight rough states which refuse to accept the new rules. Specially Russia, EU, China and several others.
So let's certify the Constitution (after changing "We, the People..." for "You, the users..." and removing some subversive stuff) and publish it as the EULA of the New Age. How great this Marvellous New World!!!!
Some people here are making a good confusion between services and applications. Let's put the points in the ii's ok?
One point is that Microsoft pretends to deliver a connection to a service. You wanna write a PowerPoint doc and the program is 15 hops away in a "application provider".
The other one is that you have a program running on your hardware that Microsoft delivers to you.
There is a big difference on what ownership means here. On the first point it is someone else who's doing the job you need. You send commands and get results. That's the same as the old Time-Sharing services, once popular with mainframes and terminals. Someone offers you resources and you pay for them. Either by the completness of the service or on a time fee basis. And that was practice until PC's came in. Here Microsoft has absolute right to charge you this way because you only use their property - hardware and software. this thing delivers you a service and you pay according to owner's offers.
Now on what concerns the second point. You own a piece of hardware. And someone delivers a program to be used on it. A program is mostly a set of commands that give your computer instructions to act in a specific way. Now you own this piece of hardware. And someone delivers you the instruction set in a time fee basis. Isn't here some nonsense? You are paying a rent so that your computer may perform a task? Why you can't buy it? Why you should be obliged to pay fees to have the right to use something you own? Why you should stick to their rental plans to use your own property? Here Microsft is tremendously wrong as it is sticking your right to use your own property to its conditions. It would look much like someone renting your the right to use toothpaste so that your toothbrush does the job it was meant to.
What Microsoft is doing is to kick us back 20 years ago when PC's came up. When the PC came into stage it was considered as the freedom of the user as finally people had the right to own computers. Now Microsoft is revoking you this right, as making the instruction sets a rent, it is forcing you to disown, somehow, your computer. Yo don't control it anymore. You either accept Microsoft's terms or you have it as furniture. A very smart move. I wonder if suddenly Microsoft would start to claim that you own no more the box on your desk...
In the long future, why do you need to pay for soft? Your boss gives you a copy for work and home. He states what you should do with it. he also gives you the right to do something "on your own". You work, work, work. If you don't do things in time or do something wrong, your boss strips off your license. Your software hangs up and you need either to find a new job or hit the streets. Meanwhile the second option will be more probable as the huge M$ database shows, directly or indirectly that you're a Bad Boy (TM), who does do well the homework. So if you get another chance, you'll work really like Hell.
In such scenario, why is money needed for? I mean directly. Maybe your boss pays something to M$ but you don't really need to pay for it... Your boss wll give your chains for free.
Continued development of Office? Ok Let's look on this side. Your rent Office and the money goes R&D. Good great. You are crediting their development and they feed back with more quality and flexibility.
But let's think there will be no continued development! You pay for the soft and cash hunger M$ waits for your next payment as it does not see any further incentives for development. As it knows that you will have to pay next time anyway. So you are feeding M$ much the way Linux users feed it, by buying computers with Windows embedded on it. On selling soft, users would have always the chance to say "take a walk" to M$. Office2000 was an example of this as many users kept working on Office97. In the new scenario this will not be possible. People will always to keep pace with M$. and M$ has no big incentives to develope in a long future. Maybe it will improve a few features, but i think they will make sense only to attract the Office97 users and some OSS lost souls. On the rest M$ has no real incentives to keep going.
So I would prefer to cut the word "continued" from your statement.
Btw, it would be interesting too see what will happen to users reinstalling Windows or using it on VMWare, Plex86 or without direct Internet stuff. and what will happen to your rights of having a "copy for backup purposes" or having two copies, one home and the other at work. And what will happen if suddenly an upgrade subscription goes wrong and delivers the use of Office to zero? What if you get late on paying your subscription and suddenly things jump two-three subscriptions away? What will happen if you get a virus on your notebook in the middle of nowhere? What will happen if M$ strips some features you need on next subscription (ex. converting docs)? And what may happen if someone steals your license?
Day N: DOJ(or EU or whoelse) opens a new investigation on predatory practices of M$.
Day N+1 DOJ and M$ agree on solving some potential problems.
A few monthes later: Several state institutions started to suffer problems on renewing their Office licenses.
Day After: "M$ states that there were some problems on license renewal because of some features on software. However M$ warns that it is not all their fault but also most problems were due to some incorrect uses of their software that lead to some confusion in their database systems. Specially M$ notes that this comes from the limitations imposed by the DOJ agreements. M$ agrees to solve these features in the next few weeks."
After Day After: DOJ thinks twice before getting involved with M$
And so? What's the big difference from having a WordView on it? What if I need to convert it into something else if I wanna keep working my docs? What if I need that new Curriculum Vitae ready to get the new job and I don't have money to renew a license? What if stale software gets nuts because my VB script tries to do something on the doc? What if I can't open my database because the query doesn't work anymore? What if I can't open my electronic table because it automatically tries to modify embedded docs?
First I am not talking about to train all people from start. At least a few on some critical positions...
Updates on the fly? Theoretically that's what we all think it can be done. But practice has shown that things get much more longer. Consider docs with VB on it, problems on language, locales conversion (Russia here...). Sense in converting a 4 year old doc? For a techician it may sound superfluous. For an accountant/director it may be a "do or die", if the doc's Time-To-Live is 5 years or more. Even if such doc would be remotely necessary. Besides there is also a problem that such stuff should start in one place and end in another. You'll need disk space and probably some more stuff, if this is a OS-to-OS transfer.
Besides you have to organise directories, select files, dig on confidential/private stuff. harass directors, staff to have things in place, care for the "personal features" on how each station is organised. You need to have a timeline and calculate carefully a safety time corridor for things that may happen in any case. For a medium sized company this will surely take weeks. For a coropration things will be much worser. So going out of M$ may not sound so easy as it seems...
Shareware stuff never claimed to rip of the right to get another test copy. Well, in general the shareware principle was just a moral principle. If you use it more than NNN days, please pay. If you keep using it then wait for some bad times in Hell...
Now M$'s case, in moral terms, is completely different. If you want to use it pay. Term ended, pay or else you don't use it anymore. You have to pay in any case. Somehow this is the same as feudal times. You have a piece of land but it does not belong to you. Term ended, pay the landlord or get stripped of it (then this would equal to die of hunger/cold). Sorry but this looks like Hell from start and without any reason... Specially if M$ changes prices and you suddenly yu don't have enough to pay them...
"In addition, if forthcoming improvements don't exist, I end the revenue stream from my company to them."
(...)
"Yes, yes, Star Office, Abi Word, etc. We don't have the time/money to do the training on them. And I don't have the will or desire to support them"
How these two attitudes corrobrate? So let's suppose you end revenue to M$. If you have tons of docs that will not take a day or two but monthes to convert them into something else. And, besides, retraining people is something not easy to do. At least a month or two is needed. So you may end paying if you get onto the wall... Or take a more careful position and start doing some retraining...
It's a pitty that we don't get clues about what a flamebait point was given sometimes...
But I guess this was due to the "niggers" expression. As far as I know Blacks are too sensitive to this word... And it is not the first time I see a fast reaction to such words on print...
Ok I have no problems about the colour of a skin. I have seen more strange things in my life to care about such a thing. But...
Pick up your neighborhood. Harlem, Dar-es-Salam, Moscow, wherever. M$ starts renting you the soft. Good thing. Cheap and easy. But you can't no longer carry copies from computer to computer. You can't carry homework a software copy. You can't offer a copy to your cash stripped fellow/relative. If your try to use some cracking tool or cheat you may get into serious trouble. More than before has M$ will carry some good databases about your purchases/use. Besides you may have to get a credit card to renew the rental... You may try to cheat this but this also is a call for trouble...
Now I direct to some of the black people... Society did some Bad Things with you. Under this system, what chances do you have? What chances other less protected communities will have? Who's going to give you a right for credit cards? If you get into trouble, will the judge look at you in the same way as some other races? Do you feel that stripping the right to help your poorer friend/relative costs this "easier form of payment"? Are you rich enough to rent a home copy of the soft?
Does the word "nigger" sounds too bad? I thing it looks worser when someone surreptically treats you like that...
From the white niggers of the North... No joke... That's how we call ourselves sometimes...
So long os colonists exist, it is a good thing to have servs/slaves. The first own/rent the land and do whatever they want. The others can only use it and have to pay the feudal lord. Most, some (mostly the slaves) can use only use the land for what the lord tells them to.
Change the feudal terms for software ones and tell me the real difference.
Oh btw. I have a good base of knowledge about the V-VIII centuries. Most colonists became servs. Specially those who rented lands...
Flame? Ok, wait until bosses, institutions. otganisations start to "re-rent" software if you can't do it yourself... I wouldn't be admired to see your boss stating very strictly what you can and cannot do with it. Remember, he may not wish to get troubles with the King...
People I'm tremendously admired upon your level of "acceptance". Do you know what this reminds me. Early feudal times, when peasants voluntarly offered their lands to knights as they wanted to be protected from barbars, burglars and other knights. You talk about renting as an easier and cheaper way. Ok cool. It may sound cheaper. But please take into account the Microsoft Tax that we already pay. Take into account that even US DJ noted in court that hardware/software is becoming increasingly cheaper while Microsoft keeps prices in the high tag. Take into account that increasingly lots of software are becoming of free use, and this includes not so bad office software, while Microsoft keeps charging a lot for its own. Compare Oracle to Office as one can compare an elephant to a dinosaur. Yes, Oracle transmits their licenses, NETWORK ONES, for a period of time. Personally i consider this unfair. But I also note that this stuff does not disable the soft. Right in my desk is the example of this. A one-user Oracle CD. In Office's case, term ended, bye-bye. On what concerns faster updates. What will be the difference from now? Microsoft has money and money and money. Gates is the richest man in the world. So do you really think that renting soft will force M$ to loose some more on R&D and bugfixing? In a year you will need them more than before, when your further work will depend on what you will pay them. So why to care too much to feed the crowd? That's what feudals did. They took everything they could, so that people would keep needing them... Why to care about people's welfare? "The crowd is always unsatisfied when it is well feed".
Under this light. How can you consider and accept the terms M$ sets to you? Do you wanna really feel what this means? Pick your car and consider that Ford or whoever put a key on ignition. "You have one month to ride it". I would like to see how many americans would be happy with this...
Finally what I predicted some time ago happened. Now you don't own software. You own a piece of code much like a rent-a-car. Soon, you may become nothing more than a simple nigger, even if your blood is of "blue origin", your skin a shiny white and your hair carries more gold than anyone else. From a Namibian (they have some of the most black skin africans in the continent), which your values may consider a nigger, you will not make a difference in usefulness/purpose. Because for Redmond, users will be all niggers/slaves/servs. Offended?
You have no more the right to own your documents for an undetermined period of time.
To avoid loosing years or monthes of hard work you will have to pay, pay, pay.
You can be deprived from your rights without any other chance rather than to humbly bound your head to the system. Or EULA if you like more this name.
You cannot sell, lend, provide, transfer the software you have in possession. You don't own it at all. You have only the right to use it. Under very restricted conditions btw.
If the owner (read master/lord) changes the rules you have to follow them. Or loose your place...
Considering other things like UCITA you even have no right for privacy or control of your own possessions, if they are indirectly related to the owner's software.
Now tell me that this is not happening. Tell me that I too flamoury to call all Office users as niggers/slaves/servs. Tell me that this is not the most blatant case of feudal revival since 1789. Tell me that Microsoft will protect you when corporations are not obliged to fully follow Constitutions and state laws. Tell me that they will keep Democracy alive while considering software as feudal land. Tell me that this is not turning people into slaves/servs. Tell me that this is not the same as knights took land from peasants. Tell me that this is not the damned "tenth" churches charged in medieval times. Tell me that this is not throwing users into.NET as muc as taking people in chains into a world where only a few ruled the life and death of people. Unbelievable? Then tell me you'll have a job/family/home if the owners kick you out of the.NET. Tell me that your active rebellion will not throw you in real chains into a chamber.
And the most important: tell me that your race, culture, religion, politcal views will always be independent from this.
Do you think I'm too radical? Look at the sandclock, it just turned. It is big and large, so it will take no less then ten years to run. "Human, if you are a fool then stay and wait to see all sand in the bottom..."
PS: Today, M$ may count that, in several places, people will start destroying their M$ copies. At least that is the first thing I'll command in one place. FareHell Gates. From now on, I will avoid, as much, your feudal leprosory. Personally I don't use it for 2,5 years.
I don't use DSound3D w/EAX and don't see the meaning for hunting a SBLive. My Archi-old GUS MAX is still enough for me. I need OpenGL but not only on X. My tradtions are to put everything on/usr. My colleagues either put on/opt or/usr/local. One puts in/usr/src (...). RedHat/Mandrake config file layout is tractor for servers but Slackware's is too dumb for a desktop station. RPMS are good but bloat. Tarballs are primitive but stick to the minimal demands. Drivers on 2.4.0 should be recompiled for 2.4.17 as there are several features that will always grow in incompatibility (M$ featurefix DLLs are an example of this). I use glibc 2.1.9x/2.2 only. Not long ago, in one station, I used mostly the latest libc5. Ncurses can be 3,4,5 as long as they fit the package I need to use and I don't wanna run every five minutes to the developer, asking him for upgrade features. Sometimes, I need joe's-own-stupid-lib.so because I still have old stuff or some other demands hacks (ex. I need 3 libglides.so.* on my comp) On Perl/Python you may have some point. I use bash, but my solaris friends highly prefer tcsh to it. And I need sash on init 1 for deep dives on the system.
One note. People should stick to some baselines but not on stating "ncurses 5 and nothing else!" The rules should tell not about the apps or versions but how to implement a file without raping the whole system. Things like if two libs with similar names and different incompatible versions, then apps should link strictly to the libs with version number and not libXXX.so. And, when upgrading, making warnings that "libXXX.so.#.## is used by app", but not unilaterally deleting it. If this happened then all conflicts would become minimal.
Windows: Pay for Hardware and Windows. You come home and note that your embedded Windows is a year old. If you are a good citizen go back and buy a new fresh Windows version. If you're mad at M$ you get a pirate copy. Each end of month you reinstall Windows.
Linux: You come to the shop and tell what you need. You warn them that you will it them alive if the HDD is not clean, virgin, nude and fresh new. You send them to Hell all Windows emblazements and remind them of a Commitee for Consumer's Protection. You come home, grab a Linux distro. You take a month fine tuning and recompiling the whole stuff. For a year you forget about reinstalls...
Solaris: You buy hardware the same way as Linux but grab a copy of Solaris. You cry Hell on the lack of drivers, apps, fine tuning for a month or two. In the end you wait a year to reinstall Linux. In the end you reinstall Solaris the same way as before.
BSD: You buy hardware the same way as Linux and Solaris but install BSD. For a year you "make world" and think why BSD is not so flexible and available as Linux.
1) Agree.
2) Partially agree. Some standards should exist but no one should stick to them if they don't cover the features of specific device systems. However standards shbould be followed as far as possible.
3) Hooks? What the Hell is this? Redmond's flamebait? I don't use KDE, Gnome, GTK, or anything else. I use all of them and none of them in preference. If anyone tells me to stick to some KDE or anything then I prefer Bora-Bora to this.
4) Configure stuff should have some more organisation. But "NO THANKS!" to automatic loads if there will be no choice. Such automatisation will be only useful for some users. Others, like me, would highly prefer to have hand control on drivers. Besides a more flexible hand control than now...
5) Replace OSS? No. I prefer Alsa to OSS but there are issues where OSS is much better than Alsa. Specially if this concerns hand control of these drivers or you need minimal use of sound capabilities with good quality. Alsa is too bloated/unstable for some sound server implementations.
6) Ok. Fraction the kernel. REALLY! Fraction it. Divide it. Cut it in half, a third, a tenth. Slander it. The thread oriented problem is serious but it possesses its minuses, specially on some performance issues. And i believe that sticking into the "ONE UNIQUE" kernel is probably the most stupid thing ever established. The only problem is how well we may perform the fractioning. But I believe that people may find solutions much similar to those that happened when we passed from a.out to the ELF based kernels.
It would be pretty interesting to see where did you get this list from. As I have seen completely different evaluations. Besides I am a systems integrator/administrator/hacker and my practice goes tremendously different from yours
You forget Solaris AND _AIX_ on the Web servers. If there is one thing where AIX performed very well was on Web Servers. Solaris is the big gammer for complex Internet tasks and big Database systems.
Linux is the big gammer on Web servers. Try a look at http://netcraft.com and search for their July report. Windows is beaten by Linux!!! (truly by a very narrow margin).
BSD on the Web? Good for fixed, glued and inflexible implementations carrying high performance. With a special note on security if OpenBSD I is called onto the show. On the rest a headache.
Small office servers? NT, Novell, Linux, BSD. I still haven't seen real and serious W2k implementations on such environment.
Embedded, realtime? You are right on what concerns QNX. In terms of its quality. But not in terms of how spread it is.
Games? W2k???? Are you kidding? Maybe WinME (You? No thenks!), 98, 95, Whistleblower. But never W2k or NT. On W2k only a small number of action and quite very new games may preform well and stable.
Besides you forget several other Internet servers like ftp, DNS, Mail, etc. There Linux has also a big piece in the pie.
You forget about some very specific application servers like DB servers and Fax servers, where also Linux has gained some good points.
And on what concerns Worstations. Please add Linux to your list. The fact that Linux is not ready for the dumb installer does not mean that Linux users don't exist. Only in this city there are a few thousands.
On what concerns w2k. Very good for desktop office tasks and some professional graphics processing. Average for some games. Not too bad for very small office server tasks. On the rest: no comments...
Don't confuse Linux and KDE/Gnome/WM... These things are not even Linux rooted. And I hope no one of kernel developers will ever dream on integrating the kernel with such stuff.
You may be right that they are still relatively slow. But that's a problem that 70% is due to X. Yes, I think that most *NIX developers should think about deeply reforming this system. Even 4.0.1 with a super-patched structure of DRI/XVideo/GL and other drivers is still slower than Windows.
Distros more standard? No thanks... I prefer to go through a shelf and see 10 Linux distros instead of one Windows pack...
I think there will be a crisis and I hope for it.
The present kernel architecture is mostly the result of 2.0's times. And I believe that it is starting to get a little overused. Right now we have a good working base on 2.4. But continuing to perfect this will be nonsense, no matter the problems that still exist. Some people may claim that now we don't need to recompile kernels as before. WRONG! You may not feel the utter need because your machine is already running fast. However there is still too much bloatness on traditional kernels that come from distros. Today the complexity of supported hardware turns a kernel 2 times bigger than you really need. And I am talking only about vmlinuz. You run full gas at 180Km/h but the speedometer shows that you could reach 250Km/h...
In the mean time the module architecture is getting old. Presently. I'm feeling that loading and unloading modules on the run has become more frequent. And this system has troubles and it is quite inflexible in some terms. Specially if modules are in a large chain dependency like Alsa.
I don't really know how near we should go trough a more HURD-like model. But we should start thinking that we will need something like this soon. Specially when the PC starts to dissolve among smaller, bigger, medium devices of different nature and purpose. If suddenly the market starts calling for the interaction of all this trash, then Linux will be a looser. If it keeps its hybrid/awkwardish nature of the present architecture.
I believe that we also need to restructurize the divisions between several drivers/devices. Somehow that is being done (IDE section got off from the Block devices one). But I think it is not enough. IP kernel section needs some clarification as many options there are not needed for a desktop world.
I think it is a Bad Idea (TM) to think about ACL's and such similar things on Linux. Yes the traditional model is getting old. But my experience on NT has shown that the ACL's are a stupidity as a realization. They picked up a few basic rules, mixed them in God Knows What and gave them as a final product for all cases. The result is always confusion. Frankly I haven't seen no one doing serious work on NT's ACL's as the kernel of this structure has holes everywhere (starting from allowing full rights to some \WINNT stuff). Personally I prefer NDS to this. Rules are simple but you have some freedom to combine them. But i don't think that even NDS would be good for Linux.
Sincerly, on such cases like ACL's, NDS's and alikes, Linux should be neutral. Yes there should be a protocol/specification on how to insert them into kernel. But kernel itself should be fully away from these things. It should carry only a minimum of security features. ACL is costy in performance, it is bloatness in some cases, and it carries some doubts on its real effectivness. Such things and other security issues should go parallel from kernel development to avoid compromising Linux with serious security issues that may arise from chosing a wrong path.
Well anyway this is not all. I believe it is time for Microsoft to think on replacing kernel32.dll by ms-linuz64.o.
More than a 60 years ago two great powers signed a pact upon which all World went into butcher's shop. Before this, for nearly three years, these guys were eating slowly their neighbors. Germany on Central-Europe, USSR on Asia. Then the pact came up and they started to eat everyone they could. And they ended eating each other.
Today two Internet powers sign a pact similar, in nature, to Ribbentrop-Molotov's. Frankly, what we see here is a division of spheres of influence. And this is scaring as we have seen how there powers have been carrying a similar behaviour to the one seen in the 30's. AOL annexed Netscape. Microsoft fights the evil of the Federal Government and the American States. AOL invaded occupied ICQ and several other "small enclaves" on Internet. Microsoft tries to revert consumer needs to his own understanding of what computers & Internet should be.
Now, they are up to the "Polish territories". The giants of Mass Media, once a power by itself but which was quite shaken by the advent of Internet. They are dividing, by "zones of control", what is still relatively independent of their ideologies/practices. No matter our feelings to the Mass Media this is should be considered as a war call. They are invading the last and most important piece of information control for the masses.
Rambus is nothing more than the most successful patent hijacker. How can they be so successful on harassing every company on the market? I have an opinion on how they did it...
They have a close look on what the big gamers are doing, besides they are not just outsiders but people trying to create also their own computer memory device. I wonder if, in base of projects and their insiders knowledge, they filled the right patent claim in the righ moment. As these designs take years to come out to market then it will be understandable how we are seeing a timeline discrepancy between patent fillings and the when such devices came into market. At least one thing that troubles me is that they have claims on such a thing like RDRAM which started rotting while green. Maybe they patented it too early to avoid concurrency?
This stuff is not supposed to be "Funny"... Tt is supposed to be "Cry"... It is a warning about what may happen in a near future. And here don't blame the geeks, Rob or Taco if this happens. They may be quite far from here when such things may start to happen. There is a dangerous tendency coming up.
Could anyone ever imagine that we would come into this? I was here when Yahoo! came up. I saw it growing from the half-hackers site into the commercial mastodon of today. And many things look dangerously similar to Slashdot's evolution.
Rob if you don't wanna ever dream about this, think always ten times before accepting a million dollar bargain. Well, anyway, it's up to you to decide what you would like most...
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I met three cases of system unification. One on Linux, two on Windows. Frankly the Windows unifications were a disaster in all senses. Systems crashed too frequently and there were serious conflicts at all levels. The most unfortunate was the fact that in both unifications managers kept singing "M$ rulez and everthing else is... and technical staff is..." Even when systems started to crash so badly that there were technical stops for more than a week.
However in one case we kicked out management's opinion and forced the Linux integration. And that solved 80% of problems.
Note that here the problem is not on who's better. Frankly the problem is in offer. If you get trouble on Windows, you don't really have a large level of maneuver. If Exchange burns down because you have too many users than pray because management will crucify you as you can't offer anything else. On *NIX the situation is completely different. If some service gets too burned, then you have a large room of options. You can cut some services partially and temporary. You may try to use some weaker hardware and interface it with the main iron to avoid overloads. You may transfer services from server to server mostly in a "stop-copy/move-launch" manner. You may play with kernels, platforms, packages versions, scripts to level demands and improve quality of service.
On Windows you are stripped of all this. Even a registry wizard will have trouble to transfer services from one computer to other. Scripting is miserable, specially when M$ is axing all remains of command line tools. You cannot use weaker hardware for backup or salvage tasks. If something on Windows gets wrong then it gets wrong. And management will say that you are a jerk because you didn't have a Certified Microsoft Technician/Admin/User paper. Even if you have been running like mad a week before and saying/demonstrating/crying that a 4500 user database is on the edge of getting trashed without any chances for recovery.
PS: Backups? Please no talks about backups. Due to the SUPER-ULTRA-MEGA-integration of Windows systems they were useless. Only mirroring 70 HDD's would help to recover.
Slashdot Mirror
Frankly, slashdot staff is known for some yellowish view on submissions. And many people have talked about this. However, in this case I do not think that you people are seeing the whole picture. You blame the /. for overweighting the whistleblower stuff. I think that they are doing not enough here. Yes /. should be blamed to chenge the submission in such a way. But please stick in this fault and not in M$'s plans.
/. gets too yellow sometimes. Flame them at will. But don't start telling me about "oh poor M$". Specially on this stuff. I know the viper too well to know that they will not stop here.
Frankly I am a damn anti-M$. And have reasons for such. 15 years people. Seeing some inside stories and a lot of outside ones. And I have always been too swift on public. On private I say Hell of them. But now I'll try to hold up some lines.
Does M$ needs to check their soft? YES! THANKS GOD THEY START TO REALISE IT!!! And certification is a good process to allow such things.
However Microsoft is on its own again. Yes, it gives power to some Versign to process certifications. But why is this needed. Why do we need another company to check certifications. Why not to give chances for users. Ranging from something similar to MD5/PGP checksums and over a database where one may get more detailed information about the characteristics of the package? If you are a good admin then you'll need exactly this last one option. You will surely want to see what was tampered and how. Only having this information, then you will be able to take measures necessary to protect your network and the potential victims of the exploit (specially if there was planned, objective, intentional and criminal intent).
Now M$ does everything for the lazy admin. "Oh it does not pass certification... BANG!" And the happy lazy admin waits until someone circumvents this and gets him on the hot seat. That what will happen if such scheme will be used. So "thanx but no thanx".
On the other side. You people seem to ignore a factor. Microsoft gives always cheese on a mousetrap. So do you think that, if you pay for freedom, M$ will keep these terms? You have to certify everything. So, in a possible future, someone may restrict the certification process and you're TRAPPED. You don't go anywhere. Much the same way we all have to pay for a M$ tax (my institution paid no less than $3500 once) you may be forced to accept such things as "you're soft didn't pass certification". And frankly, can you tell me that this will not happen from start? Verisign is an organisation that only issues certificates. It has no test labs, network control systems, staff with a good knowledge of software. Yes, they may issue certificates based only in the assurance that they may track the developer. But, in this virtual world, what is an address or a surname? Buy a mobile for $50, get a Verisign number addressed to Dock 3 Amsterdam, place it on the name of Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov and create havoc on the net. I hardly believe that Verisign will get over this without the help of our dear M$.
Besides. Who is M$ to forbid me the right to install a virus? Yes, I WANNA INSTALL IT! I wanna see how it acts and rips off the data on my HDD. I wanna see the how's and when's of it. Because no one knows about it and I have mission critical workstations that need to be protected. You may say that I am talking some nonsense. But when I don't know the original infector and I catch the virus on other program then it will be possible that this certification stuff will hang on my neck. I want the right to turn it off and I don't need M$ to think for me. Specially when millions of dollars or top-critical information is in question.
Ok people you're right that
Well look at this GREAT future! Yes, this is an extrapolation of this certification stuff. But think well. Technically someone may lead things to such extreme...
1) Certifying things like patents. So why do we need courts, suits and such stuff? Courts will only deal with hackers, crackers and bad boys who use pirated/cracked soft.
2) Certifying application packages. Somehow this is a consequence of the first. No more need for these patent battles, wild concurrency that creates consumer confusion. No need for DOJ probes, FTC certifications. Everything is in the system itself.
3) Certifying computers. How many poor users suffer from this mess of hardware configurations that don't go well with soft. Let's certify them. And even no WTO's will be needed. Why to give certifications to the bad boys on the other side of the Ocean?
4) Certifying docs. Isn't this great? Amazon's will be assured that it is selling you its book and you are not reading some pirated copy. And no Phracks, hack mailists, underground chats like Slashdot. Consequently no need for FBI's and similar stuff.
So, in the end, why do we need the US? Frankly I don't see any need on it except to support a huge army that will fight rough states which refuse to accept the new rules. Specially Russia, EU, China and several others.
So let's certify the Constitution (after changing "We, the People..." for "You, the users..." and removing some subversive stuff) and publish it as the EULA of the New Age. How great this Marvellous New World!!!!
Some people here are making a good confusion between services and applications. Let's put the points in the ii's ok?
One point is that Microsoft pretends to deliver a connection to a service. You wanna write a PowerPoint doc and the program is 15 hops away in a "application provider".
The other one is that you have a program running on your hardware that Microsoft delivers to you.
There is a big difference on what ownership means here. On the first point it is someone else who's doing the job you need. You send commands and get results. That's the same as the old Time-Sharing services, once popular with mainframes and terminals. Someone offers you resources and you pay for them. Either by the completness of the service or on a time fee basis. And that was practice until PC's came in. Here Microsoft has absolute right to charge you this way because you only use their property - hardware and software. this thing delivers you a service and you pay according to owner's offers.
Now on what concerns the second point. You own a piece of hardware. And someone delivers a program to be used on it. A program is mostly a set of commands that give your computer instructions to act in a specific way. Now you own this piece of hardware. And someone delivers you the instruction set in a time fee basis. Isn't here some nonsense? You are paying a rent so that your computer may perform a task? Why you can't buy it? Why you should be obliged to pay fees to have the right to use something you own? Why you should stick to their rental plans to use your own property? Here Microsft is tremendously wrong as it is sticking your right to use your own property to its conditions. It would look much like someone renting your the right to use toothpaste so that your toothbrush does the job it was meant to.
What Microsoft is doing is to kick us back 20 years ago when PC's came up. When the PC came into stage it was considered as the freedom of the user as finally people had the right to own computers. Now Microsoft is revoking you this right, as making the instruction sets a rent, it is forcing you to disown, somehow, your computer. Yo don't control it anymore. You either accept Microsoft's terms or you have it as furniture. A very smart move. I wonder if suddenly Microsoft would start to claim that you own no more the box on your desk...
In the long future, why do you need to pay for soft? Your boss gives you a copy for work and home. He states what you should do with it. he also gives you the right to do something "on your own". You work, work, work. If you don't do things in time or do something wrong, your boss strips off your license. Your software hangs up and you need either to find a new job or hit the streets. Meanwhile the second option will be more probable as the huge M$ database shows, directly or indirectly that you're a Bad Boy (TM), who does do well the homework. So if you get another chance, you'll work really like Hell.
In such scenario, why is money needed for? I mean directly. Maybe your boss pays something to M$ but you don't really need to pay for it... Your boss wll give your chains for free.
Continued development of Office? Ok Let's look on this side. Your rent Office and the money goes R&D. Good great. You are crediting their development and they feed back with more quality and flexibility.
But let's think there will be no continued development! You pay for the soft and cash hunger M$ waits for your next payment as it does not see any further incentives for development. As it knows that you will have to pay next time anyway. So you are feeding M$ much the way Linux users feed it, by buying computers with Windows embedded on it. On selling soft, users would have always the chance to say "take a walk" to M$. Office2000 was an example of this as many users kept working on Office97. In the new scenario this will not be possible. People will always to keep pace with M$. and M$ has no big incentives to develope in a long future. Maybe it will improve a few features, but i think they will make sense only to attract the Office97 users and some OSS lost souls. On the rest M$ has no real incentives to keep going.
So I would prefer to cut the word "continued" from your statement.
Btw, it would be interesting too see what will happen to users reinstalling Windows or using it on VMWare, Plex86 or without direct Internet stuff. and what will happen to your rights of having a "copy for backup purposes" or having two copies, one home and the other at work. And what will happen if suddenly an upgrade subscription goes wrong and delivers the use of Office to zero? What if you get late on paying your subscription and suddenly things jump two-three subscriptions away? What will happen if you get a virus on your notebook in the middle of nowhere? What will happen if M$ strips some features you need on next subscription (ex. converting docs)? And what may happen if someone steals your license?
Day N: DOJ(or EU or whoelse) opens a new investigation on predatory practices of M$.
Day N+1 DOJ and M$ agree on solving some potential problems.
A few monthes later: Several state institutions started to suffer problems on renewing their Office licenses.
Day After: "M$ states that there were some problems on license renewal because of some features on software. However M$ warns that it is not all their fault but also most problems were due to some incorrect uses of their software that lead to some confusion in their database systems. Specially M$ notes that this comes from the limitations imposed by the DOJ agreements. M$ agrees to solve these features in the next few weeks."
After Day After: DOJ thinks twice before getting involved with M$
Could such scenario happen?
And so? What's the big difference from having a WordView on it? What if I need to convert it into something else if I wanna keep working my docs? What if I need that new Curriculum Vitae ready to get the new job and I don't have money to renew a license? What if stale software gets nuts because my VB script tries to do something on the doc? What if I can't open my database because the query doesn't work anymore? What if I can't open my electronic table because it automatically tries to modify embedded docs?
First I am not talking about to train all people from start. At least a few on some critical positions...
Updates on the fly? Theoretically that's what we all think it can be done. But practice has shown that things get much more longer. Consider docs with VB on it, problems on language, locales conversion (Russia here...). Sense in converting a 4 year old doc? For a techician it may sound superfluous. For an accountant/director it may be a "do or die", if the doc's Time-To-Live is 5 years or more. Even if such doc would be remotely necessary. Besides there is also a problem that such stuff should start in one place and end in another. You'll need disk space and probably some more stuff, if this is a OS-to-OS transfer.
Besides you have to organise directories, select files, dig on confidential/private stuff. harass directors, staff to have things in place, care for the "personal features" on how each station is organised. You need to have a timeline and calculate carefully a safety time corridor for things that may happen in any case. For a medium sized company this will surely take weeks. For a coropration things will be much worser. So going out of M$ may not sound so easy as it seems...
Shareware stuff never claimed to rip of the right to get another test copy. Well, in general the shareware principle was just a moral principle. If you use it more than NNN days, please pay. If you keep using it then wait for some bad times in Hell...
Now M$'s case, in moral terms, is completely different. If you want to use it pay. Term ended, pay or else you don't use it anymore. You have to pay in any case. Somehow this is the same as feudal times. You have a piece of land but it does not belong to you. Term ended, pay the landlord or get stripped of it (then this would equal to die of hunger/cold). Sorry but this looks like Hell from start and without any reason... Specially if M$ changes prices and you suddenly yu don't have enough to pay them...
"In addition, if forthcoming improvements don't exist, I end the revenue stream from my company to them."
(...)
"Yes, yes, Star Office, Abi Word, etc. We don't have the time/money to do the training on them. And I don't have the will or desire to support them"
How these two attitudes corrobrate? So let's suppose you end revenue to M$. If you have tons of docs that will not take a day or two but monthes to convert them into something else. And, besides, retraining people is something not easy to do. At least a month or two is needed. So you may end paying if you get onto the wall... Or take a more careful position and start doing some retraining...
It's a pitty that we don't get clues about what a flamebait point was given sometimes...
But I guess this was due to the "niggers" expression. As far as I know Blacks are too sensitive to this word... And it is not the first time I see a fast reaction to such words on print...
Ok I have no problems about the colour of a skin. I have seen more strange things in my life to care about such a thing. But...
Pick up your neighborhood. Harlem, Dar-es-Salam, Moscow, wherever. M$ starts renting you the soft. Good thing. Cheap and easy. But you can't no longer carry copies from computer to computer. You can't carry homework a software copy. You can't offer a copy to your cash stripped fellow/relative. If your try to use some cracking tool or cheat you may get into serious trouble. More than before has M$ will carry some good databases about your purchases/use. Besides you may have to get a credit card to renew the rental... You may try to cheat this but this also is a call for trouble...
Now I direct to some of the black people... Society did some Bad Things with you. Under this system, what chances do you have? What chances other less protected communities will have? Who's going to give you a right for credit cards? If you get into trouble, will the judge look at you in the same way as some other races? Do you feel that stripping the right to help your poorer friend/relative costs this "easier form of payment"? Are you rich enough to rent a home copy of the soft?
Does the word "nigger" sounds too bad? I thing it looks worser when someone surreptically treats you like that...
From the white niggers of the North... No joke... That's how we call ourselves sometimes...
So long os colonists exist, it is a good thing to have servs/slaves. The first own/rent the land and do whatever they want. The others can only use it and have to pay the feudal lord. Most, some (mostly the slaves) can use only use the land for what the lord tells them to.
Change the feudal terms for software ones and tell me the real difference.
Oh btw. I have a good base of knowledge about the V-VIII centuries. Most colonists became servs. Specially those who rented lands...
Flame? Ok, wait until bosses, institutions. otganisations start to "re-rent" software if you can't do it yourself... I wouldn't be admired to see your boss stating very strictly what you can and cannot do with it. Remember, he may not wish to get troubles with the King...
People I'm tremendously admired upon your level of "acceptance". Do you know what this reminds me. Early feudal times, when peasants voluntarly offered their lands to knights as they wanted to be protected from barbars, burglars and other knights. You talk about renting as an easier and cheaper way. Ok cool. It may sound cheaper. But please take into account the Microsoft Tax that we already pay. Take into account that even US DJ noted in court that hardware/software is becoming increasingly cheaper while Microsoft keeps prices in the high tag. Take into account that increasingly lots of software are becoming of free use, and this includes not so bad office software, while Microsoft keeps charging a lot for its own. Compare Oracle to Office as one can compare an elephant to a dinosaur. Yes, Oracle transmits their licenses, NETWORK ONES, for a period of time. Personally i consider this unfair. But I also note that this stuff does not disable the soft. Right in my desk is the example of this. A one-user Oracle CD. In Office's case, term ended, bye-bye. On what concerns faster updates. What will be the difference from now? Microsoft has money and money and money. Gates is the richest man in the world. So do you really think that renting soft will force M$ to loose some more on R&D and bugfixing? In a year you will need them more than before, when your further work will depend on what you will pay them. So why to care too much to feed the crowd? That's what feudals did. They took everything they could, so that people would keep needing them... Why to care about people's welfare? "The crowd is always unsatisfied when it is well feed".
Under this light. How can you consider and accept the terms M$ sets to you? Do you wanna really feel what this means? Pick your car and consider that Ford or whoever put a key on ignition. "You have one month to ride it". I would like to see how many americans would be happy with this...
Finally what I predicted some time ago happened. Now you don't own software. You own a piece of code much like a rent-a-car. Soon, you may become nothing more than a simple nigger, even if your blood is of "blue origin", your skin a shiny white and your hair carries more gold than anyone else. From a Namibian (they have some of the most black skin africans in the continent), which your values may consider a nigger, you will not make a difference in usefulness/purpose. Because for Redmond, users will be all niggers/slaves/servs. Offended?
.NET as muc as taking people in chains into a world where only a few ruled the life and death of people. Unbelievable? Then tell me you'll have a job/family/home if the owners kick you out of the .NET. Tell me that your active rebellion will not throw you in real chains into a chamber.
You have no more the right to own your documents for an undetermined period of time.
To avoid loosing years or monthes of hard work you will have to pay, pay, pay.
You can be deprived from your rights without any other chance rather than to humbly bound your head to the system. Or EULA if you like more this name.
You cannot sell, lend, provide, transfer the software you have in possession. You don't own it at all. You have only the right to use it. Under very restricted conditions btw.
If the owner (read master/lord) changes the rules you have to follow them. Or loose your place...
Considering other things like UCITA you even have no right for privacy or control of your own possessions, if they are indirectly related to the owner's software.
Now tell me that this is not happening. Tell me that I too flamoury to call all Office users as niggers/slaves/servs. Tell me that this is not the most blatant case of feudal revival since 1789. Tell me that Microsoft will protect you when corporations are not obliged to fully follow Constitutions and state laws. Tell me that they will keep Democracy alive while considering software as feudal land. Tell me that this is not turning people into slaves/servs. Tell me that this is not the same as knights took land from peasants. Tell me that this is not the damned "tenth" churches charged in medieval times. Tell me that this is not throwing users into
And the most important: tell me that your race, culture, religion, politcal views will always be independent from this.
Do you think I'm too radical? Look at the sandclock, it just turned. It is big and large, so it will take no less then ten years to run. "Human, if you are a fool then stay and wait to see all sand in the bottom..."
PS: Today, M$ may count that, in several places, people will start destroying their M$ copies. At least that is the first thing I'll command in one place. FareHell Gates. From now on, I will avoid, as much, your feudal leprosory. Personally I don't use it for 2,5 years.
I don't use DSound3D w/EAX and don't see the meaning for hunting a SBLive. My Archi-old GUS MAX is still enough for me. I need OpenGL but not only on X. My tradtions are to put everything on /usr. My colleagues either put on /opt or /usr/local. One puts in /usr/src (...). RedHat/Mandrake config file layout is tractor for servers but Slackware's is too dumb for a desktop station. RPMS are good but bloat. Tarballs are primitive but stick to the minimal demands. Drivers on 2.4.0 should be recompiled for 2.4.17 as there are several features that will always grow in incompatibility (M$ featurefix DLLs are an example of this). I use glibc 2.1.9x/2.2 only. Not long ago, in one station, I used mostly the latest libc5. Ncurses can be 3,4,5 as long as they fit the package I need to use and I don't wanna run every five minutes to the developer, asking him for upgrade features. Sometimes, I need joe's-own-stupid-lib.so because I still have old stuff or some other demands hacks (ex. I need 3 libglides.so.* on my comp) On Perl/Python you may have some point. I use bash, but my solaris friends highly prefer tcsh to it. And I need sash on init 1 for deep dives on the system.
One note. People should stick to some baselines but not on stating "ncurses 5 and nothing else!" The rules should tell not about the apps or versions but how to implement a file without raping the whole system. Things like if two libs with similar names and different incompatible versions, then apps should link strictly to the libs with version number and not libXXX.so. And, when upgrading, making warnings that "libXXX.so.#.## is used by app", but not unilaterally deleting it. If this happened then all conflicts would become minimal.
Another view:
Windows: Pay for Hardware and Windows. You come home and note that your embedded Windows is a year old. If you are a good citizen go back and buy a new fresh Windows version. If you're mad at M$ you get a pirate copy. Each end of month you reinstall Windows.
Linux: You come to the shop and tell what you need. You warn them that you will it them alive if the HDD is not clean, virgin, nude and fresh new. You send them to Hell all Windows emblazements and remind them of a Commitee for Consumer's Protection. You come home, grab a Linux distro. You take a month fine tuning and recompiling the whole stuff. For a year you forget about reinstalls...
Solaris: You buy hardware the same way as Linux but grab a copy of Solaris. You cry Hell on the lack of drivers, apps, fine tuning for a month or two. In the end you wait a year to reinstall Linux. In the end you reinstall Solaris the same way as before.
BSD: You buy hardware the same way as Linux and Solaris but install BSD. For a year you "make world" and think why BSD is not so flexible and available as Linux.
1) Agree.
2) Partially agree. Some standards should exist but no one should stick to them if they don't cover the features of specific device systems. However standards shbould be followed as far as possible.
3) Hooks? What the Hell is this? Redmond's flamebait? I don't use KDE, Gnome, GTK, or anything else. I use all of them and none of them in preference. If anyone tells me to stick to some KDE or anything then I prefer Bora-Bora to this.
4) Configure stuff should have some more organisation. But "NO THANKS!" to automatic loads if there will be no choice. Such automatisation will be only useful for some users. Others, like me, would highly prefer to have hand control on drivers. Besides a more flexible hand control than now...
5) Replace OSS? No. I prefer Alsa to OSS but there are issues where OSS is much better than Alsa. Specially if this concerns hand control of these drivers or you need minimal use of sound capabilities with good quality. Alsa is too bloated/unstable for some sound server implementations.
6) Ok. Fraction the kernel. REALLY! Fraction it. Divide it. Cut it in half, a third, a tenth. Slander it. The thread oriented problem is serious but it possesses its minuses, specially on some performance issues. And i believe that sticking into the "ONE UNIQUE" kernel is probably the most stupid thing ever established. The only problem is how well we may perform the fractioning. But I believe that people may find solutions much similar to those that happened when we passed from a.out to the ELF based kernels.
It would be pretty interesting to see where did you get this list from. As I have seen completely different evaluations. Besides I am a systems integrator/administrator/hacker and my practice goes tremendously different from yours
You forget Solaris AND _AIX_ on the Web servers. If there is one thing where AIX performed very well was on Web Servers. Solaris is the big gammer for complex Internet tasks and big Database systems.
Linux is the big gammer on Web servers. Try a look at http://netcraft.com and search for their July report. Windows is beaten by Linux!!! (truly by a very narrow margin).
BSD on the Web? Good for fixed, glued and inflexible implementations carrying high performance. With a special note on security if OpenBSD I is called onto the show. On the rest a headache.
Small office servers? NT, Novell, Linux, BSD. I still haven't seen real and serious W2k implementations on such environment.
Embedded, realtime? You are right on what concerns QNX. In terms of its quality. But not in terms of how spread it is.
Games? W2k???? Are you kidding? Maybe WinME (You? No thenks!), 98, 95, Whistleblower. But never W2k or NT. On W2k only a small number of action and quite very new games may preform well and stable.
Besides you forget several other Internet servers like ftp, DNS, Mail, etc. There Linux has also a big piece in the pie.
You forget about some very specific application servers like DB servers and Fax servers, where also Linux has gained some good points.
And on what concerns Worstations. Please add Linux to your list. The fact that Linux is not ready for the dumb installer does not mean that Linux users don't exist. Only in this city there are a few thousands.
On what concerns w2k. Very good for desktop office tasks and some professional graphics processing. Average for some games. Not too bad for very small office server tasks. On the rest: no comments...
Don't confuse Linux and KDE/Gnome/WM... These things are not even Linux rooted. And I hope no one of kernel developers will ever dream on integrating the kernel with such stuff.
You may be right that they are still relatively slow. But that's a problem that 70% is due to X. Yes, I think that most *NIX developers should think about deeply reforming this system. Even 4.0.1 with a super-patched structure of DRI/XVideo/GL and other drivers is still slower than Windows.
Distros more standard? No thanks... I prefer to go through a shelf and see 10 Linux distros instead of one Windows pack...
I think there will be a crisis and I hope for it.
The present kernel architecture is mostly the result of 2.0's times. And I believe that it is starting to get a little overused. Right now we have a good working base on 2.4. But continuing to perfect this will be nonsense, no matter the problems that still exist. Some people may claim that now we don't need to recompile kernels as before. WRONG! You may not feel the utter need because your machine is already running fast. However there is still too much bloatness on traditional kernels that come from distros. Today the complexity of supported hardware turns a kernel 2 times bigger than you really need. And I am talking only about vmlinuz. You run full gas at 180Km/h but the speedometer shows that you could reach 250Km/h...
In the mean time the module architecture is getting old. Presently. I'm feeling that loading and unloading modules on the run has become more frequent. And this system has troubles and it is quite inflexible in some terms. Specially if modules are in a large chain dependency like Alsa.
I don't really know how near we should go trough a more HURD-like model. But we should start thinking that we will need something like this soon. Specially when the PC starts to dissolve among smaller, bigger, medium devices of different nature and purpose. If suddenly the market starts calling for the interaction of all this trash, then Linux will be a looser. If it keeps its hybrid/awkwardish nature of the present architecture.
I believe that we also need to restructurize the divisions between several drivers/devices. Somehow that is being done (IDE section got off from the Block devices one). But I think it is not enough. IP kernel section needs some clarification as many options there are not needed for a desktop world.
I think it is a Bad Idea (TM) to think about ACL's and such similar things on Linux. Yes the traditional model is getting old. But my experience on NT has shown that the ACL's are a stupidity as a realization. They picked up a few basic rules, mixed them in God Knows What and gave them as a final product for all cases. The result is always confusion. Frankly I haven't seen no one doing serious work on NT's ACL's as the kernel of this structure has holes everywhere (starting from allowing full rights to some \WINNT stuff). Personally I prefer NDS to this. Rules are simple but you have some freedom to combine them. But i don't think that even NDS would be good for Linux.
Sincerly, on such cases like ACL's, NDS's and alikes, Linux should be neutral. Yes there should be a protocol/specification on how to insert them into kernel. But kernel itself should be fully away from these things. It should carry only a minimum of security features. ACL is costy in performance, it is bloatness in some cases, and it carries some doubts on its real effectivness. Such things and other security issues should go parallel from kernel development to avoid compromising Linux with serious security issues that may arise from chosing a wrong path.
Well anyway this is not all. I believe it is time for Microsoft to think on replacing kernel32.dll by ms-linuz64.o.
More than a 60 years ago two great powers signed a pact upon which all World went into butcher's shop. Before this, for nearly three years, these guys were eating slowly their neighbors. Germany on Central-Europe, USSR on Asia. Then the pact came up and they started to eat everyone they could. And they ended eating each other.
Today two Internet powers sign a pact similar, in nature, to Ribbentrop-Molotov's. Frankly, what we see here is a division of spheres of influence. And this is scaring as we have seen how there powers have been carrying a similar behaviour to the one seen in the 30's. AOL annexed Netscape. Microsoft fights the evil of the Federal Government and the American States. AOL invaded occupied ICQ and several other "small enclaves" on Internet. Microsoft tries to revert consumer needs to his own understanding of what computers & Internet should be.
Now, they are up to the "Polish territories". The giants of Mass Media, once a power by itself but which was quite shaken by the advent of Internet. They are dividing, by "zones of control", what is still relatively independent of their ideologies/practices. No matter our feelings to the Mass Media this is should be considered as a war call. They are invading the last and most important piece of information control for the masses.
I would name this a "stab in our backs"...
Rambus is nothing more than the most successful patent hijacker. How can they be so successful on harassing every company on the market? I have an opinion on how they did it...
They have a close look on what the big gamers are doing, besides they are not just outsiders but people trying to create also their own computer memory device. I wonder if, in base of projects and their insiders knowledge, they filled the right patent claim in the righ moment. As these designs take years to come out to market then it will be understandable how we are seeing a timeline discrepancy between patent fillings and the when such devices came into market. At least one thing that troubles me is that they have claims on such a thing like RDRAM which started rotting while green. Maybe they patented it too early to avoid concurrency?
This stuff is not supposed to be "Funny"... Tt is supposed to be "Cry"... It is a warning about what may happen in a near future. And here don't blame the geeks, Rob or Taco if this happens. They may be quite far from here when such things may start to happen. There is a dangerous tendency coming up.
Could anyone ever imagine that we would come into this? I was here when Yahoo! came up. I saw it growing from the half-hackers site into the commercial mastodon of today. And many things look dangerously similar to Slashdot's evolution.
Rob if you don't wanna ever dream about this, think always ten times before accepting a million dollar bargain. Well, anyway, it's up to you to decide what you would like most...
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I met three cases of system unification. One on Linux, two on Windows. Frankly the Windows unifications were a disaster in all senses. Systems crashed too frequently and there were serious conflicts at all levels. The most unfortunate was the fact that in both unifications managers kept singing "M$ rulez and everthing else is ... and technical staff is ..." Even when systems started to crash so badly that there were technical stops for more than a week.
However in one case we kicked out management's opinion and forced the Linux integration. And that solved 80% of problems.
Note that here the problem is not on who's better. Frankly the problem is in offer. If you get trouble on Windows, you don't really have a large level of maneuver. If Exchange burns down because you have too many users than pray because management will crucify you as you can't offer anything else. On *NIX the situation is completely different. If some service gets too burned, then you have a large room of options. You can cut some services partially and temporary. You may try to use some weaker hardware and interface it with the main iron to avoid overloads. You may transfer services from server to server mostly in a "stop-copy/move-launch" manner. You may play with kernels, platforms, packages versions, scripts to level demands and improve quality of service.
On Windows you are stripped of all this. Even a registry wizard will have trouble to transfer services from one computer to other. Scripting is miserable, specially when M$ is axing all remains of command line tools. You cannot use weaker hardware for backup or salvage tasks. If something on Windows gets wrong then it gets wrong. And management will say that you are a jerk because you didn't have a Certified Microsoft Technician/Admin/User paper. Even if you have been running like mad a week before and saying/demonstrating/crying that a 4500 user database is on the edge of getting trashed without any chances for recovery.
PS: Backups? Please no talks about backups. Due to the SUPER-ULTRA-MEGA-integration of Windows systems they were useless. Only mirroring 70 HDD's would help to recover.