Ok Slashdot people. The/. has been loosing quality for quite some time. But still sometimes people do some good hits. Well this may sound not quite well when flaming Microsoft. But here the problem is more about consumer rights and what M$ is doing with them...
Did you well read the NakedPC article. Well read it? Ok go and read again and come back right here...
Let's open a document package for a IBM 300GL of July 1999. Well there are two plastic packages. One for IBM hardware itself. Other for Microsft docs. You open IBM pack first. Well does not follow exactly the law. But the basics are there:
-Security measures
-Instructions for installation
-Information on consultations and service
-Warranty
-Other notes
Everything is in Russian and English. There is also a note that shows that this product follows EU directive EC 89/366/EEC. Well everything almost goes according to Russian Law.
Now we open the Microsoft pack. What we see?
Microsoft Registration Card
Starting working with Windows98
The first page of "Starting Working.." shows a Certificate of Authenticity and two warnings:
-"Distributed with New Computers Only"
-"For technical support you should direct to computer reseller"
Now on the last page there are a few instructions and a mention that this product is licensed by Microsoft Licensing Inc.
Now let's go to the best of the best...
On the second page of this document there is a copyright warning that states that no part of this document can be reproduced in any form and for any purposes. Sorry Redmonders, on Russian Law I still have the right to cite it under certain restrictions. Besides my citations end here...
Now we go through every page of this beautiful document. We list every page. And we come to questions. Serious questions.
-Where is the EULA?
-Where is the Warranty?
-Why this guide talks about installing Windows on other computers? What is written in the first page?
Until now no one in Russian revoked the obligation of having a printed Warranty. That strictly follows Russian law besides. Here I still have the right to reverse engineer programs under several restrictions. Your electronic EULA that appears at computer start does not follows this btw. Besides the EULA is meaningless as nowhere in Russian Federal Law is written that "clicking here you agree to..." means a form of agreement. An agreement is only an agreement if you have purchased a product with a written license. Not an EULA or a HELL, but a written license that follows the Russian Federal Law. You don't distribute your products with such stuff.
Now let's go back to IBM's docs. Nowhere in these docs I can see anything related to Microsoft's products except a reference to trademarks. Besides IBM's warranty excludes any reference to software and strictly states that techical support extends only to hardware.
Meanwhile...
I can't know how much I exactly pay for the Microsoft product. People talk about sums raging from $50 to $100 for a Win98 copy. Everything I get is: IBM 300GL - $$$$. Officially IBM never tells me the exact cost and only mentions some "internal agreements" with Microsoft.
This is the way Microsoft defends its consumers: NakedOS. And they talk about legality of selling NakedPCs
It's three years since I started doing this. Every time I come to a shop to buy a new computer or HDD I precisely state the following:
... and the HDD WITHOUT any OS. I want WANT an HDD clean, virgin and NAKED. Using the same clothes we wear when we get born. DO YOU GET IT? No Windows, no DOS no other OS crap. DID YOU REALLY GET IT?..."
Because I use the OS that I don't need to pay taxes for: Linux.
On what concerns Microsoft's well hearted intentions... Hey Redmonders you owe us US $3000-7000. We asked several machines with Windows NT installed not 95/98. Why the Hell we should pay for ANOTHER copy of your crap? Why I should return the machines to the supplier if I don't want your Win95/98 copies? (that's what IBM people told me...) Why I should pay for a copy of NT for each machine? Why I should pay for that Win95/98 if I even have Linux installed on them? Why do you direct me to IBM when your licensing terms indicate that I can refuse to install and get a refund for it. And why you make agreements with IBM that force this corporation to ask for the return of these machines if I refuse your damn EULA???? Even if an IBM representative well sees that these machines work with LINUX ONLY?
NakedPCs? My consumer right. And it is not your damn business what runs on them if it not Microsoft.
What I see sounds much like the politics of a well known company in a time when they lead the wave: Microsoft.
Remember people what M$ was doing 15-10 years ago. It was suing and being sued. But by that time the company was all inovation. They were making a real revolution in computers. Thanks to them we get rid of IBM's empire. We got a relatively cheap and powerful user interface. Due to them we got the personal computer damn!
However Microsoft killed many things. And some of them thanks to their famous "lawyers legion". The end you see. A mastodon roaming everywhere and trying to bound everyone to their system. Today it is hard to speak on Microsoft in terms of inovation...
NVidia made also a revolution. Yes 3Dfx started it, but it made a lot of mistakes in the middle. NVidia took the lead and undoubtedly lead everyone to a new era of imaging. However we have to remark this thing: NVidia is starting to kill concurrency. Yes they may be the inovation leaders now. We may point some fingers at 3Dfx policies. But if NVidia gets its move, then it's we who are in trouble. Big trouble, because, in a near future, we may face a company that forces everyone to bound to its policies. Do you want this:
A retrograde policy on concerning drivers distribution and development?
A closed market on 3D cards?
A policy of crushing everyone that stands in its way?
No further inovation beyond the financial arrow of "money, money and MORE money"?
Attempts to overturn the current trend of open source systems and free software?
Is THAT what you want? So go and buy NVidia. Laugh at 3Dfx attempts to rise in its lost market. Smile at 3Dfx paying millions for falling in the web of US patent system. But when you'll search for all colors, don't get admired that NVidia can only give you black...
Newton predicting weakening through dimensions? Yeah cool!
Well, as I said I not arguing against theory itself. I'm arguing against the fact that the article shows a clear distinction between three-four dimensions and two more. There is some sort of strange dessimetry in this story. Gravity weakens due to unseen dimensions. And the other three "feed up the boy"???? What the Hell is this? Physics? Einstein is jumping in his grave man. What tells you that one dimension "strenghts" and other "weakens"??? Third Law and similar stuff to the trashcan? And why it looks like that our dimensions strengthen gravity while the two poor "unseen" weaken it? White-necks, niggers, and red-skins in Physics? Too human for the Universe...
Well I like a lot of these theories of multi-dimensional worlds. But such idea of "dividing" dimensions the way it is shown in the article is rather ridiculous.
AOL, CNET & MSN? Nope AOL will eat CNET and MSN buys everyone else. Until both megamedias don't enter a 60-30% market relationship Justice Department will not bother them. Until then, we will read Bill's Quickies, Ask Microsoft, Redmond in OuterSpace, Voices from WindowsWorld at "IconClick" in Microsoft.net (Linux??? What Linux????? Sorry but could you spell it? Quite a strange word)
It is quite an interesting article. However it shows an all-time stereotype that we are some sort of center. It seems that Relativity teached absolutely nothing to a bunch of monkeys that just came out of the trees. What if this, "our" Universe is just a projection of much larger structures? No we are not looking through 3-4 dimensions over two or five or seven more. We could be folded in three dimensions that result from something much larger and bigger. Or "our" Universe could be the result of the intersection of two or more "meta-Universes".
You may argue quite strongly with this. Well I'm not pointing how the Universe is made. I'm pointing on how we look at the Universe. Imagine that our Universe is made of five dimensions. What tells you that you are "in the center of it"???? You could well be in the first three or last three. The two other you don't see, feel, taste. As much as what you see is just a 0,01% of what sorrounds you. Besides you see nothing. All what you "see" is the result of how your eyes and brain produce out of something beyond you. Forget about radio waves, infra-red, ultra-violet, X-rays, your sunglasses and your short-sightness and you can still say "I see the world" with the same success.
When one talks about "other dimensions" should be very careful. Because it will be quite serious the problem on how we are positioned to them. I would wildly laugh if suddenly anyone found the "originator" of gravity in the dimension next to us. No one knows how exactly gravity is made of. And G is, until the biggest mistery of all. I consider that this article fails in this little thing. It considers gravity as "weakening" through dimensions. Could it be that gravity is born from "travelling" through them? We are talking about dimensions. This is not a thing that stays next door. It is in every quantum of our Universe. a dimension determines a section of the space. And we live in it.
PS: Again about relativity. For the hard-thinkers. What is the correct theory: geocentrism or heliocentrism. Note: both are correct. The problem is that it is much simpler to calculate planet dynamics from a heliocentristic point of view. However if you are hard in maths we can do this from a geocentristic point of view. The problem is that you have to do a lot more of maths to achieve this. And be quite careful about forces and gravity. However it is done. Many observational tasks are made from a goecentristic point of view. Middle Age geocentrism failed because it ignored completely Dynamics and mixed everything in a mystical-religious-political pan. However you still can say with some success that you are in the center of the Universe. The problem is that you have to be a damn mathematician to do it...
"Well Shantz, now we know why humans didn't get through the ages... Can you imagine that they believed on THAT? And to make such a damn effort to dig THIS THING so we could read it 10,000 years later? Really they should have take a more careful look at what happened the 10,000 years BEFORE."
I am no lawyer. But I have met several times this race of mammals roaming in the neighborhood. And this puts me in alert in relation to this letter.
This letter claims copyright violations according to "provisions" in a certain law. UAU! Either lawyers quit the old _ONE_ M$ Way, either someone at M$ is taking the law with himself or this is just a good joke. If you claim a violation AGAINST an act of law, USUALLY you claim no only the law but also the article, paragraphs and, if you are a damn bastard in your profession CITE the law and even DETAIL IT against the concrete violation. Besides you don't strictly claim that you are breaking the law and that you SHOULD do that or that to become the good right citizen. That belongs to the police, the FBI & Co. And even such organisms don't have the right to claim you broke the law and consider immediately that you are guilty (maybe in One M$ Way they only believe in presumption of in-nonsense of their users)
A letter of pretentions to/. should have looked something like this:
"According to article 272 point 1 of the Trinitary Act, we consider that the article #33454 is violating our rights as it publishes a detail of our internal specs on Windows^-1. Specifically: '- You can overpass the login password by pressing ESC'
We consider this information internal to our company and not available to public. Consequently we would require that you remove this immediately"
That is one point on how the letter should look like. A correct letter. Not this mass of foggy warnings that we are seeing here. But not only. Usually there is a practice for contacts between lawyers before any action is taken. No one likes to wash such kind of dirty laundry in the public. Strangely enough the author of thing asks/. to give the public acknowledgement of this letter and then asks to inform him about what action has been taken!!!!
Looking at this I can come into three conclusions. Either we are facing a guy with a very good/bad sense of humour, either we are facing some sort of provocation (or call for provocation). Or lawyers, maybe in face of the last events around M$, decided to quit the boat and left their apprentices around...
It looks that we are getting too much biased on the prospect of all-open-source "bright future". As one poster noted, we don't need Postgres for being a kill-app. Frankly I am no big expert on database managers but here there are a lot of people that work and study several databases managers. Starting with MySQL, Microsoft SQL, PostgresSQL going up to Oracle, DB2 (and even running over other, non-relational, database systems). And I respect their general attitude to these systems, as they have a big professional experience. They mostly scale RDBMS in this way (on growing popularity/manageability/features): 1. MySQL and alikes - fast and simple database systems. Mainly for a work on the run 2. Microsoft SQL Server - In a "one database" "dedicated" system it rules. However most of them don't like it because every work usually ends in "several databases" and most systems don't run only a SQL server. 3. PostgresSQl - powerful database system but it still has a long way to go. Specially on what concerns its management and features. Along with it some put also Borlnd's Interbase. 4. Oracle & DB2 - High profile database systems. They are the real rulers around here. Specially on what concerns Oracle. They have most things a database developer needs for large databases and their management. However their last versions have become quite "bloated" with features that presently most people consider quite superfluous.
No matter its open-source nature, Postgres is second on the row, along with Interbase. And looking at the comments of most people this is highly accepted as a fact. However I have noted that the "big ones"have become too fat. Besides their price has has being run from astronomic to intergalactic. So people now I see people turning their eyes to Postgres. But not only. MySQL, no matter its primitivness, has run from a near outsider to the second most used system in my neighborhood. Soon it may turn into the most popular RDBMS. For Postgres to run from third/fourth RDBMS into first place, it will need to be more manageable, more well-documented and to have a good support in all sort of interfaces and client systems. And it will have to include some of the features included on DB/2 and Oracle. When they will manage to do this and avoid the present "bloatness"of the major runners, then Postgres may become a kill-app. Until then, it is just a very cool and Big database system. No matter being open-sourced.
All around the world there seems to go a hunt against "musical pirates". If RIAA and other organisations manage to get their ropes tight then we are all in big danger. 95% of us hear music regularly. It's in our human nature to listen to melodic sounds. It differs from culture to culture what kind of music we may like to listen. However this last century gave a huge predominance to anglo-saxon music. It's everywhere. Turn any radio in most places on heart (except on certain paria states). 25-80% of it is coming from America or England. And most national music carries now deep roots on such kind of music. I don't wanna discuss here if this is good or bad. This is a question with a lot of sharp sides.
However imagine that RIAA and alikes manage to make their side dominant in our world... Imagine that you have to pay for every song, every lyric, for every shirt, cup, mug, pen with names such as Mettalica or BeachBoys. You don like it? Then what will you do? Stop listening to music? Stop to do something your own nature demands as a form of distress, confort or meditation? So hope that birds will not be forced to have their voices licensed by RIAA. Because it is probable that you may not listen to anything else.
It is a monopoly much more subtle than Microsoft. You may refuse to accept Microsoft rules of the game. Well maybe you will not be able to use a computer but, generally, this doesn't affect your life in fundamental aspects (you won't die of this). But not listening to music???? A thing that a common ancester between me and you did already in his times?
Yes you may choose to listen to music not-RIAA or even anti-RIAA. But, considering the way RIAA plays its hypocrisy in the table, you'll have to choose some underground cave to listen to it. You'll have to download music from warez or non-US sites that may still survive the grasp. So you become a paria, an outculture, a punck, a freak, someone that refuses the culture 90% of people live in. By happily paying their fee to live in society... The minimum? $15-20 for the late hit CD from their lovely group. If you want to be a social being, apart of paying taxes and buying goods, you'll have to pay, each month, your right to listen your lovely sounds. Consequently you'll have the right to communicate, to rest, to love or to concentrate...
No matter wether this site is in Russia or in Pluto I would like to note that some people are making too fast notes on the "illegalities" of information outside US. Note Russia is *NOT* Soviet Union. Yes it is the heart of ex-Soviet Union. But as in US we have now the presumption of inocense. And sorry guys. It is not perfect but it EXISTS. In the second Chechen war people have seen this thing working, good or badly. On what concerns our virtual world of Internet so this thing has been even overused. Some virus writers have managed to stay away from trouble because the corporate environment is too stupid to call some cracking/virus soft illegal (without court rulings) and ask for immediate action against them (which have burned a pair of cases against crackers).
We may consider, among us here, that this site may violate copyright laws. But for the moment it is hard to consider this thing illegal at all. Note that copyright laws in Russia differ, sometimes radically, from US. And here Bern Convention and other international rulings may be of little help. The fact that the site publishes lyrics (and ONLY lyrics) could give some trouble for a US lawyer. I am not an expert on music/literature field. But I have noted that partial and relatively restricted publication of art does not violate any copyrights in any way. lyrics are, in some way, an element of a song... So are they copyright protected?
And note. US laws are not applicable in Russia. Russia has its own body of law. It may be similar or not to US. But in some cases is radically different. Here I have the right to copy 10000 Windows98 CDs while I restrict them for my personal use or to decor the walls of my room. Here I can reverse-engineer any program. And I can sell my modifications, if this does not negatively influence the reward of the original author (I can sell a patch to rip off Explorer out from Windows but I can't sell a crack for Windows CD key). And I can do this, independently from the original author. And I can sue Microsoft and other companies, for the fact that they are violating my consumer rights by stamping in their russian licenses that I have no right to reverse engineer their stuff.
So on what concerns this site let's wait and see. Until someones risks to go to court...
Ok people hold on your horses. If NASA is claiming that it has discovered any channels and is giving an "aquatic origin" to them then they are just playing pure BS. Because for the last 20 years a lot of people has been talking about this and getting pissed off for talking too much. Do you think this is fantasy? Absolutely not. People were even kicked out of Yahoo.com's lists in 1996 for these ideas. In fact it was the first time I noted a clear use of censorship on the net.
Note that this has nothing to do with Hoagland and his cohortes. Yes, a lot of people around this trend has a pro-Hoagland view but also there are a lot who can't see this bastard 10 kilometers in shoot range. And also a lot of them talked about these channels in views completely far from any aliens, ET's or Shadow Govs.
What ruled people inside and around NASA to hunt for the dissidence is still not fully clear. But the fact his that there is a big lobby around NASA that tries to establish the idea that Mars is "old, dry and quiet". Not at all. Mars was highly wet for quite a long time. Somewhere in time. maybe 1-2 billions , maybe a few millions years ago (people don't agree quite on this) something happened on Mars. It could be one impact. I and other people consider they were several big impacts. Mars turned into a cauldron. Due to impact, Mars waterways ran wild. In some places water managed to dig channels with a few kilometers deep (I, personally, analysed such photos in 1996). It even flew and fell back in some places. And probably Mars went so hot that it started to evaporate. Due to the low gravitation, most of it was lost into Space.
Btw. Cydonia is mostly the result of such event. Specially if one analyses the South-Eastern/North eastern region of the plateau, then one can see a large evidence of a powerful washout among landscape formations. But it is not the most spectacular. The most spectacular I have seen was a weird erosion that suggested that water acted there as a fountain falling on rock. And made a hole 1 kilometer wide.
Frankly a year charge of $2500 can only affect individuals or volunteer groups. Companies and major software development groups may feel this as a bless as it shrinks USB potential market to their products.
Sincerly I am not absolutely against charging such things. Anyway things must be supported, one should pay for common expenses and many people would like to have conferences or meetings to settle up questions. and this demands money.
However USB group makes out of this an elite club. There are no chances. Either pay $2500 or hit the streets. And this does not just end here. If anyone has taken a look at their application form, then they consider ONLY companies as possible members. Besides:
"Renewal and Size of Forum. The Forum Sponsors reserve the right to limit the number of participants or to discontinue the program upon written notice. Upon any such, Company shall receive a refund of a portion of its subscription fee proportional to the amount of time otherwise remaining in its enrollment period."
The Forum sponsors are: Compaq, Digital Equipment Corporation, IBM PC Co., Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and Northern Telecom. So one may well think were this beautiful family of sponsors are pushing us to. Specially if we consider that this membership allows "early access to specifications".
In any case I would highly recomend anyone to read this membership form. It presents some more interesting points that may develope discussion: http://www.usb.org/developers/data/usbifapp.pdf
Today Microsoft announced its new brand of Office for Linux. "It is The Killer App" said Bill Gates on the gigantic worlwide multimedia announcement. "This time we will show the Linux community that we are not so Windows sided"
Office 2001 is an highly complex system for all possible uses, home or office, on camping or in the Bermudas. It has minimum requirements Merced-dual 256Mb RAM 2Gb free space. To installit users are required to install the new Linux kernel "Full Embedding"(TM) from Microsoft. It carries all needed drivers in static form: IE7, ActiveX, JanitorS, Wizards, OLE/COM/DOM/SOM/BOM/POM/BANG, XML/HTML/DHTML/VRML/UML and CSS/VSS/XSS. It also contains special drivers, distributed as modules, for support of documents in Excel2000 and Excel97, Word2000, WordPerfect 5 and TXT. But the great innovation is the integration of Windows GUI inside the kernel. Prices are expected to run from $200 to $2000 (Professional Edition).
Some people have questioned how Open Source is this product. According to Microsoft sources it will be distributed under a new EULA. According to it, source code will be distributed in steganographic form inside the user's manual, in form of spaces. This will allow Microsoft to avoid several patenting issues with the code. Anyone can take a look at it.
It is my personal opinion that GPL is no sugar. However it is the best we have now and we should bound to it. "Dura Lex Sed Lex". This does not mean that I am a partisan for "everything GPL". But if a source code is GPL then it is GPL. That is what the damn license is for.
Frankly I consider that Carmack made a not very correct move. It would be better that Quake would be licensed in a more LGPL soul. But well he is the author. The author has the absolute right to its child...
Anyway, Slade is absolutely wrong here. His form "source is still GPL" but "you have to give up your rights under the GPL" is a legal nonsense. He talks about guns. I would prefer to talk about free speech. Imagine that some state claims "you have the right for free speech, but, from this border you have to give up your rights". Because, in any case, source code is usually equaled to free speech, then I think the analogy is more proper.
Slade is obliged to bound to GPL if his source code is GPL-based. It is sad to see how he inverts the terms of the license. His notes about the HOW term can be simply named as demagogy. Because the main sense of GPL is HOW to distribute source code to WHOM. WHOM is all third parties. It can be the US Government, Microsoft, me, you or even penguins (article 2 p. "b").
Besides there is a strange danger in his interpretation of distribution. He turns personal responsability of abiding to GPL to third parties. A strange legal pyramid for anyone who tries to distribute the program (you are in a pirate ship, then you're a pirate...)
To end. On what concerns his ideas that no one needs the code. I love free speech. But that doesn't mean that I have to watch CNN or Washington Post to execute my right.
For all those who criticized 4.71. That the is broken. Seriously broken. It was on their sites for a few days and a lot of people fell in this trap (me one). Unfortunately information didn't reach many. I managed to hold it for a week and have a few hundred students to fell the "beauty and the beast". The result was linux boxes crashing every hour, mail broken, news in Hell.
We had to turn back fast. But at the same time we managed to seriously upgrade the system. 4.61 worked no more (and we were holding the upgrade due to this...:( ). 4.7 glibc2 didn't go. It wrongly called NIS+ data. We turned to libc5 one and almost everything worked. Except Java. Due to the huge delays in the upgrade we sticked to it.
Sincerly, my experience with Netscape has been, for the last year, desilusion after desilusion. Their closed source, their huge delays, their lack of intermediate patches, their lack of support for most of the new standards, has turned its use into a growing Hell. What mostly admires me is that, among all this, they started to add more and more "features", scrapping stable old code and creating more problems. If anyone has traced it on Linux he can understand what I mean. I have been doing this and I'm admired that calls, that worked well in RedHat, Slackware and Mandrake, now are changed and Netscape horribly crashes in these places. They don't follow the libraries and sometimes mix them with beta and alpha versions from rawhide libs (some of which don't manage ever to reach RedHat dists). Use code that everyone has dropped long ago. And the most worrysome is that their support and documentation from miserable has been turning to none.
Hope that Mozilla comes soon. I have tested it and liked a lot. Really I don't want to go back to MazDie only because I want to roam the net...
You are one of those who "reinvented" a language. And you made a fundamental move by giving macro-assembler C style the true aspects of a language. In one way you were not alone. Somehow your move was made in a time when several languages tried to turn "objective" or "procedural". It was a great move that gave programming languages a property of high flexibility.
Than there was a big gap. And suddenly we had Java. However there was nothing fundamentally new on it. Theoretically I mean.
What do you think about this? Have we reached a theoretical limit in the technological bounds of modern computing? Have "theoretical" programmists lost their "inspiration". Or have we reached "Finis Terra" of the programming sciences?
Borland was one of the companies that first tried to give a more free view of code. Anyone remebers their software license "like a book"? Besides they furnished a lot of source code in their packs. Frankly the only thing they kept for themselves was mostly the compiler itself.
Unfortunately Borland suffered also the fate of many of the companies of its generation - it got caught under the web of the yuppie enterpeneurs. The result of this takeover was Philip Kahn (and several other) leaving Borland. The company turned into a more "solid-proprietary" and less "venturous-dissident" face. Meanwhile, the quality of its products dropped drastically. Things ended up by customers leaving massively Borland. The company ended with a small group of C++ fans and a segment of its past Pascal clients.
It is interesting to note that among my known circles of "second-generation" Linuxists (1994-1996) I note a lot of past Borland fans (me one). For some it was a no-return ticket. For others it was a middle world between Windows and Linux. However they were only a fraction of the huge mass of "unemployed" programmers. Most Borlandists turned to other professions. Today most are either highly specialized users or sysadmins. 90% of the people didn't managed to "go Windows".
So it seems that this is the last hit on the coffin... Borland is dead. Curiously when a normal Pascal compiler has finally appeared on Linux. That follows Borland philosophy with only one exception. It's not a book, it's GPL.
The article is mostly the antology of a paranoia tale that roamed before Net days. "Why MS-DOS has so many holes? Because the NSA, CIA, FBI, the Shadow Government are behind this..."
It is no more than this. It seems that jounalists, without having ANYTHING new to publish, decided to hunt down on more deeper waters. The result? They are publishing urban legends as news...
But... Don't trust more Microsoft by this. THEY DO A LOT to get some info about you and your use of computers. The "lemedofoyou" philosophy of their OSes hides a dangerous system of information gathering. Besides more and more they bound this philosophy on your computer use. Wanna get a patch? "lemedofoyou". Wanna get a new program? "lemedofoyou" Wanna search for something on the net? "lemedofoyou"
But for "lemedofoyou" to work they must know something about you. And they gather some info. Presently it looks that this information gathering is not very substantial. Maybe because it is gathered by a few bits each time. So the whole may be much worser.
And this information can be used for very dangerous purposes. It can be sold to NSA, CIA, FBI, the Shadow Government... Or worse. It can leak and be sold to snake oil sellers, major corporations, religious sects and even leak into the criminal environments. Imagine someone getting thousands of credit card numbers from satisfied Microsoft customers.
Yeap? Could be. But there's is no need to show Microsoft looking bad. It is BAD by itself. Or you have never seen small packs running out of your computer, without your clear knowledge, into some location in the Net? That happens with some Windows soft... (And why they need this damn GID anyway?:) )
Frankly I agree that posting kernel updates may be not so useful. Specially if they are Beta. Specially THIS one.
I don't consider that Slashdot should not post such news. However I consider that they may have a use only in cases when we deal with stable releases. We don't have them every day and not everybody reads freshmeat every hour.
In cases such as development kernels, I would highly recomend to restrict news to moments when important changes are made. And, in any case, to check up the stuff before publishing.
This guy here, 2.3.46, has some serious bugs in it. For the hardware I use, it is not a runday kernel to be trusted. I had to make a few patches and sit until 5 in the morning to see it well and alive in my Ragnarok Linux Box. It is a beauty, it is powerful, it runs fast, it eats less memory, it already covers all hardware I have, it holds my dual-proc with a boost, it does not crash like old good 2.2. But damn, I took three hours checking up the source to make it run and, from time to time, it shows some weirdnesses. For a person with a middle knowledge of systems and programming this kernel may do and may go. But for the majority it may be a serious delusion.
I was pretty amazed to see the damn thing this morning at slashdot. When I know that 80% of the people may not be able to even compile it normally... Frankly this starts to remind the hypes of Redmond's Mag00. People, we are not Mazdiers, and I think no one want to be such.
There is a huge miriad of "continents" if we look straight at the case. What Katz shows is merely a glimpse of what most "mortals" can see at short range. And besides it is a typical view from american shores.
What about the X-Files Continent. Yeap it was pretty shaken down for the last two years. People have lost interest because there were too many "conspiracy-hunters" and snake-oil sellers around. Besides it was well descridited and taken down by some smart fellows around. But it is still alive and it is not just "Entertainment->Paranormalia" as once Yahoo decided to turn it in...
The "national" Continents. Each country possesses a lot of specificities. For example in Russia there is a well set tradition for compromates and flame-wars. In one point the whole Rusweb looks much like the guys of that old Gaul village in the popular French comics "Asterix". Some countries have a too sexist taste on the web. There is sex everywhere, even if you trying to look at the weather in some city. Other are tremendously nationalist. You damn find anything in a common world language
And even if you look ta Katz continents then you will find that things are far from being so simple. One cannot mess Religion and Mysticism in many points. There is Erotics and Pornography and their audiences are frequently far from each other. There is a big gap between Tech & Science and it is a typical mistake of techies to mess both things. And besides he seems to forget the Economist (it is not about commerce!) and Humanitarian groups (History, Psychology, Archeology, Philosophy). I believe they are not so small to be ignored. And I think they should not be simply put inside the Tech Continent.
Slashdot Mirror
Armageddon
Armageddon
Armageddon
Armageddon
(... well this thing 15 times)
Cut! Cut! Cut! Lights off! Thank you people, hope no rehearsal is needed...
Ok Slashdot people. The /. has been loosing quality for quite some time. But still sometimes people do some good hits. Well this may sound not quite well when flaming Microsoft. But here the problem is more about consumer rights and what M$ is doing with them...
Did you well read the NakedPC article. Well read it? Ok go and read again and come back right here...
Let's open a document package for a IBM 300GL of July 1999. Well there are two plastic packages. One for IBM hardware itself. Other for Microsft docs. You open IBM pack first. Well does not follow exactly the law. But the basics are there:
-Security measures
-Instructions for installation
-Information on consultations and service
-Warranty
-Other notes
Everything is in Russian and English. There is also a note that shows that this product follows EU directive EC 89/366/EEC. Well everything almost goes according to Russian Law.
Now we open the Microsoft pack. What we see?
Microsoft Registration Card
Starting working with Windows98
The first page of "Starting Working.." shows a Certificate of Authenticity and two warnings:
-"Distributed with New Computers Only"
-"For technical support you should direct to computer reseller"
Now on the last page there are a few instructions and a mention that this product is licensed by Microsoft Licensing Inc.
Now let's go to the best of the best...
On the second page of this document there is a copyright warning that states that no part of this document can be reproduced in any form and for any purposes. Sorry Redmonders, on Russian Law I still have the right to cite it under certain restrictions. Besides my citations end here...
Now we go through every page of this beautiful document. We list every page. And we come to questions. Serious questions.
-Where is the EULA?
-Where is the Warranty?
-Why this guide talks about installing Windows on other computers? What is written in the first page?
Until now no one in Russian revoked the obligation of having a printed Warranty. That strictly follows Russian law besides. Here I still have the right to reverse engineer programs under several restrictions. Your electronic EULA that appears at computer start does not follows this btw. Besides the EULA is meaningless as nowhere in Russian Federal Law is written that "clicking here you agree to..." means a form of agreement. An agreement is only an agreement if you have purchased a product with a written license. Not an EULA or a HELL, but a written license that follows the Russian Federal Law. You don't distribute your products with such stuff.
Now let's go back to IBM's docs. Nowhere in these docs I can see anything related to Microsoft's products except a reference to trademarks. Besides IBM's warranty excludes any reference to software and strictly states that techical support extends only to hardware.
Meanwhile...
I can't know how much I exactly pay for the Microsoft product. People talk about sums raging from $50 to $100 for a Win98 copy. Everything I get is: IBM 300GL - $$$$. Officially IBM never tells me the exact cost and only mentions some "internal agreements" with Microsoft.
This is the way Microsoft defends its consumers: NakedOS. And they talk about legality of selling NakedPCs
It's three years since I started doing this. Every time I come to a shop to buy a new computer or HDD I precisely state the following:
... and the HDD WITHOUT any OS. I want WANT an HDD clean, virgin and NAKED. Using the same clothes we wear when we get born. DO YOU GET IT? No Windows, no DOS no other OS crap. DID YOU REALLY GET IT?..."
Because I use the OS that I don't need to pay taxes for: Linux.
On what concerns Microsoft's well hearted intentions... Hey Redmonders you owe us US $3000-7000. We asked several machines with Windows NT installed not 95/98. Why the Hell we should pay for ANOTHER copy of your crap? Why I should return the machines to the supplier if I don't want your Win95/98 copies? (that's what IBM people told me...) Why I should pay for a copy of NT for each machine? Why I should pay for that Win95/98 if I even have Linux installed on them? Why do you direct me to IBM when your licensing terms indicate that I can refuse to install and get a refund for it. And why you make agreements with IBM that force this corporation to ask for the return of these machines if I refuse your damn EULA???? Even if an IBM representative well sees that these machines work with LINUX ONLY?
NakedPCs? My consumer right. And it is not your damn business what runs on them if it not Microsoft.
word - Eternal Patent 666,666,666 by God Inc. issued by the Heaven's Patent Office.
Due to the constant violation of this patent by milliards of people, we have what we have...
What I see sounds much like the politics of a well known company in a time when they lead the wave: Microsoft.
Remember people what M$ was doing 15-10 years ago. It was suing and being sued. But by that time the company was all inovation. They were making a real revolution in computers. Thanks to them we get rid of IBM's empire. We got a relatively cheap and powerful user interface. Due to them we got the personal computer damn!
However Microsoft killed many things. And some of them thanks to their famous "lawyers legion". The end you see. A mastodon roaming everywhere and trying to bound everyone to their system. Today it is hard to speak on Microsoft in terms of inovation...
NVidia made also a revolution. Yes 3Dfx started it, but it made a lot of mistakes in the middle. NVidia took the lead and undoubtedly lead everyone to a new era of imaging. However we have to remark this thing: NVidia is starting to kill concurrency. Yes they may be the inovation leaders now. We may point some fingers at 3Dfx policies. But if NVidia gets its move, then it's we who are in trouble. Big trouble, because, in a near future, we may face a company that forces everyone to bound to its policies. Do you want this:
A retrograde policy on concerning drivers distribution and development?
A closed market on 3D cards?
A policy of crushing everyone that stands in its way?
No further inovation beyond the financial arrow of "money, money and MORE money"?
Attempts to overturn the current trend of open source systems and free software?
Is THAT what you want? So go and buy NVidia. Laugh at 3Dfx attempts to rise in its lost market. Smile at 3Dfx paying millions for falling in the web of US patent system. But when you'll search for all colors, don't get admired that NVidia can only give you black...
Newton predicting weakening through dimensions? Yeah cool!
Well, as I said I not arguing against theory itself. I'm arguing against the fact that the article shows a clear distinction between three-four dimensions and two more. There is some sort of strange dessimetry in this story. Gravity weakens due to unseen dimensions. And the other three "feed up the boy"???? What the Hell is this? Physics? Einstein is jumping in his grave man. What tells you that one dimension "strenghts" and other "weakens"??? Third Law and similar stuff to the trashcan? And why it looks like that our dimensions strengthen gravity while the two poor "unseen" weaken it? White-necks, niggers, and red-skins in Physics? Too human for the Universe...
Well I like a lot of these theories of multi-dimensional worlds. But such idea of "dividing" dimensions the way it is shown in the article is rather ridiculous.
AOL, CNET & MSN? Nope AOL will eat CNET and MSN buys everyone else. Until both megamedias don't enter a 60-30% market relationship Justice Department will not bother them. Until then, we will read Bill's Quickies, Ask Microsoft, Redmond in OuterSpace, Voices from WindowsWorld at "IconClick" in Microsoft.net (Linux??? What Linux????? Sorry but could you spell it? Quite a strange word)
It is quite an interesting article. However it shows an all-time stereotype that we are some sort of center. It seems that Relativity teached absolutely nothing to a bunch of monkeys that just came out of the trees.
What if this, "our" Universe is just a projection of much larger structures? No we are not looking through 3-4 dimensions over two or five or seven more. We could be folded in three dimensions that result from something much larger and bigger. Or "our" Universe could be the result of the intersection of two or more "meta-Universes".
You may argue quite strongly with this. Well I'm not pointing how the Universe is made. I'm pointing on how we look at the Universe. Imagine that our Universe is made of five dimensions. What tells you that you are "in the center of it"???? You could well be in the first three or last three. The two other you don't see, feel, taste. As much as what you see is just a 0,01% of what sorrounds you. Besides you see nothing. All what you "see" is the result of how your eyes and brain produce out of something beyond you. Forget about radio waves, infra-red, ultra-violet, X-rays, your sunglasses and your short-sightness and you can still say "I see the world" with the same success.
When one talks about "other dimensions" should be very careful. Because it will be quite serious the problem on how we are positioned to them. I would wildly laugh if suddenly anyone found the "originator" of gravity in the dimension next to us. No one knows how exactly gravity is made of. And G is, until the biggest mistery of all. I consider that this article fails in this little thing. It considers gravity as "weakening" through dimensions. Could it be that gravity is born from "travelling" through them? We are talking about dimensions. This is not a thing that stays next door. It is in every quantum of our Universe. a dimension determines a section of the space. And we live in it.
PS: Again about relativity. For the hard-thinkers. What is the correct theory: geocentrism or heliocentrism. Note: both are correct. The problem is that it is much simpler to calculate planet dynamics from a heliocentristic point of view. However if you are hard in maths we can do this from a geocentristic point of view. The problem is that you have to do a lot more of maths to achieve this. And be quite careful about forces and gravity. However it is done. Many observational tasks are made from a goecentristic point of view. Middle Age geocentrism failed because it ignored completely Dynamics and mixed everything in a mystical-religious-political pan. However you still can say with some success that you are in the center of the Universe. The problem is that you have to be a damn mathematician to do it...
"Well Shantz, now we know why humans didn't get through the ages... Can you imagine that they believed on THAT? And to make such a damn effort to dig THIS THING so we could read it 10,000 years later? Really they should have take a more careful look at what happened the 10,000 years BEFORE."
New fight upon open source: Microsoft vs. Slashdot
http://lenta.ru/internet/2000/05/12/ms/
I am no lawyer. But I have met several times this race of mammals roaming in the neighborhood. And this puts me in alert in relation to this letter.
/. should have looked something like this:
/. to give the public acknowledgement of this letter and then asks to inform him about what action has been taken!!!!
This letter claims copyright violations according to "provisions" in a certain law. UAU!
Either lawyers quit the old _ONE_ M$ Way, either someone at M$ is taking the law with himself or this is just a good joke. If you claim a violation AGAINST an act of law, USUALLY you claim no only the law but also the article, paragraphs and, if you are a damn bastard in your profession CITE the law and even DETAIL IT against the concrete violation. Besides you don't strictly claim that you are breaking the law and that you SHOULD do that or that to become the good right citizen. That belongs to the police, the FBI & Co. And even such organisms don't have the right to claim you broke the law and consider immediately that you are guilty (maybe in One M$ Way they only believe in presumption of in-nonsense of their users)
A letter of pretentions to
"According to article 272 point 1 of the Trinitary Act, we consider that the article #33454
is violating our rights as it publishes a detail of our internal specs on Windows^-1. Specifically:
'- You can overpass the login password by pressing ESC'
We consider this information internal to our company and not available to public. Consequently we would require that you remove this immediately"
That is one point on how the letter should look like. A correct letter. Not this mass of foggy warnings that we are seeing here. But not only.
Usually there is a practice for contacts between lawyers before any action is taken. No one likes to wash such kind of dirty laundry in the public. Strangely enough the author of thing asks
Looking at this I can come into three conclusions. Either we are facing a guy with a very good/bad sense of humour, either we are facing some sort of provocation (or call for provocation). Or lawyers, maybe in face of the last events around M$, decided to quit the boat and left their apprentices around...
It looks that we are getting too much biased on the prospect of all-open-source "bright future". As one poster noted, we don't need Postgres for being a kill-app. Frankly I am no big expert on database managers but here there are a lot of people that work and study several databases managers. Starting with MySQL, Microsoft SQL, PostgresSQL going up to Oracle, DB2 (and even running over other, non-relational, database systems). And I respect their general attitude to these systems, as they have a big professional experience. They mostly scale RDBMS in this way (on growing popularity/manageability/features):
1. MySQL and alikes - fast and simple database systems. Mainly for a work on the run
2. Microsoft SQL Server - In a "one database" "dedicated" system it rules. However most of them don't like it because every work usually ends in "several databases" and most systems don't run only a SQL server.
3. PostgresSQl - powerful database system but it still has a long way to go. Specially on what concerns its management and features. Along with it some put also Borlnd's Interbase.
4. Oracle & DB2 - High profile database systems. They are the real rulers around here. Specially on what concerns Oracle. They have most things a database developer needs for large databases and their management. However their last versions have become quite "bloated" with features that presently most people consider quite superfluous.
No matter its open-source nature, Postgres is second on the row, along with Interbase. And looking at the comments of most people this is highly accepted as a fact. However I have noted that the "big ones"have become too fat. Besides their price has has being run from astronomic to intergalactic. So people now I see people turning their eyes to Postgres. But not only. MySQL, no matter its primitivness, has run from a near outsider to the second most used system in my neighborhood. Soon it may turn into the most popular RDBMS. For Postgres to run from third/fourth RDBMS into first place, it will need to be more manageable, more well-documented and to have a good support in all sort of interfaces and client systems. And it will have to include some of the features included on DB/2 and Oracle. When they will manage to do this and avoid the present "bloatness"of the major runners, then Postgres may become a kill-app. Until then, it is just a very cool and Big database system. No matter being open-sourced.
All around the world there seems to go a hunt against "musical pirates". If RIAA and other organisations manage to get their ropes tight then we are all in big danger. 95% of us hear music regularly. It's in our human nature to listen to melodic sounds. It differs from culture to culture what kind of music we may like to listen. However this last century gave a huge predominance to anglo-saxon music. It's everywhere. Turn any radio in most places on heart (except on certain paria states). 25-80% of it is coming from America or England. And most national music carries now deep roots on such kind of music. I don't wanna discuss here if this is good or bad. This is a question with a lot of sharp sides.
However imagine that RIAA and alikes manage to make their side dominant in our world... Imagine that you have to pay for every song, every lyric, for every shirt, cup, mug, pen with names such as Mettalica or BeachBoys. You don like it? Then what will you do? Stop listening to music? Stop to do something your own nature demands as a form of distress, confort or meditation? So hope that birds will not be forced to have their voices licensed by RIAA. Because it is probable that you may not listen to anything else.
It is a monopoly much more subtle than Microsoft. You may refuse to accept Microsoft rules of the game. Well maybe you will not be able to use a computer but, generally, this doesn't affect your life in fundamental aspects (you won't die of this). But not listening to music???? A thing that a common ancester between me and you did already in his times?
Yes you may choose to listen to music not-RIAA or even anti-RIAA. But, considering the way RIAA plays its hypocrisy in the table, you'll have to choose some underground cave to listen to it. You'll have to download music from warez or non-US sites that may still survive the grasp. So you become a paria, an outculture, a punck, a freak, someone that refuses the culture 90% of people live in. By happily paying their fee to live in society... The minimum? $15-20 for the late hit CD from their lovely group. If you want to be a social being, apart of paying taxes and buying goods, you'll have to pay, each month, your right to listen your lovely sounds. Consequently you'll have the right to communicate, to rest, to love or to concentrate...
No matter wether this site is in Russia or in Pluto I would like to note that some people are making too fast notes on the "illegalities" of information outside US. Note Russia is *NOT* Soviet Union. Yes it is the heart of ex-Soviet Union. But as in US we have now the presumption of inocense. And sorry guys. It is not perfect but it EXISTS. In the second Chechen war people have seen this thing working, good or badly. On what concerns our virtual world of Internet so this thing has been even overused. Some virus writers have managed to stay away from trouble because the corporate environment is too stupid to call some cracking/virus soft illegal (without court rulings) and ask for immediate action against them (which have burned a pair of cases against crackers).
We may consider, among us here, that this site may violate copyright laws. But for the moment it is hard to consider this thing illegal at all. Note that copyright laws in Russia differ, sometimes radically, from US. And here Bern Convention and other international rulings may be of little help. The fact that the site publishes lyrics (and ONLY lyrics) could give some trouble for a US lawyer. I am not an expert on music/literature field. But I have noted that partial and relatively restricted publication of art does not violate any copyrights in any way. lyrics are, in some way, an element of a song... So are they copyright protected?
And note. US laws are not applicable in Russia. Russia has its own body of law. It may be similar or not to US. But in some cases is radically different. Here I have the right to copy 10000 Windows98 CDs while I restrict them for my personal use or to decor the walls of my room. Here I can reverse-engineer any program. And I can sell my modifications, if this does not negatively influence the reward of the original author (I can sell a patch to rip off Explorer out from Windows but I can't sell a crack for Windows CD key). And I can do this, independently from the original author. And I can sue Microsoft and other companies, for the fact that they are violating my consumer rights by stamping in their russian licenses that I have no right to reverse engineer their stuff.
So on what concerns this site let's wait and see. Until someones risks to go to court...
Ok people hold on your horses. If NASA is claiming that it has discovered any channels and is giving an "aquatic origin" to them then they are just playing pure BS. Because for the last 20 years a lot of people has been talking about this and getting pissed off for talking too much. Do you think this is fantasy? Absolutely not. People were even kicked out of Yahoo.com's lists in 1996 for these ideas. In fact it was the first time I noted a clear use of censorship on the net.
Note that this has nothing to do with Hoagland and his cohortes. Yes, a lot of people around this trend has a pro-Hoagland view but also there are a lot who can't see this bastard 10 kilometers in shoot range. And also a lot of them talked about these channels in views completely far from any aliens, ET's or Shadow Govs.
What ruled people inside and around NASA to hunt for the dissidence is still not fully clear. But the fact his that there is a big lobby around NASA that tries to establish the idea that Mars is "old, dry and quiet". Not at all. Mars was highly wet for quite a long time. Somewhere in time. maybe 1-2 billions , maybe a few millions years ago (people don't agree quite on this) something happened on Mars. It could be one impact. I and other people consider they were several big impacts. Mars turned into a cauldron. Due to impact, Mars waterways ran wild. In some places water managed to dig channels with a few kilometers deep (I, personally, analysed such photos in 1996). It even flew and fell back in some places. And probably Mars went so hot that it started to evaporate. Due to the low gravitation, most of it was lost into Space.
Btw. Cydonia is mostly the result of such event. Specially if one analyses the South-Eastern/North eastern region of the plateau, then one can see a large evidence of a powerful washout among landscape formations. But it is not the most spectacular. The most spectacular I have seen was a weird erosion that suggested that water acted there as a fountain falling on rock. And made a hole 1 kilometer wide.
Frankly a year charge of $2500 can only affect individuals or volunteer groups. Companies and major software development groups may feel this as a bless as it shrinks USB potential market to their products.
Sincerly I am not absolutely against charging such things. Anyway things must be supported, one should pay for common expenses and many people would like to have conferences or meetings to settle up questions. and this demands money.
However USB group makes out of this an elite club. There are no chances. Either pay $2500 or hit the streets. And this does not just end here. If anyone has taken a look at their application form, then they consider ONLY companies as possible members. Besides:
"Renewal and Size of Forum. The Forum Sponsors reserve the right to limit the number of participants or to discontinue the program upon written notice. Upon any such, Company shall receive a refund of a portion of its subscription fee proportional to the amount of time otherwise remaining in its enrollment period."
The Forum sponsors are: Compaq, Digital Equipment Corporation, IBM PC Co., Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and Northern Telecom. So one may well think were this beautiful family of sponsors are pushing us to. Specially if we consider that this membership allows "early access to specifications".
In any case I would highly recomend anyone to read this membership form. It presents some more interesting points that may develope discussion:
http://www.usb.org/developers/data/usbifapp.pdf
Today Microsoft announced its new brand of Office for Linux. "It is The Killer App" said Bill Gates on the gigantic worlwide multimedia announcement. "This time we will show the Linux community that we are not so Windows sided"
Office 2001 is an highly complex system for all possible uses, home or office, on camping or in the Bermudas. It has minimum requirements Merced-dual 256Mb RAM 2Gb free space. To installit users are required to install the new Linux kernel "Full Embedding"(TM) from Microsoft. It carries all needed drivers in static form: IE7, ActiveX, JanitorS, Wizards, OLE/COM/DOM/SOM/BOM/POM/BANG, XML/HTML/DHTML/VRML/UML and CSS/VSS/XSS. It also contains special drivers, distributed as modules, for support of documents in Excel2000 and Excel97, Word2000, WordPerfect 5 and TXT. But the great innovation is the integration of Windows GUI inside the kernel. Prices are expected to run from $200 to $2000 (Professional Edition).
Some people have questioned how Open Source is this product. According to Microsoft sources it will be distributed under a new EULA. According to it, source code will be distributed in steganographic form inside the user's manual, in form of spaces. This will allow Microsoft to avoid several patenting issues with the code. Anyone can take a look at it.
It is my personal opinion that GPL is no sugar. However it is the best we have now and we should bound to it. "Dura Lex Sed Lex". This does not mean that I am a partisan for "everything GPL". But if a source code is GPL then it is GPL. That is what the damn license is for.
Frankly I consider that Carmack made a not very correct move. It would be better that Quake would be licensed in a more LGPL soul. But well he is the author. The author has the absolute right to its child...
Anyway, Slade is absolutely wrong here. His form "source is still GPL" but "you have to give up your rights under the GPL" is a legal nonsense. He talks about guns. I would prefer to talk about free speech. Imagine that some state claims "you have the right for free speech, but, from this border you have to give up your rights". Because, in any case, source code is usually equaled to free speech, then I think the analogy is more proper.
Slade is obliged to bound to GPL if his source code is GPL-based. It is sad to see how he inverts the terms of the license. His notes about the HOW term can be simply named as demagogy. Because the main sense of GPL is HOW to distribute source code to WHOM. WHOM is all third parties. It can be the US Government, Microsoft, me, you or even penguins (article 2 p. "b").
Besides there is a strange danger in his interpretation of distribution. He turns personal responsability of abiding to GPL to third parties. A strange legal pyramid for anyone who tries to distribute the program (you are in a pirate ship, then you're a pirate...)
To end. On what concerns his ideas that no one needs the code. I love free speech. But that doesn't mean that I have to watch CNN or Washington Post to execute my right.
For all those who criticized 4.71. That the is broken. Seriously broken. It was on their sites for a few days and a lot of people fell in this trap (me one). Unfortunately information didn't reach many. I managed to hold it for a week and have a few hundred students to fell the "beauty and the beast". The result was linux boxes crashing every hour, mail broken, news in Hell.
:( ). 4.7 glibc2 didn't go. It wrongly called NIS+ data. We turned to libc5 one and almost everything worked. Except Java. Due to the huge delays in the upgrade we sticked to it.
We had to turn back fast. But at the same time we managed to seriously upgrade the system. 4.61 worked no more (and we were holding the upgrade due to this...
Sincerly, my experience with Netscape has been, for the last year, desilusion after desilusion. Their closed source, their huge delays, their lack of intermediate patches, their lack of support for most of the new standards, has turned its use into a growing Hell. What mostly admires me is that, among all this, they started to add more and more "features", scrapping stable old code and creating more problems. If anyone has traced it on Linux he can understand what I mean. I have been doing this and I'm admired that calls, that worked well in RedHat, Slackware and Mandrake, now are changed and Netscape horribly crashes in these places. They don't follow the libraries and sometimes mix them with beta and alpha versions from rawhide libs (some of which don't manage ever to reach RedHat dists). Use code that everyone has dropped long ago. And the most worrysome is that their support and documentation from miserable has been turning to none.
Hope that Mozilla comes soon. I have tested it and liked a lot. Really I don't want to go back to MazDie only because I want to roam the net...
You are one of those who "reinvented" a language. And you made a fundamental move by giving macro-assembler C style the true aspects of a language. In one way you were not alone. Somehow your move was made in a time when several languages tried to turn "objective" or "procedural". It was a great move that gave programming languages a property of high flexibility.
Than there was a big gap. And suddenly we had Java. However there was nothing fundamentally new on it. Theoretically I mean.
What do you think about this? Have we reached a theoretical limit in the technological bounds of modern computing? Have "theoretical" programmists lost their "inspiration". Or have we reached "Finis Terra" of the programming sciences?
Borland was one of the companies that first tried to give a more free view of code. Anyone remebers their software license "like a book"? Besides they furnished a lot of source code in their packs. Frankly the only thing they kept for themselves was mostly the compiler itself.
Unfortunately Borland suffered also the fate of many of the companies of its generation - it got caught under the web of the yuppie enterpeneurs. The result of this takeover was Philip Kahn (and several other) leaving Borland. The company turned into a more "solid-proprietary" and less "venturous-dissident" face. Meanwhile, the quality of its products dropped drastically. Things ended up by customers leaving massively Borland. The company ended with a small group of C++ fans and a segment of its past Pascal clients.
It is interesting to note that among my known circles of "second-generation" Linuxists (1994-1996) I note a lot of past Borland fans (me one). For some it was a no-return ticket. For others it was a middle world between Windows and Linux. However they were only a fraction of the huge mass of "unemployed" programmers. Most Borlandists turned to other professions. Today most are either highly specialized users or sysadmins. 90% of the people didn't managed to "go Windows".
So it seems that this is the last hit on the coffin... Borland is dead. Curiously when a normal Pascal compiler has finally appeared on Linux. That follows Borland philosophy with only one exception. It's not a book, it's GPL.
The article is mostly the antology of a paranoia tale that roamed before Net days. "Why MS-DOS has so many holes? Because the NSA, CIA, FBI, the Shadow Government are behind this..."
It is no more than this. It seems that jounalists, without having ANYTHING new to publish, decided to hunt down on more deeper waters. The result? They are publishing urban legends as news...
But... Don't trust more Microsoft by this. THEY DO A LOT to get some info about you and your use of computers. The "lemedofoyou" philosophy of their OSes hides a dangerous system of information gathering. Besides more and more they bound this philosophy on your computer use. Wanna get a patch? "lemedofoyou". Wanna get a new program? "lemedofoyou" Wanna search for something on the net? "lemedofoyou"
But for "lemedofoyou" to work they must know something about you. And they gather some info. Presently it looks that this information gathering is not very substantial. Maybe because it is gathered by a few bits each time. So the whole may be much worser.
And this information can be used for very dangerous purposes. It can be sold to NSA, CIA, FBI, the Shadow Government... Or worse. It can leak and be sold to snake oil sellers, major corporations, religious sects and even leak into the criminal environments. Imagine someone getting thousands of credit card numbers from satisfied Microsoft customers.
Yeap? Could be. But there's is no need to show Microsoft looking bad. It is BAD by itself. Or you have never seen small packs running out of your computer, without your clear knowledge, into some location in the Net? That happens with some Windows soft... (And why they need this damn GID anyway? :) )
Frankly I agree that posting kernel updates may be not so useful. Specially if they are Beta. Specially THIS one.
I don't consider that Slashdot should not post such news. However I consider that they may have a use only in cases when we deal with stable releases. We don't have them every day and not everybody reads freshmeat every hour.
In cases such as development kernels, I would highly recomend to restrict news to moments when important changes are made. And, in any case, to check up the stuff before publishing.
This guy here, 2.3.46, has some serious bugs in it. For the hardware I use, it is not a runday kernel to be trusted. I had to make a few patches and sit until 5 in the morning to see it well and alive in my Ragnarok Linux Box. It is a beauty, it is powerful, it runs fast, it eats less memory, it already covers all hardware I have, it holds my dual-proc with a boost, it does not crash like old good 2.2. But damn, I took three hours checking up the source to make it run and, from time to time, it shows some weirdnesses. For a person with a middle knowledge of systems and programming this kernel may do and may go. But for the majority it may be a serious delusion.
I was pretty amazed to see the damn thing this morning at slashdot. When I know that 80% of the people may not be able to even compile it normally... Frankly this starts to remind the hypes of Redmond's Mag00. People, we are not Mazdiers, and I think no one want to be such.
There is a huge miriad of "continents" if we look straight at the case. What Katz shows is merely a glimpse of what most "mortals" can see at short range. And besides it is a typical view from american shores.
What about the X-Files Continent. Yeap it was pretty shaken down for the last two years. People have lost interest because there were too many "conspiracy-hunters" and snake-oil sellers around. Besides it was well descridited and taken down by some smart fellows around. But it is still alive and it is not just "Entertainment->Paranormalia" as once Yahoo decided to turn it in...
The "national" Continents. Each country possesses a lot of specificities. For example in Russia there is a well set tradition for compromates and flame-wars. In one point the whole Rusweb looks much like the guys of that old Gaul village in the popular French comics "Asterix". Some countries have a too sexist taste on the web. There is sex everywhere, even if you trying to look at the weather in some city. Other are tremendously nationalist. You damn find anything in a common world language
And even if you look ta Katz continents then you will find that things are far from being so simple. One cannot mess Religion and Mysticism in many points. There is Erotics and Pornography and their audiences are frequently far from each other. There is a big gap between Tech & Science and it is a typical mistake of techies to mess both things. And besides he seems to forget the Economist (it is not about commerce!) and Humanitarian groups (History, Psychology, Archeology, Philosophy). I believe they are not so small to be ignored. And I think they should not be simply put inside the Tech Continent.