What freedom are end users losing if a company includes public domain code in their software? Please provide realistic and practical examples that prove you've thought about the concept longer than 15 milliseconds.
Re:There are many big questions...
on
The Big Questions
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· Score: 3, Funny
"When was the last time a Hitchhiker's Guide reference on Slashdot was actually funny? Measured in months."
Wow, what do you think the Slashdot demographic looks like? I've vaguely heard of that show, but I had to IMDB it. And IMDB doesn't have enough Dietrich quotes to get your joke, alas.
A nerf is a permanent reduction in an piece of equipment, character class, or skill's ability. For example, "Fireball now does 30% less damage" = nerf.
Debuff is removing a buff from a character. For example, "the Lich cast Neutralize Magic on me and now I no longer have my Shield spell up" = debuff.
A buff is a temporarily increase in stats. A nerf is a permanent reduction in stats. I don't think there's an accepted opposite term for nerf other than just "made more powerful."
This is how AT&T works. It's something like $10 extra if you want an Exchange server account provisioned for you by AT&T
If I understand the terminology correct, this is saying that ATT has a big Exchange server set up somewhere, and for $10/month they'll let you use it to send emails... is that correct? (I'm not much of a phone guy, so I'm not sure what "provisioned" means in this context.)
Why would anybody want that? If you don't have email already, you could just use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, etc for free.
Re:after two YEARS trying to get MythTV working...
on
MythTV 0.22 Released
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· Score: 1
Rip the kid's DVD to a NAS in ISO format, something like unRAID will work fine or whatever SMB thing you're willing to roll. Hell NFS might work too. Anyway, get the kid's stuff onto spinning storage. The load up XBMC on something small and cheap like an ASROCK ION 330 - run Ubuntu with VDPAU. Slap an MCE remote on it, plug it into the TV and stereo, be happy. I have done this and can access ALL of my DVDs. Instead of having racks lining my hallway the DVD are now in boxes and no one is the wiser as to the extensive collection. I can pull up any of hundreds of DVD just fine. My BD have been ripped and converted to MKV files, takes less than 2 hours a movie on my I7, longer on slower boxes but worth it.
I didn't even get to MythTV. I gave up trying to get the fucking IVTV driver to work with my video capture card-- what a piece of shit. (The driver, not the card. The card worked fine in Windows.)
Windows 95, Office '97, Windows 98(se), Windows 2000, Office 2000, Windows Server 2003, Office 2003, Office 2007, Office 2010. Someone thinks it's a good idea for marketing.
But those are names, not version numbers. The idea of using names instead of versions was already brought up-- please try to keep up!
Office 2007 is actually Office 12, for example. Word, for example, has the version: 12.0.6504.5000 (the last two are build numbers or patch numbers, I would wager.)
To think that anybody on this community knows anything about the average user is ridiculous.
Re:Just to start us off with a car analogy...
on
Lulu Introduces DRM
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· Score: 1
If there were a perfect DRM solution, that worked 100%, allowed you all the rights you were normally allowed, and prevented copying, would you be in favor of it?
The answer reveals whether you think DRM is "evil" or not.
Where do you live? Garbage collectors make good money where I am, I thought that was universal. I had to work like 5-6 years in the IT industry before my salary was comparable to my garbage collector.
My big gap would be bus drivers. The more expensive oil gets, and the more crowded the freeways are, the more important bus drivers are-- I think that job is under-appreciated and under-paid.
That's the thing that pisses me off about the gun control debate. I'm actually ok with adding restrictions on gun ownership, but if you want to do that you HAVE TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION! Going about gun control without going through the correct legislative process is just pissing me off.
And yet, here we are with hundreds of gun laws, with the Supreme Court constantly judging them against the extremely-clearly-worded Second Amendment. It's ridiculous.
I got pulled over by a cop saying I was doing 76 in a 60. Thing was, I'd JUST entered the freeway from a stop sign, and the instant I did I got passed by a blue Mini like I was standing still-- I drive a PT Cruiser, there's no way my car could accelerate from 0 to 76 when the cop turned on his lights. I talked to the officer, admitted I'd been speeding, but I said I was only 5-7 MPH over the limit, which I believe was true... at least, that's the speed I was going when I saw his lights.
Anyway, he didn't saw as much, but I think he knew he had the wrong car. I got a warning and no ticket.
Well you can submit a bug on Slashcode, but Slashdot never reads them or fixes them. I have ones in there over 2 years old that have never even been triaged.
They have to prove that the code is the same. Since he's only looking at the code through a dis-assembly tool, there's really no way to verify whether the code was copied, or if both parties independently wrong nearly-identical code. Considering that both software products are doing the same thing (parsing a ISO file), it's not particularly surprising that the code looks nearly the same.
What that means is that they have to compare *source* code to *source* code. You can't make that determination using a dump from.net Reflector, you gotta see the code.
I think most people think Outlook is pretty bad, until they actually have to *use* Notes... believe me, if you believe Outlook sets a low bar, Notes' bar is underground.
I'm certainly not going to suggest Outlook is perfect, or even good. But compared to the alternative, it's incredible.
I used to think Lotus Notes was painful, bloated and clumsy.
And you don't now?
After the ease of Lotus, the support for on/off/unknown network states realize how ungrateful I was.
Maybe your company should have just fixed the network. Of course, Outlook works just fine in offline mode too, so really I have absolutely no idea what your trying to suggest here.
The *ease* of Lotus? Notes is the antithesis of "ease."
I miss the Lotus and easy synchronization.
You miss "the Lotus." Are you still in 3rd grade, by chance?
And yeah, easy synchronization. Like how you have to buy additional software to get Notes to synchronize to... well, basically *any device at all*. And how it'll then corrupt that device's database by various means-- my favorite was when it tried to enter meetings that ended before they began into a Palm. (Admittedly, the Palm should have rejected the meeting instead of corrupting itself, but still-- how the holy hell does Notes even *allow* meetings to end before they begin?)
Then the business unit I was in was sold to a Microsoft Exchange company.
I may have the opposite problem. My company's been sold to a company that, I understand, uses Notes. If they try to force me onto Notes, I'm quitting. And yes, I *do* feel that strongly about it.
I still see them that way. Have you ever *used* Lotus Notes? Can you imagine what work would be like if that was the only groupware option out there? Ugh.
Slashdot Mirror
Ever consider that the latest and greatest feature in the latest and greatest, multi-million unit shipping product may be using code you developed?
Ever wanted to maybe boost your pay by jumping to a new company, based on that?
Tough shit. They don't have to say you had anything to do with it.
If you cared about that, why would you put your code in the public domain?
What freedom are end users losing if a company includes public domain code in their software? Please provide realistic and practical examples that prove you've thought about the concept longer than 15 milliseconds.
"When was the last time a Hitchhiker's Guide reference on Slashdot was actually funny? Measured in months."
Barney Miller, last episode: 1982.
Wow, what do you think the Slashdot demographic looks like? I've vaguely heard of that show, but I had to IMDB it. And IMDB doesn't have enough Dietrich quotes to get your joke, alas.
Uh, not really...
A nerf is a permanent reduction in an piece of equipment, character class, or skill's ability. For example, "Fireball now does 30% less damage" = nerf.
Debuff is removing a buff from a character. For example, "the Lich cast Neutralize Magic on me and now I no longer have my Shield spell up" = debuff.
A buff is a temporarily increase in stats. A nerf is a permanent reduction in stats. I don't think there's an accepted opposite term for nerf other than just "made more powerful."
Wait a second-- I think I might fit into one of those groups!
This is how AT&T works. It's something like $10 extra if you want an Exchange server account provisioned for you by AT&T
If I understand the terminology correct, this is saying that ATT has a big Exchange server set up somewhere, and for $10/month they'll let you use it to send emails... is that correct? (I'm not much of a phone guy, so I'm not sure what "provisioned" means in this context.)
Why would anybody want that? If you don't have email already, you could just use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo Mail, etc for free.
Rip the kid's DVD to a NAS in ISO format, something like unRAID will work fine or whatever SMB thing you're willing to roll. Hell NFS might work too. Anyway, get the kid's stuff onto spinning storage. The load up XBMC on something small and cheap like an ASROCK ION 330 - run Ubuntu with VDPAU. Slap an MCE remote on it, plug it into the TV and stereo, be happy. I have done this and can access ALL of my DVDs. Instead of having racks lining my hallway the DVD are now in boxes and no one is the wiser as to the extensive collection. I can pull up any of hundreds of DVD just fine. My BD have been ripped and converted to MKV files, takes less than 2 hours a movie on my I7, longer on slower boxes but worth it.
WHAT THE HOLY FUCK ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!
I didn't even get to MythTV. I gave up trying to get the fucking IVTV driver to work with my video capture card-- what a piece of shit. (The driver, not the card. The card worked fine in Windows.)
Windows 95, Office '97, Windows 98(se), Windows 2000, Office 2000, Windows Server 2003, Office 2003, Office 2007, Office 2010. Someone thinks it's a good idea for marketing.
But those are names, not version numbers. The idea of using names instead of versions was already brought up-- please try to keep up!
Office 2007 is actually Office 12, for example. Word, for example, has the version: 12.0.6504.5000 (the last two are build numbers or patch numbers, I would wager.)
Address Line 1: "I am a Google employee"
Address Line 2: "And I'm going to steal the shit out of this app!"
ZIP Code: "LOLOL"
Raymond Chen wrote a blog posting about this: http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2009/11/05/9917671.aspx
The installers of the coffee machine didn't consider the number of visitors. I don't see what it has to do with software leaking though.
I saw a post on Slashdot that said it did though!
To think that anybody on this community knows anything about the average user is ridiculous.
If there were a perfect DRM solution, that worked 100%, allowed you all the rights you were normally allowed, and prevented copying, would you be in favor of it?
The answer reveals whether you think DRM is "evil" or not.
Where do you live? Garbage collectors make good money where I am, I thought that was universal. I had to work like 5-6 years in the IT industry before my salary was comparable to my garbage collector.
My big gap would be bus drivers. The more expensive oil gets, and the more crowded the freeways are, the more important bus drivers are-- I think that job is under-appreciated and under-paid.
That's the thing that pisses me off about the gun control debate. I'm actually ok with adding restrictions on gun ownership, but if you want to do that you HAVE TO AMEND THE CONSTITUTION! Going about gun control without going through the correct legislative process is just pissing me off.
And yet, here we are with hundreds of gun laws, with the Supreme Court constantly judging them against the extremely-clearly-worded Second Amendment. It's ridiculous.
I got pulled over by a cop saying I was doing 76 in a 60. Thing was, I'd JUST entered the freeway from a stop sign, and the instant I did I got passed by a blue Mini like I was standing still-- I drive a PT Cruiser, there's no way my car could accelerate from 0 to 76 when the cop turned on his lights. I talked to the officer, admitted I'd been speeding, but I said I was only 5-7 MPH over the limit, which I believe was true... at least, that's the speed I was going when I saw his lights.
Anyway, he didn't saw as much, but I think he knew he had the wrong car. I got a warning and no ticket.
Well you can submit a bug on Slashcode, but Slashdot never reads them or fixes them. I have ones in there over 2 years old that have never even been triaged.
It reminds me of this MST3K bit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVvr9f-Z5u0 "Slashdot developers? They just do not care."
They have to prove that the code is the same. Since he's only looking at the code through a dis-assembly tool, there's really no way to verify whether the code was copied, or if both parties independently wrong nearly-identical code. Considering that both software products are doing the same thing (parsing a ISO file), it's not particularly surprising that the code looks nearly the same.
What that means is that they have to compare *source* code to *source* code. You can't make that determination using a dump from .net Reflector, you gotta see the code.
I think most people think Outlook is pretty bad, until they actually have to *use* Notes... believe me, if you believe Outlook sets a low bar, Notes' bar is underground.
I'm certainly not going to suggest Outlook is perfect, or even good. But compared to the alternative, it's incredible.
I used to think Lotus Notes was painful, bloated and clumsy.
And you don't now?
After the ease of Lotus, the support for on/off/unknown network states realize how ungrateful I was.
Maybe your company should have just fixed the network. Of course, Outlook works just fine in offline mode too, so really I have absolutely no idea what your trying to suggest here.
The *ease* of Lotus? Notes is the antithesis of "ease."
I miss the Lotus and easy synchronization.
You miss "the Lotus." Are you still in 3rd grade, by chance?
And yeah, easy synchronization. Like how you have to buy additional software to get Notes to synchronize to... well, basically *any device at all*. And how it'll then corrupt that device's database by various means-- my favorite was when it tried to enter meetings that ended before they began into a Palm. (Admittedly, the Palm should have rejected the meeting instead of corrupting itself, but still-- how the holy hell does Notes even *allow* meetings to end before they begin?)
Then the business unit I was in was sold to a Microsoft Exchange company.
I may have the opposite problem. My company's been sold to a company that, I understand, uses Notes. If they try to force me onto Notes, I'm quitting. And yes, I *do* feel that strongly about it.
I still see them that way. Have you ever *used* Lotus Notes? Can you imagine what work would be like if that was the only groupware option out there? Ugh.
Uh, they kind of have to *prove* that Microsoft actually copied their code first. You're missing a crucial step to the process in your scenario.
But this is Slashdot!
Without wild speculation there wouldn't hardly be any stories at all! And of course you have to get the 2-minutes hate for Microsoft going early.