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Slashback: Buzzwords, Fruit, DIY 97

Posted by timothy from the because-they-do-it-must-be-obvious dept.
If you've tossed and turned wondering whether the Plan 9 License is Free or merely free, or tossed back the warm milk and cookies waiting for the first stabilizations for XFree86 4.0 to arrive, or counted sheep as you daydream about a cheap Linux-based terminal without monthly fees, or forced deep breathing exercises to get over the thought that perhaps you could doing something to stamp out discourteous Web page behavior ... relax. Go to sleep right after you read these updates.

How soon is now? Unlike a lot of cool-sounding soon-to-be-released, wouldn't-it-be-cool promiseware, it's interesting to see hardware that actually makes it to market before its underlying idea is doomed by advances sweeping past. Larry Ellison's $199 Linux box mentioned on Slashdot a while back appears to have reached that point. The NIC Web site has changed, and no longer is the only way to order one donating it to an underserved school.

Why don't you find out for yourself? jesser writes "Many slashdotters asked on the lock-in attack story whether/when mozilla would be safe from this type of attack. Here are some links to bugzilla bug entries in case any slashdotters would like to work on making mozilla more secure:

You've got everything now. Patrick Mullen writes "I just finished my review of XFree86 4.0.1. I've had a lot of requests to see a feature on this when it hit (apparently they liked the last article), and here it is. There's benchmarks, overview of the bug fixes, and new features. In addition to the review, I've also got the new NVidia 0.9-4 drivers which allow NVidia's line of cards to function correctly on XFree86 4.0.1 available on the website-and these are not available on even NVidia's website at the time."

That joke isn't funny any more. A number of readers wrote in with harsh words about the report that Apple forced the removal of rumors regarding an alleged next-generation translucent-cased machine.

Kaufmann, for instance, wrote: "Remember the whole story about MOSR's article regarding the new generation of Macs getting pulled at the request of Apple Legal? Well, an Alan Smithee is claiming that it's a hoax. To prove it, he's put up the very same article on the Personal Homepage service provided by Apple at Mac.com. Further investigation seems necessary." Note: not that putting an article on Apple's Personal Homepage service proves it's worthiness, but it does beg the question of Apple being quick to pounce on it. "Alan Smithee" doesn't exactly inspire confidence either, though -- that's the pseudonym directors traditionally use to distance themselves from films they consider too bad to bear their real names;)

Similarly, an unnamed correpsondent had this to say: "The Apple cube that has been talked about the past few days is a total hoax. Some guy sent an email with fake specs to MacOSRumors and they posted it. Kind of makes one question the credibility of Ryan Meader saying that Apple forced him to take it down. Anyways you can see the fake email at: [this link]."

Stop me if you think you've heard this one before ... QBasic_Dude writes "Richard Stallman wrote about the Problems of the Plan Nine License. Technocrat has a discussion about this, and so does Advogato."

Richard cites what he considers odious provisions in the putatively "open source" Plan 9 license (like this one: "You agree to provide the Original Contributor, at its request, with a copy of the complete Source Code version, Object Code version and related documentation for Modifications created or contributed to by You if used for any purpose.") and responds with typical Stallman pithiness, "This prohibits modifications for private use, denying the users a basic right." There's much more to read there, and worth your time. (As are the discussions at Advogato and Technocrat!)
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Slashback: Criminals, Animals, Travel More

Slashback: Criminals, Animals, Travel

Comments Filter:
  • These NIC's may very well be cool...if you can hack it to accept a hard drive. Has anyone tried this yet??

    phuzzie
  • The GPL - and Stallman himself - are quite clear that you aren't forced to relase stuff you hack on for your own use, even if the output (eg, gcc generated binaries, HTML pages sent over HTTP) is sent out to people.

    Um, I believe that if you distribute binaries, you have to give away source code.

    -jfedor
  • offtopic but yeah..there was an effort to start a debian gnu/bsd..i believe its died or in secret for now. i remember seeing a few webpages but the BSD guys attacked the project initiators fairly viciously and it died. it was hosted at some university from what i recall. again this is IMHO. i dont know exactly what happenned...feel free to correct me if you wish. having a freebsd with a redhat look and feel (red hat BSD?) would be *really* kewl IMHO. are you listening redhat ?
    /me wishing openbsd could do SMP and had more drivers..*sigh*
  • I read the original article and I've followed the NIC almost on a daily basis. The article I submitted announced the general availability of the device, which was news, and included the information contained here, plus a "micro-review." I love Slashdot, but I see my complaint repeated regularly in Slashback. I know the sheer volume of submissions must be overwhelming, but it would be great if you could catalog recent *quality* attributions so as to avoid this. Each time it happens, you alienate a Slashdotter and contributor. And, yes, I see *lots* of feedback from people who obviously haven't bothered to even read their referenced article. I'm very sure that the same people are prolific in submitting articles, too.
  • that's not true:)

    Lots of people submitted news about the NIC before it was really on sale again. The thing itself isn't that new (we covered it a while ago - the link I gave is to May 9th) but a lot of folks didn't use the search engine to find that out.

    Your accusation of "rewriting without attribution" is simply way off base. In a snippet that short, there's bound to be overlap of information (now selling, cost, no longer donationware), but saying that someone plagiarized you is simply not nice. I saw several submissions about this, but yours was not among the ones that I read.

    timothy

  • Ah so no cookies? that is nice.

    Too bad they still qualify as web bugs, since they do point at doubleclick's servers. And /.'s cookie is not secure, therefore stealable and sendable to any site (a troll recently created a cokie stealing exploit that forged trolls from /. users unwary enough to click on a link to his homepage).

    So /. might not only allow doubleclick to see ip based profiles, but give it a username as well.

  • So does anyone have any idea when XFree86-4.0 will start being included in the major distributions? Shall we start the old rumor that RedHat 7 will have XFree86-4, kernel 2.4, KDE 2.0 and Gnome 1.2 again?

    Sure it's (afaik) completely unsubstantianted, but it's plausible, and who doesn't love a nice major-version-number rumor!
    What's that? Gnome 1.2's already out and mainstream? Damn. It's a conspiracy against the conspiracy theorists, I tell ya!

  • As far as I know, the only distribution that currently is using XFree86 4.0 is LinuxMandrake 7.1. I wouldn't be suprised if RedHat and Suse are the next to follow. Debian? Well, that's another story...
  • Maybe the reason why this is well known joke is because it was essentially the title of a book by Mike Wilson. This book, published in 1998 was titled, The Difference Between God and Larry Ellison*: Inside Oracle Corporation. In smaller letters on the cover page was, *God Doesn't Think He's Larry Ellison.

    Actually this is an old joke albeit not necessarily in reference to Ellison.

  • But have they started enrolling in Hope College?

    Not from what I've heard, but from a reliable drunken lunatic source I have heard that they've started attending Hope Chapel (local church in my area)

  • Hey, Timothy, why does Slashdot tell me that my page was generated for me by a "flock of rabid geese"? Geese come in gaggles, not flocks, and they're avians, not mammals, so they can't get rabies. It's randomly generated, I know, but you have to fix this one. It's a showstopper.
  • > Shall we start the old rumor that RedHat 7 will have XFree86-4, kernel 2.4, KDE 2.0 and Gnome 1.2 again?

    Some of that has already made it into Red Hat's "Rawhide" release, which is a sort of beta for their forthcoming versions. They put a new one out at rawhide.redhat.com [redhat.com] about once a month.

    ps - No, it's not slashdotted. It's just a seriously overloaded server. Try it at an off hour if you want to sneak a peak or download it.

    --
  • Redhat are using XFree V4.0.1 in the unstable "Rawhide" tree at the moment, but nothing for 6.x trees. Which is a pain, becauase i still havn't found a way to get xdm working properly under Redhat 6.1 with Xfree V4.0.1. Oh well.
  • The GUI partitioning tool in the later Mandrake installs is quite nice, .... who really needs to do low level editing of a partition table?

    My experience is different. The partition table on my completely standard Western Digital 27 gig drive with RedHat linux on it, and spare partitions I originally created with the intention of putting a future OS upgrade on Mandrake 7.1 install managed to trash. You can duplicate the test: create with fdisk a disk that has two / parts, 1 swap, 1 extended, 2 /vars, 2 /usr's, etc, alternating. If you use mandrake's GUI (which something led me to believe is disk druid? Am I wrong about that?) you cannot rewrite the same partition table "boundaries" (to get Reiser) and suddenly, partitions that were not overlapping are overlapping. Furthermore, it screws you in the very first step where it says "need to save the partition table."

    I completely agree that not everyone needs to edit partition tables, but there is no excuse for trashing existing disks without warning or recourse, and they provide no fdisk alternative. That's why I called it a piece of shit.

    I go back to my point about why would you want to switch distros just to get a point release of a couple dozen apps? You could just as easilly download the latest release of those apps and install them -- or wait a month or so for the next release of the distro that you're using.

    because I'm not interested in keeping track of what is in dozens of point releases, but I like to benefit from the bug fixes, and I like to upgrade as soon as possible when there are spec and format changes in config files and stuff like that. I find if I fall too far behind, an upgrade can become quite onerous because there are too many /etc files that have totally changed. Also, by getting good at it and streamlining the system build process, I live in less fear of trashing my system. I also get to experiment with many more distros and installs so I can make informed decisions about what choices to make next time.

    for example, if I want to use Reiser, I wouldn't just have to ugrade the RedHat kernel on my system, I'd have to ugrade it on several systems, and remember that I'd need to upgrade it on any future installs, and merge in the other kernel features (e.g. ATA66) that I need. Using a complete distro is much cleaner, and the alternative is not "wait a month" but 3 or 4 months which can be a long time.

  • only if you redistribute a copy of program are you required to give the modified version. this would onyl apply to binary only programs. You aren't redistributing the program when someone goes to your site. You are giving them the output of the program. that is different. You are entitled to keep your changes secret.

    That is all,

    Joseph Nicholas Yarbrough

    Attorney at Heart
  • You are not violating the GPL.
    What you are doing is not forbidden by the GPL. The GPl just says that if you wanted to distribute it, the source code would have to be included (its quite hard to distribute php w/o the source). So as long as you dont distribute it, the GPL does not applies to you.
    What you are doing is exactly the right that RMS is trying to protect and that the Plan9 License violates.
  • Cool, that's sort of what I meant... sigh, I typed my first post a little awkwardly. But I think you might be right in the case of redistribution, just taking out the sensitive parts. I'm not planning on "redistributing" this software package, but I might install it and customize it for a few other purposes. PHP scripts are sort of a weird one, when it comes to the GPL, aren't they? Since they are all server-side processed, it becomes very difficult to GPL them, since the binary (if there is such a thing) never gets distributed.

    Anyway, thanks for your take on it; I'm gonna sleep a little better now I think. ;-)

  • Some people are now talking about the GPL being modified to encompass web sites being made with Open Source tools. If the GPL is changed to encompass web sites as opposed to binary distributions, could mean some serious problems for me.

    Huh? Your proposition is as ridiculous as saying that any email that I compose with an Open Source email program should be available for others to use, or that my GnuCash balance sheets should be open for RMS to go over, or that my thesis, written in TeX with emacs, should be freely available on my website for others to download...

    Oh, wait, my thesis will be available on my website for others to download. Now if only I could finish it, instead of responding to trollbait like this... :)

  • As a programmer building a set of GPL'ed PHP scripts for instance, how are you supposed to make sure that nobody takes your code, and uses it to build a closed-source project?

    Couldn't somebody make a website out of a derivitive work and never have to open or disclose their code? This type of thing would go against the spirit, if not the letter of the GPL.

    OK, if they're modifying your package and selling (or otherwise distributing) it under non-free terms, they'd be violating your licence. But what you describe seems to be quite within the spirit of the GPL: running one web site based on a modified version of your package is use of your package, and the GPL explicitly does not attempt to impose any limitation on use of code, only distribution.

  • The four step method is a trade secret of the collective. We have already identified you. The personal contents of you cubicle have been assimilated and the stuffed penguin in your bottom draw vaporized. The collective cannot be stopped.
  • IMHO you won't ever see a Redhat branded BSD - Bob Young doesn't like the license (I asked him about it at an expo) - GPL protects the code they release, whereas BSD License doesn't - that was his specific concern.

  • Uhm, not exactly. This would not be like giving your GnuCash balance sheets to RMS and the public on demand. That is not a very good analogy.

    Rather, this would be equivalent to saying that if you tweaked the GnuCash source to specially format or handle content/output you would be on the hook to distribute the GnuCash source to anyone who receives a print/electronic report formatted by your cutom version of GnuCash.

    Equally ridiculous and I agree that the GPL makes no such restrictions. Hrmm.. I just looked at other posts in this thread, and others have made the same point a bit more succintly.

  • ok, so he's complaining about not being able to make private modifications, when the GPL doesn't allow this either? is he going BSDL then? that'd be a nice turn of events...doubt if anyone would really give a damn either way.
  • The only time I have netscape (4.73) lock on me is on some far out dns calls to ad sites, or one of those "ping-pong" situations when News.com tries to hook up an ad. The best solution is to install Junkbuster [junkbusters.org] and block ads.* etc, and a lot of the ad lookups go away. I think this mostly has to do with dblclk's cookie situation (it tosses about a dozen if you trap them) and the fact that one cookie goes to various servers in their empire. DNS makes a locking call for a lookup for some reason under netscape. Using a proxy such as squid (lost the url) will greatly reduce this problem.
    good luck!
  • You agree to provide the Original Contributor, at its request, with a copy of the complete Source Code version, Object Code version and related documentation for Modifications created or contributed to by You if used for any purpose.

    I thought that the GPL essentially demanded this too, except that 'Original Contributor' is replaced with 'Anyone you distribute to'. Granted, if you never distribute, under the GPL you don't have to release source (if I'm correct), but this still seems relatively reasonable.

    and may, at Your option, include a reasonable charge for the cost of any media.

    So he shut out commercial distros from making money from selling CDs. But they can still provide support, and make money that way, right? Again, I don't see a huge problem here.

    Distribution of Licensed Software to third parties pursuant to this grant shall be subject to the same terms and conditions as set forth in this Agreement,

    How is this different than 'your modified versions must be distributed under the GPL also,' which if IIRC is one of the GPL's conditions?

    ... and so on?
  • the differences between Mandrake and RedHat are really minor at this point. If you want to run XFree 4.0 and you are used to RedHat, you will have no problem at all making the switch to Mandrake. I'll switch back to the next RedHat when it comes, but I like having an "extra" release in between RedHat releases.

    Anybody know if the other "redhat-like" RPM distros are as similar and painless?

  • Yup. Looking back, I can see why people would have parse errors. I wan't very clear.

  • Slackware 7.1 has all that for some time now... :) (well, I think except for KDE 2.0)

    --

  • The USB hard driv eidea is a good one, but can one boot off a USB HDD? If not I'd still want an IDE drive. The point of putting in a HDD is to make the machine more versatile. (i.e. say the OS on a CD uses KDE, bu tI want to use E, or I want to add more apps, etc.)

    phuzzie
  • You can get some nice insight into the huge problems with Meader's sight over at http://www.mosr.net/ [mosr.net]. The problem seems to be that certain Slashdot editors like him, unaware of the gaping holes which appear in his reporting on an alarmingly consistent basis. Perhaps he'll finally be exposed with this latest fabricated story. Apple should sue him for libel. Bongs away!

    --
  • I'd be happy to buy a $1,000 Linux box - I'm tired of duel booting, and also sick of buying something only to find out that it's not the ideal component for Linux.

    Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]
  • "I've also got the new NVidia 0.9-4 drivers which allow NVidia's line of cards to function correctly on XFree86 4.0.1"

    Have you tried this with anything requires OGL? I've had bad luck in the past with "drivers that function" with X-Free only to have problems with programs that make use of OGL.
  • I would like to "slash back" to timothy and ask the question nobody will answer:

    "Why does slashdot have doubleclick ads on it's site?"

    Why! Why? Why.... Here on slashdot you're hard pressed to find a reader that doesn't have something bad to say about doubleclick or knows how to setup junkbuster just to filter doubleclicks nonsense. Why does slashdot use them?

    Sure, I'm offtopic, but where else can this post be made.
  • Ergo, the reason that, at least for a while longer, the Matrox G400 remains the card of choice for Linux/BSD (and a good card for Windows, too, if you care :-)... though Voodoo 3 still has the best 3D support (2D is a bit lackluster, IMHO, unfortunately)
  • I second the question. I know it probably pays the rent, but there sure are other ways of accomplishing the same. I don't like doubleclick and I'd like to see an answer to ashpool7's question.
  • That joke isn't funny any more. A number of readers wrote in with harsh words about the report that Apple forced the removal of rumors regarding an alleged next-generation translucent-cased machine.

    The link points to http://slashdot.org and not to what it supposed to. Please fix.

  • Bug (Score:5)

    by jreilly ( 163624 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2000 @03:09PM (#942005)
    Interesting, Microsoft refers to bugs as features, and Mozilla refers to features as bugs.
  • Mandrakes big benefit (besides the peice of cake install) is that all of the binaries for Intel CPU's are compiled with optimizations and pentium level instructions -- RedHat is still sending out binaries for compiled for i386...

    I can't imagion why anyone would switch back and forth between RedHat and Mandrake.
  • I mean, MOSR never had a real reputation to begin with. They knew nobody would really believe that ridiculous story. So they decided to blow it up, and make a nice mess while they're at it.

    After this whole embarassing mess, they remain an untrustworthy rumour site - but now they're an untrustworthy site that's on Slashdot twice, an untrustworthy site that's got a lot of people talking about it, an untrustworthy site with a shitload of page views.

    Whether it's true or not, Ryan Meader can only win from this. Evidently, he did.

    (Makes me wonder about the Alan Smithee who allegedly denounced him... if Ryan can make up the story, he can sure call himself a liar and put it up for display on homepage.mac.com.)

  • Everyone is out to make a buck, don't deny it. People don't mind making some extra money. Why does slashdot publish articles by john katz and take things out of context? To generate banner hits. Check out the slogan on andover.net and then check my .sig line.

  • what? (Score:2)

    by jelwell ( 2152 )
    They told you to stop? Can I see some of those bug numbers? That's crazy.
    (And I did put a but I think Mozilla is munging it to lt sp sl A gt
    Joseph Elwell.

  • It boils down to: you only have to release the source to what you choose to distribute. If you choose only to distribute the unmodified pages, that's all the source you need to distribute.

    The GPL - and Stallman himself - are quite clear that you aren't forced to relase stuff you hack on for your own use, even if the output (eg, gcc generated binaries, HTML pages sent over HTTP) is sent out to people.

  • I've been trying to get the NIC story posted for days. And that's not the first time they did this to me either: last April 1st, the editors thought it was somehow funny to run entire articles through crappy automated translators and post them. They happened to choose Portuguese, so, being a good sport and a native speaker, I posted a translation of the article text. So they simply copied the whole thing, verbatim, and posted it under the Portuguese text, on the main article body. Without any kind of attribution.

    This is only one out of several episodes. Just goes to show how much we can trust Slashdot. At least on this Slashback they bothered to give me credit on one out of two stories.

  • Re:Speaking of licensing issues, here's mine. (Score:3)

    by Phallus ( 54388 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2000 @04:55PM (#942012) Homepage
    I think the poster means that if you alter gcc, compile a program with it, and distribute the binary of that program, you don't have to distribute your modified version of gcc, or the source of the program you compiled using your modified gcc.

    tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
  • I should point out that David Tseng (of http://www.morrissey-solo.com) helped me find those titles by pointing me to http://www.compsoc.man.ac.uk/~moz/.

    And re: The Smiths: The day I turned 12, I got The Queen is Dead on cassette from a guy named Jeff Wilke, which cassette then took up a very large space in my brain as I listened to it nonstop for months. The older sister of a middle-school chum (Meg, sister of Mike Storey) got me hooked on Meat is Murder, Hatful of Hollow and Louder than Bombs. "I won't share you" has a pretty emotional twist for me, lemme tell you ...

    timothy
  • You are misinformed. The GPL allows private modifications, as it is apparently a "basic right". People are only allowed to demand source from you if they legally obtain a binary from you first (i.e. you give it to them).
  • Geese can be said to come in flocks as well as in gaggles; gaggle is mostly an archaism, though it is a nice one.

    And the geese around Holland (where the scripts were thought of) have been hardened by years of industrial pollution, foul weather, fouler Norweigan- and Dutch-based swearing, and the day-of-the-dead fumes which permeate the region, whitening flesh and bracing the lungs. Evolution has formed them into extraordinary birds -- they can catch rabies, write symphonies and cook a six-course dinner -- and think nothing of it. They manifest more tropical diseases than you'd care to know about, too. Just shrug 'em off.

    Or so I hear.

    timothy
  • it is not equally ridiculous, though your example may be. If I give distribute GPL'ed binaries for your use, you are entitled to the source. Why should it make a difference whether you run the binary I make available to you on one machine or another? The network is the computer. If you run a binary, whether it's a CGI or a a server module, why shouldn't you be entitled to see and modify the source?

    I'm not saying it must be this way, nor that the GPL requires it, but that it is not ridiculous.

  • First you add a hard-drive, next comes decent sound, better video, and before you know it you have a pc and you've spent about as much on it.

    Seriously, though, I think I'd like to have one of these or something similar. For my purposes, an Xterm is a bit too thin, especially when it comes to things like sound. Ideally I'd like to build myself a fairly low-end pentium-type system with no HD or at least a very small one that mounts its main file-systems remotely from a larger server. Window manager and other programs that are nice to have locally (mp3 player!) would run on this box itself, while CPU and RAM hogs would be run remotely using X on my server-type box that would be a bit more beefed up (Now that I think about it, this actually *is* sounding alot like the NIC!). Of course this desktop unit would have to be small, and have none of turbo-prop sounding fans that ATX power supplies and "modern" cpus all need. And while I'm at it, the whole thing would have to cost less than... a Win98 Upgrade CD! Am I dreaming? Of course, and this is Slashdot!

  • Great message Kaufmann! Nailed it right on the head.

    I have too complained often on Slashdot regarding the lack of credibility of Ryan Meader. However, it appears the editors of Slashdot have not gotten the message, at least until now. I can understand getting scammed by a potato powered Linux server once but not by Ryan Meader four times. I am always amazed by the 'credibility' placed on MacOSRumors. I guess its like P.T. Barnum said, "A sucker born every minute!".

    Ryan Meader's reporting can be best described as FUD and harmful to consumers of Apple products. His unfounded rumor mongering has negatively affected the sales of Apple products. My main Macintosh vendor rep once complained to me regarding lost PowerBook G3 (Lombard) sales because of persistent rumors of a new model (Pismo) appearing in the short term. Those (completely unfounded) rumors were fostered by MacOSRumors. His information turned out to be false (a shocker!).

    I buy six figure amounts of computer hardware a year for myself and company -- mainly Mac. Because of Mr. Ryan's reporting, I passed along that fact to the main sponsor, Club Mac, explaining that the cost of advertising on MacOSRumors is much more than the rates charged by Mr. Meader. They were losing access to a budget I control and probably more than just mine. However, I noticed that Ryan Meader has just 'signed up' PayPal as a new sponsor. I guess this, more than anything, is signaling the end of MacOSRumors. Rest in pieces!

    P.S. If you visit MacOSRumors now, you will find that all traces of the 'G4 Cube' story and the 'Take down the story' e-mail from the lawyer at Apple named 'Sue' have been erased. I wonder if Apple has any legal recourse for the fake e-mail. It would be wonderful to see the Apple lawyers (the real kind) go after a worthwhile target for a change!

  • Has anyone actually managed to download those drivers? I've been trying for around an hour now, and the site is still down. Anyone care to post a mirror, or I'll mirror if someone'll get me the drivers.

    My email is dyfrgi at otter dot yi dot org, btw.
    ---
  • Causing a binary to be run (eg. by loading a PHP page) does not constitute distribution of the binary. The GPL doesn't cover the use of programs, only their distribution.

    The key point is that remotely running a program is NOT the same as distributing it. The difference is that if I have a copy of a program that was distributed, I can run it whenever and however I like, but if I'm running a program on your server, you are free to take it down, or change it, or whatever you like, whenever you like. That's fine, because it's your server I'm using to run it. The problem is when programs are distributed, but restricted (ie. closed-source).

    Such a system would prevent you from allowing others to remotely run your privately modified program, which has not been distributed. This would be a serious restriction on your rights. Since the others are using your server to run your program, they shouldn't expect the same rights as they would get if you gave them a copy of the binary to run on their own machine.

    Further, when you run such a binary, all that is distributed to you is its output, and the GPL explicitly does not cover the output of GPL'd programs. Don't confuse data and algorithm - I don't see why obtaining some output should give you any right to see how it was made, under the GPL or any other system.

    It might not be ridiculous, but it's close.
  • Thats a feature that might cause me to actually install the thing!!!
  • and /. thinks they're security issues. the first two are obviously to counter pr0n sites' stupid tricks. nothing to do with security.
  • Yeah, O.K., Kauffmann is being childish about this. In keeping with the "Tending of the Geek Flame", who cares who gets credit?? But, a Slashdot man that replies by opening a new thread?? For shame.

    Again, we must assume that this was done so that it would be noticed in the way down the page instead of being ignored as an attachement to his post. But this is akin to karma whoring and totally unacceptible.

    This mesage is being posted with the +1 bonus off, and all I ask of the moderators is that they leave it alone. (I could have just posted as an AC) Thank You.
  • Here on my desk I have a 486DX4-120, running Linux 2.2.14/Apache/wuftpd, and a Pentium III 450 running NT 4.0 Server/IIS. The 486 has crappy 14mm laptop hard drives, 48M DRAM and a 1M Cirrus Logic, while the PIII has a nice 7200RPM UW, 128M PC100 SDRAM and a Rage 128.

    Guess which one gets me to the desktop first?

    Yep, the 486. By almost six seconds, I may add..
  • What type of window manager system does the NIC use?
    X-Window 3.6+

    Are they just confused, or are they spewing misinformation? Here's another example: What resolutions does the video support?
    The NIC displays at 800 x 600 resolution with 65,536 million colors.

    Wow, 65,536 million colors... that's an amazing color depth!

  • I know a lot of people swear up and down that the optimizations that are compiled in Mandrake and the like are usually unnoticable, I must say that I am incredibly glad I switched to Mandrake, because it does feel smoother.

    It's like playing your favorite first-person shooter at 25fps (It's tolerable) and upgrading your processor and graphics card and getting 60+fps (it feels much smoother) It doesn't boot up any faster, and I don't know if it compiles faster, and it may just be psychological, but it really does feel like it's moving smoother.

    Anyway... in summary: I like LinuxMandrake.
  • RMS won't be happy until they change the name to Plan GNine. Sheesh.
  • Hahahahahahaha! Good, very good, but I've come to the conclusion that nothing will ever make RMS happy. ;)

    WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?

  • More 3D cards supported. (Score:4)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2000 @03:23PM (#942029)
    It looks like the 3D acceleration support is expanding. For instance, 4.0 accelerated the G400 but not the G200, but now the G200 has been added to the list.

    For the current status of your favorite 3D acceleration card, visit the DRI User's Guide [sourceforge.net] at SourceForge.

    Caveat: Before you rush out to upgrade, notice that some of the cards require recent 2.3.* kernels. (Of course, kernel testers are needed too!)

    --
  • I wonder if you could extract the code from the cd and write your own code.
    Something like making the cd a type of BIOS so that you can add a usb
    hard drive and be able to run a real linux and do real stuff.

    Yes linux does have usb support but I am not sure about support for drives
    last I heard it was rather ifffy.

    How about hacking a Hard drive on to it and having the linux of choice on it.

    Just a thought!

  • Re:Actually, (Score:5)

    by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2000 @03:27PM (#942031)
    > I'm tired of duel booting

    Is that where you try to boot to two OSes on the same machine at the same time, and the one quickest at the draw wins?

    --

  • There's no need to have a hard drive to have your OS of choice: just create your own live CD. As soon as a few people have NICs, I'm sure we'll see pages with instructions to do just that. In the meanwhile, check out Live CDs on Dmoz [dmoz.org].

  • Could it be because *ahem* Slashdot is a corporate site?

    Rob and the gang may still run the editorial aspect of it (for now, at least), but otherwise, Slashdot is submitted to the interests of Andover.net/VA Linux, a BigCorp. And, like all BigCorps, it's got one goal in life: appease its shareholders. Which traditionally translates to "make mo' money".

    And this is just a wild guess, but I figure, from all the banner ad networks, Doubleclick is the one that pays the best.

    So Slashdot's party line may be "personal privacy forever"... until, that is, the bottom line comes into question. Then, Doubleclick's privacy policies suddenly become wholly irrelevant compared to the fact, pure and simple, that it's the best, quickest way to *ahem* appease the shareholders.

    (Sorry for the rant.)

  • Speaking of licensing issues, my web site [dragonflydynamix.com] was put together using a GPL'ed PHP package [atthat.com]. The collection of scripts, as well as PHP, the dev language, fall under Open Source licenses. I installed the software about a week ago.

    Since installing the package and configuring it, I have already had visitors ask me for the source, which I gladly provided of course. However, I provided them the source to the original package, --not-- the altered PHP scripts (which incidentally contain sensitive information such as my MySQL database name and password.)

    My main concern is this; if I use this software to create a web site, and it is GPL'ed, I do not want to redistribute the exact files that are in my HTML directory, for obvious reasons. Am I in violation of the GPL, if someone decides they want to enforce it? Are they subsequently entitled to a tarball of my web site root directory? If they are, there is no possible way I can continue using this package, and therefore could not continue to support Open Source for this project. :-(

    I have already find a few minor bugs and have been submitting them back into the CVS tree, so I'm still contributing to the development of the package; however, some people are now talking about the GPL being modified to encompass web sites being made with Open Source tools. If the GPL is changed to encompass web sites as opposed to binary distributions, could mean some serious problems for me.

    Any advice that anyone has about this matter would definitely be something I would appreciate. Thanks!

  • I'm betting this [slashdot.org] answers your question. (Perhaps this is one of the side-affects that doomsayers warned about when Andover bought slashdot.)
  • I guess so...
  • Um, yeah. My bad. :-)

    Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]
  • Look at the colour depth of the video card on that NIC:

    What resolutions does the video support?
    The NIC displays at 800 x 600 resolution with 65,536 million colors.

    Verbatim from their FAQ.

    With the cheapness of video cards these days, I would have thought it was difficult to find a 1Mb card...
    --

  • Bugzilla. (Score:4)

    by jelwell ( 2152 ) on Tuesday July 11, 2000 @03:29PM (#942039)
    It's really helpful if you actually try to write some code for mozilla to help fix those bugs. Posting comments like "please fix this" is only going to make the bug harder to read. Although adding yourself to the cc: and voting on the bug are both really good methods of advocating for those not skilled enough, or not free enough to actually write the code themselves. Also, don't forget that everyone can help out at http://www.mozilla.org/get-involved.html [mozilla.org]

    I personally believe that the best way to help mozilla is to use it daily. Report bugs when you can, and try hanging out in #mozillazine on irc.mozilla.org on a regular basis. #mozillazine is a really good way to get started, although if you want to code #mozilla can be more educational.

    Joseph Elwell.

  • Slashdot does <b>NOT</b> use doubleclick.net for any of its ads. Apparently you are unware that there are other ways to put images on pages for revenue -- ways that don't involve leaving cookies or tracking you as you surf. <a href="http://slashcode.com/articles/00/06/28/19262 33.shtml>This article</a> explains AndOver.Net's ad delivery system, which incidentally is an open-source project hosted on <a href="http://modadbanners.sourceforge.net">Sourcef orge</a>. As a matter of fact, /. only sets one cookie, which contains your login information.


  • IIRC, isn't the JavaScript "onunLoad" event the one that allows for popup ads when you close the window in the first place? Wouldn't disabling that disable the porn ads?

    I'd also recommend a way to completely break out of javascript popup windows. You could theoretically have popup windows that go forever, locking you in the program since there's no native "escape out of script" button.
  • Lol, well, first off, it's not my proposition. What part of my post didn't you understand? Secondly, I think it's a valid question, because the flip side of this is:

    As a programmer building a set of GPL'ed PHP scripts for instance, how are you supposed to make sure that nobody takes your code, and uses it to build a closed-source project?

    Couldn't somebody make a website out of a derivitive work and never have to open or disclose their code? This type of thing would go against the spirit, if not the letter of the GPL.

    And I hope that clarifies it well enough for you to see that TTNAT.

  • I, and you'll never see this coming, am not a lawyer. In other words, I have no idea what I'm talking about :) That said:
    In this case, I think you're fine.
    You only are required to give away source if you distribute your application. Since PHP does all it's work on the server-side, and all the user sees are the results, you're probably okay in this respect.
    Now, if you want to redistribute your work, but don't want to send back the exact files for whatever reason (i.e. database passwords in the .php3 file that you don't want to give out), you could separate site-specific parts out into a configuration file, let people know the file format (perhaps with an example file) and distribute that. I'm planning to write an application this way in the future, so hopefully it works in practice :)
  • Yeah, but they are VERY overpriced. For the system I want, they want just under $2500 to build and support it. Hell, for that kind of money I can build a NICE dual processor system with a killer monitor - okay, no suport, but still. They are VERY expensive. I consistantly sell servers to people who don't want to pay thier prices - including the cost of NT 4.0 Server and licenses. That, and they don't sell and AMD systems yet, which totally kills it for me.

    Fawking Trolls! [slashdot.org]
  • finally some funny stuff on the internet.had me laughing my ass off.thanks.
  • But have they started enrolling in Hope College?
  • Hm... I just saw this add on slashdot... looks an awfull lot like doubleclick to me.

    I needed to reload the page ~10 times to see it.

    Slashdot also seems to use ads from akaimatech.

    http://m.doubleclick.net/viewad/448249-suse_bann er2.gif

  • Then why not use my hacked version of Junkbuster [junkbuster.com] - which stops you from having to see popup windows.

    Check it out here [ed.ac.uk].


    Steve
    ---

  • What is the reason behind the poor (apalling, actually) performance of 3Dfx Voodoo3 cards on XFree86 4.x? I thought 3Dfx have had their DRI drivers around for a good while now. More hacking, is that the answer, or are there some architechtural structures that cause the slowdown?

  • Say you take program FOO's source code and modify it for your own use. I.e. you might compile the modified version, use the resulting binary, maybe even distribute the output of running that binary (program) to others, but you do not distribute the modifications, the modified source, or the resulting binary to anyone else.

    If you received program FOO from someone else, they might require you to distribute the modifications (or the modified source) to others under these circumstances, depending on the license you accepted as a condition for acquiring the program in the first place.

    The GPL makes no such requirement. I.e. you can make all the "local" modifications you like, and as long as you don't redistribute them in any form, you don't have to distribute your modifications as source.

    What RMS appears to be saying is that the Plan 9 license does require you to send back your changes to program FOO to the "Original Contributor".

    Whether he's correct, I won't suggest for myself. I suggest you read the pertinent license(s) for yourself.

  • Actually, since it's running Linux I'm sure you can mount a drive over the network. I don't have much experience with this, but you could also start programs from a different machines hard drive? Ie. an MP3 player and then play the files on your network's MP3 server. For those with a home network, I can see the NIC being a very cheap way to add another computer to check email in your room or play MP3s or whatever. I may get one of these whenever I get around to networking my computers :).
    -Antipop
  • SuSE has got it in their distro too (is there anything they don't have?) Unfortunately, they've hidden it in the unsorted section on their second CD on the current distro (6.4), but it works once you find it.
  • In that case, it might actually be better than the GPL, in the fact that CORBA and other related remote-use tricks which don't constitute distribution wouldn't hold water, right?
  • Are you James Glassman, or are you just trolling for him?

    On one of the most recent columns that OSOpinion (for what reason I don't know) republished from Glassman's crappy securities site TechCentralStation, he told that exact same joke. In the exact same words.

    So, are you him, or are you just a market-enamored troll who happened to read Glassman's article, liked the joke and decided to go around spreading this stupid meme?

  • Gosh! your answer was so pedestrian! And yet, as usual, plenty of nitwits around to moderate you up.

    Philosophy of Computer Science 101: what is the philosophical difference between running a program on a single computer, and running it in a client-server configuration where it runs on the server. In both cases, you are running the program. My question, far more insightful than your answer, was why draw this arbitrary distinction called "distribution"? Stallman got started when he wasn't allowed to change a program he was using. Note: he was running it, not just receiving the output. Webservers don't just deliver output either; it's different than if I hand you a sheet of paper printed by Excel, because you can tweak the inputs and receive new outputs at will. Having a license that requires software to remain free and open even in a client server enviroment is not ridiculous.

    Conclusion? To the unwashed, any sufficiently advanced question is indistinguishable from ridiculous.

  • Mandrake's install might be a piece of cake for a new user, but it's a piece of shit for an advanced user upgrading because it uses diskdruid instead of fdisk, with no option. diskdruid is horrible.

    I can't imagion why anyone would switch back and forth between RedHat and Mandrake

    Since I pointed out why I switch back and forth, it's hard to grok how you can't imagine it. I'd much rather have the latest version of a tool over the i586 compilation of the old model.

  • From what I remember when they updated slashcode they decided to drop ad-fu (or whatever it was called) in favor of the same system that Andover was using, which includes banners from doubleclick, focalink, and a few other of the choice ones (some of the same ones I encountered on pr0n sites in the past).

    I could be wrong on this, I would like to think that when the guys at slashdot say they have editorial freedom that means that they could tell Andover to shove the D.C. ads, but even after a few individuals raised a HUGE stink about it a few months back I've still ran into them every so many pages. This after several articles about doubleclick that were less than flattering.
  • Gosh! your answer was so pedestrian! And yet, as usual, plenty of nitwits around to moderate you up.

    Flattery will get you nowhere.

    Philosophy of Computer Science 101: what is the philosophical difference between running a program on a single computer, and running it in a client-server configuration where it runs on the server. In both cases, you are running the program. My question, far more insightful than your answer, was why draw this arbitrary distinction called "distribution"?

    I thought I made this clear in my reply - obviously not. The distinction is that computing resources are owned. When things are run on the net, you are running them on someone else's hardware, by their grace. I actually agree with you, that a license making source available in theis situation could be useful, but the situation of running a program remotely is vastly different from getting a binary and running it yourself. There's a different level of access with causing it to be run, and "holding it in your hand" so to speak, where you can analyse or reverse engineer the binary, if you wished. This different level of access is why I don't think the same rights can be assumed.

    Stallman got started when he wasn't allowed to change a program he was using. Note: he was running it, not just receiving the output.

    Running a program you have been given access to on a remote computer feels a lot more like a service than does running a binary you've downloaded.

    The thing is, you need to be careful to not restrict the right to private modifications. If you required that all derivatives of your website which are put on the net at large have source available, then you deny me the right to make my own private modifications and then put it up for only my (and maybe my friends) use. And given the nature of the web, I might argue that my home page is my place, and that I should be allowed to make a private modification which is put onto my home page.

    Webservers don't just deliver output either; it's different than if I hand you a sheet of paper printed by Excel, because you can tweak the inputs and receive new outputs at will.

    That's true, but I don't see how J. Random Web Surfer can lay claim to seeing the code to produce the output. It's more of a service than anything else.

    Having a license that requires software to remain free and open even in a client server enviroment is not ridiculous.

    Yeah, I'll concede this point. The ability to extend "distribution" to mean utilisation of servers would probably be a good thing. However there are still issues which I think haven't properly been considered, namely the ones I outline above.

    Conclusion? To the unwashed, any sufficiently advanced question is indistinguishable from ridiculous.

    The same can of course be said of advanced answers. Don't be so damn presumptuous.
  • Agreed about diskdruid. The GUI partitioning tool in the later Mandrake installs is quite nice and is completely usable once you get the hang of it. It does at least the 95% of what fdisk can do -- who really needs to do low level editing of a partition table??

    And really, when I want a new version of a tool I either download it from the MandrakeCooker (which yes is potentially untested) or I download it myself and compile it. And Mandrake's release schedule has been soooo agressive lately that I rarely need to do that!

    I go back to my point about why would you want to switch distros just to get a point release of a couple dozen apps? You could just as easilly download the latest release of those apps and install them -- or wait a month or so for the next release of the distro that you're using.

  • Slashdot does NOT use doubleclick.net for any of its ads. Apparently you are unware that there are other ways to put images on pages for revenue -- ways that don't involve leaving cookies or tracking you as you surf. This article [slashcode.com] explains AndOver.Net's ad delivery system, which incidentally is an open-source project hosted on Sourceforge [sourceforge.net]. As a matter of fact, /. only sets one cookie, which contains your login information.

  • Isn't that great? I thought I was the only one to catch all those song titles. Glad to see someone else picked it up too.
  • In that case, it might actually be better than the GPL, in the fact that CORBA and other related remote-use tricks which don't constitute distribution wouldn't hold water, right?

    If I understand your meaning, then I'd say the Plan 9 license might indeed prevent such things, but then again might not, and in either case I'm not sure I'd call it "better".

    In one corner: the desire to have more software be open source, or maybe just more open-source software.

    In the other corner: the desire to have more freedom, in that the author of a program gets to be the one who decides the licensing for that program.

    "CORBA and other related remote-use tricks" fall into a gray area between one author's freedom to ensure his program remains open-source (via a license like the GPL) and another author's freedom to keep his program proprietary (or under a license that conflicts with the GPL, anyway).

    If the former program offers such an interface, or can be (freely) extended to offer one, and the latter uses it, the result can be that both authors get what they want, or at least what they are legally entitled to.

    But, in the case of true "tricks", the former author is denied access to the source code of distributed derivations of his program.

    And in the case of relying overmuch on legal (copyright) constraints to prevent such tricks, the latter author is denied freedom to choose licensing that conflicts with the GPL.

    So, because it's a big grey area, I didn't get into it in my example -- I kept that simple.

    RMS (and the FSF) seems to generally lean towards favoring the former (GPL-ing) programmer, but not so far as to favor a license that removes the freedom from the latter sort of programmer (at least in cases where he doesn't distribute his program), or the freedom of another programmer who takes a "free" program and makes only local (undistributed) modifications.

  • Go eat a carrot.

  • Well, if you go back and look, you'll see that the point that you concede is the original point I made. It's that simple.

    So what's the rest of this been about? Your misinterpretation. One example from this most recent post:

    Q: why draw this arbitrary distinction called "distribution"?

    A: ... The distinction is that computing resources are owned.

    You keep answering the "how can one draw" question, not the "why" question. But since we are now in agreement, and this thread fades into obscurity, time to move on. :) Peace.

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