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Comment Re:It's inevitable (Score 0) 140

it is LGPL2 or later. So LGPL3 applies. So the anti tivoization clause applies.

That's the opposite of how that works. It's LGPL 2 or later. That means you can follow the terms of redistribution from either license. Either. Or.

Sure. But it won't be your usual Linux distro.

It will do the same jobs. Most of the software on which we depend predates the GPL3 and/or uses an even more permissive license without an anti-tivoization clause.

Comment Is that because of the monopoly? (Score 1, Troll) 34

The most fortunate part of Bell Labs' situation, however, was that in being attached to a monopoly it could partake in long-term thinking... Without competition nipping at its heels, Bell Labs engineers had the luxury of working out difficult ideas over decades.

Was it the monopoly that made the difference? Or was it simply management smart enough to not only not kill the goose, but also to feed it? They had wins, they got more funding, they had more wins, repeat until they no longer got more funding and stopped getting wins. What's probably more important than why they succeeded is what happened at the end.

Comment Re:Installer level disabling (Score 1) 140

Installer level disabling of the installation of systemd, please.

If you're a Debian derivative user, it's called Devuan.

Otherwise...*

* Note: Removing systemd from a systemd-based system is madness. There's a reason Devuan exists, and it is that simply changing the init system on Debian results in a lot of breakage, which best illustrates the biggest problem with systemd.

Comment Re:the issue is putting it in systemd (Score 1) 140

systemd is an integral part of many Linux systems. Adding the birth-date to it is the issue here. It's not the right place.

Yes, that is literally the entire ethos behind systemd.

It's crazy to expect a distro maintainer in a sane country to need to yank it out of there manually

Yes, that is literally the entire situation with systemd.

This change literally could not be more on brand for systemd.

Comment Re:It's inevitable (Score 1) 140

A Linux distro (even preinstalled) cannot be closed source and/or unmodifiable by the end user, the GPL3 made sure of that.

The Linux kernel is GPL2 and glibc is LGPL, and you can construct a complete userland without any GPL3 components. Also, you seem to be under some weird misapprehension that the federal government will follow the law, which it has never done across the board.

Comment Re:advice to children (Score 2) 140

Slavery and many other such things were once legal.

Amendment XIII
Section 1: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction".
Section 2: "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation".

Emphasis mine.

Comment Re:It's a start (Score 1) 42

I can imagine Apple later removing the "paste anyway" option and requiring you to go to Settings > Privacy to confirm the action, like how they've done with running apps downloaded off of the internet

It's a function implemented in the shipped terminal.app. If you use a third party terminal app, it won't have the protection. Chances are if you're using a third party terminal you're probably sophisticated enough to not blindly run shell commands

Comment Re:Use an Age-verified flag (Score 1) 140

Why is it the business of my OS vendor how old I am?

Because it's an alternative to websites asking your age.

The option is the website could verify your age. Or it could hand it off to the OS to handle that part. (Its not like there isn't precedent - things like passkeys and video decoding are passed from the browser to the OS).

If the OS handles it, great. The age verification gate is passed and you can do whatever you're allowed to.

Else, well, you then need to submit 2 pieces of ID to the website to prove your age where that personal information will be stored for an indefinite period of time on an insecure server waiting for someone to hack it.

OSes from Apple, Microsoft and Google pretty much know your age. This lets sites do the age verification check without you have to lift a finger. Of course, a certain other popular OS is not mentioned. For those wanting to "fight the system", chances are you'll just be like those using a VPN hitting CloudFlare protected sites. Either having to submit ID, or the site refusing you entry because they don't want to hold onto people's ID.

Of course, the better idea is to fix the legislation but that would likely push age verification back to the site and ID submissions. So maybe the better solution is to fix the legislation so sites don't have to check ages and just not do dark pattern stuff.

Comment Re:IBM: The eternal punching bag of Big Tech (Score 2) 15

You also forgot things like virtual memory - both in separating process address spaces and in using disk as memory, protected memory, memory management, and all leading up to virtual machines (partitions) letting you run multiple OSes on the same machine.

Some of IBM's latest mainframes are just wild in their I/O and interconnects. Even the CPU specs are just strange and off the charts.

About the most annoying this about IBM is that their names for stuff like this doesn't match what most people would call the technology today - they have a totally different set of jargon for computing that's basically completely different from what people who didn't grow up with IBM computing had. I know at least one difference that tripped people up - bit 0 is the LSB in basically all of modern computing. Escept it's the MSB for IBM CPUs, and it tripped up people when it made it to consumer stuff like PowerPC. I know the first few PowerPC boards we had needed a re-spin because the hardware engineer messed up the bit orders.

Comment Re:Damn⦠(Score 1) 36

Well no Switch 2 or PS5 for me. Going to stick with my Switch 1 until things settle down.

The Switch 2 is probably one you might want to get sooner rather than later (i.e., before Nintendo jacks up the price - they haven't yet).

Even if all you do with it is play Switch 1 games as memory bandwidth problems with the Switch 1 meant many games were stuck at sub-30 FPS and basically unplayable. The Switch 2 runs them at a buttery smooth 60 FPS locked which turns your games into something actually fun to play.

It's not just that the Switch 2 is faster, it's that the Switch 2 fixed a number of bottlenecks with the Tegra chip so Switch 1 games no longer ended up with sub 30 FPS or such.

The PS5 can be held off especially if you have a PS4 as there's nothing really that's PS5 only that isn't already on PS4.

But going from the Switch 1 to the Switch 2 is well worth the upgrade price especially as later games just couldn't do 30 FPS.

Comment Re:Chipped Aminals (Score 1) 35

Chips aren't magic. In fact, they're one of the worst things in the world, because they're extremely proprietary. As in each vet has to have a scanner capable of reading each manufacturer's chip

They can detect the presence of a chip, but if they don't have the right reader, it doesn't read. And that gets you an ID number, it has to be looked up in the manufacturer's database.

That's why when that chip manufacturer went bankrupt, they told everyone they had to get their pets re-chipped with a new one, because their chip will no longer have the database backing it up.

Also, if you move, you need to update the manufacturer with your new details - how many pets have chips but their details were not updated so it was not possible to contact the original owner.

Or even worse, because chips are proprietary, they simply couldn't read the chip at all. Each reader is for one manufacturer so vets typically only carry a couple of readers.

Chips do help, as do tattoos. But also make sure they have ID tags on their collars - dog licenses, rabies tags, and AirTags can all ID your pet provided they aren't separated from their collars. (Yeah, yeah, but it's possible to collar train your dog so they always wear them, and many of the nicer ones have built in AirTag pockets). They do make GPS trackers as well, but they're kind of large so it's only suitable for larger dogs.

There's plenty of ways to ID your pet. Use all of them - the dog license and rabies tags offer very up to date information on the owner since they're renewed annually. The AirTag can both let you leave contact information as well as help you track your pet. The chip and tattoo are there in case your pet manages to take off their collar (which they usually shouldn't if properly trained).

Comment Hardly surprising (Score 1) 179

MacOS only runs on a handful of hardware devices that Apple creates and tightly controls. Windows runs on a VAST selection of hardware that Microsoft mostly does not control. So of course there is the potential for more crashes. Hardware and drivers aren't perfect and that increases the potential for things to go wrong.

But I'd rather have choice and the freedom to buy hardware that suits my needs & budget than be stuck in a golden cage.

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