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Slashback GNU is Not Unix Space

Slashback: Civilians, Rubyx, Restrictions 225

Posted by timothy from the slashdot-readers-in-el-paso? dept.
Slashback this evening brings you a dose of updates and clarifications to previous stories about Yahoo!'s block on third-party messaging products, the Ruby-based Linux distro called Rubyx, and a few notes of caution on "unlimited" wireless internet service.

Do they have the original Coneheads novels? seattlenerd writes "Largely lost in the TV coverage and media hype surrounding Friday's opening of Paul Allen's Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame in Seattle is the fact that SFM celebrates books as much as TV/film SF, according to at least one review. Lots of first editions and several manuscripts are on display as the font of SF ideas. Also not covered much: There's no fantasy or horror. It's all science fiction, with no apologies. And ain't it cool that someone has acknowledged that there are actual writers behind some of the best science-fiction depictions? And that some of these writers are on SFM's advisory board?"

(Reader Comte offered a sneak peek at the museum last week.)

That's why it's called software. An anonymous reader writes "News.com.au is reporting an Australian company has released "The Worlds First" anti-virus software for mobile phones to fix the recent 'Caribe' virus and attempts to prevent future exploits."

Simon Crean of Mobile security company Jamanda wrote to say that his company is also has "just delivered a comprehensive fix to the widely publicised mobile virus Cabir and made this fix available to the public via its website at www.jamanda.com. As a gesture of goodwill and to maintain market confidence, concerned mobile users can currently download and install this fix at no charge."

Speaking of quick fixes, baudilus writes "The good folks at Cerulean Studios have already released a patch for Trillian, addressing the block attempt by Yahoo!. In half a day they've outdone Yahoo!'s latest scheme. How's that for support?"

Click two ISOs together, go /home. awalrond writes "Rubyx is a source-based Linux distro which achieved far too much interest a couple of months back after a mention on Slashdot. The author had to pull the plug due to the massive bandwidth costs of users downloading all the sources. Well now it's back, fully converted to use the new White Water bandwidth-sharing download utility. A line has been drawn in the sand, and this e-gauntlet thrown back at Slashdot.

Rubyx can be downloaded, built and installed with a single command to the small rubyx script (written in the ruby language) The same script handles all subsequent package management, and can even create a bootable ISO image of the distro."

I want to see the floating candy instead. Mike Taht writes "Bruce Damer, curator of the Digibarn, got some stunning pictures and movies of the historic SpaceShipOne launch event on Monday. Check it out!"

Also in civilian space news, Walkiry writes "The Russian Space Comittee has rejected Gregory Olsen, who was set to become the third space tourist, due to health reasons. This comes as a bit of a surprise, given that Olsen himself seemed quite condfident about his performance during the physical training and claimed that the hardest part was actually learning Russian. A real shame."

(The linked story is less clear about whether Olsen will eventually be able to make the trip; in it, a spokesman for Space Adventures denies that this rejection precludes Olsen's flight.)

His meaning is clear. Matheus Villela writes "Sergio Amadeu, Brazilian president of ITI, the third authority in Brazilian government being below only of Brazilian president and the minister of civil house and recently sued by Microsoft have released an official note to Brazilian and international press; here's a translation of what he said:
'
In atention to the demands of national and international press, which seens solidary with Brazilian Govern at this moment with no precedences in the history, when a controller of an important public institucion of this country personally suffers the action from those interested in mantain a hegeomonic model, i come, after hear my federal lawyers and solicitors, say that the judicial provocation moved against my person is, by itself, so insultant and improper, that does not deserve reply.

For other hand, i would like to register that the act of contract software preserving the values freedom and opening is, for the Brazilian Government, a question of indissolvable form to the democratic principle.
And because a long and painful way was covered to arrive at the current period of stage of development of the democracy in this Country, we will not stop in our fight. If democracy is a value replect of ideology, is not never an insignificant value. If democracy is a dream, is a dream of which this Country never will wake up again.

The future is free.'"
By reading this far, you irrevocably agree to all the text that follows. emtboy9 writes "If you happen to live in the Raleigh-Durham area, Nextel is now officially offering wireless Broadband via its cell towers. With all the discussion about BPL as of late, its refreshing to finally see someone in my local area doing wireless which is a much better mechanism for broadband access.

Nextel's coverage area looks to be about the same as the trial area they had been running, but if this takes off, it shouldn't be too much longer until they are offering this coast to coast, especially with coming pressure from Cingular Wireless."

However, be choosy about wireless internet service, which can come with some hidden snags: HEXAN writes "With all the recent hubub over wireless access at broadband speeds, I decided to check out Verizon's plan. Although the price is a bit steep, it seemed ok until I got to the "Terms and Conditions."

Here's a sampling of what you cannot do with Verizon's "unlimited" Internet Access: "...cannot be used for" "uploading, downloading or streaming of movies, music or games" [Ugg], "Web camera posts or broadcasts" [No camgirls], "telemetry applications" [No GPS], "substitute or backup for private lines" [No VOIP]. If I cannot use the service to play games, video conference, make calls, download movies or MP3's, what exactly am I paying for? More importantly, how badly will they impinge on my privacy to enforce this agreement? P.s. You cannot reach that special agreement until you go beyond the "front door". The gotcha clauses are not mentioned in the standard, consumer friendly, litigation-approved agreement."
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Slashback: Civilians, Rubyx, Restrictions More

Slashback: Civilians, Rubyx, Restrictions

Comments Filter:

  • meh (Score:4, Funny)

    by grahagre ( 459342 ) <greengr&users,sourceforge,net> on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:03PM (#9523881) Homepage
    yahoo shouldnt be _that_ worried since it seems that nobody appears to use the yahoo messenger in the first place (anymore).

    • Re:meh (Score:2, Interesting)

      by cheekyboy ( 598084 )
      80% of yagoo msg usage are the 'bots' on the chat channels which are themselves, unauthorized clients...
      how the hell do they manage that?

  • The future is free. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by rd4tech ( 711615 ) *
    The future is free.

    ...and so bright, I have to wear sunglases...
    seems like I've been outsorced to Brazil

    • Re:The future is free. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by s20451 ( 410424 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:19PM (#9523988) Journal
      Free, huh?

      This is the same country where a NYT reporter was threatened with deportation after he said (backed by sources) that President Lula da Silva was an alcoholic? link [rsf.org]

      • Everybody's free (Score:4, Funny)

        by rasafras ( 637995 ) <tamas.pha@jhu@edu> on Thursday June 24, 2004 @08:04PM (#9524181) Homepage
        It's just that, you know, some are more free than others.

      • Re:The future is free. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Teancum ( 67324 ) <robert_horning@n ... et minus painter> on Thursday June 24, 2004 @08:08PM (#9524193) Homepage Journal
        Brazil is a free and democratic society, of that there should be no doubt. There are cultural difference (substantial!) between Brazil and America. In fact, from my own experience, it is sort of a cross between America and Europe, with a unique South American flavor.

        The Portuguese, while a major ethnic group, is not the dominant one. I lived in the Italian part of Sao Paulo and some old timers could still speak Italian, but almost none of the kids (under 18 crowd) could speak languages of the Old World other than Portuguese and English, with English being a rather mottled version that was only studied in School like Americans (if you are into it) study French, German, or Spanish. English is not a daily language. Many teachers in Brazil learn British English, but with American cultural twists (which makes some very interesting conversations in English).

        What I'm trying to say is that Brazil is not the backward country that you seem to be thinking it is. Freedom is relative, and there are many things you can do in Brazil that if done in America will get you arrested and thrown in jail. I also find the attitude to discuss religion in a public forum to be refreshing compared to almost official atheism in the U.S.A. (the ACLU's attitude about this not withstanding).

        That Brazil has more respect for its elected officials than the NYT has for American politicians is totally understandable. If a reporter had done something similar during the JFK administration they probabaly would have been treated in a very similar fashion in the USA. It was just habit for that journalist to forget he was in a different country with a different culture, and not reporting from Texas.
        • I also find the attitude to discuss religion in a public forum to be refreshing compared to almost official atheism in the U.S.A. (the ACLU's attitude about this not withstanding).

          Official atheism? Are you in Bizarro U.S.A.? I'll give you one since you seem to not be from the U.S. We have an official "seperation" of church and state - but not official athiesm. Christianity and theism is the accepted belief system. If you can, watch close as the U.S. presidential debates begin - I guarantee they will try t

          • Re:The future is free. (Score:5, Informative)

            by sumdumass ( 711423 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @10:09PM (#9524815) Journal
            He was speaking about the push to make religion politicaly incorect. In some if not most public forums (not just internet) religious speak and attitue is mostly ousted as undesireable by someone. For some reason we have to apease the minority of the comunity and stop saying the pledge or talking about money or somethign because it has a reference to god. In some areas, some people are almost embarassed to admit they goto church. This is the "official atheism" he is refering to.

            Even in this enviroment (./) if you admit to being of a religious nature you will have someone trying to call you stupid or a mindless sheep that has to follow some book that was made up by stoner thinking of a way to control the masses. God forbid you actually state your religion, then you will have a bunch more people telling you your wrong for beliveing in a certain god, worship cows, or somethign of the sort. Religion has basically become taboo in america unless your in an enviroment were it is expected to talk about religion. It is verry hard to find people willing to have a conversation about religion outside one of these enviroments and it is even harder to just meet new people and talk about how being faithfull to your worship has helped you thru tough times.
            • In some areas, some people are almost embarassed to admit they goto church

              I suspect that applies to very few areas. I live in one of the least religious towns around, and it's not like that here. If some people feel embarrassed to admit they go to church, I doubt it has anything to do with any anti-religious taboo. It's probably because they are shy of being identified with the growing numbers of intolerant, deliberately ignorant fundamentalists. There is a public taboo against intolerance, and I think th

              • Does it offend your religion for the words "under god" to be removed from the official pledge of allegiance? Don't you think that means it offends someone else's religion (or lack thereof) for it to be in there? Having it there is just a little bit of the way to "No one but a Mormon shall hold any public office in Utah". Which is, in many areas, de facto the case, but, thank Jefferson, not de jure.

                Well, "under god" doesn't offend me. I don't think that "under god" is actually a religious thing. It is mor

                • Well, "under god" doesn't offend me. I don't think that "under god" is actually a religious thing.

                  Then you're a fucking idiot. Would you listen to yourself? "God isn't religious" - Of course God is a fucking religious concept!

                  It is more of a statement of what the one nation is answerable to. Almost every religion has a god,

                  Yeah, but nonreligious people don't. That's the whole point. (Aside from those little tiny religions that aren't monotheistic, like hinduism and buddhism, but who cares about them

                  • Actually you the fucking idiot.. probably a moron too. god has been used to describe dogs, suns, moons, the damn trees, the pool spirit.. the only thing religous about it is what you want it to mean.. ACtually if you get that upset over it then i think you deserve to.. i laugh at listenign to you.. i couldn't help but to , imagine a pimple getting ready to pop on some sweaty teenager's forhead..

                    -- you do realize your arguing with sumdumass
                • I won't be quite as extreme as some others here, but you really can't extend "under God" to cover atheists. I think it's quite a stretch to make it cover Buddhists, Hindus or even Muslims. It might not be provable in court -- I don't know -- but certainly everyone I've actually discussed the subject with has assumed that to mean the God of Christianity. I certainly suppose it to mean that. In particular, when it was added in 1954, it was "officially" meant to represent a vague higher power, but was added sp
            • Comment removed based on user account deletion

            • Re:The future is free. (Score:4, Informative)

              by Photon Ghoul ( 14932 ) on Friday June 25, 2004 @08:03AM (#9526833)
              My initial reply to this was a little on the flaming side so here I go again.....

              I respect the fact that (I'm assuming here) you adhere to your religious beliefs. However, you have to remember that you live in a world populated by people who are not all Christians. We believe many different things.

              When you refer to the 'media' as being officially ahtiestic, I have to wonder what you're talking about. I never see athiests in the news in a positive light. I can't even name one well-known living person who claims to be an athiest, except for the nutcase that took the state to court over the pledge.

              Maybe the fact that the media attempts to be unbiased towards religion comes across to you as being athiestic. I really don't see this official athiesm in the media. If you're really interested in the religious bias in the media, you might be interested to know that the Washington Times (considered a more conservative media outlet) is owned by a cult leader [deseretnews.com]. While most likely not your own religion, I don't think that makes the Times athiestic.

              I'm not sure how you think religion is taboo in America. Religion (or the pretense of it) is absolutely required for a presidential candidate - why do you think that is? Because the established religion in the U.S. is..... Christianity! Name one politician who doesn't claim to believe in a higher power.

              Meanwhile, Bush pushes faith-based charities for receiving government funding, "Under God" was added to the pledge in the 50's, "In God We Trust" was added to the dollar, we still say "So Help Me God" in the courtroom, Congress still prays before every meeting, televangelists are still on the airwaves, the Promisemakers still tour.

              It seems you might be interpreting things wrong here, perhaps it looks that way from the pews. When you claim that you can't speak about religion outside of "an enviroment were it is expected" perhaps what's actually going on is that people expect you to respect their beliefs? Some people think that trying to push beliefs on someone else, especially in work or casual social settings is extremely rude and obnoxious. Maybe you see that and think that everyone is an athiest. Somehow, I find it hard to believe that you've had an actual conversation on this topic with the masses of people you're claiming are now suddenly athiests.

              There is no way religion is taboo in America. Religion gave us all of our taboos. The Whipping of the Christ raked in millions of dollars. We have multitudes of churches, synagogues, mosques, cults and so many varieties of belief systems that it's dizzying. All existing in one country while peacefully coexisting. Ah.. that peacefully coexisting thing - yes there are some religious people who can't stand that and attempt to influence the media, government and public opinion. I guess the latest tactic is to appear as the underdog. You'll find that most people don't buy that.

              You are very safe from Athiesm becoming the official "religion" of the United States.
            • I can see you don't live in the south. Nearly everyone here is GLAD to discuss religion with anyone and everyone that talks with them. As long as it is THEIR religion, and they are trying to convert the person on the other end of the conversation. And if your not religious, or don't live in a way that they find right (both of which apply to me), then they are more then willing to shove their religion down your throat. This is why people react so vehemently to religious discussions on the net. They are s
            • In some if not most public forums (not just internet) religious speak and attitude is mostly ousted as undesireable by someone.
              Because these forums are discussing various aspects of government and/or public policy. Banning "religious speak and attitude" from such forums is only consistent with the principle of separation of Church and State -- religion-based arguments should not be affecting decisions under this principle anyway.
        • What the hell are you talking about?

          I agree that it was pretty disrespectful for the NY Times to call Lula an alcoholic. From what I've seen of him, I like Lula. And if I were leader of a country, I wouldn' be surprised if I drank heavily. But are you really going to try to defend former leaders of Brazil? Like Collor de Mello [country-studies.com]? Or Sarney [zonalatina.com]? That's not even mentioning the series of general-presidents during the military regime in the '60s.

          Lula has earned my respect through his years as a labor leader,

          • Up until the mid-1970s here in the USA, it was considered, culturarlly, that you would not directly criticize a political leader because of his (almost always male) personal behavior. Even Ted Kennedy only superficially was hurt due to Chappaquidick, and that was only to stop him from becomming President of the USA. He is still a Senator from Massachusetts.

            Discussions of the sexual habits of JFK, while talked about now to some extent, were never reported or discussed in common public forums in the 1960's

  • So... (Score:2, Funny)

    by phraktyl ( 92649 ) *
    For those of us who want to try Rubyx out, when is White Water going to make it into the Gentoo portage tree?

    • Re:So... (Score:3, Informative)

      by vadim_t ( 324782 )
      Try to make the ebuild yourself. It's surprisingly easy, and pretty safe as well, since portage will let you try until you get it right.

      Unless something complicated is required to install it, you probably can get a basic ebuild, tweak the filename and paths and have it work.

  • the hall of fame (Score:5, Informative)

    by L-Train8 ( 70991 ) <Matthew_Hawk@ho[ ]il.com ['tma' in gap]> on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:06PM (#9523904) Homepage Journal
    The Sci-Fi "Hall of Fame" part of the museum is comprised completely of authors. Later, it will be expanded to include those involved with film and television. This is because Paul Allen took over the existing Sci-Fi Hall of Fame, which has been around for a while. It had no actual building, it just awarded plaques to inductees each year. It started out as a SciFi/Fantasy Hall of Fame, but fortunatley for the SciFi museum, all the inductees had at least some sci-fi in their bodies of work. They were able to make it into sci-fi only without kicking anyone out.

    • Re:the hall of fame (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Later, it will be expanded

      Unfortunately, it will most likely follow the course of the Experience Music Project, also an Allen project, and will shrink not expand. In fact, it's in space in the EMP that's not being used due to lack of interest. Hell, several local papers in Seattle ran articles that could have very well been entitled 'What about after all the nerds have come and gone.'

  • Yahoo: GAIM Has Fix, Expecting New Release (Score:5, Informative)

    by sabat ( 23293 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:09PM (#9523920) Journal

    GAIM's mailing list on sourceforge has postings saying that they have received info on a Yahoo fix from the Trillian people. They expect to do a release of GAIM tonight. I'd expect that other projects will also get this info and will be doing releases shortly.

  • Gaim & Yahoo (Score:5, Informative)

    by seasleepy ( 651293 ) <seasleepy@gmaTWAINil.com minus author> on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:11PM (#9523933)
    In case people are curious, the Gaim developers seem to be collaborating with the Trillian folks like they did last time Yahoo broke. (Here's the bug [sourceforge.net] about the breakage.)

    Apparently there will be a release out tonight with the fix included.

  • WhiteWater, BitTorrent's successor? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Colonel Panic ( 15235 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:15PM (#9523969)
    An explanation of WhiteWater from it's creator:


    "A Massive increase in internet efficiency is possible with persistent
    bandwidth sharing. BitTorrent started the ball rolling; now White Water takes
    the next step with proxy/server and mirroring facilities."

    Persistent bandwidth sharing is the key. Consider:

    - When you download a file with ftp or http, you connect to and download the
    WHOLE file from the publishing server.

    - When you download a file with bitTorrent, you get CHUNKS of the file from
    loads of other people who are downloading the file AT THE SAME TIME AS YOU.
    If you are the only downloader, you'll get the WHOLE file from the publishing - When you download with White Water, you get CHUNKS of the file from any WW
    proxy which has ever downloaded the file and still has it in it's cache.

    White Waters' proxy mode provides this _persistent_ or _ongoing_ file sharing.
    Even if you are the only person currently downloading the file, you will
    receive chunks from every WW proxy which still has the file (or chunks of it)
    in its cache. If there are a hundred proxies with the file, and your local
    bandwith is wide enough, you could receive the file 99 times faster than
    would be possible from the original publishing server alone, which might be
    on a simple home broadband connection.

    "Imagine that 10 of your hard working employees download the latest Harry
    Potter movie trailer. Thats 10 identical huge files saturating your internet
    connection. If instead the trailer was published using WW, you could run a WW
    proxy on your gateway server and only 1 copy would be downloaded, even if a
    hundred employees decided to fetch it. Better yet, they would all be sharing
    the data amongst themselves, massively reducing the load on your gateway
    server."

    This is only possible with the proxy/server mode WW provides.

    "Now imagine that your ISP provided a WW proxy. Thousands of downloads are
    reduced to one, freeing up Gigabytes of the ISPs upstream bandwidth!"

    As you can see, the implications are quite profound.

    "Best of all, JK could publish the trailer on her home broadband connection,
    and even a mention on Slashdot couldn't kill it!"

    • Would there be any problems in having the ISPs maintain such a large cache of potentially infringing materials? I see the possibility of takedown notices being sent to ISPs for items sitting around in their White Water mirror (like a dvd copy of Harry Potter 3 or whatever else you can imagine). Would this just form another layer of monitoring for the infringement police?

      and just to make a correction(?)

      When you download a file with bitTorrent, you get CHUNKS of the file from loads of other people who are dow

      • BitTorrent is great for dealing with peak demand and for reducing demand on reasonably popular files. However, if the file has been out for a while, the chances of starting a download when no other BitTorrent users are downloading that file or have that window open is reasonably high. This keeps all the bandwidth burden on the original provider.

        From what I read, it looks like WW is very similar to BitTorrent, but server-side WW proxies will cache any WW content that passes through them. This saves outsi
      • when you close the BT instance that was downloading/uploading a file, that's it, you're done uploading.

        With WW you keep uploading as long as it's in your Temporary Internet Files or wherever WW put it.

        • when you close the BT instance that was downloading/uploading a file, that's it, you're done uploading.

          With WW you keep uploading as long as it's in your Temporary Internet Files or wherever WW put it.

          Of course, this assumes that you leave the WhiteWater client running constantly. If you close it once you're done, it's the same as Bittorrent.

          I guess I see this as being more of a "Peer Akamai" where local users get the file from a close WW server; one that's run by your ISP, for example.

        • I see this as a disadvantage myself - after I've downloaded files with BT, I usually keep seeding those which I've found to be worthwhile. I dump the chaff and stop seeding stuff that I don't find to be good.

          Therefore my (somewhat limited) upstream DSL bandwidth is reserved for sharing only those files that I actively want to support, not everything I've downloaded.

          Now, the other issue is that I don't know how much benefit that WW would have for individual users that are downloading "questionable P2P con
    • WhiteWater sounds interesting, however, let's say I've got a broadband connection (and I'm not an ISP) what is my incentive to run a WW Proxy other than altruism? Unless I missunderstand, the more files I download with WW the more likely I'll lose bandwidth as others download pieces of those files from my cache.

      Of course, I've never used BitTorrent either, but it would seem that you would have similar bandwidth loss issues with BT.

      Under that scenario given by the OP I can see that it could be a good idea
    • Too many tech people will read 'WW proxy' as 'WWW proxy'. They should avoid that acronym, it makes everything quite hard to understand.
    • The WhiteWater page says:
      • Written in c++ - portable, accessible, small and fast

      However, if I try to compile it on anything but a Linux system, I see something like:

      set -e; g++ -MM -MF joystick.d -Wall -Werror -DLINUX -I../ joystick.cpp
      joystick.cpp:20:28: linux/joystick.h: No such file or directory
      make[1]: *** [joystick.d] Error 1
      make: *** [winux] Error 2
       Why is portable code looking for linux/joystick.h? Maybe, by portable, they mean "you can use it on more than one linux distro."

  • This Rubyx thing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Tarantolato ( 760537 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:16PM (#9523971) Journal
    Sounds interesting. If the custom bootable iso creator works as well as it's supposed to it'd be a godsend to those of us who have to put together kiosks vel sim. fairly often.

    One complaint though: I wish the author would quit calling it an "operating system" as if it wasn't yet another source-based [Linux | GNU/Linux] distribution. Sure, call it a meta-distribution like Gentoo, but don't get carried away. I'm glad he did so in the writeup; I hope he'll change the webpage too.

    One question though: why isn't there a Sourceforge or Rubyforge page for the script? Also, there seems to be a namespace conflict with an in-development Ruby-based Enhydra clone [sourceforge.net].

  • What am I paying for? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:17PM (#9523978)
    If I cannot use the service to play games, video conference, make calls, download movies or MP3's, what exactly am I paying for?

    Spam. Lots and lots of Spam, and not the semi-gelatinous mystery meat in a can, either.

  • Wanted! (Score:3, Funny)

    by gmuslera ( 3436 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:26PM (#9524000) Homepage Journal
    There is a funny image here [michelazzo.com.br] related to Sergio Amadeu. The translation (i'm not good at all in portuguese and not so good at english): is something like:
    -------
    Wanted
    (photo here)
    Sergio Amadeu do Silveira
    Criminal Charges
    1. Democratization of technologic knowledge
    2. Technologic liberation of Brazil
    3. Capacitation of 2000 civil servant
    4. Publisher of several books
    5. (er, not sure how to translate this line :)
    Beware, this man is dangerous!
    Any information about where is this man contact immediately with the Justice Department of Microsoft
    Your identity will be hidden
    (Microsoft logo)
    Always caring about Brazil own good
    -----
    Well, i'm not good translating, but at least brazilians will have fun with that :)
    • I'll try my hand at this:

      Wanted

      Sergio Amadeu da Silveria

      Criminal Record

      1. Democratization of Technological Knowledge
      2. Technological Liberation of Brazil
      3. Assisting 2000 Civil Servants (presumably to switch to Linux, or at least helping them with technology)
      4. Publication of Diverse Books (in a context indicating that he is the author)
      5. Pushing for the end of monopolies through litigation. (Anti-trust lawsuits)

      WARNING:
      This man is dangerous!

      Any information about the location of this person should be sent to the Legal Department at Microsoft. This information will be kept confidential.

      MICROSOFT

      Always wanting the best for Brazil.

      (P.S. I spent a couple of years in Sao Paulo, and although I have a hard time being able to translate INTO Portuguges, I can understand it fairly well and turn it into English. Your translation was pretty good though.)

  • A quasi-official word from Yahoo. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Ryu2 ( 89645 ) * on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:27PM (#9524006) Homepage Journal
    A good friend of mine is the product manager for Yahoo Messenger (or one of them). I remember asking him over dinner one time why Yahoo was blocking Trillian, as well as why Yahoo didn't let you create your own IMVironments.

    The answer to both were the same: that Yahoo views Messenger and more specifically, the IMVironemnts contained within Messenger as basically a revenue generator and a advertising vehicle to draw traffic to their other properties, not just a text messaging service.

    Since Trillian and other alternative clients don't you view the IMVironment ads, they don't want you to use them...
    • Well, that's sort of obvious isn't it.
      On one hand I feel kinda sorry for Yahoo IM (that its being using with 3rd party tool). On the other hand ... what the heck am I feeling sorry for them for... Everyone should have switched to Jabber years ago!
      • Everyone should have switched to Jabber years ago!

        And do you think Yahoo would continue to provide free IM servers and bandwith to users if this were the case?
        • And do you think Yahoo would continue to provide free IM servers and bandwith to users if this were the case?

          Yahoo providing the service would be irrelevant. A Jabber server running at each ISP would make IM more distributed.
          • "A Jabber server running at each ISP would make IM more distributed."

            I like my IM centralized, and I can't see any benefits to distributing it like that. With my centralized IM, I can connect to one or two networks and get 99% of my friends. If Jabber became popular, would I have to connect to the ISP-run server of everyone on my contact list?

            Even if they addressed that via a forwarding mechanism or something, they're just following the footsteps of another tech that already does what they want: IRC.
            • Jabber addresses work just like mail. So your friends Jabber IDs might be: friend1@isp1.com, friend2.isp2.com, etc. You only need to connect to myisp.com (just like mail where you only connect to your local SMTP server). myisp.com connects to isp1.com and isp2.com. Its a beautiful thing.

    • Re:A quasi-official word from Yahoo. (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mstra ( 38238 ) <matt,stratton&gmail,com> on Thursday June 24, 2004 @08:06PM (#9524185) Homepage Journal
      That's interesting. The Mac client from Yahoo doesn't have the IMvironments. There are no ads. Where's the revenue from us Mac users?

      (For the record, I'd happily use the "official" YIM client if the Mac version didn't suck so hard. Instead I use Adium.)

    • Re:A quasi-official word from Yahoo. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Erwos ( 553607 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @09:35PM (#9524630)
      If Yahoo asked very politely for third-party clients to display advertising and provided info on how to do so, there'd probably be a better than zero chance of at least seeing a plug-in.

      I don't begrudge AOL, Yahoo, or even MSN for trying to make some money on ads. If they explained intelligently and elegantly why Gaim users _should_ view with ads, I bet some people would do it.

      -Erwos
  • Anyone have a better translation of that fellow's response? It sounded like he's saying really cool things but the translation offered on this slashback is a bit mangled, to say the least.

    • Re:Better translation (Score:5, Informative)

      by TrekkieGod ( 627867 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @08:21PM (#9524242) Homepage Journal
      It was a good translation...the spirit was there, if not the grammer. However, since I had trouble as well, I'll try to improve on the original job. Notice I say improve rather than replace, I'll just correct the grammer :)

      In regards to the demands of the national and international press, that empathizes with the Brazilian Government in this moment without precendent in our history, in which the director of an important public institution of this country is personally attacked by those interested in maintaining a homeogenic model, I will, after discussing the matter with my lawyers and federal prosecutors, attest that the judicial action taken against me is, by itself, so insulting and without merit that it does not deserve a response.

      On the other hand, I would like to maintain that the move to software that protects the values of openess and freedom is, to the Brazilian Government, something intimately connected to the democratic principle. And because we have come through a long and difficult road to reach our current level of democracy in this country, we will not surrender in our battle.

      If democracy is an ideal, it is never insignificant. If democracy is a dream, it is a dream this country will never wake up from.

      The future is free.

      I have an even greater respect for the original translator now. Although I'm fluent in both languages, it's quite difficult to make direct translations (I guess I just never have to).

    • Quick and dirty translation translation (Score:4, Informative)

      by kfg ( 145172 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @08:22PM (#9524252)
      "In response to the requests of the national and international press, which seems in agreement with the Brazilian Government at a moment in time which has no precedent in history, when a director of an important public institution of this country suffers from an action taken against him by those interested in maintaining a hegemonical model, I come before you, after being advised by my federal lawyers and my solicitors, to say that the judicial provocation of the motion against me is, by itself, so insulting and improper that it does not even deserve a reply.

      On the other hand, I would like to say that contracting to use software that preserves the values of openess and freedom is, for the Brazilian Government, an issue indivisble from the principles of democracy.

      And because it has been a long and painful road that we have traveled to arrive at the current stage of democratic development in the country, we will not stop in our fight. If democracy is a value reflective of an ideology its value is never insignificant. If democracy is just a dream, it is a dream from which this country will never awaken again.

      The future is free."

      -Sergio Amadeu

      KFG
    • Thanks to both of you. That was much better than the Slashback one. :)

  • I never understand licenses (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fermion ( 181285 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:28PM (#9524011) Homepage Journal
    One thing that Sinclair pointed out in The Jungle was how new immigrants were abused on their arrival by the meat packing plants. They could work at the plants, but the plants didn't pay enough to live. They could have a company sponsored place to live, but could be kicked with little cause. They could pay to have a lawyer look at the contracts, but all lawyers were connected to the company, and there would be no job and no house if all terms were not agreed to.

    This seems absolutely socialist behavior compared to what is being promoted by these licensing agreements. At least the immigrants knew they were being fucked and had the ability to discern exactly how fucked they were before they signed the papers. Now agreements are not even generally made available prior to the contract signing, i.e. purchase, and are often made available in hard copy only after the additional agreement is reached. I admire companies like verizon suppling their agreements before a contract, i.e. sale, is reached. However, one has to wonder when the courts are going to decide that the general populous is just too stupid to comprehend these agreements. which are written for corporate lawyers, and therefore have to be ruled null and void.


    • This seems absolutely socialist behavior...

      Why do you characterize that as "socialist." Socialism proscribes that resources be shared among the group. The conditions described in The Jungle seem more like an extreme form of capitalism to me. The workers were considered human capital -- similar to the buildings and equipment -- to be used and depreciated on the balance sheet. I don't see anything socialist about it (unless you're just using "socialist" as a synonym for "bad.")

  • Any cockpit or chase plane views? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FleaPlus ( 6935 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:31PM (#9524020) Journal
    Are there any photos or videos available from inside the cockpit, or from one of the chase planes? I've been looking all over for them, but to no avail.

  • Verizon TOC means "do not use" (Score:4, Informative)

    by eskwayrd ( 575069 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:39PM (#9524061)
    Here's a sampling of what you cannot do with Verizon's "unlimited" Internet Access: "...cannot be used for" "uploading, downloading or streaming of movies, music or games"...

    Unfortunately, uploading means "sending data from your system", and downloading means "receiving data to your system".

    If this TOC is going to be enforced, you can plug in the adapter, but you couldn't technically use the service at all (everything else relies on these two capabilities).

    Why exactly would you pay them any money?
    • I'm unsure if this was supposed to be a humorous post... it almost feels like it, but not quite. If it is a joke, it unfortunately doesn't work out.

      Uploading and downloading are modifying "movies, music, or games" correctly. Even if one were to try to separate the two, one could only truly say that by that wording they are prohibiting uploading. Downloading is directly connected to "movies, music or games" in their wording.

      (Then she eats, shoots, and leaves.)
    • I believe the term "streaming of movies music or games" is meant to be distributed over the terms "uploading, downloading, or streaming"

      (A || B || C ) && (D || E || F)

      is what they're saying.

    • Re:Verizon TOC means "do not use" (Score:5, Informative)

      by jesterzog ( 189797 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @08:07PM (#9524189) Journal

      Unfortunately, uploading means "sending data from your system", and downloading means "receiving data to your system".

      It's lazy grammatical translation on the part of the slashdot submitter and editors. (Not terribly unusual at that, and conveniently arranged to provoke more flaming than what's warranted.) The actual terms of service say:

      ... Unlimited NationalAccess/BroadbandAccess cannot be used (1) for uploading, downloading or streaming of movies, music or games, (2) with server devices or with host computer applications, including, without limitation, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, telemetry applications, automated functions or any other machine-to-machine applications, (3) as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections. ...

      Put in context, it quite clearly indicates to me at least that they only care about uploading and downloading of movies. Of course, it doesn't mean that the rest of the terms of service aren't also very restrictive and perhaps the "unlimited" in the name is misleading.

      But essentially they don't want you using your connection to run a server, or to otherwise transfer anything that might end up hogging excessively high bandwidth compared with their regular customers. It doesn't rule out using the connection for general web browsing and email, which is probably all that 95% of their target market want anyway. In fact, the earlier parts of the terms of service (not quoted here) specifically state that those tasks are what it's intended for.

      • It doesn't rule out using the connection for general web browsing and email, which is probably all that 95% of their target market want anyway

        you don't need broadband to surf the net or to read email.
      • In other words, they are technologically incompetent and don't know how to throttle bandwidth to a specific customer or exactly what the internet really is about. They are lazy in regards to trying to monitor individual connections, and have oversold their bandwidth to the point that if you and everybody else really used the bandwidth they claim to be offering to you, they would be unable to actually deliver that amount of data.

        Prohibiting a server connection of any sort is prohibiting you from every sending data from your computer. Period. The rest is just semantics from a lawyer who thinks he understands computers but really doesn't.

        Of course, they probably think that the only internet protocol is HTTP.
      • It doesn't rule out using the connection for general web browsing and email, which is probably all that 95% of their target market want anyway.

        If their bandwidth is so precious that it only supports web browsing and email, then it's not quite "broadband", is it? It reminds me of Monty Python's "Insurance Sketch":

        Vicar (Eric Idle): But my car was hit by a lorry while standing in the garage and you refuse to pay my claim.

        Insurance Agent (Michael Palin): Oh well, Reverend Morrison ... in your policy..

      • Put in context, it quite clearly indicates to me at least that they only care about uploading and downloading of movies. Of course, it doesn't mean that the rest of the terms of service aren't also very restrictive and perhaps the "unlimited" in the name is misleading.

        I think it clearly says "This is how we're going to structure an incredibly misleading add compaign". It's an attempt to sell an 'unlimited' service with a contract giving them the right to restrict said service in pretty much any way they w

      • It doesn't rule out using the connection for general web browsing and email, which is probably all that 95% of their target market want anyway.

        This is broadband we are talking about. If the target market is just browsing the web or reading email why would they need broadband? Before I had broadband that's all I did, and it was plenty fast enough.

        I think what bothers me the most is that they don't specifically limit the illegal grey area and instead broadly ban everything. What if I were watching mov
      • It's lazy grammatical translation on the part of the slashdot submitter and editors.

        Didn't read the license did you? It clearly stated...

        By reading this far, you irrevocably agree to all the text that follows.

        If you don't like the translation or the editing you should complain before you read it.

      • Re:Verizon TOC means "do not use" (Score:3, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        No, grammatically it means that you may not use the service for any transfer (downloading or uploading or streaming) of three things: movies, music, or games. If "music" and "games" were verbs, then it would mean grammatically what you claim, but as nouns, syntax requires that the verbs apply to all three nouns to prevent the list from being unbalanced. See the final "simple parallelism" example on the LEO: Parallelism [stcloudstate.edu] page for more proof. The LEO example is constructed so that most people would agree th

      • Re:Verizon TOC means "do not use" (Score:2, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Quote: "or any other machine-to-machine applications".


        That seems to me to rule out absolutely any form of IP traffic, since it is not possible for humans to transmit IP without a machine to encode/decode it. You can't operate a morse key fast enough to send broadband. The prohibition of more specific activities like downloading music is superfluous.

      • But you can't use it for email - if one spammer sends you an image in an email or a bit of midi you've breached the contract by downloading your email

        Alan
      • as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections

        And I suppose that means we shouldn't use IM instead of the phone, or going out to see people.

  • Scaled Composites VIPs incomplete! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rsw ( 70577 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @07:45PM (#9524084) Homepage
    Conspicuously missing was Chuck Yeager. Why wasn't he invited!? He's the original badass test pilot!

  • I refuse to buy virus software for a cell phone (Score:4, Insightful)

    by craXORjack ( 726120 ) on Thursday June 24, 2004 @08:30PM (#9524302)
    an Australian company has released "The Worlds First" anti-virus software for mobile phones to fix the recent 'Caribe' virus and attempts to prevent future exploits.

    I will not be dragged into yet another scam where I constantly pay to patch up problems that should not exist in the first place. If my service is interrupted by a virus my phone company had better release a firmware update to fix it or I won't be paying the bill. If they cut off my service for not paying for a phone that can't be used then all that will have happened is that they lost another customer. I can easily live without a cell phone.

  • Extortion (Score:2, Insightful)

    by zelurxunil ( 710061 )
    (The linked story is less clear about whether Olsen will eventually be able to make the trip; in it, a spokesman for Space Adventures
    denies that this rejection precludes Olsen's flight.)

    Translation:Doesn't preclude the flight, just makes it cost Olsen a couple more roubles.

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