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Moshe Bar on Programming, Society, and Religion
from the evolving-in-many-ways dept.
1) As a device-driver writer...
by Marx_Mrvelous
It seems like such a chore to write drivers that work on all distros since they all use different kernels. It seems to me that businesses only develop for windows because they are guaranteed that their drivers will work on all windows machines for X (4,5,6) years without any more work. Having experience writing Linux device drivers, do you think that a cross-distribution effort to standardize on kernel versions and guarantee major hardware manufacturers this compatibility would promote driver development in Linux?
Moshe:
I don't think a standardized kernel version across distributions is a) feasible business-wise b) necessary c) going to make driver writing any easier. Not that it is that difficult now. I also don't think that the various kernel versions among distributions is to be blamed for bigger (if really so) number of driver developers under Windows. Most drivers do not really create problems across the different kernel versions of the distributions, in most cases a simple recompile of the kernel module with the modified kernel headers is different.
On top of that, I really suspect that writing drivers across the many Windoze versions is far more difficult because each different Windows type (95, 98, ME, 2000, XP and what have you not) is really a different OS.
2) I have only one question:
by Baldric Dominus
Does Moshe have a son/daughter named "foo"?
Moshe:
Moshe does not have children yet. We do plan to fork() some children eventually, but have not yet made plans about their names. :-)
3) Different social groups
by CAIMLAS
As someone involved in many different activities, do you have cohesive social groups? That is, do the people from, say, your motorcycle-riding friends develop/use linux as well? I'm interested in knowing what your social ties are, being as it seems you are a fairly active individual.
Moshe:
The social groups of which I am a member of vary wildly, in part due to the fact that me and Ms. Bar have effectively two homes, one in Israel and one in Europe. Since Europe and the Middle East (ie Asia) differ quite substantially culturally and ethnically, I find the biggest differences lie therein. As to what concerns the various other groups (motorbikers, lawyers, business people, etc.) they do differ somewhat if on the same continent, but the diversity is actually something that attracts and intrigues me. A very typical motor-biker is not going to be a very typical kernel hacker, mostly. A very typical lawyer is not going to be a very typical Talmud student (although both study essentially just law and its practice), usually. However, I am not a typical member of any of these stereotypes (not sure if anyone really is). What unites them all is that they all do whatever they do with passion if they are good at it.
4) BitKeeper
by AirLace
Despite staunch opposition from certain developers, Linus has recently started to maintain the kernel using the non-free BitKeeper SCM product, which is not only proprietary but also uses undocumented file formats, making interoperability difficult or impossible. Do you think it's fair to encourage developers who would otherwise keep to Free Software to turn to a proprietary solution and what is in effect, shareware?
Moshe:
Nobody has to use bk to create patches or to send them to Linus. It is true that Linus is more likely to include them if they come through bk, but by far not all have adopted bk (Alan Cox being one famous such exception). I personally have switched to bk for my personal stuff, but I still don't much like the bk business model. The question is: would Larry lose money in any way if he was to open up bk completely? I don't think so. The other question is: would it be so difficult to produce a bk-compatible openBK? Don't think so either. If the community continues to adopt bk at this rate, sooner or alter, someone will come out with an openBK for sure. Welcome to the wonderful world of OpenSource!
5) As a device driver writer...
by dalutong
do you think that the Linux kernel should follow the same route as the Mozilla project. That being that when Mozilla reaches 1.0 the API will freeze and any plugins, applications that use gecko, etc. will be compatible until version 1.2 is out. Should the Linux kernel make some sort of standardized API for drivers so a driver that works with 2.4.0 will work for 2.4.20?
Moshe:
No, I dont' think so. The Mozilla API model is based on an old and mean-while superseded assumption: that writing software is expensive. In the OpenSource world having to modify a driver because something changed in the kernel, is an advantage not a disadvange, both economically and techically. Proprietary software goes at the tariff of US$ 50-200 per line of debugged code. No such price applies to OpenSource software. Additionlly, if the API changes it is for a good reason. Then why not letting your driver benefit from it?
6) Database Clusters
by emil
As a cluster guru, I am curious about your take on database server clustering in both the commercial and the open-source space.
First, it appears that IBM DB2 has been wiping the floor with Oracle on the TPC benchmarks lately, and Oracle "RAC" has been a flop. However, IBM is not using any hardware from its proprietary server lines, but instead relies on clusters of "federated" databases running on 32 standard PCs running either Linux or Windows. It does appear that Oracle still generally beats IBM in raw performance on a single system (as IBM refuses to post any non-clustered benchmarks AFAIK).
Do you think that any of the hype over either of these vendors cluster packages is worth attention? Do you agree with Sun's claim that TPC(-C) no longer has any practical relevance? It all seems to be getting rather silly.
Second, is there any push to make any of the ACID-leaning open databases (Postgres, SAP-DB, etc.) fault-tolerant, perhaps using Mosix? I assume this would require modifications to Postgres enabling it to access raw partitions. Have you had any talks with the Red Hat Database people about cluster modifications to Postgres, just out of curiousity?
Moshe:
There have been talks with the DB2, Postgres, SAP DB and various other DB technologies. All their proprietary clustering technologies (in particular DB2's and Oracle RAC's) are bound to show very poor scalability and TOC. In the openMosix model, you install *one* DB2 or *one* Oracle 9i on one machine and - assuming we have finished implementing Distributed Shared Memory, something which we plan to do - then the processes making up an instance can migrate away to other nodes and make more room for a larger DB block caching area. All that happens transparently to the RDBMS under openMosix because we implement the clustering layer within the kernel and therefore all applications, whatever they might be, benefit from it.
Under Oracle RAC, for example, you need to install the RDMBS on everynode being part of the RAC cluster. If you need to apply a patch and that process takes, say, 2 hours, then the whole patching downtime to the DB will be 2 hours x n nodes. Also, in openMosix we are soon goin to implement Dolphin support, allowing us to copy a full 4KB page from node to node within 14.4 microseconds. Something like Oracle will immediately benefit from the cluster-wide ultra-low latency. If not in kernel space, then every application vendor would have to write his own driver, possibly conflicting with other applications trying to do the same on the same machine. In short, doing clustering at the DB application level is essentially flawed.
openMosix does not handle High Availability, so I am not answering that part of the question.
7) Not about Linux at all...
by Dimwit
...but the article said pick anything. Since there are quite a few philosophers on Slashdot (and since I'm Jewish and this question gets a lot of thought from me, and when will I ever be able to ask again?) here's my question:
Do you see any reconciliation between science and the G-d of the Torah? What about between Science and any sort of Creationism at all? Do you see the possibility that science, as it approaches the moment of Creation itself, becomes more in tune with religion? I guess a big part of what I'm asking - do you see a place for (or proof of) G-d in science?
Moshe:
No, as much as I am firm believer in our G-d, I do not believe the two things can ever go together in harmony. We know the world created itself a few billion years ago and not 5762 years ago (according to the Jewish counting). We know that evolution is the culprit for that inexplicably destructive and increasingly contradictory thing called the human, the human was not made directly by G-d. Yet, the religious teachings really do make for a more peaceful and quality living if followed the same way by all people. In my view, religious belief and science do not negate one another on the philosophic level, but on the at-face-value level. The more you try to negate G-d the more you end up having to believe in something in its stead. Kierkegaard for all his trying to disprove G-d always came back to G-d. Camus' attempt to show that there is no G-d only shows how divine the emptiness is that is left behind once you eliminate G-d. Staunch atheism is ultimately only an active attempt at ignoring the question what is the divine if it is not G-d, not at answering it.
8) What area of law are you studying?
by gosand
According to the FAQ on your website, you are currently studying for your first law degree. With such a heavy technical background, especially in CS, I am curious as to what area of the law you are planning on going into. Is it a technology-related area? It would be nice to have some more technically-capable people in the law profession, especially those who are Linux friendly. Or is going into law just your way of making money for that early retirement?
Moshe:
I am studying law because at my age I already see how much faster younger programmers are than me. Back when I was in my early twenties nobody could beat me at programming. Nowadays, when I sit next to people like Andrea Arcangeli, I realize that programming, too, (even considering the advantage of experience) is for the young. Perhapes extreme programming, ie good quality, high speed programming, should be considered a sport and not an art or science or a skill. Since, I do not see myself being a programmer at 60 years (which is more than years from now), I deduced that I have to find a new job between then and now. Law is something that really goes well with progressing age. My area of law will be mergers/aquisitions, something that mainly bases on a wide-spread social network rather than talent or very intimate knowledge of the law. I do not actually intend to be a very good lawyer, just to be one.
9) Single Memory Space for openMosix
by Bytenik
Right now, as you've mentioned in the documentation, programs that access databases or shared memory do not derive any particular benefit from using openMosix.
Is there any work planned to enhance openMosix to support a single memory space among all nodes or to otherwise allow implicit sharing of memory? Is this what the "network RAM" research is attempting?
Implementing something along these lines in an efficient manner would hugely expand the range of problems that openMosix could be used to tackle.
Imagine being able to split a database transaction into hundreds of parts and run it in parallel on hundreds of openMosix nodes with a terabyte or more of combined RAM. The processes that share data would automatically migrate to the same node. Mmmmm good!
Moshe:
Network RAM is simply allowing mallocs or swap-outs to be done to the RAM of neighboring cluster node rather than to physical swap space on disk. In order to run databases under openMosix we will need to implement distributed shared memory. Due to the exceptional complexity of this project, I do not assume to have a valid implementation before the end of 2004.
10) IBM and Hercules?
by Jay Maynard
(I'm the maintainer of Hercules, an open source emulator for IBM mainframes that runs on Linux and Windows.)
You've mentioned Hercules in your column a couple of times, both quite favorably. Thanks!
One industry analyst from Germany has claimed repeatedly that IBM is getting ready to slap down Hercules with its lawyers, on the basis of some unspecified violations of their intellectual property rights. He's said that it's not just patent infringement, but refuses to go into exactly what else.
What effect would you think that taking such an action would have on IBM once the open source community finds out?
Moshe:
Hi Jay, long time no hear! I have heard similar rumours. If IBM is reading this: going against Hercules would be an extremely stupid move (not unlike the one by the asinine Adobe legal counsels against Sklyarov). Hercules only helps to sell more mainframes because as people familiarize with the Linux on the S/390 architecture, they will ultimately end up buying a mainframe to run their production workload. If you - as a vendor - want a particular computing platform to succeed, then you do everything possible to spread the gospel according to that platform. You don't go and destroy evangelists doing that for you. I use Hercules very often, and actually have an instance of Hercules running under Linux, with VM/ESA inside running Linux S/390 under it for about 3 months now. openMosix nicely balances the load across my 5 nodes cluster at home and I get very decent speed.
If IBM truly embraces Linux as just one of the members of the OpenSource family (rather than just Linux alone because it saves them billions in proprietary OS development) than it will not go against Hercules. If it does, then we all know that IBM is not serious about OpenSource and only taking advantage of it without really behaving like a good OpenSource citizen.
Moshe is... (Score:5, Funny)
Kierkegaard trying to disprove God? (Score:2, Informative)
About atheism (Score:5, Informative)
I believe that your comments were referring to what is called "strong atheism" which is an active disbelief in any god whatsoever, something distinct from agnosticism.
But, I think you're incorrect that atheists of any stripe ignore the question of what is divine, and fail to answer it. A strong atheist says that NOTHING is divine, and an agnostic atheist like myself says that nobody can show that anything is divine, so there's no reason to hypothesize it. That's a pretty direct answer to the question.
Re:About atheism (Score:4, Insightful)
Well done!
As Isaac Asimov said:
People act like the concept of God somehow requires one step more lightly, and less logically. How many people would say "I will neither believe, nor disbelieve, that there is an Easter Bunny until someone offers proof one way or the other"? Christians are quick to dismiss Norse gods, Roman gods, Mayan gods, Greek gods, and the gods of ancient Egypt (to name but a few examples). Yet there is no more evidence of the existence of the Christian God than their is for the existence of these other gods.
I am a modern man with logic and reasoning. I do not believe in all-powerful, invisible beings that turn people can be turned to pillers of salt, that someone put two of every animal on earth into a boat, or that someone parted the sea just because ancient people wrote down those claims 2,000 years ago.
Re:About atheism (Score:4, Insightful)
I guess that I should point out that I have a skeptical side as well. I do not agree to the second statement, for a couple of reasons. First, the burden of proof is on the person making the claim. If a god is claimed, I have no obligation to believe anything without support. Second, I do not think that it's necessary for an open mind. An open mind will conform to A), but I think that a skeptic with an open mind will not conform to B)
Re:About atheism (Score:4, Insightful)
1) we are mortal. We want to know that we'll be OK when we croak.
2) rulers like to co-opt religion for 'devine authority', because it reinforces their powerful position within society. Spiritual/ethical rule is much cheaper than physical rule. Bin Laden does explicitly. George Bush does implicitly. Technically, communist countries are not religious, but communism is not just an economic theory of production--in some ways it has to be so pervasive because it has to provide many of the same ethical underpinnings of religion.
3) provides a foundation for ethical behaviour, justice. Not all evil deeds/events are punishable, such as children getting cancer--this is a social escape valve because bad deeds are either 'God's plan' or bad dooers will be punished in an 'afterlife'. There are many 'injustices' in life but riots do not ensue b/c of people's belief in ethical/religious 'levelling' effects.
4) provide emotional support, because 'God cares about each and every one of you!!'
Religion performs such an important function in every society, it is not suprising that so many diverse societies have so many religious beliefs. Is there some indiginous society that doesn't have a set of religious beliefs? I don't think so. Religions are often diverse, but they all perform the same role.
Incidently, why do you keep that poor martian in your cellar?
Cheers,
-b
Re:About atheism (Score:4, Insightful)
Okay, at this point you're just playing word games. The point the earlier poster made about the psychology of religion seems pretty straight-forward:
I'm an average person. I look at the world, I see how things work. I don't have perfect knowledge, but through observation of the world around me I am able to continually correct mistakes in my understanding of the world. In short, I'm coming to understand, more or less, how things generally work.
But there's this problem. A lot of other folks believe in these other-worldly characters, some of whom (they say) have sentenced me to an eternity of torment because I don't believe in them. That's a pretty nasty claim, probably worth looking into.
After looking into it a bit, it appears to me (you have to make up your own minds) that these beliefs are most likely just a matter of wishful thinking and cultural influences. In short, the notion of a widespread need to believe in things like religion (regardless of whether it is a true description of the world) seems to fit my observations of the world more than the notion that any of these beliefs are true.
So, a psychological understanding of religion is helpful in trying to figure out what is going on in the world, but not out of some misguided attempt to disprove religion. I'm not influenced by any "strong interest in explaining religion through psychology", I just find it a useful indicator in my own quest at figuring out this world.
-Steve
Re:About atheism (Score:4, Insightful)
You don't understand the evidence for God, so it must have been pulled out of someone's ass. You probably need to study theology a little more before you can make such assumptions.
Re:About atheism (Score:4, Insightful)
I also happen to believe in evolution, all the way from single cellular critters to humans, whales, birds, and what have you.
I'm not, however, so blind that I'm going to say that it's a "fact" - because there's a good bit that we can't yet explain through it (consider just how freaking complex something like your eye is -- and where did it evolve from? Any creatures that had intermediate stages have apparantly been expunged from the world), and there's some pretty big freaking missing links involved. (I'll happily play devil's advocate against anyone who starts spouting creationism as a fact too... but they're often way too easy to shoot down).
A lot of religious scientists do reconcile the creationism/evolution discrepancies, and in a fairly rational way. God didn't make the universe in 7 Earth days, it's just an allegory. Note that in most versions of the bible Genesis has the creation of the animals in evolutionary order -- although I personally don't know if this is in the original texts or an artifact of translation. Similarly god nudged evolution in specific directions, or some even say that small scope evolution is inherent in every creature, but that those evolutionary paths were already available for it and they just needed the proper environment to become active (and when 97% of our DNA appears to be "junk" that has no real use, and we share 85% of our DNA with a zebrafish, it's pretty damn hard to definitively disprove the idea, at least from my limited understanding of genetics).
Even as an atheist, I have to admit that a certain few people have had a long lasting impact on our culture. Of course, this isn't solely limited to religious figures like Jesus and Mohammud, but also other political and military figures like Julius Caesar, Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan, Confucious (arguably religious), and so forth. But the religious ones seem to have had a somewhat higher impact. You may be able to explain that as humanity wanting/needing explanation and something greater than itself. But that's just as much of an explanation as belief in a higher being in the first place.
What it boils down to is that macroevolution is not proven, and people who wander around proclaiming that it is a cold hard fact are doing science and scientists a disservice. The Creationists are very much correct in stating that while you may not have a blind faith in God, you have supplanted that blind faith with another - the god of Technology and Science.
Re:About atheism (Score:5, Insightful)
Look at it this way: taking Occam's Razor into account, if the simplest explanation is usually the "right" one, with evolution, it's the simplest explanation for the information we have. I guess that's debatable, if you think that assuming the existence of a superbeing is simpler than assuming everything happened on its own.
As for whether or not god exists, is it simpler to assume the universe just exists, or to assume that not only does it exist, but it was created by a superbeing of some sort? Personally, I think the second option adds a layer of unnecessary complexity.
I'll agree with the original poster - In response to Moshe's comment about atheists ignoring or avoiding the question of what is the devine, my response is just that I never thought there was any devine. I don't know what that means. It's not part of my world view. If that's disgusting to some people, I'm sorry, but I just haven't ever had an experience that could only be described as devine, so I have no reason to consider the question. I'm not avoiding it, I'm saying that it's moot to begin with.
Closed mindedness (Score:4, Insightful)
A person with an open mind is a person who will believe in something if they have been convinced.
A person with a closed mind is a person who will never believe in something, no matter what evidence is presented.
If you believe in something even though existence cannot be shown, then that's not a virtue, that's a fault of discrimination. Following that rule means that a person doesn't use their logical and reasoning abilities to determine what is true or what is not true. The pursuit of an open mind should not be confused with filling that mind with any garbage that comes along. The burden of proof is on the person making the claim.
Re:About atheism (Score:5, Informative)
Agnosticism was a word coined by Thomas Huxley, as a play on the gnostics, who claimed special knowledge of God. Agnosticism is not a metaphysical statement like atheism is, it's an epistemic statement. In other words, it's not a statement about the nature of the universe or the existence of God; it's a statement about the nature of knowledge and the limitations on it.
An agnostic might believe in God. An agnostic might be an atheist. But in either case, an agnostic believes that knowledge on the subject is not possible. An agnostic believes that it is impossible to prove the existence of nonexistence of God.
Atheism and agnosticism are completely orthogonal. You can be a theistic agnostic, or an atheistic agnostic. From your statement above, you're not an agnostic, because your beliefs leave open the possibility of confirmation or disproof of God's existence, and that's exactly what agnostics don't believe are possible. Your description indicates that you are, however, a negative, or "weak", atheist.
Re:About atheism (Score:5, Insightful)
"That a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one. The happiness of credulity is a cheap and dangerous quality"
- George Bernard Shaw
Which even in an athiests view is the ultimate goal of an honest religioun.
Perhaps you shouldn't speak of all atheists. I'm a bit confused as to the notion of an "honest" religion which doesn't care whether or not what it's saying is true, so long as it makes people happy.
Programming for the young? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not trying to be a pompous ass, I'm just trying to say that there's more to software development than breakneck coding speed, stuff that only comes from years of experience.
Re:Programming for the young? (Score:4, Informative)
yes, the kids today have more raw stamina than someone of my age. but there's just no way they could have such a fine tuned understanding of the art of programming; and more important, seen enough of the 'world' to have an eye for what will work in a given situation and what wont.
not saying I want to move into management (yikes!) but more as a designer and less as a raw coder. isn't that pretty usual, these days?
Re:Programming for the young? (Score:4, Interesting)
A very good project manager with excellent knowledge, but that knowledge is a hinderance because of how much of the picture he knows.
I think of it along the lines of a lot of logic puzzles: There are many that the young (12 or less) can do in 5 minutes, but an adult will ponder for hours because they have too much experience to think about the problem properly. Too many options are available...
No stable API? (Score:3, Insightful)
An advantage to whom? Not to the user, who may have some obsolete hardware that they wan't to use with a newer distribution. If the driver branch hasn't been kept up to date, then since the API may not be compatible there's less chance of things working.
Cheers,
Ian
Its sad that people choose law over computers (Score:2)
I think he is very skilled (whether he admits it or not), and for my money the ability to create new, useful things is soooo much more valuable to society than deciding how to distribute existing resources.
In any event, I have to thank him for his past contributions. Thanks!
Cheers,
-b
Really? (Score:2)
I can hammer out about a thousand lines of code in an average productive coding day at my job. My employer pays about $55 an hour to keep my ass in the seat when all taxes and environmental (office, air conditioning, etc) is paid for. I know they make about $40 an hour on my work.
So then, if the client pays $760 to keep my ass in place a day, they are $49,240 short using your lowest estimate. Jeez.
I should also mention that those costs are canadian.
On creation and evolution (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, I reconcile creationism and evolution through a very simple statement.
It took God 7 days to create the universe. No one can presume to know how long one of God's days lasted. Plenty of time in one of God's days for evolution to occur.
No contradiction at all.
Shouldn't it have been "...child named baz" (Score:1)
>
>Moshe:
>
>Moshe does not have children yet. We do plan to
>fork() some children eventually, but have not
>yet made plans about their names.
The order goes foo, bar, baz. So the question should have been:
Is your parent process named foo?
Will your child process be named baz?
What? (Score:2)
What is G-d? (as opposed to just writing "God")
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What? (Score:4, Informative)
But they disagree on whether or not this same restriction applies to English words that refer to God. There's a famous story about Rabbi Joseph B. Soleveitchik (ztz"l), "The Rav", one of the most influential Orthodox rabbis of the 20th century: He visited a classroom in the school he was running, and observed that one of the teachers had written "G-d" on the blackboard. The Rav, in front of the students, wrote "GOD GOD GOD GOD GOD" all over the blackboard, and then erased it.
Also, even for the Hebrew names, if you're displaying the name on a computer screen, I don't think this rule applies. I think there are some people who would say that it doesn't even apply when you're using a printing press rather than holding a pen and writing.
But there are some who use "G-d" instead, either because they follow a stricter opinion or because that's what everyone else in their community does. Heck, there are some people who put dashes in the middle of English transliterations of Hebrew euphemisms for names of God. Go figure.
(Disclaimer: I am not a rabbi.)
Re:What? (Score:4, Funny)
L-rd
G-d
YHVH
Shocking, I know. When Our L-rd personally scribbled the Torah down on paper, He did it in Hebrew because that language doesn't have any of those temptation-inducing, voluptuous sounding vowels. After all, during fornication many people vocalize nothing but vowel sounds. Fortunately, since Y is only sometimes a vowel, it is allowed.
Why Our L-rd took went to the effort of personally appearing as a burning bush before Moses (when he could have just dropped him a note the same way he wrote the Torah) is still a mystery. Perhaps Moses was a skeptic.
FN-RD
Re:G-d & Un*x (Score:5, Funny)
From the Jargon File [tuxedo.org]:
Source: http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/UNX.h tml
A person's programming skills is like fine wine. (Score:1, Insightful)
1.)Mechanical aspect
2.)Poetic aspect
3.)Mathematical aspect
4.)Emperial computer knowledge
Wrap those up in a software package and you get a piece of art. Younger people are better at picking up the Mechanical aspect than the older people do, true. But, the mathematical/logical aspect comes with age as does the poetic style of programming, and the empircal computer knowledge.
Everyone here in my department who's over the age of 50 are the gurus when it comes to the code. They rely on us younger pups to debug their fresh math and engineering work. We come through and fix it up and then if it breaks we fix it. All along learning the deepest secrets the older wizards are "hunt and pecking" out with their keyboards.
So, until I'm around 50, I doubt I'm going to understand everything there is to know about the stuff they're working on here in my IS engineering department.
So, don't listen to people string all their "Owe, them youngins are too smart for me" crap. Better find a new job.
Device drivers (Score:2)
On top of that, I really suspect that writing drivers across the many Windoze versions is far more difficult because each different Windows type (95, 98, ME, 2000, XP and what have you not) is really a different OS.
The point is, you don't need to recompile under Windows. The same driver works under Windows 95, 98, ME (ok, sometimes not under 95), and often works under NT, 2000 and XP too. I can understand a driver not running under both kernels 2.2 and 2.4, but within the same major kernel version number, surely that should be possible and desirable? Recompiling isn't a thing you ask ordinary users to do, and distributing the source is often not something companies want to do, this should be simplified. I thought the kernel module versioning information was meant for this, but apparently it didn't quite work.
Didn't Johnny Cash have a song about ques.#2 ? (Score:2, Funny)
My bad.
distributed shared memory (Score:1)
I would just place a layer for the networked nodes between accesses memory and the memory itself. Make pointers 64-bit and create an object to access the memory that sends the request along to the correct machine. Maybe I'm stupid. probably. I just REALLY want to see this happen. I want my own cluster soon and I'd love to see this kind of added preformance. Clustering, right now, seems to only help with many processes, not much a boost for a single/low process (machine running only an X-server and Quake3 for example). Not that clustering wouldnt help me now, as i regularly have all six of my desktops filled.
bitkeeper (Score:4, Interesting)
I think Larry stated his opinion about this here [kerneltrap.org]
The other question is: would it be so difficult to produce a bk-compatible openBK? Don't think so either. If the community continues to adopt bk at this rate, sooner or alter, someone will come out with an openBK for sure. Welcome to the wonderful world of OpenSource!
If "the community" had produced anything better than CVS, bit keeper wouldn't exist, and Linus/Linux would be using it. Welcome to the wonderful world of OpenSource!
Is LINUX a machination of Satan? (Score:1, Informative)
Recently I've been introduced to an operating system known as Linux.
Lured by its low cost, I replaced Windows 98 on my computer with Linux. Unfortunately the more I use it the more I fear that this "Linux" may be an insidious way for the Dark One to gain a stronger foothold here on Earth. I know this may be a shocking claim, but I have evidence to back it up!
To begin with, Linux runs numerous background processes. These processes are usettlingly termed "demons." Furthermore in order to start or stop these "demons" a user must execute a command called "finger". By "fingering" a "demon" one excercises an unholy power, much the same way that the Lord of Flies controls his black minions.
Every file or directory created on LINUX systems has some permissions. The owner of a file can assign various permissions, allowing or prohibiting access to that directory or file.
When you make a new directory in LINUX, it automatically sets '666' as the permission level. Also, if you want to browse CDs in LINUX, you have to change
'666' in Linux means 'give myself permission, give groups permission, and give everyone permission'! I've HAD it with all this permissiveness!"
Also consider some of these other Linux commands: "sleep", "mount", "unzip", "strip" and "touch". All highly suggestive in a sexual
nature. I know that our Lord cannot approve of these, and I urge them to be renamed to something appropriate to the Christian community.
Fourth, Linux uses a flavor of DOS known as Bash. Bash is an acronym for "Bourne Again Shell". On the surface this would appear to be supportive of the Lord. However, remember that even Satan can quote the bible for his own purposes! While I believe Linux may be born-again, its obvious by the misspelling of "born" that its not born-again in an Christian church. Will the lies ever cease?
Additionally, one of the main people involved with the GNU Free Software Foundation supports contraception and abortion. His web site even advocates government support of contraception. He also wears fake halos, and has quips about his made-up church that relates to his free software. I find such blasphemy to be extremely unsettling.
One must also remember that the creator of Linux, a college student named Linux Torvaldis, comes from Finland. I'm sure all the followers of Christ are aware of the heritical nature of the Finnish: from necrophilia to human sacrifice, Finnish culture is awash in sin. I find little reason to believe anything good and holy could arise from this evil land.
Finally, let us remember that there is an alternative to using the Satan-powered Linux. I think history has shown us that Microsoft is quite holy. I'm told that its founder, William Gates is a strong supporter of our Lord and I encourage my fellow Christians to buy only his products to help keep the Devil at bay.
I wish I had more time to expound upon my findings. Unfortunately a family of Jews has moved in across the street and I must go speak to them of Jesus Christ before they are condemned to eternal hellfire.
Please investigate this as you see fit and I'm sure you'll reach the same conclusions that I have.
Incorrect statement (Score:2, Informative)
"We know the world created itself a few billion years ago and not 5762 years ago (according to the Jewish counting). We know that evolution is the culprit for that inexplicably destructive and increasingly contradictory thing called the human, the human was not made directly by G-d"
Actually, we scientifically don't know. because we have not actually witnessed it. We had a hypothesis which has become a theory. But we don't know. Remember, they knew scientifically that the Earth was the center of the galaxy for the longest time ( astronomically proved it with science too
Note Dictionary.com's definition [dictionary.com] of Theory. Especially items 4 & 6
Item 6: An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture
Also note that science ( in the past and somewhat now ) doesn't wish to say anything is absolutely certain unless an experiment can reproduce the behaviour, event or action. Creationism vs. Big Bang vs. ??? is a debate and no particular side is right as far as science is concerned. Personally, I believe in Creationism, others do not. Please Please Please people, before you must say that we all evolved or that the earth is millions of years old and that those who say otherwise are incorrect remember that you are no more correct than they as far as science is concerned ( and it's you using science to make the claims )
I am ready to receive the flames I'm certain I will get for my statement but I felt it necessary and felt it to be on topic
The problem with theists... (Score:1)
programming for the young (Score:1)
How long is the average lifespan of a productive programmer?
Why is this a short span of time compared to other engineers?
Why do most programmers move on eventually, only to be replaced by enthustasic but inexperienced neophites.
This seems to be a self fufilling death march of computing.
Science vs. Religion (Score:2, Insightful)
M&A Lawyer (Score:1)
Take it from an M&A lawyer - quit now before it's too late! While you can and probably will make a lot of money practicing law, (a) you will spend 10 years apprenticing to learn this area of the law, (b) intimate knowledge of the law IS required to be able to do a deal, and (c) if you are not very good, no one will let you do their deals. Worse yet, you will work obscene hours becoming a good M&A lawyer, which will leave very little time for programming or forking ANY processes, let alone a little foo, bar or baz. While going to law school was clearly the best financial decision I ever made, and while I enjoyed law school tremendously, actually practicing law takes WAY too much time. The thing to do, in my view, is invest the same effort you are putting in your legal studies in molecular biology, and then use your computer skills to become a computational biologist. It may not pay as much as helping people buy and sell companies, but I have to believe that, long term, it's a hell of a lot more interesting.
Kernel API stability (Score:3, Interesting)
I would very, very much prefer if the driver API were frozen at least for the "stable" kernel series. I don't really mind what happens in 2.5.x.
I understand and agree with Linus' philosophy that large-scale code breakages are sometimes required to force reluctant stragglers to adapt to a new, improved API. Just don't do this in a "stable" kernel series!
IMHO the world would also be a better place if binary-only driver vendors (read NVIDIA) had to target only one, stable kernel API. But feel free to disagree...
Device drivers (Score:3, Informative)
I completely disagree with the above statement. As a device driver writer with experience being involved in Windows, Mac, Linux, SCO Unix, AIX device drivers let me say that although Linux drivers are the easiest to write, they are the most difficult to support. A device driver that works for Windows 2000 can often work on Windows Me or Windows XP with no changes at all or at most fairly minimal changes. Under Windows you can have a single binary that runs on Win 98/Me, Windows 2000 and Windows XP. Under Linux you need a different binary for practically every different kernel. I have had Linux drivers break from kernel 2.4.x to 2.4.x+1 on more than one occasion.
There are lots of things to dislike about Windows or Mac device driver development but unstable API's is not one of them. There are lots of things to like about Linux driver development but API stability/driver compatibility is not one of them.
very interesting commentary, but... (Score:1)
Windoze? (Score:1, Funny)
Let's sort something out here (Score:2, Insightful)
2. There IS NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS. The writings of Christian theologians are not acceptable because of the conflict of interest, we need secular evidence as well. However, the only evidence Christians have provided is the writings of the secular historian Josephus -- and the parts of Josephus' writings which directly refer to Jesus or Christianity were discovered to be forgeries committed by theologians. Pick up a modern translation of Josephus from a secular source...it does not contain that passage anymore because scholars agree on its fraudulent nature. Other than that there is nothing.
3. There are all kinds of philosophies that do not depend on God for morality or ethics. Don't believe me? Read from the following authors:
David Hume
Frederich Nietsche
Immanuel Kant
Baruch Spinoza
John Adams
Thomas Jefferson
Mark Twain
Ayn Rand
Robert Pirsig
It's pretty clear that the existence of a supernatural entity which rewards or punishes people cannot be the basis for morality, actually. That's just coersion. Morality is when you do good because there's a logical reason for it, not because you've been threatened.
4. There is a terrific website at this location [holysmoke.org] that can address your questions and concerns about freedom from religion. While you're at it, I suggest you check out this one [jhuger.com] as well. May prove to be informative.
API's that don't change every release is BAD? (Score:2)
Er, it still costs time and effort to write and debug code, open source or not.
In the mean-time, your constantly changing API's prevent third party code interoperating with your own; you end up with alpha and beta Apache 2 for the rest of eternity, where mod_* only works once in a blue moon when the API versions happen to co-include. You end up with every browser release breaking all your plugins until the maintainers can catch up.
Am I missing something, or am I mistaken in the thought that modern software development has tought us to design well, abstract away details, and decrease coupling?
Missing the Point.... (Score:1)
Of course, there is the big question as to what qualifies as "divine". What I get from reading most atheists from Asamov to Sagan to Wilson is not ducking the question, but rather a very specific answer. You could call it a "WYSIWYG spirituality." There is this profound sense that the universe as it exists is so awsome, so beautiful, so shit-your-pants terrible and wonderful and amazing that there is no reason to look for a hidden man behind the curtain.
A lot of it boils down to how you define "divine". If you define divine as strictly the assumption that there must be another world, another plane of existence, another force of which this universe is just a shadow or playground, or test until the true kingdom of heaven is achieved, then no there is not a divine. On the other hand, if the "divine" is defined as something that inspires awe, reverence, beauty, terror, wonder, then there is nothing as awesome, worth revering, beautiful, terriful and wonderful than the universe as it IS.
Theists view atheism as a denial. I view my beliefs as an affirmation of the here and now, of the life lived, of the beauty around us.
How about deism? (Score:1)
>ignoring the question what is the divine if it is not G-d, not at
>answering it.
I wish Moshe could've commented on deism, which slips right through this argument without giving any more credibility to organized religions than atheists would give them.
To me, god isn't some being up there somewhere, but the unexplainable in general in which we see divinity. Maybe it's the laws of physics we haven't found yet, or the answer to life and the universe we haven't found yet. Whatever it is, it 's that something that can't be explained yet still intrigues and inspires us.
What I hate about organized religions is that they take that aspect of belief away from ordinary people. I should believe in the god I want to believe in; who are they to tell me what god to believe in or who's hell I'll go to? On the one hand, organized religions will tell you that god is personal, yet, on the other hand, they don't allow for personalized versions of god. You're given the "God" they came up with, and you believe in that or you go to Hell.
Why can't people just say "Here's my god, it's different to yours, but that's okay." Imagine how many less wars there would be, if people could simply accept the fact that people have different beliefs.
/. Interviews Moshe Bar. Theology Rules. (Score:1)
Fascinating. Slashdot interviews Moshe Bar - computer geek extraordinaire - about Linux kernel maintenance, openMosix, programming, oh, and theology. Theology consumes the discussions that follow. If you don't believe me, set your prefs to browse this discussion at level 2 (as I do) and compare the # of posts about Linux to the # about the existence of a supreme being.
Then consider the quality of the posts on both sides of the issue. I've seen few of these issues discussed at such length in the seminary I attend. Maybe I should direct some of my professors here for reference.
And people think geeks don't care about God. I know of no other group who could carry this conversation at this intensity.
Mozilla 1.0 API freeze is working out as planned. (Score:2)
This is not what is happening in practice. Now that 1.0 is out, add-ons are coming out like crazy. This is because developers frustrated with all the API changes up to now finally have an API that isn't a moving target to write against.
mozilla.org knew exactly what they were doing with an API freeze.
All Windows versions are binary compatible (Score:1)
Careful! The Moshe Bar userid is an impostor (Score:1)
I am Moshe Bar, the one interviewed in this article. I noticed that somebody created himself the Moshe Bar userid and posted several provocative, anti-american and down-right offensive comments.
That person is not Moshe Bar and pls do not attribute his or her comments to me.
In order to authenticate this posting, go see my accompanying posting on www.moelabs.com at http://www.moelabs.com/modules.php?name=News&file
Many thanks
Moshe Bar
www.moshebar.com
Re:Damn, I missed this one. (Score:3, Insightful)
1) Muy-shee
2) Moh-sheh
3) May-sheh
All with stress on the penultimate syllable.
The third is not nearly as common as the others.
Re:We know (Score:1)
Ram Bam.. on and on and on..
I know, you know, but in the end he has to explain it to everyone else while standing on one foot.
And any short answere sounds like apologetics, no matter how many times you point out that your evidence predates darwin.
Besides, Moshe isn't going to convince any athiests with a 10 quesiton interview on Slashdot.
Re:jESUS was a nonkey !! (Score:2)
One of the greatest leaders of the jewish people (no matter how controversial, especialy after his death) in recent years was Menachem Mendel Schnereson (and you thought it was hard to pronounce Moshe?) was once aproached by a man who came to him and said "Thankyour Rebbi, but I have to admit, I don't believe in god." to which he replied "The same god you don't believe in I don't beleive in either."
The moral of the story? Contrary to popular beliefe most of the world does not bleive that Jeasus has any devine nature. Nor does most of the world believe that G_d is an old man with a beard. Those who do believe that are free to do so, that's what makes the world great.
But you need to remember that to the majority of the world your idea of the god, and the reasons you don't believe, do not apply in any way to the rest of the world's faiths.
Re:God/Creation/Evolution (Score:1)
Re:We know (Score:2)
Seriously, I have to agree with you on that. Nobody running around today was around 4.6 billion years ago, or 5762 years ago, and any human who was around at that time didn't think to record the event. So the only resources we can depend on are religious scholars interpreting human writings from a Divine source, or scientific scholars interpreting a physical world from a Divine source. Either way, I think it is a perfectly fine way to do things.
And yes, I know I inserted my own "my belief is truth"ism in there, but too bad! I can be as pig-headed as I want, because I am writing on Slashdot!
Re:God/Creation/Evolution (Score:1)
Re:Too bad about the Israel Boycott question... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Unfortunate you think like this (Score:1)
Re:We know (Score:2, Funny)
Re:We know (Score:1)
That should either be "I believe the world...", or "We \"know\" the world...".
The world was created 5762 years ago. Believe what you want. If you can state your belief as fact, so can I state mine as fact.
Actually, I'd take issue with the phrase "the world created itself". I guess you could see it that way, but it boils down to the gravitational attraction between the particles that now make up the earth...but then you gotta figure how all those particles got there in the first place...
In any case, saying the world created itself sounds like the world knew what it was doing...or something crazy like that.
The issue is not so simple... (Score:1)
The issue is not so simple as "that's your call". People who say they believe in religion are using it to justify violence, as you can see on TV: U.S.-made Blackhawk helicopters given free to the Israelis by the U.S. government shoot at small targets on the ground.
The Jews believe in violence, effectively. No group takes its ancient books more seriously than the Jews. Their ancient books contain wisdom and also are filled with violence.
For 3200 years, the tribe now called the Jews has frequently been in conflict with surrounding cultures. Now Jewish-American support for violence threatens to plunge the world into war. Jewish-American support for violence encourages the worst qualities of the U.S. government. For more about this, see What should be the response to violence? [hevanet.com]
Re:Damn, I missed this one. (Score:1)
Re:It is such a sad day... (Score:1)
Addresses himself as 3rd person (Score:1)