>
> but sometimes such guys need to be analysed and weighed in public so that
> innocent people/ students do not take them as their role models.
True.
``we must be very careful when we give advice to younger people;
> sometimes they follow it!'' -- Edgar Dijkstra
Nice one :-) and very apt in this context.
i guess Dijkstra was always the best at giving the best ``path" :-)
i know i know poor joke, but i couldn't resist it :-)
Regards,
- vihan
Hi all,
Those of you who are slashdot regulars probably know this but those
who don't :
Hans Reiser the author of the ReiserFS file system is going to give his
plea(guilty/not guilty/manslaughter .....) today(actually tonight as its in
California) over the charge of his wife's murder. You can check the
Wikipedia page for the whole story :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Reiser
i'm sorry for such a horrible post, but i guess people ought to know. By all
accounts this is the most morbid and macabre post ever on this list. Never
the less, people have to know.
Regards,
- vihan
----- Prashanth Mohan <prashmohan(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> ``we must be very careful when we give advice to younger people;
> sometimes they follow it!'' -- Edgar Dijkstra
> [Source:
> http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD03xx/EWD340.html]
> - --
Interesting, thanks for the link.
Rephrase: I will request my students to apply their own mind regarding whatever I or Mr fadia has to say.
--
Sincerely
Ajay Pal Singh Atwal
Dept of CSE & IT
BBSBEC, Fatehgarh Sahib
Punjab, INDIA
--------------------------------
http://www.bbsbec.ac.inhttp://www.ajaypal.com
--------------------------------
ajaypal[at]bbsbec.org,
ajaypal[at]acm.org
----- Vihan Pandey <vihanpandey(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyway, Fadia is more about network security stuff(so is portrayed) he
> has
> NEVER(again to the best of my knowledge) tried to tell people about
> the real
> ethics in using Free Software or about how its so important to build
> a
> society based on Freedom, or the dangers of DRM and software patents.
> Why do
> we even bother with such people?
but sometimes such guys need to be analysed and weighed in public so that innocent people/ students do not take them as their role models.
--
Sincerely
Ajay Pal Singh Atwal
Dept of CSE & IT
BBSBEC, Fatehgarh Sahib
Punjab, INDIA
--------------------------------
http://www.bbsbec.ac.inhttp://www.ajaypal.com
--------------------------------
ajaypal[at]bbsbec.org,
ajaypal[at]acm.org
> Friends,
> A few months after Prabhat gave us that simple news clip about A Fadia,
> and
> after the long round of nationwide discussions that we had, it seems that
> we
> are trying to communicate with someone who (a) doesn't listen and (b) is
> not
> interested to listen.
>
> Reliance Web World attempted to launch Ankit Fadia through some back door
> activities at Thrissur, but it flopped. In his regular and customary
> style,
> Ankit arrived late, cut short questions/answers session (he usually does
> it
> everywhere) and this time around he even cut short his talk to just 10
> minutes.
> The ill-informed Reliance Web World executive was seen accusing the
> organisers
> for the drop in attendance - they never could realise that students are
> wiser
> than Fadia and could had deliberately chosen to abstain from such
> gimmicks.
Typical, he pulled that one at Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology(Nerul,
Navi Mumbai) a couple of years back as well. Only then he ``refused" to
answer some questions on the grounds that it is unethical to reveal cracking
techniques in public.
Fadia shows undue haste in theorising with what would otherwise be pure
> exceptions - which is a bad academic practise - an action that portrays
> his
> Stanford University (where Google was born in 1996) in a bad light. He
> also
> relies heavily on the weaknesses of proprietary systems, which, by
> default, do
> not have any Road Map to the various freedoms enlisted by Free Software.
In all honesty, isn't entering an Ivy league school these days more about
$$$, a well polished resume/SoP and hearsay recommendations and sometimes a
triumph in mediocrity award by the government rather than REAL merit. i mean
i've only seen one or two people till now going there with REAL expertise,
via either just doing practicals properly in college and at home, and/or
then contributing to a technology(again via the Free Software development
methodology) and publishing a REAL paper at a REAL venue. No offence to
anyone who has gone to an Ivy league school, and let me also clarify i have
the highest respect for most of them ;-)
Anyway, Fadia is more about network security stuff(so is portrayed) he has
NEVER(again to the best of my knowledge) tried to tell people about the real
ethics in using Free Software or about how its so important to build a
society based on Freedom, or the dangers of DRM and software patents. Why do
we even bother with such people?
Regards,
- vihan
Friends,
A few months after Prabhat gave us that simple news clip about A Fadia, and
after the long round of nationwide discussions that we had, it seems that we
are trying to communicate with someone who (a) doesn't listen and (b) is not
interested to listen.
Reliance Web World attempted to launch Ankit Fadia through some back door
activities at Thrissur, but it flopped. In his regular and customary style,
Ankit arrived late, cut short questions/answers session (he usually does it
everywhere) and this time around he even cut short his talk to just 10 minutes.
The ill-informed Reliance Web World executive was seen accusing the organisers
for the drop in attendance - they never could realise that students are wiser
than Fadia and could had deliberately chosen to abstain from such gimmicks.
Fadia shows undue haste in theorising with what would otherwise be pure
exceptions - which is a bad academic practise - an action that portrays his
Stanford University (where Google was born in 1996) in a bad light. He also
relies heavily on the weaknesses of proprietary systems, which, by default, do
not have any Road Map to the various freedoms enlisted by Free Software.
CK Raju
India
============
"The more you attribute to Non-free software,
the less you retain in yourself."
----------------------------------------------------------------
This message was sent using NWebmail, BSNL's Webmail Program
> Management Development Institute, Gurgaon, where RMS delivered a lecture
> during his last visit, has migrated their network from Windows to
> GNU/Linux. I am not sure whether this was a result of the talk, but I
> know that their IT department had taken a serious interest in the talk
> and had even arranged a lunch with RMS. Several students have had Ubuntu
> GNU/Linux installed on their laptops.
Sounds good. But i hope they did it for both ``social AND technical reasons"
rather than ``technical" reasons alone.
Incidently, if anyone has any inside information about this place, as to why
they decided to switch it would be nice to hear about it. i know, there are
migrations happening all the time, but its always interesting to hear the
story behind them.
Regards,
- vihan
I have been a long time fan of John Walker's http://fourmilab.ch site.
When I recently checked it, a few new pages had come up:
[1] The funniest thing I have read in recent times is about this source
of "corruption":
http://www.fourmilab.ch/documents/corrupted_downloads/
[2] John Walker has released the source code for the "Home Planet"
program. This program is in the public domain, and if anyone could
release a suitable Gnu/Linux version of it, that would be nice. The
windows binaries of Home Planet released and found at the site could be
used with wine. More info at http://www.fourmilab.ch/homeplanet/
-Ramanraj K
Hi,
I just have a fundamental question on Free Software.
We define Free Software as a software that gives the four fundamental
freedom to it's users. But what is the definition of "Users"? Let me explain
my question better by giving an example.
Let's say a school hires a bunch of programmers to write a program that
restricts students to do certain tasks on the school computers. The
programmers write and release the software under GPLv2. It is released only
to the school administration and not available to the students or to the
general public. The school goes ahead and installs it on all school
computers. Of course, whoever is the administrator for the school, he will
have access to the source of the program and so he/she can modify to
relax/tighten the restrictions in future if needed. So essentially, this
particular "User" has all the four freedoms.
But are the students, who actually use that program on those computers
entitled to the source? Can they also modify that program to circumvent the
restrictions? Or do we not consider them as "Users" of that program and
hence decide that they are not entitled to all the four freedoms?
If students are also entitled to the four freedoms, then how can we use
GPLv2 license to develop any kind of software that restricts the
capabilities of some users?
Thanks and Regards,
Viswanath