Posts by Doctor Syntax

Linux devs open up universal Ubuntu Snap packages to other distros

Re: A new standard for packages?

"I'm wondering if one could set up a very minimal Linux distro and then install all of one's applications as snapped packages?"

Canonical were there ahead of you. It's called Ubuntu core.

Re: What is the advantage of snap over static linking?

The other side of the coin is that dynamic linking introduces dependency hell (Windows users will be familiar with the DLL equivalent) when trying to use something that wasn't in the distro. Compiling WonderPackage requires some library at a later version than the distro. Installing that version promptly breaks the distro.

A current solution to this is to install the package and its dependencies in /opt. I currently have several such examples. Snaps seem to combine the principle of this approach with the isolation of Qubes. Now if we could see this extended to controlled access to files...

Re: Red Hat

Why the joke alert?

Re: Interesting?

"I just can't keep up with events."

It gets worse as you get older.

Re: Interesting?

"Still work in progress, but looking pretty good"

Apart from the Windows 10 part.

" I can't honestly see much advantage for things like Libreoffice. I've no real desire to get the very latest bleeding edge version"

Currently Debian LTS is on LO 3.5. The current stable, not bleeding edge, version is 5.1. I'm not sure of the distro verison of QGIS but it might be around 1.7 and the current stable version is 2.8, bleeding edge 2.10 last time I looked. So there's some merit in ignoring distro versions of packages like that where there are stable versions which the distro maintainers are ignoring.

Russian government hackers spent a year in our servers, admits DNC

Re: Why not just keep running the server and fill it with misinformation?

Shhh.

Re: Careful what you wish, you may regret it! Careful waht you wish, you just might get it!

'I don't think this was what the electorate had in mind when they said they wanted "more openness and transparency" from the government'

And when a government talks about openness and transparency it's the electorate's stuff that's to be open and transparent, not theirs (except to state-sponsored APTs, of course).

Apple nominated for Internet Hero of the Year, Donald Trump for Villain

I'd have thought Ignoramus of the year would have been a better category for Trump.

This is how the EU's supreme court is stripping EU citizens of copyright protections

Re: I don't fully understand...

'Your argument (possibly made more in hope than expectation) is "Not illegal. Because internet."'

Can we please distinguish between the internet as a whole and the WWW? That's an important distinction to make because hyperlinks are how the web works; no hyperlinks, no web. Every page on The Register has loads of them. So can we get rid of the notion that hyperlinks in themselves are illegal or a breach of copyright?

We then have to consider some of the areas of complaint. One is the row about deep linking. One site publishes content. Another has a link to that content. First site complains that its content is being "stolen". As above, hyperlinks are how the web works. If you don't want people to link to it, don't publish it on the web. Possibly the context in which the deep-linked material is presented is intended to deceive the viewer into thinking that it was the second site's work. In that situation there may be a case to answer but it's a case about the deceptive presentation, not the link itself.

The other is material uploaded and made in breach of copyright. That's the offence. A link to it is, in itself, no more than a statement of fact. To go beyond that you have to look at the circumstances in which the statement is made.

Take an example: You tell me that you're looking for a good picture of a sunset. I find a really cracking example on the web and email you a link. It turns out that the picture was actually a third party's picture, uploaded in breach of copyright but with no indication that that was the case. All I've done is make, in all innocence, a factual statement as to where you can find what you were looking for.

If someone is publishing a list of links to such material in a context where there's a clear implication, if not an outright statement that the material is hooky then secondary liability comes into play but it's not the links themselves that are the problem, it's the context which forms an incitement to commit further breaches of copyright that should give rise to secondary liability. What's more it's not the communication's being in the form of a list of hyperlinks that gives rise to the liability, the same liability arises from telling someone that there are stolen phones for sale in a particular pub.

Re: I don't fully understand...

"While at the pub, I hear someone saying they are looking for that film, and I tell him about the guy in the market. Am I violating copyright?"

No, but you might well be aiding and abetting fraud, depending, of course, on whether the stuff actually is hooky.

Re: Hyperlink

"What I can't decide is if this distinction makes it copyright violation."

I doubt it. In one case you're providing a URL which has to be copied into the browser, in the other you're providing a small bit of extra wrapping which allows the browser to automate the process. The information is the same, the presentation is different.

"A decision to put hyperlinks beyond the reach of copyright would place the European Union in breach of its Berne Convention obligations."

Really?

Let's take a real world example.

I copy a document that's somebody else's copyright. Unless I'm covered by fair use that's a breach of copyright. I post that copy somewhere public, maybe by displaying it on my front gate, maybe stick it on an advertising hoarding, wherever. That's definitely a breach of copyright.

Someone then spreads the word that there's a document there. Just that. It doesn't say what the document contains*. It doesn't say whether it's a copy of something that's somebody else's copyright. It just says that there's a document there. How is that, in itself, a breach of copyright? It's a simple statement of fact. Or is it even that? If I remove the document but the word is still being spread and is now erroneous.

*The name of the document in the link might be arbitrary, something like image_$1.jpeg or it migh hint what the document contains, something like elReg_vulture_icon.jpeg, but even that doesn't guarantee that the document actually matches the description.

12 years of US Air Force complaints lost in database crash

Re: A backup isn't a backup

Interesting. a downvote. Presumably from someone who doesn't mind their backup going up in the conflagration or being stolen.

Chubb used to tell a story about their fire-safes. The Co-op in Belfast stored their backups in one of Chubb's safes in their HQ, same building as the computers. When the building burnt down the safe fell several floors and jammed shut. Rather than wait for the locksmith to arrive and sort it out someone decided to use a torch to burn their way into the safe (fire safes are designed to resist fires, not oxyacetylene torches). The backups next to the opening were destroyed by the torch.

Re: A backup isn't a backup

"restoring to fresh hardware in an off-site location"

And making sure the test system is wiped afterwards.

The first time you try this you'll probably learn a good deal about making backups. In my case it was discovering that /etc was stored a long way into the tape. We rearranged the file system backup sequence so that restoration gave us what we needed to start the database restoration quite early in the proceedings.

Re: A backup isn't a backup

Also, a backup isn't a backup until it's removed from the system and securely stored at another location.

Re: They probably lost all the records from the

"system admins saying better backup procedures were necessary."

That assumes there were backup procedures. There's no mention of those in any of the reports and presumably none in the original statement. That raises the question as to whether there were any backup procedures at all. What will be really interesting is if someone manages to restore data up to a particular point in time some years ago. Then the hunt starts for the memo that said they should stop wasting money on taking backups that never get used.

Forget Game of Thrones as Android ransomware infects TVs

Re: Killing TVs, a step too far

"What could the manufacturer possibly do to protect you from yourself in that scenario?"

Not make provision for apps to be given admin rights.

Microsoft splashes Virtual Reality-slinging 'Scorpio' Xbox

Re: Bravo

I thought Elop had been let go? Maybe someone he'd mentored.

Imagination: Come back to MIPS, Wi-Fi router makers, we have an FCC ban workaround

Re: Not just "American geeks"

"It doesn't matter what the manufacturers want, what matters is what the regulators want."

And what do the customers want? An access point that reports back its location to some central surveillance system?

US plans intervention in EU vs Facebook case caused by NSA snooping

Re: The jist of this U.S. government intervention will be...

"Nice external investment from the U.S. you got there, Ireland."

The plaintiff is Schrems. Ireland only comes into it because of the external investment, in this case by Facebook. Ireland has to deal with the complaint because the ECJ told them to at an earlier hearing. It then told them they couldn't use on Safe Harbor by wiping it out. Ireland is simply piggy in the middle in this so why should the US come along and bully them? By the sound of this if it's trying to bully anyone it's the ECJ and maybe Schrems. Schrems appears to be looking forward to yanking their chain and courts don't take kindly to attempts to bully them.

Re: so?

You may be right. I don't think the court would be much impressed. It could make for some amusing cross-examination.

It looks like the panic's really starting to set in.

Microsoft and LinkedIn: What the CEOs are planning

Re: Wow, just WOW!

"Slurp finally got the windows 10 bullshit generator working!"

Finally? The bullshit generator is the first deliverable of any corporate project.

"total addressable markets (TAM)"

s/T/SP/g

Google doesn’t care who makes Android phones. Or who it pisses off

"Those computer makers OS were generally very simple boot loaders and/or language based systems (such as ROM BASIC). There was very little 'expertise' required and very few businesses had more than one 'platform'."

You have a very limited concept of what a computer is. Does OS/360 mean anything? VMS?

Re: EU/Ofcom could make itself useful?

Remember the most frightening sentence in the English language? "I'm from the government and I'm here to help."

Phone OEMs seem to be in the same situation with Google that PC OEMs have been with MS. They are entirely subject to the S/W maker's diktats and are vulnerable to the S/W makers moving into H/W any time they choose.

Back in the mists of time computer makers provided their own OS. It was an additional cost for them and an additional cost for customers who had to maintain the required expertise for each platform they had in the business. Commodity OSs solved that. CP/M in particular allowed a lot of startups to offer H/W. Eventually MSDOS & then Windows did the same but gave MS power to do as they liked.

Maybe the H/W manufacturers need to look at setting up a consortium to deliver OSs for both PCs and phones that they can shape to what they perceive to be the market's needs.

Microsoft's paid $60 per LinkedIn user – and it's a bargain, because we're mugs

Re: I'll never get the marketing people's valuations...

"If you have ever gone to manufacturer's websites to get data on products before making a considered purchase you have responded to advertising. If ten or twenty years ago you ever picked up a copy of e.g. Computer Shopper and waded through hundreds of pages of ads to find the best deal on X you have responded to advertising."

There's a huge difference between this and the usual crap being forced into people's faces. In the latter case the customer is actually looking for something. In the former the potential customer is simply being annoyed. And if that potential customer is anything like me they're not going to turn into real customers for that advertiser's product; they're going to buy from somebody who didn't annoy them.

All the other guff is just BS being fed by the advertising industry to their clients - the one group you can guarantee the advertising industry is successfully selling to.

This "we" and "you" that keeps cropping up in the article. Count me out.

Over Ireland? Bothered by Brexit? Find that new home for your cloud

Re: With the IPB coming, EU membership is less important to consider

"a final decision on the Investigatory Powers Bill"

Which will the one made when a case gets taken the ECHR or ECJ, not the one made in Parliament.

Let's Encrypt lets 7,600 users... see each other's email addresses

"No, the error was not testing it "

No. Both were errors.

Microsoft to buy LinkedIn

Re: I have a Windows Phone Fart App for sale

"We can do this without the bankers."

There's your mistake right there. Unless the bankers get their cut nothing happens.

Don’t let the Barmy Brexiteers wreck #digital #europe

"the fact that such people exist in enough numbers to be worth satirising is an uncomfortable thought."

What's more worrying is the number of people who haven't twigged that it's satire.

Re: fx comapny gb

PEBKAC

Developer waits two years for management to define project

Re: Management...

"Management and sales are two sides of the same valueless coin."

Management can contrive to be two sides of the same valueless coin without the assistance of sales.

I had a client where two directors had been given overlapping areas of responsibility. I can only assume that when the business was set up both had to be given titles to satisfy their egos but nobody could think of sufficiently separated roles for them. This lead to frequent shouting matches in the open office. Essentially these were territorial disputes and I think the only reason they didn't go peeing against desks & machinery to mark their territories was that they didn't think of it.

One of these disputes was how the job batching was to work on a new system. Each was insisting on their pet criteria. We ignored them and built a batching system in which every parameter we could think of could be selected and thresholds set. Neither of them could complain they hadn't got what they wanted which ended that particular dispute. We included a screen for adjusting all this in the shop floor user interface on the basis that the guys doing the work would have a better idea of what was needed in reality and installed it with some reasonable looking initial settings. I don't think it was ever touched again.

Re: Management...

"70% of the time passes before any development is even planned."

OTOH any developer worth his salt should be able to work out what they need fairly quickly and get on with that. The last 30% of the time can then be spent on working out how to persuade them that that's what they said they wanted.

Java API judge tells Oracle to suck it up, quit whining about the jury

I commend Judge Alsup's patience. In his position I'd have been tempted to rule contempt of court and bang a few lawyers up for a few months. Or years. And any Oracle execs within range.

"So what is KDE, Gnome or Unity then?"

KDE, Gnome and Unity are GUIs. KDE is relatively OS agnostic given a suitable underlying windowing system. Gnome these days seems to be increasingly tied in to systemd plumbing (I hope KDE manages to avoid this). Not sure about Unity.

"the nit pickers"

Nit picking? Different code bases to implement the same set of APIs! Does this remind anyone of anything?

FFS, Twitter. It's not that hard

"get a great design team"

First define "great design team". Taking a UI for any application and letting "great designers" loose on it never seems to turn out well.

Did you know there's a mega cybercrime backlog in Ireland? Now you do

“The next five years will see An Garda Síochána become a 21st Century police and security service"

A good aspiration - but they should have been saying that about 20 years ago.

Let's play: 'IT values or hipster folk band?'

"shouldn't El Reg have three Qs?"

Three Vs: vultures, venom and very bad puns.

No 10's online EU vote signup crash 'inevitable' – GDS overseer

Welcome to the land of continual surprise. You get here by not making any attempt at a realistic estimate of demand. For extra guidance speak to the experts, HMG.

PC market sinking even faster than first thought, thanks to Windows 10

Re: 4 out of 7 teapots would agree

"What have you got against CAPS?"

His employers can't afford them. They're spending too much money replacing functional kit because 3 years. Maybe he should take up CV polishing so as to be ahead of the game.

Microsoft has created its own FreeBSD image. Repeat. Microsoft has created its own FreeBSD image

Re: MS Linux?

FreeBSD is not Linux. FreeBSD is a Unix variant. Linux was a Unix-like OS, now rather less Unix-like.

Re: Embrace, Extend, Extinguish...

"a BSD-derived TCP/IP stack first appeared in NT 3.5"

And W95.

Re: They've done what?!

"my brain combined them"

You need medication...

DevOps is for all, says DevOps pundit-in-chief. He doesn't have it in for the BOFH, honest

Re: missed the point of BOFH

It's not even the people. The BOFH is angry as a matter of principle.

Oooooklahoma! Where the cops can stop and empty your bank cards – on just a hunch

Re: Don't get too excited

"Don't blame me, I'm voting for Gary Johnson."

At least you get a vote. The rest of us don't but we still get the fall-out.