Posts by klh

Dilettante dev wrote rubbish, left no logs, and had no idea why his app wasn't working

Re: Best plan

And after one experience with that at one job I sign all my commits and turn on checks for that everywhere.

Nextcloud cries foul over Google Play Store app rejection

Re: Google has no real developer support channel

You don't really think _someone_ is testing anything in the Play store, right?

37signals is completing its on-prem move, deleting its AWS account to save millions

Re: I have this Debian server at home...

Not every os needs to be rebooted for updates though, live patching (including kernel) has been a thing for ages.

Sudo-rs make me a sandwich, hold the buffer overflows

Re: Another day, another attempt to force this on us

Trying to apply C++ ideas to Rust won't work, as evidenced by your last paragraph. Rust doesn't do exceptions, the default behavior isn't to terminate - that's only supposed to happen in case of irreversible bad state.

Acting like C++ with all the unnecessary shit it has is a requirement to develop large/GUI applications tells me you are not really arguing in good faith here.

Chimera Linux ghosts RISC-V because there's no time for sluggish hardware

Cross compilation of complex software with all the dependencies is a mess sometimes. For a small team its often more efficient to just eat the longer build time than debug issues with cross compilation.

Ubuntu 25.10 plans to swap GNU coreutils for Rust

Re: License

For someone who tries to point out an apparent cult like behavior in people who care about FOSS, your incoherent babbling looks suspiciously close to a conspiracy theorist rant.

And if you think putting your code online with no license at all is anything more than wasted bandwidth then you only show you are too ignorant to participate in this discission.

Linux royalty backs adoption of Rust for kernel code, says its rise is inevitable

I wonder if COBOL programmers behaved like C ones are today.

Critical PostgreSQL bug tied to zero-day attack on US Treasury

Clickbaity

Kind of clickbaity title. _Technically_ true since psql is part of Postgres, but nobody with a sane setup has to run and deploy the bugfix.

Piping output from a PHP script into psql has to be the stupidest way to pwn yourself I've seen in a while.

Re: Exposed psql?

That would give you arbitrary code execution on the machine you are running psql on. Not very useful.

Stargate, smargate. We're spending $60B+ on AI this year, Meta's Zuckerberg boasts

Re: Someone should train a LLM on Trump's decrees

That's literally what LMMs are trained on. Garbage in, garbage out - you'd get an ExecutiveOrderGPT with output similar in "quality" to the original.

Google's 7-year slog to improve Chrome extensions still hasn't satisfied developers

Re: Chrome

I wouldn't call Servo a derivative of Gecko, afaik they are writing new stuff. Some of that stuff ended up in Gecko, but the you either have a cyclic dependency or at least a reversed one :)

Mixing Rust and C in Linux likened to cancer by kernel maintainer

Re: "it would suck"

Kernel afaik uses no_std, so it doesn't need to abort on OOM

Oracle starts laying mines in JavaScript trademark battle

Re: Unpopular opinion here

Go learn some history before accusing anyone of stealing anything.

The naming was on purpose and with Sun's blessing.

What happens when we can’t just build bigger AI datacenters anymore?

Re: Better algorithms?

DeepSeek, as most of these models, is not Open Source.

Where does Microsoft's NPU obsession leave Nvidia's AI PC ambitions?

> We don't expect it'll be long before beefier NPUs make their way into desktop silicon.

Please let the bubble burst before this waste of silicon infects desktop chips. If anything, NPUs should be add-on cards, that's kind of the whole point of a desktop.

Copilot invades Microsoft 365 Personal and Family for an extra three bucks a month

Re: Path to profitability

I agree that MS provides a convenient option, but I can't understand how people didn't jump ship when they "modernized" the UI at some point while LibreOffice had an actually familiar interface.

Granted, MS fought very hard by making docx files hard to work with, but 90% of the population never used the features that didn't work.

MS users are doing it to themselves, even if alternatives are free, easy to find and better.

Intel, AMD engineers rush to save Linux 6.13 after dodgy Microsoft code change

No code ever should be merged without review, I wonder how that even happened? I thought Linux had a pretty strict review mechanism.

Linus Torvalds offers to build guitar effects pedal for kernel developer

Re: principles of circuit different from tracing the circuit

To be fair, some PCBs _are_ art :)

Fining Big Tech isn't working. Make them give away illegally trained LLMs as public domain

Re: Small thinking

It's probably hybrid in the sense that the LMM parses the conversation but search is done using conventional means based on what the model gathered from the chat? That would be a sensible approach and what LMMs are generally good at.

The popular "write me an essay" LMMs are not able to do that because of the way they are built, that information is lost during vectorization, otherwise they'd have to annotate every other word. They don't persist knowledge, just linguistic probabilities.

Here's a list of thousands of artists Midjourney's AI is ripping off, creatives claim

Re: I don't think copyright law can handle this...

I know the comment is old. But licenses are based on copyright. And the default is you have no right to do anything, then the license grants you some more or less limited rights.

If you are not allowed to resell or give away the work or derivative works it doesn't have to specify exactly that you can't train an LLM using it.

Arch Linux installer now slightly less masochistic

Re: Dumbing down

> That shell isn't an available option right now because I'm in the installer

Not to take anything from arguments for TUI vs script, but you have 6 other virtual ttys available.

Panasonic brings its founder back to life as an AI

Re: "making the AI necessary"

BS language models aside, I bet they already have shrines to the guy given the culture around business in Japan.

Microsoft 365 Copilot trips over angle brackets, frustrating coders

I'd venture a guess that this is worse and it's the opposite of sanitization. Maybe it's understanding everything past < as the contents of an XML tag? Wouldn't be surprising if the tech around LMMs regressed like that.

Will passkeys ever replace passwords? Can they?

Re: Count me out

This. I don't understand why people still think this is a good idea. The whole point of 2FA is something I know and something I have - I was sure passkeys would give people an alternative to a hardware token, not replace passwords. While a passkey can't be phished, making it replace the password makes unauthorized physical access so much worse.

It's like having an SSH or GPG key without a password.

Though the "I lose the device and I lose access" part is already solved - put the passkey in a password manager that's synced (or in case of hardware keys have a second one).

Rust haters, unite! Fil-C aims to Make C Great Again

Re: A nice personal project, but...

Just use Go at that point, it's probably going to be better.

Slight correction, the guy who named it after himself apparently did it on company time/hardware and one of the rather litigious corporations owns the full copyright.

The irony of mentioning that after recommending Golang doesn't escape me of course :)

Google Gemini tells grad student to 'please die' while helping with his homework

Re: What Kind of Illogical Idiot ...

If the Skynet we were promised turns out to be an LLM I'll be severely disappointed in the human race. Beaten by an overengineered grammar engine.

Photoshop FOSS alternative GNU Image Manipulation Program 3.0 nearly here

Re: Another chance

Every time I ask someone complaining about GIMPs "badly designed UI" how is it badly designed, they either don't know or turns out it's just not Photoshop.

Care to break that streak?

Mozilla's Firefox browser turns 20. Does it still matter?

Like there is a difference. Edge is just Chrome with some Copilot shoved down your throat.

Thanks, Linus. Torvalds patch improves Linux performance by 2.6%

Re: It shows indeed

That lol hurts, it hurts deep

Bitwarden switches password manager and SDK to GPL3 after FOSS-iness drama

I was fully expecting another bait and switch when I read the original news. I was considering migrating to it before, now they have a paid customer.

An awful lot of FOSS should thank the Academy

Re: bit hypocritical?

> and by pure English definition of "open" and "source" they may be right.

By pure English definition "blender" is a person or a thing that blends, hence people expecting the software to make smoothies may be right?

Admins better Spring into action over latest critical open source vuln

How does an application-contained vuln that only affects static resources and requires an uncommon set of settings get a 9.1? Heartbleed got a 7.4.

Even CVE scores are not safe from inflation :D

Huawei's farewell to Android isn't a marketing move, it's chess

Re: Can't understand the apps

The issue starts when companies start forcing apps down your throat. Bank? App. Electronic access to public services? App. Everything else - there is a website, but it barely works and will nag you about an app on every page

Microsoft says more ransomware stopped before reaching encryption

Maybe MS should stop calling SMS a real 2FA solution.

Passkeys are still software, while they might be better than passwords since they can't be easily phished or written down on a post-it, they don't replace real 2FA (not to mention they can't be transferred between vendors yet, so a nice way for MS to make sure you keep using Edge)

Epic judge orders Google to let rivals set up app stores

Re: "permit third-party Android app stores to access the Google Play Store's catalog"

Issue of paid apps aside, did Apple get such a requirement?

Seems weird since even hosting the apks is definitely not free. Do they need to provide an API? How about updates? I'd rather be able to have a say where my app ends up given unhappy users will blame devs and not the store (as they already do with the mess that is Play Store sometimes).

Feel free to ignore GenAI for now – a new kind of software developer is being born

Re: "Programming should be easier"

What a load of crap. You don't need to stop everything and send people home to write code that doesn't introduce new bugs when you are fixing a bug. Have you not heard of version control? TDD?

Take some pride in your work instead of folding and doing whatever the suit with no clue says they want. I pity your coworkers.

Ellison declares Oracle all-in on AI mass surveillance, says it'll keep everyone in line

Not taking away from the general point, I wouldn't call an 80yo fart a "tech bro".

More like a tech dinosaur trying to earn as much as he can at the cost of a future he's not going to live anyway.

Cloud computing hits the nuclear button amid energy crisis

Re: The New Nuclear Apocalypse

Not defending the pointless LMM craze, but what safety problems?

Re: Pros and cons of nuclear

If the alternative is opening more coal plants, plugging our ears and screaming "green coal" then what is there to talk about?

Until battery tech gets vastly more efficient (and less destructive for the environment) fully renewable solutions won't be able to provide base load for the grid.

Who in their right mind calls natural gas renewable or green? It's neither.

Re: Dogs wag tails

Not only unaffordable but also useless in most places they are pushed

How to maintain code for a century: Just add Rust

I would hope he didn't actually read the coreutils code while making the Rust version. That would make it a derivative work.

Re: Huh?

Have you never worked in a company with directors? They are so far from development it doesn't matter if they know the specific language used - they don't make decisions at that level.

Re: The delicious promise of open source software is eternal life :o

That benefit is sadly one of the primary reasons FOSS maintainers burn out.

Also there should be forced audits, you'd be surprised how many times even senior programmers don't bother checking licenses and put (A)GPL code into proprietary software.

Is Teams connector retirement a tweak to fit EU laws, or a sign of price rises to come?

Re: Frack you MS

Did they really replace generic webhooks with a web based no-code thingy? My expectations were already low, M$ somehow still found a way to make it worse.

Smartphone is already many folks' only computer – say hi to optional desktop mode in Android 15 beta

Re: Naw, Ubuntu failed on phones for other reasons

The cross platform widgets thing is kind of solved with the Suru QQC2 style on UT - it's just a QQC2 theme so the app can mostly work across desktop/KDE/UT with the same GUI. Sailfish is still doing it's own thing on an even more ancient version of Qt than UT (5.6 vs 5.12, both not officially supported anymore).

But yeah, Canonical not playing nice with others is the reason most of their ideas fail to be adopted (upstart, mirserver, snap) even if technically they aren't that bad.

Ubuntu Touch has had wired (MHL and USB-C alt mode) and wireless (Miracast) "desktop mode" since like forever. You also don't need any kit since the phone display becomes a makeshift touchpad/keyboard.

Pretty useful on the go since most hotels have Miracast-enabled TVs.

Coders' Copilot code-copying copyright claims crumble against GitHub, Microsoft

Re: I think the Judge made some fair points

Mentioning that an LLM "learned" anything invalidates the argument.

Apple tells emulator developers it's OK with retro games – not entire OSes

Re: Not about security per-se

Bold of you to assume you can speak for every Apple user out there. Not only are you repeating Apple's poor excuses, but also for some reason think people love the corporate policies so much they want them in their personal lives too?

No thanks, I can think for myself, I don't need the OEM to tell me what I can and cannot do with hardware I pay for. And if you prefer someone to think for you, nobody is forcing you to use other app stores or install software from the web.

Btw you realize that a sandbox is the only thing keeping you "safe" while you browse the web, right?

What do CTOs hate most about GenAI? Tool changes that break stuff

Re: Tool changes that break stuff

Planning is all waterfall is good for. Keeps management busy and thinking they are productive. And then comes the execution and the realization that half of the plan is backwards and none of the timelines are realistic. A year later the project is over time, over budget and needs to be planned again because market changed and it needs different features.

Though the religion of scrum is not better :)