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There is a reason why more or less all programming languages use braces (or keywords, or some other explicit construct) to mark blocks, rather than relying on whitespace.

That's because people who created all these Algol-derived languages hated FORTRAN column-fixed syntax, I think. And then it stuck :-) Read here or here.

A language's expressiveness determines its usefulness, and if you limit the former, you are also going to limit the latter.

Perl is "grown" as "there are more than one way to do it". Python is designed to be "there is one obvious way to do it" . It does not limit your "expressiveness", however - you can write ugly and unmaintainable code in Python.

...What do you think is more bug-prone? A one-liner in Perl or a 20-liner in C that has to go to lengths to reproduce the same behaviour that can easily be had in Perl?

I prefer 2-liner in Python. And it might be more understandable by somebody who've never seen python code before. The whole Python language is designed to be readable.

The fact that it's easy to write even relatively complex programs in Perl is *good*. A car may have more controls and take a bit longer to learn how to handle than a bicycle, but wouldn't you agree that in the end, a car is more useful/powerful/versatile than a bike?

Yeah! It's easy to write complex Perl programs. To fix and maintain them - that's the hard part. And "python car" is no less powerful than Perl truck :-)

In summary: I don't try to ditch Perl, I'm trying to convince you to overcome your "syntactic-whitespace-hate" and try Python a little more. See what Eric Raymond says ("Oddly enough, Python's use of whitespace stopped feeling unnatural after about twenty minutes. I just indented code, pretty much as I would have done in a C program anyway, and it worked.")

Speaking of myself, I used Perl for six years and recently switched to Python. It's typical - not many doing the opposite... That's why "it's the Python folks in particular who always ridicule Perl" - they usually know both sides :-)

Also, contact http://www.radioparadise.com./ The owner/operator was spotlighted in Linux Journal a few years ago about his control system, 100% homebrew, FOSS product. He might have quite a few tips for you.

Here's an interesting article that I read a few years back about an HF radio network in place in West Africa:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6299

Why forsake Mac OS X on a Mac, well think about non-desktop applications. For example the Navy using Yellow Dog Linux and Mac hardware for a Sonar application: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7789.

For a somewhat detailed list of who is using Yellow Dog Linux see the links on http://www.terrasoftsolutions.com/realworld/showca se/

Linux is very ad-hoc. It just sort of "grew." It was developed in many places by many people, few of them working together with the big context of "the Linux system" in mind.

This is the typical response of a BSD fanboy when comparing his/her BSD with "Linux", not with a Linux distro. Let's do a real comparison. I'll use RedHat Linux and Debian in most examples.

OpenBSD is the opposite. People working on OpenBSD core packages have a specific kernel, userland, config script, etc., etc. in mind. There is a concept of "the OpenBSD system" and it is fairly consistent.

You can say EXACTLY THE SAME about the Linux distros I mentioned. Both RedHat and Debian have their own "generic kernels", core pkgs, etc.

The fact is, OpenBSD just does things the Right Way. People say OpenBSD's big strength is security, but that's slightly missing the point. OpenBSD's strength is correctness. From correctness yields stability, security, and all around ease of use.

Well, let see where's the hype...
Google, one (if not the most) popular search engine in the planet depends on Linux. So does Amazon.com, Earth's largest library, and MerrylLynch, one of the world's leaders in financial investments. In all cases, the stability and performance required are state of the art, and needless to say, these 3 institutions have more things to keep secure and more things to worry about than all institutions using OpenBSD combined. Just take a look at the testimonials in the OpenBSD website: http://www.openbsd.org/users.html

Now it's time to use the 2nd most popular argument of the fanboys: they use linux because of the hype.

Let's assume that three of the most powerful companies on the internet invest millions of dollars in a technology fad. Let's see what the experts are using:

The University of California, Berkeley, the alma mater of the BSDs does not use OpenBSD. Actually, they barely use FreeBSD because most computers use Debian Linux. So does the MIT, which uses mostly Red Hat Linux and Athena, its own distro. Same thing in Stanford and CMU.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory uses Linux to build better spacecraft and make accurate calculations, such as the on-board navigational computers of space probes and airborne Scanning Radar Altimeter to study hurricanes. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3936. They use it in the Institutional Navigation System Software (INSS) in all flight projects (Galileo, Cassini, Mars, DS1, Stardust, etc.) It contains 4.5 million lines of source code. Guess what? They use RedHat.

The U.S. Army manages personnel records for 1.2 million U.S. Army soldiers, and they access those records reliably and securely anytime, from any place via a Web interface. They use RedHat, not OpenBSD. http://www.redhat.com/solutions/info/casestudies/u sarmy.html

I can go on and on forever, but this is useless. Most of the OpenBSD fans are amateurs reading crypto books, not security professionals.

Of course not. Because of the U.S. embargo Cuba couldn't legally buy Windows even if it had the hard currency and wanted to spend it that way.

In fact, as an American you can't even give a 'free-as-in-love' Linux distro to a Cubano friend because parts of the CD contain encryption technology and Cuba is classified by the State Department as a "terrorist" nation. This from a country whose leadership thinks that it is our "destiny" to spend $1.3 trillion building a U.S. monopoly on space-based "death star" weapons to give "us" "space control" and "freedom to attack." I better pipe down before my government "renders" me to Uzbekistan for torture.

Strangely enough, the way the U.S. Department of Commerce interprets its export controls, it is legal for Microsoft to sell its proprietary operating system to Iraqis despite the inclusion of encryption technology, but it is illegal for an American citizen to give an Iraqi a Linux distro. When a Merkin politician uses the terms "freedom" and "democracy" they are just code words for corporate domination and U.S. hegemony.

"I can't believe people are modding you up for this."

I can. Maybe you're too young to remember when the term monolithic was commonly used to describe a kernel which, instead of using loadable modules, was linked as a single binary image. This was, and is, a valid use of the word. Here's an example.

The first time I heard someone say that Solaris is monolithic, I thought that they were saying that, like SysVR3, it didn't support loadable modules. I didn't realize that, with the development of microkernels, the term "monolithic kernel" had started to be used in a different context.

Actually Linus didn't actually trademark the name. It was given to him in a settlement with someone who trademarked it and tried to hold the entire community hostage back in 1997.

SCO wasn't the first company to make money at the expense of the Linux community.

That being said, I have read a couple of pieces coming from academia that really impressed me. They were primarily targeted at real problems. For example, I read a great piece on the now defunt LRP and some other stuff on clustering too. So there are some gems out there if you look for them.

I'm personally a fan of LinuxJournal even though it's not really an academic publication. They do some pretty interesting stuff and I usually get one or two good ideas per month. I do like reading what others are doing so that I don't have to repeat the process. The sad fact, however, is that many universities are behind the technology curve when it comes to leading edge research. Just because their school's students were the first to have MP3 players doesn't mean a university knows diddly about the current state of technology. I'd bet that there's more of interest on /. than what's happening in all the computer labs at all the large universities all across the country, trolls notwithstanding.

As opposed to C++, which, at least originally, was _literally_ just a precompiler in front of the C compiler ?

We're obviously off-topic here, and I have no desire to open up a language war, I'd like to point out to Decameron81 that he's factually wrong. Objective-C is a strict superset of C, so exactly _no_ words or symbols from C were changed ( thus the 'superset' part ).

Actually, at the time it was created, having a run loop, objects and object messaging ( not function calling ), as well as dynamic types in a superset of C... well, all of those _together_ were pretty groundbreaking. And yea, with the exception of the whole object-definition and messaging additions, not a whole lot was added to C to jump to Objective-C, which is part of the coolness, really.

If anyone actually wants to understand what Objective-C is, I'll direct you to the wiki and this short, interesting Linux Journal article.

Does anyone know if you can get a rebate on OS X if you decide not to use it? I'm guessing the system software is licensed differently than Microsoft's windows so getting a refund on OS X is impossible. Anyone know if this is true? It would be great if one could buy a $500 computer and then get an extra $130 off of that.

Assuming we presume that a so-called "Copyleft" license was used, then there are other tricks that can be employed. One of them is technologies similar to TCPA. You "measure" the system startup, and the signatures of the system, and get the correct decryption key only if the signature matches the known state. (This technology can also be used for "good" by allowing you to encrypt your own personal data and also making it impossible to decrypt by any other means than the official ones. An IBM employee wrote a useful document on this for Linux Journal)

They are working feverously on unbreakable DRM, and even GNU/Linux can't stop it. All that remains is the "analog hole". Hopefully that's an unsolvable problem, although there have been talks about mandating watermark detection.

I wish I could even use WINE to develop applications for windows tooo (not that I develop many)... That would help me completely free the win partition on my system.

Actually looks like it is possible, haven't tried it myself though.

It can be argued that the ideals of scouting are much more related to the free software / opensource movement than to the current abuses of intellectual property (which isn't bad in itself).

This is the point raised by Marco Fioretti in his two articles on LinuxJournal:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7533

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7813

Maybe these articles would make a good Slashdot story!

It can be argued that the ideals of scouting are much more related to the free software / opensource movement than to the current abuses of intellectual property (which isn't bad in itself).

This is the point raised by Marco Fioretti in his two articles on LinuxJournal:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7533

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7813

Maybe these articles would make a good Slashdot story!

At the risk of being on-topic and imparting fresh, relevant information - always a no-no, I know - here's some prior art. I knew I remembered sitting in my local pub reading this LJ article when it came out; a Linux-controlled car which drove 2000km autonomously on (get this) Italian public roads. All the gory details in that typically excellent Linux Journal article. (I've no connection to them, I just wish I still had time to read it!) (PS: check the not-inline images for cool shots of an X11 interface for your car! Move over MS, the engineers are comin' thru'! ;)

At the risk of being on-topic and imparting fresh, relevant information - always a no-no, I know - here's some prior art. I knew I remembered sitting in my local pub reading this LJ article when it came out; a Linux-controlled car which drove 2000km autonomously on (get this) Italian public roads. All the gory details in that typically excellent Linux Journal article. (I've no connection to them, I just wish I still had time to read it!) (PS: check the not-inline images for cool shots of an X11 interface for your car! Move over MS, the engineers are comin' thru'! ;)

http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7813/

The BSA needs to respond.

Why are operating systems which need security from buffer overflows still written in insecure languages such as C or C++ ?

I understand the most secure OS is openVMS and was coded in vaxassembler and had each line of code scrutinized for bufferoverflow errors, so I guess C could be secure if used right.

But wouldn't a language with garbage collection like oberon,java,ada or python be great for secure operating systems ?

Example. BlueBottle OS Ada OS.

Amazing what thirty seconds on google will do:

http://www.linuxjournal.com/articles/lj/0099/6011/ 6011s1.html

ILM says they have rarely seen artists get excited by hardware, but artists fought to get the new Linux workstations--Dell single-CPU P4s with NVIDIA Quadra 2 Pro graphics cards. The question became, "Where's my Linux box?"

For a short time last year one could buy nx5000 HP notebook with SuSE 9.1 pre-installed (only in the US) http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/us/en/sm/WF06a/3219 57-64295-89315-321838-f33-395654.html
Configure and buy link in the web page does not work now. I remember some press release HP announced that they would prefer to enter this (pre-installed linux) market and were testing the feasibility in the US. I think every other linux journal http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7845 had rave reviews including one at MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5831949/ but alas all has failed to deliver.
HP sponsored even a KDE summit in Germany by supplying Linux laptops. http://dot.kde.org/1094715499/

- Ken Beyer (ILM production engineering manager): "Six hundred Linux desktops will be used for Star Wars: Episode III to be released summer 2005."
Sequence supervisor Robert Weaver noticed a tremendous performance boost upgrading from RISC (Sun/SGI) workstations to Linux PCs during Star Wars, Episode II:

AMD64 used for Episode III
Alias/wave Maya used for Episode II, Lord of the Rings, and Spiderman

Xp64 used on episode III. Don't know how much though.
Episode 1 hardware and software. Yes,Pixar's Renderman and Alias|Wavefront`s Maya . SGI computers.

The linux cluster used at Industrial light and magic.

1) The twenty minute problem
Many programmers, including top ones like Eric Raymond http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/3882, are so put off by Python's use of whitespace as a block delimiter that they swear never to touch the language. In my case, this lasted for two years. You need to spend twenty minutes learning the language, after which the whitespace stops being a problem and starts looking like one of the many great ideas in the language. The challenge is getting people past their initial disgust enough to try it.
2) Misperceptions about typing
Many people think agile languages like Python and Ruby are not strongly typed and therefore present scalability problems and can't be used reliably by large teams. But Python and Ruby are strongly typed (unlike Perl)- you don't get type conversions you don't ask for. The real distinction is that the agile languages are dynamically typed rather than statically typed like Java/C++. To truly grasp the notions of "duck-typing" and lazy evaluation of types is as much a stretch as it was to "get" objects for those of us who were around 15 years ago- it's a basic change in how you think. You'll know when you're there, because you'll see in a flash that Java's static type declarations are not only redundant and painful, but they are also in themselves a key source of brittleness in large programs over time.
3) The youngsters' problem
This is probably the biggest barrier: university CS departments have become nothing but Java training courses. In trying to better prepare grads for actual careers, they have added a lot of basic business teaching, which is good. But they no longer bother to give students a real understanding of actual computer science, sticking instead to a cookbook approach using Java. So young people arrive in enterprise IT shops knowing nothing but Java and thinking they know everything, so they are not open to anything requiring a different intellectual approach.

FYI, Unison was reviewed in the most recent issue of Linux Journal: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7712.

MS is a company...
Apple is a company...

Linux is an (largely) architecture independant kernel - and therefore is out of the argument regardless of its share of the market - theres certainly a good chance that that linux based operating systems are a significantly dominant player in the server sector.

Apple arguably (Gamecube?) dominates the PPC market they are also (arguably) mainly a hardware manufacturer. (There was an article on slashdot earlier today projecting that Apples sales of the iPod hardware would match or even surpass the revenue of its Mac computers in 2006)

Microsoft however are (almost) purely a software manufacturer. With a history of violations and monopolistic practices.

You see its easy to define arbitrary conditions to demonstrate a point. But the fact is that Microsoft have continually abused their position and used dubious methods for ensuring that x86 OEMs ship with their OS . Apples practices pale in comparison to those of Redmond , and in recent years have shown a much friendlier and open stance than we could expect from Microsoft. It seems to me that the scales are clearly tipped in Apples favour in this regard.

Well, he's supposed to resurrect on Sunday, then, which makes him just a little slower than Linux which can do endless loops in 6 seconds.

Paul Graham is famous for (among other things) writing the seminal work on practical Bayesian spam filtering. But his Bayesian filter isn't Bayesian at all and makes no sense from a probability perspective.

It does work pretty well, but was improved quite a bit by the application of some mathematics by Gary Robinson.

Check out the following: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8003/ and http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8061/

Check out the following: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8003/ and http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8061/

Linux from Kindergarten to High School

SCALE 3X - The 3rd Annual Southern California Linux Exposition by Oisin Feeley

SCALE 3X - OpenEMR, XRMS, CRM and open source medical applications by Jason Riker

SCALE 3X - Windows to Linux, Remastering Knoppix, Personal Linux (3 Reviews) by Ken Leyba

LinuxJournal:

SCALE 3x Wrap Up Report

That's in your opinion. It also happens to be the FSF's opinion. But this opinion is hardly universal. It is only true if the reference of one work by another work through an API qualifies as a derivative work. There is nothing in copyright that asserts this one way or the other. For static linkage, you're actually copying the library, so GPL will still apply. But for dynamic linkage the question is crucial. Is it only by the good graces of the glibc authors that any Linux application can even exist? Could Bill Gates legally assert ownership of every piece of Windows software that linked to Win32 should he wish?

Despite the opinion of the FSF, there are many people who hold other equally valid opinions. Larry Rosen has one of the best summations of the counter opinion at Linux Journal: <http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/6366>. When the legal council for the FSF and the legal council for the OSI disagree, I think I am safe in asserting that the issue is far from resolved.

Go to the Linux Journal search function and search for 'garrick'. You should get eleven hits. I didn't read all of them, but using ctrl+f to search the pages revealed notes to Garrick re: font selection and the like. D'oh.

Tux loves Jesus too! Kidding...kidding.

Actually, EmperorLinux fills the niche you speak of. They not only sell laptops with complete Linux compatibility, but also offer email and phone support. Even the ipw2100 and ipw2200 chipsets are supported. Emperor has been in business since 1999 and has been quite successful. And, Linux Journal seems to like their stuff. Check them out.

(PS: I do work there, but I'm not getting paid for this).

Andrew Cowie makes a pretty darn good argument for using Gentoo in a production environment:

So how does Gentoo stack up in production environments? Here's another surprise for you from the source-based distribution: Portage can be told to build binary packages. This allows you to have one machine over in the corner doing all the compilation work. Then, the packages can be shared and used by all your target machines, instead of them having to build the packages themselves. You might be tempted to say "isn't that what the other Linux distributions do?" The difference is selecting the right mix of packages is a site decision, and the newer version problem definitely is a site burden to deal with. Gentoo gives local systems teams the tools to deal with solving these version issues themselves.

Andrew Cowie makes a pretty darn good argument for using Gentoo in a production environment:

So how does Gentoo stack up in production environments? Here's another surprise for you from the source-based distribution: Portage can be told to build binary packages. This allows you to have one machine over in the corner doing all the compilation work. Then, the packages can be shared and used by all your target machines, instead of them having to build the packages themselves. You might be tempted to say "isn't that what the other Linux distributions do?" The difference is selecting the right mix of packages is a site decision, and the newer version problem definitely is a site burden to deal with. Gentoo gives local systems teams the tools to deal with solving these version issues themselves.

Here's a link for you. Keep in mind these are only recommendations, not legal requirements.

Here's a LinuxJournal link that also might be of interest.

the FSF is well, just wrong the GPL is not an EULA, it can't prevent you from distributing you own code under the GPL.

I can write a patch for a GPL application, and so long as it is an original work I can release the patch on it's own under any license I want, even if I include the patch in a GPL application as well.

LGPL is for libraries and allows you to statically as well as dynamically link against a licensed piece of code.

how many Openly implementations are their? Dynamically linking against a GPL one won't make you have to comply with copy-left anymore than using ldconfig to link close source app against a GPL library will force them to open source their app.

If I switch to a GPL libc can I only run GPL software? If I interface with Apache over HTTP does my application have to obey the Apache license? If I run notepad under wine does Microsoft have to GPL notepad?

Checkout this thread

---SNIP---

#disclaimer, I am not a lawyer....

IMHO there are two main problems with FSF/GPL.

* There are too many ambiguities. Terms like "derivative work" are too vague to be used. Further the GPL also uses "collective work" and "aggregation" without sufficient distinction. Legal documents normally take pains to define such terms for their own purposes. Unfortunately, the GPL does not, except by defering to copyright law (interestingly, the LGPL does define "derived work" but that is in a different legal statement and not part of the GPL).

The FSF does try to correct/explain some of this through the FAQ. Unfortunately the FAQ:

- is not part of the GPL and is thus likely not legally binding.

- is also ambiguous.

* if one reads FSF's documents, supposedly written to explain the GPL, there is much about what the FSF would like to achieve (to the extent of including the Preamble in the GPL). This confuses the issue further since there is a big difference between what the FSF would like the GPL to mean and a legal interpretation of what the GPL actually says. An example of this is the binding issue (static vs dynamic linking). FSF would like the GPL to cover all linking models (including static, dynamic, via java byte code etc).

Since the GPL defers to copyright law, I think a reasonable interpretation of the GPL is to use some analogy with the publishing world. Let us say Joe's writes his book called "Study guide for book X". This book does not include book X, but is makes quotes and gives reference and is meaningless unless read in conjunction with book X. I doubt Joe's study guide could be considered derivation. If Joe's study guide was sold bundled with book X, this would be aggregation rather than derivation.

Would that not be a valid analogy of a dynamically linked program?

If, however, Joe was to reprint the body of book X with his commentary as footnotes or in-line text, then clearly this would be a breach of copyright. This would be analogous to static linking.

More modern analogies might use hyperlinks or bookmarks.

In summary, I think two actions are required to make the GPL effective:

* The FSF must make a distinction between its goals and the GPL. Too often, rms starts spouting about what he wants to see rather than what the GPL actually says.

* Terms need to be cleared up to make the GPL an effective legal device.

--
I spoke to God the other day, anti-psychotics must have stopped working again.

Then you ask for 10 copies of Windows at $0 each.

Someone challlenged a vendor over this some time ago.

Here's the link to someone who managed. But he won because the defendant didn't show up. The company could argue that they are only entitled to give a full refund if he returns the entire computer, since the original contract was for the sale of a PC with windows installed at $1000. Companies are not obliged to offer partial refunds for components. For example, I couldn't demand a refund for just the Hard drive if it was in some way inadequate.

I don't, I was just saying that the GPL is an EULA in the way it, well doesn't define a derived work.

What I am interested in doing is getting paid(or paying my rent and eating) for patches &co for GPL software.

The only way to do this is to provide a patch without any of the GPL code, then take the money and release an intergrated version under GPL.
The patch can passed around under a non-GPL license, just like I can get a book, write between the lines and cut out what I've written and sell it to anyone without the consent of the copyright holder, all good stuff..

Here's an interesting comment from another site that give a better picture...

-----

#disclaimer, I am not a lawyer....

IMHO there are two main problems with FSF/GPL.

* There are too many ambiguities. Terms like "derivative work" are too vague to be used. Further the GPL also uses "collective work" and "aggregation" without sufficient distinction. Legal documents normally take pains to define such terms for their own purposes. Unfortunately, the GPL does not, except by defering to copyright law (interestingly, the LGPL does define "derived work" but that is in a different legal statemnet and not part of the GPL).

The FSF does try to correct/explain some of this through the faq. Unfortunately the faq:

- is not part of the GPL and is thus likely not legally binding.

- is also ambiguous.

* if one reads FSF's documents, supposedly written to explain the GPL, there is much about what the FSF would like to achieve (to the extent of including the Preamble in the GPL). This confuses the issue further since there is a big difference between what the FSF would like the GPL to mean and a legal interpretation of what the GPL actually says. An example of this is the binding issue (static vs dynamic linking). FSF would like the GPL to cover all linking models (including static, dynamic, via java byte code etc).

Since the GPL defers to copyright law, I think a reasonable interpretation of the GPL is to use some analogy with the publishing world. Let us say Joe's writes his book called "Study guide for book X". This book does not include book X, but is makes quotes and gives reference and is meaningless unless read in conjunction with book X. I doubt Joe's study guide could be considered derivation. If Joe's study guide was sold bundled with book X, this would be aggregation rather than derivation.

Would that not be a valid analogy of a dynamically linked program?

If, however, Joe was to reprint the body of book X with his commentary as footnotes or in-line text, then clearly this would be a breach of copyright. This would be analogous to static linking.

More modern analogies might use hyperlinks or bookmarks.

In summary, I think two actions are required to make the GPL effective:

* The FSF must make a distinction between its goals and the GPL. Too oftem, rms starts spouting about what he wants to see rather than what the GPL actually says.

* Terms need to be cleared up to make the GPL an effective legal device.

The problem with Linspire (Lindows) is that it isn't quite Linux (yes, I know it really is Linux) and it isn't quite Windows. So, end-users might find it difficult. Even a pro seemed to think it was hard to use.

Can a Red Hat Guru Survive on a Lindows Laptop?

coverage in LJ

Identity Commons

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Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 8.4). Your comment has too few characters per line (currently 8.4).

I notice a number of posts indicating that this is just pure uninformed journalism but is it? Or is he actually just blowing up a different related issue out of proportion.

In the Linux Kernel Development Summit back in July, the core developers announced they weren't creating a 2.7 development kernel any time soon (discussed here and here).

Developers liked the way things were going with the new BitKeeper in use by Linus and at the time, they didn't see the need to fork a 2.7.

Traditionally before BitKeeper, kernel maintainers would send Linus 10-20 patches at once, then wait for him to release a snapshot to determine whether or not the patch made it in. If not, they would try again. During the 2.5 development cycle, problems started over dropped patches and that is when Linus decided to try BitKeeper.

According to Greg Kroah-Hartman, kernel maintainer, Bitkeeper has increased the amount of development and improved efficency. From 2.5 and 2.6, they were doing 1.66 changes per hour for 680 days. From 2.6.0 to 2.6.7 they were at 2.2 patches per hour thanks to the ability of wider range of testing of patches that went into the tree. The new process is - 1) Linus releases a 2.6 kernel release. 2) Maintainers flood Linus with patches that have been proven in the -mm tree 3) After a few weeks, Linus releases a -rc kernel 4) Everyone recovers from a load of changes and starts to fix any bugs found in the -rc kernel 5) A few weeks later, the next 2.6 kernel is released and the cycle starts again.

Because this new process has proved to be pretty efficient and is keeping mainters happy, it was predicted that no new 2.7 kernel was to be forked any time soon unless a set of changes appeared big enough and intrusive that a 2.7 fork is needed. If that is the case, Linus will apply the experimental patches to the new 2.7 tree, then he will continue to pull all of the ongoing 2.6 changes into the 2.7 kernel as the version stabilizes. If it turns out that the 2.7 kernel is taking an incorrect direction, the 2.7 will be deleted an deveryone will continue on the 2.6. If 2.7 becomes stable, it will be merged back into 2.6 or will be declared 2.8.

In conclusion, there was no plan for a 2.7 any time soon thanks to maintainers working well in the current setup but this was not carved in stone. It might just be that big enough changes are calling for a fork.

And then while they might insist this is "just orange", what they did pick looks awfully similar to a red flag, raising the specter of all the atrocities that have been committed in its name. BTW Mozilla ditched the red star for this very reason. Neutral? Inoffensive? How "good" intentions often go terribly wrong (if the ones you name ever really were more than epitomes of "political correctness")... And moreover, this one's already taken.

Because if the group doing the integrating decides you dont need it, you dont get it.

Unless the group doing the integrating decides, on a lark, to join, embrace, and even contribute to the open standard/software movement. 'Cause then you might be able to still decide what you want or need.

But that couldn't possibly come from some over priced, consumer-electronic excuse for a computer, now could it? No way.

Just keep doing yer thing, man...

there used to be a good site out there that had bsod photos from atms etc. -- there's a few matches in google but not the page i remember -- anyone know the site?

it was only the beta that ran as root and they quickly fixed that

Definitely not true. I wrote a review of Lindows 4.0, and it definitely installed with the user running as root. At one point it prompted you for an "optional system password"... that's the root password. That's right, it was perfectly content to default to no password on root.

It was possible to set up user accounts, but the system would be slightly broken (one example here). I wrote an article about that too.

Now that Lindows is Linspire and they have come out with a new version, did they change that? I haven't tested anything newer than 4.0, but it looks like the user still runs as root.

steveha

it was only the beta that ran as root and they quickly fixed that

Definitely not true. I wrote a review of Lindows 4.0, and it definitely installed with the user running as root. At one point it prompted you for an "optional system password"... that's the root password. That's right, it was perfectly content to default to no password on root.

It was possible to set up user accounts, but the system would be slightly broken (one example here). I wrote an article about that too.

Now that Lindows is Linspire and they have come out with a new version, did they change that? I haven't tested anything newer than 4.0, but it looks like the user still runs as root.

steveha

Depends on what you want to do with it; if you can manage to have the whole code statically compiled (with no dynamic class loading), that would not be a problem.
Here's the link to the LinuxJournal text talking about getting gcj to compile Eclipse: http://www.linuxjournal.com/article.php?sid=7413.h tml Maybe that can help you with your decision.