Domain: opensource.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to opensource.com.
Comments · 35
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Re:Thanks much. You misrepresent Bruce's words
Thanks for the link and your research.
You're welcome.
You have, however, misrepresented the statement Bruce Perens made. This unfortunate fact turns your work from useful to bullshit.
No, no it does not. Frankly, it wasn't clear at the time what Bruce was talking about. Lots of people were making lots of claims at the time — remember, this was a dozen years ago, before Christine Peterson claimed to have coined the term. But even if it was, that doesn't change the content or quality of the citations I and others located even slightly.
Neither Perens, nor ESR, not Stallman, nor any other person claims to have originated the term,
Christine Peterson outright claims to have "coined" the phrase. My recollection is that before that, ESR claimed to have done so, but he has since supported her story. I agree with you that Perens didn't claim to have coined the term; what he did do was claim to have established its meaning authoritatively by writing a document — which sought to retcon history by redefining a term already in common use before the OSI was even imagined.
Trying to portray it as an argument between the people who were present is disingenuous.
I portrayed it as a series of mutually contradictory claims, but I never asserted that they "argued" about it, at least not that I can recall. If you can find a place where I made such a claim, I'll happily retract it.
It would also be more interesting had they used the combined term "open source" as a noun. They used the noun phrase "source code" with the adjective "open", which may seem like a subtle difference.
That is an outright falsehood. Surely, you can do better. The Caldera press release for OpenDOS authored by Lyle Ball clearly puts all three words together, in the order which you expect, right in the headline: "CALDERA® ANNOUNCES OPEN SOURCE CODE MODEL FOR DOS". If you had actually read my citations, instead of only looking for arguments against them, you'd have known that. This post to comp.os.ms-windows.programmer.win32 from 1993 also uses the phrase in the sense in which you describe. (To be fair, that citation was linked from my later article on this same subject, which I didn't link in the subthread to which you're replying; however, I did link it in a sibling subthread in this same conversation before you wrote the above comment — you might have taken the time to read the rest of the discussion before writing such an emphatic reply.) However, the Caldera press release was linked from my original article, which you really should have read before leaving your highly inaccurate comment here.
What a waste of your time and ours.
You can make excuses all day, or mischaracterise my efforts repeatedly, but it doesn't change the facts at all — And the most basic fact is that the phrase was being used by the community at least five years before Christine Peterson claims to have "coined" it (her word, not mine), and was used by at least one corporation two years earlier.
Further, because I was there, I personally remember the term being in broad use in conversation around the Santa Cruz geek community in the early nineties, in its current sense. That's what set me off in the first place when I read
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Re:What a load of bollocks
Stupid bleeping...I'm not sure how I wrote "probably". A specific person, ESR, definitely used it first.
First, ESR doesn't actually claim (any more) to have invented it, he claims Christine Petersen invented it. He changed his story.
Second:
1993: Jerome Schneider
1996: Caldera (Written by Lyle Ball, whom I queried on the subject)
1998: Christine Peterson (Writing in 2006, mind, and providing zero citations)So you tell me, who you gonna believe? The citations which prove that its use predates OSI claims by five years, provided by a person (me) who has nothing to gain by continuing this argument except the credibility which naturally comes from supporting the facts, or someone with something to gain economically from making such claims, like Christine Peterson or Bruce Perens? The only dog I've got in this fight is the truth.
Sustaining this argument over the years (literally over more than a decade) has cost me substantial credibility, but only among people who value prejudice over fact. I'm okay with that. Better to suffer for the truth than promote a pack of lies. Buying into bullshit is why we can't have nice things.
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Re:It's a hardware problem
There is no reason for GPLv2 should or would lose its popularity due to the mere existence of GPLv3. If you meant GPLv3 is not popular, you could have said it. But in that sense, "lose its popularity" does not make any sense because it would never had popularity to lose.
Wrong, GPL percentage is declining overall.
Or you are saying GPLv3 was first popular, and then became unpopular. That cannot be caused by the release of GPLv3 - because it could not have been popular before its own release.
GPLv3 is almost dead since its birth.
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No lock-in with Open Source
So one vendor can't make an "evil" license with vendor lock-in.
If it truly is open source then there is no vendor lock-in. Anyone can fork the code and then develop it and distribute it themselves which I suspect is exactly what Amazon is doing. If you can't do that it is closed source. Open source means more than just being able to see the source code.
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Re:Move it to SQL
Why are you using a spreadsheet when you have that much data?
Because we don't have a license for an SQL server or an IT department prepared to support a free one. Duh.
So you can afford a license for MS Excel but not pay nothing for SQLite or PostgreSQL?
Oh, I "forgot" you said you had no IT department to help you with the free one... But you have an IT department helping you with all your Excel problems?
Or you don't? How the **** are you handling all the Excel problems then? If you don't have any, great, your workplace seems to be a place full of Excel wizards. But if they are, they should be able to learn how to use a SQL-engine/server without much trouble.
Learn to use the right tool for the job instead of using shitty tools. After the initial period of learning you will wonder why you were such complete and utter idiots for all those years, when you could have done real work instead in a fraction of the time and with much less headache from trying to debug poorly designed spreadsheets.
SQL doesn't mean having to store it on a server somewhere.
Yes, it does. If the SQL server software happens to be running on your desktop then it's a server, especially if you expect other people to access the data.
No, SQLite is "server-less", so there are options if you don't want "servers".
But servers aren't something evil, why are you so obsessed with not having servers? You are right in that any computer serving something to clients are technically servers. But in reality when you talk about servers you mostly mean dedicated servers, servers which is not used as a workstation for someone else.
My computer at my old work was always turned on, so for a while I ran FileMaker to share data with my coworkers, and later my PostgreSQL server which replaced FileMaker on it. When everyone realized it was really helpful to share date we got it a new home on a "real server". But those can be pretty much anything with a little computing power. Heck, you could run PostgreSQL on a Raspberry Pi if you wanted something that is out of the way, doesn't draw much power and doesn't generates noise. I wouldn't recommend it, but there are all kinds of solutions, and I bet you have some computers unused somewhere that could be used.
If you have machines capable of running Excel, you can sure as heck let them run some kind of SQL-server.
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Re:Stallman abandons ethics?
Once you "donate" something, it's not yours any longer. You've given it away. Good on you.
It's that simple.
It's really not that simple. Contributors to the kernel do not donate the copyright itself - their code is incorporated under GPL licensing, but they are the original authors and can dictate the license terms on their own code (but not the entire kernel).
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a possible explanation
Torvalds 2.0: Patricia Torvalds on computing, college, feminism, and increasing diversity in tech
https://opensource.com/life/15/8/patricia-torvalds-interview
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Links to about:config settings ???
Please provide links to all of the about:config settings.
I didn't know about these add-ons. Links for Firefox:
Tracking Token Stripper
No Coin
Neat URL
Block ads on your network with Raspberry Pi and pi-hole -
Re:They are
That being said, is there an indie/homegrown market for home automation?
Most smart devices can function without phoning home though updates would still require it.
There are several open source central servers in development that can run at home and control these. Here is an article that reviews some.
However, all of these seem to be requiring the users to memorize special control phrases. There doesn't seem to be any effort to create a deep neural network based open source assistant that recognizes users and understands context. Without this, it is really not a smart device. It is based on keyword recognition, not natural language processing.
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Re:What about coining a phrase
she claims to have coined it. Any reference where and when she claimed to have coined it? As far as I can tell, some press, e.g.
/., mentions that she has coined it. I'm not aware that she herself claims that, and even if she had coined it, why would she claim that (point it out?)?How I coined the term 'open source'
Christine Peterson finally publishes her account of that fateful day, 20 years ago. -
Re:Open source and medicine
I'm pretty sure, she did not and does not claim that she "coined the term". Some media did, or some idiots did.
Um
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terminal emulator for Windows/WSL (DomTerm)windows has a terrible terminal emulator
Can I suggest you check out DomTerm? It has the functionality of gnome-terminal (and then some) but does not require an X-server. Instead, it uses Electron, which (in my biased opinion) makes for a very nice interface. This article focuses on DomTerm on WSL. The release page includes pre-compiled WSL binaries.
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Re: Ah, so....
The companies which have just promised to give people time before they sue are not known for ever having sued regarding a GPL license. Thus, this is posturing.
Or they have been practicing what they preach, and are now putting a public face on the policy in order to pressure others to do the same. Just because the FSF/SFLC works with those in breach to resolve the problem without litigation does not mean that there are not bad actors as well.
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Here you go...
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Uh, open source runs on Windows ...
"Stu Keroff [...], and a long-time Linux enthusiast." https://opensource.com/education/16/9/asian-penguins-convert-minnesota-school-linux
That is the whole point. The move to Linux or any other FOSS is a political/ideological issue.
Well it certainly is with illogic like this: ""When you're using open source software you're free to use operating systems and application software without the hassle of license keys or license tracking inherent with proprietary software," says Stu Keroff, the school's technology coordinator.
Since when can't you run open source applications on a proprietary operating system, or run proprietary applications on an open source operating system?"This allows a school to experiment [and] gives them the freedom to make mistakes..."
Yeah, mistakes like putting this dimwit in charge. Yet another Linux evangelist making the community look foolish.
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"a long-time Linux enthusiast"
"Stu Keroff [...], and a long-time Linux enthusiast."
https://opensource.com/education/16/9/asian-penguins-convert-minnesota-school-linuxThat is the whole point. The move to Linux or any other FOSS is a political/ideological issue.
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Pinterest to bolster its revenue ..
Pinterest to bolster its revenue, it that the best you can find to post on slashdot, the technology site?
How I welcomed an immigrant family with a Linux laptop -
Re:Don't forget about SeaFile
Well, it depends on what you want I suppose. ownCloud does a lot of things with external storage, where we obviously have to store information about the files to offer search, sharing and all the other functionality. ownCloud 9.0 actually introduces the ability for ownCloud to use such features in the filesystem if they're there - or at least, a API to make the storage plugins do that. This is needed as we want to scale through the Petabyte storage barrier - see https://opensource.com/busines...
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Re:Does it scale better now?
We're working with CERN, AARNet and others to bring ownCloud to a higher level of scalability. right now, petabyte level filesystems are no problem but going beyond that is hard. ownCloud 9.0 introduces changes to break through that barrier. See https://opensource.com/busines... for more info. Of course, if you're merely talking about a few hundred terrabyte of data, ownCloud won't have any issues with it if it's set up properly. I suggest you check out the deployment recommendations: https://doc.owncloud.org/serve... There is ONE performance issue left: very many (thousands) of very small (under 100 KB) files syncing with the client. With very large files and fat network pipes, you probably also should increase the chunck size in the client to improve network performance.
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Advanced /. Writing
We know you don't read TFA anyway. So really, why bother linking to it at all?
(For those of you who "are new here" and actually want to read it, the article is available here on OpenSource.com
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Re:So the good questions were ignored.
I wonder how many new Slashdot accounts were created from her Twitter whining and suddenly got mod points.
That or Dice decided to pull a Reddit and just hide them so they didn't appear "unfriendly to women in industry".
And right now I'd like to point out that Randi Lee Harper is speaking at OSCON this weekend.
TL;DR: A large and prominent tech conference (3.5K attendees) run by O'Reilly Media and sponsored by major tech companies is presenting Randi as an "anti-harassment" activist. When evidence of her track record of abuse and harassment was brought to the attention of the conference organizers last month, they publicly dismissed those contacting them about her as "trolls".
WHY THIS MATTERS: This is by far the biggest venue Randi has ever appeared in and the deception that she and the conference organizers are engaged in is shameful. If enough of us post evidence of who Randi really is to the #OSCON tag, there's a very good chance that future conference organizers (and their sponsors) will think twice before embarrassing themselves by giving Randi a platform.
DETAILS:
Although #OSCON was notified of Randi's antics when news of her speaking engagement became public last month, they chose to ignore the evidence, instead of taking seriously their obligation to their attendee's well-being. Adding insult to injury, a statement by @joshsimmons dismissed those who had raised concerns as "trolls":
http://www.oscon.com/open-sour...
They followed this statement up with a fawning "interview" in their online magazine in which they didn't ask Randi a single question about her atrocious behavior:
http://opensource.com/life/15/...
The conference starts today (Wednesday) and runs until Friday. Detailed information including the list of sponsors, can be found at http://www.oscon.com./
Details about Randi's talk can be found here: http://www.oscon.com/open-sour....
Here are some links to some resources about Randi's misbehavior, such as Milo's just concluded series of articles, Ralph's followup, and Stephanie Greene's series from a few months ago. Please post links to other resources, such as blogs, articles, images, etc., which you think are worth posting to the #OSCON hashtag, in the comments.
http://www.breitbart.com/londo...
http://www.breitbart.com/big-j...
http://www.breitbart.com/big-h...
http://www.breitbart.com/big-j...
http://theralphretort.com/pill...
http://s2b20blog.mukyou.com/hi...
http://s2b20blog.mukyou.com/th...
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Re:One more in a crowded field
Is Swift suitable for writing applications for all? If not, developers would be writing for a limited, albeit popular platform, but limited to a certain subset nonetheless.
Well, Apple just announced that they are planning to open-source Swift and will be also be releasing a Linux version of the compiler. So the language itself isn't going to be Apple-only for much longer.
However, that only solves the language problem - the big divide between platforms is the totally different APIs that developers have to learn. Frankly, that's usually a bigger learning curve than picking up a new language.
Mind you, you can say the same for most of the big languages - off the top of my head only Java (and maybe Javascript/HTML5) come with baked-in crossplatform APIs suitable for writing GUI applications.
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Re:The guy completely misses the point
Also, from the article:
Unlike proprietary alternatives, Fedora (and other Linux distros with the Gnome desktop) includes accessibility tools out of the box, such as:
Screen reader: A text-to-speech system to read what's on the screen
Magnifier: Helps users with visual impairments who need larger text and images
High-contrast mode: Helps users who have trouble seeing text unless contrast is corrected, such as white text on a black background, or vice versa
Mouse keys: Controls the mouse using the number pad
Sticky keys: Helps users who have trouble pressing multiple keys at once, and users who have use of only one hand
Bounce keys: To ignore rapidly pressed keys or if a key is accidentally held down
On screen keyboard: Helps users who cannot type at all, but who can use a mouse
Visual alerts: Replace system sounds with visual cues
Um... unlike what proprietary systems? He surely can't be talking about Windows, because it has every single one of these features, and has had most of them since Windows 95 two decades ago!
It's great that Linux/Gnome now also includes these features, but the author doesn't really help his cause by misrepresenting (I'm being kind in my choice of words here) the competition's features.
I specifically went to the comments to find out if anyone else had brought this very subject up. I know for a fact that Windows and Mac OS X (and previous versions of Mac OS) have gone back and forth over the years for the highest accessibility ratings, with Mac OS falling short to Windows in the last comparison I saw. This article is total echo chamber BS. The "proprietary" OS features for accessibility are still ridiculously good and have only gotten better while Linux has been playing catch up.
There's also this article that was published today that talks of the areas of improvement for Linux accessibility.
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The Fanboi's Tunnel Vision.I can't speak for OSX. But it is hard to take seriously a post that ignores the accessibility tools that have been baked into the Windows OS from the beginning, expanded and improved over the years.
Unlike proprietary alternatives...Linux distros with the Gnome desktop...includes accessibility tools out of the box, such as:
Screen reader A text-to-speech system to read what's on the screen
Magnifier Helps users with visual impairments who need larger text and images
High-contrast mode Helps users who have trouble seeing text unless contrast is corrected, such as white text on a black background, or vice versa
Mouse keys Controls the mouse using the number pad
Sticky keys Helps users who have trouble pressing multiple keys at once, and users who have use of only one hand
Bounce keys To ignore rapidly pressed keys or if a key is accidentally held down
On screen keyboard Helps users who cannot type at all, but who can use a mouse Visual alerts Replace system sounds with visual cuesAccessibility in Linux is good (but could be much better)
Compare:
While this article is aimed at Windows 95 much of the information on Accessibility Options also applies to Windows 3.x and Windows 98.
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Re:For the rest of us
It is inspired by HyperCard, based on the same ideas a successor to it and most importantly the far and away the most successful successor. I don't see anything wrong with considering it the next version of Hypercard. And I'm not alone in that: http://opensource.com/educatio...
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Re:Bounty Source is over 7 Years Old
They originally launched in 2004 as a full project management platform for open source software, but they moved onto other projects. They relaunched Bountysource again last year with the same name, but an entirely different concept. Details are in the interview: https://opensource.com/business/13/9/bountysource-CEO-interview
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Re:how to delineate software patents?
Since I'm not currently in a country where mathematics can be owned, it seems weird to me.
The USA is also a country where mathematics cannot be owned. So how do we still have "Software patents"? Well, perhaps because nobody has had the temerity to try pointing out to the Supreme Court that "Software" = algorithm = math. The few times the issue has come up, both the courts and the lawyers involved sidestepped it. It's almost like everyone is afraid of what might happen if an actual ruling on the issue were to be forced. When it comes up in lower courts, its a crapshoot, but about half the time the patents get invalidated just for being software patents.
It isn’t really surprising that Federal Circuit judges who have devoted their working lives to the patent system tend to think most patents, including software patents, are valuable and useful. What is surprising is that, in spite of this likely tendency, the en banc Federal Circuit invalidated the patents here. Half of the en banc judges took the sensible view that running a program on a computer does not transform the computer or render software less abstract
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This is what SELinux / MAC is for...
You have a couple of options;
1) Use a container type environment without virtualisation like http://opensource.com/education/12/8/harvard-goes-paas-selinux-sandbox
2) Run your VM's on a RHEL based hyper visor with KVM and get the benefits of sVirt ( http://selinuxproject.org/page/SVirt ) isolation for free via libvirt.
3) Look at something more like OpenShift Origins to do PaaS with mandatory access control.Either way, a huge kudos to you. I know I failed IT in high school because I disagreed with java>all and I am excited to see at least one educational institution heading in a much more promising direction.
Cheers,
Kahn
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Open Source and Mars Rover
"Nginx (pronounced engine-x) is a free, open source, high-performance HTTP server and reverse proxy
.. Railo is an open source content management system (CMS) .. GlusterFS is an open source, distributed file system", link -
Intel's Hail Mary AttemptGiven the price of ARM based boards (and some MIPS based ones) are below $25, run Linux really well and have 100+ factories churning them out in at least one area of China, I think Intel have over cooked their target price.
See: http://opensource.com/life/12/1/linux-hardware-race-tiniest-and-cheapest-15-cheap
Clearly, the display will be a big cost, and integrating it as one system will add more cost, but it feels like Intel will be considerably more expensive at their published price points. I'll guess at 50% higher.
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Re:Don't like it, don't play it
True, and that's a very good reason to not buy this game, if you feel that's a risk
A risk? It's practically guaranteed. The only thing that isn't guaranteed is the timeframe. It's like buying a computer knowing that it has a timebomb inside that will destroy the CPU after a random period of time. It might go off after a week, or it might go off after three or four years, but it will go off.
Let's look at the history of DRM for a moment.
- DIVX
- Amazon PDF and LIT ebooks
- Yahoo! Music Unlimited
- Microsoft Plays for Sure/MSN Music
- Rhapsody RAX
- Ubisoft (multiple game titles)
- Fictionwise / Overdrive
- Adobe DRMed PDF files from Adobe Content Server 3
- Adobe Ad-supported PDF files
- Harper Collins ebook store
- CyberRead ebook store
These are just a few of the types of content that have become inaccessible or are expected to soon become inaccessible because of the shutdown of DRM-related servers. In some cases, the content still functions on the original devices, but for most of the above list, it does not.
Buying games that will stop working if they can't contact a server isn't taking a risk. It's throwing money away. Taking a risk is buying products that require activation on new machines; at least the continued operation of your own equipment is, to an extent, under your control.
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Re:too many r-pi 'status' posts
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Critiques from experts
Some negative reviews of the project's concept:
* Richard Fontana: http://opensource.com/law/11/7/trouble-harmony-part-1
* Bradley Kuhn: http://ebb.org/bkuhn/blog/2011/07/07/harmony-harmful.html
* David Neary: http://blogs.gnome.org/bolsh/2011/07/06/harmony-agreements-reach-1-0/ -
That's Why!!!
Well, this makes it a lot easier for me to answer this question from OpenSource.com.
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Agh the cluebies...Who are you to determine what is "Open Source Compliant?" If you have the source to it, it is Open Source....
Actually, Open Source (tm) is a registered trademark of the Open Source Initiative. You are not allowed to call your product Open Source unless it is licensed after one of these licenses.
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