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the core implementation is in python of all things, not so tiny.

Get a life man. protocol != implementation.

There are BT protocol implementations in C, C++ and Java.

The original X-Com and Terror From The Deep work fine in the DOSBox emulator.

Then they just rotate to another key on another card (with other information differing enough to dodge out-of-game banning) and resume action, passing word on of potential GM alts. Even if they can be created and removed at will, names *do* stick out. The worst that you'll do is drive them to this fine game that doesnt silence/shutter private servers, and has mostly self-regulation. The result is a very hardened userbase that knows what does happen.

Dont worry about the script kiddie, he'd get justice here as well. It just would happen with whole accounts with tons of gear, to the point where thousands can disappear with a phonecall - no need for a GM.

The AMD-ATI merger does not bode well for Linux users, given ATI's abysmal track record.

but with Intel's quad core processor coming out Real Soon Now and with my board's already being certified to run it, it was the logical choice. Quad core upgradability was the clincher.

The universe now contains the desktop search with the fastest file-indexer: Strigi! This is a huge improvement over Beagle in terms of resource usage and with the added ability to search for files no matter how deeply nested in packages, archives or mail, it's clearly the best file searching tool for Linux.

The bug is demonstrated by the page at http://pmt.sf.net/gamma_test
The gamma=1/2.2 patch is supposed to match the GIF, JPEG, and other unlabeled content, but when viewed with IE, the gamma=1/1.96 patch matches instead.

Prior to IE7 there were two major things wrong with the PNG support. One was the alpha channel opacity, which thankfully is now working. The other is the gamma handling which is still wrong. See http://pmt.sf.net/gamma_test. Other browsers match the gamma=1/2.2 patches with GIF, JPEG and other unlabeled material, while IE matches them with gamma=1/1.96. This defeats any effort to match colors in a PNG with other items on a web page.

A new addition to the 2.6.19 Linux kernel, eCryptfs, addresses many of these problems:

http://ecryptfs.sf.net/

eCryptfs is an actual filesystem operating at the VFS layer of the Linux kernel. It stacks on top of other filesystems like ext3 and encrypts files one at a time, with each file getting its own key.

Who cares about encrypting libc or the x.org libraries? People want to encrypt their financial, medical, and other such data. eCryptfs makes it easy to encrypt only what users want to encrypt.

Some ways that eCryptfs deals with the issues raised:

What happens when the user forgets his/her new FDE password?

The best answer is, ``You're screwed.'' That is the way it should be; without the secret, nobody -- not even you -- can get to the data.

Now, out here in reality, things can't be quite that convenient. Try telling the CEO that his third-quarter reports are lost forever. The next-best thing is intelligent key escrow. I tend to recommend (m,n)-threshold sharing, wherein a certain number of people in a group need to collude (say, 3 out of 5 people in the company) in order to reconstruct the secret value.

eCryptfs userspace tools have a pluggable key management infrastructure, and thus it can keep the secret value in any token device for which a module exists. These hardware devices do not need to be expensive. In fact, Thinkpads come with TPM chips built-in, and a TPM key module already exists for eCryptfs:

http://trousers.sourceforge.net/tpm_keyring2/quick start.html

How to manage the encryption key backup files?> Who has possession of the backups of the encryption keys? What about when the users quits and does not hand over the password / encryption keys?

All of these are addressed with something like (m,n)-threshold sharing:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_sharing

Also, because eCryptfs encrypts on a per-file basis, an incremental backup utility can just access the encrypted files on the lower filesystem. All of the information needed to decrypt the files is right in the header of each file; all you need is the key.

Who can access the system and its encrypted files?

This is a semantic security problem that the tools should definitely address. eCryptfs, in its current form, provides fairly flexible key management options, but the design goals of eCryptfs are much more ambitious, and they seek to address these sorts of issues:

http://ecryptfs.sourceforge.net/ecryptfs.pdf

How frequently does the password need to be changed?

Ideally, one would use eCryptfs in public key mode, so that is largely a non-issue. The secret can remain locked in a TPM chip, and the key can be escrowed.

How to prevent the user from writing the passwords down?

There is nothing wrong with writing passwords down, as long as the paper on which the passwords are written is stored in a location that can be made at least as secure as is necessary to protect the data that the passwords are protecting. In any event, the secret value can depend on a password *and* something else, like a file. The OpenSSL key module can be used in that way.

Using hardware token (RSA Token, smartcard etc) can alleviate many of the password management issues. But these hardware tokens are costly!

Not really; many laptops shipped today have TPM chips built-in.

Oh, yeah, and all of eCryptfs -- both the kernel and userspace components -- are GPL. Give it a try.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who immediately thought of this, am I?
I'd have chosen something else, even at the risk of it sounding ridiculous.
Like one of my projects, for example.

I beg to differ: http://e1000.sf.net/

Ever heard of PasswordSafe? http://passwordsafe.sf.net/ It will store passwords for you in an encrypted database, and can auto generate strong passwords.

Here is what I do it, using nanoblogger and using vim as my editor. I wouuld rely on vim Syntax handling ablities and covert the portion of the code into :TOHtml.

Like, maybe we can get one mail client that's really good, instead of two half-baked ones, etc.

Hi, Chris Dawson from Box Populi here. The point is that this is not sound recording software. This is a podcast *hardware* appliance.

What we aim to do is solve the production problem, not the recording problem. You are correct in that anyone can record a podcast using Audacity (http://audacity.sf.net/). I use that terrific software all the time myself. However, if you put an unskilled user in front of Audacity and tell them to make a podcast, they probably will fail because the process requires understanding audio levels, uploading a file, managing RSS, and everything else. It is not rocket science, but it is absolutely beyond the ability of 95% of the people out there.

With our appliance, you can plug in a USB thumbdrive to start capture, and then remove it to stop capture, and then walk away. The box does *everything* for you. We think this is something you can train a teacher or church sexton to do in minutes without stressing them out. No other solution (software or hardware), IMHO, offers this ease of use.

Makes me wonder, is there any DYI "mind control" kit out there so that you can process your brain signals to experiment with on a computer?

>Of course, we on /. hope you'll do it with open-source, so we can start our own TV broadcast stations for free

So go start one, its already been done : http://mlt.sf.net/ for Free/free.

I was the project manager for MLT. I know for a fact that there are 35 playout boxes running MLT on Bluefish444 SDI hardware, and capable of handling DV, DVCPRO, MPEG-2 among other formats. Visit the http://mlt.sf.net/ site and contact us (preferably via the SF mailing list) and we can help you out. MLT was built for the express purpose of broadcast playout (I should know, I wrote the spec :) . So, to answer your question : Yes, you can. Oh, it is opensource under GPL, and it runs on Ubuntu (recommended). And it provides a complete framework to write your own media apps. I can (if I dig around for a bit) share some code for playlist management as well...

Although MNG support was removed, the code is still being maintained at http://mngzilla.sf.net/ and can be added back in very easily. They even have builds of Firefox with MNG support for download, so Konqueror is not the only available browser that natively supports MNG.

There's a lot of people who want MNG support back in Gecko, but the people with power are being huge assholes about it and completely ignoring them without explanation. You'd think having over 800 votes for a bug would be enough to get somebody's attention, but apparently not. See bug 18574 for more info: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18574

Amen, brother. A lot of people try to use linux as a means to promote OSS, when what they should be doing is promoting cross-platform OSS apps ...

You're speaking a true word, while a Linux-System may be the last step the first should always be "cross-platform". Yet most OSS developer simply ignore cross-platform development since they don't know it, they don't believe how easy it is and how much they would gain. With wyoGuide (http://wyoguide.sf.net/) I pray for cross-platform development for several years yet the result is more or less neglectable. It seems OSS developers are either too stupid or too conservative to grasp the impact cross-platform development, the vast majority just ignores it while even a minority fight against with ridiculous arguments.

Well I'm on the brink on giving up since I've lost any hope that OSS developers will ever realize the importance and I'm fed up with the answers I get or the troll ratings I get.

Sorry guys,
O. Wyss

DOS lives on in DOSEMU and programs like dosbox which can run fine under Windows XP: http://dosbox.sf.net/

Hey dude, try Cream. It's Vim but with simpler menus and stuff. http://cream.sf.net/

Can you imagine what one billion dollars would achieve if spent for FOSS?

25 clones of Tetris ...
17... Eh, you get the point: Take Freshmeat's frontpage and extrapolate, and that's at best! What you'd probably get is a bunch of people demanding 55 grand a year to work on utterly useless crap.

Sure if you just pour this billion onto everybody's head. But if the FOSS projects are carefully chosen and a clear vision is followed such crap could be easily avoided. Besides a billion is so much money it wouldn't matter if some crap is also gotten. E.g. a rough estimate of about 10 million would allow to make my vision of cross-platform FOSS and CSS (http://wyoguide.sf.net/papers/Cross-platform.html become true. Of course this doesn't change the world but would certainly have an incredible impact on the quality of software in general.

O. Wyss

• [Rabinovich] now points to online articles that he believes supports his position, such as Eric Schnell's and Jason Rumney's blogs.

  Eric Schnell got the whole thing backwards. He thinks that Jin has an A/V module, which IChessU decided not to use and thus do not publish its source code. From his blog:

  From I can make out, Jin's creator Alexander Maryanovsky's problem with IChessU is that while IChessU has utilized Jin's code, they are not distributing Jin's entire source code. An A/V module in Jin is not being used by IChessU and therefore the source code is not included.

  I've tried to respond to his blog, but his captcha seems to be broken. I've emailed him but got no response so far.

  I couldn't find anything related on Jason Rumney's blog, even with a google search.

• "All the articles were produced only by Maryanovsky people/fans," [Rabinovich] says, "which is fine because they are published in developer's magazines/sites..

  Where would Rabinovich have GPL violation related articles posted? A cooking magazine? Are Slashdot, Yediot Ahronot and Arstechnica all my fans? I didn't know I was that popular.

• "He also said," Maryanovsky writes, "that they are planning to wrap Jin in a layer that would allow it to be controlled via a socket. I told [Rabinovitch] that I believe this would still, most likely, be violating the GPL." Despite this opinion, IChessU proceeded with its plan [snip]

  That's wrong. As I mention on my page, they abandonded that idea and proceeded to use Jin in a straightforward manner.

• Rabinovitch, however, writes [snip] The guy is hurt

  Gee, I wonder why I'd be hurt? Could it be because Rabinovich stole my work?

• Rabinovitch rejects the charge of bad faith negotiations because it is made without any explanation or evidence.

  As I explained to him in my response, there's was no need to explain anything or bring evidence. The letter was to him - he already knows all the evidence! He was there at the negotiations!

• Writing to NewsForge, Rabinovitch states that all source code was posted to the IChessU site, including that for the audio-visual module -- a claim that cannot be substantiated, since all code has now been removed from the IChessU site. He characterizes the audio/voice module as a separate program that "has nothing in common with the original Jin (it is even written in a different computer language!).".

  So if the source code to the A/V module was released under the GPL, as required, why argue that it's a separate program? Not that it makes any difference, as that is exactly the point of the GPL - even unrelated code becomes "infected", as long as it's part of the same application. If I didn't want unrelated code infected, I'd release Jin under the LGPL. That is the whole difference between the GPL and the LGPL!

• What if we integrated into Jin a Microsoft Word button -- would Mr. Maryanovsky then claim that we should publish the Microsoft source code as well?

  No, I would then claim that they cannot publish the resulting application at all, as the GPL clearly states:

  If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all.

  As has been pointed out many times - you do not have any rights to a GPLed application except for the rights that the GPL gives you. The GPL does not give you the right to add a "Microsoft Word button" to Jin (excep

If you want to achieve anything with execs you need numbers to prove your case. I don't know in which business you are in but if you are in SW you might look at the links in this message (http://ask.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=196175&ci d=16079080). If you read more of my comment at Slashdot or at wyoGuide (http://wyoguide.sf.net/index.php?page=Cross-platf orm.html) you'll find more numbers and hints.

O. Wyss

A community that's perfectly happy with EMACS and VI? ...

It's not the community that's happy with the OSS UI design, it's just the posters who aggressively voice there opinion here. Else the Linux desktop would be the number one desktop and users wouldn't use Wine, etc to run Windows applications. You don't believe me? Well why then shows the OSDL survey that a majority of the Linux users still wish for Windows applications (http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005 .pdf)? Or why use 60% of the Linux users any kind of methode running Windows application (http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/survey/survey .cgi?view=archive&id=0821200617613)?

Unfortunately mostly the pro EMACS and VI voicers are also developers while rather seldom any none voicer is also a developer. Therefore most UI design mistakes don't get corrected even if it would be rather easy (see http://wyoguide.sf.net/).

O. Wyss

Just a note- don't underestimate the power of WinCE. It is a pretty decent OS, and with the state of the available software, I'd rather run WinCE than Linux on a PDA. Pocket PC 200x/Windows Mobile 2003 or 5.0 are a little less useful than full-blown WinCE.NET 4.2/5.0. The reason for this is the software available- for me, one of the big things is the availability of input methods- if I had to choose just one, I'd much rather have the real HWR of CalliGrapher/Transcriber than the not-too-great thumboard on any of the Linux-based Zaurii.

I'm not saying that it couldn't change, but as a hacker, I was able to get more done on a WinCE handheld- either a PocketPC type device, or preferably a handheld PC like the Jornada 720 or the Sigmarion 3- with a bunch of Unix tools than on the various PDAs running Linux that I've had (3 different Zaurii [Sl-5500, SL-C760 and SL-C1000], VTech Helio, iPAQ 3650, Jornada 720 [well, that one was a BSD]). It is no slander against Linux- if the software was as good, I would rather run Linux. I was able to write useful, end-user useful PDA-style apps with native widgets far easier on WinCE than on Linux- I had Perl/Tk, Python w/ Tkinter or w32api, Pocket Scheme, Dialect, NSBasic and others. I did a lot of my development on the PDA itself- for me, a PDA is way more powerful if I can use Perl/Tk to whip up a weird little app in 10 minutes than having to go back to my Linux machine later and write an app for Qtopia in C++- a task which would likely take hours, and not 10-30 minutes like the Perl, Dialect or Squeak app.

Mind you, someone who is willing to put in the work to do a port that works of various libraries or languages that they need might be fine. For me, porting and rewriting C/C++ code isn't my forté or preferred way of spending my free time. There are a lot of ported Linux/Unix tools and languages available for WinCE.

I'm not saying that my way of doing things is for everyone- if you prefer the added overhead of doing PDA development on the desktop, that is fine- but for me, on-board development is a must. There are ports of Python, perl, etc for the Zaurus- but last time I checked there wasn't a way to write Qtopia apps using them, though that might have changed recently. And even all the dev tools finally made it to Linux PDAs, the other software and PDA-ish features would still be lacking.

People tend to write WinCE off completely- dismissing it as nothing but a bad MS kludge, a "shrunken Win95," or something of the sort. But it is actually a very capable, useful OS. And this is as a Linux and OS X user- I don't have a Windows machine, and I don't use ActiveSync, etc- and I don't need them to use a WinCE or PocketPC/WM device to its fullest.

Though, if Apple did bring back a PDA, I'd pray to any and all gods that'd listen for a Newton OS. Newton OS > WinCE > PocketPC/WM > Linux > Palm OS in the heirarchy of PDA OS usefulness for hackers. :D

...I recently wrote an article for Better Software (details here) showing the duplicated code and some other static analysis-type problems that PMD turned up in two fairly popular open source Java apps - Azureus and Columba. Both these programs are excellent open source apps, but both also had a number of places that could be improved.

This is kind of a Slashdot permathread, but anyhow, static code analysis is not a replacement for smart people also looking at the code. Rather, it augments folks' efforts and provides a safety net to catch little problems that can slip through. A duplicated code detector is especially useful because it can scan a massive codebase and help pick out chunks of code that can be refactored away. This reduces the lines of code, eliminates the possibility of duplicate bugs, and is great fun.

...I recently wrote an article for Better Software (details here) showing the duplicated code and some other static analysis-type problems that PMD turned up in two fairly popular open source Java apps - Azureus and Columba. Both these programs are excellent open source apps, but both also had a number of places that could be improved.

This is kind of a Slashdot permathread, but anyhow, static code analysis is not a replacement for smart people also looking at the code. Rather, it augments folks' efforts and provides a safety net to catch little problems that can slip through. A duplicated code detector is especially useful because it can scan a massive codebase and help pick out chunks of code that can be refactored away. This reduces the lines of code, eliminates the possibility of duplicate bugs, and is great fun.

I've yet to see a better cross-platform solution than Qt. It can be used with great languages like Ruby, Python, C++, and more... and it's worth every penny. Runs beautifully on Windows, Mac, and Linux with no modification to source.

I don't criticize QT since I haven't developed any code with it. Yet I really like to see an OSS sample code written with QT, building and running unchanged on all the mentioned platforms.

If you want to look at OSS cross-platform code which truly builds and runs unchanged, go to wyoGuide (http://wyoguide.sf.net/) and try out the demo sample. It works out of the box on Linux and Windows and as others tell on MacOSX albeit it uses wxWidgets instead of QT. Besides this sample is a fully featured application which can be used as a starting base code for your own project. And there are may more OSS cross-platform applications listed which easily fulfill the cross-platform requirement.

O. Wyss

Usability improvements on the desktop are nice but when do people realize that usability improvements are desperately needed on the application level and only marginally on the desktop. What does it help if you have a perfect desktop but many of the applications one uses have a rather rubbish usability!

Usability is always measured in a greater context, a context which goes far beyond the Gnome desktop but spans any desktop used. Just think how an American driver feels when he drives in England or vice versa. You might interrupt that's rather seldom the case but not with computer desktops. Almost each Gnome users uses a KDE application and even 60% use a Windows application (http://www.desktoplinux.com/cgi-bin/survey/survey .cgi?view=archive&id=0821200617613 at the bottom) and everybody knows the easyness of MacOSX.

Sure application developers don't want to lose much time with usability they want to concentrate on functionality. So they can't follow multiple separate usability guidelines they simply don't have the time. Yet usability is a very important part in the acceptance of an application. To circumvent this, application developers should follow cross-desktop or cross-platform guidelines (http://wyoguide.sf.net/).

Yet Gnome might still follow the MacOSX way sticking to there own perfect way and be happy with a rather insignificant market share. Or they help working on fighting off the first "Top inhibitors of Linux desktop adoption" (http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005 .pdf).

O. Wyss

Don't forget OpenCBM (http://sf.net/projects/opencbm) to do the transfer from Windows and Linux, and the newer version of mnib from Pete Rittwage (http://www.rittwage.com/c64pp/dp.php?pg=mnib).

...have you tried an emulator?

Dude, my palm pilot from six or seven years ago could probably emulate that Mac at full speed without any trouble.

Also, midi is trivial to implement, provided you have the original files and some documentation about their format.

If you need help figuring out the file format, here's a tip: a lot of file formats are really simple data structures linked together using addresses of data structures as cross-references. The result is that it is hard to figure them out because there are lots of extraneous changes every time you change something intentionally.

A nice trick for figuring them out is to use a "tridiff" tool. Open the file, make a change, save the change under a new name. Quit the app, open the file, and do a Save As of the file without making any changes. Take the difference between file A and B and ignore any bytes that also changed in file C, and you have significantly reduced the number of changed bytes that you have to consider.

I wrote some tools to help you do this. You can find it as part of the tarball (file download) at http://sf.net/projects/deck2omf.

Sometimes the stuff I do for fun seems awfully close to computer forensics. That download is a good example of this.... :-D

I'll take this opportunity once again to self-promote. I wrote EDSAdmin. A user and group management tool for LDAP servers (including LDAP+Kerberos and Samba) that focuses on doing its one task simply without bothering the user with DNs or CNs or general LDAP specific terminology. Check it out and let me know what you think.

-Mark

PNG files with gamma=1/2.2 are still rendered differently from PNG files with the sRGB chunk
and from untagged images. See http://pmt.sf.net/gamma_test where the 1/2.2 patches
should match and the 1/1.96 patches should be lighter (use Firefox or almost any other
browser to see how the page should be rendered).

How exactly? I primarly use Visual C++ 6's IDE and have found, as with other development environments like IntelliJ, all they really seem to be good at is helping you to organize your projects files and automate the building process. Their debuggers are also often fairly nice.

So do I, thanks to cross-platform development I use VC++ 6 mostly for debugging even if I use the code later on Linux.

When I'm using Linux, I have vim, make, and gdb. The fact that I do not have these tools integrated in an environment similar to something like Visual C's means I have to do a lot of switching between terminal sessions. It's often easier to work on a project if everything is mostly in one place.

True, there's no IDE on Linux which has as simple project files as are my makefiles. You don't believe that? Just go to the wyoGuide project (http://wyoguide.sf.net/) and look for yourself. BTW I use about the same tools on Linux but for wyoEditor, this way I can use the same editor on all platforms.

O. Wyss

Most distributions offer some sort of precompiled version from the Emacs development tree. The gdb mode for source code debugging is much advanced when compared to either XEmacs or released Emacs versions.

There are also native precompiled snapshots for MacOSX (http://yaced.sf.net/ and http://aquamacs.sf.net/) and on the AUCTeX download site http://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/download.html there is a recent Windows executable.

For Ubuntu and/or Debian, apt-get install emacs-snapshot should do the trick.

Most distributions offer some sort of precompiled version from the Emacs development tree. The gdb mode for source code debugging is much advanced when compared to either XEmacs or released Emacs versions.

There are also native precompiled snapshots for MacOSX (http://yaced.sf.net/ and http://aquamacs.sf.net/) and on the AUCTeX download site http://www.gnu.org/software/auctex/download.html there is a recent Windows executable.

For Ubuntu and/or Debian, apt-get install emacs-snapshot should do the trick.

On POSIX Operating Systems you can use GAFFitter.

Description:

Genetic Algorithm File Fitter (gaffitter) is a command-line tool that uses a genetic algorithm to extract subsets of an input list of files and directories that best fit a given volume size such as a CD or DVD. This is used to find different combinations of the files on the list such that lost space will be minimized.

Since I develop everything cross-platform I regularly use Visual Studio 6.0 on Windows. So far I haven't found a better development environment on Linux than the console, the big ones are too bloated, the small ones too limited and none has a useful debugger integration.

Yet I've to admit, thanks to using wxWidgets my makefiles are seldom larger than 100 lines and never larger than 200. Here (http://wxcode.cvs.sourceforge.net/wxcode/wxCode/c omponents/wxscintilla/build/Makefile?view=markup) you can view my most complex makefile, you probably have no problem to understand it. Another sample how easy you can develop with the console is at wyoGuide (http://wyoguide.sf.net/) which can be used as a tutorial if you have some C++ knowledge.

O. Wyss

Where are my mod points when I need them? +10. Mac OS X (10.3 at least) is stable performer. Not ideal - but over all Okay. Unix side of theirs is quite compatible with BSD.

Most of the Linux stuff I did compiled and worked w/o any problems on Mac OS X. I often used my iBook as additional portability test bed.

It's still more Open Source than Windows.

That's especially looks true when one compares Fink with the bastard CygWin or SFU. Under Fink I had no problems at all. CygWin with it's funny on-the-fly conversions (between Unix-way and Windows-way doing things) never stop me surprising.

On-topic. The article actually surprised me. Linux just reached mainstream - and journalists already try to send it back to nerd's underground. Or it's probably just change of target: before the very same kind of journalists claimed for whole decade that Apple is dead. It's just now they have more scapegoats for the cheap shot journalism. In the end, no way I would even consider informative the article filled so carelessly with lots of technical info - but without any decent references. The sentences like "[...] flip this switch, it'll unpack itself [...]" just highlight that the guy never left his desk for real IT back rooms.

As soon as Linux looks as shiny as MacOSX, this will change. Yet the question is, can Linux eventually reach this point. For that Linux (better said the Linux desktop) first has to solve the "top inhibitors of the Linux desktop adoption" (see http://www.osdl.org/dtl/DTL_Survey_Report_Nov2005. pdf). Any GUI software has to use DirectFB/Cairo (see http://www.directfb.org/) as it graphic engine so it looks as shiny. And applications have to follow the wyoGuide guidelines (see http://wyoguide.sf.net/) so they have an equal usable look&feel. If these requirements are fulfilled Linux will completely replace MacOSX.

O. Wyss

Where's the instructions for upgrading the cheapest old Core Duo notebook to a Core2 Duo with these new chips?

It's on the back side of your Geek Card.. but I'm afraid you have to hand it in on your way out ;)

BTW, I've successfully upgraded a laptop processor before, it's no different from other computers. Except the cases are a bit harder to take apart and even harder to put back together. And you need to be careful of things like heat (obviously) and voltage. With software-controlled voltages you'll probably need to override the BIOS-given voltages (using something like Linux-PHC), as they are probably different for the new CPU.

This thread has inspired me to register the domain "publicpriorart.org" -- the intention is to build a database of ideas, thoughts, algorithms,etc in a public place, strictly for the purpose of preventing patents from being filed for them in the future. Anyone interested in helping? Or can point me to an existing effort, so I don't waste my time?

Though there's no one public place, other than the internet, there are a number of websites who share not just programs but other things like music. There are all of the open source website collections like Sourceforge and Freshmear. Here's Creative Commons, for legal music downloads there's Links to Tens of Thousands of Legal Music Downloads and MagnaTunes. More can be found on Wiki's Creative Commons License page.

No end user is going to use a product if it NEEDS documentation.

Something I want to help get fixed in OSS with wyoGuide (http://wyoguide.sf.net/).

O. Wyss

Linux is pretty much THE dominant OS in the server space these days...

Yet I don't have or won't ever have a server at home. I have a desktop system and want to use desktop OSS. All my OSS development efforts (see http://wyoguide.sf.net/) are for the desktop so everybody can use them and not only big business with servers. So if Linux is useful for the desktop then it's fine, else I'll move to a different system.

O. Wyss

1) The whole thread is not about having an OS running ON a bare naked GPU, but the fact that modern GPU are massive and parallel floating-point units that could be harnessed to do wonderful specialised calculation (things that can be parallelized without too much precision needed, some thing that some BOINC projects like Folding @ home to nicely), and on the other hand nVidia complaining that while they have all this interesting opportunities, they are forced, due to market share, to spend most of their time supporting a brainfucking stupid OS (most of the recent Windows version that still needs GPU drivers) legacy ridden architecture (x86. Even recent chips like the Pentium4 and the Core are still backward compatible with the tiny-winy number of registers the banked memory model and some BCD (maths in base 10) of the original 8088/8087. At least, more of the legacy is now handled in microcode (register renaming) and newer architecture like AMD64 got some of those stupidity removed, specially when running in 64 mode. That's also one of the main reason why the Itanic failed : every one is tied to this old crap architecture, and though crappy it is nobody could suddenly switch to some other more modern architecture. Even if nVidia would like to spend more time with more custom tailored achitecture ).

2) We don't speak about architecture related restriction, but about market share. Most of the company have to spend most of the work time supporting the main dog (Windows on Intel). Yes, we know that you could plus those card into anything with a PCI, an AGP, or an Express connecter. But how many people are pluging those cards into a sparc ? Not many. Windows is still the main market that must be supported (because of the huge amount of gamers that stay there) and the linux users and/or exotic hardware user have just no luck. (And that, coupled with the lack of collaboration from both ATI and nVidia to develop good open-source drivers makes me angry. nVidia users are out of luck for OSS 3D, ATI must rely on reverse-enginered stuff ).

3) Cell for your information, the Cell processor includes a bunch of highly specialised co-processors (dedicated hardware good for vector and floating-point) NEXT to a general purpose CPU Unit (PowerPC based, as far as I know). The CPU parts runs the OS, the cells only serves the dedicated math tasks. Think of it exactly like what is done with GPUs-turned-into-general-purpose-math-units, or the different (programmable) physics engine, etc... the cell are just here to offer a programmable vector/flop facility to the software running on the PowerPC part.
On the other hand given the crap that was able to run OS (xx-DOSes on 8088) some primitive OS *may* be ran on the cell part...

4) Microsoft switched from x86 to PPC, because it's their frickin' hardware, where they control everything and are free to choose whatever solution they want, because the consumer buys a 'XBox', he doesn't care if there's a "Intel Inside" or "powered by Windows" (...of in case of DreamCast : "compatible with Windows" for the few applications that did use it). The PPC switch gave them opportunities they found interesting (less knowledge around hackers, so they hoped slower breakin in. custom built hardware meant getting free of legacy x86 architecture that still somewhat plagued the XBox 1), etc... Although the x86 for the XBox 1 was a logical move : for a company that mostly works with Windows PC, making a gaming console that is basically a customized Windows running on a simplified PC both has an easier learning curve and is cheaper to produce (due to the high availability of PC hardware around). Basically XBox 1 was an experiment in the console field using a PC with "XBox" written on it, were as XBox 360 is more trying to develop in complete freedom a gennuine console architecture.

Apple on the other hand switched specifically to Intel for mostly a marketing reason : the computers today are a commodity, and Apple is trying to attention span from,
- people

As others already have mentioned Xara has a superb GUI and is easy usable. This is due the fact that Xara tries to be wyoGuide conformant (see http://wyoguide.sf.net/projectlist.php).

O. Wyss

The best thing I have found that exists in a ready-to-be-used state (as opposed to the countless hordes of maybe-someday projects) is vtfileman. Its available at http://vtfileman.sf.net/ and there are at least two instances of it running at universities (http://filebox.vt.edu/ is the original and http://filer.case.edu/ is the one that I run). I have some implementation notes on installing Filer at http://filer.case.edu/wiki/filer/notes

It does have a lot of other requirements though, such as an LDAP server for accounts, Apache to serve the HTTP and WebDAV pages, Apache Tomcat for the JSP interface and proftpd if you want FTP access. However, it is pretty sweet once its running.

If thats too complicated, you may be better off just making WebDAV shares individually for different groups. Personally I like that with vtfileman, people can set up their own accounts with little to know interaction with the system administrator.

The Java static analysis utility PMD was a spinoff of a government project; it's survived the end of the sponsoring project and is carrying on nicely with a pretty recent release.

It's great that the folks running that particular government project had both the foresight to realize that this utility would be valuable outside that project and also the organizational savvy to figure out how to make it available as open source. Good times.

Go get LAME from http://lame.sf.net/ and most Linux players will work fine. The reason LAME can't be included in the distro, if I remember correctly, is that the MP3 patent in the USA forbids distribution of alternative (non-Fraunhofer) MP3 codecs.