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So where are the Open Source Games Projects?

You're kidding, right? If not, try here, for a start.

http://kandid.sourceforge.net/ is another cool example of computer generated art.

So I guess I'll never win the Turner Prize with my 7337 combination of The GIMP/Script-Fu and GD/Freetype.

I know it's not the OS X spell checker, but here's spell checking goodness for mozilla. 5 minutes with google, and you can find damn near anything for mozilla.

Please visit Slashcode bug #981137, which concerns automatically hyperlinking URLs in "Plain Old Text" mode, and add a comment to show your support for a speedy resolution. No progress has been made on this trivial feature request for longer than six months.

Redistribute this comment at will.

I definitely concur about having to find a killer app for the Palm to make it worthwhile. For me, it was storing passwords securely for a large collection of accounts (using Keyring for PalmOS.)

Once I started using Keyring, it meant that my Palm was always with me and it became the planner/notebook/toy that I use constantly. I use it to store my recipes, to record my games when I play Go, lists of ideas for gifts (since I regularly have good ideas for what to get people, except for when I actually need to get them a gift), music want lists... it's indispensable.

Of course, my cellphone is something of an antique, so that could have something to do with it as well...

That should make a notebook the perfect way to take notes in classe. Here at work, everybody use it during meetings. We can barely imagine how we lived without it.

im sorry but im dsylexic and have Dysgraphia

There is a spell checker extension that you can add to Firefox. It is downloadable from http://spellbound.sourceforge.net/ Seeing as how slashdot will never add an integrated spell checker it would be nice if more users would start using spellbound.

If your phone has J2ME (it likely does) you could probably get it to run jSimpleDice.

I think that the project was begun by Bruce Schneier, of "Applied Cryptography", "Secrets and Lies" and "Cryptgram" fame. But now the utility is open-source and multi-platform.

What am I going to do with a .chm help file on unix?

I completely agree.

I started programming in qbasic (i think that's the right name) and basica when I was about 6. Moved up to bigger and better things as I went along, and I enjoy it a lot!

But do I want to do this as a profession? Hell no.

The demand for generic programmers is practically nonexistant nowadays. I'd much rather give my work away for free. I had the fun of creating it, and that's the only reason I program, because I enjoy the challenge.

Next up, an irc client in Lua-FLTK http://lua-fltk.sourceforge.net/

But for a careen, I'm gonna be a firefighter. Much more stable job. Buildings burn no matter how the economy goes. :p

I think there is plenty of "career path" in Open Source if you approach it as a "service industry." Well, basically I think that software development is dead as an industry, OpenSource or no, except for the "service industry" angle. People who try to make software into a "invention" that pays out long after it has been written are IMO fooling themselves.

Anyway, there are other good reasons to do open source. My current one is perhaps a little more "real world" than those I have had before:

USCVprogs

• Vipul's Razor: http://razor.sourceforge.net/
• Pyzor: http://pyzor.sourceforge.net/
• Spamassassin: http://spamassassin.apache.org/

• Vipul's Razor: http://razor.sourceforge.net/
• Pyzor: http://pyzor.sourceforge.net/
• Spamassassin: http://spamassassin.apache.org/

If DRM upsets you that much, you can get a wav/mp3 writer plugin for your audio player and roll your own DRMless copy. If this isn't possible with your media player

And it isn't. The Secure Audio Path in Windows ME and Windows XP provides a way for a restrictions-managed WMA stream to play only on drivers signed by Microsoft WHQL, and Microsoft WHQL will sign a driver only if it doesn't mix the Secure Audio Path into cleartext digital outputs. For recordings that require Secure Audio Path, you'll need to run line-out to line-in, but with external USB 2.0 sound cards, there shouldn't be too much degradation compared to what lossy codecs do to your file. Thankfully, there aren't many recordings that require Secure Audio Path because there is still a significant install base of Windows 2000 machines, which do not support Secure Audio Path.

I'm sure there are special drivers and tools out there (you know, like Windows Sound Recorder).

Sndrec32 keeps only the first minute of what you record, as it was made before the era of affordable hard drives large enough to support a bedroom recording studio. Switch to Audacity to make extended recordings.

Apple is doing a great thing, but people will always find something to complain about.

Monopoly is dangerous even if the monopolist is not Microsoft.

Thanks to everyone who replied. GraphViz was exactly what I was looking for. The guide seems solid. Apparently there is a decent Java viewer too, but I haven't played with it yet.

They use LibOFX, available under the GPL

A far prettier alternative is KeePass. It uses AES-256, can run off a USB drive, and you'll find it easier to get others to start using it, due to its ease of use and lack of a butt-ugly interface.

I guess it might be worth mentioning that when I built my first MySQL/PHP site, I used ADOdb. ADOdb is pretty slick! This is comming from a person who:

1. Never programed in PHP! (Hell, never programed in ANYTHING before)
2. Never did ANYTHING database related before!

An all-general newbie to this kind of stuff. In one day, I learned how to create tables, insert data, display data on web pages, and all of the other basic stuff! At least a must-check-out for beginers! Ohh yeah, and "use the force, read the source" .. examples can really clarify things as well!

PS - Must Explain why I still have a girlfriend!

I guess it might be worth mentioning that when I built my first MySQL/PHP site, I used ADOdb. ADOdb is pretty slick! This is comming from a person who:

1. Never programed in PHP! (Hell, never programed in ANYTHING before)
2. Never did ANYTHING database related before!

An all-general newbie to this kind of stuff. In one day, I learned how to create tables, insert data, display data on web pages, and all of the other basic stuff! At least a must-check-out for beginers! Ohh yeah, and "use the force, read the source" .. examples can really clarify things as well!

PS - Must Explain why I still have a girlfriend!

I suspect that the target audience of this book are the authors of every code offering on OpenSourceCMS.com

I agree with you. Same goes for shopping cart sites and blog sites. Check out SourceForge for a gazillion more php/mySQL applications like bug trackers and portals.

Then check out Nuke Cops to read up on the perils of mySQL/PHP in highly visible sites. They have logs of plenty of known exploits due to coding problems.

This means that the entire security of the boot process hangs on whatever data the CPU feels like sending to the chip for hashing. I could as well make a patch for GRUB that sends the "secure" version of GRUB down the SMbus and actually executes whatever nastiness I have in store.

That's a clever idea, but it doesn't work. The secret is that the trusted boot process uses a concept of "trust extension". We start off with the BIOS. That takes a hash of itself and sends it to the TPM. Then the BIOS will load and run the boot loader. But - and here is the key - before running GRUB, the BIOS take a hash of GRUB and sends it to the TPM. Then it runs GRUB.

The next step is that GRUB - or at least the TPM enabled version, performs a similar process for the OS kernel. It first takes a hash of the kernel and sends it to the TPM; then it runs the kernel. And the kernel can repeat the process with the various startup scripts and other programs that loads, a la tcgLinux or the Enforcer.

The key point is that before each component is loaded, it is "measured" (i.e. its hash is reported to the TPM). So you can create a bogus GRUB or a bad kernel, but this fact will show up in the TPM's configuration registers because your bad component got its hash reported before it ran.

The one exception is the BIOS, but TPM systems are supposed to have restricted BIOS flash capabilities so you can't re-flash the part of the BIOS which does the initial hash of itself. This is part of what they call the Core Root of Trust for Measurement (CRTM) and it is supposed to be inviolable.

The reason that would be important to me is because Apple does not have a Linux iTune client so I would have no way to get music onto an iPod from Linux.

gtkpod is a GPL'd program that does just that. Works quite well with my 4th generation ipod and linux.

Trusted Computing Group (TCG) technology makes sense in the context of Linux. Microsoft refuses to implement it. They had their own conception, which was Palladium, then NGSCB, then was dropped. So if TCG is going to go forward at all, it has to be with Linux.

It's kind of ironic, because Ross Anderson's lying Anti-TCPA FAQ tries to claim that TC exists to kill Linux. And yet it is turning out that Linux is the salvation of Trusted Computing.

There are a number of research projects in TC on Linux, including TPM Device Driver, Trusted GRUB and Secure GUI, tcgLinux, TCPA Open Source Platforms, Enforcer, and more. All Linux based.

Don't believe the FUD about TC. When implemented in Linux using Open Source software, TC gives you new options for securing and expanding the capabilities of your computer.

If I spend all day using Firefox, (...) For instance, applications written for X11 usually feel much different than native Gnome apps.

...when they discover they've all been hacked to run Lunix

Ditto. And correllate to some other factors as well. A Linux has a huge potential installed base, because it is a general-use application. But what about something like PCGen, which is very focused, yet still has a pretty large development group (from what I can tell). Then projects with only a few maintainers. There is also the dynamic of rewriting an existing application to a new language that may alter results (like jarsync).

Do turnover rates vary between these types of projects? What about potential for actually releasing code? (since so many projects on SourceForge don't have any code at all) What about forking? What about documentation? What about the ability to transition to a new lead maintainer? There is an entire dymanic of management systems here which is different from anything for which we have a lot of data.

I truly hope this inspires someone to do some in-depth research on this. I should write some of my former business professors and see what they think :)

Ditto. And correllate to some other factors as well. A Linux has a huge potential installed base, because it is a general-use application. But what about something like PCGen, which is very focused, yet still has a pretty large development group (from what I can tell). Then projects with only a few maintainers. There is also the dynamic of rewriting an existing application to a new language that may alter results (like jarsync).

Do turnover rates vary between these types of projects? What about potential for actually releasing code? (since so many projects on SourceForge don't have any code at all) What about forking? What about documentation? What about the ability to transition to a new lead maintainer? There is an entire dymanic of management systems here which is different from anything for which we have a lot of data.

I truly hope this inspires someone to do some in-depth research on this. I should write some of my former business professors and see what they think :)

Firebird

They all beat MS-SQL consistantly, and postgresql is coming close to toppling oracle!

Mysql isn't the only open source database in the world. It is popular because 90% of users DON'T need all the flashy features. xw

Ha.

I'd say I'm far from stupid - not a genius of course, but I do enough knowledge to administrate Unix and Windows systems, and write software. Yet I can't keep a Windows box spyware and virus free, unless that's specifically my objective.

I mean, it's certainly possible, if what you aim for is a spyware free box. Yes, I can use vmware, every virus and spyware scanner, try to make sure everything I install is 100% safe, and perhaps get a clean and hopefully useful box out of it. But no normal user does that, myself included. I'm certainly fairly paranoid and won't install random crap from the net, but nice looking useful tools can have spyware too.

If you want a real example, here's one. Go to this Azureus page. Well, actually that's not the Azureus page. It's a page that some jerks set up where you download spyware. The real page is on SourceForge.

The cost of forgetting to look with a critical eye at the fake page is to have your system infected with all kinds of crap that will then pretty hard to remove. And it's pretty hard, mind you. I could fairly easily have fallen for it, if I hadn't seen the official one before and wondered why they changed their design so much. Normal users don't run strings(1) on suspicious executables and google for information, though.

Now, you could argue that this kind of thing applies to Linux as well. True. However, there's a critical difference: On any sane Linux distribution, the official release of Azureus will be a package. And if the user downloads the software on their own, it'd be installed in their home directory. At least, while running under your account such crap is limited in what it can do, and has it much harder to wedge into your system as to make it hard to remove.

I fixed this, by the way, with apt4rpm.

Lots of GUIs to install packages exist. For example Porthole, Synaptic. (There are more than these, but I don't remember the names right now).

See also Autopackage for a nice attempt at easy installation across different distributions.

Microsoft doesn't make a commercial livecd BUT there is a boot cd that runs a custom Windows PE environment called Bart's PE http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ With the addition of the XPE plugin http://sourceforge.net/projects/winpe/ and some tweaking you can have an almost fully fuctional Windows XP desktop from a live cd.

Password Safe was designed by Bruce Schneier

According to the site it can be used on Windows, as well as an older PocketPC version.

Timo's Rescue Cd Creation Set

The premade iso is a good small system suitable for a super rescue disk, but you can also 'roll your own'.

OpenCYC.org project Sourceforge CVS repository has not beent updated since October 22nd 2003. I hope some of that DARPA money will go a little way towards completeting the 1.0 release.

You should check out Netjuke for managing your music library - http://netjuke.sourceforge.net/ It's all web based, so you don't need any iTunes software - just a browser and an mp3 player app! Developed in PHP and was mainly written for MySQL, but I believe it supports other DB software.

Just hook up one of those cheap laptops in any room, plug some speakers in to it, browse to your Netjuke server on your local network, and play away!

I've been using this for a couple of years and it's been awesome. It's also good for sharing music with communities - it has different levels of security that the administrator can set up. Once you get Netjuke up and running, all of the administration is via the Netjuke interface.

Build custom playlists, play all tracks in genre randomly, see the latest artists and albums that have been added to the DB, and much much more!

Also, Netjuke's music importer reads in the ID3 tags in mp3s, which makes it very fast and easy to get all of your music info into the Netjuke database.

Turns out that Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ will do this just fine. In fact a quick google for skypecasting will pop up some instructions on how do this.

One of the really cool things about it is the "proximity" feature. When I walk away from my desk, it locks automatically. Now, if it could only reacquire my phone when I return, that would be something.

• I selected Roku Soundbridges. I like the interface, and the display. They can access the network using either 10/100 wired ethernet, or 802.11b wireless and provide analog and digital outputs to feed either powered speakers or your stereo. I have two hanging off the same server setup described above, and they work great.
  
• I can also "mount" the music shared in the manner described above with iTunes. I've only tested this w/ the winderz version, as there are no Macs in the house modern enuf to run iTunes.
  

• The slimserver software, and a software version of their client are available free from their web page. Try before you buy, or buy one squeezebox and use the software version on laptops elsewhere.
  
• Roku _might_ implement synchronized play in the future. I see no reason why they could not.
  
• Roku supports "tuning" internet radio stations. I plan to set up a stream, fed by another piece of software looking at the same set of files so that I have my own internet radio station in the house. I've used jwz's gronk, which is a web-based jukebox package for this purpose before with success, but will also consider grind this time around. I do not know if I will achieve synchronization this way or not, but I'm hoping.
  
• Gronk and Grind do not use ID3 tags, so when I originally ripped a lot of my music for Gronk, I didn't care about the ID3s. All of the rest of this software DOES care, so I have a bit of a mess on my hands.
  
• Gronk is written in Perl, so it's hackable. This comes in handy tweaking things like sort order, whether to include "the' in the band name, etc. JWZ also provides a demo version to play with on the site below.
  
• Another way to get the synchronized music, and to serve over wireless, although not the way you originally asked, is to set up an FM transmitter. I have not yet done this for this project, but my prior Gronk installation supported one of those micropowered fm transmitters intended for use with mp3 players in cars just fine.
  

• 
  Linksys NSLU-2
  Unslung firmware for the NSLU-2
  Roku Soundbridge
  Squeezebox and Slimserver
  mt-daapd on Sourceforge
  JWZ's Gronk
  Grind
  A review of a REAL FM transmitter
  

Seems like the market for this is limited. StreamRipper lets me download most radio stations' MP3 streaming audio. Mplayer with some addons allows me to download RealAudio streams which can be converted to MP3. I've got this all automated via cron job to download NPR news, This American Life, plus foreign radio broadcasts for later playback. Plus I can download multiple streams simultaneously, and no worries about poor reception.

try 3ddesktop, which is a desktop switcher which runs on opengl. (at first i thought it was a desktop environment, which is obviously isnt - it's a desktop switcher) works on fluxbox, xfce4, kde, gnome... pretty much anything on linux. runs really fast. animation speed and view mode types can be customized quite well.

I'm very happy with my SliMP3 :) Just want to point out that anyone can download the Slimserver http://slimdevices.com/su_downloads.html (compatible with Linux, Mac, and Windows) free of charge and stream to winamp. In other words, you don't need the hardware SliMP3 or Squeezebox player to use the open source server. Once your network is set up (wireless or otherwise) you'll be able to stream independently to any PC in the house. If you optionally download the Softsqueeze player http://softsqueeze.sourceforge.net/ (also free to download) you can synchronize each player so they all play the same thing. Then you can also synchronize volume controls accross all players or control volume independantly on each player. No, I don't work for Slim Devices, I just really like my SliMP3 and what they've done with the Slimserver.

I just use 1 box with an FM transmitter. The signal is spotty in some areas (so I just move the antenna), but I can use any FM radios almost anywhere in my house. I wasn't really out for super high quality. The box runs a modified version of tunez. I can control the box from any web browser on my network (wired and wireless).

It would have been much better had the left in the ability to stream over the internet so I could listen to my collection at work.

It would be straightforward to set up an OpenVPN tunnel between your home and your work (unless you have exceedingly Nazi-esqe network administrators). Then, as far as iTunes is concerned, you're coming from a local address, thereby circumventing the noxious DRM.

Install Slimserver (http://www.slimdevices.com/index.html) on a central server with all your music. Put a P3 laptop (or some other machine) with wireless in every room you will want music. Run SoftSqueeze (http://softsqueeze.sourceforge.net/) on each client, connecting to the server. Get a PDA with wireless and use Slimserver's built-in handheld skin to control your music.

Done!

On Mac OS X, there is a small, free software program called "Desktop Manager" that provides multiple desktops. You can configure the desktop "transition" to look as if it's a multiple faced cylindrical polygon (where each side face is rectangular) rotating. This transition is advertised as cube rotation rather than polygon rotation, but you can have more than 4 desktops/faces, and it certainly doesn't make a cube.

Think 'afterstep in XP':

http://www.litestep.net/

Back when I ran windows (1999, maybe?), this worked reasonably well under Win 98. I haven't tried it since, but I saw something on Google that suggested that it works under XP...

Personally, I'm perfectly happy with gnome (or maybe evilwm) these days, but that's me.

I have Password Safe installed on my PDA, as well as my USB Flash drive. I use that to manage my passwords. It's a bit of a pain to keep the two in sync, but not too bad. I used Diceware to generate a fairly secure master passphrase.