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Domain: wanadoo.nl
Stories and comments across the archive that link to wanadoo.nl.
Stories · 7
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Does Faster Broadband Matter?
tsa writes "There is an interesting piece on Ars Technica discussing the implications of faster broadband services for the users, and for the internet as a whole. From the article: 'Most online activities, like standard websurfing, are not significantly sped up by high-bandwidth connections, and the few that are, such as downloading, are not typically time-sensitive anyway. Many service providers are starting to prioritize their own content at the expense of those from rivals. Many countries have started or are considering blocking Voice-over-IP (VOIP) traffic in order to protect the phone companies from competition.'" How does faster broadband actually impact your Net usage? -
Two Open Document Standards Better Than One?
tsa writes "Microsoft says that the consumers should have the choice between multiple open standards for documents." From the article: "Microsoft's Yates said that OpenDocument and Open XML come from very different design points. 'In the future at some point there will be convergence,' he said. In the near term, the transition period from proprietary document formats to Open XML-based ones will be 'messy and complex,' he added. 'Competition between standards we believe is a very good thing.'" -
XOSL, an alternative to Lilo and Grub
WhyPanic writes "XOSL, the Extended Operating System Loader, is a free (as in beer and as in GPL), full featured, graphical boot loader that can work in conjunction with Lilo or separately to boot all varieties of Windows, Linux, and many other OS's." Nifty looking. -
Slashback: Interoperability, Royalty, Fire
Read on for clarification about the alleged Gnome/KDE collaboration reported a few days ago, which ... ain't. And about the project to put Linux on the Royal DaVinci, which promises slow but steady progress. There's also infernally good news for anyone intrigued by the recent open-source Plan 9 release.
Pardon me, sir, are you in the market for a nice strong bridge? Aaron J. Seigo writes: "A letter from Mosfet can be found at knews.derkarl.org which clearly states the official KDE position regarding the recent "news" with regard to Gnome and KDE getting together on a common component model. Which is: It isn't happening. And for good reason.KDE2 is in the final stages of preperation, so this is not the time to go messing with the foundations of things. Also, KParts wasn't designed on a whim. The KDE team put a lot of thought into it and came up with something that has some very real benefits to it (speed/overhead/etc). While interoperability would be nice, don't expect it on the component level just yet. Be happy with drag 'n drop and the like. For now."
Fair enough. Also on the KDE front, Joseph points you to knews.derkarl.org, which seems like a useful one for anyone looking for KDE updates.
Will a Linux PDA become their strong suit? jsinnema writes "News on the Linux Powered Royal daVinci from Wayland Bruns, CEO/CTO/Chief Geek CompanionLink Software at PDA Buzz Royal: 'Unfortunately, development is not on the timeline originally hoped. What's shaping out is two 16MB ROM/16MB Ram units, one 4 color grayscale for a low price, the other full color for a higher price. Size and weight are about the same as a Palm III. The color unit will have a flash slot.' and
'One of the interesting aspects of the project is that this is the first time we can directly compare performance of a particular app on both PC and PDA. I'm happy to report the PDA units are surprisingly powerful, except to note that memory access is relatively slow.'"It sure would be neat if Linux becomes the default OS for palm-top computing; will Royal's project, though, stand a chance against the flashier ones which keep peeking like Monty Python animation over the horizon?
I'm sorry, but I'll have to call you back after I set my computer on fire. rpeppe writes "those who were intrigued by the Plan 9 release but don't have the appropriate hardware, or in fact anyone interested in new languages and OS's should be interested in the following:
vita nuova has released a new edition of the Inferno OS, source code and all, under a new licence, which allows distribution of core OS source code to inferno subscribers only, but unencumbered personal and commercial use of the binaries and the rest of the source code (including a javascript capable Web browser).
inferno is a cousin to Plan 9, but includes a virtual machine and a new language, limbo, and can run hosted under linux, free bsd, windows and other OS's, as well as natively on x86, ARM, MIPS, 68000, 68020 processors. because the whole operating system is virtualised, programs written for inferno are completely portable, something it would be difficult to say about java, for instance.
the language, limbo, deserves some attention - it's C-like, and OO in the deeper sense, but avoids the inheritance pitfalls that languages like java fall into. it's a joy to write in.
in my opinion, inferno was the coolest thing ever to have come out of bell labs CSRG - and we've now got exclusive rights to it, and intend to make as much of this excellent technology as we can. i hope others will too!"
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Slashback: Interoperability, Royalty, Fire
Read on for clarification about the alleged Gnome/KDE collaboration reported a few days ago, which ... ain't. And about the project to put Linux on the Royal DaVinci, which promises slow but steady progress. There's also infernally good news for anyone intrigued by the recent open-source Plan 9 release.
Pardon me, sir, are you in the market for a nice strong bridge? Aaron J. Seigo writes: "A letter from Mosfet can be found at knews.derkarl.org which clearly states the official KDE position regarding the recent "news" with regard to Gnome and KDE getting together on a common component model. Which is: It isn't happening. And for good reason.KDE2 is in the final stages of preperation, so this is not the time to go messing with the foundations of things. Also, KParts wasn't designed on a whim. The KDE team put a lot of thought into it and came up with something that has some very real benefits to it (speed/overhead/etc). While interoperability would be nice, don't expect it on the component level just yet. Be happy with drag 'n drop and the like. For now."
Fair enough. Also on the KDE front, Joseph points you to knews.derkarl.org, which seems like a useful one for anyone looking for KDE updates.
Will a Linux PDA become their strong suit? jsinnema writes "News on the Linux Powered Royal daVinci from Wayland Bruns, CEO/CTO/Chief Geek CompanionLink Software at PDA Buzz Royal: 'Unfortunately, development is not on the timeline originally hoped. What's shaping out is two 16MB ROM/16MB Ram units, one 4 color grayscale for a low price, the other full color for a higher price. Size and weight are about the same as a Palm III. The color unit will have a flash slot.' and
'One of the interesting aspects of the project is that this is the first time we can directly compare performance of a particular app on both PC and PDA. I'm happy to report the PDA units are surprisingly powerful, except to note that memory access is relatively slow.'"It sure would be neat if Linux becomes the default OS for palm-top computing; will Royal's project, though, stand a chance against the flashier ones which keep peeking like Monty Python animation over the horizon?
I'm sorry, but I'll have to call you back after I set my computer on fire. rpeppe writes "those who were intrigued by the Plan 9 release but don't have the appropriate hardware, or in fact anyone interested in new languages and OS's should be interested in the following:
vita nuova has released a new edition of the Inferno OS, source code and all, under a new licence, which allows distribution of core OS source code to inferno subscribers only, but unencumbered personal and commercial use of the binaries and the rest of the source code (including a javascript capable Web browser).
inferno is a cousin to Plan 9, but includes a virtual machine and a new language, limbo, and can run hosted under linux, free bsd, windows and other OS's, as well as natively on x86, ARM, MIPS, 68000, 68020 processors. because the whole operating system is virtualised, programs written for inferno are completely portable, something it would be difficult to say about java, for instance.
the language, limbo, deserves some attention - it's C-like, and OO in the deeper sense, but avoids the inheritance pitfalls that languages like java fall into. it's a joy to write in.
in my opinion, inferno was the coolest thing ever to have come out of bell labs CSRG - and we've now got exclusive rights to it, and intend to make as much of this excellent technology as we can. i hope others will too!"
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Royal daVinci Linux Project
jsinnema writes: "According to Andy Surber (CompanionLink) at PDA Buzz Royal, Royal is trying to put as much into the Linux powered Royal daVinci as possible and still reach the target price range of $199-249. As memory prices change on a regular basis, so does the final specs. As it sits now, they are heading towards a product with 16 ROM and 32RAM (subject to change). The device should also have a compact flash slot, which could also provide additional memory. The product will be based on the Tosiba MIPS processor." Looks very vaporous right now, but if its real, it looks sweet. Kurt the Pope just got WinCE based HP Jornada 548, and now I'm super impressed with PDAs again (although it is only 12-bit color and was until recently advertised as 16). Between this DaVinci or maybe the Yopy, hopefully we'll have a Linux PDA soon too. -
Royal daVinci Linux Project
jsinnema writes: "According to Andy Surber (CompanionLink) at PDA Buzz Royal, Royal is trying to put as much into the Linux powered Royal daVinci as possible and still reach the target price range of $199-249. As memory prices change on a regular basis, so does the final specs. As it sits now, they are heading towards a product with 16 ROM and 32RAM (subject to change). The device should also have a compact flash slot, which could also provide additional memory. The product will be based on the Tosiba MIPS processor." Looks very vaporous right now, but if its real, it looks sweet. Kurt the Pope just got WinCE based HP Jornada 548, and now I'm super impressed with PDAs again (although it is only 12-bit color and was until recently advertised as 16). Between this DaVinci or maybe the Yopy, hopefully we'll have a Linux PDA soon too.