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Slashback: Cinelerra, Dolphiname, Phoenix

Slashback with a success story about video editing on Free software, and all-important updates on the MySQL dolphin, MP3 software for Red Hat (why?), the fast-rising Phoenix, and more, all below.

And you don't want your database being a Flipper. MySQL has finally announced the name of their logo dolphin, and the winner is... Sakila! The name, submitted by Ambrose Twebaze of Swaziland, was chosen from 6357 entries "because it represents the global reach of MySQL as well as the friendly, open nature of the company." Slashdot covered the contest back in January, and MySQL listed some of the more popular names submitted back in April.

Perverse incentives are the most fun. Mark Barnett writes in reference to the ongoing pets.com lawsuit story Update: 10/04 00:18 GMT by T : Sorry, that's "PetsWarehouse," not "pets.com.":

"I was one of the settling parties. I did not settle out of fear. I settled because he wanted me to run his banner on my website for 120 days. The settlement did not say anything about the number of times it had to run. I ran it once per day at about 4 AM EST for 120 days. It was my joke on him. I think I got the better deal. I ran the defense fund banner about 1.5 million times versus his 120 times."

Wings for a lizard. Espectr0 writes "Phoenix 0.2 has been released!. Improvements include the return of the sidebar, extensions management and web form autocomplete. It's also a little smaller and faster, and 0.3 will be released in about a week. Get the scoop here."

Unsolicited testimonial. boomerang_56 writes "Wanting to see what the fuss was about, I just installed Red Hat 8. For me, working IEEE1394 features are a must. It was nice to see that now I don't have to recompile the kernel just to have Firewire working. So I downloaded and compiled Kino, and was able to capture from my camcorder, and even control it, without the major tweaks I used to have to do. Then I found out that Cinelerra has been released at version 1.0!!! So I downloaded and installed it via RPM (Pentium II binaries). I had to install an old version of libstdc++-3, but that was easy. No "--force" or the other hassles we used to have to go through. So the first time I fired up Cinelerra, after changing the preferences for IEEE1394 capture, I was impressed to see it actually captured on the first try. I guess the bottom line for this submission is as a user I wanted to say "thanks" for all the developers working on this kind of thing. We all know that besides gaming, video editing is the big killer app. It's really nice to be able to have this kind of power in open source software and not have to boot to Windows just to edit video now. It's not easy enough for my mom yet, but the way things are going, it won't be long. Oh, links... get Cinelerra here (check out the screenshots too). Get Kino here."

Blinkenlampen ueber Paris. fluxdvd writes "In celebration of the Nuit Blanche art festival in Paris, Project Blinkenlights has transformed Tower T2 of the Bibliothèque nationale de France into what is claimed to be the world's largest computer screen. The system used to drive the display runs an embedded version of Linux.

Read the story at Linuxdevices.com. They have live streams of the building at night (Paris time) and replay the previous night's display druing the day. It's quite impressive :)"

We mentioned the plans for this display a few weeks ago.

Don't you hunger for a patent-free, royalty-free, better-at-identical-bitrate alternative? The release of Red Hat 8.0 included the notable, intentional ommission of MP3 software, a decision Red Hat made on the basis of possible patent and royalty problems.

Now SnowDeath writes "After two days of trying to get my ALSA install to work correctly in RedHat 8.0 (Psyche), I finally headed over to the xmms website to see if there were any known bugs with ALSA. Low and behold, the first thing my eyes read tells how RedHat Software decided to not include the mp3 plugin in their xmms install in Psyche in fear of pending patent problems. So, do not despair, there is an rpm "update" for this particular problem on the xmms site."

34 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. CS by El+Pollo+Loco · · Score: 4, Funny

    "In celebration of the Nuit Blanche art festival in Paris, Project Blinkenlights has transformed Tower T2 of the Bibliothèque nationale de France into what is claimed to be the world's largest computer screen. The system used to drive the display runs an embedded version of Linux.

    Am I the only one thinking this was someone's plan to play counter-strike on the worlds biggest screen?

  2. Sakila by unicron · · Score: 5, Funny

    because it represents the global reach of MySQL as well as the friendly, open nature of the company.

    Shit, that's what I thought when I first glanced at that name.

    --
    Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
    1. Re:Sakila by namespan · · Score: 5, Funny

      (1)Take the letters S,Q, and L.

      (2) Add arbitrary vowels between them to make it a three syllable word: Sa-Qi-La.

      (3) Observe that people will pronouce the middle term "Chi" or "Qui" or something like that.

      (4) Change Q to K. Reflect on how the KDE project will be happy about this (Symbolic Kuery Language), and also, how it sounds like a Latin crossover star. Be pleased.

      (5) Think of how cool the name Squall would have been. Masculin, sea-related, implies a disruptive yet powerful force, has S,Q, and L in it...

      (6) Sigh.

      --
      Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
    2. Re:Sakila by namespan · · Score: 3, Funny

      Actually the Japanese can say their R's quite okay, it's L they have a problem with...

      I had a Japanese roomate/friend/coworker for a while, and I'd beg to differ. We worked for weeks trying to get his english R's right (while I worked on trying to get my japanese ra, ri, ru, re, & ro right), especially on words that ended with an r (like door, more, etc).

      One day we were leaving the appartment and he absentmindedly refered to closing the door and said it exactly right. "Iwi!" I almost yelled, "you said it!" Unfortunately, he never could reproduce it again.

      --
      Libertarianism is rich wolves and poor sheep playing gambler's ruin for dinner.
  3. pets.com? by helmutjd · · Score: 4, Informative

    Uhh.. shouldn't that be petswarehouse.com?

    1. Re:pets.com? by PhoenxHwk · · Score: 3, Funny

      It could be pets-overnight.com if you've played enough Grand Theft Auto 3.

  4. Mark Barnett by geekoid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    you still caved, even if you found a way to be weasily about it.
    Sure its funny, but now they can tell other people that previous suits have been successfull settled out of court and they had better pay up.

    All actions have consequences.

    "Weaseling out of things is makes us different from animals...except the waesel." H.Simpson.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    1. Re:Mark Barnett by benedict · · Score: 3, Insightful

      People's gullibility is their own damn problem.
      All a settlement means is that both parties agreed
      to something. If one -- obviously insane -- party
      says the terms were favorable to them, and you
      believe them without checking, then you're a fool.

      --
      Ben "You have your mind on computers, it seems."
  5. As a programmer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What version of Linux should I be programming to? Should I go with The Standard, Redhat? The Pure, Debian? The Cool, SuSE? or The Esoteric, Sorcerer? I would love to develop applications for Linux, but it is too difficult to nail down a baseline system what with each distro constantly adding and removing components all the time.

    Each distro also demands tradeoffs. Redhat sacrifices everything to be "easy to install". Debian sacrifices currentness for stability (ha-ha). SuSE sacrifices compatibility with other distros for ease-of-use. And Sorcerer sacrifices that compatibility even more.

    When Redhat removes another component like they did here, it's just business as usual in the Linux distro world. But for those developers out here who want to write applications, it's really hard with moving targets like these.

    1. Re:As a programmer... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Develop on one platform, and know the differences between them that are relevant to your application. Periodically, and definitely before any releases, test on all platforms that you want to support.

      Program to only one platform and ignore the others, and you better not tell your users that you support them.

    2. Re:As a programmer... by leoboiko · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I believe you should make the program plataform independent, and then let the guys working at each distro port it - they probably can do it better than you anyway.

      Of course, you should learn how to package for your favorite distro.

      --
      Prescriptive grammar:linguistics :: alchemy:chemistry. Stop being a nazi and learn some science.
    3. Re:As a programmer... by Jason+Earl · · Score: 3, Informative

      Programming under Linux is a bit tricky. Basically its a tradeoff between using the libraries specified in the LSB (which doesn't help you at all for GUI programming), or to simply target a specific set of libraries (probably the ones bundled with the newest RedHat). Too many of Linux's APIs are currently in flux, and so it is a crapshoot which versions people will have installed.

      The good news is that fixing the problem is usually as easy as making sure the right libraries are installed.

      This problem, however, is a horse of a different color. This doesn't have anything to do with shifting APIs or the difference between distributions. This has to do with the fact that MP3 compression is patented, and the patent holders have changed the terms for use of the patents. RedHat can't distribute MP3 codecs without paying royalties, and so they don't distribute the libraries that XMMS uses to decode MP3s.

    4. Re:As a programmer... by StuffYourReligion · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Jason Earl said...
      RedHat can't distribute MP3 codecs without paying royalties, and so they don't distribute the libraries that XMMS uses to decode MP3s.

      Err, umm.... well, xmms.org says:
      To clarify, since the beginning of our mp3 licensing program in 1995, Thomson has never charged a per unit royalty for freely distributed software decoders. For commercially sold decoders - primarily hardware mp3 players - the per-unit royalty has always been in place since the beginning of the program.

      So all this about RedHat not being able to distribute MP3 codecs without paying royalties actually appears to be, as we say, a bunch of FUD. Maybe they have different reasons, but it's not about royalties.

      --
      I have no special gift, I am only passionately curious. --Albert Einstein
    5. Re:As a programmer... by rodgerd · · Score: 4, Funny

      Yeah, that's right. Redhat should just keep shipping software in the face of legal opinion telling them they can't. Selfish bastards. They should include a pirated copy of Windows for dual-boot gaming, too.

  6. Re:wow, didn't know it had that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    I'm selling toasters with firewire support, want one? They're $99 and explode if you don't set them up just right.

  7. Lossy formats are louse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Since RedHat removed mp3 libraries from their distribution we should embrace a new format. This time, we should use a lossless format such as FLAC or Monkey's audio or even Meridian not only because of sound quality but because we need to show the Labels that we mean business. With lossless formats we will have equal standing with their business model technically and literally. We need to establish an age of freely distributed carbon copies of their material so that they become completely irrelevant. College dorms have enough bandwidth to exchange 30mb songs between each other. We should actively encourage people to adopt lossless file formats so we have more freedom in dissemination and use of OUR content. We need to defeat the Labels every way possible. By completely eliminating every reason for their existance we might come closer to their demise.

  8. big screen by ottothecow · · Score: 4, Funny

    what happens when someone hacks it and it starts adding hardcore porn to the paris nightlife?

    --
    Bottles.
  9. MySQL Control Center by gurnb · · Score: 3, Informative

    Don't know if you MYSQL users know about the MySQL Control Center application provided by MySQL, but it is pretty cool.

    PROS:

    1) Sleek User Interface (graphically shows PRI keys and I believe you can map relations (FK), but I haven't figured that out yet, also graphically shows indices).

    2) Some queries download faster than web browser and telnet/ssh. Some SQL statements execute quite quickly like DELETE and INSERT.

    3) Multi-window display helps to show historical SQL statements and current actions.

    CONS:

    1) System crashes with "large" queries. Kind of bad that I tried a simple SELECT of one of my "large" tables with 2,500 rows/records and my computer crashed. Yea, I quoted "large" because is is relative between my tables, not to the maximum number of rows that can be stored in MySQL tables. Your mileage may vary as I have really old computer at home - (64 MG/Ram, Pentium I, 32-bit Virtual Memory, Windows 95b).

    2) Not very user-friendly in terms of SQL beginners. You have to know SQL in order to operate the application via the SQL pane.

    3) Compared to other products like MS SQL Server Enterprise Manager, some of the screens are difficult to interpret (related to #2).

    Hope this helps

    --
    "This must be a Thursday, I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
  10. Phoenix: Everything I always wanted in a browser! by thesolo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm using Phoenix right now, and seriously, I'm blown away by it. Not only is it lightning fast in comparison to Mozilla, but it already has the things I've been trying to get in the Mozilla trunk for a long time now. (For those of you who browse Bugzilla, you know how frustrating getting something into the trunk can be sometimes!) Some of the notable features of Phoenix are:

    1) Customizable Toolbars

    2) Home button where it SHOULD BE!

    3) Inline form management (Mozilla's form manager is all but worthless unless you've already filled out 20+ pages of forms.)

    4) Theme that respects my system colors! (Go ahead, change your system colors, Phoenix changes with them!)

    5) No bundled on software--I just want a browser! And if you use Mozilla for the mail, don't worry, the Mail client will be getting the same overhaul as the browser. It's a project called Minotaur, and will be started on roughly when Phoenix hits .5

    There are tons of other things to mention here like the extensions manager, default popup blocking, tabs, worthwhile sidebars, ability to remove the throbber, a clean statusbar that actually works, etc., but it's best if you just see it for yourself! Go grab a copy, and then while you're enjoying it, thank Asa Dotzler, Blake Ross, Dave Hyatt, and the other guys who are making this a reality!

    Thanks guys!

  11. Re:MySQL new version by MattRog · · Score: 3, Informative

    Sybase ASE is already on OS X.

    --

    Thanks,
    --
    Matt
  12. Just to show how open MySQL is... by Myuu · · Score: 5, Funny

    they even included the profane name suggestions...

    bastardo 14

    absolutely hilarious

    --

    forget it.
  13. Phoenix Review by zulux · · Score: 5, Informative


    Phoenix is going to be the default browser in all Windows boxes that I admin - simply because it doesen't need to "install". Just plunk the directory over the network when a new version comes out and - wham! New broswer!

    No "Updating Windows Installer"
    No rebooting.
    No IE vunerabilities!
    No Unnesesary features from Mozilla.
    No EULA to click through.

    Oh. No rebooting!

    --

    Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.

  14. Red Hat and software patents by JamesKPolk · · Score: 3, Troll

    Of course Red Hat respects the mp3 patents. Red Hat (through employee Ingo Molnar) is applying for its own software patents, after all. If Red Hat does anything to interfere with the mp3 patents, then they would threaten their own ability to use the courts to quash competitors, should they win their own patents.

    What patents are Molnar and Red Hat applying for? Why, patents on parts of Linux itself. See applications 20020059330 and 20020091868 at http://www.uspto.gov/patft/index.html

    1. Re:Red Hat and software patents by GigsVT · · Score: 3, Informative

      20020059330
      Method and apparatus for atomic file look-up. An atomic look-up operation allows an application to find out whether a file is opened atomically based on whether or not the file path is present in a file system namespace cache. If not, the file open request can be redirected, avoiding or minimizing impacts to the scheduling of various operations involved in executing an application. The request can be redirected by the application to a process that includes blocking point handling. An operating system according to the present invention includes a file system including a file system namespace, and an operating system kernel is operatively connected to the file system. The operating system kernel includes the file system namespace cache and the atomic look-up operation.

      20020091868
      Method and apparatus for handling communication requests at a server without context switching. An application protocol subsystem and protocol modules are disposed within an operating system kernel at a server. The protocol subsystem creates an "in-kernel" protocol stack that stores information regarding application protocol requests, such as HTTP and FTP requests, in a kernel request structure. A user space application can then continue execution while the operating system responds to the application protocol request without context switching. In this way, application protocol requests received over a network are handled and responded to by the server without causing a context switch.

      ---------
      What has Red Hat done to cause you not to trust them? They are a solid GPL supporter, they don't play games like Lindows does with EULAs on GPL software. We have no reason to believe that they will do what they said, use these patents to protect open source, not hinder it.

      They are not distributing the MP3 code because it opens them up to potential lawsuits. They are selling the code, along with distributing it freely, so Frauenwhosit just might have a problem with that, and decide a 200 million dollar bank account like Red Hat has, is a juicy target.

      --
      I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
  15. Sakila by Zakabog · · Score: 4, Funny

    Linux has Tux the penguin. (Linus Torvalds likes penguins and there's the joke that penguins look like they're wearing tuxedoes which can be seen in many cartoons)

    BSD has the BSD Daemon (sometimes known as Beastie, the daemon story is pretty long and I'm not going to type it here)

    GNU has a Gnu (Well they share the same name so it was a fitting animal)

    So umm why does MySQL have a dolphin? Named Sakila?

  16. Not to mention... by illusion_2K · · Score: 3, Funny

    From the release notes:

    6. Why would I want to use 0.2?

    It has a cool build ID. 20021001 (October 1, 2002).

    ...nifty

  17. Phoenix Screenshots... by phatvibez · · Score: 3, Informative

    I love Phoenix and have been using it as my primary browser since 0.1 was released.

    I have posted severl screenshots on my site:

    0.1 screenshots are here:
    http://www.phatvibez.net/reviews.php?ID=phoenix

    0.2 screenshots are here:
    http://www.phatvibez.net/reviews.php?ID=phoenix2

    --
    --- Brad (http://www.LinuxReview.net)
  18. sakila? by edrugtrader · · Score: 4, Funny

    "an african flavor to MySQL??"

    seriously. WHAT THE FUCK.

    the dolphins name is SQUEAL. EVERYONE thinks it should be SQUEAL. i am starting my own form of mysql starting today, and the ONLY thing different is that the dolphin is named SQUEAL!

    on that note:
    ARE YOU A PHP DEVELOPER? WORK WITH ME AND MAKE MILLIONS!
    Web Developer II

    --
    MARIJUANA, SHROOMS, X: ONLINE?! - E
  19. Free beer! by yerricde · · Score: 3, Funny

    FLAC is champagne, and mp3 is beer.

    Ogg is quality beer, and MP3 is Bud beer. How is Bud beer like repairing your filesystem on a boat? They're both fscking close to water.

    --
    Will I retire or break 10K?
  20. xmms mp3 workaround by Speare · · Score: 4, Informative

    I didn't go back to the xmms site, I just used the Red Hat xmms RPMs which were included in the final beta called (null). These are xmms-1.2.7-14.mp3 and xmms-skins-1.2.7-14.mp3. I figure I don't need a lot of updates to a basic file player, and I prefer Red Hat authored RPMs for a Red Hat system.

    Yanking MP3 support is unfortunate but not worth crying about. If you like MP3s, you probably can handle the hunt for the appropriate files to get your fix. I only use MP3s because so few hardware solutions support OGG or other formats yet. I'd love it if my SliMP3 supported OGG too, but for now it does a great job of making a household jukebox. If I adopt a similar OGG solution, I'll just re-rip the CDs.

    --
    [ .sig file not found ]
  21. Phoenix......I'm back! by DeadBugs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I installed Mozilla 1.1 on my Win98 machine and it would crash all the time (not so often on Win2k). It got so bad that I had to remove it and install IE. I felt dirty for using IE but I had to get my daily internet fix free of crashes. I grabbed Phoenix just to check it out. It needed no install, just run it from the directory you decompress it in....

    So far Phoenix has yet to crash, is "popup" free, fast and everything I wanted Mozilla to be.

    --
    http://www.kubuntu.org/
  22. Re:Concurrent use of Mozilla and Phoenix by RadioheadKid · · Score: 3, Informative

    No they do not, at least on windows. For example on XP, in the Application Data folder, there's a folder for Mozilla and one for Phoenix. Also, on the Phoenix web site they recommend you delete the old config data from 0.1 before using 0.2

    --
    "Karma can only be portioned out by the cosmos." -Homer Simpson
  23. Is There A Tool For These Names? by istartedi · · Score: 3, Funny

    Sakila. Avaya. Verizon. Aquent (used to be MacTemps). Akamai.

    Oh sure, they always say it comes from someplace. Akamai, for example, is supposed to mean something in Hawaiian. I forget what. It doesn't really matter because all these names sound the same. I think there is a secret Perl script somewhere that they aren't telling us about.

    I think it has two basic algorithms. One of them takes a regular word and changes the spelling according to an algorithm I've yet to decipher. The other, simpler algorithm uses the folling syllables:

    av, ev, iv, al, el, il, ul, ti, te, vi, va, vey, ty, tra, tri (perhaps others) and strings them together randomly.

    Try it. It's easy:

    Aviva. Eltiva. Altria. Ultera. Tyvela.

    Thank-you.

    By reading this post, and using the information contained herein, you consent to pay an outrageous consulting fee to me for naming your company. Make checks payable to Steven Marthouse, 5308 Oldcastle Ln., Springfield VA 22151.

    --
    For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    1. Re:Is There A Tool For These Names? by istartedi · · Score: 3, Funny

      For an extra $50,000, I'll type your new name into Google, and advise you of how many hits come back. If there are fewer than 50 hits, I'll research them and check to make sure that it's nothing anybody would care about.

      Just by typing random names based on those sylables (and a few I left out, like "a" by itself). I had no trouble getting Google search rersults with fewer than 10 hits in some cases. An interesting side note--most of the hits came from character names used in online RPGs and/or Anime series. Is it possible that these corporate consultants are just geeks with a sense of humor?

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?