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TRON: The Unknown Open-Source?
jordandeamattson writes "Over on CNN there is a very interesting article about Tron, an open-source real-time operating system from Japan first developed and distributed in the early 1980s. The claim is that it is more widely distributed than Windows (in some 3 billion devices world-wide), that the developer (Ken Sakamura, a University professor) would be worth mucho if he had just charged for it, and that Microsoft/U.S. goverment used trade rules (Super 301) to block it adoption by schools in Japan. Check it out for an interesting read and a 'what might have been ...'" (Here's a previous mention of Tron from March about MontaVista's work to combine it with Linux.)
I don't give a damn about operating systems, but those cybercycles were 1337.
Tron is an OS? I thought Tron was a simple program, written only to destroy the MCP.
--- I'm going to get a score of -1 for this post because the mods are fuckers.
TRON is an "embedded" operating system running inside microprocessors, which control electronic devices ranging from mobile phones to fax machines and even kitchen appliances.
Micro$oft Windows doesn't control electronic devices ranging from mobile phones to fax machines and even kitchen appliances, as far as I know, right??? (I hope it doesn't anyways)
How can you compare the two?
Sure, there's google, but there seems to be the TRON OS home page, in english.
Besides, what devices run than OS ? anyone know ?
This is a pretty unfounded claim. The truth is that this is a relatively simple system we are talking baout here. If Sakamura had been charging for TRON it seems relatively likely that either hundreds of competitors would have sprung up to grab a slice of the pie or that someone else would simply have released a similar open source product. In either case, although Sakamura would probably have made some money, assuming $43 billion is just silly.
lysergically yours
"Had Sakamura decided to charge even one cent to each user of TRON, he would easily be a dollar billionaire by now, possibly even rivalling Gates, reputed to be the world's richest man with a fortune estimated at $43 billion by Forbes magazine."
/. I'd be rich! No one can say what would have happened in terms of adoption if there was a financial barrier.
This assumes that he could charge one penny, or one dollar, or 100 yen, or whatever. This kind of speculation is vacuous. It is like saying, If I had a nickel for every time I read
How to Download YouTube Videos
In the movie TRON, TRON was a program designed to crack security and free the computer from an overpowering OS that became self-aware and was plotting to take over everything. In the end TRON was victorious.
It's not hard to draw obvious parallels...
Hearing that M$ went out of the way to block TRON from being used on this side of the pond brought back found memories of said movie. Give that program one of those cool disks from the movie and see what happens...
Be excellent to each other. And... PARTY ON, DUDES!
Had Sakamura decided to charge even one cent to each user of TRON, he would easily be a dollar billionaire by now
What's a dollar billionaire? The term just struck me as odd. Does it just refer to the fact that they mean the billions would be in dollars instead of yen?
Most people would die sooner than think; in fact, they do.
all ready modded overrated.
Take notice, this is what happens when karma whores try to first post.
Next time, leave comedy to the professionals who post at 0 and -1. Or better yet, fire up your l33t Linux rig and toss it into the tub next time you're taking a bath.
I wonder, if TRON was embedded system - how could they use it for school computers,
or maybe we should compare it to QNX ?
-- echo '[q]sa[ln0=aln256%Pln256/snlbx]sb3135071790101768
It isn't like there are no alternatives to linux.
So, where's the TROFF operating system?
It is more likely that the trade barrier being described would be for sale of hardware rather than for software. I can't see the US Govt getting up in a lather about the MSDOS license fee.
The other issue the story ignores is that there would not be as many copies of the O/S if there was a charge of a cent a copy.
The most widely used O/S is embedded on some smartcard or other...
Looking for an Information Security student project suggestion?
Try http://dotcrimeManifesto.com/
Actually TRON stands for TRace ON, it's counter part being TROFF, TRace OFF.
Here, and here.
(All links courtesy of google).
The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
PLEASE no more stupid jokes about the movie
First revealed in 1984, PR0N, which can be modified for use on personal computers, was hailed in Japan as a homemade software which could break the dominance of Playboy and Hustler and free Japanese masturbators from the burden of paying for the basic software.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Is that instead of just deleting old programs, you can throw frisbees at them and they'll disappear. For once, you'll be able to have as much fun deleting files as Strong Bad[homestarrunner.com].
It wasn't me, it was the one-armed
Sadly enough, actually Windows CE has found itself into the workings of certain onboard computers in home appliances. Scary, isn't it?
Homer: Uh...it's like...did anyone see the movie "Tron"?
Dude, the music at the tron2 site is melting my brain... the flash anims have locked up my browser and all I can hear is that errie ethereal chorous background music..
This is so much worse than a goats.ex link.
MAKE IT STOP!
Yes we may be a heartless, monopolistic company
Tell me about it.
but we're not that other heartless monopolistic company who doesn't like open source.
Microsoft uses open-source software in its Services For UNIX product. Many of its userland network programs (ping, ftp, etc) are based on those from BSD. But then again, Microsoft put a provision into the license for its C library banning linking with copylefted code, even where the copylefted code's license would otherwise allow it (e.g. "operating system" exception in the GNU GPL), so I guess you're right.
We at Disney love open source.
Then why hasn't Disney released Mickey Mouse as open source? Nine out of ten copyright scholars agree that it's time for the company to move on to a new cash cow.
Will I retire or break 10K?
Seriously, this is the first /. story in a looong time that is totally new and fresh to me and interesting.
/. because of.
/. even for just a bit.
This is they type of story that i began reading
For all the shit i normally give the ed.s, i gotta give you guys props this time. Thanks for bringin back the old
Where's the light-cycle racing program?
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
I'd like to see this guy's TRON pc. I wonder what software he's able to run on it.
Fromt the article:
"It's not good to charge people for using something which is like a social infrastructure. It also inhibits the development of the computer industry. The very basic infrastructure should be free," he said.
"But Mr Gates is free to do whatever he wants, as we live in a world of capitalism."
A man who's got it right.
Why can't we (in the western world) get this type of soft-spoken wisdom to be the face of OSS, and not the curmudgeonly off-putting geekazoidness of RMS?
This is comparing two different things. Its like comparing QNX to Windows. TRON isn't an end user's OS, or even a server OS. Its a turnkey solution. I think there's a lot of noise being made over nothing here.
"It's not good to charge people for using something which is like a social infrastructure. It also inhibits the development of the computer industry. The very basic infrastructure should be free," he said.
Good idea. I want my free phone, my free internet, and my free electricity as well.
Seriously though, it seems that he's not making a distinction between "free as in speech" and "free as in beer"...
The ENIAC Demo Competition
Since no one RTFA (but me :) here's 2 really good quotes:
"It's not good to charge people for using something which is like a social infrastructure. It also inhibits the development of the computer industry. The very basic infrastructure should be free," he said.
Should? I don't know. But it certainly would be a great help to the advancement of the software industry.
Asked about the operating system inside his own computer, Sakamura smiles broadly. "TRON, of course. I don't use Windows."
That's obligatory, but still amusing.
Developers: We can use your help.
I remember that... Trace on would show each line number as the program ran; great debugging tool.
If TRON is more deployed than *BSD, then TRON has less of a chance of dying.
Will I retire or break 10K?
I can get a 14 foot spoiler and Type R stickers for my operating system!
So...let me get this straight: The USA blocked it's [ TRON ] adoption in JAPANESE SCHOOLS, because it was unfair trade practice?
Am I missing something?
And while I'm at it: Bussinesses don't innovate. They sell. Scientists innovate, and are hampered and held back by bussinessmen. That is how it has always worked, and how it always will work. When we finally get our collective heads out of our asses, maybe we can actually start working on our future.
In actual fact, TRON is one of the standards of the embedded world and most students should hear about it in any embedded/microprocessor course they do.
There are various areas in the TRON project. BTRON would be the desktop-OS oriented part, and that's where the Chokanji OS comes from, still the best environment for DTP in Japanese.
I can remember when TRON was going to save us all from Unicode with its TRON Multilingual Environment. It didn't work out but it did result in quite a nice platform for Mojikyo.
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
Thank you lenny bruce, what would we do without your comedic stylings?
...but I'll only use it if it sucks me into the computer, puts me in a blue suit, and lets me hurl those lightning disc thingies at the MCP...
http://tronweb.super-nova.co.jp/btronproducts.html
enjoy...
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
By the way, what has oranges to do with Windoze? :)
Now where is the URL of the homepage of this 3 billion users OS?
It doesn't have?
Is it only "for those who know"?
TROFF. -)
Here's the game!
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Had Sakamura decided to charge even one cent to each user of TRON, he would easily be a dollar billionaire by now, possibly even rivalling Gates, reputed to be the world's richest man with a fortune estimated at $43 billion by Forbes magazine.
And then Disney would be 43 BILLION richer when they took his money for copyright infringement... just for fun.
Even with all of that money, they still wouldn't have put enough members into the dev team effort into making Tron 2.0 worth anything more than your average movie license game.
Handy tip: if you don't have anything new to bring to the table since light cycles were done on the coin-op game, then do something new. JUST A HINT.... Half-Life 2 will be sitting on the shelf next to you very soon.
What programming language is TRON implemented in? Inquiring programmers want to know...
You know you want to.
Hey look! It's an open source operating system that isn't based upon Unix and is successful. Wow!
Too busy staying alive... ~ R.A.
... but underestimating the effect which TRON has had on the industry is also silly. TRON was designed to run *everywhere* - circa 70's era technology - and has.
The JAVA guys found big inspiration in TRON as a project, and in fact there is reason to believe that Sun held the TRON project up as an example of 'embedded processing' done right in the early days of the JAVA project.
To underestimate how much this would've been worth, had it not been for a little slack licensing, is to discount the story here.
Projects like this ARE worth lots, and lots, and lots of money.
And while TRON may not be the mega-system it was supposed to be (actually, it was supposed to be the worlds biggest computing system), all of this is still feasible with Linux.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
are belong to us.
While I like linux and all I'm always willing ot see new things. He said he's using Tron on his pc and I wonder how portable it is.. Wish he'd release it :) or better yet maybe he can work on Linux to help it not ever freeze which is also very rare but not impossible.
Ummmmm... WTF?
The article made no mention that Microsoft did anything whatsoever to block TRON using trade rules or anything else for that matter. There are only three mentions of Microsoft in the article.
I'm not sure of how much dominance Microsoft had in 1984!! These were the days of the Commodore 64 and Apple ][. The IBM compatible wasn't a market leader at the time -- let alone Microsoft. Microsoft didn't have the money nor the clout to block anything.
The
If this statement is true then the implications are that MS really is out to control digital information and communications world wide. If the US state department has a hand in this kind of bull, then things are not rosy for the future linux and open source. Kind of makes you wonder which part of the world is actually "The Free World".
If this is true ignoring open source might make Orwells 1984 look like a rainstorm at a church picnic.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
I wonder how TRON (The Real-time Operation Nucleus)
is related to the real time operating system you offered at
http://www.atinucleus.com/
Is the word "Nucleus" related anyway? There are a few faint references to TRON on the Nucleus-site
I want to spew my hot, sticky jizz all over Lora's glasses!
It's not uncommon for the US to use trade laws as a weapon.
In this case, the US might tell the Japanese gov that, if they adopt Tron, there will be 500% increase in tax for every import car from Japan. Something like that.
Every gov. of the country trading with the US knows this practice all too well.
...did sell his o/s for some dough twenty years ago...he would be gates and gates would be a nobody...so if this happened we would all be saying
"death to TRON!!!!"
Without RMS, Linux and therefore Slashdot wouldn't exist, and you wouldn't have a reason or a forum to post your opinion. He may be smelly and outspoken and personally embarassing to some fraction of the community that despises the concept of "free software" (read: libertariots) rather than "Open Source", but without him we'd have a lot less freedom to work with computers the way we want to, not the corporations or the governments.
...I'm a moral billionaire. Where's my slashdot article?
Can anyone point me to the actual license of this code? (Japanese or English) How about the source code? There seems to be plenty of binaries and specifications available for download.. but source?
Thanks
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
Every gov. of the country trading with the US knows this practice all too well.
And vice versa. It's a two way street, and the US is hardly guilty of being the only nation to use economic ties to get concessions on seemingly unrelated issues. This is the way international trade works-- it's not moral or good, but if you're going to cry "foul!" on America, you'd also better point out the abuses that have been and still are being carried out elsewhere. (China comes most readily to mind.)
where's my download, damnit?
grey wolf
LET FORTRAN DIE!
I think RMS would be happy... we could all do the GNU/TRON dance.
Maybe someone should forward this story to Darl, get him time to get his lawsuit ready.
TIME TRAVEL to me .. ;) he went back 1984 and released it's Master degree thesis (aka TRON) back then .. and this story came up today!! Have you looked at windows 1.0 ? My Washing Machine LCD controler has more functionality than that .. Now having that windows version to "block" TRON (suposedly more powerfull and free) is not very feasable .., so the story might not be very well told!.. And i forgot .. back then Windows was not even a SO .. was only a UI
I fuse with Mercer every single day...
What we don't get to see, is 10ms after the story ended, the system hung with a BSOD.
Kudos to Disney for early recognition that nerdy corporate software developers get all the babes, and software pirates wear black, and are despicable vermin.
First, nothing begins if not opening
that the developer (Ken Sakamura, a University professor) would be worth mucho if he had just charged for it
Think about it, if he had only charged a billion dollars per copy, at 3 billion units sold, he'd have more money than all the countries of the world put together! Woah, what if he charged a TRILLION dollars per copy. He could buy the solar system!
Yeah, that's not how it works.. Probably the reason why it IS so wide spead is because it was free...
You can download come code off this Japanese page. Just click the first link in the right column.
TOPPERS is a GPL implementation of the ITRON (Industrial TRON) specifiction for embedded computers. You can find more information about it in this paper.
some googling found that there were about 20 billion processors in 2000, and they are being made at about 5 billion/year, so in 2003 there should be 35 billion. At a penny a piece, that's only $350 million. 4.3 Trillion (to equal Gate's wealth) is still far away... at this rate (linearily and thats a *really* bad assumption when we know it's closer to exponetial), that will take 850 more years. But, by then the cryogenically frozen gates will have had time to earn some interest on his money. If he plays it safe with 5% interest, then he'll have $4.4e27.
HIV Crosses Species Barrier... into Muppets
So you paid for the basic infastructure with taxes. I live out in the country in the US and where I'm at, the water, electricity and natural gas infastructure were all priviately developed and low cost.
The nearest town was wired by the Rural Electrification Project and the city still owns the power grid. Electricity costs twice as much. The water and sewer systems were WPA projects too, and they also cost more.
As far as I'm concerned the best very basic infastructure the government can fund is contract enforcement and honest money.
If DOS/V is related to btron, then i've used one flavor of it at one time or another. It was back when I was still on my Pentium 100 trying to play hentai games =)
"Sakamura said he was puzzled by the initial U.S. move and disappointed at the reaction of Japanese firms, but it allowed him to concentrate on the original aim of developing TRON for use on microprocessors rather than on computers."
Yeah, let Windows and Linux fight it out over the computer market - Tron can run on just a microprocessor...
Consider that a very useful function of TRON is it's ability to display a wide range of Japanese and Chinese characters...
I wouldn't guarantee you a "Type R" sticker but you can probably have your fill of silly stuff written in Chinese you can't read. Reminds me of a car I saw driving around with Japanese text on his bumper, literally it read "i'm a big stupid!"
I like this line, and IMHO it illustrates much of what is wrong with the USA, today.
...but that's not the end of the story...
Don't get me wrong, I don't advocate any sort of move to Communism or Socialism, or anything like that.
But Capitalism is good as a motivator. Greed is a powerful motivator. But it doesn't belong in the same basket as 'air', 'water', 'food', and such. Maybe in the short term, it can sit in the same basket as 'sex'.
But in the USA, it appears that we've turned Capitalism (perhaps more precisely, greed) into a religion. IMHO this particular shuffling of priorities causes an unstable situation.
Simple demonstration:
Want to increase profits?
Move jobs overseas, paying 'local' wages.
Profit!!!
Everybody does it, too many jobs move overseas.
Nobody at home can afford your prices, because they're unemployed.
Overseas they can't afford your prices, because you never paid them enough.
Is the profit sustainable, or have you simply ransacked the commons? (one-time)
Again, not proposing Communism, but to say that Capitalism can exist without a Commons is myopic.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Somebody phone Disney okay? (I don't know if they have email.)
You cant just assume that due to his work he'd have uprooted Microsoft and made billions.
He would also have needed the 'plan' a giant such as Microsoft had to move along and build the market share.
Not debating Bills questionable morals, but with out his drive and ambition, there would not have been Microsoft as we know it today.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
eCos has ITRON API implemented as a compatibility subsystem.
Where are the screenshots? I can't find any, not on the linked article, nor on the official Tron pages.
I think I'll stick to Linux running Ximian desktop 2 for now.
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
It seems that there is already a project underway to integrate Tron with Linux. . .
Tron + Linux = T-Linux.
"The T-Engine Forum and MontaVista Software announced that they are collaborating to combine TRON ("The Real-time Operating system Nucleus") -- the long-dominant Japanese embedded operating system -- with embedded Linux, in an effort to create a standardized software architecture for embedded devices that takes advantage of open source software and the benefits of Linux, while retaining a degree of compatibility with TRON."
Funny how Microsoft and other Software companies were probably at the heart of this decision yet they want to outsource jobs to INDIA.
And everything we've wanted to do with Linux, we can now do with some flavor of Windows.
Please kill yourself now.
It really should be called GNU/TRON.
Oh, just wait. I'm sure EVERY SINGLE FUCKING "I thoughted TRON was teh moovie hur hur hur" comment is going to be modded to 5. You know, since nerds can laugh at the same obvious joke over, and over, and over, and...
And all my coworkers do. And I've interviewed 20-30 people in the last month, all embedded developers. I've never heard of TRON nor did I see it on any resumes.
pSOS is a standard of the embeded world. Embedded Linux is. Wind River is. Nucleus is. TRON?
The 60% thing is surely overstated.
...to see a major media company like CNN over simplifying things?
And I think we all know why they make statements like that (otherwise it wouldn't be an interesting article to people who don't know any better)...
I can't think of a good sig...
And how much money did Disney make off that movie and subsequent merchandising?
...the decline of what passes for western journalism:
> that the developer (Ken Sakamura, a University professor) would be worth mucho if he had just charged for it,
Any mention of just maybe it wouldn't be
> more widely distributed than Windows
if he had charged for it? And ol' Ken-sen's 'product' might not be so widely distributed, nor would he be 'worth mucho'.
The only problem in your logic being: If everybody else is doing it and I am not, then I'm going bankrupt soon enough and I will not be able to feed myself then. You, sir, are full of hipocrisy, since I'm sure that if you were the owner of a business and get struck between sending other people's job overseas (and feeding some poor schmuck back there in the menatime) or letting your company go titsup (and firing a lot more people in the process), you will also ship some jobs overseas. Get real.
"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds !"
... paper one yen notes. The Nipponese gub-mint prints em on rolls for toilet paper. All proceeds go to education and for building new airports.
what license is it released under?
are there any desktop screenshots? I'd love to see them, and compare them to those of QNX. That would be informative!
Now some blokes are going to go make a BTron OS theme or whatnot for GTK, Sawfish, Enlightenment, Blackbox, twm+... All based on a couple of screenshots!!!
If the Gentoo Founders had not open sourced Gentoo they might have made Millions!!!! Oh wait - no then Linus never would have fixed their shitty ass kernal and called it Linux.....
Maybe if he had sold his kernal to them and then they charged for it they could be worth BILLIONS...
Yes I am speaking utter nonsense - because thats what this story is...
Ave Molech Setting
I don't deny that I would be forced to send jobs overseas, too. We don't really disagree.
I'm merely saying that Capitalism requires constraints in order to be stable. Capitalism itself will not protect the Commons that are necessary for its survival. The Commons must be protected by *enough participants* doing so out of their own enlightenment/goodwill or it must be protected by force of Law.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I bet the real reason the US invaded Iraq and invented WMD was because Iraq didn't sign the DMCA.
UnAmerican posts get modded down ;-( tyranny of the majority. Should the CEO of Nike go to jail if one his globalised workers in China gets harmed making Nike shoes?
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
TRON is one of many excellent real-time kernels that are available. They solve a simple problem, so it is not surprising that there are many of them that are excellent. When you application needs a minimal kernel, you can probably select any of several and find it supports your project perfectly well.
The advantage of moving up to Linux/BSD/Darwin/whatever is that you gain the ability to add a vast library of public domain daemons and applications.
The disadvantage is that you gain the overhead to support that flexibility.
it is true that Linux/BSD/etc. can now be considered for a wider range of applications than they could have five years ago. But if your device does not need thsee capabilities, there is no point going with something as complex as Linux or BSD. The real-time kernels, like TRON are a better fit.
As for translating TRON documentation: I think you're right. Given the availability of several excellent kernels, why would a development team pick the one with documentation they can't read?
What if US workers agreed to work for the same or lower rates as overseas workers? Cost is the employer's motivator. Just because you may live in the US does not mean you are guarenteed a higher quality of life than other people on this planet.
cpeterso
Myopic is not looking past the first step of the capitalistic process. What happens is that labour overseas stops being quite so cheap as more and more labour is demanded. Eventually there is a natural equalization between the economy you are "abusing" and your own. No, it is not 100% good for your own economy to export jobs, but at the same time, it is not catestrophic either. Also, this HIGHLY conservative behavior has the most liberal effect of bringing poorer nations more in line with western standards of living (while bringing down the west somewhat). That is the true VALUE of capitalism - if left alone, it will always self-equalize.
Thanks for the links but after going to the first one I was blinded by the color scheme....I think I have a headache now and I have to stop working and go home....I guess there is a plus side :P
> Ken Sakamura, a University professor) would be worth mucho if he had just charged for it.
I don't believe that. If he charged for it, then it wouldn't be so popular. If Linus had been charging for Linux since day 1, think it would be as popular today?
I noticed ITRON (industrial Tron) and BTRON (business tron) and CTRON (comm Tron).... they didn't discuss the Tron's which are such a huge part of Japan these days: FFTRON (fecal fascination Tron), BKTRON (bukkakke Tron) or SBTRON (snatch blurring Tron)...
Lots of Japanese industrial equipment runs TRON. It's a trip running a Japanese OS.
Searched the tron related web sites and could not find anywhere to download this supposedly free open source os.
Anyone have any location for this and maybe some documentation in English.
*world-wide), that the developer (Ken Sakamura, a University professor) would be worth
* mucho if he had just charged for it...
Would he have really been "worth mucho"? It seems that his software product only became so widely distributed because he gave it away. If he had charged for it, he would have greatly reduced it's mass adoption.
// The fastest Alt-Tab in the West
Unfortunately, Mr. Sakamura was not aware of key developments in microprocessor development in the USA. Just at the moment that he had announced the new TRON instruction set architecture (ISA), microprocessor development in the USA was undergoing a revolution. Numerous studies in academia were published on how compilers and programmers actually used instructions. The computer-engineering community reached a consensus that complex addressing modes should not be implemented in the hardware. This conclusion was backed by the quantitive statistical measurements of actual programs.
Unfortunately, the TRON ISA continued the mistake of using complex addressing modes (ala 68000). Instead of simply admitting that he had made a mistake, Dr. Sakamura clings stubbornly to the idea that the TRON ISA is just as good as the ISA of ARM, etc.
The American government is almost as stubborn as Ken Sakamura. The government viewed the proposed TRON ISA as a threat to the dominance of American microprocessors. This view is understandable since, at that time (mid 1980s), Japanese companies threatened American dominance in a number of American technologies. (One example is DRAM.) The Japanese government had, also, just launched their 5th generation computer project. American officials feared that Japan would soon supplant the USA as the #1 computer manufacturer. So, even though the TRON ISA was clearly inferior to most modern processor ISAs developed by American engineers, the American government went hogwild and demanded that the Japanese government stop developing a personal computer based on the TRON ISA.
In the end, this American stubbornness actually helped the Japanese government by stopping it from wasting millions of dollars on a project (to build a TRON personal computer) that would have failed. By the way, the 5th generation project was also a massive failure.
Americans should stop worrying about the superiority of American technology and morals. The 21st century never became PAX Asia despite all the doom and gloom predictions in the late 20th century. The 21st century is PAX Americana. The hordes of Asian immigrants flooding into the USA in order to get the hell out of Asia should have been a big hint.
what's wrong with communism...it's only failed because of pressure from capitalist countries...it might have worked quite well without the tension caused by the juxtaposition of two competing ideologies...it's underlying principles are quite sound
Mr Stallman, your kernel is ready. It's been ready for *cough* twenty years.
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
OMFG.
Try to live with 200$ per month in the US.
Anywhere.
Assh*le.
All trolling aside, I'll wait for a court of law before I offer any words like "duck" or in any way shape or form assist this goverment to good or ill. The process is crooked, it's well known amoung the policy holders as well as proven intent to endanger sympathetic groups for a scapegoat, and instituted surpression (use of repression)->pratical uses of psychology.
Who know what's been lost, cure for breast cancer, food shortages, etc...
$200??!?! u rich fat bastard.
try $30.
someone mod this up
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." --Saul Belloe
What if US workers agreed to work for the same or lower rates as overseas workers? Cost is the employer's motivator. Just because you may live in the US does not mean you are guarenteed a higher quality of life than other people on this planet.
The problem is differences in cost of living. The dollar goes a lot further in India than it does in even the cheapest parts of the US.
For $X/a month, a worker in India would probably have a *higher* standard of living than a US worker being paid the same amount.
It isn't that US workers are demanding high pay to live a life of luxury; it's that the cost of living here requires them to. But I guess it's US workers' fault that they aren't willing to relocate their families to a foreign country to continue working.
Your anon coward post sounds like one from
'Those who ingnore the past.'
The pull of a company that can dictate the future of digital communication and through market manipulation control innovation is the whole problem. IBM is certainly not innocent of this sort of corporate despotism. History is littered with instances of little people with a Napolean complex, sad to say I feel the leadership of Microsoft has become another example. We are all capable of exibiting this kind of behaviour, so if there are no checks and balances like what happened to Standard Oil and Ma Bell then we are headed for an information dark age. All bow to Redmond.
I am not looking to get moded up for this post I am only being realistic.
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
If people cannot afford to live in the US, then two things will happen:
1. sellers will have to sell things for cheaper prices
2. people will leave the US for cheaper places to live
cpeterso
As to how many apps are available.
That is a rediculous question obviously there is very little ported to the TRON OS especially hardware, Win modems etc, etc, etc. There has not been a GNU like structure there to fight the battle. And a battle it has been. So I am sure Tron has very little to offer the oss culture, except perhaps ideas that MS cannot get a software patents for, or if they have prior art rulings may overturn. You can bet MS has gone over TRON with a fine tooth comb decompiler already so if there are any ideas that have been cloned they most likely did not try to patent them. The amount of software for the good old tandy osx (and I do not mean os ten) is most likely enormous by comparison. For more info follow http://hometown.aol.com/knudsenmj/myhomepage/umus
His page has good info about a similar dead OS.
Just remember there is no space in the url ending
OH THE SHAME I fell off the wagon and use sigs again!
for the version powering my VCR:
while(1)
{
printf("12:00");
}
If he had charged for Tron, tens of thousands could be employed in his company and Japan may have a credible software industry.
Who do you think benefits from his free software most - all the companies that don't have to pay for it, they are the ones creaming off the money the author should have got. So basically he gave up his chance to provide employment to others and gave his money instead to rich industrialists.
Great idea!!
He manages to sum up the whole open source movement for me in a couple of sentences
"It's not good to charge people for using something which is like a social infrastructure. It also inhibits the development of the computer industry. The very basic infrastructure should be free,"
It said "windows 98 or better" so I installed Linux
On paper it is a good system and so is unregulated capitalism. The problem is when you introduce either of them to reality. Look at Russia for an example of both. The middle path seems to be the best option as it usually is. Motivation by success but regulation of greed.
Time makes more converts than reason
If you're really that stupid, please just shoot yourself in the head. Netscape navigator worked fine in Win3.1, and Mac-OS 6 or whatever it was at that point.
In fact, Microsoft didn't bet on the internet with windows 95. It shipped with its own, at the time, proprietary network MSN, which sucked ass. In order to develop 'sites' for it you had to pay thousands to MS in order to get Microsoft 'blackbird' software to create them
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Wrong. The internet couldn't possibly have been popular without lots (i.e. millions) of people turning it into something interesting. The Win3.1, OS/2 (why'd you even mention that? heh), and Mac audience playing around on the net was not enough to do that. Sorry.
just stop feeding this troll, you're embarasing yourselves.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
...Windows, which controls an estimated 150 million computers. Bill: Damn, there goes my world domination plan!
Everybody does it, too many jobs move overseas. Nobody at home can afford your prices, because they're unemployed.
Yes, but as 'everyone does it' the demand for jobs overseas increases, and as the supply is not unlimited, the price of overseas labor will also increase. At the same time wages over here decrease, until wages in that particular sector have reached parity. Of course, there may be price differences due to regulation and taxation, but they are probably not that different then the costs of shipping, communication, cultural barriers, corruption, etc.
Nobody at home can afford your prices, because they're unemployed.
Overseas they can't afford your prices, because you never paid them enough.
Ah, but we're talking about services and information not goods. So a company with an expanded market share can sell 50 million licenses at $20 rather then 10 million licenses at $100. And this is ignoring differential pricing for different markets as well.
It constantly amazes me that people calling them 'smart' and 'technically literate' can continue to spout this nonsense that shows nothing other then a complete ignorance of economics. Yeah, it's bad for you in the short term, but better for humanity in general (as long as we have things like minimal working conditions and environmental regulations, etc)
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I was under the impression that Christianity was feared by the Romans because of 1) it's 'newness' and 2) the ferocity of it's worshipers. Early Christians were about as nuts as Hamas and those types of people today.
And obviously the roman empire eventually 'assimilated' Christianity, obviously.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I don't understand how is it possible that a big part of the LINUX community keep on judging the market by their commercial or technical aspect and not by the users.
I mean, the users of LINUX-TRON or Windows represent their intention of doing something creative with the OS. It's clear that the more creative the users feel, the more they would tend to use LINUX or every ingenious OS where the tools are available to everybody at any time and unconditionally.
So, with this point of view, everything would look with the right perspective. Since the more experienced every user is becoming , the more are these 'alternative' OS being visible for everybody.
One could apply the same logic with WWW business, and understand why isn't it yet possible to become a prosperous web site even if you spend a lot of money on it.
Alternative OS users shouldn't be measuring the users' interest in opensource to put a price to a distribution. But encourage everybody to start trying something, by playing a lot! (remember: everything is created from crazy acts)
Rwe obliged 2 save our future by choosing:O3 hole-greenhouse effect instead of accepting everydays gossip-nonsense chat?
Perhaps. I partly share your opinion. But the time factor plays into it, too. It may be possible to skip from cheap labor market to cheap labor market. As one labor market starts to develop, and get more expensive, move production to another area that is still cheap. Maybe this does lift all boats, as you say, and I won't entirely disagree with you.
But the other possiblity is that it leaves depressed labor markets behind. By the time you've gone through your cheap markets, if things are badly enough depressed, you've got a cheap labor market back where you started.
A key part of the problem is the pay given in the cheap labor market. Are you cultivating a future market, or are you out for maximum short-term profits?
We'll see whether or not it's catastrophic for the US, because it's not done happening. Where this becomes a self-destructive cycle is if Company A's foreign workers are not on a path to afford their products, and the loss of jobs in the US means that we're off the path of affording their products, either. That hasn't happened on a big scale yet, but things are still moving.
IMHO, capitalism can't be left alone, it needs a framework of Law. Without that framework, capitalism will devolve as Marx predicted. With the framework, I agree that it can be stable.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Hurrah!
Let's hear it for the hardline moderates.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
As long as you make those stipulations, I agree with you. My point was when those stipulationa are not met. It depends on your attitude as you move your labor overseas, and how tough their government is at negotiating.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
This is called "deflation", and every time Alan Greenspan goes to Capitol Hill, he warns about it.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
> people will leave the US for cheaper places to live
Easier said than done. Every country in the world is
clamping down on immigration. The goal is to
insure that everyone lives in such a state of
crushing poverty that they can't rebel against the
small cabal of the superwealthy. That way, when
the population has to be thinned, they can't defend
themselves against the Zyklon-B.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
Dunno... We keep bitching here about how bad is government intervention. We should not keep creating laws just because we feel threatened. If I have no choice about who i hire or where this pernos is located, then there are more chances that me or any other person will engage in creating/expanding a company. What is better, a few jobs in the us and another few overseas or no jobs at all in both countries?
"Emancipate yourself from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds !"
Isn't government intervention just like capitalism or just about anything else in life?
There's a proper amount that's necessary. Too little and you suffer, too much and you suffer.
One hard part is figuring out how much is just right.
Another hard part is getting others to sign on to your concept of 'just right.'
Plus I'm sure that there are more hard parts, life is full of them.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.