I read fantasy and I like it. There is a subtlety and craftsmanship that goes into telling a good story.
Good taste in art is a matter of two things. Variety: Can you find the beauty in something as humble as country music? If so then I applaud you. Depth: I am an avid reader of comics books. To truely appreciate Asterix books you have to read each one at least once and Asterix in Norway 17 times. The art is fabulous and the dialogue is witty and the story is great.
The fact that you can't appreciate that there is beauty to be found in fantasy novels reflects poorly on your sense of aesthetics. The fact that you think that makes you better than other people reflects poorly on you as a person.
I haven't seen this "Dungeons and Dragons" movie. It's probably awfull. But fantasy is a valid art form. And people who like it don't have to take any crap from you.
I think that all the people asking about why this is cool should have their slashdot logins revoked.
This is the coolest thing I have heard in a long time...
1.5 weeks!!!!
It's mind boggling. Charles Northrup will go down in my books as one of the great hackers of our time.
Just the sheer audacity to look at those bazillions of lines of code and say, "Dang it. Today I'm going to port those things to windows." A lesser man would have died on the spot at the prospect of such a tremendous undertaking. I would have died if someone had even shown me that much code, let alone told me to port it.
I moderated up to a +3 the Bruce Perens comment you are referring to. And you are right that Slashdot editors do make a lot of mistakes. And as another poster so already stated, you do have the most awesome slashdot id in the world.
On the other hand I think CmdrTaco's comments about Bruce Perens "stints" at one thing or another are valid. Let's take a look:
1] First he was involved with Debian but then he quit because it wasn't getting newbie friendly and it wouldn't adopt the rpm package manager.
2] He started Software in the Public Interest. But he quit.
3] Then he was involved with the OSI but he quit because ESR allowed O'Reilly to use the word open source at a comvention even the the rest of the OSI board voted not too.
4] Then he started LSB but quit because it wasn't moving fast enough.
5] Then he started this venture capital group but now he's quiting that too.
To me this represents a series of "stints." A fairly dang freaking awesome series of stints. But "stints" none the less.
In general computer languages become less readable and explainable in direct proportion to the amount of punctuation in them. This is why anyone can read gwbasic but perl is hard to read.
On the other hand perl is more concise.
DCL has the worst of both worlds. It has tons of punctuation and is less concise. Users prefer bash.
In general VMS is ok if you want to set a mail server or something that doesn't require any attention after the initial set up. But no one really gets excited about these type of applications.
UNiX is more loved than VMS because it is user friendly. Imagine that Linux was LinVMS for a second...
Part of the problem with Java is the crappy implementations.
Why program something if you know that your users are going to have the regular crappy netscape java vm?
My experience with java as a user have all been crappy. It seems like the implementations are not the same and that you have to install the correct one to get your programs to run. Sun could alieviate part of this problem by releasing the "official" version under GPL thus making it more of a standard.
As a user I'd prefer it if programmers just wrote in c++ and recompiled for a different operating system or cpu.
>Any company planning on releasing non-GPL (ie proprietary or an alternative Open Source licence) would be insane to tie themselves to the future licencing whims of Trolltech.
If you download the GPL version of QT then they can't change the license for you.
If you want to develope close source applications using QT you can buy a different license from them and do that.
There is no problem here except when people want Free Software but are not willing to make their own software free.
(on the other hand I do wish the Windows version of QT was GPL because then I would use it in a GPL program I'm writing for both Windows and Linux. Porting the GPL version of QT would probably not be too hard but would not be a popular action)
This is obvious but everyone is reading it as if they are the same.
In Germany you are _allowed_ to rent a movie and copy it for personal use (use with familly or having close friends over). People pay a special "copying" tax for this. In Germany macrovision is illegal because it stops you from using your right to copy video tapes which you paid a tax for.
This is why it's not unusual for them to tax CDROM burners because those are used for copying also.
Did you know that the LiViD web site is hosted in Germany for legal reasons?
It's not as bad as Slashdot is making it seem. It's just different.
Maybe some Slashdotters hate the idea because it comes from MicroSoft but personally I hate it because it's crap.
MicroSoft does not create backward compatible code in many cases. They say they do but quite often it's not fully backward compatible. Different versions of.doc are renderred incorectly.
So after the end of the year it may happen that you won't be able to rent the same version of Office and all your work will look just a little bit screwy.
Or maybe they won't rent Office for windows 98 any more so you have to upgrade to whistler.
Ok So both of those examples were specific things that MicroSoft would do. But I really don't hate MicroSoft. Other software companies would do the same thing to some extent.
It's always better and cheaper to own than to rent. Unless you don't use a computer very often, of course. But then why would you read Slashdot?
I think the worst thing that happenned for them last year was that Sun open sourced Star Office. I know Corel makes a ton of other programs besides Word Perfect but that's the one that I hear about the most.
I can definately see Star Office being a major force in three or four years...
People said that this would hurt MicroSoft and it will a bit. But mostly it will hurt Corel right now.
I think IE has not won the browser war because it is tied to windows.
A lot of people use Macs.
And even more use Linux. And even more people will use Linux next year and the year after that.
I try not to make any predictions too far into the future. But I will say that Linux will not slow the rate of growth in the next 3 years...
I have heard that gecko is a pretty good renderrer if you do work in embeded systems... That makes sense to me. This is another area that looks like it is going to grow in another 3 years. Here again it doesn't help to be tied to windows.
Also (unrelated to being tied to windows but related to being tied to MicroSoft) when AOL's contract with M$ expires I'd bet that a whole lot of AOL users are going to find themselves switching... It's just a hunch I have.
But Corel and Storm do... I believe Corel is the #2 most downloaded Linux iso at tucows.com.
New distributions that arise will either be based on.deb or.rpm.
I don't see this kernel as having a imediate impact for most home users. The major things will be plug and play and usb support. Most desktops only have one cpu so better smb is not a factor.
People say that Debian software is outdated and this may be true for the stable branch but the unstable has the most current packages of any distro. There is an increasing demand for a compromise between the bugs in unstable and the age of stable as more people start using debian on the desktop and as companies realise that there is money to be made from selling specialised versions. I expect to see a new "Debian firm" release that addresses some of these concerns
Debian will be relevant for atleast another 10 years yet.
Wouldn't it be cool if
on
Deja For Sale
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· Score: 1
the archive was bought by google.com?
They have an archive of pretty much everything else...
Re:What about GPL'ed code sent on newsgroups?
on
Deja For Sale
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· Score: 1
If you put GPL code on Usenet then you are distributing it and it's your duty to have the source code. Except you didn't do it for profit so it's probably ok to just have a link to the source code.
But since you said you put "code" on there and not "binary" on there then you would think that the source "code" would already be there where you put it.
It's just like back in the day when people payed for the letters on the recieving end and not on the sending end. You could buy a bunch of mail and then deliver it yourself and keep the profits. But your still delivering someone elses mail not selling it yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
I was a little upset and in a hurry and I didn't proof read...
I like computers. I don't cut my hair as often as I should. I read fantasy. And I took the poster's comment too personally.
sorry.
I meant Asterix and the Normans.
I read fantasy and I like it. There is a subtlety and craftsmanship that goes into telling a good story.
Good taste in art is a matter of two things. Variety: Can you find the beauty in something as humble as country music? If so then I applaud you. Depth: I am an avid reader of comics books. To truely appreciate Asterix books you have to read each one at least once and Asterix in Norway 17 times. The art is fabulous and the dialogue is witty and the story is great.
The fact that you can't appreciate that there is beauty to be found in fantasy novels reflects poorly on your sense of aesthetics. The fact that you think that makes you better than other people reflects poorly on you as a person.
I haven't seen this "Dungeons and Dragons" movie. It's probably awfull. But fantasy is a valid art form. And people who like it don't have to take any crap from you.
I think that all the people asking about why this is cool should have their slashdot logins revoked.
This is the coolest thing I have heard in a long time...
1.5 weeks!!!!
It's mind boggling. Charles Northrup will go down in my books as one of the great hackers of our time.
Just the sheer audacity to look at those bazillions of lines of code and say, "Dang it. Today I'm going to port those things to windows." A lesser man would have died on the spot at the prospect of such a tremendous undertaking. I would have died if someone had even shown me that much code, let alone told me to port it.
Mr Northrup, you are one crazy dude...
You must not be using the same windows NT as what I use at work. Or maybe you are thinking of windows 2000?
I moderated up to a +3 the Bruce Perens comment you are referring to. And you are right that Slashdot editors do make a lot of mistakes. And as another poster so already stated, you do have the most awesome slashdot id in the world.
On the other hand I think CmdrTaco's comments about Bruce Perens "stints" at one thing or another are valid. Let's take a look:
1] First he was involved with Debian but then he quit because it wasn't getting newbie friendly and it wouldn't adopt the rpm package manager.
2] He started Software in the Public Interest. But he quit.
3] Then he was involved with the OSI but he quit because ESR allowed O'Reilly to use the word open source at a comvention even the the rest of the OSI board voted not too.
4] Then he started LSB but quit because it wasn't moving fast enough.
5] Then he started this venture capital group but now he's quiting that too.
To me this represents a series of "stints." A fairly dang freaking awesome series of stints. But "stints" none the less.
In general computer languages become less readable and explainable in direct proportion to the amount of punctuation in them. This is why anyone can read gwbasic but perl is hard to read.
On the other hand perl is more concise.
DCL has the worst of both worlds. It has tons of punctuation and is less concise. Users prefer bash.
In general VMS is ok if you want to set a mail server or something that doesn't require any attention after the initial set up. But no one really gets excited about these type of applications.
UNiX is more loved than VMS because it is user friendly. Imagine that Linux was LinVMS for a second...
What a horrid thought.
Part of the problem with Java is the crappy implementations.
Why program something if you know that your users are going to have the regular crappy netscape java vm?
My experience with java as a user have all been crappy. It seems like the implementations are not the same and that you have to install the correct one to get your programs to run. Sun could alieviate part of this problem by releasing the "official" version under GPL thus making it more of a standard.
As a user I'd prefer it if programmers just wrote in c++ and recompiled for a different operating system or cpu.
Actually they I'd be willing to wager they don't have someone sit down and install each computer manually.
They'd probably just copy one harddrive onto all the others...
I'm just guessing though.
>Any company planning on releasing non-GPL (ie proprietary or an alternative Open Source licence) would be insane to tie themselves to the future licencing whims of Trolltech.
If you download the GPL version of QT then they can't change the license for you.
If you want to develope close source applications using QT you can buy a different license from them and do that.
There is no problem here except when people want Free Software but are not willing to make their own software free.
(on the other hand I do wish the Windows version of QT was GPL because then I would use it in a GPL program I'm writing for both Windows and Linux. Porting the GPL version of QT would probably not be too hard but would not be a popular action)
go read the faq...
This is obvious but everyone is reading it as if they are the same.
In Germany you are _allowed_ to rent a movie and copy it for personal use (use with familly or having close friends over). People pay a special "copying" tax for this. In Germany macrovision is illegal because it stops you from using your right to copy video tapes which you paid a tax for.
This is why it's not unusual for them to tax CDROM burners because those are used for copying also.
Did you know that the LiViD web site is hosted in Germany for legal reasons?
It's not as bad as Slashdot is making it seem. It's just different.
Silly bunny. Go read the article.
Linux has already done all the things you said it can't.
Maybe some Slashdotters hate the idea because it comes from MicroSoft but personally I hate it because it's crap.
.doc are renderred incorectly.
MicroSoft does not create backward compatible code in many cases. They say they do but quite often it's not fully backward compatible. Different versions of
So after the end of the year it may happen that you won't be able to rent the same version of Office and all your work will look just a little bit screwy.
Or maybe they won't rent Office for windows 98 any more so you have to upgrade to whistler.
Ok So both of those examples were specific things that MicroSoft would do. But I really don't hate MicroSoft. Other software companies would do the same thing to some extent.
It's always better and cheaper to own than to rent. Unless you don't use a computer very often, of course. But then why would you read Slashdot?
I think the worst thing that happenned for them last year was that Sun open sourced Star Office. I know Corel makes a ton of other programs besides Word Perfect but that's the one that I hear about the most.
I can definately see Star Office being a major force in three or four years...
People said that this would hurt MicroSoft and it will a bit. But mostly it will hurt Corel right now.
The joy stick should have x11 drivers.
Maybe kernel drivers would be usefull if you wanted to use it without x. But that doesn't make sense to me.
IMHO if the original poster was as into technology as he claimed he should have realised this.
69 dollars with slowed growth is heading back up?
.NET catch on...
If you want to see a company that actually grew over the last couple months look at Sun.
Sun stock has doubled over the last year...
Microsoft stock has to almost double to reach the point it was at a year ago. And M$ sales haven't been doing spectacularly well either.
windowsMe didn't sell amazing well around here at least... windows 2000 sold ok but not stuningly well. Office has not been selling so well.
We have to wait and see how XBox, whistler and
It could be that you are right and that M$ is going to start "heading up" again... I wouldn't bet my money on it though.
I think IE has not won the browser war because it is tied to windows.
A lot of people use Macs.
And even more use Linux. And even more people will use Linux next year and the year after that.
I try not to make any predictions too far into the future. But I will say that Linux will not slow the rate of growth in the next 3 years...
I have heard that gecko is a pretty good renderrer if you do work in embeded systems... That makes sense to me. This is another area that looks like it is going to grow in another 3 years. Here again it doesn't help to be tied to windows.
Also (unrelated to being tied to windows but related to being tied to MicroSoft) when AOL's contract with M$ expires I'd bet that a whole lot of AOL users are going to find themselves switching... It's just a hunch I have.
I used to laugh at the idea that Al Gore could ever be president.
Then the republicans nominated Bush and I realised that it could happen.
What a pityfull next four years this is going to be.
apparently you don't either don't live in the United States or you don't smoke and you don't drive.
If you did then you would know that we do this already...
Bush and Gore aren't going to change it either.
So if too many people tell you to love it or leave it you are going to leave it and code a better OS under the GPL?
That doesn't sound like a very scary threat to me...
Debian does not make a good desktop OS.
.deb or .rpm.
But Corel and Storm do... I believe Corel is the #2 most downloaded Linux iso at tucows.com.
New distributions that arise will either be based on
I don't see this kernel as having a imediate impact for most home users. The major things will be plug and play and usb support. Most desktops only have one cpu so better smb is not a factor.
People say that Debian software is outdated and this may be true for the stable branch but the unstable has the most current packages of any distro. There is an increasing demand for a compromise between the bugs in unstable and the age of stable as more people start using debian on the desktop and as companies realise that there is money to be made from selling specialised versions. I expect to see a new "Debian firm" release that addresses some of these concerns
Debian will be relevant for atleast another 10 years yet.
the archive was bought by google.com?
They have an archive of pretty much everything else...
If you put GPL code on Usenet then you are distributing it and it's your duty to have the source code. Except you didn't do it for profit so it's probably ok to just have a link to the source code.
But since you said you put "code" on there and not "binary" on there then you would think that the source "code" would already be there where you put it.
It's just like back in the day when people payed for the letters on the recieving end and not on the sending end. You could buy a bunch of mail and then deliver it yourself and keep the profits. But your still delivering someone elses mail not selling it yourself.
If you know what I mean.
Slashdot is the well known "News for Nerds website."
You can find it by typing "http://www.slashdot.org" into the top part of your web browser thingie.
They often print articles that would interest nerds but not normal people. It has been theorized that this is why they are called, "News for Nerds."
I don't think it was actually a troll.
Also W2k is based on OS2 not on DOS. In W2k DOS programs run under emulation.