Don't believe for one second that Nokia is being altruistic in its motives for changing the license of Qt to LGPL. They have said that the monetary reward to their business would be greater by LGPL'ing Qt than selling licenses. Remember, this is the same company that closed down a profitable production plant laying off thousands of workers, some of whom have has 20+ years with the company, after receiving millions in subsidies from the EU. Only to move production East, where they could pay workers less.
While I am pleased with this move, as Qt is generally technically superior to Gtk. It is, nonetheless important to keep in mind that Nokia does not, and probably will never, have the best interests of the Open Source society in mind.
While interesting, the results pose more questions than they answer. I can see several problems with the benchmark:
Slightly different Java versions used in the tests.
The tests should have all been forced to use either Client or Server mode.
Its possible that the Windows Java defaults to client, while the Server mode was used in Linux. That could account for the major speed improvements seen in the Linux versions. I would like to see the Server mode forced on all the JVM's and the tests re-run.
This is really cool. Does somebody know a good (introductory) book on genetic algorithms?
You can try Introduction to Genetic Algorithms by Melanie Mitchell. It is a much easier read than Goldberg's original Genetic Algorithms book, and contains information that most CS Majors could easily understand.
Though the scope of GA's and Evolutionary Algorithm's is somewhat limited, within their domain they can be quite powerful, as attested to the video's linked above and the OP. Developing a fluid/lifelike control system for virtual creatures or a system that approximates images without the benefit of Evolutionary Algorithms would likely require much more code.
The take home is, victimizing someone is bad. That it happened via the internet means they've had to fudge things up a bit, but I don't think this means flaming someone on a website means the cops will come-a-calling.
In this instance the woman was clearly a nasty piece of work, so I'm glad they found a way to punish her. I would not expect someone posting nastiness here would get into trouble with anyone except the mods.
I think some people make the mistake of assuming that things done on the internet which would result in fines or punishment in the real world are somehow 'freedoms that need defending' on the web. I'm not one of those people.
I don't mind argument, rudeness, flaming, or anything like that, I mean, that I just accept as background noise, but this incident went way beyond anything like of that nature.
That means if anyone registers on MySpace or Slashdot, for that matter, with false information and flames you. And if you later commit suicide, that person who flamed you could be charged with a crime. The precedent is set, these cases will be much easier to prosecute in the future.
I know of at least three girls who were in CS who switched to other majors because they said they did not like programming, or thought it to be too tedious.
Women and men are different, feminism seems to think "Equal"="same". This is simply incorrect, the sexes are different and so are attracted to differing professions.
Well said! While there is nothing preventing a woman from pursing a CS degree, why do so many people fail to see the obvious.. Women are generally not interested in CS and/or engineering. I have several female friends (non slashdot reading females) who have absolutely no interest in CS. When I talk to them about computers they look at me like I'm a freak. They are more interested in jobs that are more "social". This could be why men prefer action/horror movies, and women prefer drama/romance movies such as "Sex & the City".
Rather than forcing women into CS, I say let them choose what they want to do. Women tend to be more in touch with their emotions than men are, and hence tend to prefer jobs that allow emotional freedom and creativity. Many men would be find in a non-emotionally stimulating environment.
The article does not completely ignore the issue of kernel versions. In fact, they noted the different kernel versions in use between the various versions of Ubuntu they tested.
It is likely, that regressions in performance were introduced in new Linux kernels.
Zbr noted huge regressions in tbench benchmark resulting in a loss of 100MB/sec performance between Kernel 2.6.23 and the latest 2.6.27 on the same exact hardware!
It was reported recently that tbench has a long history of regressions, started at least from 2.6.23 kernel. I verified, that in my test environment tbench 'lost' more than 100 MB/s from 470 down to 355 for 8 threads between at least 2.6.24 and 2.6.27. 2.6.26-2.6.27 performance regression in my machines rougly corresponds to 375 down to 355 MB/s.
3. No Exchange support, tethering, desktop sync, video or Skype. Some or all of these would be nice at launch but I assume they will be added fairly quickly by others though given it is an open-source platform.
1. Never heard about the Gmail requirement.
2. Use a bluetooth headset.
3. Exchange Support & Desktop Sync are already in the works, there are Open Source projects already started. Also, Skype is redundant with T-Mobile G1, the much better T-Mobile Talk Forever Mobile UMA enabled VOIP service works with the phone.
You can buy Aicar right now, there is no need to wait for it to be synthesized or mass produced.
Aicar is a common research chemical, and all it takes is a click to purchase some Aicar. The price may prevent most people from using is as a nutritional supplement though..
My older son (now 4) learned how to use a mouse and the basics of computers from a Toddler Game when he was just two years old. I highly recommend this game for children between 2-4. Although its not 100% finished, enough of the game is there to keep toddlers occupied.
What the fuck? A q6600 on stock beats the fastest Phenom. And if you have a q6600 its probably running at 3GHz, and its faster and cheaper than anything on market. Not true. The newly released Phenom 9850 beats the q6600 on almost all benchmarks.
It's sad that we are allowing these Violations of Human Rights in China to continue unabated. America has long known of Chinas abuse of power and its Terrible Record on Human Rights; however, money, more than anything else will allow China to continue to sweep its abuses under the rug.
As one of our biggest up & coming trading partners, with billions of US dollars invested in the country, why would we want to do something as silly as Boycotting the 2008 Summer Olypics? Yes, its unfortunate; however, the status quo will remain, and China will continue to violate Human Rights, while the US and China's other trading partners will continue to turn a blind eye to the abuses.
There have been several recent news reports that China has and is engaging in a nationally funded effort to hack into and attack US government computer systems. The German government recently announced that they traced recent aggressive cyber-attacks back to the Chinese government. What, if anything, is being done against this type of cyber-terrorism against us and our allies? Why do we still confer most-favored nation trading status onto a Nation who is actively engaged in efforts to spy on and attack our government and corporate computer systems?
Are you kidding. Why not go and take a quick search on Nokia Internet Tablets such as the 700/N800/N810 and you'll see they are very active in linux development.
Have you actually looked into how "active" the development of the 770 Internet Tablet is? Nokia announced last year that they would drop all support for the N770 Internet Tablet. The so-called tablet very active in Linux Development. Only after the outcry of thousands of users who has just purchased the 770 in the prior months did Nokia state they would port the new IT2007 OS to the 770 Internet tablet..
Well, we all know what happened with that one. Nokia ended up devoting one part time developer to port the entire OS to the N770 tablet, and what we have today, after over a year of development is a buggy, unstable, unusable and a not officially supported port of Maemo IT2007 to the N770, all the while, a new version of Maemo, dubbed IT2008 has come out for the N810.
If it makes no financial sense for Nokia to support the community, the lesson learned is, that they won't!
Re:I've been waiting for *someone* to buy TrollTec
on
Nokia Buys Trolltech
·
· Score: 1
I'm personally crossing my fingers for Nokia to change the license to LGPL. Don't hold your breath waiting... Nokia is just as greedy (or possibly even more) than any other corporation. While they do have a few Open Source projects, the majority of their software is proprietary and/or developed by 3rd parties. I have a friend who works at Nokia in San Diego, and over his 5 years of working at Nokia, his impressions is that Nokia is not a "good" company. That is not to say they are evil, but money talks at Nokia, and if Nokia believed for a second they could make more money by releasing future versions of Qt as proprietary software, they would do so in a heartbeat!
Unless there is money to be made by supporting QT for KDE, don't count on Nokia being as friendly toward the Open Source Community as Trolltech was.
Nokia has recently been implicated in accepting almost 90 Million Euro's in subsidies from Germany to operate an R&D and Production facility on Bochum, Germany. The subsidy contract expired in the end of last year, and guess what? Nokia recently announced they are closing shop in Germany, putting almost 3,000 workers out of a job (many of whom have been with the company over 20 years) and moving production to Romania where they claim production labor costs are 10x lower than in Germany. The funny thing is, the plant in Germany was profitable. And furthermore, production labor costs only account for less than 2% of Nokia's total costs. There are calls for a Nokia Boycott in Germany, which just happens to be Nokia's largest market in the EU.
Now if Nokia would screw with their largest market in the EU to save less than 2% in costs, do you really think that they will devote resources or Money to the Open Source Community by continuing development of the OSE of QT? All they need to do to prevent Qt from reverting to a BSD license is to keep things on a low burner, possibly throwing a part time developer on the project. This is what they have done with the Internet Tablet Software 2007 for the Nokia 770 Linux device. Its in a state of slow development because there is only one part time developer working on it.
The 81 year old woman suffered THIRD DEGREE BURNS because McDonald's kept their coffee 20 degrees hotter than most other restaurants. No, the woman suffered THIRD DEGREE BURNS because she spilled hot coffee on herself! You must be a lawyer.
You have a few options, the first being Havenco in the micro-nation of Sealand, which is an old WWII off shore platform that claims sovereignty. They have not, however, been recognized by other states, leaving their international legal status in limbo. They do claim, however, to not be under the jurisdiction of other nations laws.
Your second and cheaper option is hosting via Tor network. There are a few blogs and other sites hosted via Tor, although there are some technical difficulties involved.
Be aware, if your privacy blog angers a powerful entity such as China, they can choose to just block all traffic to your site, rather than forcing your site offline.
-- Boycott Nokia - Stop corporate Greed. Nokia, connecting people with the unemployment line.
Okay, so Berman's out and Boucher may replace him, but that doesn't mean the fight is over. The media companies have enough money to change anyone's attitude toward copyright reform. Now would be a good time to let Boucher know (if you are in his district) that you too support copyright reform.
--- Boycott Nokia - Nokia accepts 88M Euro in subsidies from Germany, and then lays off 3000 German workers.
My thoughts exactly. While our administration has allowed for unwarranted illegal wiretapping with full cooperation from most of the major telco's, the American public is mostly either unaware of the issue, or seemingly apathetic. The German public, on the otherhand, is almost in an uproar over the revelations that the German gov't can/may listen in on Skype calls LEGALLY.
The difference in public reaction is likely due to the histories of our respective nations. The Germans populace went through a period where a lunatic dictator brought on the downfall of the nation. Today in Germany, school children from age 5 upwards learn about this terrible time in the Nation's history and because of the openness and recognizance of today's germany with respect to its recent history, its population are very very wary of allowing Government too much power over its people. In the US, on the otherhand, the government have been passing laws stripping our privacy using 9/11 as justification. The recent realization that there will be little to no backlash from the American populace as a whole has only encouraged our government to continue with such laws as the "Patriot Act" that slowly strip away our rights and give the Executive Branch ever more power.
As a Grad Student, I studied evolutionary algorithms, and my Thesis involved evolving locomotive behaviors in Virtual Agents. While evolved behaviors are interesting, its not surprising that the lying behavior eventually evolved. Evolution will reward behavior that imparts a better chance of survival, and in this case, the lying behavior increased the Agent's chance of survival and replication, therefore it was selected for by the evolutionary algorithms.
The biggest problem with simulated evolutionary systems today is, we don't fully understand the complexity of human behavior, and we are not capable of evolving complex human behavior and mannerisms. It sure would be amazing if we could evolve a Robot or virtual agent to imagine, or do something for fun; however, our models of the Brain are incomplete, and the complexity of the real world too great for us to do such a thing at this moment in time.
As the developer of an Open Source package based on GTK called LiarLiar, I am very pleased that Trolltech decided to offer the Linux community such a powerful and easy to use toolkit; however, I chose to use Gtk+ because I may decide someday to release a Shareware version of my application. I receive nowhere near enough income from my app to even pay 1/10th of the license fee and I suspect many other developers are in the same boat. While the big commercial developers can afford a license, the thousands of small shareware authors would never be able to justify the license fees to be able to release their software. Thus, they will end up sticking with the windows API's.
Now if Trolltech decided to release Qt as LGPL, that would make cross-platform development of many shareware applications possible, but would likely hurt Trolltech's bottom line.
Slashdot Mirror
Don't believe for one second that Nokia is being altruistic in its motives for changing the license of Qt to LGPL. They have said that the monetary reward to their business would be greater by LGPL'ing Qt than selling licenses. Remember, this is the same company that closed down a profitable production plant laying off thousands of workers, some of whom have has 20+ years with the company, after receiving millions in subsidies from the EU. Only to move production East, where they could pay workers less.
While I am pleased with this move, as Qt is generally technically superior to Gtk. It is, nonetheless important to keep in mind that Nokia does not, and probably will never, have the best interests of the Open Source society in mind.
Its possible that the Windows Java defaults to client, while the Server mode was used in Linux. That could account for the major speed improvements seen in the Linux versions. I would like to see the Server mode forced on all the JVM's and the tests re-run.
This is really cool. Does somebody know a good (introductory) book on genetic algorithms?
You can try Introduction to Genetic Algorithms by Melanie Mitchell. It is a much easier read than Goldberg's original Genetic Algorithms book, and contains information that most CS Majors could easily understand.
For my master's thesis, I wrote up a GA that evolved Neural Networks that controlled embodied agents in a virtual reality.
Though the scope of GA's and Evolutionary Algorithm's is somewhat limited, within their domain they can be quite powerful, as attested to the video's linked above and the OP. Developing a fluid/lifelike control system for virtual creatures or a system that approximates images without the benefit of Evolutionary Algorithms would likely require much more code.
The take home is, victimizing someone is bad. That it happened via the internet means they've had to fudge things up a bit, but I don't think this means flaming someone on a website means the cops will come-a-calling.
In this instance the woman was clearly a nasty piece of work, so I'm glad they found a way to punish her. I would not expect someone posting nastiness here would get into trouble with anyone except the mods.
I think some people make the mistake of assuming that things done on the internet which would result in fines or punishment in the real world are somehow 'freedoms that need defending' on the web. I'm not one of those people.
I don't mind argument, rudeness, flaming, or anything like that, I mean, that I just accept as background noise, but this incident went way beyond anything like of that nature.
That means if anyone registers on MySpace or Slashdot, for that matter, with false information and flames you. And if you later commit suicide, that person who flamed you could be charged with a crime. The precedent is set, these cases will be much easier to prosecute in the future.
I know of at least three girls who were in CS who switched to other majors because they said they did not like programming, or thought it to be too tedious.
Women and men are different, feminism seems to think "Equal"="same". This is simply incorrect, the sexes are different and so are attracted to differing professions.
Well said! While there is nothing preventing a woman from pursing a CS degree, why do so many people fail to see the obvious.. Women are generally not interested in CS and/or engineering. I have several female friends (non slashdot reading females) who have absolutely no interest in CS. When I talk to them about computers they look at me like I'm a freak. They are more interested in jobs that are more "social". This could be why men prefer action/horror movies, and women prefer drama/romance movies such as "Sex & the City".
Rather than forcing women into CS, I say let them choose what they want to do. Women tend to be more in touch with their emotions than men are, and hence tend to prefer jobs that allow emotional freedom and creativity. Many men would be find in a non-emotionally stimulating environment.
The article does not completely ignore the issue of kernel versions. In fact, they noted the different kernel versions in use between the various versions of Ubuntu they tested.
It is likely, that regressions in performance were introduced in new Linux kernels.
Zbr noted huge regressions in tbench benchmark resulting in a loss of 100MB/sec performance between Kernel 2.6.23 and the latest 2.6.27 on the same exact hardware!
It was reported recently that tbench has a long history of regressions, started at least from 2.6.23 kernel. I verified, that in my test environment tbench 'lost' more than 100 MB/s from 470 down to 355 for 8 threads between at least 2.6.24 and 2.6.27. 2.6.26-2.6.27 performance regression in my machines rougly corresponds to 375 down to 355 MB/s.
Google promises to fix the A2DP issue in a firmware update...
..the initial version does not support the A2DP profile for stereo Bluetooth, although that is promised for a future software update.
3. No Exchange support, tethering, desktop sync, video or Skype. Some or all of these would be nice at launch but I assume they will be added fairly quickly by others though given it is an open-source platform.
1. Never heard about the Gmail requirement.
2. Use a bluetooth headset.
3. Exchange Support & Desktop Sync are already in the works, there are Open Source projects already started. Also, Skype is redundant with T-Mobile G1, the much better T-Mobile Talk Forever Mobile UMA enabled VOIP service works with the phone.
The fact he's using CentOS already implies he doesn't have a support contract from RedHat. So what's the big deal?
Aicar is a common research chemical, and all it takes is a click to purchase some Aicar. The price may prevent most people from using is as a nutritional supplement though..
My older son (now 4) learned how to use a mouse and the basics of computers from a Toddler Game when he was just two years old. I highly recommend this game for children between 2-4. Although its not 100% finished, enough of the game is there to keep toddlers occupied.
It's sad that we are allowing these Violations of Human Rights in China to continue unabated. America has long known of Chinas abuse of power and its Terrible Record on Human Rights; however, money, more than anything else will allow China to continue to sweep its abuses under the rug.
As one of our biggest up & coming trading partners, with billions of US dollars invested in the country, why would we want to do something as silly as Boycotting the 2008 Summer Olypics? Yes, its unfortunate; however, the status quo will remain, and China will continue to violate Human Rights, while the US and China's other trading partners will continue to turn a blind eye to the abuses.
----Free Stumbles for your Website
There have been several recent news reports that China has and is engaging in a nationally funded effort to hack into and attack US government computer systems. The German government recently announced that they traced recent aggressive cyber-attacks back to the Chinese government. What, if anything, is being done against this type of cyber-terrorism against us and our allies? Why do we still confer most-favored nation trading status onto a Nation who is actively engaged in efforts to spy on and attack our government and corporate computer systems?
Have you actually looked into how "active" the development of the 770 Internet Tablet is? Nokia announced last year that they would drop all support for the N770 Internet Tablet. The so-called tablet very active in Linux Development. Only after the outcry of thousands of users who has just purchased the 770 in the prior months did Nokia state they would port the new IT2007 OS to the 770 Internet tablet..
Well, we all know what happened with that one. Nokia ended up devoting one part time developer to port the entire OS to the N770 tablet, and what we have today, after over a year of development is a buggy, unstable, unusable and a not officially supported port of Maemo IT2007 to the N770, all the while, a new version of Maemo, dubbed IT2008 has come out for the N810.
If it makes no financial sense for Nokia to support the community, the lesson learned is, that they won't!
Unless there is money to be made by supporting QT for KDE, don't count on Nokia being as friendly toward the Open Source Community as Trolltech was.
Nokia has recently been implicated in accepting almost 90 Million Euro's in subsidies from Germany to operate an R&D and Production facility on Bochum, Germany. The subsidy contract expired in the end of last year, and guess what? Nokia recently announced they are closing shop in Germany, putting almost 3,000 workers out of a job (many of whom have been with the company over 20 years) and moving production to Romania where they claim production labor costs are 10x lower than in Germany. The funny thing is, the plant in Germany was profitable. And furthermore, production labor costs only account for less than 2% of Nokia's total costs. There are calls for a Nokia Boycott in Germany, which just happens to be Nokia's largest market in the EU.
Now if Nokia would screw with their largest market in the EU to save less than 2% in costs, do you really think that they will devote resources or Money to the Open Source Community by continuing development of the OSE of QT? All they need to do to prevent Qt from reverting to a BSD license is to keep things on a low burner, possibly throwing a part time developer on the project. This is what they have done with the Internet Tablet Software 2007 for the Nokia 770 Linux device. Its in a state of slow development because there is only one part time developer working on it.
You have a few options, the first being Havenco in the micro-nation of Sealand, which is an old WWII off shore platform that claims sovereignty. They have not, however, been recognized by other states, leaving their international legal status in limbo. They do claim, however, to not be under the jurisdiction of other nations laws.
Your second and cheaper option is hosting via Tor network. There are a few blogs and other sites hosted via Tor, although there are some technical difficulties involved.
Be aware, if your privacy blog angers a powerful entity such as China, they can choose to just block all traffic to your site, rather than forcing your site offline.
--Boycott Nokia - Stop corporate Greed. Nokia, connecting people with the unemployment line.
Okay, so Berman's out and Boucher may replace him, but that doesn't mean the fight is over. The media companies have enough money to change anyone's attitude toward copyright reform. Now would be a good time to let Boucher know (if you are in his district) that you too support copyright reform.
---
Boycott Nokia - Nokia accepts 88M Euro in subsidies from Germany, and then lays off 3000 German workers.
My thoughts exactly. While our administration has allowed for unwarranted illegal wiretapping with full cooperation from most of the major telco's, the American public is mostly either unaware of the issue, or seemingly apathetic. The German public, on the otherhand, is almost in an uproar over the revelations that the German gov't can/may listen in on Skype calls LEGALLY.
The difference in public reaction is likely due to the histories of our respective nations. The Germans populace went through a period where a lunatic dictator brought on the downfall of the nation. Today in Germany, school children from age 5 upwards learn about this terrible time in the Nation's history and because of the openness and recognizance of today's germany with respect to its recent history, its population are very very wary of allowing Government too much power over its people. In the US, on the otherhand, the government have been passing laws stripping our privacy using 9/11 as justification. The recent realization that there will be little to no backlash from the American populace as a whole has only encouraged our government to continue with such laws as the "Patriot Act" that slowly strip away our rights and give the Executive Branch ever more power.
As a Grad Student, I studied evolutionary algorithms, and my Thesis involved evolving locomotive behaviors in Virtual Agents. While evolved behaviors are interesting, its not surprising that the lying behavior eventually evolved. Evolution will reward behavior that imparts a better chance of survival, and in this case, the lying behavior increased the Agent's chance of survival and replication, therefore it was selected for by the evolutionary algorithms.
The biggest problem with simulated evolutionary systems today is, we don't fully understand the complexity of human behavior, and we are not capable of evolving complex human behavior and mannerisms. It sure would be amazing if we could evolve a Robot or virtual agent to imagine, or do something for fun; however, our models of the Brain are incomplete, and the complexity of the real world too great for us to do such a thing at this moment in time.
--- Top Business Websites | Top Free ProxiesAs the developer of an Open Source package based on GTK called LiarLiar, I am very pleased that Trolltech decided to offer the Linux community such a powerful and easy to use toolkit; however, I chose to use Gtk+ because I may decide someday to release a Shareware version of my application. I receive nowhere near enough income from my app to even pay 1/10th of the license fee and I suspect many other developers are in the same boat. While the big commercial developers can afford a license, the thousands of small shareware authors would never be able to justify the license fees to be able to release their software. Thus, they will end up sticking with the windows API's.
Now if Trolltech decided to release Qt as LGPL, that would make cross-platform development of many shareware applications possible, but would likely hurt Trolltech's bottom line.
---Top 10 Business/Legal Websites | Top Anonymity Websites