Designed to comply with the CHAdeMo standard...the system is capable of charging a 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev from empty to 50% full in just three minutes. Even just three minutes plugged in...enable[d] a standard 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev to travel a further 50 miles before further charging was required."
Good job being.... very redundant? I supposed you'll want some kind of gold star or something...
Speaking of education, guess what time it is? That's right, it's Mathdot Time!.
Usually around this time I whip out my trusty calculator (and before those mod-point-endowed HP-calculator/.-ers down-mod me into oblivion, yes, "RPN FTW!"), but in this case I think we can just use the power of our brains. Just try not to think too hard or you might hurt your brain.
And...it's a story problem!
If samzenpus can charge his 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev from empty to 50% full in just three minutes, and if three minutes plugged in...enable[s] his standard 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev to travel a further 50 miles, what is the range of his vehicle?
100 miles? That's it?
Okay, yeah, apparently electric cars are kind of screwed...
...but I think I've heard enough from the existing comments.
I'm currently working on my Dell m1530, and it feels about as hot as the pan I use to fry eggs. It also doesn't have the best battery life, especially if I'm trying to watch movies or catch up on work while traveling. It sounds like switching to an SSD will help on both of those fronts.
I just hope that the price of SSDs drops by the time I'm in the market for one. I'm not entirely sure I'd like to drop $400 or $600 in addition to the $1000 for my next laptop...
These are ARM based platforms, but unlike the PC, there's not one single platform.
Is there any particular reason why there isn't a standard way of doing things?
I mean, is there a competitive advantage to the chip makers who license the ARM tech if they decide on their own addresses for various components? Or is it just that it hasn't been as big an issue with embedded systems in the past, and nobody large enough has stood up and said "here's the standard way of doing things"?
As their main webserver quietly melts in the background, please direct your attention to a video here (Coral Cache) that has the exact same title as the url in this article.
This link/video mentions Jerone Young, one of the "main engineers at Canonical" responsible for ARM development.
Here we go again. I'm getting an "Internal Server Error", but who knows exactly why the page is down.
Coral Cache link is here,, and it'll theoretically work, well, that is if I can ever get the page to load...
Too bad about RTFA, I guess, for once it looks like I can base my post solely on the summary and not feel an ounce of guilt. Let's see...I don't know much about Pegatron, but if their laptops don't come with a pair of wings and a horse head attached I think I'm going to feel let down.
I bought a fantastic new CD by my friend Michael Lowenstern. I then ripped that CD on to my hard drive so I can listen to it on my iPod in my car. Well, that's not FAIR, right? I should have to buy two copies?
No. There is in fact a part of the copyright law that allows exactly this; it's called the doctrine of fair use. If you've purchased or otherwise legally obtained a piece of copyrighted material and you want to make a copy of it for your own use, that's perfectly legal and allowed. Your friend Wikipedia has some useful thoughts about "fair use" and "fair dealing", in case you want to read further. Here's the beginning of the relevant section:
I think it's great that JRB supports this view, and I'm really hopeful that more content creators like JRB will take a stronger stand to defend a consumer's Fair-Use rights to time- and context-shift their legally-purchased copies of copyrighted art.
While content consumers can "vote with their wallet" to try to encourage producers and publishers to get rid of DRM on songs, videos, and eBooks, I believe that artists such as JRB can be a very welcome ally in helping the consumers to get rid of DRM.
Think about it: If JRB says that he's not going to put his audio work on CDs or DVDs unless they are DRM and region-code free, then he enables his customers to actually transcode the content. Until then, his customers may not be able to exercise their Fair Use rights per the DMCA.
"Listen, Eleanor, I'm frustrated on your behalf. It really sucks to be a teenager. I'm not being sarcastic or ironic, I really get it. I wrote a whole show about it. But being able to steal something doesn't mean you should."
As much as I want to believe him, I sense a bit of a problem here. I mean, first of all, who says "I get it" to a teenager? Unless you're an actual teen, or 20 years old and 1 month, or have a glandular condition and are some kind of perpetual-teenager, or share something special with the particular teen (e.g. both of you have had an arm bitten off by a shark or a RIAA lawyer), you don't say that to teens.
And second: He's paid lots of money to make good stories up.
So whenever I heard something like "Listen, Eleanor...It really sucks to be a teenager... I really get it," I feel like I'm being whisked away on a puff of air to the bright lights of Broadway where I hear him singing:
Listen, Eleanor, I'm frustrated on your behalf. I know the sound of popular girls right behind your back, you can hear them laugh.
It really sucks to be a teenager. I'm not being sarcastic or ironic, I really get it. It really sucks to be young and confused but whatever they say, just forget it -- don't sweat it.
I wrote a whole show... about it, Eleanor. Tell the ticket-buying teens anything to keep streaming through that theater door,
Please remember, Ellie, that just "because you can," is probably the sorriest, darnedest, worse excuse in the entire history of man.
Don't forget this simple playwright, with a soft heart, not one of wood. But being able to steal something doesn't mean you should.
'Cause being able to steal something doesn't meaaaaaaaan. Youuuuuuuu Shouuuuuuuuuuuuld!
....hmmm... now I'm kind of tempted to make a song out of that.
Symbian could be nice, but it seems like targeting MeeGo would be a better bet, especially as they already have a Maemo version done and MeeGo is the heir apparent for Symbian.
Actually, now that I think about it, I believe that when the MeeGo Notebook UX was released the devs chose Fennec as the browser, so maybe there's not much work left to do there.
Having Firefox on Symbian (e.g. on the next Nokia N8 phone, etc...) would also hitch Firefox to the transition wagon that Nokia is driving to try to get Symbian developers and hardware integrators to eventually move to MeeGo. There could be some benefit to be had there...
Colplay...is an English-derived Japanese word referring to a sexual practice...in which the female dresses up in a costume...
I dunno, but my guess is that Colplay has something to do with Colonels in the military.
e.g. Hey there Professor Plum, you're looking pretty sharp in that tweed jacket, but my team of elite paratrooping weiner dogs is visiting from Idaho, and we're more in the mood for some colplay tonight. Any idea where I could find Colonel Mustard?
Excuse me, is there a KFC in town? I usually get the KFC kid's meals and sell the commemorative Colonel Sanders dolls on eBay to colplay freaks; most times one doll pays for the entire meal. It's win-win for everyone!
Not to mention you'll have an actual Java JVM with a mature implementation of JIT and not the Google re-imagining that is Dalvik.
Or feel free to install Dalvik on it instead, if that's what floats your boat.
The way I'm seeing it, Google is leveraging the Linux kernel, Java, and some other bits and pieces to make a specialized OS for mobile phones that they call Android.
Nokia (and Intel) are looking to the future and seeing that as the hardware improves, there's no particular reason not to just run a stock Linux kernel, GNU userland, and then layer some mobile-device improvements on top.
QT may be part of the core system, and is supported on all MeeGo devices, but that shouldn't stop you from installing libs for GTK+, Java, or whatever else you want on your mobile MeeGo device. Android isn't designed for that kind of use, but MeeGo is.
On a separate note, given that Intel has a team working on Android on x86 and a team (or two) working on MeeGo, I wonder if they'll throw any effort into making an Android compatibility layer for MeeGo.
Other people have already pointed out several ways that this review is, to put it nicely, lacking. I'd like to mention two more important points.
1. Hyperlinks...do you use them?
Reviewer writes
(I know you will love this part of the book, so I got a sample of this chapter from the publisher for you guys – See it Here)
Yeah, see it where? Did you (reviewer and/or editor) do the most cursory of read-throughs to see if there were any blatant instances of "click on this text that's not a hyperlink but really, probably should be" ? I guess the answer would be no.
But don't be sad -- I got a free web coupon from the ice cream factory for everyone -- Click to See it Here!
2. SketchUp isn't Free Software. It's not entirely free as in beer, either. Be more clear on Slashdot.
SketchUp is a product hoovered-up by Google. They have a free-as-in-beer version as well as a Pro version for $495 (US). I can't even believe that in this whole review there wasn't even a link back to the software's website. I mean, that's like the first place people would want to go after reading the review or buying the book.
Reviewer states that this book will
teach you how to make stunning photorealistic and artistic visuals of your projects with free software
Okay, so it's "free" in the sense that you're not paying money for it. Well, at least if you download the free-as-in-beer version of SketchUp. Don't get the Pro version, or the trial version of the Pro software...
Some other free software that you will learn how to use is GIMP
Yes, GIMP is free-as-in-beer, but it's also Free Software (note the capitalization), which is actually something that (most of) the readers of Slashdot care about.
The reviewer also mentions Kerkythea, a project which seems to be internally confused about how free and open it is. Their About page says that
Kerkythea is a standalone renderer...I want to believe that KT can now be considered among the top freeware/open source renderer engines
But Kerkythea isn't open source and doesn't have open distribution, as their License page confusingly describes:
We believe in free software that continues to be of high quality, user friendly and can be used in your commercial work without any fees or any other restrictions. We have only some terms of usage to basically protect our hard work.
Kerkythea is freeware copyrighted product and can be used under the following terms: 1. You can not re-distribute Kerkythea software from web sites or other ways of massive redistribution (for example, magazine CD). Person to person redistribution is permitted provided that the package is distributed without modifications and without gaining money from this action, or any kind of advertisement material. 2. You can use Kerkythea and its produced output (rendered images) for your work (including commercial) completely free without any fees. Mentioning the rendering software is appreciated but not required. Last Updated ( Wednesday, 30 January 2008 )
So to sum up, the KT teams "believes in free software [that] can be used in...commercial work without any fees or other restrictions," but then puts a pretty big restriction on software distribution. Hmmmm... think that's confusing? I sure do.
But I digress...
It really all comes down to putting in the effort to author a solid review.
from what I heard the King of Thailand was a decent guy. Apparently there were a number of PMs in the last few years who have been sacked for one reason or another, and the only one who wasn't tossed out was the one that the King put into power himself (and he only did it because the country was having problems trying to appoint a PM or something...).
Hopefully the Thai people can sort all this stuff out. Maybe after they get the government running smoothly, then they can talk to the King about the possibility of changing these laws.
If only Slashcode would do a single hit on <domain> +.nyud.net +/rest/of/url/ for every link posted in an article, then it would be trivial to switch over to cached copies of the content.
I gotta hand it to the MeeGo folks. Their project has goals like
1) Keep it FOSS. All of it (in the core distro) 2) Upstream code whenever possible
Even if you don't use it as a mobile OS, the work being done on it by Intel, Nokia, etc... is going to benefit pretty much every Linux-derived distro out there.
If Linaro wants to join the party and throw time/money at improving Linux-y software running on ARM chips, that sounds pretty darn good to me!
To be fair, she's only a girl. Probably calls her computer "that magic television typewriter thing".
Well, I do call my computer "the magic picture box" from time to time. Of course, I usually follow it with "...that's Turing complete," so I'm not exactly normal in that sense.
Also, while you may label her as "only a girl," it bears noting that while you and I bother with/. comments, she's up on that stage captivating audiences.
TED talks might be "ideas worth spreading," but unfortunately Johanna Blakley is spreading nothing but half-truths and misconceptions about FOSS in her talk.
Don't get me wrong -- I have no impression that she's acting with malicious intent. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she was supportive of the open source business model. But regardless of intent, her voice carries great weight when she's given the microphone at a TED talk.
11:50 "Open source software. These guys decided they didn't want copyright protection. They thought it'd be more innovative without it."
False. Some FOSS developers eschew some of the protections granted to them through copyright law and grant everyone very permissive licenses to their code. Other developers have used a clever hack to create a body of "copyleft" work -- code that can be used and expanded upon, contingent upon derivative works being distributed under the same terms as the original work.
Very few FOSS developers put their code into the public domain.
13:50 Around this point she shows a chart.
The chart has two axes: X: "Property (Art)" -> "Free (Utility)" and Y: "Physical Fixed Expression" -> "Idea/Digital Manifestation".
The left two quadrants are colored grey and have "COPYRIGHT PROTECTED" written above them. The right two quadrants and colored white and have "NOT COPYRIGHT PROTECTED" above them.
She plots "OPEN SOURCE CODE" on the chart exactly in between "Idea/Digital Manifestation" and "Free (Utility)", placing it on the right hand, "NOT COPYRIGHT PROTECTED" side of the chart.
At least for the moment, computer code is copyrightable in the US. And as I stated before, most FOSS code is copyright protected.
I think that Blakley has a lot of interesting ideas, and certainly knows more about the fashion industry than I, but she's needlessly negligent in her characterization of how FOSS interacts with copyright law.
The Flash Player EULA used to include a clause that attempted to prevent users of the software from also developing a competing product. That particular clause was excised from the EULA several versions ago.
Here's the most relevant part of the EULA for 10.1 and what it says on the subject (you'll have to jump down to the English section starting on page 66):
4.5 No Modification or Reverse Engineering. You shall not modify, adapt, translate or create derivative works based upon the Software. You shall not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise attempt to discover the source code of the Software. If you are located in the European Union, please refer to the additional terms at the end of this agreement under the header “European Union Provisions,” in Section 16.
So you can't directly adapt or create a derivative work of the player, but as long as you write your own thing, you should be fine.
WebOS has some open stuff in the base layer, but their entire GUI layer is pretty much closed, right?
No. Their UI layer is Mojo -- an HTML + JavaScript engine. Their window manager is the only part of the GUI that you can call "closed", but it's hackable as all hell.
Okay, it's nice that the only piece of the GUI that's closed is the WM, and it's also beneficial that it's "hackable as all hell," but with fully-open platforms like Android, MeeGo, and Symbian available, I'm still reaching for a reason to use it.
Is the WM the only closed piece in the unit?
I'd wager that WebOS is in some ways more open than Android -- but I haven't peeked at Google's Android machine too closely.
Ummmm... I think that the base Android system is (absent drivers and maybe some proprietary stuff like Flash/H.264 in the default browser) all BSD, GPL, or Apache licensed.
WebOS has proprietary components, including (at least) the WM.
I think Android wins the "more open" moniker.
WebOS is FAR, FAR closer to a "standard Linux system" than Apple ever would be, though.
WebOS runs the Linux kernel; Apple uses a BSD kernel, plus OSX-type stuff on top. So yeah, I'd expect WebOS to be a lot more STD GNU/Linux than any Apple OS!
A more interesting comparison would be between Android and WebOS (I'd throw in MeeGo, too).
Android, with their heavy use of Java and re-write of much of the userland space would get my vote for least like STD GNU/Linux (heck, even the FSF calls it Android/Linux). I don't know much about WebOS, but with MeeGo 100% open end-to-end, using standard components pretty much everywhere, my guess is that MeeGo edges WebOS out by some (perhaps slim) margin.
* my android device can't be upgraded * my android app don't work on x version of android * my android app doesn't work on y version of hardware
Interestingly, if Android were something like... say GPLv3, so that end users could update the OS, and if you had a compelling enough app, I think that you could then get people to upgrade their phone OS in order to run the new versions of your application.
Certain issues, for example lack of an accelerometer or a GPS unit, are insurmountable. You'll just have to suck it up and deal with those hardware revs in your builds, or indicate that you're not officially supporting that hardware anymore.
It sounds, however, that compatibility across android and handset versions is not only not guaranteed with android, but that the incompatibility is to be expected...according to their chief architect.
Nice.
Android isn't there to hold your hand as a developer or to hold the hand of the manufacturers. I mean, you get what you get.
Unfortunately what end users get is an open platform that the hardware manufacturers and networks have tweaked slightly, then locked down. And guess what? The end users get screwed over again because the networks and hardware manufacturers benefit more from attracting new customers or offering newer, sexier phones.
I'm really hoping that we won't have the same problem with MeeGo, but I'm not betting on it. The networks just love being able to lock people in, and I don't see that business model going away anytime soon.
Slashdot Mirror
Designed to comply with the CHAdeMo standard...the system is capable of charging a 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev from empty to 50% full in just three minutes. Even just three minutes plugged in...enable[d] a standard 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev to travel a further 50 miles before further charging was required."
Good job being.... very redundant? I supposed you'll want some kind of gold star or something...
Speaking of education, guess what time it is? That's right, it's Mathdot Time!.
Usually around this time I whip out my trusty calculator (and before those mod-point-endowed HP-calculator /.-ers down-mod me into oblivion, yes, "RPN FTW!"), but in this case I think we can just use the power of our brains. Just try not to think too hard or you might hurt your brain.
And...it's a story problem!
If samzenpus can charge his 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev from empty to 50% full in just three minutes, and if three minutes plugged in...enable[s] his standard 2011 Mitsubishi i-Miev to travel a further 50 miles, what is the range of his vehicle?
100 miles? That's it?
Okay, yeah, apparently electric cars are kind of screwed...
...but I think I've heard enough from the existing comments.
I'm currently working on my Dell m1530, and it feels about as hot as the pan I use to fry eggs. It also doesn't have the best battery life, especially if I'm trying to watch movies or catch up on work while traveling. It sounds like switching to an SSD will help on both of those fronts.
I just hope that the price of SSDs drops by the time I'm in the market for one. I'm not entirely sure I'd like to drop $400 or $600 in addition to the $1000 for my next laptop...
These are ARM based platforms, but unlike the PC, there's not one single platform.
Is there any particular reason why there isn't a standard way of doing things?
I mean, is there a competitive advantage to the chip makers who license the ARM tech if they decide on their own addresses for various components? Or is it just that it hasn't been as big an issue with embedded systems in the past, and nobody large enough has stood up and said "here's the standard way of doing things"?
Maybe I could have used another hour or two of sleep....
As their main webserver quietly melts in the background, please direct your attention to a video here (Coral Cache) that has the exact same title as the url in this article.
This link/video mentions Jerone Young, one of the "main engineers at Canonical" responsible for ARM development.
Here we go again. I'm getting an "Internal Server Error", but who knows exactly why the page is down.
Coral Cache link is here,, and it'll theoretically work, well, that is if I can ever get the page to load...
Too bad about RTFA, I guess, for once it looks like I can base my post solely on the summary and not feel an ounce of guilt. Let's see...I don't know much about Pegatron, but if their laptops don't come with a pair of wings and a horse head attached I think I'm going to feel let down.
Here's a brief excerpt from JRB's blog:
I bought a fantastic new CD by my friend Michael Lowenstern. I then ripped that CD on to my hard drive so I can listen to it on my iPod in my car. Well, that's not FAIR, right? I should have to buy two copies?
No. There is in fact a part of the copyright law that allows exactly this; it's called the doctrine of fair use. If you've purchased or otherwise legally obtained a piece of copyrighted material and you want to make a copy of it for your own use, that's perfectly legal and allowed. Your friend Wikipedia has some useful thoughts about "fair use" and "fair dealing", in case you want to read further. Here's the beginning of the relevant section:
I think it's great that JRB supports this view, and I'm really hopeful that more content creators like JRB will take a stronger stand to defend a consumer's Fair-Use rights to time- and context-shift their legally-purchased copies of copyrighted art.
While content consumers can "vote with their wallet" to try to encourage producers and publishers to get rid of DRM on songs, videos, and eBooks, I believe that artists such as JRB can be a very welcome ally in helping the consumers to get rid of DRM.
Think about it: If JRB says that he's not going to put his audio work on CDs or DVDs unless they are DRM and region-code free, then he enables his customers to actually transcode the content. Until then, his customers may not be able to exercise their Fair Use rights per the DMCA.
JRB writes:
"Listen, Eleanor, I'm frustrated on your behalf. It really sucks to be a teenager. I'm not being sarcastic or ironic, I really get it. I wrote a whole show about it. But being able to steal something doesn't mean you should."
As much as I want to believe him, I sense a bit of a problem here. I mean, first of all, who says "I get it" to a teenager? Unless you're an actual teen, or 20 years old and 1 month, or have a glandular condition and are some kind of perpetual-teenager, or share something special with the particular teen (e.g. both of you have had an arm bitten off by a shark or a RIAA lawyer), you don't say that to teens.
And second: He's paid lots of money to make good stories up.
So whenever I heard something like "Listen, Eleanor...It really sucks to be a teenager... I really get it," I feel like I'm being whisked away on a puff of air to the bright lights of Broadway where I hear him singing:
Listen, Eleanor,
I'm frustrated on your behalf.
I know the sound of popular girls
right behind your back, you can hear them laugh.
It really sucks to be a teenager.
I'm not being sarcastic or ironic, I really get it.
It really sucks to be young and confused
but whatever they say, just forget it -- don't sweat it.
I wrote a whole show...
about it,
Eleanor.
Tell the ticket-buying teens anything
to keep streaming through that theater door,
Please remember, Ellie,
that just "because you can,"
is probably the sorriest, darnedest, worse excuse
in the entire history of man.
Don't forget this simple playwright,
with a soft heart, not one of wood.
But being able to steal something
doesn't mean you should.
'Cause being able to steal something
doesn't meaaaaaaaan.
Youuuuuuuu
Shouuuuuuuuuuuuld!
....hmmm... now I'm kind of tempted to make a song out of that.
Symbian could be nice, but it seems like targeting MeeGo would be a better bet, especially as they already have a Maemo version done and MeeGo is the heir apparent for Symbian.
Actually, now that I think about it, I believe that when the MeeGo Notebook UX was released the devs chose Fennec as the browser, so maybe there's not much work left to do there.
Having Firefox on Symbian (e.g. on the next Nokia N8 phone, etc...) would also hitch Firefox to the transition wagon that Nokia is driving to try to get Symbian developers and hardware integrators to eventually move to MeeGo. There could be some benefit to be had there...
Backspace key on Windows, Alt-Left Arrow on *nix, and whatever the heck it is on OSX (curvy-cornered octothorpe + Left Arrow, I think).
Especially if I'm on my laptop, the trackpad is a pain to use and causes more strain on my hands than using the keyboard.
Colplay...is an English-derived Japanese word referring to a sexual practice...in which the female dresses up in a costume...
I dunno, but my guess is that Colplay has something to do with Colonels in the military.
e.g.
Hey there Professor Plum, you're looking pretty sharp in that tweed jacket, but my team of elite paratrooping weiner dogs is visiting from Idaho, and we're more in the mood for some colplay tonight. Any idea where I could find Colonel Mustard?
Excuse me, is there a KFC in town? I usually get the KFC kid's meals and sell the commemorative Colonel Sanders dolls on eBay to colplay freaks; most times one doll pays for the entire meal. It's win-win for everyone!
Here's the letter from Sony.
I gotta agree with what others have said: 2 slashdottings in such a short period of time seems almost cruel and unusual.
Note to the Editors: If by some chance you run another story linking to this guy's website, use Coral Cache. Please.
Behold, decades of networking research and painstaking software development has brought us to this moment--watering tomatoes on a website.
And that's not going to change until you start wiring stuff into/altering people's brains.
Luster Leaf Rapiclip Foam Wire Tie. If it's great for tender tomatoes, I'm sure it'll work quite well for soft brains as well.
I, for one, I think that kadwson is doing a fine job with his spelling in these articles.
Here's the link for the coral cache copy....now let's see if we can get the page loaded into the cache...
Not to mention you'll have an actual Java JVM with a mature implementation of JIT and not the Google re-imagining that is Dalvik.
Or feel free to install Dalvik on it instead, if that's what floats your boat.
The way I'm seeing it, Google is leveraging the Linux kernel, Java, and some other bits and pieces to make a specialized OS for mobile phones that they call Android.
Nokia (and Intel) are looking to the future and seeing that as the hardware improves, there's no particular reason not to just run a stock Linux kernel, GNU userland, and then layer some mobile-device improvements on top.
QT may be part of the core system, and is supported on all MeeGo devices, but that shouldn't stop you from installing libs for GTK+, Java, or whatever else you want on your mobile MeeGo device. Android isn't designed for that kind of use, but MeeGo is.
On a separate note, given that Intel has a team working on Android on x86 and a team (or two) working on MeeGo, I wonder if they'll throw any effort into making an Android compatibility layer for MeeGo.
Other people have already pointed out several ways that this review is, to put it nicely, lacking. I'd like to mention two more important points.
1. Hyperlinks...do you use them?
Reviewer writes
Yeah, see it where? Did you (reviewer and/or editor) do the most cursory of read-throughs to see if there were any blatant instances of "click on this text that's not a hyperlink but really, probably should be" ? I guess the answer would be no.
But don't be sad -- I got a free web coupon from the ice cream factory for everyone -- Click to See it Here!
2. SketchUp isn't Free Software. It's not entirely free as in beer, either. Be more clear on Slashdot.
SketchUp is a product hoovered-up by Google. They have a free-as-in-beer version as well as a Pro version for $495 (US). I can't even believe that in this whole review there wasn't even a link back to the software's website. I mean, that's like the first place people would want to go after reading the review or buying the book.
Reviewer states that this book will
Okay, so it's "free" in the sense that you're not paying money for it. Well, at least if you download the free-as-in-beer version of SketchUp. Don't get the Pro version, or the trial version of the Pro software...
Yes, GIMP is free-as-in-beer, but it's also Free Software (note the capitalization), which is actually something that (most of) the readers of Slashdot care about.
The reviewer also mentions Kerkythea, a project which seems to be internally confused about how free and open it is. Their About page says that
But Kerkythea isn't open source and doesn't have open distribution, as their License page confusingly describes:
So to sum up, the KT teams "believes in free software [that] can be used in...commercial work without any fees or other restrictions," but then puts a pretty big restriction on software distribution. Hmmmm... think that's confusing? I sure do.
But I digress...
It really all comes down to putting in the effort to author a solid review.
I wish that the revie
from what I heard the King of Thailand was a decent guy. Apparently there were a number of PMs in the last few years who have been sacked for one reason or another, and the only one who wasn't tossed out was the one that the King put into power himself (and he only did it because the country was having problems trying to appoint a PM or something...).
Hopefully the Thai people can sort all this stuff out. Maybe after they get the government running smoothly, then they can talk to the King about the possibility of changing these laws.
Okay, I finally got the page to load:
Falsehoods Programmers Believe About Names
If only Slashcode would do a single hit on <domain> + .nyud.net + /rest/of/url/ for every link posted in an article, then it would be trivial to switch over to cached copies of the content.
I gotta hand it to the MeeGo folks. Their project has goals like
1) Keep it FOSS. All of it (in the core distro)
2) Upstream code whenever possible
Even if you don't use it as a mobile OS, the work being done on it by Intel, Nokia, etc... is going to benefit pretty much every Linux-derived distro out there.
If Linaro wants to join the party and throw time/money at improving Linux-y software running on ARM chips, that sounds pretty darn good to me!
To be fair, she's only a girl. Probably calls her computer "that magic television typewriter thing".
Well, I do call my computer "the magic picture box" from time to time. Of course, I usually follow it with "...that's Turing complete," so I'm not exactly normal in that sense.
Also, while you may label her as "only a girl," it bears noting that while you and I bother with /. comments, she's up on that stage captivating audiences.
TED talks might be "ideas worth spreading," but unfortunately Johanna Blakley is spreading nothing but half-truths and misconceptions about FOSS in her talk.
Don't get me wrong -- I have no impression that she's acting with malicious intent. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she was supportive of the open source business model. But regardless of intent, her voice carries great weight when she's given the microphone at a TED talk.
11:50
"Open source software. These guys decided they didn't want copyright protection. They thought it'd be more innovative without it."
False. Some FOSS developers eschew some of the protections granted to them through copyright law and grant everyone very permissive licenses to their code. Other developers have used a clever hack to create a body of "copyleft" work -- code that can be used and expanded upon, contingent upon derivative works being distributed under the same terms as the original work.
Very few FOSS developers put their code into the public domain.
13:50
Around this point she shows a chart.
The chart has two axes:
X: "Property (Art)" -> "Free (Utility)" and
Y: "Physical Fixed Expression" -> "Idea/Digital Manifestation".
The left two quadrants are colored grey and have "COPYRIGHT PROTECTED" written above them. The right two quadrants and colored white and have "NOT COPYRIGHT PROTECTED" above them.
She plots "OPEN SOURCE CODE" on the chart exactly in between "Idea/Digital Manifestation" and "Free (Utility)", placing it on the right hand, "NOT COPYRIGHT PROTECTED" side of the chart.
At least for the moment, computer code is copyrightable in the US. And as I stated before, most FOSS code is copyright protected.
I think that Blakley has a lot of interesting ideas, and certainly knows more about the fashion industry than I, but she's needlessly negligent in her characterization of how FOSS interacts with copyright law.
Perhaps I should write her a polite letter...
(IANAL)
The Flash Player EULA used to include a clause that attempted to prevent users of the software from also developing a competing product. That particular clause was excised from the EULA several versions ago.
Here's the most relevant part of the EULA for 10.1 and what it says on the subject (you'll have to jump down to the English section starting on page 66):
4.5 No Modification or Reverse Engineering. You shall not modify, adapt, translate or create derivative
works based upon the Software. You shall not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or otherwise
attempt to discover the source code of the Software. If you are located in the European Union, please
refer to the additional terms at the end of this agreement under the header “European Union
Provisions,” in Section 16.
So you can't directly adapt or create a derivative work of the player, but as long as you write your own thing, you should be fine.
WebOS has some open stuff in the base layer, but their entire GUI layer is pretty much closed, right?
No. Their UI layer is Mojo -- an HTML + JavaScript engine. Their window manager is the only part of the GUI that you can call "closed", but it's hackable as all hell.
Okay, it's nice that the only piece of the GUI that's closed is the WM, and it's also beneficial that it's "hackable as all hell," but with fully-open platforms like Android, MeeGo, and Symbian available, I'm still reaching for a reason to use it.
Is the WM the only closed piece in the unit?
I'd wager that WebOS is in some ways more open than Android -- but I haven't peeked at Google's Android machine too closely.
Ummmm... I think that the base Android system is (absent drivers and maybe some proprietary stuff like Flash/H.264 in the default browser) all BSD, GPL, or Apache licensed.
WebOS has proprietary components, including (at least) the WM.
I think Android wins the "more open" moniker.
WebOS is FAR, FAR closer to a "standard Linux system" than Apple ever would be, though.
WebOS runs the Linux kernel; Apple uses a BSD kernel, plus OSX-type stuff on top. So yeah, I'd expect WebOS to be a lot more STD GNU/Linux than any Apple OS!
A more interesting comparison would be between Android and WebOS (I'd throw in MeeGo, too).
Android, with their heavy use of Java and re-write of much of the userland space would get my vote for least like STD GNU/Linux (heck, even the FSF calls it Android/Linux). I don't know much about WebOS, but with MeeGo 100% open end-to-end, using standard components pretty much everywhere, my guess is that MeeGo edges WebOS out by some (perhaps slim) margin.
* my android device can't be upgraded
* my android app don't work on x version of android
* my android app doesn't work on y version of hardware
Interestingly, if Android were something like... say GPLv3, so that end users could update the OS, and if you had a compelling enough app, I think that you could then get people to upgrade their phone OS in order to run the new versions of your application.
Certain issues, for example lack of an accelerometer or a GPS unit, are insurmountable. You'll just have to suck it up and deal with those hardware revs in your builds, or indicate that you're not officially supporting that hardware anymore.
It sounds, however, that compatibility across android and handset versions is not only not guaranteed with android, but that the incompatibility is to be expected...according to their chief architect.
Nice.
Android isn't there to hold your hand as a developer or to hold the hand of the manufacturers. I mean, you get what you get.
Unfortunately what end users get is an open platform that the hardware manufacturers and networks have tweaked slightly, then locked down. And guess what? The end users get screwed over again because the networks and hardware manufacturers benefit more from attracting new customers or offering newer, sexier phones.
I'm really hoping that we won't have the same problem with MeeGo, but I'm not betting on it. The networks just love being able to lock people in, and I don't see that business model going away anytime soon.