You take two failing companies and put them under one incompetent and ego driven leader in Scott McNealy and it is a sure win-win! I am sure Microsoft would be happy to offer cash incentives to all parties. (feel the sarcasm)
What I find interesting is that Sun would acquire access to the Mono implemention of the.NET 1.1 profile which would allow them to have a closer integration with MS technologies. As a part of their new "agreement" with MS to collaborate on their enterprise technologies (.NET and J2EE) this would seem like a logic acquisition.
Now if they just had a talented CEO and CTO running the show it would be quite promising. Unfortunately I do expect McNealy to allow his ego to overcome any logical choices and botch the whole venture. But who could do this? How about Miguel de Icaza (Gnome/Mono creator) as CTO, someone who has proven work ethic and the ability to make wise choices?
In my experience with CPAN I have found it follows the Larry Wall concept that there are many ways to do the same thing. For starters, there are several modules which can communicate with a POP3 server. There are many XML parsers and many means of talking to a MySQL database. Unfortunately I would not say each solution is feature complete or even good quality. It is great that it has built-in Pod Doc, but the fact remains is that it can be quite difficult to get some things done.
I was able to whip together a webmail client which fetches mail from a POP3 server and parse the MIME types to display content with several Perl modules which was a pretty amazing feat with the little amount of code which I wrote. But as I wrote it I had to come up with many workarounds for incomplete features in the CPAN modules. I also found that some modules were object oriented and some were not.
So in the end I am finding things like the Java Foundation Classes or the.NET 1.1 profile implemented by Mono to be much more appealing. While there may be fewer means of connecting to a POP3 server, there is a good chance the one that is there will work well enough.
But I am still curious how the Ruby folks are doing. They have been committed to object-oriented programming and may be able produce higher quality solitions. Anyone doing Ruby here?
I wish I could get a stable version of BIND. I am running a recent release and I still have to run a cron job to make sure it is running and restart it when it randomly dies. I use to be able to look at the logs to determine what was wrong, but it seems the current version fails to provide the useful information.
So I have been looking into alteratives like TinyDNS. I still have much to read, but I would like to discover more documentation and more alteratives. Ultimately I would like to be able to manage the DNS zones in a MySQL database. I can then tunnel into the server with SSH and run the MySQL Control Center to edit database records.
I wish people would just get away from using Microsoft as the enemy to overcome. It is possible to just produce and release great software and be successful without paying any attention to Microsoft.
A browser without a soul? Software does not have a soul! This is just silly talk. Look at how Sun and other companies keep spinning their wheels trying to out do Microsoft while great small companies like Panic Software can produce great software. And how do they do it? They find a need they can fill and they make a great product. They do not look at what Microsoft is offering and try to replicate and destroy their marketshare. There is so much software that could be written for so many other purposes which goes well beyond what Microsoft offers. Be creative and start building it.
You may think that MS could try to destroy Mono and enforce patent on.NET after they have worked to standardize it with ECMA. But ECMA is an international standards body and will not stand by as tool for MS domination. It would lose credibility and the companies which back it will not tolerate that. MS has made the deal and going against their initial good faith will cause even more fuel for the MS critics of their business practices in a time when the European Union is cracking down on them and the US is carefully watching them for anti-trust violations.
With that said, the viability of Mono does not rely on the future of the MS version of.NET. The base 1.0 and 1.1 implementions provide a great foundation and if it branched away from MS at that point but still provide complete cross-platform functionality between Windows, Linux and *nix systems it will remain to be a technology of choice for those that want to create software in their language of choice but still directly link or embed other CLI languages. Ease of language integration is something that Java and other languages do not offer. Traditionally languages like C, Perl, Python and others provided bindings that you had to code, but it requires a good deal of knowledge of the other language, a major barrier for developers trying to develop a project.
I think MS has created a technology which stands on its own merit despite the reputation that MS has as the destroyer of all competition. Just as Sun cannot succeed in containing Java, Microsoft cannot contain the CLI implementation that is provided with Mono.
I for one really highly value the features in managed languages like Java and C# such as strong types, exception handling, threading and garbage collection. Scott Mcnealy has decided that Sun will not open up Java, so that means that Mono is the best hope to open up a language founded on these key features. Think of it this way. For a long time now Java has had the best JVM performance on Windows because the focus has been on the dominating platform. You might says Sun produces their best JVM on Windows. (which makes many people sick) I wish it was realistic to deploy Java applications to most platforms, but I have often read about the poor performance of Java on non-Windows platforms, including Sun's own Solaris operating system.
Java has it's own merits, but at least Microsoft is not holding the language back. It is clear the MS strategy is to release quickly and fix it along the way while it is unclear what Sun's strategy is. Sure there is a lot is distrust of MS, but it would be a mistake to ignore Mono.
The old Microsoft approach is to Embrace an Extend. I often hear people say that Mono is going to die because MS has the staff to write more and more APIs and Mono will not be able to keep up. But my thoughts are that Mono and other Open Source projects should be able to implement some impressive and highly usable C# and.NET implementations completely independent of MS influence and support. Essentially the community will have the ability to Embrace and Extend a MS created technology with just the ECMA standard C# and CLI recommendation.
I have been impressed with the CLI implementation and the SOAP and Web Services technologies that are a part of the.NET framework are very robust when compared to traditional network communications such as CGI or OLE. It is clearly an ideal glue language for a diverse Linux desktop which often mixes many programming and scripting languages together.
If iTunes is making the continual revenue then it will be possible sell iPods at a loss so they can increase the market share and sell more of their 99 cent songs. It is similar to Sony selling the Playstation for more than it costs to build because the average customer will buy at least 6 games for the life of the console which gives Sony a profit from their game licensing. I hope that works for Apple as well. I do not need 40 gigs for music. I just need about 4 gigs and a player that can play my 99 cent songs from iTunes and the mp3 files that I have ripped from my existing CD collection.
The US gave them the technology for missiles and the germ and gas WMD decades ago. The proof as I have heard some joke, the US simply kept the reciepts. The US has benefitted from providing weapons for wars in Iraq and Afganistan. The US provided weapons to Afganistan to fight the Soviets and to Iraq to fight Iran. That is a lot of blood on our hands as Americans and I wish people were not so shortsighted about it. I hear my friends say these terrorists simply hate us because the US is a successful world power, but they miss the point that these people have suffered greatly because of US policy to do whatever necessary to protect our monetary interests. The US will have to learn the peace should be the top US interest.
I was looking into a voicemail solution for OS X when my old answering machine finally gave out. I looked and figured that with the new phone number portability in the US I will simply move to a new provider and that voicemail solution should suffice.
But this question got me thinking. I would never need to use OS X as a voicemail/fax system if I move entirely to a cell phone, but it sure would be great if Apple could work with the cellphone providers to make my voicemail and faxes available from my broadband connected home computer. I could get faxes as a PDF and voicemail and an MP3. I do avoid listening to my voicemail on my cellphone because it is very awkward and difficult to hear. Apple should more closely integrate Apple Mail, iChat, and the Address Book with a cellphone service which would make fax and voicemails easily accessible from the desktop as a communications hub, and it could all be done over my broadband connection.
The way the IETF and other standards bodies have worked is that some organization wouldtry out a new concept for a technology and once they feel the concept is working, they will create a Request For Comments (RFC) which allows others to implement and offer feedback. Over time the RFC gains support and ultimately becomes a recommendation.
This process was used to create the internet today, including all of the network protocols and services that run on top of it. Even SMTP was an RFC first.
By breaking the means the industry hopes to use to make their business viable you are only going to force them to cancel future projects which make music and other media easy for consumers to buy. Not everything can be free. Do you expect to get paid for a days work? And if Apple is forced to end their service because everyone just steals the music, then what will be left with? I will tell you. Microsoft will push a DRM-based protection scheme which is based on hardware and locks out non-Windows users.
Stop screwing these companies!
Re:The historical importance of SCO
on
SCO News Roundup
·
· Score: 1
Unfortunately the money will continue to roll into MS because they are a smart and ruthless company. They have recognized that they will not be making a great deal of money just by selling an OS that does what any Unix and Linux system will do. But instead they are expanding on what they have done and I have seen some previews of it which I actually found impressive, and I prefer MacOS X and developer software using Java. I know you cannot ignore MS or predict a their coming demise.
Unlike companies like Sun, MS can fight the legal battles and still fight forward with products that sell. Sun and other companies need to learn that they need to produce instead of sue. Sure MS has produced many products with security problems, but they know if they provide enough benefits with their solutions they will be able to overcome those shortcomings. It comes down to how a person decides to buy software. If a large company can determine that an MS solution will reduce their costs by 80% of the overall budget but require a 20% investment in network security, they are still 60% ahead of the game. By focusing on the security failings of MS which requires that 20% investment you are missing the point.
Remember the days when Apple put all their efforts into convincing everyone that Mhz do not matter? Steve Jobs went into in some detail in one
keynote
Now it seems that Mhz does matter now that the Macs are faster again. But unfortunately Steve Job had to project his reality distortion field which now causes many people to doubt their claims. Fortunately the UK is enforcing their standards. Apple needs to be as truthful as possible in order to maintain customer loyalty. I was very unhappy when I found out how weak my white iBook was, especially for playing games after all the advertising suggested it would be fast. And MacOS X 10.0 did not help performance.
The apps which will work will be the ones that only use the BSD core and not the entire Aqua graphics layer where the majority of popular MacOS X application run. But it is conceivable that an emulation of Aqua could be created for NetBSD which could replace X11. And since X11 is really show its age, I think a replacement for the graphics layer on Unix-like system is long in coming. Emulating the Dock and other MacOS UI features would be great. Just ask the developers at WindowMaker.
I was at home and it was just garbage reality TV so I went to the bar. Another night I did some reading. And sure I did spend one night playing a computer game, but the decline in TV viewing is not just gaming. The TV shows are currently not worthwhile with the exception of Alias, 24, and a couple of other well written shows. Don't even get me started on the cheap effects and lame plots on Jake 2.0 and Threat Matrix. My sister's kids could put together skits in the living room.
Does it include Java? I see the lack of Java on FreeBSD has been a major oversight by the core FreeBSD team. The primary focus of FreeBSD has been the server-side and these days Java is a big part of what makes a server useful. Recently a binary distribution of Java 1.3.1 was released for FreeBSD, but I see no mention of it with the 5.1 distribution.
What is the status of Java on FreeBSD? Should I just switch over to MacOS X or Linux if I want a current Java runtime? Questions about Java have come up for the last several releases and so far I have not it addressed by the FreeBSD team.
Basic authentication does at least encode the password via Base 64. It is not at the level of Digest, but both are still pretty weak compared to using SSH/SSL.
Exactly. I want to be oblivious to bugs in the software that I use on my desktop. If I do not notice a problem then it works well enough for me. I do software development for a living and do not intend to debug and resolve issues for the software on my home desktoop when I get home. And when I chose to start using MacOS X I decided that I was done writing scripts to make it work as I want. I make my comments on the Apple Discussions site and wait for improvements in the next release. I do not hack away at code and submit a patch. At home I intend to be a normal home user and not a contributor to the software.
I say Linux is dated for the DESKTOP due largely to both X Windows as well as the fact that it is based on many old ideas which have been changed and improved in newer systems. Think of it in terms of Apache 1.3 vs Apache 2.0. The new model does threading and can chain many handlers together to create a response. These features were not easily added to Apache 1.3 so they started with a new model.
For Linux, it sure can do server-based services, but it does not make it automatically a perfect OS for the desktop. The requirements for a web server, database server or desktop with multimedia capabilities is all very different. MacOS X made certain adjustments to allow it to work well for a desktop. For example, I want to play mp3 music while I read email without the music cutting out due to lack of processor priority, so it has been given a high priority and it never cuts out.
For both Linux and X Windows I am certain it will come to a point where there are too many patches or extensions and starting with a well designed alternative will become necessary. I can already see how difficult it is to get a windowing system set up on Linux involving many software and font libraries which constantly change and need updating in order to use the latest applications. Just because there are constant changes to an OS does not mean it is a good thing.
There is also a good deal of value in a system which was designed and built so well that updates are not needed very frequently. For the past 4 years Linux has changed very rapidly to add support for various devices and filesystems and those systems were not designed by a collaborative group of software engineers. They were mostly created by independent groups who were not working together or even working with the same OS. Sure the open source model can produce quality software through this bazaar, but one look at software archives for Perl (CPAN) you will find many solutions to the same problem and not one seems to solve the problem entirely. If the software is designed and the plans documented it could lead to a tighter implementation which does not require frequent updates which cause conflicts among systems.
As for X Windows, I would suggest it is lacking in terms of consistency and quality. What font libaries or windowing system should I use and what just works? What video card should I use and what should I avoid? Whenever I consider a Linux or BSD desktop I always have to be very careful with the hardware I use or it will not work well. In the past I found Linux to be extremely stable as a server, but when X Windows crashes and takes me back to the command-line that is just as bad as a full crash because now I am only one step away from the BIOS. I want total stability, not just kernel stability. Why X Windows crashed could be due to the graphics card, but what I know now is that I am very satisfied with MacOS X because I do not need to think about fonts or graphics cards. It just works and I can go about reading email, visiting various websites and listen to music.
So Linux is dated by the fact that better solutions have appeared which resolve many of the problems that exist with Linux and Linux cannot simply use a patch to make it all better.
I think Apple could provide a poweful BSD base for the new OS along with good Unicode and Graphics support. If they could convince these 3 countries to start with MacOS X or Darwin they would take a big step forward for market share. Of course there is the issue of hardware costs along with the OS being proprietary or not. I am sure one goal of this new asian-based OS is that they will not be reliant on the US for software. In the very least they could work closely with the development efforts of this new OS to ensure it is MacOS X compatible so they would have an existing set of applications ready to use from day one.
Also for Linux, it is somewhat dated already and I sincerely believe that. But I mean this more in a sense of desktop Linux vs server Linux. The X Windows system is lacking in many areas and other efforts like the open source Berlin or Apple's Quartz is a big step forward. The constant duality of KDE vs Gnome is always an issue. Sure it is nice to have options, but it can also be difficult to understand for new users. When MacOS X came out I was a little upset that there was no theme support, but I quickly accepted it and realized that I should be using the applications instead of making the display look different every other day. And changing the look and feel only serves to confuse users and make tech support more difficult.
Apple was bold enough to scrap OS 9 and move forward with OS X (based on NextStep) because they knew it was a better starting point. I hope China, Japan and South Korea decide they want something better than what Linux and X11 provides.
My guess is the people who are not on the lists will now get more calls because there is a smaller pool of numbers to use. In that case, I would like to see a "Do not patronize" list for companies that bother people at home with sales pitches. If a company wants to get their word out, they will have to learn to use advertising and not my home phone.
You can just update your account to use whatever shell you want anyway. I see both bash and tcsh on my MacOS X 10.2 install, so there should be no trouble for someone who cares enough to change shells.
Slashdot Mirror
You take two failing companies and put them under one incompetent and ego driven leader in Scott McNealy and it is a sure win-win! I am sure Microsoft would be happy to offer cash incentives to all parties. (feel the sarcasm)
.NET 1.1 profile which would allow them to have a closer integration with MS technologies. As a part of their new "agreement" with MS to collaborate on their enterprise technologies (.NET and J2EE) this would seem like a logic acquisition.
What I find interesting is that Sun would acquire access to the Mono implemention of the
Now if they just had a talented CEO and CTO running the show it would be quite promising. Unfortunately I do expect McNealy to allow his ego to overcome any logical choices and botch the whole venture. But who could do this? How about Miguel de Icaza (Gnome/Mono creator) as CTO, someone who has proven work ethic and the ability to make wise choices?
In my experience with CPAN I have found it follows the Larry Wall concept that there are many ways to do the same thing. For starters, there are several modules which can communicate with a POP3 server. There are many XML parsers and many means of talking to a MySQL database. Unfortunately I would not say each solution is feature complete or even good quality. It is great that it has built-in Pod Doc, but the fact remains is that it can be quite difficult to get some things done.
.NET 1.1 profile implemented by Mono to be much more appealing. While there may be fewer means of connecting to a POP3 server, there is a good chance the one that is there will work well enough.
I was able to whip together a webmail client which fetches mail from a POP3 server and parse the MIME types to display content with several Perl modules which was a pretty amazing feat with the little amount of code which I wrote. But as I wrote it I had to come up with many workarounds for incomplete features in the CPAN modules. I also found that some modules were object oriented and some were not.
So in the end I am finding things like the Java Foundation Classes or the
But I am still curious how the Ruby folks are doing. They have been committed to object-oriented programming and may be able produce higher quality solitions. Anyone doing Ruby here?
I wish I could get a stable version of BIND. I am running a recent release and I still have to run a cron job to make sure it is running and restart it when it randomly dies. I use to be able to look at the logs to determine what was wrong, but it seems the current version fails to provide the useful information.
So I have been looking into alteratives like TinyDNS. I still have much to read, but I would like to discover more documentation and more alteratives. Ultimately I would like to be able to manage the DNS zones in a MySQL database. I can then tunnel into the server with SSH and run the MySQL Control Center to edit database records.
Any suggestions?
I wish people would just get away from using Microsoft as the enemy to overcome. It is possible to just produce and release great software and be successful without paying any attention to Microsoft.
A browser without a soul? Software does not have a soul! This is just silly talk. Look at how Sun and other companies keep spinning their wheels trying to out do Microsoft while great small companies like Panic Software can produce great software. And how do they do it? They find a need they can fill and they make a great product. They do not look at what Microsoft is offering and try to replicate and destroy their marketshare. There is so much software that could be written for so many other purposes which goes well beyond what Microsoft offers. Be creative and start building it.
It is currently offline. I wonder if PHP can actually handle high load.
I do not mean to troll, but I really dislike PHP. I find mod_perl and Java Servlets are such a better option for high traffic sites.
You may think that MS could try to destroy Mono and enforce patent on .NET after they have worked to standardize it with ECMA. But ECMA is an international standards body and will not stand by as tool for MS domination. It would lose credibility and the companies which back it will not tolerate that. MS has made the deal and going against their initial good faith will cause even more fuel for the MS critics of their business practices in a time when the European Union is cracking down on them and the US is carefully watching them for anti-trust violations.
.NET. The base 1.0 and 1.1 implementions provide a great foundation and if it branched away from MS at that point but still provide complete cross-platform functionality between Windows, Linux and *nix systems it will remain to be a technology of choice for those that want to create software in their language of choice but still directly link or embed other CLI languages. Ease of language integration is something that Java and other languages do not offer. Traditionally languages like C, Perl, Python and others provided bindings that you had to code, but it requires a good deal of knowledge of the other language, a major barrier for developers trying to develop a project.
With that said, the viability of Mono does not rely on the future of the MS version of
I think MS has created a technology which stands on its own merit despite the reputation that MS has as the destroyer of all competition. Just as Sun cannot succeed in containing Java, Microsoft cannot contain the CLI implementation that is provided with Mono.
I for one really highly value the features in managed languages like Java and C# such as strong types, exception handling, threading and garbage collection. Scott Mcnealy has decided that Sun will not open up Java, so that means that Mono is the best hope to open up a language founded on these key features. Think of it this way. For a long time now Java has had the best JVM performance on Windows because the focus has been on the dominating platform. You might says Sun produces their best JVM on Windows. (which makes many people sick) I wish it was realistic to deploy Java applications to most platforms, but I have often read about the poor performance of Java on non-Windows platforms, including Sun's own Solaris operating system.
Java has it's own merits, but at least Microsoft is not holding the language back. It is clear the MS strategy is to release quickly and fix it along the way while it is unclear what Sun's strategy is. Sure there is a lot is distrust of MS, but it would be a mistake to ignore Mono.
The old Microsoft approach is to Embrace an Extend. I often hear people say that Mono is going to die because MS has the staff to write more and more APIs and Mono will not be able to keep up. But my thoughts are that Mono and other Open Source projects should be able to implement some impressive and highly usable C# and .NET implementations completely independent of MS influence and support. Essentially the community will have the ability to Embrace and Extend a MS created technology with just the ECMA standard C# and CLI recommendation.
.NET framework are very robust when compared to traditional network communications such as CGI or OLE. It is clearly an ideal glue language for a diverse Linux desktop which often mixes many programming and scripting languages together.
I have been impressed with the CLI implementation and the SOAP and Web Services technologies that are a part of the
If iTunes is making the continual revenue then it will be possible sell iPods at a loss so they can increase the market share and sell more of their 99 cent songs. It is similar to Sony selling the Playstation for more than it costs to build because the average customer will buy at least 6 games for the life of the console which gives Sony a profit from their game licensing. I hope that works for Apple as well. I do not need 40 gigs for music. I just need about 4 gigs and a player that can play my 99 cent songs from iTunes and the mp3 files that I have ripped from my existing CD collection.
The US gave them the technology for missiles and the germ and gas WMD decades ago. The proof as I have heard some joke, the US simply kept the reciepts. The US has benefitted from providing weapons for wars in Iraq and Afganistan. The US provided weapons to Afganistan to fight the Soviets and to Iraq to fight Iran. That is a lot of blood on our hands as Americans and I wish people were not so shortsighted about it. I hear my friends say these terrorists simply hate us because the US is a successful world power, but they miss the point that these people have suffered greatly because of US policy to do whatever necessary to protect our monetary interests. The US will have to learn the peace should be the top US interest.
I was looking into a voicemail solution for OS X when my old answering machine finally gave out. I looked and figured that with the new phone number portability in the US I will simply move to a new provider and that voicemail solution should suffice.
But this question got me thinking. I would never need to use OS X as a voicemail/fax system if I move entirely to a cell phone, but it sure would be great if Apple could work with the cellphone providers to make my voicemail and faxes available from my broadband connected home computer. I could get faxes as a PDF and voicemail and an MP3. I do avoid listening to my voicemail on my cellphone because it is very awkward and difficult to hear. Apple should more closely integrate Apple Mail, iChat, and the Address Book with a cellphone service which would make fax and voicemails easily accessible from the desktop as a communications hub, and it could all be done over my broadband connection.
The way the IETF and other standards bodies have worked is that some organization wouldtry out a new concept for a technology and once they feel the concept is working, they will create a Request For Comments (RFC) which allows others to implement and offer feedback. Over time the RFC gains support and ultimately becomes a recommendation.
This process was used to create the internet today, including all of the network protocols and services that run on top of it. Even SMTP was an RFC first.
By breaking the means the industry hopes to use to make their business viable you are only going to force them to cancel future projects which make music and other media easy for consumers to buy. Not everything can be free. Do you expect to get paid for a days work? And if Apple is forced to end their service because everyone just steals the music, then what will be left with? I will tell you. Microsoft will push a DRM-based protection scheme which is based on hardware and locks out non-Windows users.
Stop screwing these companies!
Unfortunately the money will continue to roll into MS because they are a smart and ruthless company. They have recognized that they will not be making a great deal of money just by selling an OS that does what any Unix and Linux system will do. But instead they are expanding on what they have done and I have seen some previews of it which I actually found impressive, and I prefer MacOS X and developer software using Java. I know you cannot ignore MS or predict a their coming demise.
Unlike companies like Sun, MS can fight the legal battles and still fight forward with products that sell. Sun and other companies need to learn that they need to produce instead of sue. Sure MS has produced many products with security problems, but they know if they provide enough benefits with their solutions they will be able to overcome those shortcomings. It comes down to how a person decides to buy software. If a large company can determine that an MS solution will reduce their costs by 80% of the overall budget but require a 20% investment in network security, they are still 60% ahead of the game. By focusing on the security failings of MS which requires that 20% investment you are missing the point.
Remember the days when Apple put all their efforts into convincing everyone that Mhz do not matter? Steve Jobs went into in some detail in one keynote Now it seems that Mhz does matter now that the Macs are faster again. But unfortunately Steve Job had to project his reality distortion field which now causes many people to doubt their claims. Fortunately the UK is enforcing their standards. Apple needs to be as truthful as possible in order to maintain customer loyalty. I was very unhappy when I found out how weak my white iBook was, especially for playing games after all the advertising suggested it would be fast. And MacOS X 10.0 did not help performance.
The apps which will work will be the ones that only use the BSD core and not the entire Aqua graphics layer where the majority of popular MacOS X application run. But it is conceivable that an emulation of Aqua could be created for NetBSD which could replace X11. And since X11 is really show its age, I think a replacement for the graphics layer on Unix-like system is long in coming. Emulating the Dock and other MacOS UI features would be great. Just ask the developers at WindowMaker.
I was at home and it was just garbage reality TV so I went to the bar. Another night I did some reading. And sure I did spend one night playing a computer game, but the decline in TV viewing is not just gaming. The TV shows are currently not worthwhile with the exception of Alias, 24, and a couple of other well written shows. Don't even get me started on the cheap effects and lame plots on Jake 2.0 and Threat Matrix. My sister's kids could put together skits in the living room.
Does it include Java? I see the lack of Java on FreeBSD has been a major oversight by the core FreeBSD team. The primary focus of FreeBSD has been the server-side and these days Java is a big part of what makes a server useful. Recently a binary distribution of Java 1.3.1 was released for FreeBSD, but I see no mention of it with the 5.1 distribution.
What is the status of Java on FreeBSD? Should I just switch over to MacOS X or Linux if I want a current Java runtime? Questions about Java have come up for the last several releases and so far I have not it addressed by the FreeBSD team.
Basic authentication does at least encode the password via Base 64. It is not at the level of Digest, but both are still pretty weak compared to using SSH/SSL.
Playing music from the portable over FM radio is a great feature that I wish was available in the iPod.
Exactly. I want to be oblivious to bugs in the software that I use on my desktop. If I do not notice a problem then it works well enough for me. I do software development for a living and do not intend to debug and resolve issues for the software on my home desktoop when I get home. And when I chose to start using MacOS X I decided that I was done writing scripts to make it work as I want. I make my comments on the Apple Discussions site and wait for improvements in the next release. I do not hack away at code and submit a patch. At home I intend to be a normal home user and not a contributor to the software.
If I have to try an alpha kernel to get what MacOS X has provided for over a year now, I see no point in trying it.
I do now want to be a QA tester. I want to use software which works, and so do most users.
I say Linux is dated for the DESKTOP due largely to both X Windows as well as the fact that it is based on many old ideas which have been changed and improved in newer systems. Think of it in terms of Apache 1.3 vs Apache 2.0. The new model does threading and can chain many handlers together to create a response. These features were not easily added to Apache 1.3 so they started with a new model.
For Linux, it sure can do server-based services, but it does not make it automatically a perfect OS for the desktop. The requirements for a web server, database server or desktop with multimedia capabilities is all very different. MacOS X made certain adjustments to allow it to work well for a desktop. For example, I want to play mp3 music while I read email without the music cutting out due to lack of processor priority, so it has been given a high priority and it never cuts out.
For both Linux and X Windows I am certain it will come to a point where there are too many patches or extensions and starting with a well designed alternative will become necessary. I can already see how difficult it is to get a windowing system set up on Linux involving many software and font libraries which constantly change and need updating in order to use the latest applications. Just because there are constant changes to an OS does not mean it is a good thing.
There is also a good deal of value in a system which was designed and built so well that updates are not needed very frequently. For the past 4 years Linux has changed very rapidly to add support for various devices and filesystems and those systems were not designed by a collaborative group of software engineers. They were mostly created by independent groups who were not working together or even working with the same OS. Sure the open source model can produce quality software through this bazaar, but one look at software archives for Perl (CPAN) you will find many solutions to the same problem and not one seems to solve the problem entirely. If the software is designed and the plans documented it could lead to a tighter implementation which does not require frequent updates which cause conflicts among systems.
As for X Windows, I would suggest it is lacking in terms of consistency and quality. What font libaries or windowing system should I use and what just works? What video card should I use and what should I avoid? Whenever I consider a Linux or BSD desktop I always have to be very careful with the hardware I use or it will not work well. In the past I found Linux to be extremely stable as a server, but when X Windows crashes and takes me back to the command-line that is just as bad as a full crash because now I am only one step away from the BIOS. I want total stability, not just kernel stability. Why X Windows crashed could be due to the graphics card, but what I know now is that I am very satisfied with MacOS X because I do not need to think about fonts or graphics cards. It just works and I can go about reading email, visiting various websites and listen to music.
So Linux is dated by the fact that better solutions have appeared which resolve many of the problems that exist with Linux and Linux cannot simply use a patch to make it all better.
I think Apple could provide a poweful BSD base for the new OS along with good Unicode and Graphics support. If they could convince these 3 countries to start with MacOS X or Darwin they would take a big step forward for market share. Of course there is the issue of hardware costs along with the OS being proprietary or not. I am sure one goal of this new asian-based OS is that they will not be reliant on the US for software. In the very least they could work closely with the development efforts of this new OS to ensure it is MacOS X compatible so they would have an existing set of applications ready to use from day one.
Also for Linux, it is somewhat dated already and I sincerely believe that. But I mean this more in a sense of desktop Linux vs server Linux. The X Windows system is lacking in many areas and other efforts like the open source Berlin or Apple's Quartz is a big step forward. The constant duality of KDE vs Gnome is always an issue. Sure it is nice to have options, but it can also be difficult to understand for new users. When MacOS X came out I was a little upset that there was no theme support, but I quickly accepted it and realized that I should be using the applications instead of making the display look different every other day. And changing the look and feel only serves to confuse users and make tech support more difficult.
Apple was bold enough to scrap OS 9 and move forward with OS X (based on NextStep) because they knew it was a better starting point. I hope China, Japan and South Korea decide they want something better than what Linux and X11 provides.
My guess is the people who are not on the lists will now get more calls because there is a smaller pool of numbers to use. In that case, I would like to see a "Do not patronize" list for companies that bother people at home with sales pitches. If a company wants to get their word out, they will have to learn to use advertising and not my home phone.
You can just update your account to use whatever shell you want anyway. I see both bash and tcsh on my MacOS X 10.2 install, so there should be no trouble for someone who cares enough to change shells.
It is a moot point.