Backwards compatibility is achieved by (optionally) running X(server) as a sub-process of Wayland.
Isn't this inherently inefficient?
X is designed as a network-transparent windowing protocol first, with optimizations to improve performance on a local display added-on.
If you start with a display system that's optimized for local display, and then implement, on top of that, a network-transparent display system, there's no reason the implementation of the latter should be inherently less efficient than its direct implementation - unless the display server or the compatibility layer are implemented badly, or there's some level of incompatibility in the basic concepts of the two systems that makes a compatibility layer difficult to achieve.
I know very little about Wayland - but if it's largely based on DRI and OpenGL, then implementing X on top of that shouldn't have a significant negative impact on X performance.
Personally I'm not sure how I feel about moving away from a network-transparent rendering system. It's something I've grown used to in my years using X (about 1996-present). That alone is enough to make me uncomfortable with the change. I don't relish the idea of moving to a system where some apps will support remote display via X and others won't - or where I might have to choose between an X version of an app and a Wayland version... It reminds me of the situation on my Windows machine at work: choosing between Win32-native, and Cygwin/X versions of packages...
Though, on the other hand, how frequently do I actually use this feature? I use it for Emacs and a few other things, and that's about it. I never attempt running Firefox or Blender or GIMP or VLC remotely via X, I always just run those on the local machine. If my experience really is typical, then the network-transparency feature of X is being underused, typically, to the extent that it's not worth making it a design priority. (And, actually, I think people tend not to design Linux GUI apps with remote display in mind. I think they're more commonly developed for a local display, with the result that their behavior might be a bit too network-intensive or latency-sensitive to work with a remote display...) It might really be better to optimize for local display and then have remote display via a special layer: VLC or whatever else.
The Wayland FAQ was kind of interesting to read. It's interesting what they have to say about X's legacy baggage, for instance. Of course, I've heard a lot of this stuff before... I remember "Berlin" and GGI as a previous attempt at roughly the same thing. Maybe Wayland will yield a better result in the end? I don't know.
Copyright covers specific works. We're talking here about Steamboat Willie (1928), not later works with the same characters. If copyright is not extended any more, then Steamboat Willie enters the public domain in 2023, allowing anyone to make derivative works of that specific film.
The reason Disney is so defensive of the early Mickey Mouse cartoons (Steamboat Willie wasn't the first, BTW) isn't just defense of those specific works, but the characters within them. They don't want Mickey Mouse himself to be in the public domain.
I think 95 years of exclusive copyright over an original character is more than enough for the creator (and his successors!) to reap the rewards of his creation. It's right to be rewarded for a combination of good luck and hard work, but for that to be a multi-generational meal ticket is pushing things a bit far.
They need to wake up and smell the coffee, if they can't deliver this stuff they shouldn't promise it and they certainly shouldn't be taking our money for it.
Why the hell shouldn't we take your money? Fuck you, pay up.
Whaddya gonna do, stop using the service? Not bloody likely! Shut up and pay up, you bandwidth-hogging little piggy.
-- BigISP Inc.
I was unhappy with BigISP's service, so I switched to The Other ISP In The Area!
As for Disney extending copyright on Mickey Mouse, why shouldn't they be allowed to do that if they're still making money off of Mickey Mouse? I've never heard a convincing argument why Mickey Mouse should be taken away from them if he's still a viable property. The original copyright lengths were decided in an era before long-term mass media, and laws change to reflect changing circumstances.
And what's the convincing argument that copyright should be extended to a period long enough to protect Disney's assets? Why should they retain exclusive cultural domain over something Walt Disney created over 80 years ago? "Because they can make money from it" is not a sufficient reason in my opinion.
It seems to me that there has to be a reasonable limit. The protections of copyright exist to provide incentive to creators to make new work, to give them the protections they need to profit from it. But if an artwork rises in prominence to the point where it is well remembered a lifetime later - I think that's beyond what any single company should have the ability to control. That's a cultural institution.
Without some kind of hard limit, exclusivity extends perpetually, and culture itself becomes a thing subject to domination by those with the greatest back-catalog of assets. Any new work becomes subject to scrutiny: does this new song use any bits of melody that can be traced back to another artist's work? The barest traces of influence become grounds to demand tribute to the media god who, in times scarcely remembered, created something that happened to turn out to be a hit. There has to be a limit. And of course there is a limit, except for the fact that they keep changing it every time it threatens Disney's assets.
I don't want a system that so heavily favors established powers. New players should have the power to create without fear of being litigated out of existence because they were influenced by a piece of work that influenced a huge chunk of the world's population for generations.
Is Slashdot on the side of the company or the author? Copyright law is constantly described as being "broken" around here, and posters are often on the side of music pirates and other pro-piracy entities, like Pirate Bay and the Pirate Party.
I suspect, however, that because a company made the violation, people will side with the author. Which suggests that it's really more about anti-corporatism than anti-copyright, which explains why people get up in arms over GPL code theft despite the double standard (the GPL is a copyright license).
Well, I don't know who it is that speaks for Slashdot, but here's my take:
I don't agree with many of the particulars of copyright and patent law. I think the laws have become unreasonably troublesome. People share information but try to hold an unnatural grip on how people can use it. I don't think it's really the basic concepts of copyright and patents that are wrong, but I believe they've been taken way too far. That could be anti-corporatism; I think those with money and a giant patent portfolio are way too powerful as things stand.
However, the rules are the rules, you know? If the rules can be exploited against me (say, if I make a film in which there's a TV in the background playing "The Simpsons") then they should also be able to work to my advantage (for instance, rules I set in the licensing of my own software should be respected.) As long as this system is in place, people are entitled to the protections the law affords - not just the consequences.
Wow, and given that she can only travel to times within her own lifetime, she must be frickin' old!
"Granny Leap" probably wouldn't have done so well in the ratings.
She's not actually from Quantum Leap, though: she's from the crappy trial version they did on Battlestar Galactica. Things work mostly the same as on Quantum Leap, except she can't actually see her assumed face when she looks in the mirror, and her invisible friend is a largely-useless alien who has transcended physical form, she blows her cover immediately and only manages to set things right by ending the entire charade.
The answer is obvious. Dr. Who used his Sonic Screwdriver to modify the phone so that this previously unknown companion of his could talk to her family back in his own time. The odd appearance of the phone was the result of the Doctor's failed attempt to disguise it...
It's not that he failed, really. It's a perception filter. It psychologically tricks the viewer into overlooking the device... But it has no effect on film cameras, of course.
Maybe there's more to Wi-Fi Direct than what Ad Hoc networking offers - I really don't know..
So you could take a minute to post the fact you are uninformed to slashdot, or you could have spent that same minute informing yourself...
Well, yes, but my point still stands: that "gaming on a train" thing is a terrible example of what Wi-Fi Direct has to offer. Playing a game wirelessly between two or more devices? We've got that already. That feature has been available at retail in mainstream gaming devices for at least six years. And that's what they chose as an example of why Wi-Fi Direct is a new and exciting feature? Pathetic.
This is just a brand name for ad-hoc networking, then?
Yeah, seriously. I mean, look at this quote: "Imagine if two people were on a train and wanted to play a game in real time on their separate handhelds but had no cellular or Wi-Fi hot spot. They still could play with Wi-Fi Direct"
Nintendo DS and Sony PSP have had this exact capability for several years now. Maybe there's more to Wi-Fi Direct than what Ad Hoc networking offers - I really don't know... But this example use case isn't exactly mind-blowing.
Yes, and then they would be entitled to all the privileges of a low UID!
In case you're wondering what those would be, let me tell you what those are: 1. A few people for some reason assume you know what you're talking about, at least until they realize you don't know what you're talking about 2. If you say something someone disagrees with, they might make a sarcastic comment about your low UID.
You're in the difficult 50K to 100K segment, which demands some knowledge and lots of genuine, honest curiosity. If you had only waited a week or two, you would be in the 100K+, which only requires a 50% troll ratio.
When Microsoft or Apple put something in their product that people don't like, FOSS proponents respond, "The beauty of FOSS is you if you don't like what someone is doing, you can just go off and do your own thing." When someone actually does this the FOSS proponents seem to respond with, "We can't afford to splinter into tiny interest groups or we won't be able to compete with Microsoft and Apple."
You are assuming that these two groups of FOSS proponents are the same folks. This is not necessarily the case. Just as the community is large enough to favor different preferences for the software itself, the community is large enough to foster different ideas about how the software development should proceed.
Someone with a three digit/. ID should know that Gnome took several years from the release of 2.0 (2002) until it was back to the usability level of 1.4.
Hm, I wasn't aware having a low user ID carried such burdens...
Perhaps we should institute a system of tests, in which low-UID users are periodically challenged on their knowledge, and demoted if they fail - and other users are given an opportunity to filter up the ranks via the same system?
I would have thought so, but it seems stop motion is seeing a bit of a renaissance in the years since "Nightmare Before Christmas". Technology has been streamlining the process of animating physical models: from digital capture with live preview to computer-aided manufacture to assist with production of models (for instance, the faces of the Coraline puppets) - and a wealth of software to help with planning the animation and cleaning it up after it's shot.
The question of whether stop motion will stick around is more a question of whether people will want to do it, whether investors will want to fund it, and whether audiences will want to see it. The fact that CG is becoming more accessible is not itself enough to kill stop motion.
...and how many of us know people who thought Corpse Bride had to be CGI?
I always thought "Coraline" had a real CG look to it.
Of course, there's a reason for that: they designed the facial animations on a computer, and used the CG version of the faces to 3-d print a large number of interpolated expressions.
Corpse Bride took a different approach: mechanical heads with rubber coverings. Kind of a complicated approach, and personally I thought the faces wound up looking kind of stiff...
The problem is in the fragmentation of distributions and the fragmentation in the GUI.
True. We should only have one auto manufacturer making one model of car too, because having so many companies selling so many different types of car is terribly confusing.
But they all have the same UI...
Some have three pedals, some have two. Some have a shifter on the wheel, some have a shifter to the right of the seat. The position of the horn button is not necessarily consistent. Operation of headlights, wipers, etc. vary from model to model. Some automatic transmission shifters simulate manual transmission... And shifters in general (particularly manual ones) don't necessarily all have the same layout. Where is the lever for opening the gas tank, or the hood, or operating the parking brake, power windows and locks?
I agree that lack of UI standardization is a problem in Linux, and to some extent I think it's an unavoidable problem on a system developed without any kind of central authority guiding the design of applications. But I think the car analogy doesn't support that. Cars' "user interfaces" have had decades of time to stabilize, and for a long time they have been fairly consistent... But they don't all have the "same" UI.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is visiting Beijing this week to discuss how China and the US can better coordinate efforts to stop intellectual property rights violations.
As opposed discussing how to coordinate efforts to stop human rights violations.
Hey, the Intellectual Property rights holders are human, aren't they? Sounds like a human rights issue to me!
Slashdot Mirror
Use the English dictionary near you and tell me what the word "summarize" means. It certainly does not mean to altar or add to in any way.
Perhaps you should grab a dictionary and look up "altar". :)
Backwards compatibility is achieved by (optionally) running X(server) as a sub-process of Wayland.
Isn't this inherently inefficient?
X is designed as a network-transparent windowing protocol first, with optimizations to improve performance on a local display added-on.
If you start with a display system that's optimized for local display, and then implement, on top of that, a network-transparent display system, there's no reason the implementation of the latter should be inherently less efficient than its direct implementation - unless the display server or the compatibility layer are implemented badly, or there's some level of incompatibility in the basic concepts of the two systems that makes a compatibility layer difficult to achieve.
I know very little about Wayland - but if it's largely based on DRI and OpenGL, then implementing X on top of that shouldn't have a significant negative impact on X performance.
Personally I'm not sure how I feel about moving away from a network-transparent rendering system. It's something I've grown used to in my years using X (about 1996-present). That alone is enough to make me uncomfortable with the change. I don't relish the idea of moving to a system where some apps will support remote display via X and others won't - or where I might have to choose between an X version of an app and a Wayland version... It reminds me of the situation on my Windows machine at work: choosing between Win32-native, and Cygwin/X versions of packages...
Though, on the other hand, how frequently do I actually use this feature? I use it for Emacs and a few other things, and that's about it. I never attempt running Firefox or Blender or GIMP or VLC remotely via X, I always just run those on the local machine. If my experience really is typical, then the network-transparency feature of X is being underused, typically, to the extent that it's not worth making it a design priority. (And, actually, I think people tend not to design Linux GUI apps with remote display in mind. I think they're more commonly developed for a local display, with the result that their behavior might be a bit too network-intensive or latency-sensitive to work with a remote display...) It might really be better to optimize for local display and then have remote display via a special layer: VLC or whatever else.
The Wayland FAQ was kind of interesting to read. It's interesting what they have to say about X's legacy baggage, for instance. Of course, I've heard a lot of this stuff before... I remember "Berlin" and GGI as a previous attempt at roughly the same thing. Maybe Wayland will yield a better result in the end? I don't know.
Copyright covers specific works. We're talking here about Steamboat Willie (1928), not later works with the same characters. If copyright is not extended any more, then Steamboat Willie enters the public domain in 2023, allowing anyone to make derivative works of that specific film.
The reason Disney is so defensive of the early Mickey Mouse cartoons (Steamboat Willie wasn't the first, BTW) isn't just defense of those specific works, but the characters within them. They don't want Mickey Mouse himself to be in the public domain.
I think 95 years of exclusive copyright over an original character is more than enough for the creator (and his successors!) to reap the rewards of his creation. It's right to be rewarded for a combination of good luck and hard work, but for that to be a multi-generational meal ticket is pushing things a bit far.
They need to wake up and smell the coffee, if they can't deliver this stuff they shouldn't promise it and they certainly shouldn't be taking our money for it.
Why the hell shouldn't we take your money? Fuck you, pay up.
Whaddya gonna do, stop using the service? Not bloody likely! Shut up and pay up,
you bandwidth-hogging little piggy.
-- BigISP Inc.
I was unhappy with BigISP's service, so I switched to The Other ISP In The Area!
As for Disney extending copyright on Mickey Mouse, why shouldn't they be allowed to do that if they're still making money off of Mickey Mouse? I've never heard a convincing argument why Mickey Mouse should be taken away from them if he's still a viable property. The original copyright lengths were decided in an era before long-term mass media, and laws change to reflect changing circumstances.
And what's the convincing argument that copyright should be extended to a period long enough to protect Disney's assets? Why should they retain exclusive cultural domain over something Walt Disney created over 80 years ago? "Because they can make money from it" is not a sufficient reason in my opinion.
It seems to me that there has to be a reasonable limit. The protections of copyright exist to provide incentive to creators to make new work, to give them the protections they need to profit from it. But if an artwork rises in prominence to the point where it is well remembered a lifetime later - I think that's beyond what any single company should have the ability to control. That's a cultural institution.
Without some kind of hard limit, exclusivity extends perpetually, and culture itself becomes a thing subject to domination by those with the greatest back-catalog of assets. Any new work becomes subject to scrutiny: does this new song use any bits of melody that can be traced back to another artist's work? The barest traces of influence become grounds to demand tribute to the media god who, in times scarcely remembered, created something that happened to turn out to be a hit. There has to be a limit. And of course there is a limit, except for the fact that they keep changing it every time it threatens Disney's assets.
I don't want a system that so heavily favors established powers. New players should have the power to create without fear of being litigated out of existence because they were influenced by a piece of work that influenced a huge chunk of the world's population for generations.
Is Slashdot on the side of the company or the author? Copyright law is constantly described as being "broken" around here, and posters are often on the side of music pirates and other pro-piracy entities, like Pirate Bay and the Pirate Party.
I suspect, however, that because a company made the violation, people will side with the author. Which suggests that it's really more about anti-corporatism than anti-copyright, which explains why people get up in arms over GPL code theft despite the double standard (the GPL is a copyright license).
Well, I don't know who it is that speaks for Slashdot, but here's my take:
I don't agree with many of the particulars of copyright and patent law. I think the laws have become unreasonably troublesome. People share information but try to hold an unnatural grip on how people can use it. I don't think it's really the basic concepts of copyright and patents that are wrong, but I believe they've been taken way too far. That could be anti-corporatism; I think those with money and a giant patent portfolio are way too powerful as things stand.
However, the rules are the rules, you know? If the rules can be exploited against me (say, if I make a film in which there's a TV in the background playing "The Simpsons") then they should also be able to work to my advantage (for instance, rules I set in the licensing of my own software should be respected.) As long as this system is in place, people are entitled to the protections the law affords - not just the consequences.
But don't you nerds always tell us that information wants to be free? I'm not seeing the outrage here.
That phrase does not mean what you think it means.
Wow, and given that she can only travel to times within her own lifetime, she must be frickin' old!
"Granny Leap" probably wouldn't have done so well in the ratings.
She's not actually from Quantum Leap, though: she's from the crappy trial version they did on Battlestar Galactica. Things work mostly the same as on Quantum Leap, except she can't actually see her assumed face when she looks in the mirror, and her invisible friend is a largely-useless alien who has transcended physical form, she blows her cover immediately and only manages to set things right by ending the entire charade.
The answer is obvious. Dr. Who used his Sonic Screwdriver to modify the phone so that this previously unknown companion of his could talk to her family back in his own time. The odd appearance of the phone was the result of the Doctor's failed attempt to disguise it...
It's not that he failed, really. It's a perception filter. It psychologically tricks the viewer into overlooking the device... But it has no effect on film cameras, of course.
I think if you read the lips of the caller you can just make out "Kirk to Enterpise, one to beam up. Get me outa this nuthouse."
Nah, he's not calling for a beam-up, he's calling for a crate of heaters to be beamed down. He wants a piece of the action!
the technology for a communication device would be vastly different
So why's she talking on a fairly large, conspicuous headset and not a small hidden device?
Maybe she didn't want to get locked into another contract?
Yeah, that struck me as well. Where are all the cell towers?
What, you never heard of Universal Roaming? She was calling via the time vortex, obviously...
Maybe there's more to Wi-Fi Direct than what Ad Hoc networking offers - I really don't know..
So you could take a minute to post the fact you are uninformed to slashdot, or you could have spent that same minute informing yourself...
Well, yes, but my point still stands: that "gaming on a train" thing is a terrible example of what Wi-Fi Direct has to offer. Playing a game wirelessly between two or more devices? We've got that already. That feature has been available at retail in mainstream gaming devices for at least six years. And that's what they chose as an example of why Wi-Fi Direct is a new and exciting feature? Pathetic.
This is just a brand name for ad-hoc networking, then?
Yeah, seriously. I mean, look at this quote:
"Imagine if two people were on a train and wanted to play a game in real time on their separate handhelds but had no cellular or Wi-Fi hot spot. They still could play with Wi-Fi Direct"
Nintendo DS and Sony PSP have had this exact capability for several years now. Maybe there's more to Wi-Fi Direct than what Ad Hoc networking offers - I really don't know... But this example use case isn't exactly mind-blowing.
Yes, and then they would be entitled to all the privileges of a low UID!
In case you're wondering what those would be, let me tell you what those are:
1. A few people for some reason assume you know what you're talking about, at least until they realize you don't know what you're talking about
2. If you say something someone disagrees with, they might make a sarcastic comment about your low UID.
Sounds good to me!
You're in the difficult 50K to 100K segment, which demands some knowledge and lots of genuine, honest curiosity. If you had only waited a week or two, you would be in the 100K+, which only requires a 50% troll ratio.
As someone who waited the week, I have to ask:
Is that 50% minimum troll ratio, or 50% maximum?
When Microsoft or Apple put something in their product that people don't like, FOSS proponents respond, "The beauty of FOSS is you if you don't like what someone is doing, you can just go off and do your own thing." When someone actually does this the FOSS proponents seem to respond with, "We can't afford to splinter into tiny interest groups or we won't be able to compete with Microsoft and Apple."
You are assuming that these two groups of FOSS proponents are the same folks. This is not necessarily the case. Just as the community is large enough to favor different preferences for the software itself, the community is large enough to foster different ideas about how the software development should proceed.
Gnome has held GNU/Linux back for nearly 10 years now.
What's wrong with it? How do you think we would have been better off without it?
Someone with a three digit /. ID should know that Gnome took several years from the release of 2.0 (2002) until it was back to the usability level of 1.4.
Hm, I wasn't aware having a low user ID carried such burdens...
Perhaps we should institute a system of tests, in which low-UID users are periodically challenged on their knowledge, and demoted if they fail - and other users are given an opportunity to filter up the ranks via the same system?
I am interested in stop-motion animation and committed to doing the animation work on Linux... I look forward to trying your software!
(...There's a way to get a DV camera to appear as a V4L2 device, right?)
Stop motion will die out completely in a decade.
You think?
I would have thought so, but it seems stop motion is seeing a bit of a renaissance in the years since "Nightmare Before Christmas". Technology has been streamlining the process of animating physical models: from digital capture with live preview to computer-aided manufacture to assist with production of models (for instance, the faces of the Coraline puppets) - and a wealth of software to help with planning the animation and cleaning it up after it's shot.
The question of whether stop motion will stick around is more a question of whether people will want to do it, whether investors will want to fund it, and whether audiences will want to see it. The fact that CG is becoming more accessible is not itself enough to kill stop motion.
...and how many of us know people who thought Corpse Bride had to be CGI?
I always thought "Coraline" had a real CG look to it.
Of course, there's a reason for that: they designed the facial animations on a computer, and used the CG version of the faces to 3-d print a large number of interpolated expressions.
Corpse Bride took a different approach: mechanical heads with rubber coverings. Kind of a complicated approach, and personally I thought the faces wound up looking kind of stiff...
Finally, 2011 must be year of Linux
For me, every year is year of Linux. Well, except maybe 2004, I bought a Mac that year.
The problem is in the fragmentation of distributions and the fragmentation in the GUI.
True. We should only have one auto manufacturer making one model of car too, because having so many companies selling so many different types of car is terribly confusing.
But they all have the same UI...
Some have three pedals, some have two. Some have a shifter on the wheel, some have a shifter to the right of the seat. The position of the horn button is not necessarily consistent. Operation of headlights, wipers, etc. vary from model to model. Some automatic transmission shifters simulate manual transmission... And shifters in general (particularly manual ones) don't necessarily all have the same layout. Where is the lever for opening the gas tank, or the hood, or operating the parking brake, power windows and locks?
I agree that lack of UI standardization is a problem in Linux, and to some extent I think it's an unavoidable problem on a system developed without any kind of central authority guiding the design of applications. But I think the car analogy doesn't support that. Cars' "user interfaces" have had decades of time to stabilize, and for a long time they have been fairly consistent... But they don't all have the "same" UI.
As opposed discussing how to coordinate efforts to stop human rights violations.
Hey, the Intellectual Property rights holders are human, aren't they? Sounds like a human rights issue to me!