...if so, just provide an IEEEnnnn (whatever firewire(tm) is a trademark for) output:)
"No, your honour, this is not a 'firewire(tm)' output. We are not licensed to use that trademark, which means this cannot be 'firewire(tm)'. It is merely conforming to IEEEnnnn, which 'firewire(tm) ' happens to be compatible with"
Then if they added IDE support for GCC, which is available for every platform under the sun, GCC could have a really cool IDE front end for *n?x, Windows & Mac.
A totally cross-platform kick-ass IDE for a totally cross-platform C++ compiler? Would work for me.
And they could add support for XPIDL + all the other 'native' C++ mozilla stuff.
Mozilla - welcome to the platform for the next decade.
That, and being able to set my thermostat to go on in the morning based on the time my alarm's going to go off.
One thing I've always wanted would be to hook up a dimmer switch to my alarm clock, so that my bedroom gradually gets brighter over a 15 minute period before I'm set to wake up. Especially in winter when I get up in the morning before the sun rises. It's so much easier to get up when it's light, but going to sleep with the light on is a pain and wastes electricity.
K.
Pollution measurement - any comparison figures?
on
Flying Trains
·
· Score: 1
That's a really cool way of measuring pollution - grams of CO2 per passenger per km - but does anyone have any comparison figures for other vehicles (other than maglev trains which were mentioned)
Such as planes (large & small), your average family saloon, an SUV, a 50cc moped, etc...?
I certainly can't claim that Object Pascal is a superior language to C++. Sometimes I miss templates, very rarely multiple inheritance, never C++'s awkward strings.
In what way are C++ strings awkward? I find them very elegant, and very powerful. It can do initialisation from a literal and concatenation (including with +=, which is something I really miss when using Delphi). It also has iterators which means that the standard library algorithms such as find(). It has checked and non-checked character access with the [] operator and the at() member fn.
It lacks the succinctness of C++, and yet I find myself going back to old code and understanding it easier than I ever did old C++ code. Delphi is a Roger Moore to C++'s Shawn Connery--less flashy, more understated, most refined.
Roger Moore was less flashy and more understated than Sean Connery? You gotta be kidding...:)
On Windows it makes working with COM a pleasure--something that can't be said about C++.
Writing components or using them? I have to admit, ATL is a bastard to get to grips with to initially create COM components and their housings, especially if you don't like wizards. It is really nasty. Mostly due to the threading & module issues (WTF is a _module_ anyway, and why do I need that bloody AfxGetModuleState() in all my functions?) that aren't really documented anywhere.
But once you've got the framework for a component sorted, the guts are just standard C++ and as for using COM components, well that's just as nice as in Delphi.
In the end, I keep finding myself completing projects before my C++ brethern, especially those saddled with VC++.
Agreed. It is quicker to get an application done. But IMO it's not the code that takes the time, it's the windows framework, and understanding how it works.
Writing C++ apps is one thing. Writing Windows C++ apps? That's something else.
Personally, I'm liking the Delphi front-end, C++ COM back-end approach with the application I'm writing now.
...Is for someone to write an OpenIL (Open Input Language) to get a complete platform-independent set of gaming APIs, as the only one that now appears to be missing is grabbing user input in a consistent fashion.
"The Linux Community" will not be dropping legacy support if this were to come about. This would just be dropping legacy support for a particular GUI that is primarily aimed at Joe Q. Public.
And Joe Q. Public doesn't ordinarily have a 486 or an old Pentium. Oh no. He has a PIII-500 to do his word processing on, because that was what he was told he was needed to do word processing. He doesn't get something cheap from somewhere, he gets a brand new box from a chain store and pays over the odds for it. But he does get all the brand new p'n'p hardware and all the perhipherals to match.
The only people I know running 486s and old pentiums these days are todays 386 basement hackers that know they can get some use out of old computers if they have an OS that doesn't require 32Mb to run, but is tricky to set up.
I think that by dropping support for old hardware that is hard (or impossible) to make one-click installations for, on a system designed for one-click installations only is an OK thing to do, providing you don't make it mandatory for the whole OS. Which no-one was advocating in the first place.
I'd be much more interested in giving the EFF proxy to shares which I own in said companies, if they wanted to become one.
I would be able to invest a lot more in my own shares which I could recoup my investment on, than I would in donating (total loss) to the EFF.
All they (or whoever set the proxy company up) really need to is co-ordinate the buying and selling of the shares, and collecting share information for bargaining purposes. Possibly via a mailing list.
For example :
Dear EFF-share-proxy-member.
In a months time, EvilMegaCorp Ltd, who we believe are threatening your rights becuase they are pushing a bill that removes your right to remain silent under police questioning, are having an AGM.
Now is the time we want you to act. Please buy as many of their shares as you can afford in the next 7 days, and e-mail us your share numbers and digitally signed letter giving us proxy over them within 14 days.
We will use this power to speak up at the meeting and attempt to get them to change their minds on this piece of corporate policy on your behalf. After the date of the meeting, you are free to do with the shares as you please (such as sell them again - we hope the price won't have dropped too much:)
You can buy shares in this company from www.somerandombroker.com who we have had good dealings in the past if you do not currently have a broker for such deals.
Sincerely,
EFF
Are the EFF, or anyone else, willing to set up something like this??
If you're going to moderate me down for that, at least get the fucking reason right.
Suppose confusion might have been caused by my lack of clarity. Should have read 'I'm going to completely ignore DVDs in all their incarnations until they've settled down into a single open standard that everyone's using.' to completely remove misconceptions.
Sigh, I suppose this'll get moderated down now for Trolling as well, when there are so many more blatant real trolls out there who could use a -1 much more.
Excuse me here, but IANAL and I'm british, so this seems like a bit of a strange statement.
Is it meant literally? Like the NFL owns the copyright to the playing of a game, and to all the possible works that can come from the recording of any aspect of such?
If so, how is a particular game, in its totality, being an instance of a group of people playing a sport, considered an artistic work, and hence protected under copyright law??
I can understand a content providers (i.e. TV station's) recording of that event being an artistic work. And I can understand a stadium wanting to prohibit recording materials into a stadium, so that it can then waive that prohibition for a large fee to content providers. (And to waive it exlusively to a single content provider for an even larger fee:)
But is it under copyright law in that is is illegal for me to fly a helicopter near an open-air NFL stadium (providing I can get my flight plan approved:) and tape the proceedings from there with a good camera & zoom? That seems *really* strange.
Now, I can understand the scripted perfoming of actions under copyright (such as the acting of a play, or professional wrestling:) as I can see those being an artistic work. But playing a sport? The game itself under copyright? Someone tell me I am mistaken here, and that I have got things wrong.
Something that's just occurred to me. Where would unscripted artistic performances (such as 'Whose Line Is It Anyway') fall under that? Hmmmm....
Movie publishers gave me authority to descramble a movie on DVD for the sole purpose of viewing the movie at home.
Where did they give you this authority?
Last I looked, when you buy a DVD, the law gives you the authority to do whatever you want that falls under the copyright 'fair use' protection that applies to you where you live.
Some of them may explicitly state that I'm allowed to use authorized player only; others may not.
I've never seen one that does
And even if there is, I am not aware of any law that makes this restriction enforceable. Again, check your 'fair use' rights. If I buy a book, there's no way a publisher could make stick a clause on the back of the book saying that this book may only be read under the light of an 'authorised' light source - a bulb which happens to be made by a sister company to the publisher.
It's enough to find ONE DVD that does not explicitly restricts my choice of player to argue that I have the authority to build and use (with this particular movie) my own player, and I can share its design with others. It will not be a "circumvention" as defined by DMCA.
Irrelevant, see above.
But although you may be allowed to build your own player, what plans will you use? The "circumvention" under the DMCA that the MPAA are trying to prosecute with is the creation of the plans in the first place by reverse-engineering an existing player.
The point isn't what size 'small' is, the point is that they shouldn't be using 'small' for the main text of the article. They should be using the default font size as the size of the font for the main text of the page.
That's the idea of having a graphical browser in which you can change your preferred font size, surely. You get to read the web in _your_preferred_font_size_. Not a smaller version of your preferred font size.
Still, I wrote the webmaster a polite email pointing out this 'mistake' in their page. Wonder if I'll get anything back.:)
I've got my browser set up nicely so that the font size is as small as possible while still being easily readable. This allows me to fit as much text as I can on a single page.
And I can't read Microsoft's page cos the font is too small to be comfortably readable.
So I look at the source, and note that every single paragraph is set up as being 'class=small'. WTF????
Yes, have a small class for little fiddly bits like disclaimers & all that crud, but don't put your whole page in a small text size.
Don't like the fact that the Web is a "corpoplayground"? That's just a curmudgeony "these are my toys, and I'm not sharing" argument, sorry.
There are no social or legal rules, so people do what they please, and some people like to break things
That's the point. It's not a corporaplayground. The corporations like to think it is, and are trying to make it so, but it ain't. Certainly not yet. And hopefully never.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind sharing my toy. I like sharing my toy. But it's my toy and it currently works like this. If you don't want to see some of the less nice aspects of it, then that's your selective blind spot. It doesn't change reality.
If you want to change my toy so that it works more like the way you want it to, don't expect me to automatically like it. I might, if it plays in the way that I like my current toy to play. Hell, I might even enjoy it more if you fix some of the stuff that's been bugging me.
But don't think it's something that it ain't. That way lies many a great headache.
I do plan do boycott movies released on DVD encrypted with CSS. CSS is an awful idea, and it deserves to die, and there's no fucking way I'm going to buy a movie released under that system.
If I try to watch a movie in a country they don't want me to, or if I try to make a copy for my personal use, or if I want to write my own player for the heck of it, I don't want to be looking over my shoulder all the time about it, wondering if I'm going to be mentioned in the next 500 people the MPAA decides to randomly take to court.
No fucking way. It's not really a boycott due to the lawsuits, or even the principle. I just don't believe it's worth it 'buying' a movie that I'm not really buying. I'm not going to waste my money on it.
And seeing as VHS tapes are seriously dated in terms of technology, degrade and are generally crap, I'm not buying any of them either anymore.
Rant over. Question.
What's the association between the DVD CCA and the MPAA? AFAIK, the DVD CCA control the CSS. They were responsible for implementing it. The MPAA are just using it to encode their movies. However, the MPAA appear to be going after people who reverse engineered CSS. Which they don't even own. I could imagine the DVD CCA hassling people who cracked their system (even if it was legal), but surely the only recourse the MPAA has is against people who have directly caused *them* damages. i.e. illegally copied content to which they own copyright.
So what's the deal between the MPAA and the DVD CCA? Is one a wholly owned subsidiary of the other? Are they separate companies, one of whom is happy to finance the other's legal battles to 'protect it's own interests'?
I'm putting together a site to explain all this in clear English, and it's certainly bringing up gaps in my knowledge of the whole situation.
AFAIK it is planned to implement a new encryption scheme anyway...
Any more information on this (news article, previous slashdot posting, etc...)? I'd be interested to see how they maintain backwards compatibility for old DVDs in the new players, and for new DVDs in the old players.
Or are people going to have to buy new DVD players to get the new DVD movies? Boy, will there be some outrage if that ever happens. You're gonna end up with a _lot_ of _very_ pissed off people in that case.
Ferchrissake MPAA, stop fucking around and trying to control the world. Release DVDs unencrypted so that truly independent artists can create their own movies and burn them and sell them themselves (over the internet if they want). YOU'RE JUST PISSING PEOPLE OFF. No-one really wants the encryption. People either hate it or don't care. And you can't get it right either. So just do the world a favour, stop trying and let us watch your fucking movies. We all want to. You want us to.
OK, RedHat may not provide pentium-optimised packages, but if the _chip writers_ write the compiler optimisers (which they could put the team who are currently working on the Code Morphing Software on, as that wouldn't be neccessary anymore) then they could ship the relevant compiler for the chipset, along with an OS compiled with that compiler on the box they ship.
This would also mean that even though the compiler is optimised to some degree by the chip vendor, the Open Source community would be able to play with it as much as possible to eke out maybe a little more speed, which they can't do at the moment with the Code Morphing stuff (as as I have been led to believe)
(Note : this is still devils advocate. My personal opinion is still that the Crusoe range sounds like seriously cool stuff - so no flames please:) )
The argument you're making surely only holds water for closed source software.
The only reason that Intel *has* to maintain backwards compatibility with the 386 (and even 286?) is because there's a load of really old *binaries* out there that won't run if you remove some of the old instructions. Surely with OSS, all you need to do is write a new back-end for your favourite cross-platform compiler suite (gcc, anyone?), rebuild your app and copy it to your new computer with it's brand spanking new chip that doesn't have anything in common with anything that's come before it, and it'll all still run fine.
You want to junk those extraneous FPU instrunctions that now have equivalents in your new SIMD unit? Go ahead. The new compiler back-end you've just written to accompany your new chip won't generate any of those old FPU instructions, it'll pass them to your SIMD unit.
Backwards *binary* compatibility is a *closed source* problem.
Why not have your compiler generate native Crusoe 3400/5400 instructions (if such things exist).
Slashdot Mirror
From page 2...
"There are over 10 million neural networks involved in the thing," Beecher says."
Bloody hell! Imagine the computing power they've got to run 10 million neural _networks_.
...or maybe they mean 10 million neurons. Doh!
...if so, just provide an IEEEnnnn (whatever firewire(tm) is a trademark for) output :)
"No, your honour, this is not a 'firewire(tm)' output. We are not licensed to use that trademark, which means this cannot be 'firewire(tm)'. It is merely conforming to IEEEnnnn, which 'firewire(tm) ' happens to be compatible with"
heh heh.
Then if they added IDE support for GCC, which is available for every platform under the sun, GCC could have a really cool IDE front end for *n?x, Windows & Mac.
A totally cross-platform kick-ass IDE for a totally cross-platform C++ compiler? Would work for me.
And they could add support for XPIDL + all the other 'native' C++ mozilla stuff.
Mozilla - welcome to the platform for the next decade.
Hmph - wouldn't want to see any 'Seasoned professionals' defining their own string class in C++ these days.
;) first enter the draft standard?
When did std::string (or even std::basic_string<char> if you want to confuse the newbies
According to the bottom of the story, Miles O'Brien contributed!
That, and being able to set my thermostat to go on in the morning based on the time my alarm's going to go off.
One thing I've always wanted would be to hook up a dimmer switch to my alarm clock, so that my bedroom gradually gets brighter over a 15 minute period before I'm set to wake up. Especially in winter when I get up in the morning before the sun rises. It's so much easier to get up when it's light, but going to sleep with the light on is a pain and wastes electricity.
K.
That's a really cool way of measuring pollution - grams of CO2 per passenger per km - but does anyone have any comparison figures for other vehicles (other than maglev trains which were mentioned)
Such as planes (large & small), your average family saloon, an SUV, a 50cc moped, etc...?
I certainly can't claim that Object Pascal is a superior language to C++. Sometimes I miss templates, very rarely multiple inheritance, never C++'s awkward strings.
:)
In what way are C++ strings awkward? I find them very elegant, and very powerful. It can do initialisation from a literal and concatenation (including with +=, which is something I really miss when using Delphi). It also has iterators which means that the standard library algorithms such as find(). It has checked and non-checked character access with the [] operator and the at() member fn.
It lacks the succinctness of C++, and yet I find myself going back to old code and understanding it easier than I ever did old C++ code. Delphi is a Roger Moore to C++'s Shawn Connery--less flashy, more understated, most refined.
Roger Moore was less flashy and more understated than Sean Connery? You gotta be kidding...
On Windows it makes working with COM a pleasure--something that can't be said about C++.
Writing components or using them? I have to admit, ATL is a bastard to get to grips with to initially create COM components and their housings, especially if you don't like wizards. It is really nasty. Mostly due to the threading & module issues (WTF is a _module_ anyway, and why do I need that bloody AfxGetModuleState() in all my functions?) that aren't really documented anywhere.
But once you've got the framework for a component sorted, the guts are just standard C++ and as for using COM components, well that's just as nice as in Delphi.
In the end, I keep finding myself completing projects before my C++ brethern, especially those saddled with VC++.
Agreed. It is quicker to get an application done. But IMO it's not the code that takes the time, it's the windows framework, and understanding how it works.
Writing C++ apps is one thing. Writing Windows C++ apps? That's something else.
Personally, I'm liking the Delphi front-end, C++ COM back-end approach with the application I'm writing now.
...Is for someone to write an OpenIL (Open Input Language) to get a complete platform-independent set of gaming APIs, as the only one that now appears to be missing is grabbing user input in a consistent fashion.
Anyone want to give it a go?
"The Linux Community" will not be dropping legacy support if this were to come about. This would just be dropping legacy support for a particular GUI that is primarily aimed at Joe Q. Public.
And Joe Q. Public doesn't ordinarily have a 486 or an old Pentium. Oh no. He has a PIII-500 to do his word processing on, because that was what he was told he was needed to do word processing. He doesn't get something cheap from somewhere, he gets a brand new box from a chain store and pays over the odds for it. But he does get all the brand new p'n'p hardware and all the perhipherals to match.
The only people I know running 486s and old pentiums these days are todays 386 basement hackers that know they can get some use out of old computers if they have an OS that doesn't require 32Mb to run, but is tricky to set up.
I think that by dropping support for old hardware that is hard (or impossible) to make one-click installations for, on a system designed for one-click installations only is an OK thing to do, providing you don't make it mandatory for the whole OS. Which no-one was advocating in the first place.
K.
I'd be much more interested in giving the EFF proxy to shares which I own in said companies, if they wanted to become one.
:)
I would be able to invest a lot more in my own shares which I could recoup my investment on, than I would in donating (total loss) to the EFF.
All they (or whoever set the proxy company up) really need to is co-ordinate the buying and selling of the shares, and collecting share information for bargaining purposes. Possibly via a mailing list.
For example :
Dear EFF-share-proxy-member.
In a months time, EvilMegaCorp Ltd, who we believe are threatening your rights becuase they are pushing a bill that removes your right to remain silent under police questioning, are having an AGM.
Now is the time we want you to act. Please buy as many of their shares as you can afford in the next 7 days, and e-mail us your share numbers and digitally signed letter giving us proxy over them within 14 days.
We will use this power to speak up at the meeting and attempt to get them to change their minds on this piece of corporate policy on your behalf. After the date of the meeting, you are free to do with the shares as you please (such as sell them again - we hope the price won't have dropped too much
You can buy shares in this company from www.somerandombroker.com who we have had good dealings in the past if you do not currently have a broker for such deals.
Sincerely,
EFF
Are the EFF, or anyone else, willing to set up something like this??
Offtopic????? You gotta be fucking kidding.
Troll? Yes.
Flame-bait? Yes.
Redundant? Yes.
Offtopic?
If you're going to moderate me down for that, at least get the fucking reason right.
Suppose confusion might have been caused by my lack of clarity. Should have read 'I'm going to completely ignore DVDs in all their incarnations until they've settled down into a single open standard that everyone's using.' to completely remove misconceptions.
Sigh, I suppose this'll get moderated down now for Trolling as well, when there are so many more blatant real trolls out there who could use a -1 much more.
K.
No, bypassing security is a 'crack'.
A hack *can* be bypassing security. But the term covers a lot broader range of activities than that. It certainly covers what Wankel did in my book.
In fact, seeing as a lot of cracks are probably just 5kr1pt k1ddi35 messing around, they don't qualify as hacks.
Check The Jargon File for the definition of 'hack'.
That's it. I am now going to completely ignore the DVD format until it's settled down into an open standard that everyone is using.
This is just fucking insanity.
But that's just ... dumb
Uhhhh....Europe, Asia & Africa???
Last I looked on a map (10 seconds ago) they weren't separated by oceans.
Excuse me here, but IANAL and I'm british, so this seems like a bit of a strange statement.
:)
:) and tape the proceedings from there with a good camera & zoom? That seems *really* strange.
:) as I can see those being an artistic work. But playing a sport? The game itself under copyright? Someone tell me I am mistaken here, and that I have got things wrong.
Is it meant literally? Like the NFL owns the copyright to the playing of a game, and to all the possible works that can come from the recording of any aspect of such?
If so, how is a particular game, in its totality, being an instance of a group of people playing a sport, considered an artistic work, and hence protected under copyright law??
I can understand a content providers (i.e. TV station's) recording of that event being an artistic work. And I can understand a stadium wanting to prohibit recording materials into a stadium, so that it can then waive that prohibition for a large fee to content providers. (And to waive it exlusively to a single content provider for an even larger fee
But is it under copyright law in that is is illegal for me to fly a helicopter near an open-air NFL stadium (providing I can get my flight plan approved
Now, I can understand the scripted perfoming of actions under copyright (such as the acting of a play, or professional wrestling
Something that's just occurred to me. Where would unscripted artistic performances (such as 'Whose Line Is It Anyway') fall under that? Hmmmm....
Movie publishers gave me authority to descramble a movie on DVD for the sole purpose of viewing the movie at home.
Where did they give you this authority?
Last I looked, when you buy a DVD, the law gives you the authority to do whatever you want that falls under the copyright 'fair use' protection that applies to you where you live.
Some of them may explicitly state that I'm allowed to use authorized player only; others may not.
I've never seen one that does
And even if there is, I am not aware of any law that makes this restriction enforceable. Again, check your 'fair use' rights. If I buy a book, there's no way a publisher could make stick a clause on the back of the book saying that this book may only be read under the light of an 'authorised' light source - a bulb which happens to be made by a sister company to the publisher.
It's enough to find ONE DVD that does not explicitly restricts my choice of player to argue that I have the authority to build and use (with this particular movie) my own player, and I can share its design with others. It will not be a "circumvention" as defined by DMCA.
Irrelevant, see above.
But although you may be allowed to build your own player, what plans will you use? The "circumvention" under the DMCA that the MPAA are trying to prosecute with is the creation of the plans in the first place by reverse-engineering an existing player.
For my take on why this is silly, see my reverse engineering page.
Karellen
The point isn't what size 'small' is, the point is that they shouldn't be using 'small' for the main text of the article. They should be using the default font size as the size of the font for the main text of the page.
:)
That's the idea of having a graphical browser in which you can change your preferred font size, surely. You get to read the web in _your_preferred_font_size_. Not a smaller version of your preferred font size.
Still, I wrote the webmaster a polite email pointing out this 'mistake' in their page. Wonder if I'll get anything back.
K.
Damn Microsoft.
I've got my browser set up nicely so that the font size is as small as possible while still being easily readable. This allows me to fit as much text as I can on a single page.
And I can't read Microsoft's page cos the font is too small to be comfortably readable.
So I look at the source, and note that every single paragraph is set up as being 'class=small'. WTF????
Yes, have a small class for little fiddly bits like disclaimers & all that crud, but don't put your whole page in a small text size.
That's just *fucking* stupid. Get A Clue.
Don't like the fact that the Web is a "corpoplayground"? That's just a curmudgeony "these are my toys, and I'm not sharing" argument, sorry.
There are no social or legal rules, so people do what they please, and some people like to break things
That's the point. It's not a corporaplayground. The corporations like to think it is, and are trying to make it so, but it ain't. Certainly not yet. And hopefully never.
Don't get me wrong, I don't mind sharing my toy. I like sharing my toy. But it's my toy and it currently works like this. If you don't want to see some of the less nice aspects of it, then that's your selective blind spot. It doesn't change reality.
If you want to change my toy so that it works more like the way you want it to, don't expect me to automatically like it. I might, if it plays in the way that I like my current toy to play. Hell, I might even enjoy it more if you fix some of the stuff that's been bugging me.
But don't think it's something that it ain't. That way lies many a great headache.
Cool.
Some things though.
I do plan do boycott movies released on DVD encrypted with CSS. CSS is an awful idea, and it deserves to die, and there's no fucking way I'm going to buy a movie released under that system.
If I try to watch a movie in a country they don't want me to, or if I try to make a copy for my personal use, or if I want to write my own player for the heck of it, I don't want to be looking over my shoulder all the time about it, wondering if I'm going to be mentioned in the next 500 people the MPAA decides to randomly take to court.
No fucking way. It's not really a boycott due to the lawsuits, or even the principle. I just don't believe it's worth it 'buying' a movie that I'm not really buying. I'm not going to waste my money on it.
And seeing as VHS tapes are seriously dated in terms of technology, degrade and are generally crap, I'm not buying any of them either anymore.
Rant over. Question.
What's the association between the DVD CCA and the MPAA? AFAIK, the DVD CCA control the CSS. They were responsible for implementing it. The MPAA are just using it to encode their movies. However, the MPAA appear to be going after people who reverse engineered CSS. Which they don't even own. I could imagine the DVD CCA hassling people who cracked their system (even if it was legal), but surely the only recourse the MPAA has is against people who have directly caused *them* damages. i.e. illegally copied content to which they own copyright.
So what's the deal between the MPAA and the DVD CCA? Is one a wholly owned subsidiary of the other? Are they separate companies, one of whom is happy to finance the other's legal battles to 'protect it's own interests'?
I'm putting together a site to explain all this in clear English, and it's certainly bringing up gaps in my knowledge of the whole situation.
Any help greatly appreciated.
K.
AFAIK it is planned to implement a new encryption scheme anyway...
Any more information on this (news article, previous slashdot posting, etc...)? I'd be interested to see how they maintain backwards compatibility for old DVDs in the new players, and for new DVDs in the old players.
Or are people going to have to buy new DVD players to get the new DVD movies? Boy, will there be some outrage if that ever happens. You're gonna end up with a _lot_ of _very_ pissed off people in that case.
Ferchrissake MPAA, stop fucking around and trying to control the world. Release DVDs unencrypted so that truly independent artists can create their own movies and burn them and sell them themselves (over the internet if they want). YOU'RE JUST PISSING PEOPLE OFF. No-one really wants the encryption. People either hate it or don't care. And you can't get it right either. So just do the world a favour, stop trying and let us watch your fucking movies. We all want to. You want us to.
Get A Clue.
K.
ActiveX? Ewwwwww! :)<humour>
:) )
OK, RedHat may not provide pentium-optimised packages, but if the _chip writers_ write the compiler optimisers (which they could put the team who are currently working on the Code Morphing Software on, as that wouldn't be neccessary anymore) then they could ship the relevant compiler for the chipset, along with an OS compiled with that compiler on the box they ship.
This would also mean that even though the compiler is optimised to some degree by the chip vendor, the Open Source community would be able to play with it as much as possible to eke out maybe a little more speed, which they can't do at the moment with the Code Morphing stuff (as as I have been led to believe)
(Note : this is still devils advocate. My personal opinion is still that the Crusoe range sounds like seriously cool stuff - so no flames please
Playing devils advocate here (sort of)
The argument you're making surely only holds water for closed source software.
The only reason that Intel *has* to maintain backwards compatibility with the 386 (and even 286?) is because there's a load of really old *binaries* out there that won't run if you remove some of the old instructions. Surely with OSS, all you need to do is write a new back-end for your favourite cross-platform compiler suite (gcc, anyone?), rebuild your app and copy it to your new computer with it's brand spanking new chip that doesn't have anything in common with anything that's come before it, and it'll all still run fine.
You want to junk those extraneous FPU instrunctions that now have equivalents in your new SIMD unit? Go ahead. The new compiler back-end you've just written to accompany your new chip won't generate any of those old FPU instructions, it'll pass them to your SIMD unit.
Backwards *binary* compatibility is a *closed source* problem.
Why not have your compiler generate native Crusoe 3400/5400 instructions (if such things exist).
K.