This is one of the most anticipated titles in years. I've been looking foward to WC3 since WC2, considering what a jump WC2 was over WC1.
All these people playing the beta versions cracked are still going to buy the game? Who knows.
I feel that Blizzard, by providing great games for years, has earned the right to not have people floating around cracked copies of their games. We all wants WC3. I'm willing to wait.
If that means harassing some people with questionable lawsuits to stall for their software, so be it. I feel that we worry too much on Slashdot about legalisms and not enough about common decency.
If you love Blizzard games, show some respect and let them launch their games as they desire. They haven't disappointed yet.
Realize that the early demos of Star Craft were seen as WC in space and were hated. Blizzard rewrote the game in the next year and put out a game that people loved.
Had Warez kiddies put out those early Star Craft demos, then when the game was released it might have bombed because people had played a crappy game with the same name a year earlier.
Ripping off a company that puts out products you love is poor form.
As the owner of a copyright, I can license it however I want. If the GPL fails, then nobody can distribute it. Alternatively, the courts can rule that the GPL allows more than we think it does. They may rule that derivative works aren't as powerful a concept (any linking?) as the FSF would like. These are all possibilities.
However, the right of a copyright owner to license distribution is NOT questionable. If the GPL fails, then anyone distributing is at the mercy of the copyright owners. The GPL doesn't protect the owner (copyright protects the owners) the GPL protects the distributor that licensed it.
Section 4 is a strange beast, that is the crux of this case. If Section 4 isn't legal, the the FSF loses its stick.
This entire case revolves around Section 4, NOT the concept of licensing copyrighted work.
Read the people that think it could be challenged, they have bizarre views that the lawyers on Slashdot laugh at.
There are questions about the GPL, but the onces that Slashdot's laymans voice aren't the real ones.
IBM is putting $1B behind Linux development... Their legal team has likely gone over the GPL. Sure there are questions that only a court can determine (namely, what constitutes a derivative work and is Section 4 legal), but this Slashdot hand wringing is rediculous.
It's popular here to bash the US and its courts... just because ACs get modded to +5 by calling the US government corrupt doesn't make it so.
The problem with what RMS did wasn't what he did legally, we all recognized that. It was his being a jerk about the entire situation.
The KDE Team felt they were within the bounds of the law, FSF felt otherwise. Either there was no FSF code involved or they felt that their case was week, so they focused on complaining and launching a competing project.
When the FSF and Trolltech worked out their differences regarding Qt licensing, RMS issued a statement applauding the change, forgiving KDE and it's users, and cheering on GNOME. Once Qt went GPL, there is no reason for the FSF to support GNOME (which sits on top of libraries with the "bad don't except under special circumstances" LGPL license ) over KDE except for NIH.
RMS handled it with less tact than he normally uses, that is what pissed everybody off. The "forgiveness" could have been done in nice legalese on their website without trying to get it coverage.
See, that's where this whole thing seems absurd. In fact, I would argue that I can agree to a new license for the same version.
When I negotiate contracts, we go through multiple revisions. Then we sign something. We could always amend the contract (sign a new one that says how we are changing it) and most have a termination clause.
If I terminate my contract with entity X, we can sign a new contract later. Situations change.
In this case, you have put in an unsigned license that says this licesne is available universally. It allows me to license the code from you to distribute and license others to redistribute.
I broke a section, therefore your termination clause automatically kicks in. The old license is gone. Oh no, I'm without license so I go to get a fresh license from you, and low and behold, there is one with the same terms. I agree this time and I am licensed.
Now, the GPL could stipulate that you lose your rights to all other applications under the GPL licensed from that entity. As the copyright holder, that is okay. Okay, no problem, I have myNewShellCompany download the software, then send me a copy. My company has now licensed it from myNewShellCompany, and your restriction on my agreeing to a fresh license from you goes away.
I don't know, I could see this restriction being less powerful than MySQL AB and the FSF want it to be. Who knows, maybe the courts will enforce it reasonably, and say that it is reasonable to say no more distribution for you if break the GPL.
It makes sense that you can get an injunction and sue for damages if someone ships your GPL code in violation of the license, but I'm not sure that you can prevent them from shipping it within the context of the license given that you have a universal license grant.
That's why I think that the whole section is silly. You really can't restrict people from accessing the GPL this way.
I suppose they could file for an injuncton and argue that the company is a shell. Who the hell knows.
Regardless, I think that this Slashdot bullshit about GPL code becoming public domain is beyond silly.
Now, the outrageous claims of some proponents (anything that touches GPL code or is written by people that have looked at it becomes GPL) should get swatted down.
I also don't think that you can try to pull trade secret bullshit (prove you didn't see this) with GPLed code, but we'll see.
EULAs are a strange beast. They are a non-negotiated contract made through click-through or breaking a seal for something that you purchased already. The theory behind a EULA is that you contract to the EULA. You do not need a license to run software. If you need to clikc Agree to use the software, have you enterred into a contract? That's an INTERESTING legal question.
GPL is MUCH less interesting. By default, you have NO right to distribute software. The GPL is a distribution license.
This Slashdot mental masturbation is childish. The odds of the GPL being overturned and everyone's software under license being made public domain is pretty close to 0%. It is only a concern on Slashdot.
The GPL hasn't been to court because every violator has reached a settlement.
This case sounds like NuSphere is fucked. The portion in question suggests that if you violate the terms of the license the license is voided. This is pretty standard stuff.
Here is the question that the court will answer.
If I break the GPL, I can be sued for damages, etc., and must stop distribution. My license is revoked, etc., etc. Can I then go out, download a fresh copy and distribute under the terms of the GPL? Stallman says no, I'm not certain. That's where this case is questionable.
However, this is a good test case for the GPL. The question of derivative work is interesting. I'm not certain that the linking scenario creates a derivative work. However, since this company distributed a modified MySQL with their additions, they are CLEARLY distributing the work.
They need to establish that they have a separate license or did so under the GPL.
Regardless, the GPL being invalidated would not make things Public Domain. Without license you cannot distribute, so if the license falls, no distribution under GPL v2. FSF releases GPL v2.1 within a week and any provision that includes (or later version) is fine, everyone else needs to update.
I love my HDTV... If only I could get programming... However, I love running my DVD (progressive scan) and Gamecube at 480p... There is a nice difference. I bought my set knowing that it would be mostly for 480p.
However, what you're all missing is the power that DTV has IF the broadcasters use 480i.
I don't recall the exact numbers, but at a 480i DTV transmission, each broadcaster will be able to broadcast 5 or 6 channels. Recording the shows at 1080i shouldn't be a big deal, and they can broadcast them at 480i.
This means that with an OTA Attennae (once DTV has its act together, reasonable anntennaes should become available), you could pick up 40 channels or so...
Now, I love my HDTV 6.1 Stereo system, etc. However, I want OTA to be as good as analog cable, just with a better signal.
That means that the cable company needs to offer me something to keep my business.
Right now they compress signals as much as possible to include more pay-per-view, but its really the same pay-per-view just starting every 30 minutes.
Sorry, but that won't keep my $80/month flowing. HBO and Starz are great, but there is no reason they can't rent descramblers directly and send their feeds on a broadcaster's OTA signal.
The cable companies started to get their act together when the Satellite companies started to really make a push. When OTA competes with them, then Satellite and Cable will have to really offer something.
I look foward to the day when I can get 40 channels for free or drop $50-$100/mo. to get HDTV signals, etc. I mean, there is no reason for shows not to be recording in HDTV, that way they can be sold on HDVD later on and the broadcasters can sell the rights to carry their HDTV signals if the cable companies want to exist.
The old system was CPM, you paid per thousand impressions. The new system that they added on top of the old system is CPC, you pay for the clickthrough.
In Overture (goto.com, renamed) you are ranked by bid. If I want to close out a category, I can try to sneak in some irrelevant links (irrelevant with poor wording, for example) to minimize clickthroughs. I've still blocked a space from the competitor, but I likely pay little because I won't get clicked on.
The reason that this makes sense for Google is purely economic. Right now, in popular categories, their adwords are over-subscribed because people can't win the search terms. In unpopular categories, people just optimize for Google and get in the real results, not paying for ads.
A CPC deal allows much cheaper rates for unpopular terms (5 cents/click compared to 8-12 cents per impression based upon placement), while allowing competitive categories to be bid up.
However, the click-pop isn't a user-benefit, it's a Google benefit. The old system moved the clicked on ads to the top (where Google charged more, but you got better clickthrough so it was fine). The new system takes into account your CPC bid and click throughs.
That makes sense. If I am willing to pay 10 cents a click but get twice as many clicks as your 15 cent ad, I pay Google more per page, so Google wants to run my ad.
The real system is likely not that simple, because Google's bid-protection automatically down-bids you to be 1 cent above the person below you. Therefore, like on Ebay, you can bid the max that you are willing to pay.
It's an intelligent system. Google is entitled to run ads. Their advertisements are clearly marked as ads and separated from the editorial. The problem with search engine ads isn't that they run ads, or even targetted ads, its that the search engines intentionally try to confuse you as to what you are getting. The other problem is the bait-and-switch strategy. Several meta-searches built up user bases by giving great results with intelligent use of the engines. Once they got users, they switched to completely CPC systems to leverage their userbase until they got fed up and left.
Repeat after me, there is nothing morally wrong with ads. Poorly done ads that slow my connection make me leave your site, but I haven't been robbed. Making money is not morally wrong.
We own 5 of them now running Linux/OpenBSD. 1 is running NT 4 Terminal Server (testing it out for a project, looks like a failure).
You get a Win98 or WinME recovery CD.
Other than that, the hardware is relatively standard stuff. Good luck getting drivers, you need to figure out what each piece is, as the docs suck. Additionally, they stop "supporting" the model every few weeks when a faster processor comes out, and they don't put updated drivers.
However, when I need a Linux/BSD box quickly, they work great. I'd never put a production system on them, but for development and toy testing, they are cheap and easy to come by.
I couldn't figure out what your support policy was. There were no support contracts or anything else. It seemed like our only option was to pay $500 for installation help. It was rediculous.
Look, I'm a small guy, but I was having pain in the ass optimization problems getting OpenBSD and PostgreSQL to run at a reasonable speed. However, I could get it running. I am 100% certain that if I called support with the $500 CD, I'd be told that I was SOL.
I can't believe there wasn't a migration program. You're right, that was the biggest mistake. A better solution would be if you could cater to dot-coms that did a 2-3 year Oracle license that was coming to the end and needed cash. They could choose to pay for more Oracle or choose to pay your conversion fee. That would get you somewhere.
I can sympathize with management not knowing how to make things fly. However, if you won't charge for software updates (can't on BSD code without making it non-BSD) then worrying primarily about the next software release is silly.
Such a shame. PostgreSQL is a great product, we power all our clients on it. I would have been more comfortable with some support arrangement, but nobody seemed terribly interested in selling one to me. We've gone so long without one, I would only need one as an insurance policy of sorts, not really for the kinds of help I would like.
Tis a shame, better (and bound) documentation and other niceties would have been nice.
Well, look on the bright side, a good job at a company with hot tech is a good resume line as long as the tech stays hot. I leveraged a summer job at Citrix into the training to get my MCSE (this was 4 years ago) and numerous jobs as an NT Admin whereever a Citrix server was involved.
VB is a kick ass language. For a long time, however, it wasn't kick ass as much as VC++ was crap.
VB was a RAD tool. You could throw together a database front end REALLY fast. VC++ was not. Building the same front end in VC++ was slow and annoying.
The problem with VB was that you were given a crippled language because of Microsoft's marketting goals. They wanted an "easy" language for everyone. This worked. However, every project I worked on in those languages would need 1-3 Win32 API calls. Getting those calls to work would normally take between 50% and 75% of the project time.
I had some projects where we really wanted to move the logic into VC++. I thought that since I knew C (and C++ as a better C, not real C++), I could play with VC++ long enough to move the logic into some DLLs.
The interfaces were hard to pick up. We got faster computers instead and figured Moore's law would help us.
Java tried to hit the VB developers with the RAD tools. While Java was better for building GUIs than VC++, it was far worse than VB. When I learned Java for school, I really appreciated the benefits of a true Object Oriented language. However, when it came to building the GUIs, it was hard to not cry. Sure the people that never built a GUI thought that Java was fine, but if you had built one with VB, Java made you cry.
It's come a way now, and the modern IDEs are decent.
You are 100% correct. Java could have hit big time if there was a VB like tool for it. However, Sun wrote AWT, which was a disaster. Reading books from Sun's Java people makes you want to cry. They brag about how they spent about 6 weeks on AWT. Why? Why did early Java applications look hideous? Why was there not a reasonable GUI system?
Oh well, look at Sun Workstations at the time. CDE/Motif... yummy. Motif may have wonderful technical merits. CDE and Motif look ugly.
Sigh, why didn't Sun work with Apple to develop the GUI portion? Both companies had a lot to gain by an assault on the desktop, both needed to unseat Microsoft, and both needed cross-platform to take off.
Oh well, Apple helping push Java might have gotten them marketshare, and that wouldn't help Sun's delusions of taking over the desktop with expensive workstations.
STUPID STUPID STUPID
Brilliant OO programming is great for large projects.
Quick and dirty will always win for quick jobs.
How much "corporate" data is stored in little Access databases? Easy to develop helps a lot. Not everyone has a big IT department. Not every department in a large company can get IT to help them. Sometimes it's easier to find $500 for Access or VB and sneak it past IT then to try to get the write thing done.
Oh well. I'm happily not coding in VB anymore, but I'm sorry that it isn't all Java-like. JavaBASIC would have been nice.
I was referring to Great Bridge? One of the core teams tried to start a PostgreSQL business and failled.
I know about redhatdb. For $2500, I wasn't really sure what I got. It may become to solution in the future however.
Our Red Hat 6.2 boxes would get rooted if we did the install before lunch and came back to fix them after lunch.
Now they sit inside a nice safe OpenBSD network. Red Hat Database looks promising, it's just sad that Redhat stole their business because they couldn't get their shit together.
We run PostgreSQL on a dual-processor Linux box to feed our OpenBSD web servers. We got a HUGE speed gain from the OpenBSD -> Linux change (even when we ran it on a slower machine while testing it), and any SMP gains will be helpful.
When we did OpenBSD we had to be VERY careful not to do more queries than necessary (including some complicated joins and then having PHP parse the results). With Linux as the database server, I feel that I can throw hardware at it (including moving to Solaris if need be) and optimize the queries a bit less to abstract the programming.
SMP improvement is important, as the next step up for us is a Quad-Xeon processor, then Sun Hardware. (PostgreSQL seemed to run best on Linux and Solaris from the old website)...
It's such a shame that they never figured out the PostgreSQL support model. I would have happily paid for some support, but it always seemed easier to get the OpenBSD port or the Redhat RPM than pay for their CDs. They never included much beyond installation support. I knew how to install it, having some support (not the mailling list) for some of my optimization questions would have saved days and been worth a support contract.
Look, I used to love NASA. I grew up in Florida, it's hard not to have NASA-worship. When I graduated from MIT, our speaker was NASA's bigwig. I love the ideal of the agency.
They blew it, big time, with the space tourist issue, and it will cost them.
Look, dating back to the Civil War the United States has a fascinating history of the military industrial complex. The military traditionally funds research until it meets their needs then turns it over to the private sector to exploit.
Recently (past 20 years) this process had some very vocal whining about giving the research to business, but in general it has produced significant benefits to the nation.
NASA, however, has really got problems.
Look, their PR blows. They don't do a good job of convincing people that they matter. They haven't provided much of a connection. Since the Challenger, they've been scared to do much. When an American paid the Russians to take him into space, it wasn't NASA's place to throw a temper tantrum.
They are government employees. They forgot that. The second they decide that they are better than the American people they lose their defenders. Nobody in America likes elitists. As a nation, we are comfortable with people buying their way to the top, its the American way. When a bunch of scientists decide that they know best because of their intelligence and education, the American people get fed up.
The religion of America is capitalism. Good or bad, it forms the cornerstone of modern America. Americans worship wealth. It makes sense to a degree... If the market decided that you were successful, that works.
Academic and intellectual elitists are universally scorned in this country.
NASA has shown themselves over the past two decades to have no interest in serving Americans. Their believe that their work will continue because they are smart and important was the downfall.
The military has a strong ability to play the system. A bunch of scientists don't.
Congress will open up space as NASA found it to commercial interests. The space forces will grow naturally from the air force (like the Army Air Force became the Air Force, the Air Force Space Division will become the Space Force, or Star Fleet:]). Some form of NASA will continue to do pure research into the cosmos, but it will be smaller.
NASA hasn't openned space up to the people. They've become more and more ivory towerish because of their one failure at putting a civilian in space.
People would like to go into space.
People don't like to bust ass paying taxes to support a group of people that tell them they are too stupid (or drink to much) to go into space.
Sorry, if you want to feel that you are better than the American people, do it without their money.
Windows, at present, only supports a single platform. Because of this they have no cross platform instalation issues. You must be thinking of some other operating system.
Rewind the clock. The AIM alliance (Apple, IBM, Motorola) are cranking out faster PPC chips, the Alpha research project is bearing fruit, and Intel can't get the Pentium to move. They start playing tricks like they did at the end of the 486 era with faster processors then busses, but they can't really get the speed up.
Intel looks like a dead end.
Microsoft's NT project looks like it will divorce them from Intel. Their NTVDM, based on an old OS/2 VDM (IBM's later version was better) can emulate the entire 286 instruction set, so you can run DOS apps inside of it. They develop NT on a non-Intel architecture (rumored to be MIPS) to avoid any Intel specific shortcuts.
NT 3.51 supports the MIPS (there was a project with several companies to build a desktop PC on the MIPS line, NT was the OS, and Intel pulled tech specs for their stuff from everyone involved ).
NT 3.51 supports the PPC. They are scared of Taligent Pink, the Apple/IBM project to build two OSes on the same core system. PC Users would run OS/2, Apple users their Macs, run the same applications with the different environments.
NT 3.51 supports the Alpha. The Alpha looks like it is going to be awesome and could carry Microsoft into the server rooms. It looks like a screamer. The AlphaPC, the cheap version of the chip, looks like a great processor. NT 3.51 and the AlphaPC could turn Microsoft into a workstation player and compete in the engineering space.
Intel is still moving chips cheaply (in the $400-$1000 range) so they are involved.
Microsoft has another project, Chicago AKA Windows 4.0 AKA Windows 93, released as Windows 95. It brings the Win32 API to the lowend world. Get your apps moved to Win32 from Win16, and you can move to Windows NT (but not OS/2). Stick to Win32s and IBM can still fight on with OS/2.
At that point in history, there was no Microsoft monopoly.
What happened?
Intel gets the Pentium Pro to perform well on 32-bit operations (though the 16-bit code in Win95 made it a dog there) and announces the Pentium II, a PPro without the expensive on-chip cache. Quad-PPros do okay as workgroup servers. The MIPS PC initiative dies out (taking one of the top graphics card makers with it, who couldn't compete without Intel's PCI specs early... and Vesa Local Bus wasn't keeping up).
IBM refuses to ship PPC computers (to run Windows NT) until they have OS/2 running there. Well, the OS/2 port couldn't make it. Sure their were dozens of machines build in Boca Raton, FL, they rocked. The PPC 620 was promissed with the 486 core integrated. Wow, OS/2 on a PPC with your old DOS/Win apps running on the 486 core? Never shipped...
NT drops to just the Alpha and x86. With no support for the other ports, Microsoft lets the development tools for non-x86 lapse. Visual Studio RISC was usually at least 1 rev back.
Alpha support drops out later.
Microsoft is now stuck with x86.
Itanium/IA-64 is on the way. Microsoft needs a 64-bit system to carry them up the food chain, and the Alpha is dead.
AMD's x86-64 is on the way, and while there is no official plans for Microsoft to support it, I'm sure that they will.
Microsoft is back to pushing cross platform.
J++ didn't get them there. The CLR may.
The CLR is part of.NET. The XML services are another part. The tech is separate (though plays nicely together), but all part of.NET.
Microsoft HATES sharing their monopoly with Intel. Intel may be the junior partner, but they are there. Microsoft needs to increase its leverage. The CLR makes Intel a junior partner... VERY junior.
They can talk to IBM about PPCs, or AMD about x86-64.
Microsoft certainly has cross-hardware issues. Because of them, they are only on 1 platform.
Our standard contract includes clauses where the other party acknowledges that the project is not a work for hire and that the work would have been more expensive had it been a work for hire.
The contract grants them a license to use the software (plus any additional rights granted, sometimes a BSDL style license, etc.). We then use statements of work that are attached to the master services agreement that adds additional work and licensing information.
Ethically/Morally, they have no claim to your work. However, I understand why they wouldn't want their ideas to go to competitors. You should discuss this stuff up front.
Legally? You aren't employees, and it isn't a work for hire unless stated so.
Ideas can't be owned. Methods can be patented, and expressions copyrighted. However, nobody owns an idea.
Consult a lawyer, and find more ethical clients.
Everyone's clients will try to bully them. One of the tricks to keeping a startup alive is to know when you need to suck it up and when you don't.
It's good to see that Slashdot users still don't use computers for anything... I'm not looking for a system with better uptime than Win95, and that seems to be all you guys want.
I can't have multiple crashes in 100 days. If you are doing real load, spend real money, get real systems.
Don't build machines with your screw driver, get QA'd servers. Don't roll your own kernel, let Redhat test it.
These types of tests are useful as commentary and recommendations for what people should do in the development process.
ekrout writes, "Slashdot: We like [...] LOTR, Star Wars, [...], anime, and pr0n"...
You forgot DVDs. Slashdot LOVES stuff on DVD.
Yet you hate region encoding, the MPAA, the RIAA, the mass media, the mass market, etc., etc., etc.
I avoided buying a DVD player for a while because of the MPAA's behavior. But in the end, it's hard to not feel like you're only hurting yourself when anti-MPAA groups promote certain DVDs...
Oh well, it's nice to be in a pro-geek swing. I've noticed that Hollywood will have a geek year every 3-4 years where they spend a fortune releasing nerdy movies that never do as well as expected. It is as though they momentarily forget that most people don't read LOTR, they watch Nascar and WWF...
Did any of you play games on 15 years ago? Going to Pizza Hut instead of "the pizza place" does help you relate to the game more. It makes it easier to relate to the character.
My partner found the article at work the other day, it was interesting. Before he even mentioned the part about promotions my first thought was promotional deals.
Sure Dole isn't paying for the US rights, but why should Sega spend money removing it. The Dole stuff was amusing and SO over-the-top it didn't even seem like a game, it was funny. I couldn't stop laughing about the Dole stuff everywhere.
I don't buy bananas on brand, so it's irrelevant, but if they were launching a luxury version, it makes sense to do promotional deals.
Up until 5 years ago, I was a HUGE movie buff. I would go to see 1-2 movies at the theaters. When I went to school, I stopped watching movies much, because I wasn't watching television. Without TV, no commercials, no connection to pop culture... It was quite strange. I'd still see the occaisional movie, but I didn't hear about many.
Now, I'm over a year away from school and have a home entertainment system. Until I got the system, I was watching movies and television again. Now with a ReplayTV, I don't see commercials. The cost of movie tickets is $9.50, so for the cost of the two movie tickets, I can buy a DVD and watch it at home in surround sound on a HDTV. If I want to watch the movie later, I can. I don't really rent movies because of the hassle of returning them.
I never thought that I would stop going to see movies, but I mostly have.
I'll still see an eye candy movie, but the rest? I'll watch at home. There is no reason to go see a movie that isn't for the eye candy. I have a better sound system than most of the theaters, so I'd have to go to the good one 30 minutes away.
I dunno, I seem to enjoy having people to my place and watching a movie much more than going out.
Now, if you don't really like to watch TV and Movies, the $5k startup costs for a decent system (what my "midrange" system cost) is rediculous. However, if you don't really care, you can do a passable job for $1500 and still enjoy the experience.
Summer action blockbusters won't go, as those are more fun in the theatre. However, I no longer see them 2-3 times there. I see them once then buy the DVD when it comes out.
I doubt that the blockbuster will go away, but the theater as a way of distributing artsy films may go away. That's okay though, digital cable and better encoding algorithms should open up plenty of channels for them, and artsy films need to make less to do well.
The $100m film won't look good on your computer screen compared to a real theater, and when shit blows up I want to be screaming and yelling with the audience. However, $20 for two people to see a silly comedy is a bit much.
These Xeons feature 512K of L2 Cache. Sure there are Xeons with HUGE amounts of L2 cache, but then we are hitting the $10000 price range. These are workstation machines, not server machines.
I can't compare the Apple's to the P4s... P4s don't go dual processor, so the PPC G4 wins here. I can't get a Dual proc P4.
Athlon? None of the vendors I checked have Athlon workstations, so they weren't in consideration.
However, after realizing the lack of Athlons, I remembered that Penguin Computing has a line of Athlon based workstations.
I went to their website, and priced out an Athlon MP system, the Tempest 210MP Workstation.
With 2 Athlon MP 1900+, not really competetiive with the new 1 GHz G4s, but close enough for our comparison (and matching your assertion that they are in the same league as them). With 512MB PC2100 RAM, and upgraded to the Gigabit Ethernet card (they have one, might as well try to be fair), and my workstation price is $2707.
Congratulations, we have a winner. A Athlon MP 1900+ (running at 1.53 GHz if I recall?) with similar specs at the Apple Workstation comes in $300 cheaper. The Apple has some advantages, the better video card and Superdrive are nice features when the machine is recycled as a desktop machine, but for now they are superfluous.
What is the point of my work?
You're all full of shit. Apple's computers are extremely price competitive. They are cheaper than Xeons from the real vendors with similar specs (Xeons had faster RAM, equal L2 cache, no L3 cache, and no gigabit ethernet).
Apple puts out a really competitively priced Unix workstation to Linux workstations from major vendors.
Apple puts out really competitively priced consumer machines (iMac/iBook) compared to Wintel machines from major vendors.
You can choose to use an Apple solution or not, but stop spreading the bullshit about Apple being more expensive.
10 good Intel machines will not cost less than $10,000. For scientific work, I don't consider eMachines or your grey-boy solutions a "good" system.
So, I took the bait... I went to Compaq's site and spec'ed out an equivalent workstation. Note, I'm not souping up the video card or CD-ROM like the Apple workstations. No need to waste money.
Compaq Evo Workstation W6000, Intel Xeon 2.00 GHz/512K processor, dual processor... Upgrading to 512MB RAM. $3521.00. Note that this machine only has 10/100 networking. The Apple has Gigabit. This should matter in a cluster.
Dell Workstation 530. Intel Xeon 2.0 GHz x2, 512MB RAM, and an upgraded sound card (Dell won't sell a dual-proc workstation without an $80 soundcard upgrade... weird). Dell did let me downgrade the video card annd monitor... Price: $3878.00. Unlike Compaq, I could buy the Dell workstation with Linux (supported) instead of NT and needing to swap OSes.
Next I went to Big Blue. They push Linux, they should sell me good Linux workstations. When I bought my last round of Penguin Computing machines (to run OpenBSD and Linux) I looked at IBM first...
IBM's only dual processor workstation, the IBM Intellistation M Pro 6850 Tower. With a second 2.0 GHz Xeon processor, $5218.
Real computers cost money. Flaky machines that hardware lock from time to time do not. You can't compaq the Apple workstations to the bottom-barrel systems.
In fact, at $1300 for the lowend iMac (700 MHz G4), admittedly with a silly flatscreen for this project, or $2300 for the midrange (933MHz) G4, Apple hits some good price points for this.
Look, the new G4s (in the 933MHz and 1GHz-dual models) are sporting a 2MB L3 cache! That's damned impressive. A 2MB L3 cache should make cache misses SO infrequent that the slower memory bus speed is irrelevant.
Look, if you need lots of power, you used to need to stop millions. You're not going to cut corners on your machines. You're looking at $3500 for an Intel dual-Xeon based solution or $3000 for the dual-G4 based Apple solution. Sure you get an unneeded Superdrive, but who cares? When the project is over, I bet you everyone in the lab is happy to take one of the Superdrives home...
Geeze people, get a grip.
Apple's G4 workstations are not the same quality as the computer you have in your room in your parent's house. These are real machines with:
Gigabit Ethernet (very significant for a cluster, and unlike the PC's 32-bit, 33 MHz bus, real machines like the Apple, Compaq, or Dell workstations have 64-bit OR 66 MHz (sometimes both) PCI busses so you can actually USE the Gigabit Ethernet.
The Apple's L3 Cache has 2MB DDR SDRAM at up to 500MHz, this is much faster than the 266MHZ DDR in PCs and comparable to the PC800 RDRAM in the Dell/IBM workstations. Sure the System RAM is slower, but a 2MB L3 cache makes this less relevant.
The Superdrive, Firewire, and Video cards are all unnessary here, but they are actually really nice features if these machines will be reassigned as desktop machines when the project is over. You could buy new PowerMacs with the G5s ship within 6 months and reassign these as desktop machines. The real workstations are the same. You $45000 cluster of crap machines won't take you very far. They are trash when replaced, and if the machine hasn't been QC'd? Well, time to explain that your project needs to start over.
Slashdot Mirror
This is his first time not a Blizzard beta-tester since WC2, but he loves his cracked version. I'm looking foward to it.
Alex
This is one of the most anticipated titles in years. I've been looking foward to WC3 since WC2, considering what a jump WC2 was over WC1.
All these people playing the beta versions cracked are still going to buy the game? Who knows.
I feel that Blizzard, by providing great games for years, has earned the right to not have people floating around cracked copies of their games. We all wants WC3. I'm willing to wait.
If that means harassing some people with questionable lawsuits to stall for their software, so be it. I feel that we worry too much on Slashdot about legalisms and not enough about common decency.
If you love Blizzard games, show some respect and let them launch their games as they desire. They haven't disappointed yet.
Realize that the early demos of Star Craft were seen as WC in space and were hated. Blizzard rewrote the game in the next year and put out a game that people loved.
Had Warez kiddies put out those early Star Craft demos, then when the game was released it might have bombed because people had played a crappy game with the same name a year earlier.
Ripping off a company that puts out products you love is poor form.
Alex
Nope. He normally is tactless. This time he went overboard. This was exceptionally tactless.
As the owner of a copyright, I can license it however I want. If the GPL fails, then nobody can distribute it. Alternatively, the courts can rule that the GPL allows more than we think it does. They may rule that derivative works aren't as powerful a concept (any linking?) as the FSF would like. These are all possibilities.
However, the right of a copyright owner to license distribution is NOT questionable. If the GPL fails, then anyone distributing is at the mercy of the copyright owners. The GPL doesn't protect the owner (copyright protects the owners) the GPL protects the distributor that licensed it.
Section 4 is a strange beast, that is the crux of this case. If Section 4 isn't legal, the the FSF loses its stick.
This entire case revolves around Section 4, NOT the concept of licensing copyrighted work.
Read the people that think it could be challenged, they have bizarre views that the lawyers on Slashdot laugh at.
There are questions about the GPL, but the onces that Slashdot's laymans voice aren't the real ones.
IBM is putting $1B behind Linux development... Their legal team has likely gone over the GPL. Sure there are questions that only a court can determine (namely, what constitutes a derivative work and is Section 4 legal), but this Slashdot hand wringing is rediculous.
It's popular here to bash the US and its courts... just because ACs get modded to +5 by calling the US government corrupt doesn't make it so.
Alex
The problem with what RMS did wasn't what he did legally, we all recognized that. It was his being a jerk about the entire situation.
The KDE Team felt they were within the bounds of the law, FSF felt otherwise. Either there was no FSF code involved or they felt that their case was week, so they focused on complaining and launching a competing project.
When the FSF and Trolltech worked out their differences regarding Qt licensing, RMS issued a statement applauding the change, forgiving KDE and it's users, and cheering on GNOME. Once Qt went GPL, there is no reason for the FSF to support GNOME (which sits on top of libraries with the "bad don't except under special circumstances" LGPL license ) over KDE except for NIH.
RMS handled it with less tact than he normally uses, that is what pissed everybody off. The "forgiveness" could have been done in nice legalese on their website without trying to get it coverage.
Alex
See, that's where this whole thing seems absurd. In fact, I would argue that I can agree to a new license for the same version.
When I negotiate contracts, we go through multiple revisions. Then we sign something. We could always amend the contract (sign a new one that says how we are changing it) and most have a termination clause.
If I terminate my contract with entity X, we can sign a new contract later. Situations change.
In this case, you have put in an unsigned license that says this licesne is available universally. It allows me to license the code from you to distribute and license others to redistribute.
I broke a section, therefore your termination clause automatically kicks in. The old license is gone. Oh no, I'm without license so I go to get a fresh license from you, and low and behold, there is one with the same terms. I agree this time and I am licensed.
Now, the GPL could stipulate that you lose your rights to all other applications under the GPL licensed from that entity. As the copyright holder, that is okay. Okay, no problem, I have myNewShellCompany download the software, then send me a copy. My company has now licensed it from myNewShellCompany, and your restriction on my agreeing to a fresh license from you goes away.
I don't know, I could see this restriction being less powerful than MySQL AB and the FSF want it to be. Who knows, maybe the courts will enforce it reasonably, and say that it is reasonable to say no more distribution for you if break the GPL.
It makes sense that you can get an injunction and sue for damages if someone ships your GPL code in violation of the license, but I'm not sure that you can prevent them from shipping it within the context of the license given that you have a universal license grant.
Alex
That's why I think that the whole section is silly. You really can't restrict people from accessing the GPL this way.
I suppose they could file for an injuncton and argue that the company is a shell. Who the hell knows.
Regardless, I think that this Slashdot bullshit about GPL code becoming public domain is beyond silly.
Now, the outrageous claims of some proponents (anything that touches GPL code or is written by people that have looked at it becomes GPL) should get swatted down.
I also don't think that you can try to pull trade secret bullshit (prove you didn't see this) with GPLed code, but we'll see.
Alex
EULAs are a strange beast. They are a non-negotiated contract made through click-through or breaking a seal for something that you purchased already. The theory behind a EULA is that you contract to the EULA. You do not need a license to run software. If you need to clikc Agree to use the software, have you enterred into a contract? That's an INTERESTING legal question.
GPL is MUCH less interesting. By default, you have NO right to distribute software. The GPL is a distribution license.
This Slashdot mental masturbation is childish. The odds of the GPL being overturned and everyone's software under license being made public domain is pretty close to 0%. It is only a concern on Slashdot.
The GPL hasn't been to court because every violator has reached a settlement.
This case sounds like NuSphere is fucked. The portion in question suggests that if you violate the terms of the license the license is voided. This is pretty standard stuff.
Here is the question that the court will answer.
If I break the GPL, I can be sued for damages, etc., and must stop distribution. My license is revoked, etc., etc. Can I then go out, download a fresh copy and distribute under the terms of the GPL? Stallman says no, I'm not certain. That's where this case is questionable.
However, this is a good test case for the GPL. The question of derivative work is interesting. I'm not certain that the linking scenario creates a derivative work. However, since this company distributed a modified MySQL with their additions, they are CLEARLY distributing the work.
They need to establish that they have a separate license or did so under the GPL.
Regardless, the GPL being invalidated would not make things Public Domain. Without license you cannot distribute, so if the license falls, no distribution under GPL v2. FSF releases GPL v2.1 within a week and any provision that includes (or later version) is fine, everyone else needs to update.
Alex
I love my HDTV... If only I could get programming... However, I love running my DVD (progressive scan) and Gamecube at 480p... There is a nice difference. I bought my set knowing that it would be mostly for 480p.
However, what you're all missing is the power that DTV has IF the broadcasters use 480i.
I don't recall the exact numbers, but at a 480i DTV transmission, each broadcaster will be able to broadcast 5 or 6 channels. Recording the shows at 1080i shouldn't be a big deal, and they can broadcast them at 480i.
This means that with an OTA Attennae (once DTV has its act together, reasonable anntennaes should become available), you could pick up 40 channels or so...
Now, I love my HDTV 6.1 Stereo system, etc. However, I want OTA to be as good as analog cable, just with a better signal.
That means that the cable company needs to offer me something to keep my business.
Right now they compress signals as much as possible to include more pay-per-view, but its really the same pay-per-view just starting every 30 minutes.
Sorry, but that won't keep my $80/month flowing. HBO and Starz are great, but there is no reason they can't rent descramblers directly and send their feeds on a broadcaster's OTA signal.
The cable companies started to get their act together when the Satellite companies started to really make a push. When OTA competes with them, then Satellite and Cable will have to really offer something.
I look foward to the day when I can get 40 channels for free or drop $50-$100/mo. to get HDTV signals, etc. I mean, there is no reason for shows not to be recording in HDTV, that way they can be sold on HDVD later on and the broadcasters can sell the rights to carry their HDTV signals if the cable companies want to exist.
Alex
The old system was CPM, you paid per thousand impressions. The new system that they added on top of the old system is CPC, you pay for the clickthrough.
In Overture (goto.com, renamed) you are ranked by bid. If I want to close out a category, I can try to sneak in some irrelevant links (irrelevant with poor wording, for example) to minimize clickthroughs. I've still blocked a space from the competitor, but I likely pay little because I won't get clicked on.
The reason that this makes sense for Google is purely economic. Right now, in popular categories, their adwords are over-subscribed because people can't win the search terms. In unpopular categories, people just optimize for Google and get in the real results, not paying for ads.
A CPC deal allows much cheaper rates for unpopular terms (5 cents/click compared to 8-12 cents per impression based upon placement), while allowing competitive categories to be bid up.
However, the click-pop isn't a user-benefit, it's a Google benefit. The old system moved the clicked on ads to the top (where Google charged more, but you got better clickthrough so it was fine). The new system takes into account your CPC bid and click throughs.
That makes sense. If I am willing to pay 10 cents a click but get twice as many clicks as your 15 cent ad, I pay Google more per page, so Google wants to run my ad.
The real system is likely not that simple, because Google's bid-protection automatically down-bids you to be 1 cent above the person below you. Therefore, like on Ebay, you can bid the max that you are willing to pay.
It's an intelligent system. Google is entitled to run ads. Their advertisements are clearly marked as ads and separated from the editorial. The problem with search engine ads isn't that they run ads, or even targetted ads, its that the search engines intentionally try to confuse you as to what you are getting. The other problem is the bait-and-switch strategy. Several meta-searches built up user bases by giving great results with intelligent use of the engines. Once they got users, they switched to completely CPC systems to leverage their userbase until they got fed up and left.
Repeat after me, there is nothing morally wrong with ads. Poorly done ads that slow my connection make me leave your site, but I haven't been robbed. Making money is not morally wrong.
Alex
We own 5 of them now running Linux/OpenBSD. 1 is running NT 4 Terminal Server (testing it out for a project, looks like a failure).
You get a Win98 or WinME recovery CD.
Other than that, the hardware is relatively standard stuff. Good luck getting drivers, you need to figure out what each piece is, as the docs suck. Additionally, they stop "supporting" the model every few weeks when a faster processor comes out, and they don't put updated drivers.
However, when I need a Linux/BSD box quickly, they work great. I'd never put a production system on them, but for development and toy testing, they are cheap and easy to come by.
Alex
I couldn't figure out what your support policy was. There were no support contracts or anything else. It seemed like our only option was to pay $500 for installation help. It was rediculous.
Look, I'm a small guy, but I was having pain in the ass optimization problems getting OpenBSD and PostgreSQL to run at a reasonable speed. However, I could get it running. I am 100% certain that if I called support with the $500 CD, I'd be told that I was SOL.
I can't believe there wasn't a migration program. You're right, that was the biggest mistake. A better solution would be if you could cater to dot-coms that did a 2-3 year Oracle license that was coming to the end and needed cash. They could choose to pay for more Oracle or choose to pay your conversion fee. That would get you somewhere.
I can sympathize with management not knowing how to make things fly. However, if you won't charge for software updates (can't on BSD code without making it non-BSD) then worrying primarily about the next software release is silly.
Such a shame. PostgreSQL is a great product, we power all our clients on it. I would have been more comfortable with some support arrangement, but nobody seemed terribly interested in selling one to me. We've gone so long without one, I would only need one as an insurance policy of sorts, not really for the kinds of help I would like.
Tis a shame, better (and bound) documentation and other niceties would have been nice.
Well, look on the bright side, a good job at a company with hot tech is a good resume line as long as the tech stays hot. I leveraged a summer job at Citrix into the training to get my MCSE (this was 4 years ago) and numerous jobs as an NT Admin whereever a Citrix server was involved.
Not really.
C++ is a programming language.
VC++ is a programming language, based upon C++, that involves building applications with their IDE and MFC.
VB is also an IDE. It is also a quasi-object oriented language built on top of BASIC syntax.
Alex
(plus a little VB for DOS).
VB is a kick ass language. For a long time, however, it wasn't kick ass as much as VC++ was crap.
VB was a RAD tool. You could throw together a database front end REALLY fast. VC++ was not. Building the same front end in VC++ was slow and annoying.
The problem with VB was that you were given a crippled language because of Microsoft's marketting goals. They wanted an "easy" language for everyone. This worked. However, every project I worked on in those languages would need 1-3 Win32 API calls. Getting those calls to work would normally take between 50% and 75% of the project time.
I had some projects where we really wanted to move the logic into VC++. I thought that since I knew C (and C++ as a better C, not real C++), I could play with VC++ long enough to move the logic into some DLLs.
The interfaces were hard to pick up. We got faster computers instead and figured Moore's law would help us.
Java tried to hit the VB developers with the RAD tools. While Java was better for building GUIs than VC++, it was far worse than VB. When I learned Java for school, I really appreciated the benefits of a true Object Oriented language. However, when it came to building the GUIs, it was hard to not cry. Sure the people that never built a GUI thought that Java was fine, but if you had built one with VB, Java made you cry.
It's come a way now, and the modern IDEs are decent.
You are 100% correct. Java could have hit big time if there was a VB like tool for it. However, Sun wrote AWT, which was a disaster. Reading books from Sun's Java people makes you want to cry. They brag about how they spent about 6 weeks on AWT. Why? Why did early Java applications look hideous? Why was there not a reasonable GUI system?
Oh well, look at Sun Workstations at the time. CDE/Motif... yummy. Motif may have wonderful technical merits. CDE and Motif look ugly.
Sigh, why didn't Sun work with Apple to develop the GUI portion? Both companies had a lot to gain by an assault on the desktop, both needed to unseat Microsoft, and both needed cross-platform to take off.
Oh well, Apple helping push Java might have gotten them marketshare, and that wouldn't help Sun's delusions of taking over the desktop with expensive workstations.
STUPID STUPID STUPID
Brilliant OO programming is great for large projects.
Quick and dirty will always win for quick jobs.
How much "corporate" data is stored in little Access databases? Easy to develop helps a lot. Not everyone has a big IT department. Not every department in a large company can get IT to help them. Sometimes it's easier to find $500 for Access or VB and sneak it past IT then to try to get the write thing done.
Oh well. I'm happily not coding in VB anymore, but I'm sorry that it isn't all Java-like. JavaBASIC would have been nice.
I was referring to Great Bridge? One of the core teams tried to start a PostgreSQL business and failled.
I know about redhatdb. For $2500, I wasn't really sure what I got. It may become to solution in the future however.
Our Red Hat 6.2 boxes would get rooted if we did the install before lunch and came back to fix them after lunch.
Now they sit inside a nice safe OpenBSD network. Red Hat Database looks promising, it's just sad that Redhat stole their business because they couldn't get their shit together.
Alex
We run PostgreSQL on a dual-processor Linux box to feed our OpenBSD web servers. We got a HUGE speed gain from the OpenBSD -> Linux change (even when we ran it on a slower machine while testing it), and any SMP gains will be helpful.
When we did OpenBSD we had to be VERY careful not to do more queries than necessary (including some complicated joins and then having PHP parse the results). With Linux as the database server, I feel that I can throw hardware at it (including moving to Solaris if need be) and optimize the queries a bit less to abstract the programming.
SMP improvement is important, as the next step up for us is a Quad-Xeon processor, then Sun Hardware. (PostgreSQL seemed to run best on Linux and Solaris from the old website)...
It's such a shame that they never figured out the PostgreSQL support model. I would have happily paid for some support, but it always seemed easier to get the OpenBSD port or the Redhat RPM than pay for their CDs. They never included much beyond installation support. I knew how to install it, having some support (not the mailling list) for some of my optimization questions would have saved days and been worth a support contract.
Alex
Look, I used to love NASA. I grew up in Florida, it's hard not to have NASA-worship. When I graduated from MIT, our speaker was NASA's bigwig. I love the ideal of the agency.
:]). Some form of NASA will continue to do pure research into the cosmos, but it will be smaller.
They blew it, big time, with the space tourist issue, and it will cost them.
Look, dating back to the Civil War the United States has a fascinating history of the military industrial complex. The military traditionally funds research until it meets their needs then turns it over to the private sector to exploit.
Recently (past 20 years) this process had some very vocal whining about giving the research to business, but in general it has produced significant benefits to the nation.
NASA, however, has really got problems.
Look, their PR blows. They don't do a good job of convincing people that they matter. They haven't provided much of a connection. Since the Challenger, they've been scared to do much. When an American paid the Russians to take him into space, it wasn't NASA's place to throw a temper tantrum.
They are government employees. They forgot that. The second they decide that they are better than the American people they lose their defenders. Nobody in America likes elitists. As a nation, we are comfortable with people buying their way to the top, its the American way. When a bunch of scientists decide that they know best because of their intelligence and education, the American people get fed up.
The religion of America is capitalism. Good or bad, it forms the cornerstone of modern America. Americans worship wealth. It makes sense to a degree... If the market decided that you were successful, that works.
Academic and intellectual elitists are universally scorned in this country.
NASA has shown themselves over the past two decades to have no interest in serving Americans. Their believe that their work will continue because they are smart and important was the downfall.
The military has a strong ability to play the system. A bunch of scientists don't.
Congress will open up space as NASA found it to commercial interests. The space forces will grow naturally from the air force (like the Army Air Force became the Air Force, the Air Force Space Division will become the Space Force, or Star Fleet
NASA hasn't openned space up to the people. They've become more and more ivory towerish because of their one failure at putting a civilian in space.
People would like to go into space.
People don't like to bust ass paying taxes to support a group of people that tell them they are too stupid (or drink to much) to go into space.
Sorry, if you want to feel that you are better than the American people, do it without their money.
Alex
Windows, at present, only supports a single platform. Because of this they have no cross platform instalation issues. You must be thinking of some other operating system.
.NET. The XML services are another part. The tech is separate (though plays nicely together), but all part of .NET.
Rewind the clock. The AIM alliance (Apple, IBM, Motorola) are cranking out faster PPC chips, the Alpha research project is bearing fruit, and Intel can't get the Pentium to move. They start playing tricks like they did at the end of the 486 era with faster processors then busses, but they can't really get the speed up.
Intel looks like a dead end.
Microsoft's NT project looks like it will divorce them from Intel. Their NTVDM, based on an old OS/2 VDM (IBM's later version was better) can emulate the entire 286 instruction set, so you can run DOS apps inside of it. They develop NT on a non-Intel architecture (rumored to be MIPS) to avoid any Intel specific shortcuts.
NT 3.51 supports the MIPS (there was a project with several companies to build a desktop PC on the MIPS line, NT was the OS, and Intel pulled tech specs for their stuff from everyone involved ).
NT 3.51 supports the PPC. They are scared of Taligent Pink, the Apple/IBM project to build two OSes on the same core system. PC Users would run OS/2, Apple users their Macs, run the same applications with the different environments.
NT 3.51 supports the Alpha. The Alpha looks like it is going to be awesome and could carry Microsoft into the server rooms. It looks like a screamer. The AlphaPC, the cheap version of the chip, looks like a great processor. NT 3.51 and the AlphaPC could turn Microsoft into a workstation player and compete in the engineering space.
Intel is still moving chips cheaply (in the $400-$1000 range) so they are involved.
Microsoft has another project, Chicago AKA Windows 4.0 AKA Windows 93, released as Windows 95. It brings the Win32 API to the lowend world. Get your apps moved to Win32 from Win16, and you can move to Windows NT (but not OS/2). Stick to Win32s and IBM can still fight on with OS/2.
At that point in history, there was no Microsoft monopoly.
What happened?
Intel gets the Pentium Pro to perform well on 32-bit operations (though the 16-bit code in Win95 made it a dog there) and announces the Pentium II, a PPro without the expensive on-chip cache. Quad-PPros do okay as workgroup servers. The MIPS PC initiative dies out (taking one of the top graphics card makers with it, who couldn't compete without Intel's PCI specs early... and Vesa Local Bus wasn't keeping up).
IBM refuses to ship PPC computers (to run Windows NT) until they have OS/2 running there. Well, the OS/2 port couldn't make it. Sure their were dozens of machines build in Boca Raton, FL, they rocked. The PPC 620 was promissed with the 486 core integrated. Wow, OS/2 on a PPC with your old DOS/Win apps running on the 486 core? Never shipped...
NT drops to just the Alpha and x86. With no support for the other ports, Microsoft lets the development tools for non-x86 lapse. Visual Studio RISC was usually at least 1 rev back.
Alpha support drops out later.
Microsoft is now stuck with x86.
Itanium/IA-64 is on the way. Microsoft needs a 64-bit system to carry them up the food chain, and the Alpha is dead.
AMD's x86-64 is on the way, and while there is no official plans for Microsoft to support it, I'm sure that they will.
Microsoft is back to pushing cross platform.
J++ didn't get them there. The CLR may.
The CLR is part of
Microsoft HATES sharing their monopoly with Intel. Intel may be the junior partner, but they are there. Microsoft needs to increase its leverage. The CLR makes Intel a junior partner... VERY junior.
They can talk to IBM about PPCs, or AMD about x86-64.
Microsoft certainly has cross-hardware issues. Because of them, they are only on 1 platform.
NT is extremely portable.
x86 assembly code is not.
Alex
Our standard contract includes clauses where the other party acknowledges that the project is not a work for hire and that the work would have been more expensive had it been a work for hire.
The contract grants them a license to use the software (plus any additional rights granted, sometimes a BSDL style license, etc.). We then use statements of work that are attached to the master services agreement that adds additional work and licensing information.
Ethically/Morally, they have no claim to your work. However, I understand why they wouldn't want their ideas to go to competitors. You should discuss this stuff up front.
Legally? You aren't employees, and it isn't a work for hire unless stated so.
Ideas can't be owned. Methods can be patented, and expressions copyrighted. However, nobody owns an idea.
Consult a lawyer, and find more ethical clients.
Everyone's clients will try to bully them. One of the tricks to keeping a startup alive is to know when you need to suck it up and when you don't.
Alex
It's good to see that Slashdot users still don't use computers for anything... I'm not looking for a system with better uptime than Win95, and that seems to be all you guys want.
I can't have multiple crashes in 100 days. If you are doing real load, spend real money, get real systems.
Don't build machines with your screw driver, get QA'd servers. Don't roll your own kernel, let Redhat test it.
These types of tests are useful as commentary and recommendations for what people should do in the development process.
ekrout writes, "Slashdot: We like [...] LOTR, Star Wars, [...], anime, and pr0n"...
You forgot DVDs. Slashdot LOVES stuff on DVD.
Yet you hate region encoding, the MPAA, the RIAA, the mass media, the mass market, etc., etc., etc.
I avoided buying a DVD player for a while because of the MPAA's behavior. But in the end, it's hard to not feel like you're only hurting yourself when anti-MPAA groups promote certain DVDs...
Oh well, it's nice to be in a pro-geek swing. I've noticed that Hollywood will have a geek year every 3-4 years where they spend a fortune releasing nerdy movies that never do as well as expected. It is as though they momentarily forget that most people don't read LOTR, they watch Nascar and WWF...
Alex
Did any of you play games on 15 years ago? Going to Pizza Hut instead of "the pizza place" does help you relate to the game more. It makes it easier to relate to the character.
My partner found the article at work the other day, it was interesting. Before he even mentioned the part about promotions my first thought was promotional deals.
Sure Dole isn't paying for the US rights, but why should Sega spend money removing it. The Dole stuff was amusing and SO over-the-top it didn't even seem like a game, it was funny. I couldn't stop laughing about the Dole stuff everywhere.
I don't buy bananas on brand, so it's irrelevant, but if they were launching a luxury version, it makes sense to do promotional deals.
Alex
Up until 5 years ago, I was a HUGE movie buff. I would go to see 1-2 movies at the theaters. When I went to school, I stopped watching movies much, because I wasn't watching television. Without TV, no commercials, no connection to pop culture... It was quite strange. I'd still see the occaisional movie, but I didn't hear about many.
Now, I'm over a year away from school and have a home entertainment system. Until I got the system, I was watching movies and television again. Now with a ReplayTV, I don't see commercials. The cost of movie tickets is $9.50, so for the cost of the two movie tickets, I can buy a DVD and watch it at home in surround sound on a HDTV. If I want to watch the movie later, I can. I don't really rent movies because of the hassle of returning them.
I never thought that I would stop going to see movies, but I mostly have.
I'll still see an eye candy movie, but the rest? I'll watch at home. There is no reason to go see a movie that isn't for the eye candy. I have a better sound system than most of the theaters, so I'd have to go to the good one 30 minutes away.
I dunno, I seem to enjoy having people to my place and watching a movie much more than going out.
Now, if you don't really like to watch TV and Movies, the $5k startup costs for a decent system (what my "midrange" system cost) is rediculous. However, if you don't really care, you can do a passable job for $1500 and still enjoy the experience.
Summer action blockbusters won't go, as those are more fun in the theatre. However, I no longer see them 2-3 times there. I see them once then buy the DVD when it comes out.
I doubt that the blockbuster will go away, but the theater as a way of distributing artsy films may go away. That's okay though, digital cable and better encoding algorithms should open up plenty of channels for them, and artsy films need to make less to do well.
The $100m film won't look good on your computer screen compared to a real theater, and when shit blows up I want to be screaming and yelling with the audience. However, $20 for two people to see a silly comedy is a bit much.
Alex
These Xeons feature 512K of L2 Cache. Sure there are Xeons with HUGE amounts of L2 cache, but then we are hitting the $10000 price range. These are workstation machines, not server machines.
I can't compare the Apple's to the P4s... P4s don't go dual processor, so the PPC G4 wins here. I can't get a Dual proc P4.
Athlon? None of the vendors I checked have Athlon workstations, so they weren't in consideration.
However, after realizing the lack of Athlons, I remembered that Penguin Computing has a line of Athlon based workstations.
I went to their website, and priced out an Athlon MP system, the Tempest 210MP Workstation.
With 2 Athlon MP 1900+, not really competetiive with the new 1 GHz G4s, but close enough for our comparison (and matching your assertion that they are in the same league as them). With 512MB PC2100 RAM, and upgraded to the Gigabit Ethernet card (they have one, might as well try to be fair), and my workstation price is $2707.
Congratulations, we have a winner. A Athlon MP 1900+ (running at 1.53 GHz if I recall?) with similar specs at the Apple Workstation comes in $300 cheaper. The Apple has some advantages, the better video card and Superdrive are nice features when the machine is recycled as a desktop machine, but for now they are superfluous.
What is the point of my work?
You're all full of shit. Apple's computers are extremely price competitive. They are cheaper than Xeons from the real vendors with similar specs (Xeons had faster RAM, equal L2 cache, no L3 cache, and no gigabit ethernet).
Apple puts out a really competitively priced Unix workstation to Linux workstations from major vendors.
Apple puts out really competitively priced consumer machines (iMac/iBook) compared to Wintel machines from major vendors.
You can choose to use an Apple solution or not, but stop spreading the bullshit about Apple being more expensive.
10 good Intel machines will not cost less than $10,000. For scientific work, I don't consider eMachines or your grey-boy solutions a "good" system.
So, I took the bait... I went to Compaq's site and spec'ed out an equivalent workstation. Note, I'm not souping up the video card or CD-ROM like the Apple workstations. No need to waste money.
Compaq Evo Workstation W6000, Intel Xeon 2.00 GHz/512K processor, dual processor... Upgrading to 512MB RAM. $3521.00. Note that this machine only has 10/100 networking. The Apple has Gigabit. This should matter in a cluster.
Dell Workstation 530. Intel Xeon 2.0 GHz x2, 512MB RAM, and an upgraded sound card (Dell won't sell a dual-proc workstation without an $80 soundcard upgrade... weird). Dell did let me downgrade the video card annd monitor... Price: $3878.00. Unlike Compaq, I could buy the Dell workstation with Linux (supported) instead of NT and needing to swap OSes.
Next I went to Big Blue. They push Linux, they should sell me good Linux workstations. When I bought my last round of Penguin Computing machines (to run OpenBSD and Linux) I looked at IBM first...
IBM's only dual processor workstation, the IBM Intellistation M Pro 6850 Tower. With a second 2.0 GHz Xeon processor, $5218.
Real computers cost money. Flaky machines that hardware lock from time to time do not. You can't compaq the Apple workstations to the bottom-barrel systems.
In fact, at $1300 for the lowend iMac (700 MHz G4), admittedly with a silly flatscreen for this project, or $2300 for the midrange (933MHz) G4, Apple hits some good price points for this.
Look, the new G4s (in the 933MHz and 1GHz-dual models) are sporting a 2MB L3 cache! That's damned impressive. A 2MB L3 cache should make cache misses SO infrequent that the slower memory bus speed is irrelevant.
Look, if you need lots of power, you used to need to stop millions. You're not going to cut corners on your machines. You're looking at $3500 for an Intel dual-Xeon based solution or $3000 for the dual-G4 based Apple solution. Sure you get an unneeded Superdrive, but who cares? When the project is over, I bet you everyone in the lab is happy to take one of the Superdrives home...
Geeze people, get a grip.
Apple's G4 workstations are not the same quality as the computer you have in your room in your parent's house. These are real machines with:
Gigabit Ethernet (very significant for a cluster, and unlike the PC's 32-bit, 33 MHz bus, real machines like the Apple, Compaq, or Dell workstations have 64-bit OR 66 MHz (sometimes both) PCI busses so you can actually USE the Gigabit Ethernet.
The Apple's L3 Cache has 2MB DDR SDRAM at up to 500MHz, this is much faster than the 266MHZ DDR in PCs and comparable to the PC800 RDRAM in the Dell/IBM workstations. Sure the System RAM is slower, but a 2MB L3 cache makes this less relevant.
The Superdrive, Firewire, and Video cards are all unnessary here, but they are actually really nice features if these machines will be reassigned as desktop machines when the project is over. You could buy new PowerMacs with the G5s ship within 6 months and reassign these as desktop machines. The real workstations are the same. You $45000 cluster of crap machines won't take you very far. They are trash when replaced, and if the machine hasn't been QC'd? Well, time to explain that your project needs to start over.
Come on people... Quake != scientific computing