I interviewed at Green Hills a while back, and was told that there was no security clearance required to work on their software.
You obviously weren't interviewing to be on the RTOS group.
Besides, an EAL6+ indicates that security through security is not necessary. To be EAL6+, it is generally indicated that the product must not be breakable even by those who designed it.
The Greenhills operating system has never been exposed to a large group of people who are willing to spend a lot of time penetrating it.
Like the NSA spending months cracking it for its EAL certification? No, nothing like that.
I'm sure the internet backbone routers running Integrity see very few users as well. This is not a new operating system- this system is older (in legacy) than linux.
This is not an OS like Windows or Linux- it is the sort of thing that is designed for missiles and satellites. Windows, Linux, Mac OS X- the security issues with them are close enough in the NSA's eyes that the military is required to keep them under armed guard when used in sensitive roles. The technology used in this operating system is both far beyond and irrelevant to the areas you'd use linux, mac, and windows for. This isn't multi-user, it's not a server, it's not desktop oriented. There's a very good reason you can't just buy a copy of this-- if you had a copy or the source code, you probably wouldn't know what to do with it.
Now, let's just benchmark this against Ubuntu 9.04 and Haiku OS- then we'll really know which direction this is taking.
It's really funny how they're complaining about how the alpha release is about the same speed as vista. Do you remember what the Vista alpha/betas were like?--
This release is for getting feedback on new features and giving developers a chance to start working with the new API's, specifically some of the "dock" and device related ones that will need work before the release. It has not been performance optimized yet!
I know that in opensource development, one of the beta versions is simply tagged the release, in that it's loosely bug tested, called an RC, then eventually called a Release- but in the grown-up software world, quite a bit of performance enhancement and optimizations go into the last legs of development.
This has not occurred yet. You do not have a released version.
But then Windows is the epitome of polish now isn't it? And those driver vendors have no blame now do they?
Oh, ha-ha! Yes! Very funny. Windows is awful and all that. But here we've got Windows Media Foundation in place of pulse audio- which is working fine- a wireless/networking system that has no major complaints, a compositing layer that works with all graphics cards of the DirectX 9 variety, proper handling of card reader devices, and what's more- compatibility with all the major F/OSS included in Ubuntu, from OpenOffice to Pidgin.
So it's not really funny, is it? It's just sad. Most issues with Windows come up when abusive third party software or drivers are applied. With the linux system, I can find issues with just what comes on the Canonical-supported LiveCD! Wow!
So, if one has a clean copy of Windows and enough self control not to download every single application that is advertised to them in a banner ad, they might find a far more put together and professional system than this, Ubuntu, which is supposed to topple the Microsoft empire.
I can see why Apple is making more progress in that.
An icon appears in the corner of the screen informing me that there are proprietary drivers available. I need these drivers to get the full functionality of my graphics card, otherwise I have no 3d graphics, thus no compositing.
At what point does it tell me that my compositing performance will be retarded when using Nvidia drivers? Aren't these graphics cards common enough? I found my compositing performance to be better in opensolaris with the same system.
The point is this is not my responsibility as an end user-- it's functioning but the performance is poor and overall lacks polish. When things only work 80% of the way, my response is not to write a bug but to feel like I am using a low quality system.
For those of you who might be involved in the open source community pushing products like this out with "RELEASE" written on them, you deserve all the venom that comes your way. In the real software world, these sorts of problems garner complaints or "feedback", the correct response is not to be defensive, but to apologize for your oversight and give us a timeline for when it will be working.
Now when can I expect a working PulseAudio and decent compositing?......or are we not competing in the same league as Windows and Mac here? I thought Ubuntu wanted to be the big #3.
Well if it wouldn't bother you terribly. It's called "community". Now nobody expects patches from non-coders but I've submitted bugreports (now that is a "bugreport" not an expletive or insult ridden "flame". There is a difference.) to various projects and actually seen fixes not so long after.
You can do the same thing with Windows. The difference is that it started out in a more working state. The system was productive when I got it, whereas most issues were with third party applications or drivers. In the case of ubuntu, they are central to the basic desktop.
Bottom line: What have you done to help to get the features work properly?
So I have to take an active role in finishing the operating system I am supposed to be productive on? This product is clearly not yet ready for end-users.
Are you seriously blaming my hardware for problems with Ubuntu? Like Ubuntu is perfect, but my standard desktop hardware is just flawed? Boy I'd love to hear that from Canonical.
They were integrated card readers in an HP Desktop, for one. Windows didn't seem to have any issues understanding it. Furthermore, I'm comparing the ubuntu compositor performance on my GeForce 6200 LE to how it ran in Vista and Mac OS X. I mean, if it runs better in Vista, what is their excuse?
Google must have gotten role confusion when Microsoft took on the open standards approach. They were so ready to be in conflict with Microsoft that they defied their own policies in order to produce a conflict of interests. What's the point of accepting an open standard when you're turning it into an incompatible closed standard? Would they rather everyone accepted GoogleID or are they going one further? If they're going to be so proprietary, why not trash the entire standard and just start from the ground up? Why go half-douche when they can go full-douche?
Well, since it's Google I'm sure everyone (see: slashdot) will rationalize how this is somehow "right for the web". Somehow, embracing an open standard by closing it off will be twisted to sound like a good thing. I think it's time for Slashdot readers to start gauging their own hypocrisy and thinking about this objectively. Admit it, people-- Microsoft is the good guy in this one. Take off your tin foil hats for just one second and see the light.
Is that's what's being packaged with the Dell Mini? I saw one with XP in a computer store on a college campus and I literally said "what" when I saw it.
I am not sure if something FLP based is what's being used for their special "netbook" version of XP. I would imagine it's pretty similar, though. FLP is very architecturally similar to WEPOS - Windows Embedded for Point of Sale systems. In fact, it shares a Service Pack 3 with WEPOS. You've probably seen it running on high end cash registers. It's essentially a Thin Client system that's designed to get a minimal but secure OS running on lower end hardware- where one might use Windows 2000 or 98, you use something XP based instead to get extra security and modern wifi support.
The other benefit is that it has a very IT-oriented installer that allows you to deselect anything, even Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer-- it can be from 530 mb to ~1100 mb. However, DO NOT deselect IE unless you are experienced with software deployment and DO NOT deselect Windows Media Player or else you won't have Direct X! The installation system is actually a Windows PE-based XP installer that uses Windows Image files. Pretty neat, huh?
The hardware requirements of regular XP are about RAM: 128(256)mb and CPU: 500(700)mhz I believe-- in FLP it's RAM: 64(96)mb and CPU:200(350)mhz.
The one caveat listed is that it's supposedly not fully compatible with XP software and drivers. I haven't found anything like that yet, though. Seriously- I've got a full blown desktop PC running on it that was able to run Half Life 2 and Prey, etc. as well as all your standard Windows software. It does not have mspaint, though you can copy it from XP.. nor does it have a joystick panel, same story. Third party apps and drivers will recognize it at XP SP2 (or 3 if updated) but Microsoft stuff will know it's not XP. Plan accordingly! Also, you won't have MS Outlook, but if you need a nice substitute, I recommend the Windows Live Mail client, which is basically outlook+ with automatic Live and Gmail handling integrated.
If you're looking for linux recommendations, I can't recommend Mandriva 2009 enough for this purpose. With their experience with the Classmate PC, Mandriva went ahead and integrated all their smooth netbook features into their OS. Mandriva 2009 in particular now provides an available default LXDE desktop, which is far lighter than KDE or Gnome and less spartan than XFCE. In addition, any configuration settings dialogs deficient in LXDE can be made up with the Mandriva Control Center.
On that same note, you might consider gOS 3, which will provide a lovely and lightweight interface on top of Ubuntu but customized directly for the needs of a netbook. It's a very realistic distribution, with ample codecs, default Wine, and a nice implmentation of Mozilla Prism for running web apps as desktop apps. (not that that makes any sense)
Now, if you're looking for a Windows system, there's always Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PC's, a smooth and lightweight XP installatiion weighing in at under a gig default and using the XP embedded kernel. You can find that lyin' around somewhere on the web if you look hard enough- though you can't buy it. Oh yes, and it's full XP with no activation subsystem.;)
He's the CEO of a company with a somewhat untried venture trying to influence migration during an economic crisis! These people depend on investors not to jump off the train.
I believe an economic crisis will cause much more conservatism in the way companies run their IT. That may mean more sticking to Solaris or AIX for their servers and Microsoft Windows for their workstations, probably just not upgrading. Chances are they will cost cut by getting rid of jobs and not licensing NEW products instead of migrating their systems to a brand new platform. I would argue that a rise in fiscal conservatism (not the Bush kind) would be a boon to those outside of the OSS market who are not dependent on angel investor capital to make major innovations.
Open source is a product of a very experimental market that's just rolling with impossible amounts of investor capital, granting companies the kind of time to fiddle with it. As far as I know, most open source ventures and start ups are in the market of getting bought up by an actually profitable company like Google or IBM or Sun- and if they're conservative and the investors are strapped, then I would say there will be less innovation in enterprise class OSS and more in hobbyist OSS (eg gentoo).
Alternatively, with a lot of people out of work, there may be a surge in productivity in the more gooey and fun products like Ubuntu and compiz and Haiku with so many people bored and out of work. We shall see what happens with that in the future- that is, when the credit crunch finally comes for our jobs.
The whole idea is just silly. Everyone knows the only way you can save your island from the spiteful anger of the sky gods is through fasting and prayer.
The biggest fear for artists is their work getting quietly used without their consent. They're the only ones who are there to notice or stand up for it, as well. The open source movement is established enough that there's some level of protection and attribution. In art, everyone depends on people knowing that this work IS yours, belongs to you, and must purchase the license from you directly. Simply making art is not as profitable as writing code- if an open source model were applied to art, a field where anonymity would starve you, I doubt anyone would make any money outside of major firms.
Maybe if you're trying to get a job for a design firm or are currently a student it wouldn't be a bad idea, but art is creative expression, not engineering application. The open source argument doesn't even apply. I think art programs like GIMP or Inkscape are good to be free, but art itself doens't have a working free model.
Actually, I think a fair number of us run 64-bit Intel Linux, which makes Flash a bit more of a hassle, less stable, and slower. And only practical for non-geeks because of quite a lot of work done by things like nspluginwrapper -- something which would be completely unnecessary if Adobe would release their source, or at least a 64-bit player.
There's more hassles than flash when it comes to 64-bit linux. Actually, 64-bit is even a hassle in Windows. I think only Apple handled the 64 bit jump semi-elegantly, the rest are victims of backwards compatibility Hell... by which I mean having backwards compatibility libraries encourages laziness in binary package maintainers and supporters.
If Linux is 1% market share, I'd imagine 64-bit linux can't be more than about 5-10% of that. Perhaps the one or two developers adobe has working on linux ports just don't want to be bothered with it. Linux is a terrible platform for binary distribution anyway because nothing is compatible with anything distribution to distribution, so they deserve every ounce of trouble they encounter.
If you want a flash-like solution that has a supported open source implementation, try silverlight.:)
I don't know what kind of person would use this distribution, but I would not want to sit next to them on a cross country bus trip.
I read somewhere that they even removed GLX- which basically represents linux's only sane graphical development. That is just sad.
Don't get me wrong- I love opensource technologies, but let's face it... part of what makes linux awesome is the fact that it's generally supported by some important commercial things like adobe flash and nvidia (for its drivers) and such- and how about mplayer? I am more in the "screw licenses" boat than the "boycott anything without gnu written on it" raft.
For some people, programming is picked up like a passion- for others, it is not. Don't get yourself to thinking that someone is somehow invalid or stupid if they want to live their life as say a business or english major. These are people who have just as much place in the world- do not let an engineering superiority complex tarnish your son's teen years. Not every boy needs to be doomed to the family coal mine.
I personally am an example of someone whose father, older siblings, etc. are all programmers and much of my family is somehow related to IT- but I'm interested in sociology. What this has done for me is given me a very in depth understanding of technology, but a much stronger understanding of the people who use it and why they use it. Is this really invalid? Maybe your son can take advantage of his experience with a father whose so technology-oriented and apply it in his life elsewhere?
If it's a question merely of which technology your child needs to learn, that's different. You're not going to like this- but I'd recommend starting him off in the well documented and supported world of Apple Cocoa or Microsoft.NET, where a little bit of code can become brilliantly powerful in good time. The unix world of development is much more discrete, so it's best to learn on a more contained environment before diving in- however, that doesn't necessarily discount Java or C#/Mono in linux as good starter languages. I am just not familiar.
So, whether or not Microsoft was small before it was big, it went on to become the vanguard of what personal computing would be. So, in essence, it wasn't what PS/2 started so much as what Microsoft and Intel finished.
Furthermore, the idea that Microsoft was once a unix vendor does not detract from the idea that they were proponents of the PC nor that they were aiming for a regular joe market- Xenix was indeed the first "easy" unix. Since their ventures were always aimed at dirt-cheap x86 hardware, and their prices remained accessible, I'd say my point stands.
Linux is derived from Minix not BSD. DOS hackers my a$$. Get your facts straight.
What does Minix have to do with modern linux? Just because Linux started with Linus Torvalds flaming Tannenbaum on usenet doesn't mean that modern Linux is a minix-derivative (but old linux is). Minix was an educational operating system and never meant to be used on production machines in the manner that Linux or BSD (the only other notable free unix) are. My point on BSD was simply that it was the *other* free 386 unix. Minix is for teaching people to write things like Linux- (And it did!) Only recently has Tannenbaum decided that Minix 3 would be end-user capable.
As Linux came about in the late 90's (it hardly existed before that)- I'd say the majority of their development talent probably came from the massive wave of existing DOS and Windows developers. It's a challenge finding linux users who did not at some point use a Microsoft system before using Linux- most linux users are Microsoft runoff. However, I am sure that these people exist- I've met at least one.
WTF does that suppose to mean? Microsoft was ONE of the many vendors who wrote OS for IBM's toy.
Believe it or not, Microsoft went on to be such a notable operating system vendor that Windows almost became synonymous with personal computing in the eyes of most of the world. Perhaps you have heard of them.
The FSF didn't accomplish anything noteworthy without Linus' blind and aggressive campaign to write a great kernel for some strange reason.
Hmmm
Let's admit the dirty, little secret.
The FSF didn't accomplish anything noteworthy even with Linus' blind and aggressive campaign until the major competitors of Microsoft decided that dumping money and people into "free software" projects that competed with Microsoft was a good way to get revenge on Bill Gates for killing their old "centralized server computing equals high profits" model. Really. Name a project that made it big (say, 2% of the market) without back channel funding from IBM or SUN or Oracle.
AHHH!! OH NO!! CLOSE PANDORA'S BOX.
Let them believe that...
firefox was created by "the community" GCC is not maintained by Redhat...
Slashdot Mirror
I interviewed at Green Hills a while back, and was told that there was no security clearance required to work on their software.
You obviously weren't interviewing to be on the RTOS group.
Besides, an EAL6+ indicates that security through security is not necessary. To be EAL6+, it is generally indicated that the product must not be breakable even by those who designed it.
The Greenhills operating system has never been exposed to a large group of people who are willing to spend a lot of time penetrating it.
Like the NSA spending months cracking it for its EAL certification? No, nothing like that.
I'm sure the internet backbone routers running Integrity see very few users as well. This is not a new operating system- this system is older (in legacy) than linux.
This is not an OS like Windows or Linux- it is the sort of thing that is designed for missiles and satellites. Windows, Linux, Mac OS X- the security issues with them are close enough in the NSA's eyes that the military is required to keep them under armed guard when used in sensitive roles. The technology used in this operating system is both far beyond and irrelevant to the areas you'd use linux, mac, and windows for. This isn't multi-user, it's not a server, it's not desktop oriented. There's a very good reason you can't just buy a copy of this-- if you had a copy or the source code, you probably wouldn't know what to do with it.
Now, let's just benchmark this against Ubuntu 9.04 and Haiku OS- then we'll really know which direction this is taking.
It's really funny how they're complaining about how the alpha release is about the same speed as vista. Do you remember what the Vista alpha/betas were like?--
This release is for getting feedback on new features and giving developers a chance to start working with the new API's, specifically some of the "dock" and device related ones that will need work before the release. It has not been performance optimized yet!
I know that in opensource development, one of the beta versions is simply tagged the release, in that it's loosely bug tested, called an RC, then eventually called a Release- but in the grown-up software world, quite a bit of performance enhancement and optimizations go into the last legs of development.
This has not occurred yet. You do not have a released version.
Wait, Obama's campaign did use linux. Guess they should've used Solaris, then.
But then Windows is the epitome of polish now isn't it? And those driver vendors have no blame now do they?
Oh, ha-ha! Yes! Very funny. Windows is awful and all that. But here we've got Windows Media Foundation in place of pulse audio- which is working fine- a wireless/networking system that has no major complaints, a compositing layer that works with all graphics cards of the DirectX 9 variety, proper handling of card reader devices, and what's more- compatibility with all the major F/OSS included in Ubuntu, from OpenOffice to Pidgin.
So it's not really funny, is it? It's just sad. Most issues with Windows come up when abusive third party software or drivers are applied. With the linux system, I can find issues with just what comes on the Canonical-supported LiveCD! Wow!
So, if one has a clean copy of Windows and enough self control not to download every single application that is advertised to them in a banner ad, they might find a far more put together and professional system than this, Ubuntu, which is supposed to topple the Microsoft empire.
I can see why Apple is making more progress in that.
An icon appears in the corner of the screen informing me that there are proprietary drivers available. I need these drivers to get the full functionality of my graphics card, otherwise I have no 3d graphics, thus no compositing.
At what point does it tell me that my compositing performance will be retarded when using Nvidia drivers? Aren't these graphics cards common enough? I found my compositing performance to be better in opensolaris with the same system.
The point is this is not my responsibility as an end user-- it's functioning but the performance is poor and overall lacks polish. When things only work 80% of the way, my response is not to write a bug but to feel like I am using a low quality system.
For those of you who might be involved in the open source community pushing products like this out with "RELEASE" written on them, you deserve all the venom that comes your way. In the real software world, these sorts of problems garner complaints or "feedback", the correct response is not to be defensive, but to apologize for your oversight and give us a timeline for when it will be working.
Now when can I expect a working PulseAudio and decent compositing?... ...or are we not competing in the same league as Windows and Mac here? I thought Ubuntu wanted to be the big #3.
Well if it wouldn't bother you terribly. It's called "community". Now nobody expects patches from non-coders but I've submitted bugreports (now that is a "bugreport" not an expletive or insult ridden "flame". There is a difference.) to various projects and actually seen fixes not so long after.
You can do the same thing with Windows. The difference is that it started out in a more working state. The system was productive when I got it, whereas most issues were with third party applications or drivers. In the case of ubuntu, they are central to the basic desktop.
Bottom line: What have you done to help to get the features work properly?
So I have to take an active role in finishing the operating system I am supposed to be productive on? This product is clearly not yet ready for end-users.
Are you seriously blaming my hardware for problems with Ubuntu? Like Ubuntu is perfect, but my standard desktop hardware is just flawed? Boy I'd love to hear that from Canonical.
They were integrated card readers in an HP Desktop, for one. Windows didn't seem to have any issues understanding it. Furthermore, I'm comparing the ubuntu compositor performance on my GeForce 6200 LE to how it ran in Vista and Mac OS X. I mean, if it runs better in Vista, what is their excuse?
Are the timidity packages still broken in amd64?
How about Wine?
Will my cardreaders be detected as CD-ROMs and fail to mount because they're not ISO 9660 formatted?
Have they sorted out their issues with DAAP and iTunes 7 yet?
Does networkmanager still corrupt its own configuration files?
Is their compositing layer still ugly and shaky on middle-end modern hardware? ...if not, doesn't seem like News to me.
Bottom line: Are they still advertising features that don't really work properly?
Someone let me know when this platform grows up. I'll stick with Vista in the interim.
Google must have gotten role confusion when Microsoft took on the open standards approach. They were so ready to be in conflict with Microsoft that they defied their own policies in order to produce a conflict of interests. What's the point of accepting an open standard when you're turning it into an incompatible closed standard? Would they rather everyone accepted GoogleID or are they going one further? If they're going to be so proprietary, why not trash the entire standard and just start from the ground up? Why go half-douche when they can go full-douche?
Well, since it's Google I'm sure everyone (see: slashdot) will rationalize how this is somehow "right for the web". Somehow, embracing an open standard by closing it off will be twisted to sound like a good thing. I think it's time for Slashdot readers to start gauging their own hypocrisy and thinking about this objectively. Admit it, people-- Microsoft is the good guy in this one. Take off your tin foil hats for just one second and see the light.
Is that's what's being packaged with the Dell Mini? I saw one with XP in a computer store on a college campus and I literally said "what" when I saw it.
I am not sure if something FLP based is what's being used for their special "netbook" version of XP. I would imagine it's pretty similar, though. FLP is very architecturally similar to WEPOS - Windows Embedded for Point of Sale systems. In fact, it shares a Service Pack 3 with WEPOS. You've probably seen it running on high end cash registers. It's essentially a Thin Client system that's designed to get a minimal but secure OS running on lower end hardware- where one might use Windows 2000 or 98, you use something XP based instead to get extra security and modern wifi support.
The other benefit is that it has a very IT-oriented installer that allows you to deselect anything, even Windows Media Player and Internet Explorer-- it can be from 530 mb to ~1100 mb. However, DO NOT deselect IE unless you are experienced with software deployment and DO NOT deselect Windows Media Player or else you won't have Direct X! The installation system is actually a Windows PE-based XP installer that uses Windows Image files. Pretty neat, huh?
The hardware requirements of regular XP are about RAM: 128(256)mb and CPU: 500(700)mhz I believe-- in FLP it's RAM: 64(96)mb and CPU:200(350)mhz.
The one caveat listed is that it's supposedly not fully compatible with XP software and drivers. I haven't found anything like that yet, though. Seriously- I've got a full blown desktop PC running on it that was able to run Half Life 2 and Prey, etc. as well as all your standard Windows software. It does not have mspaint, though you can copy it from XP.. nor does it have a joystick panel, same story. Third party apps and drivers will recognize it at XP SP2 (or 3 if updated) but Microsoft stuff will know it's not XP. Plan accordingly! Also, you won't have MS Outlook, but if you need a nice substitute, I recommend the Windows Live Mail client, which is basically outlook+ with automatic Live and Gmail handling integrated.
Hope this clears some stuff up. :)
If you're looking for linux recommendations, I can't recommend Mandriva 2009 enough for this purpose. With their experience with the Classmate PC, Mandriva went ahead and integrated all their smooth netbook features into their OS. Mandriva 2009 in particular now provides an available default LXDE desktop, which is far lighter than KDE or Gnome and less spartan than XFCE. In addition, any configuration settings dialogs deficient in LXDE can be made up with the Mandriva Control Center.
On that same note, you might consider gOS 3, which will provide a lovely and lightweight interface on top of Ubuntu but customized directly for the needs of a netbook. It's a very realistic distribution, with ample codecs, default Wine, and a nice implmentation of Mozilla Prism for running web apps as desktop apps. (not that that makes any sense)
Now, if you're looking for a Windows system, there's always Windows Fundamentals for Legacy PC's, a smooth and lightweight XP installatiion weighing in at under a gig default and using the XP embedded kernel. You can find that lyin' around somewhere on the web if you look hard enough- though you can't buy it. Oh yes, and it's full XP with no activation subsystem. ;)
He's the CEO of a company with a somewhat untried venture trying to influence migration during an economic crisis! These people depend on investors not to jump off the train.
I believe an economic crisis will cause much more conservatism in the way companies run their IT. That may mean more sticking to Solaris or AIX for their servers and Microsoft Windows for their workstations, probably just not upgrading. Chances are they will cost cut by getting rid of jobs and not licensing NEW products instead of migrating their systems to a brand new platform. I would argue that a rise in fiscal conservatism (not the Bush kind) would be a boon to those outside of the OSS market who are not dependent on angel investor capital to make major innovations.
Open source is a product of a very experimental market that's just rolling with impossible amounts of investor capital, granting companies the kind of time to fiddle with it. As far as I know, most open source ventures and start ups are in the market of getting bought up by an actually profitable company like Google or IBM or Sun- and if they're conservative and the investors are strapped, then I would say there will be less innovation in enterprise class OSS and more in hobbyist OSS (eg gentoo).
Alternatively, with a lot of people out of work, there may be a surge in productivity in the more gooey and fun products like Ubuntu and compiz and Haiku with so many people bored and out of work. We shall see what happens with that in the future- that is, when the credit crunch finally comes for our jobs.
The whole idea is just silly. Everyone knows the only way you can save your island from the spiteful anger of the sky gods is through fasting and prayer.
The biggest fear for artists is their work getting quietly used without their consent. They're the only ones who are there to notice or stand up for it, as well. The open source movement is established enough that there's some level of protection and attribution. In art, everyone depends on people knowing that this work IS yours, belongs to you, and must purchase the license from you directly. Simply making art is not as profitable as writing code- if an open source model were applied to art, a field where anonymity would starve you, I doubt anyone would make any money outside of major firms.
Maybe if you're trying to get a job for a design firm or are currently a student it wouldn't be a bad idea, but art is creative expression, not engineering application. The open source argument doesn't even apply. I think art programs like GIMP or Inkscape are good to be free, but art itself doens't have a working free model.
Actually, I think a fair number of us run 64-bit Intel Linux, which makes Flash a bit more of a hassle, less stable, and slower. And only practical for non-geeks because of quite a lot of work done by things like nspluginwrapper -- something which would be completely unnecessary if Adobe would release their source, or at least a 64-bit player.
There's more hassles than flash when it comes to 64-bit linux. Actually, 64-bit is even a hassle in Windows. I think only Apple handled the 64 bit jump semi-elegantly, the rest are victims of backwards compatibility Hell... by which I mean having backwards compatibility libraries encourages laziness in binary package maintainers and supporters.
If Linux is 1% market share, I'd imagine 64-bit linux can't be more than about 5-10% of that. Perhaps the one or two developers adobe has working on linux ports just don't want to be bothered with it. Linux is a terrible platform for binary distribution anyway because nothing is compatible with anything distribution to distribution, so they deserve every ounce of trouble they encounter.
If you want a flash-like solution that has a supported open source implementation, try silverlight. :)
And no, "Linux" doesn't have support for YouTube. 32-bit Intel Linux does. Much smaller crowd.
Wait, what? 32-bit intel linux is small? So most people are running like powerpc or sparc linux or something?
If you're making a reference to the embedded market, I don't think it's applicable in this context.
Last I checked the desktop linux everyone refers to is 32 bit intel linux, the rest are "ports".
So linux is not free enough for you?
I don't know what kind of person would use this distribution, but I would not want to sit next to them on a cross country bus trip.
I read somewhere that they even removed GLX- which basically represents linux's only sane graphical development. That is just sad.
Don't get me wrong- I love opensource technologies, but let's face it... part of what makes linux awesome is the fact that it's generally supported by some important commercial things like adobe flash and nvidia (for its drivers) and such- and how about mplayer? I am more in the "screw licenses" boat than the "boycott anything without gnu written on it" raft.
For some people, programming is picked up like a passion- for others, it is not. Don't get yourself to thinking that someone is somehow invalid or stupid if they want to live their life as say a business or english major. These are people who have just as much place in the world- do not let an engineering superiority complex tarnish your son's teen years. Not every boy needs to be doomed to the family coal mine.
I personally am an example of someone whose father, older siblings, etc. are all programmers and much of my family is somehow related to IT- but I'm interested in sociology. What this has done for me is given me a very in depth understanding of technology, but a much stronger understanding of the people who use it and why they use it. Is this really invalid? Maybe your son can take advantage of his experience with a father whose so technology-oriented and apply it in his life elsewhere?
If it's a question merely of which technology your child needs to learn, that's different. You're not going to like this- but I'd recommend starting him off in the well documented and supported world of Apple Cocoa or Microsoft .NET, where a little bit of code can become brilliantly powerful in good time. The unix world of development is much more discrete, so it's best to learn on a more contained environment before diving in- however, that doesn't necessarily discount Java or C#/Mono in linux as good starter languages. I am just not familiar.
I wish I could high five you over the internet.
That's all very informative. However, it's all rather moot when you consider that Microsoft (and Intel) now maintain the PC specification:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/archive/pcguides.mspx
So, whether or not Microsoft was small before it was big, it went on to become the vanguard of what personal computing would be. So, in essence, it wasn't what PS/2 started so much as what Microsoft and Intel finished.
Furthermore, the idea that Microsoft was once a unix vendor does not detract from the idea that they were proponents of the PC nor that they were aiming for a regular joe market- Xenix was indeed the first "easy" unix. Since their ventures were always aimed at dirt-cheap x86 hardware, and their prices remained accessible, I'd say my point stands.
Linux is derived from Minix not BSD. DOS hackers my a$$. Get your facts straight.
What does Minix have to do with modern linux? Just because Linux started with Linus Torvalds flaming Tannenbaum on usenet doesn't mean that modern Linux is a minix-derivative (but old linux is). Minix was an educational operating system and never meant to be used on production machines in the manner that Linux or BSD (the only other notable free unix) are. My point on BSD was simply that it was the *other* free 386 unix. Minix is for teaching people to write things like Linux- (And it did!) Only recently has Tannenbaum decided that Minix 3 would be end-user capable.
As Linux came about in the late 90's (it hardly existed before that)- I'd say the majority of their development talent probably came from the massive wave of existing DOS and Windows developers. It's a challenge finding linux users who did not at some point use a Microsoft system before using Linux- most linux users are Microsoft runoff. However, I am sure that these people exist- I've met at least one.
WTF does that suppose to mean? Microsoft was ONE of the many vendors who wrote OS for IBM's toy.
Believe it or not, Microsoft went on to be such a notable operating system vendor that Windows almost became synonymous with personal computing in the eyes of most of the world. Perhaps you have heard of them.
I think we're talking about different things. You're talking about the Personal Computer and I am talking about the "PC".
The FSF didn't accomplish anything noteworthy without Linus' blind and aggressive campaign to write a great kernel for some strange reason.
Hmmm
Let's admit the dirty, little secret.
The FSF didn't accomplish anything noteworthy even with Linus' blind and aggressive campaign until the major competitors of Microsoft decided that dumping money and people into "free software" projects that competed with Microsoft was a good way to get revenge on Bill Gates for killing their old "centralized server computing equals high profits" model. Really. Name a project that made it big (say, 2% of the market) without back channel funding from IBM or SUN or Oracle.
AHHH!! OH NO!! CLOSE PANDORA'S BOX.
Let them believe that...
firefox was created by "the community"
GCC is not maintained by Redhat...
No, no no! It's "hackers"!