Last login: Thu Apr 6 19:51:14 on ttyp1 Welcome to the Infamous P.M.A.C The-Infamous-P-M-A-C:~ sapnak$ vi comment i
I come at this story from a different angle. I'm a tech who's starting to be infatuated with drawing.
It works like this: I spend 90% of my time at work sitting in front of a PC (a Mac, but that distinction is mighty blurred these days..). I troubleshoot IT problems and design software. Historicaly, my free time at home was spent doing thing like playing games and watching movies. It's all virtual, abstract, and intangable.
Last year, I was in laid up for a bit and found myself with some time and crayons on my hands -- and I realized that I have no drawing skills. So I took a semester long "drawing for n00bs" class at a local school. I'm almost done with it, and it's really changed me.
1) It's a great fun to be able to get down and dirty with real materials. charcoal, pencils, ink, etc.
2) Even n00bs can make pretty things with a little help
3) I started to notice how much shitty computer-made art there is on the web (for values of art == design).
Related to the article directly, there's something in this debate that reminds me of the assembler vs. compiler arguments in tech circles. Is it better if you know what's going on and how to do it yourself? Is there value in doing it the hard way?
Yeah... But he was specifically talking about IP (As opposed to TCP/Arpanet or whatever). The earliest IEN I can find a softcopy of (111, from 1979) refences IP as 32bits (and at "version 4").
The social aspects of computing can be just as interesting as the actual technology. We have the tale here of a smart guy who got a project dropped on him to do some in-house work. His work (almost directly, and at the expense of litigation) evolved into Cisco's IOS.
The latter half of the article is even less about tech details than the first half, recounting his (mis?)adventures at Sun.
As a side note, either I'm missing something or he's being misquoted. IP has always been 32bit addressed, right? I'm assuming it's 3mbit ethernet that was 16bit?
> Um, no, they can't. IT'S GPL. Or am I missing something? Unless I've been misled for the last 8 years, GPL products cannot die, period. At worst, they fork (with the lead devs gone, which is of course bad) but AFAIK, this DOES NOT, and CAN NOT, mean the end of MySQL.
One interesting wrinkle in this is that you cannot force a vendor to disclose GPL'd code that they own the complete copyright to, that is:
1) small company develops openDB under GPL 2) all contributions from outside incorporated into openDB assign the (c) to small company (I assume mysql does this, as they offer a non-open v. already?) 3) bigCorp buys small company.
At this point, you cannot force bigCorp to release anything, even old versions of the GPL'd code. Old copies of the software floating around can probably be redistributed (though the FSF's contention that the GPL is a license--not a contract--implies that it can be unilaterally revoked by bigCorp AFAICT).
The key here is 2) (all (c) being assigned to smallcorp). If you are the copyright holder, essentially you can do anything you want, including relicensing all future versions under whatever license you want.
IANAL, but I'm married to one who is publishing a jumbo article on GPL enforcement....but I could be misunderstanding the issues here so let me know.
"For one thing, it insists that software patents should either be made freely usable by everyone, or else not obtained at all. Whether you argue that this is a desirable sentiment or not, the bottom line is that this directive is beyond Stallman's legitimate power to make. The draft tries to decree a similar prohibition against DRM, which again, is beyond its power and will be found unenforcable."
It's enforcable (IMO -- IANAL) in that it doesn't prohibit you from doing either activity. What it *does* prohibit you from being able to use GPLv3'd software if you do the things they don't want you to do.
Note, I'm not taking a stance on whether or not this is a desirable position..
The GPL is (very clearly this iteration) a license, and the only stick that the GPL has is that all the rights it grants you to use/modify software go away if you do not follow its license proscriptions. Once breached, you can be sued for copyright infringement if you do not comply.
I predict that we will see a massive upswing in the amount of hacking (== hacking, as in "hacking the Xbox") OS X to run on commodity hardware. Not only will there be an order of magnitude more people with x86-based install disks, but a general buzz around the product -- look! it works!
If anyone can find the rating of any of the dual-core Yonah notebooks, we can probably make a WAG. The PowerBook's MacBook has a 60WH battery and a 1.83GHz processor.
I've seen 3.5Hours for the heavier and high-end configured Acer 8200 ("6 cell battery" / 2.0GHz).
You know, there's nothing that I can see to prevent you from starting a project to create stable_binary_interface.o which provides a series of hooks that can be pulled by your very own stable binary kernel modules.
This sounds like a troll, but it's a nice thing about the kernel.
Of course getting it into the kernel mainline would be hard, but you could at least distribute the souce to your layer. As long as you stick to the public interfaces to the kernel you might not even be pilloried.
> But it seems to me that anything that helps Linux get more and better drivers is at least worth considering
The basic premise is that keeping drivers "in the tree" is the best guarantee for having more and better drivers. More, because drivers get pulled along with the tree instead of dying when companies go bust or do not support a given platform; and better because at least a sizable portion of the major kernel hackers are tired of dealing with random bugs caused by code they can't troubleshoot.
The other reason cited for not publishing a stated binary interface is dragging around layers of compatability goop. If your driver is in-tree, we'll fix it for you instead of writing and debugging bridges.
I understand that it's an optimization issue -- you are currently free to load binary modules into your kernel all day long. But this slope is slippery.
I have had non-good luck with binary drivers (NForce & friends), some kernel developers seem to agree, YMMV.
somehow the jagged edges of the PCB seem to deter swallowing.
I am curious to know a few more specs about the machine (RAM, ROM, CPU etc), though. I applaud the minimalist design of the website, but it ends up being a little information-sparse.
Slashdot Mirror
More like 13$/GB. HTH! HAND!
http://www.provantage.com/intel-ssdsa2sh064g101~7ITE90J5.htm
X25E SLC 64GB 2.5INCH SATA SSD $827
And Provantage is rarely a price-leader.
Last login: Thu Apr 6 19:51:14 on ttyp1
Welcome to the Infamous P.M.A.C
The-Infamous-P-M-A-C:~ sapnak$ vi comment
i
I come at this story from a different angle. I'm a tech who's starting to
be infatuated with drawing.
It works like this: I spend 90% of my time at work sitting in front of a PC
(a Mac, but that distinction is mighty blurred these days..). I troubleshoot
IT problems and design software. Historicaly, my free time at home was spent
doing thing like playing games and watching movies. It's all virtual,
abstract, and intangable.
Last year, I was in laid up for a bit and found myself with some time and
crayons on my hands -- and I realized that I have no drawing skills. So I
took a semester long "drawing for n00bs" class at a local school. I'm almost
done with it, and it's really changed me.
1) It's a great fun to be able to get down and dirty with real materials.
charcoal, pencils, ink, etc.
2) Even n00bs can make pretty things with a little help
3) I started to notice how much shitty computer-made art there is on the
web (for values of art == design).
Related to the article directly, there's something in this debate that reminds
me of the assembler vs. compiler arguments in tech circles. Is it better
if you know what's going on and how to do it yourself? Is there value in
doing it the hard way?
Ah, when the net was wild and wooley.
Thanks for the additional info -- I was pretty sure that I was missing something major here.
Yeah... But he was specifically talking about IP (As opposed to TCP/Arpanet or whatever). The earliest IEN I can find a softcopy of (111, from 1979) refences IP as 32bits (and at "version 4").
Maybe the vampires got it?
Invent and code in PDP11 *optimizing* assembler? 6 months seems like a prtty short time to me.
The social aspects of computing can be just as interesting as the actual technology. We have the tale here of a smart guy who got a project dropped on him to do some in-house work. His work (almost directly, and at the expense of litigation) evolved into Cisco's IOS.
The latter half of the article is even less about tech details than the first half, recounting his (mis?)adventures at Sun.
As a side note, either I'm missing something or he's being misquoted. IP has always been 32bit addressed, right? I'm assuming it's 3mbit ethernet that was 16bit?
Oh, I like it too.. I just wish my boss could pronounce is consistantly:
Joolala? Joomler? Jomla? ARGH!
Which would fit perfectly in this story.
A minor problem is blown out of all proprortion, and it's the end of open source on OSX-x86?
me. too.
absolutely.
where can I sign up?
It's not even that he is offensive--just so stupid it hurts.
> Um, no, they can't. IT'S GPL. Or am I missing something? Unless I've been misled for the last 8 years, GPL products cannot die, period. At worst, they fork (with the lead devs gone, which is of course bad) but AFAIK, this DOES NOT, and CAN NOT, mean the end of MySQL.
..but I could be misunderstanding the issues here so let me know.
One interesting wrinkle in this is that you cannot force a vendor to disclose GPL'd code that they own the complete copyright to, that is:
1) small company develops openDB under GPL
2) all contributions from outside incorporated into openDB assign the (c) to small company (I assume mysql does this, as they offer a non-open v. already?)
3) bigCorp buys small company.
At this point, you cannot force bigCorp to release anything, even old versions of the GPL'd code. Old copies of the software floating around can probably be redistributed (though the FSF's contention that the GPL is a license--not a contract--implies that it can be unilaterally revoked by bigCorp AFAICT).
The key here is 2) (all (c) being assigned to smallcorp). If you are the copyright holder, essentially you can do anything you want, including relicensing all future versions under whatever license you want.
IANAL, but I'm married to one who is publishing a jumbo article on GPL enforcement..
Well.. how about all that jucy on-chip cache?
This is very old news. Various sources and die photos have showed this for more than a year... ...and no one cares.
The die space reclaimed was somewhat significant, and the software emulation is faster than the hardware emulation.
"For one thing, it insists that software patents should either be made freely usable by everyone, or else not obtained at all. Whether you argue that this is a desirable sentiment or not, the bottom line is that this directive is beyond Stallman's legitimate power to make. The draft tries to decree a similar prohibition against DRM, which again, is beyond its power and will be found unenforcable."
It's enforcable (IMO -- IANAL) in that it doesn't prohibit you from doing either activity. What it *does* prohibit you from being able to use GPLv3'd software if you do the things they don't want you to do.
Note, I'm not taking a stance on whether or not this is a desirable position..
The GPL is (very clearly this iteration) a license, and the only stick that the GPL has is that all the rights it grants you to use/modify software go away if you do not follow its license proscriptions. Once breached, you can be sued for copyright infringement if you do not comply.
Oh! I see! Just like you're free to incorporate GPL'd software into your code, sell it, and not release the modifications to the community!
Be careful which laws you whack -- they might actually be useful for something.
Huh?
From the above review:
"Battery life wasn't mind-blowing, but the 3:47 (hrs:min) score on our MobileMark 2005 tests was respectable."
This is about where I expect the MacBook to fall.
I predict that we will see a massive upswing in the amount of hacking (== hacking, as in "hacking the Xbox") OS X to run on commodity hardware. Not only will there be an order of magnitude more people with x86-based install disks, but a general buzz around the product -- look! it works!
From your pocket, of course!
If anyone can find the rating of any of the dual-core Yonah notebooks, we can probably make a WAG. The PowerBook's MacBook has a 60WH battery and a 1.83GHz processor.
I've seen 3.5Hours for the heavier and high-end configured Acer 8200 ("6 cell battery" / 2.0GHz).
My WAG: 4hours.
I think a good comparison with the high end model can be made with the 8200:
s p
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1907155,00.a
2GHZ, 2GB ram, 120GB HDD, x1600M 256M, 15.4", GigE, etc. $2499
Apple:
1.83GHz, 2GB ram, 120GB HDD, x1600 256M, 15.4", GigE, etc.
$2899
The acer has a faster CPU and has a better camera
The apple is about a pound lighter, remote control, and some good apps.
There's got to be at least *some* early adopter penalty here.. the OMG OMG OMG gotta get it thing going on.
I im guessing the premium (for the OS, nice design, and and a more-than-decent set of apps) in the long run will be closer to $350.
You know, there's nothing that I can see to prevent you from starting a project to create stable_binary_interface.o which provides a series of hooks that can be pulled by your very own stable binary kernel modules.
This sounds like a troll, but it's a nice thing about the kernel.
Of course getting it into the kernel mainline would be hard, but you could at least distribute the souce to your layer. As long as you stick to the public interfaces to the kernel you might not even be pilloried.
> But it seems to me that anything that helps Linux get more and better drivers is at least worth considering
The basic premise is that keeping drivers "in the tree" is the best guarantee for having more and better drivers. More, because drivers get pulled along with the tree instead of dying when companies go bust or do not support a given platform; and better because at least a sizable portion of the major kernel hackers are tired of dealing with random bugs caused by code they can't troubleshoot.
The other reason cited for not publishing a stated binary interface is dragging around layers of compatability goop. If your driver is in-tree, we'll fix it for you instead of writing and debugging bridges.
I understand that it's an optimization issue -- you are currently free to load binary modules into your kernel all day long. But this slope is slippery.
I have had non-good luck with binary drivers (NForce & friends), some kernel developers seem to agree, YMMV.
somehow the jagged edges of the PCB seem to deter swallowing.
I am curious to know a few more specs about the machine (RAM, ROM, CPU etc), though. I applaud the minimalist design of the website, but it ends up being a little information-sparse.
What are the biggest areas you see these problems?