The spec shows that there is one object called OS name. Then some bytecode obtained by the microsoft compiler check this OS name object by its length, effectively meaning "it can't be any other OS so checking the number of letter is a rightfull way to determine which windows OS it is". btw, 27 letters is millenium iirc. Bytecodes produced by the Intel compiler arent tied to the OS and are less error prones because they respect the spec. So my first remark still hold, it is a microsoft tied (and tying) behavior, so expect windows to behave that way.
There is one nice Free Software alternative to Flash as a streaming video embedded applet, it's cortado.
The problem is that it lacks a little more work to be always stable and some more to get other codecs like speex incorporated. But the developper is gone and nothing has been developped since 2006. So it could be a nice project to pick up for someone with knowledge in Java, who want to do some usefull work for the Free Software users instead of only relying on Free alternative to the Flash player wich won't solve the main problem, the format. Right now, it's even worse, all linux distros rely on flash for their video solution, which is a pity.
Close to the point, with the way Java is designed, you don't have this kind security issue, since you cant embed the player and stream videos from another domain.
During the Cathedral building era, there were Cathedral builders who were heavily connected and shared openly their knowledge and there were some who kept them to themselves (mostly out of greed and power hunger). So you can use this metaphore for both proprietary and Free software.
As for the way to develop software, some free softwares are built in house with little connexions to the outside until it has reached some level of completion and some proprietary software are built with the same methods described as "bazaar" (for example, most game mods in the gaming communities).
It's all about the license and the rights you have or lose. The rest is mythos.
I find your statement as ridiculous and intolerant as the ones you describe. And you get from it the same "insightfull" moderation points they got in the previous news.
But if those same guys are Linux OSF zealots then beware if you're closely touching or perhaps violating the GPL or any other open source license they favor. Because then everything is different and you should be made to comply no matter what. Why don't we leave these things as they are as well and only start making noise when someone actually complaints about it for reasons other than "Whaaa, you violated...
I disagree with you there. ACPI is a very precise and sensitive issue. So the workding of the news is misleading and yes, no flamfest is needed, but clarification around this issue is important. If you have been through a few installations of linux on different laptops, you will know what I mean. Just do 3 install parties and you should begin to understand the problems in this area, and you should see that some laptops behave well and some behave strangely, you will start to be wary of certain brands and after a while and some documentation, you will learn that there is a spec, an intel compiler, a microsoft compiler, and that strangely the microsoft one is crappy to the point that some BIOSes are crappy because of it and not the other way around, and that some OSes have difficulties because of that situation. Here is some doc: http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Fix_Common_ACPI_Problems Here is some related info from a broken legal system that can't manage its misbehaving trusts anymore: http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03020.pdf
Even in terms of support to asus, it might be important. If this is just a temporary problem, then asus might come out as a reliable source of linux compatible laptops with working ACPI. Or not. Right now, there are more and more laptops working for linux out of the box and it's a no brainer to find one, but we have to stay alert so that the situation continues to improve.
I'm not sure you can redistribute it that easily. They had to go through an agreement for the previous release, iirc. Skype is a commercial product, with subscription based services, where drivers are proprietary but arent difficult to distribute, I mean, you're basically doing the vendor's job. So that could be the difference. In that area too, Mandriva is also trying to promote Free Software solutions, as it entered in partnership with a Free alternative to skype: openwengo. An european ISP has started to develop their IM - VOIP - VIDEO solution and it's Free Software. They shared a booth with Mandriva at the french Linux expo: http://openwengo.com/
Mandriva's business model is this: 3 situations, 3 editions
FREE as in FREEDOM: "Mandriva FREE" dvd. All rpm inside come from main and contrib repository which are fordidden to non free software. If a rpm in those is non free, it's a mistake.
free as in free beer: "Mandriva ONE", live-cd: you can test it all your heart content, then install it if you want. Proprietary drivers are in there, wifi, 3d, modems, to make easy installation for everyone.
Commercial edition as in value added: "Mandriva PowerPack", dvd This one has the same size than the Free Edition, the same proprietary stuff than the ONE, but also has more commercial programs added, like Cedega or Lindvd, and a bunch of others (skype?).
Not in the gmaing section. In the gaming section, the rules lately is "whatever sony do is evil; praises to microsoft for the xbox!" An attitude you can see along all medias, from comics to generalist news, including slashdot. Of course, it has nothing to see with the big pie that is halo marketing campaign. The problem is not that sony is or not doing wrong stuffs, the problem is that both are doing that kind of stuff, but both don't receive the same traitment.
You fundamentally misunderstand home. It's not a game it's an interface to social functions, games being one of them. So, some of those functions can be games, but the interface itself is not one. It can't be bought, it's included in the console, so it isnt even a stand alone product. The only one near it in your list is second life. Let's call them social interfaces.
To me, another plausible explanation is that in ep IV-VI the non military ships we see are pretty much like the falcon millenium, ships of smugglers living on the fringe of the empire. So yes, scavenged parts hacked together, and pretty battered stuff. But in Ep V, when they get to the mine, they're still off-track, so the ships around still look battered, but the design of the floating mine ships look a lot like the prequels stuff: Curvy Flash Gordon stuff.
On tne oppsite, in the prequels we get to see some pretty uptown part of the empire, corruscant, alderaan, naboo but when it goes "back" to tatooine, the ships in the race have pretty much this "hacked together by Mc Gyver" design again.
Because they arent false claims. It hadnt improved for years as it took years before someone took care of it and it took some more years ot have it become usable. I was a gnome 1.2 and 1.4 users, believe me, I'm not making this up nor am I taking any pleasure into it or reminding it. I still have stomach ache every time I open a picture in gimp. The worst about it was when one year after having definitively stopped to talk about it with some GNOME developper I know (and respect), because I was fed up to be given the same preformatted answers about how usability tests had been made, I saw in a forum a new user to gnome trying to warn a new developper about the exact same issues and he was given the same exact answers I had received. At the end of the discussion, the developper admitted he had in fact not checked what he was answering and I felt this was actually an improvment from what I had experienced!
And that's of course where you're missing the point. GNOME, XFCE and MacOSX attempt to be usable by default. They do this not by removing random features just to spite people, but by conducting usability studies to find out what actually works and doesn't work for people then doing the former by default and fixing the latter. And that's where you missed the point. KDE did exactly that by copying the windows default as its default. It is an envirronment which has seen many usability studies and it is working for the most people. Wether we like it or not, wether we think it is the best default or not.
Second, you may correct me on this, but I seem to recall the usabilty tests you're talking about were founded and conducted by sun for its desktop offering and were made with helpdesk and corporate users in mind. Not the front end home user. Now, I could save me the time to think and write about it and decide that there is only one sort of users, and that his habits and ways don't change according to the envirronment he is using his computer in. Unfortunatly, that is not true.
My point was not to attack the GNOME defaults and you seem to have oriented your answer in that direction, but that the default that were chosen are not the best in all situation, that it's not possible to find a perfect default no matter how many usability studies you make bacause there ar emany users with different mindset and many envirronment which add to the complexity of the situation, and that there is a point where providing a way to change those defaults is obligatory. (I can use the example of the YES NO CANCEL button for that).
So yes, the KDE control center is not a success because that is what made me chase around some options, but the fact that they can be changed is a success. In fact it can even be changed to the point that if you decide that GNOME's default is the best, you can do it, and if you decide that users must not be able to change them, you can do it too through kiosk which is the way to lock a corporate desktop if you need or feel to.
You see, what you don't get is that it's front end users who pass their time switching and tweaking their desktops, not power users. This simple fact that you elude this fact shows that either you are the one that shouldnt be making broad judgements about the usability of desktop environments for anyone other than himself, or that many we are not talking about the same front end users, which I think it's the case since you were always referring to the productivity you have with your desktop. I completly understand GNOME choices in a corporate envirronment from a helpdesk point of view. But I was talking from a user perspective, at home.
HGNOME can be greatly customized, it simply requires that one dig into configuration files that, in general, are not accessible from any graphical-based configuration window. And isn't -that- the true definition of "power-user"? No, when you inflict that to others while you could provide a simpler way (an interface) to do it, that is the definition of sadism. And when you base your decision on the love of simplicity, you add insult to injury.
What *would* be good is if both KDE and GNOME adopted "beginner/advanced" toggle buttons in their configuration dialogues. To a novice user, KDE has too many options, to a power user GNOME has too few. Exactly my opinion on this too. What KDE failed was to give revision and improvment to his KDE Control Center.
And distributions failed in that aspect too, because it is possible to tweak and improve every aspect of KDE. (It would even possible to have KDE look and feel like GNOME and prevent to have it further tweaked through kiosk, if one would want to do that.) My personnal aspect of konqueror is in fact much more simpler and leaner than firefox or epiphany default. I tweaked it years ago and havent touched it back since. SO distro could have improved the control center that way.
But it would take any distro some actual courage to do that since they would probably get flamed to death for doing it. Red Hat tried some years ago. (granted, the main grip was about the about box and author courtesy but still...) So maybe we also failed as users, we got in the way of such changes instead of helping them to happen.
As I said I have nothing against the defaults that were chosen by GNOME. It's just that many users don't like them and those users need to have a way to be able to find another look and feel to their desktop or will need to change their desktop. So what's true for GNOME would be true to KDE if KDE made the same mistake or preventing the users to change their look and feel.
Slashdot Mirror
the blog entry
why hiring Harald Welte was the right thing to do on the technical side and on the community and legal side.
You can find its wiki page here (With the download links):
http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/XfceLive
Here is a review:
http://beranger.org/index.php?page=diary&2008/05/05/06/45/29-mandriva-linux-one-2008-spring-x
It's a community version but its package selection is in the official Mandriva tool to build LiveCD ( http://wiki.mandriva.com/en/Draklive ) .
The spec shows that there is one object called OS name.
Then some bytecode obtained by the microsoft compiler check this OS name object by its length, effectively meaning "it can't be any other OS so checking the number of letter is a rightfull way to determine which windows OS it is". btw, 27 letters is millenium iirc.
Bytecodes produced by the Intel compiler arent tied to the OS and are less error prones because they respect the spec.
So my first remark still hold, it is a microsoft tied (and tying) behavior, so expect windows to behave that way.
Aren't they coming from the windows compiler or say, the microsoft interpretation > extention to the spec?
Is the ACPI spec designed that way?
Which windows will detect by reading the number of letters in the OS name.
I don't think it's a Free Software. Where is the licence and where is the code?
There is one nice Free Software alternative to Flash as a streaming video embedded applet, it's cortado.
The problem is that it lacks a little more work to be always stable and some more to get other codecs like speex incorporated. But the developper is gone and nothing has been developped since 2006. So it could be a nice project to pick up for someone with knowledge in Java, who want to do some usefull work for the Free Software users instead of only relying on Free alternative to the Flash player wich won't solve the main problem, the format. Right now, it's even worse, all linux distros rely on flash for their video solution, which is a pity.
Close to the point, with the way Java is designed, you don't have this kind security issue, since you cant embed the player and stream videos from another domain.
During the Cathedral building era, there were Cathedral builders who were heavily connected and shared openly their knowledge and there were some who kept them to themselves (mostly out of greed and power hunger). So you can use this metaphore for both proprietary and Free software.
As for the way to develop software, some free softwares are built in house with little connexions to the outside until it has reached some level of completion and some proprietary software are built with the same methods described as "bazaar" (for example, most game mods in the gaming communities).
It's all about the license and the rights you have or lose. The rest is mythos.
I find your statement as ridiculous and intolerant as the ones you describe. And you get from it the same "insightfull" moderation points they got in the previous news.
The dogs are after sony and they have been for a while now.
But is is it some GPL code that has been modified or is it the firmware?
But if those same guys are Linux OSF zealots then beware if you're closely touching or perhaps violating the GPL or any other open source license they favor. Because then everything is different and you should be made to comply no matter what. Why don't we leave these things as they are as well and only start making noise when someone actually complaints about it for reasons other than "Whaaa, you violated ...
I disagree with you there.
ACPI is a very precise and sensitive issue. So the workding of the news is misleading and yes, no flamfest is needed, but clarification around this issue is important.
If you have been through a few installations of linux on different laptops, you will know what I mean. Just do 3 install parties and you should begin to understand the problems in this area, and you should see that some laptops behave well and some behave strangely, you will start to be wary of certain brands and after a while and some documentation, you will learn that there is a spec, an intel compiler, a microsoft compiler, and that strangely the microsoft one is crappy to the point that some BIOSes are crappy because of it and not the other way around, and that some OSes have difficulties because of that situation.
Here is some doc:
http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Fix_Common_ACPI_Problems
Here is some related info from a broken legal system that can't manage its misbehaving trusts anymore:
http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03020.pdf
Even in terms of support to asus, it might be important. If this is just a temporary problem, then asus might come out as a reliable source of linux compatible laptops with working ACPI. Or not. Right now, there are more and more laptops working for linux out of the box and it's a no brainer to find one, but we have to stay alert so that the situation continues to improve.
I'm not sure you can redistribute it that easily. They had to go through an agreement for the previous release, iirc. Skype is a commercial product, with subscription based services, where drivers are proprietary but arent difficult to distribute, I mean, you're basically doing the vendor's job. So that could be the difference.
In that area too, Mandriva is also trying to promote Free Software solutions, as it entered in partnership with a Free alternative to skype: openwengo. An european ISP has started to develop their IM - VOIP - VIDEO solution and it's Free Software. They shared a booth with Mandriva at the french Linux expo: http://openwengo.com/
Mandriva's business model is this:
3 situations, 3 editions
FREE as in FREEDOM:
"Mandriva FREE" dvd.
All rpm inside come from main and contrib repository which are fordidden to non free software. If a rpm in those is non free, it's a mistake.
free as in free beer:
"Mandriva ONE", live-cd:
you can test it all your heart content, then install it if you want.
Proprietary drivers are in there, wifi, 3d, modems, to make easy installation for everyone.
Commercial edition as in value added:
"Mandriva PowerPack", dvd
This one has the same size than the Free Edition, the same proprietary stuff than the ONE, but also has more commercial programs added, like Cedega or Lindvd, and a bunch of others (skype?).
About the codecs problem, the solution chosen is fluendo.
This guys are supporting gstreamer on the free software side and providing linux and solaris native solution for codecs on the closed prooprietary one.
http://www.fluendo.com/presentation.php
http://www.fluendo.com/press/releases/PR-2007-01.html
https://shop.fluendo.com/
Not in the gmaing section.
In the gaming section, the rules lately is "whatever sony do is evil; praises to microsoft for the xbox!" An attitude you can see along all medias, from comics to generalist news, including slashdot.
Of course, it has nothing to see with the big pie that is halo marketing campaign.
The problem is not that sony is or not doing wrong stuffs, the problem is that both are doing that kind of stuff, but both don't receive the same traitment.
You fundamentally misunderstand home.
It's not a game it's an interface to social functions, games being one of them.
So, some of those functions can be games, but the interface itself is not one.
It can't be bought, it's included in the console, so it isnt even a stand alone product.
The only one near it in your list is second life.
Let's call them social interfaces.
I don't clearly see how it attacks sony or the ps3 as it should or promotes microsoft xbox360?
I'm puzzled.
again?
What's wrong with you people? Commonwealth again?
It's 549 too.
Joke apart, if they sold items online at a too low price, they would be doing unfair competition to their local retailers.
To me, another plausible explanation is that in ep IV-VI the non military ships we see are pretty much like the falcon millenium, ships of smugglers living on the fringe of the empire.
So yes, scavenged parts hacked together, and pretty battered stuff.
But in Ep V, when they get to the mine, they're still off-track, so the ships around still look battered, but the design of the floating mine ships look a lot like the prequels stuff: Curvy Flash Gordon stuff.
On tne oppsite, in the prequels we get to see some pretty uptown part of the empire, corruscant, alderaan, naboo but when it goes "back" to tatooine, the ships in the race have pretty much this "hacked together by Mc Gyver" design again.
or at least naturalized from another trusted nation i.e. Great Britain, Canada, Australia.
I fart in your general direction !
Because they arent false claims. It hadnt improved for years as it took years before someone took care of it and it took some more years ot have it become usable.
I was a gnome 1.2 and 1.4 users, believe me, I'm not making this up nor am I taking any pleasure into it or reminding it. I still have stomach ache every time I open a picture in gimp.
The worst about it was when one year after having definitively stopped to talk about it with some GNOME developper I know (and respect), because I was fed up to be given the same preformatted answers about how usability tests had been made, I saw in a forum a new user to gnome trying to warn a new developper about the exact same issues and he was given the same exact answers I had received. At the end of the discussion, the developper admitted he had in fact not checked what he was answering and I felt this was actually an improvment from what I had experienced!
And that's of course where you're missing the point. GNOME, XFCE and MacOSX attempt to be usable by default. They do this not by removing random features just to spite people, but by conducting usability studies to find out what actually works and doesn't work for people then doing the former by default and fixing the latter.
And that's where you missed the point.
KDE did exactly that by copying the windows default as its default. It is an envirronment which has seen many usability studies and it is working for the most people. Wether we like it or not, wether we think it is the best default or not.
Second, you may correct me on this, but I seem to recall the usabilty tests you're talking about were founded and conducted by sun for its desktop offering and were made with helpdesk and corporate users in mind. Not the front end home user.
Now, I could save me the time to think and write about it and decide that there is only one sort of users, and that his habits and ways don't change according to the envirronment he is using his computer in.
Unfortunatly, that is not true.
My point was not to attack the GNOME defaults and you seem to have oriented your answer in that direction, but that the default that were chosen are not the best in all situation, that it's not possible to find a perfect default no matter how many usability studies you make bacause there ar emany users with different mindset and many envirronment which add to the complexity of the situation, and that there is a point where providing a way to change those defaults is obligatory. (I can use the example of the YES NO CANCEL button for that).
So yes, the KDE control center is not a success because that is what made me chase around some options, but the fact that they can be changed is a success. In fact it can even be changed to the point that if you decide that GNOME's default is the best, you can do it, and if you decide that users must not be able to change them, you can do it too through kiosk which is the way to lock a corporate desktop if you need or feel to.
You see, what you don't get is that it's front end users who pass their time switching and tweaking their desktops, not power users. This simple fact that you elude this fact shows that either you are the one that shouldnt be making broad judgements about the usability of desktop environments for anyone other than himself, or that many we are not talking about the same front end users, which I think it's the case since you were always referring to the productivity you have with your desktop.
I completly understand GNOME choices in a corporate envirronment from a helpdesk point of view. But I was talking from a user perspective, at home.
HGNOME can be greatly customized, it simply requires that one dig into configuration files that, in general, are not accessible from any graphical-based configuration window. And isn't -that- the true definition of "power-user"?
No, when you inflict that to others while you could provide a simpler way (an interface) to do it, that is the definition of sadism.
And when you base your decision on the love of simplicity, you add insult to injury.
What *would* be good is if both KDE and GNOME adopted "beginner/advanced" toggle buttons in their configuration dialogues. To a novice user, KDE has too many options, to a power user GNOME has too few.
Exactly my opinion on this too.
What KDE failed was to give revision and improvment to his KDE Control Center.
And distributions failed in that aspect too, because it is possible to tweak and improve every aspect of KDE. (It would even possible to have KDE look and feel like GNOME and prevent to have it further tweaked through kiosk, if one would want to do that.) My personnal aspect of konqueror is in fact much more simpler and leaner than firefox or epiphany default. I tweaked it years ago and havent touched it back since.
SO distro could have improved the control center that way.
But it would take any distro some actual courage to do that since they would probably get flamed to death for doing it. Red Hat tried some years ago. (granted, the main grip was about the about box and author courtesy but still...)
So maybe we also failed as users, we got in the way of such changes instead of helping them to happen.
Yes, but it's not exactly true:
http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2007/02/konqueror-not-vanishing-news-at-11.html
It's not replacing it, it's replacing it as the default
As I said I have nothing against the defaults that were chosen by GNOME.
It's just that many users don't like them and those users need to have a way to be able to find another look and feel to their desktop or will need to change their desktop.
So what's true for GNOME would be true to KDE if KDE made the same mistake or preventing the users to change their look and feel.