"...The idea is -- and Akamai and other companies are doing this -- you move content, you spread it around so it's replicated, so when somebody asks for it, you intercept the domain-name query and you look at it and say: "Where is this user coming from? Where is the closest place he can get the content?" And your DNS [domain name system] answers, then points the user to the place that's closest. Therefore, we've got geographically sensitive domain names."
This is already being tried in newspaper publishing and IMHO it doesn't work: I get an edition of the Seattle Times that's geographically edited to be relevant to my geographic location -- which means that there's some local news I *never* hear about, at least via the newspaper, which has become largely irrelevant anyway...
[...]
I *don't* think distributed content servers are relevant to any discussion of gTLD issues -- distributed content is a marketing hack.
I think what he's talking about is hacking the domain-name system so that, instead of pointing to that one machine is Finland, directs to a locally-administered mirror of that one machine in Finland. Hence the reference to Akamai (which performs essentially this function, IIRC).
Was the Debian M17-3 package in unstable compiled without all of the uber-bloatish debugging stuff? Because it seems a lot more responsive than any of the tarballed binaries or RPMs I tried, of any milestone.
If it was compiled without debugging and with some optimization, I urge everyone who has access to a Debian box (or can use alien to convert the.deb to an RPM) to try out the old M17 build -- hopefully we're getting an idea of what the final product will feel like. And I'll be waiting anxiously for Debian to get an M18.deb out there...
Netscape would be so much better if it were designed by a company with a clear Internet strategy, not some bunch of ragtag volunteers who work on it in their spare time.
Yeah, their "clear Internet strategy" reminds me of Stephen from Braveheart:
They're Akamai links, but when I click on them, I get bounced to the main "our server is swamped, please wait while we fix it" page at OpenOffice.
Any other mirrors out there?
Jay (=
"Just because I give you the Cat scanner, it does not immediately give you the right to go into business against me with my own technology," Davis said.
Um...Mr. Davis... everyone already had the right to go into business against you. The fact that you gave them the means to do it doesn't mean you gain any rights or your compeitors lose any.
My question is, did DC somehow invent the bar-code scanner? No, they added a few custom tweaks and encased in a *ahem* "marital-aid"-shaped form. I could take a plain-jane bar code reader and probably do 90% of what people are doing with the:Cue:Cat. They're just having fun with DC's because they're free.
If this is so innovative and worthy of protection, where's the patent? I mean, c'mon! The Patent Office will allow you to patent swinging a dead fish overhead to attract ravens if you can work a web browser or streaming media into it somewhere.
If there's a patent, then there could be some legal issues involved. If they're just hoping to cover the glaring holes in their business model with "no, no, no, we're loaning you the reader" they deserve to go down in flames.
I can only wonder who they will try to hold repsonsible for letting them (SDMI) release a falliable watermarkings system. Considering the millions that many stand to loose, could the hacker community be faced with some form of backlash for *NOT* breaking the watermarks, or for boycotting the challenge in general?
Holding us responsible for their error implies that the "hacker community" has some responsibility or obligation to meet their challenge. We do not.
... the tech companies want "the hackers" to take a stand and make a point that they're too spineless to make themselves?
"The record companies wanted the test to see how effective the technologies are -- but the record companies didn't understand fully that all the technologies are going to be broken," explains one member. "They just wanted the most secure system, and wanted to see which ones were going to be broken. But the technology companies knew that all of them would be broken."
[...]
[Emphasis mine]Those SDMI members who had been secretly hoping that hackers would breeze through the challenge and prove once and for all that SDMI was wasting its time were dismayed. If the system wasn't tested and broken, SDMI would forge ahead and release a solution that many considered fallible.
This point angers me more than I can articulate.
If you think the watermarking system is fallible, break it and claim the $10,000 yourselves. To expect "the hacking community" to ride in and save your asses -- or your assets, for that matter -- is arrogance at best and cowardice at its worst.
But from my understanding, the GPL is what has prevented RedHat, Caldera and the like from forking Linux and thus giving us yet more Unix splinters instead of a uniform architecture that is currently on around 24% of the world's servers and rising.
The GPL doesn't prevent forking; it just doesn't provide any incentive to do so, since you can't keep enhancements private.
Anyone who thinks GPLed code is immune to forking should consider XEmacs vs. GNU Emacs and the recently-remerged gcc vs. egcs.
The article seriously misquotes the PITAC report, and in one case it has a lot of people's underwear in a bundle for no good reason.
From the article:
The report makes three recommendations:
1. The Federal government should aggressively (!) encourage the development of Open Source software for high end computing;
Nowhere in the actual report does it use the word "agressively", and it potentially overstates the committee's enthusiasm; the actual quote from the report is;
1. The Federal government should encourage the development of open source software as an alternate path for software development for high end computing.
2. A "level playing field" must be created within the government procurement process to facilitate Open Source development;
There was no "must", but this was the least distorted point made:
2. The Federal government should allow open source development efforts to compete on a "level playing field" with proprietary solutions in government procurement of high end computing software. Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from Federal agencies for high end computing software, tools and libraries should include provisions allowing these efforts to be carried out using open source.
And, the biggest bone of contention...
3. An analysis of Open Source licensing agreements is needed, with an ultimate goal of agreeing upon a single common licensing agreement for Open Source software development. Which is flatly untrue. The actual report does not use the word "single" anywhere, so everyone worrying that the Feds are going to relicense your GPLed (or BSDed stuff) can chill out and have a salad or something.
3. An analysis of existing open source licensing agreements should be undertaken, and the results should be distributed to all agencies funding high end computing. The analysis should describe characteristics of each license and give specific examples of situations inw hich it may be prefereable to use one type over another. [Emphasis mine]
The use of common licensing agreements should be encouraged.
No "single licensing agreement" is recommended for the Feds. Someone will write out a plan akin to "You may want to use the BSD license for these kinds of projects, and the GPL for these kinds of projects."
In other words, the government will spend a good deal of money and effort to avoid possible licensing conflicts in procured software. That can only be a good thing, in my book.
We are not talking about source, we are talking about a binary created from a binary created from GPLed sourcecode.
Are we? Is Sun's tool actually patching or modifying a binary made from GPLed source, or is it a cross-compiler of sorts, substituting in proprietary libraries for GPLed libraries? The article doesn't make it clear -- and I think that'd be the real heart of the matter. If the drivers are binaries, the yes, Sun should deliver the source code for the GPLed ones. If the drivers are source and being compiled for use with Solaris, well they're okay so long as...
It is in violation of the GPL to use GPLed code in your proprietary application.
No, it's a violation to distribute GPLed code in your proprietary application.
0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".
[Emphasis mine] Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the
Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.
I worries me that Helix-Code want's to make money of placing advertisements and other stuff right into my personal calendar. This article raises some doubt about the intention of this company.
So don't use their software. KDE isn't going away anytime soon, and, there will still likely still be a "pure" GNOME distribution out there, maybe something controlled or sponsored by the GNOME Consortium.
Or, better yet, since it's all GPLed, pull out the offending modules and make a "Helix-free" GNOME distribution. In the article Nat Friedman says that the software itself is a commodity and unimportant to their business model.
Maybe this will convince the developers of the various GTK/Qt/Motif/etc. GUI programs to consider screen sizes smaller than 1024 x 768.
Jakob Neilsen's Alertbox column has been talking about the need to consider screen size on handhelds and WAP devices. He's talking primarily about Web applications, but it'll be true for any portable apps.
Developers for handhelds and devices with touch screens will also have to consider that users are more likely to click/tap widgets then drag/scroll them.
If this installation fails then your iPAQ could become unusable.
This procedure has been tested on less than a handful of units. This version, however, has a check sum code to validate that an uncorrupted bootlader is being installed, and is less likely than the previous installation process to result in an installation failure.
If you install Linux at this time then you can not return to WinCE.
Work is underway to enable you to save your WinCE image before installing an operating system, but at this time implementation is not complete.
...I can't believe no one has mentioned Babylon 5 at all -- like it or hate it.
My fianceé and I just started watching the series over again. Sci-Fi network is set to star showing the episodes -- plus the TNT movies, yay! -- in September. And even though there are plenty of episodes that make me wince in season one (plus the occasional later one such as Grey 17 Is Missing) I love the unique --to TV, apparently -- storytelling aspect of having a beginning and an ending.
It was well-thought out, and even though they had to adjust the story in several places for various reasons (actors leaving, for whatever reason) to keep things moving, it was highly entertaining.
I wish Crusade had been given a chance to hit its stride.
Jay (=
(Waiting for the rabid "Trek R00lZ/B5 5Ux" discussuion to begin...)
Further, copyrights can be used (or sold) so that a sequel can be made, e.g. Syndicate. If the copyrights were thrown out after some short period of non-use, then everyone and their brother could resell, remake, or sequel-ize the games, which I don't think is a good thing.
Why not? People wouldn't have to wait for a commercial developer to decide it's financially viable to re-release a game, or to make a sequel.
I bought a copy of Tomb Raider (yes, the original Tomb Raider) for my fianceé when I got my PC a little less than a year ago. Guess what? It looks horrible on my Diamond Viper 770! No 3D! I can't find any kind of patch for Direct3D or for my particular card. (If anyone knows of such a patch -- or even an *gasp* unofficial hack -- I'd love more information.)
Eidos seems unwilling to support the product which I have already purchased -- but I bet they'll be willing to sell me "Classic Tomb Raider" in another five years, all updated for whatever version of Windows...
So here's a plan. Provide an incentive for copyright and patent owners to donate their works to the public, in return for a tax deduction.
It's kind of sad when we have to have this conversation, given that the whole point of copyright and patent was to provide incentive for people to create in return for their eventual release into the public domain.
In other words, imagine having the following conversation:
So here's a plan. Provide an incentive for the house painter you paid to paint your house this week, in return for a tax deduction.
Silly, ain't it?
Copyright holders have gotten their due from the system; they have control over the works they have "created". (The term is used in quotations since it's often a record label or publisher, not the actual creator, that enforces the copyright.)
But when it comes to living up to their end of the agreement, we instead get Sonny Bono copyright extensions, films being destroyed as they near the end of their copyright term, and everyone cries "oh, think of the author's heirs" and "shouldn't authors be compensated for their hard work?"
The idea that any improvement you make belongs to the community is a sure way to prevent you from capitalizing on your own work.
How so? If you're improving someone else's work using code distributed under the GPL (or your non-BSD Open Source license of choice) why should you get to capitalize on their work?
If you don't like Open-Source licenses, don't use or modify any code offered by them. For now, it seems that closed-source products are still financially viable.
People who are complaining about "having to reinvent the wheel" because they can't use GPL code in closed products are the true selfish bastards in this case.
It's basically saying that because you got seeds from the community they own the fruit you raised in the fields.
<RANT type="intellectual-property-is-not-property">
Your straw man doesn't hold up. If I make a copy of your code, you still have that code. If I take fruit from you, you don't. The two are not the same at all.
<RANT>
I guess I should be using it... There are SOOO many posts that say that Mozilla/NS6 suck and IE5 is a GOD... I mean, if it's THAT good, why wouldn't I want it? Where can I get a copy?
Oh, by the way, I'm running RedHat 6.2
It's at the same FTP site that has my MacOS version of Galeon...
Wouldn't it be easier to modify the config.ini file that comes with the Netscape installler to point to a local FTP/HTTP server (or even a directory?) You can also get at the "hidden" parts that are installed by default.
(By the way, the person who posted that the installer is a Trojan was off-base; the sweetlou.mcom.com URL he spotted is apparently a backup URL for the installer. You can comment it out of config.ini or change it to another URL.)
I haven't had any luck hacking it to recognize a directory on a local machine; I may try setting up an FTP server or HTTP server and see if I can get the installer to recognize it. But this trick should work for a LAN install...
First off, is this an actual statement from Microsoft, or are you just hypothesizing?
Second, if that's true it's wonderful! Everyone will get a short, sharp clue-by-four jabbed into their eye about how totally screwed up software licenses are. The UCITA regulations being passed around the nation will be dropped like a hot potato.
Worst case scenario, hundreds of EU LUGs will be holding a ticker-tape parade of Linux CDs...
Slashdot Mirror
...you stop posting your lame-ass trolls about colonizing Mars everywhere.
Or, you non-US citizens can do what Taco suggested in the first "big" Slashdot story on the elections and uncheck the "United States" box in your preferences, since he stated that most all of the stories are going to be filed there.
Jay (=
"...The idea is -- and Akamai and other companies are doing this -- you move content, you spread it around so it's replicated, so when somebody asks for it, you intercept the domain-name query and you look at it and say: "Where is this user coming from? Where is the closest place he can get the content?" And your DNS [domain name system] answers, then points the user to the place that's closest. Therefore, we've got geographically sensitive domain names."
This is already being tried in newspaper publishing and IMHO it doesn't work: I get an edition of the Seattle Times that's geographically edited to be relevant to my geographic location -- which means that there's some local news I *never* hear about, at least via the newspaper, which has become largely irrelevant anyway...
[...]
I *don't* think distributed content servers are relevant to any discussion of gTLD issues -- distributed content is a marketing hack.
I think what he's talking about is hacking the domain-name system so that, instead of pointing to that one machine is Finland, directs to a locally-administered mirror of that one machine in Finland. Hence the reference to Akamai (which performs essentially this function, IIRC).
Jay (=
>(To give credit where due, however, the Germans have been pretty respectful of others' property the last 50 years.)
We taught them a lesson in 1918, and they've hardly bothered us since then.
Yeah, we did such a great job they came back in the 1940's for a second helping. Brought friends, too...
Jay (=
...and no, that's not a typo.
.deb to an RPM) to try out the old M17 build -- hopefully we're getting an idea of what the final product will feel like. And I'll be waiting anxiously for Debian to get an M18 .deb out there...
Was the Debian M17-3 package in unstable compiled without all of the uber-bloatish debugging stuff? Because it seems a lot more responsive than any of the tarballed binaries or RPMs I tried, of any milestone.
If it was compiled without debugging and with some optimization, I urge everyone who has access to a Debian box (or can use alien to convert the
Jay (=
Netscape would be so much better if it were designed by a company with a clear Internet strategy, not some bunch of ragtag volunteers who work on it in their spare time.
Yeah, their "clear Internet strategy" reminds me of Stephen from Braveheart:
"It's mine, I own it."
Jay (=
They're Akamai links, but when I click on them, I get bounced to the main "our server is swamped, please wait while we fix it" page at OpenOffice. Any other mirrors out there? Jay (=
"Just because I give you the Cat scanner, it does not immediately give you the right to go into business against me with my own technology," Davis said.
:Cue:Cat. They're just having fun with DC's because they're free.
Um...Mr. Davis... everyone already had the right to go into business against you. The fact that you gave them the means to do it doesn't mean you gain any rights or your compeitors lose any.
My question is, did DC somehow invent the bar-code scanner? No, they added a few custom tweaks and encased in a *ahem* "marital-aid"-shaped form. I could take a plain-jane bar code reader and probably do 90% of what people are doing with the
If this is so innovative and worthy of protection, where's the patent? I mean, c'mon! The Patent Office will allow you to patent swinging a dead fish overhead to attract ravens if you can work a web browser or streaming media into it somewhere.
If there's a patent, then there could be some legal issues involved. If they're just hoping to cover the glaring holes in their business model with "no, no, no, we're loaning you the reader" they deserve to go down in flames.
Jay (=
I can only wonder who they will try to hold repsonsible for letting them (SDMI) release a falliable watermarkings system. Considering the millions that many stand to loose, could the hacker community be faced with some form of backlash for *NOT* breaking the watermarks, or for boycotting the challenge in general?
Holding us responsible for their error implies that the "hacker community" has some responsibility or obligation to meet their challenge. We do not.
Jay (=
This point angers me more than I can articulate.
If you think the watermarking system is fallible, break it and claim the $10,000 yourselves. To expect "the hacking community" to ride in and save your asses -- or your assets, for that matter -- is arrogance at best and cowardice at its worst.
Jay (=
...that Apple has gotten over their "Not Invented Here" syndrome... :)
Jay (=
But from my understanding, the GPL is what has prevented RedHat, Caldera and the like from forking Linux and thus giving us yet more Unix splinters instead of a uniform architecture that is currently on around 24% of the world's servers and rising.
The GPL doesn't prevent forking; it just doesn't provide any incentive to do so, since you can't keep enhancements private.
Anyone who thinks GPLed code is immune to forking should consider XEmacs vs. GNU Emacs and the recently-remerged gcc vs. egcs.
Jay (=
From the article:
The report makes three recommendations:
1. The Federal government should aggressively (!) encourage the development of Open Source software for high end computing;
Nowhere in the actual report does it use the word "agressively", and it potentially overstates the committee's enthusiasm; the actual quote from the report is;
2. A "level playing field" must be created within the government procurement process to facilitate Open Source development;
There was no "must", but this was the least distorted point made:
And, the biggest bone of contention...
3. An analysis of Open Source licensing agreements is needed, with an ultimate goal of agreeing upon a single common licensing agreement for Open Source software development.
Which is flatly untrue. The actual report does not use the word "single" anywhere, so everyone worrying that the Feds are going to relicense your GPLed (or BSDed stuff) can chill out and have a salad or something.
No "single licensing agreement" is recommended for the Feds. Someone will write out a plan akin to "You may want to use the BSD license for these kinds of projects, and the GPL for these kinds of projects."
In other words, the government will spend a good deal of money and effort to avoid possible licensing conflicts in procured software. That can only be a good thing, in my book.
Jay (=
Are we? Is Sun's tool actually patching or modifying a binary made from GPLed source, or is it a cross-compiler of sorts, substituting in proprietary libraries for GPLed libraries? The article doesn't make it clear -- and I think that'd be the real heart of the matter. If the drivers are binaries, the yes, Sun should deliver the source code for the GPLed ones. If the drivers are source and being compiled for use with Solaris, well they're okay so long as...
It is in violation of the GPL to use GPLed code in your proprietary application.
No, it's a violation to distribute GPLed code in your proprietary application.
Section 0 of the General Public License, version 2:
Jay (=
Emphasis mine:
I don't feel compelled to go buy the product, check out the website, or punch the monkey to win prizes. Hmmm, perhaps it's the lack of subliminals...
Yeah, those ads just go right under your mental radar...
Jay (=
(OK, to be fair, if you can't name the product/service the ad is for, it's not a very successful ad...)
I worries me that Helix-Code want's to make money of placing advertisements and other stuff right into my personal calendar. This article raises some doubt about the intention of this company.
So don't use their software. KDE isn't going away anytime soon, and, there will still likely still be a "pure" GNOME distribution out there, maybe something controlled or sponsored by the GNOME Consortium.
Or, better yet, since it's all GPLed, pull out the offending modules and make a "Helix-free" GNOME distribution. In the article Nat Friedman says that the software itself is a commodity and unimportant to their business model.
Jay (=
Maybe this will convince the developers of the various GTK/Qt/Motif/etc. GUI programs to consider screen sizes smaller than 1024 x 768.
Jakob Neilsen's Alertbox column has been talking about the need to consider screen size on handhelds and WAP devices. He's talking primarily about Web applications, but it'll be true for any portable apps.
Developers for handhelds and devices with touch screens will also have to consider that users are more likely to click/tap widgets then drag/scroll them.
Jay (=
ftp://ftp.handhel ds.org/pub/linux/compaq/ipaq/stable/install.html
WARNINGS:
Jay (=
...I can't believe no one has mentioned Babylon 5 at all -- like it or hate it.
My fianceé and I just started watching the series over again. Sci-Fi network is set to star showing the episodes -- plus the TNT movies, yay! -- in September. And even though there are plenty of episodes that make me wince in season one (plus the occasional later one such as Grey 17 Is Missing) I love the unique --to TV, apparently -- storytelling aspect of having a beginning and an ending.
It was well-thought out, and even though they had to adjust the story in several places for various reasons (actors leaving, for whatever reason) to keep things moving, it was highly entertaining.
I wish Crusade had been given a chance to hit its stride.
Jay (=
(Waiting for the rabid "Trek R00lZ/B5 5Ux" discussuion to begin...)
Further, copyrights can be used (or sold) so that a sequel can be made, e.g. Syndicate. If the copyrights were thrown out after some short period of non-use, then everyone and their brother could resell, remake, or sequel-ize the games, which I don't think is a good thing.
Why not? People wouldn't have to wait for a commercial developer to decide it's financially viable to re-release a game, or to make a sequel.
I bought a copy of Tomb Raider (yes, the original Tomb Raider) for my fianceé when I got my PC a little less than a year ago. Guess what? It looks horrible on my Diamond Viper 770! No 3D! I can't find any kind of patch for Direct3D or for my particular card. (If anyone knows of such a patch -- or even an *gasp* unofficial hack -- I'd love more information.)
Eidos seems unwilling to support the product which I have already purchased -- but I bet they'll be willing to sell me "Classic Tomb Raider" in another five years, all updated for whatever version of Windows...
Jay (=
So here's a plan. Provide an incentive for copyright and patent owners to donate their works to the public, in return for a tax deduction.
It's kind of sad when we have to have this conversation, given that the whole point of copyright and patent was to provide incentive for people to create in return for their eventual release into the public domain.
In other words, imagine having the following conversation:
So here's a plan. Provide an incentive for the house painter you paid to paint your house this week, in return for a tax deduction.
Silly, ain't it?
Copyright holders have gotten their due from the system; they have control over the works they have "created". (The term is used in quotations since it's often a record label or publisher, not the actual creator, that enforces the copyright.)
But when it comes to living up to their end of the agreement, we instead get Sonny Bono copyright extensions, films being destroyed as they near the end of their copyright term, and everyone cries "oh, think of the author's heirs" and "shouldn't authors be compensated for their hard work?"
Jay (=
The idea that any improvement you make belongs to the community is a sure way to prevent you from capitalizing on your own work.
How so? If you're improving someone else's work using code distributed under the GPL (or your non-BSD Open Source license of choice) why should you get to capitalize on their work?
If you don't like Open-Source licenses, don't use or modify any code offered by them. For now, it seems that closed-source products are still financially viable.
People who are complaining about "having to reinvent the wheel" because they can't use GPL code in closed products are the true selfish bastards in this case.
It's basically saying that because you got seeds from the community they own the fruit you raised in the fields.
<RANT type="intellectual-property-is-not-property">
Your straw man doesn't hold up. If I make a copy of your code, you still have that code. If I take fruit from you, you don't. The two are not the same at all.
<RANT>
Jay (=
I guess I should be using it... There are SOOO many posts that say that Mozilla/NS6 suck and IE5 is a GOD... I mean, if it's THAT good, why wouldn't I want it? Where can I get a copy?
Oh, by the way, I'm running RedHat 6.2
It's at the same FTP site that has my MacOS version of Galeon...
Jay (=
Wouldn't it be easier to modify the config.ini file that comes with the Netscape installler to point to a local FTP/HTTP server (or even a directory?) You can also get at the "hidden" parts that are installed by default.
(By the way, the person who posted that the installer is a Trojan was off-base; the sweetlou.mcom.com URL he spotted is apparently a backup URL for the installer. You can comment it out of config.ini or change it to another URL.)
I haven't had any luck hacking it to recognize a directory on a local machine; I may try setting up an FTP server or HTTP server and see if I can get the installer to recognize it. But this trick should work for a LAN install...
Jay(=
First off, is this an actual statement from Microsoft, or are you just hypothesizing?
Second, if that's true it's wonderful! Everyone will get a short, sharp clue-by-four jabbed into their eye about how totally screwed up software licenses are. The UCITA regulations being passed around the nation will be dropped like a hot potato.
Worst case scenario, hundreds of EU LUGs will be holding a ticker-tape parade of Linux CDs...
Jay (=
I lived in Nome up until may of this year, when i got a job working for netscape communications.
Really? Wonder if I know you...
Jay (=