If you honestly think that an API built up from the horrible Win32 environment, completely alien to UNIX, and controlled by Microsoft,
Mono has full bindings to all the standard open source APIs; that's what makes it such a great choice for developing Linux applications: there is almost no learning curve, and it's a well-designed and well implemented modern platform. In addition, as a kind of bonus, Mono also provides full.NET compatibility.
And who cares who came up with it? When GNU and Linux started, UNIX was completely controlled by AT&T.
is preferable to an API that's based on UNIX, controlled by Apple and which *also* has an open source implementation (GPL, even) that's actually native on UNIX...
First of all, Cocoa is "based on" Smalltalk, not UNIX; Cocoa uses completely different APIs from any used on Linux or any UNIX workstation vendor. Objective-C and Cocoa syntax are completely different from all other UNIX and Linux libraries. GNUStep is incomplete as an implementation, and barely used on Linux, let alone other platforms.
Even if Cocoa were "native to UNIX", it wouldn't matter: Cocoa and Objective-C are obsolete.
we're just coming from such different views of open systems and open source that we're never going to communicate.
Evidently. For someone to argue that Cocoa is an "open system" or "UNIX based" is just bizarre.
I'm actually a fan of Hungarian notation. It's nice to be able to know both the scope and type of a variable just by looking at it.
I don't have any trouble with that in my code. Why? I use short methods, small classes, and small numbers of arguments.
When people feel the need to use Hungarian notation to "know both the scope and type of a variable just by looking at it", there is generally a deeper problem with their programming style.
The FSF maintains a list of GPL incompatible licenses that it considers "free software", CDDL is on that list.
I didn't say anything to the contrary. I simply pointed out that people shouldn't confuse "free software" with "open source software".
Sun has always preferred the CDDL, it has nothing to do with trying to be incompatible with the Linux kernel. OpenSolaris is CDDL, so it would only make sense for it's flag-ship file system to be CDDL as well.
You're misrepresenting the history. Yes, ZFS is CDDL because OpenSolaris is CDDL. But Sun didn't first pick the CDDL and then used the CDDL out of consistency for ZFS, they picked CDDL for OpenSolaris and ZFS was simply part of that. And there is no reasonable explanation for why Sun picked the CDDL over other licenses other than that they wanted OpenSolaris code as a whole (including ZFS) to be incompatible with Linux. The changes to make the CDDL into a GPLv2 compatible license would be trivial and of no consequence to Sun, but Sun chose to have those clauses in there.
How do you maintain control of the development of a GPL'd work?
The way Sun does it: the JDK is dual licensed, and most customers continue to use Java under a non-GPL license. Sun also maintains control through the TCK and their ownership of many of the documents defining Java.
Why would Sun open-source their TCK if they wanted to stop the development of open source implementations not under their control?
Sun has not open sourced their TCK. Quite to the contrary, they have been trying to use the TCK to maintain control of Java and exclude alternative implementations. This has been a major dispute between Sun and Apache:
We needed an open source license that allowed files released under the license to be linked with files released under other licenses.
There are many licenses that would have satisfied all of Sun's requirement and still been compatible with the GPLv2. The provisions that make the CDDL incompatible are obscure, technical, and largely useless. Have a look here for an explanation.
No, the only explanation why Sun picked a license with GPLv2 incompatible clauses is because they deliberately wanted to be GPLv2 incompatible.
As it happens, Sun chose to assist the GNOME project and made that their primary desktop. Then they rebranded it as the "Java Desktop System" in one of the most confusing brand changes in history. And that is where we sit today.
I think "confusing" is a rather charitable term for it. Sun proclaims that Java is the future for GUI development, yet they have been incapable of producing a usable Java desktop. What do they do instead? They take a high quality open source desktop that has nothing to do with Java and stick the Java label onto it, thereby creating the false impression that Java is suitable for desktop usage.
Rebranding Gnome as the "Java Desktop System" is a fraud, plain and simple. It's just one example of the kinds of games and abuses Sun engages in with respect to open source.
You're confusing "free software" and "open source software". The FSF defines what free software is because they came up with the term. With very few exceptions, software that isn't GPL compatible also isn't free software, although it may be open source software.
However, the problem with ZFS is more specific: Sun chose the ZFS license deliberately to be incompatible with the Linux kernel and to hurt Linux. In fact, Sun may even license ZFS under the Linux-incompatible GPLv3 license. Sun has also released Java under a GPL license but is cleverly retaining control of the development process, mostly because they didn't like all the other free and open source Java implementations that were emerging and were hoping to put a stop to them that way and retain control.
Sun is skillfully using free software and open source in an attempt to maintain proprietary control. I don't think it will work out in the long run, and I don't think ZFS matters anyway, but arguing, like many people do, about "how free" a piece of software is is useless in isolation.
Are you suggesting that non-GPL software isn't free? Given the nature of the GPL and it's relative restrictive nature on derivative work, I would venture to say that it is less Free than the CDDL.
An anarchy is also "more free" than a democracy, but people living in an anarchy have less real freedom than in a democracy. By analogy, merely because a license lets the indivdidual do more doesn't mean that its users end up having more freedom as a whole.
But that is really irrelevant in the case of ZFS anyway. Sun picked the CDDL because it's incompatible with the Linux kernel license (something that the Linux kernel developers simply cannot change). Sun may, in fact, republish ZFS under the GPLv3, which would make it free software even by strict standards, but the motivation for the choice for Sun would still be to interfere with the development of free software as a whole.
As much as people may hate it, the companies can use all sorts of means to prevent you from accessing their copyrighted material in any unapproved manner, and there's nothing you can do about it.
What meaning of "can" are you using? They "can" get away with it. Arguably, they "can" not do this in conformance with the constitutional principles underlying copyright law, because having copyrighted material fall into the public domain after a limited time is an essential part of copyrights--no public domain, no copyright.
Government and corporate actions may bother you now, but they have been far worse throughout US history. Corporations would make and break politicians, work people to death, employ children, use slaves, fire people for organizing unions, create and abuse monopolies with impunity, manipulate stock prices, sell dangerous products, etc, and all of that used to be legal.
We've made a lot of progress already finding a better balance between the needs of the public and the benefit to the public from corporations, but there's doubtlessly still lots of room for improvement. And although the case of corporations screwing the public is the more common one and needs to be fixed, in some specific cases, bureaucracy and regulations are indeed unnecessarily burdensome and should be lessened.
If I find a way to make SDL do something better, faster, cooler or just plain different, my choices are to either let all my competitors have access to it or not to use it myself.
You only have to share your changes if you modify SDL itself. Since you can't even modify DirectX itself, that situation never arises for DirectX at all.
So, overall, SDL removes none of the options you have with DirectX, but it does give you an additional option.
We have SDL, OpenGL, and DRI. It's a joy to develop with, and, in addition to gaming, it's used for a lot of visualization. SDL and OpenGL are also popular for game development on other platforms.
The only thing that's holding back 3D gaming on Linux is more widespread support for 3D graphics hardware. Right now, you still have to make a special effort to get good 3D hardware/software combos on Linux.
Row stores and column stores are an implementation issue; both can (and often are) used with relational calculus. That row stores were a stupid idea in many application areas was obvious to many people already even when Stonebreaker was still pushing them. Now, he seems to have fallen into the other extreme. The biggest thing wrong with relational databases is probably SQL. SQL has become complex, and it is hard to predict performance of particular expressions across different implementations.
People will continue to use row stores, column stores, array stores, object stores, link stores, and simple persistent hash table, and they'll use it with relational and non-relational models. None of those approaches are obsolete, and none of them will be in the foreseeable future.
Or, as in this case, it can be a way of looking at old things in really old ways.
As for the combination, ZFS is a simple solution that has abstracted the complexity of combining the traditional disk, integrity, raid, storage functions, volume managers, file systems, and NFS
Actually, ZFS is a complex solution that breaks layers of abstraction and modularity that people spend decades to develop.
I don't see anything particularly innovative about ZFS; it's just the application of standard engineering principles to create a fairly complex file system. I also don't think it's a particularly good combination.
NetApp saying that they are asking for declaratory judgment on patent claims Sun has made against them. I believe it: Sun likes leaving things, shall we say, legally ambiguous.
I'm sorry, but you really need to update your education in the area of human computer interaction.
"Apple misrepresents UNIX and Linux as not being ready for the desktop" Bullshit. Apple is selling the most popular desktop UNIX out there.
You're playing word games and evading the issue: Apple misrepresents Linux as being not ready for the desktop.
And Microsoft would have 99% of the desktop market instead of 90% and falling.
Another set of fictitious numbers that you and other Apple fans pull out of thin air.
In any case, a large Apple market share would be cause for concern. A commercial world dominated by.NET is far preferable to a commercial world dominated by Objective C and Cocoa:.NET is technically superior, already has a nearly complete FOSS implementation, and it's far easier to clone.
You're fighting your friends and giving comfort to your enemies. And you don't see a problem with that.
As a long time FOSS, Linux, and Apple user (yes, I work on OS X and port to it), I don't need you to tell me who my friends and enemies are. Apple proprietary software strategy, inferior technology, intellectual property policies, sub-par R&D spending, and marketing lies are harmful to my interests as a FOSS and Linux user and developer.
If you understood this distinction and the history around the indulgence controversy of the 16th cent,
I do, I simply consider this sort of hair splitting irrelevant. What difference did it make to my ancestors whether the pope spoke eloquently about the fine points of Catholic doctrine while his church persecuted and killed many of them?
we do believe in original sin you know, aka the defectibility of human nature
Yes, conveniently for the coffers and membership rolls of your church, your church proclaims a doctrine in which everybody is born sinful and faces eternal damnation, unless they join, in which case they not only avoid that unpleasant fate, but also have a good chance of having their slate wiped clean.
So the conclusion is that what the Church really teaches about ethics is worth paying attention to.
Sure. because any ethical system that tells people that they can avoid facing responsibility for their actions through membership and ritual is dangerous and needs to be watched.
A modicum of humility in consideration of this tradition may be worthwhile. Just a thought.
Maybe a modicum of humility on your part would be worthwhile in consideration of a tradition of two millennia of persecution of, and intolerance of, non-Catholics.
Well, no, actually. That rather went out some time ago. Or hadn't you heard? [...] You really do need to update your arguments. Leaving aside the validity of selling indulgences (which was an abuse, but it's a long argument), this was stopped back in the 16th century.
Ah, I see. So, given that the Catholic church supposedly derives its moral authority from God, if they got it wrong back then, was it that God made a mistake, or did the pope merely have a bad connection? And if they got it wrong back then, why should anybody listen to what the Catholic church says about ethics today?
The dictionary war is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
I wasn't talking about dictionaries, I was talking about textbooks. This is basic CS stuff. And it's what Apple talks about when they talk about usability. Go look at their documentation:
Usability benefits (less time spent learning the system, getting done faster, etc.) are also what Apple claims or implies in their literature as an advantage of OS X over other systems, not merely that people "like" the system better.
"Usability" is an established term in computer science, just like "MHz", "pointer", or "window", and if you work with software, you should know what it is and how it is determined.
If you can't keep track, then go reread the bloody thread before replying.
I can, but since you seem to have trouble, let's summarize the pertinent points:
-- The best examples of widely used open source contributions by Apple you could come up with were Bonjour, launchd, and WebKit, all of which have better non-Apple replacement that are used by the major Linux distributions.
-- Apple OS X is based on millions of lines of forked FOSS code, including Mach, gcc, BSD, and GNU.
-- Misrepresentation and unsubstantiated claims are a day-to-day part of Apple advertising--from the "megahertz myth" to "Apple innovation" and "ease of use", and Apple targets these against FOSS (in addition to targeting them against their competitors).
-- In particular, Apple misrepresents UNIX and Linux as not being ready for the desktop, thereby contributing to one of the biggest obstacles to widespread Linux adoption.
If Apple and all their FOSS "contributions" disappeared suddenly, Linux distributions would go on working the way they always have. But what would change is that hundreds of millions of dollars wouldn't be spent anymore on the "Linux is not ready for the desktop" and "Linux is good only for servers" myth.
Far from being an example of a mutually beneficial relationship between FOSS and corporate interests, BSD and Apple are a prime example of how corporate interests are abusing FOSS.
"Usability is not a subjective experience" It sure as hell is.
Usability is an established term with an established scientific and engineering discipline behind it; go look it up. Even if you were qualified, introspection simply does not work reliably for assessing usability.
I suspect you're mixing up things that happened at NeXT for the first three, and Webkit's a split *within* the community.
Perhaps you didn't notice, but Apple and NeXT merged--they are the same company now, their OS is the evolution of NeXTStep, and their management is NeXT's management, the same people responsible for screwing FOSS at NeXT in the first place. If Apple had bought BeOS instead, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
1. You still haven't demonstrated that Apple is hurting FOSS. 2. You stated that Apple's INTENT was to hurt FOSS. You haven't demonstrated that either.
Apple is marketing their OS against FOSS operating systems; here's is an example from their developer documentation, although their marketing department is far more aggressive and dishonest in person:
The introduction of UNIX-like operating systems such as FreeBSD and Linux for personal computers was a great step in bringing the power and stability of UNIX to the mass market. Generally though, these projects were driven by power users and developers for their own use, without making design decisions that would make UNIX palatable to consumers. Mac OS X, on the other hand, was designed from the beginning with end users in mind.
With this operating system, Apple builds its well-known strengths in simplicity and elegance of design on a UNIX-based foundation. Rather than reinventing what has already been done well, Apple is combining their strengths with the strengths brought about by many years of advancement by the UNIX community.
This is simply not an accurate representation of either the history of UNIX or the history of OS X. You can find many examples of these distortions and mispreresentations throughout Apple's web pages and marketing materials.
Oh, [FSF] come up with all kinds of unsubstantiated claims about stuff they care about. About licenses, about Linux
Whether RMS bites the heads off puppy dogs is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that Apple lies about, and hurts, open source and therefore does not deserve the support of open source developer. Apple is free to withdraw their support for open source in return--they won't be missed.
There's packages for mDNSresponder for just about every Linux distro. That's Apple's open sourced Bonjour.
No. The de-facto standard for mDNS on Linux is Avahi. (Note that Apple didn't invent the underlying technology either.)
People are starting to look at using launchd to speed up booting on Linux.
No. Linux distributions have their own solutions. (Note that Apple didn't invent the underlying technology either.)
Yes, it's a fork of KHTML, but given the way KHTML languished outside KDE
How is WebKit usage on Windows and Symbian an example where the open source community benefits from Apple's contributions?
And, yes, I think you have pretty much come up with the best examples of significant Apple open source contributions, and that's pretty sad. Against that, we have their use of Mach, gcc, Apache, the BSD userland, GNU user utilities, and many more--millions of lines of code, all developed and hacked in a way that fails to contribute to anything other than Apple's bottom line.
Slashdot Mirror
If you honestly think that an API built up from the horrible Win32 environment, completely alien to UNIX, and controlled by Microsoft,
.NET compatibility.
Mono has full bindings to all the standard open source APIs; that's what makes it such a great choice for developing Linux applications: there is almost no learning curve, and it's a well-designed and well implemented modern platform.
In addition, as a kind of bonus, Mono also provides full
And who cares who came up with it? When GNU and Linux started, UNIX was completely controlled by AT&T.
is preferable to an API that's based on UNIX, controlled by Apple and which *also* has an open source implementation (GPL, even) that's actually native on UNIX...
First of all, Cocoa is "based on" Smalltalk, not UNIX; Cocoa uses completely different APIs from any used on Linux or any UNIX workstation vendor. Objective-C and Cocoa syntax are completely different from all other UNIX and Linux libraries. GNUStep is incomplete as an implementation, and barely used on Linux, let alone other platforms.
Even if Cocoa were "native to UNIX", it wouldn't matter: Cocoa and Objective-C are obsolete.
we're just coming from such different views of open systems and open source that we're never going to communicate.
Evidently. For someone to argue that Cocoa is an "open system" or "UNIX based" is just bizarre.
H1B's don't require any justification or job postings.
I'm actually a fan of Hungarian notation. It's nice to be able to know both the scope and type of a variable just by looking at it.
I don't have any trouble with that in my code. Why? I use short methods, small classes, and small numbers of arguments.
When people feel the need to use Hungarian notation to "know both the scope and type of a variable just by looking at it", there is generally a deeper problem with their programming style.
The FSF maintains a list of GPL incompatible licenses that it considers "free software", CDDL is on that list.
m l#92169688
I didn't say anything to the contrary. I simply pointed out that people shouldn't confuse "free software" with "open source software".
Sun has always preferred the CDDL, it has nothing to do with trying to be incompatible with the Linux kernel. OpenSolaris is CDDL, so it would only make sense for it's flag-ship file system to be CDDL as well.
You're misrepresenting the history. Yes, ZFS is CDDL because OpenSolaris is CDDL. But Sun didn't first pick the CDDL and then used the CDDL out of consistency for ZFS, they picked CDDL for OpenSolaris and ZFS was simply part of that. And there is no reasonable explanation for why Sun picked the CDDL over other licenses other than that they wanted OpenSolaris code as a whole (including ZFS) to be incompatible with Linux. The changes to make the CDDL into a GPLv2 compatible license would be trivial and of no consequence to Sun, but Sun chose to have those clauses in there.
How do you maintain control of the development of a GPL'd work?
The way Sun does it: the JDK is dual licensed, and most customers continue to use Java under a non-GPL license. Sun also maintains control through the TCK and their ownership of many of the documents defining Java.
Why would Sun open-source their TCK if they wanted to stop the development of open source implementations not under their control?
Sun has not open sourced their TCK. Quite to the contrary, they have been trying to use the TCK to maintain control of Java and exclude alternative implementations. This has been a major dispute between Sun and Apache:
http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/t94330.html
http://www.javalobby.org/java/forums/m92169688.ht
Now, tell us, are you simply so uninformed that you really believe that Sun has open sourced the TCK, or are you deliberately trying to deceive us?
We needed an open source license that allowed files released under the license to be linked with files released under other licenses.
There are many licenses that would have satisfied all of Sun's requirement and still been compatible with the GPLv2. The provisions that make the CDDL incompatible are obscure, technical, and largely useless. Have a look here for an explanation.
No, the only explanation why Sun picked a license with GPLv2 incompatible clauses is because they deliberately wanted to be GPLv2 incompatible.
"Qualified IT workers"--that must be the meaning of "qualified" as in "a qualified statement" or "a qualified yes".
Seriously, there is a big shortage of good IT workers. There are a lot of IT workers with credentials and degrees, but they simply aren't good.
As it happens, Sun chose to assist the GNOME project and made that their primary desktop. Then they rebranded it as the "Java Desktop System" in one of the most confusing brand changes in history. And that is where we sit today.
I think "confusing" is a rather charitable term for it. Sun proclaims that Java is the future for GUI development, yet they have been incapable of producing a usable Java desktop. What do they do instead? They take a high quality open source desktop that has nothing to do with Java and stick the Java label onto it, thereby creating the false impression that Java is suitable for desktop usage.
Rebranding Gnome as the "Java Desktop System" is a fraud, plain and simple. It's just one example of the kinds of games and abuses Sun engages in with respect to open source.
A lot of "free software" isn't GPL-compatible,
You're confusing "free software" and "open source software". The FSF defines what free software is because they came up with the term. With very few exceptions, software that isn't GPL compatible also isn't free software, although it may be open source software.
However, the problem with ZFS is more specific: Sun chose the ZFS license deliberately to be incompatible with the Linux kernel and to hurt Linux. In fact, Sun may even license ZFS under the Linux-incompatible GPLv3 license. Sun has also released Java under a GPL license but is cleverly retaining control of the development process, mostly because they didn't like all the other free and open source Java implementations that were emerging and were hoping to put a stop to them that way and retain control.
Sun is skillfully using free software and open source in an attempt to maintain proprietary control. I don't think it will work out in the long run, and I don't think ZFS matters anyway, but arguing, like many people do, about "how free" a piece of software is is useless in isolation.
Are you suggesting that non-GPL software isn't free? Given the nature of the GPL and it's relative restrictive nature on derivative work, I would venture to say that it is less Free than the CDDL.
An anarchy is also "more free" than a democracy, but people living in an anarchy have less real freedom than in a democracy. By analogy, merely because a license lets the indivdidual do more doesn't mean that its users end up having more freedom as a whole.
But that is really irrelevant in the case of ZFS anyway. Sun picked the CDDL because it's incompatible with the Linux kernel license (something that the Linux kernel developers simply cannot change). Sun may, in fact, republish ZFS under the GPLv3, which would make it free software even by strict standards, but the motivation for the choice for Sun would still be to interfere with the development of free software as a whole.
Open source usage of ZFS is no threat to NetApp as long as Sun persists in making the ZFS license incompatible with Linux.
And given Schwartz's history of lies and misrepresentation related to open source, he really isn't the one to complain about this sort of thing.
As much as people may hate it, the companies can use all sorts of means to prevent you from accessing their copyrighted material in any unapproved manner, and there's nothing you can do about it.
What meaning of "can" are you using? They "can" get away with it. Arguably, they "can" not do this in conformance with the constitutional principles underlying copyright law, because having copyrighted material fall into the public domain after a limited time is an essential part of copyrights--no public domain, no copyright.
Government and corporate actions may bother you now, but they have been far worse throughout US history. Corporations would make and break politicians, work people to death, employ children, use slaves, fire people for organizing unions, create and abuse monopolies with impunity, manipulate stock prices, sell dangerous products, etc, and all of that used to be legal.
We've made a lot of progress already finding a better balance between the needs of the public and the benefit to the public from corporations, but there's doubtlessly still lots of room for improvement. And although the case of corporations screwing the public is the more common one and needs to be fixed, in some specific cases, bureaucracy and regulations are indeed unnecessarily burdensome and should be lessened.
If I find a way to make SDL do something better, faster, cooler or just plain different, my choices are to either let all my competitors have access to it or not to use it myself.
You only have to share your changes if you modify SDL itself. Since you can't even modify DirectX itself, that situation never arises for DirectX at all.
So, overall, SDL removes none of the options you have with DirectX, but it does give you an additional option.
We have SDL, OpenGL, and DRI. It's a joy to develop with, and, in addition to gaming, it's used for a lot of visualization. SDL and OpenGL are also popular for game development on other platforms.
The only thing that's holding back 3D gaming on Linux is more widespread support for 3D graphics hardware. Right now, you still have to make a special effort to get good 3D hardware/software combos on Linux.
I suspect the majority of Linux users are gamers, and many of them will be grateful for better 3D support.
Furthermore, the new 3D desktops require it, too (do they count as games?).
Most importantly, however, many Linux users are in science or engineering, and they really need good 3D support.
Row stores and column stores are an implementation issue; both can (and often are) used with relational calculus. That row stores were a stupid idea in many application areas was obvious to many people already even when Stonebreaker was still pushing them. Now, he seems to have fallen into the other extreme. The biggest thing wrong with relational databases is probably SQL. SQL has become complex, and it is hard to predict performance of particular expressions across different implementations.
People will continue to use row stores, column stores, array stores, object stores, link stores, and simple persistent hash table, and they'll use it with relational and non-relational models. None of those approaches are obsolete, and none of them will be in the foreseeable future.
it can be a new way of looking at old things
Or, as in this case, it can be a way of looking at old things in really old ways.
As for the combination, ZFS is a simple solution that has abstracted the complexity of combining the traditional disk, integrity, raid, storage functions, volume managers, file systems, and NFS
Actually, ZFS is a complex solution that breaks layers of abstraction and modularity that people spend decades to develop.
I don't see anything particularly innovative about ZFS; it's just the application of standard engineering principles to create a fairly complex file system. I also don't think it's a particularly good combination.
So, NetApp and Sun... please kill each other.
NetApp saying that they are asking for declaratory judgment on patent claims Sun has made against them. I believe it: Sun likes leaving things, shall we say, legally ambiguous.
The word "usability" doesn't appear on that page.
.NET is far preferable to a commercial world dominated by Objective C and Cocoa: .NET is technically superior, already has a nearly complete FOSS implementation, and it's far easier to clone.
I'm sorry, but you really need to update your education in the area of human computer interaction.
"Apple misrepresents UNIX and Linux as not being ready for the desktop" Bullshit. Apple is selling the most popular desktop UNIX out there.
You're playing word games and evading the issue: Apple misrepresents Linux as being not ready for the desktop.
And Microsoft would have 99% of the desktop market instead of 90% and falling.
Another set of fictitious numbers that you and other Apple fans pull out of thin air.
In any case, a large Apple market share would be cause for concern. A commercial world dominated by
You're fighting your friends and giving comfort to your enemies. And you don't see a problem with that.
As a long time FOSS, Linux, and Apple user (yes, I work on OS X and port to it), I don't need you to tell me who my friends and enemies are. Apple proprietary software strategy, inferior technology, intellectual property policies, sub-par R&D spending, and marketing lies are harmful to my interests as a FOSS and Linux user and developer.
If you understood this distinction and the history around the indulgence controversy of the 16th cent,
I do, I simply consider this sort of hair splitting irrelevant. What difference did it make to my ancestors whether the pope spoke eloquently about the fine points of Catholic doctrine while his church persecuted and killed many of them?
we do believe in original sin you know, aka the defectibility of human nature
Yes, conveniently for the coffers and membership rolls of your church, your church proclaims a doctrine in which everybody is born sinful and faces eternal damnation, unless they join, in which case they not only avoid that unpleasant fate, but also have a good chance of having their slate wiped clean.
So the conclusion is that what the Church really teaches about ethics is worth paying attention to.
Sure. because any ethical system that tells people that they can avoid facing responsibility for their actions through membership and ritual is dangerous and needs to be watched.
A modicum of humility in consideration of this tradition may be worthwhile. Just a thought.
Maybe a modicum of humility on your part would be worthwhile in consideration of a tradition of two millennia of persecution of, and intolerance of, non-Catholics.
Well, no, actually. That rather went out some time ago. Or hadn't you heard? [...] You really do need to update your arguments. Leaving aside the validity of selling indulgences (which was an abuse, but it's a long argument), this was stopped back in the 16th century.
Ah, I see. So, given that the Catholic church supposedly derives its moral authority from God, if they got it wrong back then, was it that God made a mistake, or did the pope merely have a bad connection? And if they got it wrong back then, why should anybody listen to what the Catholic church says about ethics today?
The dictionary war is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
r ience/Conceptual/OSXHIGuidelines/XHIGCharGreatSoft ware/chapter_4_section_3.html
I wasn't talking about dictionaries, I was talking about textbooks. This is basic CS stuff. And it's what Apple talks about when they talk about usability. Go look at their documentation:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/UserExpe
Usability benefits (less time spent learning the system, getting done faster, etc.) are also what Apple claims or implies in their literature as an advantage of OS X over other systems, not merely that people "like" the system better.
"Usability" is an established term in computer science, just like "MHz", "pointer", or "window", and if you work with software, you should know what it is and how it is determined.
If you can't keep track, then go reread the bloody thread before replying.
I can, but since you seem to have trouble, let's summarize the pertinent points:
-- The best examples of widely used open source contributions by Apple you could come up with were Bonjour, launchd, and WebKit, all of which have better non-Apple replacement that are used by the major Linux distributions.
-- Apple OS X is based on millions of lines of forked FOSS code, including Mach, gcc, BSD, and GNU.
-- Misrepresentation and unsubstantiated claims are a day-to-day part of Apple advertising--from the "megahertz myth" to "Apple innovation" and "ease of use", and Apple targets these against FOSS (in addition to targeting them against their competitors).
-- In particular, Apple misrepresents UNIX and Linux as not being ready for the desktop, thereby contributing to one of the biggest obstacles to widespread Linux adoption.
If Apple and all their FOSS "contributions" disappeared suddenly, Linux distributions would go on working the way they always have. But what would change is that hundreds of millions of dollars wouldn't be spent anymore on the "Linux is not ready for the desktop" and "Linux is good only for servers" myth.
Far from being an example of a mutually beneficial relationship between FOSS and corporate interests, BSD and Apple are a prime example of how corporate interests are abusing FOSS.
Usability is an established term with an established scientific and engineering discipline behind it; go look it up. Even if you were qualified, introspection simply does not work reliably for assessing usability.
I suspect you're mixing up things that happened at NeXT for the first three, and Webkit's a split *within* the community.
Perhaps you didn't notice, but Apple and NeXT merged--they are the same company now, their OS is the evolution of NeXTStep, and their management is NeXT's management, the same people responsible for screwing FOSS at NeXT in the first place. If Apple had bought BeOS instead, we wouldn't be having this discussion.
1. You still haven't demonstrated that Apple is hurting FOSS. 2. You stated that Apple's INTENT was to hurt FOSS. You haven't demonstrated that either.
Apple is marketing their OS against FOSS operating systems; here's is an example from their developer documentation, although their marketing department is far more aggressive and dishonest in person:
http://developer.apple.com/documentation/Porting/
This is simply not an accurate representation of either the history of UNIX or the history of OS X. You can find many examples of these distortions and mispreresentations throughout Apple's web pages and marketing materials.
Oh, [FSF] come up with all kinds of unsubstantiated claims about stuff they care about. About licenses, about Linux
Whether RMS bites the heads off puppy dogs is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that Apple lies about, and hurts, open source and therefore does not deserve the support of open source developer. Apple is free to withdraw their support for open source in return--they won't be missed.
There's packages for mDNSresponder for just about every Linux distro. That's Apple's open sourced Bonjour.
No. The de-facto standard for mDNS on Linux is Avahi. (Note that Apple didn't invent the underlying technology either.)
People are starting to look at using launchd to speed up booting on Linux.
No. Linux distributions have their own solutions. (Note that Apple didn't invent the underlying technology either.)
Yes, it's a fork of KHTML, but given the way KHTML languished outside KDE
How is WebKit usage on Windows and Symbian an example where the open source community benefits from Apple's contributions?
And, yes, I think you have pretty much come up with the best examples of significant Apple open source contributions, and that's pretty sad. Against that, we have their use of Mach, gcc, Apache, the BSD userland, GNU user utilities, and many more--millions of lines of code, all developed and hacked in a way that fails to contribute to anything other than Apple's bottom line.
There are rapidly getting to be enough broad laws out there that everyone is guilty of something.
And when and where is this mystical period supposed to have existed when this wasn't the case?
Face it, the US has made a lot of progress if the worst you have to worry about is being detained for not showing your Best Buy receipt at the door.
And, yes, you can end up arrested and even in prison innocently; think about that next time you vote for a "law and order" candidate.