There's a dozen states involved here, so the federal government can only drop THEIR part of the suit. The states still individually have the ability to keep
it going...
I kept updating whenever they came out, and to tell you the truth, After test 8 they started sucking ass. They got less stable. Test 9 kept randomly killing
random processes, and test 10 wouldn't even boot on my firends machine, so I gave up. I dont know if they fixed this problem but according to my friend
it is a result of trying out different scheduling systems. I jsut hope they get all the bugs out by now.
There were a few major things that had to be done right at the end of the development process after other things had stablilized, such as adding proper flushing and syncing to the page cache. The page cache is, by the way, where a lot of the improved performance of 2.4 comes from. Before the page cache was only used to reading, now it's used for reading and writing, consuming only half the cache memory. The other big performance improvement came from a fairly major modification to the memory management system, to use an approach called page aging which you can see works a lot better. This radical surgery all happened in the last 3 months of the leadup to 2.4, and there were a lot of stupid little bugs and problems to track down and kill as a result of it. It came together pretty fast, actually. --
Technically, discoveries and solutions considered obvious to practicioners of the art/trade in question aren't patentable under current patent law. This
should include existing genes and the brick under the tire you mentioned. It's just that the US patent office has forgotten their own rules.
No they haven't. They are lawyers and they are playing this game for themselves. They are trying to change the rules. --
Nobody has these wireless devices, this is pure promotion for Microsoft. If it did work you'd have to bend over and let msn work you over.
As usual, Microsoft's partner will get the dirty end of the stick and pay all the bills.
Whave people *do* have is laptops/notebooks. Now, if Starbucks offered a 100 MHz local net with RJ45 connectors along the counter... --
The United States (although somewhat corrupt at times) is the only place that I can actually say is stable, inexpensive, and mostly free.
Then you have a bad case of myopia. You need look no further away than Canada to find a place that is more stable and more free. I sincerely doubt that Canadians would have consented to have their election usurped by a blatantly partisan court system. --
1) Is it true that the WINE project could one day run Windows programs faster than Windows does itself? I would have thought that with the open nature of
the program code, it would just get faster and faster until it outstrips Windows itself. If this is true, then it would be great for playing games on;)
Oh yes, that's possible and likely. For example, the underlying memory management and disk IO can be faster and better than Windows (it already is), drivers can be better (3D drivers for NVidia and Matrox are already running neck and neck with windows drivers, held back only by 2D blitting support, which is being worked on) system calls can be handled more efficiently, etc. etc.
2) Is it likely that Microsoft will deliberately try to scupper the WINE project by introducing new API's that are top secret but required to make MS
programs work?
It wouldn't work. There is no way MS can keep any api's secret - we can always run the windows program under emulation to see what it does if we need to. Usually it isn't necessary, and dont forget, secret api's are a pain for windows developers as well, even Microsoft developers. Plus having hidden api's discovered would be a little inconvenient for Microsoft's appeal of the split-up order.
Or perhaps try their hand legally?
Yes, for sure they will try to use legal means, it's their only chance to stop us. DMCA and such things show they're already on the march. We have to fight that. Deal: you fight the DCMA, and I'll keep working on the kernel, ok?
But then, I'd have thought that the WINE project benifits Microsoft in a perverse way, by giving them
another market to sell to.
It lets others compete with Microsoft freely. Microsoft management wouldn't know what to do then, they only know how to play when they get to write the rules. If Microsoft can't control the platform its entire business model goes out the window.
--
So, it sounds like it's specific to online auctions, so although this isn't any less stupid than it originally sounds, I wouldn't start to worry about your online
gallery of cat photos too quickly.
No, not until somebody patents online galleries of cat photos. --
How would you, as an open source developer,
like recognition for the valuable work you are doing?
Credit in the code is worth more than credit on a web page. That just needs a one liner - what, who, email, date. (That line will probably already be in the patch) Hardware is good - especially new hardware that nobody has yet. A 'come see me at XXX trade show, I'll buy you a beer' is worth more than you can imagine. Best of all has nothing to do with giving credit - just make sure the full specs of the hardware are published on the web. Thats the best thanks of all. --
Patents, on the other hand, are very specifically disclosed to the public. In return for the disclosure, the patent holder receives certain rights in terms of
its use, and is entitled to monetary rewards when others use it.
Thanks, but no thanks. If you don't want to contribute your knowledge to the common pool then keep it to yourself. Somebody else will think of the same thing and contribute it to society. They'll get the fame, you won't. There is no shortage of people willing to do this. Fame is bankable, very simple equation.
The only people arguing in favor of software patents now are monopolists, lawyers, and a few of us who are misty-eyed enough to swallow the lone-inventor-makes-it-big story. --
So the question arises, if Corel isn't going to be a Linux vendor any more, why has Microsoft bothered to invest in them?
Well, all I can say is that I'm startled at the naivety of so many otherwise-intelligent people in not realizing that Microsoft's sole motivation in buying into Corel was to shut down a perceived threat to their desktop monopoly. Yes, it was a threat. Yes, Microsoft had to shut it down. If they had waited longer, Corel most likely would have been bought by a stronger company, taking Linux Corel Office out of Microsoft's reach.
Unfortunately, the strategem backfired, as Sun responded almost immediately by GPLing Star Office. --
The GPL requires that you be willing to give the source under a GPL
lincense to anyone who receives the binary. Tom would therefore be
entitled to the source. Unless you receive the binary, you would not.
Tom would then be entitled to get out the source, since according to the GPL, Intel could not restrict him from doing so. --
It's amazing the extent to which the big guys, Sun, IBM - don't get it when it comes to downloads. Did they ever try eating their own dogfood? I doubt it. There is no excuse for not providing regular ftp links. --
It shows a completely different point of view... instead of "everything is a file", the MULTICS way seems to be "everything is core".
We do that too, it's called mmap. The nice thing is that the same primitives used in mmap (and now swap too... and soon, shm) are also used in read and write. All this in a nice, compact efficient package. Um, as long as you close your eyes and forget that buffer.c exists.:-) --
Multics had a rather interesting approach to file I/O, IIRC - when you loaded a file, it got mapped straight in to virtual memory (the machine had a 48 bit
address space back in the 1960's, so you could get away with stunts like this). Read/write was just a matter writes to memory!!
That's pretty much what we do now in Linux - when you write it doesn't go to disk, it goes onto memory pages. When you read you're reading from memory pages and if they're not there, they get 'swapped in' from your file using the same mechanism we use for virtual memory, though we bypass the paging hardware in this case (it's faster that way).
Neat idea - but imagine the 32-bit address space crunch happening 20 years ago instead of now:)
We get around that by using disjoint pages of virtual memory mapped into the file's address space with a hash table, so the file has a 44 bit address space - that should be enough for a while. This works well, and doesn't cause virtual memory fragmentation. We'll probably start mapping the files in chunks larger than one page pretty soon. --
To reach today's 20,000,000 users Linux had to grow at an anual rate of 537%. (5.37^10 ~ 20M) Gartner is forcasting that it will slow down by 511%. I wonder how much they were paid to think that? --
The patent system is doing exactly what it's supposed to,
providing protection to the company that originated the best ideas.
Actually, I heard that they stole these ideas. And, for your information, the patent system is supposed to provide protection for inventors, not companies. It fails utterly at that. --
Slashdot Mirror
Who broke the story. This is an example of journalism at its best. Of course, the fight isn't over quite yet.
--
http://www.m17n.org/linux-sh/
--
No, 19.
--
I saw Linux boot on dreamcast in September at Linux Kongress.
--
There were a few major things that had to be done right at the end of the development process after other things had stablilized, such as adding proper flushing and syncing to the page cache. The page cache is, by the way, where a lot of the improved performance of 2.4 comes from. Before the page cache was only used to reading, now it's used for reading and writing, consuming only half the cache memory. The other big performance improvement came from a fairly major modification to the memory management system, to use an approach called page aging which you can see works a lot better. This radical surgery all happened in the last 3 months of the leadup to 2.4, and there were a lot of stupid little bugs and problems to track down and kill as a result of it. It came together pretty fast, actually.
--
No they haven't. They are lawyers and they are playing this game for themselves. They are trying to change the rules.
--
Whave people *do* have is laptops/notebooks. Now, if Starbucks offered a 100 MHz local net with RJ45 connectors along the counter...
--
Then you have a bad case of myopia. You need look no further away than Canada to find a place that is more stable and more free. I sincerely doubt that Canadians would have consented to have their election usurped by a blatantly partisan court system.
--
Oh yes, that's possible and likely. For example, the underlying memory management and disk IO can be faster and better than Windows (it already is), drivers can be better (3D drivers for NVidia and Matrox are already running neck and neck with windows drivers, held back only by 2D blitting support, which is being worked on) system calls can be handled more efficiently, etc. etc.
2) Is it likely that Microsoft will deliberately try to scupper the WINE project by introducing new API's that are top secret but required to make MS programs work?
It wouldn't work. There is no way MS can keep any api's secret - we can always run the windows program under emulation to see what it does if we need to. Usually it isn't necessary, and dont forget, secret api's are a pain for windows developers as well, even Microsoft developers. Plus having hidden api's discovered would be a little inconvenient for Microsoft's appeal of the split-up order.
Or perhaps try their hand legally?
Yes, for sure they will try to use legal means, it's their only chance to stop us. DMCA and such things show they're already on the march. We have to fight that. Deal: you fight the DCMA, and I'll keep working on the kernel, ok?
But then, I'd have thought that the WINE project benifits Microsoft in a perverse way, by giving them another market to sell to.
It lets others compete with Microsoft freely. Microsoft management wouldn't know what to do then, they only know how to play when they get to write the rules. If Microsoft can't control the platform its entire business model goes out the window.
--
No, not until somebody patents online galleries of cat photos.
--
Credit in the code is worth more than credit on a web page. That just needs a one liner - what, who, email, date. (That line will probably already be in the patch) Hardware is good - especially new hardware that nobody has yet. A 'come see me at XXX trade show, I'll buy you a beer' is worth more than you can imagine. Best of all has nothing to do with giving credit - just make sure the full specs of the hardware are published on the web. Thats the best thanks of all.
--
correct link
--
Microsoft makes this claim with each new generation of its office products. It has always turned out to be a lie.
--
Thanks, but no thanks. If you don't want to contribute your knowledge to the common pool then keep it to yourself. Somebody else will think of the same thing and contribute it to society. They'll get the fame, you won't. There is no shortage of people willing to do this. Fame is bankable, very simple equation.
The only people arguing in favor of software patents now are monopolists, lawyers, and a few of us who are misty-eyed enough to swallow the lone-inventor-makes-it-big story.
--
Well, all I can say is that I'm startled at the naivety of so many otherwise-intelligent people in not realizing that Microsoft's sole motivation in buying into Corel was to shut down a perceived threat to their desktop monopoly. Yes, it was a threat. Yes, Microsoft had to shut it down. If they had waited longer, Corel most likely would have been bought by a stronger company, taking Linux Corel Office out of Microsoft's reach.
Unfortunately, the strategem backfired, as Sun responded almost immediately by GPLing Star Office.
--
Tom would then be entitled to get out the source, since according to the GPL, Intel could not restrict him from doing so.
--
It's amazing the extent to which the big guys, Sun, IBM - don't get it when it comes to downloads. Did they ever try eating their own dogfood? I doubt it. There is no excuse for not providing regular ftp links.
--
This misses the point completely. By the same argument, C is just a glorified text file.
--
We do that too, it's called mmap. The nice thing is that the same primitives used in mmap (and now swap too... and soon, shm) are also used in read and write. All this in a nice, compact efficient package. Um, as long as you close your eyes and forget that buffer.c exists. :-)
--
That's pretty much what we do now in Linux - when you write it doesn't go to disk, it goes onto memory pages. When you read you're reading from memory pages and if they're not there, they get 'swapped in' from your file using the same mechanism we use for virtual memory, though we bypass the paging hardware in this case (it's faster that way).
Neat idea - but imagine the 32-bit address space crunch happening 20 years ago instead of now :)
We get around that by using disjoint pages of virtual memory mapped into the file's address space with a hash table, so the file has a 44 bit address space - that should be enough for a while. This works well, and doesn't cause virtual memory fragmentation. We'll probably start mapping the files in chunks larger than one page pretty soon.
--
You've seen this haven't you?
--
Linus believes he is a 'CVS with taste'.
If that's not good enough for you, try here.
--
That's because not all of us have a clue
And Mozilla/Netscape 6 under Windows *STINKS*. Even on nightlies.
Um, you mean the browser I'm happily posting with right now? Seems fine to me.
--
To reach today's 20,000,000 users Linux had to grow at an anual rate of 537%. (5.37^10 ~ 20M) Gartner is forcasting that it will slow down by 511%. I wonder how much they were paid to think that?
--
Actually, I heard that they stole these ideas. And, for your information, the patent system is supposed to provide protection for inventors, not companies. It fails utterly at that.
--