All it says is that the mechanism of evolution itself evolves, a stunningly obvious observation that follows directly from Darwin's theory. Yes, first it's random, but that stage lasts only an eye-blink, because the first thing that happens is a better shuffling mechanism evolves and takes over the universe. Then selection isn't random any more, any more than the positioning of arms and legs is random.
-no pop-ups (display pop-up requests in a dedicated widget) -no clickless redirection (display as links in a pseudo-frame or with a dedicated widget)
I'd like to point out once again (sorry if I sound like a broken record, but a lot of people seem to forget this) you don't have to ask for such options: you can get and hack your own private copy of Mozilla. When you've prefected the ultimate Javascript security patch, contribute it to the tree.
Western Europes mobile network is exploding. GSM is hitting east asia and australia. The US seems to have been take by suprise for once and caught napping. I thought the US network would be better, but I was shocked to find out that it is quite dated, specially in WAP areas
Hehe. No way, can you say CDMA? GSM is the one that's outdated. Hopefully, once CDMA takes over the world we won't have the stupid division between NA/Euro cell phone standards.
As a result of the last/. article on the need for streaming media I (1) checked out icecast (1b) compiled it from source (2) tried out XMMS's streaming mp3 feature (2b) compiled it from source (3) spent a couple of hours listening to broadcast audio from greenwitch (4) figured out how to make netscape start the webcast automatically, just by clicking on the.mpu link.
The XMMS streaming audio is solid as a rock. Even without using the realtime priority feature, I couldn't get it to skip. (I guess I could if I tried *really* hard) The audio quality is superb - considering the bit rate and the miniscule speakers on my laptop. Gosh, that equalizer helps, and they do a lovely job of compression-amplifying. If you've been turned off by crappy streaming audio from Realnetworks, you have to try this.
My conclusion is, this totally rocks, and we don't need Microsoft's help in getting streaming media on Linux. Just the opposite I'd say. What we need to do is (1) beat on more sites to give us streaming mp3 (or we won't bloody go to your site, thanks) (2) give the people that are working on free video codecs for Linux all the support we can.
What if all those Indians, Chinese, Indonesians, etc skip the 'PC era?'
And play quake 4 on their cell phones? Prepare their office correspondence on their wristwatches? Give me a break.
From what I've read, wireless networks are taking the rest of the world by storm (places other then the US)... The fact is that almost everybody I met had a cell phone, and nobody had a computer.
You mean nobody was actually carrying their desktop around on the street:-) What has this got to do with the "end of the PC era"? Personally, I have a cell phone, actually more than one, and I've got normal computers at work, and at home. I don't think I'm so unusual in that. People are getting very confused about this "end of an era" thingy.
The internet and email are things that would be of great use to the people. Small and portable web-devices would be much better suited for these people then desktop PCs.
Again, while such devices are very likely to become more popular, you'll see them being used in addition to ordinary computers that you can type on, and that you don't have to squint to read. In fact, my cell phone would make an excellent wireless modem for my laptop if the connect charges weren't so ridiculously high.
90% of the world doesn't have a PC now and the PC era is supposed to be ending? Right. I'll believe it when I see all those Indians, Chinese, Indonesians, etc. etc. etc. running Wordperfect on their cellphones.
So far, the processing power race has only had one thing in mind: more mips from a single processor, nothing else matters, not size, not heat, well, maybe cost matters, but *not that much*. I've always thought that the way forward is to maximize processing through per transistor, and that's exactly where Transmeta is going. This directly affects me in two ways: first, my laptop, which is a bleeding wound as far as battery life is concerned. Second: my desktop 2 years from now. I want it to be 16-way or better, yet I don't want to be able to fry eggs on it, and I don't want it to have enough fans to achieve liftoff. Or a refrigerator. The only way to get there is with more energy-efficient processors. Fewer transistors == less heat, other things being equal. Did I say I hate fans? I hate fans.
One thing about Linus being involved in Transmeta is it suggests the tantalizing possiblity that the code morphing software may ultimately wind up being open-sourced. I couldn't think of anyone who could make a more powerful argument for it. Plus, I'd love to be able to program a machine like this directly in its "microcode" (a relative term as far as crusoe is concerned). Again, with LInus in there, I'd see it as a distinct possibility. Did you ever hear of anyone programming the PPro in microcode? It's possible, but nobody does it because Intel keeps that info locked up tighter than a... well, darn tight. Transmeta might not be so anal about it.
Re:There is an economic reason to go to Mars
on
On to Mars
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· Score: 2
No, there is no economic reason to go to Mars.
You seem rather confident of that.
If you wanted cheap O2 and H2 in LEO, mine Phobos, use a comet or release the volatiles at the Lunar poles with a solar mirror. The gravity well of Mars is far too strong to bother visiting when you have the Moon and tons 'o other chunks of matter floating about which require far less energy to reach.
Those ideas all seem pretty far-fetched. For one thing, comets don't stay put. And what's this about a solar mirror? There hasn't even been any water proven on the moon and really, it looks pretty darn dry. Whereas Mars isn't at all. Mining phobos is practically the same as mining Mars - you'd have a permanent colony on Mars anyway.
No, I really don't think you've made your point.
Wouldn't you rather see your space-tax bucks spent on something more useful than a one-shot trip to Mars that will require a decade (or more) to prepare for?
You were reading with your eyes closed. We're talking about colonizing Mars. And this would make me a whole lot happier than a lot of other things my tax bucks are spent on.
There is an economic reason to go to Mars
on
On to Mars
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· Score: 3
Mars has a much shallower gravity well than Earth - it takes a lot less gas to get from Mars to Earth orbit than it takes to get from Earth to Earth orbit. These days, there's a market for supplies delivered to orbit - gas (or hydrazine or whatever) is needed to stabilize satellites, etc. It takes less energy to ship gas from Mars to earth than it does to ship it from Earth. Plus, there isn't the pollution issue. Actually, Mars could use a little more pollution in its atmosphere, to keep the heat in.
What I'm saying is - you could actually make money being a Martian, shipping fuel, and oxigen, say, to Earth orbit. Too expensive to produce such stuff on Mars? No - how to explain this - you've got a whole planet worth of resources at your disposal, you only have to worry about costs of production and transportation, the resources are bascially free until your population increases. And, as a Martian, you don't worry if those costs are high - everything costs more on Mars:-) All you care about is whether you earn enough currency to import the stuff you need from Earth and can't make for yourself.
an as-yet-to-be-developed mp3 streaming video system
err, I meant jpeg/mpeg streaming video system.
**resolves never to post without previewing ever again**
I haven't checked out the internals of Icecast (resolves to do that) but why can't it be trivially extended to handle jpeg/mpeg? Streaming is streaming.
If MicroSofts format is good enough, let's use it.
Let's not. Microsoft's intentions are transparent - first, establish a defactor standard. Do whatever it takes, including putting forth an apparently open streaming protocol, and buying/locking up the content to put in it. Get people using it, again, do whatever it takes. Finally, change the format - overnight, deploy the changed format on all microsoft's captive web servers - the clients will have already been upgraded, in advance. Use the usual techniques to pick you the stragglers. Poof: it's a Microsoft media world. Anybody who doesn't see this coming needs to be wacked with a large clue stick.
It doesn't matter how good Microsoft's streaming media is, adopting it is a slippery slope.
I'd suggest instead we do whatever we can to ensure that web sites start adding truly open streaming formats like Icecast and an as-yet-to-be-developed mp3 streaming video system.
We've now got the numbers and the power to force a very large fraction of the content providers to give us the streaming format we want - we just have to decide what that is.
I can't go to the "opt out" page because I've told my browser to never load any URL that comes from doubleclick. 8-} It's easy and works on UNIX,
Windows, and Macs with IE5 or NS2-5. yes, and right now I can't go to your no-ads page because Junkbuster sees "ads" in the url and tosses it:-)
Junkbuster works like a dream, it's a really tight little program, and it even seems to cure Netscapes horrible DNS hangs. It comes as a rpm, exe, whatever, and also compiles from source in a few seconds, with a raw makefile that doesn't need configuring. One obvious improvement: instead of just giving you a link to the reason why it tossed a page, it should give you a "go there anyway" link as well. I'll see what I can do...
Most of our interfaces *do* suck to some degree, let's not deny that. To deny it would mean denying the need to keep making them better. The fact that our interfaces tend to suck much less than a lot of the competition, well, hehe, that's no reason at all to get complacent.
He's bang on the money about the user feedback loop - it's crucially important. But he's wrong to say The Open Source movement has no feedback loop to end-users. What's this? We need more stuff like this, better stuff like this. The only thing is, I'm not sure the devlopers in question are using this excellent facility to the extent it should be - there are many out-of-date user comments on there, mainly because the wanted features have already been added. In time, if the list isn't kept current users will stop posting to it, in the mistaken belief that it isn't doing any good. But that's just another glitch to work out.
The thing is, making good interfaces is just another interesting problem for geeks to solve. Define the problem, and we'll solve it. First we'll start with poor solutions, then we'll keep making improving them until they're good solutions, then make them better and better until... well, it never stops. Need to talk to users? Ok, sure, voice chat is kinda fun sometimes, anyway. Need to try it this way instead of that bad old way? Ok, that makes sense. Need to read a about it? Just give me the URL!. Need to give prizes for the best user interface designs? Come on, somebody with more money than geekness please step forward to sponsor the contest. The only hard part of this is recognizing the need. Achille's heel? Far from it, it's just another hill to climb.
The fact is that it's much harder to make good end-user software than it is to make good infrastructure software
No, that's just wrong. Speaking as someone who does both, has been doing both for 25 years, and doing it well IMNSHO, I can say with considerable confidence that creating good infrastructure is much harder than creating good user interfaces, and the stakes are much higher. Without good infrastructure you get a monstrosity like Windows (pick your flavor) or Dos - something pathetically non-functional. Glitzy user interfaces are the hare, and good infrastructure is the tortoise - it takes a lot longer to do the job if you build sturdy infrastructure first, but you can then build your stucture much higher without having it collapse (apologies for the mixed metaphor). In the end, the tortoise wins. Is winning.
Most of our interfaces do suck to some degree, let's not deny that. To deny it would mean denying the need to keep making them better. The fact that our interfaces tend to suck much less than a lot of the competition, well, hehe, that's no reason at all to stop working on it.
He's bang on the money about the user feedback loop - it's crucially important. But he's wrong to say The Open Source movement has no feedback loop to end-users. What's this? We need more stuff like this, better stuff like this. The only thing is, I'm not sure the devlopers in question are using this excellent facility to the extent it should be - there are many out-of-date user comments on there, mainly because the wanted features have already been added. In time, if the list isn't kept current users will stop posting to it, in the mistaken belief that it isn't doing any good. But that's just another glitch to work out.
The thing is, making good interfaces is just another interesting problem for geeks to solve. Define the problem, and we'll solve it. First we'll start with poor solutions, then we'll keep making improving them until they're good solutions, then make them better and better until... well, it never stops. The only hard part of this is recognizing the need. Achille's heel? Far from it, it's just another hill to climb.
The fact is that it's much harder to make good end-user software than it is to make good infrastructure software - and that's going to make it tough for Open Source software to break out of its server niche.
No, that's just wrong. Speaking as someone who does both, has been doing both for 25 years, and doing it well IMNSHO, I can say with considerable confidence that creating good infrastructure is much harder than creating good user interfaces, and the stakes are much higher. Without good infrastructure you get a monstrosity like Windows (pick your flavor) or Dos - something pathetically non-functional. Glitzy user interfaces are the hare, and good infrastructure is the tortoise - it takes a lot longer to do the job if you build sturdy infrastructure first, but you can then build your stucture much higher without having it collapse (apologies for the mixed metaphor). In the end, the tortoise wins. Is winning.
You know where to get the source. Do anything you want when Doubleclick comes sniffing around looking for its cookie. Have fun, play tricks on Doubleclick, whatever you want.
Maybe there should be a contest to come up with the best anti-tracking hack for Mozilla.
I don't know how you could consider it not open source; please read the license.
I misspoke, and I couldn't be more happy to be corrected:D My initial (wrong) impression was that the "reference implementation" was just a driver, but it looks like you're giving us the whole enchilada. Good going guys.
If you have questions about our licensing, please check the FAQ. It goes into a lot more detail.
Jon Leech OpenGL Group SGI
So it does:
What's missing from the current Sample Implementation? ...Dynamic assembly code generation for rasterization is not yet included, making software rendering performance slow.
That looks like a fun project. I assume this is the time honored hack of assembling code on the stack and branching to it, to cover all the lighting combinations without having 10,000 different inner loops.
The geometry path assembly code optimizations which we ship to our commercial licensees are actually owned by other companies, so we don't have the rights to place them under an open source license. We will work with the companies involved to try and free up these components.
Go get 'em:-) Obviously it's in their interest to throw their stuff into the pot if they want to sell cards to 10,000,000 penguinistas.
So we still need Mesa. A strong Mesa is the only club we have that's big enough to force OpenGL the rest of the way into open source. Don't get me wrong, this is great, and I think SGI is really doing a lot of good for open source in general and Linux in particular, but we'll be sure to make our OpenGL drivers work perfectly under Mesa as well as the official product, won't we? Anything else would be... naive.
Until OpenGL is *fully* GPL-compatible, Mesa must remain the number one 3D platform for Linux.
As has been pointed out many times, one of the big arguments in the lawsuits, and perhaps the criminal investigation as well, is whether the reverse engineering was done legally. Let's kill that argument by having a second version done according to the well-know cleanroom reverse engineering techniques that worked so well for Phoenix when they cloned the IBM PC rom. It has to be unarguably legal reverse engineering, done strictly for the purpose of cross-platform support. We not only have to have the moral high ground, but be seen to have it. Do the work, and keep records of how it was done.
Will this help the current cases? No - those cases still have to be fought hard, and maybe somebody will have to beat a strategic retreat. But it will help prevent us from losing the war.
Okay, now to respond to the stuff I liked: You are absolutely right about Linux being next to impossible for the common user. It has improved greatly in the last year or so, but we still have a VERY long way to go.
No, we're here now. My wife now uses Linux happily - she's pretty much technically clueless - doesn't even know how to copy a file - but she knows how to start ppp, she knows how to start netscape, kmail, etc, and she knows how to surf. Actually, she knows how to do electronic funds transfer using netscape:-) Anyway, the point is she doesn't need to read man pages, she just needs to know how to click icons. My friends kids use Linux - they know how to run games, get on the internet, mail messages to dad over the family network:-) I guess, soon they'll know how to get root... (suggestion: watch daddy's fingers carefully when he logs in)^H^H^H^H^H^H^H[CENSORED]
I'm a senior Computer Science major at a well known university (which probably means aproximately dick), so I'm pretty technically inclined. I've been using Linux since my freshman year. Usually when I want to learn something new about Linux I go to the man page or the HOWTO. Sometimes this helps me. Sometimes it's like another language. When somebody as technically inclined as I am can't even understand the documentation, we definately have a problem.
Not everybody has to read the man pages, but thank goodness they're their, so when I go to troubleshoot somebodies computer, I don't have to keep it all in my head.
Intel has the ability to cut prices and cut below transmeta prices. Sadly enough this will determine wether or not a new chip company can succeed. Can ANY new company succeed with this type of threat?
Perhaps they can cut their prices easily, but it will be harder for them to make the chips run cooler. These price cuts probably have more to do with AMD - K6's are killing intel in the mobile market.
Note that Intel is now under attack in *all* their major market segments, so this limits their ability to undercut in one market while making up for it with extra-high prices in another market.
I can say with confidence that I have seen many fine ideas die on the vine simply because they were unprotectible by patent or copyright.
Yes, and the entire open-source movement must be a figment of my imagination because authors are unable to force end users to pay them licence fees for normal use.
There are many chicken-littles saying that if we defang the patent system, innovation will grind to a halt. Hmm "innovation" - seems to me I've heard somebody using that word a lot lately.
The fact is that innovation does not grind to a halt just because innovators are unable to fence in the intellectual property and extract fees for it's use. That's because there are other ways of profiting from the innovation that do not rely on fees from normal users. For example, you may become famous, and therefore able to join a young, well-financed company that gives you large stock options. Or you may be satisfied simply with the fame. Or you may simply be happy that you have done something well, or useful.
In the open-source world we haven't seen a major application area yet that hasn't been subsumed into the open source model, or is well on it's way. In the games world for example, the best engines are open source, or are derived from open source work. (John Carmack, besides being one of the best problem solvers in the industry, is also one of the best recyclers of publically available technology, e.g., the pre-computed occlusion strategy used in the Quake engines.) Again, using games as an example, the money is made through copyright on artistic content, not by fencing in the technology.
Thomas Edison patented the light bulb. Do you know where we would be today without the light bulb?
How can you possibly imagine noone would have invented it, and at rougly the same time, if Edison hadn't? The situation we have now is less a flowering of research and more a greedy gold rush - the gold goes to who gets there first, and who doesn't join the rush, loses. This is precisely analogous to the struggle between open and closed source software - in the end, what benefits society as a whole must surely win - by evolutionary pressure - but the road to that desireable state can be long, twisty and rocky, and for a time, perverse systems like the patent we see today may will hold sway, seemingly impossible to disloge.
I thought the original purpose of the patent system was to allow people to maintain control of their inventions so that they could profit off of them without having to worry about someone stealing their inventions.
The original purpose was to encourage inventors to disclose their discoveries instead of keeping them as trade secrets - profit-making is merely the carrot.
Interestingly enough, the author notes that there is more than one purpose to the patent law even with his own remarks. Had he truly adopted the "original purpose" of rewarding those for disclosure, why would it matter whether the disclosure is that of a "mathematical truth" or a design for the warp drive? Don't we need the disclosure just the same?
You missed the point entirely. The question is whether patent law in it's current form is solving a problem or not. Algorithms, mathematical facts, gene sequences, whatnot, are likely never going to be kept as trade secrets, so patent protection is not necessary in these cases.
Hmmp. Good job "batting me down". Did you come here to display your debating skills, or exchange ideas?
Slashdot Mirror
All it says is that the mechanism of evolution itself evolves, a stunningly obvious observation that follows directly from Darwin's theory. Yes, first it's random, but that stage lasts only an eye-blink, because the first thing that happens is a better shuffling mechanism evolves and takes over the universe. Then selection isn't random any more, any more than the positioning of arms and legs is random.
When Mozilla becomes a useable browser, this argument becomes valid. Not that I expect this to happen next N years. >>-1.
Others may have a different opinion.
(This comment posted with Mozilla M14 nightly build)
Western Europes mobile network is exploding. GSM is hitting east asia and australia. The US seems to have been take by suprise for once and caught napping. I thought the US network would be better, but I was shocked to find out that it is quite dated, specially in WAP areas
Hehe. No way, can you say CDMA? GSM is the one that's outdated. Hopefully, once CDMA takes over the world we won't have the stupid division between NA/Euro cell phone standards.
As a result of the last /. article on the need for streaming media I (1) checked out icecast (1b) compiled it from source (2) tried out XMMS's streaming mp3 feature (2b) compiled it from source (3) spent a couple of hours listening to broadcast audio from greenwitch (4) figured out how to make netscape start the webcast automatically, just by clicking on the .mpu link.
The XMMS streaming audio is solid as a rock. Even without using the realtime priority feature, I couldn't get it to skip. (I guess I could if I tried *really* hard) The audio quality is superb - considering the bit rate and the miniscule speakers on my laptop. Gosh, that equalizer helps, and they do a lovely job of compression-amplifying. If you've been turned off by crappy streaming audio from Realnetworks, you have to try this.
My conclusion is, this totally rocks, and we don't need Microsoft's help in getting streaming media on Linux. Just the opposite I'd say. What we need to do is (1) beat on more sites to give us streaming mp3 (or we won't bloody go to your site, thanks) (2) give the people that are working on free video codecs for Linux all the support we can.
What if all those Indians, Chinese, Indonesians, etc skip the 'PC era?'
... The fact is that almost everybody I met had a cell phone, and nobody had a computer.
:-) What has this got to do with the "end of the PC era"? Personally, I have a cell phone, actually more than one, and I've got normal computers at work, and at home. I don't think I'm so unusual in that. People are getting very confused about this "end of an era" thingy.
And play quake 4 on their cell phones? Prepare their office correspondence on their wristwatches? Give me a break.
From what I've read, wireless networks are taking the rest of the world by storm (places other then the US)
You mean nobody was actually carrying their desktop around on the street
The internet and email are things that would be of great use to the people. Small and portable web-devices would be much better suited for these people then desktop PCs.
Again, while such devices are very likely to become more popular, you'll see them being used in addition to ordinary computers that you can type on, and that you don't have to squint to read. In fact, my cell phone would make an excellent wireless modem for my laptop if the connect charges weren't so ridiculously high.
90% of the world doesn't have a PC now and the PC era is supposed to be ending? Right. I'll believe it when I see all those Indians, Chinese, Indonesians, etc. etc. etc. running Wordperfect on their cellphones.
So far, the processing power race has only had one thing in mind: more mips from a single processor, nothing else matters, not size, not heat, well, maybe cost matters, but *not that much*. I've always thought that the way forward is to maximize processing through per transistor, and that's exactly where Transmeta is going. This directly affects me in two ways: first, my laptop, which is a bleeding wound as far as battery life is concerned. Second: my desktop 2 years from now. I want it to be 16-way or better, yet I don't want to be able to fry eggs on it, and I don't want it to have enough fans to achieve liftoff. Or a refrigerator. The only way to get there is with more energy-efficient processors. Fewer transistors == less heat, other things being equal. Did I say I hate fans? I hate fans.
One thing about Linus being involved in Transmeta is it suggests the tantalizing possiblity that the code morphing software may ultimately wind up being open-sourced. I couldn't think of anyone who could make a more powerful argument for it. Plus, I'd love to be able to program a machine like this directly in its "microcode" (a relative term as far as crusoe is concerned). Again, with LInus in there, I'd see it as a distinct possibility. Did you ever hear of anyone programming the PPro in microcode? It's possible, but nobody does it because Intel keeps that info locked up tighter than a... well, darn tight. Transmeta might not be so anal about it.
No, there is no economic reason to go to Mars.
You seem rather confident of that.
If you wanted cheap O2 and H2 in LEO, mine Phobos, use a comet or release the volatiles at the Lunar poles with a solar mirror. The gravity well of Mars is far too strong to bother visiting when you have the Moon and tons 'o other chunks of matter floating about which require far less energy to reach.
Those ideas all seem pretty far-fetched. For one thing, comets don't stay put. And what's this about a solar mirror? There hasn't even been any water proven on the moon and really, it looks pretty darn dry. Whereas Mars isn't at all. Mining phobos is practically the same as mining Mars - you'd have a permanent colony on Mars anyway.
No, I really don't think you've made your point.
Wouldn't you rather see your space-tax bucks spent on something more useful than a one-shot trip to Mars that will require a decade (or more) to prepare for?
You were reading with your eyes closed. We're talking about colonizing Mars. And this would make me a whole lot happier than a lot of other things my tax bucks are spent on.
Mars has a much shallower gravity well than Earth - it takes a lot less gas to get from Mars to Earth orbit than it takes to get from Earth to Earth orbit. These days, there's a market for supplies delivered to orbit - gas (or hydrazine or whatever) is needed to stabilize satellites, etc. It takes less energy to ship gas from Mars to earth than it does to ship it from Earth. Plus, there isn't the pollution issue. Actually, Mars could use a little more pollution in its atmosphere, to keep the heat in.
:-) All you care about is whether you earn enough currency to import the stuff you need from Earth and can't make for yourself.
What I'm saying is - you could actually make money being a Martian, shipping fuel, and oxigen, say, to Earth orbit. Too expensive to produce such stuff on Mars? No - how to explain this - you've got a whole planet worth of resources at your disposal, you only have to worry about costs of production and transportation, the resources are bascially free until your population increases. And, as a Martian, you don't worry if those costs are high - everything costs more on Mars
an as-yet-to-be-developed mp3 streaming video system
err, I meant jpeg/mpeg streaming video system.
**resolves never to post without previewing ever again**
I haven't checked out the internals of Icecast (resolves to do that) but why can't it be trivially extended to handle jpeg/mpeg? Streaming is streaming.
If MicroSofts format is good enough, let's use it.
Let's not. Microsoft's intentions are transparent - first, establish a defactor standard. Do whatever it takes, including putting forth an apparently open streaming protocol, and buying/locking up the content to put in it. Get people using it, again, do whatever it takes. Finally, change the format - overnight, deploy the changed format on all microsoft's captive web servers - the clients will have already been upgraded, in advance. Use the usual techniques to pick you the stragglers. Poof: it's a Microsoft media world. Anybody who doesn't see this coming needs to be wacked with a large clue stick.
It doesn't matter how good Microsoft's streaming media is, adopting it is a slippery slope.
I'd suggest instead we do whatever we can to ensure that web sites start adding truly open streaming formats like Icecast and an as-yet-to-be-developed mp3 streaming video system.
We've now got the numbers and the power to force a very large fraction of the content providers to give us the streaming format we want - we just have to decide what that is.
I can't go to the "opt out" page because I've told my browser to never load any URL that comes from doubleclick. 8-} It's easy and works on UNIX,
:-)
Windows, and Macs with IE5 or NS2-5. yes, and right now I can't go to your no-ads page because Junkbuster sees "ads" in the url and tosses it
Junkbuster works like a dream, it's a really tight little program, and it even seems to cure Netscapes horrible DNS hangs. It comes as a rpm, exe, whatever, and also compiles from source in a few seconds, with a raw makefile that doesn't need configuring. One obvious improvement: instead of just giving you a link to the reason why it tossed a page, it should give you a "go there anyway" link as well. I'll see what I can do...
Most of our interfaces *do* suck to some degree, let's not deny that. To deny it would mean denying the need to keep making them better. The fact that our interfaces tend to suck much less than a lot of the competition, well, hehe, that's no reason at all to get complacent.
He's bang on the money about the user feedback loop - it's crucially important. But he's wrong to say The Open Source movement has no feedback loop to end-users. What's this? We need more stuff like this, better stuff like this. The only thing is, I'm not sure the devlopers in question are using this excellent facility to the extent it should be - there are many out-of-date user comments on there, mainly because the wanted features have already been added. In time, if the list isn't kept current users will stop posting to it, in the mistaken belief that it isn't doing any good. But that's just another glitch to work out.
The thing is, making good interfaces is just another interesting problem for geeks to solve. Define the problem, and we'll solve it. First we'll start with poor solutions, then we'll keep making improving them until they're good solutions, then make them better and better until... well, it never stops. Need to talk to users? Ok, sure, voice chat is kinda fun sometimes, anyway. Need to try it this way instead of that bad old way? Ok, that makes sense. Need to read a about it? Just give me the URL!. Need to give prizes for the best user interface designs? Come on, somebody with more money than geekness please step forward to sponsor the contest. The only hard part of this is recognizing the need. Achille's heel? Far from it, it's just another hill to climb.
The fact is that it's much harder to make good end-user software than it is to make good infrastructure software
No, that's just wrong. Speaking as someone who does both, has been doing both for 25 years, and doing it well IMNSHO, I can say with considerable confidence that creating good infrastructure is much harder than creating good user interfaces, and the stakes are much higher. Without good infrastructure you get a monstrosity like Windows (pick your flavor) or Dos - something pathetically non-functional. Glitzy user interfaces are the hare, and good infrastructure is the tortoise - it takes a lot longer to do the job if you build sturdy infrastructure first, but you can then build your stucture much higher without having it collapse (apologies for the mixed metaphor). In the end, the tortoise wins. Is winning.
Most of our interfaces do suck to some degree, let's not deny that. To deny it would mean denying the need to keep making them better. The fact that our interfaces tend to suck much less than a lot of the competition, well, hehe, that's no reason at all to stop working on it.
He's bang on the money about the user feedback loop - it's crucially important. But he's wrong to say The Open Source movement has no feedback loop to end-users. What's this? We need more stuff like this, better stuff like this. The only thing is, I'm not sure the devlopers in question are using this excellent facility to the extent it should be - there are many out-of-date user comments on there, mainly because the wanted features have already been added. In time, if the list isn't kept current users will stop posting to it, in the mistaken belief that it isn't doing any good. But that's just another glitch to work out.
The thing is, making good interfaces is just another interesting problem for geeks to solve. Define the problem, and we'll solve it. First we'll start with poor solutions, then we'll keep making improving them until they're good solutions, then make them better and better until... well, it never stops. The only hard part of this is recognizing the need. Achille's heel? Far from it, it's just another hill to climb.
The fact is that it's much harder to make good end-user software than it is to make good infrastructure software - and that's going to make it tough for Open Source software to break out of its server niche.
No, that's just wrong. Speaking as someone who does both, has been doing both for 25 years, and doing it well IMNSHO, I can say with considerable confidence that creating good infrastructure is much harder than creating good user interfaces, and the stakes are much higher. Without good infrastructure you get a monstrosity like Windows (pick your flavor) or Dos - something pathetically non-functional. Glitzy user interfaces are the hare, and good infrastructure is the tortoise - it takes a lot longer to do the job if you build sturdy infrastructure first, but you can then build your stucture much higher without having it collapse (apologies for the mixed metaphor). In the end, the tortoise wins. Is winning.
You know where to get the source. Do anything you want when Doubleclick comes sniffing around looking for its cookie. Have fun, play tricks on Doubleclick, whatever you want.
Maybe there should be a contest to come up with the best anti-tracking hack for Mozilla.
I don't know how you could consider it not open source; please read the license.
:D My initial (wrong) impression was that the "reference implementation" was just a driver, but it looks like you're giving us the whole enchilada. Good going guys.
...Dynamic assembly code generation for rasterization is not yet included, making software rendering performance slow.
:-) Obviously it's in their interest to throw their stuff into the pot if they want to sell cards to 10,000,000 penguinistas.
I misspoke, and I couldn't be more happy to be corrected
If you have questions about our licensing, please check the FAQ. It goes into a lot more detail.
Jon Leech
OpenGL Group
SGI
So it does:
What's missing from the current Sample Implementation?
That looks like a fun project. I assume this is the time honored hack of assembling code on the stack and branching to it, to cover all the lighting combinations without having 10,000 different inner loops.
The geometry path assembly code optimizations which we ship to our commercial licensees are actually owned by other companies, so we don't have the rights to place them under an open source license. We will work with the companies involved to try and free up these components.
Go get 'em
Thanks a bunch.
So we still need Mesa. A strong Mesa is the only club we have that's big enough to force OpenGL the rest of the way into open source. Don't get me wrong, this is great, and I think SGI is really doing a lot of good for open source in general and Linux in particular, but we'll be sure to make our OpenGL drivers work perfectly under Mesa as well as the official product, won't we? Anything else would be... naive.
Until OpenGL is *fully* GPL-compatible, Mesa must remain the number one 3D platform for Linux.
As has been pointed out many times, one of the big arguments in the lawsuits, and perhaps the criminal investigation as well, is whether the reverse engineering was done legally. Let's kill that argument by having a second version done according to the well-know cleanroom reverse engineering techniques that worked so well for Phoenix when they cloned the IBM PC rom. It has to be unarguably legal reverse engineering, done strictly for the purpose of cross-platform support. We not only have to have the moral high ground, but be seen to have it. Do the work, and keep records of how it was done.
Will this help the current cases? No - those cases still have to be fought hard, and maybe somebody will have to beat a strategic retreat. But it will help prevent us from losing the war.
Okay, now to respond to the stuff I liked: You are absolutely right about Linux being next to impossible for the common user. It has improved greatly in the last year or so, but we still have a VERY long way to go.
:-) Anyway, the point is she doesn't need to read man pages, she just needs to know how to click icons. My friends kids use Linux - they know how to run games, get on the internet, mail messages to dad over the family network :-) I guess, soon they'll know how to get root... (suggestion: watch daddy's fingers carefully when he logs in)^H^H^H^H^H^H^H[CENSORED]
No, we're here now. My wife now uses Linux happily - she's pretty much technically clueless - doesn't even know how to copy a file - but she knows how to start ppp, she knows how to start netscape, kmail, etc, and she knows how to surf. Actually, she knows how to do electronic funds transfer using netscape
I'm a senior Computer Science major at a well known university (which probably means aproximately dick), so I'm pretty technically inclined. I've been using Linux since my freshman year. Usually when I want to learn something new about Linux I go to the man page or the HOWTO. Sometimes this helps me. Sometimes it's like another language. When somebody as technically inclined as I am can't even understand the documentation, we definately have a problem.
Not everybody has to read the man pages, but thank goodness they're their, so when I go to troubleshoot somebodies computer, I don't have to keep it all in my head.
Intel has the ability to cut prices and cut below transmeta prices. Sadly enough this will determine wether or not a new chip company can succeed. Can ANY new company succeed with this type of threat?
Perhaps they can cut their prices easily, but it will be harder for them to make the chips run cooler. These price cuts probably have more to do with AMD - K6's are killing intel in the mobile market.
Note that Intel is now under attack in *all* their major market segments, so this limits their ability to undercut in one market while making up for it with extra-high prices in another market.
I can say with confidence that I have seen many fine ideas die on the vine simply because they were unprotectible by patent or copyright.
Yes, and the entire open-source movement must be a figment of my imagination because authors are unable to force end users to pay them licence fees for normal use.
There are many chicken-littles saying that if we defang the patent system, innovation will grind to a halt. Hmm "innovation" - seems to me I've heard somebody using that word a lot lately.
The fact is that innovation does not grind to a halt just because innovators are unable to fence in the intellectual property and extract fees for it's use. That's because there are other ways of profiting from the innovation that do not rely on fees from normal users. For example, you may become famous, and therefore able to join a young, well-financed company that gives you large stock options. Or you may be satisfied simply with the fame. Or you may simply be happy that you have done something well, or useful.
In the open-source world we haven't seen a major application area yet that hasn't been subsumed into the open source model, or is well on it's way. In the games world for example, the best engines are open source, or are derived from open source work. (John Carmack, besides being one of the best problem solvers in the industry, is also one of the best recyclers of publically available technology, e.g., the pre-computed occlusion strategy used in the Quake engines.) Again, using games as an example, the money is made through copyright on artistic content, not by fencing in the technology.
Thomas Edison patented the light bulb. Do you know where we would be today without the light bulb?
How can you possibly imagine noone would have invented it, and at rougly the same time, if Edison hadn't? The situation we have now is less a flowering of research and more a greedy gold rush - the gold goes to who gets there first, and who doesn't join the rush, loses. This is precisely analogous to the struggle between open and closed source software - in the end, what benefits society as a whole must surely win - by evolutionary pressure - but the road to that desireable state can be long, twisty and rocky, and for a time, perverse systems like the patent we see today may will hold sway, seemingly impossible to disloge.
I thought the original purpose of the patent system was to allow people to maintain control of their inventions so that they could profit off of them without having to worry about someone stealing their inventions.
The original purpose was to encourage inventors to disclose their discoveries instead of keeping them as trade secrets - profit-making is merely the carrot.
Interestingly enough, the author notes that there is more than one purpose to the patent law even with his own remarks. Had he truly adopted the "original purpose" of rewarding those for disclosure, why would it matter whether the disclosure is that of a "mathematical truth" or a design for the warp drive? Don't we need the disclosure just the same?
You missed the point entirely. The question is whether patent law in it's current form is solving a problem or not. Algorithms, mathematical facts, gene sequences, whatnot, are likely never going to be kept as trade secrets, so patent protection is not necessary in these cases.
Hmmp. Good job "batting me down". Did you come here to display your debating skills, or exchange ideas?