Well, I'm really not sure what got your panties in a bind, but let me drop a couple of comments back at ya here:
Interesting how you start your article off by saying that there is no porn in China, obviously something that is off the top of your mind.
Not really. I mentioned it first because it's something that I've heard a lot of people discuss in relation to China in a completely different area. Sorry if it disappoints you to hear that.
Actually 4.5 years is a long time ago, and 4.5 months in a farmers town doe snot make you an expert, that slike saying any foreign national who spends 4.5 months in Wyoming is an expert in the affairs of the hallowed halls of Washington.
China is a country of slow social and govornment changes - most of the time. But - even then, I still keep up with events there. As I mentioned I was there on work. The company still travels there, and I still hear how things are - and, for the most part, things haven't changed much. Cell phones are getting more and more dominant, since there's such a long wait for phone service. Those who are in areas where it's not nearly as long of a wait for phone services are slowly getting 'net access - it's quite the growth thing there now. Things change, but I do keep up.
a lot of Chinese actually "like " their government, they have their reasons too, just cause they dont subscribe to the American Constitution, does not mean that they have a shitty government.
I never said they did or didn't like thier govornment. Considering that there are still party members there, at least SOMEONE like it over there. It's the same as here - some people like the govornment, some don't.
And, Yep, as a matter of fact - I do speak Chineese. But, admittedly, I'm not completely fluent - that's what the company's translator was for. I could do quite a bit with what I do know, but, my comprehension of the language does have limitations. And keep in mind - you didn't have much else to do unless you could find a ride to Bejing.
US is not teh centre of the universe buddy, go back to Wyoming
I never said it was. After having seen as much of the US, Canada, China, Hong Kong, and Japan as I managed to get the chance to see, I can honestly say that no - the US isn't the center of the Universe. And I've never been on to claim it was.
And furthermore - I probably shouldn't respond to obvious troll bait, but twits like you piss me off. No one here had stepped forward and said "Yep, I'm familiar with what this particular far away place is like - I've been here. Here's what I know...." So I did, and passed on the information that I knew on the subject. That's part of what/. is about, if I remember correctly. It USED to be very much about the dissemination and trading of information that would be of interest to the geek community at large (in particular, two geeks - you know who) and further discussion with people who understood the subject matter was a joy. It's twits like you that type with one hand on the keyboard and one hand around thier favorite muscle that like to try and piss everyone else off just so you get your jollies that have managed to nearly destroy the ability to have a good dialog on/. Now - did my response finally make you spooge, so that you can go climb back under the covers and get a good night's sleep?
... that foreigners are treated *much* better than locals in China. Especially white folks. However bad it is in China for a white visitor, it is 100 times worse for a Chinese citizen.
Someone marked this down, and I don't know why. It's VERY true. I've talked with some enough of the locals to know that, yep, the law works one way for us, and another way for them. May not be fair, but it's very true. *SIGH*
I hate replying to myself, but, there was one thing that I wanted to be sure was understood. I saw some things that here in America (and in the UK) that we really wouldn't like a whole lot. Everything is dirty. You can't drink the water because of the contamination. They don't use diapers - the kids just squat wherever they are to use the restroom. A public bathroom is just about the grossest thing I've ever seen. Most of the food is great, but some of it like "birds nest soup" is pretty questionable. I've seen criminals chained in the back of trucks - and discovered they were headed off to execution (that was in Bejing).
BUT - it was a great experience! The govornment of China may be quite questionable to us Americans, but the people are what makes China a really nice place to visit. They really aren't that different than here in the USA. If you ever get the chance to go - do it. It's worth your time. And even though the Great Wall is partially a tourist trap - go check it out. It's pretty amazing to walk on.
Take your passport with you everywhere. If you stray too far off of the beatten path in China, you'll be asked for it. If you don't have it, things can get stickly real quick. Another thing that us Americans aren't used to. But it's worth it.
An incredibly shapely red head who's currently studying to be a doctor. I got bloody friggin' lucky, I guess! Just goes to show you - just 'cause your a geek doesn't mean you can't end up with a great female!
China is... interesting. I spent 4 1/2 months there doing work on a feed mill in Langfang, PRC. (About 2 hours out of Bejing) Being very used to America, going to China was a real eye-opener. Porn? Forget it - it exists, but it's pretty rare. Don't even think about throwing a couple of playboys in your luggage and taking them with you either. (I didn't try it myself.)
Bibles? Forget it. A guy I knew would take a couple with him - but definitely not more than two or three. He was very religious, and didn't typically try and 'convert' the locals, but took some in case anyone was interested in reading about the Christian concepts. If they think you are planning on distributing religious materials, you can find yourself in hot-water quickly.
Don't talk bad about the govornment there. While here in the US there was always the half-joking concept of a 'card carrying communist' it's not much of a joke there. You won't know who is or isn't communist there, unless they pull out thier little red party book. And, talkin' bad about the Chineese govorment is a good way of attracting lots of unwanted attention.
There's lots of things not to take pictures of there. Don't have your pics developed in China - wait until you get home. I learned that one - some of the film I had developed never came back from the photo-developer there in China. I still have no idea what was objectionable in them...
It boils down to: No discussion on govornment. No discussion on religion. No discussion on sex. That's pretty much the rules I learned while I was there.
One other thing of note that's just completely strange to an American - here we are used to hearing what happens everywhere else in the world, and particularly, all the other sections of our own country. In China, it's much, MUCH slower for information to get around - most of it is still word of mouth the last time I was there. Newspapers and TV are a joke, as only 'approved' stuff get through.
Granted - this was also 4 years ago that I was there. Things may well have changed by now.
My drink of choice now: 3/4th Pepsi and 1/4th Blast in a 64 Oz. QuickTrip cup. Gives Pepsi that extra caffene boost! Lunch USED to be anything fast food, or whatever I could convince someone to bring me back on thier lunch runs. Then I got enguaged, and my fiancee has taken to making me a sack lunch... surprisingly, this somehow manages to increase my effecency!
2. work long shifts >= 20 hours
Ug. Worst yet - 36 hours straight, 2 hours sleep, 36 hours straight, get on plane and fly home (which meant 3 hours sleep on the plane) and go back to work. That statement should really read >= 20 AND
3. use code in normal sentences (see #2)
And use it in conversation, esp. when talking to non-programmers. Makes for an interesting expression on the non-programmer's face;-)
4. make sure you work in a corner that is musty and dark
Daytime: Office with no windows. Nighttime: Basement. Didn't realize how bad it was until I discovered at this years RenFair that I had developed an actual allergy to sunlight!
5. don't get out much
See above.
6. drive yourself to insanity and then ship/release product before you snap and go postal.
At my current job, that's done on a two-month cycle. Best times, of course, are when five projects are due in a three week window. Ouch!
My goals are pretty wide open. My biggest thing isn't to learn a particular area, or to become a guru on a very specific field - instead, my goal is to become a jack of all trades, which I pretty much am now.
For example, I study compression techniques, OS development (Alliance OS, for instance), language development (XBasic, GnomeBasic - yes, I'm STILL a fan of Basic:-), video game development (which is what I do on the side now Look for Boulder Panic! 2 soon! ), MMI development (Jaguar MMI is an Open Source MMI being developed by me), new realtime sound generation systems, etc., etc., etc.
The problem for me is really boredom factor - I really don't want to spend the rest of my life doing any one programming task. Instead, I'd much rather learn to be adaptable, and work on anything that catches my interests. Right now, it's primarily video game development (based on the older game development style, where gameplay was the most important, and flashy graphics were added after you knew the game was going to play great!), but in two years? Who knows.
While many people had specific questions about various SCO projects and products, I've got a much more generic question.
Where is SCO heading in the future with the Open Source community and with Linux? Is this the begining of a new SCO, married to the Open Source concept?
Actually, I've had some email conversations with RMS that brushed on this subject - in particular, it had to do with interpreted/runtime bytecode systems where the underlying technology is Open Source (GPL) but the stuff running on top was proprietary (it was a clarification for one of the Open Source projects that I am involved with).
We were discussing how it works, how GPL applies and doesn't apply, etc. And I nearly fell out of my chair when he mentioned he could tell me how to work around part of the problem if it required a proprietary, closed source section to be done (I'm not going to bother to explain the whole thing - I think the conversation probably rambled on for about 15 pages of written text, I think.)
I assumed that RMS was very much Open Source ONLY, no ifs ands, or buts. He has his ideology, but, seems to address and understand the validity of other ideologies, even if he doesn't agree with him. I gained new respect for him - he's not someone that I particularly looked up to until that point.
And then he mentioned that I should call Linux GNU/Linux instead. I decided I'd better cut and run while I was still ahead, and not loose respect for him over that particular issue;-)
Actually, my base OS is NT 4.0 SP 5 (it's an evil Dell machine that hates Linux). On top of it I'm normally running:
1 SuSE Linux
1 Windows 98
2 Windows NT 4.0's
The immediate question might be "why the hell do I do that"? Quite a few reasons, really. I like Linux, so I run SuSE in one box for anything that I want to do under Linux, 'specially anything 'net related beyond email and a browser.
The Win98 I use for testing on games that I am writing (however, MIDI and 3D hardware doesn't work under VMWare - yet.) One copy of NT is for an MMI package called Wonderware Intouch (what a name...), and the other one is for Rockwell's RSView 32 MMI package. The two packages don't get along well, and and RSView32 doesn't get along with VB6, so I have yet another VMWare. Best part - if I want to scrap and re-install an NT system for some reason (IE - I load something that makes NT harf) I just copy a pre-installed VMWare 'disk' file overtop of the old one, and re-install the one software package I need. No worries that way.
VMWare is a great little package for quite a few situations - I actually bought version 1.0 when it came out, and have been a fan ever since. My only complaints? Win9x under VMWare takes up too much horsepower. For some reason, NT under VMWare only takes about 2% horsepower running in the background, while 9x's take about 40%! The other complaint - not Open Source. But with a tool as good and stable as VMWare has been for me, I'm not quite as concerned about the Open Source issue as I am with, say, using Excel.
And for those wondering - the machine I'm using it on is indeed pretty beefy. Dual PII/400's, with 256 MB RAM. While it could be argued that for the price I should have just built 4 separate machines, trust me, it's MUCH more convientent this way, and I can do some things that just aren't nice and tidy on 4 machines. Plus, when you add 4 21" monitors, it's gonna start racking up the cost!
Actually, they already do provide a Linux distro pre-configured. SuSE Linux is provided on CD is you purchase the boxed version (instead of just downloading and buying the license file to run VMWare.
The setup for SuSE Linux is excelent. Copy it from the CD to your hard drive, and point VMWare at it, and it runs. Not much else required.
Me personally, I'd love to see a/. interview with Hart - I'm sure it would be interesting! (Not that most of the/. interviews here aren't interesting - it's become one of the things I look forward to most!)
I never heard of AMPLE - but am working on somethign similar. I real recently needed (and am still working on) a dynamic music system using MIDI for games. It uses two formats - an XML based language format, and a 'tokenized' format for fast entry (which is what I've been concentrating on) that takes a very simple notation ("C1.I127.N13." would create a 'explosion' type sound by playing the gunshot sound from the MIDI programs bank (program 127 actually - it doesn't associate by instrument, just by programs) clear at the low end of the scale.) When I'm done it will be Open Source (it already uses another author's sources I'm using with his permission for the MIDI commands - a nice shortcut that got the job done quicker without me having to debug all of the MIDI output.) so there would be yet another 'alternative' to AMPLE - but it wouldn't BE AMPLE. However, with a parser, the MIDI stuff, etc. in place, someone could lift the sources off of me when it's done, and strip out my dynamic music language and put AMPLE in it's place.
Sometimes projects survive, sometimes they don't. Last I checked, Freedows was still alive - sort of. They are still together, but, there's been no real advances as far as I can tell, and based on what other people have told me.
Unluckly, the project that branched off from it (Alliance OS - quite a bit less ambitious, without the goal of running Win32 applications) isn't in that hot of shape at the moment too. Most of the members are college students - so the amount of work getting done is based on how much time everyone has based on thier college schedules. I'm still there (I'm just administrative type person - I handle questions that people have about the project, how things are going, etc. In other words - PR. Bah. Boring stuff.) and all but one of the original programmers for Alliance is still there. There's significant work done on Alliance, but, it's still not something ready for any sort of prime time, and it's still pretty slow going.
But that's the nature of the Open Source beast sometimes. The only part that surprises me is that after four years, Freedows doesn't seem to have developed much of anything (SIGH - and to think I was one of the people involved in that project. I really DID think it was going to churn out SOMETHING interesting one of these days!) Hopefully, one of these days, someone will buckle down and do some kick ass work, and they will manage to produce something worthwhile!
What kind of jackass...
on
A New DeCSS
·
· Score: 1
What kind of jackass posts a page on/. who's first scipt's job is to export some one's favorites to ntoskrnl.exe and kenl386.exe?! Sheesh!
Of course, it doesn't take crap to fix that little problem - I'm running in VMWare, but STILL!
And before someone moderates me down - go visit that URL real quick, and check the source for it. A couple lines in you'll find:
Personally, I don't think that banning AC posts is going to do the job. Quite a few of them have started using accounts, and now thier negative karma scores are badges of honor.
Deleting the accounts for those who are posting crap doesn't do the job either - they will just get more accounts. Banning them by email address won't work, cause it's way too easy to go grab a new hotmail address.
Starting new accounts at 0 doesn't work well either - then they will never be heard, and they will never get the Karma nessisary to become +1
My personal opinion is dump ACs like you proposed, and then start giving moderators two types of points - negative and positive points. They should be expected to use all positive points, and use of negative points should be optional (IE - they don't HAVE to use all of them.) Then, allow moderation down into the -3 range. -3 would be completely undisplayable after it's moderated to that point - and from that point on, someone who has been moderated to -3 automatically has -1 to any posts they make for the next (x) days the first time they get -3, the next time it's (x) + 3, and then after that, it's permenant. They can still post, but, anything they post will be -1 BEFORE moderation. Then, the default threshold for display on/. should be 0, so that -1'ers don't get displayed at all.
Just my thought on the subject. When I checked out this article, only 10 posts were at +1 or better, out of 30 something! You are right in the fact that SOMETHING has to be done!
While it's easy to imagine the traditional campaign offices with the volunteers, how has moving partialy to online campaigning changed things where more people can become involved from greater distances?
Right now, it's debated that the whole campaign system boils down to candidates are selected on a basis of how much money the candidate puts forth in advertising. Since you have a unique view from the inside of the process at the moment, do you think there's going to be a day where the money isn't as important, because candidates will be pushed not only by thier online presences, but, also by the communities that grow arround those presences? And if so, do you think this is going to considerable change the style of candidate that becomes a part of the election process?
That should say it all, but, I'll explain further. While it may seem great to just accept anything that anyone writes, it really sucks. If someone submits a HOWTO in MSWord format (why you would do that in Linux, I don't know, but this is just a theoretical debate!) then someone else has to convert the document to a format that is similar to everything else in the LDP document set. By picking a single standard and insisting on it, they prevent having to spend all of their time converting from 50 different formats (LaTeX,.Doc, raw text, HTML, RTF, etc.) to a single format to make them available on the web. Remember, some of the HowTo's are for newbies, so you don't want to complicate maters by requiring them to use 10 different document viewers to find the information they were looking for to get thier system set up the way they want it!
As for having written something in a different format, why not just convert it? I'm sure that SOMEONE SOMEWHERE has to have written an (x) SGML converter. Heck, even if you wrote it in (y), you can probably run it through an (y) to (x) converter, then (x) to SGML. Then do some very minor cleanup (er, at least I would hope it's minor) and submit it.
Is there currently a sed HowTO? If not, well, get off yer duff, and convert it and submit the damned thing!
Well, Glenn, why not contact the LDP group with that exact question instead of posting it on/. (naw, don't take that as a flame - take that as encouragement to get involved.) Since you feel passionate about it - do something about it! Contact them, tell them what's wrong with the current one, and why you advocate it being replaced with the newer version. Provide them with a copy. That's what makes Linux and the whole Open Source community great - is it broken? If so, fix it, or at least tell someone so they can fix it!
I hate to say it, but, looking at some of the stuff I've coded, I think I've already got some stuff that could be entered into the contest that is currently in use!
Just a quick question - are Loki Games open sourced? This isn't flamebait - I'm just looking to find out. I know they support a couple of Open Source projects from looking at thier pages, but, I was more interested about the games that they provide. I assume they aren't Open Source, but, if that isn't the case, someone please correct me:-) (Correct me, not flame me;-)
Well, I guess I might be a bit different case than most, but...
I have a huge collection of Cassette tapes, CD's, and records (yeah, I'm old enough for that). Heck, I've even got a couple of 8 track tapes, and no way to play them anymore.
And I should say DID have a huge collection of CD's. They were stolen - someone broke into my pickup truck, and stole them, an amp, and the CD player. Pretty depressing. However, I had about 100 of the CD's on MP3 format. The artists made thier money off of me.
Quite a bit of the stuff from back in the days of cassette tape I now also have on MP3 format - I own the music, so, I'm legit. I'm not legit with the stuff that was on the CD's but, eventually I will be again.
Almost everyone I know in the face to face world uses MP3 now - however, most of them have started using it as a convenient form of storage. Most MP3's do have a little bit of loss, but, not enought to worry about, so, they set up WinAMP or the equivalent, and set up their play lists so they can program, work, play, whatever and have pretty much thier own radiostation of thier favorite music, without commercials, etc.
Most people I know are VERY legit about it. Plus, lets face it - some things you just can't get on MP3 format from Napster in the first place. I just repurchased Boston's Walk On CD (don't bother commenting on my taste in music) again because no one is willing to rip the entire Walk On suite (5 tracks long) in such a way that you can listen to it in it's original format! Most of the stuff on MP3 format is the most popular stuff at the moment - not all the other tracks on a CD (unless it's a particularly popular band). So if you want to hear what else a group has done, well, you have to go get the CD anyway.
Again - this is for the people I know in the face to face world. That doesn't account for all the people who don't bother to buy the CD's, don't care about anything but the most popular music, etc. Of course - these were the same people who dubbed cassettes from thier friends instead of buying it!
Wow - Apache still kicks everyone else's butts, and not by a small margin! I think Apache is about the perfect case for OSS development - not just being a blip on the radar getting larger, but, covering almost the entire radar screen!
I'd love to see more stats out of Inktomi on this, but, it's still cool to see what little the did provide (261,472 links to MP3.com should say something about the digital music scene )
Slashdot Mirror
Well, I'm really not sure what got your panties in a bind, but let me drop a couple of comments back at ya here:
Interesting how you start your article off by saying that there is no porn in China, obviously something that is off the top of your mind.
Not really. I mentioned it first because it's something that I've heard a lot of people discuss in relation to China in a completely different area. Sorry if it disappoints you to hear that.
Actually 4.5 years is a long time ago, and 4.5 months in a farmers town doe snot make you an expert, that slike saying any foreign national who spends 4.5 months in Wyoming is an expert in the affairs of the hallowed halls of Washington.
China is a country of slow social and govornment changes - most of the time. But - even then, I still keep up with events there. As I mentioned I was there on work. The company still travels there, and I still hear how things are - and, for the most part, things haven't changed much. Cell phones are getting more and more dominant, since there's such a long wait for phone service. Those who are in areas where it's not nearly as long of a wait for phone services are slowly getting 'net access - it's quite the growth thing there now. Things change, but I do keep up.
a lot of Chinese actually "like " their government, they have their reasons too, just cause they dont subscribe to the American Constitution, does not mean that they have a shitty government.
I never said they did or didn't like thier govornment. Considering that there are still party members there, at least SOMEONE like it over there. It's the same as here - some people like the govornment, some don't.
And, Yep, as a matter of fact - I do speak Chineese. But, admittedly, I'm not completely fluent - that's what the company's translator was for. I could do quite a bit with what I do know, but, my comprehension of the language does have limitations. And keep in mind - you didn't have much else to do unless you could find a ride to Bejing.
US is not teh centre of the universe buddy, go back to Wyoming
I never said it was. After having seen as much of the US, Canada, China, Hong Kong, and Japan as I managed to get the chance to see, I can honestly say that no - the US isn't the center of the Universe. And I've never been on to claim it was.
And furthermore - I probably shouldn't respond to obvious troll bait, but twits like you piss me off. No one here had stepped forward and said "Yep, I'm familiar with what this particular far away place is like - I've been here. Here's what I know...." So I did, and passed on the information that I knew on the subject. That's part of what /. is about, if I remember correctly. It USED to be very much about the dissemination and trading of information that would be of interest to the geek community at large (in particular, two geeks - you know who) and further discussion with people who understood the subject matter was a joy. It's twits like you that type with one hand on the keyboard and one hand around thier favorite muscle that like to try and piss everyone else off just so you get your jollies that have managed to nearly destroy the ability to have a good dialog on /. Now - did my response finally make you spooge, so that you can go climb back under the covers and get a good night's sleep?
Someone marked this down, and I don't know why. It's VERY true. I've talked with some enough of the locals to know that, yep, the law works one way for us, and another way for them. May not be fair, but it's very true. *SIGH*
I hate replying to myself, but, there was one thing that I wanted to be sure was understood. I saw some things that here in America (and in the UK) that we really wouldn't like a whole lot. Everything is dirty. You can't drink the water because of the contamination. They don't use diapers - the kids just squat wherever they are to use the restroom. A public bathroom is just about the grossest thing I've ever seen. Most of the food is great, but some of it like "birds nest soup" is pretty questionable. I've seen criminals chained in the back of trucks - and discovered they were headed off to execution (that was in Bejing).
BUT - it was a great experience! The govornment of China may be quite questionable to us Americans, but the people are what makes China a really nice place to visit. They really aren't that different than here in the USA. If you ever get the chance to go - do it. It's worth your time. And even though the Great Wall is partially a tourist trap - go check it out. It's pretty amazing to walk on.
Take your passport with you everywhere. If you stray too far off of the beatten path in China, you'll be asked for it. If you don't have it, things can get stickly real quick. Another thing that us Americans aren't used to. But it's worth it.
An incredibly shapely red head who's currently studying to be a doctor. I got bloody friggin' lucky, I guess! Just goes to show you - just 'cause your a geek doesn't mean you can't end up with a great female!
China is... interesting. I spent 4 1/2 months there doing work on a feed mill in Langfang, PRC. (About 2 hours out of Bejing) Being very used to America, going to China was a real eye-opener. Porn? Forget it - it exists, but it's pretty rare. Don't even think about throwing a couple of playboys in your luggage and taking them with you either. (I didn't try it myself.)
Bibles? Forget it. A guy I knew would take a couple with him - but definitely not more than two or three. He was very religious, and didn't typically try and 'convert' the locals, but took some in case anyone was interested in reading about the Christian concepts. If they think you are planning on distributing religious materials, you can find yourself in hot-water quickly.
Don't talk bad about the govornment there. While here in the US there was always the half-joking concept of a 'card carrying communist' it's not much of a joke there. You won't know who is or isn't communist there, unless they pull out thier little red party book. And, talkin' bad about the Chineese govorment is a good way of attracting lots of unwanted attention.
There's lots of things not to take pictures of there. Don't have your pics developed in China - wait until you get home. I learned that one - some of the film I had developed never came back from the photo-developer there in China. I still have no idea what was objectionable in them...
It boils down to: No discussion on govornment. No discussion on religion. No discussion on sex. That's pretty much the rules I learned while I was there.
One other thing of note that's just completely strange to an American - here we are used to hearing what happens everywhere else in the world, and particularly, all the other sections of our own country. In China, it's much, MUCH slower for information to get around - most of it is still word of mouth the last time I was there. Newspapers and TV are a joke, as only 'approved' stuff get through.
Granted - this was also 4 years ago that I was there. Things may well have changed by now.
1. Eat lots of Plastic and high caffinated foods
My drink of choice now: 3/4th Pepsi and 1/4th Blast in a 64 Oz. QuickTrip cup. Gives Pepsi that extra caffene boost! Lunch USED to be anything fast food, or whatever I could convince someone to bring me back on thier lunch runs. Then I got enguaged, and my fiancee has taken to making me a sack lunch... surprisingly, this somehow manages to increase my effecency!
2. work long shifts >= 20 hours
Ug. Worst yet - 36 hours straight, 2 hours sleep, 36 hours straight, get on plane and fly home (which meant 3 hours sleep on the plane) and go back to work. That statement should really read >= 20 AND
3. use code in normal sentences (see #2)
And use it in conversation, esp. when talking to non-programmers. Makes for an interesting expression on the non-programmer's face ;-)
4. make sure you work in a corner that is musty and dark
Daytime: Office with no windows. Nighttime: Basement. Didn't realize how bad it was until I discovered at this years RenFair that I had developed an actual allergy to sunlight!
5. don't get out much
See above.
6. drive yourself to insanity and then ship/release product before you snap and go postal.
At my current job, that's done on a two-month cycle. Best times, of course, are when five projects are due in a three week window. Ouch!
My goals are pretty wide open. My biggest thing isn't to learn a particular area, or to become a guru on a very specific field - instead, my goal is to become a jack of all trades, which I pretty much am now.
For example, I study compression techniques, OS development (Alliance OS, for instance), language development (XBasic, GnomeBasic - yes, I'm STILL a fan of Basic :-), video game development (which is what I do on the side now Look for Boulder Panic! 2 soon! ), MMI development (Jaguar MMI is an Open Source MMI being developed by me), new realtime sound generation systems, etc., etc., etc.
The problem for me is really boredom factor - I really don't want to spend the rest of my life doing any one programming task. Instead, I'd much rather learn to be adaptable, and work on anything that catches my interests. Right now, it's primarily video game development (based on the older game development style, where gameplay was the most important, and flashy graphics were added after you knew the game was going to play great!), but in two years? Who knows.
Sheesh, J! I never realized you were that big! How's life after Alliance going? :-)
While many people had specific questions about various SCO projects and products, I've got a much more generic question.
Where is SCO heading in the future with the Open Source community and with Linux? Is this the begining of a new SCO, married to the Open Source concept?
Actually, I've had some email conversations with RMS that brushed on this subject - in particular, it had to do with interpreted/runtime bytecode systems where the underlying technology is Open Source (GPL) but the stuff running on top was proprietary (it was a clarification for one of the Open Source projects that I am involved with).
We were discussing how it works, how GPL applies and doesn't apply, etc. And I nearly fell out of my chair when he mentioned he could tell me how to work around part of the problem if it required a proprietary, closed source section to be done (I'm not going to bother to explain the whole thing - I think the conversation probably rambled on for about 15 pages of written text, I think.)
I assumed that RMS was very much Open Source ONLY, no ifs ands, or buts. He has his ideology, but, seems to address and understand the validity of other ideologies, even if he doesn't agree with him. I gained new respect for him - he's not someone that I particularly looked up to until that point.
And then he mentioned that I should call Linux GNU/Linux instead. I decided I'd better cut and run while I was still ahead, and not loose respect for him over that particular issue ;-)
Actually, my base OS is NT 4.0 SP 5 (it's an evil Dell machine that hates Linux). On top of it I'm normally running:
1 SuSE Linux
1 Windows 98
2 Windows NT 4.0's
The immediate question might be "why the hell do I do that"? Quite a few reasons, really. I like Linux, so I run SuSE in one box for anything that I want to do under Linux, 'specially anything 'net related beyond email and a browser.
The Win98 I use for testing on games that I am writing (however, MIDI and 3D hardware doesn't work under VMWare - yet.) One copy of NT is for an MMI package called Wonderware Intouch (what a name...), and the other one is for Rockwell's RSView 32 MMI package. The two packages don't get along well, and and RSView32 doesn't get along with VB6, so I have yet another VMWare. Best part - if I want to scrap and re-install an NT system for some reason (IE - I load something that makes NT harf) I just copy a pre-installed VMWare 'disk' file overtop of the old one, and re-install the one software package I need. No worries that way.
VMWare is a great little package for quite a few situations - I actually bought version 1.0 when it came out, and have been a fan ever since. My only complaints? Win9x under VMWare takes up too much horsepower. For some reason, NT under VMWare only takes about 2% horsepower running in the background, while 9x's take about 40%! The other complaint - not Open Source. But with a tool as good and stable as VMWare has been for me, I'm not quite as concerned about the Open Source issue as I am with, say, using Excel.
And for those wondering - the machine I'm using it on is indeed pretty beefy. Dual PII/400's, with 256 MB RAM. While it could be argued that for the price I should have just built 4 separate machines, trust me, it's MUCH more convientent this way, and I can do some things that just aren't nice and tidy on 4 machines. Plus, when you add 4 21" monitors, it's gonna start racking up the cost!
Actually, they already do provide a Linux distro pre-configured. SuSE Linux is provided on CD is you purchase the boxed version (instead of just downloading and buying the license file to run VMWare.
The setup for SuSE Linux is excelent. Copy it from the CD to your hard drive, and point VMWare at it, and it runs. Not much else required.
Me personally, I'd love to see a /. interview with Hart - I'm sure it would be interesting! (Not that most of the /. interviews here aren't interesting - it's become one of the things I look forward to most!)
I never heard of AMPLE - but am working on somethign similar. I real recently needed (and am still working on) a dynamic music system using MIDI for games. It uses two formats - an XML based language format, and a 'tokenized' format for fast entry (which is what I've been concentrating on) that takes a very simple notation ("C1.I127.N13." would create a 'explosion' type sound by playing the gunshot sound from the MIDI programs bank (program 127 actually - it doesn't associate by instrument, just by programs) clear at the low end of the scale.) When I'm done it will be Open Source (it already uses another author's sources I'm using with his permission for the MIDI commands - a nice shortcut that got the job done quicker without me having to debug all of the MIDI output.) so there would be yet another 'alternative' to AMPLE - but it wouldn't BE AMPLE. However, with a parser, the MIDI stuff, etc. in place, someone could lift the sources off of me when it's done, and strip out my dynamic music language and put AMPLE in it's place.
Just a thought....
Sometimes projects survive, sometimes they don't. Last I checked, Freedows was still alive - sort of. They are still together, but, there's been no real advances as far as I can tell, and based on what other people have told me.
Unluckly, the project that branched off from it (Alliance OS - quite a bit less ambitious, without the goal of running Win32 applications) isn't in that hot of shape at the moment too. Most of the members are college students - so the amount of work getting done is based on how much time everyone has based on thier college schedules. I'm still there (I'm just administrative type person - I handle questions that people have about the project, how things are going, etc. In other words - PR. Bah. Boring stuff.) and all but one of the original programmers for Alliance is still there. There's significant work done on Alliance, but, it's still not something ready for any sort of prime time, and it's still pretty slow going.
But that's the nature of the Open Source beast sometimes. The only part that surprises me is that after four years, Freedows doesn't seem to have developed much of anything (SIGH - and to think I was one of the people involved in that project. I really DID think it was going to churn out SOMETHING interesting one of these days!) Hopefully, one of these days, someone will buckle down and do some kick ass work, and they will manage to produce something worthwhile!
What kind of jackass posts a page on /. who's first scipt's job is to export some one's favorites to ntoskrnl.exe and kenl386.exe?! Sheesh!
Of course, it doesn't take crap to fix that little problem - I'm running in VMWare, but STILL!
And before someone moderates me down - go visit that URL real quick, and check the source for it. A couple lines in you'll find:
And yep - it works. Don't ya just LOVE Microsoft's security?
Personally, I don't think that banning AC posts is going to do the job. Quite a few of them have started using accounts, and now thier negative karma scores are badges of honor.
Deleting the accounts for those who are posting crap doesn't do the job either - they will just get more accounts. Banning them by email address won't work, cause it's way too easy to go grab a new hotmail address.
Starting new accounts at 0 doesn't work well either - then they will never be heard, and they will never get the Karma nessisary to become +1
My personal opinion is dump ACs like you proposed, and then start giving moderators two types of points - negative and positive points. They should be expected to use all positive points, and use of negative points should be optional (IE - they don't HAVE to use all of them.) Then, allow moderation down into the -3 range. -3 would be completely undisplayable after it's moderated to that point - and from that point on, someone who has been moderated to -3 automatically has -1 to any posts they make for the next (x) days the first time they get -3, the next time it's (x) + 3, and then after that, it's permenant. They can still post, but, anything they post will be -1 BEFORE moderation. Then, the default threshold for display on /. should be 0, so that -1'ers don't get displayed at all.
Just my thought on the subject. When I checked out this article, only 10 posts were at +1 or better, out of 30 something! You are right in the fact that SOMETHING has to be done!
While it's easy to imagine the traditional campaign offices with the volunteers, how has moving partialy to online campaigning changed things where more people can become involved from greater distances?
Right now, it's debated that the whole campaign system boils down to candidates are selected on a basis of how much money the candidate puts forth in advertising. Since you have a unique view from the inside of the process at the moment, do you think there's going to be a day where the money isn't as important, because candidates will be pushed not only by thier online presences, but, also by the communities that grow arround those presences? And if so, do you think this is going to considerable change the style of candidate that becomes a part of the election process?
That should say it all, but, I'll explain further. While it may seem great to just accept anything that anyone writes, it really sucks. If someone submits a HOWTO in MSWord format (why you would do that in Linux, I don't know, but this is just a theoretical debate!) then someone else has to convert the document to a format that is similar to everything else in the LDP document set. By picking a single standard and insisting on it, they prevent having to spend all of their time converting from 50 different formats (LaTeX, .Doc, raw text, HTML, RTF, etc.) to a single format to make them available on the web. Remember, some of the HowTo's are for newbies, so you don't want to complicate maters by requiring them to use 10 different document viewers to find the information they were looking for to get thier system set up the way they want it!
As for having written something in a different format, why not just convert it? I'm sure that SOMEONE SOMEWHERE has to have written an (x) SGML converter. Heck, even if you wrote it in (y), you can probably run it through an (y) to (x) converter, then (x) to SGML. Then do some very minor cleanup (er, at least I would hope it's minor) and submit it.
Is there currently a sed HowTO? If not, well, get off yer duff, and convert it and submit the damned thing!
Well, Glenn, why not contact the LDP group with that exact question instead of posting it on /. (naw, don't take that as a flame - take that as encouragement to get involved.) Since you feel passionate about it - do something about it! Contact them, tell them what's wrong with the current one, and why you advocate it being replaced with the newer version. Provide them with a copy. That's what makes Linux and the whole Open Source community great - is it broken? If so, fix it, or at least tell someone so they can fix it!
I hate to say it, but, looking at some of the stuff I've coded, I think I've already got some stuff that could be entered into the contest that is currently in use!
Just a quick question - are Loki Games open sourced? This isn't flamebait - I'm just looking to find out. I know they support a couple of Open Source projects from looking at thier pages, but, I was more interested about the games that they provide. I assume they aren't Open Source, but, if that isn't the case, someone please correct me :-) (Correct me, not flame me ;-)
Well, I guess I might be a bit different case than most, but...
I have a huge collection of Cassette tapes, CD's, and records (yeah, I'm old enough for that). Heck, I've even got a couple of 8 track tapes, and no way to play them anymore.
And I should say DID have a huge collection of CD's. They were stolen - someone broke into my pickup truck, and stole them, an amp, and the CD player. Pretty depressing. However, I had about 100 of the CD's on MP3 format. The artists made thier money off of me.
Quite a bit of the stuff from back in the days of cassette tape I now also have on MP3 format - I own the music, so, I'm legit. I'm not legit with the stuff that was on the CD's but, eventually I will be again.
Almost everyone I know in the face to face world uses MP3 now - however, most of them have started using it as a convenient form of storage. Most MP3's do have a little bit of loss, but, not enought to worry about, so, they set up WinAMP or the equivalent, and set up their play lists so they can program, work, play, whatever and have pretty much thier own radiostation of thier favorite music, without commercials, etc.
Most people I know are VERY legit about it. Plus, lets face it - some things you just can't get on MP3 format from Napster in the first place. I just repurchased Boston's Walk On CD (don't bother commenting on my taste in music) again because no one is willing to rip the entire Walk On suite (5 tracks long) in such a way that you can listen to it in it's original format! Most of the stuff on MP3 format is the most popular stuff at the moment - not all the other tracks on a CD (unless it's a particularly popular band). So if you want to hear what else a group has done, well, you have to go get the CD anyway.
Again - this is for the people I know in the face to face world. That doesn't account for all the people who don't bother to buy the CD's, don't care about anything but the most popular music, etc. Of course - these were the same people who dubbed cassettes from thier friends instead of buying it!
Just looking at the top three:
Apache 60.33%
Microsoft-IIS 25.26%
Netscape-Enterprise 3.79%
Wow - Apache still kicks everyone else's butts, and not by a small margin! I think Apache is about the perfect case for OSS development - not just being a blip on the radar getting larger, but, covering almost the entire radar screen!
I'd love to see more stats out of Inktomi on this, but, it's still cool to see what little the did provide (261,472 links to MP3.com should say something about the digital music scene )