That's just absurd. What possible interest would George Bush Junior, who is apparently not a particularly 'technical' person, have in such an organization?
X is just the foundation upon which people do Window Manager Development, not some sort of military tool, right?...
The "slackware-current" version of Slackware right now has the 4.4.0 version in the official "X" section, but recently the X.org version was made available (in the 'testing' section) as an alternative. I suspect that X.org may supplant the XFree86 4.4.0 version before the next 'official' slackware release.
Not that I've noticed - I've been compiling X out of the DRI cvs tree to get DRI for my laptop's ProSavage/DDR video - I'm honestly not sure whether they're working from X.org or XFree86.org or what, but the video driver still shows "4.3.99.12" as the version number as of yesterday's build...
I've gotten dragged into the middle of a huge mess caused by someone who ran out and shelled out a large wad of money to license a particular software product without even having any clear requirements. And despite all the hassles (and ever spiralling expenses) this is causing, I've STILL got people talking about "Electronic Document Management(tm)" and "Content Management Systems(tm)" and discussing brand names ("What about this Documentum thing? What about this Sharepoint thing?...") without ANY user requirements determined beyond "we want a cool EDM/CMS system"...(Actually, there IS one specific 'problem' that they want to address...but every product they've trotted out with the 'look at all the cool features' brochures are gross overkill for that one problem so far. In fairness, they're thinking ahead towards wanting to make use of EDM features in other areas later...but without anybody clarifying what those areas are or how they will or should be affected, the discussion is pretty meaningless if not downright dangerous.)
Seriously - get the user requirements specification hammered out in reasonable detail before anyone even thinks about 'what cool program to use'!
People being impatient have already generated GCJ and Kaffe working on open-source implementations of Java. Neither are yet as complete as the 'full' Java, but are in progress.
Is there a 'standard' for the Java language itself, in the same way that there is for "C#"? If not, could it be because Sun doesn't want to make it easier for Open-Source folks to create a complete implementation?...
It seems to be not the 'core' of PHP, but several of the modules that go with it aren't thread-safe.
Apparently, this really only shows up in the real world under heavy usage, and using the prefork "multi-processing module" should reduce or eliminate the potential problems. I think.
It SOUNDS like the warnings about not using PHP with Apache2 is mainly overcautiousness - every time one of these stories comes up, a few people pop up and say it's working fine for them, and I don't remember seeing anyone pop up and say "yeah, every time I get more than (x) connections at a time everything fails" or anything of the sort.
I'm planning to try it out myself sometime soon...
[...]because the syntax is so familiar for a lot of developers.
That's my impression as well. A somewhat simplistic description of PHP 4's syntax is that it's similar to Perl, but is resembles 'C-like' syntax more than Perl does. A lack of things like implicit variables in PHP seems to make it a little easier to come back to a project months later or look at someone else's code and follow the program logic a little more easily than Perl is. (PHP 5 is adds syntax features that resemble Java more, as well).
PHP has a fair amount of strength in the text-handling area, similar to Perl, but PHP is a bit more 'focussed' on talking to network servers (database servers, webservers, network sockets, ftp servers...).
On the other hand, PEAR and PECL don't have nearly the mind-boggling breadth of add-on modules that Perl's CPAN does...
(As usual, I'm compelled to note that PHP is no longer 'just for web pages' any more than Perl is 'just for generating reports'. I've found it handy for a lot of small system administration tasks that Perl is also good for. You can even use Ncurses or GTK - or, conceivably, Java GUI classes to build standalone apps with it, if you feel the urge...)
The upcoming release of PHP5 will create a wave of comparisons to Java. When that happens, remember that it isn't a zero sum game. The two languages work reasonably well side by side.
One apparently-little-used feature I've been wanting to play with lately is the PHP/Java integration. I've been assuming that PHP5 will be more conducive to this.
I've never QUITE managed to get this working on PHP 4 (though since I don't have any specific reason to use it other than 'I want to play with it', I haven't put all that much time into it, either.). Anybody tried this on PHP5 yet? Or know of a fairly thorough explanation of getting it installed and configured?
Some years back, I actually did some digging around about all of the 'smart supplements' and such.
The upshot is that a lot of them DO work...but in inverse proportion to how much you NEED them. That is, they don't do much of anything for people who are already reasonably smart, but they are a noticeable help for people with mental deficiencies.
Personally, I think the best way to get intellectual stimulation is to try to get as many varied experiences as possible. I like travel, myself. Dig out a map, find somewhere a few hours away you've never been to, and go for a drive. Bring the map in case anything looks interesting along the way and you decide to change your itinerary...
Bear in mind that we're actually talking about two different 'entities' in this thread - Mormons as individuals, and The Mormon Church as an organization.
I actually live in the middle of a heavily Mormon area. I can honestly say that, although I think their theology is, well, downright bizarre (God lives on the planet Jolob where his unnamed wife (wives?) churns out spirit babies, if you're a good person you can become a god too, people might live on the sun, etc....*) (Not that this sounds any stranger to my not-particularly-religious attitudes than any of the more 'mainstream' religions), pretty much every individual Mormon I've ever met has come across as being genuinely honest and well-meaning. You know how Mormons are portrayed as almost improbably 'squeaky clean' in South Park cartoons? (And in Trey Parker's highly underrated 'Orgazmo')? Well...they're really a lot like that. (I suspect most of them would find the portrayal somewhat complementary, if they didn't avoid watching shows like that...).
On the other hand, as a large, close-knit, somewhat secretive organization, I have to admit that I often wonder about The Church itself, and the abuses that connections within the organization might be subject to. Darl's obvious self-serving, selfish, greedy, and dishonest activity continuing without at least some sort of censure only makes me more suspicious. (Interesting that one of the 2 companies that actually paid SCO protection money is also in Salt Lake City. I can't help but wonder if that deal only got set up due to church connections.)
Those of you reading who ARE Mormons, what do you think of this? And what do OTHER members of your ward (local Mormon church group) think? Do they believe Darl couldn't possibly be acting dishonestly because he's Mormon? Are they as bothered by all of this as most of us are? Are they avoiding the issue?....
* - these are obviously gross oversimplifications. Google around and I'm sure you can find better explanations...
I vaguely recall that, much like Real, Macromedia often 'hides' some of the Linux downloads where they are difficult to impossible to find.
I can see the link to the over-a-year-old Flash plugin for Mozilla 1.1 for Linux, but I don't see the fabled "standalone viewer" (which I know exists - I downloaded it to another machine last year), and I wonder if there isn't perhaps a 'beta' download directory or something hidden on Macromedia's site somewhere...
Still quite amusing, and not totally off-topic. We ARE talking about SCO's plans and motivations, after all.
This could be interesting. In the minds of the general public, the shenanigans of the past seem to set a precedent that anyone who claims Linux somehow 'stole' their 'intellectual property' is probably making it up in a desperate bid to 'Make Money Fast(tm)', and now not only will they be making it up, they'll be doing it on behalf of Microsoft.
Oh, sure, that's a gross oversimplification, and a single instance is hardly 'proof' that anyone trying a similar tactic is in the same situation, but we're talking about perception of the general public, who don't normally pay close attention to statistical validity...
MAYBE it's all really a Secret Meta-Plot by Eric Raymond to trick Microsoft into supporting SCO in a plan to smear Linux and other open-source projects while the Secret Cabal of Linux Conspiracy Ninjas engineer things behind the scenes to make it messily backfire!
And Elvis is financing it all from the secret hideout he shares with John F. Kennedy and "Bat Boy"!
(Ahem. 'scuze me. With SCO's statements as inspiration, it's hard to tell when I go too far...)
Interestingly, didn't the last big payment that came directly from Microsoft for "licenses" show up in one of their SEC filings listed as "Senior Debt"?
Commentary on Groklaw seemed to say that "Senior Debt" means a debt(!) that gets paid back first ("Senior" as in it has "Seniority") in the event of e.g. a bankruptcy.
If this is true, doesn't that imply that Microsoft's money was given under conditions that it might have to be returned in some circumstances?...making it a sort of 'loan' rather than an actual 'payment'?
I haven't heard anything about this particular aspect lately (and I don't even know for certain if my understanding is correct here) but I found it very interesting...
...how long will it take for someone to reverse-engineer the format so that we can make our own SD/MMC cards with our own video (space-shifted from our legally-purchased DVD's [yes, I'm serious...] or 'home video'.)?
That is the specific feature that'd make it useful to me. I have no need of a special proprietary-format-only player where the low-quality proprietary video cards cost as much as full DVD's, especially when portable DVD players seem to be obtainable these days for only $50-$100 more than this player is selling for.
(Hmmm...what's the capacity of the SD cards with the proprietary movies on them? Can they be erased and used as normal SD cards for other applications?)
I'm a bit skeptical myself, but I wouldn't rule out the authenticity based solely on spelling errors.
This looks like a very 'informal' internal-only email - I'm not sure this counts as "professional interbusiness" communication (it sounded to me like a "when we get around to the formal communication [meetings or whatever] here are the issues I wanted to go over" sort of message). I've met a disturbing number of 'professionals' who can't seem to type or spell very well despite conceivably being quite competent as marketers or salespeople or whatever.
For this sort of 'quick note' I could easily imagine someone sloppily whipping it out and shooting it off without proofreading or spell-checking that would go into a formal document (and proof-reading and spell-checking seems to cover up an awful lot of poor writing skills these days...heck, slashdot alone has a huge collection of apparently-quite-competent IT folks who can't even tell the difference between "lose" and "loose"...)
Besides, have you ever read any of SCO's lawyers' filings or SCO's public statements? Not exactly paragons of perfect grammar and spelling themselves.
A post over on Groklaw also mentioned the possibility that IBM could, conceivably, have OFFERED a patch that was subsequently turned down for inclusion in the 'base' tree. Hence, it was a "contribution" (though not one that was accepted) and, possibly not appearing anywhere at the moment, would be "non-public".
The Groklaw post suggested that "intent to contribute" would have been a factor in the wildly flailing SCO claims. My take is that it IF such a thing ever occured then maybe, just maybe, IBM TRIED to put Secret SCO Source(tm) into Linux but failed (which obviously makes it a failure as a "Linux violates SCO Copyright" claim but might, during a full moon on a Tuesday during a solar eclipse, make a basis for a contract violation claim...)
Though this would also require that the patch have been submitted through "non-public" channels, too. Hmmm. Guess even this interpretation is a little weak...
Poor taste aside, whenever I put on my Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie, I find myself wondering if SCO's executives haven't got some sort of backroom deal with certain large anti-linux companies to commit a metaphorical corporate "suicide 'bombing'(litigation)"...
Is the intended end result that SCO goes completely bankrupt in a flashy manner trying to sue as many large alleged 'infringers', such that they hope to leave a cloud of 'legal uncertainty' over Linux due to the lawsuits being left unfinished when SCO ceases to exist?
("There was so much infringement that we went broke before we could have those Linux miscreants punished! Oh, woe is us! Thankfully, due to my job experience dealing with the horrible illegalities that we allege in Linux, Microsoft has gladly offered me a new job on the newly-created Linux Legal Issues department, where I can continue to spread my warnings...")
Slashdot Mirror
That's just absurd. What possible interest would George Bush Junior, who is apparently not a particularly 'technical' person, have in such an organization?
X is just the foundation upon which people do Window Manager Development, not some sort of military tool, right?...
The "slackware-current" version of Slackware right now has the 4.4.0 version in the official "X" section, but recently the X.org version was made available (in the 'testing' section) as an alternative. I suspect that X.org may supplant the XFree86 4.4.0 version before the next 'official' slackware release.
Not that I've noticed - I've been compiling X out of the DRI cvs tree to get DRI for my laptop's ProSavage/DDR video - I'm honestly not sure whether they're working from X.org or XFree86.org or what, but the video driver still shows "4.3.99.12" as the version number as of yesterday's build...
Not just "Yes", but "HELL, YES!".
I've gotten dragged into the middle of a huge mess caused by someone who ran out and shelled out a large wad of money to license a particular software product without even having any clear requirements. And despite all the hassles (and ever spiralling expenses) this is causing, I've STILL got people talking about "Electronic Document Management(tm)" and "Content Management Systems(tm)" and discussing brand names ("What about this Documentum thing? What about this Sharepoint thing?...") without ANY user requirements determined beyond "we want a cool EDM/CMS system"...(Actually, there IS one specific 'problem' that they want to address...but every product they've trotted out with the 'look at all the cool features' brochures are gross overkill for that one problem so far. In fairness, they're thinking ahead towards wanting to make use of EDM features in other areas later...but without anybody clarifying what those areas are or how they will or should be affected, the discussion is pretty meaningless if not downright dangerous.)
Seriously - get the user requirements specification hammered out in reasonable detail before anyone even thinks about 'what cool program to use'!
(Yes, I am quite frustrated, why do you ask?....)
I realized France had joined the 'stupid lawsuit that wins anyway' club with the whole Mobilix/Obelix thing...
...no Open-Source SUN Java.
People being impatient have already generated GCJ and Kaffe working on open-source implementations of Java. Neither are yet as complete as the 'full' Java, but are in progress.
Is there a 'standard' for the Java language itself, in the same way that there is for "C#"? If not, could it be because Sun doesn't want to make it easier for Open-Source folks to create a complete implementation?...
It seems to be not the 'core' of PHP, but several of the modules that go with it aren't thread-safe.
Apparently, this really only shows up in the real world under heavy usage, and using the prefork "multi-processing module" should reduce or eliminate the potential problems. I think.
It SOUNDS like the warnings about not using PHP with Apache2 is mainly overcautiousness - every time one of these stories comes up, a few people pop up and say it's working fine for them, and I don't remember seeing anyone pop up and say "yeah, every time I get more than (x) connections at a time everything fails" or anything of the sort.
I'm planning to try it out myself sometime soon...
That's my impression as well. A somewhat simplistic description of PHP 4's syntax is that it's similar to Perl, but is resembles 'C-like' syntax more than Perl does. A lack of things like implicit variables in PHP seems to make it a little easier to come back to a project months later or look at someone else's code and follow the program logic a little more easily than Perl is. (PHP 5 is adds syntax features that resemble Java more, as well).
PHP has a fair amount of strength in the text-handling area, similar to Perl, but PHP is a bit more 'focussed' on talking to network servers (database servers, webservers, network sockets, ftp servers...).
On the other hand, PEAR and PECL don't have nearly the mind-boggling breadth of add-on modules that Perl's CPAN does...
(As usual, I'm compelled to note that PHP is no longer 'just for web pages' any more than Perl is 'just for generating reports'. I've found it handy for a lot of small system administration tasks that Perl is also good for. You can even use Ncurses or GTK - or, conceivably, Java GUI classes to build standalone apps with it, if you feel the urge...)
One apparently-little-used feature I've been wanting to play with lately is the PHP/Java integration. I've been assuming that PHP5 will be more conducive to this.
I've never QUITE managed to get this working on PHP 4 (though since I don't have any specific reason to use it other than 'I want to play with it', I haven't put all that much time into it, either.). Anybody tried this on PHP5 yet? Or know of a fairly thorough explanation of getting it installed and configured?
I was going to say, "how many '10th planets' do we need?"...
I mean, first it was Charon, then this funny Q-word one, and now Sedna...
At this rate, we're going to end up with as many conflicting "10th planets" as the US government has conflicting federal police agencies...
Some years back, I actually did some digging around about all of the 'smart supplements' and such.
The upshot is that a lot of them DO work...but in inverse proportion to how much you NEED them. That is, they don't do much of anything for people who are already reasonably smart, but they are a noticeable help for people with mental deficiencies.
Personally, I think the best way to get intellectual stimulation is to try to get as many varied experiences as possible. I like travel, myself. Dig out a map, find somewhere a few hours away you've never been to, and go for a drive. Bring the map in case anything looks interesting along the way and you decide to change your itinerary...
Bear in mind that we're actually talking about two different 'entities' in this thread - Mormons as individuals, and The Mormon Church as an organization.
I actually live in the middle of a heavily Mormon area. I can honestly say that, although I think their theology is, well, downright bizarre (God lives on the planet Jolob where his unnamed wife (wives?) churns out spirit babies, if you're a good person you can become a god too, people might live on the sun, etc....*) (Not that this sounds any stranger to my not-particularly-religious attitudes than any of the more 'mainstream' religions), pretty much every individual Mormon I've ever met has come across as being genuinely honest and well-meaning. You know how Mormons are portrayed as almost improbably 'squeaky clean' in South Park cartoons? (And in Trey Parker's highly underrated 'Orgazmo')? Well...they're really a lot like that. (I suspect most of them would find the portrayal somewhat complementary, if they didn't avoid watching shows like that...).
On the other hand, as a large, close-knit, somewhat secretive organization, I have to admit that I often wonder about The Church itself, and the abuses that connections within the organization might be subject to. Darl's obvious self-serving, selfish, greedy, and dishonest activity continuing without at least some sort of censure only makes me more suspicious. (Interesting that one of the 2 companies that actually paid SCO protection money is also in Salt Lake City. I can't help but wonder if that deal only got set up due to church connections.)
Those of you reading who ARE Mormons, what do you think of this? And what do OTHER members of your ward (local Mormon church group) think? Do they believe Darl couldn't possibly be acting dishonestly because he's Mormon? Are they as bothered by all of this as most of us are? Are they avoiding the issue?....
* - these are obviously gross oversimplifications. Google around and I'm sure you can find better explanations...
I've got a joystick that I used with my C64 that was built from arcade parts...
I love the idea that I will now be able to hook it back up to my current computer and play games in my C-64 emulator or MAME...
Konqueror has exactly this capability.
On the other hand, I think the 'Flash Click to Play' is a better idea (though it seems to occasionally have trouble)
They used GTK for the "standalone" linux flash player (which is now rather difficult to locate on their site)...
I vaguely recall that, much like Real, Macromedia often 'hides' some of the Linux downloads where they are difficult to impossible to find.
I can see the link to the over-a-year-old Flash plugin for Mozilla 1.1 for Linux, but I don't see the fabled "standalone viewer" (which I know exists - I downloaded it to another machine last year), and I wonder if there isn't perhaps a 'beta' download directory or something hidden on Macromedia's site somewhere...
Anybody know of any such links?
I'm pretty sure Quanta has decent support for WebDAV, via KDE's "ioslave" for it.
Yeah, and I'm STILL hoping they eventually get around to fixing the sound synchronization problems on their Linux player...
Wonder if they've got a "beta" player hidden somewhere, as they had for a while with version 6?...
Argh.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - we need two new moderation categories:
- "-1 (Bad Pun)"
- "+1 (Bad Pun)"
...EV1!
That's just spooky. Who's next? Ford Motors? The Federal Government (of the US)? France?....
Still quite amusing, and not totally off-topic. We ARE talking about SCO's plans and motivations, after all.
This could be interesting. In the minds of the general public, the shenanigans of the past seem to set a precedent that anyone who claims Linux somehow 'stole' their 'intellectual property' is probably making it up in a desperate bid to 'Make Money Fast(tm)', and now not only will they be making it up, they'll be doing it on behalf of Microsoft.
Oh, sure, that's a gross oversimplification, and a single instance is hardly 'proof' that anyone trying a similar tactic is in the same situation, but we're talking about perception of the general public, who don't normally pay close attention to statistical validity...
("News Flash: Suicide Bomber mistakenly detonates self on a busload of MicroHamas militants..." - to continue my in-poor-taste-but-too-apropos-to-ignore analogy...).
MAYBE it's all really a Secret Meta-Plot by Eric Raymond to trick Microsoft into supporting SCO in a plan to smear Linux and other open-source projects while the Secret Cabal of Linux Conspiracy Ninjas engineer things behind the scenes to make it messily backfire!
And Elvis is financing it all from the secret hideout he shares with John F. Kennedy and "Bat Boy"!
(Ahem. 'scuze me. With SCO's statements as inspiration, it's hard to tell when I go too far...)
Interestingly, didn't the last big payment that came directly from Microsoft for "licenses" show up in one of their SEC filings listed as "Senior Debt"?
Commentary on Groklaw seemed to say that "Senior Debt" means a debt(!) that gets paid back first ("Senior" as in it has "Seniority") in the event of e.g. a bankruptcy.
If this is true, doesn't that imply that Microsoft's money was given under conditions that it might have to be returned in some circumstances?...making it a sort of 'loan' rather than an actual 'payment'?
I haven't heard anything about this particular aspect lately (and I don't even know for certain if my understanding is correct here) but I found it very interesting...
...how long will it take for someone to reverse-engineer the format so that we can make our own SD/MMC cards with our own video (space-shifted from our legally-purchased DVD's [yes, I'm serious...] or 'home video'.)?
That is the specific feature that'd make it useful to me. I have no need of a special proprietary-format-only player where the low-quality proprietary video cards cost as much as full DVD's, especially when portable DVD players seem to be obtainable these days for only $50-$100 more than this player is selling for.
(Hmmm...what's the capacity of the SD cards with the proprietary movies on them? Can they be erased and used as normal SD cards for other applications?)
I'm a bit skeptical myself, but I wouldn't rule out the authenticity based solely on spelling errors.
This looks like a very 'informal' internal-only email - I'm not sure this counts as "professional interbusiness" communication (it sounded to me like a "when we get around to the formal communication [meetings or whatever] here are the issues I wanted to go over" sort of message). I've met a disturbing number of 'professionals' who can't seem to type or spell very well despite conceivably being quite competent as marketers or salespeople or whatever.
For this sort of 'quick note' I could easily imagine someone sloppily whipping it out and shooting it off without proofreading or spell-checking that would go into a formal document (and proof-reading and spell-checking seems to cover up an awful lot of poor writing skills these days...heck, slashdot alone has a huge collection of apparently-quite-competent IT folks who can't even tell the difference between "lose" and "loose"...)
Besides, have you ever read any of SCO's lawyers' filings or SCO's public statements? Not exactly paragons of perfect grammar and spelling themselves.
A post over on Groklaw also mentioned the possibility that IBM could, conceivably, have OFFERED a patch that was subsequently turned down for inclusion in the 'base' tree. Hence, it was a "contribution" (though not one that was accepted) and, possibly not appearing anywhere at the moment, would be "non-public".
The Groklaw post suggested that "intent to contribute" would have been a factor in the wildly flailing SCO claims. My take is that it IF such a thing ever occured then maybe, just maybe, IBM TRIED to put Secret SCO Source(tm) into Linux but failed (which obviously makes it a failure as a "Linux violates SCO Copyright" claim but might, during a full moon on a Tuesday during a solar eclipse, make a basis for a contract violation claim...)
Though this would also require that the patch have been submitted through "non-public" channels, too. Hmmm. Guess even this interpretation is a little weak...
Poor taste aside, whenever I put on my Aluminum Foil Deflector Beanie, I find myself wondering if SCO's executives haven't got some sort of backroom deal with certain large anti-linux companies to commit a metaphorical corporate "suicide 'bombing'(litigation)"...
Is the intended end result that SCO goes completely bankrupt in a flashy manner trying to sue as many large alleged 'infringers', such that they hope to leave a cloud of 'legal uncertainty' over Linux due to the lawsuits being left unfinished when SCO ceases to exist?
("There was so much infringement that we went broke before we could have those Linux miscreants punished! Oh, woe is us! Thankfully, due to my job experience dealing with the horrible illegalities that we allege in Linux, Microsoft has gladly offered me a new job on the newly-created Linux Legal Issues department, where I can continue to spread my warnings...")