I looked up gkrellm, and it appears to be a system monitor with all sorts of geeky cook gauges. That's a substitute for an hourglass or Mac-like popup effect? Hopefully you're trolling or perhaps on the wrong slashdot story. To respond to the other guy, Ximian Gnome is on my project lsit.
BTW, I'm nearly always just at shell prompt when I'm using Unix, so I'll see what configuration can be done to fix my particular complaints. I will mention that focusing in Windows 2000 is completely fucked, so again, Windows is not a good benchmark. --
Puleeze. WordPerfect for Windows was a shit product through version 5 and 6. We're not talking table cells, we're talking not crashing, not scrambling your files, not looking like My First VB App and so on. Also, Office was never bundled until a small business version of O95 shipped. Sure there was tons of overlooked piracy and 'unauthorized installations', but that was true of WP for DOS also.
The market decided on Word because it was the most robust GUI product available at the time, and having a GUI word processor turned out to dramatically lower training costs. It was the most robust GUI product because Microsoft started development in 1984 on the Mac and WordPerfect didn't wake up until 1990. Simple economics. --
Well, MS Office (besides supposely being very profitable) is useful because it's of those things that Bill can use to squeeze Steve's balls just to remind each other of the good ol days when they worked out the AppleSoft BASIC licence.
Problem with Office for Linux is that there's no obvious target for ball-squeezing. It's not as if Linus or Alan Cox is going to start worrying about about what to bargin away for the next version of Office. --
Any post that starts with "I'm an RHCE" and ends with the conclusion that Linux is ready for the desktop has got to be given very little credence.
Maybe you meant to say "Linux is ready for the desktop, if you happen to have a RHCE or other Unix guru in the house willing to donate services".
(BTW, I don't really consider Windows "Ready for the desktop" either. Ever installed a driver on MacOS? You literally drag the thingy into the thingy.) --
Well, there's a gaziilion unresolved usability bugs in Windows like your example.
For example, during the W95 beta period we filed a bug that if you created a shortcut to a folder and then tried to navigate through that shortcut in the standard Save As dialog, your file was saved as "Shortcut.lnk.doc" or whatever. This was a normal user opertion discovered within a day or two of beta testing, not some deep bug, and the response we got was that it was serious issue and would be fixed before release.
Turns out it wasn't fixed until Win2000 shipped, 5 years later. Leads one to believe that UI issues aren't exactly top priority over at MS.
The problem at hand is that the Unix desktop community's slogan is apparently "Aim Low" (copy Windows), when usablity flukes should really be the top priority. But 95% of users can't be wrong. --
Word was from the beginning in many ways a copy of Word Perfect
In what ways? The fact that they both proccess words? I think you'll find that neither Word, WordPerfect, WordStar, nor Wang invented that.
(Even early versions of Word had fundementally different UIs and fundementally different operating princples from WordPerfect [which is why there's no Show Codes in Word]. So your statement is boobery.) --
IMO, the focus issues and the lack of a working hourglass cursor (and other basic feedback issues such as this) are the #1 problem of the X11 desktop.
It seems as if development has leaned towards pretty pictures and not towards basic usability issues. Stuff like letting the user know an app is launching is really kindergarten material in GUI design (See MacOS 1.0), and it's still not there yet.
Maybe this is because it's easier for developers to tack things onto Gnome or KDE and not fix lower-level issues in X11, but building a successful GUI on Unix (ie one that works for more than launching xterms) demands systematic approach that fixes ALL of the problems, not just the easy ones. --
Re:Gimp already runs in Aqua
on
Qt for Mac
·
· Score: 1
I think you misread those screenshots. They are either fullscreen X11 or one which is looking at an X11 desktop thorugh VNC.
True "rootless" XonX would allow X11 app windows to float along side the Mac windows, using aqua as a 'window manager'. Some commercial company has claimed that they will ship this (if the XFree hackers don't get there first.) --
Re:Possibly for somethings, not all though.
on
Qt for Mac
·
· Score: 2
First of all -- Use PowerArchiver for free instead of WinZip until the next version of Windows has ZIP shell integration.
Second, other than Zip file handling, what shareware/freeware does the average Windows user really need? Some people use Agent, but I find that OE or Netscape are good enough newsreaders. I bought the ACDSee image viewer, but hardly ever use it. Sonique/WinAMP are free. Compare this to the Mac where basic tools like a terminal emulator or a Ping utility are distributed as shareware.
I agree the shareware situation is pathetic on Windows (for every WinZip, there's 150 other crappier shareware Zip decompressors, not to mention the gallons of spyware and copy DLLs into your system folder crap). But most users avoid that braindamage by routing around it. --
Re:Unfortunately, shareware is very important to m
on
Qt for Mac
·
· Score: 1
CodeWarrior starts at about $300 for Classic/Carbon development (excluding the cheapy student edition), and the Cocoa NeXT tools are free with OS X.
Note that Qt still requires a compiler, so that $1500 is on top of what you are already paying.
(I'm not passing a judgement on TT pricing, just pointing out what the real costs of Mac dev are.) --
Re:QT is the best gui toolkit out there
on
Qt for Mac
·
· Score: 1
Correct. Apple (users) will notice very minor variations from their standard UI behavior. Unlike Unix users that generally don't care.
If TT wrote their own widgets, they better have the behavior spot down (which is possible - not how MS Office doesn't use native widgets on Windows). Otherwise, it's pretty much a commercial no-go on the platform. --
If someone ever fixed PCs so that they had real firmware and you didn't have to play BIOS mindreader to multi-boot, you'd probably feel that swapping disks was kinda a kludgy solution. It's an electronic computer, goddammit! Why should you have to touch it once it's set up?
Anyway, I have a box with 3 SCSI controllers and a bunch of disks on various internal and external chains. I've felt the pain, but it can be made to work (good understanding of various OS boot processes and SystemCommander helps.) --
Windows NT's bootloader can pick up a SCSI or other disk driver (.SYS file) from a BIOS-addressable FAT partition and use it to find the OS without using the BIOS. I have a feeling this what the MSR is for, but who knows, especially if there's no DOS-style drive detection.
I think GRUB works in a similar manner to the NT loader. LI(jump to the partition and see what happens)LO is cruder but in someways easier. --
After the marketing implosion of the PIII CPUID, the BIOS spec was altered so that it provides a unique ID number for each motherboard (which is a better solution than a CPU ID even for the assent management departments that wanted this sort of thing).
This is really nothing new either, custom BIOSes from IBM and Compaq have provided serial numbers for years and years, it's just now a standard call so that Windows can get this info and use it for it's registration voodoo.
Anyway, it's only in the last couple years that PCs have had a GUID number other than the NIC. --
From your first link, it looks like the new boot process requires some small partitions (ESP Extensible Firmware Interface System Partition and MSR Microsoft Reserved Partition.)
Shades of the old OS/2 boot manager partition or the EISA Config partition that seemed to confound certain users with itchy FDISK fingers.
Anyway, it's nice to see something that looks like real boot firmware and not a CP/M-compatible kludge. Any hope of support for this on standard IA32 boxes? --
Prepare for flamage from the UNIX on VAX faction...
Let me help it along:
Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s.
It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there. - Ken Olsen 1984
Palm guy: I can look at my calendar and store phone numbers
CE guy: I can play emulated Donkey Kong and watch porno MPEGs while I'm waiting in line at the DMV. Oh, and look at my calendar and store phone numbers.
Handheld Linux guy: I can bring up an XTerm to my handheld. Hello? Anyone listening?
It's kinda like the old UNIX versus DOS flamewars back in the day. Comparing two vastly different products that so happen to have some superficial simularties.
Of course, the history of the personal computers and moore's law tells us that a "modern" OS like CE will eventually rule handheld space. But that's not to say that DOS wasn't a damn useful platform. --
DIVX in fact told everyone that DVD's content protection was shit, which is one of the only reasons it gained any Hollywood support as an outsider system. So, it's no real shock that CSS was broken, given that Hollywood itself didn't express extreme confidence in it.
But, yes, assuming that the successes with CSS and SDMI can be extended forever is ridiculous. But then Slashdot is full of ridiculous people. Thanks for your post. --
Really, what's the constructive difference between the 0.0000001% of the population which stand up for their rights by using DeCSS for fair use activities versus the 0.0000001% of the population which refuse to fatten Hollywood's content protection wallets?
Actually, come to think of it, there's a big difference. Your 60 DVDs are helping pay for the next system which isn't built so stupidly. DVD's content protection was flawed to begin with and many people (including CircutCity Divx) said so. "Fair use" by thinking you (or someone) can stay one step ahead of them technically is not a solution (and frankly, nobody cares if you go to a lot of trouble to skip some commercials). Fair Use from a corporate system that recognizes that right is. --
I've made this point before, but would you play poker with a bunch of random people you don't know? Probably only if there was some sort of authority (like a casino) warrenting a fair game.
The fact that you can play games with anyone, anywhere, anytime is cool, that I won't deny. But, you'll have to suffer the riff-raff. Probably the only longterm solution is identity checks (credit cards, X.509 certs, etc) and a much more regulated and monitored environment. --
What Dell is doing is essentially turning their corporate desktops into loss-leaders (well maybe they arent' actually losing money, but close) for thier server division.
I've worked at many places that have standardized on Dell desktops and Compaq servers. Word has it that apparently Dell isn't so generous with their volume discounts unless there's a commitment to switch to their servers. They are also handing out lots of freebie servers.
Dell knows that the server machines are higher profit. What they apparently don't understand is that its the same commodity parts situation as the desktops. The net result of all of this is that x86 servers will be sold at similar lame profit margins as the desktops.
While it's tough to complain about a price war and cheap hardware, there's the real risk that your favorite vendor will self-destruct.
In the past, Compaq (for example) has done a lot of custom engineering work to get Windows NT to run stably on their hardware. In the distant past they used to do the same things with their desktops. Now Compaq desktops are crap -- how long will it take for the servers to get there? If Dell/Compaq start pushing commodity servers with standard Intel boards and standard Phoenix BIOSes and bolt on cooling, it may serously damage the x86 server business' (and OSes such as W2K and Linux) ability to move up scale.
Then again, maybe this is all preperation for the upcoming "encouraged" Itaninum upgrade. At least Compaq bought a midrange business that they can fall back on. --
Actually what's going is that there's a PC price war brewing.
Now normally (unlike our friend the clone builder), Dell has to build in a percentage markup that represents the risk factor of RAM going up or hard drive shortage. Essentially an insurance policy against commodity fluctuations. When RAM prices stay the same and the hard drives come in, Dell pockets that money.
Their margins are already so thin that this insurance is about the last thing left they can cut into. So, they're moving the burden of the commodity risk onto the consumer, and essentially doing what Animgif does with a daily price sheet. Sound great because it will lower prices? Wait until you put in an order for $X and the invoice comes saying $X+Y. That's not so much transparent as it is changing the traditional roles of seller and customer in the big PC market.
In short, transparency is a good thing, in pricing as in many other areas.
In my personal view, price wars and this sort of desperate "transparency" indicate the the commodity PC industry is on it's way out due to nearly invisible, or shall we say transparent, margins. Expect the big guys to retrench to corporate markets or very dedicated [read, locked-in] customers. As Lou Gerstner said in a recent Register article: "Starting a price war when you don't control the product is stupid" (paraphrased). Unfortunately, many small vendors are going to get squeezed in the middle.
Very good point. This wouldn't be so ridiculous if the software industry operated like any other engineer concern and actually had a process in place to licence patents.
I can't even imagine calling Microsoft up and asking how much it would cost me to use an XOR cursor. If they had a reasonable policy in place (such as.25/copy shipped), I could see a good chunk of the open source community going along with it.
Instead, the current situation has pretty much enforced Stallman's anti-patent view as the only reasonable one. Hence open source projects tend to thumb their noses at patent rights (here's code which implements RSA or MP3 - don't use it!) --
* Subways and whatnot, which are legacy DC systems.
I don't know if calling BART in San Francisco or the Washington DC system "legacy" makes sense. They were built from the ground up to be "modern" systems using lots of custom parts, and if there wasn't an engineering reason to use DC, they probably wouldn't have used it. --
Slashdot Mirror
I looked up gkrellm, and it appears to be a system monitor with all sorts of geeky cook gauges. That's a substitute for an hourglass or Mac-like popup effect? Hopefully you're trolling or perhaps on the wrong slashdot story. To respond to the other guy, Ximian Gnome is on my project lsit.
BTW, I'm nearly always just at shell prompt when I'm using Unix, so I'll see what configuration can be done to fix my particular complaints. I will mention that focusing in Windows 2000 is completely fucked, so again, Windows is not a good benchmark.
--
Puleeze. WordPerfect for Windows was a shit product through version 5 and 6. We're not talking table cells, we're talking not crashing, not scrambling your files, not looking like My First VB App and so on. Also, Office was never bundled until a small business version of O95 shipped. Sure there was tons of overlooked piracy and 'unauthorized installations', but that was true of WP for DOS also.
The market decided on Word because it was the most robust GUI product available at the time, and having a GUI word processor turned out to dramatically lower training costs. It was the most robust GUI product because Microsoft started development in 1984 on the Mac and WordPerfect didn't wake up until 1990. Simple economics.
--
Well, MS Office (besides supposely being very profitable) is useful because it's of those things that Bill can use to squeeze Steve's balls just to remind each other of the good ol days when they worked out the AppleSoft BASIC licence.
Problem with Office for Linux is that there's no obvious target for ball-squeezing. It's not as if Linus or Alan Cox is going to start worrying about about what to bargin away for the next version of Office.
--
Any post that starts with "I'm an RHCE" and ends with the conclusion that Linux is ready for the desktop has got to be given very little credence.
Maybe you meant to say "Linux is ready for the desktop, if you happen to have a RHCE or other Unix guru in the house willing to donate services".
(BTW, I don't really consider Windows "Ready for the desktop" either. Ever installed a driver on MacOS? You literally drag the thingy into the thingy.)
--
Well, there's a gaziilion unresolved usability bugs in Windows like your example.
For example, during the W95 beta period we filed a bug that if you created a shortcut to a folder and then tried to navigate through that shortcut in the standard Save As dialog, your file was saved as "Shortcut.lnk.doc" or whatever. This was a normal user opertion discovered within a day or two of beta testing, not some deep bug, and the response we got was that it was serious issue and would be fixed before release.
Turns out it wasn't fixed until Win2000 shipped, 5 years later. Leads one to believe that UI issues aren't exactly top priority over at MS.
The problem at hand is that the Unix desktop community's slogan is apparently "Aim Low" (copy Windows), when usablity flukes should really be the top priority. But 95% of users can't be wrong.
--
Word was from the beginning in many ways a copy of Word Perfect
In what ways? The fact that they both proccess words? I think you'll find that neither Word, WordPerfect, WordStar, nor Wang invented that.
(Even early versions of Word had fundementally different UIs and fundementally different operating princples from WordPerfect [which is why there's no Show Codes in Word]. So your statement is boobery.)
--
IMO, the focus issues and the lack of a working hourglass cursor (and other basic feedback issues such as this) are the #1 problem of the X11 desktop.
It seems as if development has leaned towards pretty pictures and not towards basic usability issues. Stuff like letting the user know an app is launching is really kindergarten material in GUI design (See MacOS 1.0), and it's still not there yet.
Maybe this is because it's easier for developers to tack things onto Gnome or KDE and not fix lower-level issues in X11, but building a successful GUI on Unix (ie one that works for more than launching xterms) demands systematic approach that fixes ALL of the problems, not just the easy ones.
--
I think you misread those screenshots. They are either fullscreen X11 or one which is looking at an X11 desktop thorugh VNC.
True "rootless" XonX would allow X11 app windows to float along side the Mac windows, using aqua as a 'window manager'. Some commercial company has claimed that they will ship this (if the XFree hackers don't get there first.)
--
First of all -- Use PowerArchiver for free instead of WinZip until the next version of Windows has ZIP shell integration.
Second, other than Zip file handling, what shareware/freeware does the average Windows user really need? Some people use Agent, but I find that OE or Netscape are good enough newsreaders. I bought the ACDSee image viewer, but hardly ever use it. Sonique/WinAMP are free. Compare this to the Mac where basic tools like a terminal emulator or a Ping utility are distributed as shareware.
I agree the shareware situation is pathetic on Windows (for every WinZip, there's 150 other crappier shareware Zip decompressors, not to mention the gallons of spyware and copy DLLs into your system folder crap). But most users avoid that braindamage by routing around it.
--
CodeWarrior starts at about $300 for Classic/Carbon development (excluding the cheapy student edition), and the Cocoa NeXT tools are free with OS X.
Note that Qt still requires a compiler, so that $1500 is on top of what you are already paying.
(I'm not passing a judgement on TT pricing, just pointing out what the real costs of Mac dev are.)
--
Correct. Apple (users) will notice very minor variations from their standard UI behavior. Unlike Unix users that generally don't care.
If TT wrote their own widgets, they better have the behavior spot down (which is possible - not how MS Office doesn't use native widgets on Windows). Otherwise, it's pretty much a commercial no-go on the platform.
--
If someone ever fixed PCs so that they had real firmware and you didn't have to play BIOS mindreader to multi-boot, you'd probably feel that swapping disks was kinda a kludgy solution. It's an electronic computer, goddammit! Why should you have to touch it once it's set up?
Anyway, I have a box with 3 SCSI controllers and a bunch of disks on various internal and external chains. I've felt the pain, but it can be made to work (good understanding of various OS boot processes and SystemCommander helps.)
--
Windows NT's bootloader can pick up a SCSI or other disk driver (.SYS file) from a BIOS-addressable FAT partition and use it to find the OS without using the BIOS. I have a feeling this what the MSR is for, but who knows, especially if there's no DOS-style drive detection.
I think GRUB works in a similar manner to the NT loader. LI(jump to the partition and see what happens)LO is cruder but in someways easier.
--
After the marketing implosion of the PIII CPUID, the BIOS spec was altered so that it provides a unique ID number for each motherboard (which is a better solution than a CPU ID even for the assent management departments that wanted this sort of thing).
This is really nothing new either, custom BIOSes from IBM and Compaq have provided serial numbers for years and years, it's just now a standard call so that Windows can get this info and use it for it's registration voodoo.
Anyway, it's only in the last couple years that PCs have had a GUID number other than the NIC.
--
From your first link, it looks like the new boot process requires some small partitions (ESP Extensible Firmware Interface System Partition and MSR Microsoft Reserved Partition.)
Shades of the old OS/2 boot manager partition or the EISA Config partition that seemed to confound certain users with itchy FDISK fingers.
Anyway, it's nice to see something that looks like real boot firmware and not a CP/M-compatible kludge. Any hope of support for this on standard IA32 boxes?
--
Prepare for flamage from the UNIX on VAX faction...
Let me help it along:
Unix was written on our machines and for our machines many years ago. Today, much of UNIX being done is done on our machines. Ten percent of our VAXs are going for UNIX use. UNIX is a simple language, easy to understand, easy to get started with. It's great for students, great for somewhat casual users, and it's great for interchanging programs between different machines. And so, because of its popularity in these markets, we support it. We have good UNIX on VAX and good UNIX on PDP-11s.
It is our belief, however, that serious professional users will run out of things they can do with UNIX. They'll want a real system and will end up doing VMS when they get to be serious about programming.
With UNIX, if you're looking for something, you can easily and quickly check that small manual and find out that it's not there. With VMS, no matter what you look for -- it's literally a five-foot shelf of documentation -- if you look long enough it's there. That's the difference -- the beauty of UNIX is it's simple; and the beauty of VMS is that it's all there.
- Ken Olsen 1984
--
Palm versus CE is a pointless flamewar.
Palm guy: I can look at my calendar and store phone numbers
CE guy: I can play emulated Donkey Kong and watch porno MPEGs while I'm waiting in line at the DMV. Oh, and look at my calendar and store phone numbers.
Handheld Linux guy: I can bring up an XTerm to my handheld. Hello? Anyone listening?
It's kinda like the old UNIX versus DOS flamewars back in the day. Comparing two vastly different products that so happen to have some superficial simularties.
Of course, the history of the personal computers and moore's law tells us that a "modern" OS like CE will eventually rule handheld space. But that's not to say that DOS wasn't a damn useful platform.
--
DIVX in fact told everyone that DVD's content protection was shit, which is one of the only reasons it gained any Hollywood support as an outsider system. So, it's no real shock that CSS was broken, given that Hollywood itself didn't express extreme confidence in it.
But, yes, assuming that the successes with CSS and SDMI can be extended forever is ridiculous. But then Slashdot is full of ridiculous people. Thanks for your post.
--
Really, what's the constructive difference between the 0.0000001% of the population which stand up for their rights by using DeCSS for fair use activities versus the 0.0000001% of the population which refuse to fatten Hollywood's content protection wallets?
Actually, come to think of it, there's a big difference. Your 60 DVDs are helping pay for the next system which isn't built so stupidly. DVD's content protection was flawed to begin with and many people (including CircutCity Divx) said so. "Fair use" by thinking you (or someone) can stay one step ahead of them technically is not a solution (and frankly, nobody cares if you go to a lot of trouble to skip some commercials). Fair Use from a corporate system that recognizes that right is.
--
I've made this point before, but would you play poker with a bunch of random people you don't know? Probably only if there was some sort of authority (like a casino) warrenting a fair game.
The fact that you can play games with anyone, anywhere, anytime is cool, that I won't deny. But, you'll have to suffer the riff-raff. Probably the only longterm solution is identity checks (credit cards, X.509 certs, etc) and a much more regulated and monitored environment.
--
What Dell is doing is essentially turning their corporate desktops into loss-leaders (well maybe they arent' actually losing money, but close) for thier server division.
I've worked at many places that have standardized on Dell desktops and Compaq servers. Word has it that apparently Dell isn't so generous with their volume discounts unless there's a commitment to switch to their servers. They are also handing out lots of freebie servers.
Dell knows that the server machines are higher profit. What they apparently don't understand is that its the same commodity parts situation as the desktops. The net result of all of this is that x86 servers will be sold at similar lame profit margins as the desktops.
While it's tough to complain about a price war and cheap hardware, there's the real risk that your favorite vendor will self-destruct.
In the past, Compaq (for example) has done a lot of custom engineering work to get Windows NT to run stably on their hardware. In the distant past they used to do the same things with their desktops. Now Compaq desktops are crap -- how long will it take for the servers to get there? If Dell/Compaq start pushing commodity servers with standard Intel boards and standard Phoenix BIOSes and bolt on cooling, it may serously damage the x86 server business' (and OSes such as W2K and Linux) ability to move up scale.
Then again, maybe this is all preperation for the upcoming "encouraged" Itaninum upgrade. At least Compaq bought a midrange business that they can fall back on.
--
Actually what's going is that there's a PC price war brewing.
Now normally (unlike our friend the clone builder), Dell has to build in a percentage markup that represents the risk factor of RAM going up or hard drive shortage. Essentially an insurance policy against commodity fluctuations. When RAM prices stay the same and the hard drives come in, Dell pockets that money.
Their margins are already so thin that this insurance is about the last thing left they can cut into. So, they're moving the burden of the commodity risk onto the consumer, and essentially doing what Animgif does with a daily price sheet. Sound great because it will lower prices? Wait until you put in an order for $X and the invoice comes saying $X+Y. That's not so much transparent as it is changing the traditional roles of seller and customer in the big PC market.
In short, transparency is a good thing, in pricing as in many other areas.
In my personal view, price wars and this sort of desperate "transparency" indicate the the commodity PC industry is on it's way out due to nearly invisible, or shall we say transparent, margins. Expect the big guys to retrench to corporate markets or very dedicated [read, locked-in] customers. As Lou Gerstner said in a recent Register article: "Starting a price war when you don't control the product is stupid" (paraphrased). Unfortunately, many small vendors are going to get squeezed in the middle.
--
Also a few of the VCRs that record in stereo do so by splitting the mono track, as opposed to encoding it on the video track.
That is exactly the difference between "stereo" VCRs and "Hi-Fi Stereo" ones. The former existed several years before the latter.
--
Very good point. This wouldn't be so ridiculous if the software industry operated like any other engineer concern and actually had a process in place to licence patents.
.25/copy shipped), I could see a good chunk of the open source community going along with it.
I can't even imagine calling Microsoft up and asking how much it would cost me to use an XOR cursor. If they had a reasonable policy in place (such as
Instead, the current situation has pretty much enforced Stallman's anti-patent view as the only reasonable one. Hence open source projects tend to thumb their noses at patent rights (here's code which implements RSA or MP3 - don't use it!)
--
* Subways and whatnot, which are legacy DC systems.
I don't know if calling BART in San Francisco or the Washington DC system "legacy" makes sense. They were built from the ground up to be "modern" systems using lots of custom parts, and if there wasn't an engineering reason to use DC, they probably wouldn't have used it.
--