The individual user systems are named after the user's hometown, although, for me personally Drammen was too long, so I used Oslo (hey, it's in the neighbourhood). Servers are given big metropolitan hubs like NewYork, London, Paris, Berlin, Bombay.
This is slightly off-topfic, but I've been wondering.
It is a common practice to link GPL apps to LGPL libraries (even emacs does it). Presume that is legal.
Is it legal to link a LGPL app to a GPL library? If not, what is the is the difference from the above scenario? In both instances, you are actually using someone else's code in your program.
Is the output of a GPL program covered under the GPL license?
How does the GPL license deal with corba objects? CORBA objects work like library objects, don't they? So if you have GPL app that is CORBA enabled, could it link to a properiatery CORBA object?
The people who are responsible for the file path standard (FSSTF? some acronym, who can remember) says that anything that comes with the distribution CD should go in/usr. Everything that goes the local system only (not network), should go in/usr/local./opt is packages that was not included in the distribution.
RedHat follows the standard. If you get a package from RedHat, it installs into/usr. If you get a KDE package from KDE, it installs in/opt.
I do agree with you, though, that putting desktop environment (spreading GNOME and KDE all over the place) is a very BAD IDEA. Someone should change the standard.
More importantly, do you want to use a non-existing open protocol, suite, or a closed source, properietary now-available one?
What the guy should really do, if he can't find any open source solutions, is to convince his manager to spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars, and develop their own groupware solution.
Of course, they would have to GPL it afterward and assign the copyrigh to FSF. Wouldn't want RMS to call them parasites, you know.
>> The problem is, most programmers don't want to do any real work: like you, they want to be rocket scientists. They want to design; they don't want to integrate or maintain, so they come up with silly excuses like yours.
Funny. last time I checked, most programmers don't want to write documentation, design specs, etc etc. hell, I hate it myself.
Most programmers want to write code, no design, no nothing behind it. Just look at the majority of OS programs out there. That's what programmers do in their free time, without structure.
I hate doing design, but I have also inherited projects where there were no specs at all, and I had to do the debugging and maintenance. Guess what? Very painful process, and 75% of the time was trying to figure out why something was done.
And design specs and other docs are not static. They change with the project. They should be-up-to date, but they have to exist.
And no, there are no point it writing a design spec for a program that has 2 functions call and all it basically does is "Hello world".
A proper design spec can help you with integration and maintenance. Heck, that's what it is there for. It speeds up your understanding of an application when you have to come back after a year to fix something. It also helps with OS programs, because it makes it easier for other to contribute when they have an overview of *how* the application work, and why something is done.
My understanding is that Gaiman owns the Sandman character. For instance, when DC Comics recently wanted to include Sandman in one of their other titles (JLA), the author had to ask Gaiman for permission to use the character.
Sure you can sell it, but you have to compete against the guy who downloaded your software for free (or bought the one copy with source), and is giving it away.
How much are you going to charge for it, if someone else is giving it away?
Of course, you could sell services, but why would anyone buy the service from you with only support for one app, when you can buy a package deal from RedHat, LinuxCare or IBM and get support for their whole environment (and in IBM's case, even their hardware).
Those are the issues that seem to be ignored by the OpenSource people (not Free). Where is the viable business model?
Redhat spends money putting together their distribution, right? It cost money, because someone has to quality test it, someone has to design the package. Marketing cost money, maintaining a ftp site and web site cost money, right?
Now, they spend all this money getting their distribution out and get the name recognition, and then they have to compete against Linuxcare for the support.
How does this economic model work?
PS. I grant you that RedHat has an advantage over companies like M$. They don't have to pay the majority of their developers. Save big $$$
Some of the problems I have with sendmail you already mentioned.
It was not designed with security in mind, and you all still use it? If this was a M$ product, you all would have ripped it apart, but because it's *open source*, suddenly it's should be shielded from critique? It is suddenly "good enough"?
I read all the HOWTOs and documentation I could find. I even have the O'Reilly Sendmail book. Everything doc start with "if you got your sendmail with your distribution, download a new version because there are bound to be a security issue with yours". And I still don't know how to set it up.
And you set up a piece of software that could be full of security holes, and you don't know how the rules works? Is that a good idea?
Sendmail might have been good in its days, but I really don't see why you want to drag around a dead beast anymore.
So you see yourself as an architect, then? Funny, that's not how Linus Thorvald sees the future of programming.
Also, I rather work against an API, whether it is GTK+ or Qt, or even, yes, here it comes, the horror, I know, the WIN32 API, than trying to write my own library to talk to the hardware. How many actually write directly with Xlib?
And Open Source might be flexible enough to satisfy specialized demands of the niches, but will it attract enough developers to actually do it?
Big companies, or even small ones, can afford to give their developers the training to understand the issues in the niche. The cost of the training and development will be offset by the sale of the product and the subsequent support. Open Source, and we are really thinking of Free Software here, where the developers are left to themselves, won't have that support. Sure a company could put their developers on a training program, and then develop it, but if they then put the software in the FREE category, they would have to compete with other service companies that didn't spend the money on developer training and development.
Who do you think will be able to sell the services cheapest?
The niche marked is the marked I think, the properiatery, closed source will do much better than the open source.
The same study showed that yes, Americans, on average work more hours than any other groups. BUT, they were number 17 or something like that when it came to productivity.
Open Source Community is not purely American. KDE is based in Europe. GNOME was started by a Mexican (if I remember correctly). Open Source Community is a very international community.
I mean, selling software package and then give a portion to FSF. How Microsoft like!!!! I see this as yet another attempt to extend and embrace the community. Resist my brothers and sisters. We will stop them from, eh, doing good, because 1) they are a business, 2) they actually think they can *buy* goodwill by donating money, and 3) how Microsoft like of them to give money away, and not even all of it!!!
Lets boycott RedHat for... something... oh, yeah, for not giving away free (as in speech) support, package, t-shirts, hats (I want my red hat!!!).
BTW. the above was an attempt on sarcasme. I agree with the writer above (or below depending on your settings). If you are so much against the idea of RedHat only donating $1 pr. package sold, don't buy it. Send all the money you would have spent to FSF. Then SHUT UP!!!! It's a charity. They don't have to do it.
My understanding is that VISA agreed to send out a non-disclosure to all their customers, and all website dealing with gambling has to have the same text.
Hmmm... care to explain how Judge Ito let a murderer free? Last time I checked, the American justice system was based on the jury system, and it was the JURY that gave the innocent verdict.
The judge didn't rule that VISA and MasterCard was at fault and that she was right. The Creditcard campanies settled with her. Settlements happen outside of the courtroom.
In other words, VISA AND MASTERCARD DECIDED NOT TO FIGHT HER!!
You're right, there are no alternative for gcc on UNIX if you want to follow the ISO C++ standard. Heck, the $1000 Sun Workshop compiler doesn't even handle namespaces at all, not to mention some of the more fundemental classes, like string.
Still, VisualC++ has had support for string and wstring classes at least from v5. And even though their STL implementation is all wrong, and they add some extensions to the language, at least, you can write almost proper standard C++.
How far away are we from a ISO C++ compliant compiler, anyway? Months, quarters, years?
You're right, there are no alternative for gcc on UNIX if you want to follow the ISO C++ standard. Heck, the $1000 Sun Workshop compiler doesn't even handle namespaces at all, not to mention some of the more fundemental classes, like string. Still, VisualC++ has had support for string and wstring classes at least from v5. And even though their STL implementation is all wrong, and they add some extensions to the language, at least, you can write almost proper standard C++. How far away are we from a ISO C++ compliant compiler, anyway? Months, quarters, years?
Can you actually install Linux on those huge harddrives? My understanding was that Linux (on Intel systems) was limited to 8 Gb, but this seems wrong since I've read about people who had 9Gb drives and running Linux.
Note, I'm not talking about the boot partition (which has to be inside the first 2 Gb), but rather whether Linux can "see" past 8 Gb. Anyone know before I plunk down money for a 20 Gb harrdrive?
I want Linux to be mainstream, the reason I wanted OS/2 to be mainstream when I used it, and the reasons I finally abandoned it for Linux.
I care because, if my OS becomes more mainstream, I can download a file, whether it is a movie clip, or a soundclip, or a document, and know I have the program to read it and play it. Because the creator of the clip are aware enough of the penetration of my OS to make sure it runs on it.
Last Star Wars trailer. Had to run it in Windows, because the.mov format was not supported in Linux. Same with the Al Yankovic' new music video. Want to visit a site with ShockWave? Can't. No plugin for it.
Being mainstream basically means I can forget about worrying about compatibility with Windows. The developer of the product I'm interested in, have already taken care of it the worrying.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't believe there is anything in the LGPL that says it is only for libraries.
Heck, RMS renamed it to Lesser GNU Public License, to make it clear it wasn't just for libraries.
I use world cities.
The individual user systems are named after the user's hometown, although, for me personally Drammen was too long, so I used Oslo (hey, it's in the neighbourhood). Servers are given big metropolitan hubs like NewYork, London, Paris, Berlin, Bombay.
This is slightly off-topfic, but I've been wondering.
It is a common practice to link GPL apps to LGPL libraries (even emacs does it). Presume that is legal.
Is it legal to link a LGPL app to a GPL library?
If not, what is the is the difference from the above scenario? In both instances, you are actually using someone else's code in your program.
Is the output of a GPL program covered under the GPL license?
How does the GPL license deal with corba objects? CORBA objects work like library objects, don't they? So if you have GPL app that is CORBA enabled, could it link to a properiatery CORBA object?
I'm pretty sure that GPL apps can be linked to LGPL apps. Most (all?) GPL apps out there links to the GNU C library, which is LGPL.
Debian seems to follow what FSF and RMS is saying. RMS wants people to stop using LGPL, even for libraries. Check this out: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/why-n ot-lgpl.html
The people who are responsible for the file path standard (FSSTF? some acronym, who can remember) says that anything that comes with the distribution CD should go in /usr. Everything that goes the local system only (not network), should go in /usr/local. /opt is packages that was not included in the distribution.
/usr. If you get a KDE package from KDE, it installs in /opt.
RedHat follows the standard. If you get a package from RedHat, it installs into
I do agree with you, though, that putting desktop environment (spreading GNOME and KDE all over the place) is a very BAD IDEA. Someone should change the standard.
More importantly, do you want to use a non-existing open protocol, suite, or a closed source, properietary now-available one?
What the guy should really do, if he can't find any open source solutions, is to convince his manager to spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars, and develop their own groupware solution.
Of course, they would have to GPL it afterward and assign the copyrigh to FSF. Wouldn't want RMS to call them parasites, you know.
>> The problem is, most programmers don't want to do any real work: like you, they want to be rocket scientists. They want
to design; they don't want to integrate or maintain, so they come up with silly excuses like yours.
Funny. last time I checked, most programmers don't want to write documentation, design specs, etc etc. hell, I hate it myself.
Most programmers want to write code, no design, no nothing behind it. Just look at the majority of OS programs out there. That's what programmers do in their free time, without structure.
I hate doing design, but I have also inherited projects where there were no specs at all, and I had to do the debugging and maintenance. Guess what? Very painful process, and 75% of the time was trying to figure out why something was done.
And design specs and other docs are not static. They change with the project. They should be-up-to date, but they have to exist.
And no, there are no point it writing a design spec for a program that has 2 functions call and all it basically does is "Hello world".
Actually, you're wrong.
A proper design spec can help you with integration and maintenance. Heck, that's what it is there for. It speeds up your understanding of an application when you have to come back after a year to fix something. It also helps with OS programs, because it makes it easier for other to contribute when they have an overview of *how* the application work, and why something is done.
My understanding is that Gaiman owns the Sandman character. For instance, when DC Comics recently wanted to include Sandman in one of their other titles (JLA), the author had to ask Gaiman for permission to use the character.
Sure you can sell it, but you have to compete against the guy who downloaded your software for free (or bought the one copy with source), and is giving it away.
How much are you going to charge for it, if someone else is giving it away?
Of course, you could sell services, but why would anyone buy the service from you with only support for one app, when you can buy a package deal from RedHat, LinuxCare or IBM and get support for their whole environment (and in IBM's case, even their hardware).
Those are the issues that seem to be ignored by the OpenSource people (not Free). Where is the viable business model?
Redhat spends money putting together their distribution, right? It cost money, because someone has to quality test it, someone has to design the package. Marketing cost money, maintaining a ftp site and web site cost money, right?
Now, they spend all this money getting their distribution out and get the name recognition, and then they have to compete against Linuxcare for the support.
How does this economic model work?
PS. I grant you that RedHat has an advantage over companies like M$. They don't have to pay the majority of their developers. Save big $$$
Some of the problems I have with sendmail you already mentioned.
It was not designed with security in mind, and you all still use it? If this was a M$ product, you all would have ripped it apart, but because it's *open source*, suddenly it's should be shielded from critique? It is suddenly "good enough"?
I read all the HOWTOs and documentation I could find. I even have the O'Reilly Sendmail book. Everything doc start with "if you got your sendmail with your distribution, download a new version because there are bound to be a security issue with yours". And I still don't know how to set it up.
And you set up a piece of software that could be full of security holes, and you don't know how the rules works? Is that a good idea?
Sendmail might have been good in its days, but I really don't see why you want to drag around a dead beast anymore.
Slashdot has banner ads too. Shouldn't people get worked up about that too (just to be consistent, I mean).
Also, I rather work against an API, whether it is GTK+ or Qt, or even, yes, here it comes, the horror, I know, the WIN32 API, than trying to write my own library to talk to the hardware. How many actually write directly with Xlib?
And Open Source might be flexible enough to satisfy specialized demands of the niches, but will it attract enough developers to actually do it?
Big companies, or even small ones, can afford to give their developers the training to understand the issues in the niche. The cost of the training and development will be offset by the sale of the product and the subsequent support. Open Source, and we are really thinking of Free Software here, where the developers are left to themselves, won't have that support. Sure a company could put their developers on a training program, and then develop it, but if they then put the software in the FREE category, they would have to compete with other service companies that didn't spend the money on developer training and development.
Who do you think will be able to sell the services cheapest?
The niche marked is the marked I think, the properiatery, closed source will do much better than the open source.
The same study showed that yes, Americans, on average work more hours than any other groups. BUT, they were number 17 or something like that when it came to productivity.
Open Source Community is not purely American. KDE is based in Europe. GNOME was started by a Mexican (if I remember correctly). Open Source Community is a very international community.
I mean, selling software package and then give a portion to FSF. How Microsoft like!!!! I see this as yet another attempt to extend and embrace the community. Resist my brothers and sisters. We will stop them from, eh, doing good, because 1) they are a business, 2) they actually think they can *buy* goodwill by donating money, and 3) how Microsoft like of them to give money away, and not even all of it!!!
Lets boycott RedHat for... something... oh, yeah, for not giving away free (as in speech) support, package, t-shirts, hats (I want my red hat!!!).
BTW. the above was an attempt on sarcasme. I agree with the writer above (or below depending on your settings). If you are so much against the idea of RedHat only donating $1 pr. package sold, don't buy it. Send all the money you would have spent to FSF. Then SHUT UP!!!! It's a charity. They don't have to do it.
My understanding is that VISA agreed to send out a non-disclosure to all their customers, and all website dealing with gambling has to have the same text.
Hmmm... care to explain how Judge Ito let a murderer free? Last time I checked, the American justice system was based on the jury system, and it was the JURY that gave the innocent verdict.
The judge didn't rule that VISA and MasterCard was at fault and that she was right. The Creditcard campanies settled with her. Settlements happen outside of the courtroom.
In other words, VISA AND MASTERCARD DECIDED NOT TO FIGHT HER!!
You're right, there are no alternative for gcc on UNIX if you want to follow the ISO C++ standard. Heck, the $1000 Sun Workshop compiler doesn't even handle namespaces at all, not to mention some of the more fundemental classes, like string.
Still, VisualC++ has had support for string and wstring classes at least from v5. And even though their STL implementation is all wrong, and they add some extensions to the language, at least, you can write almost proper standard C++.
How far away are we from a ISO C++ compliant compiler, anyway? Months, quarters, years?
You're right, there are no alternative for gcc on UNIX if you want to follow the ISO C++ standard. Heck, the $1000 Sun Workshop compiler doesn't even handle namespaces at all, not to mention some of the more fundemental classes, like string. Still, VisualC++ has had support for string and wstring classes at least from v5. And even though their STL implementation is all wrong, and they add some extensions to the language, at least, you can write almost proper standard C++. How far away are we from a ISO C++ compliant compiler, anyway? Months, quarters, years?
I saw it at LinuxWorld, and it looks nice.
Still, what I really need is a C++ compiler that is up to the standard. And no, egcs/GCC is not up to the standard (although they are working on it).
Actually, this seems to be a good time to ask.
Can you actually install Linux on those huge harddrives? My understanding was that Linux (on Intel systems) was limited to 8 Gb, but this seems wrong since I've read about people who had 9Gb drives and running Linux.
Note, I'm not talking about the boot partition (which has to be inside the first 2 Gb), but rather whether Linux can "see" past 8 Gb. Anyone know before I plunk down money for a 20 Gb harrdrive?
Thanks...
I want Linux to be mainstream, the reason I wanted OS/2 to be mainstream when I used it, and the reasons I finally abandoned it for Linux.
.mov format was not supported in Linux. Same with the Al Yankovic' new music video.
I care because, if my OS becomes more mainstream, I can download a file, whether it is a movie clip, or a soundclip, or a document, and know I have the program to read it and play it. Because the creator of the clip are aware enough of the penetration of my OS to make sure it runs on it.
Last Star Wars trailer. Had to run it in Windows, because the
Want to visit a site with ShockWave? Can't. No plugin for it.
Being mainstream basically means I can forget about worrying about compatibility with Windows. The developer of the product I'm interested in, have already taken care of it the worrying.