There are two types of people involved with computers.
Those that use the machine, and those that control the machine. Users just run software and get things done. The others enjoy the very act of computing. They want the machine to do what they want it to without limitations.
Seeing code like this is like an open book to the actual art of computing. Systems level code is worth looking over. The understanding you get about your machine and what it is doing changes things. (For the good.)
Just thought I would peer into fantasyland for a minute and be a little creative about what this could mean.
AOL combines the properties they own with the RedHat distribution to produce an alternative computing environment that runs on most anything right off the CD. They could do many other things like set-top boxes and other dedicated toys, but the CD is what interests me.
I have recieved at least 1 cd a week from these guys. People have them all over the place. In fact I am looking at the 70's flower themed AOL 7.0 cd right now, fresh from the morning mail.
Everyone I know understands what AOL is and that is where the value of something like this comes in. I believe a lot of people are aware of Linux, but they don't know what it is. They do know it is important because their techie friends use it. This is the work that we have done people, but we cant realistically finish.
So lets say that AOL does produce this CD. If they do things right, they can include everything on the new 8.0 CD that someone needs to surf the internet and make decent use of their PC.
Right now cheap machines (under $300.00) basically run windows. They don't have to. In fact the people making these would welcome the extra margin they would gain by not including windows. With an included 6 month AOL subscription and a free OS, the $200.00 PC for the masses becomes possible. This makes a whole lot of sense!
Never, and I mean never, did I imagine that I would say that! Stay with me for a minute, I do have a point.
Microsoft wants you to pay to run your machine on a subscription basis, own your data, and the applications you use to manupulate it. Scary. AOL could take another position... Run your machine for free, but if you want we can make it easy and fun for only $25.00 per month including your internet.
I believe there is a good business model here forming that takes a sizeable company to execute. If open code is free to use, and distribute, then how does one make money from it?
You make your money by doing the work required to make the whole thing useful. Distributions have value because they offer support, and packaging. AOL can add value on top of that by picking best in class Open Source applications, intergrating them with their own stuff into something pretty effective at addressing basic computing needs.
There is a lot of synergy here if you think about it further. Lets say also that this actually takes off. A year or two from now, you have a sizeable chunk of people running basically AOL linux.
Subscribers can download new applications ready for their system from AOL.
Developers have an interesting new platform to write to.
Other hardware platforms benefit from the portable infrastructure.
People with slow connections can just wait for their new CD to come in the mail and actually want to use it, and copy it, and give it to their friends!
And the goodness goes on...
Basically it looks like we need a common OS and applications for the masses. Having everything be open and configurable has no value if nobody is using it. (We are nobody in terms of numbers.) The Microsoft solution is closed forcing me to pay for everything and do things their way. One central point of control. Bad for a lot of reasons.
AOL would be aggragating what is out there into something people can use. That is worth paying for. The difference really is in the infrastructure. The people using the products also have a hand in building them. Most of the whole thing would be open and that matters more longer term.
So I guess I would not mind one bit if AOL builds a distribution that makes them money. Most of the industry would benefit from it because it is open.
Pretty hard to escape the evil empire moniker at this stage, for me at least.
Being forced to use their products as they stand today is worse than being forced to use their potentially good products they might produce tomarrow given this change in vision, so in that respect we all might be a bit better off. Either way I would like to see this. It is what they should be doing.
What incentive do they actually have to keep this up over the longer term? Lets say they perform for a couple of years and keep Linux at bay while eating up some more UNIX marketshare. Stockholders get hungry, some part of their market gets mature and they need to grow again.
Given the tighter control they would have at that point, why not just release what is needed, then fix things later? Who is going to argue? Would things need to be goverment regulated, what happens to open code? Will it be legal to develop it? Kind of a dangerous road to travel right now --for both sides. I just don't see it happening.
I am saying that we need alternatives, if only to keep MS somewhat honest. I also say that there is no one solution to computing that is going to make everyone happy at this stage. Maybe later, but not now. Forcing things is not going to help. Building a healthy marketplace that rewards innovation will help. Polishing up an old act will not in my book and for now this exactly what this is about. PR, nothing more, nothing less. They only care because they have lost some deals, not because it is the right thing to do.
For me personally, the most 'evil' thing about this whole mess is the software as services model. Renting software that performs mature tasks really is just milking the cow one too many times. I am willing to pay for innovation, but not repackaging. Maybe there are those out there that would enjoy having a machine that basically runs by the month. I don't. It is important for both choices to be there however.
So if they wise up a bit and improve security, great. We all win. But don't expect the evil empire stuff to go away totally because it is a business and control issue, not totally a code issue.
I agree with you totally about this getting to the front page somehow. I doubt this post would have made it there given its nature, I could be wrong. Sideline discussions that reach the point of being their own topic, or that clearly have the potential to be one should be noted and dealt with somehow. Maybe I am asking for USENET on/. ?!?
Don't get me wrong, off topic is just that. I also am a long time user of the site, and have noticed a clear increase in the noise level as of late. My opinion here could just be part of the problem. Perhaps this particular post sparked my interest where most of them don't. Have that happen to one person a day and the forum degrades. Point well made...
Ah well, I still liked the post and the question it asks!
You are right but for one small detail; namely, that the text you refer to is "Please try to keep posts on topic."
Off topic things happen, it is the nature of dynamic conversations.
So yeah, you and I are both wrong technically for responding to an off topic post. This is why responding to a troll is bad and is also why responding to this guy is good. The troll has no merit or purpose other than noise. This guy for whatever reason asked the simple question "Should Slash be more than it is?" (My words, not his.)
I don't know why he asked it, but the way he asked it actually was good enough to get me to read it. Spontanious things like that happen. To filter them out with harsh rules would be cold and unreasonable.
So I say that the spirit of Slashdot really is about conversation, and when you are having good conversation among friends, this sort of thing is ok.
This is a good post that deserves some consideration. It is offtopic, but given the nature of/. this is not a bad thing. Frankly, offtopic posts often spark good discussions like this one forming now. I only wish they had a way to make it to the front page...
I like slashdot for its raw unfiltered nature. It is dynamic and unpredictable. The shit to gem ratio continues to rise with conversation volume not unlike usenet, but with one key difference: Slashdot has a central source sparking the discussion and that is what makes it interesting to me. Given a particular topic of interest, I can gather several viewpoints and think the thing over for a while. Makes a dull workday pass quicker if nothing else.
In short, cleaning up/. would break it in important ways.
Your spelling comments are interesting. Unfiltered conversation is going to have spelling errors, offtopic, and abuse mixed in. (mine do sans abuse!) Lighten up on the spelling and grammar problems and look at the conversation for what it is. These things work together as a feature if you think about it. The kiddies, posers and fools will all make those mistakes which serve to highlight them in the discussion. Filter their content, or give them click and drool tools to improve and they become harder to see.
Personally I worry about those that only read Slash and nothing else. This site is probably enabling the formation of some very questionable opinions, but again you get the good with the bad.
So I agree with you about the content of Slash compared to other media outlets, but sense that you have not correctly identified the purpose of the site. You want Slash to be more than it is. Asking if it should be is why I like your post.
Slashdot is a discussion board. Like minded people gather here to talk about things. Anyone with any critical thinking skills at all is going to come here to spark their interest, then move elsewhere to learn something, then perhaps come back to express their opinion about it.
You know during the events of the 11th, I never even considered reading Slash first. When I did happen to check, I was amazed. Slash was fast and the discussions were interesting. The editors are slow at times, and the topics misguided, but on that day they shined. Never thought about it until now, but maybe our editors are not working as hard as they could be. Perhaps they should.
Again, your post has merit. This should be a front page link for a couple of days. Everyone involved would learn something from the discussion that would follow. And the site would easily survive it. I for one would be reading and posting with interest.
Very interesting question really. Amazing that someone in office actually got it right. Kudos to him!
So if I am paying for copies that I might make, that in a sense makes the copies ok so long as they are for personal reasons and I am not directly profiting from them, right? Wrong in their eyes. Being able to create and potentially distribute content without their involvement is the issue.
If these people were out to actually make some easy money, they would lobby to increase the tax, and they would have also taken the Napster offer. I say they are making enough right now, enough to make these options unattractive given the carrot of pay-per-play.
They are taking the longer view. If they stick to their guns and actually legislate our machines into content receivers then they stand to make a hell of a lot more. It would not surprise me to see them actually make some consessions on the small tax they are collecting now in order to make bigger legislative gains toward their longer term future.
It is no secret that they want the entire pipe between their content and our brains. It is this level of control that drives their current actions, not money. It is getting really easy to produce content on par with theirs and they know it. In music this has pretty much happened already. Movies will follow.
Remember that the movie studios were worried about the VCR because they could not control how many people were watching. My god, a whole room full of people might actually watch that movie!
They need to own content distribution totally, or they face competition and eventual insignificance from whatever creative disruptive technology and content will come from an open content delivery platform.
Until now economics of scale and technology made it easy for them because few could afford to really generate compelling content. As this changes, they will react because they must to exist over the longer term.
This whole battle is not totally over personal copies. It is about the potential for leaks in the channel to be expoited by others in a competitive and potentially disruptive way that changes the game. Since they basically have all current content locked up, the only way they can really lose longer term is to miss out on new content thus diminishing the value of their channel in favor of another.
So I say they will yield somewhat here on the tax issue in a gamble to capture the larger prize.
No way. That cube logo is the best. It represents what SGI should be getting back to instead of where it went with the new logo. Hope the cube stays...
I have this one too. Cool stuff. Just how many other workstation manufacturers do this sort of thing. Might be part of the problem, but I think it shows some extra spunk that make the products great.
I am using one right now. They are *nice* boxes. They were built using the same design methodology as their current IRIX/MIPS boxes are. System level PROM, custom HAL for NT, nicely intergrated GFX, Audio, and Video I/O. All for $4000 or so if you bought the right configuration. Kind of like a next generation O2 that runs NT.
UMA design on the GFX allow insane amounts of texture with little performance loss. (500Mb texture is no problem on these little boxes.)
Maybe they were too good. I do know at the time you could not find another NT machine that offered the features at anywhere near the price of the 320.
Anyway, they were not canned because the market did not accept them. They were canned because they were litigated and dealt out of existance. From the legal issues surrounding the boot-loader partially owned by M$ and their M$ deal for GFX, they were locked into win32 only, or give up their plans for the line.
These machines were supposed to run Linux with full 3D support for an awesome chipset. Shown at Siggraph 99. This combined with the proposed library and system software ports would have made a very nice workstation. Linux would have benefited nicely from this a couple years ahead of schedule. It is well known that Microsoft does not want anyone selling windows to sell anything else particularly on machines that make the process easy, so...
Between that legal mess and some reluctance on the Open Source communities part to accept SGI work, owners of these machines are left with a very nice non-upgradable win2000 box. (Not that I ever want XP, but I DO WANT 3D LINUX dammit.)
Get a Plextor CD-Writer. Works as good as an 'SGI' CD-ROM and can write CD's a well. On the external model there is a block size switch on the back. Flip that and you are set for using the drive even to load the OS from Prom. Cheaper too.
Ok. I think we both have points. The things you suggest are things people should be doing when the chance is there.
I don't buy the price thing. People charge what the market will bear and that means as much as possible which also means that there will always be the lower-end segment of the population thinking that things cost to much.
Was a little tired for the last statement. What I mean is that in order for piracy (using their definition not mine) to be prevented, we must all live with a lot of restrictions on what our hardware can do and that is just not ok with me.
Part of what I defend here also is sort of unique to this industry. The way things are structured right now, it is possible for someone to have very little, get connected to the net and learn their way into something that they enjoy and that does them some good. This feature of the net and the computing industry in general is a good thing and should be continued. Again no harm comes from this, only good things.
I have no clue what to do about the warez kiddies who make things a mess. I do know however that putting out pieces like the one that started this discussion is an insult and not part of any real solution to the problem.
Yeah I attacked the software industry. There is a lot wrong.
I am not defending piracy because there has been nothing stolen. Running a copy of a program somewhere to learn harms nobody. You have not demonstrated harm except in the case of blatent abuse, so I have little to defend.
For those that freeload and profit without paying, they are wrong.
The unfortunate thing here is that solutions to this that would actually work would impose many unreasonable solutions that place a harsh burden on everyone for little or no gain on the software companies side.
Maybe not, but I don't think it's for you to decide that you should be allowed to use commercial software for free. If the author wants to make it available on a try-before-you-buy basis, good for them. If they don't want to do this, you should vote with your feet and spend your money elsewhere. End Quote.
I agree about voting with your feet. Do this on a regular basis. We most likely will not agree on who has the right to use, but I have a little more to say on my side of things.
Not everyone has the means to pay to learn. My words earlier may have been harsh with regard to being either rich or a fool so let me restate that in a different way:
I have spent a large portion of my life learning to understand and apply technology. This involves software as well as hardware and other things. You could say that I did not pay for that knowledge and you would be right in the strict sense, but the more important question is did I steal. I don't think so. Nothing is missing!
So what became of this knowledge? This is the part I don't think you understand fully.
Growing up I watched as most people I knew struggled with technology. Can't tell you how many win32 machines I have rebuilt because someone got burned on some software written by the little guy, or those that paid for high-end software only to have the license managers not work together, or that became unstable because of system conflicts.
Worse is the person who actually bought what the sales person recommended (that package with the highest commission) instead of what would actually do the job.
In short, a lot of people are getting hosed because many enterprises in this industry don't care or can't afford to care about the people actually using this stuff.
So what right do they have to dictate unreasonable terms and limit liability for products that are taking and increasing role in our lives? What incentive exactly is there for them to come clean and actually support what they produce and stand behind it? Very little.
So yeah I sound like a do-gooder, but seriously, how can someone actually afford to get through this tangled mess of fast buck technology and get any return on what they have purchased? Most of them can't.
So the gap is there for others to fill because many software companies are not doing what they need to to close it.
Maybe in the future as the industry continues to mature things will change, but for now learning about a product is a persons best check against the problems out there right now.
Funny you mention the Photoshop thing. Did that and decided that it was too big of a tool for too small of a job. Went ahead and bought a copy of L-View pro which is similar to Paint Shop. $40.00 well spent.
I take this seriously. Learning is important, but people have to pay for what they use to make money. There are lots of people collecting things just because they can. Or they are posers who like to say they use something higher-end because it makes them look better than they are.
So maybe you are right in part, but I say that those who fit these catagories would not be mature enough to actually buy anything anyway so the smaller guy does not lose as much as you would think.
First point Second:
For games it is simple. If you are playing seriously, then you should pay. If the game does not hold much interest, then consider it a trial and delete it and move on. Your enjoyment of the game particularly online is profit and personal gain because it is what the game is for. Kind of hard to say "I'm learning about Quake 3 so that I can get a job playing." You either play or you don't. There is no fine line, values and ethics are what matter here. You know when you should buy it, so buy it or delete it.
Also my reasoning applies somewhat when the game is no longer avaliable. The mame project represents this as do the various emulators. Old games are not worth publishing (or so they think!) but are still worth playing. All of the loose copies laying around keep the game vital for those that care. I don't consider this entirely right, but until the owners of the games provide an alternative I prefer this to watching good games disappear.
Anti-virus software is no different from other software. Personally I don't own any and don't use any because I take steps to avoid the whole problem. (Linux, IRIX, safe mail readers, the usual...) This means we all don't need the software. You can always download a trial or free scan utility for an immediate problem, then decide to pay. (Or not, maybe start with Linux:) They are addressing the problem nicely so people should pay what they ask or seek alternatives. Would I sample them? Yes I would if I needed it. Lets see a day rebuilding a hosed win32 system or a few bucks a year for protection? No brainer.
Your time is money so if something, like a helper app, saves you a lot of time, then you should pay for it because that is money in your pocket without any in theirs. And that really represents the ethic I was posting about.
First, this article makes me sick. The overwhelming corporate morality is obvious and in poor taste. People just should not get their values from the media. Values come from life experience, peer mentoring, and plain old critical thinking, not something like this.
What burns me even more is the reality that some people live in. If pieces like this actually are expected to sway people one way or the other, we should be more than a little scared. Popular opinion is just like popular music or popular anything --manufactured for those who just can't seem to think for themselves. This sort of thing is not what built this country, instead it is the source of the erosion we see today.
Toying around with some software to learn something about it, or the field of interest it is written for is not stealing. This act costs the authors nothing. The lost sales argument does not hold water either because only the rich or the foolish can afford to just buy software they are curious about. The rest of us are just not going to do that when there is no planned gain to be made. People normally do not invest when they do not see a return. Why would they?
As a kid this whole thing took a couple of days to sort out when I was presented with it the first time. It is simple. Learning is ok, profit is not, unless you are a paying customer. Pretty simple really.
As a result of that simple ethic, I have purchased every piece of software that I actually use to my benefit. Simple again, pay back what you owe.
Does this make me a thief? What harm does this cause the authors of the software I have learned about? The only harm I can think of happens when the software is lame, and I say something about it when asked. Paying for lame software is what started this whole thing anyway so in the end that does not hold much water either.
So this avaliabilty of software to all of us helps the authors much more than it harms. All of us who learn about software recommend it to employers and share knowledge and advocacy with our peers. There is a substantial longer term return for a very moderate investment on the part of the software authors.
Why should we bear the burden on this when we have very little return to show for it when the companies who profit from software sales have a clear one?
The structure of this is obvious. If things are slanted toward the established corporations it is much harder for new upstarts to have a chance at the top.
Return for investment works against us here where it should work for us above. Buying a few laws and maintaining a pile of lawyers is far cheaper than dealing with distruptve technologies once they are out of the bag.
Our loss is greater though. We lose out on choice innovation and in general the fruits that our contributions to society in general promise to bring.
How come nobody writes articles about these sort of things. Could it be structure again? Maybe those damn critical thinkers right or wrong are enough of an annoyance that it would be better to chill them before letting them speak?
Oh yeah. Someone rumored that some big SGI names are involved. This can only be a good thing. Graphics on an IRIX box are great compared to the other UNIXes.
OpenGL is not just about games, though I play them along with everyone else:)
Mcad, Scientific Vis. , Simulation are some applications that depend on OpenGL right now. There is a *lot* of pressure to move some of these to the win32 graphics API to gain the economics of scale that surround the Intel platform.
In the MCAD area, OpenGL is widely used because the big players are still cross platform. Over the last few years, there has been little real Linux interest, and little UNIX interest. Almost every one starting new with MCAD was starting on win32.
This year has been different. People are asking about MCAD on Linux and UNIX. Seems that some of the backlash we all have postulated about here is beginning to happen. (about goddam time!)
One interesting approach has been to put in win32 MCAD because it is cheaper than UNIX, maybe use a UNIX backend and hope to migrate to Linux when things come together in the near future. Hearing this stuff is huge and indicates to me that Tungsten is in the right place at the right time.
Good quality X servers can at least take advantage of back-end UNIX compute servers. Enough people do this and realize the administrative and support advantages and Linux native ports will follow.
So here's to hoping for next year. OpenOffice will continue to get capable, Linux graphics will get strong and compare more favorably to highend implementations like IRIX, and some ancillary applications will appear to make technical computing on Linux a reality outside the developer and adademic communities.
Well not everyone is going to like everything, so a little IRIX advocacy and information for you. Maybe it will matter maybe not...
The version dependancies are what I happen to like the most. Sometimes installing something can be confusing, but if it does install, it is going to work.
I don't know about the paper thing. Never had to do that. If you have the wrong *.eoe problem, then most likely you have to overlay something. If you do things one install at a time, then this would become tedious. (maybe requiring paper)
You could also be referring to the freeware web distribution. This is a pain in the arse and needs to be fixed. One thing you can do is mirror that distribution locally. Makes things a *lot* easier. Because the system has access to the dependancies, it can do the work that you find difficult now. Picking them one at a time off the freeware site is very difficult. You should not have to parse much of anything if the packages are all presented to the system. (I know it should be able to get what it wants, but that is the part that needs fixing, not the dependancy handling.)
Because you can resolve everything ahead of time, you have options that make packages easier to install without knowing much besides the fact that you know what you want to install. (this is the good feature once you take advantage of it)
One example: Installing a new subsystem once the machine has an overlay applied.
If you do it one CD at a time, then you have to get the order right, and to do that means you have to load the CD media, then note the problems, then work things out on your own only to put all the CD media in again in the correct order. (Very similar to the freeware problem) The hard part here is understanding how the packages work together.
You could also do this:
Insert foundation CD's, then application CD's, then overlay CD's. (At this point the software knows everything.) Use open additional distribution for this functionality.
Unmark all, then select just what you want.
Resolve conflicts. (if there are any) This is the cool part BTW, if you are missing anything, it will be marked for install based on your choices. Many things will be marked automatically.
It will also insure that you do not install mutually exclusive packages.
Give it the media it asks for during the install.
You are still going to insert some CD's, but you do not have to worry about anything past that.
If you don't want to handle the CD's, then put them on a disk and mount the thing when it is time to install something.
If you have similar machines, you can build one, then clone it to others. You can also easily keep the install image around for those times when a fresh start is needed.
The Software Manager 'swmgr' on SGI IRIX machines is pretty damn cool as well. Runs text 'inst' or GUI mode. Not only does it handle dependancies, but when there are conflicts, it provides you with choices you can work through. (They are in plain english and make a lot of sense.)
Conflict 1 of 9:
Package (some package) is incompatable with existing package. (or needs some other package, whatever.)
a. Remove other package.
b. Install additional package. (from other dist source)
c. Only install relevant part of package.
d. Do not install this package.
Some see this as an annoying feature, but once you understand how it works, you just don't get bad installs any more. Until you are smart enough to break the rules, the system won't let you perform an incompatable install. (We need this feature in the open operating systems!)
The point here is that the user makes all the choices up front before anything hits the filesystem. The way this system currently works, the user can know very little yet still get a good install. May not be exactly what they had in mind, but their system is still around for them to learn and make that second try.
The only area this system is lacking is in the net awareness area. Currently works with local or local networked media.:(
You are right though about the other managers out there. If I had to choose, I would currently choose apt or perhaps pkg_add because they are net-aware, and work the best because the social structure around them encourages good thoughful packaging.
Yeah, I have heard that too. It is very true. One other thing that is kind of goofy is when people feed the trolls and it ends up being a real discussion.
Slashdot Mirror
There are two types of people involved with computers.
Those that use the machine, and those that control the machine. Users just run software and get things done. The others enjoy the very act of computing. They want the machine to do what they want it to without limitations.
Seeing code like this is like an open book to the actual art of computing. Systems level code is worth looking over. The understanding you get about your machine and what it is doing changes things. (For the good.)
Thanks Caldera.
Just thought I would peer into fantasyland for a minute and be a little creative about what this could mean.
.Net?
AOL combines the properties they own with the RedHat distribution to produce an alternative computing environment that runs on most anything right off the CD. They could do many other things like set-top boxes and other dedicated toys, but the CD is what interests me.
I have recieved at least 1 cd a week from these guys. People have them all over the place. In fact I am looking at the 70's flower themed AOL 7.0 cd right now, fresh from the morning mail.
Everyone I know understands what AOL is and that is where the value of something like this comes in. I believe a lot of people are aware of Linux, but they don't know what it is. They do know it is important because their techie friends use it. This is the work that we have done people, but we cant realistically finish.
So lets say that AOL does produce this CD. If they do things right, they can include everything on the new 8.0 CD that someone needs to surf the internet and make decent use of their PC.
Right now cheap machines (under $300.00) basically run windows. They don't have to. In fact the people making these would welcome the extra margin they would gain by not including windows. With an included 6 month AOL subscription and a free OS, the $200.00 PC for the masses becomes possible. This makes a whole lot of sense!
Never, and I mean never, did I imagine that I would say that! Stay with me for a minute, I do have a point.
Microsoft wants you to pay to run your machine on a subscription basis, own your data, and the applications you use to manupulate it. Scary. AOL could take another position... Run your machine for free, but if you want we can make it easy and fun for only $25.00 per month including your internet.
I believe there is a good business model here forming that takes a sizeable company to execute. If open code is free to use, and distribute, then how does one make money from it?
You make your money by doing the work required to make the whole thing useful. Distributions have value because they offer support, and packaging. AOL can add value on top of that by picking best in class Open Source applications, intergrating them with their own stuff into something pretty effective at addressing basic computing needs.
There is a lot of synergy here if you think about it further. Lets say also that this actually takes off. A year or two from now, you have a sizeable chunk of people running basically AOL linux.
Subscribers can download new applications ready for their system from AOL.
Developers have an interesting new platform to write to.
Other hardware platforms benefit from the portable infrastructure.
People with slow connections can just wait for their new CD to come in the mail and actually want to use it, and copy it, and give it to their friends!
And the goodness goes on...
Basically it looks like we need a common OS and applications for the masses. Having everything be open and configurable has no value if nobody is using it. (We are nobody in terms of numbers.) The Microsoft solution is closed forcing me to pay for everything and do things their way. One central point of control. Bad for a lot of reasons.
AOL would be aggragating what is out there into something people can use. That is worth paying for. The difference really is in the infrastructure. The people using the products also have a hand in building them. Most of the whole thing would be open and that matters more longer term.
So I guess I would not mind one bit if AOL builds a distribution that makes them money. Most of the industry would benefit from it because it is open.
AOL Linux, or
Funny, I noted the same thing yesterday. We are both getting bitch slapped for this. My karma dropped quite a lot already.
The sick thing here is that I understood your point! This little thread actually did some good!
Maybe is was the question after all, not the off-topic nature of the thread. Maybe not...
Either way, I am not going to be overly bothered by it.
A|W is shipping maya on Linux right now.
Good question.
Pretty hard to escape the evil empire moniker at this stage, for me at least.
Being forced to use their products as they stand today is worse than being forced to use their potentially good products they might produce tomarrow given this change in vision, so in that respect we all might be a bit better off. Either way I would like to see this. It is what they should be doing.
What incentive do they actually have to keep this up over the longer term? Lets say they perform for a couple of years and keep Linux at bay while eating up some more UNIX marketshare. Stockholders get hungry, some part of their market gets mature and they need to grow again.
Given the tighter control they would have at that point, why not just release what is needed, then fix things later? Who is going to argue? Would things need to be goverment regulated, what happens to open code? Will it be legal to develop it? Kind of a dangerous road to travel right now --for both sides. I just don't see it happening.
I am saying that we need alternatives, if only to keep MS somewhat honest. I also say that there is no one solution to computing that is going to make everyone happy at this stage. Maybe later, but not now. Forcing things is not going to help. Building a healthy marketplace that rewards innovation will help. Polishing up an old act will not in my book and for now this exactly what this is about. PR, nothing more, nothing less. They only care because they have lost some deals, not because it is the right thing to do.
For me personally, the most 'evil' thing about this whole mess is the software as services model. Renting software that performs mature tasks really is just milking the cow one too many times. I am willing to pay for innovation, but not repackaging. Maybe there are those out there that would enjoy having a machine that basically runs by the month. I don't. It is important for both choices to be there however.
So if they wise up a bit and improve security, great. We all win. But don't expect the evil empire stuff to go away totally because it is a business and control issue, not totally a code issue.
I agree with you totally about this getting to the front page somehow. I doubt this post would have made it there given its nature, I could be wrong. Sideline discussions that reach the point of being their own topic, or that clearly have the potential to be one should be noted and dealt with somehow. Maybe I am asking for USENET on /. ?!?
Don't get me wrong, off topic is just that. I also am a long time user of the site, and have noticed a clear increase in the noise level as of late. My opinion here could just be part of the problem. Perhaps this particular post sparked my interest where most of them don't. Have that happen to one person a day and the forum degrades. Point well made...
Ah well, I still liked the post and the question it asks!
You are right but for one small detail; namely, that the text you refer to is "Please try to keep posts on topic."
Off topic things happen, it is the nature of dynamic conversations.
So yeah, you and I are both wrong technically for responding to an off topic post. This is why responding to a troll is bad and is also why responding to this guy is good. The troll has no merit or purpose other than noise. This guy for whatever reason asked the simple question "Should Slash be more than it is?" (My words, not his.)
I don't know why he asked it, but the way he asked it actually was good enough to get me to read it. Spontanious things like that happen. To filter them out with harsh rules would be cold and unreasonable.
So I say that the spirit of Slashdot really is about conversation, and when you are having good conversation among friends, this sort of thing is ok.
This is a good post that deserves some consideration. It is offtopic, but given the nature of /. this is not a bad thing. Frankly, offtopic posts often spark good discussions like this one forming now. I only wish they had a way to make it to the front page...
/. would break it in important ways.
I like slashdot for its raw unfiltered nature. It is dynamic and unpredictable. The shit to gem ratio continues to rise with conversation volume not unlike usenet, but with one key difference: Slashdot has a central source sparking the discussion and that is what makes it interesting to me. Given a particular topic of interest, I can gather several viewpoints and think the thing over for a while. Makes a dull workday pass quicker if nothing else.
In short, cleaning up
Your spelling comments are interesting. Unfiltered conversation is going to have spelling errors, offtopic, and abuse mixed in. (mine do sans abuse!) Lighten up on the spelling and grammar problems and look at the conversation for what it is. These things work together as a feature if you think about it. The kiddies, posers and fools will all make those mistakes which serve to highlight them in the discussion. Filter their content, or give them click and drool tools to improve and they become harder to see.
Personally I worry about those that only read Slash and nothing else. This site is probably enabling the formation of some very questionable opinions, but again you get the good with the bad.
So I agree with you about the content of Slash compared to other media outlets, but sense that you have not correctly identified the purpose of the site. You want Slash to be more than it is. Asking if it should be is why I like your post.
Slashdot is a discussion board. Like minded people gather here to talk about things. Anyone with any critical thinking skills at all is going to come here to spark their interest, then move elsewhere to learn something, then perhaps come back to express their opinion about it.
You know during the events of the 11th, I never even considered reading Slash first. When I did happen to check, I was amazed. Slash was fast and the discussions were interesting. The editors are slow at times, and the topics misguided, but on that day they shined. Never thought about it until now, but maybe our editors are not working as hard as they could be. Perhaps they should.
Again, your post has merit. This should be a front page link for a couple of days. Everyone involved would learn something from the discussion that would follow. And the site would easily survive it. I for one would be reading and posting with interest.
Very interesting question really. Amazing that someone in office actually got it right. Kudos to him!
So if I am paying for copies that I might make, that in a sense makes the copies ok so long as they are for personal reasons and I am not directly profiting from them, right? Wrong in their eyes. Being able to create and potentially distribute content without their involvement is the issue.
If these people were out to actually make some easy money, they would lobby to increase the tax, and they would have also taken the Napster offer. I say they are making enough right now, enough to make these options unattractive given the carrot of pay-per-play.
They are taking the longer view. If they stick to their guns and actually legislate our machines into content receivers then they stand to make a hell of a lot more. It would not surprise me to see them actually make some consessions on the small tax they are collecting now in order to make bigger legislative gains toward their longer term future.
It is no secret that they want the entire pipe between their content and our brains. It is this level of control that drives their current actions, not money. It is getting really easy to produce content on par with theirs and they know it. In music this has pretty much happened already. Movies will follow.
Remember that the movie studios were worried about the VCR because they could not control how many people were watching. My god, a whole room full of people might actually watch that movie!
They need to own content distribution totally, or they face competition and eventual insignificance from whatever creative disruptive technology and content will come from an open content delivery platform.
Until now economics of scale and technology made it easy for them because few could afford to really generate compelling content. As this changes, they will react because they must to exist over the longer term.
This whole battle is not totally over personal copies. It is about the potential for leaks in the channel to be expoited by others in a competitive and potentially disruptive way that changes the game. Since they basically have all current content locked up, the only way they can really lose longer term is to miss out on new content thus diminishing the value of their channel in favor of another.
So I say they will yield somewhat here on the tax issue in a gamble to capture the larger prize.
I will be watching this one with interest.
No way. That cube logo is the best. It represents what SGI should be getting back to instead of where it went with the new logo. Hope the cube stays...
I have this one too. Cool stuff. Just how many other workstation manufacturers do this sort of thing. Might be part of the problem, but I think it shows some extra spunk that make the products great.
I am using one right now. They are *nice* boxes. They were built using the same design methodology as their current IRIX/MIPS boxes are. System level PROM, custom HAL for NT, nicely intergrated GFX, Audio, and Video I/O. All for $4000 or so if you bought the right configuration. Kind of like a next generation O2 that runs NT.
UMA design on the GFX allow insane amounts of texture with little performance loss. (500Mb texture is no problem on these little boxes.)
Maybe they were too good. I do know at the time you could not find another NT machine that offered the features at anywhere near the price of the 320.
Anyway, they were not canned because the market did not accept them. They were canned because they were litigated and dealt out of existance. From the legal issues surrounding the boot-loader partially owned by M$ and their M$ deal for GFX, they were locked into win32 only, or give up their plans for the line.
These machines were supposed to run Linux with full 3D support for an awesome chipset. Shown at Siggraph 99. This combined with the proposed library and system software ports would have made a very nice workstation. Linux would have benefited nicely from this a couple years ahead of schedule. It is well known that Microsoft does not want anyone selling windows to sell anything else particularly on machines that make the process easy, so...
Between that legal mess and some reluctance on the Open Source communities part to accept SGI work, owners of these machines are left with a very nice non-upgradable win2000 box. (Not that I ever want XP, but I DO WANT 3D LINUX dammit.)
Get a Plextor CD-Writer. Works as good as an 'SGI' CD-ROM and can write CD's a well. On the external model there is a block size switch on the back. Flip that and you are set for using the drive even to load the OS from Prom. Cheaper too.
Ok. I think we both have points. The things you suggest are things people should be doing when the chance is there.
I don't buy the price thing. People charge what the market will bear and that means as much as possible which also means that there will always be the lower-end segment of the population thinking that things cost to much.
Was a little tired for the last statement. What I mean is that in order for piracy (using their definition not mine) to be prevented, we must all live with a lot of restrictions on what our hardware can do and that is just not ok with me.
Part of what I defend here also is sort of unique to this industry. The way things are structured right now, it is possible for someone to have very little, get connected to the net and learn their way into something that they enjoy and that does them some good. This feature of the net and the computing industry in general is a good thing and should be continued. Again no harm comes from this, only good things.
I have no clue what to do about the warez kiddies who make things a mess. I do know however that putting out pieces like the one that started this discussion is an insult and not part of any real solution to the problem.
Fair enough, we don't agree.
Yeah I attacked the software industry. There is a lot wrong.
I am not defending piracy because there has been nothing stolen. Running a copy of a program somewhere to learn harms nobody. You have not demonstrated harm except in the case of blatent abuse, so I have little to defend.
For those that freeload and profit without paying, they are wrong.
The unfortunate thing here is that solutions to this that would actually work would impose many unreasonable solutions that place a harsh burden on everyone for little or no gain on the software companies side.
Elflord Wrote:
Maybe not, but I don't think it's for you to decide that you should be allowed to use commercial software for free. If the author wants to make it available on a try-before-you-buy basis, good for them. If they don't want to do this, you should vote with your feet and spend your money elsewhere. End Quote.
I agree about voting with your feet. Do this on a regular basis. We most likely will not agree on who has the right to use, but I have a little more to say on my side of things.
Not everyone has the means to pay to learn. My words earlier may have been harsh with regard to being either rich or a fool so let me restate that in a different way:
I have spent a large portion of my life learning to understand and apply technology. This involves software as well as hardware and other things. You could say that I did not pay for that knowledge and you would be right in the strict sense, but the more important question is did I steal. I don't think so. Nothing is missing!
So what became of this knowledge? This is the part I don't think you understand fully.
Growing up I watched as most people I knew struggled with technology. Can't tell you how many win32 machines I have rebuilt because someone got burned on some software written by the little guy, or those that paid for high-end software only to have the license managers not work together, or that became unstable because of system conflicts.
Worse is the person who actually bought what the sales person recommended (that package with the highest commission) instead of what would actually do the job.
In short, a lot of people are getting hosed because many enterprises in this industry don't care or can't afford to care about the people actually using this stuff.
So what right do they have to dictate unreasonable terms and limit liability for products that are taking and increasing role in our lives? What incentive exactly is there for them to come clean and actually support what they produce and stand behind it? Very little.
So yeah I sound like a do-gooder, but seriously, how can someone actually afford to get through this tangled mess of fast buck technology and get any return on what they have purchased? Most of them can't.
So the gap is there for others to fill because many software companies are not doing what they need to to close it.
Maybe in the future as the industry continues to mature things will change, but for now learning about a product is a persons best check against the problems out there right now.
Your second point first:
:) They are addressing the problem nicely so people should pay what they ask or seek alternatives. Would I sample them? Yes I would if I needed it. Lets see a day rebuilding a hosed win32 system or a few bucks a year for protection? No brainer.
Funny you mention the Photoshop thing. Did that and decided that it was too big of a tool for too small of a job. Went ahead and bought a copy of L-View pro which is similar to Paint Shop. $40.00 well spent.
I take this seriously. Learning is important, but people have to pay for what they use to make money. There are lots of people collecting things just because they can. Or they are posers who like to say they use something higher-end because it makes them look better than they are.
So maybe you are right in part, but I say that those who fit these catagories would not be mature enough to actually buy anything anyway so the smaller guy does not lose as much as you would think.
First point Second:
For games it is simple. If you are playing seriously, then you should pay. If the game does not hold much interest, then consider it a trial and delete it and move on. Your enjoyment of the game particularly online is profit and personal gain because it is what the game is for. Kind of hard to say "I'm learning about Quake 3 so that I can get a job playing." You either play or you don't. There is no fine line, values and ethics are what matter here. You know when you should buy it, so buy it or delete it.
Also my reasoning applies somewhat when the game is no longer avaliable. The mame project represents this as do the various emulators. Old games are not worth publishing (or so they think!) but are still worth playing. All of the loose copies laying around keep the game vital for those that care. I don't consider this entirely right, but until the owners of the games provide an alternative I prefer this to watching good games disappear.
Anti-virus software is no different from other software. Personally I don't own any and don't use any because I take steps to avoid the whole problem. (Linux, IRIX, safe mail readers, the usual...) This means we all don't need the software. You can always download a trial or free scan utility for an immediate problem, then decide to pay. (Or not, maybe start with Linux
Your time is money so if something, like a helper app, saves you a lot of time, then you should pay for it because that is money in your pocket without any in theirs. And that really represents the ethic I was posting about.
First, this article makes me sick. The overwhelming corporate morality is obvious and in poor taste. People just should not get their values from the media. Values come from life experience, peer mentoring, and plain old critical thinking, not something like this.
What burns me even more is the reality that some people live in. If pieces like this actually are expected to sway people one way or the other, we should be more than a little scared. Popular opinion is just like popular music or popular anything --manufactured for those who just can't seem to think for themselves. This sort of thing is not what built this country, instead it is the source of the erosion we see today.
Toying around with some software to learn something about it, or the field of interest it is written for is not stealing. This act costs the authors nothing. The lost sales argument does not hold water either because only the rich or the foolish can afford to just buy software they are curious about. The rest of us are just not going to do that when there is no planned gain to be made. People normally do not invest when they do not see a return. Why would they?
As a kid this whole thing took a couple of days to sort out when I was presented with it the first time. It is simple. Learning is ok, profit is not, unless you are a paying customer. Pretty simple really.
As a result of that simple ethic, I have purchased every piece of software that I actually use to my benefit. Simple again, pay back what you owe.
Does this make me a thief? What harm does this cause the authors of the software I have learned about? The only harm I can think of happens when the software is lame, and I say something about it when asked. Paying for lame software is what started this whole thing anyway so in the end that does not hold much water either.
So this avaliabilty of software to all of us helps the authors much more than it harms. All of us who learn about software recommend it to employers and share knowledge and advocacy with our peers. There is a substantial longer term return for a very moderate investment on the part of the software authors.
Why should we bear the burden on this when we have very little return to show for it when the companies who profit from software sales have a clear one?
The structure of this is obvious. If things are slanted toward the established corporations it is much harder for new upstarts to have a chance at the top.
Return for investment works against us here where it should work for us above. Buying a few laws and maintaining a pile of lawyers is far cheaper than dealing with distruptve technologies once they are out of the bag.
Our loss is greater though. We lose out on choice innovation and in general the fruits that our contributions to society in general promise to bring.
How come nobody writes articles about these sort of things. Could it be structure again? Maybe those damn critical thinkers right or wrong are enough of an annoyance that it would be better to chill them before letting them speak?
NO FUCKING WAY.
Oh yeah. Someone rumored that some big SGI names are involved. This can only be a good thing. Graphics on an IRIX box are great compared to the other UNIXes.
OpenGL is not just about games, though I play them along with everyone else :)
Mcad, Scientific Vis. , Simulation are some applications that depend on OpenGL right now. There is a *lot* of pressure to move some of these to the win32 graphics API to gain the economics of scale that surround the Intel platform.
In the MCAD area, OpenGL is widely used because the big players are still cross platform. Over the last few years, there has been little real Linux interest, and little UNIX interest. Almost every one starting new with MCAD was starting on win32.
This year has been different. People are asking about MCAD on Linux and UNIX. Seems that some of the backlash we all have postulated about here is beginning to happen. (about goddam time!)
One interesting approach has been to put in win32 MCAD because it is cheaper than UNIX, maybe use a UNIX backend and hope to migrate to Linux when things come together in the near future. Hearing this stuff is huge and indicates to me that Tungsten is in the right place at the right time.
Good quality X servers can at least take advantage of back-end UNIX compute servers. Enough people do this and realize the administrative and support advantages and Linux native ports will follow.
So here's to hoping for next year. OpenOffice will continue to get capable, Linux graphics will get strong and compare more favorably to highend implementations like IRIX, and some ancillary applications will appear to make technical computing on Linux a reality outside the developer and adademic communities.
Well not everyone is going to like everything, so a little IRIX advocacy and information for you. Maybe it will matter maybe not...
The version dependancies are what I happen to like the most. Sometimes installing something can be confusing, but if it does install, it is going to work.
I don't know about the paper thing. Never had to do that. If you have the wrong *.eoe problem, then most likely you have to overlay something. If you do things one install at a time, then this would become tedious. (maybe requiring paper)
You could also be referring to the freeware web distribution. This is a pain in the arse and needs to be fixed. One thing you can do is mirror that distribution locally. Makes things a *lot* easier. Because the system has access to the dependancies, it can do the work that you find difficult now. Picking them one at a time off the freeware site is very difficult. You should not have to parse much of anything if the packages are all presented to the system. (I know it should be able to get what it wants, but that is the part that needs fixing, not the dependancy handling.)
Because you can resolve everything ahead of time, you have options that make packages easier to install without knowing much besides the fact that you know what you want to install. (this is the good feature once you take advantage of it)
One example: Installing a new subsystem once the machine has an overlay applied.
If you do it one CD at a time, then you have to get the order right, and to do that means you have to load the CD media, then note the problems, then work things out on your own only to put all the CD media in again in the correct order. (Very similar to the freeware problem) The hard part here is understanding how the packages work together.
You could also do this:
Insert foundation CD's, then application CD's, then overlay CD's. (At this point the software knows everything.) Use open additional distribution for this functionality.
Unmark all, then select just what you want.
Resolve conflicts. (if there are any) This is the cool part BTW, if you are missing anything, it will be marked for install based on your choices. Many things will be marked automatically.
It will also insure that you do not install mutually exclusive packages.
Give it the media it asks for during the install.
You are still going to insert some CD's, but you do not have to worry about anything past that.
If you don't want to handle the CD's, then put them on a disk and mount the thing when it is time to install something.
If you have similar machines, you can build one, then clone it to others. You can also easily keep the install image around for those times when a fresh start is needed.
The Software Manager 'swmgr' on SGI IRIX machines is pretty damn cool as well. Runs text 'inst' or GUI mode. Not only does it handle dependancies, but when there are conflicts, it provides you with choices you can work through. (They are in plain english and make a lot of sense.)
:(
Conflict 1 of 9:
Package (some package) is incompatable with existing package. (or needs some other package, whatever.)
a. Remove other package.
b. Install additional package. (from other dist source)
c. Only install relevant part of package.
d. Do not install this package.
Some see this as an annoying feature, but once you understand how it works, you just don't get bad installs any more. Until you are smart enough to break the rules, the system won't let you perform an incompatable install. (We need this feature in the open operating systems!)
The point here is that the user makes all the choices up front before anything hits the filesystem. The way this system currently works, the user can know very little yet still get a good install. May not be exactly what they had in mind, but their system is still around for them to learn and make that second try.
The only area this system is lacking is in the net awareness area. Currently works with local or local networked media.
You are right though about the other managers out there. If I had to choose, I would currently choose apt or perhaps pkg_add because they are net-aware, and work the best because the social structure around them encourages good thoughful packaging.
Yeah, I have heard that too. It is very true. One other thing that is kind of goofy is when people feed the trolls and it ends up being a real discussion.
Trolls good or bad are a necessary evil.
Might be, might not. Perhaps someone is just looking to see what kind of response they would get.
Maybe for some, reading Slashdot then running Linux takes a long time.
Could also be that they got an account early on, forgot about Slash (what a sin!) then decided to post.
Either way I found it interesting that most of the answers were sane.