Does anyone know if this IBM Linux commercial has been on the air anywhere yet?
Its pretty amusing. It does play it a little fast and loose with the facts, but it is a commercial, so that's hardly unexpected. Having IBM say that "Now the forces of openness have a powerful and unexpected new ally" just strikes me as funny.
Today's solar flare was predicted, and was expected to be larger than the one that hit us on Wendesday.
The event that happened Wednesday, and the one predicted for Friday and Saturday are two parts of the same event. Wednesday the X-rays from this flare/CME event hit, heating up the ionosphere and causing radio interference. Friday and Saturday the charged particles should hit, hopefully whacking the entire magnetosphere around and causing some nice aurora.
The X-rays get to the Earth from the Sun almost instantaeously (well, about 6 minutes IIRC) because they're travelling at the speed of light. The charged particles take several days to get here because they're moving much more slowly.
However, the GPL mandates that if you include GPL'd code as part of an operating system, the entire operating system must be released under the GPL.
I don't think that this is true. Of course, if Apple integrates GPL code into some program, then they have to release the code to the resultant program. If Apple just used dpkg for package management, then they would have to make available the source to the version of dpkg they use. But they wouldn't have to make available source to any programs that called dpkg.
If I wanted I could write an apt-like program that used dpkg and try to sell it without source. (Of course, it would be a piece of junk that no one in their right mind would buy). This is the same as non-free software making calls to basic system programs like ls or ps.
The previous post by jmegq that says programs necessary for OS installation might be a gray area makes sense, though it seems like it would be OK to me. But I can understand why Apple would want to avoid gray areas.
If they use ANY code from any GPL'd program, they have to release the whole thing under the GPL.
Sorry that I was unclear. I meant they could write their own package manager using the concepts and features of previous systems - not the code of the previous systems.
I know that this might start a license flame war, but I'm going to ask anyway? Does anyone understand this quote?
Apple is thinking about a package manager similar to those used by Debian or FreeBSD. At least Debian's licensing (beneath the GPL) has made it difficult to productize this.
So what's Apple's problem with having a GPL'ed package management system? I know many companies have an aversion to the GPL, but how does having a free and open package management system hurt them? The GPL wouldn't infect the packages. This isn't a flame - I really don't see where what the catch is from Apple's point of view.
And if they don't like the GPL, can't they just implement package management themselves, copying their favorite parts from deb, rpm, Sun's pkg, *BSD's ports, etc. Sure, setting up their own packaging system would be a lot of work, but I think it would be pretty small compared to some of the other stuff they're putting into OSX.
There is a nice basic article about this CME and how CMEs affect the magnetosphere at spacesciences.com. The New York Times is also carrying an AP story on the solar storm.
The Solar and Helliospheric Oberservatory (SOHO) has really some really nice observations of this CME, including movies made with various instruments. SOHO orbits at the L! point so that it can make constant observations of the Sun.
I'm sure glad that they were able to pull SOHO out of its problems, it sure does make some nice observations.
Yes, Debian has an S/390 port. Check out the mailing list archives for details. The porters seem to be making progress, but they still seem to be in the bootstrapping stage according to this message.
This has nothing to do with the expression of ideas or thoughts. The posts being objected to are nothing but a regurgitation of copyrighted material or links to copyrighted material. Asking for them to be removed is not censorship.
DID YOU EVEN LOOK AT THE POSTS?
Take a look at them, someone even made links to all of them. Now how many of those comments contain the actual copyrighted text? - 1.
Now, several of the posts are links to the disputed text. You say that links aren't an expression of ideas. I disagree. Its perfectly legal for me to tell someone where they can buy drugs, so why shouldn't it be legal for me to tell them where they can get a quasi-legal copy of a document?
Most of the posts that they want taken down talk about how to get around clicking through the EULA that Microsoft tried to attach to the document. For the sake of discussion, let's assume that Microsoft is right and it is illegal to access that document without agreeing to their license. But then is is illegal to talk about how you would get around the EULA? It is not illegal to talk about committing a crime, it is illegal to DO the crime.
And now to show ridiculous the stuff Microsoft was trying to have pulled, I'll give my instructions for how to bypass the EULA. Uncompress the file with unzip on a Unix box. There, that was really tough, wasn't it?
It seems that the majority of what Microsoft complained about was the unauthorized reproduction of their materials.
That's what they say they're complaining about, but if you look at the comments that the MS lawyer complained about you'll see that there was only one comment that had the actual text posted.
There were others that linked to the text, but most of them just talked about how to get at the text without agreeing to the EULA. Too me that is trying to stifle ideas you don't agree with, otherwise known as censorship.
There's no need to phase out public libraries. Most public libraries are adding more and more internet connected terminals. Hence the whole debate about censorware in public libraries.
Re:why go to the trouble of complaining to Malda..
on
Unisys Cracks The Whip
·
· Score: 1
Send a message to Unisys identifying Slashdot as a site violating the gif licensing terms.
How do you know that they have violated the patent? Maybe they just used the GIMP and libungif. Its not gifs themselves that are the problem, but compresses gifs. It would be better if slashdot used PNGs, but at this point there are probably still enough people reading slashdot with old browsers that it makes sense not to change.
NASA has the complete reports on the Mars Polar lander incident and on recommendations for the Mars exploration program in general. They also have a press release (though the server seems to be down).
The basic summary is that "better, faster, cheaper" can work, but some management and structural changes have to be made in order to ensure the success of the Mars program.
\whine{Don't you hate it when you submit a story hours earlier, with better links, but it is rejected. }
Here's a link to a NASA press release replying to these allegations. Its a pretty thorough response to these issues. Seems like some conspiracy theorists going a little too far to me.
No. The Dune movie was so horrific as to be completely out of range for comparison to any other book-to-movie translation.
You have obviously never seen _Nightfall_ based on the Isaac Asimov story. That is quite possibly the worst movie that I have ever seen. I don't know if MST2K ever used it in one of their shows, but they certainly should have.
Also, Heinlein books (_Starship Troopers_ and _The Puppet Masters_) have faired poorly as well.
According to this article, SGI isn't selling all of Cray Instead they're just selling the vector lines, and keeping the parallel lines (BTW try not to cringe too much at the scaler/scaler mix-up in the article).
So SGI is keeping the T3E line, which has most of Top 500 Computers that Cray still had on the list. Plus, the T3E line meshes much more closely with the SGI Origin line anyway.
So SGI's sale of Cray for $100 Million is not quite as bad as it seems.
This is probably too late to be read by_______ anybody, but oh well._____________________________ __________________________________________________
According to , SGI isn't selling all of Cray.__ Instead they're just selling the vector lines,____ and keeping the parallel lines (BTW try not_______ to cringe too much at the scaler/scaler mix-up____ in the article).__________________________________ __________________________________________________
So SGI is keeping the T3E__ line, which has most of Top 500 Supercomputers Computers that Cray still had on the list. Plus, the T3E line meshes much more closely with the SGI Origin line anyway.
So SGI's sale of Cray for $100 Million is not quite as bad as it seems.
Well the newest thing here at the University of Minnesota is that the University Seate is considering banning students selling class notes. This ban is mainly aimed at stopping students from selling their notes to sites that would put them on the web.
I guess that I don't really understand the point. Sure I can see why some professors might not like seeing there stuff online in a form that they can't control, but I can't really see the harm.
If they're putting up verbatim copies of handouts that's one thing, but if the notes are taken by the students, it seems like fair game.
Sure sites like these may make some students think they can get away without going to class, but if online notes are enough to allow that to happen then the course needs to be redesigned anyway.
A "quantum leap" forward is, literally, a miniscule advance.
Uhm, no. A "quantum leap" is a big advance. From Meriam-Webster Online:
Main Entry: quantum leap Function: noun Date: 1956 : an abrupt change, sudden increase, or dramatic advance
It does derive from quantum mechanics. I think it comes from the idea that energy levels are quantized, so that to move from one to another you have to have some minimum energy jump. So the step forward your talking about is not a minuscule step, but a a more revolutionary step forward.
Slashdot Mirror
Its pretty amusing. It does play it a little fast and loose with the facts, but it is a commercial, so that's hardly unexpected. Having IBM say that "Now the forces of openness have a powerful and unexpected new ally" just strikes me as funny.
So vote for existing bugs and posts new bugs where appropriate at Bugzilla.
The event that happened Wednesday, and the one predicted for Friday and Saturday are two parts of the same event. Wednesday the X-rays from this flare/CME event hit, heating up the ionosphere and causing radio interference. Friday and Saturday the charged particles should hit, hopefully whacking the entire magnetosphere around and causing some nice aurora.
The X-rays get to the Earth from the Sun almost instantaeously (well, about 6 minutes IIRC) because they're travelling at the speed of light. The charged particles take several days to get here because they're moving much more slowly.
I don't think that this is true. Of course, if Apple integrates GPL code into some program, then they have to release the code to the resultant program. If Apple just used dpkg for package management, then they would have to make available the source to the version of dpkg they use. But they wouldn't have to make available source to any programs that called dpkg.
If I wanted I could write an apt-like program that used dpkg and try to sell it without source. (Of course, it would be a piece of junk that no one in their right mind would buy). This is the same as non-free software making calls to basic system programs like ls or ps.
The previous post by jmegq that says programs necessary for OS installation might be a gray area makes sense, though it seems like it would be OK to me. But I can understand why Apple would want to avoid gray areas.
Sorry that I was unclear. I meant they could write their own package manager using the concepts and features of previous systems - not the code of the previous systems.
So what's Apple's problem with having a GPL'ed package management system? I know many companies have an aversion to the GPL, but how does having a free and open package management system hurt them? The GPL wouldn't infect the packages. This isn't a flame - I really don't see where what the catch is from Apple's point of view.
And if they don't like the GPL, can't they just implement package management themselves, copying their favorite parts from deb, rpm, Sun's pkg, *BSD's ports, etc. Sure, setting up their own packaging system would be a lot of work, but I think it would be pretty small compared to some of the other stuff they're putting into OSX.
Oh, the irony! At the time of this writing the above post is marked as "insightful".
So does that mean if I say that the "funny" tag should be banned from this discussion, then this lame post will be marked as "funny"?
Yes, I read it and I think that its quite funny. Of course spending a lot of time at big research universities helps to get some of the inside jokes.
I had the get the book from inter-library loan, since Stephenson refuses to let it be re-print. It was worth the effort, though.
There is a nice basic article about this CME and how CMEs affect the magnetosphere at spacesciences.com. The New York Times is also carrying an AP story on the solar storm.
I'm sure glad that they were able to pull SOHO out of its problems, it sure does make some nice observations.
Part of the answer to question 7 (about web extensions) seems to have been cutoff by question 8 ( about banners). Could somebody fix that?
Right now it says:
Yes, Debian has an S/390 port. Check out the mailing list archives for details. The porters seem to be making progress, but they still seem to be in the bootstrapping stage according to this message.
DID YOU EVEN LOOK AT THE POSTS?
Take a look at them, someone even made links to all of them. Now how many of those comments contain the actual copyrighted text? - 1.
Now, several of the posts are links to the disputed text. You say that links aren't an expression of ideas. I disagree. Its perfectly legal for me to tell someone where they can buy drugs, so why shouldn't it be legal for me to tell them where they can get a quasi-legal copy of a document?
Most of the posts that they want taken down talk about how to get around clicking through the EULA that Microsoft tried to attach to the document. For the sake of discussion, let's assume that Microsoft is right and it is illegal to access that document without agreeing to their license. But then is is illegal to talk about how you would get around the EULA? It is not illegal to talk about committing a crime, it is illegal to DO the crime.
And now to show ridiculous the stuff Microsoft was trying to have pulled, I'll give my instructions for how to bypass the EULA. Uncompress the file with unzip on a Unix box. There, that was really tough, wasn't it?
That's what they say they're complaining about, but if you look at the comments that the MS lawyer complained about you'll see that there was only one comment that had the actual text posted.
There were others that linked to the text, but most of them just talked about how to get at the text without agreeing to the EULA. Too me that is trying to stifle ideas you don't agree with, otherwise known as censorship.
Does anyone have a mirror of the statement from napster, since my college has all access to napster blocked?
That or the Apollo space program ... or pick your favorite big project. Get a sense of proportion, please.
Hardly the first, since NASA Goddard invented Beowulf.
The press release says that they are the first to buy a "turn-key" Linux supercomputer.
There's no need to phase out public libraries. Most public libraries are adding more and more internet connected terminals. Hence the whole debate about censorware in public libraries.
How do you know that they have violated the patent? Maybe they just used the GIMP and libungif. Its not gifs themselves that are the problem, but compresses gifs. It would be better if slashdot used PNGs, but at this point there are probably still enough people reading slashdot with old browsers that it makes sense not to change.
NASA has the complete reports on the Mars Polar lander incident and on recommendations for the Mars exploration program in general. They also have a press release (though the server seems to be down).
The basic summary is that "better, faster, cheaper" can work, but some management and structural changes have to be made in order to ensure the success of the Mars program.
\whine{Don't you hate it when you submit a story hours earlier, with better links, but it is rejected. }
Here's a link to a NASA press release replying to these allegations. Its a pretty thorough response to these issues. Seems like some conspiracy theorists going a little too far to me.
You have obviously never seen _Nightfall_ based on the Isaac Asimov story. That is quite possibly the worst movie that I have ever seen. I don't know if MST2K ever used it in one of their shows, but they certainly should have.
Also, Heinlein books (_Starship Troopers_ and _The Puppet Masters_) have faired poorly as well.
Sorry about the other garbled version.
According to this article, SGI isn't selling all of Cray Instead they're just selling the vector lines, and keeping the parallel lines (BTW try not to cringe too much at the scaler/scaler mix-up in the article).
So SGI is keeping the T3E line, which has most of Top 500 Computers that Cray still had on the list. Plus, the T3E line meshes much more closely with the SGI Origin line anyway.
So SGI's sale of Cray for $100 Million is not quite as bad as it seems.
This is probably too late to be read by_______ anybody, but oh well._____________________________ __________________________________________________
According to , SGI isn't selling all of Cray.__ Instead they're just selling the vector lines,____ and keeping the parallel lines (BTW try not_______ to cringe too much at the scaler/scaler mix-up____ in the article).__________________________________ __________________________________________________
So SGI is keeping the T3E__ line, which has most of Top 500 Supercomputers Computers that Cray still had on the list. Plus, the T3E line meshes much more closely with the SGI Origin line anyway.
So SGI's sale of Cray for $100 Million is not quite as bad as it seems.
Well the newest thing here at the University of Minnesota is that the University Seate is considering banning students selling class notes. This ban is mainly aimed at stopping students from selling their notes to sites that would put them on the web.
I guess that I don't really understand the point. Sure I can see why some professors might not like seeing there stuff online in a form that they can't control, but I can't really see the harm.
If they're putting up verbatim copies of handouts that's one thing, but if the notes are taken by the students, it seems like fair game.
Sure sites like these may make some students think they can get away without going to class, but if online notes are enough to allow that to happen then the course needs to be redesigned anyway.
Uhm, no. A "quantum leap" is a big advance. From Meriam-Webster Online:
It does derive from quantum mechanics. I think it comes from the idea that energy levels are quantized, so that to move from one to another you have to have some minimum energy jump. So the step forward your talking about is not a minuscule step, but a a more revolutionary step forward.