I may be wrong, but I don't believe the government is allowed to hold a copyright. (Not to say there arn't third parties willing to step up to the place... Maybe USA, INC. ?)
If I'm wrong, then someone plz correct me.
Pan
Re:Titanium is also very flexible.
on
The Sexiest Metal
·
· Score: 2
libglib can be compiled with rudamentary mem checking. (See g_mem_profile and g_mem_check).I've also found that using glib sometimes makes memprof much happier than malloc/free. Memprof does not like openssl though! Pan
If we were living in reality, we wouldn't be blathering on about web browers, now would we? Reality is that which has a one-to-one coorispondance with our abilities of observation. Rabbits and dogs understand reality. Rabbits and dog's don't browse the web.
I am, however a software engineer, so my first inclination is to offer up possible reasons for the "perception" of slowness, and things that could be improved.
There are numerous ways to achieve this "smoothness"... double buffering, offscreen drawing, etc. You can't judge the actual speed of the render in this fashion, only that IE handles refresh better. The only true way would be to run the engine through a testing process.
* Use electric Fence (Read the FAQ.. there's several levels of checking) * memprof is nice * When you free(), I always use a macro like so.. #define FREE free(x);x=NULL * You can use the glib memory management as well, though there are some annoyances. But you get some freebie implementations of list, hash,sort, etc functions.
As long as the passphrase has sufficient entropy, I don't see why XOR is a problem. He could generate an RC40 or SHA1.. but XORING can be just as good. Usually the encryptionnmethod isn't the problem - it's usally the handling of it, and the entropy of it.
Of course, if he was pretty smart, he could go to a good random source and sample an hour of random data onto a CD, and xor his key with that (each day could have a different offset) and rotate the disks every couple of months making sure to never repeat the offset. This would basically be a good one-time-pad type solution.
You can search for multiple items and use boolean logic. like from: boss, subject: picnic. I know pine won't do that.
seriously, there's a search bar... you can search on any header or message content. ctrl-a, press ctrl+shift+M, select target foler, ok or just drag and drop into the folder list.
Well, I've been programming C for a long while.. I don't think you read far past the first paragraph..
? pointers know their bounds
Garbage collection (no explicit freeing - suddenly malloc becomes easy)
try/catch exceptions (Whoa.. that's way way not C)
tunion (Unions that know what it is - unions are USEFUL now!)
I would say that exception checking in itself is going to go a LONG way for this. Also, the GC seems very fascinating and will probably make programs alot faster.
Things like array.size, memory management, and no int pointer casting are very welcome.
When you're like me and just finished a 100k line custom server written in C, you might appreciate these things.
My only hope is that they robustly support multi-threading (in a smart way - no global locking whenever you strcpy like in pthreads).
This is very do-able in evolution as well. I suspect that few of the components are set up for this, but all the components have an IDL (Interface Description) which should be easily callable.
I don't think CORBA precludes the ability to do any of what you want - it would just take some work on your part interface it.
Apparently you've never read or even touched evolution.
Suppose Evolution split its calender and email (and whatever else it does) features into seperate smaller, efficient programs. Programs that "do one thing and do it well". Evolution Mail, Evolution Calendar, Evolution Addressbook, and so on could still totally interface with each other using, e.g., Unix pipes.
Evolution IS made up of many smaller programs that communicate through CORBA. I'm not sure how "splitable" they are, but from my work on the calendaring component, it's not impossible. (I've been working on Calendar printing).
1. mpeg. Lots of free code, lots of patents
2. svg. Apple holds a patent on alpha channels (I'm thinking Macromedia and Adobe have simular patents)
3. css. Microsoft holds a patent on CSS2
4. drivers. HP's GPLed printer drivers have patents behind them. I wouldn't be suprised if 3com had some patents in the linux drivers.
5. ghostscript. Definitaly has patents behind it.
6. linux. Heck, at one time the blinking cursor was patented by IBM. No joke. Some of the unix patents have expired.
7. OpenGL. More patents
8. RSA. Now free, but was patented (RSA corp let this expire). RC4 is a trade secret. MD5 is patented. DES is an IBM patent (expired, iirc).
9. X11/Freetype. MS and Apple each hold patents on portions of TrueType. Rob Pike/ATT hold the patent on backing store. I'm sure there's patents on the transport mechanism.
10. GIF. Lots of free gif software, one stinkin nasty patent.
11. JPG. Patented, freely licensed
12. JPEG2k Patented, most portions freely licensed.
Just because you are not aware of patents, doesn't make you qualified to state that most free software is patent free. That's garbage, and a comprehensive study would be too expensive.
Just because you stick your head in a hole and hide from patents doesn't mean that people arn't out there, right now, writing them for something you're working on in free code, unawares. You need to go down to your library and figure it out.
Sony was selling Betamax VCR's that were intended to allow people to steal video programs. Could be any less ethical? And sony thought that legal loopholes were going to allow them to continue their activities?
It's examples like this that make people think twice before they trust a Jap
Ohh you stupid sniveling AC idiot.
Pan
When most people get home from work, they kick their dog. When I get home, I smack some AC's up.
I have written legislatures extensivly on this topic, and have been invited to attend hearings on the matter. Never been, though I've talked once or twice to the PTO before. Here's my sloppy and quickly written take.
Here's what it's going to take (Pick 2).
1. Corporate backing (i.e. money. Find a company recently badly burned by patents to back up legislature)
2. Sacking people at the patent office. For what it's worth, the patent office is more of a product registration entity than an idealistic "never-seen-that-before" museum of greats. Hell, even I have a patent!
3. Changing the whole business of patents. Puttng hundreds of lawyers out of business.
4. Changing the view of product development and competition.
You see, sometime in the past, the patent office got spanked for the light bulb and the computer, and the transistor, others too. Whenever the patent office stuck by its guns, seems that they always got in trouble. Then in the 50s or 60s the people decided that the patent office was holding back innovation.. that they needed to move faster. So they gave them minimum patent creations. The effect was to expand the patent office to not only store the great ideas of the world, but to become a registry of products and service methods.
Lots of companies were looking to build new products based on old designs, but figured that they couldn't protect the product for a long enought time to make money off it.
The goverment saw a chance to fill in this practice with "lowering the bar" so to say for patents.
Whether you think this is bad or good depends mostly on which end of the stick you're on.
Getting a patent isn't that hard.. honestly. It just takes money, good lawyers, and a long time.
Getting a GREAT patent is. Because chances are that there are atleast one other patent that resemble yours at least in context.
Here's the stickler.. if you improve the patent office then open source will suffer... Why? Because companies will start enforcing their patents.
I can't imagine how much of the linux kernel/os/gtk/qt has patents associated already. I remember reading security patents in 89 from apple and sun that are SURELY broken by openssh. I'm sure there's alot of patents on GUI's, on cacheing, on scheduling, on file formats. But it's BECAUSE of lackluster patents that companies don't go after linux. Why? Because they're afraid of that other company that might have a simular patent going after them.
So the only way to really do it is to kill software patents, right? No.. then you'll see companies and universities going the "trade secret" route. Free Code could disappear like turkey on thanksgiving.
I think the real answer lies in improving the quality of patents. Raising the bar a bit, but not being too idealistic. To do this, the patent office should HIRE PEOPLE WITH A REAL SOFTWARE BACKGROUND. Most of them, I hear, are lawyers. (That's who they deal with, right?)
In other words, get the industry to pay for a comprehensive database like biomedical does. Allow people to "publish" in a journal to document prior art. This, and a good combination of standards committees will keep the playing field level, IMHO.
Anyhow, IBM has every right to get a patent on this.. you would too. Spending a few million bucks on development, only to get dragged into court later is NO FUN. Better to patent some basic novel method.
There's lots of patent holding companies who get their jollies off calling IBM and telling them their infringing on their patent.
Well, Gramm is notorious for ignoring email, and for a long time didn't even accept it.
But for the past year, I have been emailing happily away to both Hutchinson and Gramm.
I'll tell you who is a freaking idiot - DICK ARMEY. I have written him twice about the DMCA. He said he would forward some information to me (Never did), and wrote me a non-sensical letter about copyrights that didn't include the DMCA. (I had requested clarification on the legality of the DMCA).
Anyhow, everytime I have written ARMEY, he has let me down. He doesn't understand the issue. He doesn't care. He does his job badly. Even if I don't agree with a congressman, I can appreciate their ability to at least get the basics about the issues. I'm voting against him, because he's stupid.
Ralph Hall, on the other hand, is one of the BEST congressman we have in N. Texas. Always courtious, always to the point. And he's the first congressman to request clarification from me, ever. (Reguarding Echelon) I believe he covers alot of Collin County. (This guy got me a meeting set up with a Director at the patent office without even asking me).
Because showing them at a time when you are about to root him out is about the stupidist thing we could do. Exposing the little intelligence we have over there could end any possibility of solving this problem.
Sorry, let me list Usama's past:
1. Bombing markets and schools in Soviet war. (Violation of Geneva convention)
2. WTC bombing ('93) (Strong indications)
3. American base in Saudi Arabia
4. Two Embassies (Convicted)
5. USS Cole (Convicted)
6. WTC destruction ('01)
I think America has been amicable enough. Our unwillingness to de-stabilize the middle east must be weighed with the 16000+ people whose lives have been destroyed or injured.
I say we give Usama Islamic justice. I say we hold the trial in Saudi Arabia.
Cause we gave them the evidence for WTC bombing in '93, the saudi military base bombing in ?'96, the USS Cole, and 2 american embasies in Africa. It's highly possible that Afghanistan provided weapons and political help that led to destabilize the Balcans as well.
Still, no Usama has come to trial.
How many innocent people have to die before you realize that they're laughing in our faces? Heck even the Pope is saying we should serve justice.
Would you risk the lives of your inteligence people simply to be laughed at again?
If we could just go and arrest those responsible, then it would be done. However, people are protecting a man who is at the very least accessory to the murder of thousands of people. If bin Laden was innocent, why not make an international appeal? Trial in a country where the justice system is corrupt would be fraut with stupidity.
This IS different. There are goals. If you believe in freedom, you must accept justice.
Showing the Taliban the "evidence" could mean death for many who provide information to the USA. Some of these people are supporters of democracy, we don't know. Do you trust the Taliban to extridite bin Laden, at the risk of loosing all information sources and their lives?
Why don't you go over and arrest the man? Even if you did it for the money (Now at 30M USD) you could easily pay for the trip and equipment.
You must have missed my comment about larger caches and asyncronous graphics chips..
Yea, you can now fit the main X event loop and small applications into a processor's secondary cache. The major applications don't benifit from this, but more from faster busses and graphics chips. (Drawing is now a minor part of the time spend in X due to 2D acceleration)
Also, kiethp's reworking of the main event loop a couple of years ago was amazing.
My point was that architecturaly X encourages massive abstraction for client toolkits. Who would want to be tied to the color or font models X presents?
Older toolkits were designed for 68k processors - you're saying the equiv of open up windows 3.1 on a PIII. Enlightenment uses enormous amounts of pixmap copies - you are seeing X's good optimizations in SHM and protocol. Raster actually spends a good bit of time running test cases for optimization.
I will blame X for the failings of toolkits. The choice to delegate tookits to client-side is a failure that was realized years ago by most graphics programmers. News was a decent attempt to fix this, but went to far in aims and goals.
I think that the fear of loosing the few commercial applications that X has keeps X11 going as is. (Open source apps could easily be ported, slowly making more use of server side toolkits).
I don't want to deride X too much - it is a _very_ successful and usable windowing system. I just believe that it's time for X12.;-)
Anyhow, one of these days I plan on putting my head where my mouth is. X is so modular now that it is probably very doable now. Alot more of the modules have good commentary and docs than ever before.
Slashdot Mirror
I may be wrong, but I don't believe the government is allowed to hold a copyright. (Not to say there arn't third parties willing to step up to the place... Maybe USA, INC. ?)
If I'm wrong, then someone plz correct me.
Pan
molybdenum IIRC
My macro works fine thanks. Yes, I am aware of ways in which it will not work but c'est la vie.
My main concern is instances of the following.
buf = malloc(BUFLEN);
do stuff..
if (!x) FREE(buf);
if(buf) {
blah;
FREE(buf);
}
Pan
libglib can be compiled with rudamentary mem checking. (See g_mem_profile and g_mem_check).I've also found that using glib sometimes makes memprof much happier than malloc/free. Memprof does not like openssl though!
Pan
If we were living in reality, we wouldn't be blathering on about web browers, now would we? Reality is that which has a one-to-one coorispondance with our abilities of observation. Rabbits and dogs understand reality. Rabbits and dog's don't browse the web.
I am, however a software engineer, so my first inclination is to offer up possible reasons for the "perception" of slowness, and things that could be improved.
Personally I don't really care.
There are numerous ways to achieve this "smoothness"... double buffering, offscreen drawing, etc. You can't judge the actual speed of the render in this fashion, only that IE handles refresh better. The only true way would be to run the engine through a testing process.
Pan
My tips:
:-)
* Use electric Fence (Read the FAQ.. there's several levels of checking)
* memprof is nice
* When you free(), I always use a macro like so..
#define FREE free(x);x=NULL
* You can use the glib memory management as well, though there are some annoyances. But you get some freebie implementations of list, hash,sort, etc functions.
That way you get a nice clean segfault
Enjoy the show.
Pan
Been there, done that. Sun did indeed sell StarOffice 5.2.
Pan
Actually, having been an HP & Dell user, here is what I think..
Dell's have faster HD's..
HP's are lighter..
That's the story!
As long as the passphrase has sufficient entropy, I don't see why XOR is a problem. He could generate an RC40 or SHA1.. but XORING can be just as good. Usually the encryptionnmethod isn't the problem - it's usally the handling of it, and the entropy of it.
Of course, if he was pretty smart, he could go to a good random source and sample an hour of random data onto a CD, and xor his key with that (each day could have a different offset) and rotate the disks every couple of months making sure to never repeat the offset. This would basically be a good one-time-pad type solution.
Pan
Use the search bar, luke.
You can search for multiple items and use boolean logic. like from: boss, subject: picnic. I know pine won't do that.
seriously, there's a search bar... you can search on any header or message content. ctrl-a, press ctrl+shift+M, select target foler, ok or just drag and drop into the folder list.
done
# killall -9 oafd wombat
/tmp
# evolution&
try that. You proably just have a stale oafd or wombat process.
Alternativly
# rm -fr
your directory and do the above.
If it still doesn't work, blow away your evolution directory. (save the mbox files, and the address databases, etc) and do all the above
Pan
Well, I've been programming C for a long while.. I don't think you read far past the first paragraph..
? pointers know their bounds
Garbage collection (no explicit freeing - suddenly malloc becomes easy)
try/catch exceptions (Whoa.. that's way way not C)
tunion (Unions that know what it is - unions are USEFUL now!)
I would say that exception checking in itself is going to go a LONG way for this. Also, the GC seems very fascinating and will probably make programs alot faster.
Things like array.size, memory management, and no int pointer casting are very welcome.
When you're like me and just finished a 100k line custom server written in C, you might appreciate these things.
My only hope is that they robustly support multi-threading (in a smart way - no global locking whenever you strcpy like in pthreads).
Pan
It does on alpha.. but I'm not sure if that version of MSVC came from digital->compaq->hp or not??
Nonetheless... gcc doesn't far well on alpha chips.
Pan
This is very do-able in evolution as well. I suspect that few of the components are set up for this, but all the components have an IDL (Interface Description) which should be easily callable.
I don't think CORBA precludes the ability to do any of what you want - it would just take some work on your part interface it.
Pan
Apparently you've never read or even touched evolution.
Suppose Evolution split its calender and email (and whatever else it does) features into seperate smaller, efficient programs. Programs that "do one thing and do it well". Evolution Mail, Evolution Calendar, Evolution Addressbook, and so on could still totally interface with each other using, e.g., Unix pipes.
Evolution IS made up of many smaller programs that communicate through CORBA. I'm not sure how "splitable" they are, but from my work on the calendaring component, it's not impossible. (I've been working on Calendar printing).
Pan
Free Code with Patents:
1. mpeg. Lots of free code, lots of patents
2. svg. Apple holds a patent on alpha channels (I'm thinking Macromedia and Adobe have simular patents)
3. css. Microsoft holds a patent on CSS2
4. drivers. HP's GPLed printer drivers have patents behind them. I wouldn't be suprised if 3com had some patents in the linux drivers.
5. ghostscript. Definitaly has patents behind it.
6. linux. Heck, at one time the blinking cursor was patented by IBM. No joke. Some of the unix patents have expired.
7. OpenGL. More patents
8. RSA. Now free, but was patented (RSA corp let this expire). RC4 is a trade secret. MD5 is patented. DES is an IBM patent (expired, iirc).
9. X11/Freetype. MS and Apple each hold patents on portions of TrueType. Rob Pike/ATT hold the patent on backing store. I'm sure there's patents on the transport mechanism.
10. GIF. Lots of free gif software, one stinkin nasty patent.
11. JPG. Patented, freely licensed
12. JPEG2k Patented, most portions freely licensed.
Just because you are not aware of patents, doesn't make you qualified to state that most free software is patent free. That's garbage, and a comprehensive study would be too expensive.
Just because you stick your head in a hole and hide from patents doesn't mean that people arn't out there, right now, writing them for something you're working on in free code, unawares. You need to go down to your library and figure it out.
enlighen yourself.
Pan
Sony was selling Betamax VCR's that were intended to allow people to steal video programs. Could be any less ethical? And sony thought that legal loopholes were going to allow them to continue their activities?
It's examples like this that make people think twice before they trust a Jap
Ohh you stupid sniveling AC idiot.
Pan
When most people get home from work, they kick their dog. When I get home, I smack some AC's up.
I have written legislatures extensivly on this topic, and have been invited to attend hearings on the matter. Never been, though I've talked once or twice to the PTO before. Here's my sloppy and quickly written take.
Here's what it's going to take (Pick 2).
1. Corporate backing (i.e. money. Find a company recently badly burned by patents to back up legislature)
2. Sacking people at the patent office. For what it's worth, the patent office is more of a product registration entity than an idealistic "never-seen-that-before" museum of greats. Hell, even I have a patent!
3. Changing the whole business of patents. Puttng hundreds of lawyers out of business.
4. Changing the view of product development and competition.
You see, sometime in the past, the patent office got spanked for the light bulb and the computer, and the transistor, others too. Whenever the patent office stuck by its guns, seems that they always got in trouble. Then in the 50s or 60s the people decided that the patent office was holding back innovation.. that they needed to move faster. So they gave them minimum patent creations. The effect was to expand the patent office to not only store the great ideas of the world, but to become a registry of products and service methods.
Lots of companies were looking to build new products based on old designs, but figured that they couldn't protect the product for a long enought time to make money off it.
The goverment saw a chance to fill in this practice with "lowering the bar" so to say for patents.
Whether you think this is bad or good depends mostly on which end of the stick you're on.
Getting a patent isn't that hard.. honestly. It just takes money, good lawyers, and a long time.
Getting a GREAT patent is. Because chances are that there are atleast one other patent that resemble yours at least in context.
Here's the stickler.. if you improve the patent office then open source will suffer... Why? Because companies will start enforcing their patents.
I can't imagine how much of the linux kernel/os/gtk/qt has patents associated already. I remember reading security patents in 89 from apple and sun that are SURELY broken by openssh. I'm sure there's alot of patents on GUI's, on cacheing, on scheduling, on file formats. But it's BECAUSE of lackluster patents that companies don't go after linux. Why? Because they're afraid of that other company that might have a simular patent going after them.
So the only way to really do it is to kill software patents, right? No.. then you'll see companies and universities going the "trade secret" route. Free Code could disappear like turkey on thanksgiving.
I think the real answer lies in improving the quality of patents. Raising the bar a bit, but not being too idealistic. To do this, the patent office should HIRE PEOPLE WITH A REAL SOFTWARE BACKGROUND. Most of them, I hear, are lawyers. (That's who they deal with, right?)
In other words, get the industry to pay for a comprehensive database like biomedical does. Allow people to "publish" in a journal to document prior art. This, and a good combination of standards committees will keep the playing field level, IMHO.
Anyhow, IBM has every right to get a patent on this.. you would too. Spending a few million bucks on development, only to get dragged into court later is NO FUN. Better to patent some basic novel method.
There's lots of patent holding companies who get their jollies off calling IBM and telling them their infringing on their patent.
Pan
You are one smart cookie, and that is exactly the intent of commercial and governmental interests.
Pan
Well, Gramm is notorious for ignoring email, and for a long time didn't even accept it.
But for the past year, I have been emailing happily away to both Hutchinson and Gramm.
I'll tell you who is a freaking idiot - DICK ARMEY. I have written him twice about the DMCA. He said he would forward some information to me (Never did), and wrote me a non-sensical letter about copyrights that didn't include the DMCA. (I had requested clarification on the legality of the DMCA).
Anyhow, everytime I have written ARMEY, he has let me down. He doesn't understand the issue. He doesn't care. He does his job badly. Even if I don't agree with a congressman, I can appreciate their ability to at least get the basics about the issues. I'm voting against him, because he's stupid.
Ralph Hall, on the other hand, is one of the BEST congressman we have in N. Texas. Always courtious, always to the point. And he's the first congressman to request clarification from me, ever. (Reguarding Echelon) I believe he covers alot of Collin County. (This guy got me a meeting set up with a Director at the patent office without even asking me).
Pan
Because showing them at a time when you are about to root him out is about the stupidist thing we could do. Exposing the little intelligence we have over there could end any possibility of solving this problem.
Sorry, let me list Usama's past:
1. Bombing markets and schools in Soviet war. (Violation of Geneva convention)
2. WTC bombing ('93) (Strong indications)
3. American base in Saudi Arabia
4. Two Embassies (Convicted)
5. USS Cole (Convicted)
6. WTC destruction ('01)
I think America has been amicable enough. Our unwillingness to de-stabilize the middle east must be weighed with the 16000+ people whose lives have been destroyed or injured.
I say we give Usama Islamic justice. I say we hold the trial in Saudi Arabia.
Pan
Cause we gave them the evidence for WTC bombing in '93, the saudi military base bombing in ?'96, the USS Cole, and 2 american embasies in Africa. It's highly possible that Afghanistan provided weapons and political help that led to destabilize the Balcans as well.
Still, no Usama has come to trial.
How many innocent people have to die before you realize that they're laughing in our faces? Heck even the Pope is saying we should serve justice.
Would you risk the lives of your inteligence people simply to be laughed at again?
Pan
If we could just go and arrest those responsible, then it would be done. However, people are protecting a man who is at the very least accessory to the murder of thousands of people. If bin Laden was innocent, why not make an international appeal? Trial in a country where the justice system is corrupt would be fraut with stupidity.
This IS different. There are goals. If you believe in freedom, you must accept justice.
Showing the Taliban the "evidence" could mean death for many who provide information to the USA. Some of these people are supporters of democracy, we don't know. Do you trust the Taliban to extridite bin Laden, at the risk of loosing all information sources and their lives?
Why don't you go over and arrest the man? Even if you did it for the money (Now at 30M USD) you could easily pay for the trip and equipment.
Critical thinking is in short supply.
Pan
You must have missed my comment about larger caches and asyncronous graphics chips..
;-)
Yea, you can now fit the main X event loop and small applications into a processor's secondary cache. The major applications don't benifit from this, but more from faster busses and graphics chips. (Drawing is now a minor part of the time spend in X due to 2D acceleration)
Also, kiethp's reworking of the main event loop a couple of years ago was amazing.
My point was that architecturaly X encourages massive abstraction for client toolkits. Who would want to be tied to the color or font models X presents?
Older toolkits were designed for 68k processors - you're saying the equiv of open up windows 3.1 on a PIII. Enlightenment uses enormous amounts of pixmap copies - you are seeing X's good optimizations in SHM and protocol. Raster actually spends a good bit of time running test cases for optimization.
I will blame X for the failings of toolkits. The choice to delegate tookits to client-side is a failure that was realized years ago by most graphics programmers. News was a decent attempt to fix this, but went to far in aims and goals.
I think that the fear of loosing the few commercial applications that X has keeps X11 going as is. (Open source apps could easily be ported, slowly making more use of server side toolkits).
I don't want to deride X too much - it is a _very_ successful and usable windowing system. I just believe that it's time for X12.
Anyhow, one of these days I plan on putting my head where my mouth is. X is so modular now that it is probably very doable now. Alot more of the modules have good commentary and docs than ever before.
Pan