I find great potential in this, but really, POSTSCRIPT and EPS have done a great job.
Acrobat does a _great_ job on this already!!
Basically, if this thing is sturdy enough to keep vendors from playing the extend game, then it will succeed. I really like the idea, though. And I speak without having read the standard.
I've been talking to escient about the licensing issue a good but. They have real concerns - not from the OpenSource community, but from the MS's in the world (IMHO).
here's what they had to say:
------------ begin snip ----------------
Hi Roger:
Here's the clear case. This clause helps protect our data aggregation from being ripped off. We don't own the data (ie. a song title), but we do own the service that provides the disc recognition and related CD data. We have real costs associated with aggregating data and providing the service. Not all of our data comes from contributions....a great deal of our data submissions come from record labels and artists. This all costs money and we need to protect it so that we can continue to offer the service for free.
The GPL was never intended to limit this kind of business. In fact, it actually encourages this. (Make your money from the service). The whole thing is that we want them to compete on level and quality of service, instead of the exclusionary license.
They plainly admit to their stake in the IP. They're pretty cool with all of that. They just want some insurance to their longetivity (ie show us the money).
As far as a database backend, I think OpenLDAP is a better choice than MySQL. (Speed, and configureability). You could configure the attributes (fields) to the cddb format, and provide a cddb compatible server.
Also, OpenLDAP provides for replication and alot of backends. Very stable IMHO.
I think all of this could be worked out, but escient is at a critical point... they have to be able to say, We own something, and it's worth something, and someone can't just come and take it away. Personally, I think that they have such a 1) niche, and 2) recognition (cddb) that they are realy OVERLY protective. But, if it was your business (money) what would you do in their shoes?
I think cddb.com has every right to make a god damn good living. They don't make their money off of software "sales" so I don't think that they're required to distribute any mods per GPL. Basically, they hold the card - the data. They provide the online links, service, and maintain the database!! Go ahead and start another cddb from cddbd. They arn't saying don't. (And infact competition ain't so bad afterall).
People would be ALOT happier if they removed the exclusive lookup license bit. And they should include a provision for non-graphical programs and scripts. Other than that, we are just reciprocating links just as if it were web pages.
Also, they are not making money off the sales of cddb software, just the data. So, the gpl arg is pretty dumb. However, if they ever get a partner which they license the software too, they have GOT to release the code.
So change the license already, are people in agreement? (It's alot worse than what we pay for in eyeball time on excite.com ANY day of the week!)
And what I said.. I backed up later. Why can't I just say I think their wrong. And I read four articles before I replied. Yes I do read fast, and I was just god damn lucky to be first actually(a first for me). So, being in the profound position - I thought I'd be annoying.
If you noticed that the Red Herring article was almost a week old (18th of Feb), maybe you'd be able to comment as quickly as I did.
Nine devices, from 50,000 to 1,000,000 system gates (1,728 to 27,648 Logic Cells) Over 500 user I/O pins Many package options, including leading edge 1.0mm FinePitch ball grid arrays and 0.8mm chip scale packages Leading edge 2.5-Volt, 0.22 micron, five layer metal CMOS process Fully 5-Volt tolerant I/Os Timing-driven place and route tools allow compile times of 200,000 gates per hour (400 MHz Pentium II CPU) Vector-based interconnect for fast, predictable, core-friendly routing across all densities Fully 64 bit/66 MHz PCI and Compact PCI compliant
Okay, so say they take 280 of these at the 1 million gate density = 280,000,000 gates. Currently, the Pentium II has 7.5 million transistors (probable 1.875M approximate logic gates)(http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1998/3 6/ns-5490.html)
Just raw silicon. Lets say they had a bunch of pre-compiled circuits, then there wouldn't be any lag in switching as they say. (I must admit that 1,000 switches per second would be a little overblown.
But - lets just say for equivilance, that we had 149 Pentium II's connected PARALLEL (Which is currently impossible. I think that LLNL uses PPro's currently at 2 chip SMP.) Such a system WOULD kill a cray. But the Pentium can't do that.
Everyone who has read the Beowulf papers know that the overall speed of the system is entirly dependant on the lag of the interconnect between systems. So, for fun let say we could put 18 chips on a board, and put 20 boards on a 128 bit local bus. That would lead to some damn fast computing. (Remember Deep Crack on the last RSA contest? It only ran at a system speed of 80 MHz?)
The USPTO is just quacky now and they need a damn good slap to recognize that they're completly undermining any semblance of openness, free thought, and "free" software. The CSS was _supposed_ to be OPEN.
Who's got site space? I'm willing to donate time and effort to do this. We all saw this happen to the lzw compressor (Published in Dr. Dobbs before patented). What about Mozilla? Will they get a price break too? And how about anybody designing any sort of XML design tools?
I somtimes wonder whether RMS is right about GPL - but when I see crap like this it just eeks into my blood like fire. Those bloody greedy barf chunks are going to eventually patent everything. Software patents aren't wrong IFF they are REAL?! But this is just wrong.
Too much prior work goes unchecked by the USPTO and they need a wake up call. 5000 slashdot readers might wake them up. These people make the money and then we get burdened(by higher costs in HW and SW) with licensing. They obviously only care about previous PATENT claims, and probably never look into actual prior work - if they had then they would have seen the 1000+ pages of info on w3c which M$ had absolutly nothing to do with.
Count me in on a buyers group! Imagine that.. the slashdot buyers group. Like cars, but with hardware. We pull together, buy, and sell it. Rob takes it to IPO, and we all get shares.
Being one who has been doing this for a good while, I just wanted to throw out some links for people who are inspired. I am into code, not talk, so don't be asses.
shapelib by Frank Warmerdam. A lib to read SHP and DBF's associated. Beware, the SHX file is required as well. I have found that there is a mem leak that doesn't release on file close. Hrmph.. so I wrote my own file format.
gd by Tom Boutell. http://www.boutell.com/gd Currently at Ver 1.3. However, be sure you have no overlapping points with the Solid polygon code. Causes an odd on the sort, so the scanline isn't drawn. I've got a better version as well. The only reason for the Ver1.3 was to change the lwz compression to run-length encoding. *blah*
another good link is: http://www.gis.umn.edu/fornet/docs/MapServer
which has a fully functional mapserver, very simular to mine. Basic problems are speed and bandwidth. It doesn't really "clip", but instead relies on ordered binary trees and such. This needs some work, but is workable.
Anyhow, upwards and onwards.. let me know if I can be on any help.
Slashdot Mirror
I find great potential in this, but really, POSTSCRIPT and EPS have done a great job.
Acrobat does a _great_ job on this already!!
Basically, if this thing is sturdy enough to keep vendors from playing the extend game, then it will succeed. I really like the idea, though. And I speak without having read the standard.
I've been talking to escient about the licensing
issue a good but. They have real concerns - not from the OpenSource community, but from the MS's in the world (IMHO).
here's what they had to say:
------------ begin snip ----------------
Hi Roger:
Here's the clear case. This clause helps protect our data aggregation from
being ripped off. We don't own the data (ie. a song title), but we do own
the service that provides the disc recognition and related CD data. We have
real costs associated with aggregating data and providing the service. Not
all of our data comes from contributions....a great deal of our data
submissions come from record labels and artists. This all costs money and
we need to protect it so that we can continue to offer the service for free.
-------------end snip -------------------------------
The GPL was never intended to limit this kind of business. In fact, it actually encourages this. (Make your money from the service). The whole thing is that we want them to compete on level and quality of service, instead of the exclusionary license.
They plainly admit to their stake in the IP. They're pretty cool with all of that. They just want some insurance to their longetivity (ie show us the money).
As far as a database backend, I think OpenLDAP is a better choice than MySQL. (Speed, and configureability). You could configure the attributes (fields) to the cddb format, and provide a cddb compatible server.
Also, OpenLDAP provides for replication and alot of backends. Very stable IMHO.
I think all of this could be worked out, but escient is at a critical point... they have to be able to say, We own something, and it's worth something, and someone can't just come and take it away. Personally, I think that they have such a 1) niche, and 2) recognition (cddb) that they are realy OVERLY protective. But, if it was your business (money) what would you do in their shoes?
Roger
I think cddb.com has every right to make a god damn good living. They don't make their money off of software "sales" so I don't think that they're required to distribute any mods per GPL. Basically, they hold the card - the data. They provide the online links, service, and maintain the database!! Go ahead and start another cddb from cddbd. They arn't saying don't. (And infact competition ain't so bad afterall).
People would be ALOT happier if they removed the exclusive lookup license bit. And they should include a provision for non-graphical programs and scripts. Other than that, we are just reciprocating links just as if it were web pages.
Also, they are not making money off the sales of cddb software, just the data. So, the gpl arg is pretty dumb. However, if they ever get a partner which they license the software too, they have GOT to release the code.
So change the license already, are people in agreement? (It's alot worse than what we pay for in eyeball time on excite.com ANY day of the week!)
Panaflex, the incredible thinking cube.
Actually, I didn't post as a Coward..
And what I said.. I backed up later. Why can't I just say I think their wrong. And I read four articles before I replied. Yes I do read fast, and I was just god damn lucky to be first actually(a first for me). So, being in the profound position - I thought I'd be annoying.
If you noticed that the Red Herring article was almost a week old (18th of Feb), maybe you'd be able to comment as quickly as I did.
;P
Pan
Here's Xilinx's Virtex FPGA chip.
Nine devices, from 50,000 to 1,000,000
system gates (1,728 to 27,648 Logic
Cells)
Over 500 user I/O pins
Many package options, including leading
edge 1.0mm FinePitch ball grid arrays
and 0.8mm chip scale packages
Leading edge 2.5-Volt, 0.22 micron, five
layer metal CMOS process
Fully 5-Volt tolerant I/Os
Timing-driven place and route tools allow
compile times of 200,000 gates per hour
(400 MHz Pentium II CPU)
Vector-based interconnect for fast,
predictable, core-friendly routing across all densities
Fully 64 bit/66 MHz PCI and Compact
PCI compliant
Okay, so say they take 280 of these at the 1 million gate density = 280,000,000 gates. Currently, the Pentium II has 7.5 million transistors (probable 1.875M approximate logic gates)(http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/1998/3 6/ns-5490.html)
Just raw silicon. Lets say they had a bunch of pre-compiled circuits, then there wouldn't be any lag in switching as they say. (I must admit that 1,000 switches per second would be a little overblown.
But - lets just say for equivilance, that we had 149 Pentium II's connected PARALLEL (Which is currently impossible. I think that LLNL uses PPro's currently at 2 chip SMP.) Such a system WOULD kill a cray. But the Pentium can't do that.
Everyone who has read the Beowulf papers know that the overall speed of the system is entirly dependant on the lag of the interconnect between systems. So, for fun let say we could put 18 chips on a board, and put 20 boards on a 128 bit local bus. That would lead to some damn fast computing. (Remember Deep Crack on the last RSA contest? It only ran at a system speed of 80 MHz?)
I believe they are at least on to it.
The USPTO is just quacky now and they need a damn good slap to recognize that they're completly undermining any semblance of openness, free thought, and "free" software. The CSS was _supposed_ to be OPEN.
Who's got site space? I'm willing to donate time and effort to do this. We all saw this happen to the lzw compressor (Published in Dr. Dobbs before patented). What about Mozilla? Will they get a price break too? And how about anybody designing any sort of XML design tools?
I somtimes wonder whether RMS is right about GPL - but when I see crap like this it just eeks into my blood like fire. Those bloody greedy barf chunks are going to eventually patent everything. Software patents aren't wrong IFF they are REAL?! But this is just wrong.
Too much prior work goes unchecked by the USPTO and they need a wake up call. 5000 slashdot readers might wake them up. These people make the money and then we get burdened(by higher costs in HW and SW) with licensing. They obviously only care about previous PATENT claims, and probably never look into actual prior work - if they had then they would have seen the 1000+ pages of info on w3c which M$ had absolutly nothing to do with.
Let the war begin. Let the signatures start!
Count me in on a buyers group! Imagine that.. the slashdot buyers group. Like cars, but with hardware. We pull together, buy, and sell it. Rob takes it to IPO, and we all get shares.
Being one who has been doing this for a good while, I just wanted to throw out some links for people who are inspired. I am into code, not talk, so don't be asses.
shapelib by Frank Warmerdam. A lib to read SHP and DBF's associated. Beware, the SHX file is required as well. I have found that there is a mem leak that doesn't release on file close. Hrmph.. so I wrote my own file format.
gd by Tom Boutell.
http://www.boutell.com/gd
Currently at Ver 1.3. However, be sure you have no overlapping points with the Solid polygon code. Causes an odd on the sort, so the scanline isn't drawn. I've got a better version as well. The only reason for the Ver1.3 was to change the lwz compression to run-length encoding. *blah*
another good link is:
http://www.gis.umn.edu/fornet/docs/MapServer
which has a fully functional mapserver, very simular to mine. Basic problems are speed and bandwidth. It doesn't really "clip", but instead relies on ordered binary trees and such. This needs some work, but is workable.
Anyhow, upwards and onwards.. let me know if I can be on any help.
Roger