http://www.sun.com/developers/tools/solaris/prom oterms.html describes the license underwhich the software is available.
http://www.sun.com/developers/tools/solaris/prom ofaq.html is the general FAQ
It makes perfectly good sense for Sun to make Solaris more open, since they are mostly a hardware company. No, Linux won't die and neither will Solaris or Win2k. The market will just shift
What makes the least sense here is that apparently the license will not allow me to port a commercial application to Solaris. That would be considered "commercial use".
The ability to move my mouse around on a Solaris desktop and run some of their apps just to see how they look and feel is nice, but when you get right down to it, this is a "teaser", and one that you have to pay $20 for to boot!
No thanks, Sun.
OTOH, if they make an exception to the license that will allow people to use it for porting purposes, I'm all over it.
Someone might want to moderate that up as informative. I didn't know shorts were regulated like that.
OTOH, shorting is just borrowing shares, so if I want to borrow shares from somebody outside the normal channels, how can they regulate that? For those who don't know what shorting is, here's an example:
So, as soon as LinuxOne goes IPO, give me a thousand shares. I promise to give you back 1100 shares 3 months later. Great deal, eh? Well, it's a great deal for me if LinuxOne goes bust, because I sold those 1000 shares and all I have to do is give you 1100 worthless certificates 3 months from now. Sucks to be you. I pocket the share price of LinuxOne at the time I borrowed the shares. OTOH, it's a bad deal for me if LO goes up, because then I have to buy back 1100 shares at the current market price and give them back to you, and you get 1100 shares that are worth even more than they were before. Sucks to be me.
Maybe in the future software will be like fire. Right now, software is like fire made by a caveman, who had to spend hours and hours rubbing two sticks together.
Now, if the hunters come back from the kill, and put sticks in the fire without giving the fire-maker any meat, that is plainly wrong.
The only way the fire-maker can protect himself is to wave a torch in their faces. It's sad but true.
It never would have occured to me to run any applications while burning CDs. I even shut off the screensaver to make sure that won't filch it. I view burning as a good opportunity to have a cup of coffee. I guess this is just because the burner we had in the office was always used that way--if the machine was burning, you didn't try to do anything else. So I became accustomed to the idea of not touching a box while it's burning. I guess my expectations just aren't very high.
When I was in the market for a CD burner, everybody was saying "you need SCSI, it's faster". Well, 4x is 4x. I bought an internal IDE burner and have yet to make a coaster. I figured they wouldn't sell them if they were that bad (although to be on the safe side, I went retail box rather than OEM).
So, am I missing something? Are there situations where 4x is really not 4x?
As for hard drives, I understand that SCSI drives are faster, but drive performance really only slows you down when you are thrashing, and if you are thrashing you should get more RAM not a faster HD. I suppose this makes sense on servers where there is too much data for everything to be in RAM, but I don't see a need for SCSI in my workstation PC.
Indiana Grocery, 864 F.2d at 1414. There is no finding that Microsoft could restrict the total market output of operating systems and thereby raise prices. In fact, existing operating system competitors, such as the producers of BeOS or Linux, could readily expand their "output" to meet the entire demand for operating systems without acquiring new productive assets. It is simply a matter of signing new license agreements.
So, how about it Slashdotters? Is Linux competition for Windows or isn't it? This is a central question that probably tears at a lot of you. If Linux is a competitor to Windows, then you have to give up some of your attacks on MS. If Linux is not competitive with Windows, then you have to back off on your promotion of Linux as a desktop OS. I don't see how you can have it both ways.
Investing is a tough business. Consider Andover.net a lesson. I know it hurts now, but this could inspire you to learn more. At your age, you can redirect yourself towards just about anything. Try reading up on investments (Wall Street Journal, basic economics texts, etc...). You never know--you could end up managing mutual funds someday.
A model that failed can be found at: http://vrml3d.com/race/
Reaction from Open Source advocates in the VRML community was hostile. Reaction from others was non-existant.
It's looking more and more like there is really no way to make any kind of money at all from software alone. It would appear that software is becoming like the mints that appear on pillows in motel rooms: People don't expect to pay for it directly. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to produce the goods unless you already have a contract to produce them.
I am considering the possibility of making certain components Open Source, using a license that would allow closed source licensing of aggregations of said components. With N components, you can conceivably create N^N products. That's a lot of custom software.
For now, I'm rather turned off on the Open Source community. My vision of community has always been someplace where you can borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbor. Other people seem to think that community is a place where you are a heel if you don't collectivize your sugar plantation.
As an independant developer, not funded by govt, academia, or a corporate parent, it appears to be a lost cause. I still have time to make a choice. I'm leaning towards forming an association like the Independant JPEG Group. Their license allows for an Open Source development model *and* reuse in closed source products. Even MS Internet Explorer uses IJG code! So, if your project is useful and cool enough, being the "alpha geek" in that project could make you a valuable corporate asset (Linus, Transmeta). I have no idea how well the IJG programmers are doing, but I'm sure they don't starve.
Computers are just simple turing machines. This means that everything they do is utterly predictable.
Unless you have a Real Random Number Generator (RRNG) card plugged in.
The very essence of being conscious is an ability to behave in a random fashion, also known as free will.
Oh no! my RRNG has consciousness. What's more, it has free will! Even more disturbing is that this means dice are sentient while being rolled. To not roll the dice is cruelty. I heard that there are dice in Las Vegas not being used now. I urge all of you to go to Vegas and shoot craps all day and all night. I urge that we form a society for the prevention of cruelty to dice.
Computers will never have free will and will never be conscious, not in their present Turing Machine form, anyway.
The really scary thing is that nobody can prove that the brain isn't just a sophisticated neural network. Maybe consciousness is an illusion. To believe otherwise is, at this point, a matter of faith.
It is for the best, anyway. I don't want to be superceded mentally and made redundant, like the industrial revolution made my muscles redundant.
So, you don't want to be promoted to mid-level management?
So I am very glad conscious computers are impossible. It would be dangerous for us if they were.
Can you prove either of these statements? The current state of computers is not proof; neither are any Hollywood movies where intelligent computers take over the world.
AOL has at least 10 times as many subscribers as the next largest ISP, so unless their spamming is proportionatly greater than the other ISPs, they shouldn't get a UDP.
Same thing goes for US Robotics modems. When I worked in tech support I used to think they were the worst, until I took into consideration that USR has a huge market share
...now I can just plunk down $4000, take a test, and convince people that I'm a Linux guru. This is great. Here I was thinking that I might actually have to learn it.:)
Will you be shipping boxes that have an install image (like Mac or Compaq)? This would make a system a lot more supportable for non-geek users. Will we ever see an inexpensive home PC with a "Linux Restore" CD from VA?
Why release ep1 on vcd ? I've had ep1 on vcd(illegal) since about a week after it hit theatres, and its a damn good copy. i even copied it to VHS for a friend. So why the hell would i shell out 15-20 bucks on something ive had for free for months ?
Because you have a conscience?
Seriously, I used to know this guy who warezed stuff all the time, but at least he justified it by saying that he bought the product if he really liked it. You aren't even saying that.
Slashdot Mirror
http://www.sun.com/developers/tools/solaris/prom oterms.html describes the license underwhich the software is available.
http://www.sun.com/developers/tools/solaris/prom ofaq.html is the general FAQ
It makes perfectly good sense for Sun to make Solaris more open, since they are mostly a hardware company. No, Linux won't die and neither will Solaris or Win2k. The market will just shift
What makes the least sense here is that apparently the license will not allow me to port a commercial application to Solaris. That would be considered "commercial use".
The ability to move my mouse around on a Solaris desktop and run some of their apps just to see how they look and feel is nice, but when you get right down to it, this is a "teaser", and one that you have to pay $20 for to boot!
No thanks, Sun.
OTOH, if they make an exception to the license that will allow people to use it for porting purposes, I'm all over it.
Someone might want to moderate that up as informative. I didn't know shorts were regulated like that.
OTOH, shorting is just borrowing shares, so if I want to borrow shares from somebody outside the normal channels, how can they regulate that? For those who don't know what shorting is, here's an example:
So, as soon as LinuxOne goes IPO, give me a thousand shares. I promise to give you back 1100 shares 3 months later. Great deal, eh? Well, it's a great deal for me if LinuxOne goes bust, because I sold those 1000 shares and all I have to do is give you 1100 worthless certificates 3 months from now. Sucks to be you. I pocket the share price of LinuxOne at the time I borrowed the shares. OTOH, it's a bad deal for me if LO goes up, because then I have to buy back 1100 shares at the current market price and give them back to you, and you get 1100 shares that are worth even more than they were before. Sucks to be me.
Sure it will go up. Then the smart money will go short on it, and another crop of daytraders will be plowed under. Those are the breaks.
Maybe in the future software will be like fire. Right now, software is like fire made by a caveman, who had to spend hours and hours rubbing two sticks together.
Now, if the hunters come back from the kill, and put sticks in the fire without giving the fire-maker any meat, that is plainly wrong.
The only way the fire-maker can protect himself is to wave a torch in their faces. It's sad but true.
It never would have occured to me to run any applications while burning CDs. I even shut off the screensaver to make sure that won't filch it. I view burning as a good opportunity to have a cup of coffee. I guess this is just because the burner we had in the office was always used that way--if the machine was burning, you didn't try to do anything else. So I became accustomed to the idea of not touching a box while it's burning. I guess my expectations just aren't very high.
When I was in the market for a CD burner, everybody was saying "you need SCSI, it's faster". Well, 4x is 4x. I bought an internal IDE burner and have yet to make a coaster. I figured they wouldn't sell them if they were that bad (although to be on the safe side, I went retail box rather than OEM).
So, am I missing something? Are there situations where 4x is really not 4x?
As for hard drives, I understand that SCSI drives are faster, but drive performance really only slows you down when you are thrashing, and if you are thrashing you should get more RAM not a faster HD. I suppose this makes sense on servers where there is too much data for everything to be in RAM, but I don't see a need for SCSI in my workstation PC.
Quote from MS rebuttal:
Indiana Grocery, 864 F.2d at 1414. There is no finding that Microsoft could restrict the total market output of operating systems and thereby raise prices. In fact, existing operating system competitors, such as the producers of BeOS or Linux, could readily expand their "output" to meet the entire demand for operating systems without acquiring new productive assets. It is simply a matter of signing new license agreements.
So, how about it Slashdotters? Is Linux competition for Windows or isn't it? This is a central question that probably tears at a lot of you. If Linux is a competitor to Windows, then you have to give up some of your attacks on MS. If Linux is not competitive with Windows, then you have to back off on your promotion of Linux as a desktop OS. I don't see how you can have it both ways.
Investing is a tough business. Consider Andover.net a lesson. I know it hurts now, but this could inspire you to learn more. At your age, you can redirect yourself towards just about anything. Try reading up on investments (Wall Street Journal, basic economics texts, etc...). You never know--you could end up managing mutual funds someday.
A model that failed can be found at: http://vrml3d.com/race/
Reaction from Open Source advocates in the VRML community was hostile. Reaction from others was non-existant.
It's looking more and more like there is really no way to make any kind of money at all from software alone. It would appear that software is becoming like the mints that appear on pillows in motel rooms: People don't expect to pay for it directly. Therefore, it doesn't make sense to produce the goods unless you already have a contract to produce them.
I am considering the possibility of making certain components Open Source, using a license that would allow closed source licensing of aggregations of said components. With N components, you can conceivably create N^N products. That's a lot of custom software.
For now, I'm rather turned off on the Open Source community. My vision of community has always been someplace where you can borrow a cup of sugar from your neighbor. Other people seem to think that community is a place where you are a heel if you don't collectivize your sugar plantation.
As an independant developer, not funded by govt, academia, or a corporate parent, it appears to be a lost cause. I still have time to make a choice. I'm leaning towards forming an association like the Independant JPEG Group. Their license allows for an Open Source development model *and* reuse in closed source products. Even MS Internet Explorer uses IJG code! So, if your project is useful and cool enough, being the "alpha geek" in that project could make you a valuable corporate asset (Linus, Transmeta). I have no idea how well the IJG programmers are doing, but I'm sure they don't starve.
Computers are just simple turing machines. This means that everything they do is utterly predictable.
Unless you have a Real Random Number Generator (RRNG) card plugged in.
The very essence of being conscious is an ability to behave in a random fashion, also known as free will.
Oh no! my RRNG has consciousness. What's more, it has free will! Even more disturbing is that this means dice are sentient while being rolled. To not roll the dice is cruelty. I heard that there are dice in Las Vegas not being used now. I urge all of you to go to Vegas and shoot craps all day and all night. I urge that we form a society for the prevention of cruelty to dice.
Computers will never have free will and will never be conscious, not in their present Turing Machine form, anyway.
The really scary thing is that nobody can prove that the brain isn't just a sophisticated neural network. Maybe consciousness is an illusion. To believe otherwise is, at this point, a matter of faith.
It is for the best, anyway. I don't want to be superceded mentally and made redundant, like the industrial revolution made my muscles redundant.
So, you don't want to be promoted to mid-level management?
So I am very glad conscious computers are impossible. It would be dangerous for us if they were.
Can you prove either of these statements? The current state of computers is not proof; neither are any Hollywood movies where intelligent computers take over the world.
Excellent. Release the hounds!
AOL has at least 10 times as many subscribers as the next largest ISP, so unless their spamming is proportionatly greater than the other ISPs, they shouldn't get a UDP.
Same thing goes for US Robotics modems. When I worked in tech support I used to think they were the worst, until I took into consideration that USR has a huge market share
...now I can just plunk down $4000, take a test, and convince people that I'm a Linux guru. This is great. Here I was thinking that I might actually have to learn it. :)
The founder of project Bartleby. He put Emily Post on line. Now if only more Open Source advocates would read it...
Will you be shipping boxes that have an install image (like Mac or Compaq)? This would make a system a lot more supportable for non-geek users. Will we ever see an inexpensive home PC with a "Linux Restore" CD from VA?
Because you have a conscience?
Seriously, I used to know this guy who warezed stuff all the time, but at least he justified it by saying that he bought the product if he really liked it. You aren't even saying that.