Ok, thanks for info. I also think that this method might have uses in some other colour spaces, like HSV. Perhaps better anti-aliasing could be obtained by certain combinations of masks for colour (Hue) and the other two components?
Hmmh. I'm almost tempted to start doing some gfx testing again... been a while.:-)
No. They didn't patent single-channel alpha blending. They patented 'multi-channel blend'. That is; blending is done by using mask image, not mask (alpha) channel. Each colour component is blended separately; only if mask image uses grayscale (ie. all components have same value) pixels this degenerates to normal alpha-blending.
So, like PNG gurus said, this doesn't relate to PNG; PNG 'only' supports alpha channel (although it's questionable whether full alpha-'image' would be an improvement... but that's what Apple patented).
I thought so too, after first glance at the patent. However, after reading it through
second time, I understood what the patent
really is about.
What it is is doing 'compontent-sensitive' image blending. Instead of using single alpha mask or channel for all colour components, it uses a full mask image, that is then used for blending images component by component.
When mask image is a gray-scale image, this effectively degenerates to 'normal' alpha blending. However, when using non-gray colours,
blending is not linear (as with alpha blending)
for the components.
In RGB, for example, you could take red value from source, green from destination, and blend blue 50-50 from both, and get... um... probably interesting results?
What I would like to know is if this is useful? What kind of effects can be achieved by using non-grayscale mask images? Potentially it might produce interesting effects... But are those
just curiosities?
... and no, obviously this doesn't cause any problems for PNG, which 'only' uses embedded alpha channels.
Actually, IE on Mac does composition pretty
nicely (it also does remarkable job with gamma
correction, resizing based on pixel size defs
and lots of other 'advanced' stuff).
However, I think the original writer's worries about browsers are probably unfounded; if the patent only covers composites based on separate masks, it doesn't sound at all like what browsers really do.
If they use masks (instead of just drawing layered images), those masks are dynamically generated, not read from files (or external sources). Additionally, when rendering images that have real alpha channel, mask aren't all that useful in the first place. They are just for poor man's transparency.:-)
Would be nice to have de-lawyerized patent text available to be sure, of course.
Well, the main reasons why PNG hasn't replaced GIFs:
People are slow in changing their habits; they are used to GIFs, they (still) use GIFs. If it
ain't broken don't fix it (that's of course assuming you haven't been harassed by Unisys.:-))
Some old browsers did not support PNGs at all. Shouldn't be a big problem nowadays, though (esp. since much of Javascript stuff in use would break them anyway)
PNG doesn't have animation, for cheap-ass simple animation GIF is the choice (MNG would replace it, but it's bit of obscurity, being rather ambitious format project)
Although PNG has really cool features (full alpha channel is _really_ nice for blending image borders, neat translucency effects etc), many browsers (NS 4.x series, IE on Windows at least until 5.5) still only implement 'GIF-level' features, ie. on/off transparency, no gamma correction etc. Mozilla has good support, and IE on Mac too (no idea why; usually windows version is more advanced).
Not that there aren't (at least potential) problems with respect to Sun's ownership of Java, I think that by now Java is "bigger than Sun", and can not be held captive by any single player. IBM has lots at stake (and has produced excellent JVM, compiler and tons of free source too), there are Free JVM and compiler alternatives and so on. Best Java-related products don't necessarily come from Sun; there is real competition.
Same could of course happen to C#, but it'd take years, just like it's taken with Java. And whereas Sun didn't necessarily know what really to do with the new language (it was re-purposed a few times... and perhaps met most success as a server-side web application dev language), Microsoft seems to have somewhat clearer goal (it is after all easier to do it 2nd time...:-)). And... well, um... MS track record with respect to competition isn't too promising.
no anonymizing service is going to be able to retain legal services to fend off attacks
on anonymity without having some form of income
Au contraire. If they are charging you (or advertisers), they are
making money out of something that authorities try to paint as 'illegal activity'. Like Napster and n+1 other companies. If they are not, they are not benefiting from 'breaking the law' (as it's now jokingly termed), and perhaps had better legal standing.
Napster has/had enough money to hire the lawyers, and much good did that do to them. They got the image of a company helping thieves, and got the brutal beating.
Money is useful, sure, but obtaining it from users is not without its problems.:-/
Umh, I may have missed something, but what else could I (we) have done to contribute than use it? The business model apparently was to sell advertising space... and I don't have anything to advertise, so best I could do was to use it, and be viewed as a potential marketing target (ie. more users, more they can charge advertisers, just like magazines and newspapers).
Or was there some premium pay-to-use service available?
Note too that I was to pay for Freedom (by Zero Knowledge), but since they halted development of linux-version (they did have beta-version for older kernels... but I had upgraded to 2.4.x series) I couldn't. And now it would be a moot point since they threw in the towel.
Finally, like someone else said; the problem with paying is the damage to anonymity. It is kind of hard to take payments without getting the ability to track down the user. ZK did go to lengths to work around the problems, but it's not a trivial problem.
Just a guess; he's more worried about the school finding out his browsing habits (or blocking access to sites), than about web sites profiling him?
To work adequately the connection has to be encrypted (ssl should be ok here I guess), or the target-URL has to be encrypted. Otherwise it's trivial to still track usage, although, this has to be done manually (unless cgi-arg passing uses some existing de facto standard?).
You are right though, this won't work for the other big problem, snooping at the other end... And that's why safeweb (or similar) was really neat thing to have (even with those 7 days logs someone mentioned... as long as you realize it 's not all THAT anonymous).
Uh, you are kidding right? It may be that disc. boards bring you more exaggerated horror stories and biased opinions, but honestly... Do you think walking around there would get you any more objective information? The best way would of course be to have a friend who works (or worked) for the company, and ask him/her (better yet, more than one...). "Inspecting" the place before (or after) the interview doesn't hurt, but it's unlikely to really tell you all that much about
the place (or more importantly the company and
its management... which usually is the source of
problems)
However, the person who submitted the story apparently doesn't have the better option(s) available. Asking here shouldn't hurt. So, read Slashdot, go to interview, walk around, try to find someone who's been there.
No. Like someone already pointed out, IBM was certain they'd get butt-kicked, and that's why they did make LOTS of internal changes in anticipation of company breakup. Breakup never came, though.
More importantly, you completely miss the problem. It's not illegal to have inferior products that sell well; and MS' software isn't even worst in its class nowadays. Problem is with their abuse of their monopoly, plain and simple. OEMs have been threatened (directly and indirectly) to make sure no non-MS OSes are installed. Similarly for applications. Price dumping with S/W (IE, MS Office, anything that started as underdog) has been commonplace. As to IE; I don't think the actual problem was so much bundling a web-browser with OS, but the intention of killing other browsers. It's one thing to have a simple default web browser (Konqueror, BeOS - browser whatever-it-was-called etc), and it's another thing to really make multi-(m|b)illion effort to create The One and Only browser.
The list could go on, certainly -- Microsoft's closets are full of skeletons (DiskStacker anyone?) -- but even with "only" abuse of de facto monopoly is enough to make the anti-trust case legible.
Also... one thing I haven't really understood is why people think MS breakup would be a catastrophe for anyone? Because BillG and the crew are screaming and yelling? If I was a MS stockholder, I'd prefer that behemoth was split, a la ATnT. In few years they'd be more valuable than the current single entity (assuming they actually could compete fairly, which I think is a possibility). Perhaps it's just that people can't see the difference between humans and corporations, and consider breakup to be same as decapitation...
the only thing keeping us tied to windows is
clients sending us documents in MS Office format.
Been there.:-)
Just in case you haven't used (free) Star Office, give it a shot. It is bit heavy-weight (it is, after all, a full office suite), but it does good work in importing MS Office docs. And although having to define it as a helper app is bit clumsy (compared to using plugins), it does the trick.
That's exactly the sort of attitude that has caused the sort of spectactular
failures of software projects to be accepted as the norm. Software Engineering
is *not* "hacking" or "coding" or "programming", it's *engineering*, like building
a bridge or a skyscraper. Yes, those projects go over time and budget too
sometimes, but they are the exception rather than the rule.
Pardon my saying this but... Oh sweet Jesus what a load of complete crap!
I don't want to start "yes you do no I don't" style argument, but I'm afraid it's attitudes like yours that are just digging a deeper hole for all of us. Software engineering is an oxymoron; s/w development is nothing like engineering. People who try to view it as such are trying to force rectangular boxes through round holes. Thinking that it's not people who create systems but procedures that guarantee success. Thinking that 1000 monkeys -- given rigorous procedures, methods, specifications and processes -- are capable of creating well-defined high-quality s/w systems.
Software implementation is craftmanship. S/w implementors (architects, programmers) are (should / have to be) skilled craftsmen, like highly skilled swordmakers. They have to know a lot of basics from CS and also application area; need experience, have to learn from both their own and others' mistakes (experiences). But you just can't take 1000 monkeys, and with good strict engineering guidelines produce quality systems. And yet people who can't implement s/w systems themselves think they really understand how things can be made to work using well-defined standardized "software engineering" guidelines and procedures. If that was (or ever is) true, the craftmanship part has already been done before the monkeys, using more resources for creating strict definitions (to instruct stupid monkeys), than it would take for skilled professionals to define, design and implement the system.
This is not to say there isn't anything to learn from actual engineering.
There is, certainly. But relying only on engineering history is a guarantee for complete and total failure.
I'm not advocating "rogue coder" ad hoc methods. But the processes, procedures etc. have to support professionals, not the other way around. In addition, my own experience has been that when people gain more experience, they become more (not less) disciplined, more professional (perhaps there are prima donna - exceptions though).
Or, if they have been spoon-fed too much s/w
pseudo-science, they get more relaxed, trying
to find a proper balance of process overhead
and productivity.
Finally:
In a well analyzed and properly planned project, the actual coding stage is little
more than data entry.
I take it you have never ever programmed, ie. implemented any serious-sized systems? Systems that can be coded trivially given specifications, could usually be automatically generated from a high-level specifications. In fact, what you refer to ('trivial coding') is, in real life, done by programs called "compilers". Programmers, then, feed these 'trivial machines'. This doesn't make the actual main task much less complex. Tools, tools, tools. Craftsmen have to know their tools, and like using best tools available.
Huh? I'd love to get a linux-version of this (since I don't have a Mac and don't want to use Windows ME I do have installed), but since it's not available (and review was for windows-version), what's so fanatic here? And what's the message that you want to get through? That you care only about Mac-version and want to wipe your ass with Windows? That's not fanatic by any chance is it?
I'm not an anti-Mac-troll, by the way; I'd love to see a Mac-version of this and other games too. I think that would make it more likely that ports to other platforms could be written, too. I'm old enough to remember the good old days when everything was usually tri-platform (C64, Spectrum, Amstrad? [or whatever the name of that home comp was]).:-)
... and I'm pretty sure it must have been more work (relatively speaking) to do those ports, as systems were much more diverse than current platforms. At least h/w is usually pretty similar, and abstraction layers/libs exist.
Perhaps your hearing is bad after all that noise? But seriously, test it; what's the difference between system being turned off and on. And the point really is that if you have your system up 24/7, it does make big difference. Not to mention that often PC case is close to you, and thus the noise (even if relatively low intensity one) is more irritating than from many other sources. Before you really start paying attention to the background noice of the system it's ok; but once you really notice the difference you really won't be saying "who cares" any more.
Yeah, talk about clueless baby bells. I've had to deal with Qwest (ex-US Worst); I had external Cisco 675 as I am a linux user. Then I moved, they had to send a new modem; so, for some reason they sent me that crappy PoS Intel USB DSL modem. HELLO? I can just hear the thoughts of the person I talked to ("blah blah PC blah linux blah blah blah Cisco 675 blah blah". Ok; probably that means Windows as the dude said PC at one point, that's not Mac, so let's just send the USB thing as it's bit cheaper). I had to call them again, spend almost 2 hours waiting etc., but the person I talked to this time kind of had a clue, and I did finally get the right modem (after sending original one back). Phone monopolies are the single biggest obstacle in getting decent net connections, have always been. And normal people think those companies are the leading edge tech friendly co's. Ugh.
Needless to say I only have DSL from Qwest, not ISP services; as ISP I'm using forethought.net... A cool smallish local ISP; no need to suffer second rate service from Qwest (or from MSN that customers will be transferred to).
I was always under the impression that the country TLD's were meant to be used for sites that had geography-specific information
I don't know if that was the original intention, but it certainly hasn't been the practice. Outside of.us - domain (esp. before.com became 'hot') companies and universities did use country TLDs, many still do. Sometimes multi-national co's have localized sites (www.company.com for 'main page', www.company.fr for french version etc) using these too.
Why would anyone have to register 17 domains? IP-names are not search mechanism; they are not meant to be all-encompassing taxonomy for web sites.
If you want to get to a company's web page, you shouldn't have to resort to guessing dns - spelling, nor domain. Search using Google, go to Yahoo, check it out company's/organization's ads, whatever.
Relying on DNS to act as your portal is stupid. It would be best for all if TLDs were completely open, but there would be suggestions (by W3C or IETF) for 'official' ones. Some people really just love the idea of artificial scarcity of technically unlimited resources, like domain names.
I did when I bought my PC (assembled from parts);
the price was OEM price (I think), but I could
have chosen otherwise. That was few months back, and if I did it again I probably wouldn't
include any W-OS.
Nowadays I don't have much need for Windows; StarOffice works ok, imports/exports MS Office stuff nicely, TV-card has support & apps, can burn CD, encode oggs. Even browsing with Mozilla is on par with IE on Windows. The only remaining issue are games... And there are signs indicating things will get better in near future.:-)
Likewise, I did purchase a version of BeOS at one point, have paid for some of the Linux installations (and copied/downloaded some). I don't like stealing, and hypocritical "Windows sux but I still steal a copy" people are pathetic.
LOL! As if that means anything to the typical home user.
There are some indications that Microsoft is getting more and more aggressive towards people stealing their OS... Perhaps Joe Blow's ideas about sharing windows installations will change in near future?
As to business user, right now you are right. However, there are organizations that don't use Windows as the work station OS (minority, but still). If they are using Linux now (or if there'll be similar WinBSD, Solarindows, AIX-ouch distributions) it might not be such a bad deal.
Basically it's just normal emulator-business; has been going on for decades (SoftPC in its various forms was perhaps most visible past few years, on Mac-side?)
Well, I don't really see why (certain subset of) C++ couldn't be better for writing an OS than vanilla C, but perhaps that's just matter of taste. However, about QNX:
Seriously if you want something that plays in mostly the same space (except it is
written in C,
is well designed
I don't know QNX, but my impression was that BeOS was actually pretty well designed, all in all (even if you hate C++)? Cleanly designed extensively multi-threaded system, neat filesystem, reasonably good scheduling (even if not hard realtime, much lower latency than any other desktop OS) etc. etc. So which flaws did I miss?:-)
It's not clear if many of the security measures being added help at all. In many
cases only thing at is clear is that liberties
are being taken away. Sounds like a good deal?
Even though people assume the changes are
temporary (which they of course should be), in too many cases that's not really defined. Whopsee,
how convenient will it be that the laws that were thought to be temporary (until things get back to normal) end up being permanent. Just like bad code, "temporary fixes", bad laws tend to linger around.
In one previous thread someone pointed to terrorist laws UK enacted on early 70s, temporary ones, that are still in use.:-/
Most people would agree on added restrictions, but really, people shouldn't give blanket promises a la "do whatever, and I do mean whatever, to get those bastards".
Slashdot Mirror
Ok, thanks for info. I also think that this method might have uses in some other colour spaces, like HSV. Perhaps better anti-aliasing could be obtained by certain combinations of masks for colour (Hue) and the other two components? :-)
Hmmh. I'm almost tempted to start doing some gfx testing again... been a while.
So, like PNG gurus said, this doesn't relate to PNG; PNG 'only' supports alpha channel (although it's questionable whether full alpha-'image' would be an improvement... but that's what Apple patented).
What it is is doing 'compontent-sensitive' image blending. Instead of using single alpha mask or channel for all colour components, it uses a full mask image, that is then used for blending images component by component. When mask image is a gray-scale image, this effectively degenerates to 'normal' alpha blending. However, when using non-gray colours, blending is not linear (as with alpha blending) for the components. In RGB, for example, you could take red value from source, green from destination, and blend blue 50-50 from both, and get... um... probably interesting results?
What I would like to know is if this is useful? What kind of effects can be achieved by using non-grayscale mask images? Potentially it might produce interesting effects... But are those just curiosities?
However, I think the original writer's worries about browsers are probably unfounded; if the patent only covers composites based on separate masks, it doesn't sound at all like what browsers really do. If they use masks (instead of just drawing layered images), those masks are dynamically generated, not read from files (or external sources). Additionally, when rendering images that have real alpha channel, mask aren't all that useful in the first place. They are just for poor man's transparency. :-)
Would be nice to have de-lawyerized patent text available to be sure, of course.
... and "Indenpendence Day". What a crappy movie. :-/
Same could of course happen to C#, but it'd take years, just like it's taken with Java. And whereas Sun didn't necessarily know what really to do with the new language (it was re-purposed a few times... and perhaps met most success as a server-side web application dev language), Microsoft seems to have somewhat clearer goal (it is after all easier to do it 2nd time...
Au contraire. If they are charging you (or advertisers), they are making money out of something that authorities try to paint as 'illegal activity'. Like Napster and n+1 other companies. If they are not, they are not benefiting from 'breaking the law' (as it's now jokingly termed), and perhaps had better legal standing.
Napster has/had enough money to hire the lawyers, and much good did that do to them. They got the image of a company helping thieves, and got the brutal beating.
Money is useful, sure, but obtaining it from users is not without its problems. :-/
Or was there some premium pay-to-use service available?
Note too that I was to pay for Freedom (by Zero Knowledge), but since they halted development of linux-version (they did have beta-version for older kernels... but I had upgraded to 2.4.x series) I couldn't. And now it would be a moot point since they threw in the towel.
Finally, like someone else said; the problem with paying is the damage to anonymity. It is kind of hard to take payments without getting the ability to track down the user. ZK did go to lengths to work around the problems, but it's not a trivial problem.
To work adequately the connection has to be encrypted (ssl should be ok here I guess), or the target-URL has to be encrypted. Otherwise it's trivial to still track usage, although, this has to be done manually (unless cgi-arg passing uses some existing de facto standard?).
You are right though, this won't work for the other big problem, snooping at the other end... And that's why safeweb (or similar) was really neat thing to have (even with those 7 days logs someone mentioned... as long as you realize it 's not all THAT anonymous).
Yep, those suckers who bought MicroSoft shares... It was clear to me that when they started giving away IE for free, they were doomed! :-)
Now now. If you don't behave, we'll start using "beek" (the original plural form of "book") instead of that new "books" plural!
However, the person who submitted the story apparently doesn't have the better option(s) available. Asking here shouldn't hurt. So, read Slashdot, go to interview, walk around, try to find someone who's been there.
More importantly, you completely miss the problem. It's not illegal to have inferior products that sell well; and MS' software isn't even worst in its class nowadays. Problem is with their abuse of their monopoly, plain and simple. OEMs have been threatened (directly and indirectly) to make sure no non-MS OSes are installed. Similarly for applications. Price dumping with S/W (IE, MS Office, anything that started as underdog) has been commonplace. As to IE; I don't think the actual problem was so much bundling a web-browser with OS, but the intention of killing other browsers. It's one thing to have a simple default web browser (Konqueror, BeOS - browser whatever-it-was-called etc), and it's another thing to really make multi-(m|b)illion effort to create The One and Only browser.
The list could go on, certainly -- Microsoft's closets are full of skeletons (DiskStacker anyone?) -- but even with "only" abuse of de facto monopoly is enough to make the anti-trust case legible.
Also... one thing I haven't really understood is why people think MS breakup would be a catastrophe for anyone? Because BillG and the crew are screaming and yelling? If I was a MS stockholder, I'd prefer that behemoth was split, a la ATnT. In few years they'd be more valuable than the current single entity (assuming they actually could compete fairly, which I think is a possibility). Perhaps it's just that people can't see the difference between humans and corporations, and consider breakup to be same as decapitation...
Been there. :-)
Just in case you haven't used (free) Star Office, give it a shot. It is bit heavy-weight (it is, after all, a full office suite), but it does good work in importing MS Office docs. And although having to define it as a helper app is bit clumsy (compared to using plugins), it does the trick.
Pardon my saying this but... Oh sweet Jesus what a load of complete crap!
I don't want to start "yes you do no I don't" style argument, but I'm afraid it's attitudes like yours that are just digging a deeper hole for all of us. Software engineering is an oxymoron; s/w development is nothing like engineering. People who try to view it as such are trying to force rectangular boxes through round holes. Thinking that it's not people who create systems but procedures that guarantee success. Thinking that 1000 monkeys -- given rigorous procedures, methods, specifications and processes -- are capable of creating well-defined high-quality s/w systems.
Software implementation is craftmanship. S/w implementors (architects, programmers) are (should / have to be) skilled craftsmen, like highly skilled swordmakers. They have to know a lot of basics from CS and also application area; need experience, have to learn from both their own and others' mistakes (experiences). But you just can't take 1000 monkeys, and with good strict engineering guidelines produce quality systems. And yet people who can't implement s/w systems themselves think they really understand how things can be made to work using well-defined standardized "software engineering" guidelines and procedures. If that was (or ever is) true, the craftmanship part has already been done before the monkeys, using more resources for creating strict definitions (to instruct stupid monkeys), than it would take for skilled professionals to define, design and implement the system.
This is not to say there isn't anything to learn from actual engineering. There is, certainly. But relying only on engineering history is a guarantee for complete and total failure. I'm not advocating "rogue coder" ad hoc methods. But the processes, procedures etc. have to support professionals, not the other way around. In addition, my own experience has been that when people gain more experience, they become more (not less) disciplined, more professional (perhaps there are prima donna - exceptions though). Or, if they have been spoon-fed too much s/w pseudo-science, they get more relaxed, trying to find a proper balance of process overhead and productivity.
Finally:
In a well analyzed and properly planned project, the actual coding stage is little more than data entry.
I take it you have never ever programmed, ie. implemented any serious-sized systems? Systems that can be coded trivially given specifications, could usually be automatically generated from a high-level specifications. In fact, what you refer to ('trivial coding') is, in real life, done by programs called "compilers". Programmers, then, feed these 'trivial machines'. This doesn't make the actual main task much less complex. Tools, tools, tools. Craftsmen have to know their tools, and like using best tools available.
I'm not an anti-Mac-troll, by the way; I'd love to see a Mac-version of this and other games too. I think that would make it more likely that ports to other platforms could be written, too. I'm old enough to remember the good old days when everything was usually tri-platform (C64, Spectrum, Amstrad? [or whatever the name of that home comp was]). :-)
... and I'm pretty sure it must have been more work (relatively speaking) to do those ports, as systems were much more diverse than current platforms. At least h/w is usually pretty similar, and abstraction layers/libs exist.
Perhaps your hearing is bad after all that noise? But seriously, test it; what's the difference between system being turned off and on. And the point really is that if you have your system up 24/7, it does make big difference. Not to mention that often PC case is close to you, and thus the noise (even if relatively low intensity one) is more irritating than from many other sources. Before you really start paying attention to the background noice of the system it's ok; but once you really notice the difference you really won't be saying "who cares" any more.
Needless to say I only have DSL from Qwest, not ISP services; as ISP I'm using forethought.net... A cool smallish local ISP; no need to suffer second rate service from Qwest (or from MSN that customers will be transferred to).
I don't know if that was the original intention, but it certainly hasn't been the practice. Outside of .us - domain (esp. before .com became 'hot') companies and universities did use country TLDs, many still do. Sometimes multi-national co's have localized sites (www.company.com for 'main page', www.company.fr for french version etc) using these too.
Relying on DNS to act as your portal is stupid. It would be best for all if TLDs were completely open, but there would be suggestions (by W3C or IETF) for 'official' ones. Some people really just love the idea of artificial scarcity of technically unlimited resources, like domain names.
Nowadays I don't have much need for Windows; StarOffice works ok, imports/exports MS Office stuff nicely, TV-card has support & apps, can burn CD, encode oggs. Even browsing with Mozilla is on par with IE on Windows. The only remaining issue are games... And there are signs indicating things will get better in near future. :-)
Likewise, I did purchase a version of BeOS at one point, have paid for some of the Linux installations (and copied/downloaded some). I don't like stealing, and hypocritical "Windows sux but I still steal a copy" people are pathetic.
LOL! As if that means anything to the typical home user.
There are some indications that Microsoft is getting more and more aggressive towards people stealing their OS... Perhaps Joe Blow's ideas about sharing windows installations will change in near future?
As to business user, right now you are right. However, there are organizations that don't use Windows as the work station OS (minority, but still). If they are using Linux now (or if there'll be similar WinBSD, Solarindows, AIX-ouch distributions) it might not be such a bad deal.
Basically it's just normal emulator-business; has been going on for decades (SoftPC in its various forms was perhaps most visible past few years, on Mac-side?)
Seriously if you want something that plays in mostly the same space (except it is
written in C,
is well designed
I don't know QNX, but my impression was that BeOS was actually pretty well designed, all in all (even if you hate C++)? Cleanly designed extensively multi-threaded system, neat filesystem, reasonably good scheduling (even if not hard realtime, much lower latency than any other desktop OS) etc. etc. So which flaws did I miss?
In one previous thread someone pointed to terrorist laws UK enacted on early 70s, temporary ones, that are still in use.
Most people would agree on added restrictions, but really, people shouldn't give blanket promises a la "do whatever, and I do mean whatever, to get those bastards".