Actually, someone (I don't remember the manufacturer) makes CDRs that last 100 years (Something about the coating on the disc).
The format isn't a problem if it's ASCII text or HTML or some other human-readable format. Some of us hate binary formats with a passion and will even bounce e-mail sent with an Office format.
Well, you keeping your Win98 box patched and working for "weeks on end" is very impressive. And I'm glad you found something that's "just fine" for your uses, however for myself and others, it simply is not enough, or is too annoying.
It is annoying to me to have to reboot every time I install something that modifies a system library, or a device driver. It is annoying to me that the install takes at least three reboots (Unless you're using ancient hardware that Win98 has broken drivers for, in which case it's two). With a Debian install, it takes exactly one reboot, with RedHat, it's two (Once into the installer, once into your new environment). It also has supported more hardware out of the box than any version of Windows I've ever used.
It's also annoying that Win98 will not do much faster than 12mbps on my 100mbps network. Between my Linux boxes (Even using Samba), I pull between 8 and 10 megaBYTES per second, but a more powerful machine running Win98 will not go faster than 1.3 megs per second. That quite simply is not acceptable to me, and I suspect many others.
Linux for me runs all the software I care to run, even the games I like (Many of which I purchased directly from Loki Software). Yes my selection of software is slightly limited in comparison to yours, but the software I do not have access to is something I can easily do without.
And there are lots of people who choose "other OSes" than Windows, many of them prefer those stylish little boxes with the stylized, bitten apple on the front. Others choose an OS that they can tinker with and get into, one that they can customize from the lowest levels, not something that is simply "consumer level". However even for many "consumers", once they can shake free of the Windows mentality ("Doesn't work? Reboot.", "Don't know what's going on, don't bother thinking the problem through, just jump back to what was loaded on the machine with you un-crated it."), they find themselves quite liberated.
Not that this happened on Halloween, but one night I was by myself and had booted into Windows (Ooooh!) to play Black and White. I had my headphones on and was progressing through the game fairly easily when suddenly from somewhere to my left (The direction of the door) I heard:
"Deathhhhh," whispered very quietly.
My head snapped around. There was nothing there. I took off my headphones and searched around the room and the whole upper level of the apartment. I couldn't find anything. I went back to playing the game and it wasn't another five minutes later when I heard:
"Deathhhhhh," again
This time I didn't have the headphones on. Again I stopped the game and searched the whole apartment this time. Again I could find nothing.
Finally, with the lights on and one eye on the door to my room, I was finally in town to see one of my villagers die and again I heard:
I agree somewhat with your premise, that OS/FS isn't good for EVERYTHING, but I think it is quite usable for many more things than people realize.
Your example of a very specific program for a very small client, I don't agree with. Even the smallest, most specialized program can be reused/transformed by someone else. I have personally taken code from a program that I had written for one very specific purpose and used it in another completely-unrelated program. I also realize that I cannot forsee the needs of future hackers. It may be that something happens later that a modified version of the very specific program could solve. In your scenario, they would be denied and have to write it from scratch (With limited success if they follow the current trend and have less low-level skill than hackers of old).
I think the sole time closed source can beat OS/FS readily is in programs that have NO interest or the interest peaks and disappears quickly. My primary example for this is games. Most games require an enormous amount of effort in an extremely limited timespan. The game must be written, debugged (cough), and ready to ship to every jack-n-gameplayer in the world in an average or 2 years. Then the market for said computer game is completely inundated and burns itself out in about 6 to 12 months. That is hardly something that any of us in the OS/FS realm can equal. Most of the OS/FS games produced are either very simple (By society's standards) or they take years and years to develop.
Their most convincing argument is that programming is a job. It's work, and it can be hard work at times. But if all software is free, then who pays the programmers? It's pretty clear by this time that selling support contracts don't work. If a company can't pay its programmers, then who would work for them.
This is something I've been thinking about, or thought about a while before I came to my current conclusion. This also doesn't surprise me about Microsoft, that their programmers think of it as a job, as hard work. To me, programming is fun. I like bringing my digital minions to life and setting them upon their tasks. Now it's true that I'm not going to write a Word replacement, that's not my bag. However that doesn't mean that someone else won't WANT to do it.
Now, if all software is free, who pays the programmers? Depends on the business model.
I'm constantly surprised that they say support contracts don't work. Where I work, we bring in about $125 per month per support account. We have 545 paying accounts. Some pay more than others, up to $200 a month. Now, that's not going to support a gigantic company like Microsoft, but I'm sure they could get some of their larger NT/2000 customers to pay them more than $200 a month.
For end users, support contracts may not work, but not many companies that I'm aware of grew large and fat on end-user software. And let's face it, being large and fat is about all Microsoft thinks about.
Actually, two million lines of code for the Linux kernel is astounding considering what it does. I mean, what other OS can support as many architectures and devices in so few lines?
I mean, let's look at Linux 2.4.5. First, I see that in the arch directory, we have:
Then we have the drivers directory which supports pretty much every bus I have ever even heard of and more devices than you can shake a handfull of sticks at. I'm not going to list them all here. But suffice it to say that everything from my video to my visor is supported.
All that in only 2.4 million lines of code.
Oh, and a microkernel isn't going to save us from a larger kernel tree, it may even increase the size of the code. We'll still need a TCP/IP stack, and a process scheduler, and drivers for all our nifty hardware. The only way to shrink the kernel tree is to fork the Linux kernel into platform-specific ports, but since that would cause massive redundencies in the drivers and a lot of the core code, there doesn't seem to be enough incentive for that to happen just yet.
The thing is that game developers are never going to be able to stop people from creating cheats. The effective way to handle cheating is the same way any other real-life game handles cheating. You out the cheater. Unfortunately, game developers haven't developed effective ways to out cheaters, and so, you have a Wild West scenario in online gaming communities. If developers would stop fighting the phenomenon and start understanding it, they might be able to work in more effective coutermeasures.
What effective ways do you propose to "out the cheaters"? See your basketball scenario doesn't quite apply to online games because cheaters can come back as quickly as you kick them out. If Kobe Briant gets ejected from a basketball game, he's out for that game. But if (CZ)Mulan gets ejected from a Tribes 2 server for using an aimbot, how do you know that he won't just log back in as (GD)ChouYoun and pick right back up where he left off?
What you're talking about happens now. If someone is firing rockets out of the back, they get swamped from all sides. If someone is camping next to a spawn point in a game of Last Man Standing, they get ratted out by those who've been eliminated already. If someone is saving backup copies of their characters, then selling all their stuff to someone else then restoring their backup and getting their stuff back, other players are likely to bitch to the admin. Doesn't stop it from happening. They still cheat. How would you recommend that be prevented without destroying gameplay or requiring that all servers CPU power be doubled to handle all the new "Big Brother" code?
In fact, I doubt that it's even true--he doesn't want linux gone any more than he wants Apple gone.
Actually, he does. Gates had Apple by the balls until very recently. And Microsoft still is the bigest software vendor for Apple software this side of Apple themselves. Microsoft Office is almost as ubiquitous on Mac as it is on Windows.
Besides, Apple is something Gates can understand. They're a company out to make money on "their" products. Gates is a business man, born and bred. Trying to understand why a bunch of free-software hippies would make something that rivals his beloved creations, and keep doing it despite his best efforts, is something he (Nor most management at Microsoft I would imagine) can't do.
Other than that, I agree with you. Most people dislike Microsoft because of what Microsoft does. I've got a friend who is learning Linux because he thinks it's cool and powerful, and he's sick of the problems he's been having with Win2k (Still can't get his burner working). I've got another friend who was outraged by Microsoft's "We will own your data as well as your programs" attitude with.net, so he switched his three computers over to Linux.
A bit off topic here, but I've been working with Ncurses for a while now, and I'm stuck. Ncurses is my favorite text-mode programming library, however, there sometimes comes a need to output an ANSI file to the screen and actually have it come out usable. However no matter how I try, I cannot get it to work. Either it comes out in pico-like escape codes, or otherwise completely unusable.
Anyone know of any way to get ANSI-escape-coded files and Ncurses to cooperate?
I fear you are falling into a common trap, thinking that software is only created by paid programmers and people who work for someone else. You forget the legions of people who work for the "common good" and people who work on software for the love and adventure of creating a digital work that will benefit others. Some people actually LIKE having their digital works used by other people, as long as those other people follow the rules established for that particular piece of work (Whether it be the free-for-all of the BSD or the "Do what you will, but don't restrict others" of the GPL).
Sorry, I just can't see it taking off. The whole software industry is about coming up with something thats better than others and encouraging people to buy their product over others.
No, that's what the software industry WAS about, however, if you look at.NET, HailStorm, and a lot of other "initiatives" that Microsoft has on the table, they're going the "service" route, which is something that Free Software / Open Source has been doing for a while. Give away the software, charge for support and possibly access to world-wide servers. It doesn't work for me (And I suspect, many people on Slashdot), but it does work for people like my mother who wants to be able to check her e-mail from any computer with a browser.
This is where I get all confused. Microsoft is essentially arguing that if I write something and release it then I can't make money from that code and, that itself is bad.
And that is wrong. Who says you can't sell the software? Certainly not RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, IBM, or any of the other Linux vendors or reseller. What is stopping you? There are dozens of ways that you can make money off of your software. You can charge for sending it to people on CD, you can write a book on how to use it and sell the book. You can setup support contracts with people or (more likely) companies (Those can be worth quite a few bucks).
1: Free software solutions are frequently a better alternative to the proprietary alternatives.
I don't think you'll find anyone on Slashdot that will disagree openly with this statement.
2: Both users and devlopers benefit from access to source.
See above.
3: Community development is a superior method of development.
This has been proven. Several times over. Projects can move extremely rapidly and pick up quite a few features and squash quite a few bugs very quickly by having extra hands, eyes, and brains working on them.
4: "Open Source" development is a superior way to run a profitable software business.
I don't recall anyone saying that. I do recall people saying that "Open Source" sounds more business friendly than "Free Software". Please, if you have proof, send it to me. I'd be interested to see it.
5: Copyrights, trademarks and patents are all evil. I should be able to do anything I want.
I honestly don't think people really believe that copyrights and to a limited extent trademarks are evil.
If I pour my life's experiences into a book, or I write a work of fiction that sparks the interest of many people, I should be allowed to decide what happens to it for a LIMITED time; that doesn't give my children/grandchildren/great-grandchildren the right to avoid working because I happen to have a creative gift.
Likewise, we don't want people slapping the name "Red Hat" on anything and selling Linux-ONE CDs labeled as Red Hat Linux, do we?
Patents are debatable, because they give someone a 17-year lock on an idea, and lately they have been given to ideas that are so simple as to be stupid (File-manager dialog boxes, color management, 1-click shopping, associations, etc). People rant and rave on Slashdot about how bad they are when they are abused, and I'm sure some people would rather have them abolished than have them continue in their present situation. However if they were shortened, tightened up, and returned to their original intended-purposes, I don't think anyone (Except the people who are making phat stacks of cash on other people's ideas) will bitch nearly as much.
Re:Can we please give them the benefit of the doub
on
Sony Violating GPL?
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I tried to take that into consideration when I read the article, but after reading it, I think this could get ugly.
The modifications Sony made to POSE were made to support its scroll wheel and the Memory-Stick expansion modules, two technologies Sony has said they own and will not share. Do you really think they're going to release the source to a program that fully utilizes those devices? That effectively open those devices to the general public. I'm all for that, but I really don't think Sony (Or at least their legal team) will agree.
No, I would be genuinely surprised if they do anything other than pull the binary off their server. Either that or they'll just tell us to piss off until a lawyer decides to get involved.
There's a couple of things you can do, none of which are quite as easy as "apt-get dist-upgrade".
1) You can download the entire RPMS directory from a RedHat mirror to a directory, then type "rpm -Fvh *.rpm" in that directory as root and wait while it searches and updates installed RPMs (-F means "freshen"). However that doesn't resolve dependencies, so you'll need to -Uvh some packages that don't have older versions installed. I've done this a time or two and it works reasonably well.
2) You can download the entire "RedHat" directory (includes RPMS directory and a couple others), then download the installer imgs (boot.img, net.img, pcmcia.img), dump them to a floppy (dd if=boot.img of=/dev/fd0), reboot with the floppy in, and go through the normal Upgrade option (Which will resolve dependencies). Also, with 7.1, they say you can grab the.iso files (seawolf-i386-disc[1|2].iso) and plop them in a directory, then when you reboot with the boot floppies in, when you tell them what directory the ISO imgs are in, they'll mount them and start the upgrade that way.
3) Download the.iso images from a mirror (seawolf-i386-disc1.iso, seawolf-i386-disc2.iso, seawolf-i386-powertools.iso (optional)), burn them to CD and reboot the machine with disc 1 in the drive (If you can boot from the CD-ROM) or dump boot.img to a floppy disk (see dd above) and boot with that and the CD in.
4) Buy the box set which comes with all the CDs and boot floppy, follow the detailed instructions in the installation manual.
If you want to compare CueCat to anything, compare it to MSIE. It's free, as long as you use it the way they designed. The CC C&D letters were sent because people were using those devices for purposes other than the manufacturer intended.
With Eazel, Ximian, Red Hat, and the other Linux software companies, not only do you get a free, usable product, but you get the license to use it as YOU see fit, not how they decide it should be used. Want to hack a new feature into Nautilus, go for it (Ximian hackers are already doing this to make it play nicer with the existing GNOME components).
What if Linus had heard this crap 10 years ago when he decided he wanted to write his own OS? "You have no hope of ever succeeding. You'd be going up against two massive companies, Microsoft and Apple. Between the two of them they've got the OS world locked up tight!" Would we be here today? Would we have a website like Slashdot to bemoan the fact that we have choices and that everyone can do their own thing?
Bah! Fsck that!
An open game console has the same potential an open OS does. Linux made us (Those of us who aren't old enough to remember the good old/bad old days of UNIX on the mainframe in the '70's) realize that the world doesn't belong to huge mega corporations to carve up and dole out as they see fit.
An Open console has the potential to be anything. Hell with the right hardware, it can be a game machine, security system, sound system, mp3 player, dvd player (Though we'll probably have to fight The Man for those two), thin client... My imagination fails me.
For all those who see the potential, aim for the stars. For those who don't, have fun playing your Poke Mon, Mortal Kombat, and Mario Brothers retreads.
True. But all the GPL'd game code in the world isn't going to mean squat to your graphics and music anyway. Quake1 is GPL but their graphics and music aren't. Doom is freeeware, but their graphics and music are still copyrighted.
Personally I love CSpotRun. I've used it almost exclusively since I found it on PalmGear. However, I've got two little problems with it.
First, it has no bookmarking functionality. I'd love to be ableto mark my place in a book, then come back to it, or jump from chapter to chapter. I'd fix them if I could code Palm Apps (I'm studying the source slowly, but I'm doing so much right now that it's waaaaay on the back burner.
Second, it doesn't handle (or even strip) HTML from books. I realize this isn't Spot's problem, because Baen released all of their books in the MobiReader format (Which doesn't run on my lowly Palm Pilot Professional), but converting them and is a royal pain in my ass, and I'm afraid that a lot of other places are going to be doing the same.
Actually, if you'd actually paid attention, instead of immediately insisting that Indrema was a bad idea, you'd have seen the potential.
The Indrema box was going to be a sweet platform for people like us. An Intel 750, 64mb SDRAM, GForce 2/3, hard drive, DVD, Dolby sound, ethernet, USB... And running Linux?? This thing screamed to be hacked. I was planning on buying one even if I never played a game on it (Even though I own copies of the majority of released Linux titles).
I wanted to hook it to my network and and have it playing a monster XMMS playlist through my ground-shaking, pisses-off-the-neighbors home stereo system. I wanted to hack it to record TV broadcasts and SAVE THEM to my overgrown file server, instead of being forced to purge them periodically like I would have to on a Tivo. I wanted to watch DVDs, DivX movies on my TV. God it would have been sweet!
This has already been said in this article, but most people don't bother to read replies unless those replies are to comments they posted, so I'll say it again.
SDL was not started by Loki games. Sam Lantinga was working on SDL for over a year when he and Scott Draker founded the company with the other members of their team. Now SDL has prospered because of Loki's sponsorship, but it was not "developed by loki to simplify their own job."
Another word-of-mouth rumor-mongering Slashdot post.
Game programming is hard by nature. I have seen tons of programmers on the SDL mailing lists asking how to improve the performance of their games.
And Loki is not the only professional development house using it, but how many here have taken the time and energy to look into some of the lesser known Linux development houses? And how many of those houses (For those who did look) advertise that they use(d) SDL on any of their projects?
Not entirely true. Most of the Quake3 development was done by id Software, but after their Linux guru split to develop for the Dolphin/Game Cube (I forget his name) they turned control of the Linux port over to Loki, who has been maintaining it (Granted, with more involvement than they're used to from the original developer) ever since.
Unfortunately that's a driver problem, not an SDL problem. The manufacturers who make force-feedback devices haven't released any drivers, specs, or hints that would allow us as Linux users to experience force feedback. If they had, we'd have it already.
Slashdot Mirror
Actually, someone (I don't remember the manufacturer) makes CDRs that last 100 years (Something about the coating on the disc).
The format isn't a problem if it's ASCII text or HTML or some other human-readable format. Some of us hate binary formats with a passion and will even bounce e-mail sent with an Office format.
Well, you keeping your Win98 box patched and working for "weeks on end" is very impressive. And I'm glad you found something that's "just fine" for your uses, however for myself and others, it simply is not enough, or is too annoying.
It is annoying to me to have to reboot every time I install something that modifies a system library, or a device driver. It is annoying to me that the install takes at least three reboots (Unless you're using ancient hardware that Win98 has broken drivers for, in which case it's two). With a Debian install, it takes exactly one reboot, with RedHat, it's two (Once into the installer, once into your new environment). It also has supported more hardware out of the box than any version of Windows I've ever used.
It's also annoying that Win98 will not do much faster than 12mbps on my 100mbps network. Between my Linux boxes (Even using Samba), I pull between 8 and 10 megaBYTES per second, but a more powerful machine running Win98 will not go faster than 1.3 megs per second. That quite simply is not acceptable to me, and I suspect many others.
Linux for me runs all the software I care to run, even the games I like (Many of which I purchased directly from Loki Software). Yes my selection of software is slightly limited in comparison to yours, but the software I do not have access to is something I can easily do without.
And there are lots of people who choose "other OSes" than Windows, many of them prefer those stylish little boxes with the stylized, bitten apple on the front. Others choose an OS that they can tinker with and get into, one that they can customize from the lowest levels, not something that is simply "consumer level". However even for many "consumers", once they can shake free of the Windows mentality ("Doesn't work? Reboot.", "Don't know what's going on, don't bother thinking the problem through, just jump back to what was loaded on the machine with you un-crated it."), they find themselves quite liberated.
He means he went to school for over ten years and felt up a girl once.
Not that this happened on Halloween, but one night I was by myself and had booted into Windows (Ooooh!) to play Black and White. I had my headphones on and was progressing through the game fairly easily when suddenly from somewhere to my left (The direction of the door) I heard:
"Deathhhhh," whispered very quietly.
My head snapped around. There was nothing there. I took off my headphones and searched around the room and the whole upper level of the apartment. I couldn't find anything. I went back to playing the game and it wasn't another five minutes later when I heard:
"Deathhhhhh," again
This time I didn't have the headphones on. Again I stopped the game and searched the whole apartment this time. Again I could find nothing.
Finally, with the lights on and one eye on the door to my room, I was finally in town to see one of my villagers die and again I heard:
"deathhhhh."
Stupid game.
I agree somewhat with your premise, that OS/FS isn't good for EVERYTHING, but I think it is quite usable for many more things than people realize.
Your example of a very specific program for a very small client, I don't agree with. Even the smallest, most specialized program can be reused/transformed by someone else. I have personally taken code from a program that I had written for one very specific purpose and used it in another completely-unrelated program. I also realize that I cannot forsee the needs of future hackers. It may be that something happens later that a modified version of the very specific program could solve. In your scenario, they would be denied and have to write it from scratch (With limited success if they follow the current trend and have less low-level skill than hackers of old).
I think the sole time closed source can beat OS/FS readily is in programs that have NO interest or the interest peaks and disappears quickly. My primary example for this is games. Most games require an enormous amount of effort in an extremely limited timespan. The game must be written, debugged (cough), and ready to ship to every jack-n-gameplayer in the world in an average or 2 years. Then the market for said computer game is completely inundated and burns itself out in about 6 to 12 months. That is hardly something that any of us in the OS/FS realm can equal. Most of the OS/FS games produced are either very simple (By society's standards) or they take years and years to develop.
Their most convincing argument is that programming is a job. It's work, and it can be hard work at times. But if all software is free, then who pays the programmers? It's pretty clear by this time that selling support contracts don't work. If a company can't pay its programmers, then who would work for them.
This is something I've been thinking about, or thought about a while before I came to my current conclusion. This also doesn't surprise me about Microsoft, that their programmers think of it as a job, as hard work. To me, programming is fun. I like bringing my digital minions to life and setting them upon their tasks. Now it's true that I'm not going to write a Word replacement, that's not my bag. However that doesn't mean that someone else won't WANT to do it.
Now, if all software is free, who pays the programmers? Depends on the business model.
I'm constantly surprised that they say support contracts don't work. Where I work, we bring in about $125 per month per support account. We have 545 paying accounts. Some pay more than others, up to $200 a month. Now, that's not going to support a gigantic company like Microsoft, but I'm sure they could get some of their larger NT/2000 customers to pay them more than $200 a month.
For end users, support contracts may not work, but not many companies that I'm aware of grew large and fat on end-user software. And let's face it, being large and fat is about all Microsoft thinks about.
Actually, two million lines of code for the Linux kernel is astounding considering what it does. I mean, what other OS can support as many architectures and devices in so few lines?
I mean, let's look at Linux 2.4.5. First, I see that in the arch directory, we have:
alpha, arm, cris, i386, ia64, m68k, mips, mips64, parisc, ppc, s390, s390x, sh, sparc, and sparc64.
Then we have the drivers directory which supports pretty much every bus I have ever even heard of and more devices than you can shake a handfull of sticks at. I'm not going to list them all here. But suffice it to say that everything from my video to my visor is supported.
All that in only 2.4 million lines of code.
Oh, and a microkernel isn't going to save us from a larger kernel tree, it may even increase the size of the code. We'll still need a TCP/IP stack, and a process scheduler, and drivers for all our nifty hardware. The only way to shrink the kernel tree is to fork the Linux kernel into platform-specific ports, but since that would cause massive redundencies in the drivers and a lot of the core code, there doesn't seem to be enough incentive for that to happen just yet.
The thing is that game developers are never going to be able to stop people from creating cheats. The effective way to handle cheating is the same way any other real-life game handles cheating. You out the cheater. Unfortunately, game developers haven't developed effective ways to out cheaters, and so, you have a Wild West scenario in online gaming communities. If developers would stop fighting the phenomenon and start understanding it, they might be able to work in more effective coutermeasures.
What effective ways do you propose to "out the cheaters"? See your basketball scenario doesn't quite apply to online games because cheaters can come back as quickly as you kick them out. If Kobe Briant gets ejected from a basketball game, he's out for that game. But if (CZ)Mulan gets ejected from a Tribes 2 server for using an aimbot, how do you know that he won't just log back in as (GD)ChouYoun and pick right back up where he left off?
What you're talking about happens now. If someone is firing rockets out of the back, they get swamped from all sides. If someone is camping next to a spawn point in a game of Last Man Standing, they get ratted out by those who've been eliminated already. If someone is saving backup copies of their characters, then selling all their stuff to someone else then restoring their backup and getting their stuff back, other players are likely to bitch to the admin. Doesn't stop it from happening. They still cheat. How would you recommend that be prevented without destroying gameplay or requiring that all servers CPU power be doubled to handle all the new "Big Brother" code?
didn't i see a story on /. recently about a Linux kit for PS2s in Japan for $200 or something?
Yes, in Japan, if you have a Japanese PS2. They have said that it won't be available for the North American version of the PS2.
Yes, they have. Linuxgames.com has a one-line note from an nVidia developer stating that Linux won't be left out of the nForce.
In fact, I doubt that it's even true--he doesn't want linux gone any more than he wants Apple gone.
.net, so he switched his three computers over to Linux.
Actually, he does. Gates had Apple by the balls until very recently. And Microsoft still is the bigest software vendor for Apple software this side of Apple themselves. Microsoft Office is almost as ubiquitous on Mac as it is on Windows.
Besides, Apple is something Gates can understand. They're a company out to make money on "their" products. Gates is a business man, born and bred. Trying to understand why a bunch of free-software hippies would make something that rivals his beloved creations, and keep doing it despite his best efforts, is something he (Nor most management at Microsoft I would imagine) can't do.
Other than that, I agree with you. Most people dislike Microsoft because of what Microsoft does. I've got a friend who is learning Linux because he thinks it's cool and powerful, and he's sick of the problems he's been having with Win2k (Still can't get his burner working). I've got another friend who was outraged by Microsoft's "We will own your data as well as your programs" attitude with
A bit off topic here, but I've been working with Ncurses for a while now, and I'm stuck. Ncurses is my favorite text-mode programming library, however, there sometimes comes a need to output an ANSI file to the screen and actually have it come out usable. However no matter how I try, I cannot get it to work. Either it comes out in pico-like escape codes, or otherwise completely unusable.
Anyone know of any way to get ANSI-escape-coded files and Ncurses to cooperate?
I fear you are falling into a common trap, thinking that software is only created by paid programmers and people who work for someone else. You forget the legions of people who work for the "common good" and people who work on software for the love and adventure of creating a digital work that will benefit others. Some people actually LIKE having their digital works used by other people, as long as those other people follow the rules established for that particular piece of work (Whether it be the free-for-all of the BSD or the "Do what you will, but don't restrict others" of the GPL).
.NET, HailStorm, and a lot of other "initiatives" that Microsoft has on the table, they're going the "service" route, which is something that Free Software / Open Source has been doing for a while. Give away the software, charge for support and possibly access to world-wide servers. It doesn't work for me (And I suspect, many people on Slashdot), but it does work for people like my mother who wants to be able to check her e-mail from any computer with a browser.
Sorry, I just can't see it taking off. The whole software industry is about coming up with something thats better than others and encouraging people to buy their product over others.
No, that's what the software industry WAS about, however, if you look at
This is where I get all confused. Microsoft is essentially arguing that if I write something and release it then I can't make money from that code and, that itself is bad.
And that is wrong. Who says you can't sell the software? Certainly not RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, IBM, or any of the other Linux vendors or reseller. What is stopping you? There are dozens of ways that you can make money off of your software. You can charge for sending it to people on CD, you can write a book on how to use it and sell the book. You can setup support contracts with people or (more likely) companies (Those can be worth quite a few bucks).
1: Free software solutions are frequently a better alternative to the proprietary alternatives. I don't think you'll find anyone on Slashdot that will disagree openly with this statement. 2: Both users and devlopers benefit from access to source. See above. 3: Community development is a superior method of development. This has been proven. Several times over. Projects can move extremely rapidly and pick up quite a few features and squash quite a few bugs very quickly by having extra hands, eyes, and brains working on them. 4: "Open Source" development is a superior way to run a profitable software business. I don't recall anyone saying that. I do recall people saying that "Open Source" sounds more business friendly than "Free Software". Please, if you have proof, send it to me. I'd be interested to see it. 5: Copyrights, trademarks and patents are all evil. I should be able to do anything I want. I honestly don't think people really believe that copyrights and to a limited extent trademarks are evil. If I pour my life's experiences into a book, or I write a work of fiction that sparks the interest of many people, I should be allowed to decide what happens to it for a LIMITED time; that doesn't give my children/grandchildren/great-grandchildren the right to avoid working because I happen to have a creative gift. Likewise, we don't want people slapping the name "Red Hat" on anything and selling Linux-ONE CDs labeled as Red Hat Linux, do we? Patents are debatable, because they give someone a 17-year lock on an idea, and lately they have been given to ideas that are so simple as to be stupid (File-manager dialog boxes, color management, 1-click shopping, associations, etc). People rant and rave on Slashdot about how bad they are when they are abused, and I'm sure some people would rather have them abolished than have them continue in their present situation. However if they were shortened, tightened up, and returned to their original intended-purposes, I don't think anyone (Except the people who are making phat stacks of cash on other people's ideas) will bitch nearly as much.
I tried to take that into consideration when I read the article, but after reading it, I think this could get ugly.
The modifications Sony made to POSE were made to support its scroll wheel and the Memory-Stick expansion modules, two technologies Sony has said they own and will not share. Do you really think they're going to release the source to a program that fully utilizes those devices? That effectively open those devices to the general public. I'm all for that, but I really don't think Sony (Or at least their legal team) will agree.
No, I would be genuinely surprised if they do anything other than pull the binary off their server. Either that or they'll just tell us to piss off until a lawyer decides to get involved.
There's a couple of things you can do, none of which are quite as easy as "apt-get dist-upgrade".
.iso files (seawolf-i386-disc[1|2].iso) and plop them in a directory, then when you reboot with the boot floppies in, when you tell them what directory the ISO imgs are in, they'll mount them and start the upgrade that way.
.iso images from a mirror (seawolf-i386-disc1.iso, seawolf-i386-disc2.iso, seawolf-i386-powertools.iso (optional)), burn them to CD and reboot the machine with disc 1 in the drive (If you can boot from the CD-ROM) or dump boot.img to a floppy disk (see dd above) and boot with that and the CD in.
1) You can download the entire RPMS directory from a RedHat mirror to a directory, then type "rpm -Fvh *.rpm" in that directory as root and wait while it searches and updates installed RPMs (-F means "freshen"). However that doesn't resolve dependencies, so you'll need to -Uvh some packages that don't have older versions installed. I've done this a time or two and it works reasonably well.
2) You can download the entire "RedHat" directory (includes RPMS directory and a couple others), then download the installer imgs (boot.img, net.img, pcmcia.img), dump them to a floppy (dd if=boot.img of=/dev/fd0), reboot with the floppy in, and go through the normal Upgrade option (Which will resolve dependencies). Also, with 7.1, they say you can grab the
3) Download the
4) Buy the box set which comes with all the CDs and boot floppy, follow the detailed instructions in the installation manual.
The two are no where nearly the same.
If you want to compare CueCat to anything, compare it to MSIE. It's free, as long as you use it the way they designed. The CC C&D letters were sent because people were using those devices for purposes other than the manufacturer intended.
With Eazel, Ximian, Red Hat, and the other Linux software companies, not only do you get a free, usable product, but you get the license to use it as YOU see fit, not how they decide it should be used. Want to hack a new feature into Nautilus, go for it (Ximian hackers are already doing this to make it play nicer with the existing GNOME components).
I can't believe you people, I really can't.
What if Linus had heard this crap 10 years ago when he decided he wanted to write his own OS? "You have no hope of ever succeeding. You'd be going up against two massive companies, Microsoft and Apple. Between the two of them they've got the OS world locked up tight!" Would we be here today? Would we have a website like Slashdot to bemoan the fact that we have choices and that everyone can do their own thing?
Bah! Fsck that!
An open game console has the same potential an open OS does. Linux made us (Those of us who aren't old enough to remember the good old/bad old days of UNIX on the mainframe in the '70's) realize that the world doesn't belong to huge mega corporations to carve up and dole out as they see fit.
An Open console has the potential to be anything. Hell with the right hardware, it can be a game machine, security system, sound system, mp3 player, dvd player (Though we'll probably have to fight The Man for those two), thin client... My imagination fails me.
For all those who see the potential, aim for the stars. For those who don't, have fun playing your Poke Mon, Mortal Kombat, and Mario Brothers retreads.
True. But all the GPL'd game code in the world isn't going to mean squat to your graphics and music anyway. Quake1 is GPL but their graphics and music aren't. Doom is freeeware, but their graphics and music are still copyrighted.
Open Source doesn't mean no one gets paid.
Personally I love CSpotRun. I've used it almost exclusively since I found it on PalmGear. However, I've got two little problems with it.
First, it has no bookmarking functionality. I'd love to be ableto mark my place in a book, then come back to it, or jump from chapter to chapter. I'd fix them if I could code Palm Apps (I'm studying the source slowly, but I'm doing so much right now that it's waaaaay on the back burner.
Second, it doesn't handle (or even strip) HTML from books. I realize this isn't Spot's problem, because Baen released all of their books in the MobiReader format (Which doesn't run on my lowly Palm Pilot Professional), but converting them and is a royal pain in my ass, and I'm afraid that a lot of other places are going to be doing the same.
Actually, if you'd actually paid attention, instead of immediately insisting that Indrema was a bad idea, you'd have seen the potential.
The Indrema box was going to be a sweet platform for people like us. An Intel 750, 64mb SDRAM, GForce 2/3, hard drive, DVD, Dolby sound, ethernet, USB... And running Linux?? This thing screamed to be hacked. I was planning on buying one even if I never played a game on it (Even though I own copies of the majority of released Linux titles).
I wanted to hook it to my network and and have it playing a monster XMMS playlist through my ground-shaking, pisses-off-the-neighbors home stereo system. I wanted to hack it to record TV broadcasts and SAVE THEM to my overgrown file server, instead of being forced to purge them periodically like I would have to on a Tivo. I wanted to watch DVDs, DivX movies on my TV. God it would have been sweet!
This has already been said in this article, but most people don't bother to read replies unless those replies are to comments they posted, so I'll say it again.
SDL was not started by Loki games. Sam Lantinga was working on SDL for over a year when he and Scott Draker founded the company with the other members of their team. Now SDL has prospered because of Loki's sponsorship, but it was not "developed by loki to simplify their own job."
Another word-of-mouth rumor-mongering Slashdot post.
Game programming is hard by nature. I have seen tons of programmers on the SDL mailing lists asking how to improve the performance of their games.
And Loki is not the only professional development house using it, but how many here have taken the time and energy to look into some of the lesser known Linux development houses? And how many of those houses (For those who did look) advertise that they use(d) SDL on any of their projects?
Not entirely true. Most of the Quake3 development was done by id Software, but after their Linux guru split to develop for the Dolphin/Game Cube (I forget his name) they turned control of the Linux port over to Loki, who has been maintaining it (Granted, with more involvement than they're used to from the original developer) ever since.
Unfortunately that's a driver problem, not an SDL problem. The manufacturers who make force-feedback devices haven't released any drivers, specs, or hints that would allow us as Linux users to experience force feedback. If they had, we'd have it already.