* Expensive (very expensive. more than you can imagine)
* Sloooow. Original minitel was 300/1200 bauds. Sloowiness of the minitel is part of the business model, as France Telecom and the information provider is paid depending on the amount of time the poor asshole stay connected.
* Proprietary. On internet, anyone can publish information. On the minitel, everything is controlled by France Telecom (which by the way have _no_ liability on what content is on the minitel. Typical french doublespeak: mygale.org have been closed because a member put nude picture of Estelle Halliday on line, but FT is not liable for anything that goes thought the minitel).
* Ugly. Text mode with more than ugly graphics. And ugly to code for.
* Non upward compatible (FT own service '11' doesn't work anymore with minitel 1)
* A racket system. A lot of things can only be made via the minitel service in france. An easy way to get fast bucks for anyone that have captive customers, or any sort of monopoly.
The only real service provided by minitel is called 'minitel rose', and is basically pr0n related services. This earn an awful amount of money to France Telecom (even when FT was a _public_ company).
Do you beleive that large scale virtualisation could be possible, like emulating 100 linux hosts on a big SMP box, getting the kind of virtualisation that the Mainframe guys enjoys ?
Cheers,
--fred
(And yes, we could have a beowulf on a single host)
First, congrats for the fantastic work already done.
I would love to run OPENSTEP on plex86. Unfortunately, it doesn't even run under booch (but this was not such a problem, as an OPENSTEP running under boochs would be next to unusable).
* When would plex86 be up to the point where I can try to boot OPENSTEP ?
* How can you, or other plex developers, help me having OPENSTEP running on plex88, beside the fact that OPENSTEP is a proprietary OS with costly licenses not avalaible any more ?
* Do you want me to send you a couple of original OPENSTEP CDs ? Would it helps ? Is it legal ?
In a more general way, do you plan to run a few OSes with great support (by having special plex drivers for them etc, etc) or do you plan to have plex emulate standard hardware to run the most possible different OSes ?
Cheers,
--fred
Re:Ancient games should not be copyright released
on
Warez and Abandonware
·
· Score: 1
Oh, man. Thanks for the good laugh. The fact that none of the bots that replied got it make it even funnier.
"It's just that games of the same name would not be released"
"It gives the develepors a tradition to uphold and may even improve quality."
(The 'may even' is just great)
This one made my day. KTB in the defense of lame sequels.
> Not to mention of course that if you are not using an obsolete version of Windows, changing IP addresses and adding protocols do not require a reboot
What is your definition of obsolete ?
Got a HP PIII 600 delivered here 1 month ago (to configure for a bank). The beast came with 2 preinstalled OS (that you could choose between at first boot).
The choices were:
1/ Windows 95 (First edition)
2/ Windows 3.11 for worksgroup
Talk about obsolescence. I am still rotfl. About no-one is using your latest w2k OS in the real world.
> Actually, Jeff Merkey [...] apparently is also a lawyer
This explains that. (For more information, check some of the Jeff posts on the kernel list. In my book, this guy is very very close beeing an asshole).
> At least with Direct3D, there's a clear direction that is shown, someone (MS) says what's right or not and drivers are written accordingly
Having followed the Direct3D vs OpenGL controversy very closely three years ago, this is the precise point where the philosophical difference is.
M$ is (or at least was) about clueless when design new features for Direct3D (For instance, in the first versions of Direct3D, they specified what the vertex format was, and that definition sucked fantastically). M$ have a vested interest in what features are or are not avalaible in Direct3D releases (hey, they will sell X-Box hardware), so reliying on them to make specs, is amusing, to say the least.
> and everyone has a chance to write a game that use the latest hardware capabilities (which are cool:)
Unless you needed Stencil buffers in Direct3D 6, of instance. Lastly, Direct3D uses a fundamentally broken Capability interface that basically prevent usefull software fallback...
I agreed (more or less) with your post, until I found:
> Which X11 is doing very poorly (still relying on the good old OpenGL,
For a start, X11 have no dependency on OpenGL. Those are totally different beast. Nowadays, 3D acceleration is done via OpenGL extensions in the X11 server. Maybe you were specifcally talking about Direct3D when saying DirectX, but in that case, you are making a pure Direct3D vs OpenGL comparison, and X11 have nothing to do with that.
> which doesn't evolve much either)
Direct3D sucked badly for years. The 'evolutions' of Direct3D were desesperate tentatives to play catch-up with OpenGL. OpenGL have no real need to evolve, as it have a very open extension method ('ext') that enable developers to add features in hardware and release drivers with extended functionality. Such a functionality become standard only when proved usefull.
Direct3D is much more marketing-driven, with a lot of successsive releases containing hyped funtionality that are barely usable. From my experience, Direct3D is (it was 2 years ago, so maybe was is more appropriate) a pain to develop with.
OpenGL is much more mature. It does not _need_ to evolve.
> I believe that all of those features have existed in Windows 95
I beleive that you are clueless. There is no way to forget that you are working with individual applications in windows, because:
* many apps are still MDI (Photoshop or Excel, for instance)
* when an application works, there is no way to move its window around.
* when an app puts a modal dialog (like an open-file dialog), the system become unusable (because you can't move windows around).
Oh, boy, you are so wrong, that it is not even funny.
I hate skins. I like simple, well conceived user interfaces. And I am not alone. Unfortunately, this is not the ideal of the everyone. There are people that like those ugly cool desktops (with Jennifer Lopez as a background image, Enlightment with a StartTrek look, and translucent terminals)
Even latest apple OS sacrified usability to coolness factor [For instance, scollbars don't hilite when you click on them, or transparency of window title bar make non-focused windows more wisible (on the default background) than the focused one]
At least, skinnability works in both ways. If all the ugly coolness is made via a skin system, then it is possible to download a skin that don't sucks [ModernGray, in the Mozilla case]
Sure, it would be (IMHO) better to have a hard-coded usable default GUI first, but at least we are not locked in a hard-coded unusable default GUI...
</rant>
> You paid money for the Sherlock software, not for the search engine service.
Re-read the post. You'll find:
"and yes, I know the reason behind the ads in Sherlock, but I don't care. A vendor should never push ads on my desktop"
When you boot you Mac, it connects to apple.com ntp servers to sync the clock (you were aware of that, sure ?). You could argue that I paid for the OS, but not for the NTP service, hence apple could replace the boot screen by an ad.
Accepting to use an-ad rigged Sherlock is a very sloppy road.
Forgot that some people use free software as in free-as-beer. Free == Freedom, for me. In the case of IE, it is probably Free like Free Tibet, as someone have in its signature.
> This is Opera we're talking about here. They simply don't do that!
Sorry. I haven't been clear enough. I was definitely _not_ supposing that they are playing such nasty tricks.
The original comment I was replying to was "Opera does not force you to enter details about you: It runs by default with exactly NO information about yourself". This is simple-minded to suppose that software that runs on you computer can be trusted _only_ because you didn't fill private information.
You have to either trust the software vendor, trust a third-party that audited the code, or use a product whose source code is avalaible and got good peer review. In Opera case, the software vendor reputation stand for itself.
> all kind of ad sucks, but it all boils down to this simple truth, will you pay for the software if you liked it? if you would, you can get it without ads in other words, quit whining.
Bzzt. Learn to read. I paid for this software. I have no problem about ads in software I don't pay for (as I will pay for the ad-free version). But there exist no version of sherlock without ads. I was complaining about the idea of pushing ads in software you paid for. In that case the Mac OS operating system.
> So, do you really call some random ads, generated with exactly NO information about you "giving up privacy"? That is really a bit far fetched.
He knows the ad business better than us.:-) After all those funnny little gifs on top op slashdot are ads, aren't they ?
Btw, why do you beleive that you have to enter information for a software to know about you ? Even without reading/etc/passwd or the windows regitry, they can very easily generate an unique ID and track you with this. Then, when you'll buy something from one of their advertisers (giving personal info in the progress), they can fill thir database. I don't pretend that they do that (now). But this is technologically easy.
> Try running it on something like a Pentium 200. Its painful. At best
I see what you mean. I run it on a P90 laptop. (Okay, it is slow as hell, but I really use it. Good enought for slooow suuurfiiing and in-bed reading)
Mozilla is slow on every platform. On a K7/600 I find it slow. There is no computer in the know universe where Mozilla (Slozilla ?) is snappy.
Anyone running mozilla on a daily basis on something slower than a P90 laptop ?
> shit like Mozilla
I disagree. It is slow, but it _works_. Mozilla fullfills most of its design goals. It is already free software, standard compliant, multi-platform. Not that bad for an not-yet-released browser (I wouldn't trade any of the 3 preceeding item for even a 10x increase in speed).
I dislike adware. But, if they want support Opera this way, then more power to them. I wouldn't use it.
The worst ad-ware I ever been in contact with is the Mac OS. Sherlock for instance. I paid real money for this OS (well, I paid money for the developer membership), and they have the balls to try to send ads to my desktop. Launched Sherlock once, and never have launched it again (and yes, I know the reason behind the ads in Sherlock, but I don't care. A vendor should never push ads on my desktop)
The is also the kind of not-so-gentle-reminder at startup that pisses me, like the Quicktime-4 "Upgrade" panel, or the Stuffit one. And often default installs tries to promote other products. This is equally true in Windows.
What is strange is that free software is not totally immune to this (see the 3Com nic two line credits that contains a ad/promo9tion each time you boot). But at least, I can remove those if I want.
I sincerly fear what my desktop will look like in 5 or 10 years. You can't get usefull info out of the web without ads (which you can hopefully block). Even google started to track links.
You can't find anyone more convinced than me. I am on the same development since 1994, and I written most parts myself.
Managing complexity is the key. Complexity in design, complexity in implementation, complexity in debugging, complexity in testing, complexity in documentation, complexity in maintenance, complexity in evolution.
The scarsiest resource is the development time. No way to do a baby in one month by using 9 women. Hardware is cheap. Complexity use time. Complexity is time.
When I look back at that huge project, I can see that Donald Knuth (I think the sentence is from him) was right. "Premature Optimisation is the Root of al Evils". Writing 1000 lines of code one day is of no use if you have to dig it a couple of years later.
Slashdot Mirror
Minitel is:
* Expensive (very expensive. more than you can imagine)
* Sloooow. Original minitel was 300/1200 bauds. Sloowiness of the minitel is part of the business model, as France Telecom and the information provider is paid depending on the amount of time the poor asshole stay connected.
* Proprietary. On internet, anyone can publish information. On the minitel, everything is controlled by France Telecom (which by the way have _no_ liability on what content is on the minitel. Typical french doublespeak: mygale.org have been closed because a member put nude picture of Estelle Halliday on line, but FT is not liable for anything that goes thought the minitel).
* Ugly. Text mode with more than ugly graphics. And ugly to code for.
* Non upward compatible (FT own service '11' doesn't work anymore with minitel 1)
* A racket system. A lot of things can only be made via the minitel service in france. An easy way to get fast bucks for anyone that have captive customers, or any sort of monopoly.
The only real service provided by minitel is called 'minitel rose', and is basically pr0n related services. This earn an awful amount of money to France Telecom (even when FT was a _public_ company).
Cheers,
--fred
Do you beleive that large scale virtualisation could be possible, like emulating 100 linux hosts on a big SMP box, getting the kind of virtualisation that the Mainframe guys enjoys ?
Cheers,
--fred
(And yes, we could have a beowulf on a single host)
First, congrats for the fantastic work already done.
I would love to run OPENSTEP on plex86. Unfortunately, it doesn't even run under booch (but this was not such a problem, as an OPENSTEP running under boochs would be next to unusable).
* When would plex86 be up to the point where I can try to boot OPENSTEP ?
* How can you, or other plex developers, help me having OPENSTEP running on plex88, beside the fact that OPENSTEP is a proprietary OS with costly licenses not avalaible any more ?
* Do you want me to send you a couple of original OPENSTEP CDs ? Would it helps ? Is it legal ?
In a more general way, do you plan to run a few OSes with great support (by having special plex drivers for them etc, etc) or do you plan to have plex emulate standard hardware to run the most possible different OSes ?
Cheers,
--fred
Oh, man. Thanks for the good laugh. The fact that none of the bots that replied got it make it even funnier.
"It's just that games of the same name would not be released"
"It gives the develepors a tradition to uphold and may even improve quality."
(The 'may even' is just great)
This one made my day. KTB in the defense of lame sequels.
Cheers,
--fred
> -- I use Macs for work, Linux for education, and Windows for cardplaying.
Then, in your user bio you claim that you use w98 at work.
Mmmm.
Cheers,
--fred
> Not to mention of course that if you are not using an obsolete version of Windows, changing IP addresses and adding protocols do not require a reboot
What is your definition of obsolete ?
Got a HP PIII 600 delivered here 1 month ago (to configure for a bank). The beast came with 2 preinstalled OS (that you could choose between at first boot).
The choices were:
1/ Windows 95 (First edition)
2/ Windows 3.11 for worksgroup
Talk about obsolescence. I am still rotfl. About no-one is using your latest w2k OS in the real world.
Cheers,
--fred
> This modification shows the business community that Redhat is only developing more toys for their toy operating system
Yep. They should be busy integrating the GDI in the kernel, like any mature OS does.
Come on, tI am sure that there are better ways to troll this story.
Cheers,
--fred
> Actually, Jeff Merkey [...] apparently is also a lawyer
This explains that. (For more information, check some of the Jeff posts on the kernel list. In my book, this guy is very very close beeing an asshole).
Cheers,
--fred
> At least with Direct3D, there's a clear direction that is shown, someone (MS) says what's right or not and drivers are written accordingly
:)
Having followed the Direct3D vs OpenGL controversy very closely three years ago, this is the precise point where the philosophical difference is.
M$ is (or at least was) about clueless when design new features for Direct3D (For instance, in the first versions of Direct3D, they specified what the vertex format was, and that definition sucked fantastically). M$ have a vested interest in what features are or are not avalaible in Direct3D releases (hey, they will sell X-Box hardware), so reliying on them to make specs, is amusing, to say the least.
> and everyone has a chance to write a game that use the latest hardware capabilities (which are cool
Unless you needed Stencil buffers in Direct3D 6, of instance. Lastly, Direct3D uses a fundamentally broken Capability interface that basically prevent usefull software fallback...
Cheers,
--fred
I agreed (more or less) with your post, until I found:
> Which X11 is doing very poorly (still relying on the good old OpenGL,
For a start, X11 have no dependency on OpenGL. Those are totally different beast. Nowadays, 3D acceleration is done via OpenGL extensions in the X11 server. Maybe you were specifcally talking about Direct3D when saying DirectX, but in that case, you are making a pure Direct3D vs OpenGL comparison, and X11 have nothing to do with that.
> which doesn't evolve much either)
Direct3D sucked badly for years. The 'evolutions' of Direct3D were desesperate tentatives to play catch-up with OpenGL. OpenGL have no real need to evolve, as it have a very open extension method ('ext') that enable developers to add features in hardware and release drivers with extended functionality. Such a functionality become standard only when proved usefull.
Direct3D is much more marketing-driven, with a lot of successsive releases containing hyped funtionality that are barely usable. From my experience, Direct3D is (it was 2 years ago, so maybe was is more appropriate) a pain to develop with.
OpenGL is much more mature. It does not _need_ to evolve.
Cheers,
--fred
> I believe that all of those features have existed in Windows 95
I beleive that you are clueless. There is no way to forget that you are working with individual applications in windows, because:
* many apps are still MDI (Photoshop or Excel, for instance)
* when an application works, there is no way to move its window around.
* when an app puts a modal dialog (like an open-file dialog), the system become unusable (because you can't move windows around).
Oh, boy, you are so wrong, that it is not even funny.
Cheers,
--fred
I hate skins. I like simple, well conceived user interfaces. And I am not alone. Unfortunately, this is not the ideal of the everyone. There are people that like those ugly cool desktops (with Jennifer Lopez as a background image, Enlightment with a StartTrek look, and translucent terminals)
Even latest apple OS sacrified usability to coolness factor [For instance, scollbars don't hilite when you click on them, or transparency of window title bar make non-focused windows more wisible (on the default background) than the focused one]
At least, skinnability works in both ways. If all the ugly coolness is made via a skin system, then it is possible to download a skin that don't sucks [ModernGray, in the Mozilla case]
Sure, it would be (IMHO) better to have a hard-coded usable default GUI first, but at least we are not locked in a hard-coded unusable default GUI...
</rant>
Cheers,
--fred
> You paid money for the Sherlock software, not for the search engine service.
Re-read the post. You'll find:
"and yes, I know the reason behind the ads in Sherlock, but I don't care. A vendor should never push ads on my desktop"
When you boot you Mac, it connects to apple.com ntp servers to sync the clock (you were aware of that, sure ?). You could argue that I paid for the OS, but not for the NTP service, hence apple could replace the boot screen by an ad.
Accepting to use an-ad rigged Sherlock is a very sloppy road.
Cheers,
--fred
> Why wasn't this on the front page?
Don't know. There are a lot of BSD article that don't make the front page.
I always wondered why. Someone pretended it was a bug, but I seriously doubt it.
Cheers,
--fred
> IE /is/ free, if vehemently closed-source.
Forgot that some people use free software as in free-as-beer. Free == Freedom, for me. In the case of IE, it is probably Free like Free Tibet, as someone have in its signature.
Cheers,
--fred
> This is Opera we're talking about here. They simply don't do that!
Sorry. I haven't been clear enough. I was definitely _not_ supposing that they are playing such nasty tricks.
The original comment I was replying to was "Opera does not force you to enter details about you: It runs by default with exactly NO information about yourself". This is simple-minded to suppose that software that runs on you computer can be trusted _only_ because you didn't fill private information.
You have to either trust the software vendor, trust a third-party that audited the code, or use a product whose source code is avalaible and got good peer review. In Opera case, the software vendor reputation stand for itself.
Cheers,
--fred
> all kind of ad sucks, but it all boils down to this simple truth, will you pay for the software if you liked it? if you would, you can get it without ads in other words, quit whining.
Bzzt. Learn to read. I paid for this software. I have no problem about ads in software I don't pay for (as I will pay for the ad-free version). But there exist no version of sherlock without ads. I was complaining about the idea of pushing ads in software you paid for. In that case the Mac OS operating system.
Cheers,
--fred
Lol. You made my day.
Cheers,
--fred
> Is there any quicker way to get modded up than to start off a post with,
> "I'm probably going to get modded down for this, but.... [insert righteous-sounding, semi-controversial statement here]"
Yes. Using "at the risk of being moderated down..." as the _title_.
> At the risk of being moderated down ...
This is an old old trick to be moderated up. Let's see what is _really_ in your post.
> by mozilla utopians
So you talk about free software. Why are you throwing IE in your example then ?
> It's less bloated than Mozilla
Right.
> It's faster than Mozilla
Right.
> It believes in things called standards
Hard to say that Mozilla don't beleive in standard. Very hard.
Hence your argument boils down to: "I prefer Opera because it is faster and less bloated than Mozilla".
I don't see why you would be moderated down for this. I don't see why you get a 4:Insightful either...
Cheers,
--fred
> So, do you really call some random ads, generated with exactly NO information about you "giving up privacy"? That is really a bit far fetched.
:-) After all those funnny little gifs on top op slashdot are ads, aren't they ?
/etc/passwd or the windows regitry, they can very easily generate an unique ID and track you with this. Then, when you'll buy something from one of their advertisers (giving personal info in the progress), they can fill thir database. I don't pretend that they do that (now). But this is technologically easy.
He knows the ad business better than us.
Btw, why do you beleive that you have to enter information for a software to know about you ? Even without reading
Cheers,
--fred
> Try running it on something like a Pentium 200. Its painful. At best
I see what you mean. I run it on a P90 laptop. (Okay, it is slow as hell, but I really use it. Good enought for slooow suuurfiiing and in-bed reading)
Mozilla is slow on every platform. On a K7/600 I find it slow. There is no computer in the know universe where Mozilla (Slozilla ?) is snappy.
Anyone running mozilla on a daily basis on something slower than a P90 laptop ?
> shit like Mozilla
I disagree. It is slow, but it _works_. Mozilla fullfills most of its design goals. It is already free software, standard compliant, multi-platform. Not that bad for an not-yet-released browser (I wouldn't trade any of the 3 preceeding item for even a 10x increase in speed).
Cheers,
--fred
I dislike adware. But, if they want support Opera this way, then more power to them. I wouldn't use it.
The worst ad-ware I ever been in contact with is the Mac OS. Sherlock for instance. I paid real money for this OS (well, I paid money for the developer membership), and they have the balls to try to send ads to my desktop. Launched Sherlock once, and never have launched it again (and yes, I know the reason behind the ads in Sherlock, but I don't care. A vendor should never push ads on my desktop)
The is also the kind of not-so-gentle-reminder at startup that pisses me, like the Quicktime-4 "Upgrade" panel, or the Stuffit one. And often default installs tries to promote other products. This is equally true in Windows.
What is strange is that free software is not totally immune to this (see the 3Com nic two line credits that contains a ad/promo9tion each time you boot). But at least, I can remove those if I want.
I sincerly fear what my desktop will look like in 5 or 10 years. You can't get usefull info out of the web without ads (which you can hopefully block). Even google started to track links.
Cheers,
--fred
> Mozilla is a prime candidate for this
Thanks. Please point me to native mozilla for Mac OS X Server. Thanks you very much.
> It's not slashcode, it's you. Now SHUT UP!
It is slashcode that don't make the text boxes wide enough, making impossible to input long urls with most of the browsers out there.
Cheers,
--fred
You can't find anyone more convinced than me. I am on the same development since 1994, and I written most parts myself.
Managing complexity is the key. Complexity in design, complexity in implementation, complexity in debugging, complexity in testing, complexity in documentation, complexity in maintenance, complexity in evolution.
The scarsiest resource is the development time. No way to do a baby in one month by using 9 women. Hardware is cheap. Complexity use time. Complexity is time.
When I look back at that huge project, I can see that Donald Knuth (I think the sentence is from him) was right. "Premature Optimisation is the Root of al Evils". Writing 1000 lines of code one day is of no use if you have to dig it a couple of years later.
Cheers,
--fred