Nice analogy, but I'm quite a bit older than that. I personally don't subscribe to the idea that once something has become old and extended, it should be replaced. Some of the best inventions are old and still doing quite well, despite modifications: the lightbulb, the pencil, the internal combustion engine, the telephone.
I'm not saying we should replace X, unlike many of the other posts. I'm saying that if The Open Group has lost interest, we should pick up the torch and move forward. Most would agree that there is some major revamping to be done. But if The Open Group retains absolute authority, we'll just keep poking along.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
How old is X11R6 anyway? I've been using it as long I've been using UNIX and Linux. It's got to be at least 5 years old now. And development has gotten so slow that they are adding decimals: X11R6.1, X11R6.2,...
I just can't believe how slow The Open Group(tm) has been at making progress on anything!!! Look at Motif! How long did it take to go from Motif 1.0 to Motif 2.0? Ten years, maybe? COME ON!!! No wonder why people got fed up and wrote GTK+ and Qt! It's almost as if they've given up and don't care if MICROS~1 has 99.9% market share.
Can't we do something about it? Can we use the Linux momentum to take control of the standard? How about re-working X and calling it G-Windows (GNU-Windows), giving backward compatibility to X11R6?
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
The company will spin off its...Windows NT Visual workstation business...
All of this was stated in the press release yesterday. But how will SGI spin off the Visual Workstation running NT and keep the same system running Linux? It's the same computer, isn't it?
SGI announced a few weeks ago that the Visual Workstations would come with Linux pre-installed this fall (right now it's just "Linux ready"). But the press release from yesterday (as far as I recall) didn't mention Linux on this hardware. In fact, I thought they might have meant the entire Intel line of workstations would be spun off.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
I have RHAT set up in my E*TRADE "portfolio", and it hasn't started trading of course, but the % change column reads -0.01% and in green (meaning a gain). Looks like some bugs need to be worked out.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
you cannot be punished tomorrow for something that becomes illegal today that you did yesterday
That's right. It's called the "Grandfather Clause".
But maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Think about it: MS-DOS was reverse-engineered from CP/M. So, MICROS~1 would have been established upon an illegal act, which means all derivative products (like Windoze) would have to be pulled from the market, and they would owe Digital Research (who made CP/M) some 100 billion dollars.
It is rather odd that we see the banning of reverse engineering once large companies like MICROS~1 no longer have use for it, and at the time when open source projects are appearing on the scopes of these companies.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
Who is going to be prosecuted in an open source development effort?
Even if your program is given away, you can still be sued for taking business away from whatever company. This is the whole case the music publishers have against MP3: The people giving it away on the Net aren't making money, but they are causing the studio execs to lose it. But whether or not your actions are "illegal" depends on just how much of it is theft and how much is "reverse engineering".
It's pretty obvious how important reverse engineering is to the current state of technology. For example, what would the personal computer industry look like today if Compaq and others couldn't make PC clones? It would stifle competition. We would be running $10,000 IBM PCs with 386's and $12,000 Macs with little black and white screens.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
The problem isn't the publication or peer-review process. These are needed to help verify results and ensure the researcher performed the work in an ethical ("right") manner. They are both extremely valuable.
The problem is secrecy. And I don't mean secrecy to keep one from making a fool of himself. It is entirely a matter of "intellectual property". People protect their ideas for just long enough to ensure that they are given credit for it. Fame, fortune and human nature; that's what it is all about.
And I think one of the best (or worse) examples is the concealment of scientific discoveries by pharmaceutical companies. (Note that I come from the biological sciences. This issue may not be so well known in physics.) They deliberately hide information to protect their bottom line, and that's it. This should be unacceptable to the scientific community.
And yet another problem is the non-disclosure of all data relevant to the results after publication. This is done so that the researcher has first dibs on finding new leads. We should not stand for it.
I do realize that science is the inspiration for the free software movement, and I suppose there are many more negative things to say about the software community than the scientific community (at least from the point of view of a non-scientist). But that does not mean there are no problems to resolve.
Jeff
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
We all know that the open-source development model has been extended to several areas beyond computer programming. But have you heard of it being extended into the realm of scientific research?
"Bioinformatics" is branch of biology that is completely computer-based, and typically involves the analysis of data stored in public databases on the Internet. This is my field of study.
As you may know, scientists in all areas tend to work secretively on projects for many years before publication, often limiting access to discoveries and innovations to those who work in the very same room! And that is something that has always bothered me about science. It seems we are to share our ideas with humanity (which we often do, if and when we publish in a refereed journal), yet the priority is really to protect one's self from being "scooped". It appears to me that we (scientists) care more about getting credit for the discovery than the discovery itself. Does this remind anyone of the mindset of the proprietary software developer?
A thought I had was that bioinformatics, being computer-based research, may present an opportunity to make an "open laboratory" or "collaboratory". Following the model for open-source software development, an open lab would place on the Internet all of the work in progress for a particular research subject (analyses and/or new techniques). Communication between collaborators, which would include anyone who comes along and decides it is an interesting project, can take place via mailing lists, and so on.
The only worry, even still for me, is that someone can come along and swipe the whole project and take credit for it. But of course anyone who gives away software code would have the same concern. It really comes down to human nature: Just how much are we willing to share with others, at the risk that someone may take it all away?
But I think even temporary measures to prevent yourself from being scooped are restrictive and contrary to the scientific ideal. Why? Because these measures very much squelch free thought and exploration, what science is supposed to be all about.
The one thing I particularly enjoy about free software development is the ability to brainstorm with anyone anywhere over a new project, without fear of idea-theft. To me free software is not just about seeing the code or downloading free binaries--something even a closed organization can accommodate. What I like about GNU- or Linux-style development is the open exchange of ideas--the "bazaar" model Eric Raymond refers to.
My whole point is that it's something VERY MUCH MISSING in all research projects prior to publication--when the scientist feels there is nothing to lose and nothing left to be gained. I just want to see that change.
So I started The Open Lab, or "The Open Collaboratory of Molecular Bioinformatics," a non-profit organization established to promote open collaborations for research and free software development in the field of molecular bioinformatics.
The Lab supports Internet-based collaborations that will advance knowledge in this scientific field. This means not only GNU-licensed software development but pre-publication research projects that are completely open for the public to view and contribute to.
Jeff
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
You can add GNU to almost anything. A little cuter anyway.
If what counts is who contributed the most, well that'd be the FSF, as the biggest _single_ contributer. But RMS isn't saying it should be named after the FSF. People use the GNU GPL as a contribution to the GNU OS (they could have just made their own). And the GNU GPL exists for the _GNU_ operating system. It has always been about the GNU OS.
If what counts is who contributed most, it certainly isn't Linus. Tom's little list tells is that. But the general public sure gets that impression by the name Linux.
If RMS were just egotistical, he would want it called RichX or RMSOS. I really don't see any part of his name in GNU, do you? But Linus has his name on 99% of what he did not write.
And what does BSD have to do with this anyway? Hey, did everyone who contributed to FreeBSD work for BSD or UC Berkeley? It's still called BSD.
Tom's logic is a little hard to follow.
I agree that the FSF has been selective about what is part of the GNU OS. And maybe they regret not jumping on the Linux kernel and waiting for HURD. I would regret it too.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm not saying we should replace X, unlike many of the other posts. I'm saying that if The Open Group has lost interest, we should pick up the torch and move forward. Most would agree that there is some major revamping to be done. But if The Open Group retains absolute authority, we'll just keep poking along.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
How old is X11R6 anyway? I've been using it as long I've been using UNIX and Linux. It's got to be at least 5 years old now. And development has gotten so slow that they are adding decimals: X11R6.1, X11R6.2, ...
I just can't believe how slow The Open Group(tm) has been at making progress on anything!!! Look at Motif! How long did it take to go from Motif 1.0 to Motif 2.0? Ten years, maybe? COME ON!!! No wonder why people got fed up and wrote GTK+ and Qt! It's almost as if they've given up and don't care if MICROS~1 has 99.9% market share.
Can't we do something about it? Can we use the Linux momentum to take control of the standard? How about re-working X and calling it G-Windows (GNU-Windows), giving backward compatibility to X11R6?
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
All of this was stated in the press release yesterday. But how will SGI spin off the Visual Workstation running NT and keep the same system running Linux? It's the same computer, isn't it?
SGI announced a few weeks ago that the Visual Workstations would come with Linux pre-installed this fall (right now it's just "Linux ready"). But the press release from yesterday (as far as I recall) didn't mention Linux on this hardware. In fact, I thought they might have meant the entire Intel line of workstations would be spun off.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
I have RHAT set up in my E*TRADE "portfolio", and it hasn't started trading of course, but the % change column reads -0.01% and in green (meaning a gain). Looks like some bugs need to be worked out.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
That's right. It's called the "Grandfather Clause".
But maybe that wouldn't be so bad. Think about it: MS-DOS was reverse-engineered from CP/M. So, MICROS~1 would have been established upon an illegal act, which means all derivative products (like Windoze) would have to be pulled from the market, and they would owe Digital Research (who made CP/M) some 100 billion dollars.
It is rather odd that we see the banning of reverse engineering once large companies like MICROS~1 no longer have use for it, and at the time when open source projects are appearing on the scopes of these companies.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
Even if your program is given away, you can still be sued for taking business away from whatever company. This is the whole case the music publishers have against MP3: The people giving it away on the Net aren't making money, but they are causing the studio execs to lose it. But whether or not your actions are "illegal" depends on just how much of it is theft and how much is "reverse engineering".
It's pretty obvious how important reverse engineering is to the current state of technology. For example, what would the personal computer industry look like today if Compaq and others couldn't make PC clones? It would stifle competition. We would be running $10,000 IBM PCs with 386's and $12,000 Macs with little black and white screens.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
The problem is secrecy. And I don't mean secrecy to keep one from making a fool of himself. It is entirely a matter of "intellectual property". People protect their ideas for just long enough to ensure that they are given credit for it. Fame, fortune and human nature; that's what it is all about.
And I think one of the best (or worse) examples is the concealment of scientific discoveries by pharmaceutical companies. (Note that I come from the biological sciences. This issue may not be so well known in physics.) They deliberately hide information to protect their bottom line, and that's it. This should be unacceptable to the scientific community.
And yet another problem is the non-disclosure of all data relevant to the results after publication. This is done so that the researcher has first dibs on finding new leads. We should not stand for it.
I do realize that science is the inspiration for the free software movement, and I suppose there are many more negative things to say about the software community than the scientific community (at least from the point of view of a non-scientist). But that does not mean there are no problems to resolve.
Jeff
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
"Bioinformatics" is branch of biology that is completely computer-based, and typically involves the analysis of data stored in public databases on the Internet. This is my field of study.
As you may know, scientists in all areas tend to work secretively on projects for many years before publication, often limiting access to discoveries and innovations to those who work in the very same room! And that is something that has always bothered me about science. It seems we are to share our ideas with humanity (which we often do, if and when we publish in a refereed journal), yet the priority is really to protect one's self from being "scooped". It appears to me that we (scientists) care more about getting credit for the discovery than the discovery itself. Does this remind anyone of the mindset of the proprietary software developer?
A thought I had was that bioinformatics, being computer-based research, may present an opportunity to make an "open laboratory" or "collaboratory". Following the model for open-source software development, an open lab would place on the Internet all of the work in progress for a particular research subject (analyses and/or new techniques). Communication between collaborators, which would include anyone who comes along and decides it is an interesting project, can take place via mailing lists, and so on.
The only worry, even still for me, is that someone can come along and swipe the whole project and take credit for it. But of course anyone who gives away software code would have the same concern. It really comes down to human nature: Just how much are we willing to share with others, at the risk that someone may take it all away?
But I think even temporary measures to prevent yourself from being scooped are restrictive and contrary to the scientific ideal. Why? Because these measures very much squelch free thought and exploration, what science is supposed to be all about.
The one thing I particularly enjoy about free software development is the ability to brainstorm with anyone anywhere over a new project, without fear of idea-theft. To me free software is not just about seeing the code or downloading free binaries--something even a closed organization can accommodate. What I like about GNU- or Linux-style development is the open exchange of ideas--the "bazaar" model Eric Raymond refers to.
My whole point is that it's something VERY MUCH MISSING in all research projects prior to publication--when the scientist feels there is nothing to lose and nothing left to be gained. I just want to see that change.
So I started The Open Lab, or "The Open Collaboratory of Molecular Bioinformatics," a non-profit organization established to promote open collaborations for research and free software development in the field of molecular bioinformatics.
The Lab supports Internet-based collaborations that will advance knowledge in this scientific field. This means not only GNU-licensed software development but pre-publication research projects that are completely open for the public to view and contribute to.Jeff
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
It's pretty irrelevant now since it runs on more than the x86 architecture.
How about "FreedX" ?
Just my stupid opinion.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
10's of millions of users
Main-stream media coverage
It's too late now.
But I do like GNUX and GNURD!
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
GNU/HURD == GNURD "g-nerd"
You can add GNU to almost anything. A little cuter anyway.
If what counts is who contributed the most, well that'd be the FSF, as the biggest _single_ contributer. But RMS isn't saying it should be named after the FSF. People use the GNU GPL as a contribution to the GNU OS (they could have just made their own). And the GNU GPL exists for the _GNU_ operating system. It has always been about the GNU OS.
If what counts is who contributed most, it certainly isn't Linus. Tom's little list tells is that. But the general public sure gets that impression by the name Linux.
If RMS were just egotistical, he would want it called RichX or RMSOS. I really don't see any part of his name in GNU, do you? But Linus has his name on 99% of what he did not write.
And what does BSD have to do with this anyway? Hey, did everyone who contributed to FreeBSD work for BSD or UC Berkeley? It's still called BSD.
Tom's logic is a little hard to follow.
I agree that the FSF has been selective about what is part of the GNU OS. And maybe they regret not jumping on the Linux kernel and waiting for HURD. I would regret it too.
This sort of thing has cropped up before. And it has always been due to human error.
The article doesn't name the 50-150? universities to be connected. Does anyone have a link to a list?
The article last week was removed because I exposed the Intel conspiracy to destroy the Alpha.
;-)
Just pretend this is your first time reading this, and nobody gets hurt