Seriously, the Wine and Cygwin teams need to cooperate much much more. Both share a very important interface: the Win32 API. Since Cygwin uses it and Wine "makes" it, I see great potential for cross-project development here.
This would be analogous to bochs running bochs. Actually, it would be really funny if they optimized the heck out of it, so that running Cygwin/XFree86 is faster on Wine than Windows...
Palladium is a good idea, but not for desktop use. End-users are treated like criminals or people operating under secrecy.
Palladium is more about (1) hardware enforced signing and (2) code verification.
I'm all for signing and code verification. I check my package signatures with GPG before I install them and I MD5 all my.isos before I burn them. I use HTTPS (where the certificates get handed down via Verisign or some other root server).
The problem lies with the fact that interoperability between Palladium and other systems is only guaranteed if you get a signature from a Microsoft-sponsored system. Guess which source is going to be trusted, no matter what? You're kidding yourself if Microsoft will allow you to "distrust" binaries or media coming from www.microsoft.com.
This is the exact argument for DeCSS. You may be perfectly happy to own DVDs that can only be played on the "Enhanced Windows" system that Microsoft offers, but cannot be decrypted, EVER, on any other OS. Including Macs. (Depending on how much money they pay Microsoft for the right to play your media.
They are going to release the source, which is odd in itself. It leads me to believe in general that MS may being a rather okay-ish thing.
Releasing the source is not a sign of goodwill here. Since Microsoft already has the patent (look at point #7) on the core idea of Palladium it would mean diddly squat to the GPL community.
My conclusion: Look at smart cards. They offer the same feature set. The only difference is that I'm gladly willing to give up the right to run software on the processor on the card in order to make things like bank transactions possible. The question is, are you willing to give up the right to run any software on your computer not expressly signed by MS, just so you can watch your favourite DVD on your PC?
1) A standard hardware acceleration layer for 2D and 3D cards, something we can ask the NVidia people to add to their drivers and code equivalents for other cards. 2) Wine intergration. Routing Win32 messages through the kernel would be kinda nice. 3) Java acceleration. Hooks for some standard Java functions: this would help a lot in some specific embedded situations. 4) ACL support for ports and stuff (like the security patches). 5) A standard "driver package" format containing the kernel module, user-mode tools and installation instructions for binary only (yecc) drivers. (One driver fits all distros!)
I've been working with Linux-based systems since '97 and I have to say, it's just getting better and better. I'm sure a lot of the above is would actually not be good in most kernels, but since one of Linux's strong points is scalability, I'd really like to see Linux take on the desktop, handheld and server market!
The article also talks in some detail about the massive (though partially expected) losses that the XBox is costing Microsoft.
...go buy them XBoxen and bankrupt M$!
I think all companies with a large enough income should have something like this: a voucher you can buy for $100 that will fine the company $200 (only one per person per company allowed per year). This would be the ultimate in consumer feedback: if you suck so much that people would want to pay money to see you lose money, you have to take the hint.
Well, I think there's a system like that already. It's called lawyers and taxpayer's money... Except in my system the government gets the money, not the lawyers...
It's not farfetched to think that some idiot in the wake of 9/11 might push a law making it illegal to wear them. Oh yeah, only after the law's been passed will things like this come to light...
Just think, a DMCA for identity-circumvention devices. No more anonymity, because, it's good for you!
Reasons why it might be useful to have a hardware MPEG-4 decoder: 1) Latency, latency, latency... You wouldn't want to miss 1 second of Baywatch just because you are compiling now, would you? 2) Embeddable solution... Look ma, no X! Just slap one of these puppies in and you can run your fav OS with high-quality TV out... assuming someone doesn't try to prevent drivers from being written for it... 3) Encoding possibility... Heck, if hardware decoders exist, hardware encoders can be built too! I just hope they wouldn't be too expensive. 4) Hiiiiiigh load... I can just see some bragging in the future: "Hey, I can play a DVD and write a CD and rip a CD and record a TV program all at once!" 5) The future... People, realise this, in a couple of years your PC architecture is going to be a CPU that delegates tasks to the dedicated sub-CPUs. Look at the 3D card industry if you want an example.
Things that might not be cool: 1) I don't need one! Nobody's going to buy this one because they can already play the stuff!. 2) Too expensive! $99 is a sizable chunk of salary where I come from. (Don't ask). I'd rather save that to invest in my next PC. 3) Not enough features! Bundled with VGA output for dual-screen, this would have been very, very useful. Bundled with TV capture, this would have been a shoe-in. Bundled with an encoder it would have been... glorious!
I'm not going to buy one. If they bring out an encoder, I will buy one!
Since a remote exploit already exists, shouldn't they detail the severity on their front page?
Nothing against the OpenBSD team... I believe they do excellent work, but heck, people, PLEASE patch up those systems! It's only a matter of days before someone is going to drop a new worm! This is horribly serious!
1. Ugly fonts 2. Can't read ALL the Word documents 3. Still a bit sluggish
Three! I mean three major gripes!
Seriously, font ugliness is a big problem under linux and it's all X's fault. You've seen the hundreds of people gawking at anti-aliased desktops, it just looks cooler.
I believe there are many articles on exactly why fonts are ugly in linux... I also believe that the lack of cool, MS-compatible fonts (let's face it guys, Truetype was one thing MS carried from Win 3.1 to Win XP for a reason) are because of licensing issues.
The next time a big company wants to donate money to open source, get them to design or fund fonts! That'll get Linux on the desktop. That'll cause secretaries to use OpenOffice and that'll make me happy.
Oh yes, and my dog ate my serial number. Can anyone help me?
Thanks!
(Parody of posts that usually go up on forums as soon as a game is released... Guess it won't be happening here! Trust the EFF to take all those kinds of fun away...)
You may not copy, rent, lend, lease, sublicense, distribute, publicly display, create derivative works based upon the Software (except as provided in Section 3 below) or otherwise commercially exploit the Software (including, without limitation, hosting pay-per-play servers).
Copy, rent, lease, sublicense and all those junk I understand, but forbidding me to lend it to my friend is going overboard. Ah, well, I'll just have to exchange it for another game then;-)
Also, since the end-user can't publicly display NWN, it seems like they'll be releasing them in nondescript black boxes then...
OS, GPL, and Linux'll lose in the long term. Why? Because they play fair!
It doesn't matter that they are technically, practically and totally better than any alternative from M$ or any other company. The EFF simply does not have enough money to line the pockets of the next politician or lawyer that's against them.
In order to win, you'd have to be orders of magnitude better than any commercial alternative. In a fair fight, you'd win, but there ain't going to be any fair fight!
As long as anyone can get money from dubious practices, GPL will be ridiculed.
It's been done before! There's this experiment based on the principle that cat's always land on their feet and toast always lands butter-side down. Tape a piece of toast to the cooperative cat and presto! Anti-gravity!
As a citizen of this banana^H^H^H^H^H^H^H wonderful republic (I don't know anymore) of South Africa, I just have to give you my unbiased opinion:
I'm biased.
It seems lately I've developed a knee-jerk reaction to anything Microsoftian and/or coming from this two-bit^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H democratically elected leadership. When I see stupidity, I really dislike it. Unfortunately, it looks like it's on the rise.
To the world out there, I can only say a couple of things:
What do you expect of a country where the Prez does not believe HIV causes AIDS?
What do you expect of a country where the government telecommunications monopoly is so bad that more people have cellphones than landlines?
What do you expect of a country where everyone votes for the same party, regardless whether they messed up, promise to mess up or promise not to mess up again then mess up?
To the couple of South Africans who are reading this I just want to say:
Hoesit!
I recommend Prozac, and in large doses.
Keep our humour, it's the only national emblem we have.
That's it. Sit back and watch the show people, I can guarantee you will be entertained!
On the otherside, when I was on the chess team in H.S., I played 2-3 hours per day. Nobody complained about it, maybe because the graphics weren't as good
Whaddaya mean? With features like: Nearly Infinite Resolution(TM), Ultrareal 3D(TM), Force Feedback(Patent pending), Texture Feedback(U.S. Patent 4242424242) and the fact that it is ultra-low power design makes Real Chess(TM) the most realistic simulation of a board game yet. Real Chess, it doesn't get any more real than this!(TM)
Seriously, you DO know that you can play Solitare and Freecell with real cards, right?
I may be totally out of line here, but is the.za TLD under the jurisdiction of the banana^H^H^H^H^H^H South African law? Aren't they now passing laws over something which they have absolutely no control, like the guys selling real-estate on the moon?
It wouldn't be the last if it is. Next time I bet they'll declare insulting the President illegal... oh wait, no! Don't arrest me! It was a jo... NO CARRIER
For a moment there, I believed that Woody will be released in the next two minutes. Ah well... maybe when I get the bandwidth, Woody'll reach stable...
but the result is that it seems to be bringing unsuspecting users machines to a crawl with full hard drives and clogging up the Fasttrack network with massive amounts of traffic
What? Doesn't that happen every time a new cammed version of Spider-Man or AOTC's is released?
IANAL: this means I cannot think totally illogically.
1) In exchange for patent rights, the company must make public the details of the design it wants to patent. 1.1) In a software patent case, this may consist of example code.
2) It is legal for any person to obtain the patent application for a succesful patent. 2.1) In a software patent case, this means you may posess the example code.
3) It is illegal to implement the patent without the patentholder's express consent. 3.1) This means it is illegal to compile and execute the example code.
So now: suppose someone takes the patent application form and translates it into a different language. That definately has to be legal.
Since code is speech, this may be a computer language.
Add a bit of embellishments and you have a full-fledged application that incorporates the patent. Still legal to posess, but illegal to compile or run.
Assume it's legal to publish this (free speech and all that), and furthermore assume that US citizens may download it.
I would assume some form of system needs to be in place that prevents US citizens from compiling and executing the code, otherwise it violates the patent.
Therefore, code anything you want, make one deliberate error, publish the code and allow downloads. Citizens of a country that's stupid enough to allow patents on software must therefore be stupid enough not to be able to compile and execute broken code! (No flames please, my <sarcastic> tags don't work!)
Please, shoot holes in my argument! Where'm I going wrong? It can't be this simple!
True: wireless monitors are still a bit far in the future... any guy with high school maths can work out the bandwidth required for "true" wireless and any telecoms engineer can tell you thats a heckuva lotta hertz.
What's interesting, though, is the possibility of modifying these thin clients to run our fav OS's (or at least run X remotely. Imagine being able to hack one of these so that you can use it like any standalone system... Can you say luggable PDA?
Slashdot Mirror
...if Cygwin/XFree86 ran under Wine.
Seriously, the Wine and Cygwin teams need to cooperate much much more. Both share a very important interface: the Win32 API. Since Cygwin uses it and Wine "makes" it, I see great potential for cross-project development here.
This would be analogous to bochs running bochs. Actually, it would be really funny if they optimized the heck out of it, so that running Cygwin/XFree86 is faster on Wine than Windows...
Palladium is a good idea, but not for desktop use. End-users are treated like criminals or people operating under secrecy.
.isos before I burn them. I use HTTPS (where the certificates get handed down via Verisign or some other root server).
Palladium is more about (1) hardware enforced signing and (2) code verification.
I'm all for signing and code verification. I check my package signatures with GPG before I install them and I MD5 all my
The problem lies with the fact that interoperability between Palladium and other systems is only guaranteed if you get a signature from a Microsoft-sponsored system. Guess which source is going to be trusted, no matter what? You're kidding yourself if Microsoft will allow you to "distrust" binaries or media coming from www.microsoft.com.
This is the exact argument for DeCSS. You may be perfectly happy to own DVDs that can only be played on the "Enhanced Windows" system that Microsoft offers, but cannot be decrypted, EVER, on any other OS. Including Macs. (Depending on how much money they pay Microsoft for the right to play your media.
They are going to release the source, which is odd in itself. It leads me to believe in general that MS may being a rather okay-ish thing.
Releasing the source is not a sign of goodwill here. Since Microsoft already has the patent (look at point #7) on the core idea of Palladium it would mean diddly squat to the GPL community.
My conclusion: Look at smart cards. They offer the same feature set. The only difference is that I'm gladly willing to give up the right to run software on the processor on the card in order to make things like bank transactions possible. The question is, are you willing to give up the right to run any software on your computer not expressly signed by MS, just so you can watch your favourite DVD on your PC?
This is just my personal wishlist:
1) A standard hardware acceleration layer for 2D and 3D cards, something we can ask the NVidia people to add to their drivers and code equivalents for other cards.
2) Wine intergration. Routing Win32 messages through the kernel would be kinda nice.
3) Java acceleration. Hooks for some standard Java functions: this would help a lot in some specific embedded situations.
4) ACL support for ports and stuff (like the security patches).
5) A standard "driver package" format containing the kernel module, user-mode tools and installation instructions for binary only (yecc) drivers. (One driver fits all distros!)
I've been working with Linux-based systems since '97 and I have to say, it's just getting better and better. I'm sure a lot of the above is would actually not be good in most kernels, but since one of Linux's strong points is scalability, I'd really like to see Linux take on the desktop, handheld and server market!
The article also talks in some detail about the massive (though partially expected) losses that the XBox is costing Microsoft.
...go buy them XBoxen and bankrupt M$!
I think all companies with a large enough income should have something like this: a voucher you can buy for $100 that will fine the company $200 (only one per person per company allowed per year). This would be the ultimate in consumer feedback: if you suck so much that people would want to pay money to see you lose money, you have to take the hint.
Well, I think there's a system like that already. It's called lawyers and taxpayer's money... Except in my system the government gets the money, not the lawyers...
Coloured contact lenses.
It's not farfetched to think that some idiot in the wake of 9/11 might push a law making it illegal to wear them. Oh yeah, only after the law's been passed will things like this come to light...
Just think, a DMCA for identity-circumvention devices. No more anonymity, because, it's good for you!
Reasons why it might be useful to have a hardware MPEG-4 decoder:
1) Latency, latency, latency... You wouldn't want to miss 1 second of Baywatch just because you are compiling now, would you?
2) Embeddable solution... Look ma, no X! Just slap one of these puppies in and you can run your fav OS with high-quality TV out... assuming someone doesn't try to prevent drivers from being written for it...
3) Encoding possibility... Heck, if hardware decoders exist, hardware encoders can be built too! I just hope they wouldn't be too expensive.
4) Hiiiiiigh load... I can just see some bragging in the future: "Hey, I can play a DVD and write a CD and rip a CD and record a TV program all at once!"
5) The future... People, realise this, in a couple of years your PC architecture is going to be a CPU that delegates tasks to the dedicated sub-CPUs. Look at the 3D card industry if you want an example.
Things that might not be cool:
1) I don't need one! Nobody's going to buy this one because they can already play the stuff!.
2) Too expensive! $99 is a sizable chunk of salary where I come from. (Don't ask). I'd rather save that to invest in my next PC.
3) Not enough features! Bundled with VGA output for dual-screen, this would have been very, very useful. Bundled with TV capture, this would have been a shoe-in. Bundled with an encoder it would have been... glorious!
I'm not going to buy one. If they bring out an encoder, I will buy one!
You've heard of the recent apache bug. Apparently, the OpenBSD team is announcing it as a "possible remote crash".
Since a remote exploit already exists, shouldn't they detail the severity on their front page?
Nothing against the OpenBSD team... I believe they do excellent work, but heck, people, PLEASE patch up those systems! It's only a matter of days before someone is going to drop a new worm! This is horribly serious!
1. Ugly fonts
2. Can't read ALL the Word documents
3. Still a bit sluggish
Three! I mean three major gripes!
Seriously, font ugliness is a big problem under linux and it's all X's fault. You've seen the hundreds of people gawking at anti-aliased desktops, it just looks cooler.
I believe there are many articles on exactly why fonts are ugly in linux... I also believe that the lack of cool, MS-compatible fonts (let's face it guys, Truetype was one thing MS carried from Win 3.1 to Win XP for a reason) are because of licensing issues.
The next time a big company wants to donate money to open source, get them to design or fund fonts! That'll get Linux on the desktop. That'll cause secretaries to use OpenOffice and that'll make me happy.
'nuff said.
I didn't get full score...
Does anyone know a cheat for this game?
BTW, I'm also looking for the No-CD patch...
Oh yes, and my dog ate my serial number. Can anyone help me?
Thanks!
(Parody of posts that usually go up on forums as soon as a game is released... Guess it won't be happening here! Trust the EFF to take all those kinds of fun away...)
From section 2:
;-)
You may not copy, rent, lend, lease, sublicense, distribute, publicly display, create derivative works based upon the Software (except as provided in Section 3 below) or otherwise commercially exploit the Software (including, without limitation, hosting pay-per-play servers).
Copy, rent, lease, sublicense and all those junk I understand, but forbidding me to lend it to my friend is going overboard. Ah, well, I'll just have to exchange it for another game then
Also, since the end-user can't publicly display NWN, it seems like they'll be releasing them in nondescript black boxes then...
OS, GPL, and Linux'll lose in the long term. Why? Because they play fair!
It doesn't matter that they are technically, practically and totally better than any alternative from M$ or any other company. The EFF simply does not have enough money to line the pockets of the next politician or lawyer that's against them.
In order to win, you'd have to be orders of magnitude better than any commercial alternative. In a fair fight, you'd win, but there ain't going to be any fair fight!
As long as anyone can get money from dubious practices, GPL will be ridiculed.
It's been done before! There's this experiment based on the principle that cat's always land on their feet and toast always lands butter-side down. Tape a piece of toast to the cooperative cat and presto! Anti-gravity!
Go to some web site if you don't believe me!
I'm biased.
It seems lately I've developed a knee-jerk reaction to anything Microsoftian and/or coming from this two-bit^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H democratically elected leadership. When I see stupidity, I really dislike it. Unfortunately, it looks like it's on the rise.
To the world out there, I can only say a couple of things:
To the couple of South Africans who are reading this I just want to say:
That's it. Sit back and watch the show people, I can guarantee you will be entertained!
Ever since segfault's demise, I've been longing for articles like this. Sorry slashdot, but sometimes fake news just don't match up to the real thing.
Howz about some of yous guys start a fake news site (preferably not sponsored by our dear friends from Redmond).
Sorry to debunk you, but hey, this just proves stupidity is not limited to this country.
'nuff said.
On the otherside, when I was on the chess team in H.S., I played 2-3 hours per day. Nobody complained about it, maybe because the graphics weren't as good
Whaddaya mean? With features like: Nearly Infinite Resolution(TM), Ultrareal 3D(TM), Force Feedback(Patent pending), Texture Feedback(U.S. Patent 4242424242) and the fact that it is ultra-low power design makes Real Chess(TM) the most realistic simulation of a board game yet. Real Chess, it doesn't get any more real than this!(TM)
Seriously, you DO know that you can play Solitare and Freecell with real cards, right?
I may be totally out of line here, but is the .za TLD under the jurisdiction of the banana^H^H^H^H^H^H South African law? Aren't they now passing laws over something which they have absolutely no control, like the guys selling real-estate on the moon?
It wouldn't be the last if it is. Next time I bet they'll declare insulting the President illegal... oh wait, no! Don't arrest me! It was a jo... NO CARRIER
Not really funny if you think that 50 cents of your last tax payment may have gone to an actual, honest-to-goodness kill "in the field".
Extremely not funny if you think of any "accidents" that might happen.
What's that line about swords into ploughshares again?
Debian Woody in less than two minutes
For a moment there, I believed that Woody will be released in the next two minutes. Ah well... maybe when I get the bandwidth, Woody'll reach stable...
but the result is that it seems to be bringing unsuspecting users machines to a crawl with full hard drives and clogging up the Fasttrack network with massive amounts of traffic
What? Doesn't that happen every time a new cammed version of Spider-Man or AOTC's is released?
IANAL: this means I cannot think totally illogically.
1) In exchange for patent rights, the company must make public the details of the design it wants to patent.
1.1) In a software patent case, this may consist of example code.
2) It is legal for any person to obtain the patent application for a succesful patent.
2.1) In a software patent case, this means you may posess the example code.
3) It is illegal to implement the patent without the patentholder's express consent.
3.1) This means it is illegal to compile and execute the example code.
So now: suppose someone takes the patent application form and translates it into a different language. That definately has to be legal.
Since code is speech, this may be a computer language.
Add a bit of embellishments and you have a full-fledged application that incorporates the patent. Still legal to posess, but illegal to compile or run.
Assume it's legal to publish this (free speech and all that), and furthermore assume that US citizens may download it.
I would assume some form of system needs to be in place that prevents US citizens from compiling and executing the code, otherwise it violates the patent.
Therefore, code anything you want, make one deliberate error, publish the code and allow downloads. Citizens of a country that's stupid enough to allow patents on software must therefore be stupid enough not to be able to compile and execute broken code! (No flames please, my <sarcastic> tags don't work!)
Please, shoot holes in my argument! Where'm I going wrong? It can't be this simple!
Microsoft Software: We Can Smell Your Fear!
Everyone knows robots can't make people happy. It just gives them a headache to think down to our level.
At least, they opted for cute Aibos in stead of cute Marvins with Genuine People Personalities...
True: wireless monitors are still a bit far in the future... any guy with high school maths can work out the bandwidth required for "true" wireless and any telecoms engineer can tell you thats a heckuva lotta hertz.
What's interesting, though, is the possibility of modifying these thin clients to run our fav OS's (or at least run X remotely. Imagine being able to hack one of these so that you can use it like any standalone system... Can you say luggable PDA?
Since Woody's gonna be released RSN, I guess this'll be part of stable right?