what if the XFree guys had just decided to add AA automagically to the X text functions?
Unfortunately, the "just" is no small thing. The text rendering in X was not designed for that (unfortunately, but it's about twenty years too late now), and making it work would be somewhere between "horrible kludge" and "impossible." (I don't know exactly where it would fall; I've never looked at the XFree code and haven't done a whole lot of X programming.) Nothing they do can change the fact that old apps aren't going to magically antialias their text.
New versions of XFree support antialiased text via extensions; it's now just up to people to use them. I fail to see why it would be better to completely break all old apps than support them and encourage the use of the new font systems when possible.
You still keep harping on the whole Linux thing. Get it through your thick skull: This has nothing to do with Linux. The GUI runs on the user level, not the kernel level. As I said, your technical arguments are based on ignorance.
If you want to ignore the benefits of collaberation and portability, buy yourself a copy of Windows. That's what you really want.
I see what you mean, but the appropriate solution to that is to update the applications incrementally, not rip out any support for the older applications (as the OP suggested.)
Re:Its not done right, but its a start
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Xr Renamed to Cairo
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Since when is removing support for something "progress?" You could make the exactly same arguments for Linus to remove support for IPV4, PCI support, IDE support, and a bunch of other stuff from the kernel. That, of course, would be stupid beyond belief. You can support SVG for new apps while retaining support for hundreds of applications that already exist. I'm not going to hold anyone or anything back, but I'm not going to go along with those who make technical decisions based on ignorance.
Why is backward compatibility so important to engineers who create Xfree86 when they only use Linux to create Xfree86?
What is this supposed to mean? Are you under the impression that XFree86 only runs on Linux? If so, here's a quote for those of you who live in the "Linux is the only thing there is" box:
The XFree86 Project, Inc is the organisation which produces XFree86(TM), a freely redistributable open-source implementation of the X Window System. XFree86 runs primarily on UNIX(R) and UNIX-like operating systems such as Linux, all of the BSD variants, Sun Solaris x86, Mac OS X (via Darwin), as well as other platforms like OS/2 and Cygwin.
That's directly from the XFree86 home page. Apperently, the engineers who create XFree86 do care about compatibility.
Re:Its not done right, but its a start
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Xr Renamed to Cairo
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· Score: 2, Insightful
This is 2003 and Linux should just go 100 percent SVG.
Linux should have nothing to do with either bitmaps or SVG. You mean that XFree86 should be 100% SVG. (Which I think is a stupid idea, by the way. Breaking backwards compatibility for the sake of "market domination" is something that Microsoft would do, not engineers who actually care about the technical side of things.)
Well, more to the point, do you really think that an idiot would have an anonymous e-mail address in the first place? (Just signing up for a hotmail address with a false name -- a precaution which most people don't take -- isn't enough to be called anonymous. You have to worry about them logging your IP address and all sorts of fun stuff.)
I think that all this stuff about "big bad government compiling a list" is ridiculous. I simply cannot think of a plausible scenario where this would give the government access to information that they would not have already had, or could not obtain through more direct channels.
If you signed up for this using an e-mail address that you use anonymously, you're a complete idiot and deserve what you get. Most e-mail addresses aren't anonymous anyway, and so this doesn't help create a database.
You've got me. What could be done with a database of email + phone numbers?
Now, what's really frightening is that somebody has created a database linking phone numbers with names and home addresses. Imagine all the horrible things that could be done with this.
You're right, that's a perfectly good solution. What's inappropriate is to take down the blacklists, as I should be able to filter anything that enters my machines, for any reason.
I've never, ever seen that, or even heard of it. I'd imagine the vast, vast majority of people on here haven't either.
Go to any hardware store, and look in awe at the vast selection of cover plates with the holes for the switches oriented sideways rather than up-and-down.
No it isn't. Your cones respond to other wavelengths besides just red/green/blue (otherwise, you wouldn't be able to see a rainbow). The thing is, they are less sensitive to light as the frequency varies from their center frequency. Yellow light, for instance, will create some response from the green and red cones, this is why a mixture of green and red light appears yellow.
Not only that; a mix of pure red, green, and blue, though it looks "white", does not produce exactly the same response in the eye as the color white from a full spectrum. (And in fact, I believe that there was a story on/. a year or so ago about people with extra cones tuned to a different wavelength.)
There are good reasons why sunlight is considered much more pleasant than artificial lighting.
Given that that primary rationale given for the tuition hike was "we want to make tuition more expensive," I think we have a perfect right to complain. They should have been spending time trying to find ways not to raise tuition by 35%.
What's your definition of "low-end?" There are really very few games available, even today, that aren't playable with a GF2. The fact of the matter is that graphics hardware is way ahead of the game manufacturers. Most of us would rather spend our money on toys that we can use.
Are these features already available in existing mail servers? If they aren't, perhaps some of us coders ought to get started adding them to the open source servers. (I'd love to help, though admittedly I don't know the first thing about SMTP.) If they are, we really ought to start trying to get them enabled as the defaults.
Bad laws get made and bad ruling are handed down even when the light of public interest is on but this happens much more frequently when people stick their head in the sand and say they don't want to hear about it. Grow up and pay attention. Sometimes important stuff ("...stuff that matters") isn't about some new, whiz-bang gadget.
Don't be ridiculous. I never said that they shouldn't post anything about the SCO case. However, Slashdot is going far beyond what is reasonable to keep the readership informed. I suggest that you look up the story about the "boy who cried wolf."
Hey, until they can be bothered to show something real, I don't think it's even worth discussing.
I agree with the guy. There are three SCO stories on the front page right now. Do we really need to debate SCO's every (rather predictable) move? This is worse than the days when every other story was a dupe.
My maths therefore concludes that if you deducted the 14% piracy, then CD sales have actually RISEN by around 7% over the last year!
Your maths are wrong (unless you're basing it on more numbers than you're presenting here.) You're trying to equate [percentage of CD sales] with [percentage of pirate CD sales], two values which aren't equivalent. Trying to add/subtract them like you're doing just leads to nonsense statistics (in this case, the "actually risen by 7% number.")
It's the same fscking operating system (Linux/GNU Userland).
Repeating that isn't going to make it true. Red Hat, Debian, and company are a LOT MORE than just Linux+GNU. (For that matter, they can be a whole lot less -- do you install every GNU program on every system?) By your logic, FreeBSD is the same fscking operation system, because Linux program will run on it. For that matter, Linux is the same OS as windows, because you can run windows apps under Wine or VMWare. Nonsense.
As for your comment that you just need to link statically and it will work anywhere, that's evidence that you haven't given any thought to the situation. If you have, then please explain how you're going to solve some problems:
Kernel versions. Believe it or not, not everything that works on a 2.6 kernel will work on a 2.0 kernel, but all are still in wide use. Don't forget that some of these kernels will have driver bugs that need to be worked around. I'd especially like to know what you do when your program requires a kernel module.
Different libraries. Link statically, I know. Don't forget that you're going to have to link in every single library you use (including libc and other standard system libraries.)
Different userlands. Most real applications (ie, not "Hello world") will require support of some kind from other userland tools. Of course, you cannot expect that all of the tools will be available, or will work in the same manner between distributions.
Different directory and init setups. Every distribution has a different idea about where programs should go, and how initialization is done.
This is only just scratching the surface. You may also want to consider the lawsuit that Apple just lost in relation to OSX not working, and what similarities it has to this situation.
Your claim that all Linux distributions are the same is complete nonsense. There's more variety among Linux distributions than there is among the Windows family of operating systems. Yes, distributing a program that will work on any Linux distribution really is so fsking hard!
I can not STAND people that say "Oh, well, it won't run on anything but Red Hat". Give me a break. The operating system is called Linux, not Red Hat (OK, maybe GNU/Linux). Linux defines the API and the application interfaces (ditto GNUification), and quite simply, everything that runs on Red Hat will run on Debian.
Huh? Each distribution is a seperate operating system. Just because the kernel has the same name doesn't make it the same OS. (That's why we have the distinction between the two, folks.) You might have a point that the "Red Hat + x package" distributions could all be considered a single OS, but Debian, Red Hat, SuSE, Gentoo, and all the big ones are most definitely different OSes.
There are fundamental differences between the ways that the different operating systems work. You're (for the most part) right that most programs that will work on one distribution will work on another (or can be made to work), but to state "There is nothing that runs under Red Hat that can't run under Debian" is just displaying your ignorance.
Slashdot Mirror
what if the XFree guys had just decided to add AA automagically to the X text functions?
Unfortunately, the "just" is no small thing. The text rendering in X was not designed for that (unfortunately, but it's about twenty years too late now), and making it work would be somewhere between "horrible kludge" and "impossible." (I don't know exactly where it would fall; I've never looked at the XFree code and haven't done a whole lot of X programming.) Nothing they do can change the fact that old apps aren't going to magically antialias their text.
New versions of XFree support antialiased text via extensions; it's now just up to people to use them. I fail to see why it would be better to completely break all old apps than support them and encourage the use of the new font systems when possible.
You still keep harping on the whole Linux thing. Get it through your thick skull: This has nothing to do with Linux. The GUI runs on the user level, not the kernel level. As I said, your technical arguments are based on ignorance.
If you want to ignore the benefits of collaberation and portability, buy yourself a copy of Windows. That's what you really want.
I see what you mean, but the appropriate solution to that is to update the applications incrementally, not rip out any support for the older applications (as the OP suggested.)
Why is backward compatibility so important to engineers who create Xfree86 when they only use Linux to create Xfree86?
What is this supposed to mean? Are you under the impression that XFree86 only runs on Linux? If so, here's a quote for those of you who live in the "Linux is the only thing there is" box:
That's directly from the XFree86 home page. Apperently, the engineers who create XFree86 do care about compatibility.
This is 2003 and Linux should just go 100 percent SVG.
Linux should have nothing to do with either bitmaps or SVG. You mean that XFree86 should be 100% SVG. (Which I think is a stupid idea, by the way. Breaking backwards compatibility for the sake of "market domination" is something that Microsoft would do, not engineers who actually care about the technical side of things.)
What kind of a summary/description was that supposed to be?
Well, more to the point, do you really think that an idiot would have an anonymous e-mail address in the first place? (Just signing up for a hotmail address with a false name -- a precaution which most people don't take -- isn't enough to be called anonymous. You have to worry about them logging your IP address and all sorts of fun stuff.)
I think that all this stuff about "big bad government compiling a list" is ridiculous. I simply cannot think of a plausible scenario where this would give the government access to information that they would not have already had, or could not obtain through more direct channels.
If you signed up for this using an e-mail address that you use anonymously, you're a complete idiot and deserve what you get. Most e-mail addresses aren't anonymous anyway, and so this doesn't help create a database.
You've got me. What could be done with a database of email + phone numbers?
Now, what's really frightening is that somebody has created a database linking phone numbers with names and home addresses. Imagine all the horrible things that could be done with this.
I would like to see a "Do not patronize" list
It's called a "large, vicious dog."
You're right, that's a perfectly good solution. What's inappropriate is to take down the blacklists, as I should be able to filter anything that enters my machines, for any reason.
I've never, ever seen that, or even heard of it. I'd imagine the vast, vast majority of people on here haven't either.
Go to any hardware store, and look in awe at the vast selection of cover plates with the holes for the switches oriented sideways rather than up-and-down.
It could be useful, in case you ever have to use your program while in Alabama.
(Legend here).)
(ie 20 base 3)
... don't you mean 100 base 3? (9 = 1 * 3**2 + 0 * 3**1 + 0 * 3**0) Or am I misunderstanding?
Urm
No it isn't. Your cones respond to other wavelengths besides just red/green/blue (otherwise, you wouldn't be able to see a rainbow). The thing is, they are less sensitive to light as the frequency varies from their center frequency. Yellow light, for instance, will create some response from the green and red cones, this is why a mixture of green and red light appears yellow.
/. a year or so ago about people with extra cones tuned to a different wavelength.)
Not only that; a mix of pure red, green, and blue, though it looks "white", does not produce exactly the same response in the eye as the color white from a full spectrum. (And in fact, I believe that there was a story on
There are good reasons why sunlight is considered much more pleasant than artificial lighting.
Given that that primary rationale given for the tuition hike was "we want to make tuition more expensive," I think we have a perfect right to complain. They should have been spending time trying to find ways not to raise tuition by 35%.
What's your definition of "low-end?" There are really very few games available, even today, that aren't playable with a GF2. The fact of the matter is that graphics hardware is way ahead of the game manufacturers. Most of us would rather spend our money on toys that we can use.
Ahhh University of Arizona, a wonderful place for a slacker.
It used to be, until those idiots jacked up the tuition.
Good thing I graduate next year. Those of us who don't have financial aid are in trouble.
Are these features already available in existing mail servers? If they aren't, perhaps some of us coders ought to get started adding them to the open source servers. (I'd love to help, though admittedly I don't know the first thing about SMTP.) If they are, we really ought to start trying to get them enabled as the defaults.
Bad laws get made and bad ruling are handed down even when the light of public interest is on but this happens much more frequently when people stick their head in the sand and say they don't want to hear about it. Grow up and pay attention. Sometimes important stuff ("...stuff that matters") isn't about some new, whiz-bang gadget.
Don't be ridiculous. I never said that they shouldn't post anything about the SCO case. However, Slashdot is going far beyond what is reasonable to keep the readership informed. I suggest that you look up the story about the "boy who cried wolf."
I agree with the guy. There are three SCO stories on the front page right now. Do we really need to debate SCO's every (rather predictable) move? This is worse than the days when every other story was a dupe.
My maths therefore concludes that if you deducted the 14% piracy, then CD sales have actually RISEN by around 7% over the last year!
Your maths are wrong (unless you're basing it on more numbers than you're presenting here.) You're trying to equate [percentage of CD sales] with [percentage of pirate CD sales], two values which aren't equivalent. Trying to add/subtract them like you're doing just leads to nonsense statistics (in this case, the "actually risen by 7% number.")
Repeating that isn't going to make it true. Red Hat, Debian, and company are a LOT MORE than just Linux+GNU. (For that matter, they can be a whole lot less -- do you install every GNU program on every system?) By your logic, FreeBSD is the same fscking operation system, because Linux program will run on it. For that matter, Linux is the same OS as windows, because you can run windows apps under Wine or VMWare. Nonsense.
As for your comment that you just need to link statically and it will work anywhere, that's evidence that you haven't given any thought to the situation. If you have, then please explain how you're going to solve some problems:
This is only just scratching the surface. You may also want to consider the lawsuit that Apple just lost in relation to OSX not working, and what similarities it has to this situation.
Your claim that all Linux distributions are the same is complete nonsense. There's more variety among Linux distributions than there is among the Windows family of operating systems. Yes, distributing a program that will work on any Linux distribution really is so fsking hard!
I can not STAND people that say "Oh, well, it won't run on anything but Red Hat". Give me a break. The operating system is called Linux, not Red Hat (OK, maybe GNU/Linux). Linux defines the API and the application interfaces (ditto GNUification), and quite simply, everything that runs on Red Hat will run on Debian.
Huh? Each distribution is a seperate operating system. Just because the kernel has the same name doesn't make it the same OS. (That's why we have the distinction between the two, folks.) You might have a point that the "Red Hat + x package" distributions could all be considered a single OS, but Debian, Red Hat, SuSE, Gentoo, and all the big ones are most definitely different OSes.
There are fundamental differences between the ways that the different operating systems work. You're (for the most part) right that most programs that will work on one distribution will work on another (or can be made to work), but to state "There is nothing that runs under Red Hat that can't run under Debian" is just displaying your ignorance.
That is referring to the alpha version that was just released. Like 2.5.x is not a usable kernel for most purposes, but 2.4.x is.