The OpenNIC is a user owned, international Network Information Center alternative to the traditional Top-Level Domain registries. OpenNIC was started in reaction to the growing concern about the lack of democratic control within the ICANN. The best thing you can do to help this initiative is to point your root-nameserver(s) and/or your resolving configuration to the OpenNIC nameservers. You'll still be able to resolve all the traditional ICANN TLD's, but you'll also have access to the new TLD's.
"Scooby Doo is essentially about casting the light of reason
on corruption cloaked in mysticism" - Scrymarch
Sure, there's even an HowTO about setting up such
a beast:
VCR-HOWTO
The VCR program is currently quite unstable, since it frequently freezes my 2.4.4 kernel, but even that doesn't stop me from having a bit of fun with scheduled realtime DivX video capturing;-)
--
"Tell the world that we're going to be the grim reaper of innocent orphaned children." -/linux/init/main.c
Crystal Space is a Free and portable 3D environment, with lots of really cool and advanced features.
From the website:
Crystal Space is a free (LGPL) and portable 3D Game Development Kit written in C++. It supports: true six degree's of freedom, colored lighting, mipmapping, portals, mirrors, alpha transparency, reflective surfaces, 3D sprites (frame based or with skeletal animation), procedural textures, radiosity, particle systems, halos, volumetric fog, scripting (using Python or other languages), 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit display support, Direct3D, OpenGL, Glide, and software renderer, font support, hierarchical transformations,... See the extensive list of features for more details.
Crystal Space currently runs on GNU/Linux, general Unix, Windows, Windows NT, OS/2, BeOS, NextStep, OpenStep, MacOS/X Server, DOS, and Macintosh. It can optionally use OpenGL (Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac, OS/2, BeOS), Direct3D (Windows), Glide (GNU/Linux), GGI (GNU/Linux), Allegro (GNU/Linux, DOS), X11 (Unix or GNU/Linux) and SVGALIB (GNU/Linux). It can also optionally use assembler routines using NASM and MMX.
Although this page is called 'crystal.linuxgames.com' don't let this name confuse you. Crystal Space also runs on other platforms like Windows. In fact, Windows is considered to be a very important platform since it is currently widely used for games. Personally I use GNU/Linux so Crystal Space will always work good under GNU/Linux as well.
Crystal Space is a large open source project. There are about 600 people subscribed to the developers mailing list and this list is very active (2718 messages in the first eight months meaning about 11 messages a day on average, Note that in the last three months there have been about 50 messages a day!).
There are working hard to get 1.0 out, but
the API is already quite stable. In the CS guide there are two good tutorials, and compiling from cvs source is easy. Have a 3D look for yourself.
"Tell the world that we're going to be the grim reaper of innocent orphaned children." - linux/init/main.c
I think a really good scheduling system should have most of these characteristics:
Integrated with the main communication system (email), standards compliant, secure, webbased, maintainable, scalable, licensed DFSG compliant, speedy, flexible, robust and have good documentation and support.
I think a webmail setup with the following components come a long way:
qmail My favorite MTA. Altough the license can't officially be called 'free', you are free to modify the sources.
Apache-SSL The most extensible webserver with good security features.
PHP A very popular domain language for the web, with lots of extra modules.
Horde I recently 'discovered' this ASP platform for PHP code, and began to like PHP because of it.
IMP I've just hooked up an Apache-ssl/IMP webmail setup to my qmail/IMAP system (residing on another host), and it was very easy to do (thanks to the great Debian maintainers!). The functionality of the webmail client is pretty good compared to some others, altough the calender system is not integrated yet (help out if you can;). And it even has a multi-language spellings checker.
IMAP Used with qmails Maildir format makes a very scalable, robust and maintainable email system.
PostgreSQL My favorite RDBMS, and getting better all the time.
LDAP IMP has a nice lookup interface for multiple LDAP servers, it allows for easy point-and-click "to" and "bcc" selections.
Kronolith The calendar component used in Horde, It uses the MCAL and supports multiple users accessing the same calendar.
MCAL This is a flexible C library for accessing calendars. Altough I've not used it (yet).
When I look up the word "free" in my dictionary it says:
"adj, (freer, freest) not under the control or power of another;
having social and political liberty; independent; able to move in any direction;
not burdened by obligations; not conformed to the usual rules; not exact; generous;
frank; with no cost or charge; exempt from taxes, duties, etc; clear of obstruction;
not fastened"
Do you notice how close this description resembles the fundamental philosophy of the GNU Project and the GPL?
The term Open Source (TM) is a misnomer to developers, because it does not capture the essence of the above definition of the word free.
It was a term invented by ESR & co to help get the 'free' software message into the corporate world after the Netscape code release in 1998.
I think this certainly helped create more awareness in a broader audiance, but this came at a price: a lot of strange new 'free' licenses came about (NPL, MPL,SCSL, Zope license, NOSL, EPL, IBM Public License, and others) and these would eventually be used by other companies (because they liked the OSS hype and the developer attention it brought) by just changing the license name and releasing the code on their website. br>
It is true that some of these new licenses could qualify to be free in the sense of the above definition but what is more important is the great confusion and hassle the sharing of code brings by reusing software that was released under these different licenses. On top af that is the fact that some legal control has to be in place to enforce a license when it is violated in a severe way. How can you defend the 'free' software creations when the legal ownership of the code is not truly clear? Rememberthe legal BSD battle?
I think the Free Software Foundation should hold firm on its founding principles, also with regards the term "free software". The possibillity that 'outsiders' could be misinterpret the term is a symptom of these e-commercial focussed times. Better try to educate your listening audience then let them hear something which you don't really mean! Yes some of the details are subtle and complex, but this is what software development is about, I like to look at it as a technical artform.
Calling art open or closed sounds a bit strange, calling it free art sounds a lot more natural to me.
Most dedicated artists are not too concerned with the commercial issues of their work, the power, reach, and integrity of their creations together with the communal delight factor are what is driving the free software community. Offcourse some outsiders have noticed some of the quality creations like: the GNU Compiler Collection, Binutils, Emacs, Make, Autoconf, Automake, CVS, Wget, C library, and all kinds other development libraries. For these tools there are often no equivelants with regard to broad user base, flexibility, robustness, documentation and integration.
RMS was the hacker enigma of the last century and one off the great founders of the free software movement
(along with other great 'free' software project leaders like Bill Joy, John Gilmore, Kirk McKusick, Linus Thorvalds, and a few others). RMS has been in this 'business' for a lot of years and probably knows more about the free software world than anybody else. Offcourse you can disagree with him or the FSF, but please remember where their strict believes are coming from, and more importantly are leading to.
I can see two types of negative reactions towards GNU/Linux in the workplace (be it in the production, test or desktop environment). Let me present the clueless manager and the cluefull manager:
"Linux 7.0 will not be installed on my network! Even though you have shown us to be a good service developer you must follow our IT policies no matter what. I think you understand the companies viewpoint, you see my work is all about keeping investors content, managing business risks and helping the marketing department to create technical service brochure about our IT services for our customers."
"I am not sure why we need yet another OS in our network... can't you use our standard server setup?
I know this open source software thing is becoming more popular each day, but we have company guidelines. Maybe... if you are serious about this, you could write a discussion piece why you think we need such a new platform for our customer services? I must say that I've thought about this myself too, maybe you could later even do a presentation about open source software licenses for our inhouse developed tools, that could be an interessing discussion I think?"
If your manager replies inline with the first example, leave the room, check your own ambitions and ideas, check your professional options and think deep about your future. Make an honest choice and remember that in this IT-age the knowlegdable worker should be king.
In the case of the second example you have better chances of achieving 'your' ambitions on the workfloor.
If your willing to go this 'hard' way you can explain the power of OSS, the different license models and the business-risk reduction it brings in the longterm for your customers.
Remember to also pay attention to the functional requirements of your managers, services and your team members(probably in that order;). If you then feel your viewpoints have some impact and there's willingness to try to bring in Linux servers and desktops by co-workers, you could do a official presentation about the whole opens.
Personally I'm in this second stage at the moment, I've installed about 10 boxes with Debian GNU/Linux ranging from critical production servers to desktops and test-environments for developers. I'm also gonna do a presentation about the methods and consequences of OSS methods for inhouse software. Eventhough I don't consider myself an expert on opensource software(TM) development or the GPL or any other license, I still feel I can teach my co-workers (and offcourse managers) something about this wonderfull (but slow) revolution called free software.
My presentation will be made available next month on: DebianLinux.Net
Q: What are these same companies contributing to these "core values" of Linux?
A: With the partial exception of IBM, nothing.
Just some examples to show that these companies make valuable code contributions to the free software comunity:
HP Mauve
A free (GPL) test suite for the Java[tm].
Compaq iPAQ port
Compaq Ports Linux to iPAQ Handheld Computer.
They should also be mentioned for their Linux work regarding 64bit processor architectures (Alpha, Intel).
SUN StarOffice
Under the motto: Lets use the best of breed components (read filters) in our GNOME office suite.
And let us not forget their donations to the Debian developers for the UltraSparc port.
SGI SGI OSS Projects
Look at this long project list... it speaks for itself I think.
(Commercial) support like you say is just one of the arguments upon which the enterprise design should be based. I think there are some other points that are more important.
1) Human resources. How many administrators and developers can you bring together with good knowledge of those IBM components (AIX, Websphere, DB2)? Here Linux or FreeBSD clearly beat AIX. For webapplication developers with Java and RDMS skills the scale (for now) is probably a bit more even, due to healthy competition between the different webapplication frameworks.
2) Product Continuity. The basic architecture you lay down now will probably be around for a few years, maybe even more, so having your products evolve in sync with new standards is very important. OSS projects, by their very nature, nearly always tend to more aware of interoperabillity than their closed source equivalents.
3) Security, Robustness, Scalability, Performance. I think the the OSS models, in general create products that score quite good on each of these points, especially when they have been activly developed on during more than a few years.
4) Product functionality. The XML and Java features of the Java Apache Project or the entreprise ready Enhydra server (with commercial support from Lutris) are already more advanced than those of the IBM Websphere modules. Combine that with an excellent RDMS (with full JDBC driver support) like PostgreSQL and I think you got an excellent webapplication platform that is able to quickly evolve with future technology extensions.
Slashdot Mirror
OK, here's an HTML version (without the images):
Pilchard - A Reconfigurable Computing Platform
You can find those manpages here:
Unix Programmer's Manual November 3, 1971.
"Scooby Doo is essentially about casting the light of reason
on corruption cloaked in mysticism" - Scrymarch
DebianLinux.Net
Sure, there's even an HowTO about setting up such a beast: VCR-HOWTO
;-)
/linux/init/main.c
The VCR program is currently quite unstable, since it frequently freezes my 2.4.4 kernel, but even that doesn't stop me from having a bit of fun with scheduled realtime DivX video capturing
--
"Tell the world that we're going to be the grim reaper of innocent orphaned children." -
Crystal Space is a Free and portable 3D environment, with lots of really cool and advanced features.
... See the extensive list of features for more details.
From the website:
Crystal Space is a free (LGPL) and portable 3D Game Development Kit written in C++. It supports: true six degree's of freedom, colored lighting, mipmapping, portals, mirrors, alpha transparency, reflective surfaces, 3D sprites (frame based or with skeletal animation), procedural textures, radiosity, particle systems, halos, volumetric fog, scripting (using Python or other languages), 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit display support, Direct3D, OpenGL, Glide, and software renderer, font support, hierarchical transformations,
Crystal Space currently runs on GNU/Linux, general Unix, Windows, Windows NT, OS/2, BeOS, NextStep, OpenStep, MacOS/X Server, DOS, and Macintosh. It can optionally use OpenGL (Windows, GNU/Linux, Mac, OS/2, BeOS), Direct3D (Windows), Glide (GNU/Linux), GGI (GNU/Linux), Allegro (GNU/Linux, DOS), X11 (Unix or GNU/Linux) and SVGALIB (GNU/Linux). It can also optionally use assembler routines using NASM and MMX.
Although this page is called 'crystal.linuxgames.com' don't let this name confuse you. Crystal Space also runs on other platforms like Windows. In fact, Windows is considered to be a very important platform since it is currently widely used for games. Personally I use GNU/Linux so Crystal Space will always work good under GNU/Linux as well.
Crystal Space is a large open source project. There are about 600 people subscribed to the developers mailing list and this list is very active (2718 messages in the first eight months meaning about 11 messages a day on average, Note that in the last three months there have been about 50 messages a day!).
There are working hard to get 1.0 out, but the API is already quite stable. In the CS guide there are two good tutorials, and compiling from cvs source is easy. Have a 3D look for yourself.
"Tell the world that we're going to be the grim reaper of innocent orphaned children." - linux/init/main.c
I forgot up some href's ... so here they are:
Horde
IMP
IMAP
PostgreSQL
Integrated with the main communication system (email), standards compliant, secure, webbased, maintainable, scalable, licensed DFSG compliant, speedy, flexible, robust and have good documentation and support.
I think a webmail setup with the following components come a long way:
Do you notice how close this description resembles the fundamental philosophy of the GNU Project and the GPL ?
The term Open Source (TM) is a misnomer to developers, because it does not capture the essence of the above definition of the word free.
It was a term invented by ESR & co to help get the 'free' software message into the corporate world after the Netscape code release in 1998.
I think this certainly helped create more awareness in a broader audiance, but this came at a price: a lot of strange new 'free' licenses came about (NPL, MPL,SCSL, Zope license, NOSL, EPL, IBM Public License, and others) and these would eventually be used by other companies (because they liked the OSS hype and the developer attention it brought) by just changing the license name and releasing the code on their website.
br> It is true that some of these new licenses could qualify to be free in the sense of the above definition but what is more important is the great confusion and hassle the sharing of code brings by reusing software that was released under these different licenses. On top af that is the fact that some legal control has to be in place to enforce a license when it is violated in a severe way. How can you defend the 'free' software creations when the legal ownership of the code is not truly clear? Rememberthe legal BSD battle?
I think the Free Software Foundation should hold firm on its founding principles, also with regards the term "free software". The possibillity that 'outsiders' could be misinterpret the term is a symptom of these e-commercial focussed times. Better try to educate your listening audience then let them hear something which you don't really mean! Yes some of the details are subtle and complex, but this is what software development is about, I like to look at it as a technical artform.
Calling art open or closed sounds a bit strange, calling it free art sounds a lot more natural to me. Most dedicated artists are not too concerned with the commercial issues of their work, the power, reach, and integrity of their creations together with the communal delight factor are what is driving the free software community. Offcourse some outsiders have noticed some of the quality creations like: the GNU Compiler Collection, Binutils, Emacs, Make, Autoconf, Automake, CVS, Wget, C library, and all kinds other development libraries. For these tools there are often no equivelants with regard to broad user base, flexibility, robustness, documentation and integration.
RMS was the hacker enigma of the last century and one off the great founders of the free software movement (along with other great 'free' software project leaders like Bill Joy, John Gilmore, Kirk McKusick, Linus Thorvalds, and a few others). RMS has been in this 'business' for a lot of years and probably knows more about the free software world than anybody else. Offcourse you can disagree with him or the FSF, but please remember where their strict believes are coming from, and more importantly are leading to.
In the case of the second example you have better chances of achieving 'your' ambitions on the workfloor. If your willing to go this 'hard' way you can explain the power of OSS, the different license models and the business-risk reduction it brings in the longterm for your customers.
Remember to also pay attention to the functional requirements of your managers, services and your team members(probably in that order
Personally I'm in this second stage at the moment, I've installed about 10 boxes with Debian GNU/Linux ranging from critical production servers to desktops and test-environments for developers. I'm also gonna do a presentation about the methods and consequences of OSS methods for inhouse software. Eventhough I don't consider myself an expert on opensource software(TM) development or the GPL or any other license, I still feel I can teach my co-workers (and offcourse managers) something about this wonderfull (but slow) revolution called free software.
My presentation will be made available next month on: DebianLinux.Net
Q: What are these same companies contributing to these "core values" of Linux? A: With the partial exception of IBM, nothing.
... it speaks for itself I think.
Just some examples to show that these companies make valuable code contributions to the free software comunity:
HP
Mauve
A free (GPL) test suite for the Java[tm].
Compaq
iPAQ port
Compaq Ports Linux to iPAQ Handheld Computer.
They should also be mentioned for their Linux work regarding 64bit processor architectures (Alpha, Intel).
SUN
StarOffice
Under the motto: Lets use the best of breed components (read filters) in our GNOME office suite. And let us not forget their donations to the Debian developers for the UltraSparc port.
SGI
SGI OSS Projects
Look at this long project list
- Just my Euro 0.02c
(Commercial) support like you say is just one of the arguments upon which the enterprise design should be based. I think there are some other points that are more important.
1) Human resources.
How many administrators and developers can you bring together with good knowledge of those IBM components (AIX, Websphere, DB2)? Here Linux or FreeBSD clearly beat AIX. For webapplication developers with Java and RDMS skills the scale (for now) is probably a bit more even, due to healthy competition between the different webapplication frameworks.
2) Product Continuity.
The basic architecture you lay down now will probably be around for a few years, maybe even more, so having your products evolve in sync with new standards is very important. OSS projects, by their very nature, nearly always tend to more aware of interoperabillity than their closed source equivalents.
3) Security, Robustness, Scalability, Performance.
I think the the OSS models, in general create products that score quite good on each of these points, especially when they have been activly developed on during more than a few years.
4) Product functionality.
The XML and Java features of the Java Apache Project or the entreprise ready Enhydra server (with commercial support from Lutris) are already more advanced than those of the IBM Websphere modules. Combine that with an excellent RDMS (with full JDBC driver support) like PostgreSQL and I think you got an excellent webapplication platform that is able to quickly evolve with future technology extensions.
- just my Euro 0.02c