It amazes me that a lot of the/. readers don't even bother to just scan the article.
"But comercial developers don't do error handling very well either!"
If you even just scanned the damn article, you would notice that one of the first few things that Nick says is more or less that. His point is that OSS programmers should be better than them at it.
True, but you'd be surprised at how picky students are about what their money is going to, no matter how small the cost is to them. They will see that $5100 will have very little effect on their tuition bills, but the whole of it still is a lot of money that could go to something else, like a new computer, or funding for various student organizations on campus, or financial aid to some students, or whatever. The point is that students are extremely picky about what their money is spent on, no matter how much or how little it affects their tuition bill.
For example, last year my university was thinking of pulling out of United Council, which is a student lobbying group in the state of Wisconsin, even though it only charges $1.39 per student on campus. Many in certain student governing bodies felt that United Council was ineffective in getting student voice heard in front of the Wisconsin state Congress. There was a campus wide student campaign to get students to vote for or against, but those in the certain student governing bodies, while the majority in those governing bodies, were the minority campus wide. There were many who obviously did think United Council was effective, but certain people in certain student governing bodies thought otherwise.
I think it's pointless to think that students only think of their tuition bill.
Don't you guys have some student governing bodies?
My university (UW-Oshkosh) has tons of them and they were spending money (most of which is tuition money) in such wasteful manner like this, there would be outrage in the student governing bodies. The chancellor, dean of students, etc. would probably not hold their positions for a very long time.
Remember who holds most of the school's money: the students and students should be outraged at such a waste of money.
A cluster of which? The sixteen year old girls or the autistic people? Personally, I'd prefer a cluster of 24 year old ladies, but I doubt I'd ever get that wish.
The article itself is almost as short as the slashdot article pointing to it. This should be preserved as an endangered species. Hmm, maybe Slashdotius Shortius?
I say Linux deserves an Emmy too then. It was, after all, Linux that brought us Shrek and Final Fantasy. Let us not forget that Linux also rendered the Titanic in, well, Titanic. It will no doubt bring us more of such wonders in movie making in the future. It just seems inevitable that the entire industry will switch to Linux rendering farms.
Of course, if anything is learnt from this, the Emmy will probably go to Red Hat under the false pretense that they are the ones responsible for Linux.
I will stick to Konqueror for a while. I have looked at the source code and it is very clean and easy to follow, cleaner and easier than most open source/Free projects out there (definitely cleaner than Mozilla.) When you have source code like that, development goes extremely fast. Features become very easy to code.
Besides, I find that Konqueror is a nice compromise between features and speed. It does not try to sway towards one end and exclude the other. Many other browsers have a tendency to do this sort of thing.
It is obvious to me that they did not look at what happened to 3DO's Real too closely. Remember when Panasonic released 3DO's real for $700USD? Very few people bought it in spite of its really good (though few) games and technical superiority to anything out at the time. It really was a cool system, but it was too damn expensive. Many people that could have gotten it would also have had enough money to buy a new computer. A monkey could figure out the better of the two deals. Slowly, they lowered the price, but it was too slow. By the time it got down to an affordable price (around $200USD), it was too late. The Playstation and Saturn were already out by that time and the N64 was just around the corner with everyone eager to get their hands on it. The Real was doomed because of its high costs.
No one will want to pay $500USD, much less $1200USD, for a console, that is too damn expensive and you could probably get a good inexpensive computer with that much money. Just because of its price, it will lose.
It only makes me wonder even more when I'm going to put mine together. OOOOHHH!!! I can't stand just reading about them! I want my OWN!!!!!
Although, it is kinda cool that SciAm did an article like this. I don't think I've ever seen them do an article pertaining to Linux, much less Beowulf clusters.
They can't and won't because the entire Internet industry is about 3-4 times bigger than them and Sony will be locked into an internal corporate civil war because there are about a hundred different divisions working independantly of each other, something of which has happened to them before.
You're both wrong on this. FSF/OSI could win, but they wouldn't get prison time for it. It would never be held up in a Federal court, but they could get a huge fine in civil court for such defamation/libel/slander. Eminem's mother is sueing him in civil court for a large sum of money, but there is no way Eminem could ever get prison time or the like.
It's probably a good thing you're an anonymous coward, because your name would probably be headstuckupass. I'm not sure if you noticed, but IGN also included seven games coming out for the Game Boy Color.
...because, they of all companies, have stuck to the values they set forth in front of the public. They are obvious believers of pacifism and for that I praise them. Not many companies stick to the values they espouse, but Nintendo, IMHO, has done a damn good job of it.
I will be blunt and outright and say that I think that open source should always be the solution. I won't complain if someone is merely giving their product away. I might ask a few questions about it, especially if it's about a bug or something like that. However, if the person opened up the source code, I would definitely send them my gratitude. I would more readily choose open source software over closed freeware.
OTOH, I would choose closed freeware over commercial anyday.
Miguel is an example of what the future will look like. He is, of course, not the only under-represented minority (Asians are not under-represented) to be famous for a project such as this, but this is what will continue to happen.
Slashdot Mirror
I think that since this is "prior art," that he's safe from legal entanglements.
It amazes me that a lot of the /. readers don't even bother to just scan the article.
"But comercial developers don't do error handling very well either!"
If you even just scanned the damn article, you would notice that one of the first few things that Nick says is more or less that. His point is that OSS programmers should be better than them at it.
Hey, cool, I'm not the only one that reads sluggy!
True, but you'd be surprised at how picky students are about what their money is going to, no matter how small the cost is to them. They will see that $5100 will have very little effect on their tuition bills, but the whole of it still is a lot of money that could go to something else, like a new computer, or funding for various student organizations on campus, or financial aid to some students, or whatever. The point is that students are extremely picky about what their money is spent on, no matter how much or how little it affects their tuition bill.
For example, last year my university was thinking of pulling out of United Council, which is a student lobbying group in the state of Wisconsin, even though it only charges $1.39 per student on campus. Many in certain student governing bodies felt that United Council was ineffective in getting student voice heard in front of the Wisconsin state Congress. There was a campus wide student campaign to get students to vote for or against, but those in the certain student governing bodies, while the majority in those governing bodies, were the minority campus wide. There were many who obviously did think United Council was effective, but certain people in certain student governing bodies thought otherwise.
I think it's pointless to think that students only think of their tuition bill.
Obviously not yours.
Don't you guys have some student governing bodies?
My university (UW-Oshkosh) has tons of them and they were spending money (most of which is tuition money) in such wasteful manner like this, there would be outrage in the student governing bodies. The chancellor, dean of students, etc. would probably not hold their positions for a very long time.
Remember who holds most of the school's money: the students and students should be outraged at such a waste of money.
A cluster of which? The sixteen year old girls or the autistic people? Personally, I'd prefer a cluster of 24 year old ladies, but I doubt I'd ever get that wish.
The article itself is almost as short as the slashdot article pointing to it. This should be preserved as an endangered species. Hmm, maybe Slashdotius Shortius?
I say Linux deserves an Emmy too then. It was, after all, Linux that brought us Shrek and Final Fantasy. Let us not forget that Linux also rendered the Titanic in, well, Titanic. It will no doubt bring us more of such wonders in movie making in the future. It just seems inevitable that the entire industry will switch to Linux rendering farms.
Of course, if anything is learnt from this, the Emmy will probably go to Red Hat under the false pretense that they are the ones responsible for Linux.
I will stick to Konqueror for a while. I have looked at the source code and it is very clean and easy to follow, cleaner and easier than most open source/Free projects out there (definitely cleaner than Mozilla.) When you have source code like that, development goes extremely fast. Features become very easy to code.
Besides, I find that Konqueror is a nice compromise between features and speed. It does not try to sway towards one end and exclude the other. Many other browsers have a tendency to do this sort of thing.
It is obvious to me that they did not look at what happened to 3DO's Real too closely. Remember when Panasonic released 3DO's real for $700USD? Very few people bought it in spite of its really good (though few) games and technical superiority to anything out at the time. It really was a cool system, but it was too damn expensive. Many people that could have gotten it would also have had enough money to buy a new computer. A monkey could figure out the better of the two deals. Slowly, they lowered the price, but it was too slow. By the time it got down to an affordable price (around $200USD), it was too late. The Playstation and Saturn were already out by that time and the N64 was just around the corner with everyone eager to get their hands on it. The Real was doomed because of its high costs.
No one will want to pay $500USD, much less $1200USD, for a console, that is too damn expensive and you could probably get a good inexpensive computer with that much money. Just because of its price, it will lose.
------------------
I actually liked there distribution, unlike most people.
What ever happened with this?
They can't and won't because the entire Internet industry is about 3-4 times bigger than them and Sony will be locked into an internal corporate civil war because there are about a hundred different divisions working independantly of each other, something of which has happened to them before.
While a LiViD/DeCSS combination could be used to pirate stuff, did anyone notice that there was no mention whatsoever of Linux at all...
You're both wrong on this. FSF/OSI could win, but they wouldn't get prison time for it. It would never be held up in a Federal court, but they could get a huge fine in civil court for such defamation/libel/slander. Eminem's mother is sueing him in civil court for a large sum of money, but there is no way Eminem could ever get prison time or the like.
It's probably a good thing you're an anonymous coward, because your name would probably be headstuckupass. I'm not sure if you noticed, but IGN also included seven games coming out for the Game Boy Color.
...because, they of all companies, have stuck to the values they set forth in front of the public. They are obvious believers of pacifism and for that I praise them. Not many companies stick to the values they espouse, but Nintendo, IMHO, has done a damn good job of it.
I will be blunt and outright and say that I think that open source should always be the solution. I won't complain if someone is merely giving their product away. I might ask a few questions about it, especially if it's about a bug or something like that. However, if the person opened up the source code, I would definitely send them my gratitude. I would more readily choose open source software over closed freeware.
OTOH, I would choose closed freeware over commercial anyday.
Why? (BTW, you are are, IMHO, a bigeted, racist pig).
Miguel is an example of what the future will look like. He is, of course, not the only under-represented minority (Asians are not under-represented) to be famous for a project such as this, but this is what will continue to happen.