>Now, Linux has moved to the corporate world (even though I do love the new "business Tux"/. icon) and the roots and history are really gone.
Well, I can only partly agree, myself. Yes, Linux is becoming more business-friendly. But, quite frankly, the one major thing that you're probably thinking of is the desktop interface known as KDE.
Quite frankly, KDE was designed by a bunch of coders that took what Apple and Microsoft came up with, and bashed them over the head with it.:^) Perhaps, like me, you'd like to see more scriptability in newer developments such as KDE and GNOME. Well, the only thing close on KDE is kTk (which is kinda obsolete in KDE KRASH) and personally, as far as GNOME is concerned, I hate parens (not that you can tell by my comment here.:^)
If nothing else, I'd like to see something spring up that's:
1.) integrated with KDE 2.) mostly scripted 3.) extremely easy to code for
Perhaps this could be an updated version of TkDesk, or something completely new. I was always kinda disappointed that TkDesk got the shaft after KDE/GNOME came about.:^( The darn thing is *still* powerful and versatile. I've seen KDE & GNOME apps that go on for several hundred lines that could probably be done in 10 lines of code in a TkDesk config file.:^) Yeah, it's not got a themeable toolkit, it's not multithreaded, it's got a clunky interface, blah blah blah, but it more than makes up for being long in the tooth with it's versatility.
Anyone care to hack together some stuff for it? I once had KDE/GNOME menus going on it (used KDE2WM.pl to do it, though...) and I'm sure that a GUI config could be hacked together easily enough...TkDesk with wizards, now *there's* a scary thought!:^)
OK, this will probably get moderated down as flamebait, but I don't care...if you want to be that infantile about it, fine.:^P
While I don't use the OS, I've been told that BeOS has decent support for MIDI stuff. Also, companies such as MOTU are really keen on BeOS because of its stability and multi-threaded nature (although I'd be willing to bet that being a commercial OS has a lot to do with it:^)
Anyway, go trolling around and see if this would be a possible solution for ya.
Perhaps the person who made the post was unaware of this fine source of information. Just because you were painfully aware of this source doesn't mean that everyone is. Someone else could have looked at the link, said "Ooh, I've never heard of that," and giddily clicked on the link.
Please try to review potential information in Ask Slashdot sections with a more open mind-and a bit more patience.
Quite frankly, you're correct, but I still take offense to the idea that it's illegal for me to stick a CD that I've purchased in my CD-ROM drive, fire up MusicMatch Jukebox, rip the CD, and send the whole kit-n-kaboodle to my Rio.
Now, AFAIK although IANAL, if one were to use CDPARANOIA, then send the output to Notlame, then send the output to riotools, all using pipes, then this *would* be OK, since the data is never *stored* in my computer, and there was a bargain between Diamond and the RIAA regarding the legality of a device that can store MP3s.
Why did this troll get a score of 2? Just curious, because I want to know how some asshole can get a score of 2 just for showing his/her ass to the public.
Seriously, guys, please stop bumping up "gee, sounds like a loser idea to me whenever I've already got better" and "this has been posted before" bozos that apparently do nothing more than sit slack-jawed at their computers, giggling with glee when they see a new story pop up, and take the opportunity to flame the folks at Slashdot for possible having the gall to post a story a second time, or post a story well after another site has.
Why do you assume that "Use the source, Luke!" refers to everyone? Okay, think of the obvious Jedi reference, or Luke in particular. In Lucas's little universe, was everyone a Jedi? Did everyone go around doing Jedi mind tricks? No. Those who had the power did so. Think about law enforcement, at least in the United States. If someone commits murder, does the average citizen go kill the killer? Hopefully, no. Those who are empowered to do so, do so, whether we agree with it or not. So, what am I getting at? If you can do this sort of coding on your own, then for God's sake, do it! The source code is there. If not, there's probably a commercial product available, or, if you're willing, go to CoSource and *pay* someone to develop it. Grandma doesn't have to develop the software herself. But if she is capable of doing so, she may, without having to purchase expensive compilers, without having to purchase OS source code, and hopefully without having to sign an NDA.
A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation.
My wife uses Linux all the time, and she's about as computer-literate as the chair she sits on.:^) The thing is, I set it up (with less fuss than I had doing a manual install of Windows.
>4.Get rid of GNU. Yeah, that's right, drop the >command line utilities that you know and love, >and lose all that >power. If granny can't remember her password >how's she supposed to remember arcane commands?
No, no, no. My wife doesn't use these commands; yet, they're still there. How's that? She uses commands she *needs* to use, usually KDE/GNOME commands, with some commercial stuff like WordPerfect thrown in for good measure. I'm the one that usually does some voodoo on the machine with command line tools.
So how would you propose getting the machine going when something catastrophic happens-mimic the Mac, and make a graphical user interface System floppy/CD? This could be done--without eliminating command-line tools. I see absolutely no reason for eliminating them--merely make easy-to-use graphical alternatives to them.
>5.The gui must be the OS. This means, goodbye X. >Most of the newbies who ask me for help request >help with >setting up X (well, networking comes close). X >must disappear, or it must become so much a part >of Linux >that it's just there, and it just works, no >matter what video card, RAMDac, or whatever the >user has on their >machine.
Well, my suspicion was right...and again, I say: no, no, no. The main problem is the fact that video cards aren't that well-supported. In fact, on distros such as Red Hat, usually if your hardware is supported, it's fairly simple to set up (simpler, in some cases, than getting your card going under Windows--I know my Voodoo3 was.:^)
Simply making X--or any other graphical system--part of the OS, as you suggest, would bloat the kernel and *raise* the level of complexity of the system.
And as far as updates go, I've got a Mandrake 6.1 system, with a 7.0 CD in the mail. Whenever I want updates, I just run a nice little graphical manager that basically runs RPM for me. Sweeeeeeeeeet.:^) Basically nearly as simple as Windoze.
You make an interesting point--it would be advantageous to offer installations that automatically login a particular user. Such a system would necessarily open up security holes galore, but, then again, it's the same story on a number of OSs. Red Hat, Debian, Corel, Mandrake, are you listening? This is a fairly trivial change to init scripts, AFAIK. You'd need some way of SUing to a default user account (it'd still be nice to have individual users--perhaps model this on Microsoft's "just type in your name, optional password, and have at it" approach? Then the system would have to start up X, and hopefully X was properly configured under the install program.
Maybe distros should have new install floppies--one for the initial install, of course, but one that could also be inserted (yes, we in the know don't have to have this functionality, but still:^) to do autodetection of new hardware.
This also brings up a question, which is sure to be controversial: what sort of level of complexity would it require to use Winelib to connect an X server (such as a modified Xfb server) to Windoze drivers, and is there much interest in this? Yes, I know, non-Intellers: this idea sucks for the Mac, Amiga, Alpha, and any other kind of alternative box you can think of. It's just a blue-sky dream at this point.
I disagree that Usenet will remain popular. My main reasons are:
*complaints I've heard from countless sysadmin types about bandwidth requirements
*SNR: the last few times I posted to Usenet, and this was in Linux forums, I received about 300 junk emails *apiece*. You might argue that I should use a false email, or that I should add NOSPAM to the address, but it's difficult to get people to cc: me if I do this.:^)
*SNR Again: I checked out the forum for porting Mozilla to MacOS X (what a disappointment: all the development is in Yellow Box, not OpenStep. So much for a GNUstep Mozilla...especially with that atrocious cross-platform toolkit...anyway...) and of the 300+ messages, I'd say around 250 were spam. Really. That, and the development group had switched to a private email forum. Which brings up my next point:
*Many projects/interests have set up non-USENET (i.e. email/Web/combo) systems so that a tighter leash can be kept on a forum. A good idea, IMHO. This, of course, is a disadvantage for those who don't have the equipment, but companies such as egroups.com are filling the void.
If a company doesn't want their "ideas" (I suppose you mean source code?) published, so be it. They don't have to. America, at least, is a semi-free country; no one is forcing anyone to use a particular license (except RMS, and he doesn't count.)
Quite frankly, I'm getting a bit tired of this "all-or-nothing" rant. I just wish people would stop being so damn idealistic and start being realistic.
While this doesn't excuse not including a copy of a license on the outside of the box, here's the real reason software started being shrinkwrapped:
Because software used to be sold on magnetic media, and there was a chance of software being stolen, or a disk with a virus being introduced.
*rant* this still didn't protect you from the jerks at the store who took the software home, ran the thing on a machine with no virus scanner, re-wrapped it when they came back to work, and stuck it back on the shelf. *end of rant*
And here's the reason software retailers stopped giving refunds (okay, two:)
1. Software used to be sold on magnetic media, which could be written to, and there was the risk of the introduction of viruses. 2. Some companies, such as Microsoft, have such a strict licensing agreement that once the software is sold, the license is non-transferrable. That includes even cases where the buyer reads the agreement, says "screw this," and takes it back to the store. No dice; you have to go through proper channels, which means Microsoft (or whoever the vendor is.)
Which brings me to my point: in most cases, if you RTFM (or RTFLA) you'll find that, if *for any reason* you need to return the software or get a replacement, you must do so through the company. Yeah, it's a pain in the ass, but it's the way to do it.
Simply going to a store and being a jackass doesn't cut it. It just makes you look like an asshole and makes the clerk irritated. Do it the right way.
It *must* be GNU/Hurd. The mighty Stalin^H^Hlmann has said that Linux is not Linux, it is in fact GNU/Linux due to the fact that GNU software was used to develop it, and GNU software is used to build distros.
Therefore, their kernel will not and shall not be referred to as Hurd. It is GNU/Hurd.
Linus tried to rewrite the kernel quite some time ago in C++. The community rebelled. He rescinded.
I notice you didn't include GTK+, which is also OO. Oho, you say, it's written in C. It can't be OO. BZZZZT! It's OO, but more in a Smalltalk way than a C++ way. One need not write OO code in an OO language.
Quite frankly, I've noticed that C++ is extremely good for two things: using processor cycles and eating RAM. I'd be willing to bet that most, if not all, OO operations could be re-coded in pure C, and with less overhead (after all, OO programs *have* to be implemented somehow in machine language-I haven't heard of any OO processors coming out yet. God help us if they do.:^)
What about the possibility of a port to AROS? (Yes, I realize it runs on a Linux kernel at the moment...)
I don't see why everyone's so fired up to see a port to Linux. Quite frankly, even though I've never owned an Amiga, and haven't looked at the source, I'd think that this would be a *difficult* port, resulting in something that's about as half-assed as any other DOpus clone (with the difference being, of course, that this would be The Real Half-Assed Port Of DOpus.:^)
I agree that the beasts are still worth looking at, BTW, just as NeXT machines are; ironic, isn't it, that Apple has put it's hope behind 12-year-old NeXT technology...in effect, NeXT became the next Macintosh.:^)
The statement reads something to the effect of, "grab it while you can, in case someone decides to go after it for patent violations."
Did you know that nearly every coding technique is patented now? I wouldn't be surprised, quite frankly, if loops were patented, especially loops with conditional breaks. If this were to happen, would you attempt to write software without control code; honor the patent's owner, or would you act otherwise? BTW, this is a hypothetical situation.
What about the Amazon situation? Their controversial patent involves the storing of credit cards for future use on an e-commerce website. It's just about that vague. If you run a business online and decide, hey, I'd like to just store credit card numbers for my customers' convenience, that's a violation. I'm sure the same is true of cookies, even though that's client side (after all, you're *storing* the credit card info.)
So, I'm sure that the original author didn't mean for folks to just steal legitimately patented ideas. It's more a sad commentary on the state of software development, where writing a piece of code, and the desire to remain 100% legal, would require a patent search (even for a non-profit GPL project.)
I tend to agree. This is actually a brilliant observation. Now, don't get too big of a head.:^) I'm reminded of a plugin called Plugger a few years back...worked just by using external apps. I *think* there's another called Xswallow or something to that effect; I believe that's what FreeWRL uses to show VRML inside an HTML document in Netscape.
It's funny that many of the Big Ideas in Open Source have come from commercial ventures. It seems that there's a rather loud, yet rather small, segment that seems to think we should be using text terminals running Emacs from csh to do all our work.
Slashdot Mirror
>Now, Linux has moved to the corporate world (even though I do love the new "business Tux" /. icon) and the roots and history are really gone.
:^) Perhaps, like me, you'd like to see more scriptability in newer developments such as KDE and GNOME. Well, the only thing close on KDE is kTk (which is kinda obsolete in KDE KRASH) and personally, as far as GNOME is concerned, I hate parens (not that you can tell by my comment here. :^)
:^( The darn thing is *still* powerful and versatile. I've seen KDE & GNOME apps that go on for several hundred lines that could probably be done in 10 lines of code in a TkDesk config file. :^) Yeah, it's not got a themeable toolkit, it's not multithreaded, it's got a clunky interface, blah blah blah, but it more than makes up for being long in the tooth with it's versatility.
:^)
Well, I can only partly agree, myself. Yes, Linux is becoming more business-friendly. But, quite frankly, the one major thing that you're probably thinking of is the desktop interface known as KDE.
Quite frankly, KDE was designed by a bunch of coders that took what Apple and Microsoft came up with, and bashed them over the head with it.
If nothing else, I'd like to see something spring up that's:
1.) integrated with KDE
2.) mostly scripted
3.) extremely easy to code for
Perhaps this could be an updated version of TkDesk, or something completely new. I was always kinda disappointed that TkDesk got the shaft after KDE/GNOME came about.
Anyone care to hack together some stuff for it? I once had KDE/GNOME menus going on it (used KDE2WM.pl to do it, though...) and I'm sure that a GUI config could be hacked together easily enough...TkDesk with wizards, now *there's* a scary thought!
OK, this will probably get moderated down as flamebait, but I don't care...if you want to be that infantile about it, fine. :^P
:^)
While I don't use the OS, I've been told that BeOS has decent support for MIDI stuff. Also, companies such as MOTU are really keen on BeOS because of its stability and multi-threaded nature (although I'd be willing to bet that being a commercial OS has a lot to do with it
Anyway, go trolling around and see if this would be a possible solution for ya.
Why was this moderated down so low?
Perhaps the person who made the post was unaware of this fine source of information. Just because you were painfully aware of this source doesn't mean that everyone is. Someone else could have looked at the link, said "Ooh, I've never heard of that," and giddily clicked on the link.
Please try to review potential information in Ask Slashdot sections with a more open mind-and a bit more patience.
Does anyone still doubt that paid Microsoft trolls visit Slashdot?
Quite frankly, you're correct, but I still take offense to the idea that it's illegal for me to stick a CD that I've purchased in my CD-ROM drive, fire up MusicMatch Jukebox, rip the CD, and send the whole kit-n-kaboodle to my Rio.
Now, AFAIK although IANAL, if one were to use CDPARANOIA, then send the output to Notlame, then send the output to riotools, all using pipes, then this *would* be OK, since the data is never *stored* in my computer, and there was a bargain between Diamond and the RIAA regarding the legality of a device that can store MP3s.
Sandpaper at 250 degrees fahrenheit.
if your name is joon ki hong please go back to spanking off and playing games. thank you.
Heh, that's the ticket! :^)
Why did this troll get a score of 2? Just curious, because I want to know how some asshole can get a score of 2 just for showing his/her ass to the public.
Seriously, guys, please stop bumping up "gee, sounds like a loser idea to me whenever I've already got better" and "this has been posted before" bozos that apparently do nothing more than sit slack-jawed at their computers, giggling with glee when they see a new story pop up, and take the opportunity to flame the folks at Slashdot for possible having the gall to post a story a second time, or post a story well after another site has.
Jesus, people, get fucking lives.
Why do you assume that "Use the source, Luke!" refers to everyone? Okay, think of the obvious Jedi reference, or Luke in particular. In Lucas's little universe, was everyone a Jedi? Did everyone go around doing Jedi mind tricks? No. Those who had the power did so. Think about law enforcement, at least in the United States. If someone commits murder, does the average citizen go kill the killer? Hopefully, no. Those who are empowered to do so, do so, whether we agree with it or not. So, what am I getting at? If you can do this sort of coding on your own, then for God's sake, do it! The source code is there. If not, there's probably a commercial product available, or, if you're willing, go to CoSource and *pay* someone to develop it. Grandma doesn't have to develop the software herself. But if she is capable of doing so, she may, without having to purchase expensive compilers, without having to purchase OS source code, and hopefully without having to sign an NDA.
The alternative, of course, is to let this fairly visible slug continue to violate the GPL. Yeah, great plan, chief.
A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation. A GPL violation is a GPL violation is a GPL violation.
:^)
Get the point?
Damn, that was his *worst* role (actually, I heard that his performances in Central Park were pretty bad...)
:^) had more than one word lines. :^)
"They said you were dead! They said you were dead!"
"I'd have given you a nasty scar if you'd fought one whip below your abilities!"
Damn, the only lines and acting worse than that in movies in recent movies was Hopper in Waterworld:
"Hey! Hey!"
"There!"
At least Patrick as Gurney (wait...I thought he was Duncan Idaho...I gotta watch that again
My wife uses Linux all the time, and she's about as computer-literate as the chair she sits on. :^) The thing is, I set it up (with less fuss than I had doing a manual install of Windows.
:^)
:^) Basically nearly as simple as Windoze.
:^) to do autodetection of new hardware.
:^)
>4.Get rid of GNU. Yeah, that's right, drop the
>command line utilities that you know and love,
>and lose all that
>power. If granny can't remember her password
>how's she supposed to remember arcane commands?
No, no, no. My wife doesn't use these commands; yet, they're still there. How's that? She uses commands she *needs* to use, usually KDE/GNOME commands, with some commercial stuff like WordPerfect thrown in for good measure. I'm the one that usually does some voodoo on the machine with command line tools.
So how would you propose getting the machine going when something catastrophic happens-mimic the Mac, and make a graphical user interface System floppy/CD? This could be done--without eliminating command-line tools. I see absolutely no reason for eliminating them--merely make easy-to-use graphical alternatives to them.
>5.The gui must be the OS. This means, goodbye X.
>Most of the newbies who ask me for help request
>help with
>setting up X (well, networking comes close). X
>must disappear, or it must become so much a part
>of Linux
>that it's just there, and it just works, no
>matter what video card, RAMDac, or whatever the
>user has on their
>machine.
Well, my suspicion was right...and again, I say: no, no, no. The main problem is the fact that video cards aren't that well-supported. In fact, on distros such as Red Hat, usually if your hardware is supported, it's fairly simple to set up (simpler, in some cases, than getting your card going under Windows--I know my Voodoo3 was.
Simply making X--or any other graphical system--part of the OS, as you suggest, would bloat the kernel and *raise* the level of complexity of the system.
And as far as updates go, I've got a Mandrake 6.1 system, with a 7.0 CD in the mail. Whenever I want updates, I just run a nice little graphical manager that basically runs RPM for me. Sweeeeeeeeeet.
You make an interesting point--it would be advantageous to offer installations that automatically login a particular user. Such a system would necessarily open up security holes galore, but, then again, it's the same story on a number of OSs. Red Hat, Debian, Corel, Mandrake, are you listening? This is a fairly trivial change to init scripts, AFAIK. You'd need some way of SUing to a default user account (it'd still be nice to have individual users--perhaps model this on Microsoft's "just type in your name, optional password, and have at it" approach? Then the system would have to start up X, and hopefully X was properly configured under the install program.
Maybe distros should have new install floppies--one for the initial install, of course, but one that could also be inserted (yes, we in the know don't have to have this functionality, but still
This also brings up a question, which is sure to be controversial: what sort of level of complexity would it require to use Winelib to connect an X server (such as a modified Xfb server) to Windoze drivers, and is there much interest in this? Yes, I know, non-Intellers: this idea sucks for the Mac, Amiga, Alpha, and any other kind of alternative box you can think of. It's just a blue-sky dream at this point.
Just my $0.50.
I disagree that Usenet will remain popular. My main reasons are:
:^)
*complaints I've heard from countless sysadmin types about bandwidth requirements
*SNR: the last few times I posted to Usenet, and this was in Linux forums, I received about 300 junk emails *apiece*. You might argue that I should use a false email, or that I should add NOSPAM to the address, but it's difficult to get people to cc: me if I do this.
*SNR Again: I checked out the forum for porting Mozilla to MacOS X (what a disappointment: all the development is in Yellow Box, not OpenStep. So much for a GNUstep Mozilla...especially with that atrocious cross-platform toolkit...anyway...) and of the 300+ messages, I'd say around 250 were spam. Really. That, and the development group had switched to a private email forum. Which brings up my next point:
*Many projects/interests have set up non-USENET (i.e. email/Web/combo) systems so that a tighter leash can be kept on a forum. A good idea, IMHO. This, of course, is a disadvantage for those who don't have the equipment, but companies such as egroups.com are filling the void.
If a company doesn't want their "ideas" (I suppose you mean source code?) published, so be it. They don't have to. America, at least, is a semi-free country; no one is forcing anyone to use a particular license (except RMS, and he doesn't count.)
Quite frankly, I'm getting a bit tired of this "all-or-nothing" rant. I just wish people would stop being so damn idealistic and start being realistic.
While this doesn't excuse not including a copy of a license on the outside of the box, here's the real reason software started being shrinkwrapped:
Because software used to be sold on magnetic media, and there was a chance of software being stolen, or a disk with a virus being introduced.
*rant* this still didn't protect you from the jerks at the store who took the software home, ran the thing on a machine with no virus scanner, re-wrapped it when they came back to work, and stuck it back on the shelf. *end of rant*
And here's the reason software retailers stopped giving refunds (okay, two:)
1. Software used to be sold on magnetic media, which could be written to, and there was the risk of the introduction of viruses.
2. Some companies, such as Microsoft, have such a strict licensing agreement that once the software is sold, the license is non-transferrable. That includes even cases where the buyer reads the agreement, says "screw this," and takes it back to the store. No dice; you have to go through proper channels, which means Microsoft (or whoever the vendor is.)
Which brings me to my point: in most cases, if you RTFM (or RTFLA) you'll find that, if *for any reason* you need to return the software or get a replacement, you must do so through the company. Yeah, it's a pain in the ass, but it's the way to do it.
Simply going to a store and being a jackass doesn't cut it. It just makes you look like an asshole and makes the clerk irritated. Do it the right way.
It *must* be GNU/Hurd. The mighty Stalin^H^Hlmann has said that Linux is not Linux, it is in fact GNU/Linux due to the fact that GNU software was used to develop it, and GNU software is used to build distros.
Therefore, their kernel will not and shall not be referred to as Hurd. It is GNU/Hurd.
Linus tried to rewrite the kernel quite some time ago in C++. The community rebelled. He rescinded.
:^)
I notice you didn't include GTK+, which is also OO. Oho, you say, it's written in C. It can't be OO. BZZZZT! It's OO, but more in a Smalltalk way than a C++ way. One need not write OO code in an OO language.
Quite frankly, I've noticed that C++ is extremely good for two things: using processor cycles and eating RAM. I'd be willing to bet that most, if not all, OO operations could be re-coded in pure C, and with less overhead (after all, OO programs *have* to be implemented somehow in machine language-I haven't heard of any OO processors coming out yet. God help us if they do.
Not been on *here* yet, though, eh?
I, for one, check gnu.org every month or two. Seriously. So I appreciate it.
Shut up.
What about the possibility of a port to AROS? (Yes, I realize it runs on a Linux kernel at the moment...)
:^)
:^)
I don't see why everyone's so fired up to see a port to Linux. Quite frankly, even though I've never owned an Amiga, and haven't looked at the source, I'd think that this would be a *difficult* port, resulting in something that's about as half-assed as any other DOpus clone (with the difference being, of course, that this would be The Real Half-Assed Port Of DOpus.
I agree that the beasts are still worth looking at, BTW, just as NeXT machines are; ironic, isn't it, that Apple has put it's hope behind 12-year-old NeXT technology...in effect, NeXT became the next Macintosh.
Glad to see I'm not the *only* one who knows what the "code" link is a link to...
ViaVoice for Linux...available now. BOOYA!
The statement reads something to the effect of, "grab it while you can, in case someone decides to go after it for patent violations."
Did you know that nearly every coding technique is patented now? I wouldn't be surprised, quite frankly, if loops were patented, especially loops with conditional breaks. If this were to happen, would you attempt to write software without control code; honor the patent's owner, or would you act otherwise? BTW, this is a hypothetical situation.
What about the Amazon situation? Their controversial patent involves the storing of credit cards for future use on an e-commerce website. It's just about that vague. If you run a business online and decide, hey, I'd like to just store credit card numbers for my customers' convenience, that's a violation. I'm sure the same is true of cookies, even though that's client side (after all, you're *storing* the credit card info.)
So, I'm sure that the original author didn't mean for folks to just steal legitimately patented ideas. It's more a sad commentary on the state of software development, where writing a piece of code, and the desire to remain 100% legal, would require a patent search (even for a non-profit GPL project.)
Just my $0.02.
I tend to agree. This is actually a brilliant observation. Now, don't get too big of a head. :^) I'm reminded of a plugin called Plugger a few years back...worked just by using external apps. I *think* there's another called Xswallow or something to that effect; I believe that's what FreeWRL uses to show VRML inside an HTML document in Netscape.
It's funny that many of the Big Ideas in Open Source have come from commercial ventures. It seems that there's a rather loud, yet rather small, segment that seems to think we should be using text terminals running Emacs from csh to do all our work.