The first thing we noticed about leopard was that printing no longer worked for us. Somehow Apple had managed to break things when you tried to use a non-Apple CUPs print server. The solution, fortunately, is found at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5705091&tstart=0 . However that's a real pain for a lot of Mac users, especially ones not used to the unix command line.
Another problem is that it's now a lot less obvious how to connect Leopard to an LDAP server other than OS X's OpenDirectory or ActiveDirectory, which are the only two options that appear in the Directory Utility app. Rather than doing things the obvious way, you have to use the services tab, click on LDAPv3, then edit, and then add your server and specify the server type. Definitely a step backwards, kind of like how Vista's wireless setup got a lot harder over XP.
I should have made the bracket more like $600-$1000. Prices outside the bracket need not apply, at least in the minds of many people.
And in fairness, the take-home price of the macbook is probably going to be closer to $1200, or even $1400 if you add in warranty and RAM. Still a great deal for what it is. But hardly something that competes with the $700 dell system. To me the price jump isn't that big of a deal. But to friends and family, saving even $100 dollars, is worth it to them. Vista notwithstanding.
I understand that Apple caters to the luxury goods market (home or whatever). I'm just saying they are missing out on a huge opportunity to capture a much greater share of the market. Everybody I know that bought a new machine with vista hates vista, so had Apple had something to offer them, they'd probably be Apple customers. If they are not important to Apple, so be it. More opportunity for Linux.
I disagree about the Mac Mini. By the time you add the keyboard, mouse, LCD monitor, printer, etc, it's going to be clsoe to $1000. And it will have it's clock cleaned by a Dell that's shipping for $700 including a 17" LCD monitor and printer!
I agree completely, at least with the last part of your comment. Right now Apple has a product for every part of the market *except* the market that most home consumers are in. Consider that Dell sells a number of machines aimed at a home market that run for between $400 and $1000 for a complete system. Apple has absolutely nothing in that price rance except the Mac Mini, which is hardly a capable machine with its slow hard drive. Apple badly needs a small tour unit that can come to between $800 and $1000 with a monitor! Until then they are missing out on a huge market that thinks the iMac is too expensive for them, and the Mac Mini isn't enough computer. And actually the Mac Mini is really expensive too, for what it is. No keybard, no mouse, no monitor, all for about $500-$600. I'm the first to say that when you compare laptops, or even iMacs to business workstations, Apple is the same price or cheaper. But not so for the home market, one dominated by cheap whitebox PCs and Dells. I'm not going to suggest that Apple sell OS X for non-Apple harware. Just that Apple needs to start addressing the needs of this market in terms of hardware. I know of half a dozen close friends and relatives who would have bought Apple had Apple actually had something available.
I disagree with the idea of eliminating Base (and Access). As I type this I'm reminded that *all* of the OO.org pieces, except Writer, are badly named. Base? I digress.
Two things are glaringly missing in the OSS world when it comes to business software. 1. and Access replacement, and 2. an Exchange/Outlook/ActiveSync replacement.
Now Base is nowhere near an access replacement. But it does start down the right path. And that is the idea of building front-ends to SQL servers, or a local SQLite database. Now I know with ODBC Access can also front-end real databases. But very few people do that. And then they wonder why they can't avoid data corruption when more than one person uses access at a time. With Base, I can talk to a PostgreSQL server, for example, and multiple people can use Base just fine. Base still sucks, of course, and in my opinion isn't much more than a glorified table viewer. But I sure hope it matures into a real product.
All in all, I think the office space (no pun intended!) is pretty discouraging. There's no way to break the MS hegemony at this point; it's become a complete monopoly. Other packages only half-heartedly compete, including OO.org. It's not like it's impossible for Sun or anyone else to build an Office competitor. It's just that MS has so thoroughly and completely decimated the office market that everyone is afraid to compete. Of course the file format lock-in makes it very hard too. If it's not 100% compatible (which is impossible given even OOXML specs), then it can't be used in many circumstances. At one time the situation was different. We had a number of office suites. But witness what happened to WordPerfect. Totally killed by artificially lowering prices. Sun would probably be crushed outright by MS if they tried to really devote the time and attention to OO.org that it deserves.
OSS, in theory, is immune to this. But right now there's so much fracturing among OSS developers that we never will see an Office killer. Sun's own schizophrenia regarding OSS and even their position with regards to MS is, in my opinion, killing MS. Maybe it's time to either fork OO.org, or work on a different, cleaner, code-base. Maybe KOffice.
Kexi would be dual-licensed. You can do what you want with the code when you own the copyright! The version you'd buy from them is not under the GPL so you can't turn around and treat it like open source. Also, if you are a business, since you're dealing with a Qt-derived product, it would be hard to build a closed-source, standalone business app with the OSS version of Kexi.
Excellent news. I wonder how hard it would be to write, say, FreeBASIC wrappers for the perl API. Most people coming from Access are not going to be very experienced with or keen on perl, but they are familiar with VBA, and FreeBASIC would be at least remotely familiar to them. I use python almost exclusively myself and would love to have libraries like yours for developing rapid database GUI apps. I remember a while back a Qt-based app that used python for RAD database development. It was commercial I think.
Is the Kexi project (supposedly an Access killer too) part of KOffice?
MS Word on different machines has this problem too! Trying to get a large document paginated correctly across different versions of Word, or even the same version of word on different computers is a nightmare. Of course on Windows I'd expect OO.org to have similar pagination problems between machines because it has to do with different printers and printer drivers causing different font metrics to be given to the word processor.
In any case, if you need a document to always look the same, then you really only have one choice. LaTeX.
Sure but wind tunnel tests of the NCC-1701 refitted Enterprise show that it has remarkable in-air properties, despite it never have been designed to fly through an atmosphere.
That's Steve's loss then. Too bad his own ego often gets in the way of things that could benefit the customer. Honestly, why should Sun really care what Jobs does with ZFS in the long run. Sure it'd be good for Sun in terms of publicity, and maybe even some royalties. But in the long run, I can't see it being that big of a deal for Sun.
Yeah you're right. That is a horrible analogy, and pointless one. Why did this get modded +5, insightful?
An 18-speed heavy truck unit is not only a stick shift, but has unsynchronized gears, requiring training, skill, and also an inherent understanding of how the transmission works (expected rpms at shift points, etc) to drive adequately. By your flawed analogy, this is clearly an overall negative thing that is adversely impacting the trucking industry in general.
Seems to me that if there really are things that, say 3Ds does in a slick, intuitive way, without compromising power and features, then we should be able to exactly quantify that. Instead we have an entire series of posts whining about how horrible the interface is and how obviously more intuitive other interfaces are, without a single example (other than the texture example, which is an acknowledged problem on blender). I mean really, does having "save" and "load" in a slightly different menu position (or even UI position) really make blender suck? No, I don't believe so.
I'd rather keep DST year round. I'd rather go to work in the dark and come home in the light than go to work in the dark and come home in the dark!
I've never quite understood the farm thing. (I'm from a farm). Work happens from sunup to sundown, regardless of what the watch says. The cows don't produce milk according to the clock, either.
I guess in reality changing clocks ahead or behind during the year is just a way of psyching ourselves out, since we're too lazy to simply get up and go to bed at certain hours.
I personally don't understand all the furor on the issue of evolution vs creationism. For example, I often hear evolution as the "atheist" argument, which is really silly if you think about it. There's absolutely no reason why someone would have to be an atheist to agree with the principles of evolution. In fact, I cannot see *any* real reason why christianity and evolution are mutually exclusive. If evolution is true, that doesn't for a moment mean that christianity is undermined. At least if you define creationism as "creation by God" and not "creation ex nihilo. If you leave creationism in the realm of the metaphysical where it belongs, then evolution is very compatible with the idea. In fact, God could (and must) follow any natural principle to bring about something.
I guess according to many of these folks on both sides of this issue, I must not exist. Because I am a creationist who believes in evolution. I also am someone who believes in God, yet thinks that teaching "intelligent design" in schools is not a good idea. While I believe God brought about the universe, it's up to science to tell us how it came about. I'll leave the "how" to the scientists (and evolutionists), and keep the "why" open for discussion.
Not quite. Almost all distros of linux have *no* EULA. The license" you refer to (licenses, actually) govern redistribution. Because of said redistribution rights, the moment you receive Linux from someone exercising those rights you can now do whatever you want with linux. The moment you choose to distribute it to someone else, the license comes into effect.
This is generally very different from the "licensing" you talk about with Windows. In fact, even though it is all based on the same copyright law, these are, for the user, very different things.
I do in fact own Linux as much as copyright law allows. Something that the Windows EULA never allows.
Sure but nothing will actually support it, and those products that do support it will support it in a half-baked, crippled way. MS always used to make sure Word could read WordPerfect documents perfectly, but couldn't create them worth a darn. Expect this type of behavior to continue.
If OOXML does get ISO approved, expect to see all the major packages support it in some fashion, while MS moves on with MSOOXML and kills off all the competition as they fruitlessly try to implement OOXML in a way that's compatible with Microsoft.
If you read the article, you'll know that the article is really nothing more than an ad for the Trango hyperviser system. After reading it, I'm let to wonder why someone with goals that conflict with the GPLv3 would want to run Linux at all? I mean if you're going to all the trouble to install and run a proprietary hypervisor, why not just go the rest of the way and replace Linux with a tried and true commercial, proprietary, and closed embedded OS. Why all this fuss about wanting to use linux at all? Seems to me that Linux, while ideal as an embedded OS, is hardly the only choice for the Tivo's of the world.
Anyone who uses Linux in a Tivoized way, and feels bitter about the GPLv3 needs to examine themselves and their motivations and recognize that everything has a cost and now we are requiring them to pay up by honoring the GPLv3, or pay up by licensing an OS which is compatible with your aims. Complaining about the GPLv3 and trying to find ways to game the system is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst.
What you say has yet to be proved. Given the current strain on the grids, etc. I know Alberta, Canada studied the issue and found that unless things concerning electricity production changed dramatically, electric cars everywhere would increase emissions by almost double the current values. So ultimately, economies of scale may make it viable, but until a better battery/storage system is found, I really don't think we'll get there. Hydrogen just has a poor density for energy, despite its explosive potential. Economies of scale should, however, make bio-fuels more economical in the long run, once we figure out a way to actually produce biofuel (corn doesn't cut it).
You can surely *use* GPLv3 software in your own rocket, but the moment you want to sell that to others, I believe the phrase is, "if you don't like the license, write your own damn code." Why should you be allowed to sell software you're using when you don't own the copyright, except as allowed by the license?
Statements like that, while factual as far as the tailpipe are concerned, are really fallacious.
That statement should really be, "only 20% more CO2 emissions that a normal car", or "only x grams of nuclear waste produced per mile." There's no way, unless the H2 was produced via nuclear-produced electricity, that the car really produces less CO2 than burning gasoline. We only have 2 ways of making H2 right now. Electrolysis and essentially burning natural gas. Burning natural gas (due to the relatively low energy density of H2) must obviously produce quite a bit of CO2 for every usable unit of energy. Or if it's electrolysis, that's a certain amount of coal burned, which also produces CO2. Or the cleanest is nuclear powered electrolysis, which does have a nasty bi-product of nuclear waste.
Contrast this with the dream of someday having fuels produced by plants or bacteria. Still emits CO2 into the air, but since the fuel was made from CO2 out of the air, the environmental impact is almost nonexistent.
How this got rated insightful, I will never know, because it is not. A couple of points. First, Free Software under the GPL is certain free for you to use in any way. You can even embed GPL'd software in your embedded rocket flight control computer if you want. Microsoft can *use* GPL'd software in any way they see fit. In fact Microsoft has entire labs full of Linux machines (they believe that one should know one's enemy). Contrast this with Windows, which is not free for me to use in any way I see fit. I cannot run it under certain Virtual machines, I cannot install it on more than so many computers (as provided by the EULA). In contrast, GPL'd software has no EULA; there are *no* restrictions whatsoever on its use.
Second, there are restrictions on *redistribution* of the code, though, as there should be.
What you are saying is pretty silly. If I downloaded a copy of MS's source code from somewhere and tried to redistribute it, you wouldn't say that I am shackled when copyright law does not allow me to do so. GPL'd software is the same. Without the terms of the GPL I have no rights to modify and distribute the source code at all! How the GPL shackles my existing non-rights to distribute copyrighted code that I don't own, I will never know. For without the GPL, I cannot distribute the code to others, and others cannot distribute the code to me!
Seems to me that the GPL ensures freedom in a couple of ways. It ensures that I can use the code freely for any purpose, even without agreeing to the terms of the license at all! Also it ensure that as the author of GPL'd code, my code will never be stolen from me against my will, and sold back to me with restrictions on its use.
So let's stop right now with this nonsense about the GPL shackling freedom.
Someone on PRI radio the other day pointed out that if Google defaulted to SSL for gmail, they would experience a server load that would be an order of magnitude more than they currently deal with. So I don't think that SSL is the answer here. What we need to find is a way to do a non-SSL session without a risk of the session being stolen. Perhaps some kind of light-weight cryptographic exchange on every request or something. A cookie that constantly changes and cannot be reused. Some way of making sure that even if the attacker got the initial cookie, he couldn't hijack the session because he'd be missing some vital piece of information that was exchanged over SSL during login.
Amen to this. Ben Gurion airport security is the best in the world. But interestingly enough, for most of us, it is the most polite screening too. Case in point. I flew from TLV to New York in January. Much of the time I spent in Israel was with Palestinian friends. I was also carrying a DVD that was destined for another Palestinian friend (it was a wedding I went too). At the airport they immediately interrogated me and I volunteered the information about the DVD, since I knew they would find it anyway. They are very thorough. The girl questioning me immediately shuffled me off to another desk for more questioning. She explained very politely that this was a standard procedure that they were required to put me through since I had spent time with Palestinian friends. The entire time I was treated with dignity and respect. I then spent the next hour being screened by some other agents. They examined in detail every article in my bags, and searched my person for anything suspicious (not quite a strip search but close). In my haste to get to the airport I had forgotten about the silly TSA rules about gels and liquids, so I had a few containers of pudding in my carry on luggage. The agents reminded me of the American rules and acted like they thought they were really silly rules, but since the plane was bound for the US, they followed them. Because of the way the Israelis conducted themselves, I was never irritated or angry (I've been through Ben Gurion a few times, so I know what to expect). In fact as the last agent escorted me through security, he talked to me about how I had enjoyed being in Israel, where I was from, etc, which really made me feel good about the entire incident. Of course the Israelis are smart about it and even their politeness, their casual conversation, small talk, are all part of their screening process. Very effective. What better way to catch a terrorist than by disarming talk!
When I got to New York, though, I was remind of just how bad the TSA really is. I had forgotten that a bottle of Jam qualifies as a gel. I had a 4.3 gl oz container of that in my carry-on too. The Israelis didn't have a problem with it, obviously. But the TSA had a hissy fit over it. They berated me that I didn't know the rules and demanded that I either throw it out or check it. The TSA agent was belligerant and unpleasant about it. Made me laugh almost. Here I had just passed through the most secure and thorough screening in the world and now they had the gall to tell me my little jar of jam was a security threat. I just checked the jar of jam in another piece and luggage. When I got home I found that the TSA had actually opened the jar of jam (unsealed it). Amazing.
Anyway, the TSA does have a job to do, but they could sure learn a lesson in how to do it properly from the Israeli security people. I'd much rather be screened by a disarmingly pleasant official. You'd likely catch the real threats too.
Since I don't have mod points, I'll just burn karma instead.
In short, you don't know what you're talking about. He's not talking about *throughput* which Linux does very well at. He's talking about latency and interactive performance. A system where the desktop is snappy and responsive, where the CPU wastes cycles if need be just to makes sure the mouse doesn't lag and that windows are redrawn in a prompt, synchronized way. A kernel optimized for desktop performance (have you ever *used* Quartz on OS/X?) will sacrifice overall throughput and raw total performance for low latency servicing of the things a user actually looks at on the screen. It's this perception of performance that matters on the desktop. If users sees a fraction of a second delay or stuttering in his UI, this is perceived as "slow!"
For example, my Fedora Core 6 box running on an older AMD 2800+ XP, is plenty fast at lots of things. I can compile large programs fairly quickly, and do all kinds of things. But dragging a window across the screen not only is slow, but it also can cause my audio to skip.
On the same processor (even under VMware!) Windows XP is smooth and the UI responsive. Of course under the hood Windows doesn't fair so well. I can't compile with as much raw speed, and although the UI is responsive, the code connected to it may not be executing in a speedy manner, causing me to have to wait for the computer. But the important part is that the windows draw smooth and fast. Resizing a window or moving a window is silky smooth.
Even Vista, though it ultimately is slower than XP and Linux, has a UI that appears to be super fast and slick, much faster than any Linux desktop (remember perception *is* reality). Just try to use it sometimes.
Now his patches combined with, say Compiz, go a long ways to making Linux have the responsiveness that desktop users require, the apparent schizophrenia on the part of Linux developers in relation to the desktop has frustrated him and driven him away. This is a tragedy.
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The first thing we noticed about leopard was that printing no longer worked for us. Somehow Apple had managed to break things when you tried to use a non-Apple CUPs print server. The solution, fortunately, is found at http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=5705091&tstart=0 . However that's a real pain for a lot of Mac users, especially ones not used to the unix command line.
Another problem is that it's now a lot less obvious how to connect Leopard to an LDAP server other than OS X's OpenDirectory or ActiveDirectory, which are the only two options that appear in the Directory Utility app. Rather than doing things the obvious way, you have to use the services tab, click on LDAPv3, then edit, and then add your server and specify the server type. Definitely a step backwards, kind of like how Vista's wireless setup got a lot harder over XP.
In North America, we call them "oxen." The entire western settlement of the US was powered by oxen back in the latter half of the 19th century.
ophcrack is for cracking LM hashes, not SSHA or even MD5 hashes.
I should have made the bracket more like $600-$1000. Prices outside the bracket need not apply, at least in the minds of many people.
And in fairness, the take-home price of the macbook is probably going to be closer to $1200, or even $1400 if you add in warranty and RAM. Still a great deal for what it is. But hardly something that competes with the $700 dell system. To me the price jump isn't that big of a deal. But to friends and family, saving even $100 dollars, is worth it to them. Vista notwithstanding.
I understand that Apple caters to the luxury goods market (home or whatever). I'm just saying they are missing out on a huge opportunity to capture a much greater share of the market. Everybody I know that bought a new machine with vista hates vista, so had Apple had something to offer them, they'd probably be Apple customers. If they are not important to Apple, so be it. More opportunity for Linux.
I disagree about the Mac Mini. By the time you add the keyboard, mouse, LCD monitor, printer, etc, it's going to be clsoe to $1000. And it will have it's clock cleaned by a Dell that's shipping for $700 including a 17" LCD monitor and printer!
I agree completely, at least with the last part of your comment. Right now Apple has a product for every part of the market *except* the market that most home consumers are in. Consider that Dell sells a number of machines aimed at a home market that run for between $400 and $1000 for a complete system. Apple has absolutely nothing in that price rance except the Mac Mini, which is hardly a capable machine with its slow hard drive. Apple badly needs a small tour unit that can come to between $800 and $1000 with a monitor! Until then they are missing out on a huge market that thinks the iMac is too expensive for them, and the Mac Mini isn't enough computer. And actually the Mac Mini is really expensive too, for what it is. No keybard, no mouse, no monitor, all for about $500-$600. I'm the first to say that when you compare laptops, or even iMacs to business workstations, Apple is the same price or cheaper. But not so for the home market, one dominated by cheap whitebox PCs and Dells. I'm not going to suggest that Apple sell OS X for non-Apple harware. Just that Apple needs to start addressing the needs of this market in terms of hardware. I know of half a dozen close friends and relatives who would have bought Apple had Apple actually had something available.
I disagree with the idea of eliminating Base (and Access). As I type this I'm reminded that *all* of the OO.org pieces, except Writer, are badly named. Base? I digress.
Two things are glaringly missing in the OSS world when it comes to business software. 1. and Access replacement, and 2. an Exchange/Outlook/ActiveSync replacement.
Now Base is nowhere near an access replacement. But it does start down the right path. And that is the idea of building front-ends to SQL servers, or a local SQLite database. Now I know with ODBC Access can also front-end real databases. But very few people do that. And then they wonder why they can't avoid data corruption when more than one person uses access at a time. With Base, I can talk to a PostgreSQL server, for example, and multiple people can use Base just fine. Base still sucks, of course, and in my opinion isn't much more than a glorified table viewer. But I sure hope it matures into a real product.
All in all, I think the office space (no pun intended!) is pretty discouraging. There's no way to break the MS hegemony at this point; it's become a complete monopoly. Other packages only half-heartedly compete, including OO.org. It's not like it's impossible for Sun or anyone else to build an Office competitor. It's just that MS has so thoroughly and completely decimated the office market that everyone is afraid to compete. Of course the file format lock-in makes it very hard too. If it's not 100% compatible (which is impossible given even OOXML specs), then it can't be used in many circumstances. At one time the situation was different. We had a number of office suites. But witness what happened to WordPerfect. Totally killed by artificially lowering prices. Sun would probably be crushed outright by MS if they tried to really devote the time and attention to OO.org that it deserves.
OSS, in theory, is immune to this. But right now there's so much fracturing among OSS developers that we never will see an Office killer. Sun's own schizophrenia regarding OSS and even their position with regards to MS is, in my opinion, killing MS. Maybe it's time to either fork OO.org, or work on a different, cleaner, code-base. Maybe KOffice.
Kexi would be dual-licensed. You can do what you want with the code when you own the copyright! The version you'd buy from them is not under the GPL so you can't turn around and treat it like open source. Also, if you are a business, since you're dealing with a Qt-derived product, it would be hard to build a closed-source, standalone business app with the OSS version of Kexi.
Excellent news. I wonder how hard it would be to write, say, FreeBASIC wrappers for the perl API. Most people coming from Access are not going to be very experienced with or keen on perl, but they are familiar with VBA, and FreeBASIC would be at least remotely familiar to them. I use python almost exclusively myself and would love to have libraries like yours for developing rapid database GUI apps. I remember a while back a Qt-based app that used python for RAD database development. It was commercial I think.
Is the Kexi project (supposedly an Access killer too) part of KOffice?
MS Word on different machines has this problem too! Trying to get a large document paginated correctly across different versions of Word, or even the same version of word on different computers is a nightmare. Of course on Windows I'd expect OO.org to have similar pagination problems between machines because it has to do with different printers and printer drivers causing different font metrics to be given to the word processor.
In any case, if you need a document to always look the same, then you really only have one choice. LaTeX.
Sure but wind tunnel tests of the NCC-1701 refitted Enterprise show that it has remarkable in-air properties, despite it never have been designed to fly through an atmosphere.
That's Steve's loss then. Too bad his own ego often gets in the way of things that could benefit the customer. Honestly, why should Sun really care what Jobs does with ZFS in the long run. Sure it'd be good for Sun in terms of publicity, and maybe even some royalties. But in the long run, I can't see it being that big of a deal for Sun.
Yeah you're right. That is a horrible analogy, and pointless one. Why did this get modded +5, insightful?
An 18-speed heavy truck unit is not only a stick shift, but has unsynchronized gears, requiring training, skill, and also an inherent understanding of how the transmission works (expected rpms at shift points, etc) to drive adequately. By your flawed analogy, this is clearly an overall negative thing that is adversely impacting the trucking industry in general.
Seems to me that if there really are things that, say 3Ds does in a slick, intuitive way, without compromising power and features, then we should be able to exactly quantify that. Instead we have an entire series of posts whining about how horrible the interface is and how obviously more intuitive other interfaces are, without a single example (other than the texture example, which is an acknowledged problem on blender). I mean really, does having "save" and "load" in a slightly different menu position (or even UI position) really make blender suck? No, I don't believe so.
I'd rather keep DST year round. I'd rather go to work in the dark and come home in the light than go to work in the dark and come home in the dark!
I've never quite understood the farm thing. (I'm from a farm). Work happens from sunup to sundown, regardless of what the watch says. The cows don't produce milk according to the clock, either.
I guess in reality changing clocks ahead or behind during the year is just a way of psyching ourselves out, since we're too lazy to simply get up and go to bed at certain hours.
I personally don't understand all the furor on the issue of evolution vs creationism. For example, I often hear evolution as the "atheist" argument, which is really silly if you think about it. There's absolutely no reason why someone would have to be an atheist to agree with the principles of evolution. In fact, I cannot see *any* real reason why christianity and evolution are mutually exclusive. If evolution is true, that doesn't for a moment mean that christianity is undermined. At least if you define creationism as "creation by God" and not "creation ex nihilo. If you leave creationism in the realm of the metaphysical where it belongs, then evolution is very compatible with the idea. In fact, God could (and must) follow any natural principle to bring about something.
I guess according to many of these folks on both sides of this issue, I must not exist. Because I am a creationist who believes in evolution. I also am someone who believes in God, yet thinks that teaching "intelligent design" in schools is not a good idea. While I believe God brought about the universe, it's up to science to tell us how it came about. I'll leave the "how" to the scientists (and evolutionists), and keep the "why" open for discussion.
Not quite. Almost all distros of linux have *no* EULA. The license" you refer to (licenses, actually) govern redistribution. Because of said redistribution rights, the moment you receive Linux from someone exercising those rights you can now do whatever you want with linux. The moment you choose to distribute it to someone else, the license comes into effect.
This is generally very different from the "licensing" you talk about with Windows. In fact, even though it is all based on the same copyright law, these are, for the user, very different things.
I do in fact own Linux as much as copyright law allows. Something that the Windows EULA never allows.
Sure but nothing will actually support it, and those products that do support it will support it in a half-baked, crippled way. MS always used to make sure Word could read WordPerfect documents perfectly, but couldn't create them worth a darn. Expect this type of behavior to continue.
If OOXML does get ISO approved, expect to see all the major packages support it in some fashion, while MS moves on with MSOOXML and kills off all the competition as they fruitlessly try to implement OOXML in a way that's compatible with Microsoft.
If you read the article, you'll know that the article is really nothing more than an ad for the Trango hyperviser system. After reading it, I'm let to wonder why someone with goals that conflict with the GPLv3 would want to run Linux at all? I mean if you're going to all the trouble to install and run a proprietary hypervisor, why not just go the rest of the way and replace Linux with a tried and true commercial, proprietary, and closed embedded OS. Why all this fuss about wanting to use linux at all? Seems to me that Linux, while ideal as an embedded OS, is hardly the only choice for the Tivo's of the world.
Anyone who uses Linux in a Tivoized way, and feels bitter about the GPLv3 needs to examine themselves and their motivations and recognize that everything has a cost and now we are requiring them to pay up by honoring the GPLv3, or pay up by licensing an OS which is compatible with your aims. Complaining about the GPLv3 and trying to find ways to game the system is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst.
What you say has yet to be proved. Given the current strain on the grids, etc. I know Alberta, Canada studied the issue and found that unless things concerning electricity production changed dramatically, electric cars everywhere would increase emissions by almost double the current values. So ultimately, economies of scale may make it viable, but until a better battery/storage system is found, I really don't think we'll get there. Hydrogen just has a poor density for energy, despite its explosive potential. Economies of scale should, however, make bio-fuels more economical in the long run, once we figure out a way to actually produce biofuel (corn doesn't cut it).
You can surely *use* GPLv3 software in your own rocket, but the moment you want to sell that to others, I believe the phrase is, "if you don't like the license, write your own damn code." Why should you be allowed to sell software you're using when you don't own the copyright, except as allowed by the license?
Statements like that, while factual as far as the tailpipe are concerned, are really fallacious.
That statement should really be, "only 20% more CO2 emissions that a normal car", or "only x grams of nuclear waste produced per mile." There's no way, unless the H2 was produced via nuclear-produced electricity, that the car really produces less CO2 than burning gasoline. We only have 2 ways of making H2 right now. Electrolysis and essentially burning natural gas. Burning natural gas (due to the relatively low energy density of H2) must obviously produce quite a bit of CO2 for every usable unit of energy. Or if it's electrolysis, that's a certain amount of coal burned, which also produces CO2. Or the cleanest is nuclear powered electrolysis, which does have a nasty bi-product of nuclear waste.
Contrast this with the dream of someday having fuels produced by plants or bacteria. Still emits CO2 into the air, but since the fuel was made from CO2 out of the air, the environmental impact is almost nonexistent.
How this got rated insightful, I will never know, because it is not. A couple of points.
First, Free Software under the GPL is certain free for you to use in any way. You can even embed GPL'd software in your embedded rocket flight control computer if you want. Microsoft can *use* GPL'd software in any way they see fit. In fact Microsoft has entire labs full of Linux machines (they believe that one should know one's enemy). Contrast this with Windows, which is not free for me to use in any way I see fit. I cannot run it under certain Virtual machines, I cannot install it on more than so many computers (as provided by the EULA). In contrast, GPL'd software has no EULA; there are *no* restrictions whatsoever on its use.
Second, there are restrictions on *redistribution* of the code, though, as there should be.
What you are saying is pretty silly. If I downloaded a copy of MS's source code from somewhere and tried to redistribute it, you wouldn't say that I am shackled when copyright law does not allow me to do so. GPL'd software is the same. Without the terms of the GPL I have no rights to modify and distribute the source code at all! How the GPL shackles my existing non-rights to distribute copyrighted code that I don't own, I will never know. For without the GPL, I cannot distribute the code to others, and others cannot distribute the code to me!
Seems to me that the GPL ensures freedom in a couple of ways. It ensures that I can use the code freely for any purpose, even without agreeing to the terms of the license at all! Also it ensure that as the author of GPL'd code, my code will never be stolen from me against my will, and sold back to me with restrictions on its use.
So let's stop right now with this nonsense about the GPL shackling freedom.
Someone on PRI radio the other day pointed out that if Google defaulted to SSL for gmail, they would experience a server load that would be an order of magnitude more than they currently deal with. So I don't think that SSL is the answer here. What we need to find is a way to do a non-SSL session without a risk of the session being stolen. Perhaps some kind of light-weight cryptographic exchange on every request or something. A cookie that constantly changes and cannot be reused. Some way of making sure that even if the attacker got the initial cookie, he couldn't hijack the session because he'd be missing some vital piece of information that was exchanged over SSL during login.
Amen to this. Ben Gurion airport security is the best in the world. But interestingly enough, for most of us, it is the most polite screening too. Case in point. I flew from TLV to New York in January. Much of the time I spent in Israel was with Palestinian friends. I was also carrying a DVD that was destined for another Palestinian friend (it was a wedding I went too). At the airport they immediately interrogated me and I volunteered the information about the DVD, since I knew they would find it anyway. They are very thorough. The girl questioning me immediately shuffled me off to another desk for more questioning. She explained very politely that this was a standard procedure that they were required to put me through since I had spent time with Palestinian friends. The entire time I was treated with dignity and respect. I then spent the next hour being screened by some other agents. They examined in detail every article in my bags, and searched my person for anything suspicious (not quite a strip search but close). In my haste to get to the airport I had forgotten about the silly TSA rules about gels and liquids, so I had a few containers of pudding in my carry on luggage. The agents reminded me of the American rules and acted like they thought they were really silly rules, but since the plane was bound for the US, they followed them. Because of the way the Israelis conducted themselves, I was never irritated or angry (I've been through Ben Gurion a few times, so I know what to expect). In fact as the last agent escorted me through security, he talked to me about how I had enjoyed being in Israel, where I was from, etc, which really made me feel good about the entire incident. Of course the Israelis are smart about it and even their politeness, their casual conversation, small talk, are all part of their screening process. Very effective. What better way to catch a terrorist than by disarming talk!
When I got to New York, though, I was remind of just how bad the TSA really is. I had forgotten that a bottle of Jam qualifies as a gel. I had a 4.3 gl oz container of that in my carry-on too. The Israelis didn't have a problem with it, obviously. But the TSA had a hissy fit over it. They berated me that I didn't know the rules and demanded that I either throw it out or check it. The TSA agent was belligerant and unpleasant about it. Made me laugh almost. Here I had just passed through the most secure and thorough screening in the world and now they had the gall to tell me my little jar of jam was a security threat. I just checked the jar of jam in another piece and luggage. When I got home I found that the TSA had actually opened the jar of jam (unsealed it). Amazing.
Anyway, the TSA does have a job to do, but they could sure learn a lesson in how to do it properly from the Israeli security people. I'd much rather be screened by a disarmingly pleasant official. You'd likely catch the real threats too.
Since I don't have mod points, I'll just burn karma instead.
In short, you don't know what you're talking about. He's not talking about *throughput* which Linux does very well at. He's talking about latency and interactive performance. A system where the desktop is snappy and responsive, where the CPU wastes cycles if need be just to makes sure the mouse doesn't lag and that windows are redrawn in a prompt, synchronized way. A kernel optimized for desktop performance (have you ever *used* Quartz on OS/X?) will sacrifice overall throughput and raw total performance for low latency servicing of the things a user actually looks at on the screen. It's this perception of performance that matters on the desktop. If users sees a fraction of a second delay or stuttering in his UI, this is perceived as "slow!"
For example, my Fedora Core 6 box running on an older AMD 2800+ XP, is plenty fast at lots of things. I can compile large programs fairly quickly, and do all kinds of things. But dragging a window across the screen not only is slow, but it also can cause my audio to skip.
On the same processor (even under VMware!) Windows XP is smooth and the UI responsive. Of course under the hood Windows doesn't fair so well. I can't compile with as much raw speed, and although the UI is responsive, the code connected to it may not be executing in a speedy manner, causing me to have to wait for the computer. But the important part is that the windows draw smooth and fast. Resizing a window or moving a window is silky smooth.
Even Vista, though it ultimately is slower than XP and Linux, has a UI that appears to be super fast and slick, much faster than any Linux desktop (remember perception *is* reality). Just try to use it sometimes.
Now his patches combined with, say Compiz, go a long ways to making Linux have the responsiveness that desktop users require, the apparent schizophrenia on the part of Linux developers in relation to the desktop has frustrated him and driven him away. This is a tragedy.