It really amazes me how nobody here seems to realize that oil is not JUST for burning; it has other uses. Many products, like Vaseline (petroleum jelly), and even some synthetic materials used for things like jackets, are derived from oil.
You people really make me sick the way you think oil is only good for burning.
The biggest single problem besides raw crude supply is our environmental laws that have gone totally wild. Thanks to all the environmental regulations we have, there are currently only a handful of refineries capable of producing all these "boutique" blends of gasoline that are required in crazy places like California. (I should know, I live here.) Less competition and less refining supply means higher prices.
So why is there not more competition and more capacity in the refining business? Probably because there hasn't been a single new refinery built in over 17+ years. Why not? Probably because of these wacko environmental laws that make it ridiculously easy for all the Not In MY Back Yard (NIMBY) people to stop any progress from ever being made. Thanks to them, it is almost completely impossible to build any new refineries anymore.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you, NIMBY people, for making me pay more for my gasoline!!
In my opinion, AMTP could solve some of our troubles. If you had to be authorized to use a mail server, and if your route had to be verified as correct, I bet it could cut down on spam by at LEAST 50% or more. It might not eliminate the problem entirely, but even 50% would be a huge improvement. It might also make other spam-fighting tools like blacklisting more effective, the discovery of spam origins easier, and therefore, make it easier to prosecute spammers.
Sure, it might be a small blow to annonymity, but I say, so be it. If we are going to make any headway on the spam problem, we MUST be able to hold people accountable for abuses of mail servers. Unfortunately, accountability cannot be achieved without some sacrifices in anonymity guarantees. I think that ANY real solution must ultimately be a tradeoff between anonymity and accountability, and the sooner we realize this, the sooner we can start making any real headway. PERIOD.
Perhaps Google ought to consider this...
on
Google IPO Swami
·
· Score: 3, Informative
TIAA-Cref does not like Google's share structure, for example. In short, it sounds like they believe Google will not be worth as much unless they take steps to make the management more "accountable" to the public. (Interpret it however you want to.)
If you people hate the RIAA that much, why not do something about it, such as boycott them, and make a point of buying only non-RIAA music?
Seriously, it really is incredible how many people there are here who blindly endorse P2P sharing, regardless of whether what they are sharing is legal or not, and then suddenly complain when the RIAA starts suing people. It is especially incredible when you consider that there was once a time when people here were saying, "Let the RIAA go ONLY after those folks who are pirating, rather than try to shut down a P2P network that has other uses besides piracy." Well, the RIAA is now doing EXACTLY that, and yet people are now continuing to complain.
For crying out loud: by now, nobody in their right mind can say that the RIAA has not given fair warning before suing people. I say, put up, or shut up. If you don't like the RIAA's policy, don't buy their stuff. It's that simple.
I realize this may be slightly off-topic, but the fact of the matter is this: I believe the RIAA has a legitimate case for going after piracy. However, the flip side to this is that piracy might not be such a huge problem from them if it were not for the fact that the RIAA and its members are basically overcharging for their mediocre products, and treating the artists unfairly.
If they were to treat the artists more fairly, lower their prices CONSIDERABLY, and give us better products than Britney Spears, they might have a better chance with me... But unfortunately, they have now shown that they are all shady crooks, and I for one am now making it a point NOT to use any RIAA-approved services like Napster, and I am also making a special point not to buy any RIAA CDs.
I would summarize what you said this way: The patent system DOES have some use. Yes, there is massive abuse of it today, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I happen to think you raise a very good point here. After all, patents are in essence a tool, just as hammers are. We all know it would be a stupid idea to outlaw hammers simply because they can be misused for the purpose of breaking and entering people's homes by smashing windows. After all, hammers have MANY other uses.
However, the crucial question boils down to this: do the number of beneficial uses outweigh the number of abuses possible? In the case of software patents, I'm not so sure the benefits outweigh the abuses.
I also think in the case of your steel mill example is one that might better be served by trade-secret than by a patent.
Why didn't the article headline read, "KDE Konquers Astrophysicists with Kst?"
On a more serious note: This question wouldn't arise if KDE people didn't insist on prefixing EVERYTHING with "K." Of course, same goes for GNOME folks prefixing everything with "G." Why is this necessary?
First step to universal broadband: don't have your Justice Department argue against communities providing their own broadband service.
For my part, I don't care whether you like George Bush or not. (I do, but that's my opinion, and nobody says you have to share it.)
Seriously though Michael, if you want to show ANY sort of objectivity on this kind of thing, don't make such statements--they totally sound like flamebait. There may be pros and cons to the idea of communities providing their own broadband service, but I wouldn't know it from listening to you, michael. I don't see any facts backing up what you say, either.
However, all this aside, I think there IS a legitimate case to be made that it is better to have private business (corrupt as it appears to be right now) do such things than have governments attempt to create a virtual government-run monopoly. After all, I'll agree with you ANY day that our Big Business Community(tm) is corrupt. But by that same token: why on earth should we simply to assume that the government is totally free of corruption?
I think it is really amazing how many people here on Slashdot are just so eager to post comments that they obviously don't even bother to read the actual article.
If some of you people had read the article, for example, you'd notice some important points being made, such as, "From what we can see, the two factors in our success were competition and the creation of a market. Competition gave us a wide variety of choices as to motherboard, chipset and CPU. Once there was a reasonable market, vendors were concerned about being left out."
I don't know about any of you, but I think the creation of an open source "market" is EXACTLY what has enabled the success of open source products like Linux in the first place.
It was also what enabled the success of the Wintel architecture, if you think about it. At the time the original IBM PC was released, it was virtually a foreign idea to IBM--many people at the time were asking the question, "how on EARTH could IBM possibly release a machine based on open specifications and parts with a straight face?" Let us not forget that at the time, IBM desperately needed to get ANY kind of microcomputer on the market ASAP, for fear that Apple and others might get firmly entrenched. Once that thinking took hold, IBM practically had no choice but to hope and pray that their Big Name would keep them at the forefront. As we know, companies like Compaq came along and proved them wrong, and the rest is history.
The point is, I wonder why things like chipsets are still so closely guarded secrets. Can you people imagine what the world would be like if Intel had made the x86 CPUs with a proprietary, closely-guarded SECRET ISA, that you could only program for if you signed an NDA? If Intel had done that, Linux probably wouldn't even exist!!
I sometimes have this feeling Microsoft would do ANYTHING to go back in history and try to get all the laws of our country re-written and the market changed so this kind of all-secret world I speak of could exist.
In the end, the markets for products, be it open OR closed, occur because someone created that market. I think it is high time someone created an "open source" chipset, myself. But that's just me. If you people want all things to be open, stop talking about it and complaining about closed-source, proprietary things, and DO SOMETHING about it.
Oh yeah, and as I understand it, the +/- formats mostly use the same physical media characteristics--the main difference is in the logical track structure of the disc, so making a dual +/- recorder isn't too hard. The + discs tend to be more reliable, cause they have a comprehensive defect management system built in, which the - discs are mostly lacking.
If you look at it carefully, I'm fairly certain that this mess exists not because of technical disagreements, but because of POLITICAL disagreements. I have yet to hear of a real technical disagreement that doesn't get solved SOMEHOW, even if only as a compromise in the end.
Personally, I'd be willing to bet you this has EVERYTHING to do with power and control. Basically, we have two camps: the DVD Forum, and the DVD+RW Alliance (The Forum and The Alliance as I like to call them), and they are both vying for control of the "standard," because they both want to be able to get a cut of the royalties on every DVD+/-RW player made. If one got a MONOPOLY, it could be a real cash cow!!! Boy, I'd sure love to have a piece of that golden harvest, wouldn't you?!?!?
I realize this might be slightly off-topic, since I don't think this article really discusses the any of the dangers/merits (or lack thereof) of nuclear power in the first place. However, I know that all the same, some people are going to try to bring it up, so before anyone starts trolling about how dangerous nuclear power is, I just thought I'd point out:
1) Chernobyl was based on very old technology. Nuclear power is much safer today.
2) France gets >80% of its power from nuclear sources. Nuclear power is one of the cleanest sources of energy in the world. (I have nothing against fossil fuels, either--at the moment NOTHING has proven as economical. But I do think ultimately, we will have to find alternatives, and nuclear power is certainly a viable option.)
3) It is my opinion that the worst part of Chernobyl was the way the communist regime tried to keep it a secret, until they found out that it was just so big they simply couldn't keep it a secret anymore. Sure, many other governments in the world (and I am NOT naming any ones in particular) have also been forced to fess up to things later, but that is NOT an excuse. The Russian government was truly evil, and I will not retract that statement, as long as I live.
If you look at this link, you'll find that, "In its espionage role, the KGB was mostly reliant on human intelligence, unlike their western counterparts, who relied far more on imagery intelligence (IMINT) and signals intelligence."
Bottom line is, the CIA has always had the edge in technology, but the KGB still had an advantage in human intelligence. They had far better human recruitment than the CIA ever did. (And for those who really follow this stuff, you probably already know that human intelligence is one thing that is very sorely lacking in our war on terror today.)
It looks as if the XFree86 people have a short timespan to either rethink their license changes or be dropped from every/almost every Linux distribution in favor of a forked codebase.
Am I the only one here who thinks it is possible that license change or not, some distributions are getting ready to dump XFree86 in ANY case, due to the other problems it has, like the general arrogance of the core developers, and the lack of a truly open development community, which is largely their doing?
Seriously, I don't think the license change is the major reason, but simply the right occasion for dumping XFree86. Even if they were to revert the license change tomorrow, I for one would still favor seeing forks like Freedesktop.org's server make it into distros, because I believe the license change is only one of MANY indications that XFree86 has far deeper problems that I'm not so sure can be fixed so easily. Just like many organizations and projects in real life, the PEOPLE behind the project are the greatest asset, and I think the XFree86 core team has failed to recognize this. Unless the core team gets a total attitude makeover, I doubt this will ever change.
I wrote a letter to NewEgg, asking them to stop using HTTP Referrer on their site, because I thought it a privacy concern. Their response: "Unfortunately the HTTP Referrer Header cannot be eliminated because it is an essential tool for our Marketing Department used to monitor where we are getting our web traffic from so that we can improve future campaigns to focus on more specific demographics. Please accept our humblest apologies for any inconvenience." I have tried not to shop at NewEgg ever since, because the idea of gathering information on my web viewing habits WITHOUT informing me, and without my consent, really does bother me.
My main point here though is that this is just one example of how marketing people will do ANYTHING to gather information about people. Without a privacy policy, I think the folks in Utah are right, things like RFID will be used to gather personal information about consumers.
It seems they said long ago in their Halloween Documents that "The lack of singular, customer-focused management has resulted in the unwillingness to compromise between the different initiatives and is evident of the management costs in the Linux process."
In my opinion, this recent XFree86 (and now Apache) business is further proof that Microsoft was right about this. I'm not trying to bash open source as a whole--I am a big Linux fan. However, I think this problem MUST be solved if the OSS community is to move forward. We cannot go on having endless fragmentation of projects, proliferation of different (non) standards and forks and everyone-going-their-own-way. A truly usable desktop OS's bread-and-butter is its ability to have truly inter-operable (dare I say this--horizontally integrated) components.
1) Disney recently released favorable results at their analysts meeting. This alone may be reason for the Disney board to believe they are worth more than Comcast's offer.
2) No doubt, it's all about power and control. Eisner has been well known for squashing dissent. I'm sure he won't want to go without a fight. Comcast, I'm sure, mainly wants to get a foothold in the media business, so they can better compete with media/cable conglomerates like Time-Warner.
3) I wonder if Roy Disney and Stanley Gold had anything to do with this takeover bid. For one thing, the timing is a bit interesting, and I'm sure Roy Disney would probably jump at the opportunity to try to help restore family control of Disney.
All this being said, I somehow don't think this merger will go any better than a lot of mergers that have happened lately, e.g., AOL-Time-Warner, or DiamlerChrysler.
It seems to me that this licensing problem, no matter how small or insignificant it may be, is still just one more step on the way towards XFree86 becoming truly irrelevant.
Let's face it--even if you totally ignore the license problem, many of us have still seen XFree86's demise coming for a while now, with the closed nature of their development community, and their increasing lack of innovation and lack of progress in commiting new features and technologies.
Would you people also be willing to put up with a closed-source Linux kernel, if some CPU manufacturer decided tomorrow that they didn't want to release the specs for their instruction set, and said the only way you could write a kernel would be if you submitted to an NDA? Why is it that things like Wireless Network drivers or video drivers are the ONLY thing subject to this kind of thing?
Yeah, call me a troll if you wish, but I really do think it is amazing how so many people here are willing to beg and plead on their knees that the Linux kernel developers freeze the driver API so that closed, proprietary-source hardware companies can write closed-source drivers for their favorite wardware device.
So then, let's take it a step further: would you people also be willing to put up with a totally closed-source kernel, and a closed-source C compiler, if the hardware manufacturers demanded it? In that case, why not just use Windows?
Seriously, I fail to understand why you people want to use Linux, only to complain about the lack of hardware support, since the Linux world requires everything to be open source.
Tell me, would you people also be willing to jump off a bridge to get driver support if the hardware manufacturers demanded it?
I do believe Linux (or GNU Linux, if you prefer), as a platform (not just the kernel), would not be as open as it is today if the developers didn't insist on such openness. If you people don't care how open things are, then why bother with Linux?
The important parts of Fedora for which CPU-specific optimizations do make a difference are already offered in i686 versions. The most prominent examples are the kernel and the glibc libraries.
For the rest, I believe it was found that compiling general user-space applications for i686 makes only a miniscule difference, if any.
Slashdot Mirror
Dupe, dupe, dupity, dupe, dupe!!!!!!
e cause they had no memory...
Maybe I should write a doo-wop song about it!! Here goes (based on Mope-itty mope):
Everyone posted a dupe...
Dupity-dupe-dupe-du-dupe-dupe-dupe...
B
Dupity-dupe-dupe-du-dupe-dupe-dupe...
It really amazes me how nobody here seems to realize that oil is not JUST for burning; it has other uses. Many products, like Vaseline (petroleum jelly), and even some synthetic materials used for things like jackets, are derived from oil.
You people really make me sick the way you think oil is only good for burning.
The biggest single problem besides raw crude supply is our environmental laws that have gone totally wild. Thanks to all the environmental regulations we have, there are currently only a handful of refineries capable of producing all these "boutique" blends of gasoline that are required in crazy places like California. (I should know, I live here.) Less competition and less refining supply means higher prices.
So why is there not more competition and more capacity in the refining business? Probably because there hasn't been a single new refinery built in over 17+ years. Why not? Probably because of these wacko environmental laws that make it ridiculously easy for all the Not In MY Back Yard (NIMBY) people to stop any progress from ever being made. Thanks to them, it is almost completely impossible to build any new refineries anymore.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you, NIMBY people, for making me pay more for my gasoline!!
In my opinion, AMTP could solve some of our troubles. If you had to be authorized to use a mail server, and if your route had to be verified as correct, I bet it could cut down on spam by at LEAST 50% or more. It might not eliminate the problem entirely, but even 50% would be a huge improvement. It might also make other spam-fighting tools like blacklisting more effective, the discovery of spam origins easier, and therefore, make it easier to prosecute spammers.
Sure, it might be a small blow to annonymity, but I say, so be it. If we are going to make any headway on the spam problem, we MUST be able to hold people accountable for abuses of mail servers. Unfortunately, accountability cannot be achieved without some sacrifices in anonymity guarantees. I think that ANY real solution must ultimately be a tradeoff between anonymity and accountability, and the sooner we realize this, the sooner we can start making any real headway. PERIOD.
TIAA-Cref does not like Google's share structure, for example. In short, it sounds like they believe Google will not be worth as much unless they take steps to make the management more "accountable" to the public. (Interpret it however you want to.)
If you people hate the RIAA that much, why not do something about it, such as boycott them, and make a point of buying only non-RIAA music?
Seriously, it really is incredible how many people there are here who blindly endorse P2P sharing, regardless of whether what they are sharing is legal or not, and then suddenly complain when the RIAA starts suing people. It is especially incredible when you consider that there was once a time when people here were saying, "Let the RIAA go ONLY after those folks who are pirating, rather than try to shut down a P2P network that has other uses besides piracy." Well, the RIAA is now doing EXACTLY that, and yet people are now continuing to complain.
For crying out loud: by now, nobody in their right mind can say that the RIAA has not given fair warning before suing people. I say, put up, or shut up. If you don't like the RIAA's policy, don't buy their stuff. It's that simple.
I realize this may be slightly off-topic, but the fact of the matter is this: I believe the RIAA has a legitimate case for going after piracy. However, the flip side to this is that piracy might not be such a huge problem from them if it were not for the fact that the RIAA and its members are basically overcharging for their mediocre products, and treating the artists unfairly.
If they were to treat the artists more fairly, lower their prices CONSIDERABLY, and give us better products than Britney Spears, they might have a better chance with me... But unfortunately, they have now shown that they are all shady crooks, and I for one am now making it a point NOT to use any RIAA-approved services like Napster, and I am also making a special point not to buy any RIAA CDs.
I would summarize what you said this way: The patent system DOES have some use. Yes, there is massive abuse of it today, but let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.
I happen to think you raise a very good point here. After all, patents are in essence a tool, just as hammers are. We all know it would be a stupid idea to outlaw hammers simply because they can be misused for the purpose of breaking and entering people's homes by smashing windows. After all, hammers have MANY other uses.
However, the crucial question boils down to this: do the number of beneficial uses outweigh the number of abuses possible? In the case of software patents, I'm not so sure the benefits outweigh the abuses.
I also think in the case of your steel mill example is one that might better be served by trade-secret than by a patent.
Just my 2 cents worth.
Why didn't the article headline read, "KDE Konquers Astrophysicists with Kst?"
On a more serious note: This question wouldn't arise if KDE people didn't insist on prefixing EVERYTHING with "K." Of course, same goes for GNOME folks prefixing everything with "G." Why is this necessary?
Gee, I guess it wasn't obvious enough already that this would happen.
First step to universal broadband: don't have your Justice Department argue against communities providing their own broadband service.
For my part, I don't care whether you like George Bush or not. (I do, but that's my opinion, and nobody says you have to share it.)
Seriously though Michael, if you want to show ANY sort of objectivity on this kind of thing, don't make such statements--they totally sound like flamebait. There may be pros and cons to the idea of communities providing their own broadband service, but I wouldn't know it from listening to you, michael. I don't see any facts backing up what you say, either.
However, all this aside, I think there IS a legitimate case to be made that it is better to have private business (corrupt as it appears to be right now) do such things than have governments attempt to create a virtual government-run monopoly. After all, I'll agree with you ANY day that our Big Business Community(tm) is corrupt. But by that same token: why on earth should we simply to assume that the government is totally free of corruption?
I think it is really amazing how many people here on Slashdot are just so eager to post comments that they obviously don't even bother to read the actual article.
If some of you people had read the article, for example, you'd notice some important points being made, such as, "From what we can see, the two factors in our success were competition and the creation of a market. Competition gave us a wide variety of choices as to motherboard, chipset and CPU. Once there was a reasonable market, vendors were concerned about being left out."
I don't know about any of you, but I think the creation of an open source "market" is EXACTLY what has enabled the success of open source products like Linux in the first place.
It was also what enabled the success of the Wintel architecture, if you think about it. At the time the original IBM PC was released, it was virtually a foreign idea to IBM--many people at the time were asking the question, "how on EARTH could IBM possibly release a machine based on open specifications and parts with a straight face?" Let us not forget that at the time, IBM desperately needed to get ANY kind of microcomputer on the market ASAP, for fear that Apple and others might get firmly entrenched. Once that thinking took hold, IBM practically had no choice but to hope and pray that their Big Name would keep them at the forefront. As we know, companies like Compaq came along and proved them wrong, and the rest is history.
The point is, I wonder why things like chipsets are still so closely guarded secrets. Can you people imagine what the world would be like if Intel had made the x86 CPUs with a proprietary, closely-guarded SECRET ISA, that you could only program for if you signed an NDA? If Intel had done that, Linux probably wouldn't even exist!!
I sometimes have this feeling Microsoft would do ANYTHING to go back in history and try to get all the laws of our country re-written and the market changed so this kind of all-secret world I speak of could exist.
In the end, the markets for products, be it open OR closed, occur because someone created that market. I think it is high time someone created an "open source" chipset, myself. But that's just me. If you people want all things to be open, stop talking about it and complaining about closed-source, proprietary things, and DO SOMETHING about it.
Only the new DVD+MRW format (note the M) has defect management.
a id=12
That's not correct. DVD+RW has it, too. See this:
http://www.dvdplusrw.org/Article.asp?mid=0&sid=3&
Oh yeah, and as I understand it, the +/- formats mostly use the same physical media characteristics--the main difference is in the logical track structure of the disc, so making a dual +/- recorder isn't too hard. The + discs tend to be more reliable, cause they have a comprehensive defect management system built in, which the - discs are mostly lacking.
Calling all enthusiasts!!! Hello!!!!
If you look at it carefully, I'm fairly certain that this mess exists not because of technical disagreements, but because of POLITICAL disagreements. I have yet to hear of a real technical disagreement that doesn't get solved SOMEHOW, even if only as a compromise in the end.
Personally, I'd be willing to bet you this has EVERYTHING to do with power and control. Basically, we have two camps: the DVD Forum, and the DVD+RW Alliance (The Forum and The Alliance as I like to call them), and they are both vying for control of the "standard," because they both want to be able to get a cut of the royalties on every DVD+/-RW player made. If one got a MONOPOLY, it could be a real cash cow!!! Boy, I'd sure love to have a piece of that golden harvest, wouldn't you?!?!?
I realize this might be slightly off-topic, since I don't think this article really discusses the any of the dangers/merits (or lack thereof) of nuclear power in the first place. However, I know that all the same, some people are going to try to bring it up, so before anyone starts trolling about how dangerous nuclear power is, I just thought I'd point out:
1) Chernobyl was based on very old technology. Nuclear power is much safer today.
2) France gets >80% of its power from nuclear sources. Nuclear power is one of the cleanest sources of energy in the world. (I have nothing against fossil fuels, either--at the moment NOTHING has proven as economical. But I do think ultimately, we will have to find alternatives, and nuclear power is certainly a viable option.)
3) It is my opinion that the worst part of Chernobyl was the way the communist regime tried to keep it a secret, until they found out that it was just so big they simply couldn't keep it a secret anymore. Sure, many other governments in the world (and I am NOT naming any ones in particular) have also been forced to fess up to things later, but that is NOT an excuse. The Russian government was truly evil, and I will not retract that statement, as long as I live.
If you look at this link, you'll find that, "In its espionage role, the KGB was mostly reliant on human intelligence, unlike their western counterparts, who relied far more on imagery intelligence (IMINT) and signals intelligence."
Bottom line is, the CIA has always had the edge in technology, but the KGB still had an advantage in human intelligence. They had far better human recruitment than the CIA ever did. (And for those who really follow this stuff, you probably already know that human intelligence is one thing that is very sorely lacking in our war on terror today.)
It looks as if the XFree86 people have a short timespan to either rethink their license changes or be dropped from every/almost every Linux distribution in favor of a forked codebase.
Am I the only one here who thinks it is possible that license change or not, some distributions are getting ready to dump XFree86 in ANY case, due to the other problems it has, like the general arrogance of the core developers, and the lack of a truly open development community, which is largely their doing?
Seriously, I don't think the license change is the major reason, but simply the right occasion for dumping XFree86. Even if they were to revert the license change tomorrow, I for one would still favor seeing forks like Freedesktop.org's server make it into distros, because I believe the license change is only one of MANY indications that XFree86 has far deeper problems that I'm not so sure can be fixed so easily. Just like many organizations and projects in real life, the PEOPLE behind the project are the greatest asset, and I think the XFree86 core team has failed to recognize this. Unless the core team gets a total attitude makeover, I doubt this will ever change.
Because NewEgg won't let me order anything if I don't have referrer information turned on.
I wrote a letter to NewEgg, asking them to stop using HTTP Referrer on their site, because I thought it a privacy concern. Their response: "Unfortunately the HTTP Referrer Header cannot be eliminated because it is an essential tool for our Marketing Department used to monitor where we are getting our web traffic from so that we can improve future campaigns to focus on more specific demographics. Please accept our humblest apologies for any inconvenience." I have tried not to shop at NewEgg ever since, because the idea of gathering information on my web viewing habits WITHOUT informing me, and without my consent, really does bother me.
My main point here though is that this is just one example of how marketing people will do ANYTHING to gather information about people. Without a privacy policy, I think the folks in Utah are right, things like RFID will be used to gather personal information about consumers.
It seems they said long ago in their Halloween Documents that "The lack of singular, customer-focused management has resulted in the unwillingness to compromise between the different initiatives and is evident of the management costs in the Linux process."
In my opinion, this recent XFree86 (and now Apache) business is further proof that Microsoft was right about this. I'm not trying to bash open source as a whole--I am a big Linux fan. However, I think this problem MUST be solved if the OSS community is to move forward. We cannot go on having endless fragmentation of projects, proliferation of different (non) standards and forks and everyone-going-their-own-way. A truly usable desktop OS's bread-and-butter is its ability to have truly inter-operable (dare I say this--horizontally integrated) components.
Just my 2 cents worth.
If you think about it:
1) Disney recently released favorable results at their analysts meeting. This alone may be reason for the Disney board to believe they are worth more than Comcast's offer.
2) No doubt, it's all about power and control. Eisner has been well known for squashing dissent. I'm sure he won't want to go without a fight. Comcast, I'm sure, mainly wants to get a foothold in the media business, so they can better compete with media/cable conglomerates like Time-Warner.
3) I wonder if Roy Disney and Stanley Gold had anything to do with this takeover bid. For one thing, the timing is a bit interesting, and I'm sure Roy Disney would probably jump at the opportunity to try to help restore family control of Disney.
All this being said, I somehow don't think this merger will go any better than a lot of mergers that have happened lately, e.g., AOL-Time-Warner, or DiamlerChrysler.
It seems to me that this licensing problem, no matter how small or insignificant it may be, is still just one more step on the way towards XFree86 becoming truly irrelevant.
Let's face it--even if you totally ignore the license problem, many of us have still seen XFree86's demise coming for a while now, with the closed nature of their development community, and their increasing lack of innovation and lack of progress in commiting new features and technologies.
Would you people also be willing to put up with a closed-source Linux kernel, if some CPU manufacturer decided tomorrow that they didn't want to release the specs for their instruction set, and said the only way you could write a kernel would be if you submitted to an NDA? Why is it that things like Wireless Network drivers or video drivers are the ONLY thing subject to this kind of thing?
Yeah, call me a troll if you wish, but I really do think it is amazing how so many people here are willing to beg and plead on their knees that the Linux kernel developers freeze the driver API so that closed, proprietary-source hardware companies can write closed-source drivers for their favorite wardware device.
So then, let's take it a step further: would you people also be willing to put up with a totally closed-source kernel, and a closed-source C compiler, if the hardware manufacturers demanded it? In that case, why not just use Windows?
Seriously, I fail to understand why you people want to use Linux, only to complain about the lack of hardware support, since the Linux world requires everything to be open source.
Tell me, would you people also be willing to jump off a bridge to get driver support if the hardware manufacturers demanded it?
I do believe Linux (or GNU Linux, if you prefer), as a platform (not just the kernel), would not be as open as it is today if the developers didn't insist on such openness. If you people don't care how open things are, then why bother with Linux?
The important parts of Fedora for which CPU-specific optimizations do make a difference are already offered in i686 versions. The most prominent examples are the kernel and the glibc libraries.
For the rest, I believe it was found that compiling general user-space applications for i686 makes only a miniscule difference, if any.