microsoft doesn't seem to have a grasp of what they are saying when they say "open source"
what they usually mean is "those damned linux commies"
because they seem to forget about bsd every time a public statement is made about open source. this time, though, i think it was specifically the GPL they were taking aim at.
but, that being said, the statement above about commercial companies being unable to use GPLd software or improve it... well, there's a story today about Red Hat announcing its profitable status. there's a perfect example of a commercial company that's making money by doing just that. there's nothing keeping MS from throwing its considerable might behind a new sendmail or bind or what have you, making it work with windows, etc, and then selling prepackaged and preconfigured versions of it, granted that they also make the source from their efforts available. or taking some piece of accessibility or utility software that runs on *nix now, smacking it around long enough to play nice with Windows, then including it as a component of Office (again, with the requisite source code). it's that last bit, the "keys to the kingdom" that MS is afraid to give away - because they know that any effort they make in any open source software will give away too many of the proprietary hooks they have in their existing closed source efforts.
and then there's apple, who, while using BSD, and admittedly not GPL'd software, is actively improving not only their own proprietary products, but giving back to the open source community with improvements and additions of their own (darwin, drivers, developers, publicity). that's as good a model as there gets.
is that the best they can do?
on
Space Blimps
·
· Score: 2
sure, the nasa budget's been cut back and all, but, if they can construct a 6.5 meter robotic inflatable sphere to invade.. er.. explore mars, don't you think they could do a little better than spraypainting a soccer ball black and photoshopping it into a martian landscape with a shuttle astronaut in front?
get used to it. if you're under 18, you're a minor, and thus you have no rights. not in your high school, not in your home, and not in your arcade.
congress and the states can do pretty much anything they want to restrict your movement, your activities, and even your entertainment.
get over it.
you can't vote, you're not citizens, you have no voice. you're not autonomous under the law, and you're not even responsible for your own actions most of the time (unless they're so heinous that you're tried as an adult under your state's policy.) and thus you'll never have rights. not to free speech, not to bear arms, not to religion or to assemble.
it's something i got used to in high school, and something i remind my younger friends of when they complain that they have curfews, restrictions, detentions, in loco parentis laws, drug tests, locker searches, and bomb-sniffing dogs in school.
"Keeping the updates flowing is one thing, but forcing users to update every 2-3 weeks? That might
be a bit too much. I don't know much about OS X, but if the upgrades system can be configured to the users taste, and said configuration done in a user-friendly way, then maybe monthly updates might not be a bad thing... "
the software updates in OS X (and in 9.x as well) are done automatically by the system, tho the default configuration is to check the software updates servers periodically in the background, then ask the user which updates that are available he wants to download and install
the process is amazingly apple-like: painless and transparent, at most requiring a reboot (with system-level component updates. things like itunes are finished when the download uncompresses)
it's also user configurable to go ahead and get every update as it appears, or none at all - requiring the user to click a button to manually check for updates.
this is the kind of thing that a lot of systems are aiming for, including, among others, Red Hat's update agent, which i think falls farthest from the mark. not to criticize RH, but it's the only other example i have on my desk at the moment with which to compare. i know the W2k update agent works well anecdotally, but its little balloon popups are really annoying...
if you ask joe 56K napster user, he'll tell you he doesn't use napster any more since it was shut down a few weeks ago.
all of my friends are novice napsterbaters at best, and they never even try to sign on anymore, since the press keeps telling them on the evening news that napster is dead. lost its court case. defunct. deceased.
it's along the same lines as those people i talked to about buying a computer about 5 years ago who said that Apple had gone out of business and that i couldn't buy a mac anymore.
like everybody else is saying here, napster's still there, and you can still get anything you want, and, in my estimation, it's faster: no more queueing up to get on a server, the serious users are still there (like me) and the fat pipes are still flowing.
actually, the video linked in the article talks about this (after a long bit of introductory blah blah blah). they show an animation of the shaft going straight down, then bending outward, then a real demonstration of bouncing the laser off a mirror to achieve this.
the messagepad 2000 and 2100 have strongARMs in them, but a port might be a little tough, considering the current OS on these guys is all in ROM that's not flashable, uses undocumented features and dark, mysterious calls to the existing hardware.. the same sort of problems that are causing much cursing and gnashing of teeth for people trying to port/emulate the newton OS on other platforms..
but then, IANAD (i'm not a developer) so i could be completely wrong, in which case, i'd love to see a full-on BSD running in my hand with a half-VGA-sized 4-bit grey screen with two PCMCIA card slots, built-in serial, and sound-in and -out support...
this reminds me of the back of the redhat FY1999 Annual Report. the letter to shareholders was on the front, and on the back was the source code to the original v0.1 kernel by Linus.
if i could find the link on corporate-ir.net, i'd link to the web version of the report, but it looks like they've dropped it and are only distributing the 10K.
pity. a lot of people really dug that poster, and have it hanging in their offices. i know a lot of people at redhat have them in their cubes.
i've got a beige G3 coming to me from a friend that's replacing it, and i plan to use that for all my living room computing.
it fits under my TV, in the cabinet with the DVD player, etc, and has built-in 10/100 ethernet, component & S-video, 6G hard drive, and a CD ROM
this last is only important in that i can use either it or the ethernet to get software onto the bugger (i remotely control it via timbuktu from the office rather than hook up a keyboard and mouse) but mostly because i have Virtual GameStation and can play playstation games with the G3, as well as quake and UT. at some point, i'll add a fat video card and USB to it, and it'll do everything my blue G3 in the office can do, as well as pumping video to the big screen.
more effective, and especially troublesome and tedious for them, is to a: request to be put on their DO NOT CALL LIST (say it in bold capital letters) and b: request WRITTEN CONFIRMATION that you have been put on the do not call list. compliance with both A and B is mandatory, and it takes whoever actually does the putting on the list and the written confirmation of such off the calling queue for the time necessary to fill out the forms.
several times i have heard, however, that the update to the do not call list will take 4 to 6 weeks, and who knows how long it takes to get written confirmation...
when i feel like sending a message to Joe's Credit Card company for spamming me and the postal service with their platinum credit card offers for the umpteenth time, i carefully peel out the postage paid return envelope and then shred the rest (not with a shredder, mind you, but the old fashioned neandethal way than really gives me a sense of satisfaction when it's done) and then send them back the resulting confetti.
35 cents out of their pockets, plus whoever unstuffs those envelopes gets a lapful of shredded paper. or, better yet, if they're done by machine, maybe my little act of revenge clogs up their cogs for a few minutes, and in the meantime, the machinery of junkmailing grinds to a halt.
i've been shopping for a DVD player that can play CDs and MP3 CDs, in order to partially replace my aging stereo, and have found that most, if not all the DVD/CD players i've seen will not play (or won't officially support) CDR discs. the only ones that say they will are those that also play MP3 CDs (and it makes sense, as there aren't very many pressed MP3 CDs out there)
i doubt it's a sony (or pioneer, or panasonic, or AIWA) thing. I suspect it's the lasers the DVD players use. those that read CDR may have an additional laser, or else have a different kind than Joe DVD. they also have the tendency to play VCDs, which makes me think it's more than just an anti-piracy thing.
anyhoo, my 2 cents, from having spent many hours researching a good combo DVD player (i bought a sony, and i'm returning it for an Apex 703 - 3 disc changer, upgradeable firmware, plus MP3 playback)
GTK rendering without relying on X.. is that a step towards something like porting GTK to aqua, as is necessary to run the Gimp and other GTK apps natively in OS X?
there's a short but informed discussion of such efforts at macgimp.com and i wonder if anyone here might be able to shed some light on whether this is helpful in that effort...
the last time i did a full install onto a fresh drive was with a redhat install floppy and an ftp connection. pick and choose the pieces i want, download and install on the fly, reboot and i'm done.
it's a lot easier considering i have a good fast connection, but i suspect a lot of people would go this way if it worked all the time, which it doesn't. buggering busy servers, corrupted downloads, a flaky cable connection, and documentation that hasn't been properly updated can all ruin my day..
however, i think it's time one of the major distros (redhat, debian, etc) put out a one or two floppy distribution for the "connected install".. tho i suppose you already have such a thing with downloadable install disk images that have 'ftp install' as an option. heck, it's better than getting a whole ISO just to install a few bits and pieces.
my thinking is the/. story icon (and places like ZD and C|net using apple's logos for news items) is considered "Fair Use"
after all, i can't talk about a company (good or bad) without using their name, which is a trademark itself. and the press has certain leeway in these matters.
note the tiny R-in-a-circle. that's permission enough for most folks.
not having access to the themes (any more) or the C&D letter, i can't check, but if you're correct, and these themes don't have the logo, they must contain some other elements that Apple has trademarked or copyrights to.
hell, it may be the names - Aqua is (tm) Apple, as is Mac. to avoid these themes bringing confusion in the marketplace as "the Aqua interface" and "the Mac interface" (both things Apple hopes to be very specifically theirs and nobody else's) and "the Aqua/Mac user experience" might be the whole point of this latest round of C&Ds. again, nobody but the authors (and recipients of the nasty letters) can say for certain.
the _last_ round was about the logo, at least. i had hoped the theme authors had learned their lesson last time...
apple paid xerox to go through the PARC and take what they felt like using, since xerox thought there was no use for the stuff. stock options on the biggest IPO up to that point. xerox made big chunks of change for what apple 'stole'
and the pirate flag was internal apple defiance - the mac group was fighting with the apple][ group. later it was used to show their defiance of the IBM dominance of the PC market.
IBM never did their own interface until OS/2, and then it was only in order to get out from under the thumb of microsoft, something they're doing again by getting in bed with Linux (via redhat, but that's another/. story)
get your facts straight before you call anyone hypocrites and pirates.
if you build a theme with the OS X widgets or even one that looks exactly like platinum, nobody can complain, because, after all, Apple already lost that battle in the '80s. it's pixels. look and feel or not, it can be copied. bla bla woof woof. there are dozens of mac-like themes that do exactly this, a lot more than the 4 or so that were pulled.
but, once you use the apple logo, a copyrighted, trademarked, protected-by-pitbulls-and-lawyers piece of Apple, you have stepped over your 'fair use' or 'parody' (or whatever) boundary.
microsoft could do the same thing, but it seems they have bigger legal fish to fry, and couldn't care less if you copied their logo, let alone user experience (sic).
Apple is completely within their rights here, once again, and is doing what is legally required of a trademark holder in defending their trademark. considering it's one of the world's best recognized brands - in some surveys even moreso than Nike's - it only makes sense that they defend it more emphatically than most companies. granted, a little more effort than having one of their freshman lawyers send out a C&D letter could smooth things over considerably, but all those here (and on themes.org) crying foul over the Big Guy bullying the Poor Little Open Source movement could be a little more mature and sympathetic as well.
the sardaukar are the emperor's private stock of guards (like the crimson guard in star wars, but more exclusive) born and bred in a secret location to produce superior fighters.
the fremen are similar - born and raised in a harsh environment, taught to fight young, made tough by attrition.
it's the Kal-El syndrome: Krypton has higher gravity, thus, on earth, he is a Superman. Dune has a harsh environment, both physically and socially, thus those that survive are better suited to kicking ass.
what makes them tougher is that (a: they are on their home turf (b: they're not pampered (c: one word: Jihad.
i have. when i was in college and living in a crappy apartment with negative income and questionable hygiene.
they don't do it with a box hooked to your set anymore. for a month, i was asked to record what shows i watched (including channel flipping, if i watched any particular channel for more than 5 minutes). being uberbusy with classes and keeping an odd schedule, my responses were, at best, anomolous.
let's see. MASH reruns on cable from midnight to 1am. the news for 7 minutes the next morning. Cartoons all day saturday followed my godzilla movies that night. hmm.. how should i record scrambled playboy channel?
Slashdot Mirror
microsoft doesn't seem to have a grasp of what they are saying when they say "open source"
what they usually mean is "those damned linux commies"
because they seem to forget about bsd every time a public statement is made about open source. this time, though, i think it was specifically the GPL they were taking aim at.
but, that being said, the statement above about commercial companies being unable to use GPLd software or improve it... well, there's a story today about Red Hat announcing its profitable status. there's a perfect example of a commercial company that's making money by doing just that. there's nothing keeping MS from throwing its considerable might behind a new sendmail or bind or what have you, making it work with windows, etc, and then selling prepackaged and preconfigured versions of it, granted that they also make the source from their efforts available. or taking some piece of accessibility or utility software that runs on *nix now, smacking it around long enough to play nice with Windows, then including it as a component of Office (again, with the requisite source code). it's that last bit, the "keys to the kingdom" that MS is afraid to give away - because they know that any effort they make in any open source software will give away too many of the proprietary hooks they have in their existing closed source efforts.
and then there's apple, who, while using BSD, and admittedly not GPL'd software, is actively improving not only their own proprietary products, but giving back to the open source community with improvements and additions of their own (darwin, drivers, developers, publicity). that's as good a model as there gets.
sure, the nasa budget's been cut back and all, but, if they can construct a 6.5 meter robotic inflatable sphere to invade.. er.. explore mars, don't you think they could do a little better than spraypainting a soccer ball black and photoshopping it into a martian landscape with a shuttle astronaut in front?
t mbl_fot.jpg
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/adv_tech/rovers/Rovr_art/
yeesh..
get used to it. if you're under 18, you're a minor, and thus you have no rights. not in your high school, not in your home, and not in your arcade.
congress and the states can do pretty much anything they want to restrict your movement, your activities, and even your entertainment.
get over it.
you can't vote, you're not citizens, you have no voice. you're not autonomous under the law, and you're not even responsible for your own actions most of the time (unless they're so heinous that you're tried as an adult under your state's policy.) and thus you'll never have rights. not to free speech, not to bear arms, not to religion or to assemble.
it's something i got used to in high school, and something i remind my younger friends of when they complain that they have curfews, restrictions, detentions, in loco parentis laws, drug tests, locker searches, and bomb-sniffing dogs in school.
"Keeping the updates flowing is one thing, but forcing users to update every 2-3 weeks? That might ... "
be a bit too much. I don't know much about OS X, but if the upgrades system can be configured to the users taste, and said configuration done in a user-friendly way, then maybe monthly updates might not be a bad thing
the software updates in OS X (and in 9.x as well) are done automatically by the system, tho the default configuration is to check the software updates servers periodically in the background, then ask the user which updates that are available he wants to download and install
the process is amazingly apple-like: painless and transparent, at most requiring a reboot (with system-level component updates. things like itunes are finished when the download uncompresses)
it's also user configurable to go ahead and get every update as it appears, or none at all - requiring the user to click a button to manually check for updates.
this is the kind of thing that a lot of systems are aiming for, including, among others, Red Hat's update agent, which i think falls farthest from the mark. not to criticize RH, but it's the only other example i have on my desk at the moment with which to compare. i know the W2k update agent works well anecdotally, but its little balloon popups are really annoying...
my point? did i have one?
i've compiled the book, including illustrations, into a newton book format. available here:
http://www.newtontraveler.com/books.html
...this is no different from ordinary offset printing effects using circular pixels...
when printed, the dots that make up an image are typically referred to as.. um.. dots.
pixels are picture elements, usually on some kind of computer screen. dots of ink are just dots.
just so's you know...
the redhat fiscal year started february 28. last year.
/. doesn't mung up the url:
i cker=RHAT&script=1800&layout=-6&item_id='rhat_faq. htm'
if
http://www.corporate-ir.net/ireye/ir_site.zhtml?t
if you ask joe 56K napster user, he'll tell you he doesn't use napster any more since it was shut down a few weeks ago.
all of my friends are novice napsterbaters at best, and they never even try to sign on anymore, since the press keeps telling them on the evening news that napster is dead. lost its court case. defunct. deceased.
it's along the same lines as those people i talked to about buying a computer about 5 years ago who said that Apple had gone out of business and that i couldn't buy a mac anymore.
like everybody else is saying here, napster's still there, and you can still get anything you want, and, in my estimation, it's faster: no more queueing up to get on a server, the serious users are still there (like me) and the fat pipes are still flowing.
newton. any model. 130 or 2x00 series is best. emate if you can find one (built-in keyboard)
otherwise, get a keyboard, plug and play. built-in newtonWorks text editor/word processor. sync/backup to PC, Mac, Linux..
real handwriting recognition, bigger screen, voice notes, PCMCIA, speaker.
cheap on ebay.
actually, the video linked in the article talks about this (after a long bit of introductory blah blah blah). they show an animation of the shaft going straight down, then bending outward, then a real demonstration of bouncing the laser off a mirror to achieve this.
the messagepad 2000 and 2100 have strongARMs in them, but a port might be a little tough, considering the current OS on these guys is all in ROM that's not flashable, uses undocumented features and dark, mysterious calls to the existing hardware.. the same sort of problems that are causing much cursing and gnashing of teeth for people trying to port/emulate the newton OS on other platforms..
but then, IANAD (i'm not a developer) so i could be completely wrong, in which case, i'd love to see a full-on BSD running in my hand with a half-VGA-sized 4-bit grey screen with two PCMCIA card slots, built-in serial, and sound-in and -out support...
steve martin. man with two brains, the. 1983.
what's my prize?
(and no, i didn't have to look it up on google)
this reminds me of the back of the redhat FY1999 Annual Report. the letter to shareholders was on the front, and on the back was the source code to the original v0.1 kernel by Linus.
if i could find the link on corporate-ir.net, i'd link to the web version of the report, but it looks like they've dropped it and are only distributing the 10K.
pity. a lot of people really dug that poster, and have it hanging in their offices. i know a lot of people at redhat have them in their cubes.
i've got a beige G3 coming to me from a friend that's replacing it, and i plan to use that for all my living room computing.
it fits under my TV, in the cabinet with the DVD player, etc, and has built-in 10/100 ethernet, component & S-video, 6G hard drive, and a CD ROM
this last is only important in that i can use either it or the ethernet to get software onto the bugger (i remotely control it via timbuktu from the office rather than hook up a keyboard and mouse) but mostly because i have Virtual GameStation and can play playstation games with the G3, as well as quake and UT. at some point, i'll add a fat video card and USB to it, and it'll do everything my blue G3 in the office can do, as well as pumping video to the big screen.
that's the plan, anyway..
more effective, and especially troublesome and tedious for them, is to a: request to be put on their DO NOT CALL LIST (say it in bold capital letters) and b: request WRITTEN CONFIRMATION that you have been put on the do not call list. compliance with both A and B is mandatory, and it takes whoever actually does the putting on the list and the written confirmation of such off the calling queue for the time necessary to fill out the forms.
several times i have heard, however, that the update to the do not call list will take 4 to 6 weeks, and who knows how long it takes to get written confirmation...
when i feel like sending a message to Joe's Credit Card company for spamming me and the postal service with their platinum credit card offers for the umpteenth time, i carefully peel out the postage paid return envelope and then shred the rest (not with a shredder, mind you, but the old fashioned neandethal way than really gives me a sense of satisfaction when it's done) and then send them back the resulting confetti.
35 cents out of their pockets, plus whoever unstuffs those envelopes gets a lapful of shredded paper. or, better yet, if they're done by machine, maybe my little act of revenge clogs up their cogs for a few minutes, and in the meantime, the machinery of junkmailing grinds to a halt.
i can dream, can't i?
i've been shopping for a DVD player that can play CDs and MP3 CDs, in order to partially replace my aging stereo, and have found that most, if not all the DVD/CD players i've seen will not play (or won't officially support) CDR discs. the only ones that say they will are those that also play MP3 CDs (and it makes sense, as there aren't very many pressed MP3 CDs out there)
i doubt it's a sony (or pioneer, or panasonic, or AIWA) thing. I suspect it's the lasers the DVD players use. those that read CDR may have an additional laser, or else have a different kind than Joe DVD. they also have the tendency to play VCDs, which makes me think it's more than just an anti-piracy thing.
anyhoo, my 2 cents, from having spent many hours researching a good combo DVD player (i bought a sony, and i'm returning it for an Apex 703 - 3 disc changer, upgradeable firmware, plus MP3 playback)
GTK rendering without relying on X.. is that a step towards something like porting GTK to aqua, as is necessary to run the Gimp and other GTK apps natively in OS X?
there's a short but informed discussion of such efforts at macgimp.com and i wonder if anyone here might be able to shed some light on whether this is helpful in that effort...
the last time i did a full install onto a fresh drive was with a redhat install floppy and an ftp connection. pick and choose the pieces i want, download and install on the fly, reboot and i'm done.
it's a lot easier considering i have a good fast connection, but i suspect a lot of people would go this way if it worked all the time, which it doesn't. buggering busy servers, corrupted downloads, a flaky cable connection, and documentation that hasn't been properly updated can all ruin my day..
however, i think it's time one of the major distros (redhat, debian, etc) put out a one or two floppy distribution for the "connected install".. tho i suppose you already have such a thing with downloadable install disk images that have 'ftp install' as an option. heck, it's better than getting a whole ISO just to install a few bits and pieces.
my thinking is the /. story icon (and places like ZD and C|net using apple's logos for news items) is considered "Fair Use"
after all, i can't talk about a company (good or bad) without using their name, which is a trademark itself. and the press has certain leeway in these matters.
note the tiny R-in-a-circle. that's permission enough for most folks.
not having access to the themes (any more) or the C&D letter, i can't check, but if you're correct, and these themes don't have the logo, they must contain some other elements that Apple has trademarked or copyrights to.
hell, it may be the names - Aqua is (tm) Apple, as is Mac. to avoid these themes bringing confusion in the marketplace as "the Aqua interface" and "the Mac interface" (both things Apple hopes to be very specifically theirs and nobody else's) and "the Aqua/Mac user experience" might be the whole point of this latest round of C&Ds. again, nobody but the authors (and recipients of the nasty letters) can say for certain.
the _last_ round was about the logo, at least. i had hoped the theme authors had learned their lesson last time...
xerox, and it wasn't stolen.
/. story)
apple paid xerox to go through the PARC and take what they felt like using, since xerox thought there was no use for the stuff. stock options on the biggest IPO up to that point. xerox made big chunks of change for what apple 'stole'
and the pirate flag was internal apple defiance - the mac group was fighting with the apple][ group. later it was used to show their defiance of the IBM dominance of the PC market.
IBM never did their own interface until OS/2, and then it was only in order to get out from under the thumb of microsoft, something they're doing again by getting in bed with Linux (via redhat, but that's another
get your facts straight before you call anyone hypocrites and pirates.
let me say once again. it's the logo.
if you build a theme with the OS X widgets or even one that looks exactly like platinum, nobody can complain, because, after all, Apple already lost that battle in the '80s. it's pixels. look and feel or not, it can be copied. bla bla woof woof. there are dozens of mac-like themes that do exactly this, a lot more than the 4 or so that were pulled.
but, once you use the apple logo, a copyrighted, trademarked, protected-by-pitbulls-and-lawyers piece of Apple, you have stepped over your 'fair use' or 'parody' (or whatever) boundary.
microsoft could do the same thing, but it seems they have bigger legal fish to fry, and couldn't care less if you copied their logo, let alone user experience (sic).
Apple is completely within their rights here, once again, and is doing what is legally required of a trademark holder in defending their trademark. considering it's one of the world's best recognized brands - in some surveys even moreso than Nike's - it only makes sense that they defend it more emphatically than most companies. granted, a little more effort than having one of their freshman lawyers send out a C&D letter could smooth things over considerably, but all those here (and on themes.org) crying foul over the Big Guy bullying the Poor Little Open Source movement could be a little more mature and sympathetic as well.
the sardaukar are the emperor's private stock of guards (like the crimson guard in star wars, but more exclusive) born and bred in a secret location to produce superior fighters.
the fremen are similar - born and raised in a harsh environment, taught to fight young, made tough by attrition.
it's the Kal-El syndrome: Krypton has higher gravity, thus, on earth, he is a Superman. Dune has a harsh environment, both physically and socially, thus those that survive are better suited to kicking ass.
what makes them tougher is that (a: they are on their home turf (b: they're not pampered (c: one word: Jihad.
i have. when i was in college and living in a crappy apartment with negative income and questionable hygiene.
they don't do it with a box hooked to your set anymore. for a month, i was asked to record what shows i watched (including channel flipping, if i watched any particular channel for more than 5 minutes). being uberbusy with classes and keeping an odd schedule, my responses were, at best, anomolous.
let's see. MASH reruns on cable from midnight to 1am. the news for 7 minutes the next morning. Cartoons all day saturday followed my godzilla movies that night. hmm.. how should i record scrambled playboy channel?