I wouldn't write off the Dreamcast just yet. Sure, there's every possibility it will fail, I'm not saying it's got an easy ride ahead - but it hasn't seen its first Christmas (in the West) yet. None of the online-multiplayer games have been released yet.
PS2 is a long way off -- if you want to play next-gen games *now*, then a DC or a $1000 PC are your only choices.
There are worrying (but dubious) hints that the PS2 will be a pig to develop for, suggesting it might need a lot of low-level bit-twiddling to get the most out of those multiple processors.
The console market sees so many shake-ups.
Atari looked all-powerful in the days of the 2600. Now it's dead.
Nobody could dream of taking on Nintendo in the heyday of the NES; yet the Sega Megadrive (Genesis in the US) was marginally more successful than the SNES.
Sony came out of nowhere to defeat the Sega Saturn with its Playstation.
It's an unpredictable market, and Sega haven't yet done anything seriously wrong (the 3 week slippage on the European release date notwithstanding).
... and think about it -- have you actually seen any PS2 *games* you'd like to play?
That said, I'll be buying a PS2 within a couple of months of release, and it'll go on the shelf right next to the Dreamcast. --
I'd imagine an MS console would look like this: an X86-descendant CPU, a 3D accelerator, a swish sound card, USB, presumably all built into a single board. Peripherals (controllers, lightguns, mouse, modem etc) would be USB or similar. There would be a DVD-ROM drive on board. We already know it'll run something akin to WinCE.
But let's take a look at the only Next-Gen console currently available -- the Dreamcast. As well as upping graphic/sound/CPU performace, Sega have *innovated* in several areas.
The VMU (visual memory unit), for example, is a stroke of genius -- it's like a PS memory card, but it slots into your controller, and gives you an LCD screen which a game can use for whatever it likes (speedo, stuff the other player shouldn't see, etc).
That's clever -- but the VMU also works as a standalone mini-gameboy-type-thing, into which you load software via the Dreamcast.
That would be enough to convince me that Sega are having good ideas; but there's more -- the VMU's connector is the same shape as its socket, so you can plug two VMUs together for two-player pocket shenanigans.
That's just an example of innovation in consoles. I can imagine Sony doing similarly clever stuff with the PS2 if I could guess what, I'd be earning a whole lot more than I do now.
I really can't imagine MS doing anything that imaginative. They are doomed to imitate. Still, the public might fall for it.... they usually seem to. --
From what I've heard there are only a few games for the dreamcast that actually use Windows CE, and those are pretty unknown crappy ones too.
Um, Sega Rally 2 is a WinCE title.
But you're right - developers get to choose between Sega's own OS, or WinCE.
Attracting 3rd party developers is crucial to the success of a console (Sony wooed PS developers by providing excellent high-level APIs early on). Dreamcast developers would generally choose the Sega OS if they were developing directly for Dreamcast; WinCE if they were porting from an existing PC title.
I hear WinCE is a bit of a resource hog (RAM mostly), so I guess if you were embarking on a multi-platform release (e.g. a Tomb Raider) for PC/DC/N64/PS, you'd keep cross-platform issues in mind from an early stage and develop for the Sega OS. --
Re:World outside of the US
on
Lo-Tech Cinema
·
· Score: 1
I'll agree with that. I've not seen BWP (end of October in the UK - Gah!) but it looks like an amalgam of three old ideas:
Improvised scenes -- All Ken Loach films (you meant Ken Loach, not Ken Russell, huh MeerCat?) and many others
Mockumentary in which the filmmakers become the protagonists -- Man Bites Dog is a prime example (and very good too)
Non-specific horror in the woods, making it cheap to film, especially with shaky cameras -- that'll be The Evil Dead then (God bless Sam Raimi's little cotton socks)
That said, originality ain't everything, and I'm fully prepared for BWP to be a lot of fun. --
Certainly with Qmail, probably with other MTAs, you need to think about filesystems. mbox mailboxes should NEVER be on an NFS mount, they're bonud to get corrupted (dodgy locking). Qmail's maildir format works fine over NFS, but not all clients like it (no matter if you use a pop server).
ext2fs returns from write calls while the metadata may still be in RAM cache (making it fast) -- if you want complete end-to-end reliability, that won't do. XFS will fix this for Linux, (as does a tiny patch Linus sent to the qmail mailing list) otherwise FreeBSD may be a better free UNIX to use. --
Why stop at movie theatres though -- we could also strike a blow for the "Geek Kingdom" or whatever Katz called it, by hanging around off-licences, buying vodka for nine-year-olds. Oh, and tobacconists, too. --
PG = "Parental Guidance"; anyone can see it, but parents may wish to check out the content to see if they're happy with it.
12 = "Halfway house between PG and 15, introduced especially for Batman or Jurassic Park, as far as I recall...
15 = A little swearing, a little T&A, non-gratuitous (i.e. cut away/block the view/silhouette/whatever) sex & violence
18 = anything else, unless it's banned. The list of banned films is gradually shortening, thankfully. I don't see any reason why I as an adult should be forbidden from seeing absolutely anything in a cinema. Video is a kinda different matter, since it could fall into that hands of children.
"Film Clubs" with paying members can show anything they like; anything. I had to be a member to see "Taxi Zum Clo" and "Salo, 120 Days of Sodom" -- both films I believe children should not see, but adults should not be "protected" from.
I'm not sure how the British Board of Film Classification (they don't like to be called censors... bah...) get selected, but their personal foibles have a strong effect on the ratings given to films: the Exorcist was denied a video release in the UK until last year, when James Ferman resigned as chair of the BBFC (it always had an 18 certificate in the cinema). The evidence suggests that the film just struck a particularly strong chord in Ferman.
Cinema age restrictions are law in the UK - frankly I'm pretty surprised that they're not in the USA. Rest assured, if the industry stops maintaining their volountary limits, that democracy you're so proud of will produce laws to replace them.
Oh, and for the record, Monarch or not, the UK is at least as much a democracy as the US... --
As a 25 year old who wants the freedom to see scenes of sex, violence, bad language, drug use, sodomy, devil worship, yada, yada, yada in the cinema, I've got to say I'm glad there are age restrictions in place.
I think a 15 year old would have a lot of trouble digesting a film like, say, "Man Bites Dog". Sorry, 15 year old readers, I'd have objected to that statement too at one stage;)
My own feeling is that age limits should exist, and should be enforced, so that the "adult" category can encompass *all* material - no films should be banned.
As for this fiasco in the cinema; I reckon JK acted like a bit of an arse. The staff were upholding company policy -- their job, remember. If you have a problem with that, take it to the company management, and if that fails, take your custom elsewhere. --
For the newer (3D) machines, I believe resolution isn't an issue (because of the high scalability of the 3D vector-based graphics). However, for older games (like Zelda for example), emulators that output at a higher resolution are probably just spoofing.
Err, I was talking about N64 Zelda; UltraHLE catches 3D graphics calls early, and implements them natively - hence you can play at a much higher resolution than the N64 would support.
For the record, ZSNES, a SNES emulator, will play SNES games at a higher resolution, but as you rightly say, it's spoofed; it just interpolates the pixels. --
Show me the console that has the latest hardware every 6 months.
Show me one.... and I won't buy it. One of the problems with PC games is that you spend 5 minutes in the shop trying to work out if your computer is up to the job: is meeting the "minimum requirements" enough, or should you read the "Recommended spec"?
I bought a Playstation three years ago, and I can still buy any game and *guarantee* it will run, and it will run at full speed.
I bought my PC two years ago, and it won't run halflife.
A new Dreamcast (when it comes out) isn't much more expensive than a Voodoo III, and will outlive it.
Mind you, I have seven consoles at the last count (ahem, Atari 7800, NES, SNES, Saturn, Megadrive (Genesis), Playstation, Jaguar), so I may be a little biased... --
Don't think console manufacturers don't know that TV resolution sucks . Sega sell a peripheral for the Dreamcast (in Japan) which outputs the display to SVGA.
I assume this means that the software renders at some high resolution, which gets scaled down to TV res between the video memory and the TV output -- output to a better display, and you can enjoy the full resolution.
After all, the *games* aren't (always) written to *any* particular resolution. That's why you can play Zelda at 1024x768 using UltraHLE.
OTOH; few people complain about TV resolution when they're watching TV -- because they watch TV from a sensible distance, and because of the high bit-depth. For the kind of arcadey fare I like to play (Tekken, Puzzle Fighter, Bomberman), resolution ain't much of an issue. --
Can ANYONE do a better Slashdot parody than the legendary Hashsnot? If so, please put your HTML coding where your flaming comments are and do it. It's been done; it's segfault.org --
A couple of weeks ago I went to the Glastonbury festival, where it always strikes me: there are some *really good* unsigned bands. Sure, there are plenty of *bad* unsigned bands, but there are also plenty of bad *signed* bands too.
MP3 gives these bands a chance to distributed their work without involving big record companies, and although it will take time, I'm hoping that this will become a mainstream source of legitimate music. I don't really approve of leeching commercial CDs onto MP3, because it paints MP3 as "just" a means to piracy.
One reason it's easy to find music you like on CD, is that there is a huge infastructure of magazines, radio shows, web sites etc all dedicated to reviewing and publicising new music. At the moment legit MP3s are not a part of that system.
There's a certain class of radio DJ, who I'll call the "independent DJ" - the BBC's John Peel is one of them, I'm sure there are plenty in the US - who choose their own playlists, and get sent dozens of recordings every week from which they choose what to play; I really hope that these people discover MP3 as a medium, so that instead of saying "That was Foo and you can get the CD from Bar records, 117 suburban street, Leeds", they'll say "That one isn't available on CD, but the site with the MP3 is linked from this show's website". It'll happen. Eventually.
And when that happens, I'm pretty sure that many of the bands *I* want to listen to, won't even *want* to sign to a record company. --
If the "thing" you want to do is really two things, then yes, sometimes Unix minimalism requires you to use two programs. This is a good thing.
Would you have the KDE guys reimplement everything X does, just so they can avoid being dependent of it. That's just silly - making work for the sake of it.
I even get cross when a mail app contains SMTP client code, instead of just calling sendmail.
"Look, Navigator is bloated on every platform, not just Linux. What an advertisment for cross-platform-icity: "Navigator! Bloated on over forty platforms!" "
Navigator is bloated because it doesn't know what it is. "I'm a browser" "I'm a newsreader" "I'm an editor" "I'm a mailer" "I'm a JVM" "I'm a javascript
I really don't understand why Netscape don't break it into components and market it as a "suite" of nice, small, streamlined programs. --
I cannot accept that many of the "features" in (say) MS Word belong in a word processor.
I'm much happier with the UNIX way of having small applications that do just enough. vi can't format text to a given width, but it *can* pipe a section through "fmt", or any arbitary program.
The Gimp is a small tool, augmented with hundreds of plugins. Emacs is a small program, only bloated by the huge amount of (optional) Lisp. --
1) The GPL forbids restrictions on the software recipient's right to copy modify, and redistribute the software.
2) RMS says he does not oppose commercial distribution of software.
So how exactly am I supposed to write a piece of software for economic gain? If somebody decides they don't like me, they can redistribute my software for free and kill my income (I'm assuming for the moment that software income is separate from any support or subscription fees I might charge).
I feel like I'm missing something here.
Basically, RMS is not on your side: he is on the customer's side. He believes it is the customer's right, when obtaining software, to be allowed to modify, redistribute etc, the code.
The whole thing started because RMS, as a customer, found that a piece of software MIT had bought was useless to him because he was unable to modify it to suit his needs. Proprietary software is less useful. I lost count of the number of times I've thought "This job would be so much easier if I had the source to X" (in a previous job where I spent more time with non-free software).
Most of the GNU projects got written with no profit motive whatsoever: they were giving something to the world, which they thought would make the world a better place.
Remember, RMS (a brilliant programmer) does not consider programming to be a great skill: he does not believe programmers have a god-given right to rake in the big salaries they do today. His beliefs are beginning to be proved: Apache rivals IIS, yet is was (mostly) built by people who are not paid to be programmers (although it is not GPLd, that's beside the point).
Have no doubt: when you GPL your software, you *are* gifting it to humanity; but in the long term, you may have no choice. If and when a GPL alternative to your software comes along, why on earth would your customer choose to go with your proprietary version? --
Back when IPv6 was first being discussed, I'm sure I recall seeing a fair amount about guaranteed QoS -- i.e. an ISP could sell a service with guaranteed n bandwidth and m latency between two addresses, for a price; and if you couldn't afford the price, you could accept a lower quality service.
This sounds great -- I'd love to be able to pay a tenth of the price for a nice, slow-but-permanent, link for my email, while the people who want 128K for their Quake matches pay their own way -- but I don't see any mention of QoS on the website.
He makes an analogy with the Green movement. Problem is, his analysis of the Green movement is just as opinionated and subjective as his analysis of Free Software.
In a slightly related note, Linux needs some new graphics libraries--GD is good, but it's not Excel. I have the distinct feeling GIMP is better suited to what we need. Sooner or later we won't have to jump to Excel to get quality graphs drawn.
Uuuh, GNUPlot?
I've not looked at Guppi, but my instinct if people want flashier graphs than GNUPlot can produce, the way to go is to extend GNUPlot. --
Kaffe is open sourced under the GPL. Which is interesting, since that means (to the best of my understanding) that TransVirtual could not use its own code to make a Windows version of Kaffe unless it releases that Windows version as an open source project.
Don't forget that the owner of the code can release it under multiple licences.. i.e. "You may use this code under the terms of the GNU GPL, but if you are not prepared to accept those terms, then you may instead elect to use the code under this alternative licence".
The reason this can't happen with Linux is that there are so many authors, all of whom would have to agree to the alternative licence. --
I think the phone call to the ISP should be free, and instead the traffic should be billed. The problem is, if im online for hours and do only low-traffic irc, im paying for these people who are online over a short period but are downloading Megs and Gigs of Data.
That'd be nice -- problem is, as long as you're using a modem and a normal phone line (or indeed ISDN... ) you're being given a dedicated, switched connection to the remote modem, which is yours for the duration of the call, whether you're sending data or not. If you're only using it for IRC, that does not mean the rest of that bandwidth is available for someone else.
I really hope that switched methods of connecting to the net die off, and in their place we get some form of packet-routing solution: cable modems are a good start. Then they can start charging by the byte, if they like, as far as I'm concerned: it might encourage web designers to cut down the size of those images....
What else? A packet network would allow ISPs to start implementing the level-of-service aspects of IPv6, so those of us who want email and IRC could pay less than the people who want guaranteed 256Kb/s to some server during business hours. --
The interesting thing about the telephone business is that their costs have nothing to do with how many minutes you stay on the phone.
Variable costs for the telephone company are determined by peak usage. They have to buy enough switch capacity and interoffice trunk lines to provide a specified quality of service during peak usage periods. Off-peak usage of the telephone system doesn't add to the cost of providing service.
You don't need a degree in maths to see that since Internet calls are usually longer than voice calls (on an unmetered service), more internet calls means higher peak usages. On an unmetered service, though, the cost of meeting these peak demands gets passed on to the voice-only customers as well as the net users who are hogging the capacity -- pretty unfair.
Kithran wrote: Well as I understand it local calls are unmetered in the US and the big question is why shouldn't they also be unmetered in the UK (and the rest of Europe).
When the US Telcos introduced free local calls, voice calls was all there was -- and people didn't have any reason to leave a call connected for hours on end.
I'll bet US telcos would love to go back to metered pricing now, but since the consumer is now so used to free calls, it ain't gonna happen. --
Metering voice calls makes sense -- a switched system like the phones means that a circuit is in place and taking up resources even when no data is transmitted. Before modems, people had no reason not to hang up, the US telcos were OK making local calls free, but if everyone left their modem connected 24/7, the phone system would soon run out of switches.
Now I get a pretty hefty phone bill for my Internet calls, so on a personal level, I'm eager to get a fixed monthly rate arrangement in place ASAP -- but I'm not sure free phone calls is the right way. After all, modems are crap (bad handshake times, bad latency), and the infrastructure is sure to be more expensive in the long run -- if everyone left their modem connected 24/7, it would effectively be the same as everyone having a leased line direct to their ISP. Why have a switched connection for each customer, when all they want is a packet-driven network?
I'm scared that free local phone calls will stunt demand for *proper* home networking -- I don't care how the IP packets get where they're going, I just want an ethernet port somewhere in my house. The sooner nobody uses modems, the better. They suck. --
Slashdot Mirror
PS2 is a long way off -- if you want to play next-gen games *now*, then a DC or a $1000 PC are your only choices.
There are worrying (but dubious) hints that the PS2 will be a pig to develop for, suggesting it might need a lot of low-level bit-twiddling to get the most out of those multiple processors.
The console market sees so many shake-ups.
It's an unpredictable market, and Sega haven't yet done anything seriously wrong (the 3 week slippage on the European release date notwithstanding).
... and think about it -- have you actually seen any PS2 *games* you'd like to play?
That said, I'll be buying a PS2 within a couple of months of release, and it'll go on the shelf right next to the Dreamcast.
--
I'd imagine an MS console would look like this: an X86-descendant CPU, a 3D accelerator, a swish sound card, USB, presumably all built into a single board. Peripherals (controllers, lightguns, mouse, modem etc) would be USB or similar. There would be a DVD-ROM drive on board. We already know it'll run something akin to WinCE.
But let's take a look at the only Next-Gen console currently available -- the Dreamcast. As well as upping graphic/sound/CPU performace, Sega have *innovated* in several areas.
The VMU (visual memory unit), for example, is a stroke of genius -- it's like a PS memory card, but it slots into your controller, and gives you an LCD screen which a game can use for whatever it likes (speedo, stuff the other player shouldn't see, etc).
That's clever -- but the VMU also works as a standalone mini-gameboy-type-thing, into which you load software via the Dreamcast.
That would be enough to convince me that Sega are having good ideas; but there's more -- the VMU's connector is the same shape as its socket, so you can plug two VMUs together for two-player pocket shenanigans.
That's just an example of innovation in consoles. I can imagine Sony doing similarly clever stuff with the PS2 if I could guess what, I'd be earning a whole lot more than I do now.
I really can't imagine MS doing anything that imaginative. They are doomed to imitate.
Still, the public might fall for it.... they usually seem to.
--
From what I've heard there are only a few games
for the dreamcast that actually use Windows CE, and those are pretty unknown crappy ones
too.
Um, Sega Rally 2 is a WinCE title.
But you're right - developers get to choose between Sega's own OS, or WinCE.
Attracting 3rd party developers is crucial to the success of a console (Sony wooed PS developers by providing excellent high-level APIs early on). Dreamcast developers would generally choose the Sega OS if they were developing directly for Dreamcast; WinCE if they were porting from an existing PC title.
I hear WinCE is a bit of a resource hog (RAM mostly), so I guess if you were embarking on a multi-platform release (e.g. a Tomb Raider) for PC/DC/N64/PS, you'd keep cross-platform issues in mind from an early stage and develop for the Sega OS.
--
That said, originality ain't everything, and I'm fully prepared for BWP to be a lot of fun.
--
Certainly with Qmail, probably with other MTAs, you need to think about filesystems. mbox mailboxes should NEVER be on an NFS mount, they're bonud to get corrupted (dodgy locking). Qmail's maildir format works fine over NFS, but not all clients like it (no matter if you use a pop server).
ext2fs returns from write calls while the metadata may still be in RAM cache (making it fast) -- if you want complete end-to-end reliability, that won't do. XFS will fix this for Linux, (as does a tiny patch Linus sent to the qmail mailing list) otherwise FreeBSD may be a better free UNIX to use.
--
I like it!
Why stop at movie theatres though -- we could also strike a blow for the "Geek Kingdom" or whatever Katz called it, by hanging around off-licences, buying vodka for nine-year-olds. Oh, and tobacconists, too.
--
UK ratings are more like:
"Film Clubs" with paying members can show anything they like; anything. I had to be a member to see "Taxi Zum Clo" and "Salo, 120 Days of Sodom" -- both films I believe children should not see, but adults should not be "protected" from.
I'm not sure how the British Board of Film Classification (they don't like to be called censors... bah...) get selected, but their personal foibles have a strong effect on the ratings given to films: the Exorcist was denied a video release in the UK until last year, when James Ferman resigned as chair of the BBFC (it always had an 18 certificate in the cinema). The evidence suggests that the film just struck a particularly strong chord in Ferman.
Cinema age restrictions are law in the UK - frankly I'm pretty surprised that they're not in the USA. Rest assured, if the industry stops maintaining their volountary limits, that democracy you're so proud of will produce laws to replace them.
Oh, and for the record, Monarch or not, the UK is at least as much a democracy as the US...
--
As a 25 year old who wants the freedom to see scenes of sex, violence, bad language, drug use, sodomy, devil worship, yada, yada, yada in the cinema, I've got to say I'm glad there are age restrictions in place.
;)
I think a 15 year old would have a lot of trouble digesting a film like, say, "Man Bites Dog". Sorry, 15 year old readers, I'd have objected to that statement too at one stage
My own feeling is that age limits should exist, and should be enforced, so that the "adult" category can encompass *all* material - no films should be banned.
As for this fiasco in the cinema; I reckon JK acted like a bit of an arse. The staff were upholding company policy -- their job, remember. If you have a problem with that, take it to the company management, and if that fails, take your custom elsewhere.
--
For the newer (3D) machines, I believe resolution isn't an issue (because of the high scalability of the 3D
vector-based graphics). However, for older games (like Zelda for example), emulators that output at a higher
resolution are probably just spoofing.
Err, I was talking about N64 Zelda; UltraHLE catches 3D graphics calls early, and implements them natively - hence you can play at a much
higher resolution than the N64 would support.
For the record, ZSNES, a SNES emulator, will play SNES games at a higher resolution, but as you rightly say, it's spoofed; it just interpolates the pixels.
--
Show me the console that has the latest hardware every 6 months.
Show me one.... and I won't buy it. One of the problems with PC games is that you spend 5 minutes in the shop trying to work out if your computer is up to the job: is meeting the "minimum requirements" enough, or should you read the "Recommended spec"?
I bought a Playstation three years ago, and I can still buy any game and *guarantee* it will run, and it will run at full speed.
I bought my PC two years ago, and it won't run halflife.
A new Dreamcast (when it comes out) isn't much more expensive than a Voodoo III, and will outlive it.
Mind you, I have seven consoles at the last count (ahem, Atari 7800, NES, SNES, Saturn, Megadrive (Genesis), Playstation, Jaguar), so I may be a little biased...
--
Aah, but with the new USB ports on the PSII, we now *can* have a keyboard! :-)
But why hyperbolise about the PSII, when Dreamcast already exists, and *does* have an optional keyboard?
--
Don't think console manufacturers don't know that TV resolution sucks
.
Sega sell a peripheral for the Dreamcast (in Japan) which outputs the display to SVGA.
I assume this means that the software renders at some high resolution, which gets scaled down to TV res between the video memory and the TV output -- output to a better display, and you can enjoy the full resolution.
After all, the *games* aren't (always) written to *any* particular resolution. That's why you can play Zelda at 1024x768 using UltraHLE.
OTOH; few people complain about TV resolution when they're watching TV -- because they watch TV from a sensible distance, and because of the high bit-depth. For the kind of arcadey fare I like to play (Tekken, Puzzle Fighter, Bomberman), resolution ain't much of an issue.
--
Can ANYONE do a better Slashdot parody than the legendary Hashsnot? If so, please put your HTML coding where your flaming comments
are and do it.
It's been done; it's segfault.org
--
A couple of weeks ago I went to the Glastonbury festival, where it always strikes me: there are some *really good* unsigned bands. Sure, there are plenty of *bad* unsigned bands, but there are also plenty of bad *signed* bands too.
MP3 gives these bands a chance to distributed their work without involving big record companies, and although it will take time, I'm hoping that this will become a mainstream source of legitimate music. I don't really approve of leeching commercial CDs onto MP3, because it paints MP3 as "just" a means to piracy.
One reason it's easy to find music you like on CD, is that there is a huge infastructure of magazines, radio shows, web sites etc all dedicated to reviewing and publicising new music. At the moment legit MP3s are not a part of that system.
There's a certain class of radio DJ, who I'll call the "independent DJ" - the BBC's John Peel is one of them, I'm sure there are plenty in the US - who choose their own playlists, and get sent dozens of recordings every week from which they choose what to play; I really hope that these people discover MP3 as a medium, so that instead of saying "That was Foo and you can get the CD from Bar records, 117 suburban street, Leeds", they'll say "That one isn't available on CD, but the site with the MP3 is linked from this show's website". It'll happen. Eventually.
And when that happens, I'm pretty sure that many of the bands *I* want to listen to, won't even *want* to sign to a record company.
--
If the "thing" you want to do is really two things, then yes, sometimes Unix minimalism requires you to use two programs. This is a good thing.
Would you have the KDE guys reimplement everything X does, just so they can avoid being dependent of it. That's just silly - making work for the sake of it.
I even get cross when a mail app contains SMTP client code, instead of just calling sendmail.
--
"Look, Navigator is bloated on every platform, not just Linux. What an advertisment for
cross-platform-icity: "Navigator! Bloated on over forty platforms!" "
Navigator is bloated because it doesn't know what it is. "I'm a browser" "I'm a newsreader" "I'm an editor" "I'm a mailer" "I'm a JVM" "I'm a javascript
I really don't understand why Netscape don't break it into components and market it as a "suite" of nice, small, streamlined programs.
--
I cannot accept that many of the "features" in (say) MS Word belong in a word processor.
I'm much happier with the UNIX way of having small applications that do just enough. vi can't format
text to a given width, but it *can* pipe a section
through "fmt", or any arbitary program.
The Gimp is a small tool, augmented with hundreds of plugins. Emacs is a small program, only bloated by the huge amount of (optional) Lisp.
--
1) The GPL forbids restrictions on the software recipient's right to copy modify, and redistribute the software.
2) RMS says he does not oppose commercial distribution of software.
So how exactly am I supposed to write a piece of software for economic gain? If somebody decides
they don't like me, they can redistribute my software for free and kill my income (I'm assuming for the
moment that software income is separate from any support or subscription fees I might charge).
I feel like I'm missing something here.
Basically, RMS is not on your side: he is on the customer's side. He believes it is the customer's right, when obtaining software, to be allowed to modify, redistribute etc, the code.
The whole thing started because RMS, as a customer, found that a piece of software MIT had bought was useless to him because he was unable to modify it to suit his needs. Proprietary software is less useful. I lost count of the number of times I've thought "This job would be so much easier if I had the source to X" (in a previous job where I spent more time with non-free software).
Most of the GNU projects got written with no profit motive whatsoever: they were giving something to the world, which they thought would make the world a better place.
Remember, RMS (a brilliant programmer) does not consider programming to be a great skill: he does not believe programmers have a god-given right to rake in the big salaries they do today. His beliefs are beginning to be proved: Apache rivals IIS, yet is was (mostly) built by people who are not paid to be programmers (although it is not GPLd, that's beside the point).
Have no doubt: when you GPL your software, you *are* gifting it to humanity; but in the long term, you may have no choice. If and when a GPL alternative to your software comes along, why on earth would your customer choose to go with your proprietary version?
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Back when IPv6 was first being discussed, I'm sure I recall seeing a fair amount about guaranteed QoS -- i.e. an ISP could sell a service with guaranteed n bandwidth and m latency between two addresses, for a price; and if you couldn't afford the price, you could accept a lower quality service.
This sounds great -- I'd love to be able to pay a tenth of the price for a nice, slow-but-permanent, link for my email, while the people who want 128K for their Quake matches pay their own way -- but I don't see any mention of QoS on the website.
Did that stuff get left by the wayside?
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Odd fellow.
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In a slightly related note, Linux needs some new graphics libraries--GD is good, but it's not Excel. I have the distinct feeling GIMP
is better suited to what we need. Sooner or later we won't have to jump to Excel to get quality graphs drawn.
Uuuh, GNUPlot?
I've not looked at Guppi, but my instinct if people want flashier graphs than GNUPlot can produce, the way to go is to extend GNUPlot.
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Kaffe is open sourced under the GPL. Which is interesting, since that means (to the best of my understanding)
that TransVirtual could not use its own code to make a Windows version of Kaffe unless it releases that
Windows version as an open source project.
Don't forget that the owner of the code can release it under multiple licences.. i.e. "You may use this code under the terms of the GNU GPL, but if you are not prepared to accept those terms, then you may instead elect to use the code under this alternative licence".
The reason this can't happen with Linux is that there are so many authors, all of whom would have to agree to the alternative licence.
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I think the phone call to the ISP should be free, and instead the traffic should be billed. The
problem is, if im online for hours and do only low-traffic irc, im paying for these people who are
online over a short period but are downloading Megs and Gigs of Data.
That'd be nice -- problem is, as long as you're using a modem and a normal phone line (or indeed ISDN... ) you're being given a dedicated, switched connection to the remote modem, which is yours for the duration of the call, whether you're sending data or not. If you're only using it for IRC, that does not mean the rest of that bandwidth is available for someone else.
I really hope that switched methods of connecting to the net die off, and in their place we get some form of packet-routing solution: cable modems are a good start. Then they can start charging by the byte, if they like, as far as I'm concerned: it might encourage web designers to cut down the size of those images....
What else? A packet network would allow ISPs to start implementing the level-of-service aspects of IPv6, so those of us who want email and IRC could pay less than the people who want guaranteed 256Kb/s to some server during business hours.
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The interesting thing about the telephone business is that their costs have nothing to do with how
many minutes you stay on the phone.
Variable costs for the telephone company are determined by peak usage. They have to buy
enough switch capacity and interoffice trunk lines to provide a specified quality of service during
peak usage periods. Off-peak usage of the telephone system doesn't add to the cost of providing
service.
You don't need a degree in maths to see that since Internet calls are usually longer than voice calls (on an unmetered service), more internet calls means higher peak usages. On an unmetered service, though, the cost of meeting these peak demands gets passed on to the voice-only customers as well as the net users who are hogging the capacity -- pretty unfair.
Kithran wrote: Well as I understand it local calls are unmetered in the US and the big question is why shouldn't they
also be unmetered in the UK (and the rest of Europe).
When the US Telcos introduced free local calls, voice calls was all there was -- and people didn't have any reason to leave a call connected for hours on end.
I'll bet US telcos would love to go back to metered pricing now, but since the consumer is now so used to free calls, it ain't gonna happen.
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Metering voice calls makes sense -- a switched system like the phones means that a circuit is in place and taking up resources even when no data is transmitted. Before modems, people had no reason not to hang up, the US telcos were OK making local calls free, but if everyone left their modem connected 24/7, the phone system would soon run out of switches.
Now I get a pretty hefty phone bill for my Internet calls, so on a personal level, I'm eager to get a fixed monthly rate arrangement in place ASAP -- but I'm not sure free phone calls is the right way. After all, modems are crap (bad handshake times, bad latency), and the infrastructure is sure to be more expensive in the long run -- if everyone left their modem connected 24/7, it would effectively be the same as everyone having a leased line direct to their ISP. Why have a switched connection for each customer, when all they want is a packet-driven network?
I'm scared that free local phone calls will stunt demand for *proper* home networking -- I don't care how the IP packets get where they're going, I just want an ethernet port somewhere in my house. The sooner nobody uses modems, the better. They suck.
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