Well, there's been a lot of discussion on this on -devel and a whole bunch of build dependency fields were recently added. Currently this is optional; since there are so many packages to convert and there's not yet an automated way to detect build dependencies I suspect this will take a while (possibly a release or two) to get straightened out. Then we can start the fun stuff: modifying build depends based on compile options selected by the user!:)
I think Linux will always be DFSG free, unless Linus, Alan, Andrea, and the thousands of other people who've contributed to it decide to use a non-free license. It's more likely that the DFSG will change to exclude the GPL -- which itself approaches the odds of a snowball on the sun.
There has been quite a bit of discussion about this. I think there is more interest in shortening the release cycle than in backporting new software, but I think that projects which benefit one may benefit the other. Look (in the list archives of -devel and -project) at the recent discussion of "package pools". Essentially they are an attempt to make the archive much more flexible and make it easier to release multiple versions of a package with differing stability levels, etc. Wichert will probably tell you more when he replies, assuming your post gets sent to him (hope it does!)
Er..you may want to know that gnome-apt development has stalled, and that console-apt is probably going to have to be rewritten from scratch to go anywhere. (gnome-apt may as well, but I've only examined the console-apt code in any detail) Luckily there's not much code, at least for console-apt:) I'm also working on a frontend (so my opinion is not objective!), but I don't want to say anything else until the next release as all its nice features, including downloading packages (rather important for a package manager) are currently vapor; I know pretty much how I'm going to implement them but final exams are happening:-\
However, I wish I could get apt-get et al. to allow me to install from the non-free sections but always warn me when I request to do so.
Then add it. I've poked around in the apt sources, and this should take about 5 minutes to add to apt-get. Now that you've mentioned it, my frontend (<PLUG/aptitude/) may gain this ability..
Finally - could you/would you trust someone else to keep a server up 24-7 for your source code? My experience of projects is that they need more than cvs/ mailinglist. They need coordinated web site and people close by to make it all work.
Here's the reason that I'd consider this (or something very like it):
I have a private CVS tree on my computer. However, I would like to be able to
(a) let other people have readonly access to this tree so they can see what I'm working on, and (b) have a good way to distribute source tarballs.
Currently my only recourse for (b) is to tell people to access it on my computer, which is unreliable [1] and not optimized for that sort of thing. (a) is doable with pserver, but insecure on top of having the same problems as (b).
If there were a way for me to keep a local copy of the CVS tree, *and* simultaneously mirror it with something like this, I think I would be in heaven:) Probably this needs modifications to CVS to replicate commits and keep the trees in sync, though.. [2]
Daniel
[1] as in, it reboots when I feel like it, may be running unstable software, etc.
[2] if the server's tree is readonly for everyone but me this becomes a *lot* easier, I think.
Re:God this section of Slashdot gets old quick...
on
Copyright!
·
· Score: 2
I've been trying to read this in a fairly evenhanded way, but this was just too much:
I disagree totally. The one element in determining the value of something is scarcity. In this case IP is exactly like physical property. By distributing someone else's IP without their permission you are reducing the scarcity of that item and reducing its value.
If I'm in the business of building cars, should it be illegal for anyone else to build cars because they might reduce the scarcity of cars and thus reduce their value?
Now, this is of course covered by patents. However:
1) I think that this example points out the fundamental difference between 'IP' and something I can hold; 2) Do you want patents to last for 70 years past the death of the patent holder? Please think carefully before answering:-)
Err, you missed the irony in that comment, didn't you? In any event, I don't see how I can be part of "the market" for something I don't want; if I *am*, which seems to be the position Netscape is taking, I think they are very very out of touch with reality. This is an approximation to my point, but having to explain a succint statement never succeeds;-)
Daniel
Re:Consumers need a new fair-use "bill of rights"
on
Copyright!
·
· Score: 2
If a copy of a newspaper falls off the back of a delivery truck, and I find it lying by the side of the road as I'm on my way to the newsstand to buy a copy, is it stealing for me to pick it up and read it instead?
This is fascinating, because I've essentially grown up on this nonsense and I actually *would* think twice about this. And I consider myself to be a fairly independent thinker. I wonder how brainwashed the rest of my generation is..;-)
Maybe the solution to the copyright problem will not be the elimination of copyright but the readjustment of human values to exclude anything that might possibly endanger it such as sharing (I'm also more careful about sharing stuff than a lot of people, hmmm) and accidentally finding things you don't "have permission" to access. */me shudders*...
Daniel
Re:Greedy Corporate Scumfucks
on
Copyright!
·
· Score: 2
D'oh! I meant to put in the fact that sheer numbers mean nothing. Windows users dwarfs the amounts of Linux users, for example.
Uhhhhh, you realize of course that this statement contradicts the rest of your post?
In any event, I think that your thesis depends to a large extent on the definition of "religion". Unfortunately, this definition depends upon the person doing the defining. Which means the argument you're involved in is not going to end in the forseeable future.;-)
(a) I (and many other people, I suspect) don't particularly care what Netscape Corporation thinks "the market" demands, I just want a working way to view Web pages: ie, HTML and image rendering. (b) Clearly, adding more developers screws things up..that explains why my kernel crashes every few minutes..er..wait.. [1] (c) I'm not sure what Mozilla you're talking about, but M9 takes 13007K of disk space on my computer and appears to eat even MORE memory and CPU than Communicator.
Daniel
[1] Actually, I'm willing to concede this point, just because I'm probably an ignorant moron in this area:)
You have to admit there's some value in being able to type c:\mp3 or http://slashdot.org into the same window in a MS operating system and receiving the results you want.
Uhhh, no, I don't.
But if you like that sort of thing, I believe the Gnome mini-commander interprets URLs..
X has been displaying programs remotely forever, kludges to do this in Windows are all over, (inferior >=) ) X servers for other operating systems are legion, the entire concept of remote display is blatantly obvious to anyone who knows anything about computers, and yet the extension of this concept to displaying Windows programs on X by rerouting API calls is patentable?
Feh. Someone should patent a method of displaying CP/M programs on a BeOS machine:)
No, I can't. As a matter of fact, I have a disability which prevents me from uttering the words. The doctor says there's no hope, but I could get a job for the USPTO.
Actually, only halfway. The point is that there's nothing inherently easy about the Windows cut-and-paste system, or inherently difficult about the X system, they're just different. Which isn't to say that there aren't particular points which could be improved (for example, it might be nice to select a picture and middle-click paste it into the Gimp), but the overall interface is fine -- and in practice no-one really uses the more complex features of Windows/MacOS cut-and-paste anyway. [1] Frankly, most UI-complaints you hear are just "it doesn't do it how I learned!" rather than observations of significant interface flaws (which do exist, more's the pity). And in any event, the original poster was just talking about text, which X already does problemlos. [2]
For the record, I learned Windows and MacOS long before touching X.
Daniel
[1] Before you flame me, I'm sure that you, your kid sister, and your dog all spend all your time cutting and pasting images, spreadsheets, and birthday cards between programs -- but how often do *most people* do this?
[2] OpenView programs seem to be broken in this regard, and of course Netscape is but Netscape is just broken in general. Everything else I've tried works nicely.
Thinking along these lines, I wonder if the whole concept of a "release" should somewhat be altered, so that not only the kernel has the stable/unstable revision branches (the odd/even version numbering thing), but also an entire distro. This way, we can have "unstable" releases that quickly gets it out the door, have people pound on it, get the bugs fixed, until it stabilizes, that release that as the "stable release". This certainly worked (and still works) with the Linux kernel -- I'm just wondering if this is actually possible in a commercial setting like Corel Linux.
What do you think debian/dists/stable [slink] and debian/dists/unstable [potato] are? Chopped bits?
And I'm almost certain that RedHat does this as well.
Funny, I'm still waiting for Windows and MacOS to support cut'n'paste as well as Linux does. Fiddling with keys in between the cut and paste is a waste of time.
I think the slashdot community is perhaps the most open minded.
In my observation a great deal of/. has the attitude of "be an individualist, just like everyone else", which looks very open-minded if you happen to agree with them. On the other hand I agree that the moderators seem to be reasonably fair-handed and this kind of posturing is (a) repetitive and (b) annoying.
Back on-topic for this off-topic thread, I think the only real problem with the Gnome stuff is that way too many widgets default to way too large a size. I think this is slated to be fixed in Gnome 2.0, but who knows when that'll be out. Easy color changes would be nice, but ThinIce is quick and nifty enough for me for now..:)
Also: on my hardware at least, Windows is not faster than X, it is *more responsive* -- so it *feels* faster even when it isn't! For example, in X the mouse cursor hiccups when your computer is doing extra calculation; in Windows the cursor is (I suspect) updated from an interrupt routine, so it moves at a steady speed regardless of CPU load. On the other hand, I've run games in X inside windows (using SHM extensions and the like) that Windows would never be able to handle *inside windows*. Of course, fullscreen mode in Windows clobbers X -- but the fair comparison is to svgalib, and it's fairly even there.
A judge passing a ruling on a medium he certainly doesn't understand.
She.
"Buffy dearest, we're just not gonna stand for this abuse, get Judge Smith on the phone."
The lawsuit was not brought by the flamees. Did you even read the article? You don't need to answer that, actually, it's pretty obvious..
The question is not quite as simple as you think; it's more the question of whether I can stand in a public place and yell curses and threats at passers-by. [1] Which is a hotly debated (and debatable) topic I believe, but not merely a question of a clueless judge trying to censor 'The Evil Internet' because she doesn't get it.
It's been ages since I touched Usenet at large with a ten-foot pole (that is, aside from a few on-campus groups) -- but isn't it rather easy for someone to spoof his or her From: line? This would defeat the purpose rather quickly.
Already happened. Note that the writer said "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!" not "WE'RE ALL DEAD!!" So this statement is true today, or at least if you have information indicating it isn't a lot of people would like to know:)
Ahhh, thanks. That's what I'd thought. So are the claims about having to run chkdisk for hours just nonsense?
I also thought that ext3fs and reiserfs only did metadata, but I'll have to doublecheck that. (the best thing, of course, would be if they allowed you to choose which method to use) I'd expect that for, say, a workstation/desktop, metadata-only journaling is actually superior because of the performance issues, is this correct?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, there's been a lot of discussion on this on -devel and a whole bunch of build dependency fields were recently added. Currently this is optional; since there are so many packages to convert and there's not yet an automated way to detect build dependencies I suspect this will take a while (possibly a release or two) to get straightened out. Then we can start the fun stuff: modifying build depends based on compile options selected by the user! :)
Daniel
I think Linux will always be DFSG free, unless Linus, Alan, Andrea, and the thousands of other people who've contributed to it decide to use a non-free license. It's more likely that the DFSG will change to exclude the GPL -- which itself approaches the odds of a snowball on the sun.
Daniel
There has been quite a bit of discussion about this. I think there is more interest in shortening the release cycle than in backporting new software, but I think that projects which benefit one may benefit the other.
Look (in the list archives of -devel and -project) at the recent discussion of "package pools". Essentially they are an attempt to make the archive much more flexible and make it easier to release multiple versions of a package with differing stability levels, etc. Wichert will probably tell you more when he replies, assuming your post gets sent to him (hope it does!)
Daniel
Er..you may want to know that gnome-apt development has stalled, and that console-apt is probably going to have to be rewritten from scratch to go anywhere. (gnome-apt may as well, but I've only examined the console-apt code in any detail) Luckily there's not much code, at least for console-apt :) :-\
I'm also working on a frontend (so my opinion is not objective!), but I don't want to say anything else until the next release as all its nice features, including downloading packages (rather important for a package manager) are currently vapor; I know pretty much how I'm going to implement them but final exams are happening
Daniel
However, I wish I could get apt-get et al. to allow me to install from the non-free sections but always warn me when I request to do so.
Then add it. I've poked around in the apt sources, and this should take about 5 minutes to add to apt-get. Now that you've mentioned it, my frontend (<PLUG/aptitude/) may gain this ability..
Daniel
(a) Does it run Linux? (b) If life is discovered there, will Microsoft move to include it as evidence that they don't have a monopoly? Daniel
Gamers want the best in graphics, sounds, ...
Yep, just like that Zork game had.
Daniel
Finally - could you/would you trust someone else to keep a server up 24-7 for your source code? My experience of projects is that they need more than cvs/ mailinglist. They need coordinated web site and people close by to make it all work.
:) Probably this needs modifications to CVS to replicate commits and keep the trees in sync, though.. [2]
Here's the reason that I'd consider this (or something very like it):
I have a private CVS tree on my computer. However, I would like to be able to
(a) let other people have readonly access to this tree so they can see what
I'm working on, and
(b) have a good way to distribute source tarballs.
Currently my only recourse for (b) is to tell people to access it on my
computer, which is unreliable [1] and not optimized for that sort of thing. (a)
is doable with pserver, but insecure on top of having the same problems as (b).
If there were a way for me to keep a local copy of the CVS tree, *and* simultaneously mirror it with something like this, I think I would be in heaven
Daniel
[1] as in, it reboots when I feel like it, may be running unstable software, etc.
[2] if the server's tree is readonly for everyone but me this becomes a *lot* easier, I think.
I've been trying to read this in a fairly evenhanded way, but this was just too much:
:-)
I disagree totally. The one element in determining the value of something is scarcity. In this case IP is exactly like physical property. By distributing someone else's IP without their permission you are reducing the scarcity of that item and reducing its value.
If I'm in the business of building cars, should it be illegal for anyone else to build cars because they might reduce the scarcity of cars and thus reduce their value?
Now, this is of course covered by patents. However:
1) I think that this example points out the fundamental difference between
'IP' and something I can hold;
2) Do you want patents to last for 70 years past the death of the patent holder? Please think carefully before answering
Daniel
Err, you missed the irony in that comment, didn't you? In any event, I don't see how I can be part of "the market" for something I don't want; if I *am*, which seems to be the position Netscape is taking, I think they are very very out of touch with reality. This is an approximation to my point, but having to explain a succint statement never succeeds ;-)
Daniel
If a copy of a newspaper falls off the back of a delivery truck, and I find it lying by the side of the road as I'm on my way to the newsstand to buy a copy, is it stealing for me to pick it up and read it instead?
;-)
This is fascinating, because I've essentially grown up on this nonsense and I actually *would* think twice about this. And I consider myself to be a fairly independent thinker. I wonder how brainwashed the rest of my generation is..
Maybe the solution to the copyright problem will not be the elimination of copyright but the readjustment of human values to exclude anything that might possibly endanger it such as sharing (I'm also more careful about sharing stuff than a lot of people, hmmm) and accidentally finding things you don't "have permission" to access. */me shudders*...
Daniel
D'oh! I meant to put in the fact that sheer numbers mean nothing. Windows users dwarfs the amounts of Linux users, for example.
;-)
Uhhhhh, you realize of course that this statement contradicts the rest of your post?
In any event, I think that your thesis depends to a large extent on the definition of "religion". Unfortunately, this definition depends upon the person doing the defining. Which means the argument you're involved in is not going to end in the forseeable future.
Daniel
(a) I (and many other people, I suspect) don't particularly care what Netscape Corporation thinks "the market" demands, I just want a working way to view Web pages: ie, HTML and image rendering.
:)
(b) Clearly, adding more developers screws things up..that explains why my kernel crashes every few minutes..er..wait.. [1]
(c) I'm not sure what Mozilla you're talking about, but M9 takes 13007K of
disk space on my computer and appears to eat even MORE memory and CPU than
Communicator.
Daniel
[1] Actually, I'm willing to concede this point, just because I'm probably an ignorant moron in this area
You have to admit there's some value in being able to type c:\mp3 or http://slashdot.org into the same window in a MS operating system and receiving the results you want.
Uhhh, no, I don't.
But if you like that sort of thing, I believe the Gnome mini-commander interprets URLs..
Daniel
X has been displaying programs remotely forever, kludges to do this in Windows are all over, (inferior >=) ) X servers for other operating systems are legion, the entire concept of remote display is blatantly obvious to anyone who knows anything about computers, and yet the extension of this concept to displaying Windows programs on X by rerouting API calls is patentable?
:)
Feh. Someone should patent a method of displaying CP/M programs on a BeOS machine
Daniel
No, I can't. As a matter of fact, I have a disability which prevents me from uttering the words. The doctor says there's no hope, but I could get a job for the USPTO.
Daniel
Actually, only halfway. The point is that there's nothing inherently easy about the Windows cut-and-paste system, or inherently difficult about the X system, they're just different. Which isn't to say that there aren't particular points which could be improved (for example, it might be nice to select a picture and middle-click paste it into the Gimp), but the overall interface is fine -- and in practice no-one really uses the more complex features of Windows/MacOS cut-and-paste anyway. [1] Frankly, most UI-complaints you hear are just "it doesn't do it how I learned!" rather than observations of significant interface flaws (which do exist, more's the pity).
And in any event, the original poster was just talking about text, which X already does problemlos. [2]
For the record, I learned Windows and MacOS long before touching X.
Daniel
[1] Before you flame me, I'm sure that you, your kid sister, and your dog all spend all your time cutting and pasting images, spreadsheets, and birthday cards between programs -- but how often do *most people* do this?
[2] OpenView programs seem to be broken in this regard, and of course Netscape is but Netscape is just broken in general. Everything else I've tried works nicely.
GO-CRUSOES.COM
:-)
GO-CRUSOES.ORG
GO-CRUSOES.NET
GOCRUSOES.NET
GOCRUSOES.ORG
GOCRUSOES.COM
GO-CRUSOE.ORG
GO-CRUSOE.COM
GOCRUSOE.ORG
GO-CRUSOE.NET
GOCRUSOE.COM
Anyone want to guess what their marketing campaign is going to be?
Daniel
Thinking along these lines, I wonder if the whole concept of a "release" should somewhat be altered, so that not only the kernel has the stable/unstable revision branches (the odd/even version numbering thing), but also an entire distro. This way, we can have "unstable" releases that quickly gets it out the door, have people pound on it, get the bugs fixed, until it stabilizes, that release that as the "stable release". This certainly worked (and still works) with the Linux kernel -- I'm just wondering if this is actually possible in a commercial setting like Corel Linux.
What do you think debian/dists/stable [slink] and debian/dists/unstable [potato] are? Chopped bits?
And I'm almost certain that RedHat does this as well.
Daniel
Funny, I'm still waiting for Windows and MacOS to support cut'n'paste as well as Linux does. Fiddling with keys in between the cut and paste is a waste of time.
To each his own, I suppose.
Daniel
I think the slashdot community is perhaps the most open minded.
/. has the attitude of "be an individualist, just like everyone else", which looks very open-minded if you happen to agree with them. On the other hand I agree that the moderators seem to be reasonably fair-handed and this kind of posturing is (a) repetitive and (b) annoying.
:)
In my observation a great deal of
Back on-topic for this off-topic thread, I think the only real problem with
the Gnome stuff is that way too many widgets default to way too large a size.
I think this is slated to be fixed in Gnome 2.0, but who knows when that'll
be out. Easy color changes would be nice, but ThinIce is quick and nifty enough
for me for now..
Also: on my hardware at least, Windows is not faster than X, it is
*more responsive* -- so it *feels* faster even when it isn't! For example, in X
the mouse cursor hiccups when your computer is doing extra calculation; in
Windows the cursor is (I suspect) updated from an interrupt routine, so it moves
at a steady speed regardless of CPU load. On the other hand, I've run games in
X inside windows (using SHM extensions and the like) that Windows would never
be able to handle *inside windows*. Of course, fullscreen mode in Windows
clobbers X -- but the fair comparison is to svgalib, and it's fairly even there.
Daniel
A judge passing a ruling on a medium he certainly doesn't understand.
She.
"Buffy dearest, we're just not gonna stand for this abuse, get Judge Smith on the phone."
The lawsuit was not brought by the flamees. Did you even read the article? You don't need to answer that, actually, it's pretty obvious..
The question is not quite as simple as you think; it's more the question of whether I can stand in a public place and yell curses and threats at passers-by. [1] Which is a hotly debated (and debatable) topic I believe, but not merely a question of a clueless judge trying to censor 'The Evil Internet' because she doesn't get it.
Daniel
It's been ages since I touched Usenet at large with a ten-foot pole (that is, aside from a few on-campus groups) -- but isn't it rather easy for someone to spoof his or her From: line? This would defeat the purpose rather quickly.
Daniel
Already happened. Note that the writer said "WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!!" not "WE'RE ALL DEAD!!" So this statement is true today, or at least if you have information indicating it isn't a lot of people would like to know :)
Daniel
Ahhh, thanks. That's what I'd thought. So are the claims about having to run chkdisk for hours just nonsense?
I also thought that ext3fs and reiserfs only did metadata, but I'll have to doublecheck that. (the best thing, of course, would be if they allowed you to choose which method to use) I'd expect that for, say, a workstation/desktop, metadata-only journaling is actually superior because of the performance issues, is this correct?
Daniel