What I'd like to see is Delphi and Kylix shipped with cross compilers for each other. In other words, I'd like to be able to build Windows apps from a Linux PC, and vice-versa.
In fact, what I'd really like to see is more platforms supported, but I guess for now I should be happy that they're supporting more than just the one...
Of course, if I'd done that, I'd never have seen this piece of advice from you either.
In fact, I would miss out on a lot of interesting points.
Also, re-read the original post that sparked this thread; he's complaining that there aren't enough moderation points to go round to all the worthy articles when all the rubbish has to be moderated down. So if the worthy articles never get moderated, they'll never get to +2....
It's a bigger issue than simply changing my settings.
It's an interesting point to note that the world's tallest man (as listed in the Guinness book of Records) was known to have a 'disease' (we'd call it a genetic mutation these days) which had a similar effect: nothing told his body to stop growing, and he was still growing at the time of his death (at a fairly young age; cause unrelated to his height).
In fact, I posted a similar point to the "ask slashdot" topic a week or two ago. But it was rejected, so I never did find out what anyone thought of it (except that at least one admin didn't agree with me).
The number of off-topic, obscene, pointless, flaming, or just plain trolling posts on Slashdot has increased recently to the point where they can overwhelm an article.
The "first post" syndrome is also worth mentioning here.
In moderation (excuse the pun), these things are all good fun; done to excess, as they seem to be these days, they just ruin the whole thing.
Finally, license consideration are almost totally separate from technical aspects; there's no reason why you can't write the code first and worry about the license later. Ideally, you should, of course, do both at the same time.
I have to disagree with your last point there. There is definitely a case for considering the licencing before or during the coding phase.
You need to consider the licence implications of whatever development tools, utilities, and so on that you use.
For example - you may use a development language which requires annual run-time licences for all your users... or you may want to use a third-party graphics library which requires that any project using it has to be entirely open source...
The point here is that you really do need to consider the licence implications of everything you use for development, from languages and APIs to editors and operating systems. Of course, not everything will restrict you, but you'd be suprised at some of the things which do.
Not only that, but Amiga has been running PowerPC chips in conjunction with 68k processors for some time too. I don't think anyone's managed to build a multi-PPC board yet (though I stand correctable), but it's certainly something that's been talked about by developers.
Hehehe...
Still, this one sounds like a pretty hot piece of hardware. (And I'm sure someone'll find a way to cram it into an Amiga...)
Yes, it was the Cure for Cancer "wonder of the world". Increased happiness in all your cities. <sigh> If only it was really that easy.
If I'd designed Civilization, you'd have had an extra population type called "lawyer" (to go with the taxmen, entertainers and so on they had), which would do nothing but drain resources and divert otherwise useful members of your population from actually doing anything constructive. Getting the "genetics" tech advance would have doubled the number of lawers.
This isn't so much a problem with Open Source, it's a problem with the way some open source projects are developed. It's perfectly possible to have an open source product which has rigorous development standards imposed by the central source maintainer. That just isn't the way Linux development operates.
With Linux, he's basically right - the development is very chaotic, and there is almost certain to be a problem with trusing it in the way he wants. However, there are other projects which, though open source, still maintain a strongly structured development.
The things to consider here are the number of developers, the number of independant versions, the licencing restrictions, and the amount of control excerted by the central source maintainers over the development process.
This article from this week's New Scientist covers similar ground - inteligent computers. The concept here is that the internet will become inteligent in it's form as a distributed network.
Does that sound like the movie Terminator 2 to anyone else?
Everyone here is saying "you can't do this or that with GPL'd software." As I understand it, the GPL does have a way for you to do any of these things: Ask the author.
Under the GPL (IIRC), the author retains full rights to amend the licencing, or grant a specific licence to someone.
If you want to include some GPL code in a non-GPL project, write a nice letter to the author, asking permission. If the author agrees with your reasons for your request, and approves of the licence you plan to use, there's every possibility he'll release it to you, say under the licence you want to use.
Of course, if the author doesn't agree, it's a fair bet that you're wanting to do something that that the author was specifically trying to stop you doing anyway when he put it into GPL....
If a service feels it can trust it's users, it will allow them to remain completely anonymous; If the user trusts the service, they won't feel the need to remain anonymous.
The confict only arises where neither the users nor the service provider trust each other to use the priviledges they're given (ie anonymitiy or access to personal data respectively).
The problem is that the internet is so impersonal that services and their users can feel very remote from each other. Trust can only be earned; no-one gives their trust freely [any more], so you have a catch-22 situation. You can't trust someone without knowing them; and you can't know them without their trusting you with their personal data.
At last! A Transmeta powered device goes mainstream. And not before time, too - I've been waiting to see an actual piece of hardware ever since they released their processors back in January.
I'm not a fan of AOL, so I was thinking of writing something like "it's a shame they've teamed up with a company like AOL", but the more I think about it, the less I can find to complain about this - this really is a break into the mainstream, not just for Transmeta, but for Linux too. We're talking about a device that people expect to use with zero brain-power required (and you thought Transmeta's power management was only for electricity!), so if it's successful, no-one will be able to say "Linux is hard to use" any more. And this being AOL, you can only imagine the number of units they're planning to ship... all running Linux on Transmeta. Lovely.
This is good news. There's no other way to say it.
Slashdot Mirror
What I'd like to see is Delphi and Kylix shipped with cross compilers for each other.
In other words, I'd like to be able to build Windows apps from a Linux PC, and vice-versa.
In fact, what I'd really like to see is more platforms supported, but I guess for now I should be happy that they're supporting more than just the one...
Of course, if I'd done that, I'd never have seen this piece of advice from you either.
In fact, I would miss out on a lot of interesting points.
Also, re-read the original post that sparked this thread; he's complaining that there aren't enough moderation points to go round to all the worthy articles when all the rubbish has to be moderated down. So if the worthy articles never get moderated, they'll never get to +2....
It's a bigger issue than simply changing my settings.
It's an interesting point to note that the world's tallest man (as listed in the Guinness book of Records) was known to have a 'disease' (we'd call it a genetic mutation these days) which had a similar effect: nothing told his body to stop growing, and he was still growing at the time of his death (at a fairly young age; cause unrelated to his height).
I fully agree.
:-)
In fact, I posted a similar point to the "ask slashdot" topic a week or two ago. But it was rejected, so I never did find out what anyone thought of it (except that at least one admin didn't agree with me).
The number of off-topic, obscene, pointless, flaming, or just plain trolling posts on Slashdot has increased recently to the point where they can overwhelm an article.
The "first post" syndrome is also worth mentioning here.
In moderation (excuse the pun), these things are all good fun; done to excess, as they seem to be these days, they just ruin the whole thing.
Thank you datadictator for bringing this up.
Larger cats? We got them as well.... they're called "lions"...
Two industries I can think of that might be sponsoring this research:
- Basketball teams.
- Porn flick producers.
"Where bigger can only mean better!" hehehehehe
Remember:
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you!
Personally, I hate living in this era. Wish I could have been born 10,000 years from now...
And now! Thanks to the miracles of modern cloning... you can be!
At that point who really cares how often you have to replace them?
o n't-matter attitude! ;-)
Oohhh! It's that global-warming-I-can-throw-anything-away-and-it-w
[before you reply, notice the smiley!]
Finally, license consideration are almost totally separate from technical aspects; there's no reason why you can't write the code first and worry about the license later. Ideally, you should, of course, do both at the same time.
I have to disagree with your last point there. There is definitely a case for considering the licencing before or during the coding phase.
You need to consider the licence implications of whatever development tools, utilities, and so on that you use.
For example - you may use a development language which requires annual run-time licences for all your users...
or you may want to use a third-party graphics library which requires that any project using it has to be entirely open source...
The point here is that you really do need to consider the licence implications of everything you use for development, from languages and APIs to editors and operating systems. Of course, not everything will restrict you, but you'd be suprised at some of the things which do.
I think the point was that all the footage was of deliberate detonations - where no-one was killed.
I bet they're just trying to get their Amigas running in the three-digit megahertz range...
Not only that, but Amiga has been running PowerPC chips in conjunction with 68k processors for some time too. I don't think anyone's managed to build a multi-PPC board yet (though I stand correctable), but it's certainly something that's been talked about by developers.
Hehehe...
Still, this one sounds like a pretty hot piece of hardware. (And I'm sure someone'll find a way to cram it into an Amiga...)
Yes, it was the Cure for Cancer "wonder of the world". Increased happiness in all your cities.
<sigh> If only it was really that easy.
If I'd designed Civilization, you'd have had an extra population type called "lawyer" (to go with the taxmen, entertainers and so on they had), which would do nothing but drain resources and divert otherwise useful members of your population from actually doing anything constructive.
Getting the "genetics" tech advance would have doubled the number of lawers.
I think from now on, everyone who writes "IANAL" should link that phrase to this site.
<grin>
This isn't so much a problem with Open Source, it's a problem with the way some open source projects are developed.
It's perfectly possible to have an open source product which has rigorous development standards imposed by the central source maintainer. That just isn't the way Linux development operates.
With Linux, he's basically right - the development is very chaotic, and there is almost certain to be a problem with trusing it in the way he wants.
However, there are other projects which, though open source, still maintain a strongly structured development.
The things to consider here are the number of developers, the number of independant versions, the licencing restrictions, and the amount of control excerted by the central source maintainers over the development process.
This article from this week's New Scientist covers similar ground - inteligent computers. The concept here is that the internet will become inteligent in it's form as a distributed network.
Does that sound like the movie Terminator 2 to anyone else?
Everyone here is saying "you can't do this or that with GPL'd software."
As I understand it, the GPL does have a way for you to do any of these things: Ask the author.
Under the GPL (IIRC), the author retains full rights to amend the licencing, or grant a specific licence to someone.
If you want to include some GPL code in a non-GPL project, write a nice letter to the author, asking permission. If the author agrees with your reasons for your request, and approves of the licence you plan to use, there's every possibility he'll release it to you, say under the licence you want to use.
Of course, if the author doesn't agree, it's a fair bet that you're wanting to do something that that the author was specifically trying to stop you doing anyway when he put it into GPL....
The issue here is trust.
If a service feels it can trust it's users, it will allow them to remain completely anonymous; If the user trusts the service, they won't feel the need to remain anonymous.
The confict only arises where neither the users nor the service provider trust each other to use the priviledges they're given (ie anonymitiy or access to personal data respectively).
The problem is that the internet is so impersonal that services and their users can feel very remote from each other. Trust can only be earned; no-one gives their trust freely [any more], so you have a catch-22 situation. You can't trust someone without knowing them; and you can't know them without their trusting you with their personal data.
The difference here is that if you work in London, there is still cheap property outside the city which is within easy reach for a commuter.
Now... the smallest ever PC. Delivered in powder-form.
Just add water.....
Now.... if only space was made out of "specially prepared cesium gas", we would be within reach of the invention of the warp drive....
At last! A Transmeta powered device goes mainstream. And not before time, too - I've been waiting to see an actual piece of hardware ever since they released their processors back in January.
I'm not a fan of AOL, so I was thinking of writing something like "it's a shame they've teamed up with a company like AOL", but the more I think about it, the less I can find to complain about this - this really is a break into the mainstream, not just for Transmeta, but for Linux too. We're talking about a device that people expect to use with zero brain-power required (and you thought Transmeta's power management was only for electricity!), so if it's successful, no-one will be able to say "Linux is hard to use" any more. And this being AOL, you can only imagine the number of units they're planning to ship... all running Linux on Transmeta. Lovely.
This is good news. There's no other way to say it.
Okay. So they've trademarked tennis balls that smell of grass.
But surely all tennis balls smell of grass?? Well, once they've been used on a grass court, that is.
"Look - a used tennis ball. Let's sniff it. Noooo!!!! Arrgh! It's a swarm of trademark lawyers! Help!"
Just another two scents worth! (that's a great gag, isn't it?)
I don't think it's possible to read and understand before you post, and still manage to get your post into the first 100 entries...