Dual P3 850 PCI GeForce2 MX 400 Dual head Stock Linux 2.4.18 Latest Nvidia drivers as of last time it hung (two weeks ago)
I guess a combination of SMP and one of their least used cards doesn't help much. It's my work machine, so I don't do any gaming on it.
It's perfectly fine for months at a time, and then out of the blue it'll hang my machine solid when I switch into X from the console. It's usually a couple of months between hangs, which is longer than my Windows 2000 machine will stay up, but it's annoying if it happens ever. I hate loosing my emacs session.
Another annoying bug is that it doesn't put the second monitor into power save mode. It doesn't blank it either, it makes it all red. I can live with that though. I just turn it off at night.
I mentioned it to remind the poster that the commercial developer has as many rights as the open source developer, and because he seemed to be forgetting that.
It had nothing to do with the necissity for the GPL, nor what I think of it.
Irrelevant. Its their responsibility to determine what license the code is under.
If you live your life in denial of what the laws are you'll end up in jail eventually. I wish you luck.
Such finger-pointing routines wouldn't work if you gave me a piece of EULA'ed code under a "deceptive practice" and led me to believe it was public domain. I'd still have to (once informed it was EULA'ed) comply.
Yeah, but the person who decieved you would likely have to pay the large portion of the fine, not you. I don't understand what your point is here. (You haven't thought this through very well.)
Why even bother trying to negotiate with them? Just release everything under the GPL.
Because contracts obtained through deception are invalid and there is no existing agreement giving this guy the right to publish code copyrighted by somebody else. The GPL is a contract, and these add-on companies could not have entered into the agreement if they were decieved.
4) NVIDIA sucks because it's drivers are closed source.
I could care less if their drivers were closed or open. I just wish they'd make them stable! The Nvidia drivers have crashed my machine 3 times in the last 6 months. That's unacceptable.
No, in order to distribute their code (which they've already done), they already released their code under GPL and he's licensed to use it under GPL.
Again, there's outside circumstances here. Because there was a deceptive third party involved that was distributing this software under another (non-GPL) license, these add-on vendors may not have known they were contributing to GPL software, and would likely not be bound by the terms it it went to court. Most judges won't hold a participent to contract terms they were unaware of due to the deception of another party. An arrangement will have to be made, wether it's forced by a court or mutually agreed upon by both authors, but there's a very good chance that the outcome will not involve the code in question becoming available.
I'm replying to this part seperatly because it's off topic.
Ever wondered why most UNIX filesystems can be 109% full? It's because in that last 10% performance is dropping off very markedly;
Actually it's because 10% is usually reserved for 'root' so that when a user fills the disk up enough to see an "out of disk space" message, the system can still write to logs and the administrator still has some room to do general maintance to keep the machine running. Most filesystems let you change the percentage. Some filesystems also allow sparse files which can have a size that is larger than the number of blocks that have been assigned to them (because those blocks were never written but a block with a higher offset was written, or under some filesystems because they contain only zeros), and certain utilities can (incorrectly) report those files as part of the used space.
The fragmentation increases even under UNIX as the partition fills; although it deals with it far better than say FAT32, there's still a hit.
You can't really make a generalization like that about "UNIX filesystems," because there are so many different types that behave differently. There are filesystems available that provide uniform performance dispite the disk utilization, but now I'm just being pedantic.
It depends on how you define common, and wether you care about an error if you don't notice it right away. It would be more accurate to say "more common" rather than just saying "common."
Sure, for a RAID server it's probably ideal. For a desktop? Why?
A home desktop is exactly the place where most people don't care about added reliability or performance. A fast hard drive is only going to improve load times in your games and office software, and you're not doing backups, so you're going to loose all your data in a few years anyway. If it's an office PC you're probably storing your important data on the nice fast SCSI disks in the file/database server, so you can use IDE in the desktop. Both situations fit my rule.
No; that's nonsense. There is no significant difference in peak throughput, reliability or latency between IDE and SCSI; both throughput and reliability are dominated by the performance and reliability of the physical harddrive. The bits simply come off the disk at a certain rate determined by the spin, and that's a rate well below the capacity of ATA133.
The bottom line is that you can't get the fast, high quality disks with ATA/IDE. What you said about the reliability is just nonsense. SCSI has tighter specs for cables, and error detection is better than what's available with IDE. No matter what the speeds of the busses are, what's available in the marketplace dictates that if you care about performance you use SCSI, and if all that matters is capacity or price, you use IDE.
BTW, I personally have a 10K RPM 18.4GB SCSI drive and two 80GB 5400 RPM ATA-133 disks in my machine. I store the system and source trees on the SCSI disk for speed, and everything else on the IDE disks because I can't afford to have all my data fast. When you're using a journaling filesystem or reading and writing lots of tiny source and object files, and single fast disk will outperform a stripeset any day. Oh, and XFS kicks ass.
Bullshit. They may have the copyright to their work, but they can don't get to choose whether or not to GPL their software (if its based on GPL'ed software).
There are other circumstances involved here, namely that these companies weren't necissarily aware that the code was GPLed due to the deceptive practices of a third party.
If they distribute it and don't GPL it, they're in violation of the license, and can be forced to release it under the GPL.
Just because that is a possible outcome doesn't mean it's the only outcome. Remedies for the license breach would be decided by a judge if the two parties could not come to terms on their own. You don't know wether the judge would force the code open or not.
I'm not saying that the code becoming available isn't the right outcome, but if you assume that the outcome will be what you've decided is the "right" outcome, you could open yourself up to a whole slew of other legal troubles.
Exactly because ethernet does all those things you mentioned. An IDE controller is so simple they cost less than $1 to make. A gigabit ethernet controller is significantly more expensive because of all that added complexity.
Also, in terms of disk I/O, the packet latency on ethernet is an eternity.
/me crosses fingers and prays for the death of iSCSI
Rule of thumb, unless you have lots of disks on one processor- SCSI is a waste of time and money.
SCSI is a more robust bus with better error detection. It also has a well thought out and more reliable electrical specification, allows multiple initiators, and can be used for hot swap. All of this while being the the least expensive bus you can get 10k and 15k RPM drives for.
Rule of thumb, unless you don't care about performance or added reliability isn't worth the price to you, use SCSI.
BTW, if you're seeing a significant performance increase from keeping your drive mostly empty, you're using the wrong file system.
The GPL is about giving power to the developer, not to the user. The idea was that the developer would use that power in the best interests of the user, but that's not part of the license unless your best interests are the same as the ones previously defined by the FSF. If you want a license that is designed to give power to the users you should use the BSD license.
Clearly, the GPL and licenses like it are the "*real* meaning of open source" though, since they force the code to remain open forever. Wether that's a good thing or not is another question.
if it isn't, you can force it to be so (and you have the right to simply distribute it under the GPL).
Not true. They can pull the code instead of releasing it under the GPL. They own the copyright, and they decide which license it is distributed under. If this not a GPL compatible license then it will have to be removed.
The rights always belong to the copyright holder. The same rights that give the GPL power also allow these companies not to GPL their software.
As an aside, and in response to the original poster: Comments like the parent to this one are exactly why you should disregard any legal advice given in this story and talk to a lawyer. This guy sounded like he knew what he was talking about, but if you listened to him you may have been financially liable. Ignore everybody's copyright advice here and talk to a professional. The FSF has lawyers for exactly this reason, and you should call them.
And with the Xbox being released as a package with TWO games, could be construed as being packaged with 'ink' or with 'blade'.
Except the game will continue to work forever, and if it's the only game you want for the console, you're not going to buy more. (Same is true if you only buy 5 games. MS still didn't break even, and you're games still work so you're not compelled to buy another like you would another ink cartridge). Sure, they can hope you'll get bored with what you've got and go get another one, but with the Printer or the razor if you don't buy more ink/blades your printer/razor is UNUSEABLE. That's a serious advantage over the XBox + games business model.
Now, how many games do you need to buy before you won't buy anymore. Most calculations seem to show that MS needs to sell ~10 games before they break even on the console. Since you're not going to be purchasing games forever (like you will with the ink/blades) when do you stop? 8 games? 12 games? There's going to be an upper limit.
I don't care how fun JetSetRadioFuture or SegaGT2002 is, they're going to become incredibly boring. you will either become sick of the Xbox's game selection, or try to buy new games.
Or rent them. Yet another hole in the analogy. You don't need to buy any games EVER. You can just pop down to Blockbuster and rent the new one for a while. There's also the previously played market. There's tons of reasons that XBox + Games doesn't parallel Printer + Ink. XBox + Games is a lesser business model.
This is a common tactic used by cash-rich companies against cash-poor competitors. There's really nothing unusual about it except that it's Microsoft.
Actually, what's unusual about it is they're using this tactic against competitors that have lots of cash. If Microsoft and Sony put all their resources into fighting each other in a cash loosing business there's no way to tell who would win, or if either would win. It could go either way, but since Sony has way more to loose here than Microsoft, they'll probably be trying a little harder.
But the games industry rarely has a 'printer/ink' relation with console and software.
There is never this "razors/blades", or "printer/ink" relationship that people keep talking about. Think about it. With your printer, you RUN OUT of ink. With your razor, the blade wears out. The same doesn't happen with your Xbox. If only one good game ever comes out, you won't be selling that game over and over, because the people who already have it don't need to buy it again.
It's a broken analogy.
Also, it was the Saturn that Sega started loosing money on, not the Dreamcast.
I have some USB mice (!!!) that refuse to work (namely, the nice, cheap, $6 (but surprisingly high-quality) Kensington Mouse-in-a-Box USB (with scrolly wheel) even as of 2.4.19.
I call bullshit. I have that same mouse, and it works fine. Has since 2.3.99prewhatever.
Joe average will then say hey, I guess I can't. And proceed to watch it on his TV, and not copy (unless just to the VCR).
I'm realated to a Mr Joe Average. He bought a consumer DVD recorder for his television, and returned it to the store angrily when he realized he couldn't copy the DVDs he rented onto blank media.
Joe average may not know about how the technology works, but he's also not willing to pay for something that removes functionality that he's previously had with video tapes.
Similarly, my mother only listens to CDs on her headphones that are pluged into the CD-ROM drive of her computer at work. Guess who isn't going to be buying any copy protected CDs.
The copy protection battle will be won by Joe Average.
and your post doesn't actually suggest you know the answer more than I do
I don't know the answer, but I do know that ignoring options due to unfounded concerns is not the way to find it. I don't know why I got modded up, though. If anything I was hoping my comment would get it's parent modded down. Moderators should save their up-votes for more positive comments.
Do you actually do any reasearch or have any knowledge to base thing you say on, or do you just talk out your ass all the time. It's people like you that are going to wreck it for the rest of us and make it so that new battery technology won't ever be availble.
The worst part is you're not even harmless. The lack of progress in the battery field due to people being afraid of flamable liquid, and anything that contains the word 'nuclear' or 'radiation' means we're going to keep dumping cadmium and mercury into landfills. It's kneejerk comments like yours based on false information that cause these new technologies to be dismissed without consideration.
For the sake of the rest of us, if you don't know what you're talking about, don't talk.
Oh, sure. Great idea. What happens when other companies jump on the bandwagon, and write their own layer that does this. Then you'll need another layer to make you independant of those. we can go on like this for ever. There will never be a magic bullet for this problem. You have to make a decision, and live with the fact that some day it will be obsolete.
Insightful? GIve me a break. I suppose you believe that people should be able to drive cars that drop parts all over the road and cause accidents. If you can't fix your car, you should get somebody else to do it, or you should get off the road. Similarly with your computer. If you can't keep it secure, you should get somebody else to do it, or you should get off the public network. Who said you need to have the skills yourself?
Slashdot Mirror
You mean the non-certified drivers that Firingsquad links to?
No, I mean the Linux/X drivers from their web site. What's Firingsquad?
Dual P3 850
PCI GeForce2 MX 400 Dual head
Stock Linux 2.4.18
Latest Nvidia drivers as of last time it hung (two weeks ago)
I guess a combination of SMP and one of their least used cards doesn't help much. It's my work machine, so I don't do any gaming on it.
It's perfectly fine for months at a time, and then out of the blue it'll hang my machine solid when I switch into X from the console. It's usually a couple of months between hangs, which is longer than my Windows 2000 machine will stay up, but it's annoying if it happens ever. I hate loosing my emacs session.
Another annoying bug is that it doesn't put the second monitor into power save mode. It doesn't blank it either, it makes it all red. I can live with that though. I just turn it off at night.
I mentioned it to remind the poster that the commercial developer has as many rights as the open source developer, and because he seemed to be forgetting that.
It had nothing to do with the necissity for the GPL, nor what I think of it.
Irrelevant. Its their responsibility to determine what license the code is under.
If you live your life in denial of what the laws are you'll end up in jail eventually. I wish you luck.
Such finger-pointing routines wouldn't work if you gave me a piece of EULA'ed code under a "deceptive practice" and led me to believe it was public domain. I'd still have to (once informed it was EULA'ed) comply.
Yeah, but the person who decieved you would likely have to pay the large portion of the fine, not you. I don't understand what your point is here. (You haven't thought this through very well.)
Why even bother trying to negotiate with them? Just release everything under the GPL.
Because contracts obtained through deception are invalid and there is no existing agreement giving this guy the right to publish code copyrighted by somebody else. The GPL is a contract, and these add-on companies could not have entered into the agreement if they were decieved.
4) NVIDIA sucks because it's drivers are closed source.
I could care less if their drivers were closed or open. I just wish they'd make them stable! The Nvidia drivers have crashed my machine 3 times in the last 6 months. That's unacceptable.
No, in order to distribute their code (which they've already done), they already released their code under GPL and he's licensed to use it under GPL.
Again, there's outside circumstances here. Because there was a deceptive third party involved that was distributing this software under another (non-GPL) license, these add-on vendors may not have known they were contributing to GPL software, and would likely not be bound by the terms it it went to court. Most judges won't hold a participent to contract terms they were unaware of due to the deception of another party. An arrangement will have to be made, wether it's forced by a court or mutually agreed upon by both authors, but there's a very good chance that the outcome will not involve the code in question becoming available.
I'm replying to this part seperatly because it's off topic.
Ever wondered why most UNIX filesystems can be 109% full? It's because in that last 10% performance is dropping off very markedly;
Actually it's because 10% is usually reserved for 'root' so that when a user fills the disk up enough to see an "out of disk space" message, the system can still write to logs and the administrator still has some room to do general maintance to keep the machine running. Most filesystems let you change the percentage. Some filesystems also allow sparse files which can have a size that is larger than the number of blocks that have been assigned to them (because those blocks were never written but a block with a higher offset was written, or under some filesystems because they contain only zeros), and certain utilities can (incorrectly) report those files as part of the used space.
The fragmentation increases even under UNIX as the partition fills; although it deals with it far better than say FAT32, there's still a hit.
You can't really make a generalization like that about "UNIX filesystems," because there are so many different types that behave differently. There are filesystems available that provide uniform performance dispite the disk utilization, but now I'm just being pedantic.
Errors are common on IDE?
It depends on how you define common, and wether you care about an error if you don't notice it right away. It would be more accurate to say "more common" rather than just saying "common."
Sure, for a RAID server it's probably ideal. For a desktop? Why?
A home desktop is exactly the place where most people don't care about added reliability or performance. A fast hard drive is only going to improve load times in your games and office software, and you're not doing backups, so you're going to loose all your data in a few years anyway. If it's an office PC you're probably storing your important data on the nice fast SCSI disks in the file/database server, so you can use IDE in the desktop. Both situations fit my rule.
No; that's nonsense. There is no significant difference in peak throughput, reliability or latency between IDE and SCSI; both throughput and reliability are dominated by the performance and reliability of the physical harddrive. The bits simply come off the disk at a certain rate determined by the spin, and that's a rate well below the capacity of ATA133.
The bottom line is that you can't get the fast, high quality disks with ATA/IDE. What you said about the reliability is just nonsense. SCSI has tighter specs for cables, and error detection is better than what's available with IDE. No matter what the speeds of the busses are, what's available in the marketplace dictates that if you care about performance you use SCSI, and if all that matters is capacity or price, you use IDE.
BTW, I personally have a 10K RPM 18.4GB SCSI drive and two 80GB 5400 RPM ATA-133 disks in my machine. I store the system and source trees on the SCSI disk for speed, and everything else on the IDE disks because I can't afford to have all my data fast. When you're using a journaling filesystem or reading and writing lots of tiny source and object files, and single fast disk will outperform a stripeset any day. Oh, and XFS kicks ass.
Bullshit. They may have the copyright to their work, but they can don't get to choose whether or not to GPL their software (if its based on GPL'ed software).
There are other circumstances involved here, namely that these companies weren't necissarily aware that the code was GPLed due to the deceptive practices of a third party.
If they distribute it and don't GPL it, they're in violation of the license, and can be forced to release it under the GPL.
Just because that is a possible outcome doesn't mean it's the only outcome. Remedies for the license breach would be decided by a judge if the two parties could not come to terms on their own. You don't know wether the judge would force the code open or not.
I'm not saying that the code becoming available isn't the right outcome, but if you assume that the outcome will be what you've decided is the "right" outcome, you could open yourself up to a whole slew of other legal troubles.
Also, in terms of disk I/O, the packet latency on ethernet is an eternity.
Rule of thumb, unless you have lots of disks on one processor- SCSI is a waste of time and money.
SCSI is a more robust bus with better error detection. It also has a well thought out and more reliable electrical specification, allows multiple initiators, and can be used for hot swap. All of this while being the the least expensive bus you can get 10k and 15k RPM drives for.
Rule of thumb, unless you don't care about performance or added reliability isn't worth the price to you, use SCSI.
BTW, if you're seeing a significant performance increase from keeping your drive mostly empty, you're using the wrong file system.
The GPL is about giving power to the developer, not to the user. The idea was that the developer would use that power in the best interests of the user, but that's not part of the license unless your best interests are the same as the ones previously defined by the FSF. If you want a license that is designed to give power to the users you should use the BSD license.
Clearly, the GPL and licenses like it are the "*real* meaning of open source" though, since they force the code to remain open forever. Wether that's a good thing or not is another question.
if it isn't, you can force it to be so (and you have the right to simply distribute it under the GPL).
Not true. They can pull the code instead of releasing it under the GPL. They own the copyright, and they decide which license it is distributed under. If this not a GPL compatible license then it will have to be removed.
The rights always belong to the copyright holder. The same rights that give the GPL power also allow these companies not to GPL their software.
As an aside, and in response to the original poster: Comments like the parent to this one are exactly why you should disregard any legal advice given in this story and talk to a lawyer. This guy sounded like he knew what he was talking about, but if you listened to him you may have been financially liable. Ignore everybody's copyright advice here and talk to a professional. The FSF has lawyers for exactly this reason, and you should call them.
And with the Xbox being released as a package with TWO games, could be construed as being packaged with 'ink' or with 'blade'.
Except the game will continue to work forever, and if it's the only game you want for the console, you're not going to buy more. (Same is true if you only buy 5 games. MS still didn't break even, and you're games still work so you're not compelled to buy another like you would another ink cartridge). Sure, they can hope you'll get bored with what you've got and go get another one, but with the Printer or the razor if you don't buy more ink/blades your printer/razor is UNUSEABLE. That's a serious advantage over the XBox + games business model.
Now, how many games do you need to buy before you won't buy anymore. Most calculations seem to show that MS needs to sell ~10 games before they break even on the console. Since you're not going to be purchasing games forever (like you will with the ink/blades) when do you stop? 8 games? 12 games? There's going to be an upper limit.
I don't care how fun JetSetRadioFuture or SegaGT2002 is, they're going to become incredibly boring. you will either become sick of the Xbox's game selection, or try to buy new games.
Or rent them. Yet another hole in the analogy. You don't need to buy any games EVER. You can just pop down to Blockbuster and rent the new one for a while. There's also the previously played market. There's tons of reasons that XBox + Games doesn't parallel Printer + Ink. XBox + Games is a lesser business model.
This is a common tactic used by cash-rich companies against cash-poor competitors. There's really nothing unusual about it except that it's Microsoft.
Actually, what's unusual about it is they're using this tactic against competitors that have lots of cash. If Microsoft and Sony put all their resources into fighting each other in a cash loosing business there's no way to tell who would win, or if either would win. It could go either way, but since Sony has way more to loose here than Microsoft, they'll probably be trying a little harder.
But the games industry rarely has a 'printer/ink' relation with console and software.
There is never this "razors/blades", or "printer/ink" relationship that people keep talking about. Think about it. With your printer, you RUN OUT of ink. With your razor, the blade wears out. The same doesn't happen with your Xbox. If only one good game ever comes out, you won't be selling that game over and over, because the people who already have it don't need to buy it again.
It's a broken analogy.
Also, it was the Saturn that Sega started loosing money on, not the Dreamcast.
Those Wallace mice make my hand cold after a few minutes. They should have used fake silver.
I have some USB mice (!!!) that refuse to work (namely, the nice, cheap, $6 (but surprisingly high-quality) Kensington Mouse-in-a-Box USB (with scrolly wheel) even as of 2.4.19.
I call bullshit. I have that same mouse, and it works fine. Has since 2.3.99prewhatever.
Joe average will then say hey, I guess I can't. And proceed to watch it on his TV, and not copy (unless just to the VCR).
I'm realated to a Mr Joe Average. He bought a consumer DVD recorder for his television, and returned it to the store angrily when he realized he couldn't copy the DVDs he rented onto blank media.
Joe average may not know about how the technology works, but he's also not willing to pay for something that removes functionality that he's previously had with video tapes.
Similarly, my mother only listens to CDs on her headphones that are pluged into the CD-ROM drive of her computer at work. Guess who isn't going to be buying any copy protected CDs.
The copy protection battle will be won by Joe Average.
and your post doesn't actually suggest you know the answer more than I do
I don't know the answer, but I do know that ignoring options due to unfounded concerns is not the way to find it. I don't know why I got modded up, though. If anything I was hoping my comment would get it's parent modded down. Moderators should save their up-votes for more positive comments.
So, when you get old, your pacemaker will probably have a radioactive battery
Pacemakers already have radioactive batteries.
Do you actually do any reasearch or have any knowledge to base thing you say on, or do you just talk out your ass all the time. It's people like you that are going to wreck it for the rest of us and make it so that new battery technology won't ever be availble.
The worst part is you're not even harmless. The lack of progress in the battery field due to people being afraid of flamable liquid, and anything that contains the word 'nuclear' or 'radiation' means we're going to keep dumping cadmium and mercury into landfills. It's kneejerk comments like yours based on false information that cause these new technologies to be dismissed without consideration.
For the sake of the rest of us, if you don't know what you're talking about, don't talk.
Oh, sure. Great idea. What happens when other companies jump on the bandwagon, and write their own layer that does this. Then you'll need another layer to make you independant of those. we can go on like this for ever. There will never be a magic bullet for this problem. You have to make a decision, and live with the fact that some day it will be obsolete.
Insightful? GIve me a break. I suppose you believe that people should be able to drive cars that drop parts all over the road and cause accidents. If you can't fix your car, you should get somebody else to do it, or you should get off the road. Similarly with your computer. If you can't keep it secure, you should get somebody else to do it, or you should get off the public network. Who said you need to have the skills yourself?
You only posted this comment so you could use the "word" "cantenna."
Guess who's smarter than you. Yup, the NSA.