I must begin with saying that I really respect RMS. I respect him because he wrote GCC and Emacs. I also respect him for writing the GNU Manifesto and inventing GPL. I respect him for being the leader of an important trend in technology (and culture), of which I strive to become a part (when my programming skills become good enough).
And yet, RMS's high position also obliges him for a great deal of responsibility. I believe he had to research first what is the current state of similar projects. And I am afraid that many of his [excellent] ideas are brought with a degree of radicalism that I consider unnecessary.
I undersand RMS' motivation, however I think that he's got to concentrate on developing the GNU project, rather than waste time hurting friends and flaming enemies. The true beauty of GNU is not only in freedom of reception, but also in the freedom of creation. And to me, writing one line of GPLed code feels better than preaching all day long about the future, that will not be possible without that one line.
This story does clearly not flatter to RMS, who showed us again his desire to GNUlize anything out there, so that he, personally RMS, will be remembered as the one who created a great project(tm). I consider it sad that people choose to spend their time to fullfillment of such ambitions, rather than peacefully code (or write articles).
I wonder why nobody thought of it... Such an arm can be used for making artificial limbs (for humans and robots). One of the problems of the existing motors is that they achieve too few degrees of freedom.
A few times, I got to play with a Sun computer. It always felt so much better than a PC, and I don't think it was pure psychology. Sun's architecture is newer (64-bit RISC) and more efficient (no 8-bit compatibility or PCI-ISA bridges etc.). While I know it may sound like a fancy, I would really like to have a Sun home. I use Linux quite a lot anyway, and games don't matter to me much. I'm sure many of you feel this way too.
Unfortunately, Sun chooses to distanciate itself from the general public by producing [excellent] million-dollars product. This is not wise. The high-price niche is an unstable location. I am sure that the market (us) would buy low-end Suns, if Sun chose to introduce them. This would be better even for Sun itself, because more people would know how to handle Solaris.
That's just my $0.02. I've now got to find $1,000,000.02 to buy this baby.
I am 15 years old, and I live in Israel. I am the only person in my class who has any UNIX time whatsoever. I don't think that there are more than 5 people (out of 300!) studying with me in the same age group that would know how to do even the basic tasks on a Linux box. Most of them handle Windoze quite properly, though.
Many of these people are tied to Windows, because Linux lacks good Hebrew support. However, some of them do some programming and don't need Hebrew that badly. Unfortunately, they choose MSVC and VB. What's wrong with gtk+, QT, Pike or Perl? Nothing. However there's no good way to learn Linux programming. There are good books and informative manpages, but they speak only to those who already have some experience, and those who are willing to learn. There is nowhere to be taught Linux.
There has to be much more effort invested in teaching Linux. We can enjoy ourselves being 31337. However Linux will become a major player only when it is adopted by mainstream audience
First of all, I am not a linguistic expert of any kind. However, I can give an opinion about several languages that I know
Russian (It's supposed to be my mother tongue) - 33 letters, 6 cases. Really long words, for example electroencephalogramma
Hebrew (I live in Israel) - only 22 letters, but 7 declinations, REALLY stupid Nikkud system for vowels
English - 26 letters, reasonably clean grammar. No accented characters. Would be perfect, if not the 190+ irregular verbs
French (I studied it for 3 years) - 26 letters + god-knows-how-many accents. Grammar is a bit twisted (e.g. qui Nelly est? = qui est ce qu'est Nelly?)
Arabic (also 3 years) - 28 twisted characters. Thank god, only 3 wovels. Impossible writing, barely comprehensible grammar. 2 million words of vocabulary, dozens of different dialects, e.g. in Egypt they pronounce 'q' (q'uf) as deep 'a' (a'in).
Latin (not serious) - 26 characters, no accents. 5 verb declinations, a few noun cases. Stupid plural/declination/case ending system.
Re:Eastern European SciFi + geek credo
on
Solaris
·
· Score: 1
It takes the insight of a genius (and Stanislav Lem was of course one) to see the future. Only now I understand that by the enormous machine that claimed that 2 + 2 was 7, was in fact a Transmeta Crusoe board fixed inside an IBM RS6000 case.
This reminds me Adam Sandler's mommy from Waterboy, where she was continuously repeating that something was the devil (the list includes girls, money, studying). A pity though that Americans (and American politicians) will never be able to grow out of this.
I think that it would help if someone here really knew MFC. I can full-heartedly say that I don't know it, though I do know Windows API. Any way, MFC may not be compared to GTK+, since GTK+ is C-function-oriented (like Windows API), and MFC is completely C++ OO. So it's equivalent to Gtk--, and nothing else.
The fact that IBM DOES supports the open-source movement, and it DOES give out years of research (well-paid one) for free, does not mean that IBM should not try to invent a way to solve an important legal problem. It is their choice, and only the market can be their judge.
Unfortunately for them, they are still hovering in the illusion that there are still people who will buy a 'hit' CD when they have the option to download the MP3.
And BTW, where are all the supporters of MP3 freedom when it comes to running gnutella?
I wish all of./ers who can program would give their time to things like Nullsoft, and not like/dev/null soft. While I would prefer to have a full open-sourced client, crippling the AOL one seems like a nice job to me. Congrats, Justin!
While the obligatory use of Pipeline sucks (and also damages UN*X pipes' reputation), it's just a stupid thing(tm). I see from this thread that all the old functionality is still accessible through cosher (read telnet/ssh) means. Such systems should also serve literature/arts/music schools, and I guess that at least for some of them the CLI stuff would be too difficult to comprehend. So you're stuck with it (while I'm missing the whole fun by not living in the US)
Do you have this feeling that./ threads are occupied with stuff of lesser and esser importance?
Color management and font management are the two most difficult aspects of a graphic interface. However, while slight variations in colors are regretable, they are not essential, so I think that the best strategy is:
Use the web-safe pallete as a basic guideline. IIRC the article, Netscape supports it well.
If you want some fancy color that is not in the pallete - put it in. Make sure it looks good on 24/32bit systems. It is better to optimize for the higher-end audience, so that the design will be appropriate for a longer time. It is also true that people with good graphic boards usually have good computers, and good computers can run $YOUR_FAVORITE_BROWSER which can in turn run your
cool DHTML tricks.
Present the site to your boss/customer on a 32 bit board. In general, make sure that he will never use a browser that may have an issue with your site (even if you solved it).
It is very, very sad to see this happen. I thought that the OS community was made of intelligent and sensitive people, who prefer actual programming to flaming. However, while RMS DID develop emacs and gcc, he behaves like a zealous regilious catholic cardinal before St. Bartolomew's night. Common cause? Huh?
There IS a difference between KDE and GNOME, but it is in the practical plane, not the legal one. Admit it, most of the programmers in both project work there because they like it, and they want to share their skills with the rest of the world. Is this free software or what? Does RMS have a copyright on the world "free"? I hope not.
It seems a cool idea. I think that many problems surrounding URL i18n can be solved.
Accented letters can be resolved into plain letters. For example, A with circle into plain A.
In languages that use a non-Latin character set, a name can be aliased to a transcribed Latin version of it. A flexible aliasing system can be invented so that it won't cost too much.
The biggest problem is with BIDI text. I think that a logical standard should be used (the character which is read first appears first in the binary stream). There are a few algorithms (some of them detailed in certain RFCs) that can help to store and transmit names correctly. They can also be transcribed to Latin (as I wrote in the previous bullet).
First of all, 0.03 AU is quite far away. If 1 AU = 150 * 10^6km. 0.03 AU = 4.5 * 10^6 km, which is 5 million km. There were FAR closer misses before (there was an asteroid that missed Earth by 200,000km.
I don't believe we can do ANYTHING destructive with a chunk of a rock this size. Nuclear bombs don't do so well against solid matter. So it seems to me that it would be better to try to deflect an asteroid from its course (even one degree at 10^6km will deflect the course by 10^6 * tan 1 ~ 17,000 km (more than Earth's diameter), persuming that the trajectory is relatively straight. This could be done by putting an many ion thrusters on the surface of the asteroid, and activating it for a period of many years. So, while this is definitely not as spectacular as a nuce, it will be far more effective.
While the idea of antipatents seems extremely appealing to me, it's very hard to define it legally. While patents have to be brief and accurate, it is hardly possible to make specific antipatents so that that nobody could reclaim it with a slitghtly altered description. That's why I think the problem should really be split in two:
Creating a system that will lock specific ideas (algorithms etc.) into public domain with a small fraction of the hassle it takes to register a private patent.
Loosening up the requirements for dismissing a patent, and creating a public body that can control the handing
out of patents and cancel them.
Of the *BSD efforts I know, only OpenBSD is free software. And I read an article (by the OpenBSD team), that they have a user base of a few thousand. It's not about flaming; Linux IS the biggest effort out there.
I wonder how did they calculate the figure 4? I mean 4 years, 3 months and 17 days should sound more realistic.
On the serious side, I'm certain that this will happen, but 4 years won't be enough. Let's look at the market right now: Linux is the only major open-source OS effort. Other efforts, for instance, *BSD are sadly underdeveloped. They profit only from their semblance to Linux.
UN*X and Linux have always had the lion's share of the server market. It requires courage to use Windows NT^H^H 2000 Server to do anything important. Linux is cheaper and versatile, while other UNICES (SunOS, AIX, *BSD) are more stable and efficient.
Home consumer market is entirely different. It is very conservative. It is also very computer-ignorant. Unfortunately, as of today, Linux's windowing is mainly about opening xterm and escaping back into CLI. Consumers won't buy it. While I'm 100% certain that CLI is the most efficient way of managing stuff, I am also 100% certain that consumers don't want to know what a pipe is.
In the meanwhile, neither GNOME nor KDE managed to deliver anything that answers this demand. GNOME's advanced features are at alpha stage or non-existant. While KDE has delivered a product, it is just an improvement of the CLI experience. Setting a date is fine; however where is the program that will ruin Windows?
In order to study a language, one needs to have a stable development environment. For instance, it could happen that hte combined difficulty of learning linux basics, vi and then g++ would be too difficult for students with no previous experience.
A good course under Windows can help the students jump to Linux later on. For example, I started GUI programming with C under Windows, and since I used C library functions (malloc() rather than GlobalAlloc() etc.), it was quite easy for me to apply my knowledge to UN*X platforms. In fact, this helped me see the true beauty of Linux.
Unfortunately, many kinds of courses teach only the parts of a language that one can use immediately. For example, there are C++ courses where people are tought to use MFC (using Microsoft's fill-in-the-form-pseudo-programming a.k.a "wizards"), more than C++'s standard features (like STL). So while using an IDE (even MS's) is not necessarily bad, a good basic C++ course should never contain MFC.
Could Judge Kaplan decide in favor of 2600? No he couldn't. Justice is blind in following the law. So whatever happened in NY court is only a preface to the real thing at the Supreme Court.
I am reasonably optimistic regarding 2600's chances there. However it has to be demonstrated that there is a big, united and competent comunity that sees computers as merely another area to expand the basic liberties. It should be made clear that it's not only 2600: it's the whole IT community.
It was so with segregation, and while the 2600 vs. MPAA may be significantly less important, the issues that stand behind this case are very complex and deep. A ruling will be made that will favor 2600's philosophy; however if it is not made soon, the same issue will have much more devastating effect. Jefferson's original intention was to abolish slavery using the Constitution. Had he managed to do so, America would be spared the Civil War 80 years later. Let's hope they won't procrastinate until the issue will become THAT substancial.
I learnt a little Arabic at school... It's not such a pleasant language to write. First of all, it uses odd symbols (for example lambd + alif -> symbol la). Add all kinds of shaddas and vowels (they are written through dashes above and below letters). It also uses QUITE complicated suffix system for verbs (raaituhu -> I saw him, fatashtuhuna -> I looked for them (3rd body plural female - not male!) etc.). As to the grammar, it has 10 basic constructs (they are called vazan). It means that qaddama (double d means shadda) is different in meaning from qadima, though both are written quf-da-mim.
Since I haven't studied Arabic for already 2 months, I may be forgetting some stuff... But it doesn't seem such a good idea to program using it.
It's totally apparent that French laws should not apply to Yahoo, at least to its English section. Usually registering for bidding requires accepting a contract that defines the court for settlement of possible conflicts (and I guess that the court is somewhere in California or New York).
As to the ethical side, selling Nazi stuff is wrong. I am not a moralist of some kind, but Yahoo really needs to tighten their criteria.
I guess that some legislation has to be passed for the Inernet. However legislation requires a consensus, and looking at the holy wars surrounding Slashdot, it will take centuries to reach one.
Slashdot Mirror
I must begin with saying that I really respect RMS. I respect him because he wrote GCC and Emacs. I also respect him for writing the GNU Manifesto and inventing GPL. I respect him for being the leader of an important trend in technology (and culture), of which I strive to become a part (when my programming skills become good enough).
And yet, RMS's high position also obliges him for a great deal of responsibility. I believe he had to research first what is the current state of similar projects. And I am afraid that many of his [excellent] ideas are brought with a degree of radicalism that I consider unnecessary.
I undersand RMS' motivation, however I think that he's got to concentrate on developing the GNU project, rather than waste time hurting friends and flaming enemies. The true beauty of GNU is not only in freedom of reception, but also in the freedom of creation. And to me, writing one line of GPLed code feels better than preaching all day long about the future, that will not be possible without that one line.
--Uri
This story does clearly not flatter to RMS, who showed us again his desire to GNUlize anything out there, so that he, personally RMS, will be remembered as the one who created a great project(tm). I consider it sad that people choose to spend their time to fullfillment of such ambitions, rather than peacefully code (or write articles).
I wonder why nobody thought of it... Such an arm can be used for making artificial limbs (for humans and robots). One of the problems of the existing motors is that they achieve too few degrees of freedom.
A few times, I got to play with a Sun computer. It always felt so much better than a PC, and I don't think it was pure psychology. Sun's architecture is newer (64-bit RISC) and more efficient (no 8-bit compatibility or PCI-ISA bridges etc.). While I know it may sound like a fancy, I would really like to have a Sun home. I use Linux quite a lot anyway, and games don't matter to me much. I'm sure many of you feel this way too.
Unfortunately, Sun chooses to distanciate itself from the general public by producing [excellent] million-dollars product. This is not wise. The high-price niche is an unstable location. I am sure that the market (us) would buy low-end Suns, if Sun chose to introduce them. This would be better even for Sun itself, because more people would know how to handle Solaris.
That's just my $0.02. I've now got to find $1,000,000.02 to buy this baby.
I am 15 years old, and I live in Israel. I am the only person in my class who has any UNIX time whatsoever. I don't think that there are more than 5 people (out of 300!) studying with me in the same age group that would know how to do even the basic tasks on a Linux box. Most of them handle Windoze quite properly, though.
Many of these people are tied to Windows, because Linux lacks good Hebrew support. However, some of them do some programming and don't need Hebrew that badly. Unfortunately, they choose MSVC and VB. What's wrong with gtk+, QT, Pike or Perl? Nothing. However there's no good way to learn Linux programming. There are good books and informative manpages, but they speak only to those who already have some experience, and those who are willing to learn. There is nowhere to be taught Linux.
There has to be much more effort invested in teaching Linux. We can enjoy ourselves being 31337. However Linux will become a major player only when it is adopted by mainstream audience
First of all, I am not a linguistic expert of any kind. However, I can give an opinion about several languages that I know
Nolo scire latinum - I don't want to know Latin
It takes the insight of a genius (and Stanislav Lem was of course one) to see the future. Only now I understand that by the enormous machine that claimed that 2 + 2 was 7, was in fact a Transmeta Crusoe board fixed inside an IBM RS6000 case.
This reminds me Adam Sandler's mommy from Waterboy, where she was continuously repeating that something was the devil (the list includes girls, money, studying). A pity though that Americans (and American politicians) will never be able to grow out of this.
I think that it would help if someone here really knew MFC. I can full-heartedly say that I don't know it, though I do know Windows API. Any way, MFC may not be compared to GTK+, since GTK+ is C-function-oriented (like Windows API), and MFC is completely C++ OO. So it's equivalent to Gtk--, and nothing else.
The fact that IBM DOES supports the open-source movement, and it DOES give out years of research (well-paid one) for free, does not mean that IBM should not try to invent a way to solve an important legal problem. It is their choice, and only the market can be their judge.
Unfortunately for them, they are still hovering in the illusion that there are still people who will buy a 'hit' CD when they have the option to download the MP3.
And BTW, where are all the supporters of MP3 freedom when it comes to running gnutella?
I wish all of ./ers who can program would give their time to things like Nullsoft, and not like /dev/null soft. While I would prefer to have a full open-sourced client, crippling the AOL one seems like a nice job to me. Congrats, Justin!
While the obligatory use of Pipeline sucks (and also damages UN*X pipes' reputation), it's just a stupid thing(tm). I see from this thread that all the old functionality is still accessible through cosher (read telnet/ssh) means. Such systems should also serve literature/arts/music schools, and I guess that at least for some of them the CLI stuff would be too difficult to comprehend. So you're stuck with it (while I'm missing the whole fun by not living in the US)
Do you have this feeling that ./ threads are occupied with stuff of lesser and esser importance?
Color management and font management are the two most difficult aspects of a graphic interface. However, while slight variations in colors are regretable, they are not essential, so I think that the best strategy is:
It is very, very sad to see this happen. I thought that the OS community was made of intelligent and sensitive people, who prefer actual programming to flaming. However, while RMS DID develop emacs and gcc, he behaves like a zealous regilious catholic cardinal before St. Bartolomew's night. Common cause? Huh?
There IS a difference between KDE and GNOME, but it is in the practical plane, not the legal one. Admit it, most of the programmers in both project work there because they like it, and they want to share their skills with the rest of the world. Is this free software or what? Does RMS have a copyright on the world "free"? I hope not.
It seems a cool idea. I think that many problems surrounding URL i18n can be solved.
While the idea of antipatents seems extremely appealing to me, it's very hard to define it legally. While patents have to be brief and accurate, it is hardly possible to make specific antipatents so that that nobody could reclaim it with a slitghtly altered description. That's why I think the problem should really be split in two:
Apache, unlike emacs is not yet an os
Of the *BSD efforts I know, only OpenBSD is free software. And I read an article (by the OpenBSD team), that they have a user base of a few thousand. It's not about flaming; Linux IS the biggest effort out there.
I wonder how did they calculate the figure 4? I mean 4 years, 3 months and 17 days should sound more realistic.
On the serious side, I'm certain that this will happen, but 4 years won't be enough. Let's look at the market right now: Linux is the only major open-source OS effort. Other efforts, for instance, *BSD are sadly underdeveloped. They profit only from their semblance to Linux.
UN*X and Linux have always had the lion's share of the server market. It requires courage to use Windows NT^H^H 2000 Server to do anything important. Linux is cheaper and versatile, while other UNICES (SunOS, AIX, *BSD) are more stable and efficient.
Home consumer market is entirely different. It is very conservative. It is also very computer-ignorant. Unfortunately, as of today, Linux's windowing is mainly about opening xterm and escaping back into CLI. Consumers won't buy it. While I'm 100% certain that CLI is the most efficient way of managing stuff, I am also 100% certain that consumers don't want to know what a pipe is.
In the meanwhile, neither GNOME nor KDE managed to deliver anything that answers this demand. GNOME's advanced features are at alpha stage or non-existant. While KDE has delivered a product, it is just an improvement of the CLI experience. Setting a date is fine; however where is the program that will ruin Windows?
In order to study a language, one needs to have a stable development environment. For instance, it could happen that hte combined difficulty of learning linux basics, vi and then g++ would be too difficult for students with no previous experience.
A good course under Windows can help the students jump to Linux later on. For example, I started GUI programming with C under Windows, and since I used C library functions (malloc() rather than GlobalAlloc() etc.), it was quite easy for me to apply my knowledge to UN*X platforms. In fact, this helped me see the true beauty of Linux.
Unfortunately, many kinds of courses teach only the parts of a language that one can use immediately. For example, there are C++ courses where people are tought to use MFC (using Microsoft's fill-in-the-form-pseudo-programming a.k.a "wizards"), more than C++'s standard features (like STL). So while using an IDE (even MS's) is not necessarily bad, a good basic C++ course should never contain MFC.
Could Judge Kaplan decide in favor of 2600? No he couldn't. Justice is blind in following the law. So whatever happened in NY court is only a preface to the real thing at the Supreme Court.
I am reasonably optimistic regarding 2600's chances there. However it has to be demonstrated that there is a big, united and competent comunity that sees computers as merely another area to expand the basic liberties. It should be made clear that it's not only 2600: it's the whole IT community.
It was so with segregation, and while the 2600 vs. MPAA may be significantly less important, the issues that stand behind this case are very complex and deep. A ruling will be made that will favor 2600's philosophy; however if it is not made soon, the same issue will have much more devastating effect. Jefferson's original intention was to abolish slavery using the Constitution. Had he managed to do so, America would be spared the Civil War 80 years later. Let's hope they won't procrastinate until the issue will become THAT substancial.
I learnt a little Arabic at school... It's not such a pleasant language to write. First of all, it uses odd symbols (for example lambd + alif -> symbol la). Add all kinds of shaddas and vowels (they are written through dashes above and below letters). It also uses QUITE complicated suffix system for verbs (raaituhu -> I saw him, fatashtuhuna -> I looked for them (3rd body plural female - not male!) etc.). As to the grammar, it has 10 basic constructs (they are called vazan). It means that qaddama (double d means shadda) is different in meaning from qadima, though both are written quf-da-mim.
Since I haven't studied Arabic for already 2 months, I may be forgetting some stuff... But it doesn't seem such a good idea to program using it.
It's totally apparent that French laws should not apply to Yahoo, at least to its English section. Usually registering for bidding requires accepting a contract that defines the court for settlement of possible conflicts (and I guess that the court is somewhere in California or New York).
As to the ethical side, selling Nazi stuff is wrong. I am not a moralist of some kind, but Yahoo really needs to tighten their criteria.
I guess that some legislation has to be passed for the Inernet. However legislation requires a consensus, and looking at the holy wars surrounding Slashdot, it will take centuries to reach one.