I didn't purchase my Palm Pre to play games on it, but I'm not closed to the idea that, should the right game come along, I might play games on my Pre / phone. It all depends on the gameplay. For all we know, a new type of gameplay might still be created, one that would fit phones perfectly (has some elements of RPGs or tamagotchi coupled with GPS?)
FPS games might prove challenging, but vehicle simulators might not be too bad. There've been videos of Need for Speed Undercover allegedly being ported to the webOS / Palm Pre platform.
By the way, the point isn't that one has to pay but that one doesn't have to go and search for someone who would do the change if you couldn't. The majority of consumers of software out there don't develop.
Another reason is that commercial software's development may be influenced by monetary incentive in a predictable manner. Unless you have the capacity to develop or find developers who would, open source software development is limited to the whims of the developer community. With commercial software, you know there's a company who'll take your money in exchange for fixes. With OSS, you can ask nicely, make suggestions (and sometimes even be laughed at or ridiculed for your requirements), but there's no guaranteed way to get a fix or a custom patch.
I remember wanting to be able to scroll through tabs in mozilla (it wasn't even firefox, then) using the mouse's scrollwheel and that request was marked WONTFIX. We needed to be able to do something unique with Oracle BRM (then Portal Infranet) and the company gave us the patches and apps we needed. No fuss, no muss, but we did have to pay.
I was thinking the same thing. The article was just too light on details. Even if I wanted to test my systems and even fix them, I wouldn't know where to begin. The article also doesn't mention if the people at Sun, Apache, Gnome, etc. were informed of the specifics of the vulnerability.
Since XML is handled by these projects using libraries (libxml2 in Gnome and Xerces, Xerces2 and Xalan for Apache), wouldn't fixing these libraries effectively fix the "millions of these applications"?
Gnome has done a good job of adding bindings for many languages (Python, C++, perl, etc.) and to some extent, it even allows GObjects to communicate with one another (dbus). Of course, the holy grail of having all object communicate with each other while running under their respective VM (or natively) is still a ways away. I'm not even sure if that's a goal.
Backward Compatibility
on
BASH 4.0 Released
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
I'm seeing release candidate versions of bash 4 in the SRPMS dir for Fedora testing. It should be easy to rebuild it on Fedora 10 and install it, but I'd like to know if it would break existing scripts.
Does anyone know if it has any backward compatibility issues?
We used to license a RADIUS server written in Perl by the name of Radiator. They would give us the source code of the entire software, but we had to pay for it and could not redistribute it. We were free to contribute fixes (and often did) without expecting anything in return, regardless of the fact that we paid for it.
I think you're forgetting the more important thing: regardless of whether this was done intentionally or not, people's votes are not getting reflected accurately. Certainly if there were tampering being done that should be investigated (as opposed to just saying it's all human error). Effort should also be made to make sure that the vote a person makes gets counted according to that person's intention.
Voting is one of the most stressed responsibility in a Democracy. That's why more care (and yes, a certain amount of paranoia) should be associated with it.
Are there any free software equivalents that I can try right now? I guess it can be broken into two parts: 1) One takes an audio sample and generates chords, and 2) one that generates accompaniment based on the chord pattern.
There should be a third part to the module: 3) modify the chord and it would change your sung words or sounds to the follow the chord. Or at least keep all your notes for a given chord in line with the current chord.
With old CRT monitors (I'm not so sure about LCD ones), X can be configured in such a way as to cause physical damage to the monitor (I believe aiming the electron gun continuously at a point on the monitor can destroy that which causes it to glow). If the OS had low-level access to harddisk systems (and I'm not sure they do), it can cause damage to harddisk platters (at least back in the Apple ][ days). Low-level access to RF transmitters can cause havoc with WiFi, bluetooth or GSM networks (though not necessarily physical).
It's not impossible for software to damage hardware. Even Windows could do it. It's a risk-assessment manufacturers and retailers must assess.
In this case, however, it seems unlikely that software had anything to do with the damage, but I doubt lawyers who make up the warranty contract would be bothered to actually go through all the possible restrictions or exclusions.
I'd watch it if it were Voltes V they were making. It's the first anime I saw that featured vehicles "volting" into each other to form a larger robot. Not to mention I kinda dig the sappy underlying story.
Had the 770 (and now the N800) been a cellphone as well, I'd be on this device like flies on... well, I'd buy one. I had a word with one of the Nokia developers and they couldn't see why having an integrated GSM/GPRS transceiver wouldn't be better than having the 770 AND a separate cellphone communicating with each other either via Bluetooth or what-have-you. The savings on the number of items in ones pockets alone is enough reason to go integrated. Add to that possible incompatibilities with Bluetooth implementations in cellphones, cost-savings (integrated device would be cheaper), ability to function seamlessly between wifi and cellphone networks, etc. and it becomes compelling. And yet the dev guy I spoke with couldn't even see that advantage.
To any analysis, there's always a discussion of pros & cons, and the guy wouldn't even speak of said pros to having a cellphone integrated.
My ideal situation is to have an N800-like device with a GSM/GPRS/EDGE transceiver and a Bluetooth headset for using the device as a phone.
In the year 2007, a parasite is released into the earth's atmosphere rendering women more aggressive and men more dumb. The balance of power shifts and men become subservient to women. And when things can't seem to get any worse, the true intent of the parasite surfaces. (cue in action music)
I think both opinions on "production quality" are right. I think it's just a question of degree.
There are two ways of looking at something as "production quality". There's the initial release, and there are the updates. I think Fedora Core is doing a great job of making sure their product is good and stable upon release so that it's "production quality".
Updates are a different thing. Some people would argue on what is a production quality-rated update. Most would say that security and essentials are the only upgrades needed. It's a given that the more diverse the systems are out there on which software is installed, the likelier it is that a change would break (or fix) something.
Fedora Core seems to have a LOT of updates in the course of its lifetime. I'm not even sure how each update is rated (is it a security fix? a version update?). I remember a time when you could look at RedHat linux Updates and know precisely what they were for and their severity.
I agree the current system is still a bit of a kludge for production environments, specially those that require 24/7 uptimes. Hopefully something can be done about this.
As an IT consultant specializing in Linux solutions, I would actually think that Fedora Core would be a more prudent choice to make. In practice, both RedHat and Ubuntu (the funding company) have taken a hands-off approach to how the projects have been managed thus far. However, as an IT consultant, I would feel much better knowing that RedHat does retain veto powers in case some decision goes off kilter. I'd hate for the distro I've been pushing to clients to suddenly change towards a non-business-friendly direction (which is certainly possible if just left to the community). This, however, is unlikely to happen because the community balances itself out, but on the off-chance that it does, there's something in place in Fedora to check it.
Freedom is fine unless anarchy starts to assert itself.
I hear you! I'm having problems enabling freshrpms, livna and atrpms. Some of them have the same packages but with different versions. I'm always fearing that the mplayer package pulled from livna will somehow conflict with a newer package of one of its dependencies pulled from freshrpms.
Then there's livna's and atrpms's differences in packaging kernel modules. First, their names are different. Second, the source RPMS seem to require custom rpm macros to compile. Could someone at Fedora Core please, please set the official standard for kernel modules???
I've been using RPM since the RHL 4.x days till the present, and it seems to cater to all I need and my familiarity with it brings a lot of comfort, I wouldn't mind a change if it means keeping all the functionality I want/need with the added benefit that all the distros standardize on something.
Carrying Max's answers forward, why don't the different distributions with a major stake in the package management sit together one time and discuss their needs and requirements and come up with a spec for the one package manager to rule them all?
Previously I asked a question about Fedora Core and it's desktop objectives:
I've been using Fedora Core on my desktop for the last 3 years (and RHL before that). It seemed sufficient for me until I tried SLED 10 a few days ago. I must say I'm surprised that though both FC5 and SLED 10 are based on Gnome 2.14, the experience was a whole world of difference (in favor of SLED if it still isn't obvious). I've been hearing great things said about the Ubuntu desktop experience, as well.
My questions are: How much priority is Fedora giving to improving the Desktop experience? And what concrete steps are on its list towards achieving a better desktop experience?
Unfortunately, this wasn't moderated high enough. I would still like to know what Fedora Core has planned for improving the desktop experience, both in functionality as well as optimization.
Personally I'm a huge fan of NetworkManager, which didn't appear to be the default in Dapper, but something like that is just a detail.
NetworkManager is installed in a stock Fedora Core installation but isn't enabled by default as well (as far as I can tell). There seem to be a conflict/redundancy between Fedora's original network scripts and NetworkManager. Hopefully this will get resolved soon.
I've been using Fedora Core on my desktop for the last 3 years (and RHL before that). It seemed sufficient for me until I tried SLED 10 a few days ago. I must say I'm surprised that though both FC5 and SLED 10 are based on Gnome 2.14, the experience was a whole world of difference (in favor of SLED if it still isn't obvious). I've been hearing great things said about the Ubuntu desktop experience, as well.
My questions are: How much priority is Fedora giving to improving the Desktop experience? And what concrete steps are on its list towards achieving a better desktop experience?
What exactly is Fedora aiming for, anyway? If its aiming at being a server distro, then why is it being touted as a testing ground for new technologies when we know that servers need stability? If its aiming at being a desktop distro, then why is it months (if not years) behind fellow commercial and free distributions?
While servers are essential, people need desktops to work from (even if it means managing said servers).
I'm trying to figure out why the author seems to think Sony will fail. Is it because he thinks coming up with a storage medium format isn't a profitable venture? (which it apparently isn't) Is it that he thinks that proprietary and closed are the keywords here? Though the author states that VHS was a more open format (open in the sense that other manufacturers could implement their own players/recorders with little to no cost), I was under the impression that the HD-DVD format and the Blu Ray one are on equal ground in this respect.
Slashdot Mirror
Quite happy
This wouldn't happen on Mastodon! It's distributed and decentralized
I didn't purchase my Palm Pre to play games on it, but I'm not closed to the idea that, should the right game come along, I might play games on my Pre / phone. It all depends on the gameplay. For all we know, a new type of gameplay might still be created, one that would fit phones perfectly (has some elements of RPGs or tamagotchi coupled with GPS?)
FPS games might prove challenging, but vehicle simulators might not be too bad. There've been videos of Need for Speed Undercover allegedly being ported to the webOS / Palm Pre platform.
By the way, the point isn't that one has to pay but that one doesn't have to go and search for someone who would do the change if you couldn't. The majority of consumers of software out there don't develop.
Another reason is that commercial software's development may be influenced by monetary incentive in a predictable manner. Unless you have the capacity to develop or find developers who would, open source software development is limited to the whims of the developer community. With commercial software, you know there's a company who'll take your money in exchange for fixes. With OSS, you can ask nicely, make suggestions (and sometimes even be laughed at or ridiculed for your requirements), but there's no guaranteed way to get a fix or a custom patch.
I remember wanting to be able to scroll through tabs in mozilla (it wasn't even firefox, then) using the mouse's scrollwheel and that request was marked WONTFIX. We needed to be able to do something unique with Oracle BRM (then Portal Infranet) and the company gave us the patches and apps we needed. No fuss, no muss, but we did have to pay.
I was thinking the same thing. The article was just too light on details. Even if I wanted to test my systems and even fix them, I wouldn't know where to begin. The article also doesn't mention if the people at Sun, Apache, Gnome, etc. were informed of the specifics of the vulnerability.
Since XML is handled by these projects using libraries (libxml2 in Gnome and Xerces, Xerces2 and Xalan for Apache), wouldn't fixing these libraries effectively fix the "millions of these applications"?
Gnome has done a good job of adding bindings for many languages (Python, C++, perl, etc.) and to some extent, it even allows GObjects to communicate with one another (dbus). Of course, the holy grail of having all object communicate with each other while running under their respective VM (or natively) is still a ways away. I'm not even sure if that's a goal.
I'm seeing release candidate versions of bash 4 in the SRPMS dir for Fedora testing. It should be easy to rebuild it on Fedora 10 and install it, but I'd like to know if it would break existing scripts.
Does anyone know if it has any backward compatibility issues?
We used to license a RADIUS server written in Perl by the name of Radiator. They would give us the source code of the entire software, but we had to pay for it and could not redistribute it. We were free to contribute fixes (and often did) without expecting anything in return, regardless of the fact that we paid for it.
You might want to check out their license.
I think you're forgetting the more important thing: regardless of whether this was done intentionally or not, people's votes are not getting reflected accurately. Certainly if there were tampering being done that should be investigated (as opposed to just saying it's all human error). Effort should also be made to make sure that the vote a person makes gets counted according to that person's intention.
Voting is one of the most stressed responsibility in a Democracy. That's why more care (and yes, a certain amount of paranoia) should be associated with it.
Are there any free software equivalents that I can try right now? I guess it can be broken into two parts: 1) One takes an audio sample and generates chords, and 2) one that generates accompaniment based on the chord pattern.
There should be a third part to the module: 3) modify the chord and it would change your sung words or sounds to the follow the chord. Or at least keep all your notes for a given chord in line with the current chord.
With old CRT monitors (I'm not so sure about LCD ones), X can be configured in such a way as to cause physical damage to the monitor (I believe aiming the electron gun continuously at a point on the monitor can destroy that which causes it to glow). If the OS had low-level access to harddisk systems (and I'm not sure they do), it can cause damage to harddisk platters (at least back in the Apple ][ days). Low-level access to RF transmitters can cause havoc with WiFi, bluetooth or GSM networks (though not necessarily physical).
It's not impossible for software to damage hardware. Even Windows could do it. It's a risk-assessment manufacturers and retailers must assess.
In this case, however, it seems unlikely that software had anything to do with the damage, but I doubt lawyers who make up the warranty contract would be bothered to actually go through all the possible restrictions or exclusions.
I'd watch it if it were Voltes V they were making. It's the first anime I saw that featured vehicles "volting" into each other to form a larger robot. Not to mention I kinda dig the sappy underlying story.
http://linuxdevices.com/news/NS7002110505.html
Had the 770 (and now the N800) been a cellphone as well, I'd be on this device like flies on ... well, I'd buy one. I had a word with one of the Nokia developers and they couldn't see why having an integrated GSM/GPRS transceiver wouldn't be better than having the 770 AND a separate cellphone communicating with each other either via Bluetooth or what-have-you. The savings on the number of items in ones pockets alone is enough reason to go integrated. Add to that possible incompatibilities with Bluetooth implementations in cellphones, cost-savings (integrated device would be cheaper), ability to function seamlessly between wifi and cellphone networks, etc. and it becomes compelling. And yet the dev guy I spoke with couldn't even see that advantage.
To any analysis, there's always a discussion of pros & cons, and the guy wouldn't even speak of said pros to having a cellphone integrated.
My ideal situation is to have an N800-like device with a GSM/GPRS/EDGE transceiver and a Bluetooth headset for using the device as a phone.
In the year 2007, a parasite is released into the earth's atmosphere rendering women more aggressive and men more dumb. The balance of power shifts and men become subservient to women. And when things can't seem to get any worse, the true intent of the parasite surfaces. (cue in action music)
The Java-Gnome Project uses Glade to build a serializable (to XML) GUI.
I think both opinions on "production quality" are right. I think it's just a question of degree.
There are two ways of looking at something as "production quality". There's the initial release, and there are the updates. I think Fedora Core is doing a great job of making sure their product is good and stable upon release so that it's "production quality".
Updates are a different thing. Some people would argue on what is a production quality-rated update. Most would say that security and essentials are the only upgrades needed. It's a given that the more diverse the systems are out there on which software is installed, the likelier it is that a change would break (or fix) something.
Fedora Core seems to have a LOT of updates in the course of its lifetime. I'm not even sure how each update is rated (is it a security fix? a version update?). I remember a time when you could look at RedHat linux Updates and know precisely what they were for and their severity.
I agree the current system is still a bit of a kludge for production environments, specially those that require 24/7 uptimes. Hopefully something can be done about this.
As an IT consultant specializing in Linux solutions, I would actually think that Fedora Core would be a more prudent choice to make. In practice, both RedHat and Ubuntu (the funding company) have taken a hands-off approach to how the projects have been managed thus far. However, as an IT consultant, I would feel much better knowing that RedHat does retain veto powers in case some decision goes off kilter. I'd hate for the distro I've been pushing to clients to suddenly change towards a non-business-friendly direction (which is certainly possible if just left to the community). This, however, is unlikely to happen because the community balances itself out, but on the off-chance that it does, there's something in place in Fedora to check it.
Freedom is fine unless anarchy starts to assert itself.
I hear you! I'm having problems enabling freshrpms, livna and atrpms. Some of them have the same packages but with different versions. I'm always fearing that the mplayer package pulled from livna will somehow conflict with a newer package of one of its dependencies pulled from freshrpms.
Then there's livna's and atrpms's differences in packaging kernel modules. First, their names are different. Second, the source RPMS seem to require custom rpm macros to compile. Could someone at Fedora Core please, please set the official standard for kernel modules???
I've been using RPM since the RHL 4.x days till the present, and it seems to cater to all I need and my familiarity with it brings a lot of comfort, I wouldn't mind a change if it means keeping all the functionality I want/need with the added benefit that all the distros standardize on something.
Carrying Max's answers forward, why don't the different distributions with a major stake in the package management sit together one time and discuss their needs and requirements and come up with a spec for the one package manager to rule them all?
Unfortunately, this wasn't moderated high enough. I would still like to know what Fedora Core has planned for improving the desktop experience, both in functionality as well as optimization.
NetworkManager is installed in a stock Fedora Core installation but isn't enabled by default as well (as far as I can tell). There seem to be a conflict/redundancy between Fedora's original network scripts and NetworkManager. Hopefully this will get resolved soon.
I've been using Fedora Core on my desktop for the last 3 years (and RHL before that). It seemed sufficient for me until I tried SLED 10 a few days ago. I must say I'm surprised that though both FC5 and SLED 10 are based on Gnome 2.14, the experience was a whole world of difference (in favor of SLED if it still isn't obvious). I've been hearing great things said about the Ubuntu desktop experience, as well.
My questions are: How much priority is Fedora giving to improving the Desktop experience? And what concrete steps are on its list towards achieving a better desktop experience?
What exactly is Fedora aiming for, anyway? If its aiming at being a server distro, then why is it being touted as a testing ground for new technologies when we know that servers need stability? If its aiming at being a desktop distro, then why is it months (if not years) behind fellow commercial and free distributions?
While servers are essential, people need desktops to work from (even if it means managing said servers).
I'm trying to figure out why the author seems to think Sony will fail. Is it because he thinks coming up with a storage medium format isn't a profitable venture? (which it apparently isn't) Is it that he thinks that proprietary and closed are the keywords here? Though the author states that VHS was a more open format (open in the sense that other manufacturers could implement their own players/recorders with little to no cost), I was under the impression that the HD-DVD format and the Blu Ray one are on equal ground in this respect.