The worst possible situation for a jury trial would be to have a jury of people who considered themselves experts. The general population isn't stupid. They can figure out what a floppy controller does if somebody bothers to tell them. And most importantly, they can look at the case without biases. Imagine if you had a jury of slashdot readers on the jury in a lawsuit against MS. They'd be standing up screaming Guilty! before the trial even started.
There's a difference between lobbying for something and actually getting something done. All this means is that Microsoft is trying to convince congress to spend less money on the DOJ. It's their opinion, they certainly have the right to express it. If they've convinced certain organizations to lobby with them, then good for them. Those organizations have a right to their own opinion as well, and they have a right to tell congress about them.
Even you have the right to lobby your congressman about this issue, and if you really care about it, you should do it. People like to sit back and bitch about how the US government is dominated by special interests groups, but nobody makes sure that their opinions are heard as well. If the special interests groups are the only ones that want to take part in American politics, then they should be the ones shaping our policy. But guess what? special interests groups such as MS make up a small minority of the population. If everybody actually took part in politics, they wouldn't have much of an effect.
People who say that special interests play too big a role in our government but don't tell their congressman their views make about as much sense to me as people who don't vote because they don't like the government.
Babelfish isn't great. We all know this. However babelfish doesn't use an intermediate language, and no, French is not an intermediate language. The idea behind an intermediate language is that you can have groups working very hard to get their language to translate into the intermediate language. Then, by doing that, their language can be translated into every other language that the intermediate language supports. If you worked for as long as it would take to translate your language into 10 different languages on only one language, you'd come out with a pretty good translation. An intermediate language would also have the advantage of being able to be optimized to be translated into and especially translated from.
I wasn't saying that NDA printer drivers should or would be part of the GPL'd version. Some distributions would choose to ship all the free (beer) printer drivers with the free (speech) version of the program, some wouldn't. This would not compromise the free version of the program.
As far as not being able to called a forked version of CUPS CUPS, it's their choice and it doesn't violate the DFSG. They want to retain control of the product called "CUPS", and that's their right.
Another example of this is the Open Sound System. The linux kernel ships with a version of OSS called OSS/Lite. OSS/Lite is the GPL version of OSS, which isn't free in any sense of the word. However neither the existance of OSS, nor the existance of binary only drivers for OSS/Lite mean that Debian can't ship OSS/Lite. I have a SBLive on my computer, and as you may know, the SBlive driver is binary only. For obvious reasons, Debian does not include the driver to this card as part of it's distribution. However I was able to download this driver and use it with the kernel that ships with Debian because the OSS/Lite code is GPL and therefore DFSG compliant.
To use your example of QT, the QPL is DFSG compliant. KDE could not be included in Debian because there was no free version of QT. There was a commercial version and there was a pseudo open source version. There was no version of QT which met their standards. However, when QT 2.0 came out, it was released under a license which was basically the GPL with a clause saying you can pay Troll Tech to write commercial programs, and it was accepted into Debian. Take a look at Debian's ftp server if you don't believe me. You will find Qt right there.
1. Free Redistribution No. Cups does NOT allow the name CUPS to be used in any redistribution of the software. Trademark law covers variations of a name as well. Therefore, the product known as CUPS is not redistributable as CUPS.
Linus Torvalds has the trademark on Linux. RedHat has the trademark on RedHat. Neither the GPL nor the DFSG says anything about your ability to modify code and claim it's the original version. That is what trademark law was made to prevent. Just as I can't can't write an operating system and call it Linux, you cannot write a printing system and call it CUPS. However since CUPS was released under the GPL, it (the real version) may be freely redistributed as specified in the DFSG.
6. No Discrimination against fields of endeavor None, however the moment a binary only patch is made to the official GPL'd package, the entire GPL'dness of the product is violated.
It is very common for a product to be licensed under more than one license. One example would be GhostScript. Effectively, a product which is dual-licensed can be considered two products, the Free one and the non-Free one. If someone releases a driver based on the non-Free one, that in no way compromises the integrity of the free one. What has been done with CUPS is actually alot better many products, as the version of CUPS which isn't Free is exactly the same as the free version.
7. Distribution of License The program is NOT REDISTRIBUTABLE under the same license , as a different license exists for those who wish to remain closed sourced in API development
CUPS was released under the GPL, therefore it must stay under the GPL. This is consistant with the DFSG guidelines. If companies want to redistribute it under a different license, they may, however once again, they may only do this with the non-Free version. The version which was released under the GPL must be redistributed under the GPL.
CUPS is certainly compliant with the DFSG, as by definition, any GPL'd program is.
Corel has already said that they plan to release all their modifications to the GPL programs. It was even on slashdot, and when it was, you all bitched about how they shouldn't take credit for something they had to do.
This is an internal beta test. They simply don't want places like cheapbytes to start selling CD's to the unwashed masses who would then start complaining that the distribution was buggy and go back to windows (not to return when a stable release came out).
The difference between companies like Corel and your typical open source group is that when Corel puts its name behind a product which is released to the general public, they want it to be rock solid (or atleast stable). They're not trying to steal source code, they just want to get the bugs worked out of their modifications before they release them.
Let me preface this comment by saying that I have never used python, I am simply going by what other people have said about it.
This isn't talking about teaching programming to CS students. This is talking about teaching programming to the general public, early in high school.
Of course CS students could teach themselves C or Pascal(!?!?!), but neither would be good choices for the general public. The main problem with the two languages you mentioned, aside from the fact that they're a bit complicated, is that neither is object oriented (which seems to be where atleast the education community is moving).
The two major languages taught in schools today are C++ and Java, however neither of those would a wise choice. C++ wouldn't be a wise choice for a few reasons. The main reason is that there is very little structure in C++. It is quite possible to write good programs in C++, but if you don't start out with a good background in object oriented programming, you won't. The other problem is that at this point in time, there simply aren't any free compilers which fully implement the ANSI C++ standard. GCC has improved greatly, but it's still not there. Would you want every school to have to purchase a few classrooms worth of MSVC licenses?
Java would be better suited than C++ for the job, as it is a much more structured language, however it too is a bit too complicated. Remember, this is the general public we're talking about. Many of whom don't have computers at home.
What is needed is a basic computer language which isn't BASIC. From what I've heard about it, I think Python fits that quite nicely.
To apply you're argument to X, would be to say "XFree86 is the standard, and it's a good standard. Who needs AccelX when we have XFree86."
UNIX is not the standard, POSIX is the standard. Linux is a POSIX compliant (for the most part) Operating System. If Linux wasn't POSIX compliant, you would have a good argument, but it's probably more POSIX compliant than some actual UNIX's.
Because Linux is POSIX compliant, most software written for Unix will compile on Linux and most software written for Linux will compile on a UNIX. This is yet another reason why it's good to stick to standards. You can write a better implementation, without having to worry about porting software.
In my post, I was referring mostly to games (3dfx and DRI both got me thinking about games). For applications, you are correct, beating on the framebuffer directly is usually a bad thing.
However for an application, the speed at which X draws stuff isn't nearly as critical as it is for games/video players/etc, for whom beating on the fb directly can be an advantage. There's still room for improvement within the X protocol. For example being able to say "draw this widgit" would be much more effecient than saying "draw a line here, and a line here, and a pixel here..." However I think the slight loss of speed due to the client/server architecture is a small price to pay for network transparency.
As to how many servers aside from XF86 support DGA, I'm not sure. My experience with Unix stops with Linux, and my experience with X stops with XF86. I hope that it becomes standard fairly soon, because it's very nice for writting programs in which framerate is important.
In general with X, you do pay a fairly large price due to the network transparency issue; however XSHM and especially XDGA do alot to resolve this. Theoretically, DGA in full screen mode is as fast as windows, though I can't back this up with numbers.
As far as the difficulty of using these extentions is concerned, you make a valid point. However, just as most people don't use Xlib to make X applications, most people don't use XDGA to write games. Instead, they use libraries such as SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) which abstracts XDGA (and many other platforms).
If Microsoft controls the market, why are so many companies suddendly jumping on the Linux bandwagon? And if Linux is an open source project maintained by volunteers, then how is Microsoft going to "beat" it? Concerning IE vs. Netscape, IE is simply a better browser. It's faster, much more standards compliant, far more stable. If you don't think it's illegal to crush companies by writing better code, I don't want to live in a world where you have any power. If you think it immoral for them to give it away, then I hope you don't run Linux or any other free software (software given away to crush Microsoft is no different than software given away to crush netscape).
Pepsi offered the plane in a commercial for 7,000,000 pepsi points with no disclaimer saying it wasn't really available. What he figured was that if he got the Pepsi points, he could then take Pepsi to court for not giving him the plane.
Commercials imply alot of things, but this commercial didn't imply that he could get a Harrier, it said he would get a Harrier. If a company said "Wear these shoes and play in the NBA," then yes, you could sue. But companies never say that. They imply it by using hiring NBA players to wear their shoes, and saying things like "These shoes let (insert name of basketball player) compete in the NBA."
Basically, he called Pepsi bluff. Personally, I think he should get the plane (or more likely it's monetary value).
1: "58 of 122" postings? Says a lot you guys...
on
Q3T on Mac First
·
· Score: 1
AC posts start at 0. That's why you see so many of the comments as being moderated down. Only 3 comments in this discussion have gone below 0.
I don't doubt that mp3 will be around for a few more years; however the fact of the matter is, after that it will be replaced with something better. That's just how technology works.
The movement behind mp3s will never die, and nobody said it would. And that's what really matters. It's not important what media people use to distribute their music, it's the fact that they can freely distribute their music that's important. Right now the best way to do that is with MP3, but it's not going to be like that forever. Something will come out with is smaller, clearer, and/or freer, and people will use it and be better off because of it.
Slashdot Mirror
The worst possible situation for a jury trial would be to have a jury of people who considered themselves experts. The general population isn't stupid. They can figure out what a floppy controller does if somebody bothers to tell them. And most importantly, they can look at the case without biases. Imagine if you had a jury of slashdot readers on the jury in a lawsuit against MS. They'd be standing up screaming Guilty! before the trial even started.
There's a difference between lobbying for something and actually getting something done. All this means is that Microsoft is trying to convince congress to spend less money on the DOJ. It's their opinion, they certainly have the right to express it. If they've convinced certain organizations to lobby with them, then good for them. Those organizations have a right to their own opinion as well, and they have a right to tell congress about them.
Even you have the right to lobby your congressman about this issue, and if you really care about it, you should do it. People like to sit back and bitch about how the US government is dominated by special interests groups, but nobody makes sure that their opinions are heard as well. If the special interests groups are the only ones that want to take part in American politics, then they should be the ones shaping our policy. But guess what? special interests groups such as MS make up a small minority of the population. If everybody actually took part in politics, they wouldn't have much of an effect.
People who say that special interests play too big a role in our government but don't tell their congressman their views make about as much sense to me as people who don't vote because they don't like the government.
Babelfish isn't great. We all know this. However babelfish doesn't use an intermediate language, and no, French is not an intermediate language. The idea behind an intermediate language is that you can have groups working very hard to get their language to translate into the intermediate language. Then, by doing that, their language can be translated into every other language that the intermediate language supports. If you worked for as long as it would take to translate your language into 10 different languages on only one language, you'd come out with a pretty good translation. An intermediate language would also have the advantage of being able to be optimized to be translated into and especially translated from.
Time will tell. There's no way either of us are going to change the others mind, so we'll just have to see what debian thinks of it.
I wasn't saying that NDA printer drivers should or would be part of the GPL'd version. Some distributions would choose to ship all the free (beer) printer drivers with the free (speech) version of the program, some wouldn't. This would not compromise the free version of the program.
As far as not being able to called a forked version of CUPS CUPS, it's their choice and it doesn't violate the DFSG. They want to retain control of the product called "CUPS", and that's their right.
Another example of this is the Open Sound System. The linux kernel ships with a version of OSS called OSS/Lite. OSS/Lite is the GPL version of OSS, which isn't free in any sense of the word. However neither the existance of OSS, nor the existance of binary only drivers for OSS/Lite mean that Debian can't ship OSS/Lite. I have a SBLive on my computer, and as you may know, the SBlive driver is binary only. For obvious reasons, Debian does not include the driver to this card as part of it's distribution. However I was able to download this driver and use it with the kernel that ships with Debian because the OSS/Lite code is GPL and therefore DFSG compliant.
To use your example of QT, the QPL is DFSG compliant. KDE could not be included in Debian because there was no free version of QT. There was a commercial version and there was a pseudo open source version. There was no version of QT which met their standards. However, when QT 2.0 came out, it was released under a license which was basically the GPL with a clause saying you can pay Troll Tech to write commercial programs, and it was accepted into Debian. Take a look at Debian's ftp server if you don't believe me. You will find Qt right there.
1. Free Redistribution No. Cups does NOT allow the name CUPS to be used in any redistribution of the software. Trademark law covers variations of a name as well. Therefore, the product known as CUPS is not redistributable as CUPS.
Linus Torvalds has the trademark on Linux. RedHat has the trademark on RedHat. Neither the GPL nor the DFSG says anything about your ability to modify code and claim it's the original version. That is what trademark law was made to prevent. Just as I can't can't write an operating system and call it Linux, you cannot write a printing system and call it CUPS. However since CUPS was released under the GPL, it (the real version) may be freely redistributed as specified in the DFSG.
6. No Discrimination against fields of endeavor None, however the moment a binary only patch is made to the official GPL'd package, the entire GPL'dness of the product is violated.
It is very common for a product to be licensed under more than one license. One example would be GhostScript. Effectively, a product which is dual-licensed can be considered two products, the Free one and the non-Free one. If someone releases a driver based on the non-Free one, that in no way compromises the integrity of the free one. What has been done with CUPS is actually alot better many products, as the version of CUPS which isn't Free is exactly the same as the free version.
7. Distribution of License The program is NOT REDISTRIBUTABLE under the same license , as a different license exists for those who wish to remain closed sourced in API development
CUPS was released under the GPL, therefore it must stay under the GPL. This is consistant with the DFSG guidelines. If companies want to redistribute it under a different license, they may, however once again, they may only do this with the non-Free version. The version which was released under the GPL must be redistributed under the GPL.
CUPS is certainly compliant with the DFSG, as by definition, any GPL'd program is.
It's a big world out there Jon. If you only choose to look at stuff that relates to geekdom, you're missing alot.
Corel has already said that they plan to release all their modifications to the GPL programs. It was even on slashdot, and when it was, you all bitched about how they shouldn't take credit for something they had to do.
This is an internal beta test. They simply don't want places like cheapbytes to start selling CD's to the unwashed masses who would then start complaining that the distribution was buggy and go back to windows (not to return when a stable release came out).
The difference between companies like Corel and your typical open source group is that when Corel puts its name behind a product which is released to the general public, they want it to be rock solid (or atleast stable). They're not trying to steal source code, they just want to get the bugs worked out of their modifications before they release them.
Let me preface this comment by saying that I have never used python, I am simply going by what other people have said about it.
This isn't talking about teaching programming to CS students. This is talking about teaching programming to the general public, early in high school.
Of course CS students could teach themselves C or Pascal(!?!?!), but neither would be good choices for the general public. The main problem with the two languages you mentioned, aside from the fact that they're a bit complicated, is that neither is object oriented (which seems to be where atleast the education community is moving).
The two major languages taught in schools today are C++ and Java, however neither of those would a wise choice. C++ wouldn't be a wise choice for a few reasons. The main reason is that there is very little structure in C++. It is quite possible to write good programs in C++, but if you don't start out with a good background in object oriented programming, you won't. The other problem is that at this point in time, there simply aren't any free compilers which fully implement the ANSI C++ standard. GCC has improved greatly, but it's still not there. Would you want every school to have to purchase a few classrooms worth of MSVC licenses?
Java would be better suited than C++ for the job, as it is a much more structured language, however it too is a bit too complicated. Remember, this is the general public we're talking about. Many of whom don't have computers at home.
What is needed is a basic computer language which isn't BASIC. From what I've heard about it, I think Python fits that quite nicely.
And how do you propose slashdot generates income?
To apply you're argument to X, would be to say "XFree86 is the standard, and it's a good standard. Who needs AccelX when we have XFree86."
UNIX is not the standard, POSIX is the standard. Linux is a POSIX compliant (for the most part) Operating System. If Linux wasn't POSIX compliant, you would have a good argument, but it's probably more POSIX compliant than some actual UNIX's.
Because Linux is POSIX compliant, most software written for Unix will compile on Linux and most software written for Linux will compile on a UNIX. This is yet another reason why it's good to stick to standards. You can write a better implementation, without having to worry about porting software.
In my post, I was referring mostly to games (3dfx and DRI both got me thinking about games). For applications, you are correct, beating on the framebuffer directly is usually a bad thing.
However for an application, the speed at which X draws stuff isn't nearly as critical as it is for games/video players/etc, for whom beating on the fb directly can be an advantage. There's still room for improvement within the X protocol. For example being able to say "draw this widgit" would be much more effecient than saying "draw a line here, and a line here, and a pixel here..." However I think the slight loss of speed due to the client/server architecture is a small price to pay for network transparency.
As to how many servers aside from XF86 support DGA, I'm not sure. My experience with Unix stops with Linux, and my experience with X stops with XF86. I hope that it becomes standard fairly soon, because it's very nice for writting programs in which framerate is important.
In general with X, you do pay a fairly large price due to the network transparency issue; however XSHM and especially XDGA do alot to resolve this. Theoretically, DGA in full screen mode is as fast as windows, though I can't back this up with numbers.
As far as the difficulty of using these extentions is concerned, you make a valid point. However, just as most people don't use Xlib to make X applications, most people don't use XDGA to write games. Instead, they use libraries such as SDL (Simple DirectMedia Layer) which abstracts XDGA (and many other platforms).
If Microsoft controls the market, why are so many companies suddendly jumping on the Linux bandwagon? And if Linux is an open source project maintained by volunteers, then how is Microsoft going to "beat" it? Concerning IE vs. Netscape, IE is simply a better browser. It's faster, much more standards compliant, far more stable. If you don't think it's illegal to crush companies by writing better code, I don't want to live in a world where you have any power. If you think it immoral for them to give it away, then I hope you don't run Linux or any other free software (software given away to crush Microsoft is no different than software given away to crush netscape).
Pepsi offered the plane in a commercial for 7,000,000 pepsi points with no disclaimer saying it wasn't really available. What he figured was that if he got the Pepsi points, he could then take Pepsi to court for not giving him the plane.
Commercials imply alot of things, but this commercial didn't imply that he could get a Harrier, it said he would get a Harrier. If a company said "Wear these shoes and play in the NBA," then yes, you could sue. But companies never say that. They imply it by using hiring NBA players to wear their shoes, and saying things like "These shoes let (insert name of basketball player) compete in the NBA."
Basically, he called Pepsi bluff. Personally, I think he should get the plane (or more likely it's monetary value).
AC posts start at 0. That's why you see so many of the comments as being moderated down. Only 3 comments in this discussion have gone below 0.
No, it's dominated by moderates and pragmatists. Something which we could use a lot more of on slashdot.
I don't doubt that mp3 will be around for a few more years; however the fact of the matter is, after that it will be replaced with something better. That's just how technology works.
The movement behind mp3s will never die, and nobody said it would. And that's what really matters. It's not important what media people use to distribute their music, it's the fact that they can freely distribute their music that's important. Right now the best way to do that is with MP3, but it's not going to be like that forever. Something will come out with is smaller, clearer, and/or freer, and people will use it and be better off because of it.