Umm... who said *any* of the kernel developers "dream of the average person using this OS"? There are certainly a lot of people up on soap-boxes about this particular issue, but I've never once heard, for example, Linus push this view. I know I couldn't care less if Linux was on every desktop. As a developer and general powe-user, it works great for me, and that's what matters.
Bah, clearly you don't get the Linux community/OSS concept at all! The vast majority of people who develop Linux or software for the OSes it's based on are not paid. Moreover, you an quite easily download Linux *for free* from any number of FTP sites. How can you not consider this a gift? The only reason this whole "Linux thing" is viewed as a business is because some companies decided that they could package up Linux (written by people who aren't compensated) with a bunch of applications (also written by people who aren't compensated) and sell it to users who can't download it themselves.
Unfortunately, you'll never really understand this whole Linux thing until you become a developer/contributor, and actually spend *your* free time developing something and distributing it for free, just because you want to. Once you've done that, you'll realize what a generous gift Linux really is, and how you are not, in fact, owed *anything* by the developers. Hell, you should be thanking them for doing what work they have (for free) to allow Linux to exist in them form we have it today.
Now, if you feel your distribution maintainers owe you some support, fine. You paid them, so complain to them. But the guys in the trenches, the ones writing the code, are by and large doing it for nothing. Yes, there is the odd man out getting paid for it, but they are definitely in the minority. So, unless you want to send these kind people money directly, thereby obligating them to help you out, I suggest you re-evaluate your position on this whole open-source thing.
This product appears to be geared toward cable operators (MSOs) who are providing a digital tier as part of their services. You see, in existing cable systems, the entire network must be fairly homogenous. ie, the same set-tops in the home, the same headends in the network, etc, etc. This, of course, locks an MSO in with a particular vendor and reduces competition. According to the hype on their web site, they are providing a product which allows multiple types of set top boxes and multiple head-ends from different vendors to exist in the same network. IOW, it allows the MSO to mix and match hardware to suit their needs.
As for the term "Legacy CA Agnostic", this is actually quite important. What they're saying is that you can roll out this "Passage" technology in a cable network without disrupting the existing cable access system. So, you could roll out a new type of STB in homes if you wanted, or allow people to start purchasing STBs from other vendors, without breaking your current network set up.
As for the architecture, it appears to involve replicating signalling and control data for each of the STB types in the network (using encryption to separate the "channels") and then doing regular broadcast for the video stream. At least, that's what I can get from their Architecture description (which is rather vague... surprise, surprise). This allows for multiple STBs while keeping bandwidth overhead at a minimum, since only the signalling needs to be replicated.
Actually, this is completely, totally different. What you're describing is the ability to extend the transport protocol in a way that doesn't affect existing decoders. Another, simple example of this is the ability to add arbitrary headers to an HTTP request, which would be ignored by clients who don't know about them. What Vorbis is capable of doing is actually stripping audio data out of the stream to generate a smaller, lower-quality version of the original.
The idea is that quality is lost over multiple generations if people re-encode using the same lossy codec. Consider the following situation: Person A downloads/trades/whatever a show which is MP3 encoded, transfers it to CD and then dumps the MP3. Then, some time later, someone asks for a trade for the show, so the person re-encodes the audio. Now we have a second-generation version, which now has compounded errors from the first and second encodings. This process could continue indefinitely. The result is that, over time, the quality of the shows would decrease. So, the rule is, only trade shows in a lossless format, and never, EVER, trade a lossy-enoded show.
Actually, assuming diabetic retinopathy is the condition I think it is (when blood vessels grow over the retina), aren't there treatments either in the works or in the field already involving laser eye surgery to destroy the built-up blood vessels?
Just to come to the defense of the parent poster, it has been said that Tolkien helped to invent the Fantasy genre *as we know it today*. Yes, there are many examples of classical fantasy, but the style that Tolkien wrote in was, and correct me if I'm wrong here, unique.
"IBM AS/400 runs all userspace apps in a VM. I'm not sure how long they go back, but close to 20 years at least."
Umm, VM, in the Java sense, and a virtualization environment, as found in the AS/400 are two entirely different things. As I understand it, the AS/400 provides an environment for virtualizing the hardware. This is more akin to what VMware does. They basically use various tricks to allow an application to execute as if it were the only software running on the CPU. Of course, VMware's job is a lot harder because the x86 makes it very difficult to virtualize the CPU (due to various operations which can't easily be trapped and virtualized by a software monitor... at least, IIRC:). I would guess that the CPU in the AS/400 is much better designed, and hence easier to virtualize (of course, even the ol' 68k was easier to virtualize than the x86).
This is in constrast o the JVM, which is a purely virtual stack-based CPU (albeit, a very specialized one), which is then emulated.
Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, the Boa folks don't give a damn about your so-called "revolution"? That maybe they're writing code because they want to? Because the *like* to? Because it's *fun*? Frankly, this whole talk of "revolutions" and the like sickens my stomache and degrades the old hacker mentality of doing stuff because it's enjoyable and interesting. Hell, I've written plenty of code and released it for free, but I don't do this because I think I *should*. I do it because I hope it might be useful to someone, and because I enjoy creating new things, and learning in the process. But now, we have people like you, who attempt to politicize this so-called "movement". Well, I say f*ck your movement. I'll work on what I want to work on, and code what I want to code, and if people find it useful, great, and if not, well, so it goes. But I'll be damned if I'll write code because someone else feels I should for the "greater good".
I have to question this statement. Given that the GBA VDP has features roughly comparable to the SNES ("mode 7" on the GBA has to be simulated, though), and the GBA has a CPU roughly 4 times faster (3.8 mhz vs 16), it seems to me that the GBA is clearly the winner, in terms of raw performance. At least, IMHO.
Just a note, strong encryption doesn't necessarily add a lot of delay. Symmetric key encryption, like AES, is *very* fast (can be done on the order of GB/s with dedicated hardware) and is (assuming no breakage in the algorithm) quite secure. So, the latency added is probably not that bad, especially relative to the latency induced by the network itself.
Keep in mind that first-generation PSOne games "looked like ass", as well. It wasn't until the second- and third-generation games came out that the power of the PSOne was really tapped. Hell, I remember looking at some of the early PS games and thinking "wow... that looks like crap. So what's the big deal about this thing?" The fact is, it will take another game generation or two before the full power of the PS2 is utilized optimally. Well, at least, IMHO.:)
Well, while the Genesis and SNES were of the same generation, the way the competition played out was a little more complex. The Genesis came out a fair bit before the SNES, as Sega, realizing that the Master System was losing to the technically inferior NES, decided to try and trump Nintendo and release a next-generation console. As a result, there was some time during which the Genesis did, in fact, compete directly with the NES in the gaming market. This is really the primary reason why Sega did so well with the Genesis. It jumped the gun on the competition and got a 16bit console out well before Nintendo. Once the SNES came out, things changed (although, the Genesis did remain successful, since it had captured more of the market).
Interestingly, as far as I can figure, Sega tried this trick again with the 3rd - 3 1/2 generation consoles... it initially released the Saturn which was in competition with the N64. However, it failed to gain any real market share, and so they tried to jump the competition again with the Dreamcast... unfortunately, this failed miserably and basically spelled the demise of Sega in the hardware market.
Just as a note, you list them as separate bottling networks, but most fall under the Coke/Pepsi umbrella. For example, Dr Pepper/Seven Up are Pepsi products (as are many of the others you listed). There actually aren't, in reality, that many competitors in the soft drink market aside from Coke and Pepsi. There are some local or more regionalized companies, but nothing on the order of Coke or Pepsi.
Yeah, but keep in mind that the work to develop the seats is pretty small compared to that needed to build, say, the engine or the chassis. The opposite is true in the OS world. Yes, the kernel is an impressive feat of software development. But the sheer mass of code which encompasses the GNU toolchain is mind-boggling. Hell, gcc itself is huge, let alone the reset of the system.
That would be an erroneous statement, IMHO. The kernel is the kernel. It facilitates things. It provides a substrate upon which an OS can be built. The OS, aka, "operating system" is the collection of tools combine with the kernel which provide a working, useable system. After all, the Linux kernel would be totally useless if we didn't have init, bash, mount, ls, etc, etc.
You forget that the current economic climate is a little... rocky. Even big businesses are looking for places to recover cash. As a result, Linux *could* gain market share because it offers a companies real savings, both in terms of up front licensing costs, as well as long term TCO. Well, in theory, anyway.;)
Just a note, the whole point of SQL is that it's a *declarative* language. The addition of an if-then-else construct completely breaks that model, producing something which is sort-of-but-not-quite procedural. ie, PL-SQL and similar variants. So, no, of course ANSI SQL doesn't have an if-then-else construct... it was never meant to!
Okay, this post made absolutely no sense. The whole idea of being "out of compliance with the GPL" is nonsense, completely. There is nothing stopping them from packaging Linux and their driver together and distributing them. The GPL, under which the Linux kernel is placed, states that if they distribute the Linux kernel, they have to provide source... for the kernel! Same goes for any other *GPL* covered software. Their code, however, is non-GPL... so they don't have to release source for that. As well, Linus himself has stated that binary drivers which are linked to the kernel do not "inherit" the GPL. Does that mean they can't package GPLd and non-GPLd code together? Of course not! Plenty of distributions have done this in the past (Redhat has demos of various closed source apps, IIRC, as part of the CD package). The GPL applies only to the code it's been applied to (along with derivative works, etc... and no, "derivative" does not include being packaged together on the same CD).
Bah, how's that expensive? I don't think I bought a text in University CompSci that wasn't at least $80, and I have a few that were in the $115-$130 range...
Although, it's not really a "rolled" R sound, is it? At least not what I think of as a real rolled R, using the tongue. As I understand it, it's more of a back-of-the-throat sound... but then again, what do I know.:)
Funny, you're assuming I don't like the R&R extension simply because I argued that the usage examples the grand-parent post came up with weren't valid.
Actually, I stand corrected. There is one use I can think of which is mentioned elsewhere: those rotating monitors that people use for desktop publishing...
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Umm... who said *any* of the kernel developers "dream of the average person using this OS"? There are certainly a lot of people up on soap-boxes about this particular issue, but I've never once heard, for example, Linus push this view. I know I couldn't care less if Linux was on every desktop. As a developer and general powe-user, it works great for me, and that's what matters.
Bah, clearly you don't get the Linux community/OSS concept at all! The vast majority of people who develop Linux or software for the OSes it's based on are not paid. Moreover, you an quite easily download Linux *for free* from any number of FTP sites. How can you not consider this a gift? The only reason this whole "Linux thing" is viewed as a business is because some companies decided that they could package up Linux (written by people who aren't compensated) with a bunch of applications (also written by people who aren't compensated) and sell it to users who can't download it themselves.
Unfortunately, you'll never really understand this whole Linux thing until you become a developer/contributor, and actually spend *your* free time developing something and distributing it for free, just because you want to. Once you've done that, you'll realize what a generous gift Linux really is, and how you are not, in fact, owed *anything* by the developers. Hell, you should be thanking them for doing what work they have (for free) to allow Linux to exist in them form we have it today.
Now, if you feel your distribution maintainers owe you some support, fine. You paid them, so complain to them. But the guys in the trenches, the ones writing the code, are by and large doing it for nothing. Yes, there is the odd man out getting paid for it, but they are definitely in the minority. So, unless you want to send these kind people money directly, thereby obligating them to help you out, I suggest you re-evaluate your position on this whole open-source thing.
Bah, IMHO, that pales in comparison to the experience of seing Generations on the big screen. *shudder*
This product appears to be geared toward cable operators (MSOs) who are providing a digital tier as part of their services. You see, in existing cable systems, the entire network must be fairly homogenous. ie, the same set-tops in the home, the same headends in the network, etc, etc. This, of course, locks an MSO in with a particular vendor and reduces competition. According to the hype on their web site, they are providing a product which allows multiple types of set top boxes and multiple head-ends from different vendors to exist in the same network. IOW, it allows the MSO to mix and match hardware to suit their needs.
As for the term "Legacy CA Agnostic", this is actually quite important. What they're saying is that you can roll out this "Passage" technology in a cable network without disrupting the existing cable access system. So, you could roll out a new type of STB in homes if you wanted, or allow people to start purchasing STBs from other vendors, without breaking your current network set up.
As for the architecture, it appears to involve replicating signalling and control data for each of the STB types in the network (using encryption to separate the "channels") and then doing regular broadcast for the video stream. At least, that's what I can get from their Architecture description (which is rather vague... surprise, surprise). This allows for multiple STBs while keeping bandwidth overhead at a minimum, since only the signalling needs to be replicated.
Actually, this is completely, totally different. What you're describing is the ability to extend the transport protocol in a way that doesn't affect existing decoders. Another, simple example of this is the ability to add arbitrary headers to an HTTP request, which would be ignored by clients who don't know about them. What Vorbis is capable of doing is actually stripping audio data out of the stream to generate a smaller, lower-quality version of the original.
The idea is that quality is lost over multiple generations if people re-encode using the same lossy codec. Consider the following situation: Person A downloads/trades/whatever a show which is MP3 encoded, transfers it to CD and then dumps the MP3. Then, some time later, someone asks for a trade for the show, so the person re-encodes the audio. Now we have a second-generation version, which now has compounded errors from the first and second encodings. This process could continue indefinitely. The result is that, over time, the quality of the shows would decrease. So, the rule is, only trade shows in a lossless format, and never, EVER, trade a lossy-enoded show.
Actually, assuming diabetic retinopathy is the condition I think it is (when blood vessels grow over the retina), aren't there treatments either in the works or in the field already involving laser eye surgery to destroy the built-up blood vessels?
Just to come to the defense of the parent poster, it has been said that Tolkien helped to invent the Fantasy genre *as we know it today*. Yes, there are many examples of classical fantasy, but the style that Tolkien wrote in was, and correct me if I'm wrong here, unique.
"IBM AS/400 runs all userspace apps in a VM. I'm not sure how long they go back, but close to 20 years at least."
:). I would guess that the CPU in the AS/400 is much better designed, and hence easier to virtualize (of course, even the ol' 68k was easier to virtualize than the x86).
Umm, VM, in the Java sense, and a virtualization environment, as found in the AS/400 are two entirely different things. As I understand it, the AS/400 provides an environment for virtualizing the hardware. This is more akin to what VMware does. They basically use various tricks to allow an application to execute as if it were the only software running on the CPU. Of course, VMware's job is a lot harder because the x86 makes it very difficult to virtualize the CPU (due to various operations which can't easily be trapped and virtualized by a software monitor... at least, IIRC
This is in constrast o the JVM, which is a purely virtual stack-based CPU (albeit, a very specialized one), which is then emulated.
This is probably a troll, but...
Did it ever occur to you that maybe, just maybe, the Boa folks don't give a damn about your so-called "revolution"? That maybe they're writing code because they want to? Because the *like* to? Because it's *fun*? Frankly, this whole talk of "revolutions" and the like sickens my stomache and degrades the old hacker mentality of doing stuff because it's enjoyable and interesting. Hell, I've written plenty of code and released it for free, but I don't do this because I think I *should*. I do it because I hope it might be useful to someone, and because I enjoy creating new things, and learning in the process. But now, we have people like you, who attempt to politicize this so-called "movement". Well, I say f*ck your movement. I'll work on what I want to work on, and code what I want to code, and if people find it useful, great, and if not, well, so it goes. But I'll be damned if I'll write code because someone else feels I should for the "greater good".
"They're roughly equivalent in power"
I have to question this statement. Given that the GBA VDP has features roughly comparable to the SNES ("mode 7" on the GBA has to be simulated, though), and the GBA has a CPU roughly 4 times faster (3.8 mhz vs 16), it seems to me that the GBA is clearly the winner, in terms of raw performance. At least, IMHO.
Just a note, strong encryption doesn't necessarily add a lot of delay. Symmetric key encryption, like AES, is *very* fast (can be done on the order of GB/s with dedicated hardware) and is (assuming no breakage in the algorithm) quite secure. So, the latency added is probably not that bad, especially relative to the latency induced by the network itself.
Keep in mind that first-generation PSOne games "looked like ass", as well. It wasn't until the second- and third-generation games came out that the power of the PSOne was really tapped. Hell, I remember looking at some of the early PS games and thinking "wow... that looks like crap. So what's the big deal about this thing?" The fact is, it will take another game generation or two before the full power of the PS2 is utilized optimally. Well, at least, IMHO. :)
Well, while the Genesis and SNES were of the same generation, the way the competition played out was a little more complex. The Genesis came out a fair bit before the SNES, as Sega, realizing that the Master System was losing to the technically inferior NES, decided to try and trump Nintendo and release a next-generation console. As a result, there was some time during which the Genesis did, in fact, compete directly with the NES in the gaming market. This is really the primary reason why Sega did so well with the Genesis. It jumped the gun on the competition and got a 16bit console out well before Nintendo. Once the SNES came out, things changed (although, the Genesis did remain successful, since it had captured more of the market).
Interestingly, as far as I can figure, Sega tried this trick again with the 3rd - 3 1/2 generation consoles... it initially released the Saturn which was in competition with the N64. However, it failed to gain any real market share, and so they tried to jump the competition again with the Dreamcast... unfortunately, this failed miserably and basically spelled the demise of Sega in the hardware market.
Just as a note, you list them as separate bottling networks, but most fall under the Coke/Pepsi umbrella. For example, Dr Pepper/Seven Up are Pepsi products (as are many of the others you listed). There actually aren't, in reality, that many competitors in the soft drink market aside from Coke and Pepsi. There are some local or more regionalized companies, but nothing on the order of Coke or Pepsi.
Actually, this is a myth.
Yeah, but keep in mind that the work to develop the seats is pretty small compared to that needed to build, say, the engine or the chassis. The opposite is true in the OS world. Yes, the kernel is an impressive feat of software development. But the sheer mass of code which encompasses the GNU toolchain is mind-boggling. Hell, gcc itself is huge, let alone the reset of the system.
That would be an erroneous statement, IMHO. The kernel is the kernel. It facilitates things. It provides a substrate upon which an OS can be built. The OS, aka, "operating system" is the collection of tools combine with the kernel which provide a working, useable system. After all, the Linux kernel would be totally useless if we didn't have init, bash, mount, ls, etc, etc.
You forget that the current economic climate is a little... rocky. Even big businesses are looking for places to recover cash. As a result, Linux *could* gain market share because it offers a companies real savings, both in terms of up front licensing costs, as well as long term TCO. Well, in theory, anyway. ;)
Just a note, the whole point of SQL is that it's a *declarative* language. The addition of an if-then-else construct completely breaks that model, producing something which is sort-of-but-not-quite procedural. ie, PL-SQL and similar variants. So, no, of course ANSI SQL doesn't have an if-then-else construct... it was never meant to!
Okay, this post made absolutely no sense. The whole idea of being "out of compliance with the GPL" is nonsense, completely. There is nothing stopping them from packaging Linux and their driver together and distributing them. The GPL, under which the Linux kernel is placed, states that if they distribute the Linux kernel, they have to provide source... for the kernel! Same goes for any other *GPL* covered software. Their code, however, is non-GPL... so they don't have to release source for that. As well, Linus himself has stated that binary drivers which are linked to the kernel do not "inherit" the GPL. Does that mean they can't package GPLd and non-GPLd code together? Of course not! Plenty of distributions have done this in the past (Redhat has demos of various closed source apps, IIRC, as part of the CD package). The GPL applies only to the code it's been applied to (along with derivative works, etc... and no, "derivative" does not include being packaged together on the same CD).
Bah, how's that expensive? I don't think I bought a text in University CompSci that wasn't at least $80, and I have a few that were in the $115-$130 range...
Although, it's not really a "rolled" R sound, is it? At least not what I think of as a real rolled R, using the tongue. As I understand it, it's more of a back-of-the-throat sound... but then again, what do I know. :)
Funny, you're assuming I don't like the R&R extension simply because I argued that the usage examples the grand-parent post came up with weren't valid.
Actually, I stand corrected. There is one use I can think of which is mentioned elsewhere: those rotating monitors that people use for desktop publishing...