Thanks to Linux's open nature it has recently been ported to IBM's mainframes. I truly doubt that that Windows 2000 could compete with Linux on a S/390. Which is sort of ironic, because it also can't compete with Linux on an old 386.
According to this survey it would appear that Dell doesn't even think that Windows 2000 competes with Linux plus TUX for web serving on Dell hardware.
Yes, but the rest of us find it much easier to read text that is correctly punctuated and capitalized. Not that you should care. Unless, of course, you want us to take your posts seriously. The fact that you are out of school doesn't make your poorly formatted text any easier to read, nor does it excuse your fuzzy-headed reasoning.
If you are writing something that you would like others to read you might consider their comfort. Otherwise don't be surprised if people simply skip over your posts. That would be unfortunate in this particular case because your original post was quite interesting. Why hide your good points with poor formatting?
It may sound trite in this world of fast food and VB programming, but the old adage is still true: "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right."
First of all, these benchmarks (both the Win2k benchmarks and the Linux benchmarks) were posted by Dell, not by some random Linux zealots. Not only is that the case, but the other WinTel vendors have very similar scores for their WinTel hardware. Does this suddenly mean that all of the W2K vendors are conspiring to make Linux + TUX on Dell hardware look good? Or could it possibly mean that all research that Microsoft funded in the Mindcraft benchmarks is coming to fruition? My guess is that the folks at Microsoft are going to start to truly understand the power of release early, release often. While W2K has sat relatively still basking in its Mindcraft glory the Linux community has targetted the specific problems Linux had that caused it to do poorly in the Mindcraft benchmarks, and has rectified them.
Second of all this is a SPECweb benchmark. The web part of SPECweb would tend to indicate that it is a benchmark of http performance. If you read the spec you would notice that it specifically measures both static and dynamic http content serving. So while this does not necessarily mean that Linux is better than Windows 2000 it probably does mean that Linux + TUX is better than Windows 2000 + IIS (for the things measured by the benchmarks).
Your observation that most Internet facing sites don't have anywhere near this sort of bandwidth is certainly correct. However, my Intranet server does have this much bandwidth (not that I would appreciate it if it saturated this bandwidth). Besides, if you are going to let bandwidth be the limiting factor then it really doesn't matter what kind of web server you are using. A 486 running Apache will happily saturate a T1 with static content.
Not that any of this matters. The two most important features, to me anyway, of Linux are 1) Freedom, and 2) Cost. Linux wins hands-down if these are the factors that you value most.
From the results you must either conclude that Dell (and the rest of the WinTel vendors) are either trying to make Windows 2000 look bad, or you must conclude that Linux + TUX is going to make one heck of a compelling case as a web platform.
Either way it looks bad for Windows 2000 as a web server OS.
I am sorry that you imagined some sort of slight against the French (or against goat farmers for that matter). I called Jose a "cranky French goat farmer" because that is what he apparently is. This is not a slight against the French. Heck, Americans have more than their share of crackpots as well. If you want to feel slighted because you agree with Jose's attack on McDonald's then go ahead and feel insulted. As far as I am concerned anyone who thinks that Jose is some sort of freedom fighter is clearly an idiot.
Seriously, how cracked do you have to be to vandalize a McDonald's because the U.S. has closed its borders to your cheese. This is especially true if you happen to oppose globalization. It's wrong for Americans to try and sell hamburgers in France, but it is perfectly all right for the French to try and sell their Roquefort cheese here in the U.S. After all, French cheese is anti-globalist, pure, natural, healthy cheese.
Are you starting to see the reason why I have a hard time accepting Jose as something besides a crackpot? He isn't against globalization any more than I am. He wants to be free to sell his cheese for the highest prices possible, even if it means he has to ship his cheese clear to America to obtain those high prices. He doesn't want McDonald's, however, to have the same right to sell their hamburgers in France. Despite the fact that apparently McDonald's is fairly popular in France.
Don Quixote tilted windmills that he thought were giants. That did not make him a hero. Jose is a glory seeking cheese maker seeking to make his inane point through vandalism. He likewise is no hero.
What ticks me off about this particular Katz rant is that Jon Katz would equate the founding fathers of the United States with a French farmer who is upset because he can no longer sell his cheese in the U.S.
Give me a break, Washington could have been king, but he turned it down because he was more interested in the liberty of the common man than his own welfare. Napolean, on his deathbed was reported to have said that "they expected another Washington," and somehow a cranky French goat farmer is his moral equivalent in the 21st Century. That's like saying that I am the moral equivalent of Florence Nightingale because I gave blood last week.
Heck yeah! Goat cheese rocks. I somehow cultivated a taste for the stuff when I lived in Chile, and now that I am back in the states you just can't get quality goat cheese.
Who encourages them to do all of these dastardly girl-stereotype things? There is actually quite a bit of evidence that much of this behavior is not learned, but is instinctual.
I know for a fact that my little 18 month girl already displays many of the stereotypes that you are ascribing to cultural engineering. For example, her favorite toy is a ugly hairless little doll that apparently materialized in our home. I am not exactly how it came to be in her possession (neither my wife nor I was interested in giving our daughter toys that were "gender biased), but I don't dare take the darn thing away from her. Last time I took it away she wandered around the house looking for it for hours, crying all the while. She doesn't even form sentences and she is already playing with dolls!
I am not stating that cultural engineering doesn't happen. I have lived in different countries, and so I have a pretty good idea at how important our customs can become. I simply am not willing to believe that there is some mysterious "them" that is using our culture as a weapon against us. Nor do I believe that counter-cultures like the Goths are somehow more enlightened than those that more closely fit the gender stereotypes. Painting my hair green and putting a nail through my nose does not make me any harder to stereotype. In fact, it makes it easier. Now instead of guessing my observers could simply conclude that I was a "Goth," with all that this generally entails.
Cultures have grown, for good or ill, out of the combined observations of millions of people over hundreds and thousands of years. Social norms and morals generally have distinct biological reasoning behind them that has allowed these cultures to pass on to the next generation. In a way cultures evolve in much the same way as the genetic hosts that they are propogated on. The 1950's Beaver Cleaver culture that you rail against is simply a culture that has been fairly successful at being propogated, although it certainly has undergone a great deal of modification in the last few generations.
I would guess that the reason that girls that are geeks are classified as geek girls is that there are so few female geeks that being male is implied. It is unfortunate if it made you feel ostracized, but it almost certainly is unintentional on the part of the geek community.
After all, this is the same group of people that wore directory listing down until there was nothing left but `ls' and yet somehow created approximately 400 legal flags for `tar'. We want a maximum of efficiency without sacrificing for flexibility. Hence the more common male geek is simply a `geek' and a female geek is a `girl geek'. Also note how this notation leaves room for geeks from other species (eg. `alien geek'). You will also note that your geek friends probably don't refer to you either as a `girl geek' or even as a generic `geek' (with the male implication), but instead refer to you more directly as the_v (or perhaps simply v).
The "guys" that somehow supposed that "girls can't be geeks" are A) clearly not geeks, and B) probably delusional. After all, anyone who holds to such an idea in the face of all of the available evidence is clearly not geeky enough to truly be considered a geek.
P.S. I prefer the term nerd, but that is probably because I don't have any friends.
Once again, the GPL proponents (at least the ones with two neurons to rub together) do not object to others using their code. They merely object to others using their code without sharing. To this end they have crafted a license that requires that the source code be available if you are distributing binaries.
The BSD proponents, on the other hand, are concerned about maintaining the right to distribute binaries without source. They usually put it in terms that aren't quite as crass, but that is essentially the difference. As you can no doubt see the two goals are at odds. One camp is trying to guarantee source code availability and one is trying guarantee the right to deny source code.
The hypocrisy is that the BSD advocates don't mind one bit if you borrow their code and put it into a commercial product, but they get all upset when you put the same code into a GPLed product. Both uses are equally legal, and if your primary goal is sharing source code the GPLed version is infinitely more acceptable.
The only reason that the GPL would be unacceptable is if you wanted to use bits to build software that you weren't going to share. In other words if you were hypocritical about sharing your software you would want to make sure that it was all BSD licensed. If you were convinced that sharing source was the answer then the GPL is just as good (if not better).
Either way it makes little difference to the developers of MySQL. They have realized, and rightly so, that no one would be interested in their product if it was just another closed piece of commercial software. They have also realized that the GPL allows them to increase the circulation and useage of MySQL while at the same time maintaining control the development of MySQL.
Quite frankly the GPL is the best of both worlds for them. The people who use MySQL will be able to continue to do so. The people who distribute MySQL for them will have new opportunities to do so. And yet their competitors will not be able to steal their IP (without sharing anyway). They can even release versions licensed under a commercial license for people who don't want to abide by the GPL and who are willing to pay for the privilege. You can't do that with the BSD style licenses.
There is nothing hypocritical about any of this. It's simply a practical matter. I suppose that if you don't like it you can always use PostgreSQL. I do.
If insert time is critical (it was for me too), you can always turn off the fsync() calls with a simple -F flag in your postmaster call. If you then insert your rows in one transaction they will insert "much" quicker. In fact, if you aren't already using a single transaction perhaps that alone would give you the speed up that you need.
If you do turn off the calls fsync() remember to get a good UPS, as a power-outage in the wrong spot could net you a inconsistent database.
It's not hypocrisy at all. The GPL people believe that you shouldn't be able to ship binaries without source code. The BSD people believe that there should be no restrictions on binaries made from their source. The only thing keeping the BSD people from "borrowing" GPLed software is that they are not interested in abiding by the GPL precepts that require that source code be available with the binaries.
You can't hardly blame the GPL folks if they are willing to take the BSD folks up on their word. After all, it is the BSD style licenses that specifically allow you to re-license the software under more restrictive terms. Commercial software developers are perfectly free to take the software and release a closed source product derived from it. Why shouldn't the GPL folks be allowed to take the software and include it in their GPLed software? After all, GPLed software is just like commercial software except you have the right to source code.
The fact of the matter is that anyone can "borrow" GPLed code, they just have to release the source code when they are done. This isn't hypocrisy. It's what the FSF stands for.
The BSD style licenses make sense if you are using someone else's code as they allow you to make your own proprietary changes and they allow you to borrow code and put it in your closed source software. In other words, BSD style licenses are great if you are not the primary author.
If you are the primary author, and especially if you have a product like MySQL which already has a large user base, the GPL makes more sense. Why is that, you ask? It's quite simple. The GPL will guarantee that none of your competitors "borrow" your coolest features and incorporate them into their closed software. Basically anyone who uses your code will have to give you a copy of their enhancements. This is good. Your competitors don't have to share under the BSD style licenses. You can even release your very own enhancements under a closed source commercial license. After all, you hold the copyright, and dual licensing allows you the best of both worlds. People that want to use the free version are stuck with the conditions of the GPL and people who want to produce commercial versions have to pay you money to get a version under a different license. If you make your contributors sign their copyrights over to you on their improvements then you can release the product under as many different licenses as your lawyers and accountants dream up. And your users they will want to do this because they probably don't want to go through the trouble of tracking your changes to the codebase to make sure their patches still work.
Cygnus showed how this sort of development guarantees that it is difficult for a competitor to co-opt "your" GPLed application. Since the creators of MySQL have access to all of the enhancements that might be made, and have more expertise in the software than anyone else, it should be a trivial matter for them to maintain their status as official MySQL maintainer. That would then in turn guarantee that they get the bulk of the contracts for MySQL support, maintenance, and extension. That is potentially a very large market.
In short, this is almost certainly not a question of whether or not BSD is better than Linux or visa versa. It is about the promotion of MySQL without losing precious intellectual value to competitors or spawning an incompatible closed source commercial version from one of MySQL's competitors based on MySQL code.
To give you an idea of why this might be important take a look at MySQL's primary open source competitor PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL is under a BSD style license. This means that the MySQL folks can borrow as much PostgreSQL code as they please. On the other hand the PostgreSQL folk can't borrow MySQL code and combine it with their BSD licensed code without release their entire project under the GPL! Since they are unlikely to want to do this, the MySQL will remain off limits to them. This could give the MySQL folks a distinct advantage in the upcoming horserace. Being able to borrow BSD code certainly never hurt Linux.
A trojan is an advertisement server that steals my bandwidth (and possibly my private information) disguised as a children's game. The difference between Netscape's bug tracking software and this agent are quite obvious. Netscape's bug tracking software asks my permission. Mattell doesn't bother with something as old fashioned as permission.
Which consumers asked for this feature?
on
Mattel Spyware
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· Score: 4
If there is one thing that I think single handedly guarantees the continued existance of the Open Source movement it is stuff like this. Software companies have gotten so arrogant that it is absolutely crazy. Honestly, you can't even buy a simple children's game nowadays without worrying about a company foisting Trojan horse software on you. Did Mattel honestly think that they wouldn't get caught? Did they think that no one would care? If the commercial software houses keep this stuff up then pretty soon even the most neophyte computer users will be demanding that the source code to their software be "open."
Even more ironic is the fact that Mattel was probably using this software to gather marketing information. Imagine their surprise when they come to the conclusion that 99 out of 100 Americans don't feel like purchasing software from companies that might potentially be spying on their children!
That's just the point. Someone will provide high quality video/audio to the consumer. And when they do there will be those that break ranks with the rest of the "consortium" and they will try to profit from the new technology.
Some of these breakaway technologies will fail, but one of them will undoubtedly gain the critical mass necessary to force the content providers to switch to the new media or face destruction. Some of the industry elite will jump to late, and will become also rans. The people who were first movers on this new technology will fill their spots among the industry elite and will immediately throw all of their efforts into subverting any change to the status quo.
The high and mighty have opposed change throughout history, but it still has marched inexorably forward.
The fact that DVD players can't include firewire simply means that the DVD firewire combination is not going to be the combination that breaks open the digital media dam. Someone will have to come up with something else.
Don't worry though, they will. Just don't expect it to come from a source that has competing products in a much higher price range.
Would it be legal to study QPLed code and then create a non-QPLed version of it. This is an honest question as I believed that such a work would be a derivative and would therefore also fall under the QPL.
In fact, I thought that having the source code available actually made it harder to be able to reverse engineer. After all, most of the KDE developers have seen the code to QT, and are therefore tainted when it comes to reverse engineering.
If reverse engineering isn't necessary in this case, and you can simply look at the source code and rewrite it in your own words then I could probably create a LGPLed version, and I am a far cry from a competent C++ hacker.
Which leads me to believe that it probably isn't as easy as that, or it would have already been done. If Harmony hackers could use QT sources then why did the project die? After all, it should have only gotten easier.
Not only is Motif dead, but the few people who are actively using it were more than happy to stick with the functionality of Motif 1.2. Since the interface wasn't in flux it became possible for LessTif to catch up.
Even with all of this going for LessTif it still took years for it to become a useable replacement for Motif.
If the KDE people would promise to not use any of the new versions of QT (or at least any of the new functionality) then it would be possible for Harmony to catch up. Unfortunately they aren't even remotely interested in doing that.
Harmony is dead. The people who should be most interested in it's resurrection couldn't give a rip if it dies or not, and the people ideologically bound to the idea of free software have already switched to Gnome.
And so now the KDE users are stuck. The two main pieces of software that they rely on are based on two mutually exclusive licenses with similar names, the QPL and the GPL. Not that this is any different than where KDE has always been. Licensing will continue to be an issue, and KDE will continue to lose users and mindshare simply because they didn't read the license carefully enough.
The person writing the software gets to choose the version.
Yes, I realize that, but there are significant portions of KDE that the KDE team did not write. How many of those authors will be willing to specifically allow the linking of QT? And the KDE team has not been stringent about having patch submitters sign over their copyrights either. What if one of those folks complains?
Not too mention the fact that all the KDE team would have to do is say GPL 2.0 with the exception that you can link QT and their software would already be perfectly legal. That was what the $3000 in question was supposed to be for. However, it turned out that the KDE team was not interested because changing the license at this point would be very difficult. So instead the KDE team has been unwilling to even look at the possibility that they might be legally obligated to change their license.
As for your statement that copyright doesn't allow you to forbid anything, of course it does. It allows you to forbid redistribution. That's all the GPL is doing. It disallows redistribution unless you agree to it's license. The terms of the license are quite clear.
Your statement that the GPL is somehow unlikely to be found legal because it "forbids" simply does not stand up. The GPL does no such thing. It simply does not allow redistribution unless you follow the terms of the license. It is no different than a photographer allowing you to make copies of his copyright work (probably because you paid him money). The GPL simply puts forth a list of things that have to happen before redistribution is allowed. If those clauses are not met, then the copyright defaults kick in which state "thou shalt not copy."
It's really no different than commercial software. Except for the fact that they hardly ever allow you to distribute their software. Their licenses even restrict the "use" of material that you have bought and paid for. If the GPL isn't legal then commercial software licenses don't have a prayer.
The DMCA is simply more proof that the big money would probably be on the side of the GPL were it to go to court. A ruling against the GPL would be a ruling against software licenses everywhere, and Microsoft, Sun, AOL, IBM, Time Warner, and the whole rest of the crowd is not likely to stand up to that.
The KDE team somehow feels that they can simply ignore the legal ramifications of their actions, and possibly they can. There is a good chance that none of the requisite people will complain (on the other hand there is a good chance that some of the code that KDE has borrowed is under FSF copyright). But don't be surprised when organizations like Debian take the legal (and moral) high road.
Harmony would almost certainly be a good thing. Unfortunately there are several HUGE strikes against it. First of all, as the other poster already pointed out there is already a perfectly acceptable LGPLed toolkit in GTK+. It even has C++ bindings. Second of all the KDE team has specifically stated that they will incorporate new QT features into KDE. This means that Harmony would continually be in catch up mode.
If there is one thing that the Free Software Foundation and Free Software hackers everywhere have learned it's that it is very hard to chase a proprietary standard. LessTif and Wine are both good examples of why it is simply much easier to support free APIs instead of reverse engineering proprietary ones. If KDE promised not to use any new features, then we could at least hope to get Harmony to the same point that QT is at now. Once Harmony was up to par then Harmony and KDE could grow together. Without the support of the KDE team Harmony doesn't have a chance.
Besides, it is the KDE team that made the mistake of using QT in the first place. They should be the ones creating Harmony (no pun intended). The FSF, Debian, RMS, RedHat, and a whole pile of Free Software hackers have been pointing out the dangers of using QT since before the KDE project was started. The users that didn't stand up for freedom then should not expect someone else to bail them out now.
Remember, for folks like RMS free software isn't about popularity, it's about freedom. The fact that there are quite a few KDE means very little.
The KDE team has acted irresponsibly from day one. These complaints are in no way new complaints. Debian has, to the best of my knowledge, never included KDE despite the fact that the KDE license has been changed for some time.
It makes me glad that I didn't spend any of my time learning QT. It's issues like this that will guarantee that Gnome becomes the desktop of choice. GTK+ and Gnome are advancing rapidly, and there is no question what my rights as a user are.
Read Section 9 of the GPL. It basically states that the person receiving the software can choose to use this version of the GPL or any future versions at his/her choice. All Stallman would have to do is change the GPL so that it specifically closes that loophole. He could easily guarantee that mixing the QPL and GPL was illegal, and then the KDE team would be forced to comment out all of the GPLed software that they have been using.
Not only that, but while the GPL itself has never been tested in court there are literally hundreds of years of copyright law history that would support using copyright to grant certain permissions and to forbid others. Even worse, nearly the entire software industry has a stake in maintaining strong copyright law. That's the reason why NeXT gave in when they were in violation of the GPL in regards to their use of gcc, and it is the reason that Microsoft recently made sure that they were not GPL violators as it regarded their Interix software.
In today's digital economy maintaining the power of copyright is even more important than ever. Some of the biggest businesses in the world are using copyright law to control their intellectual property. So don't go around assuming that the GPL would be declared invalid.
All of this adds up to trouble for KDE, which is why they aren't interested in having these discussions come up. They remember very well what happened when RedHat, Debian, and the Free Software hackers took a stand last time. Gnome was born. The last thing that they want to do is add fuel to the Gnome fire. Unfortunately for them, that is precisely what they are doing.
Bruce Momjian (from the PostgreSQL steering committee is currently working on a book for Addison-Wesley. Not only is the book very good, but it is also available online at the PostgreSQL web site, and is available in either HTML or PDF formats.
The book is pretty complete, and even has sample programs using the 13 (Yikes!) available programming interfaces. Allowing you to compare the interfaces to Python, Perl, C, PHP, Java, and all the rest. Although I have to admit that it is a little strange that Bruce's Perl example is using the Pg module and not DBD::Pg. For those of you that are curious there is a DBI interface for PostgreSQL, and it is quite good.
Unfortunately in this particular case it would appear that O'Reilly has been beaten to the punch. I would highly doubt that O'Reilly would be able to find someone that knows PostgreSQL as well as Mr. Momjian, and the book is very well written. So if you are like me and use PostgreSQL quite a bit you will undoubtedly have to settle for at least one book on your bookshelf that isn't from O'Reilly. It's too bad really, I sort of like having all of my books match, and the O'Reilly Animal Series covers are very cool:).
Believe it or not, there are quite a few people who do believe that alcohol is a problem for society. In fact, nearly everyone with two functioning brain cells to rub together probably realizes that alcohol abuse, drunk driving, etc. are very serious problems indeed.
The people who are interested in the legalization of marijuana inevitably point to alcohol as the reason why marijuana should be legalized, and yet alcohol abuse is one of the biggest societal problems that we have (worldwide). It is absolutely amazing the percentage of crimes that are committed while under the influence of alcohol, the amount of deaths due to drunk driving, and the amount of physical abuse that can be directly attributed to alcohol. So saying that marijuana is "less harmful than alcohol" is setting the bar quite low.
In fact, alcohol is so dangerous to society that the U.S. at one point made it illegal. And it would probably still be a controlled substance except for the fact that alcohol is too darn easy to manufacture illegally.
As for drug tests, your employer has rights too. For example, employers don't want to hire people that are likely to come to work in an "altered state." And so in order to apply for work at most employers you are required to pass a voluntary drug test. If you feel that this is an invasion of your privacy you are perfectly free to apply elsewhere. The fact that some "drug-crazed wasters" are able to circumvent these tests does not make them any less valid. For every drug abuser that gets away there are some that get caught. At the very least it forces the drug users to be cautious, and that makes the world safer for all of us.
Believe me, people lose their jobs for drug abuse on a regular basis. We had a rather large drug bust where I work just a few months ago. People lost their jobs and will never work here again.
Woah, I hope that was just a bold tag that got away.
Like I said, I am not a World Bank supporter. I would agree that they are part of the problem. I would also go on the record as being against globalism. I don't want a world government, and I have serious problems with any entity that can exert power on such a global scale.
That being said, the World Bank's privatization policy is exactly the kind of medicine that the poorer nations of South America need. Unfortunately, the corruption in places like Bolivia and Peru pretty much guarantee problems like this.
Blaming the corruption of the Bolivian government on the World Bank seems awfully unfair, however. The World Bank wanted Bolivia to privatise their water distribution, but they probably didn't tell them to only consider one bid. That sort of corruption they did on their own.
Believe it or not companies like the rule of law. They will happily use bribery if that is the only way to get the job done, but bribery is a two-edged sword. The person that you are bribing today so that you can have sole access to the water system in Cochabamba is the same guy that could accept a bribe tommorrow from your competitor and grant them sole access to the water system in Cochabamba (plus whatever improvements you have made). Companies may want to cheat, but even more than that they want some structure in place that keeps the other guys from cheating. More than anything it is this sort of corruption that keeps capital out of countries like Bolivia and Peru, and guarantees that the poor will stay poor. Blaming the World Bank or the IMF is just pure scapegoating.
Once again I am not a supporter of the World Bank nor the IMF, but I think that far too often they take the blame for things that are completely outside their control. Besides, where would Bolivia be without the money that they have borrowed from foreign banks? The people of Cochabamba probably wouldn't have a water system at all. Their plight would certainly be much worse than it is now without the capital that they receive from these sources.
So before you start spouting about US Imperialism think about what the lack of organizations like the World Bank and the IMF would mean for developing countries. No one is forcing these countries to take this money.
Exactly, now all of a sudden Microsoft has to find a way to sell software in Third world countries (as opposed to having it "borrowed"), and they hit on the obvious idea. Hey, let's rent the stuff! That will force everyone to pay, and it will give us the chance to lock up our users documents so tight they will never get them out of our grasp.
If someone complains we will point to the license they clicked through and show them how not only do they not own the software they have been renting, but they don't even own the content that they have created with the software.
Woohoo, we'll be rich!
In fact, it's already started. It is already impossible to get a copy of Windows with the new PC you buy. You might get a recover disk, but if you upgrade the hardware you don't have an installable version of the OS.
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Thanks to Linux's open nature it has recently been ported to IBM's mainframes. I truly doubt that that Windows 2000 could compete with Linux on a S/390. Which is sort of ironic, because it also can't compete with Linux on an old 386.
According to this survey it would appear that Dell doesn't even think that Windows 2000 competes with Linux plus TUX for web serving on Dell hardware.
I wonder what that could possibly mean :).
Yes, but the rest of us find it much easier to read text that is correctly punctuated and capitalized. Not that you should care. Unless, of course, you want us to take your posts seriously. The fact that you are out of school doesn't make your poorly formatted text any easier to read, nor does it excuse your fuzzy-headed reasoning.
If you are writing something that you would like others to read you might consider their comfort. Otherwise don't be surprised if people simply skip over your posts. That would be unfortunate in this particular case because your original post was quite interesting. Why hide your good points with poor formatting?
It may sound trite in this world of fast food and VB programming, but the old adage is still true: "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing right."
First of all, these benchmarks (both the Win2k benchmarks and the Linux benchmarks) were posted by Dell, not by some random Linux zealots. Not only is that the case, but the other WinTel vendors have very similar scores for their WinTel hardware. Does this suddenly mean that all of the W2K vendors are conspiring to make Linux + TUX on Dell hardware look good? Or could it possibly mean that all research that Microsoft funded in the Mindcraft benchmarks is coming to fruition? My guess is that the folks at Microsoft are going to start to truly understand the power of release early, release often. While W2K has sat relatively still basking in its Mindcraft glory the Linux community has targetted the specific problems Linux had that caused it to do poorly in the Mindcraft benchmarks, and has rectified them.
Second of all this is a SPECweb benchmark. The web part of SPECweb would tend to indicate that it is a benchmark of http performance. If you read the spec you would notice that it specifically measures both static and dynamic http content serving. So while this does not necessarily mean that Linux is better than Windows 2000 it probably does mean that Linux + TUX is better than Windows 2000 + IIS (for the things measured by the benchmarks).
Your observation that most Internet facing sites don't have anywhere near this sort of bandwidth is certainly correct. However, my Intranet server does have this much bandwidth (not that I would appreciate it if it saturated this bandwidth). Besides, if you are going to let bandwidth be the limiting factor then it really doesn't matter what kind of web server you are using. A 486 running Apache will happily saturate a T1 with static content.
Not that any of this matters. The two most important features, to me anyway, of Linux are 1) Freedom, and 2) Cost. Linux wins hands-down if these are the factors that you value most.
From the results you must either conclude that Dell (and the rest of the WinTel vendors) are either trying to make Windows 2000 look bad, or you must conclude that Linux + TUX is going to make one heck of a compelling case as a web platform.
Either way it looks bad for Windows 2000 as a web server OS.
I am sorry that you imagined some sort of slight against the French (or against goat farmers for that matter). I called Jose a "cranky French goat farmer" because that is what he apparently is. This is not a slight against the French. Heck, Americans have more than their share of crackpots as well. If you want to feel slighted because you agree with Jose's attack on McDonald's then go ahead and feel insulted. As far as I am concerned anyone who thinks that Jose is some sort of freedom fighter is clearly an idiot.
Seriously, how cracked do you have to be to vandalize a McDonald's because the U.S. has closed its borders to your cheese. This is especially true if you happen to oppose globalization. It's wrong for Americans to try and sell hamburgers in France, but it is perfectly all right for the French to try and sell their Roquefort cheese here in the U.S. After all, French cheese is anti-globalist, pure, natural, healthy cheese.
Are you starting to see the reason why I have a hard time accepting Jose as something besides a crackpot? He isn't against globalization any more than I am. He wants to be free to sell his cheese for the highest prices possible, even if it means he has to ship his cheese clear to America to obtain those high prices. He doesn't want McDonald's, however, to have the same right to sell their hamburgers in France. Despite the fact that apparently McDonald's is fairly popular in France.
Don Quixote tilted windmills that he thought were giants. That did not make him a hero. Jose is a glory seeking cheese maker seeking to make his inane point through vandalism. He likewise is no hero.
What ticks me off about this particular Katz rant is that Jon Katz would equate the founding fathers of the United States with a French farmer who is upset because he can no longer sell his cheese in the U.S.
Give me a break, Washington could have been king, but he turned it down because he was more interested in the liberty of the common man than his own welfare. Napolean, on his deathbed was reported to have said that "they expected another Washington," and somehow a cranky French goat farmer is his moral equivalent in the 21st Century. That's like saying that I am the moral equivalent of Florence Nightingale because I gave blood last week.
Heck yeah! Goat cheese rocks. I somehow cultivated a taste for the stuff when I lived in Chile, and now that I am back in the states you just can't get quality goat cheese.
Seriously, you should try it.
Who encourages them to do all of these dastardly girl-stereotype things? There is actually quite a bit of evidence that much of this behavior is not learned, but is instinctual.
I know for a fact that my little 18 month girl already displays many of the stereotypes that you are ascribing to cultural engineering. For example, her favorite toy is a ugly hairless little doll that apparently materialized in our home. I am not exactly how it came to be in her possession (neither my wife nor I was interested in giving our daughter toys that were "gender biased), but I don't dare take the darn thing away from her. Last time I took it away she wandered around the house looking for it for hours, crying all the while. She doesn't even form sentences and she is already playing with dolls!
I am not stating that cultural engineering doesn't happen. I have lived in different countries, and so I have a pretty good idea at how important our customs can become. I simply am not willing to believe that there is some mysterious "them" that is using our culture as a weapon against us. Nor do I believe that counter-cultures like the Goths are somehow more enlightened than those that more closely fit the gender stereotypes. Painting my hair green and putting a nail through my nose does not make me any harder to stereotype. In fact, it makes it easier. Now instead of guessing my observers could simply conclude that I was a "Goth," with all that this generally entails.
Cultures have grown, for good or ill, out of the combined observations of millions of people over hundreds and thousands of years. Social norms and morals generally have distinct biological reasoning behind them that has allowed these cultures to pass on to the next generation. In a way cultures evolve in much the same way as the genetic hosts that they are propogated on. The 1950's Beaver Cleaver culture that you rail against is simply a culture that has been fairly successful at being propogated, although it certainly has undergone a great deal of modification in the last few generations.
I would guess that the reason that girls that are geeks are classified as geek girls is that there are so few female geeks that being male is implied. It is unfortunate if it made you feel ostracized, but it almost certainly is unintentional on the part of the geek community.
After all, this is the same group of people that wore directory listing down until there was nothing left but `ls' and yet somehow created approximately 400 legal flags for `tar'. We want a maximum of efficiency without sacrificing for flexibility. Hence the more common male geek is simply a `geek' and a female geek is a `girl geek'. Also note how this notation leaves room for geeks from other species (eg. `alien geek'). You will also note that your geek friends probably don't refer to you either as a `girl geek' or even as a generic `geek' (with the male implication), but instead refer to you more directly as the_v (or perhaps simply v).
The "guys" that somehow supposed that "girls can't be geeks" are A) clearly not geeks, and B) probably delusional. After all, anyone who holds to such an idea in the face of all of the available evidence is clearly not geeky enough to truly be considered a geek.
P.S. I prefer the term nerd, but that is probably because I don't have any friends.
Once again, the GPL proponents (at least the ones with two neurons to rub together) do not object to others using their code. They merely object to others using their code without sharing. To this end they have crafted a license that requires that the source code be available if you are distributing binaries.
The BSD proponents, on the other hand, are concerned about maintaining the right to distribute binaries without source. They usually put it in terms that aren't quite as crass, but that is essentially the difference. As you can no doubt see the two goals are at odds. One camp is trying to guarantee source code availability and one is trying guarantee the right to deny source code.
The hypocrisy is that the BSD advocates don't mind one bit if you borrow their code and put it into a commercial product, but they get all upset when you put the same code into a GPLed product. Both uses are equally legal, and if your primary goal is sharing source code the GPLed version is infinitely more acceptable.
The only reason that the GPL would be unacceptable is if you wanted to use bits to build software that you weren't going to share. In other words if you were hypocritical about sharing your software you would want to make sure that it was all BSD licensed. If you were convinced that sharing source was the answer then the GPL is just as good (if not better).
Either way it makes little difference to the developers of MySQL. They have realized, and rightly so, that no one would be interested in their product if it was just another closed piece of commercial software. They have also realized that the GPL allows them to increase the circulation and useage of MySQL while at the same time maintaining control the development of MySQL.
Quite frankly the GPL is the best of both worlds for them. The people who use MySQL will be able to continue to do so. The people who distribute MySQL for them will have new opportunities to do so. And yet their competitors will not be able to steal their IP (without sharing anyway). They can even release versions licensed under a commercial license for people who don't want to abide by the GPL and who are willing to pay for the privilege. You can't do that with the BSD style licenses.
There is nothing hypocritical about any of this. It's simply a practical matter. I suppose that if you don't like it you can always use PostgreSQL. I do.
If insert time is critical (it was for me too), you can always turn off the fsync() calls with a simple -F flag in your postmaster call. If you then insert your rows in one transaction they will insert "much" quicker. In fact, if you aren't already using a single transaction perhaps that alone would give you the speed up that you need.
If you do turn off the calls fsync() remember to get a good UPS, as a power-outage in the wrong spot could net you a inconsistent database.
It's not hypocrisy at all. The GPL people believe that you shouldn't be able to ship binaries without source code. The BSD people believe that there should be no restrictions on binaries made from their source. The only thing keeping the BSD people from "borrowing" GPLed software is that they are not interested in abiding by the GPL precepts that require that source code be available with the binaries.
You can't hardly blame the GPL folks if they are willing to take the BSD folks up on their word. After all, it is the BSD style licenses that specifically allow you to re-license the software under more restrictive terms. Commercial software developers are perfectly free to take the software and release a closed source product derived from it. Why shouldn't the GPL folks be allowed to take the software and include it in their GPLed software? After all, GPLed software is just like commercial software except you have the right to source code.
The fact of the matter is that anyone can "borrow" GPLed code, they just have to release the source code when they are done. This isn't hypocrisy. It's what the FSF stands for.
The BSD style licenses make sense if you are using someone else's code as they allow you to make your own proprietary changes and they allow you to borrow code and put it in your closed source software. In other words, BSD style licenses are great if you are not the primary author.
If you are the primary author, and especially if you have a product like MySQL which already has a large user base, the GPL makes more sense. Why is that, you ask? It's quite simple. The GPL will guarantee that none of your competitors "borrow" your coolest features and incorporate them into their closed software. Basically anyone who uses your code will have to give you a copy of their enhancements. This is good. Your competitors don't have to share under the BSD style licenses. You can even release your very own enhancements under a closed source commercial license. After all, you hold the copyright, and dual licensing allows you the best of both worlds. People that want to use the free version are stuck with the conditions of the GPL and people who want to produce commercial versions have to pay you money to get a version under a different license. If you make your contributors sign their copyrights over to you on their improvements then you can release the product under as many different licenses as your lawyers and accountants dream up. And your users they will want to do this because they probably don't want to go through the trouble of tracking your changes to the codebase to make sure their patches still work.
Cygnus showed how this sort of development guarantees that it is difficult for a competitor to co-opt "your" GPLed application. Since the creators of MySQL have access to all of the enhancements that might be made, and have more expertise in the software than anyone else, it should be a trivial matter for them to maintain their status as official MySQL maintainer. That would then in turn guarantee that they get the bulk of the contracts for MySQL support, maintenance, and extension. That is potentially a very large market.
In short, this is almost certainly not a question of whether or not BSD is better than Linux or visa versa. It is about the promotion of MySQL without losing precious intellectual value to competitors or spawning an incompatible closed source commercial version from one of MySQL's competitors based on MySQL code.
To give you an idea of why this might be important take a look at MySQL's primary open source competitor PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL is under a BSD style license. This means that the MySQL folks can borrow as much PostgreSQL code as they please. On the other hand the PostgreSQL folk can't borrow MySQL code and combine it with their BSD licensed code without release their entire project under the GPL! Since they are unlikely to want to do this, the MySQL will remain off limits to them. This could give the MySQL folks a distinct advantage in the upcoming horserace. Being able to borrow BSD code certainly never hurt Linux.
A trojan is an advertisement server that steals my bandwidth (and possibly my private information) disguised as a children's game. The difference between Netscape's bug tracking software and this agent are quite obvious. Netscape's bug tracking software asks my permission. Mattell doesn't bother with something as old fashioned as permission.
If there is one thing that I think single handedly guarantees the continued existance of the Open Source movement it is stuff like this. Software companies have gotten so arrogant that it is absolutely crazy. Honestly, you can't even buy a simple children's game nowadays without worrying about a company foisting Trojan horse software on you. Did Mattel honestly think that they wouldn't get caught? Did they think that no one would care? If the commercial software houses keep this stuff up then pretty soon even the most neophyte computer users will be demanding that the source code to their software be "open."
Even more ironic is the fact that Mattel was probably using this software to gather marketing information. Imagine their surprise when they come to the conclusion that 99 out of 100 Americans don't feel like purchasing software from companies that might potentially be spying on their children!
That's just the point. Someone will provide high quality video/audio to the consumer. And when they do there will be those that break ranks with the rest of the "consortium" and they will try to profit from the new technology.
Some of these breakaway technologies will fail, but one of them will undoubtedly gain the critical mass necessary to force the content providers to switch to the new media or face destruction. Some of the industry elite will jump to late, and will become also rans. The people who were first movers on this new technology will fill their spots among the industry elite and will immediately throw all of their efforts into subverting any change to the status quo.
The high and mighty have opposed change throughout history, but it still has marched inexorably forward.
The fact that DVD players can't include firewire simply means that the DVD firewire combination is not going to be the combination that breaks open the digital media dam. Someone will have to come up with something else.
Don't worry though, they will. Just don't expect it to come from a source that has competing products in a much higher price range.
Would it be legal to study QPLed code and then create a non-QPLed version of it. This is an honest question as I believed that such a work would be a derivative and would therefore also fall under the QPL.
In fact, I thought that having the source code available actually made it harder to be able to reverse engineer. After all, most of the KDE developers have seen the code to QT, and are therefore tainted when it comes to reverse engineering.
If reverse engineering isn't necessary in this case, and you can simply look at the source code and rewrite it in your own words then I could probably create a LGPLed version, and I am a far cry from a competent C++ hacker.
Which leads me to believe that it probably isn't as easy as that, or it would have already been done. If Harmony hackers could use QT sources then why did the project die? After all, it should have only gotten easier.
Does somebody have the answer?
Not only is Motif dead, but the few people who are actively using it were more than happy to stick with the functionality of Motif 1.2. Since the interface wasn't in flux it became possible for LessTif to catch up.
Even with all of this going for LessTif it still took years for it to become a useable replacement for Motif.
If the KDE people would promise to not use any of the new versions of QT (or at least any of the new functionality) then it would be possible for Harmony to catch up. Unfortunately they aren't even remotely interested in doing that.
Harmony is dead. The people who should be most interested in it's resurrection couldn't give a rip if it dies or not, and the people ideologically bound to the idea of free software have already switched to Gnome.
And so now the KDE users are stuck. The two main pieces of software that they rely on are based on two mutually exclusive licenses with similar names, the QPL and the GPL. Not that this is any different than where KDE has always been. Licensing will continue to be an issue, and KDE will continue to lose users and mindshare simply because they didn't read the license carefully enough.
Yes, I realize that, but there are significant portions of KDE that the KDE team did not write. How many of those authors will be willing to specifically allow the linking of QT? And the KDE team has not been stringent about having patch submitters sign over their copyrights either. What if one of those folks complains?
Not too mention the fact that all the KDE team would have to do is say GPL 2.0 with the exception that you can link QT and their software would already be perfectly legal. That was what the $3000 in question was supposed to be for. However, it turned out that the KDE team was not interested because changing the license at this point would be very difficult. So instead the KDE team has been unwilling to even look at the possibility that they might be legally obligated to change their license.
As for your statement that copyright doesn't allow you to forbid anything, of course it does. It allows you to forbid redistribution. That's all the GPL is doing. It disallows redistribution unless you agree to it's license. The terms of the license are quite clear.
Your statement that the GPL is somehow unlikely to be found legal because it "forbids" simply does not stand up. The GPL does no such thing. It simply does not allow redistribution unless you follow the terms of the license. It is no different than a photographer allowing you to make copies of his copyright work (probably because you paid him money). The GPL simply puts forth a list of things that have to happen before redistribution is allowed. If those clauses are not met, then the copyright defaults kick in which state "thou shalt not copy."
It's really no different than commercial software. Except for the fact that they hardly ever allow you to distribute their software. Their licenses even restrict the "use" of material that you have bought and paid for. If the GPL isn't legal then commercial software licenses don't have a prayer.
The DMCA is simply more proof that the big money would probably be on the side of the GPL were it to go to court. A ruling against the GPL would be a ruling against software licenses everywhere, and Microsoft, Sun, AOL, IBM, Time Warner, and the whole rest of the crowd is not likely to stand up to that.
The KDE team somehow feels that they can simply ignore the legal ramifications of their actions, and possibly they can. There is a good chance that none of the requisite people will complain (on the other hand there is a good chance that some of the code that KDE has borrowed is under FSF copyright). But don't be surprised when organizations like Debian take the legal (and moral) high road.
Harmony would almost certainly be a good thing. Unfortunately there are several HUGE strikes against it. First of all, as the other poster already pointed out there is already a perfectly acceptable LGPLed toolkit in GTK+. It even has C++ bindings. Second of all the KDE team has specifically stated that they will incorporate new QT features into KDE. This means that Harmony would continually be in catch up mode.
If there is one thing that the Free Software Foundation and Free Software hackers everywhere have learned it's that it is very hard to chase a proprietary standard. LessTif and Wine are both good examples of why it is simply much easier to support free APIs instead of reverse engineering proprietary ones. If KDE promised not to use any new features, then we could at least hope to get Harmony to the same point that QT is at now. Once Harmony was up to par then Harmony and KDE could grow together. Without the support of the KDE team Harmony doesn't have a chance.
Besides, it is the KDE team that made the mistake of using QT in the first place. They should be the ones creating Harmony (no pun intended). The FSF, Debian, RMS, RedHat, and a whole pile of Free Software hackers have been pointing out the dangers of using QT since before the KDE project was started. The users that didn't stand up for freedom then should not expect someone else to bail them out now.
Remember, for folks like RMS free software isn't about popularity, it's about freedom. The fact that there are quite a few KDE means very little.
The KDE team has acted irresponsibly from day one. These complaints are in no way new complaints. Debian has, to the best of my knowledge, never included KDE despite the fact that the KDE license has been changed for some time.
It makes me glad that I didn't spend any of my time learning QT. It's issues like this that will guarantee that Gnome becomes the desktop of choice. GTK+ and Gnome are advancing rapidly, and there is no question what my rights as a user are.
Read Section 9 of the GPL. It basically states that the person receiving the software can choose to use this version of the GPL or any future versions at his/her choice. All Stallman would have to do is change the GPL so that it specifically closes that loophole. He could easily guarantee that mixing the QPL and GPL was illegal, and then the KDE team would be forced to comment out all of the GPLed software that they have been using.
Not only that, but while the GPL itself has never been tested in court there are literally hundreds of years of copyright law history that would support using copyright to grant certain permissions and to forbid others. Even worse, nearly the entire software industry has a stake in maintaining strong copyright law. That's the reason why NeXT gave in when they were in violation of the GPL in regards to their use of gcc, and it is the reason that Microsoft recently made sure that they were not GPL violators as it regarded their Interix software.
In today's digital economy maintaining the power of copyright is even more important than ever. Some of the biggest businesses in the world are using copyright law to control their intellectual property. So don't go around assuming that the GPL would be declared invalid.
All of this adds up to trouble for KDE, which is why they aren't interested in having these discussions come up. They remember very well what happened when RedHat, Debian, and the Free Software hackers took a stand last time. Gnome was born. The last thing that they want to do is add fuel to the Gnome fire. Unfortunately for them, that is precisely what they are doing.
Even though this technology would cut the time to Mars in half you can bet that the kids would still spend the whole time whining.
"Are we there yet?"
Nasa's simply going to have to do better :).
Bruce Momjian (from the PostgreSQL steering committee is currently working on a book for Addison-Wesley. Not only is the book very good, but it is also available online at the PostgreSQL web site, and is available in either HTML or PDF formats.
The book is pretty complete, and even has sample programs using the 13 (Yikes!) available programming interfaces. Allowing you to compare the interfaces to Python, Perl, C, PHP, Java, and all the rest. Although I have to admit that it is a little strange that Bruce's Perl example is using the Pg module and not DBD::Pg. For those of you that are curious there is a DBI interface for PostgreSQL, and it is quite good.
Unfortunately in this particular case it would appear that O'Reilly has been beaten to the punch. I would highly doubt that O'Reilly would be able to find someone that knows PostgreSQL as well as Mr. Momjian, and the book is very well written. So if you are like me and use PostgreSQL quite a bit you will undoubtedly have to settle for at least one book on your bookshelf that isn't from O'Reilly. It's too bad really, I sort of like having all of my books match, and the O'Reilly Animal Series covers are very cool :).
Believe it or not, there are quite a few people who do believe that alcohol is a problem for society. In fact, nearly everyone with two functioning brain cells to rub together probably realizes that alcohol abuse, drunk driving, etc. are very serious problems indeed.
The people who are interested in the legalization of marijuana inevitably point to alcohol as the reason why marijuana should be legalized, and yet alcohol abuse is one of the biggest societal problems that we have (worldwide). It is absolutely amazing the percentage of crimes that are committed while under the influence of alcohol, the amount of deaths due to drunk driving, and the amount of physical abuse that can be directly attributed to alcohol. So saying that marijuana is "less harmful than alcohol" is setting the bar quite low.
In fact, alcohol is so dangerous to society that the U.S. at one point made it illegal. And it would probably still be a controlled substance except for the fact that alcohol is too darn easy to manufacture illegally.
As for drug tests, your employer has rights too. For example, employers don't want to hire people that are likely to come to work in an "altered state." And so in order to apply for work at most employers you are required to pass a voluntary drug test. If you feel that this is an invasion of your privacy you are perfectly free to apply elsewhere. The fact that some "drug-crazed wasters" are able to circumvent these tests does not make them any less valid. For every drug abuser that gets away there are some that get caught. At the very least it forces the drug users to be cautious, and that makes the world safer for all of us.
Believe me, people lose their jobs for drug abuse on a regular basis. We had a rather large drug bust where I work just a few months ago. People lost their jobs and will never work here again.
Woah, I hope that was just a bold tag that got away.
Like I said, I am not a World Bank supporter. I would agree that they are part of the problem. I would also go on the record as being against globalism. I don't want a world government, and I have serious problems with any entity that can exert power on such a global scale.
That being said, the World Bank's privatization policy is exactly the kind of medicine that the poorer nations of South America need. Unfortunately, the corruption in places like Bolivia and Peru pretty much guarantee problems like this.
Blaming the corruption of the Bolivian government on the World Bank seems awfully unfair, however. The World Bank wanted Bolivia to privatise their water distribution, but they probably didn't tell them to only consider one bid. That sort of corruption they did on their own.
Believe it or not companies like the rule of law. They will happily use bribery if that is the only way to get the job done, but bribery is a two-edged sword. The person that you are bribing today so that you can have sole access to the water system in Cochabamba is the same guy that could accept a bribe tommorrow from your competitor and grant them sole access to the water system in Cochabamba (plus whatever improvements you have made). Companies may want to cheat, but even more than that they want some structure in place that keeps the other guys from cheating. More than anything it is this sort of corruption that keeps capital out of countries like Bolivia and Peru, and guarantees that the poor will stay poor. Blaming the World Bank or the IMF is just pure scapegoating.
Once again I am not a supporter of the World Bank nor the IMF, but I think that far too often they take the blame for things that are completely outside their control. Besides, where would Bolivia be without the money that they have borrowed from foreign banks? The people of Cochabamba probably wouldn't have a water system at all. Their plight would certainly be much worse than it is now without the capital that they receive from these sources.
So before you start spouting about US Imperialism think about what the lack of organizations like the World Bank and the IMF would mean for developing countries. No one is forcing these countries to take this money.
Exactly, now all of a sudden Microsoft has to find a way to sell software in Third world countries (as opposed to having it "borrowed"), and they hit on the obvious idea. Hey, let's rent the stuff! That will force everyone to pay, and it will give us the chance to lock up our users documents so tight they will never get them out of our grasp.
If someone complains we will point to the license they clicked through and show them how not only do they not own the software they have been renting, but they don't even own the content that they have created with the software.
Woohoo, we'll be rich!
In fact, it's already started. It is already impossible to get a copy of Windows with the new PC you buy. You might get a recover disk, but if you upgrade the hardware you don't have an installable version of the OS.
Tell me, how is that good for consumers?