4) We will be providing source in the form of our chosen vcs. If you do not know how to use a vcs but you work with oss, or want to work with oss, not learning a vcs is doing yourself a disservice. Future employers, or current oss projects, will find your knowing a vcs up front an asset, and we want to promote that. Tarball distributions will be ended as of 1.3.
Chris Forsythe Growl Project Lead
Great! Where's the link? Since you presumably already have the VCS set up, there's no reason not to provide read-only access to it right now. If hosting costs are a concern, there numerous sites which host FLOSS projects for no cost. Removing links to old tarballs and saying "We will be providing source in the form of our chosen vcs." with no specifics sounds like a stalling tactic to me. I have no knowledge of your history with Perry Metzger, but I do know he's providing source to some version of Growl while you're providing none.
Growl has surprised its users by going closed-source and only available for purchase on the Mac App Store
If you are going to make a statement like this in a headline, shouldn't at least one link point to something that confirms this? I saw nothing that claimed Growl was going closed source.
Regardless of future plans, there is currently no download link for full source on the Grow Downloads page.
Growl is not going closed source. They just don't have releasing the source EARLY as a priority. That's their choice. As long as the source is eventually released, that's all most of us care about.
Perhaps you can point to a link on the Growl site to download source of any version, even older ones. It certainly is the developers' choice to release the source or not. As of now, they have not released the source for Growl 1.3, so it's not accurate to call Growl 1.3 Open Source. Though earlier versions were released under an Open Source license, the fact that the site doesn't provide them and those in control are trying to keep people from talking about a fork isn't a good sign.
Isn't there some form of restriction here in the license, are they allowed to make a closed source derivative work, seeing as they're the original authors? What open source license (if any) was Growl formerly using?
I know some licenses require all derivative works to be open source, but I'm definitely not expert on open source licensing.
Strangely, though the previous Growl Source page had a link to a tarball, the current download page only has non-link text "Growl source code." under "Developer Downloads." The Growl Developer Documentation page says:
Growl is distributed under the conditions of the BSD license. The Extras are BSD licensed as well. Example applications are in the public domain.
The Growl license does seem to be a permissive BSD-style license. This means that nobody using the source has any obligation to provide source to anyone and can use it for any reason as long as they include that license with binaries. This is why OSX contains significant amounts of BSD code and Windows a smaller amount but neither Apple nor Microsoft is obligated to release the source for any of their changes.
Licenses that require source to be made available to those who get binaries are called Copyleft licenses. This is why Google must release the source for changes they make to Linux as part of Android, but they are not required to release changes to other parts of Android which are under permissive licenses.
Both permissive and Copyleft licenses can be used for software that is both Free and Open Source. Since Growl seems to have been under a permissive license all along, there's nothing stopping those who control the web site from making it proprietary and never releasing source again. OTOH, there's nothing preventing anyone else from forking the last released source just as Perry Metzger has done. A fork would probably be required to use a different name. Since those who control the Grow website seem to have removed all download links to source (even older versions) and banned Metzger from the mailing list, it may indicate they plan to keep future versions proprietary, though that's not entirely clear at this point.
Why should they release the source for an OS that isn't even out in the wild yet? They've already said that the source will be released once the Galaxy Nexus is in stores (probably so that the Nexus is actually the first phone running 4.0. I'm there will be plenty of custom ROMs for other phones/tablets within days of the ICS source being released)
They should release the source because that's the right way to participate in a FLOSS project though they are not legally required to do so. Google clearly understand the value of other peoples' Free software to them, but not of participating in projects for the good of the entire community.
No, this is precisely the same sort of criticism that gets leveled against any company which has a history of adopting open-source code without obeying open-source licenses, which justifies a default position of "I'll see it when I believe it" for Google making promises to release code.
Or do you happen to know someone who has a device running Honeycomb and was able to follow up on the legal requirement that the source be made available to them?
The issue is not whether Google is complying with the law or the letter of any license. They have been very careful to avoid any such mistake. The issue is whether they are using the all too common strategy of getting a lot people to use their project by releasing it as Free and Open Source Software and then reverse direction when they have enough people depending on them. That's a bait and switch strategy far worse than how the likes of Apple and Microsoft operate. At least with them, you know you're getting proprietary software from the beginning.
Perhaps you missed the part where Google has released the few GPL components of ICS, most importantly Linux. What they have not released are the Apache-licensed components which have absolutely nothing to do with kernel.org.
Only Ice Cream Sandwich is up in the air, not all Android source code. The title implies that it was all taken down, which is simply not true.
Even if Google longer offered download links for Apache-licensed Android components, it wouldn't matter that much, since many people have copies and the license can't be revoked. What does matter is whether Google has decided to make future releases proprietary only. That would be a low blow even worse than Apple's participation in FLOSS projects and be clear signal that they're headed directly into evil territory.
Honestly, while yes today it is highly impractical. That was true of all frontiers at one point or another. Once upon a time sailing from Europe to the Americas was considered a long, highly dangerous, expensive voyage. Now we have multiple flights back and forth daily. Time changes, and progress -does- march forward. Yes, the space shuttle is gone. On the other hand we have what, 3 companies? More? that look like they will have tourism ready space travel in my lifetime. When my grandparents were my age that entire idea would have been insane. The key is, we, as humanity, can't give up on every idea simply because it doesn't make sense -today-. A lot of those ideas will suddenly be worth every penny that was ever invested in them at some point in the future.
I don't see anyone advocating that space exploration be abandoned. TFA says "I whole-heartedly believe that space offers tremendous scientific promise." The point is that it's much harder than often portrayed or assumed. As you say, space tourism may soon be commonplace. However, explorers and settlers 500 years ago weren't tourists. They headed toward the New World and other places to make money, not spend it. They often did make large amounts of money exploiting resources they found at their destinations since they could be easily extracted by trade or simply taking them. No matter how much mineral or other wealth can be found off of Earth, it will require a lot more effort to extract, especially since those wanting to do so will need to bring everything necessary for survival with them.
So, what has he predicted correctly? Not about lunar science, which is his field (and it's hard, which shows how exceptionally smart he is). But about economics, infrastructure development, or civilization.
Nothing? Oh. Who cares what he thinks about something where he's as likely to be an expert as the majority of Slashdotters posting in this thread?
Maybe we should pay attention to him since he's one of the few willing to point out the uncomfortable truth that space exploration capacity is regressing rather than advancing. You don't have to do very deep analysis to realize that's not a recipe for success. Since you're attacking his credentials and credibility, perhaps you can suggest a more plausible authority? I'm sure there are plenty of credible experts out there with expertise in space travel, economics and civilization who've accurately predicted the (lack of) progress in space exploration in recent decades and predict a great acceleration in the future.
If the ship sinks, and you have a life raft, you stand some chance of rescue. The ocean is vast, but it’s a two-dimensional vastness teeming with human activity
Since we are currently at the dawn of space travel and looking 500 years ahead, lets look 500 years into the past with respect to seafaring and their exploration and colonization of their new world. Seafarers of that day did not stand a chance if their vessel sunk, they did not have the survival equipment we have today, they did not have all the other traffic and human activity in the "area". Hell, if one of Columbus' ships had sunk at night the crew would probably have been doomed desperate sailing with two other ships.
500 years ago people could be found to make the voyage to the Americas despite the misery and risks of the voyage. Today there would probably no shortage of informed people to go on a physically and emotionally miserable, and a very risky, voyage to the moon or mars. Now consider 500 years from now. While the physics of a voyage to mars may be the same the technology available to address comfort and risk will be vastly improved. Even with relatively spartan amenities for exploration and colonization that will be no shortage of informed volunteers. A spartan existence certainly did not prevent colonization of and movement into the frontier of the americas.
He didn't say it was survival was likely stranded in the middle of the ocean, merely that it's possible. Far more important is what waits at the destination. Columbus and other explorers could only expect to survive round trip voyages because they'd find dry land, air, water and food somewhere even if they didn't know exactly where. Colonies were motivated by the rich natural resources just waiting to be exploited in the New World. Traveling to a planet or moon in our solar system, we can be quite certain that we have to bring everything necessary for survival with us. Maybe we'll eventually figure out how to make such colonies worthwhile, but it will many times more difficult than what explorers faced 500 years ago.
Approximately how far have humans traveled from the surface of the Earth in your lifetime? [e.g., since 1980 or so]
52% thought humans had been as far as the Moon since the 1980s,... I can only guess that some students imagined the International Space Station as a remote outpost
That is a questionable interpretation. It would seem more plausible that the students simply get their decades mixed up and thought Apollo happened in the 80s rather than the 70s (last landing 1972?).
Either interpretation implies an unacceptable level of ignorance. I learned about the Apollo program when I was very young (from a Richard Scarry book) but was never confused enough to think it was still going on.
As the article said, post production is all done digitally already, which allows color to be manipulated easily. I'm sure it's possible to make video from any source look like any kind of film if desired.
Archiving is always limited by material. Lots of film prints have decayed over the years too. The challenges with archiving digital information are different, but it is possible to preserve digital information perfectly for indefinite periods of time, something which is impossible with anything analog. To archive film, you have to put it in a place with conditions that cause it to decay as slowly as possible. To archive anything digital, you have to know the limitations of the physical medium and design and adhere to a plan to make new copies before old ones deteriorate.
Since the camera was meant to be left there, this alleged crime would have occurred on the moon. Does this mean that the US federal government has jurisdiction on the moon?
US law can apply on US-registered ships no matter where they are, so it's a not a great stretch to apply the same principle to space craft.
...it's stories like these that make people look at you and say "Boy, I sure am glad the government cut their funding!"
Or maybe it's because they barely have the funding to do their mission that they've resorted to petty attempts to recover every little bit of value from their property.
I'm convinced that the only real reason we have piston engines in most cars today is because pistons work really well in steam engines, and early on in the development of the internal combustion engine, most of the engineering was done by people familiar with steam engines using the designs they knew. If development had proceeded on the principle of "IC is different from EC, let's take advantage of that," rotary and other non-piston-based designs might now be a lot more common and a lot more advanced. It was nice to see Mazda keeping the torch lit, and it's sad to see that they can't do it any more.
It's kind of as if the computer engineering world had taken a look at the first integrated circuits (also "IC," by an interesting coincidence) and said, "we need to do this with vacuum tubes." No doubt we'd have all kinds of cool miniaturized vacuum tube technology we don't have today, but there's little doubt that computers would still be horribly bulky, slow, and expensive compared to what we actually got.
And yes, I just made a computer analogy for car engines. Deal with it.;)
The way steam engines use pistons is pretty different from internal combustion engines. Primarily, steam engine pistons are double-acting. If rotary (Wankel) engines had great practical advantages compared to piston ones, I think others than Mazda would have used them. Also, if you're going to talk about the early days of automobiles, you can't ignore the electric, battery-powered ones. Their designers were really thinking differently. Unfortunately, it took 100 years to resurrect that radical idea of powering a car with no combustion whatsoever.
You have to love how they specify 'pages' in quotes, like it's something new or has some overloaded meaning.
It is overloaded. An HTML document is called a page. What Opera is proposing would allow one HTML document (page) to be displayed as multiple "pages." But you were just being sarcastic, weren't you?
I used vbox for several straight months doing quite a bit of Linux development using it, hosted on a Win7 machine. Other than missing a few nice to have features I could have used, like drag and drop that VMware has, I had zero issues with it. A lot of the features VMware has I didn't need, so stuck with what was working. The "crap" drivers made the VM as seemless as possible for me, and in full screen mode, was no different than booting into Ubuntu in classic mode (which is what I prefer anyway).
I'd really like to know how many people are genuinely affected by these issues. I can't imagine I'm the only one that had zero issues.
The driver in question "vboxdrv" is used on a Linux host, so you never used it running Vbox hosted on Windows. The drivers you're referring to are the guest drivers, which are totally different. Your experience may indicate that the Windows equivalent of vboxdrv is less buggy. It's not surprising if Sun/Oracle put a higher priority on Windows than Linux.
An open-source developer calls an open-source driver "tainted crap", and recommend a commercial alternative instead. Obviously, Oracle has something to do with that, but I'm a bit curious: are there any good open-source (or even free) virtualization software, aside from VirtualBox? Or might it be an area where FOSS just doesn't work very well (there are a few, IMHO).
It's the Phoronix article that mentions VMWare, not the "Linux developers." Oddly that article doesn't mention the two superior, mature alternatives to Virtualbox already part of mainline Linux, KVM and Xen. So, Free Software virtualization is doing just fine, thank you very much.
Really, you should just refuse to provide any help or consideration for people using virtual box like you guys do if anyone is using a binary driver. I mean lets face it, thats what you're doing here. This is just another form of NIH syndrome.
As a developer, I understand the frustration of dealing with someone elses shitty software that you have absolutely no control over.
This however is one of those situations where there is no doubt what so ever that rather than just whining about it, he could have done something useful about it. The drivers aren't THAT complex in the first place. If he is so confident that it has these problems then surely he has documented when they occur as proof, which means fixing them should be fairly trivial as well.
Instead of being so high and mighty... oh never mind, whats the point, its not your fault, its someone elses, your code is awesome and everyone will bow down to you guys. I know you guys like to think Linux is ruling the world, but you're still no where near big enough to start trying to pull an Apple/Google/Microsoft and force people to do it your way. You've tried this before and again, you'll lose.
If you're so sure that fixing the buggy driver is easy and a more reasonable approach, why don't you do it? Linux already has two major alternatives to VirtualBox built in (KVM and Xen). It doesn't terribly need Virtualbox, but if Oracle made the effort to improve the quality, I'm sure it could be accepted into the mainline. The reason for tagging the driver as "crap" is because it apparently causes ongoing, hard to diagnose bugs and some Linux developers are tired of dealing with them when they can use the superior built-in options like KVM and virtio. It's not reasonable to expect developers to maintain something they have no interest in themselves and aren't being paid for.
...so instead of just complaining, they could fix it and offer the patch back to Oracle.
I do believe that people who complain about problems in the Linux kernel and other open source products are often told to do just that. Why expect others to do as you say, if you won't do the same?
I think you have it exactly backward. It's reasonable to tell someone to fix something himself if he wants it fixed. The people marking the Virtualbox driver as "crap" probably have no interest in using it themselves. The reason for the tag is to avoid being bothered by other people who want it fixed. Now, the Linux developers who don't care about the driver can more easily tell people who do want it fixed to do so themselves or bitch to Oracle, which seems entirely reasonable.
Slashdot Mirror
4) We will be providing source in the form of our chosen vcs. If you do not know how to use a vcs but you work with oss, or want to work with oss, not learning a vcs is doing yourself a disservice. Future employers, or current oss projects, will find your knowing a vcs up front an asset, and we want to promote that. Tarball distributions will be ended as of 1.3.
Chris Forsythe
Growl Project Lead
Great! Where's the link? Since you presumably already have the VCS set up, there's no reason not to provide read-only access to it right now. If hosting costs are a concern, there numerous sites which host FLOSS projects for no cost. Removing links to old tarballs and saying "We will be providing source in the form of our chosen vcs." with no specifics sounds like a stalling tactic to me. I have no knowledge of your history with Perry Metzger, but I do know he's providing source to some version of Growl while you're providing none.
Growl has surprised its users by going closed-source and only available for purchase on the Mac App Store
If you are going to make a statement like this in a headline, shouldn't at least one link point to something that confirms this? I saw nothing that claimed Growl was going closed source.
Regardless of future plans, there is currently no download link for full source on the Grow Downloads page.
Growl is not going closed source. They just don't have releasing the source EARLY as a priority. That's their choice. As long as the source is eventually released, that's all most of us care about.
Perhaps you can point to a link on the Growl site to download source of any version, even older ones. It certainly is the developers' choice to release the source or not. As of now, they have not released the source for Growl 1.3, so it's not accurate to call Growl 1.3 Open Source. Though earlier versions were released under an Open Source license, the fact that the site doesn't provide them and those in control are trying to keep people from talking about a fork isn't a good sign.
Isn't there some form of restriction here in the license, are they allowed to make a closed source derivative work, seeing as they're the original authors? What open source license (if any) was Growl formerly using?
I know some licenses require all derivative works to be open source, but I'm definitely not expert on open source licensing.
Strangely, though the previous Growl Source page had a link to a tarball, the current download page only has non-link text "Growl source code." under "Developer Downloads." The Growl Developer Documentation page says:
Growl is distributed under the conditions of the BSD license. The Extras are BSD licensed as well. Example applications are in the public domain.
The Growl license does seem to be a permissive BSD-style license. This means that nobody using the source has any obligation to provide source to anyone and can use it for any reason as long as they include that license with binaries. This is why OSX contains significant amounts of BSD code and Windows a smaller amount but neither Apple nor Microsoft is obligated to release the source for any of their changes.
Licenses that require source to be made available to those who get binaries are called Copyleft licenses. This is why Google must release the source for changes they make to Linux as part of Android, but they are not required to release changes to other parts of Android which are under permissive licenses.
Both permissive and Copyleft licenses can be used for software that is both Free and Open Source. Since Growl seems to have been under a permissive license all along, there's nothing stopping those who control the web site from making it proprietary and never releasing source again. OTOH, there's nothing preventing anyone else from forking the last released source just as Perry Metzger has done. A fork would probably be required to use a different name. Since those who control the Grow website seem to have removed all download links to source (even older versions) and banned Metzger from the mailing list, it may indicate they plan to keep future versions proprietary, though that's not entirely clear at this point.
Licensing gets strange when you start to use the App Store. So this is not a shocking development.
No, sadly its exactly the kind of thing the App Store is supposed to accomplish.
Would someone from Italy like to explain why you voted this authoritarian cunt into the EU. Go on! I'd love to hear it!
He made the Intertubes run on time.
Why should they release the source for an OS that isn't even out in the wild yet? They've already said that the source will be released once the Galaxy Nexus is in stores (probably so that the Nexus is actually the first phone running 4.0. I'm there will be plenty of custom ROMs for other phones/tablets within days of the ICS source being released)
They should release the source because that's the right way to participate in a FLOSS project though they are not legally required to do so. Google clearly understand the value of other peoples' Free software to them, but not of participating in projects for the good of the entire community.
No, this is precisely the same sort of criticism that gets leveled against any company which has a history of adopting open-source code without obeying open-source licenses, which justifies a default position of "I'll see it when I believe it" for Google making promises to release code.
Or do you happen to know someone who has a device running Honeycomb and was able to follow up on the legal requirement that the source be made available to them?
The issue is not whether Google is complying with the law or the letter of any license. They have been very careful to avoid any such mistake. The issue is whether they are using the all too common strategy of getting a lot people to use their project by releasing it as Free and Open Source Software and then reverse direction when they have enough people depending on them. That's a bait and switch strategy far worse than how the likes of Apple and Microsoft operate. At least with them, you know you're getting proprietary software from the beginning.
Perhaps you missed the part where Google has released the few GPL components of ICS, most importantly Linux. What they have not released are the Apache-licensed components which have absolutely nothing to do with kernel.org.
Only Ice Cream Sandwich is up in the air, not all Android source code.
The title implies that it was all taken down, which is simply not true.
Even if Google longer offered download links for Apache-licensed Android components, it wouldn't matter that much, since many people have copies and the license can't be revoked. What does matter is whether Google has decided to make future releases proprietary only. That would be a low blow even worse than Apple's participation in FLOSS projects and be clear signal that they're headed directly into evil territory.
Honestly, while yes today it is highly impractical. That was true of all frontiers at one point or another. Once upon a time sailing from Europe to the Americas was considered a long, highly dangerous, expensive voyage. Now we have multiple flights back and forth daily. Time changes, and progress -does- march forward. Yes, the space shuttle is gone. On the other hand we have what, 3 companies? More? that look like they will have tourism ready space travel in my lifetime. When my grandparents were my age that entire idea would have been insane. The key is, we, as humanity, can't give up on every idea simply because it doesn't make sense -today-. A lot of those ideas will suddenly be worth every penny that was ever invested in them at some point in the future.
I don't see anyone advocating that space exploration be abandoned. TFA says "I whole-heartedly believe that space offers tremendous scientific promise." The point is that it's much harder than often portrayed or assumed. As you say, space tourism may soon be commonplace. However, explorers and settlers 500 years ago weren't tourists. They headed toward the New World and other places to make money, not spend it. They often did make large amounts of money exploiting resources they found at their destinations since they could be easily extracted by trade or simply taking them. No matter how much mineral or other wealth can be found off of Earth, it will require a lot more effort to extract, especially since those wanting to do so will need to bring everything necessary for survival with them.
So, what has he predicted correctly? Not about lunar science, which is his field (and it's hard, which shows how exceptionally smart he is). But about economics, infrastructure development, or civilization.
Nothing? Oh. Who cares what he thinks about something where he's as likely to be an expert as the majority of Slashdotters posting in this thread?
Maybe we should pay attention to him since he's one of the few willing to point out the uncomfortable truth that space exploration capacity is regressing rather than advancing. You don't have to do very deep analysis to realize that's not a recipe for success. Since you're attacking his credentials and credibility, perhaps you can suggest a more plausible authority? I'm sure there are plenty of credible experts out there with expertise in space travel, economics and civilization who've accurately predicted the (lack of) progress in space exploration in recent decades and predict a great acceleration in the future.
If the ship sinks, and you have a life raft, you stand some chance of rescue. The ocean is vast, but it’s a two-dimensional vastness teeming with human activity
Since we are currently at the dawn of space travel and looking 500 years ahead, lets look 500 years into the past with respect to seafaring and their exploration and colonization of their new world. Seafarers of that day did not stand a chance if their vessel sunk, they did not have the survival equipment we have today, they did not have all the other traffic and human activity in the "area". Hell, if one of Columbus' ships had sunk at night the crew would probably have been doomed desperate sailing with two other ships.
500 years ago people could be found to make the voyage to the Americas despite the misery and risks of the voyage. Today there would probably no shortage of informed people to go on a physically and emotionally miserable, and a very risky, voyage to the moon or mars. Now consider 500 years from now. While the physics of a voyage to mars may be the same the technology available to address comfort and risk will be vastly improved. Even with relatively spartan amenities for exploration and colonization that will be no shortage of informed volunteers. A spartan existence certainly did not prevent colonization of and movement into the frontier of the americas.
He didn't say it was survival was likely stranded in the middle of the ocean, merely that it's possible. Far more important is what waits at the destination. Columbus and other explorers could only expect to survive round trip voyages because they'd find dry land, air, water and food somewhere even if they didn't know exactly where. Colonies were motivated by the rich natural resources just waiting to be exploited in the New World. Traveling to a planet or moon in our solar system, we can be quite certain that we have to bring everything necessary for survival with us. Maybe we'll eventually figure out how to make such colonies worthwhile, but it will many times more difficult than what explorers faced 500 years ago.
Approximately how far have humans traveled from the surface of the Earth in your lifetime? [e.g., since 1980 or so]
52% thought humans had been as far as the Moon since the 1980s, ... I can only guess that some students imagined the International Space Station as a remote outpost
That is a questionable interpretation. It would seem more plausible that the students simply get their decades mixed up and thought Apollo happened in the 80s rather than the 70s (last landing 1972?).
Either interpretation implies an unacceptable level of ignorance. I learned about the Apollo program when I was very young (from a Richard Scarry book) but was never confused enough to think it was still going on.
As the article said, post production is all done digitally already, which allows color to be manipulated easily. I'm sure it's possible to make video from any source look like any kind of film if desired.
Archiving is always limited by material. Lots of film prints have decayed over the years too. The challenges with archiving digital information are different, but it is possible to preserve digital information perfectly for indefinite periods of time, something which is impossible with anything analog. To archive film, you have to put it in a place with conditions that cause it to decay as slowly as possible. To archive anything digital, you have to know the limitations of the physical medium and design and adhere to a plan to make new copies before old ones deteriorate.
Yes, that's normal.
And yes, you should find a new job. Do you want to become a lazy programmer, or an excellent one? If it's the latter, you're in the wrong job.
But good programmers are lazy (and impatient and full of hubris). Only a poor programmer would be satisfied with a development environment which requires a lot of drudgery.
Since the camera was meant to be left there, this alleged crime would have occurred on the moon. Does this mean that the US federal government has jurisdiction on the moon?
US law can apply on US-registered ships no matter where they are, so it's a not a great stretch to apply the same principle to space craft.
...it's stories like these that make people look at you and say "Boy, I sure am glad the government cut their funding!"
Or maybe it's because they barely have the funding to do their mission that they've resorted to petty attempts to recover every little bit of value from their property.
I'm convinced that the only real reason we have piston engines in most cars today is because pistons work really well in steam engines, and early on in the development of the internal combustion engine, most of the engineering was done by people familiar with steam engines using the designs they knew. If development had proceeded on the principle of "IC is different from EC, let's take advantage of that," rotary and other non-piston-based designs might now be a lot more common and a lot more advanced. It was nice to see Mazda keeping the torch lit, and it's sad to see that they can't do it any more.
It's kind of as if the computer engineering world had taken a look at the first integrated circuits (also "IC," by an interesting coincidence) and said, "we need to do this with vacuum tubes." No doubt we'd have all kinds of cool miniaturized vacuum tube technology we don't have today, but there's little doubt that computers would still be horribly bulky, slow, and expensive compared to what we actually got.
And yes, I just made a computer analogy for car engines. Deal with it. ;)
The way steam engines use pistons is pretty different from internal combustion engines. Primarily, steam engine pistons are double-acting. If rotary (Wankel) engines had great practical advantages compared to piston ones, I think others than Mazda would have used them. Also, if you're going to talk about the early days of automobiles, you can't ignore the electric, battery-powered ones. Their designers were really thinking differently. Unfortunately, it took 100 years to resurrect that radical idea of powering a car with no combustion whatsoever.
You have to love how they specify 'pages' in quotes, like it's something new or has some overloaded meaning.
It is overloaded. An HTML document is called a page. What Opera is proposing would allow one HTML document (page) to be displayed as multiple "pages." But you were just being sarcastic, weren't you?
I used vbox for several straight months doing quite a bit of Linux development using it, hosted on a Win7 machine. Other than missing a few nice to have features I could have used, like drag and drop that VMware has, I had zero issues with it. A lot of the features VMware has I didn't need, so stuck with what was working. The "crap" drivers made the VM as seemless as possible for me, and in full screen mode, was no different than booting into Ubuntu in classic mode (which is what I prefer anyway).
I'd really like to know how many people are genuinely affected by these issues. I can't imagine I'm the only one that had zero issues.
The driver in question "vboxdrv" is used on a Linux host, so you never used it running Vbox hosted on Windows. The drivers you're referring to are the guest drivers, which are totally different. Your experience may indicate that the Windows equivalent of vboxdrv is less buggy. It's not surprising if Sun/Oracle put a higher priority on Windows than Linux.
An open-source developer calls an open-source driver "tainted crap", and recommend a commercial alternative instead. Obviously, Oracle has something to do with that, but I'm a bit curious: are there any good open-source (or even free) virtualization software, aside from VirtualBox? Or might it be an area where FOSS just doesn't work very well (there are a few, IMHO).
It's the Phoronix article that mentions VMWare, not the "Linux developers." Oddly that article doesn't mention the two superior, mature alternatives to Virtualbox already part of mainline Linux, KVM and Xen. So, Free Software virtualization is doing just fine, thank you very much.
Really, you should just refuse to provide any help or consideration for people using virtual box like you guys do if anyone is using a binary driver. I mean lets face it, thats what you're doing here. This is just another form of NIH syndrome.
As a developer, I understand the frustration of dealing with someone elses shitty software that you have absolutely no control over.
This however is one of those situations where there is no doubt what so ever that rather than just whining about it, he could have done something useful about it. The drivers aren't THAT complex in the first place. If he is so confident that it has these problems then surely he has documented when they occur as proof, which means fixing them should be fairly trivial as well.
Instead of being so high and mighty ... oh never mind, whats the point, its not your fault, its someone elses, your code is awesome and everyone will bow down to you guys. I know you guys like to think Linux is ruling the world, but you're still no where near big enough to start trying to pull an Apple/Google/Microsoft and force people to do it your way. You've tried this before and again, you'll lose.
If you're so sure that fixing the buggy driver is easy and a more reasonable approach, why don't you do it? Linux already has two major alternatives to VirtualBox built in (KVM and Xen). It doesn't terribly need Virtualbox, but if Oracle made the effort to improve the quality, I'm sure it could be accepted into the mainline. The reason for tagging the driver as "crap" is because it apparently causes ongoing, hard to diagnose bugs and some Linux developers are tired of dealing with them when they can use the superior built-in options like KVM and virtio. It's not reasonable to expect developers to maintain something they have no interest in themselves and aren't being paid for.
...so instead of just complaining, they could fix it and offer the patch back to Oracle.
I do believe that people who complain about problems in the Linux kernel and other open source products are often told to do just that. Why expect others to do as you say, if you won't do the same?
I think you have it exactly backward. It's reasonable to tell someone to fix something himself if he wants it fixed. The people marking the Virtualbox driver as "crap" probably have no interest in using it themselves. The reason for the tag is to avoid being bothered by other people who want it fixed. Now, the Linux developers who don't care about the driver can more easily tell people who do want it fixed to do so themselves or bitch to Oracle, which seems entirely reasonable.