The Gnome foundation can drop a lot of names. They've got a so-so toolkit (and before you tell me otherwise, try programming with it) that was based off a Photoshop clone and has had widgets undergo major (ie: developer's nightmare) changes from 1.0 to 1.2 to the proposed 2.0. They've got many divergent projects, no complete Office Suite, and have a FILE MANAGER as their flagship product. They haven't reached their second generation of desktop yet, and while that might be (and probably everyone's going to argue is) because they have a different set of standards, I don't think anybody can sit there and say with a straight face that the Gnome foundation has been pumping out the software in the same volume that KDE has. Furthermore, they keep changing names (Gnome->Helixcode->Ximian->What Next?).
This sort of thing is exactly why I've decided I don't want to be part of the KDE Community (should that be Kommunity?). The pro-KDE stuff I can live with, but the GNOME bashing seems to be getting worse all the time and it puts me off. Maybe it's because KDE seems to be gaining support and the more people that use it the more vocal advocates there are. I'm not even entirely sure what people are trying to achieve with GNOME bashing. If KDE's so much better than people will use it without that sort of nonsense.
Dos was written for x86. dosemu runs on x86. I don't need dosemu to run dos apps on my computer. Hence, according to this definition, dosemu is *not* an emulator.
What the hell are you talking about? Where in that definition does it say the apps must be impossible to run on the second machine? Where does it say that the CPUs must be incompatible? A computer is more than just a CPU. Dosemu emulates a PIC and various other support hardware: it emulates a different computer. Another example is VMWare which emulates several pieces of hardware including an AMD Network card and (optionally) a harddrive. Just because they don't emulate the CPU doesn't disqualify them under that definition. WINE however doesn't emulate anything. It simnply provides an implementation of an API.
This patent is on shaky ground, as it was filed in July 16, 1999, when a working CDDB system (i.e. prior art) was presumably already in wide public use.
The CD player that came with Windows95 used the same technique to identify CDs and songs (correct me if I'm wrong), but it didn't do any fuzzy matching in the database, nor did it refer to a central server. What about the CDPlayer in Win98? When did WinAmp get these capabilities?
Not only is there prior art but the technique is also pretty obvious to "one skilled in the art". I mean what else are you going to do? The only alternative is some sort of analysis on the entire song which is major overkill. Storing the results in a central database and offering fuzzy matching are also very obvious.
Btw, what's up with Deliphon moving to a non-Free service?
It doesn't make a specific point about distributing modified binaries, except in the long text after stating the basic freedoms.
I'm glad you read the page but what's your point? They state the four types of freedom and then they describe in detail what they mean. Part of that description is "The freedom to redistribute copies must include binary or executable forms of the program, as well as source code. (It is ok if there is no way to produce a binary or executable form, but people must have the freedom to redistribute such forms should they find a way to make them.)"
Clearly DJB's terms don't qualify. That's my point: you said that "the user is assured of all essential GNU freedoms". That's not true, and to say otherwise is to misrepresent the FSF's position.
That RedHat is free to distribute a modified binary is little solace to me as I re-install a machine.
If you don't trust RedHat to make modifications then a) why are you using their distribution at all?, and b) what's to stop you fetching the "official" version from the author anyhow?
So now who's making decisions on whether dicitionaries are wrong?
Dosemu emulates the hardware access available to DOS. I.e. it simulates hardware IRQs and registers. It is definitely an emulator by that defintion. Clearly you don't understand how these programs work.
I admit I haven't studied linguistics but I do have a couple of degrees in computer science so I am qualified to talk about this stuff.
Oh, I agree. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Opera being closed source, ad-ware, or anything. I really admire them for being able to compete so well. I'm just saying all the browsers have their pros and cons.
If you read the GNU free software page, all freedoms are assured to the user of the software. Just not to the distributors, since they cannot distribute a modified binary.
If you'd read the page you're referring to you'd have realised that one of the freedoms the FSF demands is the freedom to redistribute. The FSF doesn't distinguish between users and distributors. In particular the "DJB license" does not provide "freedom 3": "The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements to the public, so that the whole community benefits", therefore DJB's license is not a free software license by the FSF's standards. For the same reason it doesn't conform to the OSI definition either.
Of course, qmail and djbdns have no holes. Guaranteed. So there is no need to distribute a modified binary....the user is assured of all essential GNU freedoms.
What if I want to add features? Port to another architecture? There are plenty of worthwhile modifications that aren't security fixes. But if I make one of them I'm not allowed share it without DJB's permission. That doesn't match "the user is assured of all essential GNU freedoms". Not at all.
4 out of 4 of these are better than Mozilla right now.
Bullshit. IE via WINE is horrible, and Nautilus embeds Mozilla in the most basic form (e.g. not right click context menu), so can hardly be considered better. Konqueror is very good although it's behind Mozilla in some respects (notably Javascript support), but way ahead in others (especially resource usage). Opera I haven't tried but it does have the problem of not being free in any sense of the word.
GPL is bad if your business is based solely off a GPL'd product.
More accurate: GPL is bad for your business if your business is based solely off selling a GPL'd product. But so what? Lot's of things that are bad for a single business are good for the consumer. The GPL is just one of them. Standards are another. Monopoly protection, the list goes on.
I was under the impression that they did have to be defended/asserted as per other intellectual property laws.
Legally there are three type of intellectual property protection: patents, trademarks, copyrights. Only trademarks require active defense and active use to be maintained. Patents and copyrights do not.
Of course perhaps this is an interesting thought in itself - why can someone be granted a patent, then wait for a few years before suing people under it?
Because if you invent something it is your responsibility to find out if it has been previously invented (patented). It is not the responsibility of the original inventor (who has the patent) to keep track of the field for the rest of eternity (well, at least the patent's duration).
One of the more interesting revelations in this case is that the license Samsung signed includes an out clause (from the article):
Samsung Electronics Co. can stop paying SDRAM and DDR royalties to Rambus if a court in any geographic region of the world determines that any company does not infringe the synchronous patents.
That suggests that Rambus really grovelled to get a license signed with Samsung. I imagine the payments have already stopped.
3.Computer Science. To imitate the function of (another system), as by modifications to hardware or software that allow the imitating system to accept the same data, execute the same programs, and achieve the same results as the imitated system.
That's not a very clear definition. But that's what you get for using the American Heritage Dictionary for technical definitions. Generally in computer science "emulate" is used to mean the emulation of hardware. It also implies the use of a virtual machine or interpreter neither of which WINE has (yet). On the other hand WINE developers sometimes refer to the part of WINE which executes Windows binaries as an emulator. But it's really not. At best it emulates the Windows binary loader.
WINE is an implementation of the Win32 API. It's no more an emulator than XFree86 is (XFree86 being an implementation of the X server spec and X library APIs).
If you buy the DVD they are not trying to punish you.
They may not be trying to punish me but they're certainly trying to screw me. E.g. the region code which amounts to price fixing. And now here in Australia they're talking about releasing DVDs to the rental market exclusively for three months.
There might be some egg on their face, but they're not home free yet. For starters, the "licensing agreements" that yield the royalties for Rambus are contracts. IANAL, but I imagine that there will still be some legal wrangling that Samsung and the others will have to go through to get out of those deals (maybe make a case that they were based on invalid patents???).
One of the analysts speculated that those contracts may have an out clause for the case where Rambus loses it's patents or even if they fail to force licenses on all the manufacturers. There were rumors that the early signees got better terms, maybe that sort of out clause was one of the inducements.
"In our view, if Rambus loses the Infineon case, the stock loses its catalyst," Edelstone wrote
Stocks should be based on a company's business model and diversified revenue stream.
That's exactly what the analyst is saying. If they won this case they'd have revenue from SDRAM, DDR SDRAM, and RDRAM. The current major technology plus both major competitors for the next standard. If they lose this case then they only have revenue from RDRAM. That's a big problem because it's looking increasingly like RDRAM is not going to be next standard. Plus they immediately lose US$1 billion on retroactive SDRAM royalties they won't be getting.
Who wants to guess at the likelyhood that Mr. Edelstone has Rambus technology in the memory chips of the computer he used to type the research note?
Unless he's got RDRAM in there that has yet to be decided.
In essence, he and other investors are paying Rambus to charge them more for memory, and the money is going around and around in a circle, creating the illusion of profit. This is what bubbles are made of.
First he's an analyst. That doesn't mean he's an investor. Second, I don't see you're point. The fact that people buy products from companies they've invested in doesn't make the profit an illusion. And so long as one customer isn't a shareholder they're still going to be relatively better off.
Slashdot Mirror
If they're adding new services then why does it say "this information will no longer be free after June 1" when I look at all the claims?
Not only is there prior art but the technique is also pretty obvious to "one skilled in the art". I mean what else are you going to do? The only alternative is some sort of analysis on the entire song which is major overkill. Storing the results in a central database and offering fuzzy matching are also very obvious.
Btw, what's up with Deliphon moving to a non-Free service?
Dosemu emulates the hardware access available to DOS. I.e. it simulates hardware IRQs and registers. It is definitely an emulator by that defintion. Clearly you don't understand how these programs work.
I admit I haven't studied linguistics but I do have a couple of degrees in computer science so I am qualified to talk about this stuff.
Oh, I agree. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with Opera being closed source, ad-ware, or anything. I really admire them for being able to compete so well. I'm just saying all the browsers have their pros and cons.
The moderators who gave this "+1 Interesting" and "-1 Overrated" need a slap upside the head.
I saw it. Just because it's in a dictionary doesn't make it right, especially if it's a jargon word in a non-technical dictionary.
AFAIC only your everyday usage of the word.
WINE is an implementation of the Win32 API. It's no more an emulator than XFree86 is (XFree86 being an implementation of the X server spec and X library APIs).
Didn't you realise the Planet IT article was crap when they made the claim that DeCSS allowed people to put Star Wars on DVD?
Transmeta aren't the one's bitching about OSS are they?