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User: Arandir

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  1. Great book on Review:Programming with Qt · · Score: 1

    I think it's a great book. My two disappointments are 1) it wasn't bigger, and 2) it only skimmed the surface. When discussing a topic, it only gave examples for "typical" uses. I wanted to know about the atypical uses of certain classes, like all the ins and outs of QWidgetStack, etc.

    I've found Qt programming to be a joy. I've been porting over an MFC program of mine to Qt, and I still marvel at the stupid stuff you have to do with MFC.

  2. Re:Bad advocacy killing the Amiga... on Mindcraft Posts Linux Hate Mail · · Score: 1

    I was going to buy an Amiga for my first computer. I did the research. Awesome hardware. Decent software. Nothing in the PC world approached it. Then I tried to think of an Amiga user who was not arrogant or condescending . Couldn't think of one, so I bought an 8086 which is still going strong today. Commodore "killed" the Amiga only months afterwards because no one was buying them.

    Ask a non-Amiga person what they remember about the Amiga during its heyday and they'll talk about elitist attitudes.

  3. Re:GPL, BSD and redistributions on New Macmillan Linux distro · · Score: 1

    The BSD license is much freer than the GPL. If Microsoft "steals" my BSD code and adds their own stuff to it, have I lost my code? Not at all. I haven't lost a single unary postfix operator! It's still there and just as redistributable and free. The only thing I don't have it's Microsoft's private code, but I seriously doubt that I'd want it. The BSD says "use my code, it's free". The GPL on the other hand, says "you can use my code, but only if...". True freedom allows forks. That's why wherever you find freedom, you find more than one religion, political party, newspaper, radio station, school, etc.

    A world where everyone shared is paradise. A world where everyone is forced to share is hell.

  4. Fight back? on Porn Spam using Slashdot.org name · · Score: 1

    Looking at the message header (or any spam's header), how does one determine the true origin of the message? Is this possible?

    Sometimes I feel like bounding their message back to them a couple thousand times.

  5. Re:What a Dolt! on ESR On the Open Source Trademark · · Score: 1

    A particular anonymous coward, who has never done a damn thing for the community but bitch, now calls Eric a dolt.

    In case you haven't figured it out yet, the OSI != ESR. There's a whole bunch of people involved. If you don't like the OSI, don't join. Simple!

    The purpose of the open source initiative is NOT to convince jerks like you to use free software but rather to convince corporate types to use and release free software. If you truly do not want more free software, then don't support OSI.

  6. Re:GPL on ESR Speaking @Microsoft · · Score: 1

    Reread the GPL. It doesn't apply to the copyright holder. It couldn't anyway, it's license, not a contract.

    You could very well rerelease your version 2.0 as a proprietary program. But you couldn't revoke the licenses for version 1.0 from those people that already had it.

    I have a quick, very non-scholarly, and heretical explanation of the GPL here.

  7. Re:this is a chance to do things right the first t on "Open Source" Not Trademarked After All? · · Score: 1

    The problem with "free software" is that it is neither "free beer" nor "free speech". It is merely software with a more permissive license. To equate "follow my rules in order to use my software" to the concept of "free speech" is ludicrous.

    Or to put it politically: if my free speech is predicated on the free speech of others, then my right to distribute my software as I wish is predicated on the rights of other to distribute their as they wish. To say that non-free software is slavery is to say that speeches we don't agree with are slavery.

    In a world with 100% software freedom (no copyright or intellectual property laws) everything would be in the public domain, software could be released without source code, and the GPL could not exist.

  8. Re:Better term... on "Open Source" Not Trademarked After All? · · Score: 2

    I've always been partial to the term "community software". It more accurately describes the software than either open source or free. It is also a better to term to explain stuff to a non-programmer, who often times doesn't care whether they have the source code or not. All member of the community have a role in community software, whether or not they are programmers.

    The problem with "open source software" is that is is easily confused with "open software" or with software whose source is available, but wholly proprietary (like MFC).

    The problem with "free software" is that it tends to make people think "political freedom" and then to extrapolate non-existant political rights from it (and all the resultant political correctness).

  9. Re:Here's a sick society... on ESR Interviewed in Tweak3d · · Score: 1

    A sick society is one were hundreds of kids are killed every day in the United States, but we can't do anything about it since the instruments or their murders are already illegal. Uzis are illegal, therefore, officially, the murder of a poor minority child must not have happened. Only when a rich white kid is killed by one of the few legal firearms remaining, so we get outraged.

  10. Re:Since we're off topic anyway... on ESR Interviewed in Tweak3d · · Score: 3

    Still reeling? Shocked that someone else in the community might have a different political opinion than you? In case you haven't noticed by now, this is a meritocracy. We don't judge people by their political views, religious beliefs, ethnicity, or anything else like that. The only thing that matters are acts. It is the strength of this community that people with different beliefs can work together to create something better. Eric has done tremendous things for free and open software. What have you done?

    If I can't defend my liberty, then I have no liberty.

  11. Re:free software vs open source on ESR Interviewed in Tweak3d · · Score: 2

    Of course the reason is GPL. None of the BSD or X stuff had anything to do with it!

  12. Re:My apologies for the previous post... on Rasterman Summarizes his Red Hat Leave · · Score: 1

    As a KDE supporter, let me be the first to offer my apologies for the rude behavior of another KDE user (abuser?).

    The vast majority of KDE users respect GNOME. Many use KDE on top of E. A lot use both KDE and GNOME together. Please do not get the impression that this is the typical behavior of KDE types.

  13. The cracks in the community on Rasterman Summarizes his Red Hat Leave · · Score: 1

    The reason we are starting to see cracks in the community is because it is finally starting to become a community. And real communities have cracks. This is a Good Thing.

    Before, Linux users were a club. They were predominantly hackers with similar goals and philosophies.

    But new users arrived from all cultures. They have different goals and different philosophies. The don't all think that Richard is the high priest or that Linus is the master pragmatician. Most will never learn the intricacies of vi or emacs. This is the way real communities are.

    We don't get to choose our neighbors. Our candidate for mayor rarely gets elected. We go to different churches. Someone always complains about the potholes, and someone else complains about the cost to clean them up.

    If my community were perfect, I'd move to someplace where there were cracks!

  14. Re:E is actually tiny! on Rasterman Summarizes his Red Hat Leave · · Score: 1

    Mandrake spoke at the last SVLUG meeting about E. He described how the modules worked to keep the core small. Don't like the module? Pop in another. In fact, if you eliminate the wallpaper, pick a theme without pixmaps, and keep those rgb icons out of there, Enlightenment is actually one of the smallest window managers around. I forget what he said the footprint was, but it was smaller than WindowMakers.

    But half the fun of E is all those pixmaps, effects and modules!

  15. Very good mix of members on Corel Linux Advisory Council · · Score: 1

    I was impressed by the very balanced mix of members. KDE and GNOME. Debian and Redhat. Penguin and VA. Yes, it would have been nice if a FSF member were included, but it looked like they were concentrating on Linux in particular and not free/open software in general.

    I'm just wondering what they'll do?

  16. Re:Opera is not free software, bash it! on Latest on Opera web browser · · Score: 1

    (Warning: righteous indignation ahead!)

    So, you're advocating the theft of Opera? I bet you steal quarters from your grandma's purse too!

    Instead of doing something constructive and worthwhile, like helping out with the Mozilla project, you want to destroy someone else's code. Just because it's not free. You make me sick! You're not part of the free software community, you're just a leech hanging off it's foot! You're not even worthy to use free software!

  17. Re:Some People... on Latest on Opera web browser · · Score: 1

    Some people take every opportunity to bash Qt. I don't know why. Is it the name? The country of origin? The fact that it will also work in the hated Windoze environment?

    Opera is a commercial, closed-source project. They used a commercial, open-sourced library. The license question doesn't have anything to do with it! Why did you even bring it up? They could have used a one shot widget-set, but instead they used an extremely common widget set and library that is included in all medium to major Linux distributions.

    It took Troll Tech something like three days to write the COMPLETE gui for Opera. If you think this could have been done with motif, you need another cup of coffee!

  18. How about... on Ask Slashdot: Another Word for "Hacker"? · · Score: 1

    How about "coder"? It's short and simple. It has the benefit that non geeks would instantly know what it means. A drawback, though, would that it might be used in reference to non-hacker programmers or even HTML designers.

  19. Re:Good or Bad? on Microsoft Embraces and Extends Perl · · Score: 1

    I'm not an expert on licenses by any means. But I understood the Artistic license to mean that Microsoft could include parts of Perl into their products, and have few restrictions, but if they released a full Perl, they would have to release the source.

    Certainly, if they announced and proclaimed a Windows "port" then they have to release all source code.

    The best way for them to proceed would be to make a fully open Perl port, and add all closed stuff to a module. They could even make an API module, provide a visual programming shell, and eliminate VB althogether!

  20. [NOISE] How does Mandrake handle KDE? on Linux Mandrake 6.0 Released · · Score: 1

    I am certainly aware of symlinks, asshole ;->

    The problem is, I don't want KDE installed to /usr, period. I can hold off installing any of the KDE components until after Redhat is installed, but maybe I don't want to.

  21. How does Mandrake handle KDE? on Linux Mandrake 6.0 Released · · Score: 1

    I'll probably go with Mandrake 6.0 (it's either than or SuSE). But with the way that Redhat messed with KDE, I'm wondering how they are doing it. Is KDE installed to /opt/kde (or at least /usr/kde or something similar)? And since RH packages are to be 99% compatible with Mandrake, how will this work when they're built to install to /usr?

    If needs be, I can hold off selecting KDE during install and install them afterwards to /opt. (I liked SuSE's idea of putting GNOME under /opt also. Keeps the /usr from getting too cluttered).

  22. Re:SuSE is the best. on Linux Mandrake 6.0 Released · · Score: 1

    I liked SuSE very much. But there was one little tiny thing in 6.1 that put me off in a big way. Many of the packages are unstable releases. I use Gimp a **LOT** so I was not pleased that I was given Gimp 1.1.x. Very reassuring to see their "Road to Stability" splash screen :-) I had to uninstall it, and reinstall the old one from SuSE6.0. And this was just one example.

    IMHO, stay with 6.0 until 6.2 comes out.

  23. Re:License on Mozilla as GTK Widget · · Score: 1

    If this widget is nothing more than a wrapper for gecko, meaning that you can replace gecko with something else, then it should be fine. It just can't be packaged together with gecko.

    If it's bound too tightly with gecko, then it will probably need to be released under the NPL.

  24. Re:This is cool, but... on Mozilla as GTK Widget · · Score: 1

    I don't know if KDE does it the same way as the gtk/mozilla thing, but there is a khtml widget in the KDE library. It's used in a similar way to the rich text widgets. A lot of KDE applications use it for displaying help. I don't believe that it's 100% HTML4.0 like gecko eventually will be, but it's close enough to HTML3.2 that it's suitable for real world surfing, and more than enough for help files.

    I also believe that this will be used as the basic for a KOM/OP component.

  25. Re:Certainly on The KDE Future · · Score: 1

    "b) You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License."

    I'm no lawyer, but this clause seems to be referring to programs derived from GPL'd programs (notice the capitalization of 'Program"). But KDE is wholly GPL. None of it's code is non-GPL. It does not take any GPL code and "unGPL" it.

    For those that still point to Qt as being KDE's sin, again, reread the GPL. KDE is not derived from Qt and not one line of copywrited Qt code exists within KDE. Instead, KDE is dynamically linked to Qt. If there is KDE code within the Qt library, than that is a different story, but I do not know of any instances of this.

    You may want to GPL to be backwardly viral, but it is not. It is only forwardly viral. If it were backwardly viral, then the GPL would be the antithesis of free software.