"That may be the unix way, but it's not the efficient way."
Except that the Unix way allows compression of the collection of files as a whole, rather than per-file.
To take an extreme example, consider tar-ing and gzip-ing the/usr/include directory, with hundreds of small files, many of which contain a very-similar GPL header. Only when the files are first collected together into a single tar file can this duplication be compressed away. Zipping the individual files will not be able to compress as efficiently (especially when files are added to the archive after its initial creation).
But, that said, the actual degree of compression is not the only consideration for a good compression format. For example, being able to add or remove individual files from a.zip archive is a useful feature in some circumstances.
Consider errno.h (or its various "component" (i.e. "#include"-ed files).
Most non-programmers comparing instances of this file from different sources would think "hey, these are almost exact copies!".
On the other hand, most programmers would be quite aware that they almost have to be exact copies: you need the "#define", you need the error name, and you need the error value, and they need to be the same. You could even imagine the comments being the same, or at least very similar. Most programmers would understand that these values are needed for compliance with published POSIX-type standards. Non-programmers would not.
Come to think of it, maybe it's something silly like this that SCO is complaining about.
"She's a public figure, so she can't whine about privacy."
So that's it, is it ? All or nothing ?
So you're have a right to privacy if you're a "normal" person, but if you somehow become a celebrity, all of a sudden you're a different class of person to whom a different set of rights apply ?
Can we have articles like this listed and catalogued in a single place somewhere ?
If I happen to be wanting to learn Glade 2 now, this article will be really useful. Otherwise, I could bookmark it for future reference (assuming it'll still be there in a few months time) - or download it, and save it on a directory somewhere.
What about having somewhere such as the Linux Documentation Project keep a collection of articles like this (or keep a list of dated bookmarks to useful external articles) - simultaneously making both the Linux Documentation Project, and the articles in links to, more useful resources to more people.
"GNOME has moved on to the "keep it simple and stupid"-philosophy."
Personally, I wouldn't call this "moving on", but rather a change (and one which must have disappointed quite a few of its current, instead of "target", audience - especially those who were involved with its initial creation).
If they had made it easier for less-experienced users, whilst at the same time not limiting more-experienced users, I would call this "moving on".
Consider a car's "user interface". Does it restrict an experienced driver in any way ?
You mean paid-for MS software running on Intel hardware can't be beaten on price by free software running on the same hardware ?
"Hardware is cheaper."
What hardware are you talking about here ? Why does OSS need different, more-expensive hardware ?
"And you can talk about OSS superiority in certain areas all day, but the fact is, to a business, cheaper is always better."
Then free must be best of all. But the rest of your argument was about why free software WASN'T better than Microsoft.
Your post looks like a cut-and-paste from a Microsoft-vs-Commercial Unix argument - in which case it makes more sense. But some of the points just don't seem to apply against OSS software on off-the-shelf hardware.
Things could be improved, but those wishing to do so should first understand some of the reasons (other than just historical reasons) for why things are as they are.
The example you gave just shows the problems of non-standardised file layouts, so it's not really doing much to support people whose scheme (whatever advantages it comes up with) will add yet another variant.
But still, good luck to them, and I hope any good ideas they do come up with are taken up.
Name one single, popular operating system NOT written in assembler, C or C++ (which shares C's issues, as it allows the use of virtually all of its constructs).
Thanks for the informative post. It looks like Apple have done a very good job.
As regards 1, I believe the intention of the/opt directory was similar (although sub-dividing by vendor seems new).
3 - Great. I always wondered why this hadn't been done before on popular unixes. The two reasons I came up with were a) search times; b) possible command-line security implications and search ambiguities (i.e. it doesn't do you any good having/usr/VendorX/SpiffyApp if it's possible to install/usr/VendorNew/SpiffyApp which gets called instead).
Do you happen to know how OS X deals with these problems (particularly the second one) ?
7 - Yes, I think this is one reason why RPM gets so much flack (particularly when people don't realise that it's a tool upon which higher-level tools can be build (such as Mandrake's urpmi, or Ximian's Red Carpet).
Actually, Mandrake (and I assume RedHat too, and probably other Linuxes as well) achieve something similar with the use of/usr/share/doc/PackageName. However, it would be extremely useful if these directories provided pointers to all the help files associated with the applications concerned - including HTML man pages. For example, konqueror under KDE can display man and info pages using the "man:ls" or "info:gdb" URIs (I imagine Gnome has something similar). Imagine how much simpler it would be to have these as clickable links from the relevant directories.
".....a "betterment of mankind" kind of arguement (we heard that with Marx, Jesus, and whatnot)"
Marx, Jesus and whatnot ? Well it's not as though Marx or Jesus ever had any effects on the lives on anybody, is it ? Or that any of the freedoms you enjoy today are due to any anonymous "whatnots" who campaigned or fought for them.
How on earth did this comment ever get moderated "Score:4, Insightful" ? I must confess I am truly amazed.
"Imagine if every time you ran ls you got some companies name listed along with your directory listing." - Maybe they should list those names in the man pages - no-one would ever think of looking there;-)
OSS is released under various different licences which specify what the copyright owner will allow the "community" to do with it (which is usually pretty unrestricted, compared with closed-source software - after all, that's the point of OSS). But the community as a whole doesn't own it.
"Where would we draw the line if we allowed credits? banner ads? annoying pleas for money? pop up windows?"
Most of us would draw the line in a sensible place, and not think a load of bollocks about the "thin end of the wedge".
"Exactly the kind of bullshit macho attitude I was talking about."
Exactly the sort of language to use if you want half the people reading to ignore your posts, whatever the validity of what you have to say.
You come across as someone who gets angry because other people don't listen to what you have to say. If you keep communicating like this, you're only going to find yourself getting angrier.
"It is amazing how much training it takes in UNIX to do something simple in Windows. For example, recursively searching through a subtree for some text in a file.
Using GNU's version of grep (which is more flexible than on many other Unixes):
grep -r text directory
(-r means carry out a recursive search through the directory contents).
A useful GNU grep option, which doesn't appear to be as widely known as it should be.
The trouble is, how can you win a false advertising law suit it no-one is prepared to do the research to find the product is insecure ?
Interesting, isn't it, in these days of terrorism paranoia, that laws like this ARE going to result in worse security ? Well worse security for the USA, relative to every other country in the world that doesn't (yet) have these sort of laws.
It uses packages contributed to Mandrake 9.1 to build an audio workstation (including a low-latency "multimedia" kernel) - using URPMI to simplify package dependency issues.
Quote from the HowTo: "You can setup a professional quality audio workstation in an afternoon or less, with Mandrake Linux. No compiling. No text editing. No dependencies. It's this easy.".
I don't know enough about computer audio to comment further, but you might be interested in checking it out.
Slashdot Mirror
"That may be the unix way, but it's not the efficient way."
/usr/include directory, with hundreds of small files, many of which contain a very-similar GPL header. Only when the files are first collected together into a single tar file can this duplication be compressed away. Zipping the individual files will not be able to compress as efficiently (especially when files are added to the archive after its initial creation).
.zip archive is a useful feature in some circumstances.
Except that the Unix way allows compression of the collection of files as a whole, rather than per-file.
To take an extreme example, consider tar-ing and gzip-ing the
But, that said, the actual degree of compression is not the only consideration for a good compression format. For example, being able to add or remove individual files from a
Consider errno.h (or its various "component" (i.e. "#include"-ed files).
Most non-programmers comparing instances of this file from different sources would think "hey, these are almost exact copies!".
On the other hand, most programmers would be quite aware that they almost have to be exact copies: you need the "#define", you need the error name, and you need the error value, and they need to be the same. You could even imagine the comments being the same, or at least very similar. Most programmers would understand that these values are needed for compliance with published POSIX-type standards. Non-programmers would not.
Come to think of it, maybe it's something silly like this that SCO is complaining about.
"She's a public figure, so she can't whine about privacy."
So that's it, is it ? All or nothing ?
So you're have a right to privacy if you're a "normal" person, but if you somehow become a celebrity, all of a sudden you're a different class of person to whom a different set of rights apply ?
Can we have articles like this listed and catalogued in a single place somewhere ?
If I happen to be wanting to learn Glade 2 now, this article will be really useful. Otherwise, I could bookmark it for future reference (assuming it'll still be there in a few months time) - or download it, and save it on a directory somewhere.
What about having somewhere such as the Linux Documentation Project keep a collection of articles like this (or keep a list of dated bookmarks to useful external articles) - simultaneously making both the Linux Documentation Project, and the articles in links to, more useful resources to more people.
"GNOME has moved on to the "keep it simple and stupid"-philosophy."
Personally, I wouldn't call this "moving on", but rather a change (and one which must have disappointed quite a few of its current, instead of "target", audience - especially those who were involved with its initial creation).
If they had made it easier for less-experienced users, whilst at the same time not limiting more-experienced users, I would call this "moving on".
Consider a car's "user interface". Does it restrict an experienced driver in any way ?
This site might be of interest.
Some of the points you make are good, but:
MS/Intel's price point can't be beat.
You mean paid-for MS software running on Intel hardware can't be beaten on price by free software running on the same hardware ?
"Hardware is cheaper."
What hardware are you talking about here ? Why does OSS need different, more-expensive hardware ?
"And you can talk about OSS superiority in certain areas all day, but the fact is, to a business, cheaper is always better."
Then free must be best of all. But the rest of your argument was about why free software WASN'T better than Microsoft.
Your post looks like a cut-and-paste from a Microsoft-vs-Commercial Unix argument - in which case it makes more sense. But some of the points just don't seem to apply against OSS software on off-the-shelf hardware.
Point taken. Good luck to the guys for trying.
Things could be improved, but those wishing to do so should first understand some of the reasons (other than just historical reasons) for why things are as they are.
The example you gave just shows the problems of non-standardised file layouts, so it's not really doing much to support people whose scheme (whatever advantages it comes up with) will add yet another variant.
But still, good luck to them, and I hope any good ideas they do come up with are taken up.
".....its inherent unfairness to the British people....."
"...it's British, and it goes to pay the BBC, an organization whose benefits are felt the world over! Extremely unfair to the British people, IMHO."
Hmmmm, I don't suppose the BBC actually sells things to companies abroad by any chance, does it ? I think you might find it does.
Even if it didn't, as a British person, I have to say I couldn't give a toss about trivial little things like this.
http://corefonts.sourceforge.net/
Name one single, popular operating system NOT written in assembler, C or C++ (which shares C's issues, as it allows the use of virtually all of its constructs).
C beyond its useful life ? I don't think so.
Thanks for the informative post. It looks like Apple have done a very good job.
/opt directory was similar (although sub-dividing by vendor seems new).
/usr/VendorX/SpiffyApp if it's possible to install /usr/VendorNew/SpiffyApp which gets called instead).
/usr/share/doc/PackageName. However, it would be extremely useful if these directories provided pointers to all the help files associated with the applications concerned - including HTML man pages. For example, konqueror under KDE can display man and info pages using the "man:ls" or "info:gdb" URIs (I imagine Gnome has something similar). Imagine how much simpler it would be to have these as clickable links from the relevant directories.
As regards 1, I believe the intention of the
3 - Great. I always wondered why this hadn't been done before on popular unixes. The two reasons I came up with were a) search times; b) possible command-line security implications and search ambiguities (i.e. it doesn't do you any good having
Do you happen to know how OS X deals with these problems (particularly the second one) ?
7 - Yes, I think this is one reason why RPM gets so much flack (particularly when people don't realise that it's a tool upon which higher-level tools can be build (such as Mandrake's urpmi, or Ximian's Red Carpet).
Actually, Mandrake (and I assume RedHat too, and probably other Linuxes as well) achieve something similar with the use of
Or Mandrake and urpmi.
".....a "betterment of mankind" kind of arguement (we heard that with Marx, Jesus, and whatnot)"
Marx, Jesus and whatnot ? Well it's not as though Marx or Jesus ever had any effects on the lives on anybody, is it ? Or that any of the freedoms you enjoy today are due to any anonymous "whatnots" who campaigned or fought for them.
How on earth did this comment ever get moderated "Score:4, Insightful" ? I must confess I am truly amazed.
"Imagine if every time you ran ls you got some companies name listed along with your directory listing." ;-)
-
Maybe they should list those names in the man pages - no-one would ever think of looking there
"OSS belongs to the community."
OSS is released under various different licences which specify what the copyright owner will allow the "community" to do with it (which is usually pretty unrestricted, compared with closed-source software - after all, that's the point of OSS). But the community as a whole doesn't own it.
"Where would we draw the line if we allowed credits? banner ads? annoying pleas for money? pop up windows?"
Most of us would draw the line in a sensible place, and not think a load of bollocks about the "thin end of the wedge".
"Apartheid is a legitimate choice that the people of South Africa decided to live with for a while"
Yes, but isn't it strange why all those black people voted for it ?
What's that ? You mean they didn't have the choice ?
Hasn't the USA just gone to war, partly (so we are told) to give another country a chance of democracy, and not just to be ruled by the select few ?
"Exactly the kind of bullshit macho attitude I was talking about."
Exactly the sort of language to use if you want half the people reading to ignore your posts, whatever the validity of what you have to say.
You come across as someone who gets angry because other people don't listen to what you have to say. If you keep communicating like this, you're only going to find yourself getting angrier.
"It is amazing how much training it takes in UNIX to do something simple in Windows. For example, recursively searching through a subtree for some text in a file.
Using GNU's version of grep (which is more flexible than on many other Unixes):
grep -r text directory
(-r means carry out a recursive search through the directory contents).
A useful GNU grep option, which doesn't appear to be as widely known as it should be.
The trouble is, how can you win a false advertising law suit it no-one is prepared to do the research to find the product is insecure ?
Interesting, isn't it, in these days of terrorism paranoia, that laws like this ARE going to result in worse security ? Well worse security for the USA, relative to every other country in the world that doesn't (yet) have these sort of laws.
Any fans of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the Iraqi Information Minister (or "Comical Ali" as he is also now known) should be sure to visit this site.
Did it ?
OK, own up - which damn fool gave them the idea for Windows ?
Good God - 70% Insightful, 30% Interesting ?
Where's the +1 Funny ?
Looks like these aliens have been going around stealing peoples' senses of humour.
A guy called Austin Acton has put together the Mandrake Audio Workstation HowTo for Mandrake 9.1.
It uses packages contributed to Mandrake 9.1 to build an audio workstation (including a low-latency "multimedia" kernel) - using URPMI to simplify package dependency issues.
Quote from the HowTo: "You can setup a professional quality audio workstation in an afternoon or less, with Mandrake Linux. No compiling. No text editing. No dependencies. It's this easy.".
I don't know enough about computer audio to comment further, but you might be interested in checking it out.
"Am I missing something?"
A sense of humour, perhaps ?