Your referenced journal entry makes the improbable assumuption that we are the only intelligent creatures in the universe (or at least that we are on the only planet in the universe with intelligent life on it).
In the observer theory wouldn't it make more sense that the universe we see is a mutually shared hallucination between all intelligent beings in it?
If this is the case than perhaps the theory could be confirmed by observing slight changes in the laws of physics as newly evolved intelligent entities cast their vote in the behaviour of the universe?
This assumes that all entities have an equal vote in the rules. Perhaps our view of the universe is only local - and that other regions have completely different physical laws.
If Microsoft is as righteous and friendly to standards bodies and open-source movements as Miguel seems to think they are, they're signing their own death warrant. Microsoft is undoubtedly the most hated software company in the world; if the hype was true, people would move from Microsoft-based solutions to Mono in freaking droves. You'd have people lining up outside Best Buy for the next version of Mono and Gnome. Why in hell would Microsoft make a scenario like that possible?
Ok - of all the people that use computers (and I mean all the people that use computers and not all the Linux people that use computers) do you think really give a flying **** about that?
Since when have the majority of humans lined up to buy a product based on it's reliability? Or is it shock, horror purely advertising that drives them to it?
And when do you think Ximian, GNOME, GNU, Linux, *pick any big open source hero, company or mascot here* will have enough money to compete against that? Ummm, people - we give the shit away for free, if you're in it for the money now would be a good time to look at alternative careers.
What *may* happen is that corporations might say - 'Hmm - our GUI front ends can run on Linux and that's cheaper (lower TCO in corporate-speak) so I might give that a go'.
Or just maybe MS is pushing it through standards because they are expecting exactly the reaction seen on/.? That is no-one is going to implement it because it originated from MS and they can turn around and say - 'Hey. This is the only cross-platform, multi-language thing available and what do you know - we are the only people that actually have a standards compliant implementation. Won't that look good on your ISO9000 compliancy reports to your auditors?'.
How to promote the use of Linux in corporations (The/. approach)...
1/ Take a gun
2/ Point it at your foot
3/ Shoot.
I really don't understand why people are so upset at this. Anything that promotes a common set of API's is surely a good thing. And I for one would prefer to move to something that is not excluded for purely political reasons.
Java is a good platform - but where are the international standards (I've lost track of the submissions, rejections etc - maybe some nice person could post the details?). Java seems to be almost completely dependent on Sun - if they decide to stop supporting the Win32 platform (which IMHO is no better or worse than any other platform available - it just get's more attacks because of who makes it) where does the portability claim go then?
Yes - MS has done a lot of 'bad things' in their time but in this case it seems they've done the right thing by submitting the.NET API's (and the common intermediate language) as an international standard which means that anyone is free to implement it. How long was it before anyone (without having to pay a license fee) could implement a java compiler or JVM without reverse engineering. And AFAIK even then you couldn't call it Java without the appropriate license.
In this case any anti-Microsoft fervour is going to play right into their hands - don't implement.NET or CIL and they are free to do what they want with it. Do start implementing it and using it and they will be forced to abide by the standard they have submitted without marking anything else as 'extensions'.
From my limited legal knowledge that means that VisualBasic.NET must be able to generate 'standards compliant'.NET calls as well as Windows specific.NET calls to be able to claim compliance.
You want Linux on the desktop? Imagine the millions of lines of contractor generated VB code out there being able to run on Linux via Mono and GNOME unchanged? Or being able to write GUI's in Object Pascal, Kylix, Delphi, C, C++, any '4GL' language and being able to run it unchanged.
Linux (or more correctly - Unix-like systems) already have reasonable claims to better performance, configuration management and availability of tools in the server arena. But on the desktop? In all honesty I'd rather whip together a front end in VB than TCL/TK or Python or Kylix (which I *still* can't get to install on my Debian box - and I've pretty much given up on any chance of using Solaris or *BSD as a development platform). If I could write the one front end in VB and have it work on all systems via.NET I'd be a happy person.
Supporting.NET does not mean supporting Microsoft or supporting Windows. It means supporting the published standards. Just because Microsoft was the company that proposed the standards should not matter. To me it seems like the inverse of the 'not invented here' syndrome. Most people would agree that re-inventing the wheel is a bad thing - but 're-inventing the wheel because Microsoft made the first version' seems to be ok?
And for all the Java evangalists out there - yes,.NET and CIL look like Java and the JVM but remember that that concept was already used with common, standards based languages like Pascal and even smaller languages like Z-Code (?) - the Infogames interpreter. These games all ran on a VM that interpreted the Z-Code intermediate language and were around long before that magic oak tree appeared outside a Sun office).
At least CIL and.NET address some issues ignored by the JVM - that is support for multiple languages as well as multiple platforms, the need for a published standard so tools vendors (and in this case OSS writers) utilise the technology. This is something that Microsoft realised well before any other company it seems - if an API exists and the definition is expensive, will anybody use it? Perhaps they bent the rules a bit with Windows by only publishing the API's they wanted people to use but that has now been proven to be a 'bad' and 'wrong' and probably most important to a large company like MS 'an expensive' thing.
Anyway - this is a long winded way of me putting my vote for GNOME supporting.NET (and I hope the Qt libraries fully support it on all platforms as well - although they may not be happy with the fact that that may make the differences between Qt/Win and Qt/X so minimal as to stop the weird differences they have between what is GPL and what is not atm).
One of the problems of CVS is the difficulty involved in getting it to work through a firewall (or proxy). At least FTP will work through most if not all proxy servers (so you can work on your favourite open source project when you are supposed to be slaving away on a commercial project).
And how many projects actually utilise the supported platforms for gcc? The number of programs I've run across that don't take into account little things like endian, default structure alignment etc (when the programs store data in binary files).
This is similar to the Java write once, run anywhere slogan - anyone tried to get an up-to-date JVM for a NetWinder (ARM based) for example?
Replies to the bullet points I don't agree with...
Most of the true believers in Free software do not condone piracy at all. That would be your typical Windows user or Slashdot bigmouth you're thinking of.
Agreed - but that is not what is promoted on many open source advocacy sites.
GCC probably is the world's best compiler if you put correctness and platform independence ahead of speed.
Any compiler is probably the world's best if you minimise the criteria to the two things it does best.
Any OS crashes, building a stable system is a system administration skill. There are extremely stable combinations available.
And how does this not apply to Windows based systems? Linux system crashes - The administrator doesn't know what they are doing. Windows system crashes - Shitty Microsoft software. Please - be objective here.
Mozilla already rocks all over IE, IMNSHO.
Please give some reasons for this? And why is your opinion not so humble? In my experience (humble or not) Mozilla is typical beta level software. Has some great ideas but tends to crash on some simple things - or not display things as you would expect a browser to do - if as you would expect a browser to do is biased by IE behaviour is irrelevent, that's what the majority of web surfers expect.
Most businesses fail in the first couple years, especially in the current recession.
... especially if they do not have a clearly thought out business plan. Reason for using Linux - 1/ Cheap (means that that group don't have much money or don't like spending money), 2/ Free - speech or beer, take your pick (means that those users don't beleive in or want to pay money for software). Neither is a group is is about to shell out $100 for a game. Loki failed because it targetted the wrong market - not because of the recession. If the recession wasn't happening they may have dragged on another few years on VC input alone but they still would have failed.
Your bitterness is unbecoming. Slamming the good work of people in the Linux, Mozilla, and GCC projects because of your sudden realization that all of your juvenile misapprehensions are not 100% correct is a mark of poor character.
And to paraphrase right back at you..
Your optimism is unbecoming. Blindly defending the good work of people in the Linux, Mozilla, and GCC projects because of your sudden realization that all of your juvenile misapprehensions are not 100% correct is a mark of poor character.
Open source is not the silver bullet of software. Software is not bad because it comes from a commercial entity that desires to make money (Ummm.. capitalism anyone?).
Visit reality occasionally - you may be surprised.
When I was in this age group (13 to 18 - JK's 15 yr olds) it was the same thing - my parents didn't understand what I was doing (on BBS's, writing my own games, tools, utilities etc) so to them it was a 'big thing' and my generation was going to 'take over the world'.
In a sense they were right - I did join the IT profession, I do work on 'mission critical' software, my opinions (beliefs, dreams, etc) did come true. But it had nothing to do with me as an individual. It had a lot more to do with *their* beliefs, dreams, etc.
And now I'm in a 'power position' what is the situation? I'm worried that some 15yr old (read 13 to 18 yr old) is going to know more than I am about the latest 'hip' technology (ie Java) and I'm studying like crazy to keep up.
How are they going to be in 10, 15, 20 yrs time? The same as I am - worried to hell about the next generation taking their jobs, spending ungodly amounts of time studying (far more than I [or they] ever spent while at school doing the same thing) to try and prove they know more than your average 15 yr old.
And the sad thing is... they already do without doing anything. In my experience most problems can be solved (in this order) by...
1/ Knowing how to deal with your manager
2/ Knowing how to deal with the team you work with.
3/ Knowing how to solve the problem
Cynical? Perhaps. Truthful? Yeah.
And two out of three of those solutions only come with experience of dealing with people. One of the few benefits of age.
Re:Comments from the chartmaker...
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I have no problems with your 'shootout' - but one thing that should be pointed out is that with the Mac you *only* have the choice of a MAJOR BRAND NAME supplier - with a ia86 windows/linux/freebsd/netbsd/atheos/whatever-other -strange-os-you-can-think-of based system you also have the option of a non-MAJOR-BRAND-NAME supplier.
This is one area where PC's have Mac's beaten very easily - if you (or a friend) know what they are doing you can pick up a machine for a fraction of the price with the same performance. Of course the risk you take is if it doesn't work - but for a lot of people (especially startups - I've been there) that is an acceptable risk if you have knowledgable people on-site and don't have to depend on tech support (not that I've been that impressed by tech support for MAJOR BRAND NAME suppliers in either software or hardware).
It really is horses for courses. As you pointed out quite clearly I thought - your mileage may vary.
Mac vs. Windows vs. Linux
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Ok, back when I was shopping for my first serious computer that I actually had to pay for myself (by that time I'd gone through a ZX-Spectrum and a PC clone [8088 based]) I really, really wanted a Mac. Mostly because of what they could do (this was when the LC had just come out). Actually - when my parents bought me the PC clone I really, really wanted a Mac (at that time the Mac SE had just come out) but they couldn't afford it.
That was pretty much my decision at the time as well - I already had a lot of software for the PC (Turbo Pascal, Turbo C, + a lot of freeware/shareware stuff). For the price of an LC I could get a 386sx, bigger HDD, keep my existing software and buy a lot more.
Apple (with the Macs) have always been lean on expandability, high on price and they have always been the minority system. The days of the Apple II should have taught them that low price, high (relative) performance and a lot of expandability makes money but it didn't!!
These days (after using ia86 based machines - windows & linux - for a long time) I wouldn't consider going near a *new* Mac. I finally fulfilled my dream of owning an SE and an LC by buying them second-hand though. Both of them are networked via MacPPP through the serial ports of a P166 linux box though because the cost of a *real* ethernet card is more that what I paid for both machines put together.
I'm a developer - I want to run development software. Mostly C++ but also Java, Pascal (and variants like Delphi), FORTH, LISP, and any other language I can get my hands on - preferably with an IDE. In the region I was in most of these languages were available for the PC from my local BBS for the PC - I was lucky to find a single lame clone of Zork for the Mac (and even then it was a hyperCard stack that probably didn't run).
If you are buying a new machine - think about what you want to use it for. And then look at the benchmarks that cover those types of application. Then look at your own price/performance guidelines.
For me - a Mac doesn't cut it. If you are a graphic artist or work with DV a *lot* then it may. If you want something that just plugs in, turns on and works - a Mac may be for you (the iMacs seem to do that nicely) if you (or a friend) are willing to do the extra work to tune it and get it working you may be happy to save a few bucks and use a Windows box. If you are a developer, or have a friend who is willing to spend a *lot* of hours setting up a machine for you then Linux on ia86 may do it for you.
And before anyone flames me - I use Linux on my desktop for most development, Win2K in a VMWare session for Word, Excel & Outlook and a Mac LC for any graphics work I need to do.
1/ The article states that MS is using BSD code in their sockets layer - nothing to do with hotmail running on FreeBSD
2/ I've read articles (and seen web signatures - IIS likes to broadcast it's use) showing that hotmail *does* run Windows/IIS
3/ Microsofts anti-OpenSource statements were more directed at anti-GPL - they have stated that BSD is the best license, especially for code developed at universities. Allows it to be used in 'for-sale' software as well.
4/ Who cares anymore? The market (as in users) will decide the future - and my guess is a mix...
It's all very well comparing open source achievements to the advances made by Newton, Einstein et al. The trouble is there is a lot of patented and/or copyrighted work based on the initial development done by those great scientists.
The difference is technology/theory vs application of the technology/theory.
If you use previously well known and well developed theories (eg - the existence of black holes as an example), to develop a device that uses minature black holes to generate energy - in a format that can be mass produced and used in any home or business - don't you deserve income from that?
A far fetched example, true. A better example may be using the theory of public key cryptography to come up with an easily installable and usable PKC system for the most common mail systems - why can anyone complain that you are asking money for it?
The problem with the patent system IMHO is that patents are awarded on too general a basis. Perhaps the whole patent system is now outmoded?
I always thought the original idea of patents was to make the information publicly available (to encourage others to build on the ideas) but to prevent people from generating income from others hard work.
If you develop a revolutionary new idea or method for doing something you always have the option of NOT making it publicly available (via patent or any other method) but run the risk of other people coming up with the same solution independantly.
Todays economic model and environment encourages information hiding and locking up so-called intellectual property in order to make a profit on it. Hell, companies are obligated to do this. If Microsoft did not do it's best to make money (and gave away the source code for Windows for example) they would be swamped with lawsuits (and not just from Ma & Pa shareholders - but the numerous retirement, investment and superannuation funds out there). I own Microsoft shares, if they did not do their best to make money (and pay me a dividend) I'd put my money somewhere else.
Companies that try and work in the same economic model as Microsoft/IBM/Sun et-al and say they are giving away their primary product for free under the GPL aren't asking for an investment, they're asking for a donation. When I donate money it goes to cancer or AID's research rather than software development - that's more important in my eyes.
Don't focus on individual companies here - what needs to change is the economic model. And think carefully about the side effects before you decide. Are you willing to give up currency, capitalism etc just for the sake of having every piece of software released under the GPL? Do you think that's going to happen tomorrow, next year, next century?
This may sound like the Open Source == Communism argument but it's not. People should be free to reap the rewards of their efforts (by charging for their software or other works) and should still be free to give them away if they choose to do so. I, and I think most other developers who read/., do both. I write proprietray (sp?) code that will probably never be seen outside the company I work for and I contribute to open source projects (and manage at least 3). The former I do to earn money to buy the latest Athalon or P IV based systems (and beer, which is never free <G>), the later I do for my own personal enjoyment and gratification. There is room for both.
Comparing RMS to Ghandi is a *little* farfetched... ok, a *LOT* farfetched...
RMS has done a lot for the industry, but on many occasions his stance with regards to GPL and FSF had done a lot to hold the OS world back - where a little diplomacy would have gone a long way, but the guys ego got in the way of the big picture.
From what I saw Indrema was pretty much using off the shelf parts in a pretty box. What is to stop someone from defining a 'standard' games platform using purely open source software components and off the shelf hardware and allowing anyone to produce a box that meets that specifications?
If these people are making money from selling it then demand a 2 to 5% royalty per sale to fund the community involved in developing games (and the basic OS/graphics libraries required to support it as a standard) otherwise let anyone who has the money (or the existing hardware required) to build it themselves.
I've been looking at a similar scenario (focusing on 2D games though - no requirement for 3D excelleration) and putting together a bootable CD ROM that allows you to boot Linux (as long as you have a card that supports 800x600x16 framebuffer support and an audio card that supports at least 16 bit stereo output and a supported Linux audio driver) to play the game. Saved games would be saved to a floppy (using standard FAT16 so it's portable across most platforms). My biggest problems are deciding what net-card to suppport (DHCP would be a must even if you had a LAN rather than a PPP connection).
If someone could come up with a minimum list of hardware and supply a minimal distro that supported that (including the tools to make bootable CD's which was a real pain in the proverbial) it would make it so much easier. The hardware manufacturers could sell this with whatever value-added features they felt they needed to make an impact in the marketplace (ie: TIVO capabilities plus we support Linux Game Engine Spec 0.2 etc) and it would make it a lot easier for me (and many others) as game providers to say 'you require a machine that meets the Linux Game Engine Specification 0.2 - see http://url for more details'.
At this point in time it is far easier for me to say 'You need Windows 95 or better, supporting DirectX 3.x or better' and know that my software is going to work on Win95, Win98, WinMe, Win2K and WinXP. The difference? Better software? Not necessarily (although I am quite fond of DirectX now) but a known standard (and easily verifiable from the setup program). Perhaps this is all the difference that is required in the Open Source worldview - allows room for people to make money but is open enough to allow development without commercial restrictions.
Has anyone asked purveyors of Linux games (ie: Loki) what they would like to see? Given that these are the people that are likely to port the most popular games to the platform I'm sure they would appreciate some sort of input.
Difference between Indrema and XBox ?
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Let's see - XBox is basically PC hardware with flash graphics (GeForce3 - which will also be available for Mac and standard PC platforms) but no (or very limited) expansion capabilities and runs a Win32 compatible OS (EmbeddedNT I think).
Indremea is basically PC hardware with flash graphics (GeForce2 - already available for PC platforms) but no (or very limited) expansion capabilities and runs a POSIX compatible OS (Linux).
Difference? Size of marketing budget, number of available developers, and ease of use of API. Yes, I know a lot of people will tell me how much the Win32 API sucks but compare the DirectX (includes Direct3D, DirectPlay, DirectSound et-al) API's compared to the number of multimedia API's available for Linux. Freedom of choice is great but when you are releasing an app for the general population you don't want to include a 2K file telling them what other modules/libraries they need to have installed to make the damn thing run.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Linux/FreeBSD fan but there is something to be said for API standardisation above and beyond the OS. At the moment MS is the only company large enough to enforce that as a defacto standard.
The egghead link doesn't seem to work - does anyone have an updated link or know the brand name or something else identifiable enough to search on?
Thanks
Slashdot Mirror
In the observer theory wouldn't it make more sense that the universe we see is a mutually shared hallucination between all intelligent beings in it?
If this is the case than perhaps the theory could be confirmed by observing slight changes in the laws of physics as newly evolved intelligent entities cast their vote in the behaviour of the universe?
This assumes that all entities have an equal vote in the rules. Perhaps our view of the universe is only local - and that other regions have completely different physical laws.
I think anything that requires orginal thought, effort and a way of expressing those efforts classifies as art.
If Microsoft is as righteous and friendly to standards bodies and open-source movements as Miguel seems to think they are, they're signing their own death warrant. Microsoft is undoubtedly the most hated software company in the world; if the hype was true, people would move from Microsoft-based solutions to Mono in freaking droves. You'd have people lining up outside Best Buy for the next version of Mono and Gnome. Why in hell would Microsoft make a scenario like that possible?
/.? That is no-one is going to implement it because it originated from MS and they can turn around and say - 'Hey. This is the only cross-platform, multi-language thing available and what do you know - we are the only people that actually have a standards compliant implementation. Won't that look good on your ISO9000 compliancy reports to your auditors?'.
/. approach) ...
1/ Take a gun
2/ Point it at your foot
3/ Shoot.
Ok - of all the people that use computers (and I mean all the people that use computers and not all the Linux people that use computers) do you think really give a flying **** about that?
Since when have the majority of humans lined up to buy a product based on it's reliability? Or is it shock, horror purely advertising that drives them to it?
And when do you think Ximian, GNOME, GNU, Linux, *pick any big open source hero, company or mascot here* will have enough money to compete against that? Ummm, people - we give the shit away for free, if you're in it for the money now would be a good time to look at alternative careers.
What *may* happen is that corporations might say - 'Hmm - our GUI front ends can run on Linux and that's cheaper (lower TCO in corporate-speak) so I might give that a go'.
Or just maybe MS is pushing it through standards because they are expecting exactly the reaction seen on
How to promote the use of Linux in corporations (The
I really don't understand why people are so upset at this. Anything that promotes a common set of API's is surely a good thing. And I for one would prefer to move to something that is not excluded for purely political reasons.
.NET API's (and the common intermediate language) as an international standard which means that anyone is free to implement it. How long was it before anyone (without having to pay a license fee) could implement a java compiler or JVM without reverse engineering. And AFAIK even then you couldn't call it Java without the appropriate license.
.NET or CIL and they are free to do what they want with it. Do start implementing it and using it and they will be forced to abide by the standard they have submitted without marking anything else as 'extensions'.
.NET calls as well as Windows specific .NET calls to be able to claim compliance.
.NET I'd be a happy person.
.NET does not mean supporting Microsoft or supporting Windows. It means supporting the published standards. Just because Microsoft was the company that proposed the standards should not matter. To me it seems like the inverse of the 'not invented here' syndrome. Most people would agree that re-inventing the wheel is a bad thing - but 're-inventing the wheel because Microsoft made the first version' seems to be ok?
.NET and CIL look like Java and the JVM but remember that that concept was already used with common, standards based languages like Pascal and even smaller languages like Z-Code (?) - the Infogames interpreter. These games all ran on a VM that interpreted the Z-Code intermediate language and were around long before that magic oak tree appeared outside a Sun office).
.NET address some issues ignored by the JVM - that is support for multiple languages as well as multiple platforms, the need for a published standard so tools vendors (and in this case OSS writers) utilise the technology. This is something that Microsoft realised well before any other company it seems - if an API exists and the definition is expensive, will anybody use it? Perhaps they bent the rules a bit with Windows by only publishing the API's they wanted people to use but that has now been proven to be a 'bad' and 'wrong' and probably most important to a large company like MS 'an expensive' thing.
.NET (and I hope the Qt libraries fully support it on all platforms as well - although they may not be happy with the fact that that may make the differences between Qt/Win and Qt/X so minimal as to stop the weird differences they have between what is GPL and what is not atm).
Java is a good platform - but where are the international standards (I've lost track of the submissions, rejections etc - maybe some nice person could post the details?). Java seems to be almost completely dependent on Sun - if they decide to stop supporting the Win32 platform (which IMHO is no better or worse than any other platform available - it just get's more attacks because of who makes it) where does the portability claim go then?
Yes - MS has done a lot of 'bad things' in their time but in this case it seems they've done the right thing by submitting the
In this case any anti-Microsoft fervour is going to play right into their hands - don't implement
From my limited legal knowledge that means that VisualBasic.NET must be able to generate 'standards compliant'
You want Linux on the desktop? Imagine the millions of lines of contractor generated VB code out there being able to run on Linux via Mono and GNOME unchanged? Or being able to write GUI's in Object Pascal, Kylix, Delphi, C, C++, any '4GL' language and being able to run it unchanged.
Linux (or more correctly - Unix-like systems) already have reasonable claims to better performance, configuration management and availability of tools in the server arena. But on the desktop? In all honesty I'd rather whip together a front end in VB than TCL/TK or Python or Kylix (which I *still* can't get to install on my Debian box - and I've pretty much given up on any chance of using Solaris or *BSD as a development platform). If I could write the one front end in VB and have it work on all systems via
Supporting
And for all the Java evangalists out there - yes,
At least CIL and
Anyway - this is a long winded way of me putting my vote for GNOME supporting
One of the problems of CVS is the difficulty involved in getting it to work through a firewall (or proxy). At least FTP will work through most if not all proxy servers (so you can work on your favourite open source project when you are supposed to be slaving away on a commercial project).
And how many projects actually utilise the supported platforms for gcc? The number of programs I've run across that don't take into account little things like endian, default structure alignment etc (when the programs store data in binary files).
This is similar to the Java write once, run anywhere slogan - anyone tried to get an up-to-date JVM for a NetWinder (ARM based) for example?
Replies to the bullet points I don't agree with ...
... especially if they do not have a clearly thought out business plan. Reason for using Linux - 1/ Cheap (means that that group don't have much money or don't like spending money), 2/ Free - speech or beer, take your pick (means that those users don't beleive in or want to pay money for software). Neither is a group is is about to shell out $100 for a game. Loki failed because it targetted the wrong market - not because of the recession. If the recession wasn't happening they may have dragged on another few years on VC input alone but they still would have failed.
..
.. capitalism anyone?).
Most of the true believers in Free software do not condone piracy at all. That would be your typical Windows user or Slashdot bigmouth you're thinking of.
Agreed - but that is not what is promoted on many open source advocacy sites.
GCC probably is the world's best compiler if you put correctness and platform independence ahead of speed.
Any compiler is probably the world's best if you minimise the criteria to the two things it does best.
Any OS crashes, building a stable system is a system administration skill. There are extremely stable combinations available.
And how does this not apply to Windows based systems? Linux system crashes - The administrator doesn't know what they are doing. Windows system crashes - Shitty Microsoft software. Please - be objective here.
Mozilla already rocks all over IE, IMNSHO.
Please give some reasons for this? And why is your opinion not so humble? In my experience (humble or not) Mozilla is typical beta level software. Has some great ideas but tends to crash on some simple things - or not display things as you would expect a browser to do - if as you would expect a browser to do is biased by IE behaviour is irrelevent, that's what the majority of web surfers expect.
Most businesses fail in the first couple years, especially in the current recession.
Your bitterness is unbecoming. Slamming the good work of people in the Linux, Mozilla, and GCC projects because of your sudden realization that all of your juvenile misapprehensions are not 100% correct is a mark of poor character.
And to paraphrase right back at you
Your optimism is unbecoming. Blindly defending the good work of people in the Linux, Mozilla, and GCC projects because of your sudden realization that all of your juvenile misapprehensions are not 100% correct is a mark of poor character.
Open source is not the silver bullet of software. Software is not bad because it comes from a commercial entity that desires to make money (Ummm
Visit reality occasionally - you may be surprised.
When I was in this age group (13 to 18 - JK's 15 yr olds) it was the same thing - my parents didn't understand what I was doing (on BBS's, writing my own games, tools, utilities etc) so to them it was a 'big thing' and my generation was going to 'take over the world'.
... they already do without doing anything. In my experience most problems can be solved (in this order) by ...
In a sense they were right - I did join the IT profession, I do work on 'mission critical' software, my opinions (beliefs, dreams, etc) did come true. But it had nothing to do with me as an individual. It had a lot more to do with *their* beliefs, dreams, etc.
And now I'm in a 'power position' what is the situation? I'm worried that some 15yr old (read 13 to 18 yr old) is going to know more than I am about the latest 'hip' technology (ie Java) and I'm studying like crazy to keep up.
How are they going to be in 10, 15, 20 yrs time? The same as I am - worried to hell about the next generation taking their jobs, spending ungodly amounts of time studying (far more than I [or they] ever spent while at school doing the same thing) to try and prove they know more than your average 15 yr old.
And the sad thing is
1/ Knowing how to deal with your manager
2/ Knowing how to deal with the team you work with.
3/ Knowing how to solve the problem
Cynical? Perhaps. Truthful? Yeah.
And two out of three of those solutions only come with experience of dealing with people. One of the few benefits of age.
I have no problems with your 'shootout' - but one thing that should be pointed out is that with the Mac you *only* have the choice of a MAJOR BRAND NAME supplier - with a ia86 windows/linux/freebsd/netbsd/atheos/whatever-other -strange-os-you-can-think-of based system you also have the option of a non-MAJOR-BRAND-NAME supplier.
This is one area where PC's have Mac's beaten very easily - if you (or a friend) know what they are doing you can pick up a machine for a fraction of the price with the same performance. Of course the risk you take is if it doesn't work - but for a lot of people (especially startups - I've been there) that is an acceptable risk if you have knowledgable people on-site and don't have to depend on tech support (not that I've been that impressed by tech support for MAJOR BRAND NAME suppliers in either software or hardware).
It really is horses for courses. As you pointed out quite clearly I thought - your mileage may vary.
Ok, back when I was shopping for my first serious computer that I actually had to pay for myself (by that time I'd gone through a ZX-Spectrum and a PC clone [8088 based]) I really, really wanted a Mac. Mostly because of what they could do (this was when the LC had just come out). Actually - when my parents bought me the PC clone I really, really wanted a Mac (at that time the Mac SE had just come out) but they couldn't afford it.
That was pretty much my decision at the time as well - I already had a lot of software for the PC (Turbo Pascal, Turbo C, + a lot of freeware/shareware stuff). For the price of an LC I could get a 386sx, bigger HDD, keep my existing software and buy a lot more.
Apple (with the Macs) have always been lean on expandability, high on price and they have always been the minority system. The days of the Apple II should have taught them that low price, high (relative) performance and a lot of expandability makes money but it didn't!!
These days (after using ia86 based machines - windows & linux - for a long time) I wouldn't consider going near a *new* Mac. I finally fulfilled my dream of owning an SE and an LC by buying them second-hand though. Both of them are networked via MacPPP through the serial ports of a P166 linux box though because the cost of a *real* ethernet card is more that what I paid for both machines put together.
I'm a developer - I want to run development software. Mostly C++ but also Java, Pascal (and variants like Delphi), FORTH, LISP, and any other language I can get my hands on - preferably with an IDE. In the region I was in most of these languages were available for the PC from my local BBS for the PC - I was lucky to find a single lame clone of Zork for the Mac (and even then it was a hyperCard stack that probably didn't run).
If you are buying a new machine - think about what you want to use it for. And then look at the benchmarks that cover those types of application. Then look at your own price/performance guidelines.
For me - a Mac doesn't cut it. If you are a graphic artist or work with DV a *lot* then it may. If you want something that just plugs in, turns on and works - a Mac may be for you (the iMacs seem to do that nicely) if you (or a friend) are willing to do the extra work to tune it and get it working you may be happy to save a few bucks and use a Windows box. If you are a developer, or have a friend who is willing to spend a *lot* of hours setting up a machine for you then Linux on ia86 may do it for you.
And before anyone flames me - I use Linux on my desktop for most development, Win2K in a VMWare session for Word, Excel & Outlook and a Mac LC for any graphics work I need to do.
Ok ...
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1/ The article states that MS is using BSD code in their sockets layer - nothing to do with hotmail running on FreeBSD
2/ I've read articles (and seen web signatures - IIS likes to broadcast it's use) showing that hotmail *does* run Windows/IIS
3/ Microsofts anti-OpenSource statements were more directed at anti-GPL - they have stated that BSD is the best license, especially for code developed at universities. Allows it to be used in 'for-sale' software as well.
4/ Who cares anymore? The market (as in users) will decide the future - and my guess is a mix
Ghost.
It's all very well comparing open source achievements to the advances made by Newton, Einstein et al. The trouble is there is a lot of patented and/or copyrighted work based on the initial development done by those great scientists.
/., do both. I write proprietray (sp?) code that will probably never be seen outside the company I work for and I contribute to open source projects (and manage at least 3). The former I do to earn money to buy the latest Athalon or P IV based systems (and beer, which is never free <G>), the later I do for my own personal enjoyment and gratification. There is room for both.
The difference is technology/theory vs application of the technology/theory.
If you use previously well known and well developed theories (eg - the existence of black holes as an example), to develop a device that uses minature black holes to generate energy - in a format that can be mass produced and used in any home or business - don't you deserve income from that?
A far fetched example, true. A better example may be using the theory of public key cryptography to come up with an easily installable and usable PKC system for the most common mail systems - why can anyone complain that you are asking money for it?
The problem with the patent system IMHO is that patents are awarded on too general a basis. Perhaps the whole patent system is now outmoded?
I always thought the original idea of patents was to make the information publicly available (to encourage others to build on the ideas) but to prevent people from generating income from others hard work.
If you develop a revolutionary new idea or method for doing something you always have the option of NOT making it publicly available (via patent or any other method) but run the risk of other people coming up with the same solution independantly.
Todays economic model and environment encourages information hiding and locking up so-called intellectual property in order to make a profit on it. Hell, companies are obligated to do this. If Microsoft did not do it's best to make money (and gave away the source code for Windows for example) they would be swamped with lawsuits (and not just from Ma & Pa shareholders - but the numerous retirement, investment and superannuation funds out there). I own Microsoft shares, if they did not do their best to make money (and pay me a dividend) I'd put my money somewhere else.
Companies that try and work in the same economic model as Microsoft/IBM/Sun et-al and say they are giving away their primary product for free under the GPL aren't asking for an investment, they're asking for a donation. When I donate money it goes to cancer or AID's research rather than software development - that's more important in my eyes.
Don't focus on individual companies here - what needs to change is the economic model. And think carefully about the side effects before you decide. Are you willing to give up currency, capitalism etc just for the sake of having every piece of software released under the GPL? Do you think that's going to happen tomorrow, next year, next century?
This may sound like the Open Source == Communism argument but it's not. People should be free to reap the rewards of their efforts (by charging for their software or other works) and should still be free to give them away if they choose to do so. I, and I think most other developers who read
Comparing RMS to Ghandi is a *little* farfetched ... ok, a *LOT* farfetched ...
RMS has done a lot for the industry, but on many occasions his stance with regards to GPL and FSF had done a lot to hold the OS world back - where a little diplomacy would have gone a long way, but the guys ego got in the way of the big picture.
From what I saw Indrema was pretty much using off the shelf parts in a pretty box. What is to stop someone from defining a 'standard' games platform using purely open source software components and off the shelf hardware and allowing anyone to produce a box that meets that specifications?
If these people are making money from selling it then demand a 2 to 5% royalty per sale to fund the community involved in developing games (and the basic OS/graphics libraries required to support it as a standard) otherwise let anyone who has the money (or the existing hardware required) to build it themselves.
I've been looking at a similar scenario (focusing on 2D games though - no requirement for 3D excelleration) and putting together a bootable CD ROM that allows you to boot Linux (as long as you have a card that supports 800x600x16 framebuffer support and an audio card that supports at least 16 bit stereo output and a supported Linux audio driver) to play the game. Saved games would be saved to a floppy (using standard FAT16 so it's portable across most platforms). My biggest problems are deciding what net-card to suppport (DHCP would be a must even if you had a LAN rather than a PPP connection).
If someone could come up with a minimum list of hardware and supply a minimal distro that supported that (including the tools to make bootable CD's which was a real pain in the proverbial) it would make it so much easier. The hardware manufacturers could sell this with whatever value-added features they felt they needed to make an impact in the marketplace (ie: TIVO capabilities plus we support Linux Game Engine Spec 0.2 etc) and it would make it a lot easier for me (and many others) as game providers to say 'you require a machine that meets the Linux Game Engine Specification 0.2 - see http://url for more details'.
At this point in time it is far easier for me to say 'You need Windows 95 or better, supporting DirectX 3.x or better' and know that my software is going to work on Win95, Win98, WinMe, Win2K and WinXP. The difference? Better software? Not necessarily (although I am quite fond of DirectX now) but a known standard (and easily verifiable from the setup program). Perhaps this is all the difference that is required in the Open Source worldview - allows room for people to make money but is open enough to allow development without commercial restrictions.
Has anyone asked purveyors of Linux games (ie: Loki) what they would like to see? Given that these are the people that are likely to port the most popular games to the platform I'm sure they would appreciate some sort of input.
Let's see - XBox is basically PC hardware with flash graphics (GeForce3 - which will also be available for Mac and standard PC platforms) but no (or very limited) expansion capabilities and runs a Win32 compatible OS (EmbeddedNT I think).
Indremea is basically PC hardware with flash graphics (GeForce2 - already available for PC platforms) but no (or very limited) expansion capabilities and runs a POSIX compatible OS (Linux).
Difference? Size of marketing budget, number of available developers, and ease of use of API. Yes, I know a lot of people will tell me how much the Win32 API sucks but compare the DirectX (includes Direct3D, DirectPlay, DirectSound et-al) API's compared to the number of multimedia API's available for Linux. Freedom of choice is great but when you are releasing an app for the general population you don't want to include a 2K file telling them what other modules/libraries they need to have installed to make the damn thing run.
Don't get me wrong, I'm a big Linux/FreeBSD fan but there is something to be said for API standardisation above and beyond the OS. At the moment MS is the only company large enough to enforce that as a defacto standard.
The egghead link doesn't seem to work - does anyone have an updated link or know the brand name or something else identifiable enough to search on? Thanks