They may be right that for OSS to succeed on a large scale, it will eventually have to depend on more than altruistic programmers coding for free in their spare time. This is especially true for an open source project where the final product will be sold instead of given away. Ultimately, a OSS system where a for-profit company can make use of the vast network of independent software developers but pay them for their work may be necessary. This way, a company can sell a "standardized version" and still benefit from the OSS model, while the programmers can earn money for their work.
As many have already mentioned, abolishing copyrights altogether would create chaos, including invalidating the GPL. The system needs to be modified so that the it provides the protection needed by individuals and small companies while limiting abuses by the largest corporations. One way might be to reduce the amount of time protection lasts for large companies. Another might be to force big companies who have made a large profit form a copyrighted work to license it under progressively more liberal terms.
If a programmer (or author) quits, then I would suggest that he retain his copyright and continue to license it to the corporation. In essence, all employess would become "free agents" at least in terms of IP. This may not be bad in principle. I think where it gets sticky in practice is if a certain piece of IP is developed by more than one individual - it could get quite messy for a company to keep track of how much of what IP belongs to who.
If a programmer (or author) quits, then I would suggest that he retain his copyright and continue to license it to the corporation. In essence, all employess would become "free agents" at least in terms of IP. This may not be bad in principle. I think where it gets sticky in practice is if a certain piece of IP is developed by more than one individual - it could get quite messy for a company to keep track of how much of what IP belongs to who if someone leaves.
On their "mission statement" page, the first sentence is:
"Capital Research Center (CRC) was established in 1984 to study non-profit organizations, with a special focus on reviving the American traditions of charity, philanthropy, and voluntarism."
They then go on to bash one of the biggest volunteer efforts in history (OSS) as being anti-free market and bad for consumers.
This is just an anti-government group in disguise.
They are creating another proprietary, non-scaleable solution. Unlike NT, You don't need a stripped-down thin version of Linux to create a thin server. With Linux, you can expand the system as your needs expand.
What they'll miss with their approach is the entire segment of the market who are taking their old hardware and giving it new life as thin servers using Linux or freeBSD for essentially zero cost. In our company, we already have 13 old pentium machines functioning in this capacity. This would have cost between $13,000 and $26,000 using these new machines.
It's easy to get complacent when things are going well, but sometimes, when things like this happen, it makes me think about the negative side of things and about how we've come quite a ways but still have very far to go - Microsoft *still* has 90+% of the (desktop) OS market; if we're not careful, they may soon win the browser war and hence the HTML protocol.
I think overall the positive signs are there, and we will ultimately resolve these issues in favor of the good of the community, but there will inevitably be bumps along the way - and we just hit one.
This will only work once. Now that this is so well publicized, the next time someone creates a Word virus, they'll strip out the GUID. This doesn't really solve their security problems.
The Spread of the Melissa virus is generating *much* more publicity in mainstream media channels than the GUID issue. Sure, if the GUID helps find the perpetrator, this will be publicized, but much of the public won't understand it. What they will understand is that Melissa (and similar viri) continue to spread via their Microsoft software. The negative PR would far outweigh the positive.
... Slashdot isn't mankind. Yes, the flamers make it seem like we have a fractured community, but this is not representative of the vast majority. Personally, I know 9 people who use Linux regularly, including myself. Of them, only two or three of us read slashdot regularly and I'm the only one who ever posts anything. And even on slashdot, most posts aren't flames.
Obviously ESR receives alot of flames from the vocal minority and that can get depressing - a long time ago I did work for an advocacy group (nothing to do with computers) and we got flamed alot from people on our own side who didn't always agree with the way we did things, but in the end we were good for our cause. ESR is feeling the stress of this and he knew he would get it. Sure, it would be nice if everyone would disagree in a constructive, civil manner, but that just isn't the case and sometimes people will get burned out.
To be sure, corporate mindsets will have to change in order to accept Linux and OSS, but ultimately, if the business world accepts OSS and Linux, it will be because it will have been a good decision from a business perspective, I doubt it will be stopped by a handful of vocal flamers who don't want it to happen. There has been no shortage of people flaming Windows over the years yet it has been accepted by the corporate world.
True in a sense. But I would still say that command lines can be thought of as making things easier - it's just that like most other tools people use, they only make things easier if you take the time to learn how to use them. That said, it's true that not everyone will be able to become proficient at it, but by having the capability available, it makes it possible for one person to automate something for another, which in effect has made that person's task easier even thought they didn't know how to do it themselves.
Split breaks a single file into several files based upon simple rules (given on the command line of course), xcopy copies entire directory trees. They're pretty different.
... Why didn't fear and uncertainty kill Windows before it became popular? Remember that Windows languished for some time before it took off, and it only took off when certain applications (mainly Word and Excel, *gag*) created crirical mass. FUD can be overcome if critical mass is achieved and other apps appear. The Amiga may have come close but never garnered that critical mass, among its other problems. The Mac did, and Linux has in server space. Nobody knows for sure, but I think Linux will get there in desktop space - it just may take more time because Linux doesn't fit long-established corporte models.
...Is that the CLI can often make things much *simpler*. My wife publishes a newsletter for her business each month, she was using WordPerfect (on Linux of course). Each time she would have to paste in new images and re-arrange things manually. I ported her newsletter to LaTeX (using LyX). Now she just enters the text in a simple text file, puts in the list of images, and types a single command to run a script which awk's everything together and prints out the newsletter. Preparing her newsletter now takes about half the time it used to with a graphical wp.
It appears that for raster format printers (i.e., affordable ones), driver code is still required on the client machine and the quality of the output will depend on the quality of driver code. You will still be stuck with ghostscript quality output on raster language printers where the manufacturer chooses not to port drivers to non-MS and non-Mac operating systems.
1.) Overall, major PC vendors like dell selling Linux machines to single users on their web site is good for Linux. Eventually, if the demand is high and they become more familiar with Linux, they will offer more hardware combinations. At this point they don't know Linux that well so I assume that at first they want to limit what they have to support.
2.) Regardless of the price relative to other Dell machines, these prices (at least for the Xeon machines) are a bit lower than VA or Penguin Computing. I'm not saying we shouldn't support Linux friendly vendors - I, for one, would rather buy my machine from VA or Penguin - but the point is that their pricing is actually competetive against what's already out there. Over time, competition will lower prices to the level of Windows machines.
3.) Many companies (including the one I work for) buy all of their PCs from Dell. Having Dell visibly support Linux may help increase the level of acceptance of Linux in companies like these.
Dell's behavior has often been less than great when it comes to supporting non-MS alternatives, but we don't have to pick nits(sp?) and flame the hell out of them when they make a stab (albeit a somewhat clumsy stab) at doing something right.
Even though UNIX apps may not be technically difficult to port to Linux, vendors won't do it until there is enough demand from users to justify the support costs involved. So far, mainly server app vendors have seen this demand.
I would like to see this happen too, but right now there's just not as much desktop demand for Linux as there is server demand, probably because to managers, the perceived benfits are less for desktop systems. Eventually critical mass will be obtained but it may take longer than it did for servers.
Personally, I find Tcl syntax to be a bit more natural than Perl, but they're both useful languages and each has it's strong points. Keep in mind that Tcl was originally designed to be an embedded scripting language for applications. There are some shortcomings, such as way too limited data types and structures, but I have written some medium sized applications (~5000+ lines of code) in Tcl/Tk in much less time than it would have taken using c and a GUI library. BTW, Tk can be used in c, it's just more work.
I assume you mean a grid geometry manager, not a widget. Tk has a grid geometry manager. There is also another grid geometry manager available called "table" which is part of the BLT package (www.tcltk.com/blt) that is a bit easier to use IMHO. BLT also has a very complete 2D graph widget which is one of the main reasons I picked Tk for a graphing application I am writing.
It seems to me that a system where a software contributor would get payed a royalty based on some measure of their contribution to the project (such as lines of code, for example) might be better than a winner-take-all bounty. This would encourage using the best portions of code from many different sources in much the same way that existing free open source projects work. This way programmers would remain independent and source would remain open but the contributors would ultimately get paid when the organizing entity sells the final product.
Everyone knows that a cluster won't perform well for computations that can't be easily parallized without massive internodal communication - No one would use a cluster for these types of problems. The point is that it _is_ a fair test for the types of computations that you _would_ use a cluster for. For these types of applications, you're better off spending $150,000 for a PC cluster than millions for a Cray.
It's actually pretty simple. You probably already have what you need: Ghostscript 5.1 or higher. If you have a distro version of Ghostscript (3.x or whatever) you will have to download at least 5.1. Once it's installed, create a postscript file with your application and use the ps2pdf command to generate a pdf file.
One tip: Try to stick to standard ghostscript fonts in your document (times, helvetica, courier). Other fonts go into the pdf file as bitmaps which are fine when printed but don't look so great on the screen. BTW, this works in NT too - you don't have to buy Acrobat.
I'm one of a handful of Linux users in our company and I've begun a push to get people to distribute documentation in PDF format instead of Word (or any application specific for that matter). It's actually been partially successful - about half the stuff I get is now PDF. I also posted the UNIX and NT versions of Ghostscript on my internal web page. Granted, it doesn't work if the end user has to be able to edit the document, but in reality this is the case only a few percent of the time.
Slashdot Mirror
They may be right that for OSS to succeed on a large scale, it will eventually have to depend on more than altruistic programmers coding for free in their spare time. This is especially true for an open source project where the final product will be sold instead of given away. Ultimately, a OSS system where a for-profit company can make use of the vast network of independent software developers but pay them for their work may be necessary. This way, a company can sell a "standardized version" and still benefit from the OSS model, while the programmers can earn money for their work.
As many have already mentioned, abolishing copyrights altogether would create chaos, including invalidating the GPL. The system needs to be modified so that the it provides the protection needed by individuals and small companies while limiting abuses by the largest corporations. One way might be to reduce the amount of time protection lasts for large companies. Another might be to force big companies who have made a large profit form a copyrighted work to license it under progressively more liberal terms.
If a programmer (or author) quits, then I would suggest that he retain his copyright and continue to license it to the corporation. In essence, all employess would become "free agents" at least in terms of IP. This may not be bad in principle. I think where it gets sticky in practice is if a certain piece of IP is developed by more than one individual - it could get quite messy for a company to keep track of how much of what IP belongs to who.
If a programmer (or author) quits, then I would suggest that he retain his copyright and continue to license it to the corporation. In essence, all employess would become "free agents" at least in terms of IP. This may not be bad in principle. I think where it gets sticky in practice is if a certain piece of IP is developed by more than one individual - it could get quite messy for a company to keep track of how much of what IP belongs to who if someone leaves.
On their "mission statement" page, the first sentence is:
"Capital Research Center (CRC) was established in 1984 to study non-profit organizations, with a special focus on reviving the American traditions of charity, philanthropy, and voluntarism."
They then go on to bash one of the biggest volunteer efforts in history (OSS) as being anti-free market and bad for consumers.
This is just an anti-government group in disguise.
They are creating another proprietary, non-scaleable solution. Unlike NT, You don't need a stripped-down thin version of Linux to create a thin server. With Linux, you can expand the system as your needs expand.
What they'll miss with their approach is the entire segment of the market who are taking their old hardware and giving it new life as thin servers using Linux or freeBSD for essentially zero cost. In our company, we already have 13 old pentium machines functioning in this capacity. This would have cost between $13,000 and $26,000 using these new machines.
It's easy to get complacent when things are going well, but sometimes, when things like this happen, it makes me think about the negative side of things and about how we've come quite a ways but still have very far to go - Microsoft *still* has 90+% of the (desktop) OS market; if we're not careful, they may soon win the browser war and hence the HTML protocol.
I think overall the positive signs are there, and we will ultimately resolve these issues in favor of the good of the community, but there will inevitably be bumps along the way - and we just hit one.
This will only work once. Now that this is so
well publicized, the next time someone creates a
Word virus, they'll strip out the GUID. This
doesn't really solve their security problems.
The Spread of the Melissa virus is generating
*much* more publicity in mainstream media channels
than the GUID issue. Sure, if the GUID helps find
the perpetrator, this will be publicized, but much
of the public won't understand it. What they will
understand is that Melissa (and similar viri)
continue to spread via their Microsoft software.
The negative PR would far outweigh the positive.
... Slashdot isn't mankind. Yes, the flamers make it seem like we have a fractured community, but this is not representative of the vast majority. Personally, I know 9 people who use Linux regularly, including myself. Of them, only two or three of us read slashdot regularly and I'm the only one who ever posts anything. And even on slashdot, most posts aren't flames.
Obviously ESR receives alot of flames from the vocal minority and that can get depressing - a long time ago I did work for an advocacy group (nothing to do with computers) and we got flamed alot from people on our own side who didn't always agree with the way we did things, but in the end we were good for our cause. ESR is feeling the stress of this and he knew he would get it. Sure, it would be nice if everyone would disagree in a constructive, civil manner, but that just isn't the case and sometimes people will get burned out.
To be sure, corporate mindsets will have to change in order to accept Linux and OSS, but ultimately, if the business world accepts OSS and Linux, it will be because it will have been a good decision from a business perspective, I doubt it will be stopped by a handful of vocal flamers who don't want it to happen. There has been no shortage of people flaming Windows over the years yet it has been accepted by the corporate world.
True in a sense. But I would still say that command lines can be thought of as making things easier - it's just that like most other tools people use, they only make things easier if you take the time to learn how to use them.
That said, it's true that not everyone will be able to become proficient at it, but by having the capability available, it makes it possible for one person to automate something for another, which in effect has made that person's task easier even thought they didn't know how to do it themselves.
Split breaks a single file into several files based upon simple rules (given on the command line of course), xcopy copies entire directory trees. They're pretty different.
... Why didn't fear and uncertainty kill Windows before it became popular? Remember that Windows languished for some time before it took off, and it only took off when certain applications (mainly Word and Excel, *gag*) created crirical mass. FUD can be overcome if critical mass is achieved and other apps appear. The Amiga may have come close but never garnered that critical mass, among its other problems. The Mac did, and Linux has in server space. Nobody knows for sure, but I think Linux will get there in desktop space - it just may take more time because Linux doesn't fit long-established corporte models.
...Is that the CLI can often make things much *simpler*. My wife publishes a newsletter for her business each month, she was using WordPerfect (on Linux of course). Each time she would have to paste in new images and re-arrange things manually. I ported her newsletter to LaTeX (using LyX). Now she just enters the text in a simple text file, puts in the list of images, and types a single command to run a script which awk's everything together and prints out the newsletter. Preparing her newsletter now takes about half the time it used to with a graphical wp.
It appears that for raster format printers (i.e., affordable ones), driver code is still required on the client machine and the quality of the output will depend on the quality of driver code. You will still be stuck with ghostscript quality output on raster language printers where the manufacturer chooses not to port drivers to non-MS and non-Mac operating systems.
1.) Overall, major PC vendors like dell selling Linux machines to single users on their web site is good for Linux. Eventually, if the demand is high and they become more familiar with Linux, they will offer more hardware combinations. At this point they don't know Linux that well so I assume that at first they want to limit what they have to support.
2.) Regardless of the price relative to other Dell machines, these prices (at least for the Xeon machines) are a bit lower than VA or Penguin Computing. I'm not saying we shouldn't support Linux friendly vendors - I, for one, would rather buy my machine from VA or Penguin - but the point is that their pricing is actually competetive against what's already out there. Over time, competition will lower prices to the level of Windows machines.
3.) Many companies (including the one I work for) buy all of their PCs from Dell. Having Dell visibly support Linux may help increase the level of acceptance of Linux in companies like these.
Dell's behavior has often been less than great when it comes to supporting non-MS alternatives, but we don't have to pick nits(sp?) and flame the hell out of them when they make a stab (albeit a somewhat clumsy stab) at doing something right.
Even though UNIX apps may not be technically difficult to port to Linux, vendors won't do it until there is enough demand from users to justify the support costs involved. So far, mainly server app vendors have seen this demand.
I would like to see this happen too, but right now there's just not as much desktop demand for Linux as there is server demand, probably because to managers, the perceived benfits are less for desktop systems. Eventually critical mass will be obtained but it may take longer than it did for servers.
Personally, I find Tcl syntax to be a bit more natural than Perl, but they're both useful languages and each has it's strong points. Keep in mind that Tcl was originally designed to be an embedded scripting language for applications. There are some shortcomings, such as way too limited data types and structures, but I have written some medium sized applications (~5000+ lines of code) in Tcl/Tk in much less time than it would have taken using c and a GUI library. BTW, Tk can be used in c, it's just more work.
I assume you mean a grid geometry manager, not a widget. Tk has a grid geometry manager. There is also another grid geometry manager available called "table" which is part of the BLT package (www.tcltk.com/blt) that is a bit easier to use IMHO. BLT also has a very complete 2D graph widget which is one of the main reasons I picked Tk for a graphing application I am writing.
It seems to me that a system where a software contributor would get payed a royalty based on some measure of their contribution to the project (such as lines of code, for example) might be better than a winner-take-all bounty. This would encourage using the best portions of code from many different sources in much the same way that existing free open source projects work. This way programmers would remain independent and source would remain open but the contributors would ultimately get paid when the organizing entity sells the final product.
Everyone knows that a cluster won't perform well for computations that can't be easily parallized without massive internodal communication - No one would use a cluster for these types of problems. The point is that it _is_ a fair test for the types of computations that you _would_ use a cluster for. For these types of applications, you're better off spending $150,000 for a PC cluster than millions for a Cray.
Obviously NT can't handle getting slashdotted.
It's actually pretty simple. You probably already have what you need: Ghostscript 5.1 or higher. If you have a distro version of Ghostscript (3.x or whatever) you will have to download at least 5.1. Once it's installed, create a postscript file with your application and use the ps2pdf command to generate a pdf file.
One tip: Try to stick to standard ghostscript fonts in your document (times, helvetica, courier). Other fonts go into the pdf file as bitmaps which are fine when printed but don't look so great on the screen. BTW, this works in NT too - you don't have to buy Acrobat.
I'm one of a handful of Linux users in our company and I've begun a push to get people to distribute documentation in PDF format instead of Word (or any application specific for that matter). It's actually been partially successful - about half the stuff I get is now PDF. I also posted the UNIX and NT versions of Ghostscript on my internal web page. Granted, it doesn't work if the end user has to be able to edit the document, but in reality this is the case only a few percent of the time.
I think as the popularity of Linux continues to
grow, so will the amount of FUD. No big surprise.