I'm not an OS zealot, but I think ESR uses the word "appears" very liberally here. I couldn't find anything in the Kuhn/RMS piece suggesting other licenses be made illegal. No FSF activity that I know of works towards such a goal. Instead, they advocate and code free alternatives. There is plenty of advocacy for proprietary software -- having a different camp seems to satisfy the "choice of licenses" ideal.
Instead, they argue that choice of license is insufficiently free to be called free. Only some licenses pass that freedom on to the user, and some fewer licenses guarantee that derivative work will also be free to the user. It is this type of license, and only this type, that the FSF camp wants called free. What's wrong with that?
I think ESR is just as capable of hyperbole as RMS. I would restate your quote as:
...they would prefer a world in which people who write software do not choose the proprietary licenses...
The programmers are the creator of the work, and thus should have the "freedom" (there's that word again) to choose how their work is used.
Wait a minute...I thought that was the advantage of GPL over BSD-style licenses. GPL allows the creator of the work to set terms for use of source code, BSD makes no such allowances. I saw nothing in the article or links to suggest that the FSF suggested outlawing proprietary software (though they may have, and I just don't know). But by your logic, shouldn't the "creator of the work" be allowed to choose whether his work may be used in such works?
Ouch. Maybe you should give Global Thermonuclear War a shot.
Re:From A Business Perspective, It Makes Sense
on
Broadband Crackdown
·
· Score: 1
It would simply be a logistical nightmare where thousands of hours of work are diverted from network administration, support, maintenance, etc. It wouldn't work. They'd probably have to start up a whole new management division to keep track of it. And then their support people would continually be taxed by calls from people who are getting blocked when their neighbor's Apache box is still serving up pages.
Or, gee, maybe they could write a script -- detect, block and send an email notification.
Please remember, yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered the *BSA community when last month IDC confirmed that IIS accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on top of of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that the *BSA companies have lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The *BSA is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
Yeah, I've been dying for PPC hardware. Currently it's a nice cool night out but I'm still running A/C, @#$^^ Intel...
Did you see the "Leopoard" laptop?
The Leopard will out-style and out-flash even the best laptops offered by the competition , whilst offering superior performance to any other laptop in existance*. (*Dual Processor 7450 model.)
A dual cpu laptop? Is there anything cooler than that? Of course the "detailed" page for that model doesn't mention dual...
It's very strange that the only vendors I've seen talking about non-Apple, non-server PPC are both Amiga related. I hope that doesn't mean we'll see hobbiest prices on these - the suggested prices look a little steep. I'd pay a premium over an intel box for one of these, but not over Apple.
Actually, even Steely Dan qualifies as pr0n, though it doubless isn't being used in this context in the searches. The name is taken from a famous dildo in William S Burroughs' Naked Lunch.
The one used in the book is Steely Dan III from Yokohama, since Steely Dan I was "torn in two by a bull dyke" and Steely Dan II was "chewed to bits by a famished canidru in the Upper Baboonsasshole".
DirecTV (dossier), which has begun offering broadband Internet access, so far has had little luck keeping customers. During its recent earnings announcement, the company reported 745,000 new subscribers last quarter, but 570,000 existing customers canceled the service. In addition, new-subscriber growth is off 50 percent from the previous quarter.
LOL. DirecTV got this service by buying Telocity, which offered very spotty service and clueless technical support. Example:
When you call tech support, the first thing that happens is an engineer's recorded voice telling which cities are experiencing network trouble. Good deal - let's you bail early if it's out of your hands. But it's never accurate. I took it seriously, waited 20 mins on hold, spoke 20 mins to Ms 2-Day Training, before she said "Oh, you're in ***? The network there is down." Thank you. Who does that help? If they'd just update the damn phone message, they'd save both my time and theirs. Only once has my city been listed when it should've been. Given the number of random outages they have, I've collected a statisticall significant sample and they approach 0% accuracy.
Quality of service has gotten worse with the takeover. During the last network outage, not only was the city-specific message not there, but Tech Support answered with a helpful "We are currently upgrading tech support. Please try again tomorrow." And my client was sooo understanding about why I couldn't get him his files.
Even worse, their news server just went down FOR NINE STRAIGHT DAYS. Is there anybody reading who couldn't set up a news server from scratch using just docs in under 8 days? Well, you're overqualified.
Sorry to rant. I guess my point is, I've stuck with them because of a static IP, but why would anybody else? Maybe all the defections actually had a cause, rather than being part of some "trend". Maybe the trend was caused by people tiring of the internet business model of "overpromise, underdeliver".
I worked in Finance in the mid-90s. The climate in the computer industry was changing very fast, and some computer makers were having a rough time. On the earnings conference call, you'd hear "due to stagnation in the PC industry" and such. Other companies, same line of business and days apart would talk about spectacular growth in the PC industry. You figure it out.
TV networks do the same, discussing the "continuing downward trend in viewership" rather than "our shows aren't worth watching." Based on the continuation of bad service, bad business models and bad TV shows, I've come to the conclusions that execs actually believe themselves when they speak this way.
Q: Our customers are defecting! Our sales are down! Our ratings are off! What do we do?
There was a great John McCain quote about the last such spectrum giveaway:
I congratulate the broadcasters and their surrogates here in the Senate and the Congress. I congratulate them on prevailing. I congratulate them for their incredible influence that has prevented us from mandating an auction of the spectrum which belongs to the taxpayers.
I was looking for a ppc mobo a few months ago, came across the EyeTech site and considered it vapor (or vapour, since it's British). But the after following your link, I see that a lot of progress appears to have been made, and that's really encouraging.
Since you seem to be informed on this issue, do you know anything about the rumored SiliconFruit product? Their site seems to be down. For those who don't know, the project was to make a sort of "slocket" to fit a ppc into a standard BX slot 1 motherboard (along with BIOS patch). With all modesty, this was my idea. I quickly realized, however, that my complete ignorance of electronic engineering would doom the notion to an early grave. I'd love an update from someone who follows this with a sharper eye than mine.
Funny, Apple is the first place I went to to try to find a production model with a form factor this cool, but no dice. Somewhere in the Paceblade site, it mentions that it's a Crusoe processor. I don't know if you consider this underpowered, but I think the big advantage is heat. Imagine a laptop that you can put...in your lap! Even with a metal zipper! Although the ppc is much better than Intel/AMD in thermal characteristics, I recall a note on the Apple site about heat problems with G3 notebooks ("the keyboard becomes hot to the touch" IIRC) and G4s are hotter.
I've heard mixed things about Transmeta's performance, but I saw in their promotional literature that you can touch it while it's running. In a land where you can be sued for serving hot coffee, I'll take that claim as the truth.
The only question I have about it is whether the rotatable touch screen will have a linux driver. I have to read tons of stuff on line and I've been fantasizing about padding around the house reading from this screen like a newspaper. Mmmmmm. Not to give them any ideas, but it'd probably be worth another $1000 to me if it just works as advertised.
You can buy lots of different ppc sbcs from lots of different suppliers. It looks like all they've added here is a tin box, yellow paint and almost-all-in-one packaging. With just a little EE knowledge, you could build the same thing yourself.
Apple might want to duplicate the effort to get a server machine, but I think the words "Apple" and "server" are so far apart in the average IT buyer's mind that selling it would be a pretty steep hill to climb.
The price is junk. Not long ago, Slashdot did a story on the PaceBlade, which claims it will have a larger screen (12 vs 10 inches), more standard memory, faster transmeta processor, bigger disk, detachable keyboard, etc for $1995. Add a wireless nic and you're still way ahead of this one.
Admittedly, their product hasn't shipped yet, but I'd be willing to wait to get something that looks truly useful.
Thanks for the info. I've been keeping half an eye on this linux/ppc thing for ages. I'm pretty strict about building my own computers and this Apple ROM thing has been lurking around every corner as I investigated the ppc platform. It's good to know it's going away.
Good points, though the MSNBC piece cited above was surprisingly pro-hacker. Out of curiosity, however, do you know for sure that a First Ammendment case can be tested with a foreign national? Are non-citizens/residents granted all the same constitutional rights as citizens while on U.S. soil?
Wasn't the DeCSS Finn the only other person actually jailed over DMCA? Maybe they're being selective with the first arrests because of the 1st. I'm sure this is some well-covered topic in constitutional law, I just don't know it.
The first benchmark is valid because it shows how a frequently performed task may be affected by switching architecture.
The second benchmark is valid because users of an uncommon platform cannot expect to find the kind of optimizations for their programs that users of the common platform are used to.
That said, of course two benchmarks don't tell the whole story. For a bigger picture, try this collection of x-platform benchmarks. The stats are collected from many sources, so they're not always based on the same platforms, unfortunately. On the plus side, there's some altivec stuff in there, too.
Slashdot Mirror
only to hop off a sshort time later
Well, at least that's more secure than hopping of an rshort time later.
I'm not an OS zealot, but I think ESR uses the word "appears" very liberally here. I couldn't find anything in the Kuhn/RMS piece suggesting other licenses be made illegal. No FSF activity that I know of works towards such a goal. Instead, they advocate and code free alternatives. There is plenty of advocacy for proprietary software -- having a different camp seems to satisfy the "choice of licenses" ideal.
Instead, they argue that choice of license is insufficiently free to be called free. Only some licenses pass that freedom on to the user, and some fewer licenses guarantee that derivative work will also be free to the user. It is this type of license, and only this type, that the FSF camp wants called free. What's wrong with that?
I think ESR is just as capable of hyperbole as RMS. I would restate your quote as:
The programmers are the creator of the work, and thus should have the "freedom" (there's that word again) to choose how their work is used.
Wait a minute...I thought that was the advantage of GPL over BSD-style licenses. GPL allows the creator of the work to set terms for use of source code, BSD makes no such allowances. I saw nothing in the article or links to suggest that the FSF suggested outlawing proprietary software (though they may have, and I just don't know). But by your logic, shouldn't the "creator of the work" be allowed to choose whether his work may be used in such works?
devalued third world currencys floating around
At least the ol' slashdot spellchecker is still working fine.
Is it a bug when comment number #2111220 is a response to comment #2155782 in nested mode? A bug in spacetime? I'm confused.
Kermit stresses you?
I heard "banjo" and was thinking more "This router don't go to Aintry..."
Shiver.
Yeah, no EJB container. Oh, wait...they's jboss. I haven't actually used it, but it looks well-architected and is being actively developed.
I live in China, and the firewall is *very* obvious
I hear you can even see it from outer space.
Ouch. Maybe you should give Global Thermonuclear War a shot.
It would simply be a logistical nightmare where thousands of hours of work are diverted from network administration, support, maintenance, etc. It wouldn't work. They'd probably have to start up a whole new management division to keep track of it. And then their support people would continually be taxed by calls from people who are getting blocked when their neighbor's Apache box is still serving up pages.
Or, gee, maybe they could write a script -- detect, block and send an email notification.
Bet you're management.
Please remember, yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered the *BSA community when last month IDC confirmed that IIS accounts for less than a fraction of 1 percent of all servers. Coming on top of of the latest Netcraft survey which plainly states that the *BSA companies have lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The *BSA is collapsing in complete disarray, as further exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.
Oh, wait...sorry, wrong troll...
Yeah, I've been dying for PPC hardware. Currently it's a nice cool night out but I'm still running A/C, @#$^^ Intel...
Did you see the "Leopoard" laptop?
The Leopard will out-style and out-flash even the best laptops offered by the competition , whilst offering superior performance to any other laptop in existance*. (*Dual Processor 7450 model.)
A dual cpu laptop? Is there anything cooler than that? Of course the "detailed" page for that model doesn't mention dual...
It's very strange that the only vendors I've seen talking about non-Apple, non-server PPC are both Amiga related. I hope that doesn't mean we'll see hobbiest prices on these - the suggested prices look a little steep. I'd pay a premium over an intel box for one of these, but not over Apple.
Actually, even Steely Dan qualifies as pr0n, though it doubless isn't being used in this context in the searches. The name is taken from a famous dildo in William S Burroughs' Naked Lunch.
The one used in the book is Steely Dan III from Yokohama, since Steely Dan I was "torn in two by a bull dyke" and Steely Dan II was "chewed to bits by a famished canidru in the Upper Baboonsasshole".
I kid you not.
Peer-to-peer porn? I always thought that when porn was peer-to-peer, it was called "intercourse".
And how does congress fit into all this?
Hmmmm...
If you wrote LAME, then thanks. I found it very helpful, and I learned a lot from it.
DirecTV (dossier), which has begun offering broadband Internet access, so far has had little luck keeping customers. During its recent earnings announcement, the company reported 745,000 new subscribers last quarter, but 570,000 existing customers canceled the service. In addition, new-subscriber growth is off 50 percent from the previous quarter.
LOL. DirecTV got this service by buying Telocity, which offered very spotty service and clueless technical support. Example:
When you call tech support, the first thing that happens is an engineer's recorded voice telling which cities are experiencing network trouble. Good deal - let's you bail early if it's out of your hands. But it's never accurate. I took it seriously, waited 20 mins on hold, spoke 20 mins to Ms 2-Day Training, before she said "Oh, you're in ***? The network there is down." Thank you. Who does that help? If they'd just update the damn phone message, they'd save both my time and theirs. Only once has my city been listed when it should've been. Given the number of random outages they have, I've collected a statisticall significant sample and they approach 0% accuracy.
Quality of service has gotten worse with the takeover. During the last network outage, not only was the city-specific message not there, but Tech Support answered with a helpful "We are currently upgrading tech support. Please try again tomorrow." And my client was sooo understanding about why I couldn't get him his files.
Even worse, their news server just went down FOR NINE STRAIGHT DAYS. Is there anybody reading who couldn't set up a news server from scratch using just docs in under 8 days? Well, you're overqualified.
Sorry to rant. I guess my point is, I've stuck with them because of a static IP, but why would anybody else? Maybe all the defections actually had a cause, rather than being part of some "trend". Maybe the trend was caused by people tiring of the internet business model of "overpromise, underdeliver".
I worked in Finance in the mid-90s. The climate in the computer industry was changing very fast, and some computer makers were having a rough time. On the earnings conference call, you'd hear "due to stagnation in the PC industry" and such. Other companies, same line of business and days apart would talk about spectacular growth in the PC industry. You figure it out.
TV networks do the same, discussing the "continuing downward trend in viewership" rather than "our shows aren't worth watching." Based on the continuation of bad service, bad business models and bad TV shows, I've come to the conclusions that execs actually believe themselves when they speak this way.
Q: Our customers are defecting! Our sales are down! Our ratings are off! What do we do?
A: Call marketing.
There was a great John McCain quote about the last such spectrum giveaway:
I congratulate the broadcasters and their surrogates here in the Senate and the Congress. I congratulate them on prevailing. I congratulate them for their incredible influence that has prevented us from mandating an auction of the spectrum which belongs to the taxpayers.
Surrogates! Ouch! No wonder they all hate him.
Thanks! That's +5 Holy Grail in my book.
I was looking for a ppc mobo a few months ago, came across the EyeTech site and considered it vapor (or vapour, since it's British). But the after following your link, I see that a lot of progress appears to have been made, and that's really encouraging.
Since you seem to be informed on this issue, do you know anything about the rumored SiliconFruit product? Their site seems to be down. For those who don't know, the project was to make a sort of "slocket" to fit a ppc into a standard BX slot 1 motherboard (along with BIOS patch). With all modesty, this was my idea. I quickly realized, however, that my complete ignorance of electronic engineering would doom the notion to an early grave. I'd love an update from someone who follows this with a sharper eye than mine.
How much government funding did Edison receive?
How much government funding did ARPANET receive?
Funny, Apple is the first place I went to to try to find a production model with a form factor this cool, but no dice. Somewhere in the Paceblade site, it mentions that it's a Crusoe processor. I don't know if you consider this underpowered, but I think the big advantage is heat. Imagine a laptop that you can put...in your lap! Even with a metal zipper! Although the ppc is much better than Intel/AMD in thermal characteristics, I recall a note on the Apple site about heat problems with G3 notebooks ("the keyboard becomes hot to the touch" IIRC) and G4s are hotter.
I've heard mixed things about Transmeta's performance, but I saw in their promotional literature that you can touch it while it's running. In a land where you can be sued for serving hot coffee, I'll take that claim as the truth.
The only question I have about it is whether the rotatable touch screen will have a linux driver. I have to read tons of stuff on line and I've been fantasizing about padding around the house reading from this screen like a newspaper. Mmmmmm. Not to give them any ideas, but it'd probably be worth another $1000 to me if it just works as advertised.
I don't think so.
You can buy lots of different ppc sbcs from lots of different suppliers. It looks like all they've added here is a tin box, yellow paint and almost-all-in-one packaging. With just a little EE knowledge, you could build the same thing yourself.
Apple might want to duplicate the effort to get a server machine, but I think the words "Apple" and "server" are so far apart in the average IT buyer's mind that selling it would be a pretty steep hill to climb.
The price is junk. Not long ago, Slashdot did a story on the PaceBlade, which claims it will have a larger screen (12 vs 10 inches), more standard memory, faster transmeta processor, bigger disk, detachable keyboard, etc for $1995. Add a wireless nic and you're still way ahead of this one.
Admittedly, their product hasn't shipped yet, but I'd be willing to wait to get something that looks truly useful.
Thanks for the info. I've been keeping half an eye on this linux/ppc thing for ages. I'm pretty strict about building my own computers and this Apple ROM thing has been lurking around every corner as I investigated the ppc platform. It's good to know it's going away.
Why you are modded off topic is beyond me.
Good points, though the MSNBC piece cited above was surprisingly pro-hacker. Out of curiosity, however, do you know for sure that a First Ammendment case can be tested with a foreign national? Are non-citizens/residents granted all the same constitutional rights as citizens while on U.S. soil?
Wasn't the DeCSS Finn the only other person actually jailed over DMCA? Maybe they're being selective with the first arrests because of the 1st. I'm sure this is some well-covered topic in constitutional law, I just don't know it.
Wrong. Even granting you your premise:
The first benchmark is valid because it shows how a frequently performed task may be affected by switching architecture.
The second benchmark is valid because users of an uncommon platform cannot expect to find the kind of optimizations for their programs that users of the common platform are used to.
That said, of course two benchmarks don't tell the whole story. For a bigger picture, try this collection of x-platform benchmarks. The stats are collected from many sources, so they're not always based on the same platforms, unfortunately. On the plus side, there's some altivec stuff in there, too.