Anyone remember the old days of "IBM-PC compatible" gaming? Will my sound card be supported? Is my video card the right kind? Using the OS as a layer of abstraction for compatibility makes it easier for the developer.
Yes. Because Microsoft invented the idea of using an OS as a hardware abstraction interface. http://www.opengl.org/
1: If it used the nvidia or ati proprietary driver, it would be illegal to distribute it (unless it did something mad like compile the module as part of the boot process).
2: It would miss the entire point of an operating system - to have a common environment that is configured once and has to be updated once to make all your applications work. The live dvd would bring a whole new meaning to the phrase "Unreal UltraMAX Elite 2009 doesn't work with my nvidia card!"
3: Offshooting from that, a live dvd would have to contain support for all future hardware that could possibly ever be designed.
4: I think what you're looking for is called a 'console'.
I think you're really missing the point of AoE. It's not meant to compete with NFS, SMB etc. for serving files. It's meant to be an alternative to the server -> disk interface, like SATA. This is why they produce 'blade' interfaces for one drive each.
Why would you want an alternative to SATA(/IDE/SCSI)? Because you don't (necessarily) get hot swapping with SATA. SATA isn't as expandable - for each ~4 new drives you need a new PCI card. Limited to the number of PCI slots in your machine. If you have to expand the system and break out of the server case with the number of disks you need, SATA isn't very cooperative (although there is such thing as external SATA I hear).
It's a cheaper alternative to Fiber Channel.
It's using the fact that people have already solved the problems of hot swapping, scalability and low(ish) latency data transfer with this thing called ethernet. Need more disks? Use a bigger ethernet switch and spill over into the next server closet.
From what I can see, it's not really meant to be a system where a host is exporting volumes to another host, although a daemon for that is available for testing etc. After all, if you really wanted to do that you could use nbd.
From reading the news article, it seems that they are selling $3,995 ATA -> ethernet converters (disk sold seperately). Each box will hold 15 drives and offer a simple raid controller inside.
If you look a bit closer you'll see they also sell individual disk ATA-AoE adaptors, which are considerably cheaper.
Yes they might be a bit more expensive, but if they come in under the combined price of "regular ATA disk" + Coraid ATAoE disk adapter then you'd come out ahead.
Ah, but then when a disk fails you have to throw away the expensive integrated controller. With the current Coraid systems, when a drive fails, you just replace the drive with another cheap drive ad infinitum.
Yes. Direct3D and OpenGL are high level interfaces. What a driver does is talk to the GPU in terms of registers and addresses and instructions and exposes the functionality through these interfaces. A driver running on the card would thus expose only these high level interfaces to the system. Leaving out the possibility of using anything else.
While creating a new graphics API seems a very unlikely thing to want to do at the moment, you never know what the future will hold thanks to software patents.
And in effect, drivers on the card would just be another way for GPU vendors to artificially cripple their cards and lock us out.
Linux has had people playing with this sort of thing ever since the hdaps driver was written for thinkpads just over a year ago. The first things done with it were e.g. being hooked up to neverball.
Jiggering the GPL to strong-arm the desired results seems to me to be very much like over-legislating a "market" in hopes of "correcting" it--something that never seems to work.
Where is the 'strong-arming' happening here? The people who write the software have the right to dictate under what conditions you are able to take their work. If you don't like it, don't use it. Write it yourself.
There is no inteference happening here. This is reactionary only in implmentation, not policy. To enforce the original spirit of the GPL, a few clauses are being added which hadn't been forseen at the time of the original declarations.
You may not like the GPL3, I may not like the GPL3 (personally I haven't made up my mind yet, seeing as it has yet to be written), but a software author has the right to license their works as they see fit, and it's not as though anyone's being conned into doing what RMS says.
The real problem, I think, is that RMS (via the FSF) is trying to force it down our throats as usual. He's a strange bird in that he really gets the freedom issue at one level while it flies totally over his head at another.
What do you mean? He's not taking away the freedom to choose not to use the GPL 3.0.
Peer to peer is really a buzzword. It doesn't actually mean anything definite and skype's approach buys you little in the VOIP world apart from annoying some router administrators by usurping the internet's regular 'peer to peer' protocol, IP.
decentralized
It's SIP. It's as decentralised as email is. Then again, skype's not really decentralised because if the developers of skype go belly up, that's the end of that. SIP depends on lots of independently run servers. Like jabber. It's just a protocol after all.
and secure
I don't think it is yet, but you don't actually have any evidence that skype is secure. It's a proprietary protocol. You have no way of knowing (apart from taking a company's word for it) whether someone who knows the protocol can eavesdrop on all your conversations.
You guys are just like abused women who just can't seem to get out of the relationship.
And you guys from Apple Computer marketing department are swish letharios taking advantage of abused, low self-esteemed women with your sensitivity and glitzy medallions and promises that "It'll all be different" with you, but underneath just have the same motives and she'll end up in the same hole.
It's great that Apple is the last bastion of freedom.
Because Apple's DRM is good DRM. Because Apple's TPM is good TPM. Because Apple's vendor lock-in is good vendor lock-in. Because Apple's proprietary APIs are good proprietary APIs...
Yes, they've just deliberately crippled your software to only work on equipment they say you're allowed to run it on. Viva Apple Computer Inc. Remember - they're on your side.
This isn't an app aimed at people who will give up after ten minutes. It's aimed at people who do 3D all day every day. The UI is designed for them. It's designed for speed.
If you want something 'easy to pick up', I'm sure you can find something in the aisles of Target called something generic like 3D Extra Designer Pro. And you can wow us with the spinning animated gifs you make.
That's not to say there aren't some fixes needed in the UI. (Mostly due to a feature not having been updated to the new paradigm)
On a side note, Macs don't cost thousands of dollars. My iBook was $950 and Mac Minis are under 1000. Its not like you have to buy an apple display. They have great refurb deals too.
Right. Pricier hardware. That's the answer. Pricier hardware that doesn't have to compete with anything for your next purchase as they've locked you into their hardware with their proprietary software. And how much do operating system 'upgrades' cost on this side of the fence?
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Yes. Because Microsoft invented the idea of using an OS as a hardware abstraction interface. http://www.opengl.org/
1: If it used the nvidia or ati proprietary driver, it would be illegal to distribute it (unless it did something mad like compile the module as part of the boot process).
2: It would miss the entire point of an operating system - to have a common environment that is configured once and has to be updated once to make all your applications work. The live dvd would bring a whole new meaning to the phrase "Unreal UltraMAX Elite 2009 doesn't work with my nvidia card!"
3: Offshooting from that, a live dvd would have to contain support for all future hardware that could possibly ever be designed.
4: I think what you're looking for is called a 'console'.
What happens when one individual disk fails? Do you have to bring down the whole set of four drives to replace it?
I think you're really missing the point of AoE. It's not meant to compete with NFS, SMB etc. for serving files. It's meant to be an alternative to the server -> disk interface, like SATA. This is why they produce 'blade' interfaces for one drive each.
Why would you want an alternative to SATA(/IDE/SCSI)? Because you don't (necessarily) get hot swapping with SATA. SATA isn't as expandable - for each ~4 new drives you need a new PCI card. Limited to the number of PCI slots in your machine. If you have to expand the system and break out of the server case with the number of disks you need, SATA isn't very cooperative (although there is such thing as external SATA I hear).
It's a cheaper alternative to Fiber Channel.
It's using the fact that people have already solved the problems of hot swapping, scalability and low(ish) latency data transfer with this thing called ethernet. Need more disks? Use a bigger ethernet switch and spill over into the next server closet.
From what I can see, it's not really meant to be a system where a host is exporting volumes to another host, although a daemon for that is available for testing etc. After all, if you really wanted to do that you could use nbd.
If you look a bit closer you'll see they also sell individual disk ATA-AoE adaptors, which are considerably cheaper.
Because it's simpler (== cheaper disk 'dongles') and slightly faster.
Ah, but then when a disk fails you have to throw away the expensive integrated controller. With the current Coraid systems, when a drive fails, you just replace the drive with another cheap drive ad infinitum.
But do you get drive hotswap and near infinite expandability from that?
Yes. Direct3D and OpenGL are high level interfaces. What a driver does is talk to the GPU in terms of registers and addresses and instructions and exposes the functionality through these interfaces. A driver running on the card would thus expose only these high level interfaces to the system. Leaving out the possibility of using anything else.
While creating a new graphics API seems a very unlikely thing to want to do at the moment, you never know what the future will hold thanks to software patents.
And in effect, drivers on the card would just be another way for GPU vendors to artificially cripple their cards and lock us out.
Linux has had people playing with this sort of thing ever since the hdaps driver was written for thinkpads just over a year ago. The first things done with it were e.g. being hooked up to neverball.
Only if you want few bugfix releases and to be tied to a single high level API.
Because the hardware vendors are using FSF licenced software in their products.
Well done, you've achieved the level of 'tenth-grade politics class'.
"Without rules, we have no freedom."
Where is the 'strong-arming' happening here? The people who write the software have the right to dictate under what conditions you are able to take their work. If you don't like it, don't use it. Write it yourself.
There is no inteference happening here. This is reactionary only in implmentation, not policy. To enforce the original spirit of the GPL, a few clauses are being added which hadn't been forseen at the time of the original declarations.
You may not like the GPL3, I may not like the GPL3 (personally I haven't made up my mind yet, seeing as it has yet to be written), but a software author has the right to license their works as they see fit, and it's not as though anyone's being conned into doing what RMS says.
What do you mean? He's not taking away the freedom to choose not to use the GPL 3.0.
Intel's graphics chips have the most comprehensive DRI drivers out there. Want to know why? Intel released helped write them and released full docs.
Ah, but if people criticize the sacred cows of Apple and Skype, it might stop them getting the good juju like iPods and other fashion accessories.
Peer to peer is really a buzzword. It doesn't actually mean anything definite and skype's approach buys you little in the VOIP world apart from annoying some router administrators by usurping the internet's regular 'peer to peer' protocol, IP.
It's SIP. It's as decentralised as email is. Then again, skype's not really decentralised because if the developers of skype go belly up, that's the end of that. SIP depends on lots of independently run servers. Like jabber. It's just a protocol after all.
I don't think it is yet, but you don't actually have any evidence that skype is secure. It's a proprietary protocol. You have no way of knowing (apart from taking a company's word for it) whether someone who knows the protocol can eavesdrop on all your conversations.
And you guys from Apple Computer marketing department are swish letharios taking advantage of abused, low self-esteemed women with your sensitivity and glitzy medallions and promises that "It'll all be different" with you, but underneath just have the same motives and she'll end up in the same hole.
It's great that Apple is the last bastion of freedom.
Because Apple's DRM is good DRM.
Because Apple's TPM is good TPM.
Because Apple's vendor lock-in is good vendor lock-in.
Because Apple's proprietary APIs are good proprietary APIs...
Yes, they've just deliberately crippled your software to only work on equipment they say you're allowed to run it on. Viva Apple Computer Inc. Remember - they're on your side.
So? Build your own. I'm sick of seeing mac users who think Free software is a free lunch that they're entitled to.
All on the DVD. Though you'll probably be able to find someone who has mirrored the whole thing on the web somewhere.
This isn't an app aimed at people who will give up after ten minutes. It's aimed at people who do 3D all day every day. The UI is designed for them. It's designed for speed.
If you want something 'easy to pick up', I'm sure you can find something in the aisles of Target called something generic like 3D Extra Designer Pro. And you can wow us with the spinning animated gifs you make.
That's not to say there aren't some fixes needed in the UI. (Mostly due to a feature not having been updated to the new paradigm)
Right. Pricier hardware. That's the answer. Pricier hardware that doesn't have to compete with anything for your next purchase as they've locked you into their hardware with their proprietary software. And how much do operating system 'upgrades' cost on this side of the fence?
Thanks, Apple sales representative.