FWIW, it seems worthwhile to point out that "Orange Book" classifications are not all that well thought-out. The problem is that they tie increased security to increased assurance.
That's right, it does. Think about it. Why do you increase your security? Because you have something more valuable to protect. If it is that much more valuable, wouldn't you also want to know your increased security also works?
It is extremely difficult to establish a high-security system while simultaneously having a high assurance that it is correctly implemented.
Yup. Life is hard.
... it is often useful to have a low-security, high-assurance system...
It is? What is the point of having a cheap bicycle lock that you are absolutely, positively sure will not stand up to a determined attempt to break it?
I honestly can't think of a situation where you would want to pay a lot of money to be sure your security system isn't all that good. If you can think of an example or two, please, enlighten me.
Indeed, if audit is the only really interesting property in this case, it sounds as though low-security (mostly logging) high-assurance (logging cannot be defeated even by 'creative' users) is exactly the solution that is needed.
Congratulations, you just described Class C2 protection.:-)
I'm not so sure you understand just what Mandatory Access Controls really are.
Unix traditionally has Discretionary Access Controls. I, as jruser, can grant or deny permission to other users to view my files as I see fit. If I want to "chmod o+rwx ~/.rhosts", I can do that.
Under Mandatory Access Control, however, if I don't have permission to give away a file, I can't do it, even if I want to. In other words, I may not have the right to do a "chmod o+rwx".
AFAIK, none of the features you describe enforce MAC. True, if the user doesn't have access to the network, they won't get out, but once they are granted the network connection, you have no say in what they use it for.
There is quite a bit of stuff regarding "security labels" in B1. Any storage object in the system (disk file, block of memory, etc.) gets assigned a label which describes its sensitivity and category in the organizational hierarchy. Mapping that into traditional Unix security mechanisms would be messy at best.
Possibly more importantly, once you start getting into the B levels, you find as much emphasis being placed on assurance as features. In other words, it isn't enough to say that Linux provides such-and-such, you actually have to officially prove that it does, document that proof, and find someone to sign off on it.
The Orange Book and Unix doesn't exactly line up one-to-one.:-)
What's next after Darwin? Maybe a school in Kansas will bans Macs?
Because people hammer the primary mirrors
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RedHat 6.2 - RSN
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I would guess the reason metalab kicked you is that everyone and their brother started piling on the primary mirrors before they even managed to complete mirroring from the master at Red Hat. If people actually had some patience and waited for the official announcement, to give time for the mirrors to propagate, they wouldn't need to do this. Instead, you'll likely see mirrors setting up private distribution channels so they can actually provide the service they are trying to provide -- for free, I might add.
People, when will you learn: The reason big names like Red Hat delay a little before announcing a release is so that the mirrors have time to grab it! If you don't like incomplete and slow mirrors, then wait until Red Hat says "Go ahead" before piling onto the servers.
Even if you use some "biometric" device to read your retina/thumbprint, unless the communication between the computer/device is secure both ways, someone can put a dongle between that and your computer and snoop their way in.
A line I've heard more then once in movies and on TV: "I assume your hand print will work equally well whether you are alive or dead?"
Anything that tightly restricts the evolution, expandibility, and scope of two systems by tying them to each other does not "feel right."
You are completely correct in that statement, but it has nothing to do with C or Unix. The evolution, expandibility, and scope of the two systems in question has been in no way restricted. Unix has continued to expand and evolve well beyond the original scope of the C language as it eventually was defined in the ANSI standard. Likewise, C is considered the most portable language ever written, with implementations for just about every platform that has a compiler, and it has continued to evolve and be expanded past the original Unix API. It has even been expanded to include object support in C++, which was in turn used to write BeOS, a fact I'm sure you are no doubt aware of, given your handle.
So, if you have a legitimate complaint, by all means voice it, but otherwise, keep the FUD to yourself, K?
(Note to moderators: Before moderating this down as "Flamebait", check out this guy's posting history. He makes rabid Linux supporters seem tame by comparison.)
I think the most important thing to realize is that no single thing defines what makes Unix be Unix instead of Just Another Operating System. Sure, there is POSIX, but POSIX doesn't cover everything. Sure, there are the "standard" Unix shell tools, but those can be ported. You can't nail Unix down in any easy definition. Yet, Unix inevitably feels like The Right Thing to those who know it. If you like cliches, Unix reminds me of the old line "I don't know art, but I know what I like."
That being said, I'd like to touch upon a few things that make Unix what it is:
The design of Unix is driven by synthesis. You don't create a specific tool to solve a particular problem; you break it down into smaller, general problems and write general tools to solve them. You then combine those tools to solve the original problem -- but you can continue using them afterwards.
This leads us to The Unix Philosophy. Anything you call "Unix" or "Unix-like" will adhere to it. However, the Unix philosophy is a set of design goals, not a system definition. Something can follow those goals without being Unix. So that doesn't cover everything.
Let's start with the filesystem. As others have said, a key element of Unix is the single filesystem. Unix must have a root filesystem mounted at/, and cannot function without it. It is more then not being able to do anything useful without the programs in the root; it is the fact that the Unix filesystem is a large part of the Unix API.
Additional filesystems are spliced into this single presentation, not mounted as separate trees. System hardware is abstracted and presented using file system entries. These are things that cannot be done if your OS doesn't support them. Then you have the organization of the files in the Unix filesystem. Programs in/bin, configuration data in/etc, devices in/dev, temporary files in/tmp, "user files" in/usr. None of these are mandated by the kernel or the utilities, but they are definitely old friends to a Unix hacker like me.
Unix processes also behave in a certain way. Process spawn overhead is low and context switching is fast. Signals and exit codes are used for IPC. fork() and exec() are separate system calls.
Unix treats text as data and data as text. Configuration files are generally human-readable. You can "cat" a binary file without the OS doing end-of-line manipulations. Any particular meaning of a character (^D for EOF, e.g.) comes from the terminal driver, not the I/O mechanism.
Lastly, Unix was implemented in C, and C was designed to implement Unix. Contrast this with other OSes, where the language you're programming in and the system library are generally completely separate things. This synthesis (to borrow from the Mazda ad campaign) "just feels right".
While I'm on the subject, I'd like to address two things that Unix explicitly isn't:
Unix is not a trademark. I'm sure The Open Group doesn't agree with me, but Unix was around before they were, and will continue to be around long after they are gone. They control who can legally put "UNIX" on their product, but that is a matter of layers and money, of which Unix cares about neither.
Unix is not a particular source implementation. There are very Unix-ish things which have not one line of AT&T or BSD code in them, and there are things totally not Unix which contain BSD code. MS-Windows is one of them.
I forget who said it, but if you're looking for one line answers, then this fits best:
"Unix isn't so much an operating system as it is a painstakingly compiled oral history of the hacker culture."
You will find, that for most "sensitive and mission critical" operations (that does cover a lot with the military, but not most of their PC LANs), they use the tried-and-true "air gap" firewall: They simply don't connect the internal systems to any external systems. You can't attack what you can't talk to.
Now, the Navy seems to be having trouble with their "smart" ships, but so far, their track record there isn't too hot (remember the whole NT debacle?). That whole program seems to be more like some Star Trek fan's wet dream then your "standard", ultra-paranoid military project. I can only hope it is the exception and not the rule.
You will find the military is very strict with regards to what you connect to what, how you can connect it, and how you have to protect it and shield it. And with good reason.
If you've got a PC with classified data on it, then the entire system is classified. Including the keyboard and monitor. (No, I'm not making that up. I've seen many Air Force PCs with red "SECRET" stickers on the keyboard and monitor.)
If you so much as put a floppy disk in the drive and take it back out, that floppy is now classified as well. You also cannot connect just any hardware to the system; you need to make sure everything is properly shielded for EMSEC (emissions security; what used to be called TEMPEST). This applies all the way down to serial cables connecting to external SDDs (Secure Data Devices).
I'm fairly confident this article is pointing out exceptions in design policy to ensure that the exceptions do not become the norm.
You would sell out your BSD, HURD, etc. brothers for this convenience? You would even sell out fellow Linux users, who run on PPC or Alpha?
I am a practical person, and I realize their may be Business Reasons(TM) why a full source release is not possible or feasible. Thus, yes, I am willing to accept a binary-only release of the Sorenson CODEC if that is the only way possible to get it done. At the same time, I will continue to push for open audio/video encoding formats, so that you don't need a binary-only CODEC to get things done.
More importantly, if you check the xanim website, you will find that:
(1) The author provides DLLs for FreeBSD 3.1 already.
(2) The author will happily provide DLLs for any other platform, if you give him the tools to do so (either a cross-compiler or a machine with software).
Don't attack me about "selling out" the other platforms without knowing the situation.
The amount of waffle on Borland's website about Kylix is remarkable.
Kylix is a project to develop Linux tools. It is not a product. Furthermore, it is not done. Things can and will change. So, anything Borland had to say would be pure vaporware at this point. I respect them for not going the Microsoft route and talking about things before they are ready.
This Borland-waffle applies to their help files too. Their website has jack shit, if it weren't for all the private fan sites there would be no online help (unlike MS's several terabytes of documentation on MSDN).
In my own, personal experience, I have found Borland's help files to be pretty good, and certainly worlds better then Microsoft's. Sure, MS has more volume, but the signal-to-noise ratio sucks. Plus, Borland provides source for their runtimes and a full language definition for Object Pascal in the box. No chance of that for MS Visual Basic!
Apple's Darwin operating system -- the kernel and utility layer of Mac OS X -- is Open Source.
You mean, "Apple's Darwin OS -- the kernel and utility layer of Max OS X Server -- is basically just BSD, and thus was already Open Source."
I am so tired of people pointing to Darwin and saying that Apple is a Good Company(TM) because they Open Source'd their OS. The fact of the matter is, it was already OSS before they touched it, and all the Darwin source release gets you is basically some device drivers and other low-level code.
The Darwin source release is not without worth, but it isn't the Big Deal(TM) so many seem to think it is.
I really couldn't care less about Apple's hardware, as they've pretty much gone commodity at this point, except for a few ROM toolboxes that are only of interest to MacOS people. What I want them to do is open up the Sorenson CODEC!
Sorenson, for those who don't know, is one of the most popular (if not the most popular) CODECs (compressor/decompressor) for Apple's QuickTime system. With Sorenson, I'd finally be able to play most kinds of digital video on my Open Source OS based workstations.
In fact, I would even be willing to settle for a closed source release, so long as they just make the flipping binary available. But Apple won't even do that much. The xanim guy has asked over and over again for them to let him implement Sorenson for them, under NDA, with a binary-only release. But Apple continues to give a big "F**k you!" to the Linux community in that department.
This GCC release really isn't that big a deal. The GPL already requires Apple to make the source code available; the release of copyright to the FSF just lets the GNU project integrate their changes. So once again, Apple is "opening up" something that was already open!
They did this with their Darwin project, too. The only part of Darwin that Apple is "opening" is the core BSD kernel code, which was already Open Source when Apple got it! All of Apple's additions, like the GUI and multimedia layers, remain tightly under lock and key.
Are you listening Apple? Why do you continue to "open" up technologies that were already open before you got at them? Make a real Open Source release for a change!
OpenBSD has had full USB support for a few months now...
And MS-Windows 98 has had it for over a year. What is your point? This is a Linux article, talking about features in current Linux development is on-topic. Starting "My OS is better then your OS" flamewars is not.
In my experience, locking contention is usually due to inappropriate indexing and bad SQL coding. I'm not familiar with MySQL, but if you are having to do funky schema changes like splitting the tables it sounds like MySQL isn't ready for prime time yet.
FWIW and FYI, MySQL is optimizing for speed by keeping things simple. They don't support a lot of SQL features for transactions by design. This lets them get some tremendously good performance for somethings. For example, Slashdot, which is mostly DB reads with occasional DB writes. But I wouldn't run an e-commerce site with it.
Ever hear of sparse files? Many Unix filesystems support them, as does Novell NetWare, and, I think, WinNT.
(1) Open a new file. (2) Seek to location 4000000000 (four billion). (3) Write a single byte of non-zero data. (4) Close the file.
If your OS+FS supports sparse files, it will only allocate storage for the one non-zero byte. If not, you now have a 4 gigabyte file full of zeros. Yet the file length will always be reported as 4 GB.
Now go through and write a single non-zero byte for every disk storage block in the file. The file length will not change, but it's disk usage will increase by roughly four billion.
In the real world, resources are very often oversubscribed. Get used to it.:-)
Someone at slashdot.org, please fix up Extrans posting - having to use HTML for everything (or not using formatting at all) is annoying.
Apparently (this is guesswork), someone at Slashdot had them switched around by mistake for the longest time, but noticed recently and "fixed" it.
Plain Old Text pre-processes your comment, adding <BR> tags at the end of every line, but otherwise leaving things unchanged. Thus, you can mix text-style fixed formatting with HTML tags, as the tags are still interpreted by the client's browser.
Extrans pre-processes your comment, converting all HTML symbols to their escaped equivalents (e.g., < is converted to <). Thus, you comment will be displayed exactly as you entered it, character for character.
HTML Formatted doesn't do any pre-processing at all, other then to remove some HTML tags Considered Harmful.
ActiveX controls are not any more of a security hole than any other executable.
The problem is that many Microsoft programs (such as Windows, MSIE, Office, etc.) blindly trust certain kinds of ActiveX controls, allowing them to install and run, without prompting, even if you have ActiveX "disabled" in MSIE.
Sorry, I may be synthesizing the answer by using information from other sources, which the FAQ only makes connections to in my mind.
One of Stroustrup's design goals for C++ was to be able achieve efficiency near or the same as that of C if you wanted to. ("C with classes") Built-in garbage collection would, of course, make that impossible. Likewise, his opinions about Java are that it isn't done yet, and is generally following a design he thinks is wrong.
I missed your second question ("Do you think someday..."), though. I apologize for that.
Standardized name mangling is not sufficient nor desirable.
You've obviously never tried to get two different C++ libraries to play nice together. I, for one, would really love it if things were standardized such that these problems went away.
Now, perhaps standardized name mangling isn't feasible. That may be. It would also be unfortunate, as it means C++ is effectively useless when it comes to creating reusable software on current shared library implementations.:-(
I think the troll in question is actually kind of funny, so I don't think the moderation is inappropriate, but I want to make sure all involved realize that the above comment was posted by "Hemos.", not "Hemos". Not the period (.) at the end of the poster's handle.
OpenSource programmers can write code in whatever language they want. Consequently, they write a lot of C, Perl, and Python. But with some notable exceptions, they don't write C++.
I'm not entirely sure your assertion (that C++ is significantly less used for OSS then other languages) is correct. KDE comes to mind.
But, for the purpose of discussion, let us accept it as given.
Contrast that with the lanuages programmers use at work, which are primarily C++ and Java.
You've got a number of factors here.
The biggest concern for software maintenance is what system is already in use. If you've got a program written in language XYZ, then you continue to use XYZ. Look at the large number of COBOL programs still in use today for proof of this.
If you're (re)implementing from scratch, the biggest concern is: What is available to use? For many systems, the answer is C, because C is still far more universal and "settled" then C++ is. This doesn't mean C++ is bad, it just means C has been around longer.
Follow that up with: Who is making the decisions?
For a corporate project, it is the managers. Managers look at studies, benchmarks, and marketing info (lots of that), and decide which language is "the best". Unfortunately, many managers assume "newest" equals "best". This leads to Java, C++ and such being used, not because they are or are not better then alternatives, but because they are currently popular and getting attention. This leads to a network effect where more "new" software is written for C++, giving the impression that C++ is even better.
Note that I'm not asserting that C/C++/Java/whatever is better then C/C++/Java/whatever. I'm simply saying that quality is not the only consideration to PHBs.
Now, look at your typical OSS project. It is coordinated by a few people, maybe just one. They are going to pick the language they are most familiar with. This means C is chosen a lot, simply because it has been around longer, so they know it better.
As far as Perl and Python go, they are predominately scripting languages, and generally don't target the same problem space as C++. (Yes, I know that is an over-generalization, but as such things go, it isn't that far off).
This means that it is not practical to use C++ fully in any project...
Well, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to make sure you use every last feature of a given system, or are you simply trying to get the job done?
C++ is very complex. So are Unix, and Common LISP, and X11, and countless other systems. However, you don't have to use all of a system's features in order to use that system. Use what you need to get your job done to satisfaction.
Larry Wall (the creator of Perl) has said, "A Perl script is 'correct' if it gets the job done before your boss fires you." There is a lesson there: Don't get so caught up on the tools that you forget that the tools are there to help you do your job. The same applies to C++.
This has been a public service message from DragonHawk.;-)
Slashdot Mirror
FWIW, it seems worthwhile to point out that "Orange Book" classifications are not all that well thought-out. The problem is that they tie increased security to increased assurance.
... it is often useful to have a low-security, high-assurance system ...
:-)
That's right, it does. Think about it. Why do you increase your security? Because you have something more valuable to protect. If it is that much more valuable, wouldn't you also want to know your increased security also works?
It is extremely difficult to establish a high-security system while simultaneously having a high assurance that it is correctly implemented.
Yup. Life is hard.
It is? What is the point of having a cheap bicycle lock that you are absolutely, positively sure will not stand up to a determined attempt to break it?
I honestly can't think of a situation where you would want to pay a lot of money to be sure your security system isn't all that good. If you can think of an example or two, please, enlighten me.
Indeed, if audit is the only really interesting property in this case, it sounds as though low-security (mostly logging) high-assurance (logging cannot be defeated even by 'creative' users) is exactly the solution that is needed.
Congratulations, you just described Class C2 protection.
I'm not so sure you understand just what Mandatory Access Controls really are.
:-)
Unix traditionally has Discretionary Access Controls. I, as jruser, can grant or deny permission to other users to view my files as I see fit. If I want to "chmod o+rwx ~/.rhosts", I can do that.
Under Mandatory Access Control, however, if I don't have permission to give away a file, I can't do it, even if I want to. In other words, I may not have the right to do a "chmod o+rwx".
AFAIK, none of the features you describe enforce MAC. True, if the user doesn't have access to the network, they won't get out, but once they are granted the network connection, you have no say in what they use it for.
There is quite a bit of stuff regarding "security labels" in B1. Any storage object in the system (disk file, block of memory, etc.) gets assigned a label which describes its sensitivity and category in the organizational hierarchy. Mapping that into traditional Unix security mechanisms would be messy at best.
Possibly more importantly, once you start getting into the B levels, you find as much emphasis being placed on assurance as features. In other words, it isn't enough to say that Linux provides such-and-such, you actually have to officially prove that it does, document that proof, and find someone to sign off on it.
The Orange Book and Unix doesn't exactly line up one-to-one.
What's next after Darwin? Maybe a school in Kansas will bans Macs?
I would guess the reason metalab kicked you is that everyone and their brother started piling on the primary mirrors before they even managed to complete mirroring from the master at Red Hat. If people actually had some patience and waited for the official announcement, to give time for the mirrors to propagate, they wouldn't need to do this. Instead, you'll likely see mirrors setting up private distribution channels so they can actually provide the service they are trying to provide -- for free, I might add.
People, when will you learn: The reason big names like Red Hat delay a little before announcing a release is so that the mirrors have time to grab it! If you don't like incomplete and slow mirrors, then wait until Red Hat says "Go ahead" before piling onto the servers.
Even if you use some "biometric" device to read your retina/thumbprint, unless the communication between the computer/device is secure both ways, someone can put a dongle between that and your computer and snoop their way in.
A line I've heard more then once in movies and on TV: "I assume your hand print will work equally well whether you are alive or dead?"
See subject line. Did someone from Slashdot or Loki abuse you as a child, or what?
Anything that tightly restricts the evolution, expandibility, and scope of two systems by tying them to each other does not "feel right."
You are completely correct in that statement, but it has nothing to do with C or Unix. The evolution, expandibility, and scope of the two systems in question has been in no way restricted. Unix has continued to expand and evolve well beyond the original scope of the C language as it eventually was defined in the ANSI standard. Likewise, C is considered the most portable language ever written, with implementations for just about every platform that has a compiler, and it has continued to evolve and be expanded past the original Unix API. It has even been expanded to include object support in C++, which was in turn used to write BeOS, a fact I'm sure you are no doubt aware of, given your handle.
So, if you have a legitimate complaint, by all means voice it, but otherwise, keep the FUD to yourself, K?
(Note to moderators: Before moderating this down as "Flamebait", check out this guy's posting history. He makes rabid Linux supporters seem tame by comparison.)
I think the most important thing to realize is that no single thing defines what makes Unix be Unix instead of Just Another Operating System. Sure, there is POSIX, but POSIX doesn't cover everything. Sure, there are the "standard" Unix shell tools, but those can be ported. You can't nail Unix down in any easy definition. Yet, Unix inevitably feels like The Right Thing to those who know it. If you like cliches, Unix reminds me of the old line "I don't know art, but I know what I like."
/, and cannot function without it. It is more then not being able to do anything useful without the programs in the root; it is the fact that the Unix filesystem is a large part of the Unix API.
/bin, configuration data in /etc, devices in /dev, temporary files in /tmp, "user files" in /usr. None of these are mandated by the kernel or the utilities, but they are definitely old friends to a Unix hacker like me.
That being said, I'd like to touch upon a few things that make Unix what it is:
The design of Unix is driven by synthesis. You don't create a specific tool to solve a particular problem; you break it down into smaller, general problems and write general tools to solve them. You then combine those tools to solve the original problem -- but you can continue using them afterwards.
This leads us to The Unix Philosophy. Anything you call "Unix" or "Unix-like" will adhere to it. However, the Unix philosophy is a set of design goals, not a system definition. Something can follow those goals without being Unix. So that doesn't cover everything.
Let's start with the filesystem. As others have said, a key element of Unix is the single filesystem. Unix must have a root filesystem mounted at
Additional filesystems are spliced into this single presentation, not mounted as separate trees. System hardware is abstracted and presented using file system entries. These are things that cannot be done if your OS doesn't support them. Then you have the organization of the files in the Unix filesystem. Programs in
Unix processes also behave in a certain way. Process spawn overhead is low and context switching is fast. Signals and exit codes are used for IPC. fork() and exec() are separate system calls.
Unix treats text as data and data as text. Configuration files are generally human-readable. You can "cat" a binary file without the OS doing end-of-line manipulations. Any particular meaning of a character (^D for EOF, e.g.) comes from the terminal driver, not the I/O mechanism.
Lastly, Unix was implemented in C, and C was designed to implement Unix. Contrast this with other OSes, where the language you're programming in and the system library are generally completely separate things. This synthesis (to borrow from the Mazda ad campaign) "just feels right".
While I'm on the subject, I'd like to address two things that Unix explicitly isn't:
Unix is not a trademark. I'm sure The Open Group doesn't agree with me, but Unix was around before they were, and will continue to be around long after they are gone. They control who can legally put "UNIX" on their product, but that is a matter of layers and money, of which Unix cares about neither.
Unix is not a particular source implementation. There are very Unix-ish things which have not one line of AT&T or BSD code in them, and there are things totally not Unix which contain BSD code. MS-Windows is one of them.
I forget who said it, but if you're looking for one line answers, then this fits best:
"Unix isn't so much an operating system as it is a painstakingly compiled oral history of the hacker culture."
You will find, that for most "sensitive and mission critical" operations (that does cover a lot with the military, but not most of their PC LANs), they use the tried-and-true "air gap" firewall: They simply don't connect the internal systems to any external systems. You can't attack what you can't talk to.
Now, the Navy seems to be having trouble with their "smart" ships, but so far, their track record there isn't too hot (remember the whole NT debacle?). That whole program seems to be more like some Star Trek fan's wet dream then your "standard", ultra-paranoid military project. I can only hope it is the exception and not the rule.
You will find the military is very strict with regards to what you connect to what, how you can connect it, and how you have to protect it and shield it. And with good reason.
If you've got a PC with classified data on it, then the entire system is classified. Including the keyboard and monitor. (No, I'm not making that up. I've seen many Air Force PCs with red "SECRET" stickers on the keyboard and monitor.)
If you so much as put a floppy disk in the drive and take it back out, that floppy is now classified as well. You also cannot connect just any hardware to the system; you need to make sure everything is properly shielded for EMSEC (emissions security; what used to be called TEMPEST). This applies all the way down to serial cables connecting to external SDDs (Secure Data Devices).
I'm fairly confident this article is pointing out exceptions in design policy to ensure that the exceptions do not become the norm.
You would sell out your BSD, HURD, etc. brothers for this convenience? You would even sell out fellow Linux users, who run on PPC or Alpha?
I am a practical person, and I realize their may be Business Reasons(TM) why a full source release is not possible or feasible. Thus, yes, I am willing to accept a binary-only release of the Sorenson CODEC if that is the only way possible to get it done. At the same time, I will continue to push for open audio/video encoding formats, so that you don't need a binary-only CODEC to get things done.
More importantly, if you check the xanim website, you will find that:
(1) The author provides DLLs for FreeBSD 3.1 already.
(2) The author will happily provide DLLs for any other platform, if you give him the tools to do so (either a cross-compiler or a machine with software).
Don't attack me about "selling out" the other platforms without knowing the situation.
The amount of waffle on Borland's website about Kylix is remarkable.
Kylix is a project to develop Linux tools. It is not a product. Furthermore, it is not done. Things can and will change. So, anything Borland had to say would be pure vaporware at this point. I respect them for not going the Microsoft route and talking about things before they are ready.
This Borland-waffle applies to their help files too. Their website has jack shit, if it weren't for all the private fan sites there would be no online help (unlike MS's several terabytes of documentation on MSDN).
In my own, personal experience, I have found Borland's help files to be pretty good, and certainly worlds better then Microsoft's. Sure, MS has more volume, but the signal-to-noise ratio sucks. Plus, Borland provides source for their runtimes and a full language definition for Object Pascal in the box. No chance of that for MS Visual Basic!
Apple's Darwin operating system -- the kernel and utility layer of Mac OS X -- is Open Source.
You mean, "Apple's Darwin OS -- the kernel and utility layer of Max OS X Server -- is basically just BSD, and thus was already Open Source."
I am so tired of people pointing to Darwin and saying that Apple is a Good Company(TM) because they Open Source'd their OS. The fact of the matter is, it was already OSS before they touched it, and all the Darwin source release gets you is basically some device drivers and other low-level code.
The Darwin source release is not without worth, but it isn't the Big Deal(TM) so many seem to think it is.
I really couldn't care less about Apple's hardware, as they've pretty much gone commodity at this point, except for a few ROM toolboxes that are only of interest to MacOS people. What I want them to do is open up the Sorenson CODEC!
Sorenson, for those who don't know, is one of the most popular (if not the most popular) CODECs (compressor/decompressor) for Apple's QuickTime system. With Sorenson, I'd finally be able to play most kinds of digital video on my Open Source OS based workstations.
In fact, I would even be willing to settle for a closed source release, so long as they just make the flipping binary available. But Apple won't even do that much. The xanim guy has asked over and over again for them to let him implement Sorenson for them, under NDA, with a binary-only release. But Apple continues to give a big "F**k you!" to the Linux community in that department.
This GCC release really isn't that big a deal. The GPL already requires Apple to make the source code available; the release of copyright to the FSF just lets the GNU project integrate their changes. So once again, Apple is "opening up" something that was already open!
They did this with their Darwin project, too. The only part of Darwin that Apple is "opening" is the core BSD kernel code, which was already Open Source when Apple got it! All of Apple's additions, like the GUI and multimedia layers, remain tightly under lock and key.
Are you listening Apple? Why do you continue to "open" up technologies that were already open before you got at them? Make a real Open Source release for a change!
OpenBSD has had full USB support for a few months now...
And MS-Windows 98 has had it for over a year. What is your point? This is a Linux article, talking about features in current Linux development is on-topic. Starting "My OS is better then your OS" flamewars is not.
In my experience, locking contention is usually due to inappropriate indexing and bad SQL coding. I'm not familiar with MySQL, but if you are having to do funky schema changes like splitting the tables it sounds like MySQL isn't ready for prime time yet.
FWIW and FYI, MySQL is optimizing for speed by keeping things simple. They don't support a lot of SQL features for transactions by design. This lets them get some tremendously good performance for somethings. For example, Slashdot, which is mostly DB reads with occasional DB writes. But I wouldn't run an e-commerce site with it.
Ever hear of sparse files? Many Unix filesystems support them, as does Novell NetWare, and, I think, WinNT.
:-)
(1) Open a new file.
(2) Seek to location 4000000000 (four billion).
(3) Write a single byte of non-zero data.
(4) Close the file.
If your OS+FS supports sparse files, it will only allocate storage for the one non-zero byte. If not, you now have a 4 gigabyte file full of zeros. Yet the file length will always be reported as 4 GB.
Now go through and write a single non-zero byte for every disk storage block in the file. The file length will not change, but it's disk usage will increase by roughly four billion.
In the real world, resources are very often oversubscribed. Get used to it.
Someone at slashdot.org, please fix up Extrans posting - having to use HTML for everything (or not using formatting at all) is annoying.
:-)
Apparently (this is guesswork), someone at Slashdot had them switched around by mistake for the longest time, but noticed recently and "fixed" it.
Plain Old Text pre-processes your comment, adding <BR> tags at the end of every line, but otherwise leaving things unchanged. Thus, you can mix text-style fixed formatting with HTML tags, as the tags are still interpreted by the client's browser.
Extrans pre-processes your comment, converting all HTML symbols to their escaped equivalents (e.g., < is converted to <). Thus, you comment will be displayed exactly as you entered it, character for character.
HTML Formatted doesn't do any pre-processing at all, other then to remove some HTML tags Considered Harmful.
Get it?
I still fail to see the qualitative difference between an ActiveX control and a Netscape plugin...
How about the fact that a Netscape Plugin cannot download and install itself without your permission?
ActiveX controls are not any more of a security hole than any other executable.
The problem is that many Microsoft programs (such as Windows, MSIE, Office, etc.) blindly trust certain kinds of ActiveX controls, allowing them to install and run, without prompting, even if you have ActiveX "disabled" in MSIE.
Regular programs don't do that.
Sorry, I may be synthesizing the answer by using information from other sources, which the FAQ only makes connections to in my mind.
One of Stroustrup's design goals for C++ was to be able achieve efficiency near or the same as that of C if you wanted to. ("C with classes") Built-in garbage collection would, of course, make that impossible. Likewise, his opinions about Java are that it isn't done yet, and is generally following a design he thinks is wrong.
I missed your second question ("Do you think someday..."), though. I apologize for that.
Your question is answered here.
Standardized name mangling is not sufficient nor desirable.
:-(
You've obviously never tried to get two different C++ libraries to play nice together. I, for one, would really love it if things were standardized such that these problems went away.
Now, perhaps standardized name mangling isn't feasible. That may be. It would also be unfortunate, as it means C++ is effectively useless when it comes to creating reusable software on current shared library implementations.
I think the troll in question is actually kind of funny, so I don't think the moderation is inappropriate, but I want to make sure all involved realize that the above comment was posted by "Hemos.", not "Hemos". Not the period (.) at the end of the poster's handle.
OpenSource programmers can write code in whatever language they want. Consequently, they write a lot of C, Perl, and Python. But with some notable exceptions, they don't write C++.
;-)
I'm not entirely sure your assertion (that C++ is significantly less used for OSS then other languages) is correct. KDE comes to mind.
But, for the purpose of discussion, let us accept it as given.
Contrast that with the lanuages programmers use at work, which are primarily C++ and Java.
You've got a number of factors here.
The biggest concern for software maintenance is what system is already in use. If you've got a program written in language XYZ, then you continue to use XYZ. Look at the large number of COBOL programs still in use today for proof of this.
If you're (re)implementing from scratch, the biggest concern is: What is available to use? For many systems, the answer is C, because C is still far more universal and "settled" then C++ is. This doesn't mean C++ is bad, it just means C has been around longer.
Follow that up with: Who is making the decisions?
For a corporate project, it is the managers. Managers look at studies, benchmarks, and marketing info (lots of that), and decide which language is "the best". Unfortunately, many managers assume "newest" equals "best". This leads to Java, C++ and such being used, not because they are or are not better then alternatives, but because they are currently popular and getting attention. This leads to a network effect where more "new" software is written for C++, giving the impression that C++ is even better.
Note that I'm not asserting that C/C++/Java/whatever is better then C/C++/Java/whatever. I'm simply saying that quality is not the only consideration to PHBs.
Now, look at your typical OSS project. It is coordinated by a few people, maybe just one. They are going to pick the language they are most familiar with. This means C is chosen a lot, simply because it has been around longer, so they know it better.
As far as Perl and Python go, they are predominately scripting languages, and generally don't target the same problem space as C++. (Yes, I know that is an over-generalization, but as such things go, it isn't that far off).
Just my 1/4 of a byte.
This means that it is not practical to use C++ fully in any project ...
;-)
Well, what are you trying to do? Are you trying to make sure you use every last feature of a given system, or are you simply trying to get the job done?
C++ is very complex. So are Unix, and Common LISP, and X11, and countless other systems. However, you don't have to use all of a system's features in order to use that system. Use what you need to get your job done to satisfaction.
Larry Wall (the creator of Perl) has said, "A Perl script is 'correct' if it gets the job done before your boss fires you." There is a lesson there: Don't get so caught up on the tools that you forget that the tools are there to help you do your job. The same applies to C++.
This has been a public service message from DragonHawk.