Of course netscape did this. They added Javascript and Java to the browser specifically to enable this. They kept their browser cross-platform all these year. They created the first (or one of the first) web application servers - NAS, now iPlanet. They are still doing it with mozilla.
People didn't see the web as a platform at first. It was Netscape that pushed this idea, evangelized it. To deny that is to overlook Netscape's primary contribution to the internet.
Thats what the whole Netscape One(?) platform was all about.
Microsoft, on the other hand, added slightly incompatible jscript, totally incompatible vbscript, sabatoged the Java platform, and generally tried to undermine a consistant web platform and tie the web to the windows platform at every turn.
Ummm, nerds do like chess. I think the stereotype is at least as valid as nerds like computers, nerds like science, nerds like anime, nerds like sci-fi or any of the other topics covered here. Or at the very least, chess likers are nerds.
Besides, whats not to like? Its deep, thoughtful, strategic. You can play for fun, or really get into it and play competitively.
I've used Doc++ for a C/C++ project and was very impressed. Anyone who has used javadoc will be able to use this instantly; the doc++ commenting standard is a superset of javadoc. In addition, the speed is about an order of magnitude faster than javadoc.
Only a couple problems:
I had a few issues with Latex/TeX layout, but the html output is great
it is a pain to comment structs in C, because it forces you to define the struct without a typedef
I'd almost say its a better javadoc than javadoc, but I really like the doclet idea, even though it hasn't been fully exploited yet.
I think the relevent clause is 6. It states you can't apply further restrictions on distribution. The BSD license doesn't; it just requires the copyright notice to remain intact, same as GPL section 1. the (old) QPL did apply further restrictions regarding what platform your code was written for and whether or not it was free.
Section 3 states that unless a library is a "major component (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
operating system", it must be distributed with the same constraints. The usual pro-KDE argument is the Qt libraries fit into the above catagory.
Free86 takes the code that the X Consortium has developed and changes it in such a way as to make it x86 native
Thats what they did originally. Lately, they've started applying useful patches to the clients and libraries from outside sources that may or may not every get into TOG's X(tm). For example, XFree includes the xterm patches from here, added the essential XPM library, and beefed up Xaw to make it almost usable. Check out the release notes for more details.
Even more recently, they've started to tackle the key features that hold X back, like font handling and transparency. Check the mailing list archive for the most recent developments.
A lot of people are involved with Corel, and few of its failures are entirely Cowpland's fault. (It's always easy to pin crimes on a public figure, but that doesn't make them guilty!)
Sorry, but Cowpland is/was the President and CEO of Corel, so he is responsible its failures. It is his responsibility to ensure the company makes the right decisions -- whether by him or someone accountable to him. The buck stops with him. If he has incompetent people working for him, it is duty to replace them.
I don't know how Corel screwed Debian, they certainly contributed a lot to Wine and were responsive to licensing issues, but if Corel screwed up, Cowpland takes the heat in the end.
I haven't heard of anyone having problems running servers on @home. I personally run telnet, ftp, http, and ssh (its nice to have access to my home computer from work). That, and I haven't even detected port scans from @home admins to detect servers. YMMV.
However, be careful. Every server you have running is a potential security hole. You might think nobody cares about your box, or nobody will find it. I thought the same thing til my box was cracked (damn you wu-ftpd!). Keep up to date with the latest security exploits, keep your software up to date and monitor your logs.
I think the solution to this is to have a rating system, along the lines of slashdot moderation. That way, people would be able to avoid ad-encrusted mp3, poor encodings, misnamed files, etc.
It would also be a great way to find new music, based on the recommendation of the community. With a feature like this, Napster would be able to honestly claim they are promoting new music, not just providing a means of distributing copyrighted materials. It would also provide a raw, grassroots, rating system without manipulation by record companies or distributors.
XPCOM is a very simple framework that lacks lots of the glue that COM provides. I would assume COM+ provides even more. So while XPCOM might be a good starting point, it doesn't really compare to a COM or COM+ framework (yet).
No on both counts, actually. COM has its origins in Apollo's NCS system, and was later developed by Digital and Microsoft as part of their OLE/ActiveX architecture. We use a very small subset of COM that we call "XPCOM" ("XP" stands for cross-platform) for the new Plugin API that is essentially a method of using abstract base classes, and 3 simple but powerful methods:
QueryInterface: Deals with interface versioning by using universally unique interface IDs.
AddRef and Release: Deal with reference counting the object so that the system knows when it can deallocate it.
That's it. Using XPCOM in the plugin context is really quite simple. We don't make use of any of the COM factory constructor mechanisms, object aggregation, OLE interfaces, or the registry to find and load components. Plugin DLLs are still searched for and loaded by Mozilla from the plugin directories where they've always been found.
That said, my experince has been that of the two free IMAP servers out there, Cyrus outperforms UW-IMAP. The latter puts each "mail folder" in a single mbox-style file, which is nice for POP-IMAP-Pine interoperability, but it also means crummy performance on large mailboxes, since an IMAP server has to "grep" for a full set of message headers every time a folder is accessed. Cyrus seems to do things more efficiently.
True. You can get UW-IMAP to perform a bit closer to Cyrus by forcing it to use "mbx" mailboxes rather than "mbox" mailboxes. I believe mbx is a slight variation on mbox, with an index to make things faster. Works with pine, too.
This argument is based on the number of bit operations needed to solve the argument, based on the premise that the number of bit operations is related exponentially to the key/game tree size. It does not apply to quantum computing, which has the potential to solve the problem in a number of operations related polynomially to the the problem size.
GIF is pretty simple to implement (compared to JPEG or PNG at least).
I disagree. PNG is at least as easy to implement as GIF or JPEG with the libpng library. It is available as source, compiles out of the box for just about any platform. The license is very unrestrictive -- similar to the BSD license.
They are trying to recap the costs of developing the GIF format?
Unisys didn't develop the GIF format. Compuserve did. However, Unisys owns the patent to LZW compression, which the GIF format uses to make image files smaller. FWIW, the compression algorithm used in PNG is unencumbered by patents and is better to boot.
You point is valid though -- I doubt the negative press of holding the web hostage for infringement is worth the price.
What shape are the various X-based Mozilla frontends in? I understand GTK+ is considered the primary Mozilla toolkit, but there are also Qt and Motif frontends as well. Are they obsolete with the XPFE? Additionally, what is the status of the Mozilla Xlib frontend? I understood this was to reduce the dependancies on toolkits by merging some of the basic functionality into a toolkit independant frontend.
I know that this is alpha software, but my impression of the road to M14 was supposed to make it so that people could use it as their full time browser - and thus squash more bugs.
The fact that it crashes for you doesn't mean that it isn't usable as most peoples full time browser. It just simply means that it doesn't work for you. Find out what is different about your system, or narrow the situations the crashes occur on. Cross reference this with Bugzilla, and add a bug, or add your comments to an existing bug.
This is what a public alpha is all about; expect bugs and try to identify -- if not solve -- them.
There were problems with imlib's memory management, it could only render to a X Pixmap and not a Drawable, the API for transformations on an image was limited and not extensible. I believe imlib also had problems with alpha blending.
Enlightenment is still the default window manager in the Redhat 6.2 beta. I'm sure that if it is retired as the default, it will still be part of the distribution for a long time to come.
Despite the fact it has grotty code, it pretty much revived the whole window manager scene and showed people X could look nice. Widget set themes either directly or indirectly owe their existance to E and Raster. I remember 1995 when fvwm and Xaw were king, and I thank Raster for getting us past that.
That said, imlib was fundamentally flawed something had to be done. It probably could have been fixed, but the GNOME developers chose to reimplement the functionality. Reimplementation is not always bad -- lessons learned the first time can be fixed. From what I've heard, esound has (or had) some pretty serious problems; perhaps they are being worked on, or replaced.
Remember VA Linux makes its money selling hardware for Linux. Anything that makes Linux better is good for VA; whether it is Raster's code or someone elses doesn't matter. They probably pay Raster to do what he has done: trailblaze some interesting ideas that make Linux more appealing, visually or otherwise.
the fact that 95%+ of the original Netscape programming staff left after the takeover
Did this, in fact, happen? I remember jwz leaving a short time after the take-over, and a few others left when the takeover was still just a rumor. AOL cut a whole bunch of Netscape staff, but that was mostly redundant admin, AFAIK. I would imagine some programmers walked but 95% seems absurdly high. Do you have any supporting references?
Global IME support: users of Windows 95, 98 and NT 4.0 can now download Global IME modules that enable input of Chinese, Japanese, and Korean characters into mail messages and web forms. For more information on using Global IME under communicator, choose International Users from the Help menu. Windows 2000 users should use the fonts and IMEs available on the installation CD. If you're running Windows 98, just select the Windows Update icon in the Start menu. From there, select Product Updates, and download the language support and IMEs you wish to use.
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Netscape had nothing to do this.
Of course netscape did this. They added Javascript and Java to the browser specifically to enable this. They kept their browser cross-platform all these year. They created the first (or one of the first) web application servers - NAS, now iPlanet. They are still doing it with mozilla.
People didn't see the web as a platform at first. It was Netscape that pushed this idea, evangelized it. To deny that is to overlook Netscape's primary contribution to the internet.
Thats what the whole Netscape One(?) platform was all about.
Microsoft, on the other hand, added slightly incompatible jscript, totally incompatible vbscript, sabatoged the Java platform, and generally tried to undermine a consistant web platform and tie the web to the windows platform at every turn.
Ummm, nerds do like chess. I think the stereotype is at least as valid as nerds like computers, nerds like science, nerds like anime, nerds like sci-fi or any of the other topics covered here. Or at the very least, chess likers are nerds.
Besides, whats not to like? Its deep, thoughtful, strategic. You can play for fun, or really get into it and play competitively.
Only a couple problems:
I'd almost say its a better javadoc than javadoc, but I really like the doclet idea, even though it hasn't been fully exploited yet.
The poke changed the border color, and the sys 64738 rebooted, so to speak.
:)
The last poke wouldn't get run.
Doh, I'm showing my age
Maybe you should read the whole article before posting. Hint: look for the "Fly in the Ointment" heading.
The page quoted in the article shows its a pretty big win for some "typical use" sites on slower modems.
Incidentally, no extra load would be neccessary on the server for static content if it was pre-compressed.
I think the relevent clause is 6. It states you can't apply further restrictions on distribution. The BSD license doesn't; it just requires the copyright notice to remain intact, same as GPL section 1. the (old) QPL did apply further restrictions regarding what platform your code was written for and whether or not it was free.
Section 3 states that unless a library is a "major component (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the
operating system", it must be distributed with the same constraints. The usual pro-KDE argument is the Qt libraries fit into the above catagory.
Free86 takes the code that the X Consortium has developed and changes it in such a way as to make it x86 native
Thats what they did originally. Lately, they've started applying useful patches to the clients and libraries from outside sources that may or may not every get into TOG's X(tm). For example, XFree includes the xterm patches from here, added the essential XPM library, and beefed up Xaw to make it almost usable. Check out the release notes for more details.
Even more recently, they've started to tackle the key features that hold X back, like font handling and transparency. Check the mailing list archive for the most recent developments.
A lot of people are involved with Corel, and few of its failures are entirely Cowpland's fault. (It's always easy to pin crimes on a public figure, but that doesn't make them guilty!)
Sorry, but Cowpland is/was the President and CEO of Corel, so he is responsible its failures. It is his responsibility to ensure the company makes the right decisions -- whether by him or someone accountable to him. The buck stops with him. If he has incompetent people working for him, it is duty to replace them.
I don't know how Corel screwed Debian, they certainly contributed a lot to Wine and were responsive to licensing issues, but if Corel screwed up, Cowpland takes the heat in the end.
I haven't heard of anyone having problems running servers on @home. I personally run telnet, ftp, http, and ssh (its nice to have access to my home computer from work). That, and I haven't even detected port scans from @home admins to detect servers. YMMV.
However, be careful. Every server you have running is a potential security hole. You might think nobody cares about your box, or nobody will find it. I thought the same thing til my box was cracked (damn you wu-ftpd!). Keep up to date with the latest security exploits, keep your software up to date and monitor your logs.
I think the solution to this is to have a rating system, along the lines of slashdot moderation. That way, people would be able to avoid ad-encrusted mp3, poor encodings, misnamed files, etc.
It would also be a great way to find new music, based on the recommendation of the community. With a feature like this, Napster would be able to honestly claim they are promoting new music, not just providing a means of distributing copyrighted materials. It would also provide a raw, grassroots, rating system without manipulation by record companies or distributors.
XPCOM is a very simple framework that lacks lots of the glue that COM provides. I would assume COM+ provides even more. So while XPCOM might be a good starting point, it doesn't really compare to a COM or COM+ framework (yet).
From a mozilla document:
COM -- Isn't that a scary Microsoft thing?
No on both counts, actually. COM has its origins in Apollo's NCS system, and was later developed by Digital and Microsoft as part of their OLE/ActiveX architecture. We use a very small subset of COM that we call "XPCOM" ("XP" stands for cross-platform) for the new Plugin API that is essentially a method of using abstract base classes, and 3 simple but powerful methods:
QueryInterface: Deals with interface versioning by using universally unique interface IDs.
AddRef and Release: Deal with reference counting the object so that the system knows when it can deallocate it.
That's it. Using XPCOM in the plugin context is really quite simple. We don't make use of any of the COM factory constructor mechanisms, object aggregation, OLE interfaces, or the registry to find and load components. Plugin DLLs are still searched for and loaded by Mozilla from the plugin directories where they've always been found.
I refuse to see any difference between source code and binary files, because a binary can be written in assembler, which is binary code.
Assembler is not binary code. At least it is not to the same extent as C code or perl code is not binary. After all, they are all bits in the end...
Assembler is a textual representation of the binary code (as is C, albeit at a higher level), usually with macros and symbolic constants.
Your point is valid, though -- some one could write binary code by hand.
That said, my experince has been that of the two free IMAP servers out there, Cyrus outperforms UW-IMAP. The latter puts each "mail folder" in a single mbox-style file, which is nice for POP-IMAP-Pine interoperability, but it also means crummy performance on large mailboxes, since an IMAP server has to "grep" for a full set of message headers every time a folder is accessed. Cyrus seems to do things more efficiently.
True. You can get UW-IMAP to perform a bit closer to Cyrus by forcing it to use "mbx" mailboxes rather than "mbox" mailboxes. I believe mbx is a slight variation on mbox, with an index to make things faster. Works with pine, too.
This argument is based on the number of bit operations needed to solve the argument, based on the premise that the number of bit operations is related exponentially to the key/game tree size. It does not apply to quantum computing, which has the potential to solve the problem in a number of operations related polynomially to the the problem size.
GIF is pretty simple to implement (compared to JPEG or PNG at least).
I disagree. PNG is at least as easy to implement as GIF or JPEG with the libpng library. It is available as source, compiles out of the box for just about any platform. The license is very unrestrictive -- similar to the BSD license.
They are trying to recap the costs of developing the GIF format?
Unisys didn't develop the GIF format. Compuserve did. However, Unisys owns the patent to LZW compression, which the GIF format uses to make image files smaller. FWIW, the compression algorithm used in PNG is unencumbered by patents and is better to boot.
You point is valid though -- I doubt the negative press of holding the web hostage for infringement is worth the price.
Doh! I'm a loser....
What shape are the various X-based Mozilla frontends in? I understand GTK+ is considered the primary Mozilla toolkit, but there are also Qt and Motif frontends as well. Are they obsolete with the XPFE? Additionally, what is the status of the Mozilla Xlib frontend? I understood this was to reduce the dependancies on toolkits by merging some of the basic functionality into a toolkit independant frontend.
I know that this is alpha software, but my impression of the road to M14 was supposed to make it so that people could use it as their full time browser - and thus squash more bugs.
The fact that it crashes for you doesn't mean that it isn't usable as most peoples full time browser. It just simply means that it doesn't work for you. Find out what is different about your system, or narrow the situations the crashes occur on. Cross reference this with Bugzilla, and add a bug, or add your comments to an existing bug.
This is what a public alpha is all about; expect bugs and try to identify -- if not solve -- them.
why replace Imlib with gdk-pixbuf?
There were problems with imlib's memory management, it could only render to a X Pixmap and not a Drawable, the API for transformations on an image was limited and not extensible. I believe imlib also had problems with alpha blending.
Enlightenment is still the default window manager in the Redhat 6.2 beta. I'm sure that if it is retired as the default, it will still be part of the distribution for a long time to come.
Despite the fact it has grotty code, it pretty much revived the whole window manager scene and showed people X could look nice. Widget set themes either directly or indirectly owe their existance to E and Raster. I remember 1995 when fvwm and Xaw were king, and I thank Raster for getting us past that.
That said, imlib was fundamentally flawed something had to be done. It probably could have been fixed, but the GNOME developers chose to reimplement the functionality. Reimplementation is not always bad -- lessons learned the first time can be fixed. From what I've heard, esound has (or had) some pretty serious problems; perhaps they are being worked on, or replaced.
Remember VA Linux makes its money selling hardware for Linux. Anything that makes Linux better is good for VA; whether it is Raster's code or someone elses doesn't matter. They probably pay Raster to do what he has done: trailblaze some interesting ideas that make Linux more appealing, visually or otherwise.
the fact that 95%+ of the original Netscape programming staff left after the takeover
Did this, in fact, happen? I remember jwz leaving a short time after the take-over, and a few others left when the takeover was still just a rumor. AOL cut a whole bunch of Netscape staff, but that was mostly redundant admin, AFAIK. I would imagine some programmers walked but 95% seems absurdly high. Do you have any supporting references?
Quick summary:
DJGPP is gcc plus the gnu tool set that runs on DOS/Windows, and produces 32-bit DOS compatible code.