> Bully for Arnold if he's found some faith > in his life. Really. But he didn't need to > share.
Jon appears to be easily offended by anyone who makes a statement of faith that he disagrees with. I haven't seen EoD, and I have no idea what kind of theological statements are being made in it, so I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with what is said in that movie. However, consider the following:
According to the Bible, there is only one way to have eternal life. For Christians, this means that the stakes are very high and anyone who isn't a Christian is condemed to die. The logical extension from that is that is that you MUST share your faith in the prayer that God will use what you share to bring others to know Him.
If Arnold did find faith in his life, then the worst thing he could do would be to shut up about it.
I've been using VNC to manage multiple PCs from a single monitor/keyboard. (All the PCs are networked, and you can use any combination of Windows, UNIX, etc.)
There's an excellent example of an app that plays nice in Gnome, Motif/Lesstif and (soon) KDE. The application part is extracted out into seperate code, and a front end for any environment can be written.
Actually, GNOME and KDE are not standing on opposite sides of No Man's Land. KDE apps run perfectly on a GNOME desktop and visa-versa. The plethora of window managers are all converging to meet the same standards for interaction with the users desktop of choice, and users have never had it so flexible... and compatible.
On the other hand, communication between GNOME and KDE (and Enlightenment, WindowMaker, FVWM, etc...) is less than desired, but that does not inhibet using ANY of the apps.
You're argument is not backed up by fact. Rather, KDE and GNOME are moving TOWARDS interoperability instead of away from.
Just because UDI is a GoodThing for proprietary UN*X, that doesn't mean it's a good thing for open source UN*X. Don't confuse a commercial GoodThing (tm) with an Open Source GoodThing (tm)
If the Linux community embraced closed-source drivers, it would definatly be counter-productive because we would lose the part of Linux that has brought it to where it is today; it's free origins.
Operating systems are not that simple, and interfaces designed by committee (like UDI) are rarely simple or robust (Not that I've actually looked at the UDI spec:-P ) Because something is stable under Solaris or SCO does NOT mean that it will be under Linux or *BSD. At least with open source drivers, the problem can be fixed by whoever is having problems.
> Once the standard is set, there will be no > silly driver interface licensing issues with > major Unix vendors (for whom the decent I/O > peripheral companies will write drivers).
Unfortunately, this is not the reason that many companies site when defending closed-source drivers. Creative Labs and 3dfx are both excellent examples of this. Neither company is providing open source Linux drivers for some of their products because they will be "giving away their intellectual property." The main reason for keeping drivers closed source is to protect the hardware interface to the board, not to protect the driver I/O interface. Winmodems are another example.
Personally (except for the winmodem case), I don't understand this argument, the IP to protect should be in the design of the chips themselves, not in the interface. Maybe both Creative Labs and 3dfx have algorithms in their drivers which they want to protect (Which definatly is the case for Winmodems).
In the near term, UDI might be appear to be a GoodThing (tm), mainly because there is the potential for more hardware support for vendors. However, UDI on Linux has two major flaws that can damage the entire community in the long term. BTW, this is based on the assumption that non-free closed-source drivers will proliferate under UDI.
The first is that UDI dictates how the driver architecture will work and behave. Kernel developers will lose the freedom to experiment with hardware interfaces to tweek the performance. Regardless of a common heritage, all UNIX-like systems are not created equal. A monolithic kernel behaves different from a micro kernel, and both can be tweeked differently. Just because a driver is a good design under one UNIX-like OS does not mean that it will be a good design under another UNIX-like OS.
Second, anything that promotes closed-source drivers in the Linux kernel (or *BSD kernel) is bad for the entire Linux movement. Device drivers are the most common source of instability in a OS kernel. If closed-source drivers become common, we will definitely begin to see articles in major magazines which complain about the instability of Linux, when really badly written 3rd party drivers are to blame. This will kill the reputation that Linux has developed for unmatched stability. (Don't believe me? Driver instability is the main reason why Windows 95 and NT is an unstable pig)
UDI helps other UNIX vendors much more than it helps the free software community. Let's avoid the temptation of the 'quick fix' if it involves giving up our main strength; our free-software roots.
Slashdot Mirror
> Bully for Arnold if he's found some faith
> in his life. Really. But he didn't need to
> share.
Jon appears to be easily offended by anyone who makes a statement of faith that he disagrees with. I haven't seen EoD, and I have no idea what kind of theological statements are being made in it, so I'm not agreeing or disagreeing with what is said in that movie. However, consider the following:
According to the Bible, there is only one way to have eternal life. For Christians, this means that the stakes are very high and anyone who isn't a Christian is condemed to die. The logical extension from that is that is that you MUST share your faith in the prayer that God will use what you share to bring others to know Him.
If Arnold did find faith in his life, then the worst thing he could do would be to shut up about it.
I've been using VNC to manage multiple PCs from a single monitor/keyboard. (All the PCs are networked, and you can use any combination of Windows, UNIX, etc.)
Check it out: http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/
This is just too cool. Now I've really got a reason to go out and get me a digital camera.
G.
Surf on over to http://www.gnucash.org
There's an excellent example of an app that plays nice in Gnome, Motif/Lesstif and (soon) KDE. The application part is extracted out into seperate code, and a front end for any environment can be written.
Actually, GNOME and KDE are not standing on opposite sides of No Man's Land. KDE apps run perfectly on a GNOME desktop and visa-versa. The plethora of window managers are all converging to meet the same standards for interaction with the users desktop of choice, and users have never had it so flexible... and compatible.
On the other hand, communication between GNOME and KDE (and Enlightenment, WindowMaker, FVWM, etc...) is less than desired, but that does not inhibet using ANY of the apps.
You're argument is not backed up by fact. Rather, KDE and GNOME are moving TOWARDS interoperability instead of away from.
When all else fails... Litigate
Just because UDI is a GoodThing for proprietary UN*X, that doesn't mean it's a good thing for open source UN*X. Don't confuse a commercial GoodThing (tm) with an Open Source GoodThing (tm)
If the Linux community embraced closed-source drivers, it would definatly be counter-productive because we would lose the part of Linux that has brought it to where it is today; it's free origins.
Operating systems are not that simple, and interfaces designed by committee (like UDI) are rarely simple or robust (Not that I've actually looked at the UDI spec :-P ) Because something is stable under Solaris or SCO does NOT mean that it will be under Linux or *BSD. At least with open source drivers, the problem can be fixed by whoever is having problems.
> Once the standard is set, there will be no
> silly driver interface licensing issues with
> major Unix vendors (for whom the decent I/O
> peripheral companies will write drivers).
Unfortunately, this is not the reason that many companies site when defending closed-source drivers. Creative Labs and 3dfx are both excellent examples of this. Neither company is providing open source Linux drivers for some of their products because they will be "giving away their intellectual property." The main reason for keeping drivers closed source is to protect the hardware interface to the board, not to protect the driver I/O interface. Winmodems are another example.
Personally (except for the winmodem case), I don't understand this argument, the IP to protect should be in the design of the chips themselves, not in the interface. Maybe both Creative Labs and 3dfx have algorithms in their drivers which they want to protect (Which definatly is the case for Winmodems).
In the near term, UDI might be appear to be a GoodThing (tm), mainly because there is the potential for more hardware support for vendors. However, UDI on Linux has two major flaws that can damage the entire community in the long term. BTW, this is based on the assumption that non-free closed-source drivers will proliferate under UDI.
The first is that UDI dictates how the driver architecture will work and behave. Kernel developers will lose the freedom to experiment with hardware interfaces to tweek the performance. Regardless of a common heritage, all UNIX-like systems are not created equal. A monolithic kernel behaves different from a micro kernel, and both can be tweeked differently. Just because a driver is a good design under one UNIX-like OS does not mean that it will be a good design under another UNIX-like OS.
Second, anything that promotes closed-source drivers in the Linux kernel (or *BSD kernel) is bad for the entire Linux movement. Device drivers are the most common source of instability in a OS kernel. If closed-source drivers become common, we will definitely begin to see articles in major magazines which complain about the instability of Linux, when really badly written 3rd party drivers are to blame. This will kill the reputation that Linux has developed for unmatched stability. (Don't believe me? Driver instability is the main reason why Windows 95 and NT is an unstable pig)
UDI helps other UNIX vendors much more than it helps the free software community. Let's avoid the temptation of the 'quick fix' if it involves giving up our main strength; our free-software roots.