Re:Server != production server; other reasons
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Apache 2.0 vs. IIS
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· Score: 2
If FreeBSD doesn't support your network card, your video card, or your sound card, what are you supposed to run on your workstation?
The answer: you go to the computer store and buy compatible hardware for FreeBSD. If you were talking about special-purpose hardware then this would be a different story (especially since such hardware usually comes with specialized software for a particular OS). A $15 network card should not be holding back your OS choice.
Apple were smart enough to ditch X and come up with a better graphical system. I wish someone would do the same for other UNIces.
The DirectFB project looks promising, and is almost finished (most recent release is 0.9.8). Of course, what really is there to such a graphics layer? Considering it piggiebacks on the Linux framebuffer console anyway, probably not much.
They have an X compatibility layer for running X apps. I see there is a patched gtk available as well, but is that enough to do anything? Now if someone could port a WM and a DE...
IMO, there's actually nothing wrong with X11, but rather XFree86. I understand that XFree86 needs to work on more platforms than Linux, but still. As a Linux user, having a completely separate driver system just for XFree86 is both redundant and annoying. Configuration is also a disaster (fonts anyone?).
DirectFB with an optional X layer sounds like the future for desktop Linux.
Trillian is a very nice idea, and solves the problem immediately. Unfortunately, it is not a long-term solution. Trillian is still at the mercy of the "big 4" (AIM/ICQ/MSN/Yahoo), and encourages the continuing use of these closed services.
Remember the old days of the internet? How you couldn't send an e-mail from Prodigy to AOL because they were separate networks? That's what we have here, but in IM form. The solution was not to build some all-in-one Compuserve-Prodigy-AOL-bloat app, but rather to just decide upon an open email protocol. Trillian is the all-in-one approach.
I recommend switching to Jabber. It will allow you to communicate with other IM services through serverside transport modules. Use transports as a transition, to communicate with people who have not yet switched to Jabber. The ultimate goal, however, should be to ditch the transports entirely.
Most importantly, Jabber is its own open and distributed IM system, so you will always be able to chat no matter what the "big 4" do. Isn't it comforting to know that?
If you don't care about promoting an open system, or don't see the problem with closed IM systems, then Trillian may be just the program for you. But remember it is not trying to solve the greater problem.
Umm, all of those links you see in the article are to locations that inform you how to make financial contributions to support various projects. So there is a system in place. Maybe it doesn't work as well as people would like, but it certainly exists.
I believe donation systems are not enough. Free software developers should be able to depend on their income, and work full-time on their projects.
Donation systems are not dependable. Most programmers must maintain a "normal" job, working with proprietary software or something not computer-related, just to pay the bills. This is a major distraction!
What we don't have is a system to compell the process. That's a good thing.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Do you not think paid free software developers would be a good thing? All that matters is that the end result is free. There are a couple of current efforts I will mention:
Some developers work for Linux distribution companies, being paid to work on the kernel or KDE or whatever. This is wonderful, although such a small percent of all free software development. I would also guess that these people must do other things on the job (system maintainence, web development, etc), since free software is not profitable. This is the part I would like to change. It can be profitable, as long as it is done as a service (and we already know that "service" is how these companies make money anyway).
Another example of a paid effort would be the Qt library by Trolltech. It is GPL if you develop free software with it, and it survives because of the number of proprietary licenses they sell. This is a very cool idea and seems to be working well (they are one of the few open source companies actually growing and making profit). However this is still not ideal, as it involves proprietary software. We want free software everywhere, remember? We need a long-term solution that frees the money burden from developers so they can realize their full potential!
Companies don't pay billions to MS each. What they do do is pay a tiny sum of what it costs to develop the software. MS then collects all the money from all the users and put it into the next version of the software.
Indeed, but I am talking about total money spent. Wouldn't all these big companies like IBM rather have spent 1/100th of what they've paid in MS licenses to create a free alternative? Instead of paying for a copy, you pay for a share in the R&D.
a) one company/person pay for everything. This is a lot more costly than paying a part of the whole in the above scenario. Also, why pay? Just wait for someone else to pay.
The only way to really solve this is to make an artists fund (which according to another reply to my original post, such a thing exists in the USA). This way, tax dollars go towards the creation of public works.
b) You pay a little, but there are no guarantee that the software gets written because not enough constributers might appear. You lose money+you don't get the software.
Another large problem, and it could happen even to a goverment funded project. This simply needs to be avoided, by careful judgement about grants and knowing when to pull the plug.
There is no reason free software developers shouldn't get paid. The problem is that we have no system in place to conduct the process.
Imagine, for instance, if instead of all these companies paying billions to Microsoft for Office, if just a few million was spent paying free software developers to make a comparable product instead. I would be willing to bet that the resulting product from the free software developers would be of better quality, despite the huge difference in the amount of money involved. The moral of the story? Free software developers could work just like normal programmers (high salaries and all), and develop public works for all to enjoy. There is no reason we shouldn't get paid.
Donations are a good first step, but it should not end there. I want big fat office buildings full of free software developers, maybe publically government funded (like the Artists and Painters of yore), or perhaps kick-started by a company with money. The money needs to come first, then the product. That's the only way it would work and make sense.
My perfect world:
- company A needs a product, so they contact the FSF or something.
- FSF solicits the concept to other companies that might be interested (company A could do this also, petition-style)
- All the companies pitch in money (up front) to the FSF to have the software developed.
- The finished product is put in a museum, where all can make copies.
As far as I can tell, there is absolutely no downside to this system, other than that the older companies selling software will get the shaft.
Another problem you might think of is that you have to wait for the software to be developed. This is no different than the current system in place. My hope is that this proposed system would be used for all software in the future, not just as counter-projects to MS software (would still be worthwhile though).
Why not just say that the god-which-is-not-meta is beyond our scope as well, and just be a nice agnostic like any sane person?
Any being able to house/create a universe probably has the ability interact with it as well, even on a high-level. If you were a master scientist creating a sim-world, surely you would not leave this out?
The "god-which-is-not-meta" is probably impossible to discern from the actual universe itself, since it would always interact with us _through_ it. If the root user needs to alter the state of an application, he interacts with the OS to do so. It would even make sense to simply say that for all intensive purposes, this "god" _is_ the universe. Living and breathing constitutes interacting with the universe, so I would conclude that this "god" is very much within our scope.
A greater question is whether or not "he" is a Miracle Worker, and would alter the rules and constants he originally decided upon. Since we have such a close tie to our universe, I simply cannot ignore the possibility.
In fact, the only people I know that use Linux on the desktop are all developers (myself included) except for one guy.
Not that this is a problem. For us developers, Linux/KDE is a wonderful system to use. It all comes down to needs. Does the average user need multiple tabbed sessions in Konsole? No. Does he need to be able to play Dark Reign? Yes.
Unfortunately, the "games" problem is not one that can easily be solved. Most software you buy at the store is only for Windows, and I've heard more than one person say that Linux can't succeed with normal users without it being able to run Windows programs. IMO, making it a requirement of Linux to run Windows software (a la Lindows) is too much to ask. Not only is reverse-engineering difficult, but companies these days are making it harder to pull off. And sometimes, it can even be illegal (see DMCA).
So is all hope lost? What can anyone do? Linux is basically done.. Linus said so himself. Now the focus is on the user. Well, what is left for KDE? It is already more configurable than Windows. Ok, so that's done. Now what? If we're done, but we have no users, there is obviously a problem somewhere.
It's the apps. Linux is not scary anymore. The "one guy" I mention above knows nothing about coding, but uses Redhat just happily. But why can't he play his games? And where is Adobe?
We've done all we can do. I think it's just a waiting game now. I'd like to see some improvements with more general (non-distribution specific) software installation. And for video drivers to be kernel controlled, and have X just ride on the framebuffer. But issues like these won't stop average users from using Linux. Just ask a normal Windows user why he would not want to switch to Linux. It will come back to the apps.
Linux has only become more popular, not less. More companies join in the game as time goes. Sure, some have left, but at the end of the day the number is bigger. The general computer user will get his games and his apps.
In the meantime, everyone just continue doing their thing.
You don't like Konsole? Wow. I think it's the best terminal program yet. Multiple tabbed sessions! This program puts all console apps on any platform to shame. And anything beats the original xterm.. bleh!
Well, at 8 bits per byte, that would be 8 billion bits I suppose. That number of bits is uncountable in a lifetime, but the value it could represent probably doesn't even have an english equivalent.
32 bits = ~4 billion values
64 bits = 4 billion x 4 billion (does this even have a word?)
96 bits = 4 billion x 4 billion x 4 billion (holy freaking)
128 bits = 4 billion x 4 billion x 4 billion x 4 billion (IPv6 addressing? aieee!)
Well, you get the idea. And I stopped at 16 bytes!
Instead of downloading AbiWord for free. Why not donate $2-$5 through PayPal.
Exactly. Even if you were going to donate $100, it would still be better than paying $100 for some closed source software. The advantage here is not only do you get what you want, but you are furthering a cause. You are ensuring that AbiWord will get more attention so that more people can enjoy a free product.
An interesting license I saw on the web someplace (sorry, I don't remember where) was called the "Ransom License". The idea being, that if enough donations are made to reach the ransom amount (say $1000), then then it becomes free software. I don't know if any unfinished software could carry enough weight to do this, but maybe completed programs could. The important point is that the software remains free for all time. Like a public work.
Anyway, all I am trying to say is that it is a good thing to pay the programmers when the end result is free software. If all the billions of dollars spent on Microsoft software was instead spent funding open source programmers, I can assure you that they would create products with the same (or better) functionality. The difference? They would all be free software. In a perfect world, the government would pay all programmers to create free works (didn't governments do this for famous painters and artists in the past?) for all the citizens to enjoy. This is how development should be done, and paypal donations are a good first step.
No mention of Crystalis, one of the best (only?) action RPGs for the NES. Zelda was good, but Crystalis was different in that it actually had a storyline with dialogue, something USA gamers wouldn't really see again until Final Fantasy 2 for SNES. At the time, it was surprising to see the game coming from SNK, whose past games were nothing like it (read: Ikari Warriors).
I was always hoping SNK might do a follow-up version for Neo-geo.. oh well.
What I find funny about this statement is that these two are not necessarily comparable. CDMA is a radio protocol, used by both Sprint PCS and Verizon here in the USA. GSM, on the other hand, fully describes a wireless network, from the radio protocol (TDMA), to the included services (voice, 9600bps data, SMS), all the way to the SIM chip.
While CDMA may be a better radio protocol than TDMA, it is definitely not a wireless network. You can't use a Sprint phone on the Verizon network can you? As far as I know, these are separate networks with their own definitions. They just happen to share a common radio protocol.
So when someone brings up the ancient war: CDMA vs TDMA vs GSM, be sure to reorganize this into: Sprint vs Verizon vs AT&T vs GSM. This is a much more sensible comparison. Anyhow, perhaps in the future GSM's radio protocol can be replaced with a CDMA incarnation.
It places the Sharp outside the family of other Linux-based PDAs and embedded systems, meaning that code for other PDAs can't easily be ported to the Sharp.
What other PDAs? Really, Linux handhelds are mostly vaporware. There are not tons and tons of small-screen Linux apps to be ported to the Sharp. One of the biggest problems normal users have with X11 are all the differing toolkits. If Sharp wants to target normal users then it is going to need a consistent interface. This is an excellent time to establish a precedent for Linux PDA applications.
I think they'd have to port Qt to windows natively.
But Qt already has a Windows port, and it has been there since the beginning of time. Perhaps it would be easier just to consult a licensed Qt user to build binaries rather than port the library? I hold a Qt/Windows license, and I wouldn't mind building a native Konqueror or something, as long as it isn't too much work.
Re:Try ZooLib - C++, multithreaded, MIT License
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GTK-- vs. QT
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· Score: 2
Except that according to the Zoolib page, there is no support for pull-down menus? Come on now, this is a serious project the guy is asking about.
Gtk is not a cross-platform contender, FLTK is too limited, and Zoolib is unfinished. Perhaps these would be good recommendations for other projects, but definitely not for cross-platform desktop application development. Normally I would recommend free software above others (although Qt is GPL on X11, so it's tough to complain), but in this case the other options are not even viable. Qt has been multiplatform from the start, and stable for years.
The only real competition for Qt seems to be wxWindows (based on the comments), which I have yet to check out. Even so, with Qt you get commercial support, something you won't find in any of these others. Really, Qt is the obvious choice for professional cross-platform development.
Drat, no 1900MHz support
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New Nokia Phone
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· Score: 4, Interesting
One of the nice things about the GSM network is that the phone is separated from the account. Thus it doesn't matter if the phone is sold here as long as it works here. You could just order it from overseas and assimilate it with your SIM chip. The Nokia 7650 phone seems to be tightly packed with just about everything else, too bad they missed 1900MHz support. That foils everything.
Btw, I have a theory about the existence of the Nokia 8890. Nokia realized their non-USA customers probably wanted to travel to the USA, not that they wanted to deliver the USA a cool phone. That's probably the only reason we have it.
Nokia's 9290 phone/PDA thing is soooo cool. I got to look at it at E3 earlier this year, but only at Comdex did I see it doing some actual operation. They had one playing a realvideo stream, and some others running games. This one lady had a digicam watch and she took a picture of me, then pointed the watch at the 9290 and beamed my image across. Then she displayed it on the screen and proceeded to say how she could now email it off if she wanted. Freaky!
The next cool device was the new Sharp SL-5000D PDA, running Qt/Palmtop. I saw it at Trolltech's booth. It has this fold-out keyboard thing, which is surprisingly usable. If it has a built in GSM modem, it would be a serious contender to the Nokia 9290. For me, the only reason I would choose the Sharp would be ease of programming. Instead of having to learn EPOC programming (for the Nokia) I could just use Qt.
Speaking of "just use Qt", Trolltech even had an iBook at the booth running Qt/Mac on it. Call me crazy, but I began to hack on the laptop right there for about 20 or 30 minutes. I was able to create a couple useless testing programs. Worked as advertised! Even the pulsating default buttons. This was only the second time I've laid hands on a machine running MacOS X, and I was already able to program applications for it. Hmm, maybe it will be a tough call between the Nokia and Sharp.
A few other minor things caught my eye, but these were the big ones. Overall, it wasn't as interesting as this year's E3 (which wasn't very interesting either actually). Funny thing: ATI was showing off GameCubes (I guess they make the video chipset?), and Microsoft and Sony had XBox and PS2 there as well. Perhaps they wanted it to be E3:)
Converting from R to PG-13 results in the loss of nudity and language, but you'd probably keep all the same levels of violence. Roger Ebert rants about this all the time.
From his Movie Answer-Man column on November 4th: The fundamental problem with the MPAA is that it avoids making any kind of common-sense evaluation of a film, and simply counts f-words and evaluates nudity. ''Waking Life,'' one of the most affirmative and challenging films I can imagine for smart teenagers, gets the R rating, while the thriller ''Domestic Disturbance,'' which shows a small child exposed to a murder, an incineration, the beating of his mother (leading to a miscarriage) and the beating of his father, after which the kid himself causes an electrocution, gets the PG-13--presumably because there is no nudity and the language stays below the cut-off point. What sane parent would prefer their teenager to see ''Domestic Disturbance'' rather than "Waking Life''?
To me, this is absurdity. Parents cannot rely on these crap ratings. If you are truly concerned about your children/family, you need to watch the movie yourself beforehand and then make an honest judgement.
It all depends... In my experience (DSL at parent's home, DSL at work, Cable at 3 apartments), DSL lines have generally had much better uptime and more consistent bandwidth. This is not to say that they have never gone down.. they all have. Also, I've had the fastest download speeds on Cable.
My experience is the general case, but other people like yourself have had different results. I think it all comes down to the number of subscribers in your area, and the competency of your provider.
Here in California, Cingular Wireless seems to have the worst service of any cell phone provider. However, I consider GSM (the type of network they use) to be the best network technologically. So why do they have all these problems? It all happened when they made the name-switch from PacBell to Cingular, and I believe the major problem is they have reached capacity. Bad planning? Bad management?
When did Linux even have ground to lose? I find it funny when people say that Linux has "lost" or "is losing" "The Battle" (tm). It's not like they've been duking it out since the beginning of time. Linux-on-the-desktop is a relative newcomer to the scene, and despite the ups and downs of the various Linux companies, the number of Linux users has continued to grow steadily.
As far as I know, Linux has never lost any ground. But then, at this stage, there isn't really much ground to lose. Let's have this discussion again in 10 years when (let's make a hypothetical situation) Linux has 90% of the desktop market and Microsoft suddenly makes a comeback, pushing Linux to 89%. I would consider _that_ to be loss of ground, not anything going on presently.
You can create an LGPL library on top of a GPL library. You can also create BSD or X-style licensed programs as well. The KDE libraries are indeed LGPL, and see the license to mosfet's Pixie.
This means your second statement is false. You can buy a Qt license and develop closed-source KDE apps. Want an example? Try Kapital, from TheKompany.
Slashdot Mirror
If FreeBSD doesn't support your network card, your video card, or your sound card, what are you supposed to run on your workstation?
The answer: you go to the computer store and buy compatible hardware for FreeBSD. If you were talking about special-purpose hardware then this would be a different story (especially since such hardware usually comes with specialized software for a particular OS). A $15 network card should not be holding back your OS choice.
Apple were smart enough to ditch X and come up with a better graphical system. I wish someone would do the same for other UNIces.
The DirectFB project looks promising, and is almost finished (most recent release is 0.9.8). Of course, what really is there to such a graphics layer? Considering it piggiebacks on the Linux framebuffer console anyway, probably not much.
They have an X compatibility layer for running X apps. I see there is a patched gtk available as well, but is that enough to do anything? Now if someone could port a WM and a DE...
IMO, there's actually nothing wrong with X11, but rather XFree86. I understand that XFree86 needs to work on more platforms than Linux, but still. As a Linux user, having a completely separate driver system just for XFree86 is both redundant and annoying. Configuration is also a disaster (fonts anyone?).
DirectFB with an optional X layer sounds like the future for desktop Linux.
SuSE is LSB compliant.
Trillian is a very nice idea, and solves the problem immediately. Unfortunately, it is not a long-term solution. Trillian is still at the mercy of the "big 4" (AIM/ICQ/MSN/Yahoo), and encourages the continuing use of these closed services.
Remember the old days of the internet? How you couldn't send an e-mail from Prodigy to AOL because they were separate networks? That's what we have here, but in IM form. The solution was not to build some all-in-one Compuserve-Prodigy-AOL-bloat app, but rather to just decide upon an open email protocol. Trillian is the all-in-one approach.
I recommend switching to Jabber. It will allow you to communicate with other IM services through serverside transport modules. Use transports as a transition, to communicate with people who have not yet switched to Jabber. The ultimate goal, however, should be to ditch the transports entirely.
Most importantly, Jabber is its own open and distributed IM system, so you will always be able to chat no matter what the "big 4" do. Isn't it comforting to know that?
If you don't care about promoting an open system, or don't see the problem with closed IM systems, then Trillian may be just the program for you. But remember it is not trying to solve the greater problem.
Just use a form of VPN to get your security over a wireless network. Remember, ethernet isn't secure either.
It is probably better to use your own encryption tools anyway, since built-in schemes will likely be obsoleted eventually.
Umm, all of those links you see in the article are to locations that inform you how to make financial contributions to support various projects. So there is a system in place. Maybe it doesn't work as well as people would like, but it certainly exists.
I believe donation systems are not enough. Free software developers should be able to depend on their income, and work full-time on their projects.
Donation systems are not dependable. Most programmers must maintain a "normal" job, working with proprietary software or something not computer-related, just to pay the bills. This is a major distraction!
What we don't have is a system to compell the process. That's a good thing.
I'm not quite sure what you mean by this. Do you not think paid free software developers would be a good thing? All that matters is that the end result is free. There are a couple of current efforts I will mention:
Some developers work for Linux distribution companies, being paid to work on the kernel or KDE or whatever. This is wonderful, although such a small percent of all free software development. I would also guess that these people must do other things on the job (system maintainence, web development, etc), since free software is not profitable. This is the part I would like to change. It can be profitable, as long as it is done as a service (and we already know that "service" is how these companies make money anyway).
Another example of a paid effort would be the Qt library by Trolltech. It is GPL if you develop free software with it, and it survives because of the number of proprietary licenses they sell. This is a very cool idea and seems to be working well (they are one of the few open source companies actually growing and making profit). However this is still not ideal, as it involves proprietary software. We want free software everywhere, remember? We need a long-term solution that frees the money burden from developers so they can realize their full potential!
I'm not sure you understand economic realities.
Then I assure you I don't.
Companies don't pay billions to MS each. What they do do is pay a tiny sum of what it costs to develop the software. MS then collects all the money from all the users and put it into the next version of the software.
Indeed, but I am talking about total money spent. Wouldn't all these big companies like IBM rather have spent 1/100th of what they've paid in MS licenses to create a free alternative? Instead of paying for a copy, you pay for a share in the R&D.
a) one company/person pay for everything. This is a lot more costly than paying a part of the whole in the above scenario. Also, why pay? Just wait for someone else to pay.
The only way to really solve this is to make an artists fund (which according to another reply to my original post, such a thing exists in the USA). This way, tax dollars go towards the creation of public works.
b) You pay a little, but there are no guarantee that the software gets written because not enough constributers might appear. You lose money+you don't get the software.
Another large problem, and it could happen even to a goverment funded project. This simply needs to be avoided, by careful judgement about grants and knowing when to pull the plug.
There is no reason free software developers shouldn't get paid. The problem is that we have no system in place to conduct the process.
Imagine, for instance, if instead of all these companies paying billions to Microsoft for Office, if just a few million was spent paying free software developers to make a comparable product instead. I would be willing to bet that the resulting product from the free software developers would be of better quality, despite the huge difference in the amount of money involved. The moral of the story? Free software developers could work just like normal programmers (high salaries and all), and develop public works for all to enjoy. There is no reason we shouldn't get paid.
Donations are a good first step, but it should not end there. I want big fat office buildings full of free software developers, maybe publically government funded (like the Artists and Painters of yore), or perhaps kick-started by a company with money. The money needs to come first, then the product. That's the only way it would work and make sense.
My perfect world:
- company A needs a product, so they contact the FSF or something.
- FSF solicits the concept to other companies that might be interested (company A could do this also, petition-style)
- All the companies pitch in money (up front) to the FSF to have the software developed.
- The finished product is put in a museum, where all can make copies.
As far as I can tell, there is absolutely no downside to this system, other than that the older companies selling software will get the shaft.
Another problem you might think of is that you have to wait for the software to be developed. This is no different than the current system in place. My hope is that this proposed system would be used for all software in the future, not just as counter-projects to MS software (would still be worthwhile though).
Why not just say that the god-which-is-not-meta is beyond our scope as well, and just be a nice agnostic like any sane person?
Any being able to house/create a universe probably has the ability interact with it as well, even on a high-level. If you were a master scientist creating a sim-world, surely you would not leave this out?
The "god-which-is-not-meta" is probably impossible to discern from the actual universe itself, since it would always interact with us _through_ it. If the root user needs to alter the state of an application, he interacts with the OS to do so. It would even make sense to simply say that for all intensive purposes, this "god" _is_ the universe. Living and breathing constitutes interacting with the universe, so I would conclude that this "god" is very much within our scope.
A greater question is whether or not "he" is a Miracle Worker, and would alter the rules and constants he originally decided upon. Since we have such a close tie to our universe, I simply cannot ignore the possibility.
Well, guess what, I have just as big a problem with you "god" existing in the first place. Who created god? A meta-god?
A "meta-god" is beyond our scope. The Operating System is the creator of all, even if it is running in VMWare.
In fact, the only people I know that use Linux on the desktop are all developers (myself included) except for one guy.
Not that this is a problem. For us developers, Linux/KDE is a wonderful system to use. It all comes down to needs. Does the average user need multiple tabbed sessions in Konsole? No. Does he need to be able to play Dark Reign? Yes.
Unfortunately, the "games" problem is not one that can easily be solved. Most software you buy at the store is only for Windows, and I've heard more than one person say that Linux can't succeed with normal users without it being able to run Windows programs. IMO, making it a requirement of Linux to run Windows software (a la Lindows) is too much to ask. Not only is reverse-engineering difficult, but companies these days are making it harder to pull off. And sometimes, it can even be illegal (see DMCA).
So is all hope lost? What can anyone do? Linux is basically done.. Linus said so himself. Now the focus is on the user. Well, what is left for KDE? It is already more configurable than Windows. Ok, so that's done. Now what? If we're done, but we have no users, there is obviously a problem somewhere.
It's the apps. Linux is not scary anymore. The "one guy" I mention above knows nothing about coding, but uses Redhat just happily. But why can't he play his games? And where is Adobe?
We've done all we can do. I think it's just a waiting game now. I'd like to see some improvements with more general (non-distribution specific) software installation. And for video drivers to be kernel controlled, and have X just ride on the framebuffer. But issues like these won't stop average users from using Linux. Just ask a normal Windows user why he would not want to switch to Linux. It will come back to the apps.
Linux has only become more popular, not less. More companies join in the game as time goes. Sure, some have left, but at the end of the day the number is bigger. The general computer user will get his games and his apps.
In the meantime, everyone just continue doing their thing.
I hate both their Xterm replacements
You don't like Konsole? Wow. I think it's the best terminal program yet. Multiple tabbed sessions! This program puts all console apps on any platform to shame. And anything beats the original xterm.. bleh!
Well, at 8 bits per byte, that would be 8 billion bits I suppose. That number of bits is uncountable in a lifetime, but the value it could represent probably doesn't even have an english equivalent.
32 bits = ~4 billion values
64 bits = 4 billion x 4 billion (does this even have a word?)
96 bits = 4 billion x 4 billion x 4 billion (holy freaking)
128 bits = 4 billion x 4 billion x 4 billion x 4 billion (IPv6 addressing? aieee!)
Well, you get the idea. And I stopped at 16 bytes!
Instead of downloading AbiWord for free. Why not donate $2-$5 through PayPal.
Exactly. Even if you were going to donate $100, it would still be better than paying $100 for some closed source software. The advantage here is not only do you get what you want, but you are furthering a cause. You are ensuring that AbiWord will get more attention so that more people can enjoy a free product.
An interesting license I saw on the web someplace (sorry, I don't remember where) was called the "Ransom License". The idea being, that if enough donations are made to reach the ransom amount (say $1000), then then it becomes free software. I don't know if any unfinished software could carry enough weight to do this, but maybe completed programs could. The important point is that the software remains free for all time. Like a public work.
Anyway, all I am trying to say is that it is a good thing to pay the programmers when the end result is free software. If all the billions of dollars spent on Microsoft software was instead spent funding open source programmers, I can assure you that they would create products with the same (or better) functionality. The difference? They would all be free software. In a perfect world, the government would pay all programmers to create free works (didn't governments do this for famous painters and artists in the past?) for all the citizens to enjoy. This is how development should be done, and paypal donations are a good first step.
-Justin
No mention of Crystalis, one of the best (only?) action RPGs for the NES. Zelda was good, but Crystalis was different in that it actually had a storyline with dialogue, something USA gamers wouldn't really see again until Final Fantasy 2 for SNES. At the time, it was surprising to see the game coming from SNK, whose past games were nothing like it (read: Ikari Warriors).
I was always hoping SNK might do a follow-up version for Neo-geo.. oh well.
CDMA is a better standard than GMS overall
What I find funny about this statement is that these two are not necessarily comparable. CDMA is a radio protocol, used by both Sprint PCS and Verizon here in the USA. GSM, on the other hand, fully describes a wireless network, from the radio protocol (TDMA), to the included services (voice, 9600bps data, SMS), all the way to the SIM chip.
While CDMA may be a better radio protocol than TDMA, it is definitely not a wireless network. You can't use a Sprint phone on the Verizon network can you? As far as I know, these are separate networks with their own definitions. They just happen to share a common radio protocol.
So when someone brings up the ancient war: CDMA vs TDMA vs GSM, be sure to reorganize this into: Sprint vs Verizon vs AT&T vs GSM. This is a much more sensible comparison. Anyhow, perhaps in the future GSM's radio protocol can be replaced with a CDMA incarnation.
It places the Sharp outside the family of other Linux-based PDAs and embedded systems, meaning that code for other PDAs can't easily be ported to the Sharp.
What other PDAs? Really, Linux handhelds are mostly vaporware. There are not tons and tons of small-screen Linux apps to be ported to the Sharp. One of the biggest problems normal users have with X11 are all the differing toolkits. If Sharp wants to target normal users then it is going to need a consistent interface. This is an excellent time to establish a precedent for Linux PDA applications.
I think they'd have to port Qt to windows natively.
But Qt already has a Windows port, and it has been there since the beginning of time. Perhaps it would be easier just to consult a licensed Qt user to build binaries rather than port the library? I hold a Qt/Windows license, and I wouldn't mind building a native Konqueror or something, as long as it isn't too much work.
Except that according to the Zoolib page, there is no support for pull-down menus? Come on now, this is a serious project the guy is asking about.
Gtk is not a cross-platform contender, FLTK is too limited, and Zoolib is unfinished. Perhaps these would be good recommendations for other projects, but definitely not for cross-platform desktop application development. Normally I would recommend free software above others (although Qt is GPL on X11, so it's tough to complain), but in this case the other options are not even viable. Qt has been multiplatform from the start, and stable for years.
The only real competition for Qt seems to be wxWindows (based on the comments), which I have yet to check out. Even so, with Qt you get commercial support, something you won't find in any of these others. Really, Qt is the obvious choice for professional cross-platform development.
One of the nice things about the GSM network is that the phone is separated from the account. Thus it doesn't matter if the phone is sold here as long as it works here. You could just order it from overseas and assimilate it with your SIM chip. The Nokia 7650 phone seems to be tightly packed with just about everything else, too bad they missed 1900MHz support. That foils everything.
Btw, I have a theory about the existence of the Nokia 8890. Nokia realized their non-USA customers probably wanted to travel to the USA, not that they wanted to deliver the USA a cool phone. That's probably the only reason we have it.
Anxiously awaiting the 9290.
Nokia's 9290 phone/PDA thing is soooo cool. I got to look at it at E3 earlier this year, but only at Comdex did I see it doing some actual operation. They had one playing a realvideo stream, and some others running games. This one lady had a digicam watch and she took a picture of me, then pointed the watch at the 9290 and beamed my image across. Then she displayed it on the screen and proceeded to say how she could now email it off if she wanted. Freaky!
:)
The next cool device was the new Sharp SL-5000D PDA, running Qt/Palmtop. I saw it at Trolltech's booth. It has this fold-out keyboard thing, which is surprisingly usable. If it has a built in GSM modem, it would be a serious contender to the Nokia 9290. For me, the only reason I would choose the Sharp would be ease of programming. Instead of having to learn EPOC programming (for the Nokia) I could just use Qt.
Speaking of "just use Qt", Trolltech even had an iBook at the booth running Qt/Mac on it. Call me crazy, but I began to hack on the laptop right there for about 20 or 30 minutes. I was able to create a couple useless testing programs. Worked as advertised! Even the pulsating default buttons. This was only the second time I've laid hands on a machine running MacOS X, and I was already able to program applications for it. Hmm, maybe it will be a tough call between the Nokia and Sharp.
A few other minor things caught my eye, but these were the big ones. Overall, it wasn't as interesting as this year's E3 (which wasn't very interesting either actually). Funny thing: ATI was showing off GameCubes (I guess they make the video chipset?), and Microsoft and Sony had XBox and PS2 there as well. Perhaps they wanted it to be E3
Converting from R to PG-13 results in the loss of nudity and language, but you'd probably keep all the same levels of violence. Roger Ebert rants about this all the time.
From his Movie Answer-Man column on November 4th:
The fundamental problem with the MPAA is that it avoids making any kind of common-sense evaluation of a film, and simply counts f-words and evaluates nudity. ''Waking Life,'' one of the most affirmative and challenging films I can imagine for smart teenagers, gets the R rating, while the thriller ''Domestic Disturbance,'' which shows a small child exposed to a murder, an incineration, the beating of his mother (leading to a miscarriage) and the beating of his father, after which the kid himself causes an electrocution, gets the PG-13--presumably because there is no nudity and the language stays below the cut-off point. What sane parent would prefer their teenager to see ''Domestic Disturbance'' rather than "Waking Life''?
To me, this is absurdity. Parents cannot rely on these crap ratings. If you are truly concerned about your children/family, you need to watch the movie yourself beforehand and then make an honest judgement.
It all depends... In my experience (DSL at parent's home, DSL at work, Cable at 3 apartments), DSL lines have generally had much better uptime and more consistent bandwidth. This is not to say that they have never gone down.. they all have. Also, I've had the fastest download speeds on Cable.
My experience is the general case, but other people like yourself have had different results. I think it all comes down to the number of subscribers in your area, and the competency of your provider.
Here in California, Cingular Wireless seems to have the worst service of any cell phone provider. However, I consider GSM (the type of network they use) to be the best network technologically. So why do they have all these problems? It all happened when they made the name-switch from PacBell to Cingular, and I believe the major problem is they have reached capacity. Bad planning? Bad management?
It's a mixed bag wherever you go.
...they'll keep losing ground to Microsoft...
When did Linux even have ground to lose? I find it funny when people say that Linux has "lost" or "is losing" "The Battle" (tm). It's not like they've been duking it out since the beginning of time. Linux-on-the-desktop is a relative newcomer to the scene, and despite the ups and downs of the various Linux companies, the number of Linux users has continued to grow steadily.
As far as I know, Linux has never lost any ground. But then, at this stage, there isn't really much ground to lose. Let's have this discussion again in 10 years when (let's make a hypothetical situation) Linux has 90% of the desktop market and Microsoft suddenly makes a comeback, pushing Linux to 89%. I would consider _that_ to be loss of ground, not anything going on presently.
You can create an LGPL library on top of a GPL library. You can also create BSD or X-style licensed programs as well. The KDE libraries are indeed LGPL, and see the license to mosfet's Pixie.
This means your second statement is false. You can buy a Qt license and develop closed-source KDE apps. Want an example? Try Kapital, from TheKompany.