It's not as bad in Canada, but in Ontario and Quebec, Bell, Videotron and Rogers Cable are starting to impose download/upload caps (combined) at ridiculously low levels of 5 Gb per month.
Fortunately, there is a wide variety of alternative DSL ISP's. Most of them can be found at:
You can search by region, price, and service type, and each ISP's details (per dial-up, DSL or both) are listed in a table with such information as low-end price, high-end price, upload caps, download caps, allows usenet, webservers, or webspace.
Conversely, if Linux/Unix/Java win the enterprise space, Microsoft will have no new source of revenue and the encroachment of deskop alternatives (OSX and Linux and BSD) will eventually destroy their financial base.
Sun needs to open-source Java in order to get the OpenSource community 100% behind Java. The SCP is simply not a large enough community to provide the depth of input needed to ensure Java evolves as quickly as.NET. Microsoft, as well as their partners and large customers represents a community much larger than the SCP. Only the legions of OpenSource programmers can hope to compete with it. As Linus Torvalds said in a famous mailing list thread a while back, software mostly evolves according to customer requirements and outside influences, its creation has much less to do with design. With a far larger community around it, Java's evolution would accelerate.
If Java became OpenSource, both Linux and Java would feed off each other. Suddenly, Java would benefit from the full support of the OpenSource community, and features would be added at a record clip. All the innovations that the Apache Foundation made to Java tools would be magnified substantially. A better compiler would replace javac, for instance.
Java would be more tighlty integrated into Linux, especially Swing and AWT. Not only would client-side Java dramatically improve, but so would the Linux GUI, as visual components could be assembled far more easily. Linux on the desktop would actually stand a chance. More client-side GUI applications would be written in Java, and hence would run cross-platform, removing much of the incentive for people to stick with Windows.
BTW, I realize that this will never happen. Sun is a commerical entity and has little reason to do this. Still, it's fun to dream:)
And given the way Sun keep jerking the free software world around (Oh, look, work on Tomcat and we'll make it the reference JSP engine! Oh, now we've changed our minds!), why would Apache care about keeping Sun happy more than they care about making Apache as compatible with as many platforms and technologies as possible?
Like Microsoft hasn't with their "OpenSource is a cancer" or "OpenSource is un-American" comments? Puh-lease!
Many of the good people have been working to make Apache a first-class citizen on Windows through the 1.3.x code, and achieved that in 2.0.x. I imagine those people would be very happy to see Microsoft recognise the quality of their work. And I doubt they give a shit about Sun or Java.
Yes, like Microsoft did ANYTHING to make that possible. Face it, M$ gave up on IIS, and that's why they've raised the white flag and made this deal with Apache. As for them not giving a damn about Java or Sun, then why did they bother making ant, tomcat and cactus in the first place. That kind of contradicts your statement, doesn't it?
It will be ILLEGAL for Open Source to talk with Palladium unless M$ gives their approval, what do you think the DMCA is for?
Who are they going to charge with breaking the DMCA? All the hotshot OpenSource developers, like Alan Cox for example, live and work abroad and refuse to enter the US.
I don't drink Molson or Labatt products. I drink mainly imports (Irish, mostly), and microbrew, or brewpub beer. Big-brewery beer is chemically enhanced piss.
The best HTML editor, or text editor for that matter is Vim, but I digress. I don't want to start a vi vs. emacs flame war.
When my boss asked me to create some HTML templates for our web application. He got me to install Dreamweaver. In less than an hour, I gave up and used Vim to edit the HTML directly. Editing the HTML by hand is the only way I can do webpages. I need to have total control over my HTML in order to make even a half-decent web page.
I don't understand why people insist on using WYSIWYG editors. They infuriate me. They're especially bad for tables, where dragging and dropping the margins never seems to work. When I get to the raw HTML, my table margins, sizes, etc, do EXACTLY what I want them to do.
First let me say that I'm a big supporter of OpenSource, cross-browser and cross-platform HTML, and of the principle that a web page or web application should be viewable on as many browsers as possible.
Having said that, as a web developer (NOT designer), it's very easy to succumb to temptation and support only IE, especially when there are tight deadlines.
On the last major web development project I worked on, the QA people didn't bother to test on browsers other than IE, and none of the developers on my team (including myself) bothered to test on different browsers. This is curiously despite the fact that my browser of choice is Mozilla. The project manager sort of wanted us to produce cross-browser HTML and JavaScript, but didn't emphasize it all that strongly.
It got to the point where, late one night doing a criticial build, one of my teammates decided to run a few routine tests in Netscape 4.7. It turned out there was a MAJOR impairment of functionality in that browser. We couldn't get a hold of our supervisor, so we debated whether or not to rebuild, seeing as nobody was really concerned about cross-browser performance. We decided to stay even later to fix the bug, which was simple enough, but time-consuming.
The next morning, we told our supervisor what had happened, and he told us we did the right thing. Afterwards, he sent an email to QA and the requirements people, emphasizing the need to test the application on different browsers. It turned out that the HTML templates he requested well beforehand were to be specifially tailored to support ealier versions of Netscape.
Also, we dodged a bullet when there was a rumour that the client didn't even use IE. That rumour turned out to be false. Nonetheless, one of our potential clients apparently doesn't even use IE. The product has since been tailored to be cross-browser (NS 4.7, NS 6.2, IE, etc), right down to the JavaScript.
The moral of the story: Make sure your product works on different browsers, because you never know who your client will be. Furthermore, it's just good practice and the right thing to do. If you're going to do your job (web design/development), you might as well do it right, and not take any foolish shortcuts. Anything else is just the wrong attitude.
I personally don't view Java as a viable solution for web development anymore. Java had it's place, but I think it's no longer fast enough for current practices. I think PHP or another webside language/scripting language would be more beneficial at this point than using Java, and certainly easier to intereface with XML from what I've seen.
PHP is nothing but a server-side scripting language. Don't get me wrong, this can be all that's needed for many web projects, but for enterprise-level web applications, it's totally insufficient. Furthermore, it's a scripting language that needs to be in the same file as the HTML code. This means the web designer and web developer will constantly be stepping on each other's toes. AFAIK, there are no hard-core object-oriented features in PHP.
Java, on the other hand, allows you to compartmentalize your HTML code, servlets, and server-side processes. It's much cleaner. Java's object-oriented, so it's far more maintainable than procedural code. Furthermore, it allows further encapsulation of different components of your application, components and code that can be reused across different applications and projects. For example, if you want to perform complex mathematical calculations, you can simply put these into a class and place that class into your general libraries, to be reused in another project.
We currently use XMLC, a set of tools that allow HTML pages to be converted into Java classes. These classes can be manipulated by servlet code, and finally changed back into HTML output to the browser. This allows a great deal of flexibility, and absolutely NO worries about parsing HTML. It's all done automatically. PHP doesn't offer that kind of functionality.
Servlets can be subclassed from the most general dynamic page-loading functionality to more complex, application-specific dynamic functions. PHP doesn't have that kind of functionality.
Furthermore, Java has a rich set of libraries for XML processing, whether you're using DOM or SAX. There are complimentary libraries such as Xerces and XMLC that provide even greater functionality.
Java and J2EE offer a wealth of tools for true, large-scale, enterprise application development. PHP does not, at least, not yet.
It's much easier to download music than it is to download movies. The average movie file is 600 Mb. The average MP3 is 4 Mb. Add to that the fact that it's much easier to rip audio CD's into MP3's than it is to copy DVD's into AVI's or MPEG's, and the supply of downloadable movies will be far lower than the supply of MP3's. Thus, there's a huge supply-demand imbalance on file-swapping programs (like KaZaa) for movie files. As a result, downloading a movie file can take forever, due to the fact that 20 million people are trying to download the same movie file at the same time.
Perhaps that's why the movie industry hasn't suffered as much as the recording industry.
The DRM aspect reminds me of something I read about an imaginary day in the not-too-distant future, where you can no longer install Linux on your own box because you don't have the necessary rights.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't a great deal of Linux servers run on old hardware? If this is true, then the impact of Palladium wouldn't be a total disaster for Linux. It would not be favourable, by any means, but not a total disaster.
Smaller companies that run Linux servers on old hardware would not be forced to make the changeover, at least not for several years. Unless you're a large company that needs the latest technology, you could get away with not upgrading to a Palladium machine.
Haven't we all learned by now that free software is violation of intelectual proparty rights of proprietary companies?
I understand that you're being sarcastic, but what I don't understand is how they can make this argument. How does Free Software violate existing proprietary intellectual property rights.
Just because I make something that performs the same functions and has the same features as a proprietary application (ex XMMS vs Winamp), how am I violating intellectual property?
Where else can the manufacturer of a product hold you under a contract you did not sign, and change the terms of that contract at any time without notifying you or getting your agreement on the changes?
This is an interesting point. How legally binding *IS* the EULA? It's generally accepted that in internet transactions involving credit card numbers, a customer can at any time deny having made the transaction. Without a signature, there's no way to PROVE that the customer made the transaction: they can't take that customer to court. This is why there is a much larger allowance for bad debts on online credit card transactions. In a real-life transaction with a carbon copy, all they need is your signature to prove that you made the transaction, and they can sue you.
In that vein, how can the EULA possibly be legally binding? I can see how the signature on the invoice for their computer or copy of Windows, they could be held liable. However, how can I user clicking on "OK" in a upgrade screen be legally binding?
I don't understand how the judicial/legislative system has allowed them to get away with this, whereas credit card companies are screwed on fraudulent online transactions. This doesn't make any sense to me. Some court somewhere should be able to strike down the EULA as non-binding contracts, due to the lack of a customer signature or any other proof that the customer entered the transaction.
Re:My one big issue with the film (SPOILER?)
on
Minority Report
·
· Score: 3, Interesting
In the movie, they say that premeditated murder is almost extinguished, because no one is dumb enough to try it anymore.
That's because they know if they do, they'll get caught and put into hyber-prison. If they were just released, they'd say: "might as well give it a shot", attempted murders would go up, and the pre-cons and officers would have to work that much harder.
This way, they have far fewer cases to process because the disincentive to attempt murder is that much greater.
Slashdot Mirror
It's not as bad in Canada, but in Ontario and Quebec, Bell, Videotron and Rogers Cable are starting to impose download/upload caps (combined) at ridiculously low levels of 5 Gb per month.
Fortunately, there is a wide variety of alternative DSL ISP's. Most of them can be found at:
canadianisp.com
You can search by region, price, and service type, and each ISP's details (per dial-up, DSL or both) are listed in a table with such information as low-end price, high-end price, upload caps, download caps, allows usenet, webservers, or webspace.
I'd travel back in time to 1994 with all my stock charts and ...
1) Buy a NYSE index fund in 1994 and sell it in 1999.
2) Short Nortel at $120.
3) Short Worldcom at $65
4) Buy Yahoo! in 1994 and sell it in 1999.
I could go on...
Apparently, John Ashcroft has ordered the building of enough prisons to incarcerate the entire US population.
Does that mean they plan to put all Americans in jail and start a prison-labour based economy?
I guess it's time to replace my crappy HP 2X CD-Writer...
It worked on Mozilla 1.1 beta with the Flash plugin on Windows.
Conversely, if Linux/Unix/Java win the enterprise space, Microsoft will have no new source
.NET. Microsoft, as well as their partners and large customers represents a community much larger than the SCP. Only the legions of OpenSource programmers can hope to compete with it. As Linus Torvalds said in a famous mailing list thread a while back, software mostly evolves according to customer requirements and outside influences, its creation has much less to do with design. With a far larger community around it, Java's evolution would accelerate.
:)
of revenue and the encroachment of deskop alternatives (OSX and Linux and BSD) will
eventually destroy their financial base.
Sun needs to open-source Java in order to get the OpenSource community 100% behind Java. The SCP is simply not a large enough community to provide the depth of input needed to ensure Java evolves as quickly as
If Java became OpenSource, both Linux and Java would feed off each other. Suddenly, Java would benefit from the full support of the OpenSource community, and features would be added at a record clip. All the innovations that the Apache Foundation made to Java tools would be magnified substantially. A better compiler would replace javac, for instance.
Java would be more tighlty integrated into Linux, especially Swing and AWT. Not only would client-side Java dramatically improve, but so would the Linux GUI, as visual components could be assembled far more easily. Linux on the desktop would actually stand a chance. More client-side GUI applications would be written in Java, and hence would run cross-platform, removing much of the incentive for people to stick with Windows.
BTW, I realize that this will never happen. Sun is a commerical entity and has little reason to do this. Still, it's fun to dream
Well said.
And given the way Sun keep jerking the free software world around (Oh, look, work on Tomcat and we'll make it the reference JSP engine! Oh, now we've changed our minds!), why would Apache care about keeping Sun happy more than they care about making Apache as compatible with as many platforms and technologies as possible?
Like Microsoft hasn't with their "OpenSource is a cancer" or "OpenSource is un-American" comments? Puh-lease!
Many of the good people have been working to make Apache a first-class citizen on Windows through the 1.3.x code, and achieved that in 2.0.x. I imagine those people would be very happy to see Microsoft recognise the quality of their work. And I doubt they give a shit about Sun or Java.
Yes, like Microsoft did ANYTHING to make that possible. Face it, M$ gave up on IIS, and that's why they've raised the white flag and made this deal with Apache. As for them not giving a damn about Java or Sun, then why did they bother making ant, tomcat and cactus in the first place. That kind of contradicts your statement, doesn't it?
Java's now officially the most popular programming language in the world. If Sun would just be smart and open-source it, it would be unbeatable.
Too bad they won't do it, though. The SCP pales in comparison to the size of the OpenSource community.
Many of the apache foundation's projects use Java:
1) Tomcat
2) Ant
3) Xindice
4) Xalan
5) Xerces
6) Cactus
Microsoft is trying to destroy Java.
What are they thinking? You don't do a business deal with a company that's trying to destroy your supplier.
Of course I am. I was trying to get modded up for being funny. Guess it didn't work, though :(
At least one powerful industry group is lobbying against anti-spam laws, so I guess it must work for them:
1) Crashes more often than Linux
2) Attracts more hackers and viruses than Linux
3) Forces you to upgrade more often
Linux is free. Windows costs money. You get what you pay for, right?
I couldn't believe it myself:
Microsoft Patents Ones and Zeros
It will be ILLEGAL for Open Source to talk with Palladium
unless M$ gives their approval, what do you think the DMCA is for?
Who are they going to charge with breaking the DMCA? All the hotshot OpenSource developers, like Alan Cox for example, live and work abroad and refuse to enter the US.
I don't drink Molson or Labatt products. I drink mainly imports (Irish, mostly), and microbrew, or brewpub beer. Big-brewery beer is chemically enhanced piss.
"the best HTML editor is Notepad"
The best HTML editor, or text editor for that matter is Vim, but I digress. I don't want to start a vi vs. emacs flame war.
When my boss asked me to create some HTML templates for our web application. He got me to install Dreamweaver. In less than an hour, I gave up and used Vim to edit the HTML directly. Editing the HTML by hand is the only way I can do webpages. I need to have total control over my HTML in order to make even a half-decent web page.
I don't understand why people insist on using WYSIWYG editors. They infuriate me. They're especially bad for tables, where dragging and dropping the margins never seems to work. When I get to the raw HTML, my table margins, sizes, etc, do EXACTLY what I want them to do.
First let me say that I'm a big supporter of OpenSource, cross-browser and cross-platform HTML, and of the principle that a web page or web application should be viewable on as many browsers as possible.
Having said that, as a web developer (NOT designer), it's very easy to succumb to temptation and support only IE, especially when there are tight deadlines.
On the last major web development project I worked on, the QA people didn't bother to test on browsers other than IE, and none of the developers on my team (including myself) bothered to test on different browsers. This is curiously despite the fact that my browser of choice is Mozilla. The project manager sort of wanted us to produce cross-browser HTML and JavaScript, but didn't emphasize it all that strongly.
It got to the point where, late one night doing a criticial build, one of my teammates decided to run a few routine tests in Netscape 4.7. It turned out there was a MAJOR impairment of functionality in that browser. We couldn't get a hold of our supervisor, so we debated whether or not to rebuild, seeing as nobody was really concerned about cross-browser performance. We decided to stay even later to fix the bug, which was simple enough, but time-consuming.
The next morning, we told our supervisor what had happened, and he told us we did the right thing. Afterwards, he sent an email to QA and the requirements people, emphasizing the need to test the application on different browsers. It turned out that the HTML templates he requested well beforehand were to be specifially tailored to support ealier versions of Netscape.
Also, we dodged a bullet when there was a rumour that the client didn't even use IE. That rumour turned out to be false. Nonetheless, one of our potential clients apparently doesn't even use IE. The product has since been tailored to be cross-browser (NS 4.7, NS 6.2, IE, etc), right down to the JavaScript.
The moral of the story: Make sure your product works on different browsers, because you never know who your client will be. Furthermore, it's just good practice and the right thing to do. If you're going to do your job (web design/development), you might as well do it right, and not take any foolish shortcuts. Anything else is just the wrong attitude.
Hmmmm... so THIS is why Licoris decided not to call it "Redmond Linux" anymore...
I personally don't view Java as a viable solution for web development anymore. Java had it's place, but I think it's no longer fast enough for current practices. I think PHP or another webside language/scripting language would be more beneficial at this point than using Java, and certainly easier to intereface with XML from what I've seen.
PHP is nothing but a server-side scripting language. Don't get me wrong, this can be all that's needed for many web projects, but for enterprise-level web applications, it's totally insufficient. Furthermore, it's a scripting language that needs to be in the same file as the HTML code. This means the web designer and web developer will constantly be stepping on each other's toes. AFAIK, there are no hard-core object-oriented features in PHP.
Java, on the other hand, allows you to compartmentalize your HTML code, servlets, and server-side processes. It's much cleaner. Java's object-oriented, so it's far more maintainable than procedural code. Furthermore, it allows further encapsulation of different components of your application, components and code that can be reused across different applications and projects. For example, if you want to perform complex mathematical calculations, you can simply put these into a class and place that class into your general libraries, to be reused in another project.
We currently use XMLC, a set of tools that allow HTML pages to be converted into Java classes. These classes can be manipulated by servlet code, and finally changed back into HTML output to the browser. This allows a great deal of flexibility, and absolutely NO worries about parsing HTML. It's all done automatically. PHP doesn't offer that kind of functionality.
Servlets can be subclassed from the most general dynamic page-loading functionality to more complex, application-specific dynamic functions. PHP doesn't have that kind of functionality.
Furthermore, Java has a rich set of libraries for XML processing, whether you're using DOM or SAX. There are complimentary libraries such as Xerces and XMLC that provide even greater functionality.
Java and J2EE offer a wealth of tools for true, large-scale, enterprise application development. PHP does not, at least, not yet.
It's much easier to download music than it is to download movies. The average movie file is 600 Mb. The average MP3 is 4 Mb. Add to that the fact that it's much easier to rip audio CD's into MP3's than it is to copy DVD's into AVI's or MPEG's, and the supply of downloadable movies will be far lower than the supply of MP3's. Thus, there's a huge supply-demand imbalance on file-swapping programs (like KaZaa) for movie files. As a result, downloading a movie file can take forever, due to the fact that 20 million people are trying to download the same movie file at the same time.
Perhaps that's why the movie industry hasn't suffered as much as the recording industry.
The DRM aspect reminds me of something I read about an imaginary day in the not-too-distant future, where you can no longer install Linux on your own box because you don't have the necessary rights.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't a great deal of Linux servers run on old hardware? If this is true, then the impact of Palladium wouldn't be a total disaster for Linux. It would not be favourable, by any means, but not a total disaster.
Smaller companies that run Linux servers on old hardware would not be forced to make the changeover, at least not for several years. Unless you're a large company that needs the latest technology, you could get away with not upgrading to a Palladium machine.
Haven't we all learned by now that free software is violation of intelectual proparty rights of proprietary companies?
I understand that you're being sarcastic, but what I don't understand is how they can make this argument. How does Free Software violate existing proprietary intellectual property rights.
Just because I make something that performs the same functions and has the same features as a proprietary application (ex XMMS vs Winamp), how am I violating intellectual property?
Where else can the manufacturer of a product hold you under a contract you did not sign, and change the terms of that contract at any time without notifying you or getting your agreement on the changes?
This is an interesting point. How legally binding *IS* the EULA? It's generally accepted that in internet transactions involving credit card numbers, a customer can at any time deny having made the transaction. Without a signature, there's no way to PROVE that the customer made the transaction: they can't take that customer to court. This is why there is a much larger allowance for bad debts on online credit card transactions. In a real-life transaction with a carbon copy, all they need is your signature to prove that you made the transaction, and they can sue you.
In that vein, how can the EULA possibly be legally binding? I can see how the signature on the invoice for their computer or copy of Windows, they could be held liable. However, how can I user clicking on "OK" in a upgrade screen be legally binding?
I don't understand how the judicial/legislative system has allowed them to get away with this, whereas credit card companies are screwed on fraudulent online transactions. This doesn't make any sense to me. Some court somewhere should be able to strike down the EULA as non-binding contracts, due to the lack of a customer signature or any other proof that the customer entered the transaction.
In the movie, they say that premeditated murder is almost extinguished, because no one is dumb enough to try it anymore.
That's because they know if they do, they'll get caught and put into hyber-prison. If they were just released, they'd say: "might as well give it a shot", attempted murders would go up, and the pre-cons and officers would have to work that much harder.
This way, they have far fewer cases to process because the disincentive to attempt murder is that much greater.