gcc and glibc I can see as being very difficult to rewrite.
(I'm no expert, but I'll take a stab at it. I'm playing devil's advocate, unpopular as that is, on/.)
While it's still slightly unstable, GNOME has gone a long way catching up with KDE, and that was without much corporate sponsership. With all of UL, I don't see that it would be impossibe for such a large organization. GNOME manages to retain certain compatibilities with KDE, so UL could probably accomplish simaler feats.
Windowmanagers? They'd only need one, and they could probably put together themes for it.
Drivers aren't an issue as long they run on the Linux kernel.
The only thing I don't see them rewriting "overnight" is the X server. Even if they build it for a framebuffer target, it's still a massive, complex piece of software. I don't know how much the X Consortium's code would help.
Remember, Microsoft has tens (hundreds?) of thousands of programmers dedicated to their suite of games, tools, and OS. UL consists of a lot of experienced Linux programmers, who I'm sure wouldn't refuse to code, so long as their source was released in the end. Professional Linux programmers are, IMO, a lot more dedicated, creative and productive than your run-of-the-mill I-hate-my-boss engineers. (Sorry Gene)
I understand what you're saying, but I think the GPL has a gray area:
The GPL allows you to distribute a closed-source modification of a GPL, as long as the distribution is within the organization making the modification. One could argue that by placing beta testers under an NDA, they're making those testers part of their organization. Who knows? Maybe they're giving them membership cards.
Of course, UL can't make the entire world a member of its organization, so they'll have to release the source when the product goes public.
This gray area hasn't been a secret. In fact, the Affero GPL was created for the purpose of closing this loophole. Problem is, nobody's using it because it limits the people who will use the software to corporations with no need to adapt it to their needs(a rare case where a custom-built system would normally be used), and people of the general OSS community.
Anyone stop to think they might be re-writing from the ground up?
In that case, they'd own the copyrights. By not releasing the source until they're ready for a full release of an OS(Linux is the kernel, not the OS), they have the ability to, like Microsoft, unveil beatiful rainbows of extraordinary functionality, getting an edge over their competition. (It's hard to write a competitor to a project behind closed doors.)
It's a perfect example of the way companies will be able to produce excellent Open Source products at a profit. Businesses will grab the products while they're hot, and the simultaneous source code release will be supported by the OSS community.
At least, I think that's what they're trying to do.
From the community point of view, that's pretty damn sad...
Slashdot is like most physicalnews media, only much more fluid in function and standards. It's just a means for public communication. So is the air.
I hear it in my head as a quote from court: So, since you can't sue the atmosphere, a very common medium of communication, you think suing a medium for a specific culture as having more positive results?
I imagine a whole lot of free-speech arguments will grow around something like that.
How many people remember the day they discovered PC DOS and MS-DOS could no longer run the same programs?
I know I do... My mom took her $2000 Tandy RLX 1000 in for repairs, and they guy removed DR-DOS and installed MS-DOS.
I cried when I couldn't use DeskMate to make music or draw floorplans any more. (And I was having a real blast up to the point where Mom figured out I was the one messing with the X-10 stuff.)
Then there was the Hang Man game...and..darn. I can't think of anything else.
Sadly, the people sensible enough to ignore the loud-mouths don't get their opinions heard.
Media, lawyers and politicians (the bread and butter of public opinion) jump on people who say stupid things, and make it appear that the majority of such-and-suches believe this or that.
After all, they'd only need two or three strong quotes, and possibly an interview with a dissident, to prove that everyone in the Open Source/Free Software community is a software-pirating phone-hacker who spends their time telling hackers about security holes in common (Microsoft) products.
And of course, the intelligent of us know this isn't true.
Coke has had the lead for as long as I've been alive (19+). A ride on the Soyuz will cost them a real bundle, so they must be depending on making enough sales that they'll recoup their costs, while long term income is increased by new regulars.
The church used to have a stranglehold on science. Even today, there are people who don't see how they can coexist, or, in most cases, even care to try.
Hopefully, there aren't a whole lot of people who religously devote themselves to politics.
I know you were being sarcastic about the electron-beaming, but I thought I'd clear things up by stating how I understand it.
(Not that stating opinions usually clears things up)
A clean-room procedure can be as simple as one group of people writing out a list of features, and another group of people writing a product that fits this list of features.
The fact that the diff between the two codebases only removes the comments is a *ahem* coincidence.
One of my friends's work just bought him a new laptop. His old one (P233, under DOS. Old Borland IDE) worked perfect for what he does. (home and field support on embedded software in automobile testing equipment)
They bought him a new one, latest etc., just because the warranty on his old one ran out. They didn't want to support a laptop that wasn't supported for them.
It's an impossible upgrade, but if the PTO could be privatized, with a cap on its income based on inflation, the world could be better off.
Imagine registering a patent, and being given a per-licence royalty dependant on inflation. That royalty would be worth, say $99 today.
The PTO would then license patents out at $100, again dependent on inflation.
The licenses would be on a per-product basis, making its cost almost an afterthought on behalf of the designers. This would make technology cheap for the consumer, and economical for all but the very smallest (as in, custom jobs on 5$ trinkets) businesses.
By privatizing it, you're cutting as many ties with the government as possible.
Even if it is/were possible (has anyone actually gone to the trouble to email the scientist who supposedly did the experiments?), there would be some severe expected problems.
They're talking about interfering waves. That means pulsating DC, if not straight AC. Get this up to a frequency to even be useful (ala GHz to compete with CPU or networking technology), and suddenly you're broadcasting your signal. (Though coax's construction does cause some muting of this, IIRC) And putting it on silicon is a thing for Intel to do.
And just for proof that it's not possible: "superposition."
It says that waves will pass through each other and come out the same on the other side. Easiest to see in a ripple tank, or maybe in a physlet.
The bargain will be: build PCs using our technology, or loose your margins on Windows.
Gee, that sounds familiar.
My guess is that someone at the Justice Department will notice a precedent from the early 90s, and will go after Microsoft yet again. They can use the 1994(?) ruling as a precedent, and set yet another precedent for use against the DMCA.
I'd agree that it's the biggest factor, except that before printing even starts, the printer has to interperet the data it receives. For non-postscript printers, this isn't a big deal. Postscript printers have to create an image from the code that they're fed.
PostScript is a double-edged sword. On the positive side, it's making printer compatibility problems a thing of the past. On the negative side, it makes printers more expensive and slows printing times.
Printers use slow processors, so of course they're going to handle large chunks of PostScript slowly.
The original AGP bus is oodles and oodles faster than even USB 2.0. Until they're using the same data transfer interface, live-graphics devices(monitors) will always be a heck of a lot faster than static-graphics devices(printers and the eventual niche-product digital picture-frames.)
Whether you compile code as a module or into the kernel, what difference does it make? You still have to compile the code, so it still takes the same amount of time t ocompile.
Slashdot Mirror
(offtopic)
:P
Actually, in my case, it's so 1989. Click on my sig.
Our BBS name has always been Cyberspace BBS.
The ironic thing is that Netscape is free.
(Even if MS started that tradition. (Yet another example...))
gcc and glibc I can see as being very difficult to rewrite.
/.)
(I'm no expert, but I'll take a stab at it. I'm playing devil's advocate, unpopular as that is, on
While it's still slightly unstable, GNOME has gone a long way catching up with KDE, and that was without much corporate sponsership. With all of UL, I don't see that it would be impossibe for such a large organization. GNOME manages to retain certain compatibilities with KDE, so UL could probably accomplish simaler feats.
Windowmanagers? They'd only need one, and they could probably put together themes for it.
Drivers aren't an issue as long they run on the Linux kernel.
The only thing I don't see them rewriting "overnight" is the X server. Even if they build it for a framebuffer target, it's still a massive, complex piece of software. I don't know how much the X Consortium's code would help.
Remember, Microsoft has tens (hundreds?) of thousands of programmers dedicated to their suite of games, tools, and OS. UL consists of a lot of experienced Linux programmers, who I'm sure wouldn't refuse to code, so long as their source was released in the end. Professional Linux programmers are, IMO, a lot more dedicated, creative and productive than your run-of-the-mill I-hate-my-boss engineers. (Sorry Gene)
Is for the EFF(or ACLU) to turn around and sue them for viewing copyrighted material, and giving P2P a bad name.
:)
Now watch carefully to see if they download anything from your computer. In particular, make your P2P server a honeypot with bogus MP3s.
I understand what you're saying, but I think the GPL has a gray area:
The GPL allows you to distribute a closed-source modification of a GPL, as long as the distribution is within the organization making the modification. One could argue that by placing beta testers under an NDA, they're making those testers part of their organization. Who knows? Maybe they're giving them membership cards.
Of course, UL can't make the entire world a member of its organization, so they'll have to release the source when the product goes public.
This gray area hasn't been a secret. In fact, the Affero GPL was created for the purpose of closing this loophole. Problem is, nobody's using it because it limits the people who will use the software to corporations with no need to adapt it to their needs(a rare case where a custom-built system would normally be used), and people of the general OSS community.
Anyone stop to think they might be re-writing from the ground up?
In that case, they'd own the copyrights. By not releasing the source until they're ready for a full release of an OS(Linux is the kernel, not the OS), they have the ability to, like Microsoft, unveil beatiful rainbows of extraordinary functionality, getting an edge over their competition. (It's hard to write a competitor to a project behind closed doors.)
It's a perfect example of the way companies will be able to produce excellent Open Source products at a profit. Businesses will grab the products while they're hot, and the simultaneous source code release will be supported by the OSS community.
At least, I think that's what they're trying to do.
From the community point of view, that's pretty damn sad...
There's been a growing trend in people copying entire articles. Remember the "slashdot effect."
He meant "never changes" in that it never advances or breaks new ground. (Consider Bob mentioned.)
To quote Data from Star Trek: First Contact, "The Borg do not evolve--they conquer."
Old pun, but it still fits well enough.
Slashdot is like most physicalnews media, only much more fluid in function and standards. It's just a means for public communication. So is the air.
I hear it in my head as a quote from court: So, since you can't sue the atmosphere, a very common medium of communication, you think suing a medium for a specific culture as having more positive results?
I imagine a whole lot of free-speech arguments will grow around something like that.
How many people remember the day they discovered PC DOS and MS-DOS could no longer run the same programs?
:P
I know I do... My mom took her $2000 Tandy RLX 1000 in for repairs, and they guy removed DR-DOS and installed MS-DOS.
I cried when I couldn't use DeskMate to make music or draw floorplans any more. (And I was having a real blast up to the point where Mom figured out I was the one messing with the X-10 stuff.)
Then there was the Hang Man game...and..darn. I can't think of anything else.
Hey, I was only six.
Sadly, the people sensible enough to ignore the loud-mouths don't get their opinions heard.
Media, lawyers and politicians (the bread and butter of public opinion) jump on people who say stupid things, and make it appear that the majority of such-and-suches believe this or that.
After all, they'd only need two or three strong quotes, and possibly an interview with a dissident, to prove that everyone in the Open Source/Free Software community is a software-pirating phone-hacker who spends their time telling hackers about security holes in common (Microsoft) products.
And of course, the intelligent of us know this isn't true.
Sigh...
Coke has had the lead for as long as I've been alive (19+). A ride on the Soyuz will cost them a real bundle, so they must be depending on making enough sales that they'll recoup their costs, while long term income is increased by new regulars.
Indeed.
The church used to have a stranglehold on science. Even today, there are people who don't see how they can coexist, or, in most cases, even care to try.
Hopefully, there aren't a whole lot of people who religously devote themselves to politics.
I know you were being sarcastic about the electron-beaming, but I thought I'd clear things up by stating how I understand it.
(Not that stating opinions usually clears things up)
A clean-room procedure can be as simple as one group of people writing out a list of features, and another group of people writing a product that fits this list of features.
The fact that the diff between the two codebases only removes the comments is a *ahem* coincidence.
One of my friends's work just bought him a new laptop. His old one (P233, under DOS. Old Borland IDE) worked perfect for what he does. (home and field support on embedded software in automobile testing equipment)
They bought him a new one, latest etc., just because the warranty on his old one ran out. They didn't want to support a laptop that wasn't supported for them.
It's an impossible upgrade, but if the PTO could be privatized, with a cap on its income based on inflation, the world could be better off.
Imagine registering a patent, and being given a per-licence royalty dependant on inflation. That royalty would be worth, say $99 today.
The PTO would then license patents out at $100, again dependent on inflation.
The licenses would be on a per-product basis, making its cost almost an afterthought on behalf of the designers. This would make technology cheap for the consumer, and economical for all but the very smallest (as in, custom jobs on 5$ trinkets) businesses.
By privatizing it, you're cutting as many ties with the government as possible.
Even if it is/were possible (has anyone actually gone to the trouble to email the scientist who supposedly did the experiments?), there would be some severe expected problems.
They're talking about interfering waves. That means pulsating DC, if not straight AC. Get this up to a frequency to even be useful (ala GHz to compete with CPU or networking technology), and suddenly you're broadcasting your signal. (Though coax's construction does cause some muting of this, IIRC) And putting it on silicon is a thing for Intel to do.
And just for proof that it's not possible: "superposition."
It says that waves will pass through each other and come out the same on the other side. Easiest to see in a ripple tank, or maybe in a physlet.
The bargain will be: build PCs using our technology, or loose your margins on Windows.
Gee, that sounds familiar.
My guess is that someone at the Justice Department will notice a precedent from the early 90s, and will go after Microsoft yet again. They can use the 1994(?) ruling as a precedent, and set yet another precedent for use against the DMCA.
It's a pipe dream, but it'd be pretty slick.
I'd agree that it's the biggest factor, except that before printing even starts, the printer has to interperet the data it receives. For non-postscript printers, this isn't a big deal. Postscript printers have to create an image from the code that they're fed.
PostScript is a double-edged sword. On the positive side, it's making printer compatibility problems a thing of the past. On the negative side, it makes printers more expensive and slows printing times.
In use to describe quick events:
"The answer to which comes to me in the blink of the eye..."
In use to describe slow events:
*blink*
...so now we have to wait for architectures fast enough to effectively use the data.
Ho, 64-bit archs: You're now only a quick-fix.
Whether you compile code as a module or into the kernel, what difference does it make? You still have to compile the code, so it still takes the same amount of time t ocompile.
It obliterated other programs by absorbing their functionality.
Kinda like the GNOME Panel.
But I like GNOME...
Trinary exists. It's even common, in the case of "high impedance."