That's a good comparison. To take it a bit further, generic motors are still produced as generators. However, no one connects a device directly to a motor these days. Instead, the motor's output is first converted into a universal format (electricity) before being distributed to attachable devices. This design allows any device with a standard power plug to make use of the motor. It also allows for devices to be chained via power strips.
Now compare this to a computer. External devices used to be directly chained to the bus via ISA, PCI, PCMCIA, or Serial lines. As time progressed, the market moved to a generic "in-between" bus known as USB. (Universal Serial Bus) Just like with generators today, any device that has a USB connector can be attached to nearly any large computing device. With a hub, USB devices can even be chained to allow for as many devices to be controlled as can reasonably be handled by a single device.
Should I still be holding on to my Pets.com stock?
As long as you've got the certificates in hand, then hell yeah! Those suckers are probably collectors items. Especially if Pets.com did them up cute with the reporter puppy on them.
Since the soundbanks page comes up empty for me, I have no idea what their license is
Yeah, they've got a comment in there that looks like this:
<!------------>
It seems to screw with Mozilla. I was hoping it was just me. It works fine in IE, and probably other browsers. Basically that page says,
This page provides different soundbanks which you can download and use with Java Sound. Soundbanks are necessary for correct operation of the internal software synthesizer that ships with Java Sound. By default, the Windows version of the J2RE does not ship with a soundbank, so you need to manually install one to use Java Sound's MIDI engine. Java Sound has a fallback mechanism that uses a hardware MIDI port if no soundbank is available, but it prevents reliable and consistent MIDI playback, so installation of a soundbank is recommended for Java Sound.
It then explains how to properly futz up the lib/audio directory. The page has no license of its own (including in the download), but there is this blurb at the bottom of the page:
A Sun Developer Network Site
Unless otherwise licensed, code in all technical manuals herein (including articles, FAQs, samples) is provided under this License.
So as far as I can tell, they never explicitly grant you permission.
Really, when it comes down to it Sun has a specific purpose with their license. That purpose is to ensure that a given Java installation can be relied upon. If you're just screwing around and learning about the JVM by adding JDK features to a JRE, they're probably not going to bat an eye. If, however, you're distributing a "patch" to the general public that makes java.lang.String run 30% faster, they're going to be a bit miffed if that patch starts fscking up peoples machines. So in the end, use a little common sense and the license won't matter too much. After all, Sun doesn't install Sun Police 2 (version 1.2) on your machine along with Java.;-)
See, I have to disagree with your interpretation. By adding the JDK capabilities, you're modifying the installation, not the software itself. Especially since the best method for doing so is to put the dt.jar into the extension folder. In addition, if adding components invalidates your license, then downloading and modifying your JRE installation with the soundbanks would also invalidate the license. But it doesn't.
The reason why using the "-Xbootclasspath" option invalidates the license is because you're intentionally modifying the distribution of the JRE. Note that it does NOT say that merely using the flag invalidates your license. Only that redistributions using the flag invalidate your right to use and redistribute the JRE.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems fairly clear to me that Sun is worried about redistribution and reverse engineering, not mucking around with your installation. IMHO, a both Sun and judge would agree. (Again, IANAL, so take my interpretation at your own risk.):-)
Actually, it's against the license to modify and redistribute the JVM. Screwing with your installation won't trigger anything. The salient part of the license is:
License to Distribute Software. Subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement and restrictions and exceptions set forth in the Software README file, including, but not limited to the Java Technology Restrictions of these Supplemental Terms, Sun grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, limited license without fees to reproduce and distribute the Software, provided that (i) you distribute the Software complete and unmodified and only bundled as part of, and for the sole purpose of running, your Programs, (ii) the Programs add significant and primary functionality to the Software, (iii) you do not distribute additional software intended to replace any component(s) of the Software, (iv) you do not remove or alter any proprietary legends or notices contained in the Software, (v) you only distribute the Software subject to a license agreement that protects Sun's interests consistent with the terms contained in this Agreement, and (vi) you agree to defend and indemnify Sun and its licensors from and against any damages, costs, liabilities, settlement amounts and/or expenses (including attorneys' fees) incurred in connection with any claim, lawsuit or action by any third party that arises or results from the use or distribution of any and all Programs and/or Software.
The license scrapes close to what you're talking about with the following text:
Java Technology Restrictions. You may not create, modify, or change the behavior of, or authorize your licensees to create, modify, or change the behavior of, classes, interfaces, or subpackages that are in any way identified as "java", "javax", "sun" or similar convention as specified by Sun in any naming convention designation.
However, this is just Sun protecting packages owned by Sun.
If the license worked the way you suggest, then adding extensions to a JVM installation would automatically terminate your license.
FYI, since it's slashdotted, you can kind of see Jason's design on mirrordot. I say "kind of" because a few elements use fallbacks. For example, the hiding menus on the left normally have a rotating triangle. Thanks to Jason's bang-up CSS though, you see the words "show" and "hide" when the images are missing.
Of the three, I'm really partial to Jason's design. It captures all the elements of Slashdot, looks clean, has everything well separated, AND it works without error across the browsers I've tried. I'm rooting for it to win.
That's the SDK. It's for developing Java applications.
<tweety-bird>He don't know Java wery well, do he?</tweety-bird>
As another poster pointed out, the JDK contains the JRE. In fact, the JDK is nothing more than the JRE + Compiler Tools. It's fairly easy to mod a JRE to become a JDK just by moving a few JAR files. (And the 'javac' executable if you want an easy way to launch the compiler.)
As a result, it almost always makes more sense to install the JDK rather than the JRE. The only purpose of the JRE is download size. Since it includes less "stuff" (including a lack of a soundbank!), it's a much smaller download than the JDK.
Advocates of Java countered that hardware would soon be fast enough to render Java's slight speed disadvantage (due to being interpreted code) irrelevant. Plus, a JIT compiler was in the works to make Java run just as fast as native code.
Just to clarify, Sun originally released Java 1.0 as a "reference" copy for other JVM vendors to test against when developing their own JVMs. As a result, it was lacking a JIT and thus was incredibly slow. That slowness disappeared in Sun Java 1.1 when Sun realized their mistake and began bundling a JIT. At that point in time, Java was still slower but not to any massive degree.
Sun's development of the HotSpot mixed-mode JVM finally put the performance matters to rest. HotSpot executes real-world code at amazing speeds, sometimes outdoing native code. The only problem is that it isn't optimized for short-lived programs, thus making microbenchmarking absolutely useless. (Not that it has been all that useful anyway. Modern CPUs and Operating Systems do all kinds of tricky trickery to make real-world programs execute faster than micro-benchmarking. Now if only we could get that through people's heads.)
All of the same contractors are going to do to it the same thing they managed to do with the shuttle.
Look around the industry sometime. There aren't exactly many contractors to deal with. T/Space is about the only "new" company on the block, and they are working with NASA now. Albeit in a much reduced capacity from what they were originally attempting.
The SRB first stage on the CEV's booster.... so that Thikol doesn't complain to their congresscritter.
Actually, the reuse of technology lets them get the rocket done faster. Plus, the SRBs are already man rated, and are some of the most powerful first stage rockets in existence. Given the tight budget and short timeframe of the CEV project, it makes a lot of sense.
The cargo vehicle with the external tank so that you don't lose that factory. No effort to make the CEV work on anybody else's launcher, like the EELV Atlas and Deltas or maybe let SpaceX try to undercut things.
If you can find us a pair of launchers that are both man-rated and can carry over 100 tonnes of cargo to LEO, then I'm sure NASA would like to know about it. Since such things don't exist, NASA is forced to build their own.
As for the ET, you need a LHOx tank. What's so strange about using one that NASA has experience with? Especially when one realizes that NASA is looking as J-2 and Delta-4 engines instead of SSMEs for some stages. The J-2 has already been decided on, and the D4 engines are being seriously considered.
The parent is effectively correct, even if he is a bit abrasive about it. The Space Station, just like the Space Shuttle, was a victim of politics. What was originally going to be a staging point for a moon colony became an international piece of junk that should have been scrapped as soon as its stated purpose was lost. Instead, NASA went ahead and built a station in the wrong orbit that wasn't useful for anything other than showing the flag. Construction has been long behind schedule, over budget, and the poor station has been falling apart at the seams from day 1.
Of course, I'm sure there are political reasons why they couldn't NOT build it.
Thank God for the CEV program. It may seem like a step back, but it will actually be a huge step forward for the space program. Let's just hope that Griffin gets it finished before the next political fallout.
How in the world do you plan to get 183 tonnes of mass back to Earth in one piece? The Shuttle has a maximum payload capacity of 25 tonnes. It's the ONLY option currently available for returning large objects to Earth.
It would be way cheaper and easier to send up a bunch of "experts" to figure the sucker out rather than return it to Earth.
(Sorry if I'm a bit snippy. Rough day, and all that.)
MS didnt screw this up, they licensed the technology
Which is to say, that Microsoft wouldn't license Windows anymore and "offered" to license Citrix's stuff from them. Pull your head out and wake up, will you? Citrix didn't have a choice in the matter. Their choice was to go along with Microsoft's plans or close down their business.
Citrix made a companion product that extended the original
The "original" was Citrix WinFrame. It was inexpensive (what we're talking about here) and it worked. Microsoft came in and ensured that you had to pay them a boatload of money just to use their crappy rip-off of Citrix's technology. Then if you want it to actually work, you have to pay Citrix gobs of money on top of that. There's absolutely no way that's economical in comparison to PCs.
So if you want to "blame" anyone, should you not be blaming Citrix for essential "selling out"?
I "blame" Microsoft for shafting Citrix, then forcing the price per user to triple. My company had payed for a Citrix WinFrame license with ~20 (IIRC) concurrent connection licenses included. We then bought another 20 licenses to come up with ~40 concurrent connection licenses.
With Terminal Server we were staring down the barrel an expensive TS acquisition, PLUS a fee for each user (instead of connections), PLUS a Windows NT Desktop license for each thin client. If we wanted Citrix on top of that, we'd be looking at huge costs in addition to the incredible ones we'd already payed Microsoft.
Now the current company I work for uses TS 2003 for a few remote applications. There's simply no way they've found to make these systems economical. They're supported only because they're necessary, not because they're cheaper than desktops.
To put it simply, Microsoft f**ked up the market, and did so intentionally. So get that rosy image of Microsoft out of your head. It's nothing more than a lie. You may have bought into it, but those of us who were *there* when Microsoft screwed over the market know the truth.
load up the new version of Super Smash Brothers and proceed to literally PUNCH at each other!
That would be too useful. The Power Glove 2.0 would come bundled with Super Glove Ball! 2.0. More realistic-3D-ball-punching-breakout-like-action than you can shake a stick at! Aren't you excited?
What the retro controller article seems to be missing, is that the controller pictured probably isn't for Wii games. Nintendo has already stated that the Wii will play all the old Nintendo titles, including GameCube.
I'd like to see how people plan to play these games with a motion sensor controller. (Hint: It's very doubtful they can.) Ergo, the "retro" controller. Designed to allow classic gameplay on the Wii.
Of course, classic, classic (NES) is fully supported by the Wii-little design.:-P
The only way to properly celebrate would be to send him belated e-congratulations to hemos at slashdot.org. Show the love. He'd do it for you. No I'm not kidding.
Hmm, seems Taco was right.:-P
Birthday presents of single malt scotch can be sent c/o of me. I'll...uh...make sure he gets them.
Ok. But are you sure this label is going to work?
To: VA Software Corporation (OSTG) Slashdot.org c/o ME
46939 Bayside Parkway Fremont, CA 94538
Re:Reelin' 'Em in I see
on
Vonage going IPO
·
· Score: 4, Informative
Their (not yet active) trading charts can be found here under the symbol "VG".
If this is a fishing scam, it's a pretty darn good one. More likely, Vonage wanted their financial issues to be separate from their marketing site and didn't think about how that would look.
Even though the licenses of the software you mentioned permit this, bear in mind that this is not characteristic of Free software
Nonsense. Not only does the license explicitly separate your programs from GPLed programs (as opposed to the "viral" view), Stallman has repeatedly stated that he has no issues with software being sold or used commercially. If Linspire is going to provide you with access to commercial software AND users are willing to pay for it, then more power to them.
Sure, Linspire may not have bought 100% into the GPL philosophy, but that's not the point. The point is that the GPLed software they're still adhering to the GPL principles by sharing any and all maintenance. If they fix a bug, they have to share it. If they add a new feature, they have to share it. If they decide to try a completely different direction, they still have to share it. Thus the Linux software grows, even if it fails to incorporate CNR or MPEG4. Both of those are matters for other GPL projects to encourage freedom in.
This is true even if they don't otherwise want to make their software free. As Stallman said:
The goal of GNU was to give users freedom, not just to be popular. So we needed to use distribution terms that would prevent GNU software from being turned into proprietary software. The method we use is called "copyleft".(1)
The central idea of copyleft is that we give everyone permission to run the program, copy the program, modify the program, and distribute modified versions--but not permission to add restrictions of their own. Thus, the crucial freedoms that define "free software" are guaranteed to everyone who has a copy; they become inalienable rights.
For an effective copyleft, modified versions must also be free. This ensures that work based on ours becomes available to our community if it is published. When programmers who have jobs as programmers volunteer to improve GNU software, it is copyleft that prevents their employers from saying, "You can't share those changes, because we are going to use them to make our proprietary version of the program."
User's reasons include: insufficient bandwidth to display the graphics I use,
This wasn't an issue with ICA. Modem speeds were more than enough for our users to feel like they were at work. 10MBit LAN connections hooked up to a hub made their thin clients seem like they were flying. (Granted, this was back when Windows was designed to run in 16 - 256 color modes.) I wouldn't recommend playing a video game over ICA (though you could), but everything else from Word to Videos worked great.
insufficient dedicated CPU time for the programs I need to run
This wasn't an issue for us. For most office workers, CPU simply doesn't matter as it's underutilized anyway. You need very powerful apps that are generally outside the purview of office workers to make a dent in the CPU power.
and "one network glitch and the whole enterprise stops working."
This was always an issue. Thankfully, the network was stable and the the machine was mostly stable. So we were usually able to schedule downtime outside of business hours. In the few cases that a reboot was necessary during business hours, it was usually quick and not much different from a user perspective than losing access to some sort of client/server application. Plus, they actually knew it was down as opposed to getting a cryptic "cannot connect to server" message from the client software.
Face it, I don't really think you are saving much in terms of central administration because you are going to have select users that need custom tools.
Citrix WinFrame was so nice for this. What you'd do is you'd create a desktop type for each category of user. (For us it was by department.) You could configure this desktop to have access to specific application icons, and no others. Security could be reenforced with Windows ACL permissions aligned to the same users. You then save that desktop configuration and assign it to as many users that needed it. There were a few oddballs who had very specific requirements, but it was easy to meet their needs with all the regular Desktop support we *didn't* have to do.
When Microsoft released Terminal Services, they screwed up many (most?) of these features that made it a workable concept.
To repost my response to Mr. Paris on the L4C mailing list:
I honestly don't understand why Pamela got into such a tizzy over Linspire. The entire point of OSS is to allow forking. The OSS software Linspire is using (and sharing) was released by its owners with the understanding that others would use it for both commercial and non-commercial uses. And they were fine with that. All they required was that changes to *their* code be returned to the public. Anything that the licensee creates separately is his own.
Now that Linspire is taking advantage of that, we're supposed to get worked up about it? Why? If you don't want to contribute, don't contribute. Ignoring the project will kill it far faster than drawing attention to it.
I have a lot of pet peeves against Michael Robertson (not the least of which is his tendency to greatly exaggerate),. but I don't hold a grudge against the guy. If he wants to share his software with the world while keeping parts proprietary, that's his business. All I ask is that Linspire doesn't lay any Intellectual Property traps for unsuspecting souls. It should be clear who owns what and what permissions are given.
Note that Mr. Paris pointed out to me that Robertson stepped down as CEO. Carmony is running the show now. (Just in case you pay as little attention to Linspire as I do.)
My point still holds, though. There's nothing "wrong" with what Linspire is doing with the Freespire project. They're giving away free binaries (which they don't have to give you) along with all the source code they owe you. In exchange, you may or may not become a Click and Run customer. I don't see an issue here. And no, I don't think that Linspire is really expecting a huge outpouring of volunteer programmers, either.
On another topic (since I can't make fun of poor Mr. Robertson's Linspire work anymore), has anyone noticed the latest from AJAX Launch? It seems that they have added an Excel "Demo" (a pretty bit of XUL that looks like a real spreadsheet), a media player that seems no more sophisticated than the one in sharkscott's link in the summary (if I wanted your website to make noise... grrr...), and a RealPlayer video of the "AJAX Desktop" of the Future.
Are you amazed yet? Ecstatic? Hopping up and down in excitement? Holding your breath in bated anticipation?
Citrix does license much of Terminal Services from Microsoft.
Replace "much" with "very little" and you're a lot closer.
And their package is an add-on to Microsoft Terminal Services
Precisely. Citrix WinFrame was a custom version of NT 3.51 modified by Citrix to handle thin clienting. Microsoft stopped licensing Windows NT immediately thereafter, and forced Citrix to become an expensive add-on to an already uber-expensive product. Oh, and Microsoft botched the job while they were at it. RDP sucks in comparison to ICA, and stability went down the drain.
Back when Citrix produced an inexpensive version of Windows capable of supporting ~40 concurrent clients on a single dual-proc machine, the answer was "yes." The cost savings were huge. Not so much from the hardware, but from the support. Users were simply unable to screw up their desktops, could login remotely over a modem (!), and IT could share the session with the user to fix the problem without ever leaving their desk.
Then Microsoft got involved. They refused to license to Citrix again, and released their own Terminal Services. The price skyrocketed, the licensing became confusing, the protocol was much heavier, and the system became far less stable under load. Not much has changed.
It was a wonderful thing while it lasted, but don't expect to see any real returns on a modern Terminal Services system. The only real uses they have these days are remote administration and centralized applications. And you can expect to pay for those features.
Slashdot Mirror
That's a good comparison. To take it a bit further, generic motors are still produced as generators. However, no one connects a device directly to a motor these days. Instead, the motor's output is first converted into a universal format (electricity) before being distributed to attachable devices. This design allows any device with a standard power plug to make use of the motor. It also allows for devices to be chained via power strips.
Now compare this to a computer. External devices used to be directly chained to the bus via ISA, PCI, PCMCIA, or Serial lines. As time progressed, the market moved to a generic "in-between" bus known as USB. (Universal Serial Bus) Just like with generators today, any device that has a USB connector can be attached to nearly any large computing device. With a hub, USB devices can even be chained to allow for as many devices to be controlled as can reasonably be handled by a single device.
The parallels are simply amazing.
Should I still be holding on to my Pets.com stock?
As long as you've got the certificates in hand, then hell yeah! Those suckers are probably collectors items. Especially if Pets.com did them up cute with the reporter puppy on them.
Think I'm joking? Think again.
Since the soundbanks page comes up empty for me, I have no idea what their license is
;-)
Yeah, they've got a comment in there that looks like this:
<!------------>
It seems to screw with Mozilla. I was hoping it was just me. It works fine in IE, and probably other browsers. Basically that page says,
This page provides different soundbanks which you can download and use with Java Sound. Soundbanks are necessary for correct operation of the internal software synthesizer that ships with Java Sound. By default, the Windows version of the J2RE does not ship with a soundbank, so you need to manually install one to use Java Sound's MIDI engine. Java Sound has a fallback mechanism that uses a hardware MIDI port if no soundbank is available, but it prevents reliable and consistent MIDI playback, so installation of a soundbank is recommended for Java Sound.
It then explains how to properly futz up the lib/audio directory. The page has no license of its own (including in the download), but there is this blurb at the bottom of the page:
A Sun Developer Network Site
Unless otherwise licensed, code in all technical manuals herein (including articles, FAQs, samples) is provided under this License.
So as far as I can tell, they never explicitly grant you permission.
Really, when it comes down to it Sun has a specific purpose with their license. That purpose is to ensure that a given Java installation can be relied upon. If you're just screwing around and learning about the JVM by adding JDK features to a JRE, they're probably not going to bat an eye. If, however, you're distributing a "patch" to the general public that makes java.lang.String run 30% faster, they're going to be a bit miffed if that patch starts fscking up peoples machines. So in the end, use a little common sense and the license won't matter too much. After all, Sun doesn't install Sun Police 2 (version 1.2) on your machine along with Java.
See, I have to disagree with your interpretation. By adding the JDK capabilities, you're modifying the installation, not the software itself. Especially since the best method for doing so is to put the dt.jar into the extension folder. In addition, if adding components invalidates your license, then downloading and modifying your JRE installation with the soundbanks would also invalidate the license. But it doesn't.
:-)
The reason why using the "-Xbootclasspath" option invalidates the license is because you're intentionally modifying the distribution of the JRE. Note that it does NOT say that merely using the flag invalidates your license. Only that redistributions using the flag invalidate your right to use and redistribute the JRE.
Of course, I'm not a lawyer, but it seems fairly clear to me that Sun is worried about redistribution and reverse engineering, not mucking around with your installation. IMHO, a both Sun and judge would agree. (Again, IANAL, so take my interpretation at your own risk.)
The license scrapes close to what you're talking about with the following text:
However, this is just Sun protecting packages owned by Sun.
If the license worked the way you suggest, then adding extensions to a JVM installation would automatically terminate your license.
FYI, since it's slashdotted, you can kind of see Jason's design on mirrordot. I say "kind of" because a few elements use fallbacks. For example, the hiding menus on the left normally have a rotating triangle. Thanks to Jason's bang-up CSS though, you see the words "show" and "hide" when the images are missing.
Of the three, I'm really partial to Jason's design. It captures all the elements of Slashdot, looks clean, has everything well separated, AND it works without error across the browsers I've tried. I'm rooting for it to win.
That's the SDK. It's for developing Java applications.
<tweety-bird>He don't know Java wery well, do he?</tweety-bird>
As another poster pointed out, the JDK contains the JRE. In fact, the JDK is nothing more than the JRE + Compiler Tools. It's fairly easy to mod a JRE to become a JDK just by moving a few JAR files. (And the 'javac' executable if you want an easy way to launch the compiler.)
As a result, it almost always makes more sense to install the JDK rather than the JRE. The only purpose of the JRE is download size. Since it includes less "stuff" (including a lack of a soundbank!), it's a much smaller download than the JDK.
Advocates of Java countered that hardware would soon be fast enough to render Java's slight speed disadvantage (due to being interpreted code) irrelevant. Plus, a JIT compiler was in the works to make Java run just as fast as native code.
Just to clarify, Sun originally released Java 1.0 as a "reference" copy for other JVM vendors to test against when developing their own JVMs. As a result, it was lacking a JIT and thus was incredibly slow. That slowness disappeared in Sun Java 1.1 when Sun realized their mistake and began bundling a JIT. At that point in time, Java was still slower but not to any massive degree.
Sun's development of the HotSpot mixed-mode JVM finally put the performance matters to rest. HotSpot executes real-world code at amazing speeds, sometimes outdoing native code. The only problem is that it isn't optimized for short-lived programs, thus making microbenchmarking absolutely useless. (Not that it has been all that useful anyway. Modern CPUs and Operating Systems do all kinds of tricky trickery to make real-world programs execute faster than micro-benchmarking. Now if only we could get that through people's heads.)
All of the same contractors are going to do to it the same thing they managed to do with the shuttle.
Look around the industry sometime. There aren't exactly many contractors to deal with. T/Space is about the only "new" company on the block, and they are working with NASA now. Albeit in a much reduced capacity from what they were originally attempting.
The SRB first stage on the CEV's booster.... so that Thikol doesn't complain to their congresscritter.
Actually, the reuse of technology lets them get the rocket done faster. Plus, the SRBs are already man rated, and are some of the most powerful first stage rockets in existence. Given the tight budget and short timeframe of the CEV project, it makes a lot of sense.
The cargo vehicle with the external tank so that you don't lose that factory. No effort to make the CEV work on anybody else's launcher, like the EELV Atlas and Deltas or maybe let SpaceX try to undercut things.
If you can find us a pair of launchers that are both man-rated and can carry over 100 tonnes of cargo to LEO, then I'm sure NASA would like to know about it. Since such things don't exist, NASA is forced to build their own.
As for the ET, you need a LHOx tank. What's so strange about using one that NASA has experience with? Especially when one realizes that NASA is looking as J-2 and Delta-4 engines instead of SSMEs for some stages. The J-2 has already been decided on, and the D4 engines are being seriously considered.
The parent is effectively correct, even if he is a bit abrasive about it. The Space Station, just like the Space Shuttle, was a victim of politics. What was originally going to be a staging point for a moon colony became an international piece of junk that should have been scrapped as soon as its stated purpose was lost. Instead, NASA went ahead and built a station in the wrong orbit that wasn't useful for anything other than showing the flag. Construction has been long behind schedule, over budget, and the poor station has been falling apart at the seams from day 1.
Of course, I'm sure there are political reasons why they couldn't NOT build it.
Thank God for the CEV program. It may seem like a step back, but it will actually be a huge step forward for the space program. Let's just hope that Griffin gets it finished before the next political fallout.
How in the world do you plan to get 183 tonnes of mass back to Earth in one piece? The Shuttle has a maximum payload capacity of 25 tonnes. It's the ONLY option currently available for returning large objects to Earth.
It would be way cheaper and easier to send up a bunch of "experts" to figure the sucker out rather than return it to Earth.
(Sorry if I'm a bit snippy. Rough day, and all that.)
MS didnt screw this up, they licensed the technology
Which is to say, that Microsoft wouldn't license Windows anymore and "offered" to license Citrix's stuff from them. Pull your head out and wake up, will you? Citrix didn't have a choice in the matter. Their choice was to go along with Microsoft's plans or close down their business.
Citrix made a companion product that extended the original
The "original" was Citrix WinFrame. It was inexpensive (what we're talking about here) and it worked. Microsoft came in and ensured that you had to pay them a boatload of money just to use their crappy rip-off of Citrix's technology. Then if you want it to actually work, you have to pay Citrix gobs of money on top of that. There's absolutely no way that's economical in comparison to PCs.
So if you want to "blame" anyone, should you not be blaming Citrix for essential "selling out"?
I "blame" Microsoft for shafting Citrix, then forcing the price per user to triple. My company had payed for a Citrix WinFrame license with ~20 (IIRC) concurrent connection licenses included. We then bought another 20 licenses to come up with ~40 concurrent connection licenses.
With Terminal Server we were staring down the barrel an expensive TS acquisition, PLUS a fee for each user (instead of connections), PLUS a Windows NT Desktop license for each thin client. If we wanted Citrix on top of that, we'd be looking at huge costs in addition to the incredible ones we'd already payed Microsoft.
Now the current company I work for uses TS 2003 for a few remote applications. There's simply no way they've found to make these systems economical. They're supported only because they're necessary, not because they're cheaper than desktops.
To put it simply, Microsoft f**ked up the market, and did so intentionally. So get that rosy image of Microsoft out of your head. It's nothing more than a lie. You may have bought into it, but those of us who were *there* when Microsoft screwed over the market know the truth.
I thought Nintendo was going to scrap the Wii name and go back to their N64 project name (Dolphin.)
1. Dolphin was the codename of the GameCube, not the N64.
2. It was a stupid name.
(For reference, the N64 was known as the "Ultra64" prior to release.)
"When Microsoft released Terminal Services, they screwed up many (most?) of these features that made it a workable concept."
"Could you please elaborate on how MS screwed this up?"
"All of the features you mentioned were available in Citrix 1.8"
Microsoft fanboy or not, you should be smart enough to figure this one out. Yeash.
load up the new version of Super Smash Brothers and proceed to literally PUNCH at each other!
That would be too useful. The Power Glove 2.0 would come bundled with Super Glove Ball! 2.0. More realistic-3D-ball-punching-breakout-like-action than you can shake a stick at! Aren't you excited?
What the retro controller article seems to be missing, is that the controller pictured probably isn't for Wii games. Nintendo has already stated that the Wii will play all the old Nintendo titles, including GameCube.
:-P
I'd like to see how people plan to play these games with a motion sensor controller. (Hint: It's very doubtful they can.) Ergo, the "retro" controller. Designed to allow classic gameplay on the Wii.
Of course, classic, classic (NES) is fully supported by the Wii-little design.
P.S. Happy Birthday Taco!
;-)
Oh, and OpenBoot still ru1ez!!!
Hmm, seems Taco was right.
Birthday presents of single malt scotch can be sent c/o of me. I'll...uh...make sure he gets them.
Ok. But are you sure this label is going to work?
Their SEC filings are here.
A story on it over at VoIP Magazine is here.
Their (not yet active) trading charts can be found here under the symbol "VG".
If this is a fishing scam, it's a pretty darn good one. More likely, Vonage wanted their financial issues to be separate from their marketing site and didn't think about how that would look.
Nonsense. Not only does the license explicitly separate your programs from GPLed programs (as opposed to the "viral" view), Stallman has repeatedly stated that he has no issues with software being sold or used commercially. If Linspire is going to provide you with access to commercial software AND users are willing to pay for it, then more power to them.
Sure, Linspire may not have bought 100% into the GPL philosophy, but that's not the point. The point is that the GPLed software they're still adhering to the GPL principles by sharing any and all maintenance. If they fix a bug, they have to share it. If they add a new feature, they have to share it. If they decide to try a completely different direction, they still have to share it. Thus the Linux software grows, even if it fails to incorporate CNR or MPEG4. Both of those are matters for other GPL projects to encourage freedom in.
This is true even if they don't otherwise want to make their software free. As Stallman said:
Give unto Caesar what is Caesar's...
User's reasons include: insufficient bandwidth to display the graphics I use,
This wasn't an issue with ICA. Modem speeds were more than enough for our users to feel like they were at work. 10MBit LAN connections hooked up to a hub made their thin clients seem like they were flying. (Granted, this was back when Windows was designed to run in 16 - 256 color modes.) I wouldn't recommend playing a video game over ICA (though you could), but everything else from Word to Videos worked great.
insufficient dedicated CPU time for the programs I need to run
This wasn't an issue for us. For most office workers, CPU simply doesn't matter as it's underutilized anyway. You need very powerful apps that are generally outside the purview of office workers to make a dent in the CPU power.
and "one network glitch and the whole enterprise stops working."
This was always an issue. Thankfully, the network was stable and the the machine was mostly stable. So we were usually able to schedule downtime outside of business hours. In the few cases that a reboot was necessary during business hours, it was usually quick and not much different from a user perspective than losing access to some sort of client/server application. Plus, they actually knew it was down as opposed to getting a cryptic "cannot connect to server" message from the client software.
Face it, I don't really think you are saving much in terms of central administration because you are going to have select users that need custom tools.
Citrix WinFrame was so nice for this. What you'd do is you'd create a desktop type for each category of user. (For us it was by department.) You could configure this desktop to have access to specific application icons, and no others. Security could be reenforced with Windows ACL permissions aligned to the same users. You then save that desktop configuration and assign it to as many users that needed it. There were a few oddballs who had very specific requirements, but it was easy to meet their needs with all the regular Desktop support we *didn't* have to do.
When Microsoft released Terminal Services, they screwed up many (most?) of these features that made it a workable concept.
Note that Mr. Paris pointed out to me that Robertson stepped down as CEO. Carmony is running the show now. (Just in case you pay as little attention to Linspire as I do.)
My point still holds, though. There's nothing "wrong" with what Linspire is doing with the Freespire project. They're giving away free binaries (which they don't have to give you) along with all the source code they owe you. In exchange, you may or may not become a Click and Run customer. I don't see an issue here. And no, I don't think that Linspire is really expecting a huge outpouring of volunteer programmers, either.
On another topic (since I can't make fun of poor Mr. Robertson's Linspire work anymore), has anyone noticed the latest from AJAX Launch? It seems that they have added an Excel "Demo" (a pretty bit of XUL that looks like a real spreadsheet), a media player that seems no more sophisticated than the one in sharkscott's link in the summary (if I wanted your website to make noise... grrr...), and a RealPlayer video of the "AJAX Desktop" of the Future.
Are you amazed yet? Ecstatic? Hopping up and down in excitement? Holding your breath in bated anticipation?
No, neither am I.
Citrix does license much of Terminal Services from Microsoft.
Replace "much" with "very little" and you're a lot closer.
And their package is an add-on to Microsoft Terminal Services
Precisely. Citrix WinFrame was a custom version of NT 3.51 modified by Citrix to handle thin clienting. Microsoft stopped licensing Windows NT immediately thereafter, and forced Citrix to become an expensive add-on to an already uber-expensive product. Oh, and Microsoft botched the job while they were at it. RDP sucks in comparison to ICA, and stability went down the drain.
Back when Citrix produced an inexpensive version of Windows capable of supporting ~40 concurrent clients on a single dual-proc machine, the answer was "yes." The cost savings were huge. Not so much from the hardware, but from the support. Users were simply unable to screw up their desktops, could login remotely over a modem (!), and IT could share the session with the user to fix the problem without ever leaving their desk.
Then Microsoft got involved. They refused to license to Citrix again, and released their own Terminal Services. The price skyrocketed, the licensing became confusing, the protocol was much heavier, and the system became far less stable under load. Not much has changed.
It was a wonderful thing while it lasted, but don't expect to see any real returns on a modern Terminal Services system. The only real uses they have these days are remote administration and centralized applications. And you can expect to pay for those features.