18. Does the JRL prevent you from being able to create an independent implementation of J2SE?
The JRL is not a tainting license, and includes an express "residual knowledge" clause. Under the JRL, merely looking at Sun's code does not prevent you from being able to create your own independent implementation of J2SE, and in any event, you can terminate the JRL at any time for any reason. So, yes, you can look at Sun source code and then later on go and work on an open-source J2SE implementation.
Source code is under that license here. So much for that lame argument.
No, me neither. Oh wait, that's because THEY'RE NOT THERE
You're right, they're not there. In the OOo codebase that is. I just downloaded the OOo 2.0 codebase and did a search for any hidden sun APIs. Would you like to know what I found? Here you are:
1. com.sun.* APIs are OpenOffice.org APIs, NOT Sun specific APIs! That's fairly easy to tell by things like com.sun.star.uno.UnoRuntime.
2. There are exactly 29 files that reference sun.*. These files are JVM plugins that directly interface with the Applet mechanism to allow OpenOffice to run Applets. Files exist for each supported OS. Open Source JVMs are free to implement these APIs as used by the code, or completely swap out that piece of OpenOffice and compile against themselves. It's quite easy to do, as the code files have been separated into their own directories. (e.g. canvas/source/java) Note that some of these 29 APIs (e.g. sun.tools.*) are documented.
So, I think a lot of people around here owe Sun and OpenOffice programmers an apology. Yourself included.
Try people with addresses in the form of user@stardivision.com. No one in their right mind inside of Sun would use the com.sun APIs. The people that used them were the hackers who liked getting a little extra functionality out of Java 1.1 programs. e.g. There was a class to play AU files, a class to FTP, and a few security classes. The trick is, that THESE ARE ALL AVAILABLE INSIDE THE REGULAR CLASSES. You just have to jump through another hoop or two.
I can't believe people around here are making such a big deal out of a STUPID mistake made by a few programmers. It would probably take less time to change the code, submit the patch, and be happy than it does to complain about it.
So get off your rear end and fix it! No one is stopping you from submitting a patch to update to the 1.2 versions. Someone screwed up. It probably happened while StarOffice owned the software and was trying to keep 1.1 compatibility. This stuff happens.
It's just not cool to make a mountain out of a molehill.
the OpenOffice developers are using proprietary classes from Sun's Java runtime library.
You mean the ones that are fully and openly documented, and have source code available in both the JDK binary download and the full SCSL source downloads?
This has everything to do with runtime libraries -- not the same thing as compilers, Bonzo.
1. It's under a very restrictive license. The license isn't so restrictive by the standards of applications or operating systems, but by the standards of languages it's very strict.
Yeah. Whatever. I don't see IBM giving out their Smalltalk compiler for others to fork.
Java is just as open as any other language, with the exception that the OSS fanatics can't seem to hire sufficient expertise to replicate a high-quality JVM. That's not Sun's problem.
2. RTFA, the major problem is that they're using undocumented sun-only features, almost as if they're deliberately breaking it on Kaffe etc.
You show me where that's stated, and I'll show you a pack of lies.
Hey ASSHOLES, the current Java source code can be downloaded here, and the latest development version can be downloaded here. And if that's not enough for you, your precious Kaffe, gcj, GNU Classpath, and other "Open Source" projects are working on reimplementing the JVM. I don't particularly care if you like Java or not, but I've had enough of this bullshit about Java being open or not. It's a God damn language/platform with thousands of successful Open Source projects under it, and has been opened up six ways to sunday. Comparing the issue to Linus's predicament is disingenuous at best, is not outright dishonest!
Not to mention that OpenOffice is Sun's baby. They PAID MONEY FOR IT. (I know that's a foreign concept here, since the entire fraking world is supposed to be FREE for the fraking taking.) If you don't like the direction OpenOffice has taken, then go play with KOffice. Oh wait, you alreay pissed them off too. Is there anyone you people won't make an enemy of in your Quixotic quests of stupidity?
Apologies for the abrasiveness of this post, but crap like this deserves it. You've been given a gift and all you can do is look it in the mouth.
Forget it. You're obviously stuck on the silly idea that I see immigration and all that goes with it as "bad". H1-Bs are not immigration, neither is outsourcing. There are very real issues with these systems that *will* result in further economic crashes if left uncorrected, but feel free to think it's about protectionism and anti-immigration stances.
I'm a UK/Australian citizen who was hired to UC Berkeley last year as a tenure-track prof in computational biology. I'm currently on an H-1B visa.
So? No one said that H1-Bs are a bad thing. What was said was that the sudden increase in H1-Bs used to bring in dirt cheap labor in an illegal but difficult to prove manner has had a detrimental effect on our economy.
Immigration's what makes America great.
Dude, you're preaching to the choir here. And if you read the article, the author would seem to agree with you. The real problem transcends the issues of foreigners vs. local workers, and goes into the failure of corporations to do actual business, and a corruption of the universities that are supposed to serve the public.
It's rather hard to believe that we have Senator Fiengold (of all people) to thank for this review. It's always good when cooler heads prevail, but only one cooler head from way out in left field? Amazing. Kudos to Mr. Fiengold.
...go read the article! The author has hit the nail on the head about H1-Bs and outsourcing. He never stoops to blaming Indians for either issue, but rather points out that it's a side effect of corporations and universities trying to build tiny little empires. Then in the same breath, he points out how this sort of empire building is slowly leading the higher education system into ruins and dragging all of America's great talent with it!
I think I need to print this one out and post it somewhere...
If all you need to program is a specific model of chip, what's so difficult about embedding the burning equipment on the mainboard?
A few things come to mind:
1. The process is *slow*. It's not exactly going to compete with CD/DVD burning. Or floppy disk writing in the old days. Or even worse, writing to tape!
2. In the old days, that WAS a lot of power to be pushing around a computer.
3. There's always the possibility that the chip could go bad during a write. If it does, any previous data you stored is now kaput.
4. Programmers are *bleeping* expensive!
5. Flash memory was around the same cost, and had none of these issues.
I don't know about that. 128 megabytes is very small compared to the size of games today.
If you read the post I linked to, the idea was to bring back classic gaming at a low price point, not compete with today's games. I was originally thinking games along the lines of Duke Nukem II and Halloween Harry. But with this chip, we could jump all the way to Super Wing Commander! (With better voice acting, of course.)
Except for the fact that this is ROM. It makes use of antifuse technolgy which works a lot like fuse technology. The idea in fuse technology is that you blow the pathways you don't want, thus creating the circut. With antifuse technology, the fuses don't normally conduct electricity so you have to blow the fuse to create pathways.
I can think of one use right off the top of my head. Anyone remember the console design I suggested? Well, if these chips are cheap enough, it may actually make sense to go back to cartriges! Which means that copious quantities of graphics (including videos and prerecorded music) could be used in games for an inexpensive console system!
Anyone else have any good ideas for this chip?
P.S. Definition of an antifuse. Usually the type of thing you only learn about when you're playing with FPGAs, ASICs, and CPLDs. (The "history of programmable hardware" book that comes with Xilinx's Starter kit gives a good overview of the different technologies including antifuse chips.)
P.P.S. If I'm doing my math right, 1-GBit of memory is ~119 megabytes. 128 megabytes if you're calculating 1-GBit == 2^30.
$25,000 a year as a salary sucks. It is way too shabby for a programmer.
It really depends on your area. For many rural areas, $25,000 is an entry level wage. You can't buy a house on it, but you can live comfortably in an apartment. As you said though, the lack of benefits really sucks.
BTW any programmers that could code 52 of those $500 projects a year really want a $25,000 a year job please let me know. I will be glad to hire you WITH benefits and two weeks a year vacation.
And as I said, it's doubtful you'll find both. I thought I was pretty hot shit way back when I was making around that much, but I've since realized that I still had a lot to learn. It's not that I couldn't have tackled a few of these bounties, but definitely not in the time constraint of one per week! (Or per month for that matter.)
Interestingly enough, in my mind, every one of the items you mentioned would fall under the category of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in my mind.
From my original post: Traditional advertising such as adclicks and dmoz listings also help.
Note that traditional advertising is all I'm advocating. SEO tends to go beyond advertising into mutual spamming which Google will slap down. For example, I consistently get requests from unknown people with no bearing on my site to "trade links". They think that by trading links, they can improve the results of their site on Google. Personally, I think they're in for a rude awakening.
Just run your business as a business and you'll be fine. It's quite easy actually, but takes one hell of a lot of work to accomplish effectively:
1. Make a product that people want or need. This is more difficult than it sounds, because many products will be "wrong" in their first revision. Company experience will help tweak this over time.
2. Advertise your product so that people know it exiss. This is relatively easy to do, but can easily become "spam" if you're not careful.
3. Encourage a strong corporate image that suggests to customers that you can be trusted. Oh, and as with everything, Keep It Simple, Stupid. I've seen far too many companies with websites that blab on and on without every telling you what exactly they do. Unless you have sales people to make up for this, avoid this pitfall!
One more thing: iKE is a bad name. If you punch iKE into Google, you get everything except your software. That's a bad place to start from. Try to develop a more unique name. It will help with customer brand recognition, ensure that you don't step on any trademarks, and generally make it easier for your customers to connect with you.
As an example, "CollabNET" has a unique name that both communicates what they're about as well as maintaining its uniquness in the market.
1. I don't see your software in the advertised links on the right of the Google results. Why not?
2. This tells me you guys aren't trying very hard. Not a single link from a press release, a software site like Tucows, a blog, SOMETHING. You have to talk about your product!
3. This tells me the same thing as #2. You have to talk about your product!!! There are tons of "announce" newsgroups specifically for you to announce your product! Use them! They'll get picked up by websites that relay this info, and indexed by Google.
4. Have you added your URL to the DMOZ directory? Why not? DMOZ will get picked up and replicated by hundreds of sites!
5. In the above post, you mentioned "Groove" 4 times, and iKE 3 times. How will people trust your product if you pound into their heads that it's just like this other product?
6. Have you asked any magazines or bloggers to review your software? Why not?
In short, the problem is not your website. Your problem is that you need to advertise.
Sorry at $500 a bounty you would have to do two a week to make "reasonable" money.
Actually, one $500 bounty a week would produce ~$25,000/yr salary. Not great, but not *too* shabby. It's more of concern that most of the $500 bounties would take more than a week and/or require expertise that a programmer making $25,000 is unlikely to have.
New front-end that allows control of LimeWire via a web browser [...] And for only 500 bucks?
Actually, that sounds like one of the more reasonable requests. I could probably whip out a web frontend over the weekend. The real issue is the lack of info. What criteria have to be met in order to accomplish the goal? Would I end up wasting about 30 hours of my time to build a GUI, only to be told I won't be paid because it's missing sub-feature X? They need to have something more concrete than "Build a web frontend".
But the word "Tiger" is the name of an important operating system
No! No! No! It's name is NOT "Tiger". The name of the OS is "Mac OS X 10.4: Tiger". "Tiger" is a short name used once the original name has been established. If I walked up to someone on the street and asked him "What do you think of Tiger?" he's look at me like a looney! (Or at least ask "What do you mean?")
If I asked the same person, "What do you think of Mac OS X Tiger?" I'd either get an opinion or an "I'm not familiar with Tiger." (Note that the responder will probably switch to the short name AFTER the long name has been established!)
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what about sun.applet.AppletAudioClip?
What about it? It's not referenced anywhere in the OOo source. If it is, you'll have to prove it.
Who do you work for!?!
Who do you work for? For that matter, who the hell are you Mr. Coward?
From here:
18. Does the JRL prevent you from being able to create an independent implementation of J2SE?
The JRL is not a tainting license, and includes an express "residual knowledge" clause. Under the JRL, merely looking at Sun's code does not prevent you from being able to create your own independent implementation of J2SE, and in any event, you can terminate the JRL at any time for any reason. So, yes, you can look at Sun source code and then later on go and work on an open-source J2SE implementation.
Source code is under that license here. So much for that lame argument.
No, me neither. Oh wait, that's because THEY'RE NOT THERE
You're right, they're not there. In the OOo codebase that is. I just downloaded the OOo 2.0 codebase and did a search for any hidden sun APIs. Would you like to know what I found? Here you are:
1. com.sun.* APIs are OpenOffice.org APIs, NOT Sun specific APIs! That's fairly easy to tell by things like com.sun.star.uno.UnoRuntime.
2. There are exactly 29 files that reference sun.*. These files are JVM plugins that directly interface with the Applet mechanism to allow OpenOffice to run Applets. Files exist for each supported OS. Open Source JVMs are free to implement these APIs as used by the code, or completely swap out that piece of OpenOffice and compile against themselves. It's quite easy to do, as the code files have been separated into their own directories. (e.g. canvas/source/java) Note that some of these 29 APIs (e.g. sun.tools.*) are documented.
So, I think a lot of people around here owe Sun and OpenOffice programmers an apology. Yourself included.
Try people with addresses in the form of user@stardivision.com. No one in their right mind inside of Sun would use the com.sun APIs. The people that used them were the hackers who liked getting a little extra functionality out of Java 1.1 programs. e.g. There was a class to play AU files, a class to FTP, and a few security classes. The trick is, that THESE ARE ALL AVAILABLE INSIDE THE REGULAR CLASSES. You just have to jump through another hoop or two.
I can't believe people around here are making such a big deal out of a STUPID mistake made by a few programmers. It would probably take less time to change the code, submit the patch, and be happy than it does to complain about it.
So get off your rear end and fix it! No one is stopping you from submitting a patch to update to the 1.2 versions. Someone screwed up. It probably happened while StarOffice owned the software and was trying to keep 1.1 compatibility. This stuff happens.
It's just not cool to make a mountain out of a molehill.
the OpenOffice developers are using proprietary classes from Sun's Java runtime library.
;-)
You mean the ones that are fully and openly documented, and have source code available in both the JDK binary download and the full SCSL source downloads?
This has everything to do with runtime libraries -- not the same thing as compilers, Bonzo.
That's "Bozo", bozo.
1. It's under a very restrictive license. The license isn't so restrictive by the standards of applications or operating systems, but by the standards of languages it's very strict.
Yeah. Whatever. I don't see IBM giving out their Smalltalk compiler for others to fork.
Java is just as open as any other language, with the exception that the OSS fanatics can't seem to hire sufficient expertise to replicate a high-quality JVM. That's not Sun's problem.
2. RTFA, the major problem is that they're using undocumented sun-only features, almost as if they're deliberately breaking it on Kaffe etc.
You show me where that's stated, and I'll show you a pack of lies.
Hey ASSHOLES, the current Java source code can be downloaded here, and the latest development version can be downloaded here. And if that's not enough for you, your precious Kaffe, gcj, GNU Classpath, and other "Open Source" projects are working on reimplementing the JVM. I don't particularly care if you like Java or not, but I've had enough of this bullshit about Java being open or not. It's a God damn language/platform with thousands of successful Open Source projects under it, and has been opened up six ways to sunday. Comparing the issue to Linus's predicament is disingenuous at best, is not outright dishonest!
Not to mention that OpenOffice is Sun's baby. They PAID MONEY FOR IT. (I know that's a foreign concept here, since the entire fraking world is supposed to be FREE for the fraking taking.) If you don't like the direction OpenOffice has taken, then go play with KOffice. Oh wait, you alreay pissed them off too. Is there anyone you people won't make an enemy of in your Quixotic quests of stupidity?
Apologies for the abrasiveness of this post, but crap like this deserves it. You've been given a gift and all you can do is look it in the mouth.
Forget it. You're obviously stuck on the silly idea that I see immigration and all that goes with it as "bad". H1-Bs are not immigration, neither is outsourcing. There are very real issues with these systems that *will* result in further economic crashes if left uncorrected, but feel free to think it's about protectionism and anti-immigration stances.
I'm a UK/Australian citizen who was hired to UC Berkeley last year as a tenure-track prof in computational biology. I'm currently on an H-1B visa.
So? No one said that H1-Bs are a bad thing. What was said was that the sudden increase in H1-Bs used to bring in dirt cheap labor in an illegal but difficult to prove manner has had a detrimental effect on our economy.
Immigration's what makes America great.
Dude, you're preaching to the choir here. And if you read the article, the author would seem to agree with you. The real problem transcends the issues of foreigners vs. local workers, and goes into the failure of corporations to do actual business, and a corruption of the universities that are supposed to serve the public.
It's rather hard to believe that we have Senator Fiengold (of all people) to thank for this review. It's always good when cooler heads prevail, but only one cooler head from way out in left field? Amazing. Kudos to Mr. Fiengold.
...go read the article! The author has hit the nail on the head about H1-Bs and outsourcing. He never stoops to blaming Indians for either issue, but rather points out that it's a side effect of corporations and universities trying to build tiny little empires. Then in the same breath, he points out how this sort of empire building is slowly leading the higher education system into ruins and dragging all of America's great talent with it!
I think I need to print this one out and post it somewhere...
If all you need to program is a specific model of chip, what's so difficult about embedding the burning equipment on the mainboard?
A few things come to mind:
1. The process is *slow*. It's not exactly going to compete with CD/DVD burning. Or floppy disk writing in the old days. Or even worse, writing to tape!
2. In the old days, that WAS a lot of power to be pushing around a computer.
3. There's always the possibility that the chip could go bad during a write. If it does, any previous data you stored is now kaput.
4. Programmers are *bleeping* expensive!
5. Flash memory was around the same cost, and had none of these issues.
With all the power a CPU already uses, who'd notice a few watts more to burn ROM data? :)
;)
You're worried about the CPU consumption? Pff! Have you seen GPU consumption lately?
Seriously though, there's never been a case of a programmer being a standard piece of PC hardware. I seriously doubt this chip will change that.
I don't know about that. 128 megabytes is very small compared to the size of games today.
If you read the post I linked to, the idea was to bring back classic gaming at a low price point, not compete with today's games. I was originally thinking games along the lines of Duke Nukem II and Halloween Harry. But with this chip, we could jump all the way to Super Wing Commander! (With better voice acting, of course.)
Actually, it dictates more or less read-only memory. You can only write it if you have a programmer.
I can ramdisk the internet.
Except for the fact that this is ROM. It makes use of antifuse technolgy which works a lot like fuse technology. The idea in fuse technology is that you blow the pathways you don't want, thus creating the circut. With antifuse technology, the fuses don't normally conduct electricity so you have to blow the fuse to create pathways.
Info
I can think of one use right off the top of my head. Anyone remember the console design I suggested? Well, if these chips are cheap enough, it may actually make sense to go back to cartriges! Which means that copious quantities of graphics (including videos and prerecorded music) could be used in games for an inexpensive console system!
Anyone else have any good ideas for this chip?
P.S. Definition of an antifuse. Usually the type of thing you only learn about when you're playing with FPGAs, ASICs, and CPLDs. (The "history of programmable hardware" book that comes with Xilinx's Starter kit gives a good overview of the different technologies including antifuse chips.)
P.P.S. If I'm doing my math right, 1-GBit of memory is ~119 megabytes. 128 megabytes if you're calculating 1-GBit == 2^30.
$25,000 a year as a salary sucks. It is way too shabby for a programmer.
It really depends on your area. For many rural areas, $25,000 is an entry level wage. You can't buy a house on it, but you can live comfortably in an apartment. As you said though, the lack of benefits really sucks.
BTW any programmers that could code 52 of those $500 projects a year really want a $25,000 a year job please let me know. I will be glad to hire you WITH benefits and two weeks a year vacation.
And as I said, it's doubtful you'll find both. I thought I was pretty hot shit way back when I was making around that much, but I've since realized that I still had a lot to learn. It's not that I couldn't have tackled a few of these bounties, but definitely not in the time constraint of one per week! (Or per month for that matter.)
Interestingly enough, in my mind, every one of the items you mentioned would fall under the category of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in my mind.
:-)
From my original post: Traditional advertising such as adclicks and dmoz listings also help.
Note that traditional advertising is all I'm advocating. SEO tends to go beyond advertising into mutual spamming which Google will slap down. For example, I consistently get requests from unknown people with no bearing on my site to "trade links". They think that by trading links, they can improve the results of their site on Google. Personally, I think they're in for a rude awakening.
Just run your business as a business and you'll be fine. It's quite easy actually, but takes one hell of a lot of work to accomplish effectively:
1. Make a product that people want or need. This is more difficult than it sounds, because many products will be "wrong" in their first revision. Company experience will help tweak this over time.
2. Advertise your product so that people know it exiss. This is relatively easy to do, but can easily become "spam" if you're not careful.
3. Encourage a strong corporate image that suggests to customers that you can be trusted. Oh, and as with everything, Keep It Simple, Stupid. I've seen far too many companies with websites that blab on and on without every telling you what exactly they do. Unless you have sales people to make up for this, avoid this pitfall!
Good luck!
One more thing: iKE is a bad name. If you punch iKE into Google, you get everything except your software. That's a bad place to start from. Try to develop a more unique name. It will help with customer brand recognition, ensure that you don't step on any trademarks, and generally make it easier for your customers to connect with you.
As an example, "CollabNET" has a unique name that both communicates what they're about as well as maintaining its uniquness in the market.
1. I don't see your software in the advertised links on the right of the Google results. Why not?
2. This tells me you guys aren't trying very hard. Not a single link from a press release, a software site like Tucows, a blog, SOMETHING. You have to talk about your product!
3. This tells me the same thing as #2. You have to talk about your product!!! There are tons of "announce" newsgroups specifically for you to announce your product! Use them! They'll get picked up by websites that relay this info, and indexed by Google.
4. Have you added your URL to the DMOZ directory? Why not? DMOZ will get picked up and replicated by hundreds of sites!
5. In the above post, you mentioned "Groove" 4 times, and iKE 3 times. How will people trust your product if you pound into their heads that it's just like this other product?
6. Have you asked any magazines or bloggers to review your software? Why not?
In short, the problem is not your website. Your problem is that you need to advertise.
Sorry at $500 a bounty you would have to do two a week to make "reasonable" money.
Actually, one $500 bounty a week would produce ~$25,000/yr salary. Not great, but not *too* shabby. It's more of concern that most of the $500 bounties would take more than a week and/or require expertise that a programmer making $25,000 is unlikely to have.
New front-end that allows control of LimeWire via a web browser [...] And for only 500 bucks?
Actually, that sounds like one of the more reasonable requests. I could probably whip out a web frontend over the weekend. The real issue is the lack of info. What criteria have to be met in order to accomplish the goal? Would I end up wasting about 30 hours of my time to build a GUI, only to be told I won't be paid because it's missing sub-feature X? They need to have something more concrete than "Build a web frontend".
But the word "Tiger" is the name of an important operating system
No! No! No! It's name is NOT "Tiger". The name of the OS is "Mac OS X 10.4: Tiger". "Tiger" is a short name used once the original name has been established. If I walked up to someone on the street and asked him "What do you think of Tiger?" he's look at me like a looney! (Or at least ask "What do you mean?")
If I asked the same person, "What do you think of Mac OS X Tiger?" I'd either get an opinion or an "I'm not familiar with Tiger." (Note that the responder will probably switch to the short name AFTER the long name has been established!)