No, nothing like that. I can only presume that the judge's order explained the reasoning in detail, but basically the court has decided that if it's in RAM it's an electronic document. To that end, the judge has ordered TorrentSpy to turn on logging to capture these "electronic documents".
It's basically some wild legal theory invented to provide a method of giving the MPAA the discovery information they want. The bright side is that the judge has decided that the individual IP addresses may be redacted to prevent TorrentSpy's users from being targeted.
Are you familiar with asymetric encryption such as RSA? Also known as public-key cryptography?
The concept is that there is a public key and a private key. You can give out the public key for others to encrypt messages for you. However, the message cannot be decrypted without the private key which you have kept secret. So even if someone intercepts the message and your public key, they still can't do anything to decrypt your message.
Just run some simple encryption, nothing major, just enough to scramble the data and confuse the filters. Hell, ROT13 would probably be enough
No, you'd need to be somewhat cryptographically secure. If you just pay lip-service to the concept, you'll trip off a digital arms war between file sharing and AT&T's filter upgrades. It's better to be secure up front so that AT&T gets the idea that there's no way of enforcing these filters.
It's not that difficult to exchange symmetrical keys using an asymmetrical encryption method. Once those keys are exchanged, you can communicate freely without AT&T being able to eavesdrop. When they finally finish cracking your packets a year or two later, they'll find themselves in big trouble for having lost their common carrier status.
Yeah, I don't get that either. They can have the absolute best filtering software in the world, and it will all go tits up the moment the client encrypts his communications. The users will continue to swap pirated material, and AT&T will find itself on the legal hook for it.
how many different web frameworks have come up to supplant JSP and Servlets? [...] I guess you haven't met enough professional Java programmers.
Now if that isn't a telling juxtaposition, I don't know what is.
Tell me, how many frameworks have supplanted JSP and Servlets? Last I checked, every Java web framework in existence was based on Java Servlets.
The "community" already HAS altered Java(tm). SWT is preferred over Swing/AWT; Hibernate is preferred over EJB 1.x/2.x
That's no more "altering" the Java platform than installing QT "alters" your Linux kernel. *Altering* the Java platform is what Microsoft did. By adding features like delegates to the core, they were sure to make a "new" Java that was subtly incompatible with Sun's published standards for the platform.
Sun was at risk of its implementation eventually becoming the secondary one
I would love to see a feature-complete OSS JVM. In over the decade I've been using Java, none of the OSS implementations have come even close. Classpath has grown exponentially more useful in recent years, but it's still a LONG way from complete.
J# != Java.
Precisely. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. You don't think Microsoft created J# out of the goodness of their hearts, do you?
And J2EE is nice, I've done LOTS of work there.
You could have fooled me. From what you've been saying, you sound like you lack even the most basic grasp of the architecture.
COBOL doesn't do video games or phones because those weren't viable markets when it came out
How old are you, anyway? Apparently not old enough to know how the video game market came to be.:-/
Video games were very much a viable market throughout the 70's and 80's. Machines were at first hardwired before finally moving on to microprocessors. The Fairchild Channel F and Atari 2600 ushered in that age. Within a few short years, just about anyone could write a game on their Apple II, Atari 800, Commodore 64, Spectrum, Oric, TI-99, or other home microcomputer and sell it on Floppy or Tape.
No one used COBOL to do it.
BASIC and Assembly were about it. Fortran and C were occasionally used on the big PDP mini-computers. (For example, the original Adventure game was written in Fortran.)
However, COBOL most certainly does run on more platforms than just the mainframe
Not really. There are transitional packages available to create COBOL programs on other platforms, but they do their best to present a mainframe environment as the programs expect. COBOL is designed around simplistic database I/O. Remove it from that environment and it's not particularly useful.
and it IS being actively maintained.
Then *why* are there no conforming COBOL-2002 compilers? Nearly every COBOL compiler supports a "sub-set" of cherry-picked features from the standard.
I've worked with mainframes and with PC systems running COBOL environments. COBOL is being maintained only as far as is necessary to keep existing systems up and running. (It's frightening how much data is still in EBCDIC.) No one is investing major resources in writing major software in it. Only in maintaining existing investments.
Strange, given OpenBSD folk lack documentation to properly implement UltraSPARC III hardware.
It's a bit more complicated than that. A microprocessor does not a system make. (Unless it's an SoC!:P) OpenBSD needed documentation about all the wonderful internals of the Sun boxes themselves. Things like memory controllers, bus design, display devices, DMA handling, boot sequence, etc. Without that info, the machines were as good as useless.
The same reason is why Mac Linux took so long to become usable despite the PowerPC instruction set being fully published. It wasn't until the Mac internals became nearly the same as the PCs that Mac Linux started to gain a foothold. Even then, my PowerPC Ubuntu disc isn't nearly as feature rich as the PC disc.
These days everything from the low-end SPARCs to PowerPC G5s run on the same PCI bus as your average desktop PC. So it's not all that difficult to build a distribution for these systems.
Yes, you are correct about the python client. I ignored it mostly because it was more or less a reference implementation that was replaced quickly. (Bad me! *whack*)
It's interesting how some of the most popular P2P clients almost always end up being Java. When GNUTella was released, it was quickly replaced with Furi (yay!) then Limewire (boo!). FreeNet was Java from the get-go, and nearly every major file sharing network has a Java version available. It certainly speaks strongly against the point that Java is "the new COBOL". It's used heavily in the research and development of these networks. Something which not too many other languages/platforms can claim.
1. Sun still retains "control" over Java-the-platform through the JSR/committee process. GPL'ing the reference implementation doesn't affect their control of the trademark.
Correct. However, Sun *is* taking the risk that pseudo-Java forks will dilute the Java community despite the trademark protection. Kaffe and GCJ are not technically "Java", but that doesn't stop the market from thinking of them as such.
2. The Microsoft lawsuit was settled for a LONG time before Sun started talking seriously about GPL. In the meantime MS was committed to.Net and won't touch Java with a ten-foot pole.
Microsoft was SO committed that they tried one last Embrace/Extend/Extinguish with J#. As it happens, Microsoft just released a new version of the J# package.
3. The 'it factor' was in danger of permanently moving away from Java. F/OSS was picking up Mono, Ruby, and Python instead.
These languages have not made any significant inroads into Sun's paying market. Unless it affects Sun's market directly, it's not an issue. I understand that the OSS community has a lot of interest in these platforms, but that doesn't mean that there are many paying jobs for them. Servlets/J2EE still rule the day in large companies.
4. Once Kaffe/Sabre/Classpath/etc. were about to run Eclipse, Sun got very serious about GPL'ing the JDK.
"About?" Eclipse has been running on Kaffe for over 2 years now! If Sun was worried about Eclipse, they certainly took their sweet time doing something about it.
Java's reputation as "the new COBOL" was turning it into a platform that pays the bills but is otherwise very uninteresting.
And this pretty much seals the fate of your opinion having any impact. Java is a long way from "the new COBOL". I have yet to see anyone who uses Java call it by that name. Only detractors use it when trying to explain away why the platform became so popular.
Explain this: If Java is the new COBOL, then why isn't COBOL run anywhere except on mainframes? Microcomputers ran BASIC. Today's cell phones (about the closest analog) run Java. Where are the COBOL video games? Video games were written in assembler back in the day. Now they're written in high-level languages like C++ and Java. Early networking work was done in C. Now our P2P apps are written in Java first.
If Java is the new COBOL, then I must have missed a heck of a lot of cool COBOL stuff back then.
Safari lacks usability compared to Firefox, from not being able to read the text on the screen to a terrible bookmark manager and beyond.
It's obviously a matter of opinion, but I disagree with Ars on this. The text rendering in Safari looks MUCH better than ClearType. There are still some kerning issues with bolded text (which is what he's using to show how "bad" Safari's rendering is), but text in general looks quite good.
Also, the bookmark manager is much more usable than the Firefox manager. It's easy to bring up and presents the common iTunes-like interface. Putting on top of the active tab is a little wonky, I agree, but it's the result of compromising between those who use tabs and those who don't. If you don't use tabs, the bookmark manager makes a lot of sense. If you do, then you sort of shake your head and move on. It would be nice if Apple used a new tab if there is already more than one tab open, but it's not a big deal either way.
Allow me to interject foobar2000 into your music description. Is more minimal than anything apple has ever done (by default), but allows you to add pretty much whatever the hell you want with plugins.
Foobar2000 is a music player, not a music management system. It's more comparable with WinAMP than it is iTunes.
In fact, they have no reason to download anything at all because they happily use Internet Explorer and have no need or desire for anything else.
1. IE7's interface sucks.
2. Users are tired of getting shafted by security holes in IE.
3. Third parties are starting to recommend alternative browsers to view their HTML applications.
4. I'm sure that Safari will be an "optional" part of the iTunes/Quicktime bundle soon enough.;-)
* #3: I can't say what application it was, but I was just talking with a coworker yesterday who was recommended by the vendor to view the documents on the CDROM with Firefox.
Even if the final release is more polished and completely bug-free, it still won't be as powerful or feature-loaded as Opera or Firefox.
Maybe because Safari isn't trying to be a feature-loaded browser for "Power Users"? Apple makes elegant software that does everything needed and not an ounce more. Its design is to keep things simple, straightforward, and easy for your average user to pick up.
For example, which is more elegant: MusicMatch or iTunes? iTunes, of course. MusicMatch has more features, but it's a clunky beast because of it. Same with Safari. A minimalist approach that focuses on usability rather than obscure features.
What exactly is not well thought out about his comments? Incendiary? Which part?
The whole thing?
first off: they may be talking a lot more than they are or ever will be doing.
This is incredibly unfair given that Sun has released OpenOffice, Java, NFS, major GNOME improvements, Solaris, SPARC, and a variety of other significant items into open source. While Sun struggled for a while before they got it right (they were hesitant to give up their favorite lawsuit club for beating Microsoft over the head), they did eventually embrace true OSS licensing.
While I understand his frustration with Sun's glacial pace, he needs to remember that Linux usage would be nowhere near where it is today if not for several key contributions by Sun.
they sure as hell don't want to help Linux.
Similarly not fair and incendiary. Yes, Sun has their own operating system. But they also sell a lot of Linux servers and even tried jumping on the distro bandwagon for a while. Again, Sun is having a lot of difficulty rationalizing the two different OSes. But that does NOT mean that they are hostile toward Linux development. Open sourcing Solaris isn't so much as an attempted coup (IMHO) as it is a rational attempt to find a middle ground between Sun's existing codebase and the Linux codebase.
they'll not be releasing ZFS and the other things that people are drooling about in a way that lets Linux use them on an equal footing. I can pretty much guarantee that.
I'm fairly certain that Linus will be eating those words in the future. ZFS is already under the CDDL license, which means that it can be included by distributions already. Just not folded into the core code. I'm certain that this will change with time, and that the CDDL will eventually be eschewed in favor of the GPL. Sort of like Sun's 500 licenses for Java before they finally got where they were going.
See the OpenSolaris stuff - instead of being blinded by the code they _did_ release under an open source license, ask yourself what they did *not* end up releasing.
Ok.
Q: Self, what did Sun not release under OpenSolaris? A: Oh, that's easy self. They didn't release any code encumbered by previous licensing problems and/or someone else's trade secret. These components are the reason why most companies refuse to OSS their software even after they have no use for it anymore. Sun took a different approach and cleaned the codebase before release. They had the same problem with releasing the Java2D and JavaSound implementatons under the GPL. They were unable to release these components because they were owned by Kodak and Dolby respectively.
Yes, they finally released Java under GPLv2, and they should be commended for that. But you should also ask yourself why, and why it took so long. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that other Java implementations started being more and more relevant?
This is just plain hubris. Anyone who has spent time in the Java community knows why Sun was so difficult about releasing control over Java: Microsoft.
Microsoft tried the whole Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish with Java. The only thing that saved it was Sun's legal department. It wasn't until MS was fully committed to their COOL project (ni,.NET/C#) that Sun felt they were in the clear. So they slowly released it, with a strong eye toward potential forking and incompatibilities. And to be perfectly honest, Sun never understood why the community wanted their codebase so badly. But the community pushed, and Sun eventually gave in. (Primarily due to Schwartz's leadership!)
FWIW, I've worked with Sun several times. They really do work hard to be helpful, but they are also very methodical about it. For example, when the primary maintainer of a Linux distribution and I got in an argument about whether or no
Quality comes from layout, typeface selection, binding design, paper selection, etc... etc... Plus QA on the layout, printing, and binding processes. Glossy paper is like artificial colors in your sports drink - it makes everything bright and neon, but is totally unrelated to the quality of the total product.
I don't disagree per se, however I would like to point out a few things:
1. "Standard" paper sizes don't require cutting. Ergo, they are cheaper and easier to produce.
2. Layout, typeface selection, binding design, and proper paper selection all relate back to the services of a professional layout artist and printer
3. Glossy paper costs more than stock printing paper
4. If someone spends money on having their books cut to size, properly bound, and printed on glossy paper, they're more likely to have spent the money on quality services necessary to produce a quality product.
That's not to say that someone won't produce frightening results using their own fancy Xerox printer/binder, but most places won't spend that much money unless they know how to use the machine. As soon as you get professionals in the loop, the quality of your product is going to rise.
That would require the SDS to become organized and such. Since the Starfire community is rather small, I just don't see that happening any time soon.
And yet if SDS doesn't get their act together, the Starfire community will only get smaller. It's a wonderful catch-22.
Not that I'm holding out any sort of hope that SDS will listen to the fans and redouble their efforts with proper investments and expansion of the Starfire universe. If they were smart, they'd be using the latest Starfire book from White to promote the board game. Maybe even see about some commercial computer software. Online play would be another great way to expand. Especially if they found an unobtrusive way to monetize the service.
Instead of the normal 9 x 11 footprint of almost every other gaming book, Saga Edition looks more like a coffee table book, measuring a petite 9 x 9 inches. It's over 100 pages thinner than 2002's Revised Core Rules book, too. A few pages in, and it's obvious that the loss in size and thickness has not come at the price of production quality.
I should hope not. The massive and unwieldy size of the 9x11 rule books stems from the inexpensive printing of such sizes. By printing on such large paper (usually in mono-color black and white) they can reduce the cost of both printing and binding. Just run the paper through the printer, staple, and fold.
Printing in smaller sizes is bound to be a sign of quality rather than the lack thereof. Especially if grayscale, color, or (*gasp*) glossy paper are used.
Now if someone could just rewrite the Starfire rules in a format that makes sense to those new to the game... *grumble* *grumble* (Yes, I spent some God-aweful amount of time trying to decode rules that were listed completely out of order, spread across two volume for no real reason other than to confuse you.)
Or they could grab the WINE code, fork it, make it Just Work, publish the source, and then include it in the next closed-source, proprietary, non-Windows platform they'll market.
Why would Microsoft do that? They already have the Win32 library, and they're quite experienced at porting it between platforms. (It has previously been ported between 9x, NT, and Win3.1. Parts of it were even ported to Unix systems before Microsoft put a stop to their Unix software.)
The problem doesn't seem to be providing Win32 support. The problem is getting Microsoft to build a better API, then convincing the market to move to the new APIs. Given that Win32 gives Microsoft a lock-in monopoly on the market, why would they want to deprecate it?
In Mexico we have a saying that goes [...] "The enemy of my enemy is my friend"
We have the same saying here in the states. The only problem is that there is no guarantee that the enemy of your enemy is truly your friend. Sometimes, the enemy of your enemy is also your enemy. (Frighteningly, this can occasionally make your enemy a temporary ally.)
In any case, we also have the term "collateral damage". It refers to all the things that may be unintentionally damaged or destroyed by extreme measures. I can guarantee you that the moment Google compromises their "Do No Evil" policy, they will begin to harm their customers. Whether it will be on purpose or by accident is irrelevant. We'll still be just as harmed.
And in case you think that can't happen, just consider how much personal data Google is sitting on. Now imagine that Google escalates their legal war with Microsoft to a point where a judge orders some or all of that data seized. Google's veil of secrecy won't help them when FBI agents knock down their doors and walk away with their servers.
The last paragraph of the article is extremely telling, I think:
The issue is the latest in an escalation between two of the heaviest hitters in the tech world.
In April, Microsoft urged the federal competition authorities to thoroughly investigate Google's acquisition of online advertising brokerage DoubleClick, after being beaten by Google in closing a deal for the company. The Federal Trade Commission has since confirmed it is investigating the matter.
It seems to me that Google is trying to beat Microsoft at its own game. Unfortunately, I have my doubts about Google being able to pull it off. Especially since it would require quite a bit of Evil(TM).
Why don't you try giving it a chance to load? On my computer it's slow for the first 30 seconds, then speeds up. Presumably this is because it's still background loading all the features, menu items, graphics, etc. A final release would presumably have this load time either hidden behind a splash screen or optimized away.
Slashdot Mirror
No, nothing like that. I can only presume that the judge's order explained the reasoning in detail, but basically the court has decided that if it's in RAM it's an electronic document. To that end, the judge has ordered TorrentSpy to turn on logging to capture these "electronic documents".
It's basically some wild legal theory invented to provide a method of giving the MPAA the discovery information they want. The bright side is that the judge has decided that the individual IP addresses may be redacted to prevent TorrentSpy's users from being targeted.
Are you familiar with asymetric encryption such as RSA? Also known as public-key cryptography?
The concept is that there is a public key and a private key. You can give out the public key for others to encrypt messages for you. However, the message cannot be decrypted without the private key which you have kept secret. So even if someone intercepts the message and your public key, they still can't do anything to decrypt your message.
Understand?
No, you'd need to be somewhat cryptographically secure. If you just pay lip-service to the concept, you'll trip off a digital arms war between file sharing and AT&T's filter upgrades. It's better to be secure up front so that AT&T gets the idea that there's no way of enforcing these filters.
It's not that difficult to exchange symmetrical keys using an asymmetrical encryption method. Once those keys are exchanged, you can communicate freely without AT&T being able to eavesdrop. When they finally finish cracking your packets a year or two later, they'll find themselves in big trouble for having lost their common carrier status.
Yeah, I don't get that either. They can have the absolute best filtering software in the world, and it will all go tits up the moment the client encrypts his communications. The users will continue to swap pirated material, and AT&T will find itself on the legal hook for it.
I mean, how stupid can you get?
Now if that isn't a telling juxtaposition, I don't know what is.
Tell me, how many frameworks have supplanted JSP and Servlets? Last I checked, every Java web framework in existence was based on Java Servlets.
That's no more "altering" the Java platform than installing QT "alters" your Linux kernel. *Altering* the Java platform is what Microsoft did. By adding features like delegates to the core, they were sure to make a "new" Java that was subtly incompatible with Sun's published standards for the platform.
I would love to see a feature-complete OSS JVM. In over the decade I've been using Java, none of the OSS implementations have come even close. Classpath has grown exponentially more useful in recent years, but it's still a LONG way from complete.
Precisely. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. You don't think Microsoft created J# out of the goodness of their hearts, do you?
You could have fooled me. From what you've been saying, you sound like you lack even the most basic grasp of the architecture.
How old are you, anyway? Apparently not old enough to know how the video game market came to be.
Video games were very much a viable market throughout the 70's and 80's. Machines were at first hardwired before finally moving on to microprocessors. The Fairchild Channel F and Atari 2600 ushered in that age. Within a few short years, just about anyone could write a game on their Apple II, Atari 800, Commodore 64, Spectrum, Oric, TI-99, or other home microcomputer and sell it on Floppy or Tape.
No one used COBOL to do it.
BASIC and Assembly were about it. Fortran and C were occasionally used on the big PDP mini-computers. (For example, the original Adventure game was written in Fortran.)
Not really. There are transitional packages available to create COBOL programs on other platforms, but they do their best to present a mainframe environment as the programs expect. COBOL is designed around simplistic database I/O. Remove it from that environment and it's not particularly useful.
Then *why* are there no conforming COBOL-2002 compilers? Nearly every COBOL compiler supports a "sub-set" of cherry-picked features from the standard.
I've worked with mainframes and with PC systems running COBOL environments. COBOL is being maintained only as far as is necessary to keep existing systems up and running. (It's frightening how much data is still in EBCDIC.) No one is investing major resources in writing major software in it. Only in maintaining existing investments.
Yep.
It's a bit more complicated than that. A microprocessor does not a system make. (Unless it's an SoC!
The same reason is why Mac Linux took so long to become usable despite the PowerPC instruction set being fully published. It wasn't until the Mac internals became nearly the same as the PCs that Mac Linux started to gain a foothold. Even then, my PowerPC Ubuntu disc isn't nearly as feature rich as the PC disc.
These days everything from the low-end SPARCs to PowerPC G5s run on the same PCI bus as your average desktop PC. So it's not all that difficult to build a distribution for these systems.
Shh! You're breaking up my rant! :P
Yes, you are correct about the python client. I ignored it mostly because it was more or less a reference implementation that was replaced quickly. (Bad me! *whack*)
It's interesting how some of the most popular P2P clients almost always end up being Java. When GNUTella was released, it was quickly replaced with Furi (yay!) then Limewire (boo!). FreeNet was Java from the get-go, and nearly every major file sharing network has a Java version available. It certainly speaks strongly against the point that Java is "the new COBOL". It's used heavily in the research and development of these networks. Something which not too many other languages/platforms can claim.
I'm very happy for you.
Correct. However, Sun *is* taking the risk that pseudo-Java forks will dilute the Java community despite the trademark protection. Kaffe and GCJ are not technically "Java", but that doesn't stop the market from thinking of them as such.
Microsoft was SO committed that they tried one last Embrace/Extend/Extinguish with J#. As it happens, Microsoft just released a new version of the J# package.
These languages have not made any significant inroads into Sun's paying market. Unless it affects Sun's market directly, it's not an issue. I understand that the OSS community has a lot of interest in these platforms, but that doesn't mean that there are many paying jobs for them. Servlets/J2EE still rule the day in large companies.
"About?" Eclipse has been running on Kaffe for over 2 years now! If Sun was worried about Eclipse, they certainly took their sweet time doing something about it.
And this pretty much seals the fate of your opinion having any impact. Java is a long way from "the new COBOL". I have yet to see anyone who uses Java call it by that name. Only detractors use it when trying to explain away why the platform became so popular.
Explain this: If Java is the new COBOL, then why isn't COBOL run anywhere except on mainframes? Microcomputers ran BASIC. Today's cell phones (about the closest analog) run Java. Where are the COBOL video games? Video games were written in assembler back in the day. Now they're written in high-level languages like C++ and Java. Early networking work was done in C. Now our P2P apps are written in Java first.
If Java is the new COBOL, then I must have missed a heck of a lot of cool COBOL stuff back then.
Whoa. Troll modding galore.
I think that's just a beta snafu. Backspace works fine on the existing Safari version on the Mac.
It's obviously a matter of opinion, but I disagree with Ars on this. The text rendering in Safari looks MUCH better than ClearType. There are still some kerning issues with bolded text (which is what he's using to show how "bad" Safari's rendering is), but text in general looks quite good.
Also, the bookmark manager is much more usable than the Firefox manager. It's easy to bring up and presents the common iTunes-like interface. Putting on top of the active tab is a little wonky, I agree, but it's the result of compromising between those who use tabs and those who don't. If you don't use tabs, the bookmark manager makes a lot of sense. If you do, then you sort of shake your head and move on. It would be nice if Apple used a new tab if there is already more than one tab open, but it's not a big deal either way.
Foobar2000 is a music player, not a music management system. It's more comparable with WinAMP than it is iTunes.
Apples != Oranges - News at 11
1. IE7's interface sucks.
2. Users are tired of getting shafted by security holes in IE.
3. Third parties are starting to recommend alternative browsers to view their HTML applications.
4. I'm sure that Safari will be an "optional" part of the iTunes/Quicktime bundle soon enough.
* #3: I can't say what application it was, but I was just talking with a coworker yesterday who was recommended by the vendor to view the documents on the CDROM with Firefox.
You mean like the NPAPI? Apple has even seen to supporting the new NPRuntime extension designed to replace the LiveConnect interface.
Maybe because Safari isn't trying to be a feature-loaded browser for "Power Users"? Apple makes elegant software that does everything needed and not an ounce more. Its design is to keep things simple, straightforward, and easy for your average user to pick up.
For example, which is more elegant: MusicMatch or iTunes? iTunes, of course. MusicMatch has more features, but it's a clunky beast because of it. Same with Safari. A minimalist approach that focuses on usability rather than obscure features.
The whole thing?
This is incredibly unfair given that Sun has released OpenOffice, Java, NFS, major GNOME improvements, Solaris, SPARC, and a variety of other significant items into open source. While Sun struggled for a while before they got it right (they were hesitant to give up their favorite lawsuit club for beating Microsoft over the head), they did eventually embrace true OSS licensing.
While I understand his frustration with Sun's glacial pace, he needs to remember that Linux usage would be nowhere near where it is today if not for several key contributions by Sun.
Similarly not fair and incendiary. Yes, Sun has their own operating system. But they also sell a lot of Linux servers and even tried jumping on the distro bandwagon for a while. Again, Sun is having a lot of difficulty rationalizing the two different OSes. But that does NOT mean that they are hostile toward Linux development. Open sourcing Solaris isn't so much as an attempted coup (IMHO) as it is a rational attempt to find a middle ground between Sun's existing codebase and the Linux codebase.
I'm fairly certain that Linus will be eating those words in the future. ZFS is already under the CDDL license, which means that it can be included by distributions already. Just not folded into the core code. I'm certain that this will change with time, and that the CDDL will eventually be eschewed in favor of the GPL. Sort of like Sun's 500 licenses for Java before they finally got where they were going.
Ok.
Q: Self, what did Sun not release under OpenSolaris?
A: Oh, that's easy self. They didn't release any code encumbered by previous licensing problems and/or someone else's trade secret. These components are the reason why most companies refuse to OSS their software even after they have no use for it anymore. Sun took a different approach and cleaned the codebase before release. They had the same problem with releasing the Java2D and JavaSound implementatons under the GPL. They were unable to release these components because they were owned by Kodak and Dolby respectively.
This is just plain hubris. Anyone who has spent time in the Java community knows why Sun was so difficult about releasing control over Java: Microsoft.
.NET/C#) that Sun felt they were in the clear. So they slowly released it, with a strong eye toward potential forking and incompatibilities. And to be perfectly honest, Sun never understood why the community wanted their codebase so badly. But the community pushed, and Sun eventually gave in. (Primarily due to Schwartz's leadership!)
Microsoft tried the whole Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish with Java. The only thing that saved it was Sun's legal department. It wasn't until MS was fully committed to their COOL project (ni,
FWIW, I've worked with Sun several times. They really do work hard to be helpful, but they are also very methodical about it. For example, when the primary maintainer of a Linux distribution and I got in an argument about whether or no
I don't disagree per se, however I would like to point out a few things:
1. "Standard" paper sizes don't require cutting. Ergo, they are cheaper and easier to produce.
2. Layout, typeface selection, binding design, and proper paper selection all relate back to the services of a professional layout artist and printer
3. Glossy paper costs more than stock printing paper
4. If someone spends money on having their books cut to size, properly bound, and printed on glossy paper, they're more likely to have spent the money on quality services necessary to produce a quality product.
That's not to say that someone won't produce frightening results using their own fancy Xerox printer/binder, but most places won't spend that much money unless they know how to use the machine. As soon as you get professionals in the loop, the quality of your product is going to rise.
And yet if SDS doesn't get their act together, the Starfire community will only get smaller. It's a wonderful catch-22.
Not that I'm holding out any sort of hope that SDS will listen to the fans and redouble their efforts with proper investments and expansion of the Starfire universe. If they were smart, they'd be using the latest Starfire book from White to promote the board game. Maybe even see about some commercial computer software. Online play would be another great way to expand. Especially if they found an unobtrusive way to monetize the service.
I should hope not. The massive and unwieldy size of the 9x11 rule books stems from the inexpensive printing of such sizes. By printing on such large paper (usually in mono-color black and white) they can reduce the cost of both printing and binding. Just run the paper through the printer, staple, and fold.
Printing in smaller sizes is bound to be a sign of quality rather than the lack thereof. Especially if grayscale, color, or (*gasp*) glossy paper are used.
Now if someone could just rewrite the Starfire rules in a format that makes sense to those new to the game... *grumble* *grumble* (Yes, I spent some God-aweful amount of time trying to decode rules that were listed completely out of order, spread across two volume for no real reason other than to confuse you.)
Why would Microsoft do that? They already have the Win32 library, and they're quite experienced at porting it between platforms. (It has previously been ported between 9x, NT, and Win3.1. Parts of it were even ported to Unix systems before Microsoft put a stop to their Unix software.)
The problem doesn't seem to be providing Win32 support. The problem is getting Microsoft to build a better API, then convincing the market to move to the new APIs. Given that Win32 gives Microsoft a lock-in monopoly on the market, why would they want to deprecate it?
We have the same saying here in the states. The only problem is that there is no guarantee that the enemy of your enemy is truly your friend. Sometimes, the enemy of your enemy is also your enemy. (Frighteningly, this can occasionally make your enemy a temporary ally.)
In any case, we also have the term "collateral damage". It refers to all the things that may be unintentionally damaged or destroyed by extreme measures. I can guarantee you that the moment Google compromises their "Do No Evil" policy, they will begin to harm their customers. Whether it will be on purpose or by accident is irrelevant. We'll still be just as harmed.
And in case you think that can't happen, just consider how much personal data Google is sitting on. Now imagine that Google escalates their legal war with Microsoft to a point where a judge orders some or all of that data seized. Google's veil of secrecy won't help them when FBI agents knock down their doors and walk away with their servers.
It seems to me that Google is trying to beat Microsoft at its own game. Unfortunately, I have my doubts about Google being able to pull it off. Especially since it would require quite a bit of Evil(TM).
Why don't you try giving it a chance to load? On my computer it's slow for the first 30 seconds, then speeds up. Presumably this is because it's still background loading all the features, menu items, graphics, etc. A final release would presumably have this load time either hidden behind a splash screen or optimized away.
..."All I want for Christmas is my Pee-Ess-Three"
*groan*
Sung by the ever talented Kaz Harai!
*bigger groan*
Now remixed by a rap legend (that no one has ever heard of) to include a techno beat and "RIIIIIIIIDGE RACERRR!" screams in the background!
*just shoot me now*
Try being a Blakes 7 fan. Meh.