Actually, the PC was designed to be non-deterministic. No software bugs, hardware bugs or manufacturing defects needed.
On the other hand, many early home computers were quite deterministic. In fact the Atari 2600 game machine was deterministic down to a single CPU cycle. Many 2600 games would not have worked if it were otherwise.
"The AOL rejection is weird, because they purchased Netscape, but it made sense."
I think AOL bought Netscape so they could qualify as a Microsoft "victim". Although they succeeded in getting money from MS, it wasn't as much as they imagined and the ended up losing money on the deal.
Slashdot posters have been telling us for years that you can make a profit with FOSS, so I'm sure Mozilla won't have any financial problems. Firefox T-shirts anyone?
Actually, until IBM, Sun, Oracle, AOL, and Real taught Gates through their lobbying of the DOJ that you can't leave the government out of the game, he would rather have MS win or lose on its own.
"The success of iPhone 3G sales in the third quarter of 2008 propelled the Mac OS X to the No. 3 position in the global OS provider rankings. For the first time, iPhone sales exceeded sales of Microsoft Windows Mobile devices worldwide and in North America."
So in the 3rd quarter of this year, iPhone sales exceeded sales of MS mobile devices in the same period. Unless you define "market share" in terms of the last quarter sales only, MS devices still have a larger market share than the iPhone.
It wasn't a formal bug report and the AC probably is not a Wine contributor. So What?
The point is that if Wine fails to run a Windows program, it has a bug. Just because somebody develops a FOSS program doesn't mean that bugs are the users' problem.
"Instead of criticizing, put your hands at work and do something useful."
He is doing something useful - making a living. I suggest that a thick skin is a requirement for any FOSS developer. If you don't like bug reports, why not keep your code and applications to yourself?
I can't think of any business reason why Apple would want to do that. The most likely effect would be an increased rate of iPhone bricking, thus raising iPhone support costs.
"Good programmers can always get jobs. I know - I've hired lots of them."
Assuming you're correct in your evaluation of your staff's skill, how does the fact that you've hired good people prove that "good programmers can always get jobs"?
I can pick good apples at the supermarket, does that prove that all the good apples get sold?
I agree. I've seen job postings that have nearly contradictory requirements (e.g. knowledge and experience in obscure RTOS, knowledge of RF, 0-2 years experience).
Let's face it, if companies can't hire someone for a non-management job within 3 months (with an average time under 6 weeks), they aren't really serious about filling the position.
It's rather funny that you say that the same hardware architecture has been used for the last 30 to 40 years and then observe that there hasn't been any innovation in the software world "for a while".
Multicore isn't an innovation, it's a product of a lack of innovation in the hardware world.
The old practice of getting customers to buy new chips or PCs because it would immediately improve the performance of their existing applications will no longer be possible.
From a business perspective, that's going to be more of a problem for chip makers than software companies. In fact, if applications start acting up because their multi-threaded design didn't consider multiple cores, it's the new PC that will be blamed by the typical customer, not the software (e.g. "I bought this new multicore PC and now my applications aren't working right. Don't buy these machines until they get the bugs out")
Despite any theoretical beliefs, we haven't seen enough real-world applications converted to be multicore aware to know what (if any) improvement in performance will be seen.
For many applications there may not be a good business case for rewriting legacy software.
Slashdot Mirror
"Like it or not, the bill of rights doesn't apply to non-citizens."
Where in the bill of rights does it say that?
Actually, the PC was designed to be non-deterministic. No software bugs, hardware bugs or manufacturing defects needed.
On the other hand, many early home computers were quite deterministic. In fact the Atari 2600 game machine was deterministic down to a single CPU cycle. Many 2600 games would not have worked if it were otherwise.
"The AOL rejection is weird, because they purchased Netscape, but it made sense."
I think AOL bought Netscape so they could qualify as a Microsoft "victim". Although they succeeded in getting money from MS, it wasn't as much as they imagined and the ended up losing money on the deal.
Slashdot posters have been telling us for years that you can make a profit with FOSS, so I'm sure Mozilla won't have any financial problems. Firefox T-shirts anyone?
Yes, it's true of OSX, Apple and Solaris as well. The fundamentals haven't really changed that much.
Well, if the target is Linux you're trying to market to a group that largely believes that an 1970's OS is state of the art.
"Enormous mob of people (in Times Square or something): I AM LINUX."
Actually, they've gathered together because they couldn't get their wireless network cards to work and they have no other way to communicate.
Ever hear the expression "a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse"?
The Linux desktop market is currently so small that it's hard to distinguish it from the 0% market share of Solaris.
US car companies have ignored the future for 40 years, fighting every environmental and fuel economy standard that would have make them competitive.
Actually, until IBM, Sun, Oracle, AOL, and Real taught Gates through their lobbying of the DOJ that you can't leave the government out of the game, he would rather have MS win or lose on its own.
Well even more common than the myth of "the year of Linux on the desktop" is the myth of "the current version of Java is no longer slow".
"The success of iPhone 3G sales in the third quarter of 2008 propelled the Mac OS X to the No. 3 position in the global OS provider rankings. For the first time, iPhone sales exceeded sales of Microsoft Windows Mobile devices worldwide and in North America."
So in the 3rd quarter of this year, iPhone sales exceeded sales of MS mobile devices in the same period. Unless you define "market share" in terms of the last quarter sales only, MS devices still have a larger market share than the iPhone.
It wasn't a formal bug report and the AC probably is not a Wine contributor. So What?
The point is that if Wine fails to run a Windows program, it has a bug. Just because somebody develops a FOSS program doesn't mean that bugs are the users' problem.
Perhaps that's why they call it Visual C++ instead of Visual C99. C++ has never been a perfect superset of C.
Actually, the leader of the project has already stated that they have no intention of fully "emulating" (for lack of a better word) Win32.
"Instead of criticizing, put your hands at work and do something useful."
He is doing something useful - making a living. I suggest that a thick skin is a requirement for any FOSS developer. If you don't like bug reports, why not keep your code and applications to yourself?
The fact that they are even talking about a compatibility list indicates they'll never achieve real compatibility with Win32.
You don't develop a C++ compiler and then show how compliant it is by listing all the C++ programs it can compile.
Wine is more a collection of application-specific Windows to Linux hacks than it is a general purpose tool to run Windows apps on Linux.
"Agile is not a silver bullet, and its gurus never claimed it to be"
Gurus never claim that their way is a silver bullet, they just claim it will bring down a werewolf or vampire with a single shot.
"Pffft. When I was in high school, cell phones were the still size of a small suitcase and laptops were still called 'portables'."
Actually, they were usually referred to as "luggables".
I can't think of any business reason why Apple would want to do that. The most likely effect would be an increased rate of iPhone bricking, thus raising iPhone support costs.
"Good programmers can always get jobs. I know - I've hired lots of them."
Assuming you're correct in your evaluation of your staff's skill, how does the fact that you've hired good people prove that "good programmers can always get jobs"?
I can pick good apples at the supermarket, does that prove that all the good apples get sold?
I agree. I've seen job postings that have nearly contradictory requirements (e.g. knowledge and experience in obscure RTOS, knowledge of RF, 0-2 years experience).
Let's face it, if companies can't hire someone for a non-management job within 3 months (with an average time under 6 weeks), they aren't really serious about filling the position.
"I just don't like phones with moving parts."
It's rather funny that you say that the same hardware architecture has been used for the last 30 to 40 years and then observe that there hasn't been any innovation in the software world "for a while".
Multicore isn't an innovation, it's a product of a lack of innovation in the hardware world.
The old practice of getting customers to buy new chips or PCs because it would immediately improve the performance of their existing applications will no longer be possible.
From a business perspective, that's going to be more of a problem for chip makers than software companies. In fact, if applications start acting up because their multi-threaded design didn't consider multiple cores, it's the new PC that will be blamed by the typical customer, not the software (e.g. "I bought this new multicore PC and now my applications aren't working right. Don't buy these machines until they get the bugs out")
Despite any theoretical beliefs, we haven't seen enough real-world applications converted to be multicore aware to know what (if any) improvement in performance will be seen.
For many applications there may not be a good business case for rewriting legacy software.