I've browsed thru the comments here and I noticed that no one has yet apparently commented on the waste of money the particular proposal is. If you read it, you will notice that the NSF and the CIA have awarded these guys $150k to write something that is, in essence, a glorified eggdrop bot.
Granted, their analysis techniques will probably be more than say, a perl script parsing the channel logs, but I mean, who is looking at these grants and deciding this is a valid spenditure of funds?
I can think of at least a dozen people off the top of my head that could write something similar within a couple of days, without spending more than a few bucks in Starbucks coffee and Twix candy bars...
We don't need $3500 hypo-allergenic cats from some wacky company! We can get allergen-free cats with much higher decorative value and incredible conversation pieces from BonsaiKitten. These guys have been around for a bit longer, and their method has been tried and tested. You can easily make your own with a few easy-to-find tools, for a fraction of the cost, and definitely eye-catchers.
The article description might be a little deceptive. The Archos AV420 is only 20GB and it retails for about $470 on Amazon.com. The AV480 is 80GB and is about $715 also from Amazon.com Check out more information on the devices on Archo's own page located here.
At first look, maybe you can say that it's a blatant sudo ripoff (like most/. readers have said). In reading the patent, it also looks like it's doing more than what SUDO is doing. Sudo does not run as a daemon, it doesn't listen to network requests to execute processes, and it most certainly doesn't have a GUI. These are just some of the points that keep being referenced in the patent at almost every instance. It's still pretty sneaky of MS to get this patent, however, I believe it's being blown a bit out of proportion because people are neglecting to read the patent in its entirety.
I'm all for protecting the environment, but vandalizing private property (which is exactly what you're doing when putting a sticker on someone else's car) is definitely a good way to get people pissed off at you. I know I would, and the only thing that would gain you from me would be a swift trip to the ER, instead of respect for your environmental concerns.
There are a number of companies that make SPARC-based machines. The SPARC architecture is open, so there are several companies that make SPARC processor-based systems, in addition to Sun. You can check http://www.sparc.com for a list of the companies that are members of the SPARC organization, and check the list of vendors. You can actually buy a SPARC motherboard and processor and build your own system, if you so wish.
While the FSF and the GNU crew have done a lot for 'free' software, please do not credit them for Linux itself or anything BSD-related. If you took some time and checked your facts, you'd know that Linux came around because Linus wanted to make a free clone of Minix. It just so happened that GNU had already made a number of common *nix tools, so Linus just used what was available, and put the kernel under the GPL. As far as the *BSDs, well... BSD itself has been around since 1978, from the old custom releases at UC Berkeley. All of the 'free' *BSD implementations are based on the original 386BSD port to the x86 platform by William Jollitz. Yes, there are GNU tools in the current releases, but back then, there weren't, and GNU and the FSF had nothing to do with it. So, just make sure not to give credit to those that don't deserve it... Not all of us agree with the "GNU/" credit-hijacking jinx that Stallman finds so important to his cause.
While reading the report, I noticed something that doesn't make sense. Looking at the hardware costs for Solaris, they mention the "most common servers in use were the Sunfire 4800 and 6800". This doesn't sound accurate and I'll explain why.
Both of these servers are enterprise-class machines usually designed for high-availability, processing-intensive applications, such as databases. Very few sites would use such big iron to run webservers on. For webservers, most companies would use lower-end hardware, such as the Sunfire 280r or the Ultra Enterprise 420r. At a former dotcom I worked at, we had about 400 third-party E450s and 600 Ultra 10s, which were used both in production and development, and were handling an average of 12 million connections every day. We had 8 Ultra Enterprise 6000s (the precursor to the 6500 and 6800) which were exclusively for databases. In addition to this overkill in hardware costs, the report is also incorrect in the licensing costs. They mention the vast majority of customers used 8-CPU systems (very strange; the 4800 can hold 12 CPUs and the 6800 up to 24; it'd only be sensible to max out the boxes to offer better performance), which makes the licensing costs claim dubious at best. The cost of a Solaris RTU (Right To Use)license upgrade for a 5-8 CPU box is $6,000.00, not $12,500.00, as listed in the Sun Store. So, either the report's data is slightly askewed, or they picked the wrong companies to use as models for this study.
Ok, so before, you "patched your Apache server as soon as you heard of the vulnerability", but now you have more to worry about than people hacking your Apache.
BRAVO! You sir, could be considered the poster boy for the Young Libertarian Americans; dumb, filled with ideals, and blaming someone else for their own mistakes.
The lack of 'hot-swap anything' features make Linux every bit as unreliable, as DOS on any 'real hardware' you mentioned. There is a lot of 'low-end' hardware that supports those features, but not linux.
Oh yah, and the fact that Linux has to be rebuilt almost from scratch by the internal development teams working at those 'high-end hardware houses' doesn't mean anything to you guys, right?
I have news for you... Solaris *is* better, and it *is* free. Do not confuse confuse the hardware with the software. please.
HEH, right.... you keep thinking that way....
-Sun hardware is 100 times better than any PC hardware you may find. You set it up, plug it into a UPS, and you forget about it. Of course you will have the occasional hardware failure, but the ratio compared to PC hardware failures is negligible.
-Solaris has *MANY* advantages over Linux. Scalability, threading, scheduling, etc. Linux just isn't even close to Solaris when it comes to robust OS design and performance. Granted, Solaris does not support the latest and greates video card or sound card you'll find at the stores, but then again, how many application or database servers require them?. Oh yah, GCC sucks. Ask anyone who does some serious coding which compiler produces the cleaner, more stable binaries. Yah, GCC might be good if you just want to write small apps, but if you're doing serious development work, you won't even think twice about going with Forte (which is
-SGI did not 'consume' Cray. SGI bought Cray because of their hardware designs, and it had *nothing* to do with the OS Cray ran on its boxes. You are comparing apples and oranges. Sun is actually 'gobbling' up SGI. Ask a Sun sales rep where did the guys that desired the new Sunfire Crossbar Memory Switches come from.
It's nice to see the zealot crew is still churning out uninformed chumps such as yoursel....
You mean, kinda like SlashDot being part of the OSDN network, whose motto is Linux news and information? Do you see any potential bias when SlashDot posts up articles saying that Linux will rule in the server market?
Does the GPL allow me to require that anyone who receives the software must pay me a fee and/or notify me?
No. In fact, a requirement like that would make the program non-free. If people have to pay when they get a copy of a program, or if they have to notify anyone in particular, then the program is not free. See the definition of free software.
What was that again? Yes, you can charge as much as you want for it, provided you find someone who will pay what you ask for, but (once again) you have to make it freely available to anyone who wishes it, regardless whether they're paying or not.
Calling it 'free software' and then placing restrictions on it via GPL is a hypocrisy. People need to start recognizing that fact.
You can ask for a fee, but you must also make it freely available to anyone that asks. This means that, for example, for every person that pays you for your software, there can be 10 or 100 or 1000 that won't send you a dime because hey, it's under the GPL.
Will IBM release this freely for every single libertarian GPL zealot that wishes to wrap its fat little fingers around it?
In the article, it says IBM will make the port available for "existing 4758 coprocessor users". So, since you're all so quick to bitch at people for the slightest possibility of a so-called GPL violation, will you also bitch at IBM if the entire software kit is not freely available to *ANYONE* who wishes to look at the source?
With all the latest excitement regarding IBM's latest Linux stunts, I haven't seen a single one of the/. crowd wondering whether or not IBM is playing by the rules some commie tree-hugging lunatic^H^H^H^H^H^^^H^^H^H RMS set down and that so many of you seem to be so fond of without fully understanding the ramifications of its use.
By 'multi-GB' I meant large collections... my collection alone is now at ~85GB, while a few of my friends have considerably larger ones (one of them is currently at 580GB).
A couple of gigs is not that much. Like you said, it took you 4 days for 3GB. That means it'd take me almost 3 months to convert my collection, and I won't even think about the rest of our gang.
So, since the *vast majority* of people encode everything as mp3s, what exactly does Ogg Vorbis expect to accomplish? Does it really sound that much better? Does it sound better than mp3pro? Will anyone ever mass-market a device that actually will sell that has built-in OV support (forget about the ones already out there; no chance of upgrading, since joe shmoe really doesn't care much)?
Seems to me like Ogg Vorbis is really nothing more than another 'Hey, look, this is kinda cool' thing that you see on occasion, only to be put in the back burner because something else is more entertaining...
Do all six of you guys that use Ogg Vorbis really expect every person with a multi-GB mp3 collection to actually convert everything....
Right, right... Btw, may I interest you in this footage of subsonic pig aerial maneuvers as well?
In this particular case, the original poster was a idiot. Nowhere in the article is the word 'SAN' used.
This is also not a solid-state device, since according to the CNN article, it contains a 1.8-inch platter and two heads with a rotational speed of ~4000rpm (3,990rpm for you picky types).
I presume the poster was under the impression that this was similar to the SanDisk Corporation current line of products that fit in a Type-I and Type-II slot (those are solid-state devices).
This shows you how poor reading comprehension and karma-whoring can lead to misunderstandings.
Slashdot Mirror
If you read it, you will notice that the NSF and the CIA have awarded these guys $150k to write something that is, in essence, a glorified eggdrop bot.
Granted, their analysis techniques will probably be more than say, a perl script parsing the channel logs, but I mean, who is looking at these grants and deciding this is a valid spenditure of funds?
I can think of at least a dozen people off the top of my head that could write something similar within a couple of days, without spending more than a few bucks in Starbucks coffee and Twix candy bars...
We don't need $3500 hypo-allergenic cats from some wacky company! We can get allergen-free cats with much higher decorative value and incredible conversation pieces from BonsaiKitten.
;P)
These guys have been around for a bit longer, and their method has been tried and tested. You can easily make your own with a few easy-to-find tools, for a fraction of the cost, and definitely eye-catchers.
(Laugh a little, folks
The article description might be a little deceptive.
The Archos AV420 is only 20GB and it retails for about $470 on Amazon.com.
The AV480 is 80GB and is about $715 also from Amazon.com
Check out more information on the devices on Archo's own page located here.
At first look, maybe you can say that it's a blatant sudo ripoff (like most /. readers have said).
In reading the patent, it also looks like it's doing more than what SUDO is doing.
Sudo does not run as a daemon, it doesn't listen to network requests to execute processes, and it most certainly doesn't have a GUI. These are just some of the points that keep being referenced in the patent at almost every instance.
It's still pretty sneaky of MS to get this patent, however, I believe it's being blown a bit out of proportion because people are neglecting to read the patent in its entirety.
I know I would, and the only thing that would gain you from me would be a swift trip to the ER, instead of respect for your environmental concerns.
You can check http://www.sparc.com for a list of the companies that are members of the SPARC organization, and check the list of vendors.
You can actually buy a SPARC motherboard and processor and build your own system, if you so wish.
While the FSF and the GNU crew have done a lot for 'free' software, please do not credit them for Linux itself or anything BSD-related.
If you took some time and checked your facts, you'd know that Linux came around because Linus wanted to make a free clone of Minix. It just so happened that GNU had already made a number of common *nix tools, so Linus just used what was available, and put the kernel under the GPL.
As far as the *BSDs, well... BSD itself has been around since 1978, from the old custom releases at UC Berkeley. All of the 'free' *BSD implementations are based on the original 386BSD port to the x86 platform by William Jollitz. Yes, there are GNU tools in the current releases, but back then, there weren't, and GNU and the FSF had nothing to do with it.
So, just make sure not to give credit to those that don't deserve it... Not all of us agree with the "GNU/" credit-hijacking jinx that Stallman finds so important to his cause.
Looking at the hardware costs for Solaris, they mention the "most common servers in use were the Sunfire 4800 and 6800". This doesn't sound accurate and I'll explain why.
Both of these servers are enterprise-class machines usually designed for high-availability, processing-intensive applications, such as databases. Very few sites would use such big iron to run webservers on. For webservers, most companies would use lower-end hardware, such as the Sunfire 280r or the Ultra Enterprise 420r. At a former dotcom I worked at, we had about 400 third-party E450s and 600 Ultra 10s, which were used both in production and development, and were handling an average of 12 million connections every day. We had 8 Ultra Enterprise 6000s (the precursor to the 6500 and 6800) which were exclusively for databases.
In addition to this overkill in hardware costs, the report is also incorrect in the licensing costs. They mention the vast majority of customers used 8-CPU systems (very strange; the 4800 can hold 12 CPUs and the 6800 up to 24; it'd only be sensible to max out the boxes to offer better performance), which makes the licensing costs claim dubious at best. The cost of a Solaris RTU (Right To Use)license upgrade for a 5-8 CPU box is $6,000.00, not $12,500.00, as listed in the Sun Store.
So, either the report's data is slightly askewed, or they picked the wrong companies to use as models for this study.
Just my two cents...
Ok, so before, you "patched your Apache server as soon as you heard of the vulnerability", but now you have more to worry about than people hacking your Apache.
BRAVO! You sir, could be considered the poster boy for the Young Libertarian Americans; dumb, filled with ideals, and blaming someone else for their own mistakes.
uh.... http://www.sendmail.com
That's how they make a profit, sir.
Oh yah, let's compare your dns, msql (heh) and simple SMB services to a Oracle DB. Now there's a fair comparison if I ever saw one.
Oh yah, and the fact that Linux has to be rebuilt almost from scratch by the internal development teams working at those 'high-end hardware houses' doesn't mean anything to you guys, right?
I have news for you... Solaris *is* better, and it *is* free. Do not confuse confuse the hardware with the software. please.
HEH, right.... you keep thinking that way....
-Solaris has *MANY* advantages over Linux. Scalability, threading, scheduling, etc. Linux just isn't even close to Solaris when it comes to robust OS design and performance. Granted, Solaris does not support the latest and greates video card or sound card you'll find at the stores, but then again, how many application or database servers require them?. Oh yah, GCC sucks. Ask anyone who does some serious coding which compiler produces the cleaner, more stable binaries. Yah, GCC might be good if you just want to write small apps, but if you're doing serious development work, you won't even think twice about going with Forte (which is
-SGI did not 'consume' Cray. SGI bought Cray because of their hardware designs, and it had *nothing* to do with the OS Cray ran on its boxes. You are comparing apples and oranges. Sun is actually 'gobbling' up SGI. Ask a Sun sales rep where did the guys that desired the new Sunfire Crossbar Memory Switches come from.
It's nice to see the zealot crew is still churning out uninformed chumps such as yoursel....
and, of course, you are all dorks.
I think you need to go read the BSD license, and then read the GPL, and see which one is the true 'fascist' license....
Does the GPL allow me to require that anyone who receives the software must pay me a fee and/or notify me?
No. In fact, a requirement like that would make the program non-free. If people have to pay when they get a copy of a program, or if they have to notify anyone in particular, then the program is not free. See the definition of free software.
What was that again? Yes, you can charge as much as you want for it, provided you find someone who will pay what you ask for, but (once again) you have to make it freely available to anyone who wishes it, regardless whether they're paying or not.
Calling it 'free software' and then placing restrictions on it via GPL is a hypocrisy. People need to start recognizing that fact.
I guess your comment finally proves once and for all which OS zealots are the most ill-informed. Linux zealots can go cry in the corner.
Lovely, hey?
In the article, it says IBM will make the port available for "existing 4758 coprocessor users". So, since you're all so quick to bitch at people for the slightest possibility of a so-called GPL violation, will you also bitch at IBM if the entire software kit is not freely available to *ANYONE* who wishes to look at the source?
With all the latest excitement regarding IBM's latest Linux stunts, I haven't seen a single one of the
Just my 2 cents....
A couple of gigs is not that much. Like you said, it took you 4 days for 3GB. That means it'd take me almost 3 months to convert my collection, and I won't even think about the rest of our gang.
So, since the *vast majority* of people encode everything as mp3s, what exactly does Ogg Vorbis expect to accomplish? Does it really sound that much better? Does it sound better than mp3pro? Will anyone ever mass-market a device that actually will sell that has built-in OV support (forget about the ones already out there; no chance of upgrading, since joe shmoe really doesn't care much)?
Seems to me like Ogg Vorbis is really nothing more than another 'Hey, look, this is kinda cool' thing that you see on occasion, only to be put in the back burner because something else is more entertaining...
Right, right... Btw, may I interest you in this footage of subsonic pig aerial maneuvers as well?
This is also not a solid-state device, since according to the CNN article, it contains a 1.8-inch platter and two heads with a rotational speed of ~4000rpm (3,990rpm for you picky types).
I presume the poster was under the impression that this was similar to the SanDisk Corporation current line of products that fit in a Type-I and Type-II slot (those are solid-state devices).
This shows you how poor reading comprehension and karma-whoring can lead to misunderstandings.