I'm surprised a gag order hasn't been ordered. Usually, when a lawsuit is filed, both parties are very hush-hush because if they lose, any statements made before the judgement regarding the outcome can become a liability. On that note, SCO has racked up a hell of a lot of liability.
You have misunderstood the bussiness model SCO is in now. SCO does not care about winning the case. SCO stock is around 12 dollars from around a dollar. SCO is in the bussiness of inflating thier stock so that Darl and his club can sell it at inflated prices. The name of the game is make so much noise that fools buy stock and maybe (hopefully in thier view) someone will pay/buy them out to get them to shut up. When SCO loses the case, the offices will have already shut down.
Hey, I love the idea of Linux as much as the next guy...
However, you have to see the whole idea of needing a step-by-step upgrade guide with screen shots, etc is exactly why Bill still owns huge percentages of the market. Windows upgrades: Insert CD.
You seem to be missing a fundamental point; Microsoft does not let everyone test thier bleeding edge code. If you want Microsoft like OS updates then buy a Redhat distribution and download updates.
Even if they do show that the GPL is unenforcable and their code is in the kernel, that would mean that they have no rights to any of Linux except their code. Everything else would go back to "all rights reserved" and they would not be able to license the whole shebang. Just their lines.
but they don't care about selling products anymore. They would rather just get license fees for supposedly using thier code.
...-3x+8=20. Solve for x...
Yet to have an satisfying intuitive understanding of why x=4 in the above equation, you needn't be too concerned with anything beyond the arithmetic.
Why not just make it easier and rake in some money (read profit. anything more than 0 is...). sheesh. is the org run by a bunch of retards or what?
RIAA does not sell music or own any music so they can't make any money from sharing music. All the Music labels give money and resources to the RIAA to stop people from ripping them off but RIAA is not in the businness of making money- that is what the music labels have to do for themselves. As long as the Record labels are profitable, I am sure they will give cash to the RIAA to make sure they are as profitable as possible.
I think the root of the problem is time. Microsoft doesn't have the time to spend going through every possible software scenario and interaction, or every possible hardware configuration. If they did do that, it would probably take a decade to pump out an operating system, and by that time hardware's changed, and it's a neverending cycle.....
Actually that is not the way software should be designed. Modularity is the key. Each piece of functionality should be tested completely but within the scope of its function. Device drivers should be tested to make sure it works perfectly with the OS and the intended hardware. The IO system should make sure it works right and the OS should make sure that it comunicates properly with individual subsystems and etc. That is why programs can have huge amounts of functionality (by leveraging reusable and self contained code). The issue is that some components aren't tested/coded properly (unstable device drivers for example) and ruin it for the rest of the system. As time goes by, hopefully the bad modules get fixed/eliminated. You don't have to test for every scenario the SYSTEM will be in- ONLY the scenario's each MODULE can be in. That is the rule of breaking problems into managable chunks.
Mozilla now and Netscape then are two completely different beasts. My understanding is Mozilla is approaching an OS in terms of power and versatility (and size!) Had the team instead done as you suggest and try to reach this level based on the code of a browser, my guesses are it wouldn't have worked and people would be ragging them for carrying legacy code a la Windows 9x and DOS.
Maybe SOME people would criticize design decisions (like that is not happening now) but then maybe they would also have more than 5% of the browser market (including recent netscape offerings). I hate to be on the other side of the fence on this issue since I think Mozilla is a pretty good browser these days (and I only used Mozilla as an example simply because it was one of the most recent and well known "start from scratch" projects). However, as you said, Mozilla became much more than just a browser but most people were waiting 3 years for JUST A BROWSER. The "Application Environment" was not necesary and could have been a completely seperate project that Mozilla adopted as the application environment became mature enough for Mozilla to use.
I think Linux could benefit from scrapping X and developing a new, fast GUI system like Windows or MacOS. X is too dependent on networking protocols and is just pretty goddamn slow all-around.
(sarcasm) Yes lets just start over from scratch and abandon 15 years of gui development. I am sure in ten years the new system will be much better than the old system. (/sarcasm)
BTW it is GNOME and KDE that are dog slow but that is the new "modern" stuff while "old" X and fvwm still runs fast and light (and looks better too).
It amazes me how quickly some people are willing to just abandon something because it has flaws. Almost all software of any real complexity has flaws but developers should not be so quick to abandon what works.
Example:
The OSS community decided to abandon the source to Netscape and it took them 3 years to provide a high quality browser worthy of replacing 4.7. Just think what could have been accomplished if Netscape's components had been replaced piece by piece instead of killing the project in one fell swoop. Today the Roadmap on Mozilla.org discusses the design flaws of the current Mozilla browser (and Apple thought Mozilla's gecko was too messy so they went with Khtml for thier "Safari" browser).
To the credit of the Mozilla developers, they did eventually provide a very good browser but when they started over, they nievely thought they would have a solid product by the end of one year! Mozilla is very simple in comparison to all the infrastructure and design used with and by X.
The lesson of "Easier said than done" seems to be ignored all too often. It is not fast or easy to replace a sophisticated working system. Many projects have been started to replace X but none of them have ever made it all that far because amazingly X works better and supports more software. If you want to use something else, go ahead. Nobody is stopping you.
I myself hated Jar Jar, but overall 1 and 2 were good movies! Lucas's "vision" was to create a precurser to the original star wars series, and he performed the task well imho.
Actually I thought the movies were far from good.
Major flaws in movie 1:
1. Anakans script was DESIGNED for somebody who was at least a teenager. No seven year old has the hots for a girl in the way Ani talked or had the time to build so much hardware or race in as many races as the movie claimed. If Ani was too old to start the training it means that Jedi's were taking babies from mothers breasts (and makes Luke's start seem rediculous).
2. Kill the whole mediaclorite(?)/Virgin Mary mess.
3. What is comedy relief doing in a serious space drama? Jar-jar should have been killed from the final cut.
While movie 1 actually had a pretty good script (that was butchered in execution), movie 2 was just a bad script. There were far better stories that could have been told that would have enriched the Star Wars Universe, but instead, we get a cop story with a twist of romance. Despite the weak plot of movie 2, it was executed much better. It is a shame that the "new Anikan" was not in the first movie.
What made the first three movies (IV-VI) so wonderfull was that they had good stories that were executed well. Very impressive to do three times in row. In the first three, Lucas was the writer but let Irvin Kershner direct V and Richard Marquand direct VI. I get the impression that Lucas is a better writer than a director/producer. Or maybe his overwhelming control over the final product puts him in a position where no-one can criticize/"provide perspective" to his creative vision anymore. Whatever the reason, the first three films are classics while the stuff made recently is just summer action flicks that would have been forgotten by most if it was not for the name brand (Star Wars) attached to it.
Let Chewbacca take out Jar-jar! Please? I'd pay money to see that.
Remember Chewbacca and the 3D chess scene...
Perfect way to explain how Chewbacca got his reputation as a "bad sport" when lossing.
If Lucas needs help finding a way to play it out:
Have Jar-jar try to take a piece using his tounge and Chewbacca yanks that disgusting tounge up and away from the board causing Jar-jar to clumsily stumble forward and slam his face into the table braking his neck.
I am usually not a big fan of physical (3 stooges) comedy but The harder Jar-jar flails, twist and stumbles before slamming his face into the table, the better it would be. George you can have this idea for free with my pleasure.
The name Firebird was chosen because there were legal problems with the Phoenix name.
Which is why people here think the Mozilla anouncement is BS. Pheonix was not a code name but the name of an alternative Gecko/XUL browser. Now the Mozilla people are saying that the new name for Pheonix (which the Mozilla team will adopt as standard) is ONLY a code name when it was previously the REAL name of the browser (and why another company complained about the conflict). This anouncement is obvious backpeddling while also showing they don't care (because the name is staying despite the vast disapproval).
You do know that such a test would either be too trivial to be meaningful, or would necessarily be biased towards one group of Americans, right?
To be able to read, write and show a little knowledge about American politics/History should be something everybody who wants to vote should be able to do. If this is biass then I am all for it.
They have responsibly to their families and employers. Making it easier to vote will create more informed voters. I agree that people should take the time to get informed before they vote, but cannot be a requirement.
If one does not take a little time out of a busy schedule to vote then obviously they didn't care enough anyway. The bussiest people I know have always found time to vote but it is funny that the people who are not so busy find it the hardest to find time to vote (at least in my experience). Voting stations are open all day long and you can MAIL in your ballot if you are away or whatever.
I think voting should only be done by people who are interested and INFORMED about the issues/principles of the candidates involved. If someone has not done time and research into making a good decision then THEY SHOULD NOT VOTE!
The idea of making voting easier seems counterproductive when the goal is for the best candidate verses who has the best smile or sense of humor. I could see airheads saying "I need to vote for someone... I know- I will vote for Bill Gates for president because I have heard his name before." In the United States, at one time, one needed to pass a litteracy exam and own property. I would love there to be a simple exam to pass before becoming a registered voter (something like who was the first president of the USA, how many states are in the USA and etc...). Now I know this is being done in England but I hope it never comes to the U.S.- especially if it is successful.
All the while we could have been happily using a DX50 with 16mb of ram, which would not burn electricity like a telsa coil, not breakdown every 8 months - if only we got out of this delusional upgrade fetish, and bothered to make operating systems and software as efficient as they should be, meaning they'd be usable on something as fast as a 386DX40.
Programmers can be much more productive today because they don't have to waist as much time getting simple things done and if it is at the cost of some speed and bloat, I am just fine with that. If a program takes a month to slap together using (by your definition) inefficient tools but doing it the "right way" (by your definition) would take nine months- which way is better? In the past when machines were slow and short on resources, the extra eight months might have been the right solution. Thankfully today, in most cases, the one month solution is the better option and as a programmer (and user), I am happy with that. Faster computers allows for programmers and users be more prductive.
In short; The Disk is far from dead. This is just a first step in that direction.
As far as I am aware, mainframe and other highend systems had hard drives like this since even before the eighties. It is just becoming standard in low-end HD's. Now I can buy a HD with several meg buffer for about 3(?) years. The only thing new in this article is a filesystem that (possibly) helps the hardware/software utilize this buffer better.
How does the system decide which small files to keep on the regular disk and which ones to keep in RAM?
That is an algorithm issue but the worst that happens as far as I can see is that when the ram borks a little, it just means the throuput goes down while it writes more stuff to disk. I highly doubt that will be a big issue since algorithm's for determining priority [they could almost be plucked from a "VM" HOWTO] are abundent and if they are not all perfect- many are good enouph.
And every three years they release a rehash of the same old product.
Actually the fact that they FINALLY stopped the win 3.1 line that was dos+win3.1/95/98/ME and gone completely over to a NT core is a HUGE IMPROVMENT! I still don't like Microsoft but they are providing real OS as standard.
... the deal MS is supposedly offering concerns exclusivity in the console market and nothing else. And if the rumour is true, it's basically free money for id, since they were not planning to port it to any other consoles anyway.
But an exclusive deal means that no other console maker can make a deal to get it ported to thier console. I have no objection to Id doing this since the reason they make games is to make money- I just hope it is a good sum if they are going to do it.
Fact: Netscape announced it was going open source 1/1998.
Fact Netscape 6.0 (mozilla.6) ships 11/2000
Fact by 10/2001 Mozilla 1.0 still hasn't shipped
Fact between 1/1998 and 11/2000 Microsoft ships IE5.0 and IE 5.5.
Fact by 10/2001 IE 6.0 has shipped.
When something is rewritten from scratch, it takes a couple of years to get to where one left off (especially if one is going to write ones own gui toolkit, bug query system and various other apps). In the long run, I think it was worth it, but in the short term, no results are obvious because much of coding is to get to what was already done.
IE was not rebuilt from scratch in this time and thus could continue with incremental improvements of what MS already had.
In the long run I think Mozilla will take over the Web (simply because anyone can customize and improve it) but it was understandably slow at first. Now that the gui toolkit is robust and stable [XUL] and the core systems are working properly, I expect improvments from the mozilla team to be relatively faster.
Actually I think most of us on slashdot (from what has been moderated up and what the majority of posts say) think those who used "the product" were cheating and got caught.
it is ok to con the PPV channel.
it is ok to con the music industry
it is ok to con Microsoft by copying all their software (for those of you who use it)
Most of us don't (though we might argue the definition of "conning the Music Industry").
but when someone else (other article some time ago) violates the GPL by not opening their code, you rant and rave about 'theft'.
Whether slashdoters are moral or not has nothing to do with the fact that stealing others work is wrong. I would hope that people would be outraged when an entity tries to subvert what is free (often at large expense in time and energy of the creators) for there own selfish greed.
If you feel that linux on the desktop is going to double by 2004, how do you figure we are going to get there? Who is going to lead the way and what is going to become the turning point that linux becomes a usable desktop for the majority of users?
Google says here that Linux only accounts for 1% of search hits on google. Anyone doing searches on the internet is,by my definintion, a "Desktop User" and this is probably the most impartial measurment of Linux usage one can get. So for Linux to double to 2% is not that special. "grandmothers" will probably not be a large chunk of that 2%.
Yeah - I know... this is an interview question thingy but I could not help commenting.
Considering the way MySQL is (ab)used, flat text files, serialized data structures/objects or XML files would be very adequate and just as convenient for what 30-40% of what MySQL is used for.
...
It's too bad most Linux developers aren't interested in doing something really forward-thinking. If there was a DB integrated into the OS, and apps encouraged to use it, with avenues of data management made easily available to the user, computing could be actually pushed ahead by Linux. But not today, and probably nor ever.
I find it strange that you say MySQL is more overhead than needed for most projects but then you turn around and say it would be cool to build a DB into Linux.
DB's are wonderfull because they are designed to make it easy to organize and modify data. I am apt to use a DB even for "simple things" because flat files are slow and are not as easily adaptable to future needs (and the convenience of a DB far outweigh the overhead). However, the idea of DB being built into the Linux Kernel, makes me shudder. Each DB has its place and none of them belong in kernel space. The Linux Kernel developers follow KISS and plugging a DB into an OS is not KISS.
What you might be better off with is if Gnome and KDE made Postgress or MySQL (or some other XYZ DB) a component of thier respective Desktop Enviroments and wrote Gnome/KDE interfaces and API's to facilitate integration of other programs to use the DB. That is a better solution to what you are thinking.
Slashdot Mirror
You have misunderstood the bussiness model SCO is in now. SCO does not care about winning the case. SCO stock is around 12 dollars from around a dollar. SCO is in the bussiness of inflating thier stock so that Darl and his club can sell it at inflated prices. The name of the game is make so much noise that fools buy stock and maybe (hopefully in thier view) someone will pay/buy them out to get them to shut up. When SCO loses the case, the offices will have already shut down.
You seem to be missing a fundamental point; Microsoft does not let everyone test thier bleeding edge code. If you want Microsoft like OS updates then buy a Redhat distribution and download updates.
but they don't care about selling products anymore. They would rather just get license fees for supposedly using thier code.
Sorry to be picky but x is -4.
RIAA does not sell music or own any music so they can't make any money from sharing music. All the Music labels give money and resources to the RIAA to stop people from ripping them off but RIAA is not in the businness of making money- that is what the music labels have to do for themselves. As long as the Record labels are profitable, I am sure they will give cash to the RIAA to make sure they are as profitable as possible.
Awesome! About the best all "ten cent word" paragraph I have seen in years!
Actually that is not the way software should be designed. Modularity is the key. Each piece of functionality should be tested completely but within the scope of its function. Device drivers should be tested to make sure it works perfectly with the OS and the intended hardware. The IO system should make sure it works right and the OS should make sure that it comunicates properly with individual subsystems and etc. That is why programs can have huge amounts of functionality (by leveraging reusable and self contained code). The issue is that some components aren't tested/coded properly (unstable device drivers for example) and ruin it for the rest of the system. As time goes by, hopefully the bad modules get fixed/eliminated. You don't have to test for every scenario the SYSTEM will be in- ONLY the scenario's each MODULE can be in. That is the rule of breaking problems into managable chunks.
Maybe SOME people would criticize design decisions (like that is not happening now) but then maybe they would also have more than 5% of the browser market (including recent netscape offerings). I hate to be on the other side of the fence on this issue since I think Mozilla is a pretty good browser these days (and I only used Mozilla as an example simply because it was one of the most recent and well known "start from scratch" projects). However, as you said, Mozilla became much more than just a browser but most people were waiting 3 years for JUST A BROWSER. The "Application Environment" was not necesary and could have been a completely seperate project that Mozilla adopted as the application environment became mature enough for Mozilla to use.
(sarcasm)
Yes lets just start over from scratch and abandon 15 years of gui development. I am sure in ten years the new system will be much better than the old system.
(/sarcasm)
BTW it is GNOME and KDE that are dog slow but that is the new "modern" stuff while "old" X and fvwm still runs fast and light (and looks better too).
It amazes me how quickly some people are willing to just abandon something because it has flaws. Almost all software of any real complexity has flaws but developers should not be so quick to abandon what works.
To the credit of the Mozilla developers, they did eventually provide a very good browser but when they started over, they nievely thought they would have a solid product by the end of one year! Mozilla is very simple in comparison to all the infrastructure and design used with and by X.
The lesson of "Easier said than done" seems to be ignored all too often. It is not fast or easy to replace a sophisticated working system. Many projects have been started to replace X but none of them have ever made it all that far because amazingly X works better and supports more software. If you want to use something else, go ahead. Nobody is stopping you.
Actually I thought the movies were far from good.
Major flaws in movie 1:
While movie 1 actually had a pretty good script (that was butchered in execution), movie 2 was just a bad script. There were far better stories that could have been told that would have enriched the Star Wars Universe, but instead, we get a cop story with a twist of romance. Despite the weak plot of movie 2, it was executed much better. It is a shame that the "new Anikan" was not in the first movie.
What made the first three movies (IV-VI) so wonderfull was that they had good stories that were executed well. Very impressive to do three times in row. In the first three, Lucas was the writer but let Irvin Kershner direct V and Richard Marquand direct VI. I get the impression that Lucas is a better writer than a director/producer. Or maybe his overwhelming control over the final product puts him in a position where no-one can criticize/"provide perspective" to his creative vision anymore. Whatever the reason, the first three films are classics while the stuff made recently is just summer action flicks that would have been forgotten by most if it was not for the name brand (Star Wars) attached to it.
Remember Chewbacca and the 3D chess scene... Perfect way to explain how Chewbacca got his reputation as a "bad sport" when lossing.
If Lucas needs help finding a way to play it out:
I am usually not a big fan of physical (3 stooges) comedy but The harder Jar-jar flails, twist and stumbles before slamming his face into the table, the better it would be. George you can have this idea for free with my pleasure.Which is why people here think the Mozilla anouncement is BS. Pheonix was not a code name but the name of an alternative Gecko/XUL browser. Now the Mozilla people are saying that the new name for Pheonix (which the Mozilla team will adopt as standard) is ONLY a code name when it was previously the REAL name of the browser (and why another company complained about the conflict). This anouncement is obvious backpeddling while also showing they don't care (because the name is staying despite the vast disapproval).
To be able to read, write and show a little knowledge about American politics/History should be something everybody who wants to vote should be able to do. If this is biass then I am all for it.
If one does not take a little time out of a busy schedule to vote then obviously they didn't care enough anyway. The bussiest people I know have always found time to vote but it is funny that the people who are not so busy find it the hardest to find time to vote (at least in my experience). Voting stations are open all day long and you can MAIL in your ballot if you are away or whatever.
The idea of making voting easier seems counterproductive when the goal is for the best candidate verses who has the best smile or sense of humor. I could see airheads saying "I need to vote for someone... I know- I will vote for Bill Gates for president because I have heard his name before." In the United States, at one time, one needed to pass a litteracy exam and own property. I would love there to be a simple exam to pass before becoming a registered voter (something like who was the first president of the USA, how many states are in the USA and etc...). Now I know this is being done in England but I hope it never comes to the U.S.- especially if it is successful.
Programmers can be much more productive today because they don't have to waist as much time getting simple things done and if it is at the cost of some speed and bloat, I am just fine with that. If a program takes a month to slap together using (by your definition) inefficient tools but doing it the "right way" (by your definition) would take nine months- which way is better? In the past when machines were slow and short on resources, the extra eight months might have been the right solution. Thankfully today, in most cases, the one month solution is the better option and as a programmer (and user), I am happy with that. Faster computers allows for programmers and users be more prductive.
As far as I am aware, mainframe and other highend systems had hard drives like this since even before the eighties. It is just becoming standard in low-end HD's. Now I can buy a HD with several meg buffer for about 3(?) years. The only thing new in this article is a filesystem that (possibly) helps the hardware/software utilize this buffer better.
That is an algorithm issue but the worst that happens as far as I can see is that when the ram borks a little, it just means the throuput goes down while it writes more stuff to disk. I highly doubt that will be a big issue since algorithm's for determining priority [they could almost be plucked from a "VM" HOWTO] are abundent and if they are not all perfect- many are good enouph.
Actually the fact that they FINALLY stopped the win 3.1 line that was dos+win3.1/95/98/ME and gone completely over to a NT core is a HUGE IMPROVMENT! I still don't like Microsoft but they are providing real OS as standard.
But an exclusive deal means that no other console maker can make a deal to get it ported to thier console. I have no objection to Id doing this since the reason they make games is to make money- I just hope it is a good sum if they are going to do it.
When something is rewritten from scratch, it takes a couple of years to get to where one left off (especially if one is going to write ones own gui toolkit, bug query system and various other apps). In the long run, I think it was worth it, but in the short term, no results are obvious because much of coding is to get to what was already done.
IE was not rebuilt from scratch in this time and thus could continue with incremental improvements of what MS already had.
In the long run I think Mozilla will take over the Web (simply because anyone can customize and improve it) but it was understandably slow at first. Now that the gui toolkit is robust and stable [XUL] and the core systems are working properly, I expect improvments from the mozilla team to be relatively faster.
Ah but they do... It is in the cable bill!
Much cheaper/profitable than taking them to court.
Actually I think most of us on slashdot (from what has been moderated up and what the majority of posts say) think those who used "the product" were cheating and got caught.
it is ok to con the PPV channel. it is ok to con the music industry it is ok to con Microsoft by copying all their software (for those of you who use it)
Most of us don't (though we might argue the definition of "conning the Music Industry").
but when someone else (other article some time ago) violates the GPL by not opening their code, you rant and rave about 'theft'.
Whether slashdoters are moral or not has nothing to do with the fact that stealing others work is wrong. I would hope that people would be outraged when an entity tries to subvert what is free (often at large expense in time and energy of the creators) for there own selfish greed.
Google says here that Linux only accounts for 1% of search hits on google. Anyone doing searches on the internet is ,by my definintion, a "Desktop User" and this is probably the most impartial measurment of Linux usage one can get. So for Linux to double to 2% is not that special. "grandmothers" will probably not be a large chunk of that 2%.
Yeah - I know... this is an interview question thingy but I could not help commenting.
DB's are wonderfull because they are designed to make it easy to organize and modify data. I am apt to use a DB even for "simple things" because flat files are slow and are not as easily adaptable to future needs (and the convenience of a DB far outweigh the overhead). However, the idea of DB being built into the Linux Kernel, makes me shudder. Each DB has its place and none of them belong in kernel space. The Linux Kernel developers follow KISS and plugging a DB into an OS is not KISS.
What you might be better off with is if Gnome and KDE made Postgress or MySQL (or some other XYZ DB) a component of thier respective Desktop Enviroments and wrote Gnome/KDE interfaces and API's to facilitate integration of other programs to use the DB. That is a better solution to what you are thinking.