I spoke specificaly about making the desktop interface forever dependent on ViaVoice. Sure it's availeble. That's how a pore kid like me knows it works. However the level of integration I am talking about is not suiteble for a totaly closed software.
Basicaly you need to show a little growth every quarter. If the choice are -$1 now and +$50 next 1/4 or +$5 now and +$10 next 1/4 then for a publickly traded company the second option is far better.
Why do you think the likes of Microsoft doctor the books so heavily to show sales and profits on a different curve from real life?
You are demonstrating what can be considerd a lack of ambition. I remember his imprial Gatesness saying in an interview that Microsoft got to be where it is because almost everyone in the company wants his job.
Frankly I would seriusly consider tosing a number 2 techie that rejected a promotion to IT manager. It basicaly says "this goy dose not want to accept responsibility for what hapens."
I would keap you if you came with a *good* excuse like "The IT Manager has a realy hot secretery that I am trying to seduce. If she is my secretary then that becomes harasment.". Avoiding political bikering is not a good excuse. I would toss out your unambitius ass.
PS: For your own sake I would suggest you take it. Even for a 12 months. "My last job was IT Manager at ACME." looks really nice on a resume.
What I would want IBM to toss into the open isn't a part of AIX at all. I want ViaVoice. The IBM Voice recognition/Sinthesizer software. Failing that I would like just the synchronization part.
No I don't think it would really benefit much from being open sourced or that the development would accelerate. However I do think the time has come for Linux to start embedding voice technology for the visually impaired right into the UI.
This means for me a choice of shells during install that includes "BLINUX". A yet to be designed shell optimized in every possible way for use with speech software. Also speech synthesizers embedded in the desktop. I have been told that this can be done on KDE without adding any bloat for those who do not use it.
A crucial missing piece is that once this is done the desktop will be forever dependent on "libViaVoice.o" and the KDE people don't want to go down that road again. So IBM help us out here. PCs now include sound cards by default so adding this to Linux would iliminate the current $1400 additional premium on computers for a blind user. ( $600 hardware synthesizer and $800 software )
"Equal Employment" is just a Politically Correct fantasy as long as it costs more money to employ a blind person.
All the other serious Linux players deliver working code, watch the userbase grow and then maybe say yes when big vendors come knocking. These guys have got the order a little mixed up.
Nautilus isn't as good as Konquorer yet but the promoters talk up it's future features impressively. It isn't stable enough for regular work yet but alas, it's still alpha. So why is Sun committing to use this particular solution now?
It's called marketing. Basically if two companies can get together and announce something which sounds positive for both with only minimal long term risks, they will. That's why some of these guys are in both the KDE League and the Gnome Foundation. That's why the Gnome Foundation is not nearly as dangerous as most people make out. I.e. It will likely end up doing the same marketing job as the KDE League ( just more efficiently:).
Remember that it was 5 years between committing to CDE and actually shipping it for SUN. Even assuming a speedup for the open source arena we still won't see Gnome on your shiny new ultra 10 anytime soon. Unless you install it. By then Sun will likely ship 4 desktop environments. CDE, Open Windows, Gnome & KDE and that's the barest minimum.
You see these big old vendors are not stupid. At least no stupider than Mandrake and RedHat. Both of whom openly and loudly promote one desktop environment over all others yet ship all the popular free ones.
Under British Common Law ( The same stuff most english speaking countries base there laws on since even rebel leaders thought the brits wrote reasonable laws ) there is a well established concept of "Squatters Rights".
Essentially, if you are walking along and spot a nice piece of land you can venture on and set up camp. If you aren't chased off by the owner or someone acting on his behalf for 7 years you can claim ownership.
Note that this "chasing off" doesn't have to be effective. A "Go away" letter copied to a credible 3rd party is enough to stop the clock.
This was created to prevent good land from going to waist. Essentially it said "use it or loose it". Why should the most permanent and respected property right ( land ) be less than the 2nd most transient ? Copyrights.
It's interesting that you mention DOOM. ID is busy writing a brand new version of DOOM because the concept is popular and the brand is strong. I.e. Critics of violent games still say "I don't want my child playing DOOM".
So if releasing the game under a liberal license destroys the market for new versions someone needs to tell this to those people who are already saving to buy DOOM3.
The fact is that games are different from other software. A satisfied user of Word 95 will not buy Word 2000 unless forced to by incompatible file formats and the unavailability of the old software for his extra PCs.
Game users however are the opposite extreme. If someone is happy with Quake1, you don't have to market Quake2 to him. Mearly inform him of it's availability and you are guaranteed a sale ( pending financial issues ). You see games are like movies. 90% of Slashdot is holding it's breath waiting for Star Wars Episode 2 and Matrix 2 & 3. Would giving the older versions of these shows away for free change this ? In what direction ?
PS: Imagine how succesful the Fugitive or Charley's Angels wold have been if the Series wasn't in sindication.
I apologize if I gave the impression that I wasn't supportive of the Hurd.
Right now Hurd stands out as proof of Linux's "indestructibility". Think about it. The Hurd has very very few users. It is almost never in the press. Nobody has made any money off it at all. Many people see it as a useless venture.
Yet the development effort continues.
Linux is on the same "business model". Anyone who depends on it going away is screwed.
My main point is that Wine users can be stuck with old software if the next version of the Windows APIs are sufficiently difficult to revers engineer.
OS/2 had a lot of things going against it at the time. The Win-OS/2 support was one of them. Perhaps not the only one but it mattered.
Price is a big thing but not the only thing. Users want a solution and they price it at the cost of everything from an empty desk to a computer with the application loaded. This is why Free Netscape on Solaris was NEVER an option to the Windows users. So yes Linux won't go away in part because it costs less. However people who want to play a game with no Linux port will use Windows no matter what the price. Likewise a business that wants to run a particular set of applications will use whichever OS supports them.
If at some future point that OS is not Linux then that section of the userbase will vanish.
PS: For those who don't care let me remind you that large numbers of users is essential to having wide choice in new hardware. Otherwise the performance freak won't be able to use the video card or RAID controller he drools over and the pore student must continue to pay extra for a real modem.
KDE 2.0.1 is right now the most attractive and friendly desktop available. At least to me. Mac, Gnome and Windows users will DEFINITELY disagree.
However what isn't up for debate is that the current release version of KDE is in the same league as the vaporware and BETA version from the other GUIs. So why was it not included in this review ? After all, KDE has plans just like everyone else. They will be doing really cool stuff next year too.
The reason is that KDE doesn't have an effective marketing department. It doesn't have someone who explains to writers at MSNBC how it will revolutionize the desktop.
Maybe that KDE League thing wasn't such a bad idea. They just need to start doing some work.
The long term effect of Wine on Linux is still open to debate. One logic to follow is that developers like to write as little code as possible to reach the desired audience.
This is why many Unix developers code to POSIX and ignore the special tweaks available on even the most popular of commercial Unix systems. "Write once, Run anywhere" wasn't invented by Sun's Java Marketing team.
That brings us to OS/2 with it's robust ( at the time ) Win16 support. Developers were faced with a choice. Write apps for OS/2 and enjoy patronage of the OS/2 userbase or write for the Win16 API and enjoy the Windows 3.11 userbase AND the OS/2 userbase.
That wasn't a tough call and OS/2 was driven from the desktop in part because of it.
"Wine Is Not An Emulator" can be screamed and shouted every day, all day. The fact is people use it as such. As is Linux users run Quick books on Linux+Wine without Intuit having expended a single coin to port it over. For all practical purposes we have Quick books on Linux now. There is no longer much of a financial incentive for a Linux port.
Fast forward a bit to the next version of Quick Books. It has made use of some special new feature in the Windows 64 API of Whistler and it will take years of hacking for Wine to support it again. Suddenly the Linux, QB users are left out in the cold.
This is why the Wine Runtime is may be a bad thing. The porting API is however a different animal. It works well enough to get an app over but for long term development; you really need to rewrite in KDElibs or something like that to work properly on a Linux desktop. Maintaining a Wine port must be a nightmare by comparison.
At least it shows signs of going to 1.0 Something that all software should do at least once in it's life. That still leaves the Hurd as the code base determined to NEVER be "finished". Of course they have a different problem. Linux delivers to the user what Hurd intended but with a different technology. V6, V8 ? Who cares, I want Miles Per Galon and cruising speed.
What I find real silly were all the strange stores with magic, witchcraft and aliens to explain how the pyramids were built. After all it would take around 50 years to make one of these with modern equipment like Tractors and cutting lasers. How cold those primitive Egyptians do it?
Only latter (1988 or so) when someone finally translated the inscriptions on the walls of one of the larger pyramids did it become clear. You see that story had been written by a prince who gave up his shot at becoming Pharaoh in order to be a scribe and an apprentice to the master architect.
It seams they did it with lots of ingenuity and by share force of numbers. As many as 150,000 on the project at some points. The sand of the desert was used the way we would use Hydraulics now. In short this was pure genius and not even a little odd.
So what of those fairytales? Some of them resurface every now and then. As for this alignment to the stars, Well the way I figure it; If you can pile a thousand rocks of 10 tons or more into a perfect pyramid that holds without cement figuring out which direction is north seams simple:)
Where I work they specificaly ask you to signe a contract relinquishing rights to all code writen on the job. "My lawyer friend" (TM) says this is requierd because by default a work is owned by it's individual creators.
Can they take your work away without this? Also there is the question of "who owns a thesis". Those have been around for centuries. Back in the old days could a student sell his thesis as a book ? If so then the same aplies to any work done for grades.
Work done for cash is a diferent matter altogather and I don't see how a university wold be diferent from a private business. I.e. They have to make you sign this away.
As for the matter of GPL. This isn't actualy relevant. He who owns the code chooses the license. If you can GPL it you can also BSD it or attach an BSA stile EULA.
Don't get too cocky now. Remember that Microsoft's isn't the 1st "flagship" site to be cracked. In fact. I think Sun Microsystems and posibly IBM are the only ones that havn't.
Slashdot, was owned. Apache was defaced, Credit cards were stolen from some Ecomers places.
Just be thankfull the source code for Windows didn't leak out. It wold be so horible if it fragmented into varius incompatible versions.
Huh... What's that ? It's hapening already ?
well at least we don't have to sufer throgh the pain of reading that code.
This is simply a difference in how one defines "platform".
The fact is that Linux was not contemplated as a base for running these applications when they were written. True. Wine doesn't emulate the X86 hardware. It dose however Emulate the Windows software. This is emulation just as Windows NT uses Emulation to run Dos and 16 bit Windows applications.
Wine isn't an emulator it's a porting tool but guess what?
It also allows Application binaries to run on a platform other than the one forwhich they were written and compiled. This despite PR to the contrary is emulation.
So Wine is an emulator despite the defensive expansion of it's recursive acronym.
How about just using software that starts with a 'K' ?
Konqurer works fine as a Web browser. KMail had problems in the CVS snapshot I use now but I havn't herd any complaints about the final releas.
Kword and Kspread are just fine for everything but editing MSOffice propriatery documents. It can do it, but porely. Now that we have StarOffice source code even that problem should vanish in time.
So yeah. You can stick to Free Software and get your work done in comfort. Just so long as you get it from ftp://
True. But I contend less of a problem than materials to handle earth orbit. Keaping the atmosfare out is easy and has been done. Something that won't harden is a little togher but such plastics probebly exist already.
BTW: At those tempretures you nead to generate heet inside the suite. Not just insulate it.
Titan's gravity is only about one seventh that of Earth. The intense chill, however, means a low energy atmosphere that hangs around, instead of escaping this relatively weak force of gravity. So Titan's atmosphere is denser than Earth's and extends much higher into the sky.
Lower gravity and denser atmosphere means that you could not only survive on Titan with a much simpler space suite than you need for work on the moon but you can also fly with simple wings sprouting from your arms.
No. I am serious about both points. Since the atmosphere is denser than earth but less dens than say water, you don't need a pressure suite just something completely sealed that wont tear easily and keeps the Methane off your skin. More importantly it only has to deal with cold temperatures not the -200 to +200 degree fluctuations in earth orbit.
About the wings. The reason we were never able to fly with arm mounted wings is that #1 we are generally not strong enough to build manipulate wings that can support a human and #2 those wings have to be so very large.
However on Titan they need only be 1/7th the size of your tipical glider's wingspan. Posibly less if you consider the denser atmosfare. So just as we can fly throgh water by flaping our bare arms we should be able to fly on titan with tiny wings just barley longer than our arms and as little as 2 feet thick. I.e. The sort of thing that can be built into a plastic suite that's all soft on the outside to prevent sparks from igniting that methane.
Better yet wings of that size could be made retractable and the smaller suite means you could store a larger air supply. A rebrether ( filters out your own CO2 ) would do wonders too.
I read your post on Slashdot and I followed much of the original discussions via KT ( Only kernel developers need read the 1000+ messages a week on LKML ).
I can't comment about clean code because I don't speak Assembly or C but I can make a guess about Enterprise scalability.
What are the alternatives to having the official Kernel scale up to 64 CPUs that would pleas the people who need 64 CPUs ?
You thought only of a fork in the Kernel. However the other way is to have entirely different Kernels running on those systems.
According to IBM marketing; AIX 5L will do just that. Essentially a system that will compile software written for Linux consistently and will also run Linux binaries built for the same CPU.
In other words IBM will be able to sell you a Linux system and seamlessly switch to an AIX system when your needs outgrow Linux.
Thus leaving the main Linux development free to concentrate on the vastly more important ( I'll define important latter ) Small server, Desktop and embedded areas.
I define important in terms of the number of users. Most people work in small organizations. the kind that a single Linux system running the 2.0 Kernel can adequately serve. Anyone can use an embedded device and most people, both in small and large enterprises and at home or school use desktops of some kind. Well, I mean could use since much of the world doesn't even have electricity.
By contrast only those with truly vast jobs to accomplish can use enterprise systems. When the Hardware costs $2,000,000 and the application software costs more it doesn't matter whether or not you pay for the OS. That leaves access to the source code as the main advantage of a Linux Kernel on Enterprise systems over other larger OSs.
But wait. If you are a huge enterprise and are pushing the limits of your enterprise OS you can do two things the rest of us can't. #1. You can tell the vendor when to fix bugs and #2. You can often obtain access to the source code.
In other words the Free ( Gratis and Libra ) nature of Linux is a huge advantage on small systems but irrelevant on large systems. Except as a matter of principle. Despite RMS' efforts the principle of Free Software for it's own sake hasn't taken root yet. Especially not among IT managers.
So yes. I have no response for any of the other concerns but if Enterprise scaling adds even slightly to the problems on the low end then the choice has to be against that. After all there are easy ways out. IBM seams to be the 1st enterprise vendor to have figured out that escape route.
If FreeBSD, OpenBSD or even Hurd can be coerced into running on enterprise systems and made to seamlessly support Linux software you will have all you ask for in spades.
Surely you herd how IBM Apple and Microsoft were about to merge ?
Apparently the feds are going to block this move not because of antirust isues but becauase the resulting desktop system wold inherit the dominace of Windows but incorporate the faliurs of OS/2 and MacOS with the varius Windows problems.
The other problem is that the AOL/WB deal wold see Neo making "me too" posts and Trinity asking "How dose RTFM work ?"
to say nothing of the horor Bugs Bunney wold become:)
Slashdot Mirror
Niether of you seem to have read my post.
I spoke specificaly about making the desktop interface forever dependent on ViaVoice. Sure it's availeble. That's how a pore kid like me knows it works. However the level of integration I am talking about is not suiteble for a totaly closed software.
Two little words for you. "Quarterly Reports".
Basicaly you need to show a little growth every quarter. If the choice are -$1 now and +$50 next 1/4 or +$5 now and +$10 next 1/4 then for a publickly traded company the second option is far better.
Why do you think the likes of Microsoft doctor the books so heavily to show sales and profits on a different curve from real life?
You are demonstrating what can be considerd a lack of ambition. I remember his imprial Gatesness saying in an interview that Microsoft got to be where it is because almost everyone in the company wants his job.
Frankly I would seriusly consider tosing a number 2 techie that rejected a promotion to IT manager. It basicaly says "this goy dose not want to accept responsibility for what hapens."
I would keap you if you came with a *good* excuse like "The IT Manager has a realy hot secretery that I am trying to seduce. If she is my secretary then that becomes harasment.". Avoiding political bikering is not a good excuse. I would toss out your unambitius ass.
PS: For your own sake I would suggest you take it. Even for a 12 months. "My last job was IT Manager at ACME." looks really nice on a resume.
What I would want IBM to toss into the open isn't a part of AIX at all. I want ViaVoice. The IBM Voice recognition/Sinthesizer software. Failing that I would like just the synchronization part.
No I don't think it would really benefit much from being open sourced or that the development would accelerate. However I do think the time has come for Linux to start embedding voice technology for the visually impaired right into the UI.
This means for me a choice of shells during install that includes "BLINUX". A yet to be designed shell optimized in every possible way for use with speech software. Also speech synthesizers embedded in the desktop. I have been told that this can be done on KDE without adding any bloat for those who do not use it.
A crucial missing piece is that once this is done the desktop will be forever dependent on "libViaVoice.o" and the KDE people don't want to go down that road again. So IBM help us out here. PCs now include sound cards by default so adding this to Linux would iliminate the current $1400 additional premium on computers for a blind user. ( $600 hardware synthesizer and $800 software )
"Equal Employment" is just a Politically Correct fantasy as long as it costs more money to employ a blind person.
All the other serious Linux players deliver working code, watch the userbase grow and then maybe say yes when big vendors come knocking. These guys have got the order a little mixed up.
Nautilus isn't as good as Konquorer yet but the promoters talk up it's future features impressively. It isn't stable enough for regular work yet but alas, it's still alpha. So why is Sun committing to use this particular solution now?
It's called marketing. Basically if two companies can get together and announce something which sounds positive for both with only minimal long term risks, they will. That's why some of these guys are in both the KDE League and the Gnome Foundation. That's why the Gnome Foundation is not nearly as dangerous as most people make out. I.e. It will likely end up doing the same marketing job as the KDE League ( just more efficiently
Remember that it was 5 years between committing to CDE and actually shipping it for SUN. Even assuming a speedup for the open source arena we still won't see Gnome on your shiny new ultra 10 anytime soon. Unless you install it. By then Sun will likely ship 4 desktop environments. CDE, Open Windows, Gnome & KDE and that's the barest minimum.
You see these big old vendors are not stupid. At least no stupider than Mandrake and RedHat. Both of whom openly and loudly promote one desktop environment over all others yet ship all the popular free ones.
What more is there to say ? They have an anoying login and the Uname/Pword that I use is
slashdolt/slashdolt
The infamus Cypherpunks acount dosn't work.
Under British Common Law ( The same stuff most english speaking countries base there laws on since even rebel leaders thought the brits wrote reasonable laws ) there is a well established concept of "Squatters Rights".
Essentially, if you are walking along and spot a nice piece of land you can venture on and set up camp. If you aren't chased off by the owner or someone acting on his behalf for 7 years you can claim ownership.
Note that this "chasing off" doesn't have to be effective. A "Go away" letter copied to a credible 3rd party is enough to stop the clock.
This was created to prevent good land from going to waist. Essentially it said "use it or loose it". Why should the most permanent and respected property right ( land ) be less than the 2nd most transient ? Copyrights.
It's interesting that you mention DOOM. ID is busy writing a brand new version of DOOM because the concept is popular and the brand is strong. I.e. Critics of violent games still say "I don't want my child playing DOOM".
So if releasing the game under a liberal license destroys the market for new versions someone needs to tell this to those people who are already saving to buy DOOM3.
The fact is that games are different from other software. A satisfied user of Word 95 will not buy Word 2000 unless forced to by incompatible file formats and the unavailability of the old software for his extra PCs.
Game users however are the opposite extreme. If someone is happy with Quake1, you don't have to market Quake2 to him. Mearly inform him of it's availability and you are guaranteed a sale ( pending financial issues ). You see games are like movies. 90% of Slashdot is holding it's breath waiting for Star Wars Episode 2 and Matrix 2 & 3. Would giving the older versions of these shows away for free change this ? In what direction ?
PS: Imagine how succesful the Fugitive or Charley's Angels wold have been if the Series wasn't in sindication.
I apologize if I gave the impression that I wasn't supportive of the Hurd.
Right now Hurd stands out as proof of Linux's "indestructibility". Think about it. The Hurd has very very few users. It is almost never in the press. Nobody has made any money off it at all. Many people see it as a useless venture.
Yet the development effort continues.
Linux is on the same "business model". Anyone who depends on it going away is screwed.
My main point is that Wine users can be stuck with old software if the next version of the Windows APIs are sufficiently difficult to revers engineer.
OS/2 had a lot of things going against it at the time. The Win-OS/2 support was one of them. Perhaps not the only one but it mattered.
Price is a big thing but not the only thing. Users want a solution and they price it at the cost of everything from an empty desk to a computer with the application loaded. This is why Free Netscape on Solaris was NEVER an option to the Windows users. So yes Linux won't go away in part because it costs less. However people who want to play a game with no Linux port will use Windows no matter what the price. Likewise a business that wants to run a particular set of applications will use whichever OS supports them.
If at some future point that OS is not Linux then that section of the userbase will vanish.
PS: For those who don't care let me remind you that large numbers of users is essential to having wide choice in new hardware. Otherwise the performance freak won't be able to use the video card or RAID controller he drools over and the pore student must continue to pay extra for a real modem.
KDE 2.0.1 is right now the most attractive and friendly desktop available. At least to me. Mac, Gnome and Windows users will DEFINITELY disagree.
However what isn't up for debate is that the current release version of KDE is in the same league as the vaporware and BETA version from the other GUIs. So why was it not included in this review ? After all, KDE has plans just like everyone else. They will be doing really cool stuff next year too.
The reason is that KDE doesn't have an effective marketing department. It doesn't have someone who explains to writers at MSNBC how it will revolutionize the desktop.
Maybe that KDE League thing wasn't such a bad idea. They just need to start doing some work.
The long term effect of Wine on Linux is still open to debate. One logic to follow is that developers like to write as little code as possible to reach the desired audience.
This is why many Unix developers code to POSIX and ignore the special tweaks available on even the most popular of commercial Unix systems. "Write once, Run anywhere" wasn't invented by Sun's Java Marketing team.
That brings us to OS/2 with it's robust ( at the time ) Win16 support. Developers were faced with a choice. Write apps for OS/2 and enjoy patronage of the OS/2 userbase or write for the Win16 API and enjoy the Windows 3.11 userbase AND the OS/2 userbase.
That wasn't a tough call and OS/2 was driven from the desktop in part because of it.
"Wine Is Not An Emulator" can be screamed and shouted every day, all day. The fact is people use it as such. As is Linux users run Quick books on Linux+Wine without Intuit having expended a single coin to port it over. For all practical purposes we have Quick books on Linux now. There is no longer much of a financial incentive for a Linux port.
Fast forward a bit to the next version of Quick Books. It has made use of some special new feature in the Windows 64 API of Whistler and it will take years of hacking for Wine to support it again. Suddenly the Linux, QB users are left out in the cold.
This is why the Wine Runtime is may be a bad thing. The porting API is however a different animal. It works well enough to get an app over but for long term development; you really need to rewrite in KDElibs or something like that to work properly on a Linux desktop. Maintaining a Wine port must be a nightmare by comparison.
At least it shows signs of going to 1.0 Something that all software should do at least once in it's life. That still leaves the Hurd as the code base determined to NEVER be "finished". Of course they have a different problem. Linux delivers to the user what Hurd intended but with a different technology. V6, V8 ? Who cares, I want Miles Per Galon and cruising speed.
yes
What I find real silly were all the strange stores with magic, witchcraft and aliens to explain how the pyramids were built. After all it would take around 50 years to make one of these with modern equipment like Tractors and cutting lasers. How cold those primitive Egyptians do it?
:)
Only latter (1988 or so) when someone finally translated the inscriptions on the walls of one of the larger pyramids did it become clear. You see that story had been written by a prince who gave up his shot at becoming Pharaoh in order to be a scribe and an apprentice to the master architect.
It seams they did it with lots of ingenuity and by share force of numbers. As many as 150,000 on the project at some points. The sand of the desert was used the way we would use Hydraulics now. In short this was pure genius and not even a little odd.
So what of those fairytales? Some of them resurface every now and then. As for this alignment to the stars, Well the way I figure it; If you can pile a thousand rocks of 10 tons or more into a perfect pyramid that holds without cement figuring out which direction is north seams simple
Where I work they specificaly ask you to signe a contract relinquishing rights to all code writen on the job. "My lawyer friend" (TM) says this is requierd because by default a work is owned by it's individual creators.
Can they take your work away without this? Also there is the question of "who owns a thesis". Those have been around for centuries. Back in the old days could a student sell his thesis as a book ? If so then the same aplies to any work done for grades.
Work done for cash is a diferent matter altogather and I don't see how a university wold be diferent from a private business. I.e. They have to make you sign this away.
As for the matter of GPL. This isn't actualy relevant. He who owns the code chooses the license. If you can GPL it you can also BSD it or attach an BSA stile EULA.
Don't get too cocky now. Remember that Microsoft's isn't the 1st "flagship" site to be cracked. In fact. I think Sun Microsystems and posibly IBM are the only ones that havn't.
Slashdot, was owned. Apache was defaced, Credit cards were stolen from some Ecomers places.
Just be thankfull the source code for Windows didn't leak out. It wold be so horible if it fragmented into varius incompatible versions.
Huh... What's that ? It's hapening already ?
well at least we don't have to sufer throgh the pain of reading that code.
This is simply a difference in how one defines "platform".
The fact is that Linux was not contemplated as a base for running these applications when they were written. True. Wine doesn't emulate the X86 hardware. It dose however Emulate the Windows software. This is emulation just as Windows NT uses Emulation to run Dos and 16 bit Windows applications.
Wine isn't an emulator it's a porting tool but guess what?
It also allows Application binaries to run on a platform other than the one forwhich they were written and compiled. This despite PR to the contrary is emulation.
So Wine is an emulator despite the defensive expansion of it's recursive acronym.
How about just using software that starts with a 'K' ?
Konqurer works fine as a Web browser. KMail had problems in the CVS snapshot I use now but I havn't herd any complaints about the final releas.
Kword and Kspread are just fine for everything but editing MSOffice propriatery documents. It can do it, but porely. Now that we have StarOffice source code even that problem should vanish in time.
So yeah. You can stick to Free Software and get your work done in comfort. Just so long as you get it from ftp://
True. But I contend less of a problem than materials to handle earth orbit. Keaping the atmosfare out is easy and has been done. Something that won't harden is a little togher but such plastics probebly exist already.
BTW: At those tempretures you nead to generate heet inside the suite. Not just insulate it.
One question thogh. How did a moon 1/2 the size of earth get 1/7 the gravity ?
Is it made of something less denzse than Silicone and Iron ?
Lower gravity and denser atmosphere means that you could not only survive on Titan with a much simpler space suite than you need for work on the moon but you can also fly with simple wings sprouting from your arms.
No. I am serious about both points. Since the atmosphere is denser than earth but less dens than say water, you don't need a pressure suite just something completely sealed that wont tear easily and keeps the Methane off your skin. More importantly it only has to deal with cold temperatures not the -200 to +200 degree fluctuations in earth orbit.
About the wings. The reason we were never able to fly with arm mounted wings is that #1 we are generally not strong enough to build manipulate wings that can support a human and #2 those wings have to be so very large.
However on Titan they need only be 1/7th the size of your tipical glider's wingspan. Posibly less if you consider the denser atmosfare. So just as we can fly throgh water by flaping our bare arms we should be able to fly on titan with tiny wings just barley longer than our arms and as little as 2 feet thick. I.e. The sort of thing that can be built into a plastic suite that's all soft on the outside to prevent sparks from igniting that methane.
Better yet wings of that size could be made retractable and the smaller suite means you could store a larger air supply. A rebrether ( filters out your own CO2 ) would do wonders too.
R. Kelly would be proud.
I read your post on Slashdot and I followed much of the original discussions via KT ( Only kernel developers need read the 1000+ messages a week on LKML ).
I can't comment about clean code because I don't speak Assembly or C but I can make a guess about Enterprise scalability.
What are the alternatives to having the official Kernel scale up to 64 CPUs that would pleas the people who need 64 CPUs ?
You thought only of a fork in the Kernel. However the other way is to have entirely different Kernels running on those systems.
According to IBM marketing; AIX 5L will do just that. Essentially a system that will compile software written for Linux consistently and will also run Linux binaries built for the same CPU.
In other words IBM will be able to sell you a Linux system and seamlessly switch to an AIX system when your needs outgrow Linux.
Thus leaving the main Linux development free to concentrate on the vastly more important ( I'll define important latter ) Small server, Desktop and embedded areas.
I define important in terms of the number of users. Most people work in small organizations. the kind that a single Linux system running the 2.0 Kernel can adequately serve. Anyone can use an embedded device and most people, both in small and large enterprises and at home or school use desktops of some kind. Well, I mean could use since much of the world doesn't even have electricity.
By contrast only those with truly vast jobs to accomplish can use enterprise systems. When the Hardware costs $2,000,000 and the application software costs more it doesn't matter whether or not you pay for the OS. That leaves access to the source code as the main advantage of a Linux Kernel on Enterprise systems over other larger OSs.
But wait. If you are a huge enterprise and are pushing the limits of your enterprise OS you can do two things the rest of us can't. #1. You can tell the vendor when to fix bugs and #2. You can often obtain access to the source code.
In other words the Free ( Gratis and Libra ) nature of Linux is a huge advantage on small systems but irrelevant on large systems. Except as a matter of principle. Despite RMS' efforts the principle of Free Software for it's own sake hasn't taken root yet. Especially not among IT managers.
So yes. I have no response for any of the other concerns but if Enterprise scaling adds even slightly to the problems on the low end then the choice has to be against that. After all there are easy ways out. IBM seams to be the 1st enterprise vendor to have figured out that escape route.
If FreeBSD, OpenBSD or even Hurd can be coerced into running on enterprise systems and made to seamlessly support Linux software you will have all you ask for in spades.
http://www.kde.org/food/linux_is_ obs olete.html
It gives a good outline of the status of Open Source and small *nix comunity in the early 90s. It also shows Linus didn't become a bastard overnight :)
Surely you herd how IBM Apple and Microsoft were about to merge ?
:)
Apparently the feds are going to block this move not because of antirust isues but becauase the resulting desktop system wold inherit the dominace of Windows but incorporate the faliurs of OS/2 and MacOS with the varius Windows problems.
The other problem is that the AOL/WB deal wold see Neo making "me too" posts and Trinity asking "How dose RTFM work ?"
to say nothing of the horor Bugs Bunney wold become