I've got quite a few items encoded in DivX. This CODEC is just SWEET. The audio ends up coming out very nice, and the video quality beats the hell out of ASF (which I thought looked pretty good for the filesize). I just configure the codec to eat up a whole CD, and the resultant video comes out looking great.
The movie industry recently said that bandwidth and stuff just isn't available to pirate movies yet.....say hello to DivX. Note that I am not supporting movie pirating; it's just that the industry simply cannot ignore the issue any longer.
If you want a database that comes close to SQLServer or Oracle, and is free, use Postgres. MySQL just needs to realize that speed isn't all that great. It will just become a mess of data all that much quicker without some very important consistency features.
I find it funny that the same argument is made by Java zealots when they try and convert people to using Java from the trusty C++ systems they currently have implemented.
Speed IS important. Not for some applications, I agree. But for a web site werving millions of customers a month? Speed is key.
We seem to be in a positive feedback loop. Linux and *BSD prosper because GTK+ and Qt are feeding in new applications, and new applications are being created because Linux and *BSD are prospering. I think I have seen an acceleration even in the short time that I have been watching.
You hit the nail on the head. That is PRECISELY why Open Source works. I do some cool shit, you like it, you make cool shit from it, meanwhile I look at your cool shit, and boom! In no time, lots of cool shit abounds.
I remember first trying KDE 1.0 waaaaay back a little over a year ago when Linux 2.2 was just being released (I think I ran 2.2.2 at the time). I had come from a long heritage of FVWM95 and all the old, ugly, hard to use apps from the ancient Motif/Xt/etc.. days. Things were bleak...then I tried KDE. My use of GNOME soon followed, and now I make heavy use of both environments.
Look where we are today, ~15 months later. 2 completely usable desktop environments, with a wealth of nice looking apps that do what I want them to. Konqueror is just on the horizon, along with KOffice and Evolution for GNOME (along with that filemanager thing that somehow managed to get loads of press.)
Where has Motif been in the last 15 months? Where has Motif been in the last 3 years? Sitting behind a committee trying to make money from licensing fees.
Face it....Motif IS dead. In another year Qt and/or GTK+ will be the standards for UNIX desktop development.
Motif vs GTK+/Qt is a case-study in why open source development kicking proprietary software's ass if I ever saw one.
When reading the product documentation for the PJB several months ago, it seemed to indicate that I needed to rip my CDs directly to the PJB in order to play them. That would be a big problem for me, as I have already digitized my 200+ cd collection.
Now that there is Linux source out there so we can make our own tools, is it possible for one to simply upload MP3s to the PJB, without ripping them directly to the unit?
That was the only thing that stopped me from purchasing one before....re-ripping hundreds of CDs is just no fun.
I visited the web site and noted that the developer removed the SDK, and posted that his reasons are "clsoed source." What's the deal with that? Did he remove the SDK because Sony got pissed, because he decided he wanted to sell it? Because he just got tired of supporting it?
I think that free software authors have a certain responsiblity to the community of users they create. It's simply not fair to your users to post a bunch of files and later remove them from distribution, without an explanation.
I wonder how this thing can be useful, if there's no SDK. Are we supposed to write all the games in assembler?
I picked up the Oreilly book just after it came out last summer. It disappointed me. While I really enjoyed the "intro-to-databases" chapters in the ORA book, I thought that it was much more of a "here's how to program databases; by the way we are gonna talk about MySQL some." The coverage of database programming in many different languages was a defintie plus, though some chapters, notably rhe Java chapter, were really sparse (even if you don't count the missing Guestbook example!)
The problem with the ORA book was that it didn't get into MySQL enough. It certainly got me to a point where I could start doing good database programming, but it didn't accelerate me to being really good with MySQL.
The NewRiders book does just that. I picked it up last week and I just love it. It has a weak introduction to database design; if you don't know how to design a database, you'll want to pick up something else first. However, if you are already familiar with designing databases, this book simply shines.
The first section is simply marvelous. It does a good bit of hand holding, getting you used to using MySQL and its utilities. Chapter 3 is really good; it goes into detail about some of the MySQL language extensions, and how and why you use them. Chapter 4 is a plus also; while MySQL is already fast, optimization of your queries is important for any database application.
The second section is quite good also, giving an indepth review of how to program the engine with 3 popular languages. DuBois' treatment of C is refreshing; too often the old-standby language is ignored, with all the hype of the RAD/Web languages. However, the omission of Java and Python (as other/.ers have noted) is disappointing.
The third section is astonishing. FINALLY someone explained how to use the goofy user management scheme in MySQL! I also really enjoyed the mention of database administration, including the hows and whys of isamchk. DuBois points out a lot of subtle gotchas or hangups; a real plus to someone who has never administered anything like a RDMBS before.
All in all, this is a great book to buy. It gets you to understand just about everything there is to know about MySQL. The ORA book is good if you need reference for more languages and want a simple introduction to database design, but the NewRiders book can't be beat for breadth of topics and accuracy. Having Monty as the technical reviewer surely helped!
If you are currently programming MySQL, or are thinking about it, you will want this book. I know I'm glad I purchased it.
I wasn't aware of this atrocity! If I had a few days/hours/weeks I would surely implement this feature. It is VITAL for organizations transitioning to Win2k to support the notions of User Home directories and user registry entries. Then again, this is also something that the original Netscape sucked on too.
Maybe some industrious hacker will fix this soon...
This sort of whining is unproductive. emmett's rant about feeling like a bitter boyfriend is so appropriate it's ironic. What good does all that name calling, harsh words, and pining do anyone? Folks it's time we got on the ball and get the hardware manufacturers to care about more than Windows.
How? Demonstrate the benefits of open source to them. Make them understand how adopting open development practices can accelerate their development process, and help them to end up with a higher quality product. Help them out by giving them assitance when they have trouble integrating their module into the latest kernels, and don't know how to debug a kernel panic.
Complaining that someone switched away from Linux doesn't do any good. Neither does resigning ourselves to believe, as one/.er put it, "that Windows it better than Linux as some things." Instead we need to concentrate on improving problem areas. The softnet patches as a response to the poor Mindcrafy benchmarks are an exellent example. Let's learn a lesson here and get on the ball. The whining stops here.
You are quite right about increasing support costs, which is why I think that open sourcing components is a wonderful idea.
Perhaps I should clarify my position re: expect them to port it.
I meant that it is reasonable for users to expect Apple to port, as opposed to Open Source it. As you noted, development and support costs are likely prohbitive. It's not the evil Apple empire wanting to suppress Linux as some/.ers want to believe. It's simply a financial reality.
I don't expect to see QT for Unix in the next 6 months. I do expect it to appear eventually. That was the gist of what I was saying: it's unreasonable to expect that when a company does port something, they should open source it in the process.
I think there is a bit of confusion here. Asking Apple to port QuickTime to UNIX is **NOT** the same as asking them to Open Source it.
Let's get real. Expecting Apple to Open Source QuickTime is pretty far fetched. WHY Would a company want to OpenSource such a lucrative revenue stream (particularly, one that lets them make money from Windows users; ie, ones that already tied into the Apple platform.)
It IS reasonable to expect them to PORT it to UNIX. It's simply more money for them to make by increasing their market share.
The fact is, Porting to UNIX != Open Sourcing. You can port something to UNIX without opening the source. See Q3A and the other Loki Games efforts if you don't believe me.
Note that this does not take into account the ideological reasons for opening the source to QuickTime. I'm sure there are some benefits to be had by doing so (some have noted the poor interface for the player could be improved.) I'm jsut speaking to the practical considerations, as well as to the mistaken concept that Porting = Open Sourcing.
In short, expect them to Port QuickTime, not Open Source it. That sort of confusion has to stop.
I certainly hope you are not trolling, as this is something that comes up time and time again.
It's really not enough just to upload the code to a public site and release it under one of the free (as in speech) licenses to call yourself "Open Source." While technically your source is open, there is much much more to that than just having publically accesible/modifiable code.
At the heart of the Open Source concept is the notion that software developers should "release early and release often." Note that this is entirely contrary to what you have suggested. It's ok. You're still learning.
The reason you release early is to catch major problems early, when they are minor ones. That way they don't develop into huge problems later which require an entire redesign. Note that Open Source isn't an instant cure for design problems; rather, by its very nature, more eyes see the code, more brains work on the concepts, and thus better solutions tend to arise.
The reason you release often is to keep things moving. Hoarding the code leads to a slow development process wrought with bugs. Releasing often encourages people to try the software and submit feedback, since they know that a new release which will address their concerns/bugs/RFEs is just around the corner. Without the release often, you are losing much of the benefit of open source.
You would do well to read ESR's The Cathedral and the Bazaar. It does an excellent job of documenting a particular example where the Open Source development process resulted in a high-quality application. Along the way it explains much of what I have hinted at, with documented evidence as proof.
Does this patch support big files (ie, greater than 2GB?) This is something that is going to be a roadblock for big business to use Linux.
On a side note, checked out the RedHat products page lately? They list RH6.2 EE Optimized for Oracle8i. All well and good, until you see they added 64 bit filesystem code for big files, raw disk IO for Oracle to write to, and Vectorerd IO to improve performance.
Is this stuff contributed back to the main kernel?
1) Why doesn't someone big sue the DVD CCA for restraint of trade with the whole region encoding scheme? Money. Don't you guys see....it's much cheapr to buy into the system and try to make it work for you than to try and fight it. Sure, the rewards are potentially greater, but the risks are much bigger.
2) Why is Sony doing this recall now? I'll bet its a contract issue with the DVD CCA. You can bet that when they sign the NDA and technology license agreement, there are clauses about not infringing upon the whole scheme. Here again it's much much cheaper to go along with the crowd than to do what's right.
3) Why 7-11? Well, why did the US Mint release the new Golden Dollars in Wal-Mart first, before the banks? It's simple: convenience of location and power of distribution. There are pantloads of WalMarts here, and they are pretty close to where people live (in addition to being pretty popular places, especially for Southern teenagers on Friday nights.) I'm sure 7-11 has a similar stature in Japan: lots of stores close to where people live, and people are in the habit of going there anyways. Besides, id Software had Quake 1 shareware CDs sold in 7-11 in the US. It's not THAT strange.
4) When will the DVDCCA/MPAA/whomever get a clue? Never, as long as nobody is willing to fight. What we really need is a company with the money and the balls to fight this thing out. Afterall, assuming there do exist clauses in the DVD Forum contracts making you comply with region encoding, you can't be bound by them if they are illegal. Perhaps there is a company out there willing to sell such a value added product (Apex?) and also willing to legitimize the whole thing.
5) Are journalists responsible for creating problems like this? That's an interesting question that we don't seem to have an answer for. 5 years ago, I'd think not. There didn't exist news networks to get infortmation out to large numbers of people rapidly enough to make a difference. Now there is the Internet, with the potential to move millions of people to action in a matter of minutes. Don't believe me? Think/. effect. That is a very real, documented case of the internet's power to disseminate. I can't think of a single news station/newspaper/magazine that can claim that. They may have a larger/broader base of viewers/listeners/readers (for now), but we all know that is changing. Ultimately time will tell if journalists can really be held responsible for things like this. After all, it is their job to "get the scoop". The net just makes the scoop a matter of seconds rather than hours.
This is a bit of a rant addressed to the small (but vocal) sect of Linux users that whine and scream and cry whenever a company announces a product that is not free (in all senses of the word.)
In two words: GROW UP.
Companies exist for a number of purposes; chief among them are to offer products and services to customers willing to purchase them. To do this requires that talented people be employed to develop and maintain those products and services. How can the company stick around, to continue to provide those products, as well as offer new ones? Sticking around requires a keen sense of the market, to continue to innovate and lead the pack in ways your competition isn't doing. And sticking around also requires that you continue to make money so you can pay those talented developers.
This is exactly what Borland is doing; they are among the few (but growing number) of companies that have the foresight to know that Linux is going to be a huge market, and soon. They are simply providing a product that many developers (myself included) are clamoring for: RAD tools.
Borland's RAD tools are among the easiest to use and most productive I have had experience with. Delphi and BCB give you all the benefits of a powerful language, without all the hassle and trouble of a "traditional" solution laden with mindless, cumbersome details.
It's really quite simple, folks. If you like the idea of developing a fully-functional, complete product in a couple weeks, without having to care about all the silly details that make your life miserable, then you'll love Borland's RAD tools. Afterall, isn't that why we all love Perl? It makes easy things easy, and hard things possible. However, if you'd rather spend all your time under the hood and get to know the application intimately, you're probably already quite comfortable with your current options.
What gets me is that amount of bickering and ugly fighting that rears its head every time a company offers a new product for the Linux market that isn't free. Why try and discourage companies from offering products that many of us would like, just because it doesn't satisfy your personal (albeit warped) agenda? Why not vote with your dollars, and simply not purchase the product that you don't want, rather that making a big scene every time it happens?
It's time many of the kiddies in this community grew up and got a clue. Linux IS all about choice, and you too have the freedom of choice to develop without whatever you'd like. There are many of us who want and/or need the benefits a RAD tool can provide. Why rain on everyone's parade?
This whole article just reeks of "give me choice!!!" Oh please. I think it's time we wake up and face the facts: too much choice is a bad thing.
Consumers don't like having to make choices between 5 products that are nearly the same; how do you pick your paper towels, for example? I just get the cheapest one, since they all do the same thing: clean up spilled Surge.
Computers just make the issue worse, since people have very little understanding of what is happening inside. It's easy to understand paper towels; but is it easy to understand web browsers and file managers and desktops?
Additionally, consider how the Web market has fractured with the advent of many different browsers. You have to make your page compliant with NS, IE, Opera, and Lynx (and soon Mozilla.) Why? Because there is choice, and too much of it.
True, standards exist to ensure that products work alike in some ways. But if you are going to dictate the standard, why bother having different products at all? That just amounts to having several people reimplement the same functionality over and over.
The solution is to standardize, but the Unix crowd will never listen to that. They're used to being fractured, and are now deluded into believing it's a healthy, productive thing. Try telling any software engineer it's healthy and productive for him to reimplement other people's code rather than reusing it. It just isn't so.
...but it's going to take a lot of work. We need apps that my mom can use, and lots of them. Financial apps, word processing and spreadsheet apps, and a good web browser (Unix Netscape just sucks today). Some of the pieces are already being worked on, and a few already exist. You might say StarOffice is good enough for mom to use, despite the fact that it doesn't always import MS formats properly. The financial apps are pretty poor right now. All the Free ones listed on freshmeat are so feature-poor, it's hard to use them for anything but the simplest checkbook balancing. When/If Intuit ports Quicken to Linux, things will be different. As for the web browser, this is probably the "killer app" for most people. Ask anyone what program they use most every day, and they will probably answer NS/IE. The problem is that web browsing on Linux sucks. Unix Netscape on the whole is just crap. Its more unstable than Win32 Netscape, and X just makes the fonts look like shit. The text is unreadable and ugly. Furthermore, plugin and Java support in NS on Linux is abysmal. This is a serious problem. Mozilla looks to change all that, by providing a high quality, standard web browser implementation cross-platform. That would be quite a feat! Unfortunately, that's also quite a ways off. In sum, I think efforts like these are nice, but I really believe that it's a little early to be making things mom can use. In many ways, right now we don't even have stuff WE can use.
as much as I like supporting Open Source, I like supporting "not" Open Sourcing my Wallet. If I am going to pay $500+ less for a machine from Dell (which is going to have the same shit as VA), then I am going to go w/the cheaper buy. In most cases, a computer is a computer no matter who is selling it. If LinuxCare certified it, I can trust them enough to say it is ok enough to use.
I agree; upon re-reading the comment you responded to, I realized I was not quite clear in what I was saying.
According to the interview, VA has focused on the market for an extremely reliable, "hard-core" type of machine. You can get away with this in the desktop market, whereas you cannot in the laptop market.
For example, assume the cost to evaluate and certify your configuration is the same for a desktop or a laptop. The difference then, must come from the parts themselves. Better quality and more reliable desktop parts carry a permium, but that premium is likely quite a bit less than that carried by laptop parts. It costs more to build smaller parts anyways (that's why typical laptop configuartions can cost almost twice as much as their desktop counterparts.) Add in the fact that you want a better quality part, and the premium has jumped quite a bit. Now you've priced yourself right out of the market.
And theres the problem; VA can't compete in the Linux market since they want to focus on the "hard-core" sort of PC. Nobody wants to pay $5000 for a laptop, even if it has 32-day uptimes:)
now if we could only get VA to drop their prices to compete w/Dell:)
Interestingly enough, it seems as if VA doesn't WANT to compete head on with Dell, as evidenced by the interview with Larry Augustin (their CEO). They are apparently going for the tested, battle hardened market with all their products (which do not include laptops at this time, for perhaps this very reason - it's too hard to see an expensive laptop to someone in volume, no matter how good it is.)
Maybe once they get their revenue up post-IPO they will reconsider the laptop market. I know I would feel more confident in purchasing a laptop from a company like VA who has a vested interest in Open Source, and Linux inparticular, than I would buying from Dell.
A few/.ers have complained that the price is the same for Win9X installed. I think this makes a lot of sense, particularly if the computer is certified by Linuxcare.
As anyone who has dealt with Linux on laptops already knows well, hardware support isn't quite as easy as on a desktop machine. You're stuck with the hardware you have, unlike a desktop where you can always swap it out for something compatible. And unless another Linux user has the same hardware (or in some cases) the same exact model, you can be SOL.
Having a machine certified can't be cheap; with Windows you sort of get that by default when your license the OS. Microsoft has already taken the opportunity to certify hardware for use with Windows (think certified drivers). That, combined with the fact that Dell will be using a commercial distribution, would easily account for the cost of the OS for a Linux laptop.
Kudos to tell for taking steps; now if only we could get VA to bring back their models.
This type of market domination killed the browser market, as it raised the barrier to entry so high that competition was impossible. Now MS is threatening domination of the streaming market as well. With the recent explosion of broadband access, streaming media is going to become increasingly pervasive. Allowing any one company to dominate the field would be a disaster.
I can't help but wonder what would happen to MS Media Technologies if the whole division split off and became their own corporate entity. Instinct tells me that it would be in the best interests of this new corporation to offer media products and technologies across all platforms. There might be some bias to remain tied to Windows (after all, the programmers in the group probably know Windows best, and like developing for it.) However, their market share could only grow by moving on to more diverse platforms; thus, I believe that eventually we would see compatible products on all platforms. This would in turn create pressure for Apple to embrace a truly cross-platform solution, further improving the quality of product available to the consumer.
It seems as if the only barrier to this happening is the fact that the media group is still a part of Microsoft. If the group were separated, the technology would be free to grow, as the incentive/limitation to work only on Windows would be lessened, if not altogether removed.
Slashdot Mirror
I've got quite a few items encoded in DivX. This CODEC is just SWEET. The audio ends up coming out very nice, and the video quality beats the hell out of ASF (which I thought looked pretty good for the filesize). I just configure the codec to eat up a whole CD, and the resultant video comes out looking great.
The movie industry recently said that bandwidth and stuff just isn't available to pirate movies yet.....say hello to DivX. Note that I am not supporting movie pirating; it's just that the industry simply cannot ignore the issue any longer.
If you want a database that comes close to SQLServer or Oracle, and is free, use Postgres. MySQL just needs to realize that speed isn't all
that great. It will just become a mess of data all that much quicker without some very important consistency features.
I find it funny that the same argument is made by Java zealots when they try and convert people to using Java from the trusty C++ systems they currently have implemented.
Speed IS important. Not for some applications, I agree. But for a web site werving millions of customers a month? Speed is key.
Even more clueless users can be found on Borland's Kylix newsgroups. It's quite amusing to read the baffled Windows coders asking questions like:
:)
"What do you mean Kylix won't support DDE!? How else can we make apps communicate?!" and "I've never seen a Linux DLL, what about you?"
I got a good laugh on an otherwise depressing day after reading that stuff
We seem to be in a positive feedback loop. Linux and *BSD prosper because GTK+ and Qt are feeding in new applications, and new applications are being created because Linux and *BSD are prospering. I think I have seen an acceleration even in the short time that I have been watching.
You hit the nail on the head. That is PRECISELY why Open Source works. I do some cool shit, you like it, you make cool shit from it, meanwhile I look at your cool shit, and boom! In no time, lots of cool shit abounds.
I remember first trying KDE 1.0 waaaaay back a little over a year ago when Linux 2.2 was just being released (I think I ran 2.2.2 at the time). I had come from a long heritage of FVWM95 and all the old, ugly, hard to use apps from the ancient Motif/Xt/etc.. days. Things were bleak...then I tried KDE. My use of GNOME soon followed, and now I make heavy use of both environments.
Look where we are today, ~15 months later. 2 completely usable desktop environments, with a wealth of nice looking apps that do what I want them to. Konqueror is just on the horizon, along with KOffice and Evolution for GNOME (along with that filemanager thing that somehow managed to get loads of press.)
Where has Motif been in the last 15 months? Where has Motif been in the last 3 years? Sitting behind a committee trying to make money from licensing fees.
Face it....Motif IS dead. In another year Qt and/or GTK+ will be the standards for UNIX desktop development.
Motif vs GTK+/Qt is a case-study in why open source development kicking proprietary software's ass if I ever saw one.
When reading the product documentation for the PJB several months ago, it seemed to indicate that I needed to rip my CDs directly to the PJB in order to play them. That would be a big problem for me, as I have already digitized my 200+ cd collection.
Now that there is Linux source out there so we can make our own tools, is it possible for one to simply upload MP3s to the PJB, without ripping them directly to the unit?
That was the only thing that stopped me from purchasing one before....re-ripping hundreds of CDs is just no fun.
Anyone know?
I visited the web site and noted that the developer removed the SDK, and posted that his reasons are "clsoed source." What's the deal with that? Did he remove the SDK because Sony got pissed, because he decided he wanted to sell it? Because he just got tired of supporting it?
I think that free software authors have a certain responsiblity to the community of users they create. It's simply not fair to your users to post a bunch of files and later remove them from distribution, without an explanation.
I wonder how this thing can be useful, if there's no SDK. Are we supposed to write all the games in assembler?
I picked up the Oreilly book just after it came out last summer. It disappointed me. While I really enjoyed the "intro-to-databases" chapters in the ORA book, I thought that it was much more of a "here's how to program databases; by the way we are gonna talk about MySQL some." The coverage of database programming in many different languages was a defintie plus, though some chapters, notably rhe Java chapter, were really sparse (even if you don't count the missing Guestbook example!)
/.ers have noted) is disappointing.
The problem with the ORA book was that it didn't get into MySQL enough. It certainly got me to a point where I could start doing good database programming, but it didn't accelerate me to being really good with MySQL.
The NewRiders book does just that. I picked it up last week and I just love it. It has a weak introduction to database design; if you don't know how to design a database, you'll want to pick up something else first. However, if you are already familiar with designing databases, this book simply shines.
The first section is simply marvelous. It does a good bit of hand holding, getting you used to using MySQL and its utilities. Chapter 3 is really good; it goes into detail about some of the MySQL language extensions, and how and why you use them. Chapter 4 is a plus also; while MySQL is already fast, optimization of your queries is important for any database application.
The second section is quite good also, giving an indepth review of how to program the engine with 3 popular languages. DuBois' treatment of C is refreshing; too often the old-standby language is ignored, with all the hype of the RAD/Web languages. However, the omission of Java and Python (as other
The third section is astonishing. FINALLY someone explained how to use the goofy user management scheme in MySQL! I also really enjoyed the mention of database administration, including the hows and whys of isamchk. DuBois points out a lot of subtle gotchas or hangups; a real plus to someone who has never administered anything like a RDMBS before.
All in all, this is a great book to buy. It gets you to understand just about everything there is to know about MySQL. The ORA book is good if you need reference for more languages and want a simple introduction to database design, but the NewRiders book can't be beat for breadth of topics and accuracy. Having Monty as the technical reviewer surely helped!
If you are currently programming MySQL, or are thinking about it, you will want this book. I know I'm glad I purchased it.
I can't find it in my prefs.js
Whats the line I should add to enable middle button clicking to open new windows?
I wasn't aware of this atrocity! If I had a few days/hours/weeks I would surely implement this feature. It is VITAL for organizations transitioning to Win2k to support the notions of User Home directories and user registry entries. Then again, this is also something that the original Netscape sucked on too.
Maybe some industrious hacker will fix this soon...
Why doesn't middle button to open a new line work in Win32???
I don't get it. That great feature exists on Unix Netscape but not on any of the Win32 Netscapes. Why can't someone add it!!
You stole our idea
As obvious as it was
Lawyers cry Lawsuit!
This sort of whining is unproductive. emmett's rant about feeling like a bitter boyfriend is so appropriate it's ironic. What good does all that name calling, harsh words, and pining do anyone? Folks it's time we got on the ball and get the hardware manufacturers to care about more than Windows.
/.er put it, "that Windows it better than Linux as some things." Instead we need to concentrate on improving problem areas. The softnet patches as a response to the poor Mindcrafy benchmarks are an exellent example. Let's learn a lesson here and get on the ball. The whining stops here.
How? Demonstrate the benefits of open source to them. Make them understand how adopting open development practices can accelerate their development process, and help them to end up with a higher quality product. Help them out by giving them assitance when they have trouble integrating their module into the latest kernels, and don't know how to debug a kernel panic.
Complaining that someone switched away from Linux doesn't do any good. Neither does resigning ourselves to believe, as one
You are quite right about increasing support costs, which is why I think that open sourcing components is a wonderful idea.
/.ers want to believe. It's simply a financial reality.
Perhaps I should clarify my position re: expect them to port it.
I meant that it is reasonable for users to expect Apple to port, as opposed to Open Source it. As you noted, development and support costs are likely prohbitive. It's not the evil Apple empire wanting to suppress Linux as some
I don't expect to see QT for Unix in the next 6 months. I do expect it to appear eventually. That was the gist of what I was saying: it's unreasonable to expect that when a company does port something, they should open source it in the process.
I think there is a bit of confusion here. Asking Apple to port QuickTime to UNIX is **NOT** the same as asking them to Open Source it.
Let's get real. Expecting Apple to Open Source QuickTime is pretty far fetched. WHY Would a company want to OpenSource such a lucrative revenue stream (particularly, one that lets them make money from Windows users; ie, ones that already tied into the Apple platform.)
It IS reasonable to expect them to PORT it to UNIX. It's simply more money for them to make by increasing their market share.
The fact is, Porting to UNIX != Open Sourcing. You can port something to UNIX without opening the source. See Q3A and the other Loki Games efforts if you don't believe me.
Note that this does not take into account the ideological reasons for opening the source to QuickTime. I'm sure there are some benefits to be had by doing so (some have noted the poor interface for the player could be improved.) I'm jsut speaking to the practical considerations, as well as to the mistaken concept that Porting = Open Sourcing.
In short, expect them to Port QuickTime, not Open Source it. That sort of confusion has to stop.
I certainly hope you are not trolling, as this is something that comes up time and time again.
It's really not enough just to upload the code to a public site and release it under one of the free (as in speech) licenses to call yourself "Open Source." While technically your source is open, there is much much more to that than just having publically accesible/modifiable code.
At the heart of the Open Source concept is the notion that software developers should "release early and release often." Note that this is entirely contrary to what you have suggested. It's ok. You're still learning.
The reason you release early is to catch major problems early, when they are minor ones. That way they don't develop into huge problems later which require an entire redesign. Note that Open Source isn't an instant cure for design problems; rather, by its very nature, more eyes see the code, more brains work on the concepts, and thus better solutions tend to arise.
The reason you release often is to keep things moving. Hoarding the code leads to a slow development process wrought with bugs. Releasing often encourages people to try the software and submit feedback, since they know that a new release which will address their concerns/bugs/RFEs is just around the corner. Without the release often, you are losing much of the benefit of open source.
You would do well to read ESR's The Cathedral and the Bazaar. It does an excellent job of documenting a particular example where the Open Source development process resulted in a high-quality application. Along the way it explains much of what I have hinted at, with documented evidence as proof.
May the source be with you.
Does this patch support big files (ie, greater than 2GB?) This is something that is going to be a roadblock for big business to use Linux.
On a side note, checked out the RedHat products page lately? They list RH6.2 EE Optimized for Oracle8i. All well and good, until you see they added 64 bit filesystem code for big files, raw disk IO for Oracle to write to, and Vectorerd IO to improve performance.
Is this stuff contributed back to the main kernel?
1) Why doesn't someone big sue the DVD CCA for restraint of trade with the whole region encoding scheme? Money. Don't you guys see....it's much cheapr to buy into the system and try to make it work for you than to try and fight it. Sure, the rewards are potentially greater, but the risks are much bigger.
/. effect. That is a very real, documented case of the internet's power to disseminate. I can't think of a single news station/newspaper/magazine that can claim that. They may have a larger/broader base of viewers/listeners/readers (for now), but we all know that is changing. Ultimately time will tell if journalists can really be held responsible for things like this. After all, it is their job to "get the scoop". The net just makes the scoop a matter of seconds rather than hours.
2) Why is Sony doing this recall now? I'll bet its a contract issue with the DVD CCA. You can bet that when they sign the NDA and technology license agreement, there are clauses about not infringing upon the whole scheme. Here again it's much much cheaper to go along with the crowd than to do what's right.
3) Why 7-11? Well, why did the US Mint release the new Golden Dollars in Wal-Mart first, before the banks? It's simple: convenience of location and power of distribution. There are pantloads of WalMarts here, and they are pretty close to where people live (in addition to being pretty popular places, especially for Southern teenagers on Friday nights.) I'm sure 7-11 has a similar stature in Japan: lots of stores close to where people live, and people are in the habit of going there anyways. Besides, id Software had Quake 1 shareware CDs sold in 7-11 in the US. It's not THAT strange.
4) When will the DVDCCA/MPAA/whomever get a clue? Never, as long as nobody is willing to fight. What we really need is a company with the money and the balls to fight this thing out. Afterall, assuming there do exist clauses in the DVD Forum contracts making you comply with region encoding, you can't be bound by them if they are illegal. Perhaps there is a company out there willing to sell such a value added product (Apex?) and also willing to legitimize the whole thing.
5) Are journalists responsible for creating problems like this? That's an interesting question that we don't seem to have an answer for. 5 years ago, I'd think not. There didn't exist news networks to get infortmation out to large numbers of people rapidly enough to make a difference. Now there is the Internet, with the potential to move millions of people to action in a matter of minutes. Don't believe me? Think
This is a bit of a rant addressed to the small (but vocal) sect of Linux users that whine and scream and cry whenever a company announces a product that is not free (in all senses of the word.)
In two words: GROW UP.
Companies exist for a number of purposes; chief among them are to offer products and services to customers willing to purchase them. To do this requires that talented people be employed to develop and maintain those products and services. How can the company stick around, to continue to provide those products, as well as offer new ones? Sticking around requires a keen sense of the market, to continue to innovate and lead the pack in ways your competition isn't doing. And sticking around also requires that you continue to make money so you can pay those talented developers.
This is exactly what Borland is doing; they are among the few (but growing number) of companies that have the foresight to know that Linux is going to be a huge market, and soon. They are simply providing a product that many developers (myself included) are clamoring for: RAD tools.
Borland's RAD tools are among the easiest to use and most productive I have had experience with. Delphi and BCB give you all the benefits of a powerful language, without all the hassle and trouble of a "traditional" solution laden with mindless, cumbersome details.
It's really quite simple, folks. If you like the idea of developing a fully-functional, complete product in a couple weeks, without having to care about all the silly details that make your life miserable, then you'll love Borland's RAD tools. Afterall, isn't that why we all love Perl? It makes easy things easy, and hard things possible. However, if you'd rather spend all your time under the hood and get to know the application intimately, you're probably already quite comfortable with your current options.
What gets me is that amount of bickering and ugly fighting that rears its head every time a company offers a new product for the Linux market that isn't free. Why try and discourage companies from offering products that many of us would like, just because it doesn't satisfy your personal (albeit warped) agenda? Why not vote with your dollars, and simply not purchase the product that you don't want, rather that making a big scene every time it happens?
It's time many of the kiddies in this community grew up and got a clue. Linux IS all about choice, and you too have the freedom of choice to develop without whatever you'd like. There are many of us who want and/or need the benefits a RAD tool can provide. Why rain on everyone's parade?
This whole article just reeks of "give me choice!!!" Oh please. I think it's time we wake up and face the facts: too much choice is a bad thing.
Consumers don't like having to make choices between 5 products that are nearly the same; how do you pick your paper towels, for example? I just get the cheapest one, since they all do the same thing: clean up spilled Surge.
Computers just make the issue worse, since people have very little understanding of what is happening inside. It's easy to understand paper towels; but is it easy to understand web browsers and file managers and desktops?
Additionally, consider how the Web market has fractured with the advent of many different browsers. You have to make your page compliant with NS, IE, Opera, and Lynx (and soon Mozilla.) Why? Because there is choice, and too much of it.
True, standards exist to ensure that products work alike in some ways. But if you are going to dictate the standard, why bother having different products at all? That just amounts to having several people reimplement the same functionality over and over.
The solution is to standardize, but the Unix crowd will never listen to that. They're used to being fractured, and are now deluded into believing it's a healthy, productive thing. Try telling any software engineer it's healthy and productive for him to reimplement other people's code rather than reusing it. It just isn't so.
That book was an awful, confused mess they make High Schoolers read. High handed and overly abstract, that book was just trash.
Read something worthwhile, like Dilbert or User Friendly, for a more relevant commentary on the need to escape technology.
...but it's going to take a lot of work. We need apps that my mom can use, and lots of them. Financial apps, word processing and spreadsheet apps, and a good web browser (Unix Netscape just sucks today).
Some of the pieces are already being worked on, and a few already exist. You might say StarOffice is good enough for mom to use, despite the fact that it doesn't always import MS formats properly. The financial apps are pretty poor right now. All the Free ones listed on freshmeat are so feature-poor, it's hard to use them for anything but the simplest checkbook balancing. When/If Intuit ports Quicken to Linux, things will be different.
As for the web browser, this is probably the "killer app" for most people. Ask anyone what program they use most every day, and they will probably answer NS/IE. The problem is that web browsing on Linux sucks. Unix Netscape on the whole is just crap. Its more unstable than Win32 Netscape, and X just makes the fonts look like shit. The text is unreadable and ugly. Furthermore, plugin and Java support in NS on Linux is abysmal. This is a serious problem. Mozilla looks to change all that, by providing a high quality, standard web browser implementation cross-platform. That would be quite a feat! Unfortunately, that's also quite a ways off.
In sum, I think efforts like these are nice, but I really believe that it's a little early to be making things mom can use. In many ways, right now we don't even have stuff WE can use.
I agree; upon re-reading the comment you responded to, I realized I was not quite clear in what I was saying.
According to the interview, VA has focused on the market for an extremely reliable, "hard-core" type of machine. You can get away with this in the desktop market, whereas you cannot in the laptop market.
For example, assume the cost to evaluate and certify your configuration is the same for a desktop or a laptop. The difference then, must come from the parts themselves. Better quality and more reliable desktop parts carry a permium, but that premium is likely quite a bit less than that carried by laptop parts. It costs more to build smaller parts anyways (that's why typical laptop configuartions can cost almost twice as much as their desktop counterparts.) Add in the fact that you want a better quality part, and the premium has jumped quite a bit. Now you've priced yourself right out of the market.
And theres the problem; VA can't compete in the Linux market since they want to focus on the "hard-core" sort of PC. Nobody wants to pay $5000 for a laptop, even if it has 32-day uptimes
Interestingly enough, it seems as if VA doesn't WANT to compete head on with Dell, as evidenced by the interview with Larry Augustin (their CEO). They are apparently going for the tested, battle hardened market with all their products (which do not include laptops at this time, for perhaps this very reason - it's too hard to see an expensive laptop to someone in volume, no matter how good it is.)
Maybe once they get their revenue up post-IPO they will reconsider the laptop market. I know I would feel more confident in purchasing a laptop from a company like VA who has a vested interest in Open Source, and Linux inparticular, than I would buying from Dell.
A few /.ers have complained that the price is the same for Win9X installed. I think this makes a lot of sense, particularly if the computer is certified by Linuxcare.
As anyone who has dealt with Linux on laptops already knows well, hardware support isn't quite as easy as on a desktop machine. You're stuck with the hardware you have, unlike a desktop where you can always swap it out for something compatible. And unless another Linux user has the same hardware (or in some cases) the same exact model, you can be SOL.
Having a machine certified can't be cheap; with Windows you sort of get that by default when your license the OS. Microsoft has already taken the opportunity to certify hardware for use with Windows (think certified drivers). That, combined with the fact that Dell will be using a commercial distribution, would easily account for the cost of the OS for a Linux laptop.
Kudos to tell for taking steps; now if only we could get VA to bring back their models.
This type of market domination killed the browser market, as it raised the barrier to entry so high that competition was impossible. Now MS is threatening domination of the streaming market as well. With the recent explosion of broadband access, streaming media is going to become increasingly pervasive. Allowing any one company to dominate the field would be a disaster.
I can't help but wonder what would happen to MS Media Technologies if the whole division split off and became their own corporate entity. Instinct tells me that it would be in the best interests of this new corporation to offer media products and technologies across all platforms. There might be some bias to remain tied to Windows (after all, the programmers in the group probably know Windows best, and like developing for it.) However, their market share could only grow by moving on to more diverse platforms; thus, I believe that eventually we would see compatible products on all platforms. This would in turn create pressure for Apple to embrace a truly cross-platform solution, further improving the quality of product available to the consumer.
It seems as if the only barrier to this happening is the fact that the media group is still a part of Microsoft. If the group were separated, the technology would be free to grow, as the incentive/limitation to work only on Windows would be lessened, if not altogether removed.
THIS is why the DOJ needs to act.