Am I the only one who thinks that not all of the internal battles were represented?
Yeah, we got Perl/Python, and OS/FS covered, but what about the real ones? For instance: vi vs. emacs. Emacs got represented, but vi? No way. They should have gotten Bill Joy or maybe Bram Mooleanaar to sign on. And KDE was snubbed while Miguel de Icaza got to sign? Pah!
Open Source tax breaks has come up at least once before as an Ask Slashdot (which means that it's probably come up more than once...). This one from April 15 is the most recent discussion. Consensus: You might be able to claim it, but be prepared to spend huge amounts in audits.
Just because the code runs on BSD does not mean that it's BSD licensed. As a matter of fact, most *BSD's come with the GNU utilities, and a new BSD has started with the aim of removing all GPL software from their distribution.
Over on the BeNews discussion board for the article, a lot of people are saying that AtheOS has (and presumably will continue to have) poor driver support.
They forget two things, however:
AtheOS is GPL (though Kurt is considering moving it to LGPL).
Linux has the best hardware support of any non-Redmond OS out there.
Combine these two, and it's almost a certainty that AtheOS will get drivers, simply because it's drivers can be based on Linux kernel drivers.
It might be an interesting exercise to port most of the Linux kernel drivers to the AtheOS architecture.
I'm not certain whether more mdern x86 CPUs have added to this, but the 386 (except for the SX) can address up to 4GB. This includes any virtual memory. Reserving 2GB for the kernel simply means that userspace is a maximum of 2GB.
The reason why the 1:1 address space theory (also present in Windows 2000... not sure about other OSen) is that it greatly simplifies figuring out whether a pointer is in kernel space or user space; if it's a 1 (for instnace), it's user, and 0 is kernel.
Also the toll roads (which are, in general, private entities). I remember a while back, when the Mass Pike was laying down some fat fiber down their median strip.
AOL also has a couple of aces in the whole that Netscape lacked.:
AOL has a significant inertia thanks to their subscriber base. It's a pain in the ass for most people to change their email addresses/aim screennames. I've seen this myself: my family just got AOL back home. Why? Partly it was because our local ISP service started to suck, multiple users was a nice free feature, and it would allow them to use AIM. AOL is proprietary enough (AIM, non-migratable screennames, etc.) to make it difficult for its users to move to other services.
This is the key difference. The only thing about Netscape that was proprietary was their add-ons to HTML. But few sites used them and for the most part Netscape's proprietary stuff was just plain stupid (apart from the quickly cloned stuff like tables and frames). Did anybody say,"I'd use Internet Explorer [or Opera, or iCab, etc.] if only it would support <BLINK>"?
Secondly, AOL TW has a bit more cash than Netscape and certainly has more clout. When it comes to lobbyists and spreading the dough around, AOL TW is worlds ahead of Microsoft.
Do not lose sight of this: applications sell systems. A large number of buyers care about one thig: "Can I use AOL on this?" It's sad, but true. All AOL has to do to boost Mac sales is come out with an AOL client for OS X that has a super-killer feature that their Windows client implements poorly or not at all.
I often wonder what would have happened had Lotus and WordPerfect embraced the Macintosh early on. I think that was their ultimate mistake. AOL will not make that mistake.
Note the lack of discussion of licence issues. Clearly using BSD code is accepted practice at Microsoft.
I'm sorry, but this has got to be one of most illogical things I've seen posted in a while.
There are no license issues with using BSD code. That's right, the BSD license has no licensing issues (except to GPL fanatics).
The fact that MS did not reference issues which do not exist does not imply that using BSD code is or is not an accepted practice.
And if you're a linux user (as i am) you have no right to complain about Microsoft, Sun, etc. using BSD code. There is no difference between linux using BSD code and the above examples.
Linux is where it is because Linus et al were free to copy code from BSD. And don't say, "But Linux is open source, so its improvements could be used in BSD." Read the GPL. If any BSD used Linux kernel code, it would have to license itself under the GPL, after which it would not be BSD.
..., in my opinion is this: the tech support people really don't want to be there. The average tech support worker is a geek starting at the lowest rung of the organization. He really wants to be up there coding or designing hardware, but he's stuck dealing with idiots (from his perspective). With that factor in place, it is almost a given that tech support will suck.
That's the operative principle behind most lawsuits. Drive the cost of defense (or prosecution) up so much that they throw in the towel. It's a war of attrition, basically.
The solution, at least in the most frivolous cases, is loser pays. I would imagine that most courts would find against the RIAA at this point. If loser pays, then the RIAA would have to pay the legal expenses of these researchers.
The problem with campaign finance reform is that disproportionately affects challengers for office. Why is this?
An incumbent has one key advantage over the challenger: he has name recognition. He's a known quantity, due to news coverage, and also due to the fact that some of the advertising for this election was already done in the previous election.
A challenger, however, must build recognition. The most effective way of doing this has been purchasing television ads, which cost money. The challenger generally needs more money than the incumbent. Thus, any restrictions on fundraising are highly likely to adversely affect challengers more than incumbents.
This can be born out by asking a question: why would a Congressperson/Senator vote for a bill that restricts them? The simplest explanation is because their opponents are more restricted.
And there is a statistical basis for this: in 1974, teh first federal campaign finance laws limiting contributions were passed. Since then the rate at which incumbents have been reelected to Congress has increased dramatically.
Slashdot Mirror
Apparently, ugosucks.com is owned by UGO... very interesting!
Mandrake has essentially moved away from Red Hat, save for compatibility purposes. THey do their own configuration and such now.
Am I the only one who thinks that not all of the internal battles were represented?
Yeah, we got Perl/Python, and OS/FS covered, but what about the real ones? For instance: vi vs. emacs. Emacs got represented, but vi? No way. They should have gotten Bill Joy or maybe Bram Mooleanaar to sign on. And KDE was snubbed while Miguel de Icaza got to sign? Pah!
Because the member nations (or at least the US, and probably the UK) still see that there's a need.
I myself do not believe that such a need still exists.
Open Source tax breaks has come up at least once before as an Ask Slashdot (which means that it's probably come up more than once...). This one from April 15 is the most recent discussion. Consensus: You might be able to claim it, but be prepared to spend huge amounts in audits.
Just because the code runs on BSD does not mean that it's BSD licensed. As a matter of fact, most *BSD's come with the GNU utilities, and a new BSD has started with the aim of removing all GPL software from their distribution.
Condoms filled with Jell-O, eh?
The directions I could go with that are just too numerous...
...Run it on all new comments.
"Sorry, this post is almost identical to an earlier post in this story."
The original poster was not asking about AtheOS, but about Plan 9, which has a restrictive license.
Over on the BeNews discussion board for the article, a lot of people are saying that AtheOS has (and presumably will continue to have) poor driver support.
They forget two things, however:
- AtheOS is GPL (though Kurt is considering moving it to LGPL).
- Linux has the best hardware support of any non-Redmond OS out there.
Combine these two, and it's almost a certainty that AtheOS will get drivers, simply because it's drivers can be based on Linux kernel drivers.It might be an interesting exercise to port most of the Linux kernel drivers to the AtheOS architecture.
Address space != RAM
I'm not certain whether more mdern x86 CPUs have added to this, but the 386 (except for the SX) can address up to 4GB. This includes any virtual memory. Reserving 2GB for the kernel simply means that userspace is a maximum of 2GB.
The reason why the 1:1 address space theory (also present in Windows 2000... not sure about other OSen) is that it greatly simplifies figuring out whether a pointer is in kernel space or user space; if it's a 1 (for instnace), it's user, and 0 is kernel.
But IANA OS designer, so I could be wrong.
Well, OS/2 has a reputation for being the most stable operating system on x86...
Also the toll roads (which are, in general, private entities). I remember a while back, when the Mass Pike was laying down some fat fiber down their median strip.
AOL also has a couple of aces in the whole that Netscape lacked.: AOL has a significant inertia thanks to their subscriber base. It's a pain in the ass for most people to change their email addresses/aim screennames. I've seen this myself: my family just got AOL back home. Why? Partly it was because our local ISP service started to suck, multiple users was a nice free feature, and it would allow them to use AIM. AOL is proprietary enough (AIM, non-migratable screennames, etc.) to make it difficult for its users to move to other services.
This is the key difference. The only thing about Netscape that was proprietary was their add-ons to HTML. But few sites used them and for the most part Netscape's proprietary stuff was just plain stupid (apart from the quickly cloned stuff like tables and frames). Did anybody say,"I'd use Internet Explorer [or Opera, or iCab, etc.] if only it would support <BLINK>"?
Secondly, AOL TW has a bit more cash than Netscape and certainly has more clout. When it comes to lobbyists and spreading the dough around, AOL TW is worlds ahead of Microsoft. Do not lose sight of this: applications sell systems. A large number of buyers care about one thig: "Can I use AOL on this?" It's sad, but true. All AOL has to do to boost Mac sales is come out with an AOL client for OS X that has a super-killer feature that their Windows client implements poorly or not at all.
I often wonder what would have happened had Lotus and WordPerfect embraced the Macintosh early on. I think that was their ultimate mistake. AOL will not make that mistake.
I'm sorry, but this has got to be one of most illogical things I've seen posted in a while.
There are no license issues with using BSD code. That's right, the BSD license has no licensing issues (except to GPL fanatics).
The fact that MS did not reference issues which do not exist does not imply that using BSD code is or is not an accepted practice.
And if you're a linux user (as i am) you have no right to complain about Microsoft, Sun, etc. using BSD code. There is no difference between linux using BSD code and the above examples.
Linux is where it is because Linus et al were free to copy code from BSD. And don't say, "But Linux is open source, so its improvements could be used in BSD." Read the GPL. If any BSD used Linux kernel code, it would have to license itself under the GPL, after which it would not be BSD.
It's not a kernel modification, it's a userlevel program. Doesn't have to be GPL'd
So Microsoft only dislikes the GPL... I guess that this piece of opensource software is acceptable....
..., in my opinion is this: the tech support people really don't want to be there. The average tech support worker is a geek starting at the lowest rung of the organization. He really wants to be up there coding or designing hardware, but he's stuck dealing with idiots (from his perspective). With that factor in place, it is almost a given that tech support will suck.
If you're using Linux/*BSD, you are using a licensed OS. Ever hear of the GPL/BSD licenses?
Actually, the state sites are: of the form http://www.state.{two letter abbreviation}.us
That's the operative principle behind most lawsuits. Drive the cost of defense (or prosecution) up so much that they throw in the towel. It's a war of attrition, basically.
The solution, at least in the most frivolous cases, is loser pays. I would imagine that most courts would find against the RIAA at this point. If loser pays, then the RIAA would have to pay the legal expenses of these researchers.
The problem with campaign finance reform is that disproportionately affects challengers for office. Why is this?
An incumbent has one key advantage over the challenger: he has name recognition. He's a known quantity, due to news coverage, and also due to the fact that some of the advertising for this election was already done in the previous election.
A challenger, however, must build recognition. The most effective way of doing this has been purchasing television ads, which cost money. The challenger generally needs more money than the incumbent. Thus, any restrictions on fundraising are highly likely to adversely affect challengers more than incumbents.
This can be born out by asking a question: why would a Congressperson/Senator vote for a bill that restricts them? The simplest explanation is because their opponents are more restricted.
And there is a statistical basis for this: in 1974, teh first federal campaign finance laws limiting contributions were passed. Since then the rate at which incumbents have been reelected to Congress has increased dramatically.
The software is free, but the hardware required to run it (HDD, etc.) isn't. Fully legal under the GPL.
They unveil the system at 11 AM PDT today, and some 5.5 hours later, they have 346 CVS commits...
Sun is planning to roll out a C port shortly. Also, they "anticipate alternate implementations for other programming environments... including Perl."