The idea is that by the time students get to the college level, they should know the principles behind how things work, and use the computers as a tool to assist them.
By introducing the computers at a very early age, you're not fully teaching the students how to do the math problem (as an example), you're teaching them how to plug in numbers into a box. So if they're in a situation where there is no computer, it's likely they won't know how to do the problem.
A lot of kids out there can't do basic multiplication, for instance. I've had many times where I've gone into a store, my purchase was rung up, and then I gave the kid not exact change, but enough coins so that I got back change I wanted (maybe I gave them an extra 23 cents so that I get back an even dollar rather than 77 cents in chenge), and they just can't handle it without rekeying it in, or using a calculator.
No, the reason kids don't remember out of books is that they are just plain lazy and don't give a s**t. They actually care about the latest Eminem song because that's what is "cool", not learning things.
As a kid, I loathed work, I did almost whatever I could to get out of it. Were it not for my mother threatening to kick me out of the house at 17 unless I got a part-time job, well, I don't think I'd be where I'm at today. Now, while I dislike some forms of work still, I realize that there is a reward to it.
I think that the point is that nobody wants to have to read a book on how to improve grammar or on math, but in today's job market, if you want to make something of yourself, you have to.
Yes, but if I go to an ATM, and one of the logos on my card matches one of the logos of the networks that the ATM supports, I'm assured that I should be able to get money out of that ATM machine (assuming of course I have it in my account).
My main concern (and the parent's as well) is that what if the ATM becomes one network only? And if you're not a member of that network, you are flat-out denied access.
Well, the ATM is the Phoenix BIOS, and the network is Microsoft Windows. Linux users need not try to get their PCs to boot.
This is an unfortunate side-effect of the FCC regulations (not that I'm saying to abolish them).
From the hardware vendor's point of view, it makes the most sense to make a generic, software programmable transmission device. This way, they need only one hardware design for the entire world, just different drivers (although they won't tell you that, of course).
Imagine how much this stuff would cost if they actually put the limits in the hardware itself (R&D would be insanely expensive). Perhaps some sort of EEPROM type storage would work to hold the values that aren't supposed to be change), but if that fails (or is reprogrammed), then you have a problem.
Looks like I'll be stuck at 802.11b for a while, until the 802.11g solutions open up a bit. A Linux driver might not work for me, since my OS of choice at the moment is FreeBSD.
Yes, you are correct, point taken. I should have left the word, "legally" out.
I figure that if the program was distributed with source code, and GPL'd, it's out there, regardless of what a company says. The original programmer may not be able to continue work on it, but anybody who downloaded the source code, and is out of legal reach very well might.
That's why I try to be careful with things like this... I don't write applications that might look attractive to my employer (outside of work, anyway), and I definitely make sure that I don't use any trade secrets in them.
That's actually an interesting clause to add, and I must admit, I forgot to mention it in my contract negotiations.
The nice thing about the GPL though, is that if I release my project under the GPL, and my employer tries to take control of it, they basically get a fork of the project. The GPL'd version is out there to stay, since somebody else can legally distribute it. This is assuming that you distributed your GPL'd version...
Simply put, you read the contract before you sign it. I don't care how desperate for a job you are, you read the damn contract. If you don't like the terms, you don't take the job.
There's a skill you should learn, it's called negotiation. When my current employer sent me a contract to sign, even though I was out of work for two months (and desperate for a job, living in the Bay Area, after all), I still negotiated with them. They gave me a $20,000 per year pay cut, so I insisted on an extra 5 paid vacation days per year, all of them immediately available, rather than the, "they'll be available for use after one year".
When it came to the, "we own all of your work" clause, I had them change it. I insisted that I be allowed to persue any outside projects. They didn't like that, so we worked out a compromise - I can persue outside projects without the threat of them trying to own it, but if it might conflict with work, then I need their permission to ensure that it remains mine. (In my case though, it was implicitly stated that unless I competed with them, they wouldn't try anything, but I got it in writing to be safe).
I didn't force them into anything major, I didn't suggest anything radical... I just explained the situation (citing some cases), they understood, and worked with me to ensure that both sides would be happy. The way I see it, there's no harm in asking, if you get it, great, if not, you can move on to another point to negotiate.
As a result, I actually signed a better contract than everybody else here.
BTW, I only have four years of professional experience, and I'm (for the most part) limited to a particular embedded market, so I can't just command a job like some others.
End-users probably won't get the specifications. However, if the company I work for (for example) signed the pre-requisite paperwork and purchased significant product, we'd not only get the spec sheets, we'd probably also get the source.
Of course, neither of those can be leaked outside of the company without civil reprecussions.
I believe the problem stems from the fact that the hardware manufacturers would rather leave the hardware open-ended and cap it's capabilities in the software - this makes it much easier to issue upgrades (where necessary), and leverage parts for future products. Plus, if the FCC rules change, it's much easier for the manufacturer to comply.
As a good example, a product from the previous company I worked for, Com21. The DP1010 cable modem (which was pretty popular about five years ago, or so), rather than implementing packet filtering logic in software, implemented it in a custom ASIC. When CableLabs, back in the time of Certification Wave 12 (I think it was CW12) implemented the DOCSIS Cable MIB (RFC2669), the DP1010 could not provide this functionality (because the actual hardware did not allow it). Many customers (and even Com21 to some extent) got screwed over on this, as RFC2669 is what provides the method of most of the security of cable operators nowadays.
Also, almost everything is GPL'ed. So: Atheros == good && Broadcom == bad;
Normally I'm inclined to agree, but not in this case. Having worked for companies that have dealt with Broadcom, and talking to some of their engineers myself, I know a bit about the company itself.
Their engineers are very smart people (most of them hold degrees above the typical Bachelor of Science), and I've seen their source code (for cable modems), and it's well written. Their spec sheets (again, for their cable modem products) are generally top-notch, although I'm a bit miffed at them about the whole Broadcom 3415 tuner chip issue (with the patent infringement suit against Microtune), and the whole Linksys/Cisco situation. I'm also not keen on their interview processes either (myself and a couple of my former co-workers have all interviewed there in the past), but that's not related to this issue.
That aside, I'll address the statement from you that I copy/pasted... If the hardware sucks, having GPL'd drivers for it is of no use (at least not to me). If the Atheros chipset is causing interference (and I reserve my judgement until I hear more about the issue), then as far as I'm concerned, I'd rather buy other hardware that actually works.
The majority also has the most IP addresses to go around.
The company I used to work for sold some cable modems to an operator in a small country (I don't remember which one now). The whole country has a Class C at best, and the customers of the cable operator were all getting non-routable IP addresses, being NATted through a gateway (presumably after the CMTS).
This country definitely has more than 254 people in it, so I'd say that there's a shortage of addresses.
You're probably correct on the dates... I was going based from memory, since I was a bit lazy to look things up. Unfortunately, it's almost midnight, I have to work in the morning, and Google isn't giving me what I want.
Moving the video to ring 0 had nothing to do with the split, and my apologies for possibly misleading people into thinking that it was. As I recall, I believe it was actually the GUI (IBM wanted Presentation Manager, Microsoft wanted something more shiny) that was a major cause of tension leading to the split.
It just so happened that after the split, Microsoft decided that the video performance was not up to par, and put the video driver in ring 0.
I didn't say that all Windows drivers crash, but I do know that there are Windows drivers that do crash. I've had some problems with ATi drivers in the past, as well as some VIA drivers.
In the case of my Intel 875-based motherboard, I had all sorts of exception errors with Windows XP... I was never able to narrow it down to a particular driver, but I'm sure it's one of the drivers, since my laptop using Windows XP doesn't crash. I didn't have problems with the same hardware (both desktop and laptop) with Windows 2000.
Well, it depends on how the wrapper around the Win32 drivers works.
I've never used Win4Lin, but I seem to recall reading that you need to patch the kernel for it to work - to some extent, I believe that it does not run completely in userspace.
Linux may not run it's graphics inside ring 0 (well, maybe the console, but that's another case), but chances are, if a Windows driver requires to be running in ring 0, it might be difficult to move it to the userspace layer.
So, without actually seeing the implementation for particular drivers, it's hard to say.
I think he's referring to the Handspring Visor Deluxe.
There was a plug-in cartridge for it that turned it into a cell phone. I would have picked it up, but it was big, bulky, expensive, and tied to (at that point) Pacific Bell (in my area).
Like other posters here, I have Linux, OpenBSD and FreeBSD servers running at the office. They're network servers (i.e. HTTP, FTP, CVS, etc.), and as such, don't need a 3D video driver with whiz-bang features to run. I conside this a huge advantage, I don't have to worry about X bringing the machines down (it's not running on them anyway), I don't think that there's any bugs in the console driver.
Even here at home, having X in user-space as opposed to kernel-space is quite handy. If X becomes unresponsive, I have two choices: 1. Try Control-Alt-Backspace. Usually this works, kills X, and I can be back in X in less than 30 seconds. No reboot necessary, the rest of the system is stable (note that killing X kills off any processes that it started as well). 2. I can SSH in. Again, same idea, do a "kill -9" on X (or the offending X app), and I'm back in business. Again, 30 seconds or less.
When I'm in Windows (2000 or XP), the process looks more like this: 1. Try Control-Alt-Delete to kill the offending application/process. Sometimes the OS has corrupted itself to the point where this doesn't work (or, under XP, once doing the three-finger salute caused an exception of it's own) 2. Try to go to the Start Menu and do, "Shut Down". Sometimes this works. 3. Worst case, hit the reset button, and hope for the best. Wait while CHKDSK scans my 8GB boot volume, hope for nothing wrong (however, usually there's a dangling link). All of this takes on the order of minutes.
I believe that it is quite rediculous that a device driver can bring down an entire operating system, and I demand more from my OS than that. That reeks of shoddy design, and shoddy design is usually followed up by shoddy programming.
(Incidentally, Microsoft put the video driver in ring 0 shortly after they split from IBM and took their part of the OS/2 code. Microsoft felt that the video performance was too slow, and rather than re-write and optimize like IBM did for OS/2, Microsoft just moved the video driver into the kernel. The rest is history).
I don't have a problem with third-party companies trying to sell Linux drivers for hardware. Those of us who actually do research will buy hardware for which Linux drivers already exist, or can be made with relative ease (well, for those versed with Linux driver programming, I am not).
The main thing to consider is that very few companies make native Linux drivers for their products (well, consumer products anyway). So in that aspect, we're already getting zero support from them. I don't see any reason for nVidia to dump their Linux driver all of a sudden, since as I understand it, it's mostly the same source base.
Although all of the hardware I have now works fine with Linux (on my desktop, on the laptop, the WinModem doesn't work), there was a time where I had a scanner with what appeared to be an ISA to SCSI bridge that I could use only in Windows. I rarely used that scanner, but it would have been nice to have a driver that I could have loaded in when I wanted to scan, rather than rebooting into Windows 98 (what made me finally give up the scanner was that it wasn't supported in Windows 2000 and up).
I welcome this driver emulation. In fact, it might even help in the development of native drivers, since somebody will figure out the DriverLoader API, and then maybe be able to translate that to something Linux native.
Yes, you too can have compatability with Windows crashes!
I realize that I'm sounding a bit sarcastic here, but it's a known fact that a lot of the issues with Windows stability are driver-related issues. I for one am not keen on running the graphics driver within ring 0 (which Microsoft does in NT at least) to speed up video performance. If the video driver runs in ring 0, a problem with the video card can bring down the whole system.
Releasing the source wouldn't screw Cisco. It would screw Broadcom.
Note: I don't work for Broadcom (I only had a job interview with them), but my previous and current employers both licensed reference designs from Broadcom. As such, what I say is my personal opinion, and not that of my employers, previous or current. I figure that there's no point in posting anonymously, since somebody can figure out who I am based on what I say anyway.
Broadcom uses vxWorks (and they also support pSOS) as the operating system of choice in their cable modems (that I know of, I know of the 3300, 3350, 3345 and 3348). However, they are starting to migrate to Linux for some of their other devices, notably the wireless devices (although I've heard rumors of Linux for their newer cable modems too).
Releasing the source code screws Broadcom over because they don't want people reprogramming their chips, especially their wireless chips, due to the government regulations on power levels, frequencies, etc.
Additionally (and probably more importantly), if the code comes out for this product (Broadcom acknowledging that they violated the GPL), you can be sure that people will hack other Broadcom-based devices checking to see if they use Linux - they're just trying to seal up the can of worms. Companies that licensed the reference designs from them will probalby try to sue, claiming that Broadcom gave them contaminated products. It would be a huge scandal.
I don't disagree with you here, but one important point (which is mentioned in the article) is that Linksys might not have knowingly violated the GPL.
Broadcom is the company that designed the original board, CPU, and other necessary components (in other words, the "reference design"). Broadcom also put together the OS and the drivers.
It is quite possible (in fact, highly likely) that Linksys licensed the rights of the reference design from Broadcom (much like the company I work for, and other companies do for cable modems) and then put their own casing on it, maybe respun the board, and sold it as a product, without making any software changes.
I do put some fault on Linksys here, because they should have known what they were buying/licensing, and asked questions. However, I'm thinking here that Broadcom is the real culprit, and probably more pressure should be put on them than Cisco.
As long as you had the 6581 SID, then yes. After the 64C came out, and they went to the slimline cases, they changed the sound around a bit, using a different chip. This newer chip has a volume control problem on some settings (I don't remember which ones), but if somebody put in a digitized sound, I had to crank the volume up on the monitor to hear it (and then turn it down before normal SID sounds were used, or else it blared!).
But, at least, things can be made more complicated for the spammer.
In having to register a domain, you'd have to assume that the spammer uses some sort of legitimate payment (a credit card that is not stolen). Through this, there is some sort of name/address left to track down the spammer. Thus, they'd have to resort to some sort of fraud (i.e. stolen CC, hijacking domains, etc.) to spam with impunity, and those things are already illegal.
I'm sure that there are some people who would take "justice" upon themselves (although I'm not condoning this).
I wish that WindRiver would release their host-tools for Linux also.
The project that I'm working on now, was previously done on Solaris, but the Solaris machines (Ultra 5's) are starting to show their age.
I'd love to be able to build under Linux. One thing that I have thought of doing is getting the gcc source from WindRiver for the version of Tornado that I'm using, and build my own MIPS cross-compiler/binutils for Linux (I don't really need the GUI, since we use a Makefile that's not geneated from the tools).
Either companies will then take notice and start to make better products that are more secure and reliable, or said companies will be sued out of existance. They might actually spend their time working on useful features, rather than animated paperclips and Fisher-Price looking GUI's (yes, cheap shot at Microsoft there).
In the case of the professional programmers, maybe that will be the edge that finally gets competent software developers working for companies, rather than anybody who can fill a chair and crank out crap.
Perhaps if Microsoft would actually develop and release quality products, then they wouldn't need to patch so often.
Sega was able to make it's short-lived network gaming work without requiring a hard drive, why can't Microsoft do the same? Granted, the XBox has a lot more power than the Dreamcast (so it is an apples/oranges comparison), but to me it's just another example of how shoddy Microsoft products really are.
And yes, I own an XBox, but I don't have XBox Live. And no, I don't run Linux on it, nor do I plan to (at this time).
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The idea is that by the time students get to the college level, they should know the principles behind how things work, and use the computers as a tool to assist them.
By introducing the computers at a very early age, you're not fully teaching the students how to do the math problem (as an example), you're teaching them how to plug in numbers into a box. So if they're in a situation where there is no computer, it's likely they won't know how to do the problem.
A lot of kids out there can't do basic multiplication, for instance. I've had many times where I've gone into a store, my purchase was rung up, and then I gave the kid not exact change, but enough coins so that I got back change I wanted (maybe I gave them an extra 23 cents so that I get back an even dollar rather than 77 cents in chenge), and they just can't handle it without rekeying it in, or using a calculator.
To me, that is frightening.
-- Joe
No, the reason kids don't remember out of books is that they are just plain lazy and don't give a s**t. They actually care about the latest Eminem song because that's what is "cool", not learning things.
As a kid, I loathed work, I did almost whatever I could to get out of it. Were it not for my mother threatening to kick me out of the house at 17 unless I got a part-time job, well, I don't think I'd be where I'm at today. Now, while I dislike some forms of work still, I realize that there is a reward to it.
I think that the point is that nobody wants to have to read a book on how to improve grammar or on math, but in today's job market, if you want to make something of yourself, you have to.
-- Joe
Yes, but if I go to an ATM, and one of the logos on my card matches one of the logos of the networks that the ATM supports, I'm assured that I should be able to get money out of that ATM machine (assuming of course I have it in my account).
My main concern (and the parent's as well) is that what if the ATM becomes one network only? And if you're not a member of that network, you are flat-out denied access.
Well, the ATM is the Phoenix BIOS, and the network is Microsoft Windows. Linux users need not try to get their PCs to boot.
-- Joe
This is an unfortunate side-effect of the FCC regulations (not that I'm saying to abolish them).
From the hardware vendor's point of view, it makes the most sense to make a generic, software programmable transmission device. This way, they need only one hardware design for the entire world, just different drivers (although they won't tell you that, of course).
Imagine how much this stuff would cost if they actually put the limits in the hardware itself (R&D would be insanely expensive). Perhaps some sort of EEPROM type storage would work to hold the values that aren't supposed to be change), but if that fails (or is reprogrammed), then you have a problem.
Looks like I'll be stuck at 802.11b for a while, until the 802.11g solutions open up a bit. A Linux driver might not work for me, since my OS of choice at the moment is FreeBSD.
-- Joe
Yes, you are correct, point taken. I should have left the word, "legally" out.
I figure that if the program was distributed with source code, and GPL'd, it's out there, regardless of what a company says. The original programmer may not be able to continue work on it, but anybody who downloaded the source code, and is out of legal reach very well might.
That's why I try to be careful with things like this... I don't write applications that might look attractive to my employer (outside of work, anyway), and I definitely make sure that I don't use any trade secrets in them.
-- Joe
That's actually an interesting clause to add, and I must admit, I forgot to mention it in my contract negotiations.
The nice thing about the GPL though, is that if I release my project under the GPL, and my employer tries to take control of it, they basically get a fork of the project. The GPL'd version is out there to stay, since somebody else can legally distribute it. This is assuming that you distributed your GPL'd version...
-- Joe
Simply put, you read the contract before you sign it. I don't care how desperate for a job you are, you read the damn contract. If you don't like the terms, you don't take the job.
There's a skill you should learn, it's called negotiation. When my current employer sent me a contract to sign, even though I was out of work for two months (and desperate for a job, living in the Bay Area, after all), I still negotiated with them. They gave me a $20,000 per year pay cut, so I insisted on an extra 5 paid vacation days per year, all of them immediately available, rather than the, "they'll be available for use after one year".
When it came to the, "we own all of your work" clause, I had them change it. I insisted that I be allowed to persue any outside projects. They didn't like that, so we worked out a compromise - I can persue outside projects without the threat of them trying to own it, but if it might conflict with work, then I need their permission to ensure that it remains mine. (In my case though, it was implicitly stated that unless I competed with them, they wouldn't try anything, but I got it in writing to be safe).
I didn't force them into anything major, I didn't suggest anything radical... I just explained the situation (citing some cases), they understood, and worked with me to ensure that both sides would be happy. The way I see it, there's no harm in asking, if you get it, great, if not, you can move on to another point to negotiate.
As a result, I actually signed a better contract than everybody else here.
BTW, I only have four years of professional experience, and I'm (for the most part) limited to a particular embedded market, so I can't just command a job like some others.
-- Joe
End-users probably won't get the specifications. However, if the company I work for (for example) signed the pre-requisite paperwork and purchased significant product, we'd not only get the spec sheets, we'd probably also get the source.
Of course, neither of those can be leaked outside of the company without civil reprecussions.
I believe the problem stems from the fact that the hardware manufacturers would rather leave the hardware open-ended and cap it's capabilities in the software - this makes it much easier to issue upgrades (where necessary), and leverage parts for future products. Plus, if the FCC rules change, it's much easier for the manufacturer to comply.
As a good example, a product from the previous company I worked for, Com21. The DP1010 cable modem (which was pretty popular about five years ago, or so), rather than implementing packet filtering logic in software, implemented it in a custom ASIC. When CableLabs, back in the time of Certification Wave 12 (I think it was CW12) implemented the DOCSIS Cable MIB (RFC2669), the DP1010 could not provide this functionality (because the actual hardware did not allow it). Many customers (and even Com21 to some extent) got screwed over on this, as RFC2669 is what provides the method of most of the security of cable operators nowadays.
-- Joe
Normally I'm inclined to agree, but not in this case. Having worked for companies that have dealt with Broadcom, and talking to some of their engineers myself, I know a bit about the company itself.
Their engineers are very smart people (most of them hold degrees above the typical Bachelor of Science), and I've seen their source code (for cable modems), and it's well written. Their spec sheets (again, for their cable modem products) are generally top-notch, although I'm a bit miffed at them about the whole Broadcom 3415 tuner chip issue (with the patent infringement suit against Microtune), and the whole Linksys/Cisco situation. I'm also not keen on their interview processes either (myself and a couple of my former co-workers have all interviewed there in the past), but that's not related to this issue.
That aside, I'll address the statement from you that I copy/pasted... If the hardware sucks, having GPL'd drivers for it is of no use (at least not to me). If the Atheros chipset is causing interference (and I reserve my judgement until I hear more about the issue), then as far as I'm concerned, I'd rather buy other hardware that actually works.
-- Joe
The majority also has the most IP addresses to go around.
The company I used to work for sold some cable modems to an operator in a small country (I don't remember which one now). The whole country has a Class C at best, and the customers of the cable operator were all getting non-routable IP addresses, being NATted through a gateway (presumably after the CMTS).
This country definitely has more than 254 people in it, so I'd say that there's a shortage of addresses.
-- Joe
You're probably correct on the dates... I was going based from memory, since I was a bit lazy to look things up. Unfortunately, it's almost midnight, I have to work in the morning, and Google isn't giving me what I want.
Moving the video to ring 0 had nothing to do with the split, and my apologies for possibly misleading people into thinking that it was. As I recall, I believe it was actually the GUI (IBM wanted Presentation Manager, Microsoft wanted something more shiny) that was a major cause of tension leading to the split.
It just so happened that after the split, Microsoft decided that the video performance was not up to par, and put the video driver in ring 0.
-- Joe
Damn, I must have struck a nerve.
I didn't say that all Windows drivers crash, but I do know that there are Windows drivers that do crash. I've had some problems with ATi drivers in the past, as well as some VIA drivers.
In the case of my Intel 875-based motherboard, I had all sorts of exception errors with Windows XP... I was never able to narrow it down to a particular driver, but I'm sure it's one of the drivers, since my laptop using Windows XP doesn't crash. I didn't have problems with the same hardware (both desktop and laptop) with Windows 2000.
-- Joe
Well, it depends on how the wrapper around the Win32 drivers works.
I've never used Win4Lin, but I seem to recall reading that you need to patch the kernel for it to work - to some extent, I believe that it does not run completely in userspace.
Linux may not run it's graphics inside ring 0 (well, maybe the console, but that's another case), but chances are, if a Windows driver requires to be running in ring 0, it might be difficult to move it to the userspace layer.
So, without actually seeing the implementation for particular drivers, it's hard to say.
-- Joe
I think he's referring to the Handspring Visor Deluxe.
There was a plug-in cartridge for it that turned it into a cell phone. I would have picked it up, but it was big, bulky, expensive, and tied to (at that point) Pacific Bell (in my area).
-- Joe
Like other posters here, I have Linux, OpenBSD and FreeBSD servers running at the office. They're network servers (i.e. HTTP, FTP, CVS, etc.), and as such, don't need a 3D video driver with whiz-bang features to run. I conside this a huge advantage, I don't have to worry about X bringing the machines down (it's not running on them anyway), I don't think that there's any bugs in the console driver.
Even here at home, having X in user-space as opposed to kernel-space is quite handy. If X becomes unresponsive, I have two choices:
1. Try Control-Alt-Backspace. Usually this works, kills X, and I can be back in X in less than 30 seconds. No reboot necessary, the rest of the system is stable (note that killing X kills off any processes that it started as well).
2. I can SSH in. Again, same idea, do a "kill -9" on X (or the offending X app), and I'm back in business. Again, 30 seconds or less.
When I'm in Windows (2000 or XP), the process looks more like this:
1. Try Control-Alt-Delete to kill the offending application/process. Sometimes the OS has corrupted itself to the point where this doesn't work (or, under XP, once doing the three-finger salute caused an exception of it's own)
2. Try to go to the Start Menu and do, "Shut Down". Sometimes this works.
3. Worst case, hit the reset button, and hope for the best. Wait while CHKDSK scans my 8GB boot volume, hope for nothing wrong (however, usually there's a dangling link).
All of this takes on the order of minutes.
I believe that it is quite rediculous that a device driver can bring down an entire operating system, and I demand more from my OS than that. That reeks of shoddy design, and shoddy design is usually followed up by shoddy programming.
(Incidentally, Microsoft put the video driver in ring 0 shortly after they split from IBM and took their part of the OS/2 code. Microsoft felt that the video performance was too slow, and rather than re-write and optimize like IBM did for OS/2, Microsoft just moved the video driver into the kernel. The rest is history).
-- Joe
I don't have a problem with third-party companies trying to sell Linux drivers for hardware. Those of us who actually do research will buy hardware for which Linux drivers already exist, or can be made with relative ease (well, for those versed with Linux driver programming, I am not).
The main thing to consider is that very few companies make native Linux drivers for their products (well, consumer products anyway). So in that aspect, we're already getting zero support from them. I don't see any reason for nVidia to dump their Linux driver all of a sudden, since as I understand it, it's mostly the same source base.
Although all of the hardware I have now works fine with Linux (on my desktop, on the laptop, the WinModem doesn't work), there was a time where I had a scanner with what appeared to be an ISA to SCSI bridge that I could use only in Windows. I rarely used that scanner, but it would have been nice to have a driver that I could have loaded in when I wanted to scan, rather than rebooting into Windows 98 (what made me finally give up the scanner was that it wasn't supported in Windows 2000 and up).
I welcome this driver emulation. In fact, it might even help in the development of native drivers, since somebody will figure out the DriverLoader API, and then maybe be able to translate that to something Linux native.
-- Joe
Yes, you too can have compatability with Windows crashes!
I realize that I'm sounding a bit sarcastic here, but it's a known fact that a lot of the issues with Windows stability are driver-related issues. I for one am not keen on running the graphics driver within ring 0 (which Microsoft does in NT at least) to speed up video performance. If the video driver runs in ring 0, a problem with the video card can bring down the whole system.
-- Joe
Releasing the source wouldn't screw Cisco. It would screw Broadcom.
Note: I don't work for Broadcom (I only had a job interview with them), but my previous and current employers both licensed reference designs from Broadcom. As such, what I say is my personal opinion, and not that of my employers, previous or current. I figure that there's no point in posting anonymously, since somebody can figure out who I am based on what I say anyway.
Broadcom uses vxWorks (and they also support pSOS) as the operating system of choice in their cable modems (that I know of, I know of the 3300, 3350, 3345 and 3348). However, they are starting to migrate to Linux for some of their other devices, notably the wireless devices (although I've heard rumors of Linux for their newer cable modems too).
Releasing the source code screws Broadcom over because they don't want people reprogramming their chips, especially their wireless chips, due to the government regulations on power levels, frequencies, etc.
Additionally (and probably more importantly), if the code comes out for this product (Broadcom acknowledging that they violated the GPL), you can be sure that people will hack other Broadcom-based devices checking to see if they use Linux - they're just trying to seal up the can of worms. Companies that licensed the reference designs from them will probalby try to sue, claiming that Broadcom gave them contaminated products. It would be a huge scandal.
-- Joe
I don't disagree with you here, but one important point (which is mentioned in the article) is that Linksys might not have knowingly violated the GPL.
Broadcom is the company that designed the original board, CPU, and other necessary components (in other words, the "reference design"). Broadcom also put together the OS and the drivers.
It is quite possible (in fact, highly likely) that Linksys licensed the rights of the reference design from Broadcom (much like the company I work for, and other companies do for cable modems) and then put their own casing on it, maybe respun the board, and sold it as a product, without making any software changes.
I do put some fault on Linksys here, because they should have known what they were buying/licensing, and asked questions. However, I'm thinking here that Broadcom is the real culprit, and probably more pressure should be put on them than Cisco.
-- Joe
As long as you had the 6581 SID, then yes. After the 64C came out, and they went to the slimline cases, they changed the sound around a bit, using a different chip. This newer chip has a volume control problem on some settings (I don't remember which ones), but if somebody put in a digitized sound, I had to crank the volume up on the monitor to hear it (and then turn it down before normal SID sounds were used, or else it blared!).
-- Joe
But, at least, things can be made more complicated for the spammer.
In having to register a domain, you'd have to assume that the spammer uses some sort of legitimate payment (a credit card that is not stolen). Through this, there is some sort of name/address left to track down the spammer. Thus, they'd have to resort to some sort of fraud (i.e. stolen CC, hijacking domains, etc.) to spam with impunity, and those things are already illegal.
I'm sure that there are some people who would take "justice" upon themselves (although I'm not condoning this).
-- Joe
Thank you very much, I'll give this a shot.
My only main concern is that we use a custom MIPS variant, that these patches alone may not cover. We'll see though.
-- Joe
I wish that WindRiver would release their host-tools for Linux also.
The project that I'm working on now, was previously done on Solaris, but the Solaris machines (Ultra 5's) are starting to show their age.
I'd love to be able to build under Linux. One thing that I have thought of doing is getting the gcc source from WindRiver for the version of Tornado that I'm using, and build my own MIPS cross-compiler/binutils for Linux (I don't really need the GUI, since we use a Makefile that's not geneated from the tools).
-- Joe
To me, that's a good thing.
Either companies will then take notice and start to make better products that are more secure and reliable, or said companies will be sued out of existance. They might actually spend their time working on useful features, rather than animated paperclips and Fisher-Price looking GUI's (yes, cheap shot at Microsoft there).
In the case of the professional programmers, maybe that will be the edge that finally gets competent software developers working for companies, rather than anybody who can fill a chair and crank out crap.
-- Joe
Perhaps if Microsoft would actually develop and release quality products, then they wouldn't need to patch so often.
Sega was able to make it's short-lived network gaming work without requiring a hard drive, why can't Microsoft do the same? Granted, the XBox has a lot more power than the Dreamcast (so it is an apples/oranges comparison), but to me it's just another example of how shoddy Microsoft products really are.
And yes, I own an XBox, but I don't have XBox Live. And no, I don't run Linux on it, nor do I plan to (at this time).
-- Joe