As with as Keith's work there is the x.org reference server tree on freedesktop.org, which is basically 4.4 without the contaminated bits. I suspect the fact this tree was close to ready for full release has something to do with the sudden appearance of XFree 4.4, but maybe I'm just cynical.
There are two X servers on freedesktop.org. One is Keiths experimental server the other is the X.org tree which is XFree 4.4 without the license change bits and with other stuff, and most of the people Dave Dawes fired working on it.
The x.org server is very much ready for prime time
Admittedly since the company were "personal injury lawyers" nobody could decide whether to feel outraged over the method used or happy that the people lost their jobs...
Equally interesting is the question of trademarks. Are verisign allowed to make money off other peoples trademarks as they could have been considered to be doing.
Also they really needed to fix their site for other port 80 stuff. Simply returning large html pages is broken if the client only does wap for example
Different culture different values. We have a very recent and narrow definition of freedom of expression - although historically UK law has tried to protect newspapers and the like from most things, and the BBC has generally been protected from government meddling by other bits of law (and mostly by culture and tradition)
OTOH we don't dump several hundred foreigners on offshore islands and deny them rights to trial (we only do it to a few of them and we let them "leave" back to their original country whenever they wish - which is magnanimous of us given some of them will probably be shot if they do that..)
Except in narrow ways the US doesn't have free speech either - "To copy this CD hold down the... " oops , DMCA can't tell you that.
When it comes to porn and violence on websites thats where they UK really does have its head up its (sorry we can't show that...). Its very common for there to be films which are rated "12" in france and 18 in the UK, because they involve people with no clothes on. And unlike the USA there is no real change at the age 18, the state never says "fine you are an adult, nobody committed a crime making this movie, everyone is an adult, *you* decide if you want to watch it". The state always allegedly knows best.
Since the UK state a) believes it knows best and b) believes that extreme porn and violence sites cause real world problems to occur (which may or may not be true - I've not had occasion to read the literature), its then logical that they believe they should be banning/blocking such material just as they take it off people at customs or stop it in the post if they discover it.
Some people argue that the real test of free speech is your practical ability to say something extremely unpopular without retribution - I don't think the US or UK neccessarily score highly here.
And I claim my RFID tag is for rights management and you go to jail. Easily solved. Come to think of it if you look suspicious I'm sure something like "going equipped to steal" would do for the carrier or nonsense like "accessory to a crime" to the manufacturer 8)
Strange how DVD copying software is being ruled illegal as it might be used to commit a crime while high velocity rifle rounds that penetrate police armour and kill people are not.
I guess Mickey Mouse is worth more than a pile of dead fbi men.
I still have my IBM PC110. Its smaller than a paperback book, weights about 800grams. Yes the display isnt ideal and the keyboard is very much two-thumb but its *incredibly* useful because it lets you take a "real" computer with you all the time.
Its also better than PDA because the apps are the same as your normal ones, so its easy to maintain and flexible. I guess Linux on zaurus is changing the equation a little.
Personally I wish someone would just hurry up and ship the damn things at a sensible price cos the PC110 is wearing out...
The ASF statement actually is really useful, because in essence they are saying they think its GPL compatible, so there are no issues on their side.
Its irrelevant however because Apache is built upon a set of non GPL compliant libraries like OpenSSL and always has been. "Apache 2.0 not GPL", well big deal: Apache 1.0 not GPL either.
You can probably build a non https:// Apache without a few other modules that is GPLable but everyone I've dealt with seems quite happy with the state of apache and the license it uses right now.
This is very different to the XFree 4.4 case where the rules got changed on people.
Its very much like "Windows 98 not GPL".. not news.
There are lots of good legitimate uses for card readers - things like swipe card doors, as used by the computer society here, or charging for photocopying (as used by the university)
If the copyright owner says "Sure you can do that", then you can. The only reason for all the paperwork people have is to prove agreements. In most countries permission under copyright law doesn't need to be written and signed.
Apache (as owners) said you can GPL derivative works if you want - end of discussion.
Trademark btw works very similarly except that its easier to create a promise by inaction ("estoppel"). You can in some cases lose the ability to enforce copyrights in some situations through estoppel too, but you don't lose the copyright per se just the ability to enforce it in some situations
Apache adding it as a footnote to their license would neaten it up but its hardly essential. Of course you then have openssl and other bits to consider. Really no standard loaded set of Apache packages has ever been GPL compatible, and except for the mysql4 problem nobody has had any problems due to it.
I specifically asked Dave about this when the change first came up and he wasn't interested in keeping the library bits clean. Had he done that the only problem would have been Alan Hourihane's GPL'd X drivers for VNC.
Its also a stupid way to get credit. Repeat after me "Nobody reads the documentation anyway". Right ? They've have done far better with the old license and something like a cute XFree86 logo spinning across the display when the server started - aka the 3dfx glide library startup.
As for the server side - Freedesktop needs to work on the server side for all the cool new technologies like on the fly rotation that XFree86 convservatism won't experiment with (rightfully or wrongfully). Keith's server is neat but its definitely 'technology preview' grade at the moment. I'm running it on one box and the semi transparent menus and drop shadows are nice.
XKeith86 has definitely moved forward. XFree is a bit stuck, and everyone who tries to improve it seems to get fired from XFree86 cvs on the spot
As to performance, a lot of the current problems seems to be that a) The toolkits use Xrender heavily b) The Xserver render acceleration handling isn't very bright c) The only bits of code that do accelerate Xrender in XFree86 don't accelerate anything but overlay with alpha, so solid drawing which could easily be accelerated isnt handled.
The more "oh god I want to cry" level XFree86 problems start when you hotplug video cards.
I think I'd put some of my money on spanish being in there too
Language diversity has another purpose too and one that seems to be driving minor languages - its an identity, it marks you out from the mass as part of the community and links you to a set of private and more intimate culture of your own.
Well I'm not a linguist but a programming language isnt a process of thought - it is a process of communication and that means you need both the grammatical constructs and vocabulary to express the concepts involved.
Vocabulary seems less of a problem - lots of languages have words that are sentences to explain in others (hiraeth, zeitgeist etc) but I guess thats no different to a perl programmer and a C programmer arguing about regexp processing. Clearly you can also disambiguate damage ("I had a sandwich") [did you own it or eat it ?] doesn't cause a problem in English even though its ambiguous
In some ways we know the language and mathematics itself limit the computer - there are things mathematics cannot express for one.
There are also more fundamental concepts you have to have (passive/active, third party viewpoints, what-if, condition/action, past/present/future/habitual/. and stuff like negation and question words) but I would assume all language has those.
The thing that makes me most sceptical is that I've heard many asian speakers say they think differently in English, and there is also some brain scan evidence of different activity areas. But I don't speak any asian languages and I'm not likely to be learning Mandarin or Cantonese just to find out 8)
Likewise all high level computer programming languages tend to have things they cannot directly express. Fortran for example has no way to express "fiddle with CPU register foo"
I once attended a glorious lecture "Computing 3000BC to 1945". Ada Lovelace is probably the most famous "first programmer" but there are clear bits of evidence that there were programmers before. Some of the weaving loom systems supported loops and other programming constructs.
Turings genius was to get from adhoc discovery to the mathematics behind it , and turn a collection of interesting discoveries into a science
Dave Dawes message went to the contributors asking them if they wanted their contribution as is or changed to his new license. I wanted my contributions usable by all the X projects, including whoever finally gets annoyed enough to fork XFree.
BTW for Mandrake people (and mandrake themselves) there is a driver for the VIA chipset including DRI on ftp://people.redhat.com/alan. There is also a patch from Bero on the the dri Wiki which you may need depending which Mesa you use. I (and Im sure VIA who wrote most of the driver!) would love to see the via driver in Mandrake's XFree 4.3 packages if they go that way.
I also hope to have an accelerated Voodoo2 driver with DGA and maybe render acceleration available in the next couple of weeks - and that doesn't need Glide.
Which is fine and I bet they enjoy recycling it. Most this mornings creations involved the toilet. My employer doesnt claim he owns everything I create but if yours does well don't forget to send him everything.
Not only is there a problem with the infrastructure, there are several moral hazards to worry about, such as mass refusing unpopular people. Now there is scope for things like document services which involve both parties and actual money to avoid junk but I fail to see how the transaction cost will ever come below the "PKI and do it yourself" level.
Its a good job they didn't warrant their paper or I'd be a little richer by now 8)
If 99% of the use of alleys was drug dealing I'd expect the cops to be stamping it out so that the other 1% can enjoy their alleys legitimately not be raiding the offices of the town councils who own them.
The motor car is used in huge numbers of crime getaways yet nobody sued Ford or suggests Ford fits cars with cameras that look for money bags and refuse to start the engine otherwise.
Similarly the music industry should be looking for people who are actually breaking the law not harassing those providing tools with legitimate other uses.
a) Posts mostly opinion pieces that are visibly so b) Quotes both sides in arguments and often does so when he obviously agrees with one of them personally in opinion pieces
I'm also sure Redmond raise complaints with the BBC if they feel his articles are inappropriate
Remember Linux (and I believe FreeBSD and OpenBSD) support routing by port number and by protocol flags. That means you can (with a little care) make sure your ssh goes via the modem while your file sucking operations go via the satellite.
All you really need then is something to check file sizes against the bandwidth cap and fax orders for very large files from a CD vendor automatically 8)
"This file will take 2 days to download
[Cancel] [Continue] [Fedex]"
Slashdot Mirror
As with as Keith's work there is the x.org reference server tree on freedesktop.org, which is basically 4.4 without the contaminated bits. I suspect the fact this tree was close to ready for full release has something to do with the sudden appearance of XFree 4.4, but maybe I'm just cynical.
"Careful with that X eugene"
Advertising clauses are a nightmare to manage and for anything with a UI really the wrong way to get noticed.
An XFree86 logo during the X server startup would get noticed!
There are two X servers on freedesktop.org. One is Keiths experimental server the other is the X.org tree which is XFree 4.4 without the license change bits and with other stuff, and most of the people Dave Dawes fired working on it.
The x.org server is very much ready for prime time
Admittedly since the company were "personal injury lawyers" nobody could decide whether to feel outraged over the method used or happy that the people lost their jobs...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2949578.stm
Equally interesting is the question of trademarks. Are verisign allowed to make money off other peoples trademarks as they could have been considered to be doing.
Also they really needed to fix their site for other port 80 stuff. Simply returning large html pages is broken if the client only does wap for example
Different culture different values. We have a very recent and narrow definition of freedom of expression - although historically UK law has tried to protect newspapers and the like from most things, and the BBC has generally been protected from government meddling by other bits of law (and mostly by culture and tradition)
...). Its very common for there to be films which are rated "12" in france and 18 in the UK, because they involve people with no clothes on. And unlike the USA there is no real change at the age 18, the state never says "fine you are an adult, nobody committed a crime making this movie, everyone is an adult, *you* decide if you want to watch it". The state always allegedly knows best.
OTOH we don't dump several hundred foreigners on offshore islands and deny them rights to trial (we only do it to a few of them and we let them "leave" back to their original country whenever they wish - which is magnanimous of us given some of them will probably be shot if they do that..)
Except in narrow ways the US doesn't have free speech either - "To copy this CD hold down the... " oops , DMCA can't tell you that.
When it comes to porn and violence on websites thats where they UK really does have its head up its (sorry we can't show that
Since the UK state a) believes it knows best and b) believes that extreme porn and violence sites cause real world problems to occur (which may or may not be true - I've not had occasion to read the literature), its then logical that they believe they should be banning/blocking such material just as they take it off people at customs or stop it in the post if they discover it.
Some people argue that the real test of free speech is your practical ability to say something extremely unpopular without retribution - I don't think the US or UK neccessarily score highly here.
And I claim my RFID tag is for rights management and you go to jail. Easily solved. Come to think of it if you look suspicious I'm sure something like "going equipped to steal" would do for the carrier or nonsense like "accessory to a crime" to the manufacturer 8)
Strange how DVD copying software is being ruled illegal as it might be used to commit a crime while high velocity rifle rounds that penetrate police armour and kill people are not.
I guess Mickey Mouse is worth more than a pile of dead fbi men.
It can be done because it was done in 1994..
I still have my IBM PC110. Its smaller than a paperback book, weights about 800grams. Yes the display isnt ideal and the keyboard is very much two-thumb but its *incredibly* useful because it lets you take a "real" computer with you all the time.
Its also better than PDA because the apps are the same as your normal ones, so its easy to maintain and flexible. I guess Linux on zaurus is changing the equation a little.
Personally I wish someone would just hurry up and ship the damn things at a sensible price cos the PC110 is wearing out...
The ASF statement actually is really useful, because in essence they are saying they think its GPL compatible, so there are no issues on their side.
Its irrelevant however because Apache is built upon a set of non GPL compliant libraries like OpenSSL and always has been. "Apache 2.0 not GPL", well big deal: Apache 1.0 not GPL either.
You can probably build a non https:// Apache without a few other modules that is GPLable but everyone I've dealt with seems quite happy with the state of apache and the license it uses right now.
This is very different to the XFree 4.4 case where the rules got changed on people.
Its very much like "Windows 98 not GPL".. not news.
There are lots of good legitimate uses for card readers - things like swipe card doors, as used by the computer society here, or charging for photocopying (as used by the university)
At last a rational scientific explanation for observed facts ;)
I must disagree
If the copyright owner says "Sure you can do that", then you can. The only reason for all the paperwork people have is to prove agreements. In most countries permission under copyright law doesn't need to be written and signed.
Apache (as owners) said you can GPL derivative works if you want - end of discussion.
Trademark btw works very similarly except that its easier to create a promise by inaction ("estoppel"). You can in some cases lose the ability to enforce copyrights in some situations through estoppel too, but you don't lose the copyright per se just the ability to enforce it in some situations
Apache adding it as a footnote to their license would neaten it up but its hardly essential. Of course you then have openssl and other bits to consider. Really no standard loaded set of Apache packages has ever been GPL compatible, and except for the mysql4 problem nobody has had any problems due to it.
I specifically asked Dave about this when the change first came up and he wasn't interested in keeping the library bits clean. Had he done that the only problem would have been Alan Hourihane's GPL'd X drivers for VNC.
Its also a stupid way to get credit. Repeat after me "Nobody reads the documentation anyway". Right ? They've have done far better with the old license and something like a cute XFree86 logo spinning across the display when the server started - aka the 3dfx glide library startup.
As for the server side - Freedesktop needs to work on the server side for all the cool new technologies like on the fly rotation that XFree86 convservatism won't experiment with (rightfully or wrongfully). Keith's server is neat but its definitely 'technology preview' grade at the moment. I'm running it on one box and the semi transparent menus and drop shadows are nice.
XKeith86 has definitely moved forward. XFree is a bit stuck, and everyone who tries to improve it seems to get fired from XFree86 cvs on the spot
As to performance, a lot of the current problems seems to be that
a) The toolkits use Xrender heavily
b) The Xserver render acceleration handling isn't very bright
c) The only bits of code that do accelerate Xrender in XFree86 don't accelerate anything but overlay with alpha, so solid drawing which could easily be accelerated isnt handled.
The more "oh god I want to cry" level XFree86 problems start when you hotplug video cards.
I think I'd put some of my money on spanish being in there too
Language diversity has another purpose too and one that seems to be driving minor languages - its an identity, it marks you out from the mass as part of the community and links you to a set of private and more intimate culture of your own.
Well I'm not a linguist but a programming language isnt a process of thought - it is a process of communication and that means you need both the grammatical constructs and vocabulary to express the concepts involved.
Vocabulary seems less of a problem - lots of languages have words that are sentences to explain in others (hiraeth, zeitgeist etc) but I guess thats no different to a perl programmer and a C programmer arguing about regexp processing. Clearly you can also disambiguate damage ("I had a sandwich") [did you own it or eat it ?] doesn't cause a problem in English even though its ambiguous
In some ways we know the language and mathematics itself limit the computer - there are things mathematics cannot express for one.
There are also more fundamental concepts you have to have (passive/active, third party viewpoints, what-if, condition/action, past/present/future/habitual/. and stuff like negation and question words) but I would assume all language has those.
The thing that makes me most sceptical is that I've heard many asian speakers say they think differently in English, and there is also some brain scan evidence of different activity areas. But I don't speak any asian languages and I'm not likely to be learning Mandarin or Cantonese just to find out 8)
Likewise all high level computer programming languages tend to have things they cannot directly express. Fortran for example has no way to express "fiddle with CPU register foo"
Alan
I once attended a glorious lecture "Computing 3000BC to 1945". Ada Lovelace is probably the most famous "first programmer" but there are clear bits of evidence that there were programmers before. Some of the weaving loom systems supported loops and other programming constructs.
Turings genius was to get from adhoc discovery to the mathematics behind it , and turn a collection of interesting discoveries into a science
Dave Dawes message went to the contributors asking them if they wanted their contribution as is or changed to his new license. I wanted my contributions usable by all the X projects, including whoever finally gets annoyed enough to fork XFree.
BTW for Mandrake people (and mandrake themselves) there is a driver for the VIA chipset including DRI on ftp://people.redhat.com/alan. There is also a patch from Bero on the the dri Wiki which you may need depending which Mesa you use. I (and Im sure VIA who wrote most of the driver!) would love to see the via driver in Mandrake's XFree 4.3 packages if they go that way.
I also hope to have an accelerated Voodoo2 driver with DGA and maybe render acceleration available in the next couple of weeks - and that doesn't need Glide.
Fedora 1 minimal install needs Disc 1, most other stuff disc 1 and 2. I've not played with FC2 test1 enough yet to check.
In FC1 however you can end up needing disc3 if you select some other language support as disc3 has locale specific bits on it
And people who make guns know some of them will be used for bank raids, murders and the like.
BitTorrent is a very good tool. Its a pretty dumb way to throw pirate stuff around as the tracker knows everyone who is involved.
Which is fine and I bet they enjoy recycling it. Most this mornings creations involved the toilet. My employer doesnt claim he owns everything I create but if yours does well don't forget to send him everything.
Not only is there a problem with the infrastructure, there are several moral hazards to worry about, such as mass refusing unpopular people. Now there is scope for things like document services which involve both parties and actual money to avoid junk but I fail to see how the transaction cost will ever come below the "PKI and do it yourself" level.
Its a good job they didn't warrant their paper or I'd be a little richer by now 8)
If 99% of the use of alleys was drug dealing I'd expect the cops to be stamping it out so that the other 1% can enjoy their alleys legitimately not be raiding the offices of the town councils who own them.
The motor car is used in huge numbers of crime getaways yet nobody sued Ford or suggests Ford fits cars with cameras that look for money bags and refuse to start the engine otherwise.
Similarly the music industry should be looking for people who are actually breaking the law not harassing those providing tools with legitimate other uses.
Bill Thompson
a) Posts mostly opinion pieces that are visibly so
b) Quotes both sides in arguments and often does so when he obviously agrees with one of them personally in opinion pieces
I'm also sure Redmond raise complaints with the BBC if they feel his articles are inappropriate
Remember Linux (and I believe FreeBSD and OpenBSD) support routing by port number and by protocol flags. That means you can (with a little care) make sure your ssh goes via the modem while your file sucking operations go via the satellite.
All you really need then is something to check file sizes against the bandwidth cap and fax orders for very large files from a CD vendor automatically 8)
"This file will take 2 days to download
[Cancel] [Continue] [Fedex]"