Simple. It works well for what most users do. - The UI in WinXP is very inconsistent and horrible once you're used to a more consistent UI. There's not much debate here, WinXP is hardly the epitomy of fine UI design except maybe for the most rabid Microsofties. - No virus, no spyware. - Full command-line power with easy to use GUI. Try this with Linux or Windows. Keep a link to a file on your desktop, now drop down to the command line and rename the original file. Used to break Linux, it might try to search now, Windows will try a search if it's similar. OS/2 has no such problem, the 2 are automagically linked. - A real GUI for the OS. Come on, Linux is very pretty (I use Ubuntu everyday at work), but there's a lot of inconsistencies and at heart, it's still basically a X-Window manager. You think it's great, but not after you've used a real GUI. (Dang I wish GNOME or KDE would _copy_ from some of the best GUI's). - OS X is a possibility, but you have to buy Apple hardware only. - It's not a resource hog. I can fit my OS and all my applications (Yes, including OpenOffice 2, GIMP and everything you need under the sun) in a couple of GB if you wanted to.
Let's face it, most people (and that would not be people in Slashdot) just check their e-mail, browse the web and write up the occasional document. OS/2 does that easily and simply. I have to use WinXP and Linux (and Solaris and HP-UX and...) at work, but I'll fully switch when Linux or someone else gets their act together. All the alpha-blended, draggy morphing windows in the world won't make a great UI if the _behaviour_ isn't there.
If you need to get an updated, currently supported, purchasable version of OS/2, you can use eComstation.
Well of course, it was a blind test! What did you expect them to see?;-)
Seriously, that test, if it ever existed, is utter crap. We just got a 42" plasma, the difference between the HD broadcast and SD broadcast is so friggin' obvious you have to be literally blind not to notice it.
A very good DVD player with a good movie (animations are best) will look very good and one may not notice the difference easily if you don't have a side-by-side comparison. Watch the HD version and you'll see. If you really don't see the difference, then I suggest you get your vision fixed. Seriously.
Back in the day, I loaded a machine with up with BeOS and OS/2 Warp 4 and tried that very trick. I was expecting OS/2 to stutter but no, it kept pace with BeOS with many movies open and playing at the same time, all the while remaining just as responsive. I tried a few other similar "benchmarks" and couldn't see what the hype was about. Add to the problem that OS/2 actually had some serious office applications to get some work done (no Gobe wasn't good enough, I tried that too), web-browser on par with everyone else (Mozilla/Seamonkey), it was hard to justify BeOS, no matter how much I wanted to like it. Sure, BeOS was prettier I guess...
The technology was already there, once BeOS left the PowerPC platform, there wasn't any good reason to exist since it basically re-invented the wheel...and didn't do it much better, if at all.
They don't need cheap laptops or Internet access. That's the least of their concerns.
What they really need is some good basic education and someone to teach them that there are OTHER countries in the world besides USA. Most of them actually have nice people residing in it and many of them are nice to live in too. Better in fact.
Besides, if you want "light" OS, just go get yourself a copy of OS/2 or eComstation. 500MB is more than enough for OS and applications and room for data (and it still works better than KDE or GNOME). In bulk, the cost would be less than the cost you need for a bigger HD and more expensive (i.e. higher-power) equipment.
Come on, anyone who's up on the CPU business knew the G5 was damned efficient in terms of size and power, not to mention outright speedy anyways. The switch had not much to do with technology.
Look at the recent benchmarks of the iMac's with Duo Core and G5. The old G5 single core, with old technology and old process generally keeps pace on a per/core basis with Intel's latest and greatest.
A process shrink dual-core G5 would've been a pretty good match, if not better.
Oh, I'm sure Steve has thought about the deal very, very carefully. The one reason why Pixar makes such great films is STORY, and Jobs knows it. (Compared to that other studio, SKG which churns out volume in the hopes of having a hit. No, really, Mr. K. said just that in an interview).
I'm sure he makes sure he still has control over at least the Pixar unit. Pixar will be the only profitable unit and he knows it. What this does give him is control over Disney's vast media library.
iTunes + Disney (guess which TV station Disney owns + many films which are not directly under the Disney name) content.
Is it Disney buying out Pixar? Or Steve Jobs taking over Disney? Hahaha! World Domination!
I work right in tech central, Silicon Valley. I'm one of the little peons, not the management who does hiring.
I can tell you from our own company experience, and having dealt with our vendors and customers, there IS DEFINITELY A SHORTAGE.
We're not talking about a shortage of "cheap" labour. We're talking about a shortage of QUALIFIED labour. There are still a ton of so-called "engineers" out there who should never, ever have been hired in the first place (and I have no idea how they graduated). I've talked to guys with 20 years in the industry, worked for "names" like Fairchild, National, Intel, etc. and yet, I really wonder how they keep their jobs. I'd hire a new grad. over them any day. That's how bad some of them are.
I have no shortage of head hunters asking for my skills all the time. My friends and acquaintences have no problems finding WELL PAYING jobs in the industry.
I find that our company, like many others, are quite willing to pay handsomely for the right person with good skills, that's because they are very rare. When I was interviewing, they straight out told me that I was the first decent guy they talked to after a long string of boneheads that came along.
(Oh, and by the way, to those who think you don't need to go to university or get some sort of advanced training to be a good engineer....either you are a genius or you're not doing any real engineering work. Just being able to hack out software code doesn't count as engineering).
There's still plenty of engineers in town. But if you haven't noticed, most of them are not US trained. (Even myself, I hail from up north of the border).
The people making the core components of Linux and associated machinery still don't "get it".
It's not necessarily about the features. There's enough already. It's about presenting and organizing them in some consistent manner that is understandable to the average user.
Pick any standard distro that uses GNOME. Now take a look at Sun's Java Desktop (which is essentially the same thing). Don't look at screenshots, donwload it, install it and use it.
The guys have Sun have clearly done a far better job organizing things and cleaning up items (i.e. duplicate items in various menu places, configs that exist in places that didn't make sense, etc) that the average user would think it was something totally new.
Even farther up the road, look at what Apple's tiny band of engineers have done vs. a worldwide pool of GNOME or KDE dudes. Come on, it is basically *NIX underneath, as you all know, but the difference in user interface is night and day.
The answer is Yes, Yes and Yes. In case you're not up to date, well, OS/2 is pretty close to it.
I run OS/2 on a Thinkpad T40p. The USB works fine, external drives, printers, whatever. It runs a Mobility Fire GL video and you can run wireless networking (not all cards though).
It works, that's why I still use it. When Linux catches up I'll switch. Oh wait, it did, it's called "OS X"....
He said, it was in his opinion and even indicated his bias. And yes, he _is_ correct.
The thing that "matters" most about free and open-source software is that it is free as in freedom, but free as in beer.
"Matters" means mattering to the user who acquires and uses the software. And by "user" I mean the majority and average user.
Ask your mother what she would pick: 1) Open-sourced OpenOffice for $50 2) Closed-source OpenOffice for $0
Unless your mother is RMS, I'll bet she'll choose option 2). Same goes for any, let's say, school district that chooses OpenOffice. Do they care that it's open-source more than it's $0? I'd wager that's a solid "NO".
What? And you don't think the American government participates in a bit of monitoring and censorship? They're just much more clever about it and avoid getting caught. Comes from experience you know...
Dude, you've got a Master's degree but have _never_ had to look for a job before? Even in the summer?
That is so messed up. Unless you go to Asia (try Taiwan or China), just having a degree doesn't cut it.
Don't listen to your supervisor, you'll have to start low. There's going to be _plenty_ for you to learn when you get into your first real job. There may not be anything programming related, but it'll be just as important.
The point is that this dude is making many of the same complaints that Joe-Average User has been making forever, but nobody will listen to Joe because he's a nobody.
_You_ miss the point. A Mac cost a little bit more than a cheap white-box PC of the same power. But you know what, OS X is fast, does what you want, it doesn't blue-screen, no virus, no corruption or dying every few months/years, you can leave it running overnight and not worry about it, you can access it remotely. It's everything Linux should've been, but isn't because (many of) the developers were too busy trying to copy Windows instead of innovating.
free? Since OS X comes with your Mac, it's essentially free. Even if it didn't, if you were doing Real Work, you'd realize that $150-200 for an OS is essentially free.
Free? Who gives a shit? If my key expertise is developing applications, or graphic work, or music or scientific simulations, why should I have to screw with the OS? I want it to just work. The argument that Free is great because if there's a bug, you can just to fix it yourself is bullshit because most users can't or don't want to do that.
I don't see you monkeying around with your CPU if there's a bug with it...do you reflash your car's ECU if you think there's a problem?
Let's see, since I actually worked at Transmeta up until about 2 months ago and I still know the guys who work there, I'm pretty confident in saying that they are NOT out of business!
As far as I know, they are still churning out silicon. I don't know where Business 2.0 gets this trash.
BTW, their chips are pretty competitive now. It's a bit late, but you never know.
For any CPU's manufactured on 90nm or some fine geometry, there's not much point in under-clocking.
The leakage current from the transistors makes up the bulk of the power draw. It can be 90% or even higher. (The static current drawn is when you just turn on the power and don't apply any clocks or toggle anything).
So at best, even if you clocked it to 0MHz, you'd save maybe 10% power if you're lucky. That's it. It's not worth it.
You can get better power savings if you completely shut off portions of the chip, so this might be a strategy for low-power CPU's, and that's why the standby might differ a lot from the peak power drawn. But if you're actually running the chip 100%, forget it, underclocking is a dead end.
Why is the spirit of GPL broken? They released the code for free and open access.
Anything in the GPL that hints that you should release patches in small digestible chunks?
Anything in the "spirit" of the GPL that says I have to test my fixes for _your_ platform? I got a bug, I fix it for my platform, I submit the changes back. It's up to _you_ to figure out how to patch it for your platform.
Anything in the GPL that says "your code should be commented and readable"? How many other contributors to GPL projects provide well-written comments and documentation?
Anything in the GPL that stipulates use of CVS? What if I hate CVS? Is that against the spirit of GPL? All it says is that I have to include the source code for you to freely use.
No to all of the above. In my opinion, Apple has not legally violated the GPL, nor have they done so in spirit.
Yeah, of course one operating system is easier. While you're at it, it's also counter productive to support a myriad of hardware platforms too.
From now on, you will be allowed to use 1 specific CPU, with 1 chipset and one motherboard... Heck, and why even let other people at the source code. They'll just come back and tweak things and report new bugs. Close up the source, I say!
Sheesh! The whole beauty of open-source is that anyone can and probably will port stuff to their own favourite platform. You may find some platform specific bugs, but they may be helpful. You may learn something that fails disastrously on some platform is actually showing up as a subtle bug in another (e.g. security issue).
You can't pick and choose about open-source. Either it's open to everyone, or not.
It is a feature, it may not be a feature you want, but it doesn't perform this way by accident.
Keep in mind this is a _scripting_ language, it is not compiled and is interpreted at run-time. Having to declare and type your variables would be a waste of time.
If you've ever used Rexx, you should know you'll get nicely understandable error messages at runtime if you've done something not-compatible.
But this feature is highly convenient... For example, I can get it to print out any variable using "say ". That's it. Same for literal text enclosed in quotes or whatever. Not like C where I _have_ to f**king format even a plain decimal for printing. I mean, why do I have to go printf("%d", mynumber); when there really is only one bloody way to print a decimal? Stupid for a scripting language anyways.
It's still used in IBM mainframes, and is the scripting language of choice in OS/2 (which is _still_ in heavy use, though not at home).
For those of you NOT clued in, Rexx also comes as ObjectRexx, which, as you might guess is fully object oriented.
IBM has completely open-sourced it, and there is also a second open-source implementation (Regina Rexx).
Check out what's been going on at: http://www.rexxla.org/>
For 90% of what people use a scripting language for, Rexx beats the pants of Perl. it's easy to use and it's _readable_.
On many platforms, you can construct full GUI apps with it too, from paint programs, to GUI unzippers, etc.
Oh, it's nice enough! My preferred scripting language along with Python. I've easily written stuff like converters from BSDL (boundary scan description language) to XML, even a simulation of 3-d nuclear spin diffusion in sparsely abundant cubic lattice.
Right. How many of you regularly use your PS2 to play DVD's? Not I. For the price of 1 or 2 games, you can buy a dedicated DVD player which is much easier to use and way more flexible. This is not a mistake on Nintendo's part. It's a gaming machine, period (unless somebody figures out something really innovative to combine with a gaming machine that makes it a must-have).
As for making a mistake in missing the 2005 holiday season. That's easy to say! Like a company deliberately holds back on dates like these! If the hardware isn't ready, it isn't ready...stupid comment!
I doubt it carries over that much. I learned French instead and already that helps quite a bit looking at Spanish, Italian. And as a bonus, French is still a living language unlike Latin.
Just because the source is available doesn't guarantee that somebody _will_ work on it. It just guarantees that someone _could_ work on it.
And just because you use it doesn't mean you could maintain it yourself. I bet a lot of you use GCC but don't have a clue as to how to write a compiler.
The problem is summarized previously, but in case you don't get it, here it is:
You buy 1 Intel for $10 I buy 1 Intel for $15. Why? Because I also bought an AMD. If I bought 10 Intel for $10 and you got 1 Intel for $15, that's more understandable, and fair. THe issue is that Intel gives a discount _if_ you do not use a competitors chips, not based on volume.
There's nothing wrong with volume discounts or possibly even discounts to preferred customers (say those who pay on time or something).
This is pretty much the same as Microsoft in the bad ol' days saying "If you choose to bundle some other OS with your PC's, Windows will cost you more. Oh, and by the way, you pay for a Windows license even if you didn't ship that PC with Windows".
We know. I work at Transmeta. Our Japanese clients tell us this, they like our stuff, but when 90% of their products are Intel, and Intel will refuse to give you discounts if you touch another CPU, money talks, they can't afford to run alternative CPU's.
...all they want is money. Look, Carly got something like a $20million package (maybe more)for getting fired. Would _you_ care if you knew that's what you would get for screwing up? Possibly, if that mucked up your reputation. But inexplicably, IT DOESN'T. Rumors are she's on the shortlist to head the World Bank? WTF???
Nobody on the board of directors (board of fat cats more like it) really cares either. Or possibly they are impossibly dumb.
Look, how many of the "frontline troops" could tell you that the Compaq-HP merger wasn't any good and would amount to not much?
Unfortunately, it isn't just HP. It's nearly every CEO and board of directors. Hands up those of you on Slashdot who _knew_ the AOL-Time Warner was going to be bust? Yes, those of us in the field and half a teaspoon of wit knew that didn't make sense and was doomed to disaster. Yet the supposedly "wise and experienced" board didn't see it coming?
Fact is, these stupid maneuvers are are win-win-win for the board, CEO's and the stock analysts. They don't give a damn what happens to the company.
Now Mr. Hewlett and Packard, they wouldn't pull this sort of shit because it was their own baby. Founder of IBM had some pretty good rules too, they treated customers and employees _right_. But since he went, it's been all downhill (except for profits).
Really. I daily swap in and out between Solaris, WinXP, Linux and OS/2.
By far, OS/2 stays out of the way the most so I can focus on how to do the job within a particular application or task. OS/2 is equally comfortable and useable either by pure command-line or pure GUI. Currently all the *NIX really suck if you wanted to go pure GUI. (Go ahead, try one week without ever opening up a command-line prompt in *NIX and see how far you get).
WinXP, on the other hand, is a bitch when I go command-line, for whatever reason. Mostly because most of the tools, and Billy, don't expect the user to go there. Or something.
Slashdot Mirror
Simple. It works well for what most users do.
- The UI in WinXP is very inconsistent and horrible once you're used to a more consistent UI. There's not much debate here, WinXP is hardly the epitomy of fine UI design except maybe for the most rabid Microsofties.
- No virus, no spyware.
- Full command-line power with easy to use GUI. Try this with Linux or Windows. Keep a link to a file on your desktop, now drop down to the command line and rename the original file. Used to break Linux, it might try to search now, Windows will try a search if it's similar. OS/2 has no such problem, the 2 are automagically linked.
- A real GUI for the OS. Come on, Linux is very pretty (I use Ubuntu everyday at work), but there's a lot of inconsistencies and at heart, it's still basically a X-Window manager. You think it's great, but not after you've used a real GUI. (Dang I wish GNOME or KDE would _copy_ from some of the best GUI's).
- OS X is a possibility, but you have to buy Apple hardware only.
- It's not a resource hog. I can fit my OS and all my applications (Yes, including OpenOffice 2, GIMP and everything you need under the sun) in a couple of GB if you wanted to.
Let's face it, most people (and that would not be people in Slashdot) just check their e-mail, browse the web and write up the occasional document. OS/2 does that easily and simply. I have to use WinXP and Linux (and Solaris and HP-UX and...) at work, but I'll fully switch when Linux or someone else gets their act together. All the alpha-blended, draggy morphing windows in the world won't make a great UI if the _behaviour_ isn't there.
If you need to get an updated, currently supported, purchasable version of OS/2, you can use eComstation.
Well of course, it was a blind test! What did you expect them to see? ;-)
Seriously, that test, if it ever existed, is utter crap.
We just got a 42" plasma, the difference between the HD broadcast and SD broadcast is so friggin' obvious you have to be literally blind not to notice it.
A very good DVD player with a good movie (animations are best) will look very good and one may not notice the difference easily if you don't have a side-by-side comparison. Watch the HD version and you'll see.
If you really don't see the difference, then I suggest you get your vision fixed. Seriously.
Back in the day, I loaded a machine with up with BeOS and OS/2 Warp 4 and tried that very trick. I was expecting OS/2 to stutter but no, it kept pace with BeOS with many movies open and playing at the same time, all the while remaining just as responsive.
I tried a few other similar "benchmarks" and couldn't see what the hype was about. Add to the problem that OS/2 actually had some serious office applications to get some work done (no Gobe wasn't good enough, I tried that too), web-browser on par with everyone else (Mozilla/Seamonkey), it was hard to justify BeOS, no matter how much I wanted to like it. Sure, BeOS was prettier I guess...
The technology was already there, once BeOS left the PowerPC platform, there wasn't any good reason to exist since it basically re-invented the wheel...and didn't do it much better, if at all.
They don't need cheap laptops or Internet access. That's the least of their concerns.
What they really need is some good basic education and someone to teach them that there are OTHER countries in the world besides USA. Most of them actually have nice people residing in it and many of them are nice to live in too. Better in fact.
Besides, if you want "light" OS, just go get yourself a copy of OS/2 or eComstation. 500MB is more than enough for OS and applications and room for data (and it still works better than KDE or GNOME).
In bulk, the cost would be less than the cost you need for a bigger HD and more expensive (i.e. higher-power) equipment.
Come on, anyone who's up on the CPU business knew the G5 was damned efficient in terms of size and power, not to mention outright speedy anyways. The switch had not much to do with technology.
Look at the recent benchmarks of the iMac's with Duo Core and G5. The old G5 single core, with old technology and old process generally keeps pace on a per/core basis with Intel's latest and greatest.
A process shrink dual-core G5 would've been a pretty good match, if not better.
Oh, I'm sure Steve has thought about the deal very, very carefully. The one reason why Pixar makes such great films is STORY, and Jobs knows it. (Compared to that other studio, SKG which churns out volume in the hopes of having a hit. No, really, Mr. K. said just that in an interview).
I'm sure he makes sure he still has control over at least the Pixar unit. Pixar will be the only profitable unit and he knows it. What this does give him is control over Disney's vast media library.
iTunes + Disney (guess which TV station Disney owns + many films which are not directly under the Disney name) content.
Is it Disney buying out Pixar? Or Steve Jobs taking over Disney?
Hahaha! World Domination!
I work right in tech central, Silicon Valley. I'm one of the little peons, not the management who does hiring.
I can tell you from our own company experience, and having dealt with our vendors and customers, there IS DEFINITELY A SHORTAGE.
We're not talking about a shortage of "cheap" labour. We're talking about a shortage of QUALIFIED labour. There are still a ton of so-called "engineers" out there who should never, ever have been hired in the first place (and I have no idea how they graduated). I've talked to guys with 20 years in the industry, worked for "names" like Fairchild, National, Intel, etc. and yet, I really wonder how they keep their jobs. I'd hire a new grad. over them any day. That's how bad some of them are.
I have no shortage of head hunters asking for my skills all the time. My friends and acquaintences have no problems finding WELL PAYING jobs in the industry.
I find that our company, like many others, are quite willing to pay handsomely for the right person with good skills, that's because they are very rare. When I was interviewing, they straight out told me that I was the first decent guy they talked to after a long string of boneheads that came along.
(Oh, and by the way, to those who think you don't need to go to university or get some sort of advanced training to be a good engineer....either you are a genius or you're not doing any real engineering work. Just being able to hack out software code doesn't count as engineering).
There's still plenty of engineers in town. But if you haven't noticed, most of them are not US trained.
(Even myself, I hail from up north of the border).
The people making the core components of Linux and associated machinery still don't "get it".
It's not necessarily about the features. There's enough already. It's about presenting and organizing them in some consistent manner that is understandable to the average user.
Pick any standard distro that uses GNOME. Now take a look at Sun's Java Desktop (which is essentially the same thing). Don't look at screenshots, donwload it, install it and use it.
The guys have Sun have clearly done a far better job organizing things and cleaning up items (i.e. duplicate items in various menu places, configs that exist in places that didn't make sense, etc) that the average user would think it was something totally new.
Even farther up the road, look at what Apple's tiny band of engineers have done vs. a worldwide pool of GNOME or KDE dudes. Come on, it is basically *NIX underneath, as you all know, but the difference in user interface is night and day.
The answer is Yes, Yes and Yes.
In case you're not up to date, well, OS/2 is pretty close to it.
I run OS/2 on a Thinkpad T40p. The USB works fine, external drives, printers, whatever.
It runs a Mobility Fire GL video and you can run wireless networking (not all cards though).
It works, that's why I still use it. When Linux catches up I'll switch. Oh wait, it did, it's called "OS X"....
He said, it was in his opinion and even indicated his bias. And yes, he _is_ correct.
The thing that "matters" most about free and open-source software is that it is free as in freedom, but free as in beer.
"Matters" means mattering to the user who acquires and uses the software. And by "user" I mean the majority and average user.
Ask your mother what she would pick:
1) Open-sourced OpenOffice for $50
2) Closed-source OpenOffice for $0
Unless your mother is RMS, I'll bet she'll choose option 2). Same goes for any, let's say, school district that chooses OpenOffice. Do they care that it's open-source more than it's $0? I'd wager that's a solid "NO".
What? And you don't think the American government participates in a bit of monitoring and censorship? They're just much more clever about it and avoid getting caught.
Comes from experience you know...
Dude, you've got a Master's degree but have _never_ had to look for a job before? Even in the summer?
That is so messed up. Unless you go to Asia (try Taiwan or China), just having a degree doesn't cut it.
Don't listen to your supervisor, you'll have to start low. There's going to be _plenty_ for you to learn when you get into your first real job. There may not be anything programming related, but it'll be just as important.
The point is that this dude is making many of the same complaints that Joe-Average User has been making forever, but nobody will listen to Joe because he's a nobody.
_You_ miss the point. A Mac cost a little bit more than a cheap white-box PC of the same power. But you know what, OS X is fast, does what you want, it doesn't blue-screen, no virus, no corruption or dying every few months/years, you can leave it running overnight and not worry about it, you can access it remotely.
It's everything Linux should've been, but isn't because (many of) the developers were too busy trying to copy Windows instead of innovating.
free? Since OS X comes with your Mac, it's essentially free. Even if it didn't, if you were doing Real Work, you'd realize that $150-200 for an OS is essentially free.
Free? Who gives a shit? If my key expertise is developing applications, or graphic work, or music or scientific simulations, why should I have to screw with the OS? I want it to just work. The argument that Free is great because if there's a bug, you can just to fix it yourself is bullshit because most users can't or don't want to do that.
I don't see you monkeying around with your CPU if there's a bug with it...do you reflash your car's ECU if you think there's a problem?
Let's see, since I actually worked at Transmeta up until about 2 months ago and I still know the guys who work there, I'm pretty confident in saying that they are NOT out of business!
As far as I know, they are still churning out silicon. I don't know where Business 2.0 gets this trash.
BTW, their chips are pretty competitive now. It's a bit late, but you never know.
For any CPU's manufactured on 90nm or some fine geometry, there's not much point in under-clocking.
The leakage current from the transistors makes up the bulk of the power draw. It can be 90% or even higher.
(The static current drawn is when you just turn on the power and don't apply any clocks or toggle anything).
So at best, even if you clocked it to 0MHz, you'd save maybe 10% power if you're lucky. That's it. It's not worth it.
You can get better power savings if you completely shut off portions of the chip, so this might be a strategy for low-power CPU's, and that's why the standby might differ a lot from the peak power drawn. But if you're actually running the chip 100%, forget it, underclocking is a dead end.
Why is the spirit of GPL broken? They released the code for free and open access.
Anything in the GPL that hints that you should release patches in small digestible chunks?
Anything in the "spirit" of the GPL that says I have to test my fixes for _your_ platform?
I got a bug, I fix it for my platform, I submit the changes back. It's up to _you_ to figure out how to patch it for your platform.
Anything in the GPL that says "your code should be commented and readable"? How many other contributors to GPL projects provide well-written comments and documentation?
Anything in the GPL that stipulates use of CVS? What if I hate CVS? Is that against the spirit of GPL? All it says is that I have to include the source code for you to freely use.
No to all of the above. In my opinion, Apple has not legally violated the GPL, nor have they done so in spirit.
Yeah, of course one operating system is easier. While you're at it, it's also counter productive to support a myriad of hardware platforms too.
From now on, you will be allowed to use 1 specific CPU, with 1 chipset and one motherboard...
Heck, and why even let other people at the source code. They'll just come back and tweak things and report new bugs. Close up the source, I say!
Sheesh! The whole beauty of open-source is that anyone can and probably will port stuff to their own favourite platform. You may find some platform specific bugs, but they may be helpful. You may learn something that fails disastrously on some platform is actually showing up as a subtle bug in another (e.g. security issue).
You can't pick and choose about open-source. Either it's open to everyone, or not.
It is a feature, it may not be a feature you want, but it doesn't perform this way by accident.
Keep in mind this is a _scripting_ language, it is not compiled and is interpreted at run-time. Having to declare and type your variables would be a waste of time.
If you've ever used Rexx, you should know you'll get nicely understandable error messages at runtime if you've done something not-compatible.
But this feature is highly convenient...
For example, I can get it to print out any variable using "say ".
That's it. Same for literal text enclosed in quotes or whatever. Not like C where I _have_ to f**king format even a plain decimal for printing.
I mean, why do I have to go
printf("%d", mynumber);
when there really is only one bloody way to print a decimal? Stupid for a scripting language anyways.
It's still used in IBM mainframes, and is the scripting language of choice in OS/2 (which is _still_ in heavy use, though not at home).
:
For those of you NOT clued in, Rexx also comes as ObjectRexx, which, as you might guess is fully object oriented.
IBM has completely open-sourced it, and there is also a second open-source implementation (Regina Rexx).
Check out what's been going on at
http://www.rexxla.org/>
For 90% of what people use a scripting language for, Rexx beats the pants of Perl. it's easy to use and it's _readable_.
On many platforms, you can construct full GUI apps with it too, from paint programs, to GUI unzippers, etc.
Oh, it's nice enough! My preferred scripting language along with Python. I've easily written stuff like converters from BSDL (boundary scan description language) to XML, even a simulation of 3-d nuclear spin diffusion in sparsely abundant cubic lattice.
Right. How many of you regularly use your PS2 to play DVD's?
Not I. For the price of 1 or 2 games, you can buy a dedicated DVD player which is much easier to use and way more flexible.
This is not a mistake on Nintendo's part. It's a gaming machine, period (unless somebody figures out something really innovative to combine with a gaming machine that makes it a must-have).
As for making a mistake in missing the 2005 holiday season. That's easy to say! Like a company deliberately holds back on dates like these! If the hardware isn't ready, it isn't ready...stupid comment!
I doubt it carries over that much. I learned French instead and already that helps quite a bit looking at Spanish, Italian. And as a bonus, French is still a living language unlike Latin.
Just because the source is available doesn't guarantee that somebody _will_ work on it. It just guarantees that someone _could_ work on it.
And just because you use it doesn't mean you could maintain it yourself. I bet a lot of you use GCC but don't have a clue as to how to write a compiler.
The problem is summarized previously, but in case you don't get it, here it is:
You buy 1 Intel for $10
I buy 1 Intel for $15. Why? Because I also bought an AMD.
If I bought 10 Intel for $10 and you got 1 Intel for $15, that's more understandable, and fair. THe issue is that Intel gives a discount _if_ you do not use a competitors chips, not based on volume.
There's nothing wrong with volume discounts or possibly even discounts to preferred customers (say those who pay on time or something).
This is pretty much the same as Microsoft in the bad ol' days saying "If you choose to bundle some other OS with your PC's, Windows will cost you more. Oh, and by the way, you pay for a Windows license even if you didn't ship that PC with Windows".
We know. I work at Transmeta. Our Japanese clients tell us this, they like our stuff, but when 90% of their products are Intel, and Intel will refuse to give you discounts if you touch another CPU, money talks, they can't afford to run alternative CPU's.
...all they want is money. Look, Carly got something like a $20million package (maybe more)for getting fired. Would _you_ care if you knew that's what you would get for screwing up?
Possibly, if that mucked up your reputation. But inexplicably, IT DOESN'T. Rumors are she's on the shortlist to head the World Bank? WTF???
Nobody on the board of directors (board of fat cats more like it) really cares either. Or possibly they are impossibly dumb.
Look, how many of the "frontline troops" could tell you that the Compaq-HP merger wasn't any good and would amount to not much?
Unfortunately, it isn't just HP. It's nearly every CEO and board of directors.
Hands up those of you on Slashdot who _knew_ the AOL-Time Warner was going to be bust? Yes, those of us in the field and half a teaspoon of wit knew that didn't make sense and was doomed to disaster. Yet the supposedly "wise and experienced" board didn't see it coming?
Fact is, these stupid maneuvers are are win-win-win for the board, CEO's and the stock analysts. They don't give a damn what happens to the company.
Now Mr. Hewlett and Packard, they wouldn't pull this sort of shit because it was their own baby.
Founder of IBM had some pretty good rules too, they treated customers and employees _right_. But since he went, it's been all downhill (except for profits).
Really. I daily swap in and out between Solaris, WinXP, Linux and OS/2.
By far, OS/2 stays out of the way the most so I can focus on how to do the job within a particular application or task.
OS/2 is equally comfortable and useable either by pure command-line or pure GUI. Currently all the *NIX really suck if you wanted to go pure GUI.
(Go ahead, try one week without ever opening up a command-line prompt in *NIX and see how far you get).
WinXP, on the other hand, is a bitch when I go command-line, for whatever reason. Mostly because most of the tools, and Billy, don't expect the user to go there. Or something.
If I had to jump ship, I'd go OS X.