Clearly you haven't considered that anything can be encoded (using prime numbers+gzip, plain gzip, rot-13, whichever encoding you fancy)
This encoding is no different from any other decoding: It changes information from one representation to another. This is not new - only this particular encoding is new, but the idea of encoding is certainly not new.
Ok, the rest here is speculation:
Clearly, gzipping some piece of software does not change the licensing of that software. So, what if I work with numerical simulations and purely by chance my plasma physics data set can be gunzipped into a full distribution of [insert some proprietary software here] ?
I guess that would be ok, because clearly this happened by chance and I never intended to actually gunzip my data set.
Likewise, if your key-exchange code by chance generates a prime that just happens to encode some piece of IP, it should be hard for anyone to sue you.
On the other hand, encoding the "original" for the purpose of distributing it in some alternative representation has always been illegal. gzipping IP doesn't make it legal, neither does encoding it into a prime number after it's gzipped.
But this is a funny problem ! It puts a new angle on "Intellectual Poverty".
You're right that anything could be encoded into a prime number (with a suitable prime->original conversion).
But using some prime->original decoder is no different from say, gunzip. It's decoding of information in on form back to it's "original" form.
So no, making copies of Win2K is not legal wether it's gzipped or encoded into a prime.
And distributing DeCSS as a prime number (or gzipped) doesn't change the legality either.
Subtracting 1 from the number then distributing that number just adds another layer on your decoder, it doesn't change what you're doing. gzipping something twice doesn't remove the licensing restrictions either.
However, this is interesting because it puts a new angle on the flawed notion of "Intellectual Property" (or, Intellectual Poverty as I like to call it, because that must be what we suffer from if we restrict other's access to ideas that are indeed just mathematics in some form or another).
The only HOWTOs I read were on how to configure software.
No, you cannot set up (for example) a name-server in '98 (or any other environment for that matter) without understanding what you're dealing with. A HOWTO is a great way to quickly get a good idea about what you're dealing with.
Many HOWTOs are not about hardware. Some of those that are about hardware, are about *broken* hardware, and how you work around it. So in a sense, yes, sometimes something *is* broken when you need a HOWTO. The alternative is to not have a HOWTO, and thereby not having a way to work around the problem. Choice is such a bitch;)
It's just totally beyond me what she is talking about... Completely...
"No more calculating of cylinders for the swap partition" - hey, I started in '95 with Linux 1.2.13 and slackware/redhat. I didn't calculate any cylinders then, and I sure as hell don't today.
And why the heck do we have to focus on making money ? Sure, if you're selling the software, you better focus on making a living off it. And I'm pretty sure RedHat, SuSE, and the others are pretty busy doing exactly that. But the rest of us ? GNU/Linux is a *tool* for me - I don't make money off it, but without it I couldn't produce the stuff that I *do* make money off. In any healthy capitalism there is an element of socialism (we all pay taxes to build roads, but we pay individually for the cab). GNU/Linux is my road - I contribute, I benefit, and I have one hell of a highway to carry my business.
So, the HOWTOs are moon-language ?? Has she ever read one ? Maybe because I wrote one of them, I'm also talking moon-language, and therefore I can't see that it's all wrong and obscure to "normal" people. But saying there is no comprehensive documentation to a system that has LDP + O'Reilly + commercial support + the award-winning mailing lists and news-groups (at the high level) and the source (at the detailed level) is absurd.
Oh, and now choice too is a bad thing. The poor secretary would cry if she was given a choice - I'm sure she would, but don't ask me to pity that. Lots of secretaries are using non-windows. In fact, windows is something that happened during the '90s - we actually had computers in '70s too... And secretaries... Come on, open your eyes and show a little enthusiasm here.
My point is, that it's easy to be all negative when you're ill and have to write letters on a notebook running '98. Get well, have a cup of coffee, stop running slackware from '94, and let's talk this over.
Re:KDE 2.1: A Desktop Aimed at Grownups?
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KDE 2.1 Is Out
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Hehe, you have a very good point about people curring costs.
Unfortunately, the majority of people don't have a bit of sense... But of course, with the major layoffs, maybe just the people with a little sense will be the ones that are left.
Now all we need is a *standard* backend for the calendar and messaging:) Something GNOME would use too.
Re:I have had a fearful thought....
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KDE 2.1 Is Out
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· Score: 2
Ok, no FUD intended.
I just look at stuff as a user who doesn't know what XUL and DOM even stands for - look at my homepage and you will see that I *really* don't;)
I was impressed with konqueror, but the last version I looked at had it's weaknesses (crashed too often). Maybe, if it hadn't been for my disappointment of the speed/footprint of mozilla, I would have been less impressed. I don't know.
Also, at the time I gave up Mozilla, they didn't have proper Java support or SSL. Konqueror had all of it, out of the box, immediately. I know mozilla got SSL (but still don't proper java right ? - I mean, you need to get a plugin from somewhere in order to get it to work)
Sure, Konqueror isn't exactly lightweight either, it's only semi-leightweight when standing next to a monster. But it's funny when you're developing software for a living and you know how much stuff you can actually fit in a megabyte, to watch *both* mozilla an konqueror consume 30+ megs.
Anyway, I'm going to check out the K in a few hours when the compilers are done...
Re:I have had a fearful thought....
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KDE 2.1 Is Out
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· Score: 2
Huh ?
Name one thing mozilla has that konqueror doesn't have - please -
I'm writing this in Netscape - which is slow, ugly, and crashes frequently. I have been using Mozilla, which is much slower and crashes about as frequently - looks pretty though. And I have been using Konqueror 2.0, which is very fast compared to the two other monsters, but also crashes about as frequently as the old Netscape.
I have a lot more faith in Konqueror than I have in Mozilla, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they've been up to while I haven't been following...
Oh, did I mention, I used Konqueror in GNOME, because while it doesn't fit into the look and feel (QT instead of GTK+), well, neither does mozilla or netscape;)
Please, let me know what it is that mozilla has..
Re:I have had a fearful thought....
on
KDE 2.1 Is Out
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· Score: 3
Hmm... What about letting the best stuff win the largest share and be happy about it ? After all, twm is still around, so I'm sure there will be plenty of room for KDE or GNOME, whichever only gets the second largest share of users.
I never liked using KDE, but I'm compiling my SRPMS for 2.1 now and I'm going to give it a shot. The panels and applets in GNOME are really helpful and I totally lacked that (*one* panel, and just about *one* applet too) in KDE earlier - but let's see about it now...
Technically though, KDE is ahead, but more importantly, they are running much much faster than GNOME can ever do. Just look at it - they built Konqueror in how long time ? A year or two ? And it's ahead of Mozilla by far. And KDevelop ? For how long have people been toying with something like that for GNOME, without producing results ? Yes I know about GLADE, but take a look at www.kdevelop.org and you know what I mean. Seriously, I'm impressed with those people's skills - I just wish they could build me some panels and applets...
I'll switch if I like it now, or wait until they get more panels - or become a left-wing tree-huggin' dropout and not worry a bit about any of this;) We do live in interesting times - that's for sure
Sure, let's add _yet_ another layer. No wait, let's not...
Abstractions of abstractions does not solve problems. I don't know why people are so easily talked into thinking this is a good idea. That would be XML all over again, like, "let's define a wrapper that everyone uses, but let's not consider that everyone still needs to agree on what we're actually sending thru the wrapper"
A common API on which KDE and GNOME could be developed is *already* there - it's X11R6 and POSIX. That's why you can start up GNOME *and* KDE on the same machine - clever, eh ?
I don't know why you mention an ABI, maybe it's a typo and you meant to say API ? The ABI is standard already, and it would be a damn hard thing to re-define, and as I see it wouldn't make much sense to do either..
Not even do they use C++, they even supply a pre-processor to do the tedious work for you.
Ever wonder how they could "just" write up Konqueror which today is miles ahead of Mozilla in performance and capabilities, with much less effort in much less time ? They use the right tools for the job. Mozilla is also written in C++, but it's not used to it's full potential - far from it. C++ in Mozilla is "extended C", C++ in QT/KDE is "real C++". The benefits from using C++ like it was meant to be used are tremendous - I speak from experience. And, then they have their pre-processor of course:)
Huh ?
I'll check up on the DHTML thing tomorrow when I've gotten some sleep...
The network monitoring system is a client/server system. The server is a large program (it is a distributed database and a remote monitoring system), and the client is a very small easily portable program.
Thus, the server is available for RedHat 6.2 (and therefore also 7.0, the 6.2 version will work there), Debian 2.2, FreeBSD 4.0, NT 4.0 (and therefore also Win2K).
The client is available for the same platforms, plus, RedHat 5.2 (with a Linux 2.0 kernel), and FreeBSD 3.4.
As you will have noticed, the software is in beta, but we are *very* close to a release. There are bugs left, but we will have a release out fixing the last known ones, probably around the weekend.
Should anyone out there have oppinions, suggestions, demands or "other", for a commercial program soon-to-ship for Linux among other platforms, I would welcome such feedback.
Shared libraries lose their big benefits when every binary ships it's own version of that shared library. On win2k that has become the rule now, to avoid library version conflicts.
On GNU/Linux (and most other systems), you *can* ship a separate version of that library with each binary that requires it. But the libraries will be installed at the standard locations, so if more apps require the same version, they will actually share the library. This is what RedHat used in the glibc-compat package, which provides a compatibility library so that RedHat 6.2 binaries will run flawlessly on RedHat 7.0, using the proper versions of their shared libraries, while the "native" RedHat 7.0 binaries run on the newer libraries. Simple, elegant.
Our Linux apps (currently on RedHat 6.2 only) ships with a special libstdc++, which we will probably be the only ones using. However, because of RedHat's approach, we will not do this in the next release, it is perfectly reasonable to simply use the compatibility libraries on 7.0 and the native libraries on 6.2. Once we start supporting a stable 7.X platform, we will of course run on the native library versions there.
On NT and Win2K we must ship specific versions of some DLLs in order to get anything running. There is no backwards compatibility, and there is no DLL versioning. It is of course very simple to just ship your own DLLs, and it works perfectly well, I am just arguing that I fail to see the problem with the GNU/Linux (and most UNIX like systems) approach. Especially given great vendor support such as what we see from RedHat (and probably others too).
It is not usually an option for a vendor to link statically because of license restrictions.
However, a vendor is allowed to ship a specific version of glibc and libstdc++ with the software, as long as they provide some reasonable access to the source code as well.
As posted somewhere else, that is what we ended up doing for the RedHat 6.2 port of our network monitoring software. We ship a version of libstdc++ that matches our binary, it is installed without interfering with the other versions of libstdc++ that may be installed on the system, and everyone's happy.
Really, I am surprised how well this stuff works, and I cannot understand why so many people keep complaining about how horrible the system is. I think it's brilliant. And programs can still share the shared libraries, it's not like the Win2K way of doing things, where each app ships it's own set of so-called "shared libraries".
I work for a company building a network montioring system available for FreeBSD, NT (and 2K), and both RedHat and Debian Linux. We're adding platforms as people request them.
Really, RedHat 7.0 includes the libraries that shipped with 6.2, so while we only support RedHat 6.2 we still work out-of-the-box on RedHat 7.0. Why not use the compatibility libraries ? That's what they're there for - they're not performing worse or anything, they are just older versions of the library.
On UNIX-like systems you actually have VERSIONING on your system libraries. So you can have a perfectly running system with ten different versions of the C library, and each application will use the version it requires.
You're welcome to check out our beta-versions available from sysorb.com, if you don't believe me:)
Most parts of science, be it pshycology, chemistry or mathematics, has a dual use. This is how the world we live in is made.
Sure, blame science. Outlaw science. And only ouwlaws will know science. Clearly, this is not a viable approach.
One would think that the broad audiece, the public, and even maybe politicians would realize this. But for some reason, which is beyond my comprehension, someone doesn't.
I have feet, and I have hands. And I am able to kill with those. I am also able to help others, using those same instruments. What makes me help others, rather than terminate their existance ?
Law, you may say. I would be punished, for using my instruments in a way disobedient to the law, given that my practice of so-called maljustice was discovered of course. From a personal point of view, I would say my odds of getting awaay with malpractice would be good. So what makes me a generally percieved nice person, and maybe even a to-the-heart nice person, given that I could probably get away with being otherwise ?
It is not law, clearly. It is not limitation in my possibilities in doing harm, either.
I am about to graduate with a master's degree, in half a year from now. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of basic phycics knows, that any engineer could assemble a crude nuclear weapon easily, given access to the proper materials and equipment. I suppose this makes me, and about a few million other people, a threat to the security not only of a nation that percieves itself as the only one in the world, but also a threat to humanity in general, to man kind... So why are we not hunted down like the witches and trolls we are ? Like we used to be ?
Accept, that with knowledge and skill, follows responsibility. Accept, that not all are equal. Accept, that some are born with a skill, and that others choose to achieve that skill thru hard work. But accept, that some has the knowledge, the ability, and the will to help. But accept also, that the possession of such abilities also implies, that the person in question may have the abiltiy to do harm.
Then, trust those people.
Thruout history, trust has been material in any relationship formed, and broken. World history is not likely to change, and basic principles of trust and relationships and even war, are not going to change anytime soon.
Get over that hump. Accept it. I'm a nice guy, and so are millions of others like me. Like you.
Since there is no company or organization by the name of "Linux", Andre's position in T13 is *consultant*. Nothing more, nothing less. He votes and stuff, but he is a consultant only as no person can be said to represent "Linux".
(No, not Linus either, he doesn't own even 10% of the kernel anymore)
But yes, other than that, Andre rocks (in his own special way sometimes) !
I have nothing to prove to you. And I trust that it makes no difference even if I tell you that I am in fact not lying. Do you know why ? Because I don't need to. But who am I telling, right;)
I have one proof for you, that absolutely guarantees that the uptime posted previously is authentic: What kind of friggin' idiot would be running -test4, on december 28th, if it wasn't for keeping an uptime to brag about ??
See ?:)
I'm sure that when you check when -test4 was released, you will see that it is not too far from being 127 days away.
I've heard that analogy before, and *plo ease* stop it. No it is not the same as trying if someone forgot to lock their door - that would be the actual exploit, if anything...
When is a port scan a port scan ? If I scan one port ? two ? ten ? If I connect to a machine on port 80, I expect to get the web-server - but it is a one-port "scan" as well. Is that leagal ? What if I follow a link from somewhere that points to http://yourhost.com:81/, but you never had a web server running at port 81 ? Am I a burgler ?
Give up the ghost-hunting, and let's focus on the real issues... If you log a port scan, you're wise to keep an eye on that IP. But nothing happened yet, and maybe nothing will.
If I walk by your house looking at your front door, maybe you'll be wise to keep an eye out for me next time. But if you come after me on those grounds alone, the law is on my side.
It is wise to use logged port-scans to focus your detective work, but attempting to act on them alone is ridiculous. It is very simply *just*not*good*enough*.
Ok, I'm a european in the US now, and the reason why I'm working for free (well it's called research and it's perfectly legal, but it's still unpaid work) is that the US also has very strict regulations about employment of non-residents.
Besides, if you speak fluent german, why would you have a hard time ? Maybe you only speak fluent german in america (hint hint) ?
Going to another country is an experience. Some people go abroad and bitch about how everything is not quite like at home. And some of us accept (and maybe even enjoy) that things are different, and that you get the opportunity to vastly improve that foreign language of yours. I know that I have. And I may not like every bit about the states, but I'm enjoying my time here. Try not being so damn ignorant, then things may just lighten up and even look bright to you:)
In a vector CPU, you have vector registers. For example, one single multiply-add instruction can take one register multiply it with another and add a third, but each register may hold perhaps 16 scalars instead of just one.
So on a 1GHz ``ordinary'' cpu you do
multiply a, b
and get 1GFlop/sec because you
can run ~1 instruction per second.
On a 300MHz vector machine you would do
multiply a, b
and get 4.8GFlops/sec, because each register
holds 16 scalars instead of one.
The usual characteristics of vector machines are:
Clock speed is low
The work-per-cycle that can be done is high
Memory bandwidth and access time is extremely good
They're expensive, but for some problems the price/performance is better than what you can get from a non-vector machine
Some vector machines have no cache - or, put in another way, all their memory is the cache. Access times are constant no matter how you access your memory. You will pay for this with a very long pipeline which in turn means that the CPU is virtually unusable for some problems. On the other hand, the cache-based CPUs are virtually unusable for other problems. It's a compromise.
Slashdot Mirror
Clearly you haven't considered that anything can be encoded (using prime numbers+gzip, plain gzip, rot-13, whichever encoding you fancy)
This encoding is no different from any other decoding: It changes information from one representation to another. This is not new - only this particular encoding is new, but the idea of encoding is certainly not new.
Ok, the rest here is speculation:
Clearly, gzipping some piece of software does not change the licensing of that software. So, what if I work with numerical simulations and purely by chance my plasma physics data set can be gunzipped into a full distribution of [insert some proprietary software here] ?
I guess that would be ok, because clearly this happened by chance and I never intended to actually gunzip my data set.
Likewise, if your key-exchange code by chance generates a prime that just happens to encode some piece of IP, it should be hard for anyone to sue you.
On the other hand, encoding the "original" for the purpose of distributing it in some alternative representation has always been illegal. gzipping IP doesn't make it legal, neither does encoding it into a prime number after it's gzipped.
But this is a funny problem ! It puts a new angle on "Intellectual Poverty".
I think you misunderstood.
In the interval 1...n there is a finite number of primes.
Therefore, you can instead of writing down a large prime P, you can write down which number of prime it is in the sequence 1...P.
Possibly even further !
;)
Find a Mersenne prime that encodes it
Possibly such a prime can exist where the power is shorter than the current prime.
That should put those damn CPUs to use...
You're right that anything could be encoded into a prime number (with a suitable prime->original conversion).
But using some prime->original decoder is no different from say, gunzip. It's decoding of information in on form back to it's "original" form.
So no, making copies of Win2K is not legal wether it's gzipped or encoded into a prime.
And distributing DeCSS as a prime number (or gzipped) doesn't change the legality either.
Subtracting 1 from the number then distributing that number just adds another layer on your decoder, it doesn't change what you're doing. gzipping something twice doesn't remove the licensing restrictions either.
However, this is interesting because it puts a new angle on the flawed notion of "Intellectual Property" (or, Intellectual Poverty as I like to call it, because that must be what we suffer from if we restrict other's access to ideas that are indeed just mathematics in some form or another).
The only HOWTOs I read were on how to configure software.
;)
No, you cannot set up (for example) a name-server in '98 (or any other environment for that matter) without understanding what you're dealing with. A HOWTO is a great way to quickly get a good idea about what you're dealing with.
Many HOWTOs are not about hardware. Some of those that are about hardware, are about *broken* hardware, and how you work around it. So in a sense, yes, sometimes something *is* broken when you need a HOWTO. The alternative is to not have a HOWTO, and thereby not having a way to work around the problem. Choice is such a bitch
It's just totally beyond me what she is talking about... Completely...
"No more calculating of cylinders for the swap partition" - hey, I started in '95 with Linux 1.2.13 and slackware/redhat. I didn't calculate any cylinders then, and I sure as hell don't today.
And why the heck do we have to focus on making money ? Sure, if you're selling the software, you better focus on making a living off it. And I'm pretty sure RedHat, SuSE, and the others are pretty busy doing exactly that. But the rest of us ? GNU/Linux is a *tool* for me - I don't make money off it, but without it I couldn't produce the stuff that I *do* make money off. In any healthy capitalism there is an element of socialism (we all pay taxes to build roads, but we pay individually for the cab). GNU/Linux is my road - I contribute, I benefit, and I have one hell of a highway to carry my business.
So, the HOWTOs are moon-language ?? Has she ever read one ? Maybe because I wrote one of them, I'm also talking moon-language, and therefore I can't see that it's all wrong and obscure to "normal" people. But saying there is no comprehensive documentation to a system that has LDP + O'Reilly + commercial support + the award-winning mailing lists and news-groups (at the high level) and the source (at the detailed level) is absurd.
Oh, and now choice too is a bad thing. The poor secretary would cry if she was given a choice - I'm sure she would, but don't ask me to pity that. Lots of secretaries are using non-windows. In fact, windows is something that happened during the '90s - we actually had computers in '70s too... And secretaries... Come on, open your eyes and show a little enthusiasm here.
My point is, that it's easy to be all negative when you're ill and have to write letters on a notebook running '98. Get well, have a cup of coffee, stop running slackware from '94, and let's talk this over.
KDE is short for:
The Kalle Dalheimer Experience
Hehe, you have a very good point about people curring costs.
:) Something GNOME would use too.
Unfortunately, the majority of people don't have a bit of sense... But of course, with the major layoffs, maybe just the people with a little sense will be the ones that are left.
Now all we need is a *standard* backend for the calendar and messaging
Ok, no FUD intended.
;)
I just look at stuff as a user who doesn't know what XUL and DOM even stands for - look at my homepage and you will see that I *really* don't
I was impressed with konqueror, but the last version I looked at had it's weaknesses (crashed too often). Maybe, if it hadn't been for my disappointment of the speed/footprint of mozilla, I would have been less impressed. I don't know.
Also, at the time I gave up Mozilla, they didn't have proper Java support or SSL. Konqueror had all of it, out of the box, immediately. I know mozilla got SSL (but still don't proper java right ? - I mean, you need to get a plugin from somewhere in order to get it to work)
Sure, Konqueror isn't exactly lightweight either, it's only semi-leightweight when standing next to a monster. But it's funny when you're developing software for a living and you know how much stuff you can actually fit in a megabyte, to watch *both* mozilla an konqueror consume 30+ megs.
Anyway, I'm going to check out the K in a few hours when the compilers are done...
Huh ?
;)
Name one thing mozilla has that konqueror doesn't have - please -
I'm writing this in Netscape - which is slow, ugly, and crashes frequently. I have been using Mozilla, which is much slower and crashes about as frequently - looks pretty though. And I have been using Konqueror 2.0, which is very fast compared to the two other monsters, but also crashes about as frequently as the old Netscape.
I have a lot more faith in Konqueror than I have in Mozilla, and I'm really looking forward to seeing what they've been up to while I haven't been following...
Oh, did I mention, I used Konqueror in GNOME, because while it doesn't fit into the look and feel (QT instead of GTK+), well, neither does mozilla or netscape
Please, let me know what it is that mozilla has..
Hmm... What about letting the best stuff win the largest share and be happy about it ? After all, twm is still around, so I'm sure there will be plenty of room for KDE or GNOME, whichever only gets the second largest share of users.
;) We do live in interesting times - that's for sure
I never liked using KDE, but I'm compiling my SRPMS for 2.1 now and I'm going to give it a shot. The panels and applets in GNOME are really helpful and I totally lacked that (*one* panel, and just about *one* applet too) in KDE earlier - but let's see about it now...
Technically though, KDE is ahead, but more importantly, they are running much much faster than GNOME can ever do. Just look at it - they built Konqueror in how long time ? A year or two ? And it's ahead of Mozilla by far. And KDevelop ? For how long have people been toying with something like that for GNOME, without producing results ? Yes I know about GLADE, but take a look at www.kdevelop.org and you know what I mean. Seriously, I'm impressed with those people's skills - I just wish they could build me some panels and applets...
I'll switch if I like it now, or wait until they get more panels - or become a left-wing tree-huggin' dropout and not worry a bit about any of this
Sure, let's add _yet_ another layer. No wait, let's not...
Abstractions of abstractions does not solve problems. I don't know why people are so easily talked into thinking this is a good idea. That would be XML all over again, like, "let's define a wrapper that everyone uses, but let's not consider that everyone still needs to agree on what we're actually sending thru the wrapper"
A common API on which KDE and GNOME could be developed is *already* there - it's X11R6 and POSIX. That's why you can start up GNOME *and* KDE on the same machine - clever, eh ?
I don't know why you mention an ABI, maybe it's a typo and you meant to say API ? The ABI is standard already, and it would be a damn hard thing to re-define, and as I see it wouldn't make much sense to do either..
That could be re-phrased into saying:
:)
Not even do they use C++, they even supply a pre-processor to do the tedious work for you.
Ever wonder how they could "just" write up Konqueror which today is miles ahead of Mozilla in performance and capabilities, with much less effort in much less time ? They use the right tools for the job. Mozilla is also written in C++, but it's not used to it's full potential - far from it. C++ in Mozilla is "extended C", C++ in QT/KDE is "real C++". The benefits from using C++ like it was meant to be used are tremendous - I speak from experience. And, then they have their pre-processor of course
Huh ?
I'll check up on the DHTML thing tomorrow when I've gotten some sleep...
The network monitoring system is a client/server system. The server is a large program (it is a distributed database and a remote monitoring system), and the client is a very small easily portable program.
Thus, the server is available for RedHat 6.2 (and therefore also 7.0, the 6.2 version will work there), Debian 2.2, FreeBSD 4.0, NT 4.0 (and therefore also Win2K).
The client is available for the same platforms, plus, RedHat 5.2 (with a Linux 2.0 kernel), and FreeBSD 3.4.
As you will have noticed, the software is in beta, but we are *very* close to a release. There are bugs left, but we will have a release out fixing the last known ones, probably around the weekend.
Should anyone out there have oppinions, suggestions, demands or "other", for a commercial program soon-to-ship for Linux among other platforms, I would welcome such feedback.
Please use this e-mail address and check out the website.
And please accept my apologies for going slightly off-topic on the subject here.
Ok, I should have formulated that better...
Shared libraries lose their big benefits when every binary ships it's own version of that shared library. On win2k that has become the rule now, to avoid library version conflicts.
On GNU/Linux (and most other systems), you *can* ship a separate version of that library with each binary that requires it. But the libraries will be installed at the standard locations, so if more apps require the same version, they will actually share the library. This is what RedHat used in the glibc-compat package, which provides a compatibility library so that RedHat 6.2 binaries will run flawlessly on RedHat 7.0, using the proper versions of their shared libraries, while the "native" RedHat 7.0 binaries run on the newer libraries. Simple, elegant.
Our Linux apps (currently on RedHat 6.2 only) ships with a special libstdc++, which we will probably be the only ones using. However, because of RedHat's approach, we will not do this in the next release, it is perfectly reasonable to simply use the compatibility libraries on 7.0 and the native libraries on 6.2. Once we start supporting a stable 7.X platform, we will of course run on the native library versions there.
On NT and Win2K we must ship specific versions of some DLLs in order to get anything running. There is no backwards compatibility, and there is no DLL versioning. It is of course very simple to just ship your own DLLs, and it works perfectly well, I am just arguing that I fail to see the problem with the GNU/Linux (and most UNIX like systems) approach. Especially given great vendor support such as what we see from RedHat (and probably others too).
It is not usually an option for a vendor to link statically because of license restrictions.
However, a vendor is allowed to ship a specific version of glibc and libstdc++ with the software, as long as they provide some reasonable access to the source code as well.
As posted somewhere else, that is what we ended up doing for the RedHat 6.2 port of our network monitoring software. We ship a version of libstdc++ that matches our binary, it is installed without interfering with the other versions of libstdc++ that may be installed on the system, and everyone's happy.
Really, I am surprised how well this stuff works, and I cannot understand why so many people keep complaining about how horrible the system is. I think it's brilliant. And programs can still share the shared libraries, it's not like the Win2K way of doing things, where each app ships it's own set of so-called "shared libraries".
I work for a company building a network montioring system available for FreeBSD, NT (and 2K), and both RedHat and Debian Linux. We're adding platforms as people request them.
:)
Really, RedHat 7.0 includes the libraries that shipped with 6.2, so while we only support RedHat 6.2 we still work out-of-the-box on RedHat 7.0. Why not use the compatibility libraries ? That's what they're there for - they're not performing worse or anything, they are just older versions of the library.
On UNIX-like systems you actually have VERSIONING on your system libraries. So you can have a perfectly running system with ten different versions of the C library, and each application will use the version it requires.
You're welcome to check out our beta-versions available from sysorb.com, if you don't believe me
Most parts of science, be it pshycology, chemistry or mathematics, has a dual use. This is how the world we live in is made.
Sure, blame science. Outlaw science. And only ouwlaws will know science. Clearly, this is not a viable approach.
One would think that the broad audiece, the public, and even maybe politicians would realize this. But for some reason, which is beyond my comprehension, someone doesn't.
I have feet, and I have hands. And I am able to kill with those. I am also able to help others, using those same instruments. What makes me help others, rather than terminate their existance ?
Law, you may say. I would be punished, for using my instruments in a way disobedient to the law, given that my practice of so-called maljustice was discovered of course. From a personal point of view, I would say my odds of getting awaay with malpractice would be good. So what makes me a generally percieved nice person, and maybe even a to-the-heart nice person, given that I could probably get away with being otherwise ?
It is not law, clearly. It is not limitation in my possibilities in doing harm, either.
I am about to graduate with a master's degree, in half a year from now. Anyone with the slightest knowledge of basic phycics knows, that any engineer could assemble a crude nuclear weapon easily, given access to the proper materials and equipment. I suppose this makes me, and about a few million other people, a threat to the security not only of a nation that percieves itself as the only one in the world, but also a threat to humanity in general, to man kind... So why are we not hunted down like the witches and trolls we are ? Like we used to be ?
Accept, that with knowledge and skill, follows responsibility. Accept, that not all are equal. Accept, that some are born with a skill, and that others choose to achieve that skill thru hard work. But accept, that some has the knowledge, the ability, and the will to help. But accept also, that the possession of such abilities also implies, that the person in question may have the abiltiy to do harm.
Then, trust those people.
Thruout history, trust has been material in any relationship formed, and broken. World history is not likely to change, and basic principles of trust and relationships and even war, are not going to change anytime soon.
Get over that hump. Accept it. I'm a nice guy, and so are millions of others like me. Like you.
Since there is no company or organization by the name of "Linux", Andre's position in T13 is *consultant*. Nothing more, nothing less. He votes and stuff, but he is a consultant only as no person can be said to represent "Linux".
(No, not Linus either, he doesn't own even 10% of the kernel anymore)
But yes, other than that, Andre rocks (in his own special way sometimes) !
I have nothing to prove to you. And I trust that it makes no difference even if I tell you that I am in fact not lying. Do you know why ? Because I don't need to. But who am I telling, right ;)
:)
I have one proof for you, that absolutely guarantees that the uptime posted previously is authentic: What kind of friggin' idiot would be running -test4, on december 28th, if it wasn't for keeping an uptime to brag about ??
See ?
I'm sure that when you check when -test4 was released, you will see that it is not too far from being 127 days away.
~> uname -a
;)
Linux xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx 2.4.0-test4 #1 SMP Fri Jul 14 01:56:30 CEST 2000 i686 unknown
~> uptime
7:08pm up 127 days, 4:49, 5 users, load average: 2.08, 2.02, 1.95
And the 2.08 is not even stuck kernel threads, it's seti@home and mutt
I've heard that analogy before, and *plo ease* stop it. No it is not the same as trying if someone forgot to lock their door - that would be the actual exploit, if anything...
When is a port scan a port scan ? If I scan one port ? two ? ten ? If I connect to a machine on port 80, I expect to get the web-server - but it is a one-port "scan" as well. Is that leagal ? What if I follow a link from somewhere that points to http://yourhost.com:81/, but you never had a web server running at port 81 ? Am I a burgler ?
Give up the ghost-hunting, and let's focus on the real issues... If you log a port scan, you're wise to keep an eye on that IP. But nothing happened yet, and maybe nothing will.
If I walk by your house looking at your front door, maybe you'll be wise to keep an eye out for me next time. But if you come after me on those grounds alone, the law is on my side.
It is wise to use logged port-scans to focus your detective work, but attempting to act on them alone is ridiculous. It is very simply *just*not*good*enough*.
Ok, I'm a european in the US now, and the reason why I'm working for free (well it's called research and it's perfectly legal, but it's still unpaid work) is that the US also has very strict regulations about employment of non-residents.
:)
Besides, if you speak fluent german, why would you have a hard time ? Maybe you only speak fluent german in america (hint hint) ?
Going to another country is an experience. Some people go abroad and bitch about how everything is not quite like at home. And some of us accept (and maybe even enjoy) that things are different, and that you get the opportunity to vastly improve that foreign language of yours. I know that I have. And I may not like every bit about the states, but I'm enjoying my time here. Try not being so damn ignorant, then things may just lighten up and even look bright to you
Man ! That article was so politically correct I can't believe it...
;)
Whatever happened to the good critical slaughtering of products the author doesn't like ?
Sheesh...
In a vector CPU, you have vector registers. For example, one single multiply-add instruction can take one register multiply it with another and add a third, but each register may hold perhaps 16 scalars instead of just one.
So on a 1GHz ``ordinary'' cpu you do
multiply a, b
and get 1GFlop/sec because you
can run ~1 instruction per second.
On a 300MHz vector machine you would do
multiply a, b
and get 4.8GFlops/sec, because each register
holds 16 scalars instead of one.
The usual characteristics of vector machines are:
Clock speed is low
The work-per-cycle that can be done is high
Memory bandwidth and access time is extremely good
They're expensive, but for some problems the price/performance is better than what you can get from a non-vector machine
Some vector machines have no cache - or, put in another way, all their memory is the cache. Access times are constant no matter how you access your memory. You will pay for this with a very long pipeline which in turn means that the CPU is virtually unusable for some problems. On the other hand, the cache-based CPUs are virtually unusable for other problems. It's a compromise.