Sir Clive is not jumping on a bandwagon, he's starting a new wagon train. Who else is building cheap Linux boxes? Nobody. If he succeeds, the dominance of Wintel will be broken and we'll see a whole new era of computing, totally based on Linux.
Now if only he could build a wireless LAN card into the things, we'd end up with a communications revolution as well. Instant networks? Comms with no service provider and bills anyone?
Vik:v) [ Yes, I was one of the Sinclair Spectrum 3 programmers]
Um, well....to be honest, I don't know if we want Linus to get hard-core on SMP support. ABCNEWS.com isn't a techie news site -- it's a news site for the broadest range of people possible. So while we'll certainly ask about kernel development and future features, I doubt we'll really ask him about specific lines of code.
But we'll certainly try to have the best chat with Linus anyone's ever done...!
Thanks for the confidence, though. Linus is certainly not a Power Ranger. He's a code hacker, and a darn good one. We'll treat him as such.
OK, guys. I've read your complaints, comments, hopes and dreams for this chat, and I'm prepped to answer a few of your questions and hopefully ease your minds a bit, since I'll be the guy moderating the chat.
1) I will NOT post questions like "what kind of car do you drive?" or "do you like cheese?" I might throw in one personal-type question, but I'll make it as relevant and interesting as possible.
2) On the other hand, I won't post questions like "why did you hack the kernel this way when you could've done it this way?" followed by a stream of code incomprehensible to 99 percent of our readers. We're ABCNEWS.com, not a developers' forum. We want the chat to apply to as many people as possible, while remaining informative and on-topic.
3) We'll handle as many questions as Linus can answer. Our chat with Bob Young was indeed slower than I would've liked. Unfortunately, while Bob is a very nice guy and a savvy businessman, he doesn't type very fast.
Those are all the promises I can make, folks. We do, however, want this to be a solid, informative chat for not only you guys, but for the general public. The masses are starting to get clued in -- I had a doorman at the San Jose Hyatt ask me about Linux a few months ago -- and this is a chance for them to hear it from Linus himself.
So stop on by tomorrow and check it out. Or come back later that day -- we'll post a transcript. Thanks, folks.
How does my ability to do a free body diagram, find the thevenin equivalent of some circuit, or to calculate necessary thickness of a glass wall for a cubic aquarium to hold 5000 gal of water prove that I can write reliable code? Until there's a PE cert for programming, any other PE cert will be meaningless for ensuring the production of quality code.
I'm sure that when every engineering profession stepped over from the occult art practiced by a few to mainstream science in everyone's life, the people cried, "there ought to be regulation". And the engineers said it's not necessary; it's not realistic; it won't prevent bad engineering; etc. Software development has since crossed from being an occult art and so the cries for regulation have started. History shows this is inevitable.
I know a lot of us are younger than that, but I didn't realize the pre-1970's had been relegated to a mythical status!
But software bloat ensures need for fast hardware
on
Sinclair Does Linux
·
· Score: 1
Posted by PasswdIs ScoreOne:
The latest versions of word, ie, etc. won't run well on slower hardware. And older versions are, of course, removed from the market when new versions come out. The media player update that cane with IE50 drops frames and does audio skips constantly when playing VCD MPEGS on my P2000MMX (it's only 1.5 years old and was top of the line then!). The old version of the media player, which I switched back to, ran them perfectly with no frame drops. What more proof do you need that programmers will write sloppy inefficient software just because the hardware is faster? And since the latest "upgrades" of the OS just require faster HW or tons more RAM, this ensures that users will be 'forced' to buy Pentium III 666MHzs even if they are just reading email and writing a few letters.
I'm a Linux newbie, and haven't yet had the time to actually take a look at any kernel code, but I've had a thought on the matter since I first heard about this particular Y2K-ish problem.
Add a second 32-bit time counter that increments each time the normal one flips, and re-calculate the base date that the main timer calculates the current date/time from. The code to do it would only run once in a VERY long while, so it shouldn't be too much of a performance hit.
First of all, _I_ submitted that certification thing on the NYtimes (along with a witty quote) over a day ago. Probably rob just stole it and didn't give me credit- that's ok though. What really bothers me is the oil story- I posted a nice flame on the end of it, and now its dissappeared! What has happened
Did you see the requirements for the license that was mentioned in the article?
An accredited degree and 12 years experience or no degree and 16 years. How many of us could even hope to feed a family for 12 years working as an intern (alot of internships are paid minimum wage, or are unpaid altogether) to get the experience needed to qualify for the certification?
Even if the certification is only required to lead a development project, do you want to have to wait until you turn 34 (if you go to college) to have a shot at design work?
Texas already requires person who wish to do program consulting to have a PE (professional engineer license). You don't have to have one if you are employed by the company you do the programming for. The requirement (I think) only hold for the team leader (if it is a team). To get a PE you have to have either a certain number of hours from an accredited engineering school or a certain number of years of professional coding. (Unfortunately for me I don't have either being a physicist/mathematician...)
I agree with most of your post (except for the Mac people being the worst...;) but that's just my experience. I think UNIX (not LINUX) users are the worst in terms of arrogance and arsholiness...haha did I make that up or did Beavis and Butthead beat me to it?)
I like messing with LINUX but somtimes it's just too frustrating. For example, I'm trying to install it on an old 486 at home -- this being my 4th Linux installation -- and it just keeps crapping out during the installation. At different times and I can't figure it out. I think I'll just give up on it.
But I guess my point is that although it's a great OS, it is not ready for prime time and probably won't be. At least until someone perfects a stable GUI...at least as stable as Windows (an oxymoron if I ever saw one...that's a scary thought, to want something to be as stable as Windows.) As the previous poster says, lusers just want to point and click and couldn't give a rat's ass about Open Source and programming and kernels etc. which I think is really sad, imagine how great software and OSes could be if everyone cared about this stuff. It would be freakin' awesome, but all the companies just pander to the lowest common denominator.
Oh wel, Ce'st la vie. ---- "Wars, conflict, it's all business. One murder makes a villain. Millions a hero. Numbers sanctify."
An it harm none, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law --Aleister Crowley
If you aren't a member of a culture, you can't judge its values. You probably don't understand it enough to label it in that way. But if you want to talk to people with lifestyles that glorify violence, forget the people that look different, start counselling the football players. I live in a college town, and from reading police reports in the paper, I'd say they could use it. Look at how many atheletes are in legal trouble. The last time I caught the sports on the radio (not something I make a point of trying to do), 75% of the stories were about which athletes had been charged with what. So why don't you start counselling the football players, and leave the guys and girls on the chess club alone?
There are any number of groups that have been considered by the public at large to have "unwholesome", "troublesome", even "satanic" views. In many cases, these were outright lies. Ask a Pagan or a Wiccan (yes, a witch, we all know they've gotten lots of bad PR).
By your standards, if the public thinks these things to be true, then the public would be justified in seeking these people out and sending them to counseling, investigating them, etc. After all, the public has to "single out people who they suspect may have problems".
In my opinion, and I think many here would agree, but the distinction hasn't come up, people who look and act differently aren't automatically superior. People who look and act as they want to look and act, and more importantly, think as they want to think, are automatically superior. These are the people with imagination, creativity, and in most cases courage. (If you don't think it takes courage to be different when you know you're going to catch hell for it, you probably never had the courage to try it.) By the way, if someone truly is a natural athlete, and enjoys athletics, and that's who he really is, fine. Be your self. Do what thou wilt. Just let the rest of us do the same.
> What good is "expressing ones individual identity" if everyone else thinks you are a freak, and treats you as such?
What are you without it? I would rather be abused and mistreated and be me, than to be one of them (i.e. anyone but who I am). That is a choice I have made, and a price I have paid. I even tried it. I played sports for a year. Actually, that wasn't bad. Lost weight, got in shape, etc. But I quit because I didn't like the company I was keeping. Primarily because, in order to fit in, I had to be like them, and that included abusing others.
So yes, most of us could fit in if we really tried. But most of us probably just don't consider it worth the price. We also don't consider you, or anyone else, qualified to judge the 'cultural value' of our choices. We shouldn't be made to suffer because our choices are different from yours. And I think it's a pretty safe bet that if there was less suffering, degradation, and humiliation going on in the schools, there'd also be less violence.
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice. -- Mark Twain
Note that the cost of flying the various notable developers in to Ottawa will cost at least $10,000 CDN.
Add to that the consideration that decent conference facilities cost some number of thousands of dollars per day. (Is it at Rideau Centre?)
Add to that some hotel bills, and right away there's $20,000 in expenses. They need to have 100 people chipping in just to cover that.
Alternatively, feel free to spend the thousands yourself to fly to Mexico City and England to visit "folk." That should be free, right!?!?
And to those that are complete morons, you may not yet have noticed that the only thing about Free Software that is forcibly free of charge is the LICENSE.
Slashdot Mirror
There's gotta be a reason apart from a fast machine. I have this feeling that the database ain't so big, making the searches incredibly speedy.
Still, it's a great speedy thing to see.
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
I clicked the button and I had results before the mouse had fully un-clicked.
That's damn fast!
Posted by MC BoB:
6000 months for a 1024 key. I read the article and now my head hurts, I think I must have streched it. Hmmmm, now sounds like a good time for a beer.
Posted by Vik Olliver (at home):
:v)
Sir Clive is not jumping on a bandwagon, he's starting a new wagon train. Who else is building cheap Linux boxes? Nobody. If he succeeds, the dominance of Wintel will be broken and we'll see a whole new era of computing, totally based on Linux.
Now if only he could build a wireless LAN card into the things, we'd end up with a communications revolution as well. Instant networks? Comms with no service provider and bills anyone?
Vik
[ Yes, I was one of the Sinclair Spectrum 3 programmers]
Posted by Mike@ABC:
Um, well....to be honest, I don't know if we want Linus to get hard-core on SMP support. ABCNEWS.com isn't a techie news site -- it's a news site for the broadest range of people possible. So while we'll certainly ask about kernel development and future features, I doubt we'll really ask him about specific lines of code.
But we'll certainly try to have the best chat with Linus anyone's ever done...!
Thanks for the confidence, though. Linus is certainly not a Power Ranger. He's a code hacker, and a darn good one. We'll treat him as such.
Posted by PasswdIs ScoreOne:
.com. That's what the TLD is for.
What business does microsoft have mucking around with microsoft.org? Companies should only have power in
Posted by Mike@ABC:
OK, guys. I've read your complaints, comments, hopes and dreams for this chat, and I'm prepped to answer a few of your questions and hopefully ease your minds a bit, since I'll be the guy moderating the chat.
1) I will NOT post questions like "what kind of car do you drive?" or "do you like cheese?" I might throw in one personal-type question, but I'll make it as relevant and interesting as possible.
2) On the other hand, I won't post questions like "why did you hack the kernel this way when you could've done it this way?" followed by a stream of code incomprehensible to 99 percent of our readers. We're ABCNEWS.com, not a developers' forum. We want the chat to apply to as many people as possible, while remaining informative and on-topic.
3) We'll handle as many questions as Linus can answer. Our chat with Bob Young was indeed slower than I would've liked. Unfortunately, while Bob is a very nice guy and a savvy businessman, he doesn't type very fast.
Those are all the promises I can make, folks. We do, however, want this to be a solid, informative chat for not only you guys, but for the general public. The masses are starting to get clued in -- I had a doorman at the San Jose Hyatt ask me about Linux a few months ago -- and this is a chance for them to hear it from Linus himself.
So stop on by tomorrow and check it out. Or come back later that day -- we'll post a transcript. Thanks, folks.
Posted by Uncle Humph:
G uide/ for example.
http://www.antarctic.penguincomputing.com/Linux
Posted by PasswdIs ScoreOne:
How does my ability to do a free body diagram, find the thevenin equivalent of some circuit, or to calculate necessary thickness of a glass wall for a cubic aquarium to hold 5000 gal of water prove that I can write reliable code? Until there's a PE cert for programming, any other PE cert will be meaningless for ensuring the production of quality code.
Posted by PasswdIs ScoreOne:
I'm sure that when every engineering profession stepped over from the occult art practiced by a few to mainstream science in everyone's life, the people cried, "there ought to be regulation". And the engineers said it's not necessary; it's not realistic; it won't prevent bad engineering; etc. Software development has since crossed from being an occult art and so the cries for regulation have started. History shows this is inevitable.
Posted by The Masked Miscreant >:):
I know a lot of us are younger than that, but I didn't realize the pre-1970's had been relegated to a mythical status!
Posted by PasswdIs ScoreOne:
The latest versions of word, ie, etc. won't run well on slower hardware. And older versions are, of course, removed from the market when new versions come out. The media player update that cane with IE50 drops frames and does audio skips constantly when playing VCD MPEGS on my P2000MMX (it's only 1.5 years old and was top of the line then!). The old version of the media player, which I switched back to, ran them perfectly with no frame drops. What more proof do you need that programmers will write sloppy inefficient software just because the hardware is faster? And since the latest "upgrades" of the OS just require faster HW or tons more RAM, this ensures that users will be 'forced' to buy Pentium III 666MHzs even if they are just reading email and writing a few letters.
Posted by The Masked Miscreant >:):
I'm a Linux newbie, and haven't yet had the time to actually take a look at any kernel code, but I've had a thought on the matter since I first heard about this particular Y2K-ish problem.
Add a second 32-bit time counter that increments each time the normal one flips, and re-calculate the base date that the main timer calculates the current date/time from. The code to do it would only run once in a VERY long while, so it shouldn't be too much of a performance hit.
Good idea? Bad idea?
Posted by MurphAndTheMagicTones:
The number of unfilled software jobs out there is too high. This licensing scheme would serve to only reduce the number of programmers available.
Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:
First of all, _I_ submitted that certification thing on the NYtimes (along with a witty quote) over a day ago. Probably rob just stole it and didn't give me credit- that's ok though. What really bothers me is the oil story- I posted a nice flame on the end of it, and now its dissappeared! What has happened
Posted by The Masked Miscreant >:):
Did you see the requirements for the license that was mentioned in the article?
An accredited degree and 12 years experience or no degree and 16 years. How many of us could even hope to feed a family for 12 years working as an intern (alot of internships are paid minimum wage, or are unpaid altogether) to get the experience needed to qualify for the certification?
Even if the certification is only required to lead a development project, do you want to have to wait until you turn 34 (if you go to college) to have a shot at design work?
Posted by Stephen "The Carp" Carpenter:
Where does "ETHICS" enter into it?
Licencing is about regulation. Certifing that
a person has passed some sort of test (or often
just paid some money).
Its absolutly silly. How do you empirically test
programming competance?
Posted by The Evil Dwarf from Hell:
Texas already requires person who wish to do program consulting to have a PE (professional engineer license). You don't have to have one if you are employed by the company you do the programming for.
The requirement (I think) only hold for the team leader (if it is a team). To get a PE you have to have either a certain number of hours from an accredited engineering school or a certain number of years of professional coding. (Unfortunately for me I don't have either being a physicist/mathematician...)
Posted by The Incredible Mr. Limpett:
I agree with most of your post (except for the Mac people being the worst...;) but that's just my experience. I think UNIX (not LINUX) users are the worst in terms of arrogance and arsholiness...haha did I make that up or did Beavis and Butthead beat me to it?)
I like messing with LINUX but somtimes it's just too frustrating. For example, I'm trying to install it on an old 486 at home -- this being my 4th Linux installation -- and it just keeps crapping out during the installation. At different times and I can't figure it out. I think I'll just give up on it.
But I guess my point is that although it's a great OS, it is not ready for prime time and probably won't be. At least until someone perfects a stable GUI...at least as stable as Windows (an oxymoron if I ever saw one...that's a scary thought, to want something to be as stable as Windows.) As the previous poster says, lusers just want to point and click and couldn't give a rat's ass about Open Source and programming and kernels etc. which I think is really sad, imagine how great software and OSes could be if everyone cared about this stuff. It would be freakin' awesome, but all the companies just pander to the lowest common denominator.
Oh wel, Ce'st la vie.
----
"Wars, conflict, it's all business. One murder makes a
villain. Millions a hero. Numbers sanctify."
Posted by JoeyRamone:
Well Microsoft has certification, but that doesn't get them better programs now does it.
Posted by D-Rider:
An it harm none, do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law --Aleister Crowley
If you aren't a member of a culture, you can't judge its values. You probably don't understand it enough to label it in that way. But if you want to talk to people with lifestyles that glorify violence, forget the people that look different, start counselling the football players. I live in a college town, and from reading police reports in the paper, I'd say they could use it. Look at how many atheletes are in legal trouble. The last time I caught the sports on the radio (not something I make a point of trying to do), 75% of the stories were about which athletes had been charged with what. So why don't you start counselling the football players, and leave the guys and girls on the chess club alone?
There are any number of groups that have been considered by the public at large to have "unwholesome", "troublesome", even "satanic" views. In many cases, these were outright lies. Ask a Pagan or a Wiccan (yes, a witch, we all know they've gotten lots of bad PR).
By your standards, if the public thinks these things to be true, then the public would be justified in seeking these people out and sending them to counseling, investigating them, etc. After all, the public has to "single out people who they suspect may have problems".
In my opinion, and I think many here would agree, but the distinction hasn't come up, people who look and act differently aren't automatically superior. People who look and act as they want to look and act, and more importantly, think as they want to think, are automatically superior. These are the people with imagination, creativity, and in most cases courage. (If you don't think it takes courage to be different when you know you're going to catch hell for it, you probably never had the courage to try it.) By the way, if someone truly is a natural athlete, and enjoys athletics, and that's who he really is, fine. Be your self. Do what thou wilt. Just let the rest of us do the same.
> What good is "expressing ones individual identity" if everyone else thinks you are a freak, and treats you as such?
What are you without it? I would rather be abused and mistreated and be me, than to be one of them (i.e. anyone but who I am). That is a choice I have made, and a price I have paid. I even tried it. I played sports for a year. Actually, that wasn't bad. Lost weight, got in shape, etc. But I quit because I didn't like the company I was keeping. Primarily because, in order to fit in, I had to be like them, and that included abusing others.
So yes, most of us could fit in if we really tried. But most of us probably just don't consider it worth the price. We also don't consider you, or anyone else, qualified to judge the 'cultural value' of our choices. We shouldn't be made to suffer because our choices are different from yours. And I think it's a pretty safe bet that if there was less suffering, degradation, and humiliation going on in the schools, there'd also be less violence.
He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would suffice. -- Mark Twain
Thank you for your useful comment.
Note that the cost of flying the various notable developers in to Ottawa will cost at least $10,000 CDN.
Add to that the consideration that decent conference facilities cost some number of thousands of dollars per day. (Is it at Rideau Centre?)
Add to that some hotel bills, and right away there's $20,000 in expenses. They need to have 100 people chipping in just to cover that.
Alternatively, feel free to spend the thousands yourself to fly to Mexico City and England to visit "folk." That should be free, right!?!?
And to those that are complete morons, you may not yet have noticed that the only thing about Free Software that is forcibly free of charge is the LICENSE.
Posted by stodge:
that'll never happen. VMS, Alpha and HP Unix for me, although maybe I didn't make the hint of witty sarcasm obvious enough.
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
I'm getting: "Use a dist". That's offensive?
Posted by ju:
Finally I find an article I like and agree with. These people are morons. Thank you for putting this in perspective for them.