Nope, I'm not calling Alan Cox a liar. I'm just a cynic. After all the Mindcraft crap we went through, I figure I'd be a hypocrite to accept benchmarks from anyone except an unbiased source. It's not a personal issue, it's just the way I operate.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I don't mean to trash Alan. I've got plenty of respect for the guy, considering all he's done for Linux.
But don't mistake me -- I still don't consider him an objective source for benchmarks. It's nothing personal, but I'd rather see it done by someone without a vested interest.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Please, I'd love to see a Xeon/TNT workstation be used in the high-end graphics design industry. Yeah, it would be fine as a render-engine, but what the hell software would you run on it for design? AC3D? Blender?
I've got a TNT card in my PIII, running Linux, and while it's a pretty nice setup, it's not a replacement for an SGI system. Just having a Mesa setup won't do it. You need the software and Linux just hasn't got it yet.
As for the benchmarks: Well, I trust Linux benchmarks by Alan Cox about as much as I trust NT benchmarks by Microsoft.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
This is clearly flamebait -- just because what you say is pro-Linux does not make it anything more than pure FUD. That's right, it's not just for MS anymore, kids.
Irix is a much more robust and scalable system than Linux. This may change with time, but for the present, it is true; Linux is still lacking in the multi-processor area. And as for Enterprise, well - Irix is proven in the enterprise, whereas Linux is still be looked at as less-than-ready.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
While that's not a horrible idea, it's certainly far from necessary in this case. Do you know who owns the copyright to VNC? AT&T, that's who. They don't need any "foundation" to take care of them; they're quite capable of defending themselves in court:)
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Well, whether or not they are a good company or not, is irrelevent. Whether or not anyone uses their software or not is also irrelevant. Whether or not said software is even useful is irrelevent. The only thing that is relevent is whether or not their patent is sound.
Fortunately, groups like Slashdot don't make that decision -- courts do. And that's a good thing. As much as I agree with the concensus here about this patent, there are far too many people on/. who think they're lawyers:)
Now, it's interesting to note that AT&T now owns Olivetti Labs, the makers of VNC, so it's not like these GraphOn people are just trampling over the free software community. They're not picking on anybody. We'll see how this plays out.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
What on earth are you talking about? Think about that. Sarcasm aside, why would RedHat EVER want to make it easier for people to run software on Windows? Regardless of what API the software uses, it's still running on Windows, not Linux.
RedHat isn't interested in APIs, because there's no way to make money off them (if they remain open, anyway). What they do make money off of is operating systems. And if people are using Windows, then they aren't using Linux, so I think it's a pretty valid concern as to whether or not RedHat/Cygnus will continue their work on Cygwin or drop it.
If they drop it, another group can pick it up, but it's much nicer to have a company with financial backing working on code like this.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
But everyone is suggesting VNC, and it brings up an issue with "Ask Slashdot". Rather than answer the question, a lot of people suggest stuff that is either 1) inappropriate or 2) just plain silly. VNC is great software, but it's inappropriate. The guy asked if we had any favorite hardware solutions and the answer he get's back is "Hey, you don't know what you reall want; we do -- try this instead".
VNC isn't up to his task anyway. If the network goes down or the machine won't boot then he's back to square one with reconnecting monitors, keyboards, and mice. That's a hassle.
My point is this: If you've got something to say that answers the question, then post it. Otherwise... Just because it works for you, doesn't mean it's the absolute answer to everyone's problems. Let's keep it focused and try to be helpful.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Yeah, you're missing something. It doesn't cost them anything to reproduce the software, but it costs a crapload to develop it in the first place. Redhat is doing good, but does Icaza really have what it takes? I'm not sure. First he has to develop something interesting, because what's out now isn't going to cut it. Yeah, Gnumeric is good, but nobody would buy support for just that.
They're going to need to bring together a whole suite of software that is freakin' excellent. I mean, really really good. That's expensive -- even when you've got open source developers working with you.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
No, the effects were *rendered* with FreeBSD machines. This guy's looking for visual effects design. In fact, the software used to do the rendering was (IIRC) actually in linux binary form, but run on FreeBSD for stability reasons.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
That's true. A program crashing wouldn't get you very far in court (because of the disclaimers). However, if the software caused a malfunction in hardware, or an incorrect report, which caused a death or other serious issue, then a lawsuit would be thinkable. Doesn't matter if they have a disclaimer, if the software caused a death, then that's wrongful death, and their liable. It all depends on what the software was intended to do, and whether or not it is responsible for the death.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Actually, in all seriousness, some of the propaganda tiles are *really* nice to look at. If I had the energy or the inclination, I might pick a favorite, tile it, and then have some wallpaper (actual wallpaper, not the computer kind) made for my computer room... That would be tres cool, although probably a little psycho.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
No, of course not. I don't think that any of this will hold water, but it deserves to be said that, in some cases, there could be IP conflicts in taking notes and then passing it off as one's own. In which case, the professors have a right to be angry.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
You're thinking along the wrong lines. Imagine that the professor had a copyright/patent on something he was discussing. Now does the student own what he's writing on the notes?
Of course not. The notes are his, but the ideas are still the IP of the professor. If my professor describes, in detail, the RSA algorithm, I don't suddenly own it just because I wrote it into my notes -- It still belongs to RSA. The same goes for the professor's IP.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Yes, to an extent. If the teacher educates you on, say, the RSA algorith, you don't own that information. You could takes notes on the RSA algorithm and, while the notes would be your property, the information contained therein would be someone else's IP.
So in that sense, the notes will likely belong to the student, but the contents of the notes might belong to the teacher (or someone else entirely)
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
This is completely offtopic but, to write a good book, one would hope that you wouldn't just be taking classes on the subject. Teaching classes, maybe...
Ignore me, I'll go away eventually:)
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
The notes, provided they were not taken using college resources (i.e. the kids own the notepads/pencils/etc), would be wholey owned by the person writing them. It makes no difference where they were written.
On the other hand, if the notes contained information that was the IP of a professor, then they would not be entirey the property of the student. Actually the notes would be the students property, but the information contained therein would not.
Sheesh.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Now, I'll be the first to say that M11 (the last version I tried) is really quite good. Much better than any of the others. Almost usuable. Almost.
Netscape 4.7 is usuable. It doesn't crash on me (90% of the time) and all of it's functionality works. I can't say that for M11 yet. It crashes at least once per session and a lot of the functionality is missing. The UI is also a little kludgey. It has a lot going for it, but I think they should stick with something a little less flashy until they're off the ground. i.e. Lesstif. I compiled Mozilla with lesstif on my OpenBSD machine and it was pretty close to going toe-to-toe with Netscape.
They're almost there... Soon now, I think.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Yeah, I haven't a clue either. I don't care much, to be honest. I get really mad when a group of people like slashdot sends spiteful questions to a guy and then insults him for responding in kind. Actually JP was quite a bit more polite in his response than/. was in questioning.
Now, he may have been lying - that's always a possibility, but if he wasn't then I would tend to side with him in this case -- the questions were immature and the response to his response has been equally so.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
This wasn't a chance to clear his name or, if it was, he never got it because everyone (minus a few) asked him jackass questions.
I thought his response was pretty decent. And as for the people who said he dodged questions: He didn't. They were mostly the same thing. "Why did you shut down Packetstorm" and "Why are you a jerk".
If what JP says is true (about Packetstorm and Attrition) then I say he did get a bad wrap, and a lot of what he says makes sense. No one has a right to provoke harassement of someone's little sister - it's just wrong. The guy probably deserved to lose his site.
I'm not saying the JP is a completely misunderstood guy, but I think, given the questions that were asked, he responded well. After all, I think it's clear that no matter what he replied with, you guys were going to try to tear him a new one anyway.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Using IE5 gives one company control over the information age? That's the stupidest thing I've heard all day (it's only 11, don't feel too insulted).
It's not like you have to use any obscure, proprietary systems to get a page to display (and correctly) on IE5 and Netscape. The author of a page chooses what standards to adhere to, not MS. I take it then that you would not trust any browser that came from a company. Well believe me, if AOL dropped the mozilla project right now, it would die. There's only a couple of outside developers right now, and I seriously doubt that anyone would be willing to pick it up (maybe another company, but then you're back to square one).
So don't kid yourself -- MS isn't always the enemy. They've written a [damned] good browser and I think the Mozilla team would do well to try to match it,
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Slashdot Mirror
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
But don't mistake me -- I still don't consider him an objective source for benchmarks. It's nothing personal, but I'd rather see it done by someone without a vested interest.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I've got a TNT card in my PIII, running Linux, and while it's a pretty nice setup, it's not a replacement for an SGI system. Just having a Mesa setup won't do it. You need the software and Linux just hasn't got it yet.
As for the benchmarks: Well, I trust Linux benchmarks by Alan Cox about as much as I trust NT benchmarks by Microsoft.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Irix is a much more robust and scalable system than Linux. This may change with time, but for the present, it is true; Linux is still lacking in the multi-processor area. And as for Enterprise, well - Irix is proven in the enterprise, whereas Linux is still be looked at as less-than-ready.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Fortunately, groups like Slashdot don't make that decision -- courts do. And that's a good thing. As much as I agree with the concensus here about this patent, there are far too many people on /. who think they're lawyers :)
Now, it's interesting to note that AT&T now owns Olivetti Labs, the makers of VNC, so it's not like these GraphOn people are just trampling over the free software community. They're not picking on anybody. We'll see how this plays out.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
RedHat isn't interested in APIs, because there's no way to make money off them (if they remain open, anyway). What they do make money off of is operating systems. And if people are using Windows, then they aren't using Linux, so I think it's a pretty valid concern as to whether or not RedHat/Cygnus will continue their work on Cygwin or drop it.
If they drop it, another group can pick it up, but it's much nicer to have a company with financial backing working on code like this.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
VNC isn't up to his task anyway. If the network goes down or the machine won't boot then he's back to square one with reconnecting monitors, keyboards, and mice. That's a hassle.
My point is this: If you've got something to say that answers the question, then post it. Otherwise... Just because it works for you, doesn't mean it's the absolute answer to everyone's problems. Let's keep it focused and try to be helpful.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
They're going to need to bring together a whole suite of software that is freakin' excellent. I mean, really really good. That's expensive -- even when you've got open source developers working with you.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Actually, in all seriousness, some of the propaganda tiles are *really* nice to look at. If I had the energy or the inclination, I might pick a favorite, tile it, and then have some wallpaper (actual wallpaper, not the computer kind) made for my computer room... That would be tres cool, although probably a little psycho.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Of course not. The notes are his, but the ideas are still the IP of the professor. If my professor describes, in detail, the RSA algorithm, I don't suddenly own it just because I wrote it into my notes -- It still belongs to RSA. The same goes for the professor's IP.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
So in that sense, the notes will likely belong to the student, but the contents of the notes might belong to the teacher (or someone else entirely)
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Ignore me, I'll go away eventually :)
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
On the other hand, if the notes contained information that was the IP of a professor, then they would not be entirey the property of the student. Actually the notes would be the students property, but the information contained therein would not.
Sheesh.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Netscape 4.7 is usuable. It doesn't crash on me (90% of the time) and all of it's functionality works. I can't say that for M11 yet. It crashes at least once per session and a lot of the functionality is missing. The UI is also a little kludgey. It has a lot going for it, but I think they should stick with something a little less flashy until they're off the ground. i.e. Lesstif. I compiled Mozilla with lesstif on my OpenBSD machine and it was pretty close to going toe-to-toe with Netscape.
They're almost there... Soon now, I think.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Now, he may have been lying - that's always a possibility, but if he wasn't then I would tend to side with him in this case -- the questions were immature and the response to his response has been equally so.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
I thought his response was pretty decent. And as for the people who said he dodged questions: He didn't. They were mostly the same thing. "Why did you shut down Packetstorm" and "Why are you a jerk".
If what JP says is true (about Packetstorm and Attrition) then I say he did get a bad wrap, and a lot of what he says makes sense. No one has a right to provoke harassement of someone's little sister - it's just wrong. The guy probably deserved to lose his site.
I'm not saying the JP is a completely misunderstood guy, but I think, given the questions that were asked, he responded well. After all, I think it's clear that no matter what he replied with, you guys were going to try to tear him a new one anyway.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Using IE5 gives one company control over the information age? That's the stupidest thing I've heard all day (it's only 11, don't feel too insulted).
It's not like you have to use any obscure, proprietary systems to get a page to display (and correctly) on IE5 and Netscape. The author of a page chooses what standards to adhere to, not MS. I take it then that you would not trust any browser that came from a company. Well believe me, if AOL dropped the mozilla project right now, it would die. There's only a couple of outside developers right now, and I seriously doubt that anyone would be willing to pick it up (maybe another company, but then you're back to square one).
So don't kid yourself -- MS isn't always the enemy. They've written a [damned] good browser and I think the Mozilla team would do well to try to match it,
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."