If developers hold a patent over software, why should there be secrets? Shouldn't the patent disclose how the software operates?
Certainly. The point of the patent is to stop other developers using those same methods, thus allowing them (or their employer) to hold a competitive advantage.
Of course. It's nearly always fast enough, trivially simple to setup, and doesn't need complicated and fragile clustering software so that multiple systems can access the same disk space.
The second question is, with processors coming with 8 cores, why have some separate specialized controller that handles RAID and not just do it in software?
Transparency and simplicity. It's a lot easier dealing with a single device than a dozen.
Heck why not just build a raid 0 controller into the logic card with a sata connection and break the ssd into a bunch of little chunks and raid 0 them all max performance right out of the box so you get the performance advantages of raid without the cost of a card and the waste of a slot?
Because an error anywhere nukes the whole shebang.
Besides there are already real world articles out there where guys with simple RAID0 SSD's are getting 500-600 MB with 3-4 drives using Motherboard RAID much less dedicated harware RAID.
It is unlikely "dedicated hardware RAID" would be meaningfully faster.
But when it just gets shoved under a desk, who cares how big it is ? Particularly since it will run games probably twice as fast and hold three to four times as many downloaded mp3s and movies.
Several hundred dollars is a helluva lot to pay for something that's smaller, when it's not something you have to carry around.
Anyone notice the "average" windows machine selling for $515 sucks? If you compare equally powerful machines, you will get _similar_ costs. I would say a mac would still be slightly more expensive, but that's just a guess.
For the $599 a Mac Mini costs, you can get a PC roughly twice as powerful.
For the $1199 a base iMac costs, you can get a PC roughly three times as powerful.
A minimum buy-in point for a usable PC with decent performance (dual-core, 2G RAM, 20" LCD, discrete video card) is about US$600. For a Mac, it's more like $900 (assuming you can live with an integrated video card) or $1800 (assuming you can't).
The Mac Mini isn't an economy option, especially refurbs as low as $419 on the Apple Store? Granted, you could build a cheap PC for less, but I'd hardly call $419 expensive, or even $599 expensive, putting aside arguments of what you get for the money.
The difference is that the $599 PC comes with everything you need to use it (keyboard, screen, etc), while the Mac Mini still needs a couple of hundred spend on it before it can be more than a paperweight.
Software makers would howl about revealing their secret methods. My reply is Copyright isn't supposed to protect secrets, the idea is to REVEAL knowledge in exchange for the limited monopoly. Same for patents.
So would you support patenting software then, so developers *could* protect their "secret methods" ?
And while we're at it, what exactly is "twisted" about the FSF's definition of free software?
It's not the FSF, it's Stallman. His "twisted idea of free" is that every time some "free" code touches some "non-free" code, then that "non-free" code should become "free" code by virtue of it in some way benefitting from the presence of "free" code. There is a realistic limit to how far that can be taken, of course, but it's clearly the intent behind the GPL - and particularly its revisions.
The fundamental purpose of the GPL is to influence other people's code. If you only want to influence your code, then something like the BSDL will do the job.
You're clearly trolling, and I don't think this discussion will really go anywhere. Nobody's minds will be changed and ultimately we'll both have wasted a few minutes of our lives correcting strangers on the internet, but, that's what makes the internet so fun.
I'm not trolling, although I hold no illusions anyone's mind will be changed. My point is that when most people saying "Microsoft is forcing me to do X", what they really mean is "Microsoft is not providing me a way to do Y".
Ultimately, my question remains. In what way does Microsoft "force" you to do anything that other vendors do not ?
You can't seriously mean to tell me that Microsoft had no hand in making those sites serve exclusively Silverlight, do you you?
Of course they did, but that's no more Microsoft forcing you to use Silverlight than Coke forcing you to drink Coke when you're in a McDonalds.
They developed and forced a standard that nobody wanted onto and through a standards body while another format was already in use and arguably more "open".
How is it different to any program that supports one format instead of another ? How is it "forcing" when you can still use other formats ?
Switching out people's browsers or default search engine is clearly a powerful effect or influence on people's browsing habits.
By what measure ? Anyone who gives a damn will immediately change it back. Anyone who doesn't give a damn won't even notice and therefore their browsing habits will be unchanged.
So because they planned it in advance means they're not guilty of forced upgrades to a platform nobody really wanted or needed?
Not in the slightest. People who don't want to upgrade, are free to continue running XP.
Their customers liked XP, but they don't want to support XP.
Of course. No company wants to support old products, and I'm not aware of any that will support old products (software, hardware, whatever) indefinitely at no cost. In fact, Microsoft has some of the longest support lifecycles in the industry.
I think it's time to update your knowledge of Windows multimonitor support from the mid-90s. None of the above has been true (outside of horribly broken proprietry drivers) since Windows 95 and NT 4.0.
Grandma doesn't want to run multiple monitors, though. It's usually technically proficient people. It's not intuitive or easy on Windows to set up multiple monitors, not on most machines.
Say what ? You go to display properties, click on the other screen and check "extend my desktop to this monitor". It couldn't get much easier.
No, I don't. They are too dumb to even implement DHCP properly on Vista. Piece of junk constantly trashes my router, requiring to pull the router's power and plug it back in. I also have to reboot the damned Vista machine too.
If a DHCP client is trashing your DHCP server, then it's not the client that's at fault.
But the error, caused the entire network to crash.
For starters, "network" here is being used in a very non-specific and layman's fashion (ie: to describe a whole bunch of connected machines working together, rather than just the thing connecting the machines). Further, it is the kind of result you'll see (to varying degrees) in any client-server model when the server part of it goes down.
Have the ability to switch windows within a program from the taskbar, just like XP/Vista's program grouping, rather than dicking around with Command-`. (That said, I wouldn't mind the ABILITY to use an Alt-` shortcut to switch windows within a given program.)
You can do this in OS X. Right click an app's Dock icon and you should get a list of its open windows. It's horribly slow and clunky, just like the collapsed view of the Taskbar, but it does work.
And, it's more space efficient horizontally than the 95-Vista taskbar layout.
Which seems like wasted optimisation, given the increasing prevalence of widescreen displays. It also sacrifices useful information and functionality to do so.
IMHO, if you're running enough tasks that the increased horizontal space efficiency matters, then you're multitasking enough that all the other shortcomings are causing you more problems than that is solving.
Because if the PC itself does not have time to properly shut down, your data will be cut in half anyway. A proper journaling FS would take care of any FS problems at least.
This is only true if the hard disk does not lie about what data genuinely has been committed to disk. Many of them do. ZFS is particularly sensitive to this due to its extensive caching.
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Oh, okay. I didn't realise it was "Freedom, but only on our terms". I thought it was just "Freedom".
The correct term is "GNU/Freedom".
This helps to distinguish it from regular "freedom".
If developers hold a patent over software, why should there be secrets? Shouldn't the patent disclose how the software operates?
Certainly. The point of the patent is to stop other developers using those same methods, thus allowing them (or their employer) to hold a competitive advantage.
Does anyone actually still use NFS?
Of course. It's nearly always fast enough, trivially simple to setup, and doesn't need complicated and fragile clustering software so that multiple systems can access the same disk space.
The second question is, with processors coming with 8 cores, why have some separate specialized controller that handles RAID and not just do it in software?
Transparency and simplicity. It's a lot easier dealing with a single device than a dozen.
Heck why not just build a raid 0 controller into the logic card with a sata connection and break the ssd into a bunch of little chunks and raid 0 them all max performance right out of the box so you get the performance advantages of raid without the cost of a card and the waste of a slot?
Because an error anywhere nukes the whole shebang.
Besides there are already real world articles out there where guys with simple RAID0 SSD's are getting 500-600 MB with 3-4 drives using Motherboard RAID much less dedicated harware RAID.
It is unlikely "dedicated hardware RAID" would be meaningfully faster.
and four times the size.
At least. Probably closer to ten times.
But when it just gets shoved under a desk, who cares how big it is ? Particularly since it will run games probably twice as fast and hold three to four times as many downloaded mp3s and movies.
Several hundred dollars is a helluva lot to pay for something that's smaller, when it's not something you have to carry around.
Anyone notice the "average" windows machine selling for $515 sucks? If you compare equally powerful machines, you will get _similar_ costs. I would say a mac would still be slightly more expensive, but that's just a guess.
For the $599 a Mac Mini costs, you can get a PC roughly twice as powerful.
For the $1199 a base iMac costs, you can get a PC roughly three times as powerful.
A minimum buy-in point for a usable PC with decent performance (dual-core, 2G RAM, 20" LCD, discrete video card) is about US$600. For a Mac, it's more like $900 (assuming you can live with an integrated video card) or $1800 (assuming you can't).
The Mac Mini isn't an economy option, especially refurbs as low as $419 on the Apple Store? Granted, you could build a cheap PC for less, but I'd hardly call $419 expensive, or even $599 expensive, putting aside arguments of what you get for the money.
The difference is that the $599 PC comes with everything you need to use it (keyboard, screen, etc), while the Mac Mini still needs a couple of hundred spend on it before it can be more than a paperweight.
The PC will also have roughly twice the specs.
There is no reason for a browser (or a media player for that matter) to be part of an operating system.
Or a text editor ? Or an FTP tool ? Or a file manager ? Or a GUI ? Or a shell ? Or a network stack ?
Where does it end ?
Software makers would howl about revealing their secret methods. My reply is Copyright isn't supposed to protect secrets, the idea is to REVEAL knowledge in exchange for the limited monopoly. Same for patents.
So would you support patenting software then, so developers *could* protect their "secret methods" ?
And while we're at it, what exactly is "twisted" about the FSF's definition of free software?
It's not the FSF, it's Stallman. His "twisted idea of free" is that every time some "free" code touches some "non-free" code, then that "non-free" code should become "free" code by virtue of it in some way benefitting from the presence of "free" code. There is a realistic limit to how far that can be taken, of course, but it's clearly the intent behind the GPL - and particularly its revisions.
The fundamental purpose of the GPL is to influence other people's code. If you only want to influence your code, then something like the BSDL will do the job.
You're clearly trolling, and I don't think this discussion will really go anywhere. Nobody's minds will be changed and ultimately we'll both have wasted a few minutes of our lives correcting strangers on the internet, but, that's what makes the internet so fun.
I'm not trolling, although I hold no illusions anyone's mind will be changed. My point is that when most people saying "Microsoft is forcing me to do X", what they really mean is "Microsoft is not providing me a way to do Y".
Ultimately, my question remains. In what way does Microsoft "force" you to do anything that other vendors do not ?
You can't seriously mean to tell me that Microsoft had no hand in making those sites serve exclusively Silverlight, do you you?
Of course they did, but that's no more Microsoft forcing you to use Silverlight than Coke forcing you to drink Coke when you're in a McDonalds.
They developed and forced a standard that nobody wanted onto and through a standards body while another format was already in use and arguably more "open".
How is it different to any program that supports one format instead of another ? How is it "forcing" when you can still use other formats ?
Switching out people's browsers or default search engine is clearly a powerful effect or influence on people's browsing habits.
By what measure ? Anyone who gives a damn will immediately change it back. Anyone who doesn't give a damn won't even notice and therefore their browsing habits will be unchanged.
So because they planned it in advance means they're not guilty of forced upgrades to a platform nobody really wanted or needed?
Not in the slightest. People who don't want to upgrade, are free to continue running XP.
Their customers liked XP, but they don't want to support XP.
Of course. No company wants to support old products, and I'm not aware of any that will support old products (software, hardware, whatever) indefinitely at no cost. In fact, Microsoft has some of the longest support lifecycles in the industry.
Anyone who has 6.0 should get a free upgrade to 6.1, just as on my XP machine I got a free upgrade to all the V5.x revisions.
No, you didn't. The "V5.x revisions" are Windows XP x64 and Windows 2003. I'm pretty sure you didn't get free upgrades to them.
I think it's time to update your knowledge of Windows multimonitor support from the mid-90s. None of the above has been true (outside of horribly broken proprietry drivers) since Windows 95 and NT 4.0.
Grandma doesn't want to run multiple monitors, though. It's usually technically proficient people. It's not intuitive or easy on Windows to set up multiple monitors, not on most machines.
Say what ? You go to display properties, click on the other screen and check "extend my desktop to this monitor". It couldn't get much easier.
Silverlight exclusive deals: the only way to see Netflix movies, watch the Olympics, etc.
Sounds like Netflix and the Olympic Committe are the ones doing the "forcing".
That whole mess with Office Open XML becoming a standard, competing with ODF.
Where's the forcing ?
Continued attempts to make IE and their search engine the default. (http://news.cnet.com/8301-13880_3-10277784-68.html)
That's not a definition of "force" I'm familiar with. Maybe if they were preventing you from using another search provider, you might have a point.
EOL of XP prematurely to force people onto Vista (they did backpedal that a little though).
What ? XP's lifecycle was set back in 2001 when it was first released. The only changes to that have been to extend it, not shorten it.
No, I don't. They are too dumb to even implement DHCP properly on Vista. Piece of junk constantly trashes my router, requiring to pull the router's power and plug it back in. I also have to reboot the damned Vista machine too.
If a DHCP client is trashing your DHCP server, then it's not the client that's at fault.
But the error, caused the entire network to crash.
For starters, "network" here is being used in a very non-specific and layman's fashion (ie: to describe a whole bunch of connected machines working together, rather than just the thing connecting the machines). Further, it is the kind of result you'll see (to varying degrees) in any client-server model when the server part of it goes down.
Have the ability to switch windows within a program from the taskbar, just like XP/Vista's program grouping, rather than dicking around with Command-`. (That said, I wouldn't mind the ABILITY to use an Alt-` shortcut to switch windows within a given program.)
You can do this in OS X. Right click an app's Dock icon and you should get a list of its open windows. It's horribly slow and clunky, just like the collapsed view of the Taskbar, but it does work.
And, it's more space efficient horizontally than the 95-Vista taskbar layout.
Which seems like wasted optimisation, given the increasing prevalence of widescreen displays. It also sacrifices useful information and functionality to do so.
IMHO, if you're running enough tasks that the increased horizontal space efficiency matters, then you're multitasking enough that all the other shortcomings are causing you more problems than that is solving.
Can anyone really say with a straight face that the GPL makes it harder or riskier to use other peoples' code?
Certainly it does, because of the way it defines "derivative work" - in particular with regards to linking.
The problem on the Yorktown was an application not properly handling a divide-by-zero error. It had nothing to do with the OS.
Because if the PC itself does not have time to properly shut down, your data will be cut in half anyway. A proper journaling FS would take care of any FS problems at least.
This is only true if the hard disk does not lie about what data genuinely has been committed to disk. Many of them do. ZFS is particularly sensitive to this due to its extensive caching.
I bought a 4GB Gigabyte iRAM box specifically for the swap file on an SSD system.
That's a damn expensive way to fix problem(s) that likely didn't exist in the first place...
I'm still leery of just how quickly you can start killing one of these when it's hosting the swap file.
Then you should probably buy more RAM.