Aw come on. The biggest issue among Unix programmers a few years back was how much they hated the prospect of the shops they worked at switching to NT, and how sad it was that they'd have to go along with that. I don't hear much of that talk any longer.
Research that sits on the shelf once it's done is intellectual masturbation. Sorry about the harsh judgement, but that's how I feel. Research should spawn more research, and for some fields, perhaps eventually development. This is where Linux is being more successful than Plan 9 and its ilk, and it's because of the power of Open Source.
Regarding whether or not Linux is a better Unix, that's my judgement as a Unix systems programmer since 1981. I guess not everyone will agree with me, that's life.
One of the best things we're seeing is the vast number of uncredentialed researchers doing good work with Linux. The system needed some shaking up.
OpenVMS? This has gotta be a troll. My experience is that perens.com, my main Linux system, just does everything right, saturates its net connection (1/2 T1) without going over 5% CPU load (it's a lowly P120), and runs everything I throw at it. Same with the Linux laptop I just used to connect to the net from Iceland. No problems at all.
I don't think that Ken would write anything that he didn't have an emotional investment in. According to the interview, everything he does is from personal interest.
Linus stood on Richard Stallman's shoulders, too, as well as a cast of thousands that go unnamed. It doesn't undercut the magnitude of Linus' achievement.
There are lots of great ideas that never make it out of the lab. People at Xerox invented what we know as the "Mac" paradigm today. It took Steve Jobs to bring it out of the lab. Unix was a dying thing before Linus came along. Linus didn't invent it, but he stumbled across the methodology necessary to do it right.
There were electric lights before Edison, you know.
Folks, it's just sour grapes. Linux has become a better Unix than Unix ever was, and it's completely overshadowed Plan 9 and its successors. Thompson's bitter about that.
Plan 9 and its descendants have their share of good ideas, but they're not going to go anywhere as long as there's no Open Source. They've even been replaced by Linux as a research OS at most universities, and they have never seen very much practical use.
Don't you think it would be difficult for Thompson to accept that a 21-year-old kid had come along and done a better job with Thompson's own idea than Thompson could do with all of the power of ATT behind him?
Oooh, I want to try this on a joystick. Who needs a "writing surface"! You should be able to just jiggle a finger around using a device like the keyboard mouse on my Toshiba laptop.
It works great on my Palm Pro with III upgrade. No crash here, but then I don't think I have any hacks active (I do have a GoType keyboard, but I've reset since it was last used).
It's surprisingly easy to learn. The vowel-vs.-consonant positioning is pretty good, but it's slightly awry from the English-language frequency of character use - "m" is in the wrong place if you go by frequency-of-use alone.
The recognizer should be improved so that it's not necessary to go through the center between every character - it sort of works if you drop the "center stroke" between characters, but not always. It's also a bit too sensitive to jitter, I find myself inserting spurious "e" and "i" characters with my shaky hands. But that can all be improved without changing the basic positions in the alphabet.
What is the patent status? It would be nice if the pilot app were open source.
I must have met Ken Perlin at NYIT CGL, Pixar, and Siggraph, but I don't remember.
The war ended when Troll Tech revised the Qt license to meet the Open Source Definition. But that's all water under the bridge, and I don't know why this reporter even bothered to bring up old news.
The important differences today are the design ones: the two GUIs have different goals, and the difference for commercial developers: the GNOME libraries are usable without a fee by commercial applications while the Qt ones would require a fee from the commercial developer. Both are equally usable, without a fee, by free software developers.
It also looks as if the Harmony project has been resumed, and that there will eventually be an LGPL version of Qt that is usable without fee by commercial applications.
It looks as if Apple's become a patent licensee. It does not look as if they bought the patent!
Some people are going off the deep end here thinking that Apple's the new MP3 patent cop. I see no evidence of that so far - all I see is that they bought a license, as many other companies have, from the Frauenhoffer Institute.
In my case, it was a physical handicap. I suffer from a neurological motor deficit. I was not able to speak clearly until I was 18 or so, and was very clumsy in my movement. It's gotten almost completely better over the years.
As soon as I got to first grade, around 1963, the teacher heard the way I spoke and walked me down to the retarded children's classroom, where I stayed until my parents realized that my description of my classmates was a bit odd. No IQ tests or anything, she just dumped me in there. Once my parents found out, they tested my IQ (it was high) and put me back in the regular class, but the teacher resented it - she took every opportunity to tell me, in front of other students, that I was retarded and that I didn't belong in the class. This made me the school pariah until Junior High or so.
The problem with American schools is the awful pressure on students to conform, when they simply can not do so due to the misfortune of being bright, handicapped, or in some way unusual. The pressure to conform is the same sentiment that causes racism and religious intolerance - there's simply a different group being hated this time. It is enforced by the students but it must come from the instructors and parents - where else would the students be getting it?
Anger in our schools will be a problem until we can embrace our differences rather than try to iron them out.
Hey folks, FreeBSD is Free Software. Linux is Free Software. KDE is Free Software (Qt's license has been fixed and I endorsed it). GNOME is Free Software.
What the heck are you fighting about??? FreeBSD and Linux should have good natured competition that goads their developers into further improvements, as should KDE and GNOME. Let's save the nasty messages for non-free software.
When an article mentions me unfavorably several times, it would be responsible of the reporter to contact me and ask me for my side. I was in Iceland last week, and managed to log in daily and answer several reporter's emails, but I didn't get any questions about this one.
The LSB was meant to be a binary collaboration between all of the distributions, not a standard distribution from Bruce Perens. There's no reason for Caldera and Red Hat to work individually on "sysvinit" when they can do so together - the package doesn't distinguish their distributions from each other, and they could use the time they saved to work on things that do distinguish their distributions.
I tried to get Red Hat on board. They opted not to sign on.
When it became clear I didn't have a consensus, I got out of the way. I've been careful to avoid criticizing LSB since then, as that would do no good for Linux.
Bruce Perens
My experience wasn't quite so good
on
Quickies a go-go
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· Score: 2
My experience with O'Reilly on my chapter of the Open Sources book was actually somewhat strange. My editors did acquisition, not editing. I had to work hard to get any criticism from my editor, and then I just got one sentence. They spell-checked my chapter but do not appear to have done any editing. One day I got e-mail from them (Sara, I think) about their having lost my contract and could they please have another copy. They did, however, pay me, and the contract appears to have become un-lost at some point.
OSI is listening to public discussion before their endorsement. You don't want them to do exactly what we came down on them for doing before, do you? Then, let them listen. I made it darned clear in Wired that I'd only done a first read, that I was impressed with Apple's response, and that there would be network discussion of the license this week. OSI's response is very similar, and entirely appropriate.
Thanks
Bruce
Copying the APSL for your own software?
on
APSL 1.1 Released
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· Score: 1
The APSL is appropriate for deep-pockets defendants. I don't think it's necessary for everyone else. If you want liability protection, GPL or LGPL your code and assign it to FSF. If someone gets sued, it will be them, not you.
Alan Cox and I are in Reykjavik, Iceland speaking at a Linux and Open Source conference. It's been an adventure. Pictures next week.
This version of the APSL looks much better. I've downloaded a copy and will go over it in detail, but from my first reading, the things I complained about (with Debian and SPI folks) seem to have been addressed. Thanks, Apple!
Doesn't the Linux IP tunnel software allow you to run an IP tunnel over SSL? That would let you do a secure VPN, and of course SSL is useful for other forms of secure networking.
I haven't had time to read up on this topic in depth, so be gentle with me:-)
It was supposed to transmit under the callsign of Russian AMSAT, but Russian AMSAT has distanced itself from the mission for obvious reasons and promised that they will not allow this to happen again. As far as I can tell there will be no licensed Amateur control operator unless the Russians fabricate one from their own staff.
The Russian Space Agency took money from Swatch, and they are going to launch the satellite from Mir because they don't want to give back the money. Likewise, they threatened to sue French AMSAT if payment for the fabrication of the satellite was witheld, and French AMSAT gave in.
The bottom line is that every ham organization involved with this has been screwed.
Yes, you should renew your ARRL membership, and look at joining No-Code International as well.
Slashdot Mirror
Bruce
Regarding whether or not Linux is a better Unix, that's my judgement as a Unix systems programmer since 1981. I guess not everyone will agree with me, that's life.
One of the best things we're seeing is the vast number of uncredentialed researchers doing good work with Linux. The system needed some shaking up.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
The fact is we have most of it already.
One to go...
and spawned an industry
One down.
When there are more Linux seats than there ever have been Unix seats, that might count for something. Are we there yet?
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
There are lots of great ideas that never make it out of the lab. People at Xerox invented what we know as the "Mac" paradigm today. It took Steve Jobs to bring it out of the lab. Unix was a dying thing before Linus came along. Linus didn't invent it, but he stumbled across the methodology necessary to do it right.
There were electric lights before Edison, you know.
Bruce
We have more than enough experience of talented programmers giving away their work. Ignore this troll.
Plan 9 and its descendants have their share of good ideas, but they're not going to go anywhere as long as there's no Open Source. They've even been replaced by Linux as a research OS at most universities, and they have never seen very much practical use.
Don't you think it would be difficult for Thompson to accept that a 21-year-old kid had come along and done a better job with Thompson's own idea than Thompson could do with all of the power of ATT behind him?
Bruce Perens
It works great on my Palm Pro with III upgrade. No crash here, but then I don't think I have any hacks active (I do have a GoType keyboard, but I've reset since it was last used).
It's surprisingly easy to learn. The vowel-vs.-consonant positioning is pretty good, but it's slightly awry from the English-language frequency of character use - "m" is in the wrong place if you go by frequency-of-use alone.
The recognizer should be improved so that it's not necessary to go through the center between every character - it sort of works if you drop the "center stroke" between characters, but not always. It's also a bit too sensitive to jitter, I find myself inserting spurious "e" and "i" characters with my shaky hands. But that can all be improved without changing the basic positions in the alphabet.
What is the patent status? It would be nice if the pilot app were open source.
I must have met Ken Perlin at NYIT CGL, Pixar, and Siggraph, but I don't remember.
Bruce
The important differences today are the design ones: the two GUIs have different goals, and the difference for commercial developers: the GNOME libraries are usable without a fee by commercial applications while the Qt ones would require a fee from the commercial developer. Both are equally usable, without a fee, by free software developers.
It also looks as if the Harmony project has been resumed, and that there will eventually be an LGPL version of Qt that is usable without fee by commercial applications.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
Some people are going off the deep end here thinking that Apple's the new MP3 patent cop. I see no evidence of that so far - all I see is that they bought a license, as many other companies have, from the Frauenhoffer Institute.
Bruce
As soon as I got to first grade, around 1963, the teacher heard the way I spoke and walked me down to the retarded children's classroom, where I stayed until my parents realized that my description of my classmates was a bit odd. No IQ tests or anything, she just dumped me in there. Once my parents found out, they tested my IQ (it was high) and put me back in the regular class, but the teacher resented it - she took every opportunity to tell me, in front of other students, that I was retarded and that I didn't belong in the class. This made me the school pariah until Junior High or so.
The problem with American schools is the awful pressure on students to conform, when they simply can not do so due to the misfortune of being bright, handicapped, or in some way unusual. The pressure to conform is the same sentiment that causes racism and religious intolerance - there's simply a different group being hated this time. It is enforced by the students but it must come from the instructors and parents - where else would the students be getting it?
Anger in our schools will be a problem until we can embrace our differences rather than try to iron them out.
Bruce Perens
What the heck are you fighting about??? FreeBSD and Linux should have good natured competition that goads their developers into further improvements, as should KDE and GNOME. Let's save the nasty messages for non-free software.
Bruce
The LSB was meant to be a binary collaboration between all of the distributions, not a standard distribution from Bruce Perens. There's no reason for Caldera and Red Hat to work individually on "sysvinit" when they can do so together - the package doesn't distinguish their distributions from each other, and they could use the time they saved to work on things that do distinguish their distributions.
I tried to get Red Hat on board. They opted not to sign on.
When it became clear I didn't have a consensus, I got out of the way. I've been careful to avoid criticizing LSB since then, as that would do no good for Linux.
Bruce Perens
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce
Alan Cox and I are in Reykjavik, Iceland speaking at a Linux and Open Source conference. It's been an adventure. Pictures next week.
This version of the APSL looks much better. I've downloaded a copy and will go over it in detail, but from my first reading, the things I complained about (with Debian and SPI folks) seem to have been addressed. Thanks, Apple!
I'll be back on Sunday.
Thanks
Bruce Perens
I haven't had time to read up on this topic in depth, so be gentle with me :-)
Thanks
Bruce
The Russian Space Agency took money from Swatch, and they are going to launch the satellite from Mir because they don't want to give back the money. Likewise, they threatened to sue French AMSAT if payment for the fabrication of the satellite was witheld, and French AMSAT gave in.
The bottom line is that every ham organization involved with this has been screwed.
Yes, you should renew your ARRL membership, and look at joining No-Code International as well.
Thanks
Bruce
www.ricochet.net
Bruce
Here's the right URL. The posting form seems to have broken for a while, I hope this gets through.