Yeah, there are. About twenty or thiry of them. Everyone else sells dick.
The thing the author has missed is the trend in the publishing industry, which is moving more like the music industry, trying to aquire strangleholds on authors' works, doing deals with bookstores to charge authors for promotion and shelf space, and a whole bunch of nasty shit they've learned from EMI.
Wasn't that long ago it was a *high* end web server. Or a high end server, period.
I'd be interested to know where the bottleneck on the system serving is, because you'd think a 200 MHz CPU serving content off solid state disk would scream along quite nicely.
Perhaps you should ask people who lived through the Reagan era. It was pretty clear then that Republican governments will do anything, up to and including bringing the millitary in, to force policies down ATCs throats.
You're right, it is cool to see these things on the big screen. And that's the problem with digital projectors - they deliver far lower quality that 35mm. They aren't aimed at the (few) remaining big screens, they're aimed at the barely-bigger-than-a-home-projector multiplexes.
Which will hurt cinemas, because the bottom end (home theatre) is coming up, and the top end (theatres) will keep coming down (don't believe me - how many theatres in your area can do 70mm any more? Any? How many genuinely big screens are there?).
At that point, you'll see an acceleration of the current trend, with theatres tanking as people opt to watch at home.
It's still nominally a microkernel, but large chunks of the graphics subsystem (for example) violate pure microkernel design principles, which is why NT 4 was faster that 3.51 but less stable (since video drivers could now torch your system).
Seems to me the opposite would be true for embedded systems - all the benefits of microkernels I can think of tend toward more fully featured systems; for example in the NT world, the OS/2 1.x and POSIX subsystems were seperate personalities on the microkernel. Those are neat features when you want to run diverse userlands on a common platform, but it seems like overkill for an embedded system, where the overhead of the microkernel in terms of size and performance may be too high a price.
As for security, I'm not sure how a microkernel would be a plus or a minus. I suppose the fact that splitting various components of the OS into personalities makes it (in theory) harder to subvert all components by subverting one component.
To be honest, what I'm curious to see is an mk based OS that actually meaningfully demonstrates the benefits of being based around a microkernal. NT could have if MS had been more committed to running the alternate personalities on the same microkernel, but their efforts at POSIX/Unix personalities running alongside the Win32 system have always been sporadic. Too many of the other benefits (such as not having your system die when a network driver goes tits up) mostly benefit programmers (after all, if the NIC in my file server keeps crashing, it's nice that I don't have to reboot to restart the NIC, but I still have an unavailable system).
Beyond technical comments, why does everyone feel a need to deride RMS
Because RMS feels the need to deride others. Sometimes his derision is spot on; a lot of the time, it simply is not. RMS' attacks on the technical value of the Linux kernel and the personal characteristics of Linus, for example, have become more vitrolitic over time. It is hardly surprising that many people, witnissing this spectacle, feel compelled to respond by pointing out the man's shortcomings, or those of his projects.
It's more than a bit on the nose when RMS scorns Linux as a stand-in for the HURD, yet the HURD has only gained the capability to run serial ports at speeds the rest of the world could manage 10 years ago, or that getting support for modern hard drives has only just arrived.
Stallman is someone with strong opinions and an abrasive manner, who attracts likeminded people. If, like Theo de Raat, he's going to hand it out, he can expect to get it in return.
As for microkernels - they've been a darling of the research community for a long, long time, but their practical value remains questionable. Perhaps MacOS X and the HURD will demonstrate their value in some tangible way that makes it apparent they're a win over monolithic kernels (NT gave up some time ago, shifting stuff that a classic mk architecture should have as a server process into the kernel, and gradually dropping support for most of the other, non Win32 personalities).
Yeah. It's not like RedHat have been rigourous about keeping all their in-house distro tools GPLed; why no, like SuSE, Caldera, and other scumbag Linux distros, they have a long and dishonourable history of following short-term, closed IP strategies!
The notion that an E250 (or 450) is better than a free *ix on good quality IA32 hardware is horseshit indulged in by zealots who can't let go of their proprietary hardware.
If you were talking E10k or 6800/15000 class hardware, you'd be right. But a 250 is a worthless proposition, which is why Sun's low end systems are all just PCs with UltraSPARC CPUs these days.
Linux may be the answer for every situation, but Sun has competitors other than the free *ix world. Who are probably high-fiving right now.
One of my customers has been flirting with ripping out Slowaris and replacing it with AIX. When they've finished shitting bricks over the US$160,000 it will cost them to upgrade their web farm, they'll be signing up with Big Blue.
The United Kingdom held out in two World Wars with an inability to supply food from its own farms. "National defence" is a conveninet and nonsensical excuse - much like painting pictures of bankrupt family farmers, when 80% of the US farm subsidy goes to the largest landowners. Try not to buy the hype.
Of course, it may be that every man, woman, and child in the United States thinks they owe farmers $700 each; I certainly wish I could convince the government to shovel money at me based on being a landowner. You may not care the damage it does US relations with allied states. But you ought to.
Interesting that they've managed to get some heavyweight right-wring support as well, in the form of traditional conservatives like Schlafly and new right grandpappy Friedman.
I'm sure you're not unaware of the irony that every example of their milkable franchises are works Disney created out of the public domain, based on copyrighted materials whose copyright expired.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, there are. About twenty or thiry of them. Everyone else sells dick.
The thing the author has missed is the trend in the publishing industry, which is moving more like the music industry, trying to aquire strangleholds on authors' works, doing deals with bookstores to charge authors for promotion and shelf space, and a whole bunch of nasty shit they've learned from EMI.
Of course, your anecdotes about losers at the local high school are more valid evidence than studies conducted across a country over decades.
Wasn't that long ago it was a *high* end web server. Or a high end server, period.
I'd be interested to know where the bottleneck on the system serving is, because you'd think a 200 MHz CPU serving content off solid state disk would scream along quite nicely.
NIS.
Security.
NIS.
Security.
I try and I try, but I can't make these go together in my head.
Solaris has a long, long patchlist, Trusted Solaris included.
Perhaps you should ask people who lived through the Reagan era. It was pretty clear then that Republican governments will do anything, up to and including bringing the millitary in, to force policies down ATCs throats.
I RTFAed and I'm looking for a job in France or Italy where the manuals come with free pr0n...
Hey, Reagan's got a bunch of millitary hardware named after him, and all he had to do was triple the US national debt...
You're right, it is cool to see these things on the big screen. And that's the problem with digital projectors - they deliver far lower quality that 35mm. They aren't aimed at the (few) remaining big screens, they're aimed at the barely-bigger-than-a-home-projector multiplexes.
Which will hurt cinemas, because the bottom end (home theatre) is coming up, and the top end (theatres) will keep coming down (don't believe me - how many theatres in your area can do 70mm any more? Any? How many genuinely big screens are there?).
At that point, you'll see an acceleration of the current trend, with theatres tanking as people opt to watch at home.
Would these be the same kids that put Jello Biafra in hospital for being a sellout?
If they are, pardon me for considering their judgement suspect.
Yeah. Enron was real stable.
You appear to have "capitalism" and "free markets" conflated.
Capitalism has nothing to do with free markets. It merely has to do with how people generate more capital by owning capital...
It's still nominally a microkernel, but large chunks of the graphics subsystem (for example) violate pure microkernel design principles, which is why NT 4 was faster that 3.51 but less stable (since video drivers could now torch your system).
Seems to me the opposite would be true for embedded systems - all the benefits of microkernels I can think of tend toward more fully featured systems; for example in the NT world, the OS/2 1.x and POSIX subsystems were seperate personalities on the microkernel. Those are neat features when you want to run diverse userlands on a common platform, but it seems like overkill for an embedded system, where the overhead of the microkernel in terms of size and performance may be too high a price.
As for security, I'm not sure how a microkernel would be a plus or a minus. I suppose the fact that splitting various components of the OS into personalities makes it (in theory) harder to subvert all components by subverting one component.
To be honest, what I'm curious to see is an mk based OS that actually meaningfully demonstrates the benefits of being based around a microkernal. NT could have if MS had been more committed to running the alternate personalities on the same microkernel, but their efforts at POSIX/Unix personalities running alongside the Win32 system have always been sporadic. Too many of the other benefits (such as not having your system die when a network driver goes tits up) mostly benefit programmers (after all, if the NIC in my file server keeps crashing, it's nice that I don't have to reboot to restart the NIC, but I still have an unavailable system).
Because RMS feels the need to deride others. Sometimes his derision is spot on; a lot of the time, it simply is not. RMS' attacks on the technical value of the Linux kernel and the personal characteristics of Linus, for example, have become more vitrolitic over time. It is hardly surprising that many people, witnissing this spectacle, feel compelled to respond by pointing out the man's shortcomings, or those of his projects.
It's more than a bit on the nose when RMS scorns Linux as a stand-in for the HURD, yet the HURD has only gained the capability to run serial ports at speeds the rest of the world could manage 10 years ago, or that getting support for modern hard drives has only just arrived.
Stallman is someone with strong opinions and an abrasive manner, who attracts likeminded people. If, like Theo de Raat, he's going to hand it out, he can expect to get it in return.
As for microkernels - they've been a darling of the research community for a long, long time, but their practical value remains questionable. Perhaps MacOS X and the HURD will demonstrate their value in some tangible way that makes it apparent they're a win over monolithic kernels (NT gave up some time ago, shifting stuff that a classic mk architecture should have as a server process into the kernel, and gradually dropping support for most of the other, non Win32 personalities).
Yeah. It's not like RedHat have been rigourous about keeping all their in-house distro tools GPLed; why no, like SuSE, Caldera, and other scumbag Linux distros, they have a long and dishonourable history of following short-term, closed IP strategies!
Yeah, that's right. When Sun are already ripping you a new arsehole in service fees, why, you should be grateful they add another charge!
The notion that an E250 (or 450) is better than a free *ix on good quality IA32 hardware is horseshit indulged in by zealots who can't let go of their proprietary hardware.
If you were talking E10k or 6800/15000 class hardware, you'd be right. But a 250 is a worthless proposition, which is why Sun's low end systems are all just PCs with UltraSPARC CPUs these days.
Linux may be the answer for every situation, but Sun has competitors other than the free *ix world. Who are probably high-fiving right now.
One of my customers has been flirting with ripping out Slowaris and replacing it with AIX. When they've finished shitting bricks over the US$160,000 it will cost them to upgrade their web farm, they'll be signing up with Big Blue.
Firewire is just plain smarter.
I can run 400 Mbps 10m with a good copper cable, 4.5m with a crappy one, and 700m with an optical one.
I can stream video from my camcorder to multiple hosts at one time. My camcorder can talk to a hard drive, without a computer interlocuter.
And Firewire already owns the prosumer/professional video and photographic markets, so it ain't going away any time soon.
Because, as we know, the primary job of the SCOTUS is to ensure business isn't disrupted.
Please, enlighten us how an ISP is going to guarantee never to have any customer use its facilities to publish anything that might upset someone.
People do. Of course, the same companies that are bribing politicians own the newspapers, TV, and radio.
The United Kingdom held out in two World Wars with an inability to supply food from its own farms. "National defence" is a conveninet and nonsensical excuse - much like painting pictures of bankrupt family farmers, when 80% of the US farm subsidy goes to the largest landowners. Try not to buy the hype.
Of course, it may be that every man, woman, and child in the United States thinks they owe farmers $700 each; I certainly wish I could convince the government to shovel money at me based on being a landowner. You may not care the damage it does US relations with allied states. But you ought to.
Interesting that they've managed to get some heavyweight right-wring support as well, in the form of traditional conservatives like Schlafly and new right grandpappy Friedman.
I'm sure you're not unaware of the irony that every example of their milkable franchises are works Disney created out of the public domain, based on copyrighted materials whose copyright expired.