"Having purchased 20 new, identical computers, it made sense to completely configure one machine and then clone the hard drive to the other 19 computers. However, Microsoft's EULA prevents a user from doing this, even if they have 20 copies of Windows."
Surely this isn't correct... is it? Not even MS would do this - it makes no sense.
True. Some author (Arthur C Clark?) wrote about the 3 stages of a race.
I'm recalling them from memory from a long time ago - appologies if they are wrong.
Class 1 - Uses the energy of it's sun. Has expanded throughout it's solar system. Class 2 - Uses the energy of many suns/black holes. Has expanded throughout it's galaxy. Class 3 - I forget the energy source. Has expanded throughout the universe.
It's humbling to think even reaching class 1 won't happen for a long time yet.
Imagine you had two servers (er lets say mysql and apache). They have a very loose coupling between them. They can talk to each other (you can serve web pages from a database) but you wouldn't really say that they were joined together. With most implementations you could probably easily rip out mysql and replace it with postgres or something with fairly minimal fuss.
Now a company, if they owned both, would put far more resources in coupling them - creating a strong coupling. Apache would have very specific mysql code, and the config files would have mysql settings in it, and it would bring up mysql if it wasn't running, and there would be a single tool to configure both - sort of like Lotus Domino style.
It requires a lot more resources to maintain a tight coupling then it does a loose coupling. The apache people would have to re-consider every so often the pro's and con's of being coupled with mysql instead of say postgres, and change a lot of stuff if they decide to switch, forcing everyone else to switch along with them.
Yet again I'm not really making myself clear - I'm sorry. One last really small example. Scripting. KDE apps don't have a place to put in scripts - like in MS word with it's VB - because they don't need. They just export a load of functions through dcop, and you can write the scripts in your favourite editor, with your favourite language (if it has the bindings).
It costs $20m to restructure? Jeez -I can't even imagine that kind of money. Where does that kind of money go when you restructure? And try to keep replies as cynical-less as possible:)
Middleware is an interesting area. The trouble is, is that it doesn't offer enough for someone to bother coding it.
It works well for companies because: 1) They can afford to put time and investment into 'the latest fad', whereas in the OS community the time is better spent elsewhere. (The point isn't phrased very well sorry - read on)
2) It is good for companies to produce middleware because they can offer a high level of intergration between their products - hence locking you into their whole range. E.g. Lotus domino - news server,web server, database all in one. In the OS community you would chose the best database applicable, the best web server applicable, and quickly write some scripts to communicate between them.
3) Middleware solves problems that people don't know they have - so don't notice that itch to solve them. However in business, companies produce such software, then tell other companies they have the problem, and solve it. (I'm not very good at getting point across today - sorry.) For example: IBM do a message passing program that basically consolidates errors between servers. Say a hub breaks down, and suddenly a load of machines report they can't access the machines behind the hub. What you want is for the computers to talk to a central node, and the central node to reduce all the errors down to a "x,y,z machines can't be reached, they are all behind router r, hence I suspect r is down." Then when the machine come back, delete the errors.
> Sure, it would have been nice for PCI-SIG to thank > Jim for his work, but the simple fact is that this >is not how things work in the real world.
Yes, well, not all of us want to live in that kind of a world. So while you just accept it as "the way things are", I'll stick to my "utopian idealism".
Do you really find it reasonable that they didn't thank him or contact him, but just threw the lawyers at him?
Re:X sux and is the biggest thing holding back lin
on
Why Isn't X11 Thread-Safe?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
Why do you think X sucks?
It is a very impressive protocol - just consider how long it has been around, and you can do just about anything without breaking it. How many other protocols are there that can boast that?
Arrogance is a funny old thing - and I did preface it with the whole "playing devil's advocate".
But anyway, I was not putting down documentators etc. I added that as an after thought incase someone called me an arrogant prick for thinking everyone can code - oh well, you can't win them all. In fact, I'm a documentator myself - search for my nick on the web.
Btw, other than just calling me names, do you actually have any points to go against me? All my posts have tried to be constructive, and so I hope for the same in replies.
Someone moderated my message as flaimbait. While I agree it probably was, I disagree it should be moded down. Perhaps there should be a flaimbait(0), or flaimbait(+1) even:)
I'm just going to play the devil's advocate here..
You complain that debian was hard to install. This is good! Because:
*) Like you said, you learned a lot in the process. *) It forced you to realise that some packages aren't totally free, and made it just that tiny bit harder to get them - that's a good thing. *) If you weren't smart/compentant/knowledgable to install debian, then what use are you to us? *) You used the new found knowledge to make money, and so I assume helped someone else move/use linux, and possibly develop for it - definetly a good point.
Over the years of helping on a chat channel, I've noticed questions have gone from "How do I check dma is on on my hard disk" to "How do I use kmail?","How do I add a bookmark?", "".
I've noticed more than one person complain/comment on this. If you feel I'm being elitest, just imagine all those AOL'ers suddenly using linux and clogging up the irc channels with really dumb questions.
At the moment, the linux community wants people that will help and develop. Even if that is in translating docs, writing docs, doing art, etc.
Having said that, there are some useful points to having the general AOL'er using linux: *) More people = hardware companies taking linux seriously. *) More people = games companies taking linux more seriously. *) More people = UI considerations taken more and more seriously. (Good as long as the UI only becomes easier to use, not dumbed down and reduce efficency of those who know how to use it)
A good way to get respect and help from others is to do a nice start up screen for one of the OS games. Take tuxracer and add some nice effects to the start up screen. After all, that is how the demo scene started. It lets you learn, be appreciated, and have your results last a lot longer than most demos.
I started learning about demo'ing back when it was popular, and done a few basic ones myself.
But these days it is very hard - watch some of the stuff by siggraph if you want to get depressed by the quality of stuff that is out there.
On the other hand, it is easy to do stuff that looks nice - even if you have to accept it has been done tons of times.
My favourite one that I did was when I tried to write a program that simulated how a brain works, with neurons etc. It produced some really wierd graphics.
In the old days you would have to write most of your routines in asm - although things like denther tutorials were a great help. However these days you don't need to know how to write the fastest putpixel routine. You can use opengl with sdl or whatever rocks your boat.
So inconclusion, learn a tiny bit about opengl, then start playing about. Try putting coloured squares randomly on the screen - this is quite a nice effect. Then fade it. Then texture the squares. Then make some opaque.
At really good one to do is the fire effect. Draw a row of pixels at the bottom of the screen in a random mix of red, orange and yellow, then on the row above that, for each pixel average the three pixels below it plus the three pixels that were in that position last frame ago. Draw the frame, then regenerate the bottom row randomly.
The application doesn't care if it takes few bits or not.
If the tag name changes then your app could just support old formats, or it could covert old formats to the new one. You have no chance of doing this with binary.
Slashdot Mirror
Has anyone looked at what educational programs work under wine?
"Having purchased 20 new, identical computers, it made sense to completely configure one machine and then clone the hard drive to the other 19 computers. However, Microsoft's EULA prevents a user from doing this, even if they have 20 copies of Windows."
Surely this isn't correct... is it?
Not even MS would do this - it makes no sense.
Why has it become a /. sport to bash rms at any chance?
Find me where rms says this. In fact, RMS has said the opposite.(Which is why you don't hear GNU/freebsd or whatever)
True. Some author (Arthur C Clark?) wrote about the 3 stages of a race.
I'm recalling them from memory from a long time ago - appologies if they are wrong.
Class 1 - Uses the energy of it's sun. Has expanded throughout it's solar system.
Class 2 - Uses the energy of many suns/black holes. Has expanded throughout it's galaxy.
Class 3 - I forget the energy source. Has expanded throughout the universe.
It's humbling to think even reaching class 1 won't happen for a long time yet.
Well.. I'm thinking more of the coupling.
Imagine you had two servers (er lets say mysql and apache). They have a very loose coupling between them. They can talk to each other (you can serve web pages from a database) but you wouldn't really say that they were joined together. With most implementations you could probably easily rip out mysql and replace it with postgres or something with fairly minimal fuss.
Now a company, if they owned both, would put far more resources in coupling them - creating a strong coupling. Apache would have very specific mysql code, and the config files would have mysql settings in it, and it would bring up mysql if it wasn't running, and there would be a single tool to configure both - sort of like Lotus Domino style.
It requires a lot more resources to maintain a tight coupling then it does a loose coupling. The apache people would have to re-consider every so often the pro's and con's of being coupled with mysql instead of say postgres, and change a lot of stuff if they decide to switch, forcing everyone else to switch along with them.
Yet again I'm not really making myself clear - I'm sorry. One last really small example. Scripting. KDE apps don't have a place to put in scripts - like in MS word with it's VB - because they don't need. They just export a load of functions through dcop, and you can write the scripts in your favourite editor, with your favourite language (if it has the bindings).
The pdf says "All aplications have repitive code"
Isn't that why we have functions, libraries etc.
Sigh, I was modded as a troll - and for asking what I see as a fairly reasonable question..
It costs $20m to restructure? Jeez -I can't even imagine that kind of money. Where does that kind of money go when you restructure? And try to keep replies as cynical-less as possible :)
And if you are good at it, you can earn a lot of money with it. I was earning £60k+ a year when I was 18 doing this. But that was during the dot-com :)
Middleware is an interesting area. The trouble is, is that it doesn't offer enough for someone to bother coding it.
It works well for companies because:
1) They can afford to put time and investment into 'the latest fad', whereas in the OS community the time is better spent elsewhere. (The point isn't phrased very well sorry - read on)
2) It is good for companies to produce middleware because they can offer a high level of intergration between their products - hence locking you into their whole range. E.g. Lotus domino - news server,web server, database all in one. In the OS community you would chose the best database applicable, the best web server applicable, and quickly write some scripts to communicate between them.
3) Middleware solves problems that people don't know they have - so don't notice that itch to solve them. However in business, companies produce such software, then tell other companies they have the problem, and solve it. (I'm not very good at getting point across today - sorry.) For example: IBM do a message passing program that basically consolidates errors between servers. Say a hub breaks down, and suddenly a load of machines report they can't access the machines behind the hub. What you want is for the computers to talk to a central node, and the central node to reduce all the errors down to a "x,y,z machines can't be reached, they are all behind router r, hence I suspect r is down." Then when the machine come back, delete the errors.
Probably - but that's not what the letter from the lawyers asks them to change.
Do you know if there is an XPCOMDCOP bridge?
I would really love for gnome,mozilla,kde to have the same thing.
Btw in reference to your last paragraph - kde has dcop.
Hmm. I could make a programming language which contains a keyword "dmca" which is replaced with the decss code.
Then the word "dmca" would because illegal because it is a way of representing the decss program (in my own language).
Hey good idea. Then when I next go to search google for such a site, I can't find it!
And this site is used a lot more than you might think - I had to use it to update my records for a device I'd bought to be recognised.
Uh, so why send a lawyer letter then if you can't write one that sounds good?
They could have written an informal email first.
> Sure, it would have been nice for PCI-SIG to thank
> Jim for his work, but the simple fact is that this
>is not how things work in the real world.
Yes, well, not all of us want to live in that kind of a world. So while you just accept it as "the way things are", I'll stick to my "utopian idealism".
Do you really find it reasonable that they didn't thank him or contact him, but just threw the lawyers at him?
Why do you think X sucks?
It is a very impressive protocol - just consider how long it has been around, and you can do just about anything without breaking it.
How many other protocols are there that can boast that?
What can't X do?
Arrogance is a funny old thing - and I did preface it with the whole "playing devil's advocate".
But anyway, I was not putting down documentators etc. I added that as an after thought incase someone called me an arrogant prick for thinking everyone can code - oh well, you can't win them all.
In fact, I'm a documentator myself - search for my nick on the web.
Btw, other than just calling me names, do you actually have any points to go against me?
All my posts have tried to be constructive, and so I hope for the same in replies.
Someone moderated my message as flaimbait. While I agree it probably was, I disagree it should be moded down. Perhaps there should be a flaimbait(0), or flaimbait(+1) even :)
I'm just going to play the devil's advocate here..
You complain that debian was hard to install.
This is good! Because:
*) Like you said, you learned a lot in the process.
*) It forced you to realise that some packages aren't totally free, and made it just that tiny bit harder to get them - that's a good thing.
*) If you weren't smart/compentant/knowledgable to install debian, then what use are you to us?
*) You used the new found knowledge to make money, and so I assume helped someone else move/use linux, and possibly develop for it - definetly a good point.
Over the years of helping on a chat channel, I've noticed questions have gone from "How do I check dma is on on my hard disk" to "How do I use kmail?","How do I add a bookmark?", "".
I've noticed more than one person complain/comment on this. If you feel I'm being elitest, just imagine all those AOL'ers suddenly using linux and clogging up the irc channels with really dumb questions.
At the moment, the linux community wants people that will help and develop. Even if that is in translating docs, writing docs, doing art, etc.
Having said that, there are some useful points to having the general AOL'er using linux:
*) More people = hardware companies taking linux seriously.
*) More people = games companies taking linux more seriously.
*) More people = UI considerations taken more and more seriously. (Good as long as the UI only becomes easier to use, not dumbed down and reduce efficency of those who know how to use it)
amen to the that. Unfortunetly I've been learning for 9 years about computers, and still know very little.
Yet again replying to myself..
A good way to get respect and help from others is to do a nice start up screen for one of the OS games. Take tuxracer and add some nice effects to the start up screen. After all, that is how the demo scene started. It lets you learn, be appreciated, and have your results last a lot longer than most demos.
Unfortunetly it can be hard to know what to look for. Like how would you learn about karman filters if you hadn't heard about them?
I started learning about demo'ing back when it was popular, and done a few basic ones myself.
But these days it is very hard - watch some of the stuff by siggraph if you want to get depressed by the quality of stuff that is out there.
On the other hand, it is easy to do stuff that looks nice - even if you have to accept it has been done tons of times.
My favourite one that I did was when I tried to write a program that simulated how a brain works, with neurons etc. It produced some really wierd graphics.
In the old days you would have to write most of your routines in asm - although things like denther tutorials were a great help. However these days you don't need to know how to write the fastest putpixel routine. You can use opengl with sdl or whatever rocks your boat.
So inconclusion, learn a tiny bit about opengl, then start playing about. Try putting coloured squares randomly on the screen - this is quite a nice effect. Then fade it. Then texture the squares. Then make some opaque.
At really good one to do is the fire effect. Draw a row of pixels at the bottom of the screen in a random mix of red, orange and yellow, then on the row above that, for each pixel average the three pixels below it plus the three pixels that were in that position last frame ago. Draw the frame, then regenerate the bottom row randomly.
Play!
The application doesn't care if it takes few bits or not.
If the tag name changes then your app could just support old formats, or it could covert old formats to the new one. You have no chance of doing this with binary.