Games are somewhat different from other software becasuse we don't need them. If my O/S isn't Free Software, then the company that I bought it from can revoke my licence at any time and prevent me from obtaining a new one - so If I were going an all-commercial-software solution one company (The O/S developer) could legally prevent me from using *any* software that I had. I don't like that plan.
With games, although the standard commercial licence still is obnoxious and lame, if my licnece is revoked for a game... I've lost a single game - Not a $500 Office Suite, Not $10,000 'worth' of software, just one game.
The issue with the "Open Source" development model is similar. Bugs in your O/S or an important program like a Web Server screw everything up, cost a lot of money to fix, and otherwise basically suck. With a game, yea - bugs suck, but they aren't fatal and can't cost millions of dollars.
There's also the fact that there just aren't that many good games that are Free Software. XArchon, FreeCiv, and XShipWars just arn't as good as StarCraft, Quake II, and MechWarrior III.
I believe that people have the right to do with information as they please. If I have data, I can do whatever I want with it. If I give it to you, now you have it and can do whatever you want with it. There's no reason for the government to form and enforce monopolies on the usage of certain information. The forming of such monopolies does not help society, while it does hurt society - so there's no reason to do it.
Information wants to be free for the same reasons software wants to be free. It's free to reproduce, and there is no reason to artificially prevent it from being reproduced.
People can charge money for the information to begin with, but once I have a copy of a piece of data, I will not conspire to ensure anyone's monopoly on that data... I will happily give copies of any data that I have to anyone I feel like giving the data to.
If you don't want others to have data... then don't give it to them. Once you have given the data away, you no longer control it.
Actually, you translate your specs into a sort of gibberish courts have ruled only patent lawyers are qualified to read, and then the PTO makes it ludicrously difficult and cumbersome for the public to get access to any of them, much less find relevant ones. Considering a patent to be "publication" is a sick joke.
LOL; It's funny 'cause it's true.
Still, the theory is that the 'new knowledge' is given to the public at large, so it being easily avalible wouldn't void the patent - as it's supposed to be easily avalible anyway.
If you believe that any activisim that you do will have no effect, you will never do any activism and it will never have any effect.
I've avoided this by convincing myself that if I've decided that something needs to change/something's going to happen/etc there are probably others who have reached the same conclusion using the same line of logic.
Every little bit helps, remember, activism on an obvious thing like GIF => PNG is a chain reaction. If you can convince three people that they should switch to PNG, they'll probably tell three other people each, who will each tell three people. Five iterations is 243 people. Ten iterations is nearly 60,000 people... no longer a small drop in the ocean.
You can emulate transparency by opening the image in the GIMP, opening the layers&channels dialog, adding a layer of the same color as your site's background, moving the new layer to the back of the image, and merging visable layers. Pretty simple, eh?
PNG supports GIF style transparancy, as well as a so called "Alpha" channel that allows for each pixel to have a varying level of transparancy.
Problem is, current browser support is, well, crap - with the single exception of Mozilla. I usually just use the GIMP to make a non-transparent image that will end up looking the same as it would look if it were transparent.
This could be likened to MS giving a program away for free for a year, and then deciding to charge everybody that has used it $200.
Although Microsoft couldn't actually force you to pay the $200, they could say "Pay us the $200 now, or we revoke your licence and you must stop using that app".
Ok, the way a patent works is that you give away the specs to your new invention to the public in exchange for a 17 year government-enforced monopoly on that invention.
That's not exactly how it's enforced/done now, but that's the idea.
So, they can try to take your money, and PNG is technically superior to GIF anyway.
Make the world a better place... convert your GIFs to PNGs.
(*) How much infomartion on PNG has seeped onto the general public. Many know that GIF is patented, but about PNG??
PNG was designed specifically as a not-patent-encumbered image format, partially as a replacement to GIF. One goal of BAGD is to spread this info around.
(*) Are you sure of atleast a moderate following ?? It is better not to remain silent and work underground, moving people than call for a BIG Burining session like this and see a flop happening.
The GIF patent thing has been a big deal for a while. I know that I've not used a GIF that I created myself for a while, and that I've even gone to the trouble of converting all the non-animated GIFs on sites I've built to PNGs... so at least there's some support for this.
(*) Does any one care ?? True GIF is patented.. but majority of people will just stick to it until a situation comes where pple start getting jailed.
This is a problem with any attempt to change public opinion. It's still important to try to get publicity for the issue.
(*) Well if GIF is patented, y cant we try to talk to pple concerned and get things sorted out. If SUN can go "Open Source" and MS can even think about being "Open Source", I dont think this issue is any tougher.
People have been pushing for this for 10 years. It didn't work. After a certain amount of time it makes sense to try a different tactic.
Not really, if you have the same palette the PNG will be smaller than the GIF nearly every time. The only time when the GIF will be smaller is when you're eithor A: Working with 2 pixel images where one pixel is white and the other is black or B: You've images happen to be one of the specific patterns of bits which LZW is optimal at compressing.
This means that, for all real life intents and purpoises, the use of PNG/JPEG will *always* be smaller than GIF.
It'd be really cool if sites that are funded by banner adds would require that the ads be.png or.jpg images. This would reduce the obnoxiousness and load time of the ads immensely.
The other reason is that Caldera tends to hold back on stuff until its stable. For example, RH 6.1 uses a RH-patched 2.2.12 kernel, and Linux-Mandrake 6.1 uses a pre-patched 2.2.13 kernel, while Caldera held back and used 2.2.10, which was the last stable kernel in the so-called stable tree until 2.2.13 was released a few days ago.
2.2.12 is stable. Any patching that RedHat did to it was for added functionality, or to fix one specific bug (That was in every kernel from 2.2.8 - 2.2.12).
Although COL *used to* be the conservitive distro... Debian is now the only one that still does that. Caldera no longer does that, look how quick they adopted KDE when it hit 1.0.
Also, Caldera has an odd tendancy to tweek *everything* (Well, where'd *you* think their graphical boot screen came from), and their tweaking hasn't improved stability.
There are some major problems with Caldera that other distros don't have.
It's not free software: It may include free software, but as a package you can't give it to your friends for them to install, or buy one CD to install a whole office.
It does everything in VGA mode. There's no reason to have a graphical boot up screen.
It doesn't give very many choices. Although forcing people to make too many choices makes a distro look less user friendly, allowing people to choose to choose just makes sense.
It just doesn't include enough packages. Having an O/S be usefull is all about apps: it doesn't matter how easy it is to install if once you install you're staring at a KDE desktop and you can't find anything useful to do...
At least in 2.2, their attempts to emulate a Windows type look and feel throughout hurt stability. Caldera is the only distro that's forced me to use the big red button to reboot three times in two days.
Little annoying bugs, both times I tried 2.2 (on different machines) all the pixmaps in the WordPerfect UI were corrupted. That's buttons, splash screen, everything.
For a newbie or someone who "Just wants to get work done", I suggest RedHat 6.1 or Mandrake 6.1. For someone who's more adventurous and wants to learn Slackware or Debian. For someone who wants eithor european language support or a lot of packages SuSE.
Note: I've actually run each of these distros for a sufficient length of time to be able to make basic judgements about them. Caldera is the one that I've run for the least amount of time, but that's because after my first 8 hours with it, I never wanted to see it again, and after my second 8 hours with it, I almost broke my CD in half. So, even if this may be flamebait, it's *informed* flamebait.
For future reference, irc.linux.com #LinuxHelp is a pretty decent newbie help channel. Usually your question will get answered, and sometimes you'll even get help from people who really know what they're talking about.
I very much doubt it'll ship with Linux. Read the article: they're targetting the WinTV crowd with this. Can you see them getting used to logging in / out of Linux? Shutting down instead of hitting the power button? Dealing with fsck()?
I agree that they probably won't ship with Linux, because it's got a bad rep for user friendlyness, but Linux would work fine for this.
To allow people to just hit [OFF], just set up the system as a two partition thing [Home] and [Everything Else] (plus a swap partiton). The [Everything Else] partition can be mounted "read only", and the [Home] partition can be given the "don't buffer I/O" option in/etc/fstab. Add a pretty UI (WindowMaker would be fine, as would KDE, as would Gnome + IceWM), and a laptop style "hibernation" feature with a 5 minute battery and you have a perfect appliance computer system. (Press the "off" button or loose power and it saves RAM to disk, press "on" and it brings you right back to where you left off.)
Slashdot Mirror
You mean "Offtopic Insightful Humor", right?
Games are somewhat different from other software becasuse we don't need them. If my O/S isn't Free Software, then the company that I bought it from can revoke my licence at any time and prevent me from obtaining a new one - so If I were going an all-commercial-software solution one company (The O/S developer) could legally prevent me from using *any* software that I had. I don't like that plan.
With games, although the standard commercial licence still is obnoxious and lame, if my licnece is revoked for a game... I've lost a single game - Not a $500 Office Suite, Not $10,000 'worth' of software, just one game.
The issue with the "Open Source" development model is similar. Bugs in your O/S or an important program like a Web Server screw everything up, cost a lot of money to fix, and otherwise basically suck.
With a game, yea - bugs suck, but they aren't fatal and can't cost millions of dollars.
There's also the fact that there just aren't that many good games that are Free Software. XArchon, FreeCiv, and XShipWars just arn't as good as StarCraft, Quake II, and MechWarrior III.
I believe that people have the right to do with information as they please. If I have data, I can do whatever I want with it. If I give it to you, now you have it and can do whatever you want with it. There's no reason for the government to form and enforce monopolies on the usage of certain information. The forming of such monopolies does not help society, while it does hurt society - so there's no reason to do it.
Information wants to be free for the same reasons software wants to be free. It's free to reproduce, and there is no reason to artificially prevent it from being reproduced.
People can charge money for the information to begin with, but once I have a copy of a piece of data, I will not conspire to ensure anyone's monopoly on that data... I will happily give copies of any data that I have to anyone I feel like giving the data to.
If you don't want others to have data... then don't give it to them. Once you have given the data away, you no longer control it.
LOL; It's funny 'cause it's true.
Still, the theory is that the 'new knowledge' is given to the public at large, so it being easily avalible wouldn't void the patent - as it's supposed to be easily avalible anyway.
If you believe that any activisim that you do will have no effect, you will never do any activism and it will never have any effect.
I've avoided this by convincing myself that if I've decided that something needs to change/something's going to happen/etc there are probably others who have reached the same conclusion using the same line of logic.
Every little bit helps, remember, activism on an obvious thing like GIF => PNG is a chain reaction. If you can convince three people that they should switch to PNG, they'll probably tell three other people each, who will each tell three people. Five iterations is 243 people. Ten iterations is nearly 60,000 people... no longer a small drop in the ocean.
You can emulate transparency by opening the image in the GIMP, opening the layers&channels dialog, adding a layer of the same color as your site's background, moving the new layer to the back of the image, and merging visable layers.
Pretty simple, eh?
PNG supports GIF style transparancy, as well as a so called "Alpha" channel that allows for each pixel to have a varying level of transparancy.
Problem is, current browser support is, well, crap - with the single exception of Mozilla. I usually just use the GIMP to make a non-transparent image that will end up looking the same as it would look if it were transparent.
Although Microsoft couldn't actually force you to pay the $200, they could say "Pay us the $200 now, or we revoke your licence and you must stop using that app".
Ok, the way a patent works is that you give away the specs to your new invention to the public in exchange for a 17 year government-enforced monopoly on that invention.
That's not exactly how it's enforced/done now, but that's the idea.
So, they can try to take your money, and PNG is technically superior to GIF anyway.
Make the world a better place... convert your GIFs to PNGs.
PNG was designed specifically as a not-patent-encumbered image format, partially as a replacement to GIF. One goal of BAGD is to spread this info around.
The GIF patent thing has been a big deal for a while. I know that I've not used a GIF that I created myself for a while, and that I've even gone to the trouble of converting all the non-animated GIFs on sites I've built to PNGs... so at least there's some support for this.
This is a problem with any attempt to change public opinion. It's still important to try to get publicity for the issue.
People have been pushing for this for 10 years. It didn't work. After a certain amount of time it makes sense to try a different tactic.
I hope it goes right next to the "Limit javascipt effects to current window" checkbox. No pop-ups, no java, and no <blink> and I'll be happy.
Hmm... I could be wrong. I was just assuming on the basis that SuSE is based in Germany, as well as the fact that their English isn't perfect.
Not really, if you have the same palette the PNG will be smaller than the GIF nearly every time. The only time when the GIF will be smaller is when you're eithor A: Working with 2 pixel images where one pixel is white and the other is black or B: You've images happen to be one of the specific patterns of bits which LZW is optimal at compressing.
This means that, for all real life intents and purpoises, the use of PNG/JPEG will *always* be smaller than GIF.
It'd be really cool if sites that are funded by banner adds would require that the ads be .png or .jpg images. This would reduce the obnoxiousness and load time of the ads immensely.
There are only three processor types that SGI would consider: MIPS, ia32, ia64
On MIPS, the OS would be Irix.
On ia32 it could be eithor Irix or Linux
On ia64 it would be Linux.
Since SGI is planning on a big move twards ia64/Linux... it's not all that unlikely that they're going to want to use that for the supercomputer.
People die.
Sometimes people who deserve it die.
If you rip off a bunch of other people really badly, you can expect to die.
If you engage in the sending of UCE, you do so at your own risk.
And remember - the purpoise of the moderation system is to give higher ratings to the most interesting, insightful, and funny posts.
The purpoise is not to make it so that you don't see anything that might upset/offend you.
2.2.12 is stable. Any patching that RedHat did to it was for added functionality, or to fix one specific bug (That was in every kernel from 2.2.8 - 2.2.12).
Although COL *used to* be the conservitive distro... Debian is now the only one that still does that. Caldera no longer does that, look how quick they adopted KDE when it hit 1.0.
Also, Caldera has an odd tendancy to tweek *everything* (Well, where'd *you* think their graphical boot screen came from), and their tweaking hasn't improved stability.
There are some major problems with Caldera that other distros don't have.
For a newbie or someone who "Just wants to get work done", I suggest RedHat 6.1 or Mandrake 6.1. For someone who's more adventurous and wants to learn Slackware or Debian. For someone who wants eithor european language support or a lot of packages SuSE.
Note: I've actually run each of these distros for a sufficient length of time to be able to make basic judgements about them. Caldera is the one that I've run for the least amount of time, but that's because after my first 8 hours with it, I never wanted to see it again, and after my second 8 hours with it, I almost broke my CD in half. So, even if this may be flamebait, it's *informed* flamebait.
For future reference, irc.linux.com #LinuxHelp is a pretty decent newbie help channel. Usually your question will get answered, and sometimes you'll even get help from people who really know what they're talking about.
I just installed Junkbuster, and it's *sweet*. It replaces the ads a 1x1 transparent GIF image, and it blocks the adds on most sites that I visit.
Prostitutes have a right to do whatever they want to do, laws may restrict their rights, but that doesn't mean that the rights go away.
I agree that they probably won't ship with Linux, because it's got a bad rep for user friendlyness, but Linux would work fine for this.
To allow people to just hit [OFF], just set up the system as a two partition thing [Home] and [Everything Else] (plus a swap partiton). The [Everything Else] partition can be mounted "read only", and the [Home] partition can be given the "don't buffer I/O" option in /etc/fstab. Add a pretty UI (WindowMaker would be fine, as would KDE, as would Gnome + IceWM), and a laptop style "hibernation" feature with a 5 minute battery and you have a perfect appliance computer system. (Press the "off" button or loose power and it saves RAM to disk, press "on" and it brings you right back to where you left off.)
That would be cool, just put Linux on them and you have free low-bandwidth web servers. If I had as many of those as I have AOL disks....