I have Read The Fine Manual. It's frigging complicated, which is why I'm having trouble with it. If configuring sound on Windows was this complicated, almost no Windows users would have sound.
I've hacked a little bit on trying to get Linux support going. The RadioShark acts as an Audio-class device for the audio (logically enough), and a HID-class device for the tuning. I think I'm able to send tuning commands to it, but I can't confirm that as I haven't yet gotten ALSA configured correctly to deal with the audio.
Is it just me, or is configuring ALSA a black art?
Microsoft has a trademark on Windows, whowouddathunkit
I thought they only had a trademark on "Microsoft Windows" but that their trademark application for "Windows" had been rejected as too generic. It's possibly that I'm completely misremembering it thought.
while we don't have any legal authority to stop people from misuing "open source", we have the moral authority to do it.
I'm not 100% certain that I agree with the "moral authority" idea. I'd have to think about that further. Though I wouldn't claim that any other body has any more moral authority in that area than OSI does. Anyhow, I was only questioning the legal authority, and it sounds like there's no controversy there.
Moral right or not, I'd like to think that a court trying a case concerning whether a certain piece of software was in fact "open source" would be willing to consider the OSI's Open Source Definition to be reasonably authoritative.
For instance, if Microsoft tried to claim that their "Shared Source" program was "open source", I think they'd have an uphill battle. (AFAIK, they haven't ever tried to make such a claim.)
OK, I have no problem with OSI (or SPI, or whoever) requiring their approval to use a "certification mark". I was just worried that they may have been misrepresenting that they had some control over the use of the phrase "open source". Perhaps it was just a misunderstanding by the reporter.
OSI approval required for open-source licenses?
on
ESR steps down from OSI
·
· Score: 1, Redundant
From the article:
Approval from the OSI is required for all open-source licenses
How can that be? IIRC, OSI was not granted a trademark on the phrase "open source", so anyone can use it for nearly anything.
OSI isn't spreading FUD about the phrase "open source", are they?
Why the BoingBoing submitter and Mr. Doctorow are so upset about this I don't know; when you buy software that's dependent on a for-profit company to keep working, what do you expect?
Just like when a few years after buying a Ford truck, they disable the stereo and the rear window defogger, to encourage you to buy a new Ford truck?
Once I've purchased something, whether it's a truck or a piece of software, I expect it to keep working. If the stereo or the rear window defogger fail, I expect to be able to get them repaired (possibly at my expense). If the stereo and rear window defogger fail because Ford deliberately did something to turn them off, I expect to sue Ford's ass off.
If a feature of the software stops working due to a deliberate action of the vendor, I expect to call them up and have them turn it back on. Failing that, I expect to sue them, or join a class action suit.
If when I bought the software, the packaging and license clearly stated that the XYZ feature would only work for three years, that would be another matter.
I used to use GNU Make extensively, and considered myself to be reasonably close to being an expert with it. But a friend introduced me to SCons, and I've found it to be much easier to use.
SCons has automatic dependency checking built in, supporting many kinds of source files, but if it doesn't have what you need it can be easily extended.
SCons remembers the command line used to compile/build a given file, so it automatically figures out that it should rebuild that file if the command line arguments change. With Make it is very difficult to do that, so "make clean" is used much more often than it should be needed.
SCons is written in Python, and the SConstruct files it uses analagously to Makefiles are fundamentally Python scripts, but you don't need to know Python to use SCons. However, if you do know Python you can easily extend SCons.
Some experts think that since DES has withstood so many years of scrutiny, and there still no atack significantly better than brute force, that triple-DES may be a better choice than AES, Twofish, and Serpent, none of which have yet been subject to a comparable amount of cryptanalysis. Yet triple-DES isn't in the list on the ciphers page. Why not?
There are instructions on the Intel that are not easily virtualized (read this as expensive to run). That is what you get with VMWare/Bochs over Xen.
Both Intel and AMD have stated that they plan to add virtualization support to forthcoming CPUs, which will have at least two useful benefits:
VMware will run with much lower overhead, because it will no longer have to prescreen instruction sequences for those that have to be simulated (or binary translation, or whatever it s they're currently doing)
Xen will be able to support unmodified guest operating systems
I assume that the latter is what the mentioned Intel code drop is all about.
Intel has mentioned two (different?) virtualization features, code named "Vanderpool" and "Silvervale". AMD calls theirs "Pacifica", and it is apparently not a clone of the Intel schemes, though it is expected to provide the same benefits.
Sure, the point is that it isn't more than 100% efficient. It's not a perpetual motion machine.
Electric heaters are very nearly 100% efficient too. A tiny amount of the electricity gets converted to RF energy that is likely to escape the room you're trying to heat (unless the room is a Faraday cage). But nobody is particularly impressed with them. Certainly classes of machines can be very nearly 100% efficient, but none can be over 100%.
Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't OS X include an X11 server? Is there any major drawback to running OpenOffice as an X11 application rather than a native one?
I DO know that a conductive shield around something will protect the thing inside it from extraneous electrical fields (as long as their frequency isn't super-high), but that any radiation produced by the thing inside the conductive shield will get out just fine.
And in this strange universe you apparently inhabit, how does the conductive shielding know which side is "in" and which is "out", so that it can pass the electromagnetic radiation in only one direction?
Shielding that does that would have the useful property of making perpetual motion possible; it would be to electromagnetic radiation as Maxwell's Demon is to heat.
"In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics."
-- Homer Simpson to Lisa, after she constructs a perpetual motion machine
They get around it by saying it's neither a criminal nor civil action.
Around here (California) they call those "infractions". And when you're charged with an infraction, you are not permitted some of the legal rights you would have if you were charged with a misdemeanor or felony.
I've poked at the Anaconda sources a little bit, and I don't see that much architecture-specific code in there. It may not run on 11 architectures, but it appears to run on at least 5, so how hard can it be to add more? Surely easier than writing a new installer from scratch.
I'm not actually complaining, mind you. Having more choices in free software is a good thing. I just was rather surprised.
Sure, I got it working, after spending an hour trying to dig up answers to ridiculous questions that didn't even offer defaults. If I don't have weird hardware or special requirements, I should reasonably expect:
not to be asked lots of asinine questions (unless I ask for an "expert" install
to be able to just hit return for the questions I do get asked, if I don't know the answer, and get something reasonable
Fedora Core is by no means perfect, but I've done about thirty installs on a variety of x68 and AMD64 hardware and they've all gone very smoothly with only a minimal number of questions to be answered. It's actually much easier to install than Windows XP, in my experience.
I really like the Debian Social Contract with its strong emphasis on free software, and I'm glad that they have an improved installer, so I'll try it again. But for now I don't have any major problems with Fedora Core, so Debian has to be much better, not just as good or slightly better, in order to motivate me to switch.
And I seem to be in a minority as far as preferring RPM and YUM over dpkg and apt-get. The last time I checked, as far as I could determine a Debian package could only contain one base software tarball and one patch, so all the patches you want to apply had to be mashed together. I prefer the RPM approach of having any number of separate patches; it makes maintaining a package across upstream releases much easier.
What's wrong with Anaconda, which already works in text and graphical modes? Hasn't it been part of Progeny's Debian-based distribution for a long time?
Though just about anything, including poking one's eyes out with a sharp stick, would be better than the old Debian installer. I've been a hardcore Unix user/developer since 1982, and Linux since 1991, and yet I was completely baffled at some of the questions the old installer asked, and at the sheer number of questions.
The article quotes Yankee Group analyst Laura DiDio:
New management at Canopy . . . may push [SCO] to try and settle.
I doubt that Canopy even HAS enough money to offer to entice IBM to settle, let alone actually be willing to offer it.
Or are they smoking crack, and dreaming that IBM will pay to settle?
I'm still planning a trip to Lindon when the lawsuits are over to see the patch of scorched earth that will be left where The SCO Group's headquarters once stood.
I really object to the use of the phrase "plain vanilla". Vanilla is very tasty, and is not at all plain. If you doubt it, try making some homemade ice cream without vanilla some time.
Eddys (known in other markets as Dreyers) used to offer a double vanilla ice cream. Yum!
I don't expect reporters (at eweek or elsewhere) to accurately report on technical details, but it would be nice if they could at least get names of people spelled correctly.
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I have Read The Fine Manual. It's frigging complicated, which is why I'm having trouble with it. If configuring sound on Windows was this complicated, almost no Windows users would have sound.
Is it just me, or is configuring ALSA a black art?
Moral right or not, I'd like to think that a court trying a case concerning whether a certain piece of software was in fact "open source" would be willing to consider the OSI's Open Source Definition to be reasonably authoritative. For instance, if Microsoft tried to claim that their "Shared Source" program was "open source", I think they'd have an uphill battle. (AFAIK, they haven't ever tried to make such a claim.)
Eric
p.s. Hi, Russ!
OK, I have no problem with OSI (or SPI, or whoever) requiring their approval to use a "certification mark". I was just worried that they may have been misrepresenting that they had some control over the use of the phrase "open source". Perhaps it was just a misunderstanding by the reporter.
OSI isn't spreading FUD about the phrase "open source", are they?
Once I've purchased something, whether it's a truck or a piece of software, I expect it to keep working. If the stereo or the rear window defogger fail, I expect to be able to get them repaired (possibly at my expense). If the stereo and rear window defogger fail because Ford deliberately did something to turn them off, I expect to sue Ford's ass off.
If a feature of the software stops working due to a deliberate action of the vendor, I expect to call them up and have them turn it back on. Failing that, I expect to sue them, or join a class action suit.
If when I bought the software, the packaging and license clearly stated that the XYZ feature would only work for three years, that would be another matter.
SCons has automatic dependency checking built in, supporting many kinds of source files, but if it doesn't have what you need it can be easily extended.
SCons remembers the command line used to compile/build a given file, so it automatically figures out that it should rebuild that file if the command line arguments change. With Make it is very difficult to do that, so "make clean" is used much more often than it should be needed.
SCons is written in Python, and the SConstruct files it uses analagously to Makefiles are fundamentally Python scripts, but you don't need to know Python to use SCons. However, if you do know Python you can easily extend SCons.
SCons integrates well with Steven Ellis' 'nc' network compilation tool (though nc works with make also).
It should be called the "New NONstandard Keyboard", since it doesn't match any of the keyboard layout standards (e.g, ISO/IEC 9995).
Some experts think that since DES has withstood so many years of scrutiny, and there still no atack significantly better than brute force, that triple-DES may be a better choice than AES, Twofish, and Serpent, none of which have yet been subject to a comparable amount of cryptanalysis. Yet triple-DES isn't in the list on the ciphers page. Why not?
- VMware will run with much lower overhead, because it will no longer have to prescreen instruction sequences for those that have to be simulated (or binary translation, or whatever it s they're currently doing)
- Xen will be able to support unmodified guest operating systems
I assume that the latter is what the mentioned Intel code drop is all about.Intel has mentioned two (different?) virtualization features, code named "Vanderpool" and "Silvervale". AMD calls theirs "Pacifica", and it is apparently not a clone of the Intel schemes, though it is expected to provide the same benefits.
Electric heaters are very nearly 100% efficient too. A tiny amount of the electricity gets converted to RF energy that is likely to escape the room you're trying to heat (unless the room is a Faraday cage). But nobody is particularly impressed with them. Certainly classes of machines can be very nearly 100% efficient, but none can be over 100%.
Forgive my ignorance, but doesn't OS X include an X11 server? Is there any major drawback to running OpenOffice as an X11 application rather than a native one?
Though it isn't really Maxwell's Demon, because there's an external source of energy, the air pressure differential.
Shielding that does that would have the useful property of making perpetual motion possible; it would be to electromagnetic radiation as Maxwell's Demon is to heat.
Enough said.
they're not rocket scientists.
I'm not actually complaining, mind you. Having more choices in free software is a good thing. I just was rather surprised.
- not to be asked lots of asinine questions (unless I ask for an "expert" install
- to be able to just hit return for the questions I do get asked, if I don't know the answer, and get something reasonable
Fedora Core is by no means perfect, but I've done about thirty installs on a variety of x68 and AMD64 hardware and they've all gone very smoothly with only a minimal number of questions to be answered. It's actually much easier to install than Windows XP, in my experience.I really like the Debian Social Contract with its strong emphasis on free software, and I'm glad that they have an improved installer, so I'll try it again. But for now I don't have any major problems with Fedora Core, so Debian has to be much better, not just as good or slightly better, in order to motivate me to switch.
And I seem to be in a minority as far as preferring RPM and YUM over dpkg and apt-get. The last time I checked, as far as I could determine a Debian package could only contain one base software tarball and one patch, so all the patches you want to apply had to be mashed together. I prefer the RPM approach of having any number of separate patches; it makes maintaining a package across upstream releases much easier.
Though just about anything, including poking one's eyes out with a sharp stick, would be better than the old Debian installer. I've been a hardcore Unix user/developer since 1982, and Linux since 1991, and yet I was completely baffled at some of the questions the old installer asked, and at the sheer number of questions.
Or are they smoking crack, and dreaming that IBM will pay to settle?
I'm still planning a trip to Lindon when the lawsuits are over to see the patch of scorched earth that will be left where The SCO Group's headquarters once stood.
Those of you that haven't already read it may find The SCO Group's Code of Conduct and Ethics Policy to be good for a laugh. They should post a document describing their real code of conduct.
Eddys (known in other markets as Dreyers) used to offer a double vanilla ice cream. Yum!
Robert informed me that eWeek has now corrected the spelling error.
I don't expect reporters (at eweek or elsewhere) to accurately report on technical details, but it would be nice if they could at least get names of people spelled correctly.