I disagree. I've been a hardcore Unix user and professional software developer since 1984, and a Linux user since 1994. Yet when my friend Mike, also a long-time Unix user) was installing Debian about six months ago, the installer asked a zillion questions, some of which had BOTH of us baffled.
I'd been considering switching to Debian because I approve of their hard-line position on freedom, but that experience convinced me that it's nowhere close to being ready for prime time.
Yes, I know that there are a bunch of "Debian-based" distributions out there that are supposed to be easier to install. But I'm not particularly interested in a "Debian-based" distribution, any more than I'm interested in a "RedHat-based" distribution.
If I link my proprietary code to an LGPL'd kernel and distribute the resulting derived work, I have to make available an unlinked (or partially linked) version of my code, so that the end user can relink it against a different version of the kernel.
With the eCos modified GPL (which is essentially the same as the RTEMS modified GPL), if I link my proprietary code to the kernel, I am only obligated to provide the kernel sources (including any modifications I've made to the kernel). I don't have to provide unlinked or partially linked object code for my application.
When you think about it IBM has been in business for -what?- 200 hundred years?
Hardly! IBM was incorporated in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording company (C-T-R). Portions of the company date back to 1888. That's nowhere near 200 years.
If software covered by the GPL is "Free", surely software that is covered by a license that gives the user all of the rights the GPL would, plus some additional rights, would also qualify as "Free". It certainly provides all four freedoms the FSF defines for a Free software license.
Whether the eCOS modified GPL is "GPL-compatible" is irrelevant to determining whether it is "Free". For instance, the original BSD license is considered by the FSF to be Free but not GPL-Compatible, as are a whole
list of others. (The newer modified BSD license is, however, GPL-Compatible.)
RedHat did use a GPL-compatible license. It was already Open Source, but it wasn't already Free.
eCOS most certainly was already free, at least as of eCOS 2.x. 1.x was under a different license, but 2.x was released under a modified GPL, which grants all the rights of the GPL and the additional right to distribute executables without having to distribute source code for any application software that is linked to the eCOS kernel.
Hopefully they'll retain the modified GPL that it is under currently. Otherwise the developers will likely fork the last modified-GPL version.
The eCOS license applies the GPL terms only to the actual eCOS license, but not to any user application code linked to eCOS. This is similar to how you can run an application program on a Linux kernel without the application being subject to the GPL. However, with eCOS, normally the application is linked directly to the eCOS kernel, so the modified license takes that into account.
I'm not sure about "nu", but "Nu" is an RTS instruction on some processors. (Maybe I've spent
too much time staring at memory dumps.)
Not that such things are very important when a cyclone has just destroyed your home.
Re:There is indeed a Soyuz for emergency
on
ISS May Have A Leak
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· Score: 1
If someone died, it could well be an emergency, but it wouldn't be a medical emergency. (It could easily be the result of a medical emergency, though.)
Re:There is indeed a Soyuz for emergency
on
ISS May Have A Leak
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· Score: 1
The Soyuz capsules can seat three crewmembers, so no-one would be left behind.
If you didn't bother to read my posting (or the one I was replying to), why'd you bother replying?
The original post quoted from howstuffworks.com:
A Soyuz capsule will always be docked at the ISS, capable of carrying two people in a medical emergency, or three people in other emergencies.
So are you suggesting that howstuffworks.com is wrong? That's obviously possible, though I would expect they would have gotten this information from a NASA publication.
Or are you suggesting that when there is a three-person crew on ISS, there will never be a medical emergency?
Re:No one is ever left aboard without a lifeboat
on
ISS May Have A Leak
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· Score: 1
No one is ever left aboard without a lifeboat, not even for a few minutes.
So that still doesn't explain how the Soyuz can be used for "two people in a medical emergency, or three people in other emergencies". If there's a crew of three, and two leave in the Soyuz due to a medical emergency, where's the lifeboat for the third?
Re:There is indeed a Soyuz for emergency
on
ISS May Have A Leak
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· Score: 4, Interesting
So if they had a crew of three, in a medical emergency, they would send two back to earth in the Soyuz, leaving one crewmember on the ISS? Seems like a strange plan. As I recall, NASA was very much opposed to trying to run ISS with only a two-person crew rather than the usual three, so having only one crewmember on board would *really* seem to be pushing it.
Of course, in an emergency, you do what you have to do.
My main caffeine addiction was iced tea. I would typically consume 2-3 quarts per day, plus several cans of Coke or Dr. Pepper.
Since I quit cold turkey, I even avoid decaf tea, because if I start drinking it, I'm afraid that I'll be too tempted to get non-decaf in restaurants.
Giving up caffeine did not improve the problems I had with staying alert, but it didn't worsen either.
However, it did improve my health in other ways. Before quitting, I had frequent headaches, and now I rarely have any.
I do miss iced tea somewhat, but I'm getting by just fine with lots of icewater, and an occasional non-caffeinated diet soda (usually Diet Rite).
One restaurant I frequent sometimes has Minute Maid Light Lemonade.
I used to have a severe caffeine addiction. I also had acid reflux. My doctor gave me a long list of food and drink to avoid, including caffeine, and put me on acid reducers. I dropped everything other than caffeine, and between that and the acid reducers, the problem improved but did not go away.
So I gave up caffeine, cold turkey. I used to routinely get bad headaches, but when giving up caffeine I had the worst headache I've ever had, which lasted about ten days. I wasn't able to do much of anything during that time.
After that, I had no trouble avoiding caffeine, and I no longer had headaches except in the morning.
Since then, I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, and treated with a CPAP machine. That completely eliminated the acid reflux, headaches, and other problems. I feel much better.
I probably could drink caffeine again, but given what I went through to give it up, I think I'll just continue to get by without it.
On rare occassions, such as early morning meetings, I still have a bit of trouble staying alert. Now if I drink 1/3 of a can of Coke it will keep me alert for hours. But I don't make a habit of it. I think I've had maybe a total of 32 oz. of caffeine-laden soft drinks since I quit, and no coffee or tea.
Back when I was an addict, I could drink a quart of coffee, tea, or soda, and immediately afterward go to bed and have no trouble getting to sleep.
When was the last time you saw a buffer overrun exploit in a Perl program?
I didn't say that Perl was a particularly great language, or that I recommend it for writing complex programs. I only said that it doesn't have some of the problems of C and C++. It adds new problems to compensate.
So in your little corner of the universe, which language is everybody supposed to care about above all others? Let me guess. Perl? Java?
In either Perl or Java, or in many other languages (Ada, Eiffel, Modula 3, Python, Sather, Scheme,and Smalltalk, to mention only a few), the language actually cooperates in helping the programmer write robust software. With C, the language doesn't actively impede such an effort, but it doesn't offer any assistance either. C does make a few minor concessions to robustness, but not much in comparison to better languages.
C++ does have some good features buried in the morass (mostly features copied from Ada, and sometimes given new names), but it still inherits all of the weaknesses of C.
C isn't a high-level language; rather it is a portable assembler. C++ is a fancier, object-oriented portable assembler.
There's a place for C, in writing code for very small embedded systems (perhaps under 16K of memory). IMNSHO, it is only a mediocre language for writing operating system kernels, and a terrible one for writing applications. Ada, Modula-3, Sather, and similar languages are quite suited for writing kernels, and many more languages are well suited for applications programming.
C++ seems well-suited for not much of anything. I have yet to find any convincing argument that C++ is the best-suited language for any particular purpose. The only thing it seems to have going for it is popularity, and one shouldn't confuse popularity with merit.
And dismissing the whole C++ language with a flick of the pinky
Oh, that it should be that easy!
Eric Smith (who writes C and sometimes C++ code for a living, sigh)
C++ is a fairytale language. Unfortunately, the fairytale is not The
Goose that laid the Golden Eggs, but rather The Emperor has no Clothes.
-- Peter van der Linden
C++ is already too large and complicated for our taste.
-- X3J16, (SIGPLAN notices, June 1992)
C++ will do for C what Algol-68 did for Algol.
-- David L. Jones
If you think C++ is not overly complicated, just what is a protected
abstract virtual base pure virtual private destructor and when was the
last time you needed one?
How is the parent comment "The Matrix proved itself to be the weak series" in any way "insightful"? It didn't even give any rationale to justify this vague generalization.
I thought Reloaded was almost as good as the original, but was somewhat disappointed by Revolutions.
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
At the end of Reloaded, I was left with a lot of questions as to what was going on, and why Neo was able to stop the sentinels. I have various ideas about that, most of which involved Neo not actually returning to the same Matrix (or "real world") he had come from. It also seemed possible that even the original "real world" wasn't really the real world, but in fact another Matrix. And maybe in the *real* "real world", there would be a better reason for machines to be keeping humans around, instead of the absurd "battery" concept.
(IIRC, Morpheus explained in the first movie that they used humans as an energy source, combined with a kind of fusion. That's like using pointed sticks to fight your enemy, combined with a kind of ballistic missile.)
But after thinking about these ideas for a while, I realized that they were probably too deep, and that what would be revealed in Revolutions would be simpler.
However, I was completely dumbfounded that the only explanation we got for how Neo could stop the sentinels was the Oracle saying that The One just has these abilities. What a complete crock! It fails to explain how Neo felt that "something's different" before he was able to stop the sentinels.
Oh well. I still enjoyed Revolutions, but not as much as the first two films.
On a different note, I think one of the most underrated films of the year was "Secondhand Lions". Not a science fiction film, so it probably isn't popular with the Slashdot crowd.
They only need to make the source available to the buyers of the phone.
That's true if and only if they include the machine-readable source code with the phone when it is distributed commercially, perhaps on an accompanying CD-ROM. (As stated in section 3a of the GPL.)
But if they don't include the machine-readable copy of the source code with the phone (and when is the last time you got any source code with a consumer product?), section 3b of the GPL requires them to provide the source code to any third party, not just to the same party to whom they've distributed the object code.
Actually, 1.75 inches (1 3/4).
Originally specified in EIA 310, but nowdays the
official standard is IEC 62097-1 (or was it -2? I can't remember which).
I'm glad to see that the powers that be have finally realized this!. I've been trying to publicize the disparity between the government's interest in integrity of gambling machines vs. voting machines for the last two years. I wrote about it
here on Slashdot a few months ago, and mentioned how the gaming commission tests electronic gambling machines.
I've been complaining that the govenment cares less about the integrity of voting machines than of gambling machines. One of my friends who is even more cynical than I has suggested that the lack of standards and requirements for voting machines might actually be due to the powers that be having more concern regarding the integrity of voting, or more specifically, the lack of integrity.
Let's not forget "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers" from the chairman of IBM in 1943,
Actually, Watson was right about that. There was a world market for maybe five of the computers he was referring to. He did NOT say that there would never be a market for more than five computers of any type.
What ever happened to the folks that were recording 10G on a roll of plain ol' scotch tape? Might not be as compact, but the media price is certainly right.
Nobody has ever mass produced a memory technology that wasn't relatively flat in shape.
False. Magnetic drum memory systems were mass produced from the 1950s through the 1970s. They were used as the main memory on a few computers (e.g., IBM 650), and as secondary store (e.g., swapping, paging, or for frequently accessed files) on many.
Slashdot Mirror
I'd been considering switching to Debian because I approve of their hard-line position on freedom, but that experience convinced me that it's nowhere close to being ready for prime time.
Yes, I know that there are a bunch of "Debian-based" distributions out there that are supposed to be easier to install. But I'm not particularly interested in a "Debian-based" distribution, any more than I'm interested in a "RedHat-based" distribution.
With the eCos modified GPL (which is essentially the same as the RTEMS modified GPL), if I link my proprietary code to the kernel, I am only obligated to provide the kernel sources (including any modifications I've made to the kernel). I don't have to provide unlinked or partially linked object code for my application.
SPF has the advantage over RMX that it does not need a new DNS record type, so it doesn't need IANA to assign a number.
I've put SPF records in my DNS, but I don't yet have my MTA (or MUA) patched to look up SPF records for incoming mail.
Whether the eCOS modified GPL is "GPL-compatible" is irrelevant to determining whether it is "Free". For instance, the original BSD license is considered by the FSF to be Free but not GPL-Compatible, as are a whole list of others. (The newer modified BSD license is, however, GPL-Compatible.)
The eCOS license applies the GPL terms only to the actual eCOS license, but not to any user application code linked to eCOS. This is similar to how you can run an application program on a Linux kernel without the application being subject to the GPL. However, with eCOS, normally the application is linked directly to the eCOS kernel, so the modified license takes that into account.
Not that such things are very important when a cyclone has just destroyed your home.
If someone died, it could well be an emergency, but it wouldn't be a medical emergency. (It could easily be the result of a medical emergency, though.)
The original post quoted from howstuffworks.com:
So are you suggesting that howstuffworks.com is wrong? That's obviously possible, though I would expect they would have gotten this information from a NASA publication.Or are you suggesting that when there is a three-person crew on ISS, there will never be a medical emergency?
Of course, in an emergency, you do what you have to do.
Since I quit cold turkey, I even avoid decaf tea, because if I start drinking it, I'm afraid that I'll be too tempted to get non-decaf in restaurants.
Giving up caffeine did not improve the problems I had with staying alert, but it didn't worsen either. However, it did improve my health in other ways. Before quitting, I had frequent headaches, and now I rarely have any.
I do miss iced tea somewhat, but I'm getting by just fine with lots of icewater, and an occasional non-caffeinated diet soda (usually Diet Rite). One restaurant I frequent sometimes has Minute Maid Light Lemonade.
So I gave up caffeine, cold turkey. I used to routinely get bad headaches, but when giving up caffeine I had the worst headache I've ever had, which lasted about ten days. I wasn't able to do much of anything during that time.
After that, I had no trouble avoiding caffeine, and I no longer had headaches except in the morning.
Since then, I was diagnosed with severe sleep apnea, and treated with a CPAP machine. That completely eliminated the acid reflux, headaches, and other problems. I feel much better.
I probably could drink caffeine again, but given what I went through to give it up, I think I'll just continue to get by without it.
On rare occassions, such as early morning meetings, I still have a bit of trouble staying alert. Now if I drink 1/3 of a can of Coke it will keep me alert for hours. But I don't make a habit of it. I think I've had maybe a total of 32 oz. of caffeine-laden soft drinks since I quit, and no coffee or tea.
Back when I was an addict, I could drink a quart of coffee, tea, or soda, and immediately afterward go to bed and have no trouble getting to sleep.
I didn't say that Perl was a particularly great language, or that I recommend it for writing complex programs. I only said that it doesn't have some of the problems of C and C++. It adds new problems to compensate.
C++ does have some good features buried in the morass (mostly features copied from Ada, and sometimes given new names), but it still inherits all of the weaknesses of C.
C isn't a high-level language; rather it is a portable assembler. C++ is a fancier, object-oriented portable assembler.
There's a place for C, in writing code for very small embedded systems (perhaps under 16K of memory). IMNSHO, it is only a mediocre language for writing operating system kernels, and a terrible one for writing applications. Ada, Modula-3, Sather, and similar languages are quite suited for writing kernels, and many more languages are well suited for applications programming.
C++ seems well-suited for not much of anything. I have yet to find any convincing argument that C++ is the best-suited language for any particular purpose. The only thing it seems to have going for it is popularity, and one shouldn't confuse popularity with merit.
Oh, that it should be that easy!Eric Smith (who writes C and sometimes C++ code for a living, sigh)
Software Reliability: Don't Use the Wrong Tools
Obligatory C++ quotes:
Who cares about C++? Blech!
"long long" is in the C standard (ISO/IEC 9899:1999(E)), but it's much better to use int64_t or uint64_t, which are also defined in the standard ().
I thought Reloaded was almost as good as the original, but was somewhat disappointed by Revolutions.
WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW
At the end of Reloaded, I was left with a lot of questions as to what was going on, and why Neo was able to stop the sentinels. I have various ideas about that, most of which involved Neo not actually returning to the same Matrix (or "real world") he had come from. It also seemed possible that even the original "real world" wasn't really the real world, but in fact another Matrix. And maybe in the *real* "real world", there would be a better reason for machines to be keeping humans around, instead of the absurd "battery" concept. (IIRC, Morpheus explained in the first movie that they used humans as an energy source, combined with a kind of fusion. That's like using pointed sticks to fight your enemy, combined with a kind of ballistic missile.)
But after thinking about these ideas for a while, I realized that they were probably too deep, and that what would be revealed in Revolutions would be simpler.
However, I was completely dumbfounded that the only explanation we got for how Neo could stop the sentinels was the Oracle saying that The One just has these abilities. What a complete crock! It fails to explain how Neo felt that "something's different" before he was able to stop the sentinels.
Oh well. I still enjoyed Revolutions, but not as much as the first two films.
On a different note, I think one of the most underrated films of the year was "Secondhand Lions". Not a science fiction film, so it probably isn't popular with the Slashdot crowd.
But if they don't include the machine-readable copy of the source code with the phone (and when is the last time you got any source code with a consumer product?), section 3b of the GPL requires them to provide the source code to any third party, not just to the same party to whom they've distributed the object code.
Ogg doesn't require floating point either.
I've been complaining that the govenment cares less about the integrity of voting machines than of gambling machines. One of my friends who is even more cynical than I has suggested that the lack of standards and requirements for voting machines might actually be due to the powers that be having more concern regarding the integrity of voting, or more specifically, the lack of integrity.
Scotch Tape Storage
Unfortunately the link in the article is stale.