I believe that YAST was the "big reason" that SUSE (my personal favorite Linux distro) didn't have ISO's for download.
Why? I don't see how the (old) Yast license would have had any influence on that matter. Certainly not for SuSE, but also others could distribute Yast freely as long as no money is involved.
Not in the case of Suse, unless they open-source YaST
Hehe...;) Anyway, I hope you know that SuSE has a lot of developers contributing to different projects (XFree, kernel, KDE,...). So just because Yast is (was) not free in the True Sense(TM), one can say that they contributed a lot to the community.
Note that I don't want to say that your choice to rather go with Gentoo, Mandrake...is wrong. If you really care that absolutely everything a Linux distributor does should be GPLd, then that is fine. For me it was important that SuSE contributes to the development of several projects (and thus my statement that you quoted IMHO is true), the fact that they choose to release their own setup tool under a license that prevent others from using this program commercially did not bother me. Well, it seems that point is obsolete now anyway.;)
As far as I know, the SuSE Linux version number is increased by one once every year. I know SuSE since 4.something, and I'm not aware of an exception of this rule (though there might be). The reason that years ago you would get version numbers like 4.4 was due to the fact that at that time SuSE used to release 4 times a year, now that it is only twice a year it's only x.0 and x.1 . In that sense I would say SuSE didn't speed up their version numbering in the last 5-6 years.
It may, in fact, be illegal to offer the entire distribution for everyone. A stripped-down version, perhaps?
I once asked the SuSE support what exactly prevents people from offering the ISO images for download. The answer was that it would not be illegal, as long as certain conditions were fullfilled: download open to everybody without any further limitations/deals etc., clear statement that this download site is not officially from SuSE and that they don't garanty anything. What made me wonder is that they didn't explicitely mention that you have to remove some packages... You might want to ask the SuSE people yourself, though, if you want to offer ISOs for download. Don't quote me.;)
...the non-commercial distributions are much more attractive because you never use tech support anyway, and it gets expensive.
Well, cost is not so much an issue if you are able to copy the CDs from friends or the university etc (or are willing to make a FTP installation). And if you pay, you know that some of your money is spend on developers working on open projects... Well, I'm glad there are both commercial and non-commercial distributions. Choice is good.;)
1. So then it is essentially still proprietary becaause unlike other oper source applications anyone can use it. ??? I guess you wanted to say that it is still proprietary because unlike open source not anyone can use it, right? (Which is not correct, since everybody can use it, but nobody except SuSE can sell it for money)
I bet RMS would disagree with your view on what is truely free and open source. I can't find the phrase were I said that it is truly free and open source. I just stated what is effectively allowed and not allowed in the Yast license and even acknowledged that that might qualify for the software to be proprietary (I don't know the exact definition when something is proprietary, so I can't give a definite answer)
2. Yeah, I am sure that would hold up in court. Ummm yor honor even though we are selling a Linux distro and we include Yast as the installer it is not actually being sold to the customer. We are selling a product only after a few tracks on the CD. In addition we modified it, so it is not completely like the original Yast. What are you talking about? Of course it is not allowed to sell a Linux distribution what contains Yast as the installer, that's the whole point of the license. You are only allowed to give it away free of charge, regardless whether you have modified it or not. But that doesn't change that they do a lot for the open source community.
3. Your cheap jab is indicative of what a moron you are. Sorry, but insults are no substitution for arguments. Your other comment left to me the impression that you see Novell buying SuSE as two somewhat suspicious companies teaming up to exploit the open source community. You had the opportunity to clarify this point, but you choose to miss this one.
Novell purchased Suse, who still keeps Yast nice and proprietary.
1. YAST might be proprietary, but it comes with the source and you can share it as long as you don't charge for it (and you can modify it and share the modifications)... I just say that because many people seem to think that YAST is a traditional closed-source only-available-for-money-from-SuSE type of application.
2. SuSE keeps a somewhat stricter control (which boils down to: only SuSE is allowed to SELL it, others can only distribute it free of charge) on their setup program for their distribution, since this is the part the are able to differentiate from the other distributions. Apart from that they contribute a lot to different open source projects (Linux kernel, Xfree,KDE...), so calling them a proprietary company is a bit... strange.
3. I think the reason for Novell buying SuSE is more based on opportunities (what company is available to buy) and the technical merit of SuSE. I don't think an evil, proprietary company bought a like-minded other (which seems to be the spin you want to give it).
Ah! I was wondering why those Germans in Germany were scanning passengers in a German airport as part of a European initiative. Turns out it's to secure the United States!
No, but the whole rush towards biometric data in passports was triggered not least by the US, as pointed out in the USAtoday article linked in the story:
"Germany passed laws after Sept. 11 attacks that provide for biometric features to be added to passports and personal identity papers. Post-Sept. 11 U.S. legislation also requires 27 countries, mostly in Europe, to add biometrics to passports they issue after Oct. 26, 2004, or else have their citizens apply for visas. "
By the way, there is no longer any German Central Bank.
There is. It is just not the highest authority any more in the genaral fiscal matters. In the Euro countries, all national central banks still exist. Part of their responsibilities is to manage the currency supply of their respective countries. The directors of the national central banks also form the board of directors of the European Central bank.
That is, at the moment, for each value of coin (from 1 cent to 2 Euros) there are 12 different types.
My point was that in Germany we have had a recent tendency to rush things.
I totally agree with you on Toll Collect. But the ongoing UMTS saga is hardly a German thing. And concerning Transrapid: this project was not rushed, it was debated to death. In the end there simply was no political will to deploy the technology (which seems to be working AFAIK). Well maybe they will use it for local(!) transport like they do in Shanghai, but there was just no will to invest the huge amount of many and start a new, incompatible traffic system.
I have actually heard that POTS is super flaky overseas and cell service is better.
Well, you know, 'overseas' is a pretty big place. In many parts of Europe (where GSM first took off) landline service is really good. In Germany mobile phones became a real standard accessoire shortly after the Deutsche Telekom finished the full digitalization of the network.
Even during power failures, phones will sometimes stay up. Yes, phone networks usually have their own power supply. So as long as you don't have wireless phone (for your land line connection) which usually need a power supply for the 'receiver' you plug into the wall there should be normally no problem.
The "german rap scene" ????
Hitler must be spinning in his lake of fire! Well, maybe. But if he could look at todays Germany, the fact of there being a rap scene or not would only slightly alter the rotation speed... there's too much other stuff that would make him spin...;)
Not sure which is more technically correct - it's an "a" with an umlaut over it, which is just too hard to type on an English keyboard/OS!
Well, the "official" way (in Germany/Austria/Switzerland at least) to transcribe umlauts(?) if you don't want/can't use them is to replace them with the normal letter + 'e'. So 'Marklin'(with umlaut) would become 'Maerklin' as you can see by their websites www.maerklin.de and www.maerklin.com. OK, I just realized that they also have www.marklin.com, but... who cares anyway;)
Although one has to say that the scale of the attacks were not the same. There is a difference between (13000 dead)/1 year and (50000 dead)/24 hours. Not that it makes the 13000 victims 'justified' or anything. I think the difference is that everything Germany did in WWII was morally wrong from the beginning (right from starting the whole thing, down to every single city where people died and suffered, regardless whether due to the air force or artillery or whatever, not to mention of course the holocaust). This is a quite generally accepted fact. On the over hand, the fight of the allies against Nazi Germany is for me in principal almost a prototype of a justified war (which is also, I think, a quite generally accepted fact). The 'dark spot' on this justified war for me are these heavy bombings, which mostly happened in the last 6 months of the war, when the allies already had landed in Normandy, and the German forces were collapsing and retreating. They were pointless and in my regard mostly driven by the desire for revenge and not military need. The aim was to destroy as much of Germany as possible, and this is in my opinion (despite the war in a whole being justified) a war crime.
As already posted somewhere else (with links), the TGV used a special section of a regular French high speed line which was specifically designed for ultra high speeds (even larger curvature radii than on the standard 300km/h tracks). On these tracks, the wire tension had to be increased by 50%, also the voltage had to be increased. The train was shortened from 10 to 4 cars, seats removed, larger wheels installed and the exterior modified for a lower drag. So the normal TGV which cruises along at 300km/h would never reach 516km/h unmodified, and even modified not on standard high speed tracks, and even on the special ultra high speed line not without temporary modifications. That's the difference between 'speed in regular service' and 'high speed under special conditions'. It's still amazing to reach 516km/h with the "old-fashioned" wheel/rail technology, though.;)
It wasn't on a test track in the sense that it was only used for this speed record. But this section of the Atlantic line was specifically build for high speed test, meaning even less curve radii than on the standard 300km/h-high speed tracks. And also on this track, they had to do some alteration specifically for the ultra high speed runs, namely increasing the tension of the electric wire by more than 50%. And the TGV train was heavily modified, including being shortened from ten trailers to four, bigger wheels and the removal of one pantograph. This speed record is an awesome achievement, but to reach it once under special test conditions is still different then reaching these speeds on regular service.
AAC is available on Mac and Windows. This is not quite correct. Fraunhofer Institute also offers a licence for Linux. According to their website, they developed AAC in collaboration with industry partners like Dolby, Sony etc. (This is the same Institute which was one of the major developers of MP3, btw)
AAC was developed by the MPEG group, of which Dolby is a member, but appears to be a large organization with hundreds of members.
According to this site AAC was largely developed by the same group as MP3 (Fraunhofer Institute) in colaboration with various companies (AT&T, Sony, Dolby). You can find more info on AAC here. You can also contact them if you want a licence.;)
I don't believe you will ever see photoshop ported or anything else similar untill this is resolved.
I don't know whether we will se Photoshop ported to Linux soon (Imaybe not), but the QT licence (or rather the commercial license of Qt which you can use under Windows as well as Linux) is surely not holding back Adobe...
the reasons for World War 2: one of the primary causes of it was the massive sense of resentment and anger on the part of the German people towards the nations that had defeated them so soundly during the first World War.
Hmm, I think this is not entirely true. One thing is (as somebody else has already pointed out) that the defeat was not as massive as it was in WWII. AFAIK, at the end of WWI no foreign soldiers had set foot into Germany. In WWI, there was no bombing of cities. Sure there were strong economical influences and I guess everybody new men who were as soldiers at the front (and probably died there). But the influence on the people's lives was nowhere near as massive as in WWII when everything broke down literally around them. So when Germany surrendered many people did not see it as a military defeat but as treason from the political parties in charge at that time. In German history it's called the 'Dolchstosslegende', the legend that the army was stabbed in the back by the politicians. And the harsh conditions in the Versaille treaty didn't help to alleviate these feeling of treason against the democratic parties. This and a badly organized democracy in the 1920's plus the world economic depression, was IMHO very vital for the support of many Germans for a strong leader and anti-democratic parties, and so in the beginning of the 1930's there were 3 large blocks in German politics: the Democrats (blamed for the treason in WWI and running down the country in the 1920s), the communists and the Nazis.
That doesn't mean of course that there were no resentiments against other countries, they were surely there and important (just as the resentiments against the jews). I just don't think that it was the main and only driving force behind these development. The beginning of WWII was not really welcomed by large crowds as it was at the beginning of WWI. Although people got much more supportive for the war after the initial successes.
but with the rampant greed there is out in the cellphone/telephone companies, this will never happen here in the USA.... even though it's a standard practice in europe.
But unfortunately it has nothing to do with European phone companies beeing less "greedy". Just the system is different. Cell phone numbers can be identified by the prefix (OK, I don't know if this is really the case in all 30+ European countries with cell phone networks, but at least I don't know any exceptions...). So if you call a cell phone, you usually pay more and the receiver pays nothing (except if the receiver is roaming in another network in a foreign country, then he has to pay the additional costs, since the caller can't know where the other guy is).
Another advantage of this number scheme is that cell phone numbers are not related to any city or region (but, since they are numbers on the national networks, they are of course related to the specific country). So if you move from, say, Munich to Hamburg, there is no need to change your mobile number. I guess if you move in the US from New York to Washington DC you would have to change your mobile phone number from one with NY area code to one with Washington area code, or do I get this wrong?
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I believe that YAST was the "big reason" that SUSE (my personal favorite Linux distro) didn't have ISO's for download.
Why? I don't see how the (old) Yast license would have had any influence on that matter. Certainly not for SuSE, but also others could distribute Yast freely as long as no money is involved.
Not in the case of Suse, unless they open-source YaST
;)
;)
Hehe...
Anyway, I hope you know that SuSE has a lot of developers contributing to different projects (XFree, kernel, KDE,...). So just because Yast is (was) not free in the True Sense(TM), one can say that they contributed a lot to the community.
Note that I don't want to say that your choice to rather go with Gentoo, Mandrake...is wrong. If you really care that absolutely everything a Linux distributor does should be GPLd, then that is fine. For me it was important that SuSE contributes to the development of several projects (and thus my statement that you quoted IMHO is true), the fact that they choose to release their own setup tool under a license that prevent others from using this program commercially did not bother me. Well, it seems that point is obsolete now anyway.
As far as I know, the SuSE Linux version number is increased by one once every year. I know SuSE since 4.something, and I'm not aware of an exception of this rule (though there might be). The reason that years ago you would get version numbers like 4.4 was due to the fact that at that time SuSE used to release 4 times a year, now that it is only twice a year it's only x.0 and x.1 . In that sense I would say SuSE didn't speed up their version numbering in the last 5-6 years.
It may, in fact, be illegal to offer the entire distribution for everyone. A stripped-down version, perhaps?
;)
I once asked the SuSE support what exactly prevents people from offering the ISO images for download. The answer was that it would not be illegal, as long as certain conditions were fullfilled: download open to everybody without any further limitations/deals etc., clear statement that this download site is not officially from SuSE and that they don't garanty anything. What made me wonder is that they didn't explicitely mention that you have to remove some packages... You might want to ask the SuSE people yourself, though, if you want to offer ISOs for download. Don't quote me.
...the non-commercial distributions are much more attractive because you never use tech support anyway, and it gets expensive.
;)
Well, cost is not so much an issue if you are able to copy the CDs from friends or the university etc (or are willing to make a FTP installation). And if you pay, you know that some of your money is spend on developers working on open projects... Well, I'm glad there are both commercial and non-commercial distributions. Choice is good.
1.
So then it is essentially still proprietary becaause unlike other oper source applications anyone can use it.
???
I guess you wanted to say that it is still proprietary because unlike open source not anyone can use it, right?
(Which is not correct, since everybody can use it, but nobody except SuSE can sell it for money)
I bet RMS would disagree with your view on what is truely free and open source.
I can't find the phrase were I said that it is truly free and open source. I just stated what is effectively allowed and not allowed in the Yast license and even acknowledged that that might qualify for the software to be proprietary (I don't know the exact definition when something is proprietary, so I can't give a definite answer)
2.
Yeah, I am sure that would hold up in court. Ummm yor honor even though we are selling a Linux distro and we include Yast as the installer it is not actually being sold to the customer. We are selling a product only after a few tracks on the CD. In addition we modified it, so it is not completely like the original Yast.
What are you talking about? Of course it is not allowed to sell a Linux distribution what contains Yast as the installer, that's the whole point of the license. You are only allowed to give it away free of charge, regardless whether you have modified it or not. But that doesn't change that they do a lot for the open source community.
3.
Your cheap jab is indicative of what a moron you are.
Sorry, but insults are no substitution for arguments. Your other comment left to me the impression that you see Novell buying SuSE as two somewhat suspicious companies teaming up to exploit the open source community. You had the opportunity to clarify this point, but you choose to miss this one.
Novell purchased Suse, who still keeps Yast nice and proprietary.
1. YAST might be proprietary, but it comes with the source and you can share it as long as you don't charge for it (and you can modify it and share the modifications)... I just say that because many people seem to think that YAST is a traditional closed-source only-available-for-money-from-SuSE type of application.
2. SuSE keeps a somewhat stricter control (which boils down to: only SuSE is allowed to SELL it, others can only distribute it free of charge) on their setup program for their distribution, since this is the part the are able to differentiate from the other distributions. Apart from that they contribute a lot to different open source projects (Linux kernel, Xfree,KDE...), so calling them a proprietary company is a bit... strange.
3. I think the reason for Novell buying SuSE is more based on opportunities (what company is available to buy) and the technical merit of SuSE. I don't think an evil, proprietary company bought a like-minded other (which seems to be the spin you want to give it).
Ah! I was wondering why those Germans in Germany were scanning passengers in a German airport as part of a European initiative. Turns out it's to secure the United States!
No, but the whole rush towards biometric data in passports was triggered not least by the US, as pointed out in the USAtoday article linked in the story:
"Germany passed laws after Sept. 11 attacks that provide for biometric features to be added to passports and personal identity papers. Post-Sept. 11 U.S. legislation also requires 27 countries, mostly in Europe, to add biometrics to passports they issue after Oct. 26, 2004, or else have their citizens apply for visas. "
I did not here a beep about this here in Germany, I guess the plan is to introuce the system through the backdoor.
Well, maybe, but than they wouldn't make a press release, right?
T-Mobile is the 2nd or 3rd biggest player in the 'GSM world'.
AFAIk, when counting customer numbers, some Chinese provider is number one, Vodafone second, T-Mobile third.
The notes are the same across those 12 countries of the EU which have joined the European Monetary Union (EMU). You can have a look at the notes here.
By the way, there is no longer any German Central Bank.
;)
There is. It is just not the highest authority any more in the genaral fiscal matters. In the Euro countries, all national central banks still exist. Part of their responsibilities is to manage the currency supply of their respective countries. The directors of the national central banks also form the board of directors of the European Central bank.
That is, at the moment, for each value of coin (from 1 cent to 2 Euros) there are 12 different types.
+ Vatican City + San Marin +Monaco = 15 types
My point was that in Germany we have had a recent tendency to rush things.
I totally agree with you on Toll Collect. But the ongoing UMTS saga is hardly a German thing. And concerning Transrapid: this project was not rushed, it was debated to death. In the end there simply was no political will to deploy the technology (which seems to be working AFAIK). Well maybe they will use it for local(!) transport like they do in Shanghai, but there was just no will to invest the huge amount of many and start a new, incompatible traffic system.
I have actually heard that POTS is super flaky overseas and cell service is better.
Well, you know, 'overseas' is a pretty big place. In many parts of Europe (where GSM first took off) landline service is really good. In Germany mobile phones became a real standard accessoire shortly after the Deutsche Telekom finished the full digitalization of the network.
Even during power failures, phones will sometimes stay up.
Yes, phone networks usually have their own power supply. So as long as you don't have wireless phone (for your land line connection) which usually need a power supply for the 'receiver' you plug into the wall there should be normally no problem.
The "german rap scene" ???? ;)
Hitler must be spinning in his lake of fire!
Well, maybe. But if he could look at todays Germany, the fact of there being a rap scene or not would only slightly alter the rotation speed... there's too much other stuff that would make him spin...
Or as we call them in the US, "Marklin" trains :)
;)
Not sure which is more technically correct - it's an "a" with an umlaut over it, which is just too hard to type on an English keyboard/OS!
Well, the "official" way (in Germany/Austria/Switzerland at least) to transcribe umlauts(?) if you don't want/can't use them is to replace them with the normal letter + 'e'. So 'Marklin'(with umlaut) would become 'Maerklin' as you can see by their websites www.maerklin.de and www.maerklin.com. OK, I just realized that they also have www.marklin.com, but... who cares anyway
Why does every press release have to mention how they are doing it "better" than we Americans are...
The press release doesn't even mention the USA or NASA...
Although one has to say that the scale of the attacks were not the same. There is a difference between (13000 dead)/1 year and (50000 dead)/24 hours. Not that it makes the 13000 victims 'justified' or anything.
I think the difference is that everything Germany did in WWII was morally wrong from the beginning (right from starting the whole thing, down to every single city where people died and suffered, regardless whether due to the air force or artillery or whatever, not to mention of course the holocaust). This is a quite generally accepted fact. On the over hand, the fight of the allies against Nazi Germany is for me in principal almost a prototype of a justified war (which is also, I think, a quite generally accepted fact). The 'dark spot' on this justified war for me are these heavy bombings, which mostly happened in the last 6 months of the war, when the allies already had landed in Normandy, and the German forces were collapsing and retreating. They were pointless and in my regard mostly driven by the desire for revenge and not military need. The aim was to destroy as much of Germany as possible, and this is in my opinion (despite the war in a whole being justified) a war crime.
As already posted somewhere else (with links), the TGV used a special section of a regular French high speed line which was specifically designed for ultra high speeds (even larger curvature radii than on the standard 300km/h tracks). On these tracks, the wire tension had to be increased by 50%, also the voltage had to be increased. The train was shortened from 10 to 4 cars, seats removed, larger wheels installed and the exterior modified for a lower drag. So the normal TGV which cruises along at 300km/h would never reach 516km/h unmodified, and even modified not on standard high speed tracks, and even on the special ultra high speed line not without temporary modifications. That's the difference between 'speed in regular service' and 'high speed under special conditions'. It's still amazing to reach 516km/h with the "old-fashioned" wheel/rail technology, though. ;)
It wasn't on a test track.
It wasn't on a test track in the sense that it was only used for this speed record. But this section of the Atlantic line was specifically build for high speed test, meaning even less curve radii than on the standard 300km/h-high speed tracks. And also on this track, they had to do some alteration specifically for the ultra high speed runs, namely increasing the tension of the electric wire by more than 50%.
And the TGV train was heavily modified, including being shortened from ten trailers to four, bigger wheels and the removal of one pantograph. This speed record is an awesome achievement, but to reach it once under special test conditions is still different then reaching these speeds on regular service.
AAC is available on Mac and Windows.
This is not quite correct.
Fraunhofer Institute also offers a licence for Linux.
According to their website, they developed AAC in collaboration with industry partners like Dolby, Sony etc. (This is the same Institute which was one of the major developers of MP3, btw)
AAC was developed by the MPEG group, of which Dolby is a member, but appears to be a large organization with hundreds of members.
;)
According to this site AAC was largely developed by the same group as MP3 (Fraunhofer Institute) in colaboration with various companies (AT&T, Sony, Dolby). You can find more info on AAC here. You can also contact them if you want a licence.
I don't believe you will ever see photoshop ported or anything else similar untill this is resolved.
I don't know whether we will se Photoshop ported to Linux soon (Imaybe not), but the QT licence (or rather the commercial license of Qt which you can use under Windows as well as Linux) is surely not holding back Adobe...
the reasons for World War 2: one of the primary causes of it was the massive sense of resentment and anger on the part of the German people towards the nations that had defeated them so soundly during the first World War.
Hmm, I think this is not entirely true. One thing is (as somebody else has already pointed out) that the defeat was not as massive as it was in WWII. AFAIK, at the end of WWI no foreign soldiers had set foot into Germany. In WWI, there was no bombing of cities. Sure there were strong economical influences and I guess everybody new men who were as soldiers at the front (and probably died there). But the influence on the people's lives was nowhere near as massive as in WWII when everything broke down literally around them. So when Germany surrendered many people did not see it as a military defeat but as treason from the political parties in charge at that time. In German history it's called the 'Dolchstosslegende', the legend that the army was stabbed in the back by the politicians. And the harsh conditions in the Versaille treaty didn't help to alleviate these feeling of treason against the democratic parties. This and a badly organized democracy in the 1920's plus the world economic depression, was IMHO very vital for the support of many Germans for a strong leader and anti-democratic parties, and so in the beginning of the 1930's there were 3 large blocks in German politics: the Democrats (blamed for the treason in WWI and running down the country in the 1920s), the communists and the Nazis.
That doesn't mean of course that there were no resentiments against other countries, they were surely there and important (just as the resentiments against the jews). I just don't think that it was the main and only driving force behind these development. The beginning of WWII was not really welcomed by large crowds as it was at the beginning of WWI. Although people got much more supportive for the war after the initial successes.
but with the rampant greed there is out in the cellphone/telephone companies, this will never happen here in the USA.... even though it's a standard practice in europe.
But unfortunately it has nothing to do with European phone companies beeing less "greedy". Just the system is different. Cell phone numbers can be identified by the prefix (OK, I don't know if this is really the case in all 30+ European countries with cell phone networks, but at least I don't know any exceptions...). So if you call a cell phone, you usually pay more and the receiver pays nothing (except if the receiver is roaming in another network in a foreign country, then he has to pay the additional costs, since the caller can't know where the other guy is).
Another advantage of this number scheme is that cell phone numbers are not related to any city or region (but, since they are numbers on the national networks, they are of course related to the specific country). So if you move from, say, Munich to Hamburg, there is no need to change your mobile number. I guess if you move in the US from New York to Washington DC you would have to change your mobile phone number from one with NY area code to one with Washington area code, or do I get this wrong?