What I meant was that 80% appears to be the minimum. For missions-critical applications, the choice of "most appropriate for the job" should be made. Open Source Software is still an option, just not the only option.
This is a big win for Linux, but is making it mandatory going too far? It would seem wiser to support a solution that favors the best tool for the job, which may not always be an open source product.
I think an 80% mandation (is that even a word?) seems fair. You leave 20% left over for missions-critical applications (military and whatnot; remember, Brazil isn't like the US - they don't spend hundreds of billions on military, and therefore, I doubt their military computer systems make up even 10% of their infrastructure), on which you can chose software based on the best choice out there. But the remaining 80%, which represents mostly desktop applications for clerks and whatnot, will be running on OSS - this is good, because it prevents government from getting locked into restrictive licencing that usually comes with desktop production software, saves money, and encurages development of open software/standards.
I think they've met a good balance here, and I congradulate them.
May 27, 2003 Scientists Struggling to Make the Kilogram Right Again By OTTO POHL
B RAUNSCHWEIG, Germany -- In these girth-conscious times, even weight itself has weight issues. The kilogram is getting lighter, scientists say, sowing potential confusion over a range of scientific endeavor.
The kilogram is defined by a platinum-iridium cylinder, cast in England in 1889. No one knows why it is shedding weight, at least in comparison with other reference weights, but the change has spurred an international search for a more stable definition.
"It's certainly not helpful to have a standard that keeps changing," says Peter Becker, a scientist at the Federal Standards Laboratory here, an institution of 1,500 scientists dedicated entirely to improving the ability to measure things precisely.
Even the apparent change of 50 micrograms in the kilogram -- less than the weight of a grain of salt -- is enough to distort careful scientific calculations.
Dr. Becker is leading a team of international researchers seeking to redefine the kilogram as a number of atoms of a selected element. Other scientists, including researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Washington, are developing a competing technology to define the kilogram using a complex mechanism known as the watt balance.
The final recommendation will be made by the International Committee on Weights and Measures, a body created by international treaty in 1875. The agency guards the international reference kilogram and keeps it in a heavily guarded safe in a château outside Paris. It is visited once a year, under heavy security, by the only three people to have keys to the safe. The weight change has been noted on the occasions it has been removed for measurement.
"It's part ceremony and part obligation," Dr. Richard Davis, head of the mass section at the research arm of the international committee.
"You'd have to amend the treaty if you didn't do it this way."
That ceremony has become a little sorrowful as the guest of honor appears to be, on a microscopic level at least, wasting away.
The race is already well under way to determine a new standard, although at a measured pace, since creating reliable measurements is such painstaking work.
The kilogram is the only one of the seven base units of measurement that still retain its 19th-century definition. Over the years, scientists have redefined units like the meter (first based on the earth's circumference) and the second (conceived as a fraction of a day). The meter is now the distance light travels in one-299,792,458th of a second, and a second is the time it takes for a cesium atom to vibrate 9,192,631,770 times. Each can be measured with remarkable precision, and, equally important, can be reproduced anywhere.
The kilogram was conceived to be the mass of a liter of water, but accurately measuring a liter of water proved to be very difficult. Instead, an English goldsmith was hired to make a platinum-iridium cylinder that would be used to define the kilogram.
One reason the kilogram has lagged behind the other units is that there has been no immediate practical benefit to increasing its precision. Nonetheless, the drift in the kilogram's weight carries over to other measurements. The volt, for example, is defined in terms of the kilogram, so a stable kilogram definition will allow the volt to be tied more closely to the base units of measure.
A total of 80 copies of the reference kilogram have been created and distributed to signatories of the metric treaty. The sometimes colorful history of these small metal cylinders underscores how long the world has used the same definition of the kilogram.
Some of the metal plugs were issued to countries that later vanished, including Serbia and the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese had to surrender theirs after World War II. Germany has acquired several weights, including the one issued to Bavaria in 1889 and the one that belonged to E
All I really need for my spring cleaning is some Windex and an extra strong magnet. That should clean out my hard drive pretty quickly, no?
Re:Where's the pdf?
on
Glade 2 Tutorial
·
· Score: 2, Informative
I'm going to go ahead and assume you're using some sort of UNIX/Linux, and recommend: html2pdf. I think it may actually have a windows version, as well, but I'm too lazy to double check. It's a swell product, either way.
Not sure if I missed something, but it seems like they meet a lot more than once every two years. Heck, they meet Monday! Odds are pretty good that Monday's not the once-in-two-years day, eh?
If/when technology permits, we should make it a point to send a ship to retrieve the probe, for both practical and symbolic reasons. It'd be interesting to see the ware and tare on a craft that's been through so much as it has; and, it has a great historical value. As a sign of respect to itself and its builders, Pioneer deserves to be in a measeum of sorts.
Of course, my other half tells me, for the same reasons, let it alone, in space, quietly, where its home is.
Aye, the fourth covers the privacy issue very well - his question, though, was phrased enough towards "the constitution doesn't give us the right, so we don't have it" that it forced me to give the knee-jerk responce of "exactly the opposite, says the constitution."
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
==
Just because you're not specifically guaranteed the right to privacy anywhere, doesn't mean you don't have it. The only way you _wouldn't_ have it would be if the constitution specifically said, "the federal government shall have the right to invade the private lives of citizens."
I don't think it's so much knowing the word "surfactant," but that most people are aware that oil and water won't mix unless you throw something else in - while they may not know that they're adding a surfactant, they know what they're adding, and that it's neccessary.
Is there any reason that we can't send up a satilite with some manuvering thrusters, with an electronic magnet attached to it, which we could activate/deactivate? Then we could just manuver it into positions near debris, activate the magnet, dump it into some sort of cargo bay, and once it's full, have it burn up in the atmosphere.
Couldn't be too expensive, and sounds pretty simple...?
For those of us on superior archetectures without flash plugins, can someone please explain what on earth homestarrunner is? Every time I get access to an x86 I try to load it, but it's always down...
That's pretty much it - most of the books are in the public domain. AFAIK, the rest are all donated by their authors.
From their FAQ:
What books will I find in Project Gutenberg?
We cannot publish any texts still in copyright. This generally means that our texts are taken from books published pre-1923. (It's more complicated than that, as our Copyright Page explains, but 1923 is a good first rule-of-thumb for the U.S.A.)
So you won't find the latest bestsellers or modern computer books here. You will find the classic books from the start of this century and previous centuries, from authors like Shakespeare, Poe, Dante, as well as well-loved favorites like the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Tarzan and Mars books of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Alice's adventures in Wonderland as told by Lewis Carroll, and thousands of others.
These books are chosen by our volunteers. Simply, a volunteer decides that a certain book should be in the archives, obtains the book and does the work necessary to turn it into an e-text. If you're interested in volunteering, click here.
That's not how project Gutenberg works. Most everything that's on PG is public domain - that means the copyright has expired. Thus, most of the stuff is over 70 years old. They didn't exactly use Latex back in the 1930s.
Besides, what I generally use PG for are the classics - greek/roman literature, etc... I don't think Plato used UNIX.
It's all got to be somehow entered from dead-tree-format copy. Currently, that pretty much means typing up the entire book.
They'll never win - Legal fees
on
Kazaa Fights Back
·
· Score: 4, Insightful
Kazaa will never win for a simple fact: the RIAA/MPAA will spend any amount of money they have to on this case, and there's no chance that Kazaa can even come close to matching the legal spending of these two giants. The *AAs can't allow Kazaa to win this, because they've always painted P2P as a technology that soley revolves around illegal fileswapping.
Lets face it - 9 out of 10 times in America, it's not who's right and who's wrong, it's who's got more money to spend on lawyers.
Today's capitalist system thrives because of the socialist controls imposed on it...
Should I use the 'r' word?
IMHO, it seems that, as we increase socialist reforms, we increase economic problems. Look at the Social Security fiasco, for example. May I recommend, Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal?
No major tax cuts Rather, no major taxes in the first place.
http://www.eskimo.com/~juha/mobile.html - These things seem to be pretty common, actually...ok, maybe not. But more common than one would most likely expect.
The site's moving at a crawl, so here's the FAQ and software list (what I just happen to have open when I noticed its slashdottedness):
Q1: What is GNUWin II ? R1: GNUWin-II is a free software distribution for MS-Windows. It includes a large spectrum of programs, notably a whole office suite (MS-Office compatible), Internet utilities, development tools (C, C++,...), typesetting software (LaTeX), calculus environments, games,...
Q2: Who made GNUWin II ? R2: GNUWin-II was made and is still being improved by GNU Generation, a team of students of the EPFL who promote free software and operating systems. It is a collaborative and voluntary project.
3: What is the purpose of GNUWin II ? R3: The purpose of GNUWin-II is to help Windows users discover the free software and Open Source world. After using free software on MS-Windows, it is easier to migrate to a free operating system (GNU/Linux for instance), where the same programs are used.
Q4: How much does GNUWin II cost ? R4: GNUWin II is free (as a "free beer"). The programs included on the CD are free software (here, free is to be understood as free in "free speech"). The edition work and HTML pages that contain GNUWin-II are themselves copyrighted under a free license.
Q5: Why GNUWin II and not GNUWin 98 ? R5: Because GNUWin-II is the second version. The first one can be seen here. GNUWin is not a Microsoft product, and we do not count "3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, 2000" !
Q6: May I copy this CD ? R6: Yes, you are encouraged to do so, and to distribute copies of this CD.
Q7: May I lend this CD to a friend ? R7: Yes, you can give / lend / copy / distribute this CD as often as you want to.
Q8: Where can I get the licenses so that I can use the programs included on the CD ? R8: You do not need to buy licenses, as all applications on the CD are free software or Open Source software.
Q9: May I use the programs included on this CD for professional or commercial purposes ? R9: Yes you may. There are no restrictions on the use of the programs.
Q10: What is the difference between the programs included on this CD and freeware that can be found on the Internet ? R10: Most freeware programs are "free" in the sense that they don't cost you money ("free" as in "free beer"). This is your only freedom. On top of this, these programs are often watered-down versions of commercial products (be it with limited functions or limited time of use). The programs that are included on this CD are "free" in all senses of the term : they are "costless", they are unlimited, you have the right to distribute them, and most important, their source code is freely available, and you may modify it to improve the program or fix bugs. This ensures that the program will always be costless in the future, and allows to keep the program alive, even if its original developers lose their interest in it.
Q11: What is "source code" ? R11: Source code is a text written in a programming language that was used to create the program. The source code is often kept secret by companies so that nobody can understand how the program works, nor check what it actually does. All programs on this CD are "Open Source", that is their source code is available; thus, everybody can improve, correct or check the program.
Q12: Where can I get the source code for the software included on this CD ? R12: The source code is available on the Internet on the official program site. The link to the site in available at the description page of the program.
Q13: Can I install the programs included on this CD on my Macintosh computer ? R13: No you cannot, for technical reasons, unless you have a PC emulator. There is already free software distribution for Macintosh, like fink. In addition, MacOS X can be turned into a full GNU system, using GNU/Darwin.
Q14: Can I install the programs included on this CD on my Linux/Unix computer ? R14: No you cannot, for technical reasons, unless you have a MS-Windows emulator. But most of the programs included on this CD were initially developed for Unix or GNU/Linux. In this case, you can download the GNU/Linux version or the source code on the official site. The link to the program official site is available at the description page of the application.
Q15: Do I need to install Linux to use GNUWin-II ? R15: No, you do not need to. On the other hand, most of the programs included on this CD were originally developed for GNU/Linux; if you want to migrate to Linux, you can go on using the same applications on the Linux platform.
Q16: What version of Windows is needed to run GNUWin-II programs ? R16: GNUWin-II should not require any particular version. But we cannot test all applications on every available Windows version, and it might happen that some programs work badly, or even not at all, on some Windows version. Should this case arise, we would be grateful if you report the problem to us.
Q17: Who can I contact if I have questions or problems ? R17: Please send an e-mail to gnuwin@listes.epfl.ch
Q18: Why is the XXX software not on GNUWin ? R18: There might be several reasons for this:
o The software might not be free. It's not enough for a software to be free of charge to be on GNUWin, the source code must also be available to the public.
o There might already be an application on GNUWin that has the same features. There is no need to have half a dozen of FTP clients, for instance.
o The software might have a very specific use. GNUWin is aimed at a wide public who have discovering free software, not at specialists.
Anyway, GNUWin also holds a list of links to similar projects that cannot be o n the CD itself, but deserve attention.
Q19: Why is software XXX on GNUWin even though it's not free software ? R19: GNUWin promotes free software in the sense of the FSF, and advocates use of the GPL. However, we do claim our right to decide by ourselves whether or not an application is "free enough" to be part of GNUWin. To be part of GNUWin, a software must be free to execute, the source code must be available freely and widely, and redistribution must be authorized without restriction. Freedom to distribute modified Source, although a valuable and esteemed feature, is not required. Thus you can find for instance Scilab and Povray on GNUWin.
--
Quick start: * OpenOffice * 7-Zip * Mozilla
General purpose: * The Gimp * Zinf * X-Tractor * HTTrack * WinJab * Sylpheed
Engineer: * MiKTeX * Dia * GnuPlot * R * Scilab * Maxima * PuTTY * HTTrack * GPG
Developper * SciTE, Vim or XEmacs * GNAT Ada Compiler or Mingv32 or Python * MySQL * HTTrack * GTK+ or Simple Direct Media Layer or wxPython * Inno Setup * MiKTeX
Christ people, this is starting to sicken me. I've got an iMac 333 G3, a couple P2 333 and an old P1 90. Unless you're doing something like heavy graphics editing, what the hell would you ever need something this powerful for? And over over six grand?
People, stop trying to build the fastest box imaginable, and thing serious. Use what you need for the job. Save money. Reuse old machines. Don't spend six grand on something you'll never need (well, you will, but probably when it costs more like a thousand bucks). If you can justify having this much power, okay, but otherwise, stop wasting time and money, and killing perfectly usable old boxen.
Slashdot Mirror
What I meant was that 80% appears to be the minimum. For missions-critical applications, the choice of "most appropriate for the job" should be made. Open Source Software is still an option, just not the only option.
This is a big win for Linux, but is making it mandatory going too far? It would seem wiser to support a solution that favors the best tool for the job, which may not always be an open source product.
I think an 80% mandation (is that even a word?) seems fair. You leave 20% left over for missions-critical applications (military and whatnot; remember, Brazil isn't like the US - they don't spend hundreds of billions on military, and therefore, I doubt their military computer systems make up even 10% of their infrastructure), on which you can chose software based on the best choice out there. But the remaining 80%, which represents mostly desktop applications for clerks and whatnot, will be running on OSS - this is good, because it prevents government from getting locked into restrictive licencing that usually comes with desktop production software, saves money, and encurages development of open software/standards.
I think they've met a good balance here, and I congradulate them.
Gaim already has such a project. Anyone use it? I've tried it in the past, but couldn't get it to work.
May 27, 2003
Scientists Struggling to Make the Kilogram Right Again
By OTTO POHL
B RAUNSCHWEIG, Germany -- In these girth-conscious times, even weight itself has weight issues. The kilogram is getting lighter, scientists say, sowing potential confusion over a range of scientific endeavor.
The kilogram is defined by a platinum-iridium cylinder, cast in England in 1889. No one knows why it is shedding weight, at least in comparison with other reference weights, but the change has spurred an international search for a more stable definition.
"It's certainly not helpful to have a standard that keeps changing," says Peter Becker, a scientist at the Federal Standards Laboratory here, an institution of 1,500 scientists dedicated entirely to improving the ability to measure things precisely.
Even the apparent change of 50 micrograms in the kilogram -- less than the weight of a grain of salt -- is enough to distort careful scientific calculations.
Dr. Becker is leading a team of international researchers seeking to redefine the kilogram as a number of atoms of a selected element. Other scientists, including researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Washington, are developing a competing technology to define the kilogram using a complex mechanism known as the watt balance.
The final recommendation will be made by the International Committee on Weights and Measures, a body created by international treaty in 1875. The agency guards the international reference kilogram and keeps it in a heavily guarded safe in a château outside Paris. It is visited once a year, under heavy security, by the only three people to have keys to the safe. The weight change has been noted on the occasions it has been removed for measurement.
"It's part ceremony and part obligation," Dr. Richard Davis, head of the mass section at the research arm of the international committee.
"You'd have to amend the treaty if you didn't do it this way."
That ceremony has become a little sorrowful as the guest of honor appears to be, on a microscopic level at least, wasting away.
The race is already well under way to determine a new standard, although at a measured pace, since creating reliable measurements is such painstaking work.
The kilogram is the only one of the seven base units of measurement that still retain its 19th-century definition. Over the years, scientists have redefined units like the meter (first based on the earth's circumference) and the second (conceived as a fraction of a day). The meter is now the distance light travels in one-299,792,458th of a second, and a second is the time it takes for a cesium atom to vibrate 9,192,631,770 times. Each can be measured with remarkable precision, and, equally important, can be reproduced anywhere.
The kilogram was conceived to be the mass of a liter of water, but accurately measuring a liter of water proved to be very difficult. Instead, an English goldsmith was hired to make a platinum-iridium cylinder that would be used to define the kilogram.
One reason the kilogram has lagged behind the other units is that there has been no immediate practical benefit to increasing its precision. Nonetheless, the drift in the kilogram's weight carries over to other measurements. The volt, for example, is defined in terms of the kilogram, so a stable kilogram definition will allow the volt to be tied more closely to the base units of measure.
A total of 80 copies of the reference kilogram have been created and distributed to signatories of the metric treaty. The sometimes colorful history of these small metal cylinders underscores how long the world has used the same definition of the kilogram.
Some of the metal plugs were issued to countries that later vanished, including Serbia and the Dutch East Indies. The Japanese had to surrender theirs after World War II. Germany has acquired several weights, including the one issued to Bavaria in 1889 and the one that belonged to E
All I really need for my spring cleaning is some Windex and an extra strong magnet. That should clean out my hard drive pretty quickly, no?
I'm going to go ahead and assume you're using some sort of UNIX/Linux, and recommend: html2pdf. I think it may actually have a windows version, as well, but I'm too lazy to double check. It's a swell product, either way.
http://www.capitol.state.tx.us/
Not sure if I missed something, but it seems like they meet a lot more than once every two years. Heck, they meet Monday! Odds are pretty good that Monday's not the once-in-two-years day, eh?
If/when technology permits, we should make it a point to send a ship to retrieve the probe, for both practical and symbolic reasons. It'd be interesting to see the ware and tare on a craft that's been through so much as it has; and, it has a great historical value. As a sign of respect to itself and its builders, Pioneer deserves to be in a measeum of sorts.
Of course, my other half tells me, for the same reasons, let it alone, in space, quietly, where its home is.
it's called a "screenshot."
Aye, the fourth covers the privacy issue very well - his question, though, was phrased enough towards "the constitution doesn't give us the right, so we don't have it" that it forced me to give the knee-jerk responce of "exactly the opposite, says the constitution."
Amendment IX
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
==
Just because you're not specifically guaranteed the right to privacy anywhere, doesn't mean you don't have it. The only way you _wouldn't_ have it would be if the constitution specifically said, "the federal government shall have the right to invade the private lives of citizens."
I don't think it's so much knowing the word "surfactant," but that most people are aware that oil and water won't mix unless you throw something else in - while they may not know that they're adding a surfactant, they know what they're adding, and that it's neccessary.
Does this interview sound fake to anyone else? I mean, come on:
Gates:
No! If you really think there's a bug you should report a bug. Maybe you're not using it properly. Have you ever considered that?
FOCUS:
Yeah, I did...
Gates:
It turns out Luddites don't know how to use software properly, so you should look into that.
---
Gates:
No, only if that is what'll sell!
Gates is a businessman - I don't think he'd be stupid enough to say this kind of stuff in an interview. I want to see the original source documents.
Is there any reason that we can't send up a satilite with some manuvering thrusters, with an electronic magnet attached to it, which we could activate/deactivate? Then we could just manuver it into positions near debris, activate the magnet, dump it into some sort of cargo bay, and once it's full, have it burn up in the atmosphere.
Couldn't be too expensive, and sounds pretty simple...?
http://www.ai.univie.ac.at/~johann/browser.html
/me shows you.
For those of us on superior archetectures without flash plugins, can someone please explain what on earth homestarrunner is? Every time I get access to an x86 I try to load it, but it's always down...
wireless MAN standard
How sexist! Haven't they heard about politically correct computing?!?
No, I don't mean the stock prices, I mean this...
The company consists of 180 people, including 130 engineers, 45 corporate staff and four lawyers.
I guess CowboyNeil was recently fired from the company?
That's pretty much it - most of the books are in the public domain. AFAIK, the rest are all donated by their authors.
From their FAQ:
What books will I find in Project Gutenberg?
We cannot publish any texts still in copyright. This generally means that our texts are taken from books published pre-1923. (It's more complicated than that, as our Copyright Page explains, but 1923 is a good first rule-of-thumb for the U.S.A.)
So you won't find the latest bestsellers or modern computer books here. You will find the classic books from the start of this century and previous centuries, from authors like Shakespeare, Poe, Dante, as well as well-loved favorites like the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Tarzan and Mars books of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Alice's adventures in Wonderland as told by Lewis Carroll, and thousands of others.
These books are chosen by our volunteers. Simply, a volunteer decides that a certain book should be in the archives, obtains the book and does the work necessary to turn it into an e-text. If you're interested in volunteering, click here.
That's not how project Gutenberg works. Most everything that's on PG is public domain - that means the copyright has expired. Thus, most of the stuff is over 70 years old. They didn't exactly use Latex back in the 1930s.
Besides, what I generally use PG for are the classics - greek/roman literature, etc... I don't think Plato used UNIX.
It's all got to be somehow entered from dead-tree-format copy. Currently, that pretty much means typing up the entire book.
Kazaa will never win for a simple fact: the RIAA/MPAA will spend any amount of money they have to on this case, and there's no chance that Kazaa can even come close to matching the legal spending of these two giants. The *AAs can't allow Kazaa to win this, because they've always painted P2P as a technology that soley revolves around illegal fileswapping.
Lets face it - 9 out of 10 times in America, it's not who's right and who's wrong, it's who's got more money to spend on lawyers.
Today's capitalist system thrives because of the socialist controls imposed on it...
Should I use the 'r' word?
IMHO, it seems that, as we increase socialist reforms, we increase economic problems. Look at the Social Security fiasco, for example. May I recommend, Ayn Rand's Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal?
No major tax cuts
Rather, no major taxes in the first place.
http://www.eskimo.com/~juha/mobile.html - These things seem to be pretty common, actually...ok, maybe not. But more common than one would most likely expect.
The site's moving at a crawl, so here's the FAQ and software list (what I just happen to have open when I noticed its slashdottedness):
...), typesetting software (LaTeX), calculus environments, games, ...
:
Q1: What is GNUWin II ?
R1: GNUWin-II is a free software distribution for MS-Windows. It includes a large spectrum of programs, notably a whole office suite (MS-Office compatible), Internet utilities, development tools (C, C++,
Q2: Who made GNUWin II ?
R2: GNUWin-II was made and is still being improved by GNU Generation, a team of students of the EPFL who promote free software and operating systems. It is a collaborative and voluntary project.
3: What is the purpose of GNUWin II ?
R3: The purpose of GNUWin-II is to help Windows users discover the free software and Open Source world. After using free software on MS-Windows, it is easier to migrate to a free operating system (GNU/Linux for instance), where the same programs are used.
Q4: How much does GNUWin II cost ?
R4: GNUWin II is free (as a "free beer"). The programs included on the CD are free software (here, free is to be understood as free in "free speech"). The edition work and HTML pages that contain GNUWin-II are themselves copyrighted under a free license.
Q5: Why GNUWin II and not GNUWin 98 ?
R5: Because GNUWin-II is the second version. The first one can be seen here. GNUWin is not a Microsoft product, and we do not count "3.1, 3.11, 95, 98, 2000" !
Q6: May I copy this CD ?
R6: Yes, you are encouraged to do so, and to distribute copies of this CD.
Q7: May I lend this CD to a friend ?
R7: Yes, you can give / lend / copy / distribute this CD as often as you want to.
Q8: Where can I get the licenses so that I can use the programs included on the CD ?
R8: You do not need to buy licenses, as all applications on the CD are free software or Open Source software.
Q9: May I use the programs included on this CD for professional or commercial purposes ?
R9: Yes you may. There are no restrictions on the use of the programs.
Q10: What is the difference between the programs included on this CD and freeware that can be found on the Internet ?
R10: Most freeware programs are "free" in the sense that they don't cost you money ("free" as in "free beer"). This is your only freedom. On top of this, these programs are often watered-down versions of commercial products (be it with limited functions or limited time of use). The programs that are included on this CD are "free" in all senses of the term : they are "costless", they are unlimited, you have the right to distribute them, and most important, their source code is freely available, and you may modify it to improve the program or fix bugs.
This ensures that the program will always be costless in the future, and allows to keep the program alive, even if its original developers lose their interest in it.
Q11: What is "source code" ?
R11: Source code is a text written in a programming language that was used to create the program. The source code is often kept secret by companies so that nobody can understand how the program works, nor check what it actually does. All programs on this CD are "Open Source", that is their source code is available; thus, everybody can improve, correct or check the program.
Q12: Where can I get the source code for the software included on this CD ?
R12: The source code is available on the Internet on the official program site. The link to the site in available at the description page of the program.
Q13: Can I install the programs included on this CD on my Macintosh computer ?
R13: No you cannot, for technical reasons, unless you have a PC emulator. There is already free software distribution for Macintosh, like fink. In addition, MacOS X can be turned into a full GNU system, using GNU/Darwin.
Q14: Can I install the programs included on this CD on my Linux/Unix computer ?
R14: No you cannot, for technical reasons, unless you have a MS-Windows emulator. But most of the programs included on this CD were initially developed for Unix or GNU/Linux. In this case, you can download the GNU/Linux version or the source code on the official site. The link to the program official site is available at the description page of the application.
Q15: Do I need to install Linux to use GNUWin-II ?
R15: No, you do not need to. On the other hand, most of the programs included on this CD were originally developed for GNU/Linux; if you want to migrate to Linux, you can go on using the same applications on the Linux platform.
Q16: What version of Windows is needed to run GNUWin-II programs ?
R16: GNUWin-II should not require any particular version. But we cannot test all applications on every available Windows version, and it might happen that some programs work badly, or even not at all, on some Windows version. Should this case arise, we would be grateful if you report the problem to us.
Q17: Who can I contact if I have questions or problems ?
R17: Please send an e-mail to gnuwin@listes.epfl.ch
Q18: Why is the XXX software not on GNUWin ?
R18: There might be several reasons for this
o The software might not be free. It's not enough for a software to be free of charge to be on GNUWin, the source code must also be available to the public.
o There might already be an application on GNUWin that has the same features. There is no need to have half a dozen of FTP clients, for instance.
o The software might have a very specific use. GNUWin is aimed at a wide public who have discovering free software, not at specialists.
Anyway, GNUWin also holds a list of links to similar projects that cannot be o n the CD itself, but deserve attention.
Q19: Why is software XXX on GNUWin even though it's not free software ?
R19: GNUWin promotes free software in the sense of the FSF, and advocates use of the GPL. However, we do claim our right to decide by ourselves whether or not an application is "free enough" to be part of GNUWin.
To be part of GNUWin, a software must be free to execute, the source code must be available freely and widely, and redistribution must be authorized without restriction. Freedom to distribute modified Source, although a valuable and esteemed feature, is not required. Thus you can find for instance Scilab and Povray on GNUWin.
--
Quick start:
* OpenOffice
* 7-Zip
* Mozilla
General purpose:
* The Gimp
* Zinf
* X-Tractor
* HTTrack
* WinJab
* Sylpheed
Engineer:
* MiKTeX
* Dia
* GnuPlot
* R
* Scilab
* Maxima
* PuTTY
* HTTrack
* GPG
Developper
* SciTE, Vim or XEmacs
* GNAT Ada Compiler or Mingv32 or Python
* MySQL
* HTTrack
* GTK+ or Simple Direct Media Layer or wxPython
* Inno Setup
* MiKTeX
Kids:
* TuxPaint
* TuxType
* Jump'n'bump
* TuxRacer
Webmaster:
* Apache
* MySQL
* Python
* The Gimp
* iXplorer
* PuTTY
* CatFish
Christ people, this is starting to sicken me. I've got an iMac 333 G3, a couple P2 333 and an old P1 90. Unless you're doing something like heavy graphics editing, what the hell would you ever need something this powerful for? And over over six grand?
People, stop trying to build the fastest box imaginable, and thing serious. Use what you need for the job. Save money. Reuse old machines. Don't spend six grand on something you'll never need (well, you will, but probably when it costs more like a thousand bucks). If you can justify having this much power, okay, but otherwise, stop wasting time and money, and killing perfectly usable old boxen.