What would actually be rather useful, IMHO, would be a system not really of certification, but rather of evaluation of differences. As more and more companies release more open source products, they often include very long licenses written by a team of lawyers in fluent legaleze (one of the reasons I happen to be a bit partial to the BSD licenses is that they are short, sweet, and to the point). People simply to read through each new license and summarize the differences with current licenses for those of us not indoctrinated to the ways of legal documents. Then people can make their own decissions.
Re:Is there any reason to stay with the 2.0.x seri
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Linux 2.0.37 Released
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· Score: 2
I can tell you one right away. I used to be in charge of admining a firewall. It had tons of individual ipfwadm firewall rules. You generally don't touch a machine like that unless there is a known problem or security hole. Moving to ipchains would have required a few days of rule writing, some testing, bugs found from me mistyping one charachter for weeks on end, ect. Thus I had no intetnion to (and I doubt my successor did either) upgrade the machine to 2.2. If I had to make a similar configuration, I would certainly use ipchains, but ipfwadm did its job, and that was all that was important in that case.
Second, linux has moved towards optimizing for newer hardware (aka adding new features to make life faster and easier, but requiring more RAM). Thus on 386es, and some 486es, 2.0 may be better. Of course, nowadays, FreeBSD is so much better on a 386 if you ask me, but I prefer linux on my newer machines.
No one creates hype like MS. They don't need linux's hype. Furthermore, one of the strengths of MS as a business is that they can leverage their control of the OS to force there way into other markets (how do you think they jumpstarted office and IE in the days in which both sucked). Buying into linux would counteract this. Back in the Xenix days, MS put together a pretty stable unix which they controled. They abandoned it, and it never caught on, but that's what they'd probably aim for.
I don't think MS has much interest in linux frankly, except as an obstacle in its domination of a market it wants, but can't get into since their technology doesn't work well there. Sorry kids, MS isn't going to drop Windows and back linux any time in the near future, no matter how much you want to be paranoid about it.
If that was what he meant, then he was simply stating the obvious. His point was what? Redhat can't call it's product RedHat Solaris. What is the point. Microsoft has made a UNIX before, it was called Microsoft Xenix. What makes you think if they made a UNIX again and didn't base it off of linux (aka make the MS-distrib) they'd have any desire to call it Linux, or would even think about that possibility.
Personally, I like free software over paranoid idiot slashdot weenies. Part of free software is that anyone can go ahead and modify the code, or sell distributions of the code. If MS were ever to do this, more power to them. I like to be free more than I like to hate Microsoft.
I severely doubt Linus would in any way block anyone who wanted to support linux.
It is widely assumed that Linus is working on some type of Microprocessor, or something else along the lines of computer architechture (given rumors flying about Transmeta, and the fact that Linus like that kind of stuff). How exactly does one "reveal the source he is working on". Assuming it is some sort of Microprocessor, they'll almost certainly reveal the ISA.
I don't think it's such a big distinction. Most of the big Open Source software packages today use distributed development. That's part of the goal of open source, you can take the source, modify it, and send it back to the creator improved. The ALSA plugin is part of the standard X11amp distribution. It is a part of the product, and I'm sure the guy's name is in the CREDITS file. To me that leaves the distinction as sort of splitting hairs. Next you're going to tell me if I go out and write support for a new file system in the linux kernel, the submit it to the kernel maintainers, and they put it in that "It's not like linux has been supporting the new filesystem."
See my previous post. X11amp already supports alsa.
Second, I wouldn't say OOS drivers are proprietary with a few kernel contributions. Perhaps 10 cards (mostly the SBAWE32/64 series) are OSS commercial only. Most soundcards OSS-Linux supports are supported by OSS-Free.
X11amp (now xmms) has had alsa support for several months now. It uses a plugin architechture, so the code for inputs (mp3, wav, mods, ect.), and the outputs (OSS, esound, and alsa are all supported) are all plugins.
Saying something GNOME is more stable than Windows is saying a cute little bunny rabbit is more fiece than a stalk of cellery. Sure its true, but the comparison is worthless. GNOME 1.0 was less stable than KDE 0.7, let alone KDE 1.1.1. If you want a good example of software reachine stability, look at the mutt mailreader. Mutt is the most stable and most featureful mailreader out there, IMHO, and it is still listed as beta.
Redhat is no more free than Caldera or S.u.S.E.
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On Red Hat Bashing...
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· Score: 1
Miguel seems to claim in this article that Redhat is a distribution with only OSS, while others mix and match the commercial and the free, and thus make free distribution impossible. This is absolutely false. Anyone who has recently bought a CD from Redhat, S.u.S.E., or Caldera knows that all three ship with closed-source software. I think this is great, many people *want* Wordperfect, Sybase, DB2, ect. and many distributions offer this out of the box making linux an easier system to get up and running as a server than the commercial unices or NT, and that's a plus. Everyone also knows that all three distributions offer themselves free for download, minus those commercial apps. The only noticable difference is that Redhat offers its commercial apps on a seperate CD, thus saving ones time in creating a seperate OSS-only ISO9660 image. This does not, however, mean that one can not distributed one of the other distros, and rather easily.
Personally, I do not think Redhat is evil or anything. They make some very major contributions, are pretty cool, and quite good in general. However, Redhat has become known for having extremely unstable x.0 distribs. 4.0 and 5.0, although featureful were so broken that I won't even look at 6 for a system I install until the next minor version is released. Furthermore, their install process in 5.* was often braindead, not restoring its connection with an ftp server until after it had already lost its first package, without which the system could not boot. Furthermore, Redhat has upped the cost of cds, has yet to get anywhere near S.u.S.E. in choice of software, nor anywhere near Caldera in easy of use. Their premature adoption of glibc was great for those of us who didn't adopt it until leater, but terrible for the newbies who got stuck with their system. I've never exactly been a big fan of rpm either.
I have no complaint about Redhat's corporate nature. However, the idea that they are more free than any other distro is absurd. Furthermore, Redhat has had plenty of technical shortcomings to fuel the disdain of Redhat naysayers without even getting into corporate motivations.
Have you ever used OS X? The client is nothing special GUI-wise. It actually looks a bit like Win3.1. The server, although decently stable due to a BSD kernel, is a hodgepodge of NeXT apps, and Mac apps on the same system, completely devoid of any graphical consistency, long the one strong point of the Mac.
OS X is a good example of how to hack stability into a system, and how to allow the world to once again enjoy the bliss of boinkout (I remember boinkout on my old NeXT, needless to say it rules), but a poor example of how to make a GUI. It ranks far behind Windows, KDE, GNOME, the old Mac, the old NeXT, ect. in that regard.
Re:Not all is good with Corel
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Corel Linux FAQ
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· Score: 1
Supporting Linux and supporting Open Source are not the same thing. There's nothing wrong with having closed source software on linux, or open source software on Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, Windows, ect. The two are not the same.
Oh God forbid the code you wrote was actually free, rather than free unless you want to do A, B, or C (A B and C being make a derived work and not release the source). The BSD license IMHO is the best license out there in the world of free software, and the only one that works off the assumption that when source is available, better code results, and thus closed-source derived works are not a threat.
Re:Good Open Source Citizens
on
Corel Linux FAQ
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· Score: 1
I installed it once. It installed. I just found the whole expirience crude and annoying. It also required babysitting, something I don't like (a flaw of Slackware and Windows as well, but less so for FreeBSD, and not at all for Redhat, Caldera, or Solaris).
Make a boot disk, format the hard drive, mount it, get a kernel, a libc, init, a compiler a shell, recompile all of that, start compiling apps.
The simpler thing to do is if you have an installed system, don't be weenie, and just keep your system up to date in a piecewise sort of manner. Reinstalling become's uneccessary then. Also take a look at encap (http://encap.cso.uiuc.edu). It's pretty good especially if you don't like the idea of reinstalling.
This has to be the dumbest discussion I have ever heard.
It's not like the software you used 5 years ago is gone. There just are more options. Personally, I'd rather have the choice of a lot of applications, some free some proprietary, and then select those I *want* to use than to be foreced into using what's there. It's all about choice when you think about it, it's just that some slashdot weenies seem to value choice no more than microsoft.
Re:Good Open Source Citizens
on
Corel Linux FAQ
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· Score: 1
Windows easy to install? Ha, you make me laugh. I wanted to install a version of windows with a modern DirectX so I could play games. First I tried Win98. It hung during the part where it says "building the start bar", and of course when I had to hit the reboot switch it went right back to the same point and hung again. Then I tried NT5 beta 2 (beta 3 was not out yet). It wouldn't install unless I took my ethernet card (a DEC tulip) out of the machine. When I did so, it wouldn't recognize my standard 3 button logitech serial mouse. Finally, I gave up and installed NT4 so at least I could play Starcraft and Railroad Tycoon, if not Half Life. It ranks amongst the worst install expiriences I've ever had.
Caldera OpenLinnux 2.2, from what I've seen in reviews and such (I've not installed linux on my own machines for a while, for reinstalling is for wussies, and people and employers who want me to install linux for them always want Redhat for some reason) is a far superior install to windows. Easy, pointy-clicky, and it even lets you play tetris as you wait. Redhat's install aren;t wonderful, but they are OK.
Also, I installed FreeBSD on an old 386 someone gave me for free a while ago. Although it was not the most friendly install for a windows user, for someone who has been using unix for a while, I'd say it was a very clean and good install.
Solaris 2.5.1 had very straightforward install. Solaris 2.7 lets you use a web browser to install for christ's sake.
The BeOS install is a walk in the park.
Out of the machines I've had to install in recent memory, the Windows install, is one of the most annoying, buggiest, most difficult, and most ass-backwards. Perhaps I'd rank it in a tie with Slackware, and just in front of Debian, but far behind Redhat, Caldera, Be, FreeBSD, Sol2.5.1, and Sol 2.7.
I sort of agree with you. WMs have different purposes. E looks damn cool. Twm/blackbox are lightweight. Kwm with all the KDE stuff adds a lot of functionality.
However, I will take this oppertunity to attack the BeOS theme for enlightenment. Whoever wrote that (or at least the one I saw the last time I used someone's machine that was running E) had obviously never used BeOS. The thing in the top right corner had an awkward sort of application launcher thing instead of a process list. For someone who's hactually used BeOS a lot it seemed half-assed and counterintuitive.
Actually with a bit of configuration kdm, the kde xdm replacement lets you do just that at login time. I find that quite useful. Most of the time I want kde, but when I have to do something quick under X, then log right back off, twm or blackbox meets my needs quite well.
Ah, but you make a false assumption. You assume more can be accomplished through propritary work than open source work. If this is true, all of the open source advocates in the world should pack their bags and go home. I tend to think it is not true. Sure one company can create a killer feature, but a community of developers can implement even more, do it faster, and do it in a less buggy manner. That's the point behind open source, IMHO, better software.
That's why I sort of prefer the BSD license, but that's another issue altogether.
I've noticed a number of instances where KDE has really had a different culture than GNOME or E, which has led to a different attitude to from the project:
1. Core KDE developers *never* rip on opposing projects. They attempt to intergrate. I'm sure everyone remembers when KDE anounced Version 1.0 of GNOME promenantly on its webpage.
2. No publicity stunts. The software's done when it's done. 1.1.1 took forever to get out, but when it was out it worked really well. In fact KDE folks are currently debating whether they should try to pre-release more official stuff in order to generate interest. For example, the koffice daily snapshots won't generate the type of interest a Koffice-0.3 would.
3. No central cultish leader. Sure it's nice to have what ESR described as the "benevilent dictator", the Linus or the Larry Wall. However, neither Miguel or Rasterman fill this role particularly well. They have the dictator thing down, but not the benevilence. Sometimes, I'd say the FreeBSD/XFree/Apache model of just a bunch of developers works pretty well.
Just some observations about the way Open Source software works in different cultures.
Slashdot Mirror
What would actually be rather useful, IMHO, would be a system not really of certification, but rather of evaluation of differences. As more and more companies release more open source products, they often include very long licenses written by a team of lawyers in fluent legaleze (one of the reasons I happen to be a bit partial to the BSD licenses is that they are short, sweet, and to the point). People simply to read through each new license and summarize the differences with current licenses for those of us not indoctrinated to the ways of legal documents. Then people can make their own decissions.
I can tell you one right away. I used to be in charge of admining a firewall. It had tons of individual ipfwadm firewall rules. You generally don't touch a machine like that unless there is a known problem or security hole. Moving to ipchains would have required a few days of rule writing, some testing, bugs found from me mistyping one charachter for weeks on end, ect. Thus I had no intetnion to (and I doubt my successor did either) upgrade the machine to 2.2. If I had to make a similar configuration, I would certainly use ipchains, but ipfwadm did its job, and that was all that was important in that case.
Second, linux has moved towards optimizing for newer hardware (aka adding new features to make life faster and easier, but requiring more RAM). Thus on 386es, and some 486es, 2.0 may be better. Of course, nowadays, FreeBSD is so much better on a 386 if you ask me, but I prefer linux on my newer machines.
No one creates hype like MS. They don't need linux's hype. Furthermore, one of the strengths of MS as a business is that they can leverage their control of the OS to force there way into other markets (how do you think they jumpstarted office and IE in the days in which both sucked). Buying into linux would counteract this. Back in the Xenix days, MS put together a pretty stable unix which they controled. They abandoned it, and it never caught on, but that's what they'd probably aim for.
I don't think MS has much interest in linux frankly, except as an obstacle in its domination of a market it wants, but can't get into since their technology doesn't work well there. Sorry kids, MS isn't going to drop Windows and back linux any time in the near future, no matter how much you want to be paranoid about it.
If that was what he meant, then he was simply stating the obvious. His point was what? Redhat can't call it's product RedHat Solaris. What is the point. Microsoft has made a UNIX before, it was called Microsoft Xenix. What makes you think if they made a UNIX again and didn't base it off of linux (aka make the MS-distrib) they'd have any desire to call it Linux, or would even think about that possibility.
Oh, God forbid.
So much for free software....
Personally, I like free software over paranoid idiot slashdot weenies. Part of free software is that anyone can go ahead and modify the code, or sell distributions of the code. If MS were ever to do this, more power to them. I like to be free more than I like to hate Microsoft.
I severely doubt Linus would in any way block anyone who wanted to support linux.
Ah a troll.
It is widely assumed that Linus is working on some type of Microprocessor, or something else along the lines of computer architechture (given rumors flying about Transmeta, and the fact that Linus like that kind of stuff). How exactly does one "reveal the source he is working on". Assuming it is some sort of Microprocessor, they'll almost certainly reveal the ISA.
I don't think it's such a big distinction. Most of the big Open Source software packages today use distributed development. That's part of the goal of open source, you can take the source, modify it, and send it back to the creator improved. The ALSA plugin is part of the standard X11amp distribution. It is a part of the product, and I'm sure the guy's name is in the CREDITS file. To me that leaves the distinction as sort of splitting hairs. Next you're going to tell me if I go out and write support for a new file system in the linux kernel, the submit it to the kernel maintainers, and they put it in that "It's not like linux has been supporting the new filesystem."
See my previous post. X11amp already supports alsa.
Second, I wouldn't say OOS drivers are proprietary with a few kernel contributions. Perhaps 10 cards (mostly the SBAWE32/64 series) are OSS commercial only. Most soundcards OSS-Linux supports are supported by OSS-Free.
X11amp (now xmms) has had alsa support for several months now. It uses a plugin architechture, so the code for inputs (mp3, wav, mods, ect.), and the outputs (OSS, esound, and alsa are all supported) are all plugins.
No it is not. The engine in mpg123 based, and has been for a while.
Saying something GNOME is more stable than Windows is saying a cute little bunny rabbit is more fiece than a stalk of cellery. Sure its true, but the comparison is worthless. GNOME 1.0 was less stable than KDE 0.7, let alone KDE 1.1.1. If you want a good example of software reachine stability, look at the mutt mailreader. Mutt is the most stable and most featureful mailreader out there, IMHO, and it is still listed as beta.
Miguel seems to claim in this article that Redhat is a distribution with only OSS, while others mix and match the commercial and the free, and thus make free distribution impossible. This is absolutely false. Anyone who has recently bought a CD from Redhat, S.u.S.E., or Caldera knows that all three ship with closed-source software. I think this is great, many people *want* Wordperfect, Sybase, DB2, ect. and many distributions offer this out of the box making linux an easier system to get up and running as a server than the commercial unices or NT, and that's a plus. Everyone also knows that all three distributions offer themselves free for download, minus those commercial apps. The only noticable difference is that Redhat offers its commercial apps on a seperate CD, thus saving ones time in creating a seperate OSS-only ISO9660 image. This does not, however, mean that one can not distributed one of the other distros, and rather easily.
Personally, I do not think Redhat is evil or anything. They make some very major contributions, are pretty cool, and quite good in general. However, Redhat has become known for having extremely unstable x.0 distribs. 4.0 and 5.0, although featureful were so broken that I won't even look at 6 for a system I install until the next minor version is released. Furthermore, their install process in 5.* was often braindead, not restoring its connection with an ftp server until after it had already lost its first package, without which the system could not boot. Furthermore, Redhat has upped the cost of cds, has yet to get anywhere near S.u.S.E. in choice of software, nor anywhere near Caldera in easy of use. Their premature adoption of glibc was great for those of us who didn't adopt it until leater, but terrible for the newbies who got stuck with their system. I've never exactly been a big fan of rpm either.
I have no complaint about Redhat's corporate nature. However, the idea that they are more free than any other distro is absurd. Furthermore, Redhat has had plenty of technical shortcomings to fuel the disdain of Redhat naysayers without even getting into corporate motivations.
Have you ever used OS X? The client is nothing special GUI-wise. It actually looks a bit like Win3.1. The server, although decently stable due to a BSD kernel, is a hodgepodge of NeXT apps, and Mac apps on the same system, completely devoid of any graphical consistency, long the one strong point of the Mac.
OS X is a good example of how to hack stability into a system, and how to allow the world to once again enjoy the bliss of boinkout (I remember boinkout on my old NeXT, needless to say it rules), but a poor example of how to make a GUI. It ranks far behind Windows, KDE, GNOME, the old Mac, the old NeXT, ect. in that regard.
catdoc file.doc > file.txt ; emacs file.txt
Supporting Linux and supporting Open Source are not the same thing. There's nothing wrong with having closed source software on linux, or open source software on Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, IRIX, Windows, ect. The two are not the same.
Oh God forbid the code you wrote was actually free, rather than free unless you want to do A, B, or C (A B and C being make a derived work and not release the source). The BSD license IMHO is the best license out there in the world of free software, and the only one that works off the assumption that when source is available, better code results, and thus closed-source derived works are not a threat.
I installed it once. It installed. I just found the whole expirience crude and annoying. It also required babysitting, something I don't like (a flaw of Slackware and Windows as well, but less so for FreeBSD, and not at all for Redhat, Caldera, or Solaris).
Make a boot disk, format the hard drive, mount it, get a kernel, a libc, init, a compiler a shell, recompile all of that, start compiling apps.
The simpler thing to do is if you have an installed system, don't be weenie, and just keep your system up to date in a piecewise sort of manner. Reinstalling become's uneccessary then. Also take a look at encap (http://encap.cso.uiuc.edu). It's pretty good especially if you don't like the idea of reinstalling.
This has to be the dumbest discussion I have ever heard.
It's not like the software you used 5 years ago is gone. There just are more options. Personally, I'd rather have the choice of a lot of applications, some free some proprietary, and then select those I *want* to use than to be foreced into using what's there. It's all about choice when you think about it, it's just that some slashdot weenies seem to value choice no more than microsoft.
Windows easy to install? Ha, you make me laugh. I wanted to install a version of windows with a modern DirectX so I could play games. First I tried Win98. It hung during the part where it says "building the start bar", and of course when I had to hit the reboot switch it went right back to the same point and hung again. Then I tried NT5 beta 2 (beta 3 was not out yet). It wouldn't install unless I took my ethernet card (a DEC tulip) out of the machine. When I did so, it wouldn't recognize my standard 3 button logitech serial mouse. Finally, I gave up and installed NT4 so at least I could play Starcraft and Railroad Tycoon, if not Half Life. It ranks amongst the worst install expiriences I've ever had.
Caldera OpenLinnux 2.2, from what I've seen in reviews and such (I've not installed linux on my own machines for a while, for reinstalling is for wussies, and people and employers who want me to install linux for them always want Redhat for some reason) is a far superior install to windows. Easy, pointy-clicky, and it even lets you play tetris as you wait. Redhat's install aren;t wonderful, but they are OK.
Also, I installed FreeBSD on an old 386 someone gave me for free a while ago. Although it was not the most friendly install for a windows user, for someone who has been using unix for a while, I'd say it was a very clean and good install.
Solaris 2.5.1 had very straightforward install. Solaris 2.7 lets you use a web browser to install for christ's sake.
The BeOS install is a walk in the park.
Out of the machines I've had to install in recent memory, the Windows install, is one of the most annoying, buggiest, most difficult, and most ass-backwards. Perhaps I'd rank it in a tie with Slackware, and just in front of Debian, but far behind Redhat, Caldera, Be, FreeBSD, Sol2.5.1, and Sol 2.7.
I sort of agree with you. WMs have different purposes. E looks damn cool. Twm/blackbox are lightweight. Kwm with all the KDE stuff adds a lot of functionality.
However, I will take this oppertunity to attack the BeOS theme for enlightenment. Whoever wrote that (or at least the one I saw the last time I used someone's machine that was running E) had obviously never used BeOS. The thing in the top right corner had an awkward sort of application launcher thing instead of a process list. For someone who's hactually used BeOS a lot it seemed half-assed and counterintuitive.
Actually with a bit of configuration kdm, the kde xdm replacement lets you do just that at login time. I find that quite useful. Most of the time I want kde, but when I have to do something quick under X, then log right back off, twm or blackbox meets my needs quite well.
Ah, but you make a false assumption. You assume more can be accomplished through propritary work than open source work. If this is true, all of the open source advocates in the world should pack their bags and go home. I tend to think it is not true. Sure one company can create a killer feature, but a community of developers can implement even more, do it faster, and do it in a less buggy manner. That's the point behind open source, IMHO, better software.
That's why I sort of prefer the BSD license, but that's another issue altogether.
I've noticed a number of instances where KDE has really had a different culture than GNOME or E, which has led to a different attitude to from the project:
1. Core KDE developers *never* rip on opposing projects. They attempt to intergrate. I'm sure everyone remembers when KDE anounced Version 1.0 of GNOME promenantly on its webpage.
2. No publicity stunts. The software's done when it's done. 1.1.1 took forever to get out, but when it was out it worked really well. In fact KDE folks are currently debating whether they should try to pre-release more official stuff in order to generate interest. For example, the koffice daily snapshots won't generate the type of interest a Koffice-0.3 would.
3. No central cultish leader. Sure it's nice to have what ESR described as the "benevilent dictator", the Linus or the Larry Wall. However, neither Miguel or Rasterman fill this role particularly well. They have the dictator thing down, but not the benevilence. Sometimes, I'd say the FreeBSD/XFree/Apache model of just a bunch of developers works pretty well.
Just some observations about the way Open Source software works in different cultures.