What the software houses need to do is envisage IT products in terms of months of useful life, and not years, or even decades. The key issue here will become: "how long can this piece of software give me a competitive advantage before everybody has it?" Exclusive contracts with software houses will become the norm, before software is released "to the masses." Software products will be canibalized within months by the same company that originally produced it. Sales cycles will decrease to days, rather than months or years as it stands now.
This completely goes against the fundamental of software development. Producing quality non-trivial software is a long process. There's no way you can optimize it to the point of being able to satisfy a sale cycle measured in days.
Finally, for-profit companies will need to mobilize to head off the threat of Open-Source. Intrinsic motivation is a hard battle to fight, and software companies will need to fundamentally change the way they approach HR issues and corporate reporting hierarchies if they want to compete with a legion of programmers who write code because they want to and they enjoy it. Monetary compensation schemes simply can't bring that level of devotion to a task.
This conveniently ignore the fact that most Open-Source programmer are being paid to write OSS. Linux distributors and integrators , academic, corporate users are all employer of OSS programmers. Being paid for and enjoying programming is not mutually exclusive, though.
Internet Explorer 6.05.4053.0 and Outlook Express 7
As stated earlier, the huge memory leak from previous builds seems to be absent.
I have not been following Windows development very closely, but I as under the impression that all the OS (and associated applications) was being rewritten in C#. If this is the case, memory leak should not happen anymore. Is this right ? If yes, then I guess IE had not been completely rewritten yet.
IMAP still has to store it's messages some how. Both mbox and maildir work with courier-imap. Not sure about others..
Yes, but the MUA does not care what mailbox format the IMAP daemon use. I was responding to the guy who was surprised that only Kmail could store email locally in the Maildir format. IMHO, it's best (althought not always possible) not to store email locally and use IMAP folder instead. This raise another set of problem (unthetered access, or access through a slow link, etc), but for most email usage pattern, IMAP is best.
... the ability to use vi as my mail editor. This is why I stuck with Mutt. I would love to use a GUI to naviguate my mail, but I spend much more time composing mail so that is what I decided to optimize. I have been told that you can coax Kmail into using the Kvim Kpart for mail composing (this K- naming convention is getting ridiculous...), but never got around to try it. Well, I guess I could use both a GUI for navigating my mail and Mutt for composition, but that would get cumbersome...
I also wish somebody would embbed vim in Web browser. Editing in those damn HTML textarea is a fscking pain !
Exactly the worst thing you could do. Recommending Gentoo to just any newbie is counter-productive advocacy.
When you make a recommendation, you have to take your target audience into account. You should not recommend Gentoo for someone who don't care about the innard of his OS and just want to use a word processor, read his email, surf the Web and play a game or three. They don't want to get past the GUI, they just want to get things done.
Power user, system administrator and programmer are a totally different story and *may* be good candidate to recommend Gentoo to.
That's so obvious, I can't believe it have to be said.
My biggest Perl project is a 5KLOC Perl module. I don't know if that make me qualified to answer your question, but here's my 0.02$ : best practice for large-scale Perl program are the same as with any language. A few:
1. Use descriptive name for variables, functions, objects, etc. Stick to a convention here.
2. Also stick to a coding standard (brace style, ident, etc).
3. Write good comment, but don't overdo it. Especially true for regexp, where you should describe what you want to match and what constraint you take into account.
4. The most important: generalize as much of your code as possible into object or package.
5. A corrolary of 4 is to re-use existing library. Search CPAN and prefer well-known package over more obscure one.
The only Perl-specific advice I would have is to avoid obscure and lesser-known Perl construct such s compiled regexp, closure, use of local(), etc. If you do use one of these construct, explain the purpose of doing so in a comment, and give pointer to documentation on the subject if appropriate.
Back in the 80's, it was OK to make fun of people and organization. I wonder if the publisher will have to tone down the game because of the prevalence of political correctness today.
With all due respect, you hack on whatever you want. But don't you think it would be better to work on a more current video chipset (ie one that is still being manufactured) ? There must a ton of Voodoo 2 card out there, but they are slowly falling out of use. IMHO, your precious hacking time would be better spent on (for example) reverse enginnering the GF2 or GF4 to get some level of Open-Source support for this very common chipset. Or improving the Open-Source Radeon 8500 driver.
Do get me wrong; I know in the end, you owe me nothing and are totally free to work on whatever suit your fancy. I'm just looking for the best investment possible for my 0.02$.
Yes you do, but in case you haven't noticed, a much larger percentage of senior federal politicians, civil servant, military generals and such are all from Quebec. The fact is, the last non-Quebecois to be PM for more than 12 months was Lester B. Peason - in 1968!
There's a reason for that. Quebec represent a significant chunk of Canada's riding (25%). This 25% won't vote for someone whom they can't understand. Francophone PM candidate speak english fluently (exception: Chretien, but he does'nt speak french very well either). Anglophone PM candidate most of the time barely speak French and can't make themselves understood. When you can't communicate with 25% of your electorate, you start with a hell of an handicap.
I'd like to see where you get the idea that a majority of senior civil servant and military general are French Canadian. Actually, particuliarly in the military, it's quite the opposite. I'd love to be proven wrong though, so feel free to dig statistic that would support your point, if such a thing exist.
The seperatist viewpoint stems largly from ignorance of the "rest of Canada". Such ignorance fails to take into acount that for instance, socially BC is far closer to Quebec than to Alberta. The "rest of Canada" doesn't exist outside of Quebec. It's a shame that seperatists like yourself fail to see this.
Indeed, people in Quebec don't know much about the ROC, just as they don't don't know much about the US, or Europe, or the Middle-East, or just as Anglo-Canadian don't know much about us either.
Keep in mind that the only thing that has prevented Quebec from becoming either primarily anglophone or completely irrelavent is the fact that is is part of a greater institution called Canada. Unfortunate, but true nonetheless.
How ? Why ?
What prevented Quebec from becoming primarly anglophone is the fact that, in spite of being a minority in the federation, we are a majority in our own "province" and act as such. Outside of Quebec (and New-Brunswick), francophone have been or are in way of being totally assimilated, the grater institution called Canada notwhitstanding.
Actually, we are irrevelant to anybody except us.
Now, this does not negate the fact that within Canada, Quebec has a unique place - it's own laws, institutions and language - but make no mistake, Quebecois (as those from any area of the country) are best served by a strong union, regardless of our differences, than by any other method of government.
Again, I ask : How ? Why ? The little autonomy and institution we have, we constantly have to fight to keep. There is nothing the federal governement would like more than to make us "just another province"...
This is the typical strawman argument carried over by federalist. Discussing the Constitution (or more precisely, the status of this *cough*federation*cough*) does not preclude discussing job, healthcare or education. Actually, as soon as you discuss the financing of one of these issues, you actually discuss about the "Constitution" because you have to sort out juridiction. We could do without this bullshit by accessing to our independance and having a single layer of governement.
As I said in another post, this federation is totally ackward. Provincial governements (who does most of the spending anyway) should be collecting all the taxes, then make transfert to the federal to pay for military, foreign relation, perequation, etc. Instead we are stuck with inadequate financing of social programs in part because the federal is more interested in peppering candy around. But no change will ever happen to this federation because "people don't want to talk about the federation"...
If we want anything to move, the only way is out. That's all. The alternative is the status quo (or more precisely, slow assimilation of all form of governance by the federal governement) because the ROC is totally apathic to how this *cough*federation*cough* is being runned and don't want to talk about way to improve it.
For once the current issues where the liberals apparantly gave tons of money to Quebec to play nice, then the fact that Quebec within Canada is actually rather independent already.
It's a persistent myth that Quebec is receiving "tons of money" from the federal, but it's unfortunately untrue. I would certainly like it to be true, but where's the money exactly ? Certainly not in federal trasnfert, which have been cut drastically in early 90s, and certainly not in federal spending either (where Quebec constantly received a smaller share of military spending, agriculture subsidies, etc).
Also, keep in mind that the level of independance we currently enjoy in the federation (which is no more than any other province enjoy, actually) is under constant erosion. The federal is getting his foot in many juridiction, if not against the word of the Constitution then definitely against its meaning. The ROC basically don't care because they see their provincial administration as just another level of governement (comparable to the municipal level), where Quebecois see their provinvcial governement as their national body of governance. This is where, IMHO, the biggest dichotomy about the vision of how this country is structured happen between Quebec vs. the ROC..
Looking at all of this I have to conclude that Quebec already got the cake and is eating large parts of it too.
It depend on which cake you are talking about. We pay federal taxes too, you know.
What exactly it is that Quebec hopes to gain by seperating from the rest of Canada is somewhat beyond me.
First and foremost, a country we can call our own. I am not a Canadian, never felt like one and probably never will. Not that Canadian are bad peoples[*], they are just not my people (not anymore than, say, French or American).
Second, a country where the influence of my people is not diluted by the rest of the federation. It is well-known fact that Quebecois tend to be more social-democrat than the rest of the country for example (this is one of the reason why the Refor^WCanadian Alliance never gained ground here). By getting control of 100% of our political institution, we have the possibility to have a governement closer to our view (of course, assuming a democracy that work, which is not the case right now and I don't see independance changing that).
Third, eliminating a wasteful level of governance. Most of the spending (education, healthcare, welfare) happen at the provincial level. Why the fsck do we need to be taxed at the federal level when most of the spending happen the provincial one ? The current system of federal transfert is totally ackward; it should be the other way, ie provincial governement collect all taxes then transfert money to pay for federal-level service (military, foreign relation, etc). But this is never going to change in the current federation, as the ROC is totally apathic to this absurdity.
There are more reasons, but I don't feel like spending my whole afternoon explaining them. Learn a little French and read Quebec francophone media. You will get the other side of the story. A side where there is actually a debate on the subject instead of the systematic evil portrayal of the independantist movement being done in Anglo-Canadian media.
This is, I think, the worst part of the story. Outside of Quebec's (francophone) media, the only things you can read about Quebec independance movement is bullshit, bigotry and propaganda. And since that's basically the only side of the story that foreigners come in contact with, independantist keep getting viewed as fascist, foam-at-the-mouth zealots when most are actually progressive, liberal and intellectual. Ho well!
*: this is a common misconception to be believe that Quebecois want to separate because they hate Anglo-Canadian. This is not true. I don't hate Anglo-Canadian any more than I hate French or American. Actually, from my trip across Canada (I've done coast-to-coast) I think they are mostly nice, generous and well-pondered people. It's just that I don't feel any tie to them (at least not anymore than to, say, American).
Hrm, I won't argue about the "pro-seperatists [...] restriciting views that aren't in line with the separitist mantra" since it is true for too much "pro-seperatist" that don't like the idea of sane public debate (and the same could be said about the other side).
I personnally think a sane public on the Canadian *cough*federation*cough* would benefit the independantist movement, as the sole option the ROC is interested in is the status quo. If "separatist" are so anti-debate, how come the federalist constantly claim they don't want to discuss about "Constitution" (actually, they mean "face this federation's deficiencies") ? Because people don't want to hear about it ? How convenient... but actually, federalist prefer to avoid the debate because they have nothing to propose, period.
I'm an independantist*, and I don't have problems with Esther Delisle's view. Actually, like most Quebec's sovereignist I know, it's quite the opposite : I'd like more debate, as the current state of total political void in Canada is hurting our option. But, he, don't tell that too loud, it might get in the way of the FUD campaign led against Quebec's independantist.
Quebec does not have a monopoly on political correctness. On anti-semitism either, for that matter.
[*] I am not a separatist, because separation is just a step toward independance, not the goal itself. The semantic game played by federalist is getting quite pathetic.
I strongly second the idea of offering your files via BitTorrent only. If, however, you must continue to offer them via plain HTTP, you should be able to cook up something with a custom Apache module. I suggest to have a look at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wrapmod/
Slashdot Mirror
How would a competitor "use the drivers they release to boost their products development/sales" ?
How would releasing the source to a drivers they give away with their hardware make them lose revenue ?
Can it send packet ?
This completely goes against the fundamental of software development. Producing quality non-trivial software is a long process. There's no way you can optimize it to the point of being able to satisfy a sale cycle measured in days.
This conveniently ignore the fact that most Open-Source programmer are being paid to write OSS. Linux distributors and integrators , academic, corporate users are all employer of OSS programmers. Being paid for and enjoying programming is not mutually exclusive, though.
...due somewhen in 2006 will render a 2004 software obsolete. Hey Sherlock, here's a cookie for your perspicacity !
I have not been following Windows development very closely, but I as under the impression that all the OS (and associated applications) was being rewritten in C#. If this is the case, memory leak should not happen anymore. Is this right ? If yes, then I guess IE had not been completely rewritten yet.
Call me a troll, but I think it would really help the automotive industry if there was only one or two manufacturers, not 10 or 20.
IMAP still has to store it's messages some how. Both mbox and maildir work with courier-imap. Not sure about others..
Yes, but the MUA does not care what mailbox format the IMAP daemon use. I was responding to the guy who was surprised that only Kmail could store email locally in the Maildir format. IMHO, it's best (althought not always possible) not to store email locally and use IMAP folder instead. This raise another set of problem (unthetered access, or access through a slow link, etc), but for most email usage pattern, IMAP is best.
... the ability to use vi as my mail editor. This is why I stuck with Mutt. I would love to use a GUI to naviguate my mail, but I spend much more time composing mail so that is what I decided to optimize. I have been told that you can coax Kmail into using the Kvim Kpart for mail composing (this K- naming convention is getting ridiculous ...), but never got around to try it. Well, I guess I could use both a GUI for navigating my mail and Mutt for composition, but that would get cumbersome ...
I also wish somebody would embbed vim in Web browser. Editing in those damn HTML textarea is a fscking pain !
The fonts and formatting all work splendidly in Rich Text mode, which is 200% less suck-tastic than HTML mail.
Yeah, the winmail.dat attachment work splendidly. If only I could read it now ...
I also find it strange that only a single one (KMail) supports Maildir. The rest are mbox. I thought Maildir was the future?
IMAP is the future.
Don't know about Gentoo, but under RedHat, it's called mkinitrd. Or at least it was last time I had to use it (about 2 years ago).
Exactly the worst thing you could do. Recommending Gentoo to just any newbie is counter-productive advocacy.
When you make a recommendation, you have to take your target audience into account. You should not recommend Gentoo for someone who don't care about the innard of his OS and just want to use a word processor, read his email, surf the Web and play a game or three. They don't want to get past the GUI, they just want to get things done.
Power user, system administrator and programmer are a totally different story and *may* be good candidate to recommend Gentoo to.
That's so obvious, I can't believe it have to be said.
This "plug-in" scheme look totally redundant with SPF to me.
My biggest Perl project is a 5KLOC Perl module. I don't know if that make me qualified to answer your question, but here's my 0.02$ : best practice for large-scale Perl program are the same as with any language. A few :
1. Use descriptive name for variables, functions, objects, etc. Stick to a convention here.
2. Also stick to a coding standard (brace style, ident, etc).
3. Write good comment, but don't overdo it. Especially true for regexp, where you should describe what you want to match and what constraint you take into account.
4. The most important: generalize as much of your code as possible into object or package.
5. A corrolary of 4 is to re-use existing library. Search CPAN and prefer well-known package over more obscure one.
The only Perl-specific advice I would have is to avoid obscure and lesser-known Perl construct such s compiled regexp, closure, use of local(), etc. If you do use one of these construct, explain the purpose of doing so in a comment, and give pointer to documentation on the subject if appropriate.
Back in the 80's, it was OK to make fun of people and organization. I wonder if the publisher will have to tone down the game because of the prevalence of political correctness today.
With all due respect, you hack on whatever you want. But don't you think it would be better to work on a more current video chipset (ie one that is still being manufactured) ? There must a ton of Voodoo 2 card out there, but they are slowly falling out of use. IMHO, your precious hacking time would be better spent on (for example) reverse enginnering the GF2 or GF4 to get some level of Open-Source support for this very common chipset. Or improving the Open-Source Radeon 8500 driver.
Do get me wrong; I know in the end, you owe me nothing and are totally free to work on whatever suit your fancy. I'm just looking for the best investment possible for my 0.02$.
Yes you do, but in case you haven't noticed, a much larger percentage of senior federal politicians, civil servant, military generals and such are all from Quebec. The fact is, the last non-Quebecois to be PM for more than 12 months was Lester B. Peason - in 1968!
There's a reason for that. Quebec represent a significant chunk of Canada's riding (25%). This 25% won't vote for someone whom they can't understand. Francophone PM candidate speak english fluently (exception: Chretien, but he does'nt speak french very well either). Anglophone PM candidate most of the time barely speak French and can't make themselves understood. When you can't communicate with 25% of your electorate, you start with a hell of an handicap.
I'd like to see where you get the idea that a majority of senior civil servant and military general are French Canadian. Actually, particuliarly in the military, it's quite the opposite. I'd love to be proven wrong though, so feel free to dig statistic that would support your point, if such a thing exist.
The seperatist viewpoint stems largly from ignorance of the "rest of Canada". Such ignorance fails to take into acount that for instance, socially BC is far closer to Quebec than to Alberta. The "rest of Canada" doesn't exist outside of Quebec. It's a shame that seperatists like yourself fail to see this.Indeed, people in Quebec don't know much about the ROC, just as they don't don't know much about the US, or Europe, or the Middle-East, or just as Anglo-Canadian don't know much about us either.
Keep in mind that the only thing that has prevented Quebec from becoming either primarily anglophone or completely irrelavent is the fact that is is part of a greater institution called Canada. Unfortunate, but true nonetheless.
How ? Why ?
What prevented Quebec from becoming primarly anglophone is the fact that, in spite of being a minority in the federation, we are a majority in our own "province" and act as such. Outside of Quebec (and New-Brunswick), francophone have been or are in way of being totally assimilated, the grater institution called Canada notwhitstanding.
Actually, we are irrevelant to anybody except us.
Now, this does not negate the fact that within Canada, Quebec has a unique place - it's own laws, institutions and language - but make no mistake, Quebecois (as those from any area of the country) are best served by a strong union, regardless of our differences, than by any other method of government.
Again, I ask : How ? Why ? The little autonomy and institution we have, we constantly have to fight to keep. There is nothing the federal governement would like more than to make us "just another province" ...
This is the typical strawman argument carried over by federalist. Discussing the Constitution (or more precisely, the status of this *cough*federation*cough*) does not preclude discussing job, healthcare or education. Actually, as soon as you discuss the financing of one of these issues, you actually discuss about the "Constitution" because you have to sort out juridiction. We could do without this bullshit by accessing to our independance and having a single layer of governement.
...
As I said in another post, this federation is totally ackward. Provincial governements (who does most of the spending anyway) should be collecting all the taxes, then make transfert to the federal to pay for military, foreign relation, perequation, etc. Instead we are stuck with inadequate financing of social programs in part because the federal is more interested in peppering candy around. But no change will ever happen to this federation because "people don't want to talk about the federation"
If we want anything to move, the only way is out. That's all. The alternative is the status quo (or more precisely, slow assimilation of all form of governance by the federal governement) because the ROC is totally apathic to how this *cough*federation*cough* is being runned and don't want to talk about way to improve it.
The Rest Of Canada. Sorry for the assumption.
For once the current issues where the liberals apparantly gave tons of money to Quebec to play nice, then the fact that Quebec within Canada is actually rather independent already.
It's a persistent myth that Quebec is receiving "tons of money" from the federal, but it's unfortunately untrue. I would certainly like it to be true, but where's the money exactly ? Certainly not in federal trasnfert, which have been cut drastically in early 90s, and certainly not in federal spending either (where Quebec constantly received a smaller share of military spending, agriculture subsidies, etc).
Also, keep in mind that the level of independance we currently enjoy in the federation (which is no more than any other province enjoy, actually) is under constant erosion. The federal is getting his foot in many juridiction, if not against the word of the Constitution then definitely against its meaning. The ROC basically don't care because they see their provincial administration as just another level of governement (comparable to the municipal level), where Quebecois see their provinvcial governement as their national body of governance. This is where, IMHO, the biggest dichotomy about the vision of how this country is structured happen between Quebec vs. the ROC..
Looking at all of this I have to conclude that Quebec already got the cake and is eating large parts of it too.
It depend on which cake you are talking about. We pay federal taxes too, you know.
What exactly it is that Quebec hopes to gain by seperating from the rest of Canada is somewhat beyond me.
First and foremost, a country we can call our own. I am not a Canadian, never felt like one and probably never will. Not that Canadian are bad peoples[*], they are just not my people (not anymore than, say, French or American).
Second, a country where the influence of my people is not diluted by the rest of the federation. It is well-known fact that Quebecois tend to be more social-democrat than the rest of the country for example (this is one of the reason why the Refor^WCanadian Alliance never gained ground here). By getting control of 100% of our political institution, we have the possibility to have a governement closer to our view (of course, assuming a democracy that work, which is not the case right now and I don't see independance changing that).
Third, eliminating a wasteful level of governance. Most of the spending (education, healthcare, welfare) happen at the provincial level. Why the fsck do we need to be taxed at the federal level when most of the spending happen the provincial one ? The current system of federal transfert is totally ackward; it should be the other way, ie provincial governement collect all taxes then transfert money to pay for federal-level service (military, foreign relation, etc). But this is never going to change in the current federation, as the ROC is totally apathic to this absurdity.
There are more reasons, but I don't feel like spending my whole afternoon explaining them. Learn a little French and read Quebec francophone media. You will get the other side of the story. A side where there is actually a debate on the subject instead of the systematic evil portrayal of the independantist movement being done in Anglo-Canadian media.
This is, I think, the worst part of the story. Outside of Quebec's (francophone) media, the only things you can read about Quebec independance movement is bullshit, bigotry and propaganda. And since that's basically the only side of the story that foreigners come in contact with, independantist keep getting viewed as fascist, foam-at-the-mouth zealots when most are actually progressive, liberal and intellectual. Ho well!
*: this is a common misconception to be believe that Quebecois want to separate because they hate Anglo-Canadian. This is not true. I don't hate Anglo-Canadian any more than I hate French or American. Actually, from my trip across Canada (I've done coast-to-coast) I think they are mostly nice, generous and well-pondered people. It's just that I don't feel any tie to them (at least not anymore than to, say, American).
Typical French, "We surrender!"
Typical anglo-saxon bigotry.
Hrm, I won't argue about the "pro-seperatists [...] restriciting views that aren't in line with the separitist mantra" since it is true for too much "pro-seperatist" that don't like the idea of sane public debate (and the same could be said about the other side).
I personnally think a sane public on the Canadian *cough*federation*cough* would benefit the independantist movement, as the sole option the ROC is interested in is the status quo. If "separatist" are so anti-debate, how come the federalist constantly claim they don't want to discuss about "Constitution" (actually, they mean "face this federation's deficiencies") ? Because people don't want to hear about it ? How convenient ... but actually, federalist prefer to avoid the debate because they have nothing to propose, period.
I'm an independantist*, and I don't have problems with Esther Delisle's view. Actually, like most Quebec's sovereignist I know, it's quite the opposite : I'd like more debate, as the current state of total political void in Canada is hurting our option. But, he, don't tell that too loud, it might get in the way of the FUD campaign led against Quebec's independantist.
Quebec does not have a monopoly on political correctness. On anti-semitism either, for that matter.
[*] I am not a separatist, because separation is just a step toward independance, not the goal itself. The semantic game played by federalist is getting quite pathetic.
I strongly second the idea of offering your files via BitTorrent only. If, however, you must continue to offer them via plain HTTP, you should be able to cook up something with a custom Apache module. I suggest to have a look at http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/wrapmod/