Yeah, but I think xine shows just how slow OMS development has been. The xine crew took the same stuff OMS was working with and made a player, that worked, in a much shorter timeframe than the OMS crew could. Besides which, I don't need a lot of new, fancy crap to get xine to compile, like you do with OMS. I'll be sticking with xine, my dual celeron 466s and full frame rate, TYVM.
*sigh* No, they would only be required to release the source if they release a binary. The GPL does not require you to release the source just because it's under the GPL.
What the heck is a person missing out on when they use pine or mutt(my choice)? Badly formatted html with atrocious use of fonts and colors? An email that takes minutes to load because it connects to 20 sites to download pictures and other assorted garbage? I would not call receiving email of this nature, "[living] life to the full".
But if Hasbro were to release Geek Fashion Designer for Windows and Linux, we would be able to learn how to dress ourselves appropriately. I can't wait.
Sorry, but if you listen in one of the scenes right after they get out of the landing pod, the computer explicitly says, "External oxygen detectors offline"(or something to that effect), so their suits couldn't tell them there was oxygen. As to the review, maybe the author should try watching the movie, instead of getting up every 5 mins to go to the bathrom or get another pop. It sounds like he didn't even try watching it, maybe he was too busy taking notes about what he thought he was seeing.
HURD is nowhere near mature enough for what mainframe computers need.
> But why don't they (IBM, SGI, et al) grab HURD and add to it all the things they find important for 'big iron' support?
Because they've already written their own operating systems for these systems! These aren't companies looking for an OS for their system because they don't have one, they're looking, I assume, for a unix[-like] OS for the large number of programs already written. A free OS like Linux is perfect because they aren't paying per license and have access to all of the source code.
What I don't understand is why IBM doesn't just take the Linux source code and adapt it to their computers. SGI already has their own Linux tree. Just because it isn't in the Linus' tree doesn't mean it's not worth doing. How many people actually have these huge computers to use the changes IBM would make, anyway? That's one of the nice things about open source, Linus can take the patches he likes from IBM's tree and apply it to his own.
There are already lots of kernel forks out there, however, everyone who HAS forked the kernel(SGI, embedded people, realtime people) are all following the GPL and make their changes available. Get used to it already, forks are here and now.
Hello McFly! Who's going to carry their TV to their friend's house to play against each other?? 27" TVs are plenty large enough for N64's 2x2 split screen and they're so cheap nowadays. Now, a network jack to hook up to my hub so I can download new skins for James Bond(even into memory, with ADSL, that's no problem), now THAT would be cool.
I knew, as soon as I posted, that this would be read the wrong way, and it's my fault. When I said that "You can bet this will happen too", I was referring to the DOJ/Judge Jackson's actions, not the action of the Supreme Court. I'm not certain which way the Supreme Court will swing. It's a very difficult choice that will have to be weighed carefully by the justices.
This really doesn't matter. Tomorrow the DOJ can formally ask for the Expediatary Act and the judge can certify the case as meeting the Act's stipulations. Then, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to take the case, out of the district court's hand. You can bet this will happen too.
Actually, I think he could fleece even more money out of everybody by releasing just the movies on DVD right now. Then, go back and release special editions with all the goodies after the next two movies are done. With 4+ years between the next two movies, that'd give plenty of market saturation with the bare movies, and then get even more with the special versions.
I don't see this as much more than a re-introduction than their Bronze line of Wavelan cards. The announcement doesn't mention anything about encryption and the price isn't even that good. At CDW you can pick up a Wavelan Gold PCMCIA card for $190 and you get 128 bit hardware encryption. The Bronze(no encryption), is only $128, much cheaper than their "intro" price of $179 for PC cards. The only good thing I see of this is that they are finally releasing their PCI cards, as I can't seem to find them anywhere. I'll definately be picking some of these up for my Workpad z50.
> I've grown to distrust pgcc though, as it breaks certain programs still, and you are made to think the program does not work when it would when compiled with normal gcc.
Yup, this is a really big problem IMHO. Distros that use pgcc as their default compiler are just support nightmares. I've seen many posts on the mailing lists I frequent from people having problems with Mandrake/pgcc, and then recompiling with gcc after someone suggests it, and everything working fine. When is everyone going to realize that gcc took all the sane optimizations from pgcc and rolled them into it's source??? I think pgcc is used because people don't understand this simple fact and don't know enough about the compiler options gcc offers.
I'd have to disagree with the author of this essay. I'm not even sure if this should be called an essay or just a plain rant. His first mistake is using the word bounty and shows he doesn't fully understand what sourceXchange, CoSource, etc are really about. He explains it very simply, leaving out(or forgetting) what's going on between the developer and the company. It will not be a simple, post the problem and wait for someone to finish it and reward them. There will have to be a lot of communication between the developer and company. The company will have to assess the developer's skills, experience, work ethic, etc. In the end, the company will have the choice of accepting or rejecting the developer's application to work on the project.
"The bounty model encourages people to hide their work from one another."
This is patently false. For some projects, it may be in a company's best interests to choose a closed source license, but I think most companies coming to CoSource/SourceXChange are going to know off the bat that CoSource/SourceXChange encourage and prefer open source model license use. There are many more factors that need to be taken into account, that the author does not. A good reading of both CoSource/SourceXChange web sites(which I don't think the author did) explains this very well. He assumes, automatically, that because these projects are for the evil corporations, they'll be closed source, which is an incorrect assumption.
"One of the chief reasons that free software is as good as it actually is, is that the developers work almost exclusively on things which they enjoy doing, taking the time to do each step of the process the right way, and under the auspices of making the program intrinsically better."
This is true, but again, it's the developer's choice to apply for the project. No one is going to be pressed into doing something they don't want to. Another thing that is mentioned quite a bit on CoSource/SourceXChange websites is that these projects are mostly things that the companies don't have the time or manpower to do. I also think that this is a boon to aspiring developers to gain recognition and add to their resume. I for one would enjoy being able to find something I would like to work on and do a good job on it. I often times have problems coming up with things, within my ability, to do. If this would help that problem, and I could get something(be it money, or hardware, or just experience) out of it, I'm all for it. Of course you're not going to see the next Perl or GCC compiler coming out of these projects but that's not the idea.
"The other motivation for writing free software which has been identified in a number of cases is the "scratch an itch" motivation"
Again, you're correct, but this is not free software development, in the traditional sense. This is someone(a company) posting what they need, and looking for someone to do it. That someone may have any number of motivations for doing the project. If the project turns sour, it's not that big of a deal and everyone learns from it. It's not that big of a deal, because, for one, the company is going to be posting critically needed projects, they'll use a more traditional approach to getting that done. Two, the only time wasted is by the developer. Companies aren't stupid, I doubt anyone is going to be paid until it's done, and done correctly. Again, this is all up to the contract between the company and developer.
"It's Not The Market's Model"
No, it's not, it's a NEW model. It's a model that's never been seen on this scale before. That's what the Internet is about, change. The author talks a lot about the best of the best programmers, but more than likely, they already have good jobs and may not be interested in this line of work. There may be terribly complex projects offered by these services, but there's a higher chance that there will be more smaller projects. The peer review process of SourceXChange sounds like it will alleviate the problems of just bad programming. A reviewer, of some expertise, will see how the project is going, and let the sponsor know if things are not up to par.
"5. It's Technically Difficult"
This point can't even stand on the legs the author tries to build it. These types of things have been done for a number of years now across the internet without problems. I wonder if the author has ever had to sign an NDA, or a contract with a company to develop software for their product. This can, and will be done over the Internet. It's cheaper, and faster. No telephone bills, no expensive plane flights, etc. I don't know if the author was serious about it or not, but I doubt anyone is going to depend on paying their rent with this system. At least not when it first starts. Who knows where the future will go though. Maybe someone does such a good job for a company, that they company ends up hiring them. A person just can't tell where this is going to go right now, it's so new.
Frankly, I think the author's "Another Approach" is a pipe dream. It's a fanciful idea but completely unworkable. I think that very few individual's interests would lie on the same track as a companies(unless they worked for that company, and then it's moot). Many ideas are posted on Usenet and mailing lists and webpages and I think that's those are appropriate places to post them. At least, these forums have a lot more bandwidth available than any end-all-be-all "I'll do it for a dollar" developer's idea website.
In closing, I think the author is viewing these services in an incorrect light. I think he feels threatened by them affecting the free/open source movements. He doesn't have anything to fear. Even if a project turns out to be a terrible program, there will be people out there, if they truly want to do something, that will develop a better program, in the spirit of open or free source.
I'd have to disagree with this line of thinking, at least for a game. As some have mentioned already, having a server handle most of the important details will cut down on client-side hacks and render them virtually useless. The hacks are going to happen whether or not you open the source up(I think the bots in Quake/Quake2 prove that). Opening the source has benefits as well. It allows more people to help make the network code as secure and non-exploitable as possible. Let people hack away at it and you're going to come out with a better product, if the interest is there. Unless you've got a lot of experience in writing very secure client/server networking code for games, you'd be better off drawing off the knowledge of the others out there that can help. I can understand distributed.net not releasing their source, because they're trying to conduct a fair and honest competition. They also have a lot more talent that they've taken aboard that are interested in the project. Chances are, you're not going to get that kind of help right away.
It's all about support. You buy the Cheapbytes version of RH 6.0 and you don't get any support, except what you find on the net, on your own. You buy the $35 MacMillan version, and I assume, you get all your support(30 days?) from MacMillan. If you buy the expensive, $70 Official RedHat distribution you get 30 days of tech support from RedHat. It's basically about the costs support, not content(though you do get different things, depending on which one you buy). RedHat offers the same $80 for $40, but you don't get any support, yet you get everything you would for that $80.
Abit motherboard's BIOS comes with an option to drive a USB keyboard through the BIOS or through the OS. So I would guess other BIOS' support this too.
> Does anyone know if there are any AGP video > cards that have accelerated X-windows support > and OpenGL support under Linux? It seems > the Voodoo3 boards don't,
Umm, there IS support for Voodoo3 under Linux for both X-windows and Q3A. http://glide.xxedgexx.com has the goods. Daryll Strauss, the maintainer, just released a glide port for the V3 that the author says works with Q3A.
Slashdot Mirror
Yeah, but I think xine shows just how slow OMS development has been. The xine crew took the same stuff OMS was working with and made a player, that worked, in a much shorter timeframe than the OMS crew could. Besides which, I don't need a lot of new, fancy crap to get xine to compile, like you do with OMS. I'll be sticking with xine, my dual celeron 466s and full frame rate, TYVM.
*sigh* No, they would only be required to release the source if they release a binary. The GPL does not require you to release the source just because it's under the GPL.
What the heck is a person missing out on when they use pine or mutt(my choice)? Badly formatted html with atrocious use of fonts and colors? An email that takes minutes to load because it connects to 20 sites to download pictures and other assorted garbage? I would not call receiving email of this nature, "[living] life to the full".
But if Hasbro were to release Geek Fashion Designer for Windows and Linux, we would be able to learn how to dress ourselves appropriately. I can't wait.
Sorry, but if you listen in one of the scenes right after they get out of the landing pod, the computer explicitly says, "External oxygen detectors offline"(or something to that effect), so their suits couldn't tell them there was oxygen. As to the review, maybe the author should try watching the movie, instead of getting up every 5 mins to go to the bathrom or get another pop. It sounds like he didn't even try watching it, maybe he was too busy taking notes about what he thought he was seeing.
Sorry to break it to you, but there aren't going to be any official XFree86 4.0 Potato debs. See this for details.
HURD is nowhere near mature enough for what mainframe computers need.
> But why don't they (IBM, SGI, et al) grab HURD and add to it all the things they find important for 'big iron' support?
Because they've already written their own operating systems for these systems! These aren't companies looking for an OS for their system because they don't have one, they're looking, I assume, for a unix[-like] OS for the large number of programs already written. A free OS like Linux is perfect because they aren't paying per license and have access to all of the source code.
What I don't understand is why IBM doesn't just take the Linux source code and adapt it to their computers. SGI already has their own Linux tree. Just because it isn't in the Linus' tree doesn't mean it's not worth doing. How many people actually have these huge computers to use the changes IBM would make, anyway? That's one of the nice things about open source, Linus can take the patches he likes from IBM's tree and apply it to his own.
There are already lots of kernel forks out there, however, everyone who HAS forked the kernel(SGI, embedded people, realtime people) are all following the GPL and make their changes available. Get used to it already, forks are here and now.
Hello McFly! Who's going to carry their TV to their friend's house to play against each other?? 27" TVs are plenty large enough for N64's 2x2 split screen and they're so cheap nowadays. Now, a network jack to hook up to my hub so I can download new skins for James Bond(even into memory, with ADSL, that's no problem), now THAT would be cool.
Uhh, what the heck are you doing running a 19" monitor at 1024x768?! :) Mine does 1600x1200 very nicely.
I knew, as soon as I posted, that this would be read the wrong way, and it's my fault. When I said that "You can bet this will happen too", I was referring to the DOJ/Judge Jackson's actions, not the action of the Supreme Court. I'm not certain which way the Supreme Court will swing. It's a very difficult choice that will have to be weighed carefully by the justices.
This really doesn't matter. Tomorrow the DOJ can formally ask for the Expediatary Act and the judge can certify the case as meeting the Act's stipulations. Then, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to take the case, out of the district court's hand. You can bet this will happen too.
Actually, I think he could fleece even more money
out of everybody by releasing just the movies on DVD right now. Then, go back and release special editions with all the goodies after the next two movies are done. With 4+ years between the next two movies, that'd give plenty of market saturation with the bare movies, and then get even more with the special versions.
I don't see this as much more than a re-introduction than their Bronze line of Wavelan cards. The announcement doesn't mention anything about encryption and the price isn't even that good. At CDW you can pick up a Wavelan Gold PCMCIA card for $190 and you get 128 bit hardware encryption. The Bronze(no encryption), is only $128, much cheaper than their "intro" price of $179 for PC cards. The only good thing I see of this is that they are finally releasing their PCI cards, as I can't seem to find them anywhere. I'll definately be picking some of these up for my Workpad z50.
> I've grown to distrust pgcc though, as it breaks certain programs still, and you are made to think the program does not work when it would when compiled with normal gcc.
Yup, this is a really big problem IMHO. Distros that use pgcc as their default compiler are just support nightmares. I've seen many posts on the mailing lists I frequent from people having problems with Mandrake/pgcc, and then recompiling with gcc after someone suggests it, and everything working fine. When is everyone going to realize that gcc took all the sane optimizations from pgcc and rolled them into it's source??? I think pgcc is used because people don't understand this simple fact and don't know enough about the compiler options gcc offers.
What's even more odd is that if you search for Hotbot, it takes you directly to Hotbot's webpage. What's up with that?
I'd have to disagree with the author of this essay. I'm not even sure if this should be called an essay or just a plain rant. His first mistake is using the word bounty and shows he doesn't fully understand what sourceXchange, CoSource, etc are really about. He explains it very simply, leaving out(or forgetting) what's going on between the developer and the company. It will not be a simple, post the problem and wait for someone to finish it and reward them. There will have to be a lot of communication between the developer and company. The company will have to assess the developer's skills, experience, work ethic, etc. In the end, the company will have the choice of accepting or rejecting the developer's application to work on the project.
"The bounty model encourages people to hide their work from one another."
This is patently false. For some projects, it may be in a company's best interests to choose a closed source license, but I think most companies coming to CoSource/SourceXChange are going to know off the bat that CoSource/SourceXChange encourage and prefer open source model license use. There are many more factors that need to be taken into account, that the author does not. A good reading of both CoSource/SourceXChange web sites(which I don't think the author did) explains this very well. He assumes, automatically, that because these projects are for the evil corporations, they'll be closed source, which is an incorrect assumption.
"One of the chief reasons that free software is as good as it actually is, is that the developers work almost exclusively on things which they enjoy
doing, taking the time to do each step of the process the right way, and under the auspices of making the program intrinsically better."
This is true, but again, it's the developer's choice to apply for the project. No one is going to be pressed into doing something they don't want to. Another thing that is mentioned quite a bit on CoSource/SourceXChange websites is that these projects are mostly things that the companies don't have the time or manpower to do. I also think that this is a boon to aspiring developers to gain recognition and add to their resume. I for one would enjoy being able to find something I would like to work on and do a good job on it. I often times have problems coming up with things, within my ability, to do. If this would help that problem, and I could get something(be it money, or hardware, or just experience) out of it, I'm all for it. Of course you're not going to see the next Perl or GCC compiler coming out of these projects but that's not the idea.
"The other motivation for writing free software which has been identified in a number of cases is the "scratch an itch" motivation"
Again, you're correct, but this is not free software development, in the traditional sense. This is someone(a company) posting what they need, and looking for someone to do it. That someone may have any number of motivations for doing the project. If the project turns sour, it's not that big of a deal and everyone learns from it. It's not that big of a deal, because, for one, the company is going to be posting critically needed projects, they'll use a more traditional approach to getting that done. Two, the only time wasted is by the developer. Companies aren't stupid, I doubt anyone is going to be paid until it's done, and done correctly. Again, this is all up to the contract between the company and developer.
"It's Not The Market's Model"
No, it's not, it's a NEW model. It's a model that's never been seen on this scale before. That's what the Internet is about, change. The author talks a lot about the best of the best programmers, but more than likely, they already have good jobs and may not be interested in this line of work. There may be terribly complex projects offered by these services, but there's a higher chance that there will be more smaller projects. The peer review process of SourceXChange sounds like it will alleviate the problems of just bad programming. A reviewer, of some expertise, will see how the project is going, and let the sponsor know if things are not up to par.
"5. It's Technically Difficult"
This point can't even stand on the legs the author tries to build it. These types of things have been done for a number of years now across the internet without problems. I wonder if the author has ever had to sign an NDA, or a contract with a company to develop software for their product. This can, and will be done over the Internet. It's cheaper, and faster. No telephone bills, no expensive plane flights, etc. I don't know if the author was serious about it or not, but I doubt anyone is going to depend on paying their rent with this system. At least not when it first starts. Who knows where the future will go though. Maybe someone does such a good job for a company, that they company ends up hiring them. A person just can't tell where this is going to go right now, it's so new.
Frankly, I think the author's "Another Approach" is a pipe dream. It's a fanciful idea but completely unworkable. I think that very few individual's interests would lie on the same track as a companies(unless they worked for that company, and then it's moot). Many ideas are posted on Usenet and mailing lists and webpages and I think that's those are appropriate places to post them. At least, these forums have a lot more bandwidth available than any end-all-be-all "I'll do it for a dollar" developer's idea website.
In closing, I think the author is viewing these services in an incorrect light. I think he feels threatened by them affecting the free/open source movements. He doesn't have anything to fear. Even if a project turns out to be a terrible program, there will be people out there, if they truly want to do something, that will develop a better program, in the spirit of open or free source.
I'd have to disagree with this line of thinking, at least for a game. As some have mentioned already, having a server handle most of the important details will cut down on client-side hacks and render them virtually useless. The hacks are going to happen whether or not you open the source up(I think the bots in Quake/Quake2 prove that). Opening the source has benefits as well. It allows more people to help make the network code as secure and non-exploitable as possible. Let people hack away at it and you're going to come out with a better product, if the interest is there. Unless you've got a lot of experience in writing very secure client/server networking code for games, you'd be better off drawing off the knowledge of the others out there that can help.
I can understand distributed.net not releasing their source, because they're trying to conduct a fair and honest competition. They also have a lot more talent that they've taken aboard that are interested in the project. Chances are, you're not going to get that kind of help right away.
Dodger_
Dodger_
It's all about support. You buy the Cheapbytes version of RH 6.0 and you don't get any support, except what you find on the net, on your own. You buy the $35 MacMillan version, and I assume, you get all your support(30 days?) from MacMillan. If you buy the expensive, $70 Official RedHat distribution you get 30 days of tech support from RedHat. It's basically about the costs support, not content(though you do get different things, depending on which one you buy). RedHat offers the same $80 for $40, but you don't get any support, yet you get everything you would for that $80.
Abit motherboard's BIOS comes with an option to drive a USB keyboard through the BIOS or through the OS. So I would guess other BIOS' support this too.
Dodger_
> Does anyone know if there are any AGP video
> cards that have accelerated X-windows support
> and OpenGL support under Linux? It seems
> the Voodoo3 boards don't,
Umm, there IS support for Voodoo3 under Linux for both X-windows and Q3A. http://glide.xxedgexx.com has the goods. Daryll Strauss, the maintainer, just released a glide port for the V3 that the author says works with Q3A.
Dodger_