Just wait, I was at SpeechTek this year, and Microsoft is about to release SALT. The "open-standard" used to create "Mulit-modal" websites, and put speech rec and text to speech in just about every application you use. If you think flash is annoying, just wait until the the people developing with flash try to make speech recognition and text to speech enabled websites....ugh
Given the popularity of OpenOffice, and the up and coming KDE officeware project, where does microsoft stand to make any money? Giving windows away is not a solution for microsoft. They have to start making non-duplicable applications for windows if they want to continue making money off of it.
I thought the beauty of a Mach microkernel is that it is only in charge of passing messages...if there were hard drive/serial io issues wouldn't that be a limitation of the disk io server? I'm sure someone out there has an answer for this...in fact I'm sure that if I looked hard enough I could find a good explanation of this. However, given that this project has been going on for so long, and it is probably the most idealistic of all of the GNU projects, shouldn't they have gotten the mach piece right before they started everything else? Let the reasonable responses begin...
We've all heard that a million monkeys, banging on a million typewriters, would eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare.
So, as soon as you throw a moderator on that equation (survival) all of a sudden you have a learning algorithm that throws away anything that isn't any good.
I understand RMS's problem that the majority of software that is used in conjunction with the linux kernel is GNU. But I find flaw in his argument that the linux kernel is only one small piece.
If that were the case, then why is it that GNU hasn't been able to produce a working (and by working I mean production quality) kernel. I know all about HURD, and have even installed it, but it falls short of even ancient linux kernels. He can complain all he wants but where's the beef...errr kernel?
I have to agree with his argument of binary only drivers, but that is not Linux/Linus's fault, if companys choose to release closed source linux drivers so be it. But, the fact that RMS/GNU/HURD is obviously not planning on distributing any closed source drivers, more than likely means that they will never see acceptance. Which also means we will have several more spiteful essays to read from RMS. joy.
Actually we are all right (a little).
Here is apple specification for Quartz.
This basically states that quartz uses a Post Script -like style for drawing, but is also "based" on PDF.
Because photoshop uses 2D graphics and lightwave uses 3D graphics. When apple said they concentrated on usablity, they also realized people would want games. So they skipped writing 2D acceleration for the entire os but made sure that they had the best OpenGL (3D) acceleration on the market.
So, to answer your question, 3D runs fine, 2D has no acceleration, so anything that uses considerable 2D redrawing will be some percent slower, while 3D should be as fast or faster.
The main reason that people are complaining about the speed, is the fact that OS X uses Post Script to store and draw pretty much everything. This Post Script Engine is what gives the GUI its beauty and its lack of speed. The GUI, as it stands now, has no support for 2D hardware acceleration. This is mostly due to the fact that todays graphics cards were not intended to support 2D Post Script Acceleration directly. This is the problem that needs to be fixed.
Alot of the issues surrounding OS X's percieved speed will hopefully be resolved with the 10.2 upgrade. There should be some components that will have hardware acceleration support. So, as already stated in the article, apple wanted the user experience first and the speed second. As we have seen each revision of the os has provided better performance. The good news is it can only get better.
There is one other really cool feature that was left out. The new version of the iPod software now supports address book syncing with Microsoft Entourage (read outlook for Mac OS) as well as OS X's built in address book.
This story isn't about bashing linux and it's place on a mainframe. It's on the use of a propriotary os to provide a virtual machine for any os not designed to be run in a virtual maching in the first place.
No need to start flame wars about how sun is trying to knock Linux (mostly because there isn't anything to knock).
It should be noted though, the fact that they compare pricing of a 1 cpu mainframe to a 1U rackmount is insane. What they don't talk about is the fact that
NO ONE
buys a single cpu room sized mainframe (at least now that venture capitol has dried up).
The Itanium is going to have some competition with itself as well, comsidering the prospect of having a much "slower" (MHz wise) processor. As far as I know AMD's Hammer chips will not be slower than the Athlon XP's. This is one more area that AMD can gain a little more ground on intel.
The issue here isn't that they can't release a new VXML spec. It is that the new spec will logically include ideas that have been patented by other companies.
The big problem is that VXML is currently at 1.0 and companies are pantenting extensions to that spec. Here is a prime example of how rather than getting involved with creating the spec and helping to push out new revisions, the companies start patenting every obvious thing missing from the 1.0 specification. This is obviously going to prevent further revision implementations from emerging from any company that isn't as rich as HP or IBM or MS etc.
As for the usefulness of VXML whoever posted this story missed the boat. VXML isn't used to make your server speak it is used to quickly create a IVR system. This is really a useful ability that few slashdotters have realized.
Apple's point translates further than just using widgets. Anyone who has used their "Interface Builder" knows that it attempts to force certain things on the developer. There are 'strict' guidelines about how things should line up and how far they should be from the edge of the screen etc etc. The interface builder does more than suggest, it actual has 'snap to' rulers and has very specific rules about window resizing.
Basically they figured that if they are going to have a design spec for an application they might as well make it easy for the developer to follow.
Slashdot Mirror
uh huh...and when I was in highschool I realized I had "spidey powers" and I have been defending NYC ever since.
Just wait, I was at SpeechTek this year, and Microsoft is about to release SALT. The "open-standard" used to create "Mulit-modal" websites, and put speech rec and text to speech in just about every application you use. If you think flash is annoying, just wait until the the people developing with flash try to make speech recognition and text to speech enabled websites....ugh
Given the popularity of OpenOffice, and the up and coming KDE officeware project, where does microsoft stand to make any money? Giving windows away is not a solution for microsoft. They have to start making non-duplicable applications for windows if they want to continue making money off of it.
Given that Microsoft can stand to make a little less profit on its sales of Windows. Is this really all that surprising?
I thought the beauty of a Mach microkernel is that it is only in charge of passing messages...if there were hard drive/serial io issues wouldn't that be a limitation of the disk io server? I'm sure someone out there has an answer for this...in fact I'm sure that if I looked hard enough I could find a good explanation of this. However, given that this project has been going on for so long, and it is probably the most idealistic of all of the GNU projects, shouldn't they have gotten the mach piece right before they started everything else? Let the reasonable responses begin...
We've all heard that a million monkeys, banging on a million typewriters, would eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare.
So, as soon as you throw a moderator on that equation (survival) all of a sudden you have a learning algorithm that throws away anything that isn't any good.
Sorry I couldn't help myself. =)
I understand RMS's problem that the majority of software that is used in conjunction with the linux kernel is GNU. But I find flaw in his argument that the linux kernel is only one small piece.
If that were the case, then why is it that GNU hasn't been able to produce a working (and by working I mean production quality) kernel. I know all about HURD, and have even installed it, but it falls short of even ancient linux kernels. He can complain all he wants but where's the beef...errr kernel?
I have to agree with his argument of binary only drivers, but that is not Linux/Linus's fault, if companys choose to release closed source linux drivers so be it. But, the fact that RMS/GNU/HURD is obviously not planning on distributing any closed source drivers, more than likely means that they will never see acceptance. Which also means we will have several more spiteful essays to read from RMS. joy.
Actually we are all right (a little). Here is apple specification for Quartz. This basically states that quartz uses a Post Script -like style for drawing, but is also "based" on PDF.
Because photoshop uses 2D graphics and lightwave uses 3D graphics. When apple said they concentrated on usablity, they also realized people would want games. So they skipped writing 2D acceleration for the entire os but made sure that they had the best OpenGL (3D) acceleration on the market.
So, to answer your question, 3D runs fine, 2D has no acceleration, so anything that uses considerable 2D redrawing will be some percent slower, while 3D should be as fast or faster.
The main reason that people are complaining about the speed, is the fact that OS X uses Post Script to store and draw pretty much everything. This Post Script Engine is what gives the GUI its beauty and its lack of speed. The GUI, as it stands now, has no support for 2D hardware acceleration. This is mostly due to the fact that todays graphics cards were not intended to support 2D Post Script Acceleration directly. This is the problem that needs to be fixed.
Alot of the issues surrounding OS X's percieved speed will hopefully be resolved with the 10.2 upgrade. There should be some components that will have hardware acceleration support. So, as already stated in the article, apple wanted the user experience first and the speed second. As we have seen each revision of the os has provided better performance. The good news is it can only get better.
There is one other really cool feature that was left out. The new version of the iPod software now supports address book syncing with Microsoft Entourage (read outlook for Mac OS) as well as OS X's built in address book.
The information on it can be found here.
No need to start flame wars about how sun is trying to knock Linux (mostly because there isn't anything to knock).
It should be noted though, the fact that they compare pricing of a 1 cpu mainframe to a 1U rackmount is insane. What they don't talk about is the fact that
- NO ONE
buys a single cpu room sized mainframe (at least now that venture capitol has dried up).The Itanium is going to have some competition with itself as well, comsidering the prospect of having a much "slower" (MHz wise) processor. As far as I know AMD's Hammer chips will not be slower than the Athlon XP's. This is one more area that AMD can gain a little more ground on intel.
The issue here isn't that they can't release a new VXML spec. It is that the new spec will logically include ideas that have been patented by other companies.
The big problem is that VXML is currently at 1.0 and companies are pantenting extensions to that spec. Here is a prime example of how rather than getting involved with creating the spec and helping to push out new revisions, the companies start patenting every obvious thing missing from the 1.0 specification. This is obviously going to prevent further revision implementations from emerging from any company that isn't as rich as HP or IBM or MS etc.
As for the usefulness of VXML whoever posted this story missed the boat. VXML isn't used to make your server speak it is used to quickly create a IVR system. This is really a useful ability that few slashdotters have realized.
Apple's point translates further than just using widgets. Anyone who has used their "Interface Builder" knows that it attempts to force certain things on the developer. There are 'strict' guidelines about how things should line up and how far they should be from the edge of the screen etc etc. The interface builder does more than suggest, it actual has 'snap to' rulers and has very specific rules about window resizing.
Basically they figured that if they are going to have a design spec for an application they might as well make it easy for the developer to follow.