That's a source level interface tho, with the sourcecode you can recompile it... Companies will not release their current games as sourcecode for end users to compile (tho ID tend to release old ones), and end users probably wouldn't know how to compile them anyway.
What i meant, was a platform agnostic binary interface, where a precompiled binary can be executed on any compatible hardware. You can currently achieve this effect, kinda, using win32 so long as your app doesn't use anything not implemented by wine, however this situation is obviously far from ideal.
There is a project called x86abi (www.x86abi.org) which does what i describe, but it seems to be in a very early planning stage right now.
Firstly, the feature set 10 years ago would have been much simpler, making conversion easier...
But on the other hand, if you can't guarantee an ability to still read the files in 10 years then your product is unsuitable for many serious uses. Not only that, but anyone foolish enough to use such a product without receiving such guarantees deserves to lose access to their data.
Actually, microsoft do have the right to snoop around your system and to send any information they want back to them. You gave them this right when you accepted the EULA. Don't believe me? read it more carefully.
On linux i've always kept apps open when not using them too, i just leave them in another workspace until i need them again... closing down apps you've finished with is a windows habit, because windows gets bogged down and slower when you have more apps running, plus the extra apps clutter up the taskbar and alt-tab list, because the interface is completely unsuitable for using more than a couple of apps.
And in so many cases you NEED to dictate a format, and in all cases the "format" is openly documented:
Electricity is supplied at a given voltage, you MUST use appliances which accept this voltage. Roads are supplied flat and covered with tarmac, you MUST use roadworthy vehicles, no trains etc. Gas is supplied in a small number of standard forms, you MUST drive a car which runs on one of them. Movies come on VHS or DVD, you MUST use one or the other (and yes anyone is free to create or play unencrypted DVDs)
We have standard cables, plugs and sockets, pipes, etc... Why should electronic data be any different?
Immature yes, beta quality yes, beta? arguably... However it was not sold as beta, it was sold as a fully blown production ready app, and countless millions believed the marketting hype and bought it. That said, if your advertising something as production quality then you lose the excuse of it being beta.
Your right about application choice...
But windows takes away your operating system choice, since there is no other OS which is compatible with it in either source or binary form.
Most unixes at least are source compatible, and many can execute alien binaries (FreeBSD can run linux binaries for instance)..
What we really need, is an os-independant binary format and set of APIs, so that a program can be written/compiled once, and then executed unmodified on any OS running on compatible hardware... Kind of like java, but using native x86 code so as not to suffer the performance and resource usage penalties...
There is such a project, called X86ABI, but it's in a very early development stage right now.
I have bought boxed linux distributions before, but i would never do so on blind faith. I've always tried each given distribution (via a free download) before i've given any money to them, and the same would apply to SkyOS... I`m not forking out any money on the off-chance it will be worth it. What if it's useless, or incompatible with my hardware? I don't want to waste my money on something that's useless to me.
Which is why we need an OS independant API/ABI... A neutral abstraction above the OS layer, that can allow applications to be written/compiled once and then executed unmodified on any OS running on compatible hardware.
Like java, but with native x86 code running at full speed on the hardware.
There is a project underway called X86ABI, but it's in a very early stage.
You don't get linux direct from linus, and 99% of people don't get windows direct from microsoft... The middle man is who should do the bundling, ie the OEMs, just like they used to years ago (lots of them bundled netscape etc). Instead microsoft is forcing substandard products all the way down the chain, removing choice from end users and oem's.
It's not Linus who included the media player, he's not leveraging his virtual monopoly over the linux kernel to force everyone to have his media player... You can remove the media players from suse. (you cant even remove media player from the server versions of windows, wtf?) You can use a distribution other than suse, which may come with different player(s).
That would actually do more harm than good... Abolishing copyright would result in GPL software being integrated into closed source binary products... Microsoft would just obfuscate their binaries and APIs even more, and introduce even more intrusive anti-copying methods to force people to buy from them anyway.
What we do need tho, is reform on patents and mandatory openness of protocols and file formats.
Why are you using the Internet then? Your using TCP/IP, and HTTP at the very least, these are both open standards that were set free by their creators, and flourished as a result... Do you really think the internet would be so widely used today if it weren't for open standards?
Look at the old closed networks like MSN, Compuserve and AOL... AOL is the only one that really has any users anymore, and most of their users just use the service to access the internet, and their userbase is declining.
The internet is all about freedom, freedom to access information, and freedom to access it in whatever way you choose, proprietary protocols go completely against that.
All these things should be modular and removeable... Even the "server" versions of windows have media player and it can't easily be removed, what's the point in that?
The backend libraries should be bundled, but the codecs and frontend players (complete with advertising) should be optional downloads... And it should be up to OEMs like Dell, HP, etc to create a fully useable bundle of applications, just like redhat etc do. The base OS should be exactly that, a minimal base with everything easily removeable and anything nonessential to be installed by a distributor.
We provide such a service in the UK, http://www.ev6.net/ The price list on the website needs updating tho... Drop me a mail if your interested. You can share your connection with as many people as you want, so long as your use of the line is legal. The only caveat is, if you sign up for a traffic-limited service (you dont have to, there are unlimited plans too) then your still responsible for the traffic usage, so don't let your neighbours push you over your quota.
What we need, especially now that Apple are using x86, is a cross-platform ABI.
Think about something like java, but using native x86 code instead of bytecode. And then frameworks for all the common functions (gui, network etc) that map to the native underlying OS, in much the same way java can do.
That way, you could write an app once conforming to this ABI, and people would be able to take your binaries and run them on any OS running on x86 or AMD64 hardware, and without the performance hit associated with java.
That's the way windows works through and through... Like the old "this operation has been cancelled due to restrictions on this computer".. why cancel it? Why let the operation start and then cancel it, why not just not let it start?
There may be nothing in the OS that compels you to upgrade, but that's never stopped microsoft before... There will always be something, and most likely that will be forced by a third party.
Consider: New hardware will start coming out with drivers only for the newest versions of windows. If you buy a complete new system, it's likely to have the latest version and may not be compatible with previous versions at all. New apps will come out which are vista-only, and usually not because they actually require any of the new features. Patches and updates for the old versions will slow to a crawl.
I've had no problems using OSX to access samba shares... For NFS however, your server needs to run in "insecure" mode, that is the server will accept mount requests coming from ports >1024, which is not default behaviour on any OS. This is because when you mount from the finder in OSX, finder isn't running as root and therefore can't bind to ports below 1024. If you sudo to root and do a manual mount as root it works fine. Some OS's, such as IRIX do not support "insecure" mode on their NFS servers (yes, i do have an IRIX machine at home, with a big disk array attached and exported via NFS, and this issue had me stumped for a while)
Admittedly, the last time i tried this was with OSX 10.3.x, so it may have been fixed since.
Self-healing is one of the worst mis-features... It's bad enough that you can't uninstall bundled crap like outlook express, media player and internet explorer, but when you try to delete them by hand they get copied right back! Not to mention the amount of malware that registers itself with the self-healing system, so windows considers the malware to be critical files and copies it back when you delete it.
I remember when 2000 came out touting this feature, and sun did a comparison with solaris... the windows idea was to let you break things, and then try to fix them, ofcourse this only works to a limited degree, because you can still break something critical to the self-healing process itself. The solaris approach, was to make you an unprivileged user so you CANT break things. Just forcing users to run without admin privileges would cut out a majority of instances where an end user breaks something.
And the self healing is pretty much useless anyway, it's great at preventing you from removing malware or unnecessary junk like media player, but it won't stop you trashing the bootloader or deleting the kernel.
Re:Resource forks sound like NTFS streams
on
WinFS Gets the Axe
·
· Score: 1
Wasn't it more a hangover from the VMS roots of NT? VMS automatically stores previous versions when you modify a file using something similar.
As you said, Macs are perfect for home use... And in the case of business use, the only difficulty with linux is initial setup, not use, so it makes sense for a company to hire some competent staff (assuming they dont already have some), or outsource, to set the machines up initially anyway. Smaller businesses could still use macs anyway.
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That's a source level interface tho, with the sourcecode you can recompile it...
Companies will not release their current games as sourcecode for end users to compile (tho ID tend to release old ones), and end users probably wouldn't know how to compile them anyway.
What i meant, was a platform agnostic binary interface, where a precompiled binary can be executed on any compatible hardware.
You can currently achieve this effect, kinda, using win32 so long as your app doesn't use anything not implemented by wine, however this situation is obviously far from ideal.
There is a project called x86abi (www.x86abi.org) which does what i describe, but it seems to be in a very early planning stage right now.
Firstly, the feature set 10 years ago would have been much simpler, making conversion easier...
But on the other hand, if you can't guarantee an ability to still read the files in 10 years then your product is unsuitable for many serious uses.
Not only that, but anyone foolish enough to use such a product without receiving such guarantees deserves to lose access to their data.
Actually, microsoft do have the right to snoop around your system and to send any information they want back to them. You gave them this right when you accepted the EULA. Don't believe me? read it more carefully.
You can play quake4 on ubuntu anyway...
On linux i've always kept apps open when not using them too, i just leave them in another workspace until i need them again... closing down apps you've finished with is a windows habit, because windows gets bogged down and slower when you have more apps running, plus the extra apps clutter up the taskbar and alt-tab list, because the interface is completely unsuitable for using more than a couple of apps.
And in so many cases you NEED to dictate a format, and in all cases the "format" is openly documented:
Electricity is supplied at a given voltage, you MUST use appliances which accept this voltage.
Roads are supplied flat and covered with tarmac, you MUST use roadworthy vehicles, no trains etc.
Gas is supplied in a small number of standard forms, you MUST drive a car which runs on one of them.
Movies come on VHS or DVD, you MUST use one or the other (and yes anyone is free to create or play unencrypted DVDs)
We have standard cables, plugs and sockets, pipes, etc... Why should electronic data be any different?
Immature yes, beta quality yes, beta? arguably... However it was not sold as beta, it was sold as a fully blown production ready app, and countless millions believed the marketting hype and bought it.
That said, if your advertising something as production quality then you lose the excuse of it being beta.
Your right about application choice...
But windows takes away your operating system choice, since there is no other OS which is compatible with it in either source or binary form.
Most unixes at least are source compatible, and many can execute alien binaries (FreeBSD can run linux binaries for instance)..
What we really need, is an os-independant binary format and set of APIs, so that a program can be written/compiled once, and then executed unmodified on any OS running on compatible hardware... Kind of like java, but using native x86 code so as not to suffer the performance and resource usage penalties...
There is such a project, called X86ABI, but it's in a very early development stage right now.
I have bought boxed linux distributions before, but i would never do so on blind faith.
I've always tried each given distribution (via a free download) before i've given any money to them, and the same would apply to SkyOS... I`m not forking out any money on the off-chance it will be worth it.
What if it's useless, or incompatible with my hardware? I don't want to waste my money on something that's useless to me.
Which is why we need an OS independant API/ABI... A neutral abstraction above the OS layer, that can allow applications to be written/compiled once and then executed unmodified on any OS running on compatible hardware.
Like java, but with native x86 code running at full speed on the hardware.
There is a project underway called X86ABI, but it's in a very early stage.
You don't get linux direct from linus, and 99% of people don't get windows direct from microsoft...
The middle man is who should do the bundling, ie the OEMs, just like they used to years ago (lots of them bundled netscape etc).
Instead microsoft is forcing substandard products all the way down the chain, removing choice from end users and oem's.
It's not Linus who included the media player, he's not leveraging his virtual monopoly over the linux kernel to force everyone to have his media player...
You can remove the media players from suse. (you cant even remove media player from the server versions of windows, wtf?)
You can use a distribution other than suse, which may come with different player(s).
That would actually do more harm than good...
Abolishing copyright would result in GPL software being integrated into closed source binary products...
Microsoft would just obfuscate their binaries and APIs even more, and introduce even more intrusive anti-copying methods to force people to buy from them anyway.
What we do need tho, is reform on patents and mandatory openness of protocols and file formats.
Why are you using the Internet then?
Your using TCP/IP, and HTTP at the very least, these are both open standards that were set free by their creators, and flourished as a result... Do you really think the internet would be so widely used today if it weren't for open standards?
Look at the old closed networks like MSN, Compuserve and AOL... AOL is the only one that really has any users anymore, and most of their users just use the service to access the internet, and their userbase is declining.
The internet is all about freedom, freedom to access information, and freedom to access it in whatever way you choose, proprietary protocols go completely against that.
All these things should be modular and removeable...
Even the "server" versions of windows have media player and it can't easily be removed, what's the point in that?
The backend libraries should be bundled, but the codecs and frontend players (complete with advertising) should be optional downloads...
And it should be up to OEMs like Dell, HP, etc to create a fully useable bundle of applications, just like redhat etc do.
The base OS should be exactly that, a minimal base with everything easily removeable and anything nonessential to be installed by a distributor.
We provide such a service in the UK, http://www.ev6.net/
The price list on the website needs updating tho... Drop me a mail if your interested.
You can share your connection with as many people as you want, so long as your use of the line is legal. The only caveat is, if you sign up for a traffic-limited service (you dont have to, there are unlimited plans too) then your still responsible for the traffic usage, so don't let your neighbours push you over your quota.
And many don't prohibit you at all...
Maybe Fon can provide a list of such companies, and encourage their users to sign up with such ISPs...
What we need, especially now that Apple are using x86, is a cross-platform ABI.
Think about something like java, but using native x86 code instead of bytecode. And then frameworks for all the common functions (gui, network etc) that map to the native underlying OS, in much the same way java can do.
That way, you could write an app once conforming to this ABI, and people would be able to take your binaries and run them on any OS running on x86 or AMD64 hardware, and without the performance hit associated with java.
That's the way windows works through and through...
Like the old "this operation has been cancelled due to restrictions on this computer".. why cancel it? Why let the operation start and then cancel it, why not just not let it start?
The windows directory weighs in at about 7gig for a default install.
There may be nothing in the OS that compels you to upgrade, but that's never stopped microsoft before... There will always be something, and most likely that will be forced by a third party.
Consider:
New hardware will start coming out with drivers only for the newest versions of windows.
If you buy a complete new system, it's likely to have the latest version and may not be compatible with previous versions at all.
New apps will come out which are vista-only, and usually not because they actually require any of the new features.
Patches and updates for the old versions will slow to a crawl.
I've had no problems using OSX to access samba shares... For NFS however, your server needs to run in "insecure" mode, that is the server will accept mount requests coming from ports >1024, which is not default behaviour on any OS.
This is because when you mount from the finder in OSX, finder isn't running as root and therefore can't bind to ports below 1024. If you sudo to root and do a manual mount as root it works fine.
Some OS's, such as IRIX do not support "insecure" mode on their NFS servers (yes, i do have an IRIX machine at home, with a big disk array attached and exported via NFS, and this issue had me stumped for a while)
Admittedly, the last time i tried this was with OSX 10.3.x, so it may have been fixed since.
Self-healing is one of the worst mis-features...
It's bad enough that you can't uninstall bundled crap like outlook express, media player and internet explorer, but when you try to delete them by hand they get copied right back!
Not to mention the amount of malware that registers itself with the self-healing system, so windows considers the malware to be critical files and copies it back when you delete it.
I remember when 2000 came out touting this feature, and sun did a comparison with solaris...
the windows idea was to let you break things, and then try to fix them, ofcourse this only works to a limited degree, because you can still break something critical to the self-healing process itself.
The solaris approach, was to make you an unprivileged user so you CANT break things.
Just forcing users to run without admin privileges would cut out a majority of instances where an end user breaks something.
And the self healing is pretty much useless anyway, it's great at preventing you from removing malware or unnecessary junk like media player, but it won't stop you trashing the bootloader or deleting the kernel.
Wasn't it more a hangover from the VMS roots of NT? VMS automatically stores previous versions when you modify a file using something similar.
As you said, Macs are perfect for home use...
And in the case of business use, the only difficulty with linux is initial setup, not use, so it makes sense for a company to hire some competent staff (assuming they dont already have some), or outsource, to set the machines up initially anyway.
Smaller businesses could still use macs anyway.