I'm stuck with Nvidia video cards in order to play games such as Quake 3 in linux...
What?!!? I played quake 3 just fine on my old Matrox g400 with its excellent open source drivers.
Now I can play it at comparitavely blazing speeds on my ATI 9200 with just open source drivers. (I didn't bother with 9600 because there are no open drivers)
There is _NO WAY_ you need the latest nvidia card and its binary crap to play quake 3 unless you really need to squeeze as many FPS as possible.
I am rather worried about the suggested link in this article between the linux community and the MyDoom worm.
Although part of the article acknowledges that there is no proven link, the headline and much of the content suggest such a link is already established. Furthermore, it mis-represents the linux community with phrases such as "internet zealots who believe that code should be free to all" In the SCO dispute, the anger among the linux community is caused by false claims of copyright ownership by SCO, and possibly copyight license infringement by SCO. Whether code should be free or not is an important topic to the community but has nothing to do with the SCO case. It it about ownership and copyright. Not about violating "sacred principles"
Finally, some factual errors. Firstly, the article mentions patents in one of the headings which have nothing to do with the case. (and aren't even talked about in the article) Secondly, the article claims the SCO website was brought down by a "barrage of emails" which is not true. It was brought down by a barrage of web page requests.
Regards, Martin. (who considers himself a member of the linux community and believes in copyright proper licensing and is certainly not a zealot)
PS. It has also been suggested that the MyDoom virus was SCO sponsored in order to try and frame the linux community. There's no proof for that either, why not run a story on it!
"Ogg is all fine and good, but hardly anyone knows about it, even fewer people use it, and there really isn't any good reason for these facts to change."
Remember around 1994 when folks were saying things like:
"Linux is all fine and good, but hardly anyone knows about it, even fewer people use it, and there really isn't any good reason for these facts to change."
There was reason, and there is reason now. The point is with ogg you can freely install encoders and players on whatever you want without paying anyone anything, and you can redistribute as part of your own product etc. just as you can with linux.
The same is not true of mp3 (without treading dangerous ground legally), just as it is not true of windows.
[please dont copy this and send it to kiss yourself - it will do more harm than good.]
Dear KiSS,
Let me start by saying that I am a big fan of KiSS technology products (in particular your DivX compatible DVD players are great!) and I am also a big fan of open source and free software.
However, I am rather worried by reports I have been reading about allegations made by the mplayer team regarding unlicensed use of their intellectual property by KiSS Technologies.
Having read the English translation of a recent radio interview involving Peter Wilmar Christensen of KiSS I am a bit nervous.
Firstly, I am disappointed that Mr Christensen doesn't seem to respect the GNU GPL License, but that is not a major concern.
My major worry is that the allegations by the mplayer team don't seem to be taken seriously. There doesn't seem to be any attempt to show that KiSS have not mis-appropriated the code from mplayer. Of course the burden is not with you to prove anything, but as a professional software developer myself, I know how easy it should be to show your development history and you can clear the whole thing up in no time. (I also know as a professional software developer that you _can_ release your source sometimes, and it often pays off well as a PR exercise)
Until now I have considered KiSS to be a trustworthy company whose products I have often recommended to others. Unfortunately however, until this matter is resolved I will no longer do so.
I hope enough people share my view and together we can help you work with the open source community instead of appearing to ignore them. You probably already realise that a large number of your customers (at least all the ones I know!) are open source advocates and would take a dim view of any who appeared to be working against their community.
Not that I neccesarily disagree, but can you explain why copyright infringement is wrong in this case. (without saying "because it's illegal")
Don't forget that copyright is a means to an end. If its not achieving that end and it's only effect is to prevent the spread of information then it's doing more harm than good. (I use the term information loosely)
The parent post may well be a real honest SCO employee, but it seems just as likely to be an ani-SCO troll saying this so people end up saying "even SCO employees have admitted that they have turned to litigation because they were failing as a productive company" and such.
The point is that for some folks it's still unfortunately the case that open source software is automatically worse the proprietry software, despite some of us knowing how outdated and wrong their ideas are.
The "rung" in question here is the one where open source progresses in those peoples minds from "must be worse" to "can be as good or better"
There's no suggestion of "all open source is better" anywhere.
If you're supposed to pay for something and you take it without paying for it you stole.
Nobody is talking about "taking" things but "copying" them.
I am "supposed" to pay for potatoes as far as the supermarket is concerned. If I buy one sack from them and use it to plant and grow my own for the rest of my life, am I "stealing" then also? _NO_ because I didn't take anything away from them, I _COPIED_ something.
Shooting people is a crime. Guns can be and are used in crime.
Software "piracy" is merely copyright infringement, which (despite the efforts of the media cartels) is not a crime. p2p networks are not being used for crimes.
So, if there is any restriction of tools to be done, starting with those that can be and are actually be used to commit crimes would be a good idea.
Not their "fault", but it does mean that the some of their by some of their greatest competitors who use the GPL can't compete with them on this. Normally that would be fine - after all, why should Microsoft freely give their "intellectual" "property" to their greatest competitors?
Well, because they are convicted monopolists who are supposed to be making an affort not to continue to unfairly crush all their competition.
While this new "open" format looks like it fulfils all the wishes of those who want microsoft to be more open, what it does in fact is prevent any GPL competitor from existing at all. At least at the moment the GPL using competitors can reverse engineer the existing non-xml formats. With the new one that can do nothing. And that's hardly in the spirit of a more open and competitive marketplace.
This is a clever manouvere which makes Microsoft look as if they are being more accepting of competition (ie, royalty free distribution of their specification) whilst actually moving to prevent competition by free software by patenting and licensing in an incompatible way.
The only "competitors" this may help is those making closed source office software, but they are all dead or dying already because of previous illegal Microsoft practices so it's not much use to them anyway.
(please consider the above to be food for thought rather than my considered opinion since I have only briefly studied the issues so far.)
Well, I guess the video graphics artists working on a LAN will have to either all work individually, or somehow wait until after the film is released before adding effects and editing it.
Actually, while I can hardly wait for 2.6.x to stabalize for many reasons, desktop use is not one of them.
2.6.x will being some very real improvements, but in the big picture of where gnu/linux is still lacking on the desktop, linux (the kernel) isn't really one of the problems.
I can't sing or play to save my life, so this it no good for me.
I do however know a drummer from an unsigned band who hate the industry as it is and this might be what they're looking for. As it happens some of the band know people at music collage and many of them feel the same about the industry.
The trouble is they're not exactly the types to be reading slashdot or otherwise stumbling across this.
Time for me to start spreading the word. If some of the better new bands get to know about this and like it, who knows where it could lead.
Of all those upgrading to windows 2003, 5% previously used linux. So what?
Compare that to all those upgrading _to_ linux, and look how many of those were previously running other versions of windows? It could easily by a lot more than 5%.
This all looks like a pretty desperate attempt to discredit linux and make win 2003 look more popular than it really is.
Well I don't know about all the anti-terror laws in the US, but here in the UK people can now be held without charge indefinitely if they are terror suspects. There may not be a test "in court" because it may not even get there for an "indefinitely" long time.
That is why these so called anti-terrorism measures that give special powers such as holding without charge must not be used for "normal" crimes. The usual safeguards such as courts may not even be in place.
Unfortunately, many people didn't see this coming, and I just can't understand why. History has repeatedly shown that when any authority is given powers it WILL use them whenever it feels, and it WILL eventually abuse them.
It's similar to the recent case un England where demonstrators at an arms fair were detained using anti-terrorism measures.
I find it ironic that people demonstrating against the sale of weapons, some of the same kind used by terrorists are then arrested using laws designed to reduce terrorism.
"silly putty" can't be copyrighted, because it is not a work.
It is probably a trademark, which could be enough to stop them using the words "silly putty", but not to stop them posting the instructions. To do that, they would need to have patented the technique of making it. Either way, copyright doesn't come into it.
I was thinking of a searchable database which people can enter their details into as well as searching existing details. This isn't limited to homeless by the way - all sorts of people lose contact with their families for one reason or another.
I've seen this kind of think done online, so a bit of education and access to an internet terminal in a library should be enough.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm stuck with Nvidia video cards in order to play games such as Quake 3 in linux...
What?!!? I played quake 3 just fine on my old Matrox g400 with its excellent open source drivers.
Now I can play it at comparitavely blazing speeds on my ATI 9200 with just open source drivers. (I didn't bother with 9600 because there are no open drivers)
There is _NO WAY_ you need the latest nvidia card and its binary crap to play quake 3 unless you really need to squeeze as many FPS as possible.
I wonder whether the CPU time taken to sign and or encrypt email by spammers will just take too long given the volumes they send email in?
Only accept GPG or PGP encrypted and signed email.
(okay - I don't really do that, but I would like to if only more folks cared enough)
I am rather worried about the suggested link in this article between the linux community and the MyDoom worm.
Although part of the article acknowledges that there is no proven link, the headline and much of the content suggest such a link is already established.
Furthermore, it mis-represents the linux community with phrases such as "internet zealots who believe that code should be free to all"
In the SCO dispute, the anger among the linux community is caused by false claims of copyright ownership by SCO, and possibly copyight license infringement by SCO.
Whether code should be free or not is an important topic to the community but has nothing to do with the SCO case. It it about ownership and copyright. Not about violating "sacred principles"
Finally, some factual errors. Firstly, the article mentions patents in one of the headings which have nothing to do with the case. (and aren't even talked about in the article) Secondly, the article claims the SCO website was brought down by a "barrage of emails" which is not true. It was brought down by a barrage of web page requests.
Regards,
Martin. (who considers himself a member of the linux community and believes in copyright proper licensing and is certainly not a zealot)
PS. It has also been suggested that the MyDoom virus was SCO sponsored in order to try and frame the linux community. There's no proof for that either, why not run a story on it!
"Ogg is all fine and good, but hardly anyone knows about it, even fewer people use it, and there really isn't any good reason for these facts to change."
Remember around 1994 when folks were saying things like:
"Linux is all fine and good, but hardly anyone knows about it, even fewer people use it, and there really isn't any good reason for these facts to change."
There was reason, and there is reason now. The point is with ogg you can freely install encoders and players on whatever you want without paying anyone anything, and you can redistribute as part of your own product etc. just as you can with linux.
The same is not true of mp3 (without treading dangerous ground legally), just as it is not true of windows.
[please dont copy this and send it to kiss yourself - it will do more harm than good.]
Dear KiSS,
Let me start by saying that I am a big fan of KiSS technology products (in
particular your DivX compatible DVD players are great!) and I am also a
big fan of open source and free software.
However, I am rather worried by reports I have been reading about
allegations made by the mplayer team regarding unlicensed use of their
intellectual property by KiSS Technologies.
Having read the English translation of a recent radio interview involving
Peter Wilmar Christensen of KiSS I am a bit nervous.
Firstly, I am disappointed that Mr Christensen doesn't seem to respect the
GNU GPL License, but that is not a major concern.
My major worry is that the allegations by the mplayer team don't seem to
be taken seriously. There doesn't seem to be any attempt to show that
KiSS have not mis-appropriated the code from mplayer. Of course the burden
is not with you to prove anything, but as a professional software
developer myself, I know how easy it should be to show your development
history and you can clear the whole thing up in no time. (I also know as a
professional software developer that you _can_ release your source
sometimes, and it often pays off well as a PR exercise)
Until now I have considered KiSS to be a trustworthy company whose
products I have often recommended to others. Unfortunately however, until
this matter is resolved I will no longer do so.
I hope enough people share my view and together we can help you work with
the open source community instead of appearing to ignore them. You
probably already realise that a large number of your customers (at least
all the ones I know!) are open source advocates and would take a dim view
of any who appeared to be working against their community.
Yours,
Not that I neccesarily disagree, but can you explain why copyright infringement is wrong in this case. (without saying "because it's illegal")
Don't forget that copyright is a means to an end. If its not achieving that end and it's only effect is to prevent the spread of information then it's doing more harm than good. (I use the term information loosely)
Please be careful people.
The parent post may well be a real honest SCO employee, but it seems just as likely to be an ani-SCO troll saying this so people end up saying "even SCO employees have admitted that they have turned to litigation because they were failing as a productive company" and such.
The point is that for some folks it's still unfortunately the case that open source software is automatically worse the proprietry software, despite some of us knowing how outdated and wrong their ideas are.
The "rung" in question here is the one where open source progresses in those peoples minds from "must be worse" to "can be as good or better"
There's no suggestion of "all open source is better" anywhere.
If you're supposed to pay for something and you take it without paying for it you stole.
Nobody is talking about "taking" things but "copying" them.
I am "supposed" to pay for potatoes as far as the supermarket is concerned. If I buy one sack from them and use it to plant and grow my own for the rest of my life, am I "stealing" then also? _NO_ because I didn't take anything away from them, I _COPIED_ something.
If its just fast drawing, plotting and blitting etc you need, check out SDL at www.libsdl.org
Shooting people is a crime. Guns can be and are used in crime.
Software "piracy" is merely copyright infringement, which (despite the efforts of the media cartels) is not a crime. p2p networks are not being used for crimes.
So, if there is any restriction of tools to be done, starting with those that can be and are actually be used to commit crimes would be a good idea.
ie, restrict guns if you must, not p2p software.
Not their "fault", but it does mean that the some of their by some of their greatest competitors who use the GPL can't compete with them on this. Normally that would be fine - after all, why should Microsoft freely give their "intellectual" "property" to their greatest competitors?
Well, because they are convicted monopolists who are supposed to be making an affort not to continue to unfairly crush all their competition.
While this new "open" format looks like it fulfils all the wishes of those who want microsoft to be more open, what it does in fact is prevent any GPL competitor from existing at all. At least at the moment the GPL using competitors can reverse engineer the existing non-xml formats. With the new one that can do nothing. And that's hardly in the spirit of a more open and competitive marketplace.
This is a clever manouvere which makes Microsoft look as if they are being more accepting of competition (ie, royalty free distribution of their specification) whilst actually moving to prevent competition by free software by patenting and licensing in an incompatible way.
The only "competitors" this may help is those making closed source office software, but they are all dead or dying already because of previous illegal Microsoft practices so it's not much use to them anyway.
(please consider the above to be food for thought rather than my considered opinion since I have only briefly studied the issues so far.)
I use linux with gnome, X11 and firebird (haven't tried mozilla) on a P133 and they are perfectably usable.
Saying "install fedora" doesnt make the "linux desktop" slow.
Well, I guess the video graphics artists working on a LAN will have to either all work individually, or somehow wait until after the film is released before adding effects and editing it.
How do you harass someone without contacting them?
Actually, while I can hardly wait for 2.6.x to stabalize for many reasons, desktop use is not one of them.
2.6.x will being some very real improvements, but in the big picture of where gnu/linux is still lacking on the desktop, linux (the kernel) isn't really one of the problems.
I can't sing or play to save my life, so this it no good for me.
I do however know a drummer from an unsigned band who hate the industry as it is and this might be what they're looking for. As it happens some of the band know people at music collage and many of them feel the same about the industry.
The trouble is they're not exactly the types to be reading slashdot or otherwise stumbling across this.
Time for me to start spreading the word. If some of the better new bands get to know about this and like it, who knows where it could lead.
Does anyone have any pictures of this online?
(that was supposed to be funny)
Of all those upgrading to windows 2003, 5% previously used linux. So what?
Compare that to all those upgrading _to_ linux, and look how many of those were previously running other versions of windows? It could easily by a lot more than 5%.
This all looks like a pretty desperate attempt to discredit linux and make win 2003 look more popular than it really is.
Oh, and it's old news anyway.
unless the suit actually holds up in court,
Well I don't know about all the anti-terror laws in the US, but here in the UK people can now be held without charge indefinitely if they are terror suspects. There may not be a test "in court" because it may not even get there for an "indefinitely" long time.
That is why these so called anti-terrorism measures that give special powers such as holding without charge must not be used for "normal" crimes. The usual safeguards such as courts may not even be in place.
Unfortunately, many people didn't see this coming, and I just can't understand why. History has repeatedly shown that when any authority is given powers it WILL use them whenever it feels, and it WILL eventually abuse them.
It's similar to the recent case un England where demonstrators at an arms fair were detained using anti-terrorism measures.
I find it ironic that people demonstrating against the sale of weapons, some of the same kind used by terrorists are then arrested using laws designed to reduce terrorism.
"silly putty" can't be copyrighted, because it is not a work.
It is probably a trademark, which could be enough to stop them using the words "silly putty", but not to stop them posting the instructions. To do that, they would need to have patented the technique of making it. Either way, copyright doesn't come into it.
But.... Every IT project takes twice as long as you think, even when you take that rule into account.
I was thinking of a searchable database which people can enter their details into as well as searching existing details. This isn't limited to homeless by the way - all sorts of people lose contact with their families for one reason or another.
I've seen this kind of think done online, so a bit of education and access to an internet terminal in a library should be enough.