Are you saying that if you buy HL2 and play it for a few weeks/months and then want to exercise your fair use rights and sell the game to me that I would not be able to play it? Would I have to purchase a new key?
If that is the case then I won't be buying HL2. That would be a pretty ugly thing for Valve to stop you from being able to sell your copy of the game. I guess I will just stick to the good ole games on my SNES emulator!
If you buy HL2 and activate it, do you have to pay a subscription fee to use the game? I am thinking of buying it but not if they require _more_ money after I already bought the game.
./configure && make && make install _is_ an installation and packaging system. You package all your code in _one_ file and then just need to extract it and run./configure && make && make install. Configure is cross-platform and does a great job of installing software. The only obvious downside is waiting to compile the code. I have gotten a lot of Win32 apps that just come as a zip file that I have to extract as well as many setup apps where the apps were poorly written and assumed they were installed in a hardcoded path under c:\Program files. I have even installed a lot of Win32 apps that didn't give an option on where to install. When I installed that latest MS Media player, I wasn't asked where to put it.
RPM has had the feature you are talking about for a long time. They are called Relocatable Packages. Most RPM's are not relocatable because many people think installing programs in an organized manner is a good thing. So most apps go to/usr or/usr/local, just like most apps under MS Windows goes under C:\Program Files.
There are just as many hardcoded paths in MS windows. Can I change where all my system DLL's are kept? Why do I have to put DLL's in the the Windows, System32 or application directory for an application to find them? Under Linux, I can put them anywhere and just update the LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
Linux and MS Windows both have hardcoded paths for different things. They are both due to design choices and neither are bad or good.
Did you mean "Freedom _from_ Responsibility"? If so, where in my post did I condone not holding people accountable for their actions? I believe people _should_ be accountable for their actions. However, that still doesn't mean I think people should give up privacy for some temporary "safety".
Since when do you need "ligitemate" reasons for your actions? Honestly, for big cases, you really only need small proof that you _didn't do it.
Seriously, I am able to spray my whole house with iron-coating substance. I do not need to _prove_ a reason to any judge or jury. It is up to a prosecutor to _prove_ that I used x, y, z to do x, y and z.
Don't get me wrong. I hope the cops/feds get _all_ the help and luck they can get to stop crime. Just don't ask me to give up rights to make their jobs easier.
But presumably for a color laser the embedded serial number in a doc can be linked to the sales record and thus leaves a paper trail.
Only for a stupid criminal that buys a color laser with a credit card registered in his/her name. For the criminal with a few more brain cells, they use cash; end of paper trail.
Oh, one other point I just thought of. If I had a bought or stolen color laser, I could very easily make photo copies of it and that would most likely wash out any watermark/serial number. There is just too many ways to beat this weak system to make it worth the privacy that is lost.
Yes, someone else posted something like this already. However, have you ever seen most store camera videos? Thay are horrid. I recently seen some footage of an armed robbery of a major convience store chain and it was pretty much impossible to tell who the guy was.
Are you serious? Being able to express free speech in an anonymous way is the most important part of free speak. For example, while I am pro-life, there are many pro-choice people who may want to voice their opinions anonymously because there are many pro-life freaks (not me) out there. Also think in a political way. There are people who may want to speak out against the current government or a even worse, a local government and do not want to suffer any repercussions.
Many of the people who spoke out and signed the original Declaration of Independence were wealthy, and lost everything after they signed! Freedom of speech doesn't always come with no price tag. Sometimes people pay dearly for expressing their opinions, even in the "Land of the Free".
I am a Conservative Christian Libertarian (I know it sounds messed up). The sad thing is that there are many in our nation that have no problems with _more_ government control. These "conservatives" offer excuses like if you have nothing to hide, then why would you care? _I_ personally care because A) I have nothing to hide and B) if I did have something to hide it is none of your @##$@# business! Our government was never set up to be "big brother". Sadly we are almost there. Many of my fellow Christians are more then willing to give up their rights/liberties because they _think_ it will make them more "safe". They think that only "bad" people would want privacy and not want "big brother" to know your every move.
I am sorry but I will not give up my rights, liberty or privacy to make it easier for the government to catch a "bad" guy. As a "good" citizen, I am willing to help the government, police (I give them money every year), etc to stop crime, but my help stops when they try to encroach my rights. Yes, being able to print on a stinking piece of paper without the government tracking me is what I consider a right.
Sure. Exactly _how_ will "they" be able to trace a printer to you/me? For example. I walk into a store and pay cash for a color laser printer. I take it home and do not register it (as I never register any product I buy). Now I do something stupid like try to print fake money and the Feds find the money and see this "secret" serial number on it. Exactly how again will they track it to me?
My firewall blocks apps that try to connect to the Internet and are denied access unless I give them the OK, so this color laser printer would not be allowed to connect back to any home server.
I think the only people that would be able to be tracked are those who have no intentions of using these color lasers in an illegal way or _very_ dumb criminals that deserve to get burnt. Seriously, any "smart" criminal would know to either pay cash or get it "hot". I hope thise criminals would not be dumb enough to register these printers and give their real location nor allow the laser printers to get on the Internet and "phone home".
I personally do not condone illegal activities, however most of the "solutions" that the industry and the governemt come up with are just silly.
Red Hat 9 is not a "major distribution". It is no longer supported. Just as Win 3.1/95 is no longer a "major" version of MS Windows. You can get that 5 year support from Red Hat through there Red Hat Enterprise Desktop. If you think RH is too expensive (like I do), try SuSE or Fedora or Mandrake or Debian or etc.
The only thing Solaris has going for it is it runs well on Sparc hardware. It sucks everywhere else. Solaris x86 is really bad. I recently tried Solaris 9 x86 on my laptop and it was really bad. Linux (Fedora 3) and MS Windows both worked perfectly. With Solaris, I only had 2D support, no wireless, poor disk performance and other problems (not to mention the install nightmare).
On top of that, out-of-the-box Solaris has the oldest toolchain I have ever seen. grep is not recursive, find does not allow -i for ignore case, and tons of other little annoyances compared to Linux.
I am sorry, but on x86, Solaris has nothing over Linux. Now if your running some big Sparc boxes, then that is the only place Solaris shines from stability. SUN only had Sparc to target with very limited hardware support, so you would expect a very stable server. However, when it comes to commodity x86 servers up to 8 way, Linux just pulls far past Solaris.
One question I have for the/. crowd is has anyone seen this "Open" source license for Solaris? Is it going to be just as "Open" as Java? I personally do not consider that very open. To me the only way I would consider Solaris Open Source is if I could say fork the Solaris kernel and start my _own_ Solaris kernel. Now you know SUN will never let that happen. I think SUN's idea of Open Source is allowing you to look at the code, and if you are a big enough company maybe join some committee. As of now, I personally think that all this "Open" Solaris talk is just that, talk.
You can also obtain and modify Java's code as you wish (see http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.5.0/download.jsp) but you can only *distribute* your modifications for the purpose of "research" (so not as part of a commercial product for example).
What good does it do me or say a company to take time to learn the large Java code base and then to only be able to use it for "research"? With Linux I can submit a patch. That patch is usually reviewed and accepted by a subsystem maintainer, not Linus. If Linus thinks something is a very bad idea, he may override the subsystem maintainers choice, but that doesn't happen often. Also with Linux if changes are not accepted, I can publicly post my patches and others can use them. I can even distribute an entire Linux kernel tree with my changes and still call it Linux (think of all the different trees out there like -ac etc). If I tried to get patches into Java and Sun/JCP turned them down, do you think SUN would still allow me to distribute my own version of Java? Nope.
Java is "bazaar"-like because the JCP provides a mechanism for groups and individuals to create proposals to evolve or extend Java which are ratified by a committe (again of groups and individuals, essentially chosen in a meritocratic manner). This could be compared with Mozilla's team of super-reviewers.
I don't think the JCP is the most efficient method for a language like Java. It causes new features to take ages to get implemented. Look at C#/.Net in comparison. MS will be pumping out new versions every 1 - 2 years with tons of new features, while Java will take 5 years or so to get new features. While I really like Java and C#, if Java doesn't keep up to C# in features, I will be reaching for Java less and less and picking C#, which just became easier thanks to Mono.
The 60% working prototype doesn't actually need to be physically built. As long as technical proof of 60% functionality was submitted with the patent. This proof needs to include engineering specs etc, that _would_ be required by someone that does have the money to try and implement that patent. This would allow the small company or independent inventor to just prove on paper his/her invention. The only requirement for the patent to be valid would be a peer review of the submitted work. This way if the patent was ever tried in court for not being valid, a group of experts in the field of the patent can be used to review the submitted paperwork to confirm that 60% of the needed documentation to implement the patent was provided.
This would prevent "idea grabbers" who go and lock ideas away without having to invest anything more then a thought. We are getting more and more "companies" that have no employees other then lawyers and they just have a bunch of ideas patented. Those ideas never have to be proven to be viable, no research needs to be done on the idea. Just someone says, I bet 5 years from now we will have computers that will accept a fingerprint for authentication. Go out and patent that process and get rich if it ever comes to pass. Now the real company/people/person that deserves that patent are those that spend the time and money to get it all working. That is where the real cost is. I would have no problem with an idea-only patent if it had detailed engineering docs on how to at least accomplish 60% of the process or invention being patented. But to just allow any non-proven, non-working idea to be patented is just silly. It holds the real innovators at ransom when they actually invest the time and money to make inventions.
And if in that reverse engineering I found a foolish bug in your library, would I do extra work to dupliacte it in mine? An "alternative implementation" will typically try to be better than the original. But if you go for bug-for-bug compatibility, you are emulating.
It is not black and white as you are trying to make it sound. If your implementation can correct a "foolish bug" without breaking anything, then it would make sense to fix the bug, which may make for better performance or features. However, if your fix for the "foolish bug" breaks something, then you would emulate the broken behaviour.
I don't think you are looking at this issue correctly. Firefox just _became_ a general release 1.0 product. Prior to that it was BETA. Even though it ran great and was popular prior to 1.0, doesn't mean the software should be expected to behave like 1.0. You see, software developers often come up with a road map to a major release such as Firefox 1.0. With each step between that major release adding features and fixing issues. There are going to be things that break. For example, with the extensions. The extension API needed to change as issues came up prior to 1.0. The same issue applies to a users profile. Now at version 1.0, you should be able to expect your extensions to work and your user profile to be stable between minor version changes.
This isn't something specific to Open Source software. All software goes through similar issues until a major release, even beta software from MS. The reason you don't often notice it with proprietary software is because a normal user is not allowed access to that beta software and only sees the final product. In contrast, with Open Source software you can run directly from development CVS if you want (which I don't recommend for non-developers). If you don't want to experience these issues with Open Source then don't use the cutting-edge Open Source release, stick with Open Source major release just as you do with your proprietary software.
Do you know you can change the Gimp interface? I have all my windows docked into one. It is _really_ easy to do and here is a quick little page I put up just now to show you. One window Gimp. You can get a nice installer for the latest Gimp from here.
The default Gimp layout is actaully the same as the default Photoshop layout under Mac. I personally do not like the Photoshop layout under MS Windows. If I maximize the image I am working on, all the other docked tool windows are always topmost and cover parts of the image. With Gimp, I have every tool window docked into one nice main tool panel. If I need to change a tool, I just alt+tab, select the tool and then alt+tab back to the maximized image with nothing covering the image.
Probably because he is using libswf which is very old and not developed anymore to the best of my knowledge.
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
I am running Firefox 1.0 under Linux with no problems bringing up CNN, though I use the _real_ Flash player from Macromedia which runs just fine under Linux with Firefox/Mozilla.
Try removing libswf and starting Firefox from a command prompt in safe mode by passing -safe-mode on the command line (firefox -safe-mode). If the problems go away then that should tell you that it is either libswf or your extension(s).
So go to the Mozilla ftp server and download 0.9.3, (this is one of the Mozilla mirrors). When the next version/update to Firefox comes out, try that one to see if your problems are fixed. I personally have had no issues with Firefox 1.0 on 4 different computers I have (2 WinXP and 2 Linux-Fedora Core 3).
See my post here. NVidia uses a unified code base that shares 95% of the code across Linux, Windows and Mac. That other 5% is for differences with each OS and how to interact with the kernel/graphics layer. I didn't write the NVidia drivers so I cannot tell you what those extensions do. However if I were to take a stab at it, I would say they deal with GL things that are specific to X under Linux?
I have the complete opposite experience. FF never crashes on me. I use in on a WinXP SP2 work computer, a Fedora Core 3 work computer, a WinXP home computer and a Fedora Core 3 home computer. Four separate systems, and Firefox runs just great on them.
One thing that may cause I problem (at least the only one I experienced) is if you do not delete your profile directory between version changes. Especially going from pre 1.0 to 1.0. Here is what I did: Go to your Firefox profile directory located at:
Win 2k/XP
C:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\RANDOM.default\ Linux /home/USER_NAME/.mozilla/Firefox/Profiles/RANDOM.d efault/
Now copy the following files to another directory:
bookmarks.html
cookies.txt
formhistory.dat
history.dat
hostperm.1
key3.db
prefs.js
signons.txt
Now go to the top of the Mozilla directory and remove it completely. Install Firefox 1.0 and start it for the first time and close Firefox. Go to the new profile directory and copy back the files you backed up.
The only problem with this method is that you need to reinstall extensions, though going to 1.0, older extensions didn't work anyway. Hopefully later versions of Firefox will have a better upgrade method.
Slashdot Mirror
If that is the case then I won't be buying HL2. That would be a pretty ugly thing for Valve to stop you from being able to sell your copy of the game. I guess I will just stick to the good ole games on my SNES emulator!
If you buy HL2 and activate it, do you have to pay a subscription fee to use the game? I am thinking of buying it but not if they require _more_ money after I already bought the game.
RPM has had the feature you are talking about for a long time. They are called Relocatable Packages. Most RPM's are not relocatable because many people think installing programs in an organized manner is a good thing. So most apps go to /usr or /usr/local, just like most apps under MS Windows goes under C:\Program Files.
There are just as many hardcoded paths in MS windows. Can I change where all my system DLL's are kept? Why do I have to put DLL's in the the Windows, System32 or application directory for an application to find them? Under Linux, I can put them anywhere and just update the LD_LIBRARY_PATH.
Linux and MS Windows both have hardcoded paths for different things. They are both due to design choices and neither are bad or good.
Did you mean "Freedom _from_ Responsibility"? If so, where in my post did I condone not holding people accountable for their actions? I believe people _should_ be accountable for their actions. However, that still doesn't mean I think people should give up privacy for some temporary "safety".
Seriously, I am able to spray my whole house with iron-coating substance. I do not need to _prove_ a reason to any judge or jury. It is up to a prosecutor to _prove_ that I used x, y, z to do x, y and z.
Don't get me wrong. I hope the cops/feds get _all_ the help and luck they can get to stop crime. Just don't ask me to give up rights to make their jobs easier.
Hmmm, maybe you should look at this post.
Oh, one other point I just thought of. If I had a bought or stolen color laser, I could very easily make photo copies of it and that would most likely wash out any watermark/serial number. There is just too many ways to beat this weak system to make it worth the privacy that is lost.
Yes, someone else posted something like this already. However, have you ever seen most store camera videos? Thay are horrid. I recently seen some footage of an armed robbery of a major convience store chain and it was pretty much impossible to tell who the guy was.
That could be possible. Though that doesn't take into accout a stolen printer or the very poor quality of most store cameras.
Many of the people who spoke out and signed the original Declaration of Independence were wealthy, and lost everything after they signed! Freedom of speech doesn't always come with no price tag. Sometimes people pay dearly for expressing their opinions, even in the "Land of the Free".
I am a Conservative Christian Libertarian (I know it sounds messed up). The sad thing is that there are many in our nation that have no problems with _more_ government control. These "conservatives" offer excuses like if you have nothing to hide, then why would you care? _I_ personally care because A) I have nothing to hide and B) if I did have something to hide it is none of your @##$@# business! Our government was never set up to be "big brother". Sadly we are almost there. Many of my fellow Christians are more then willing to give up their rights/liberties because they _think_ it will make them more "safe". They think that only "bad" people would want privacy and not want "big brother" to know your every move.
I am sorry but I will not give up my rights, liberty or privacy to make it easier for the government to catch a "bad" guy. As a "good" citizen, I am willing to help the government, police (I give them money every year), etc to stop crime, but my help stops when they try to encroach my rights. Yes, being able to print on a stinking piece of paper without the government tracking me is what I consider a right.
My firewall blocks apps that try to connect to the Internet and are denied access unless I give them the OK, so this color laser printer would not be allowed to connect back to any home server.
I think the only people that would be able to be tracked are those who have no intentions of using these color lasers in an illegal way or _very_ dumb criminals that deserve to get burnt. Seriously, any "smart" criminal would know to either pay cash or get it "hot". I hope thise criminals would not be dumb enough to register these printers and give their real location nor allow the laser printers to get on the Internet and "phone home".
I personally do not condone illegal activities, however most of the "solutions" that the industry and the governemt come up with are just silly.
Red Hat != Linux
On top of that, out-of-the-box Solaris has the oldest toolchain I have ever seen. grep is not recursive, find does not allow -i for ignore case, and tons of other little annoyances compared to Linux.
I am sorry, but on x86, Solaris has nothing over Linux. Now if your running some big Sparc boxes, then that is the only place Solaris shines from stability. SUN only had Sparc to target with very limited hardware support, so you would expect a very stable server. However, when it comes to commodity x86 servers up to 8 way, Linux just pulls far past Solaris.
One question I have for the /. crowd is has anyone seen this "Open" source license for Solaris? Is it going to be just as "Open" as Java? I personally do not consider that very open. To me the only way I would consider Solaris Open Source is if I could say fork the Solaris kernel and start my _own_ Solaris kernel. Now you know SUN will never let that happen. I think SUN's idea of Open Source is allowing you to look at the code, and if you are a big enough company maybe join some committee. As of now, I personally think that all this "Open" Solaris talk is just that, talk.
This would prevent "idea grabbers" who go and lock ideas away without having to invest anything more then a thought. We are getting more and more "companies" that have no employees other then lawyers and they just have a bunch of ideas patented. Those ideas never have to be proven to be viable, no research needs to be done on the idea. Just someone says, I bet 5 years from now we will have computers that will accept a fingerprint for authentication. Go out and patent that process and get rich if it ever comes to pass. Now the real company/people/person that deserves that patent are those that spend the time and money to get it all working. That is where the real cost is. I would have no problem with an idea-only patent if it had detailed engineering docs on how to at least accomplish 60% of the process or invention being patented. But to just allow any non-proven, non-working idea to be patented is just silly. It holds the real innovators at ransom when they actually invest the time and money to make inventions.
This isn't something specific to Open Source software. All software goes through similar issues until a major release, even beta software from MS. The reason you don't often notice it with proprietary software is because a normal user is not allowed access to that beta software and only sees the final product. In contrast, with Open Source software you can run directly from development CVS if you want (which I don't recommend for non-developers). If you don't want to experience these issues with Open Source then don't use the cutting-edge Open Source release, stick with Open Source major release just as you do with your proprietary software.
The default Gimp layout is actaully the same as the default Photoshop layout under Mac. I personally do not like the Photoshop layout under MS Windows. If I maximize the image I am working on, all the other docked tool windows are always topmost and cover parts of the image. With Gimp, I have every tool window docked into one nice main tool panel. If I need to change a tool, I just alt+tab, select the tool and then alt+tab back to the maximized image with nothing covering the image.
P.S. For those that don't know about -safe-mode, it start Firefox with _all_ extensions disabled.
Try removing libswf and starting Firefox from a command prompt in safe mode by passing -safe-mode on the command line (firefox -safe-mode). If the problems go away then that should tell you that it is either libswf or your extension(s).
See my post here. NVidia uses a unified code base that shares 95% of the code across Linux, Windows and Mac. That other 5% is for differences with each OS and how to interact with the kernel/graphics layer. I didn't write the NVidia drivers so I cannot tell you what those extensions do. However if I were to take a stab at it, I would say they deal with GL things that are specific to X under Linux?
One thing that may cause I problem (at least the only one I experienced) is if you do not delete your profile directory between version changes. Especially going from pre 1.0 to 1.0. Here is what I did: Go to your Firefox profile directory located at:
Now copy the following files to another directory:bookmarks.html
cookies.txt
formhistory.dat
history.dat
hostperm.1
key3.db
prefs.js
signons.txt Now go to the top of the Mozilla directory and remove it completely. Install Firefox 1.0 and start it for the first time and close Firefox. Go to the new profile directory and copy back the files you backed up.
The only problem with this method is that you need to reinstall extensions, though going to 1.0, older extensions didn't work anyway. Hopefully later versions of Firefox will have a better upgrade method.