Hopefully, the patents will fail in the US too; not many applications can be developed without ASP.NET, ADO.NET and Windows.Forms packages.
That's not true. For example, most current Mono apps use Gtk# rather than Windows.Forms. Windows.Forms hasn't even been implemented much in Mono until very recently.
Basically Mono "embraced and extended".NET and introduced their own competing API stack (though they have made efforts to implement the MS APIs as well).
The new open dialog was a recent decision that can be placed squarely on the heads of the current GTK leadership (which overlaps a little with the GIMP's, but not totally).
Actually the stupid open dialog is GTK's fault, not the GIMP's. The most recent versions of GTK removed it from the standard dialog.
The only reason Inkscape has a text entry widget in its file dialog was that we very painfully hacked a text input field back into the standard widget using evil methods.
And what happens if the original developer dies? Is everyone prohibited from using his code until the copright runs out in 95 years, as they can't notify him of changes?
Yes, unless he has an identifiable successor-in-interest.
The problem is that with the recent Sun/Microsoft partnership business, it looks as if Sun may be in the process of becoming something of a hired flunkie...
I think your 10x estimate is a bit high, but even if it weren't, from a financial standpoint it sounds a lot smarter to put off the purchase for a while.
You can set aside the money you'd be paying for Tivo monthly fees, and after a while you can use the money you've set aside to get over the initial cost hump for MythTV.
Monthly fees are forever, the initial cost is not.
Assuming electricity isn't too expensive (MythTV is going to use more power probably), you come out ahead.
That's exactly the problem. Non-airplane shaped craft are much easier to slow down and land, without all the complicated flight paths and associated steering requirements.
The weirdness in the US has an awful lot to do with the heavy cultural influence of the Puritan movement, seeing as most of them fled over here and were a large component of the early colonies.
IMO, if someone describes the US as Puritanical, it's not just a slur but actually somewhat factual...
Blocks are more general a facility than list comprehensions. Basically, blocks are basically a syntactically sugary lambda, with some very convenient argument-passing aspects.
Based on past history, it's more likely to shake people into giving a politician all the power they want and creating a dictator. That's been the normal effect of mass fear.
Kill-9ing does not always clean memory, open files, sockets, etc.
Yes it does. The only exceptions are SYSV IPC objects which don't get automatically reaped, and temporarily created filesystem objects that still have links.
Well, they _are_ both continuing problems which have not yet been fixed.
Photoshop's UI isn't the greatest, but the GIMP's is really assinine in places. The superficial MDI versus "controlled SDI" differences that it has with Photoshop are not the problem.
("controlled SDI" versus real SDI _is_ part of the problem, but that has nothing to do with Photoshop)
Similarly, software being named "The GIMP" really really is a problem for most non-technical users (particularly in corporate environments). Right or wrong, that is the way it is, and it is really holding the application back.
If the GIMP developers were any less cool in other respects these issues would have resulted in a fork by now. As it is there is a certain tension mounting...
(I think I can speak from some level experience on all of these issues, having been intimately involved in the Sodipodi -> Inkscape fork.)
...and I don't see what the big deal is. The biggest part of being an artist is in composition, not execution.
Even if you completely remove the need for fiddly hand skills, everyone isn't going to magically get good taste in color, composition, use of negative space, or even necessarily be able to think of visual things in detail without the natural iconic abstractions we artists have to train ourselves to avoid, lest a realistically shaded model turn into a stick figure.
Assuming a magic "mental image to picture" device ever came to exist, I don't think it would change the overall quality of people as artists much. Volume of output, maybe, but not quality.
Perhaps even less quality, as most people probably wouldn't spend much time editing once the picture was "in the machine".
In fact, it would be a lot like how email and instant messaging made everyone a writer.
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That was the original plan.
That's not true. For example, most current Mono apps use Gtk# rather than Windows.Forms. Windows.Forms hasn't even been implemented much in Mono until very recently.
Basically Mono "embraced and extended" .NET and introduced their own competing API stack (though they have made efforts to implement the MS APIs as well).
Yep. See the Wikipedia article.
GTK split off from the GIMP a long time ago.
The new open dialog was a recent decision that can be placed squarely on the heads of the current GTK leadership (which overlaps a little with the GIMP's, but not totally).
Actually the stupid open dialog is GTK's fault, not the GIMP's. The most recent versions of GTK removed it from the standard dialog.
The only reason Inkscape has a text entry widget in its file dialog was that we very painfully hacked a text input field back into the standard widget using evil methods.
Yes, unless he has an identifiable successor-in-interest.
Unless you enable -ffast-math, gcc will generate IEEE-compliant code by default.
...if you can get someone with authority to digitally sign your VM binary, sure.
...and did, when JMS tried it.
You're also forgetting that we're talking about patents, not copyrights.
If you even happen to coincidentally do something that's covered by the patent without even knowing, you're _still_ screwed. No looking necessary.
The problem is that with the recent Sun/Microsoft partnership business, it looks as if Sun may be in the process of becoming something of a hired flunkie...
I think your 10x estimate is a bit high, but even if it weren't, from a financial standpoint it sounds a lot smarter to put off the purchase for a while.
You can set aside the money you'd be paying for Tivo monthly fees, and after a while you can use the money you've set aside to get over the initial cost hump for MythTV.
Monthly fees are forever, the initial cost is not.
Assuming electricity isn't too expensive (MythTV is going to use more power probably), you come out ahead.
That's exactly the problem. Non-airplane shaped craft are much easier to slow down and land, without all the complicated flight paths and associated steering requirements.
The weirdness in the US has an awful lot to do with the heavy cultural influence of the Puritan movement, seeing as most of them fled over here and were a large component of the early colonies.
IMO, if someone describes the US as Puritanical, it's not just a slur but actually somewhat factual...
Blocks are more general a facility than list comprehensions. Basically, blocks are basically a syntactically sugary lambda, with some very convenient argument-passing aspects.
Finally, someone who gets it...
An AK-47 would just annoy a large bear. You really, really, really want something a larger calibre...
That happens to pretty much everyone to varying degrees as they get older, not just Einstein.
I've been told there's a saying among physicists: the only reason new theories are accepted is because old physicists eventually die.
Based on past history, it's more likely to shake people into giving a politician all the power they want and creating a dictator. That's been the normal effect of mass fear.
Right; my point is simply that there's no simple automatic process to doing this.
That doesn't help if the library keeps state in static storage, rather than passing "context" objects as parameters.
Yes it does. The only exceptions are SYSV IPC objects which don't get automatically reaped, and temporarily created filesystem objects that still have links.
Assuming your kernel isn't buggy, anyway.
That's the beauty of it. When winter comes around, the gorillas will simply freeze to death.
Well, they _are_ both continuing problems which have not yet been fixed.
Photoshop's UI isn't the greatest, but the GIMP's is really assinine in places. The superficial MDI versus "controlled SDI" differences that it has with Photoshop are not the problem.
("controlled SDI" versus real SDI _is_ part of the problem, but that has nothing to do with Photoshop)
Similarly, software being named "The GIMP" really really is a problem for most non-technical users (particularly in corporate environments). Right or wrong, that is the way it is, and it is really holding the application back.
If the GIMP developers were any less cool in other respects these issues would have resulted in a fork by now. As it is there is a certain tension mounting...
(I think I can speak from some level experience on all of these issues, having been intimately involved in the Sodipodi -> Inkscape fork.)
...and I don't see what the big deal is. The biggest part of being an artist is in composition, not execution.
Even if you completely remove the need for fiddly hand skills, everyone isn't going to magically get good taste in color, composition, use of negative space, or even necessarily be able to think of visual things in detail without the natural iconic abstractions we artists have to train ourselves to avoid, lest a realistically shaded model turn into a stick figure.
Assuming a magic "mental image to picture" device ever came to exist, I don't think it would change the overall quality of people as artists much. Volume of output, maybe, but not quality.
Perhaps even less quality, as most people probably wouldn't spend much time editing once the picture was "in the machine".
In fact, it would be a lot like how email and instant messaging made everyone a writer.
Hmm. That IS a bit scary...