In the world of software it seems to be generally the case that you try to support as many formats as possible, both for reasons of usability (why will it open that, but not this document?) and usefulness.
Though, of course, ultimately competitive reasons are the motive. Players in monopoly positions might disagree.
What I want to say is, why not ask Apple to support Ogg Vorbis? Surely it's a good thing Vorbis fans aren't so cynical as to not even bother voicing polite requests for Vorbis support. That should definitely be all the more true if they're willing to put their money where their mouth is at.
Re:Upcoming Open Source Alternative to Google...
on
Google Files for IPO
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· Score: 1
Well,
if you didn't serve me up what I'm guessing are Spanish pages, that would be swell!
I think it's not at all because those lawsuits are taking place in the US, rather it's because the US happens to be the place where the SCO lawsuits will take place first.
Actually I've heard newbies who don't use the computer frequently (my mother mostly:D) ask how to save their document and then, when I point to the icon, complain that they which to save to the hard drive.
Any industrialised nation sufficinatly advanced to create an autonomous fighting machine would have little to gain from taking over the world
by explaining that
With adequate robot labor, you would have no need to exploit the world. At that point, added territory is no longer a source of useful resources but only an administrative burden.
and then you go on to give an exception
The real danger of such technology is that is falls into the hands of primitive societies in which a primal warmongering mindset dominates.
Hello? First you say that having advanced robots makes a nation peaceful and then you invent a contradicting mindset which is somehow immune to that pacifying effect. What's your point again?
Re:So, when ?
on
Ximian's Back
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· Score: 2, Informative
The natural question now is , ofcourse, when will Ximian release Ximian Destop 2 ?
June 9th. It's on their damn web site.
Re:Why the emphasis on a polished desktop?
on
Ximian's Back
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· Score: 1
The problem with X is precisely that it is client-server. While being able to run anything across the network is great, [...]
Heh. Windows et al. are client-server too. Maybe you mistakenly believe client-server implies networking? Either how, normal use of X on you desktop will use Unix sockets instead of using a network stack, which is just some way of using IPC (like all modern windowing environments use).
Can You Imagine a Beowulf Cluster of Those
on
AIBO Via E-mail
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· Score: 0
A collective consiousness of these Haibos. They could exchange learned behaviour or plot on an overtake of the human race! Oh... wait.
Ah, but it's Ximian that's doing the work in that department, not the GNOME project itself. If I understand correctly the question if C# should be used in GNOME is still undecided and in fact has not been raised yet (or rather, it has been postponed until Mono is more mature).
I remember a lot of ambivalence from GNOME developers when Mono was announced so I don't believe the answer to this issue is obvious. Although to be fair it must be said that Ximian hires quite a few GNOME core developers, most of which I assume are pretty excited about Miguel's pet project. Because of that I don't expect Mono to be shot down without some vivid discussion.;)
Personally I would love to see Mono/Gtk# programs being accepted into the GNOME project. In fact, I believe it would fit right in with GNOME's aim for being programming language agnostic. On a sidenote, if Mono code started appearing in GNOME I'd probably start helping out where I can (I really dislike C and C++ and I don't care if anyone wants to call me a weeny because of that:P).
I disagree with most of your points but I'll confine myself to only two of your assertions since the other ones have already been replied to.
While GNOME was making critical mis-steps such as following in the footsteps of Microsoft, and using their FSF clout to force Redhat to hemogenize the redhat/linux desktop;
"Following in the footsteps of Micrsoft", what's that supposed to mean? I've always thought KDE resembles Windows more than GNOME. For example, KDE favors the same button ordering as Windows and has plenty of preferences in their programs (which I find Microsoftish, although KDE takes this further -- case in point: the overwelhming amount of options in konqueror). In contrast GNOME took over somewhat the button ordering of MacOS and advocates to keep only sane and necessary preferences, going as far as moving the preferences perceived only by power-users as necessary to gconf.
The hemogenizing that Red Hat did with GNOME and KDE isn't that great from a GNOME perspective either. Consider for example that the menu bar on top was dropped in favour of the old foot menu, to make the desktop experience similar to KDE.
I prefer GNOME because of its simplicity but I reckon that's a personal preference.
It's more than compiler warnings or javadocs. It's not just aesthetics. Things are deprecated for a reason. Usually it's because there are serious problems, like with Thread.stop(). Sometimes it's because there's a better way to do it. Sometimes it's just to make things more consistent, like with Color constants (which are fixed in 1.4).
Fine. Then don't use Thread.stop(). Who cares that such code still exists? Like I said, if you remove it from the JavaDocs you won't even notice that it's still there. You'll be backwards compatible though. (i.e. it really is aesthetics for all practicle purposes.)
Who's going to force you to upgrade? You could keep using JDKs up to 1.5 which is backwards compatible to JDK 1.0.
Well, you couldn't upgrade if you'd want to keep using old libraries. Also, if after a while this Java 3 edition had many more feautures than 2 (1.4), you could only use them if you upgraded your entire codebase. An utter waste of time for some projects (if it's not broken, don't fix it).
I realise getting rid of cruft can be satisfying to the perfectionist (a treat often found in programmers), but @deprecated is doing that just fine already. Willingly breaking code for the reasons you outlined is madness.
You want to break millions of lines of code just because you're bothered seeing deprecated classes and methods in the JavaDocs? Are you insane???
Modify the JavaDoc generator to filter them out if you care that much but leave my legacy alone, will you?
As for uppercase/lowercase confusion in java.awt.Color, I believe the rationale for this is that the colors are assigned in the constructor, and not in the assignments (i.e. after the constructor is run). It's a freaking stupid reason (IF I remember this correctly), I'll grant you that. I say add Color.BLUE next to Color.blue and put a deprecated tag on the latter.
But I'll say it again: don't break that much code just because you're bothered by aesthetics.
It's called evolution. If humans are ever going to colonize the universe, we HAVE to develop a tolerance to radiation. What better way than what we've been doing?
Evolution you say? I'm thinking more in the direction of a Darwin Award for you!
Maybe you should try seeing a TeeVee documentary on environmentalism (National Geographic must have some) and find out for yourself how much records they have of temperature. It's really fascinating you know.
Oh, I must give you a hint ahead: scientists are clever folks and have come up with other ways of getting those records than simply browsing through human notes.
I give you object code. You decompile it. I have you arrested.
That's freedom??
No, no, I'm afraid you're mistaken. Copyright is by definition a restriction on other people's freedom. The license I described in my previous post undos that restriction. It also takes away the "right" for those that make derived works to punish you if you, for example, decompile their modified code.
I also dislike the "Free" software term - GPL is restricted and non-Free, too. Public-domain (and BSD-style licensing, to a slightly lesser extent) are more "Free".
The BSD license and the public domain allow you to modify the code an release it under as proprietary software. This means that people can use BSD licensed or public domain source code and then restrict you from using derivated works. That doesn't count as freedom in my book much like being "allowed" to sell yourself as a slave does not consitute freedom.
If you want a true anti-copyright license, it would be like the BSD-license except that derived source code and its object code would be allowed to be copied, studied, modified and distributed after modifications. In cases where only the object code was distributed, it would be allowed to decompile that code.
You could also say that it would be like the (L)GPL except that the source code would not have to be distributed along with the object code. Except that it would explicitly allow to decompile the binaries and then excercice the rights granted by the (L)GPL.
As no such license exist, it is my opinion that the (L)GPL comes closest to true freedom. After all, the obligation of having to distribute the code is but a small effort and brings huge gains to end-users (or the programmers they hire.)
Slashdot Mirror
Though, of course, ultimately competitive reasons are the motive. Players in monopoly positions might disagree.
What I want to say is, why not ask Apple to support Ogg Vorbis? Surely it's a good thing Vorbis fans aren't so cynical as to not even bother voicing polite requests for Vorbis support. That should definitely be all the more true if they're willing to put their money where their mouth is at.
Well, if you didn't serve me up what I'm guessing are Spanish pages, that would be swell!
Eh. Your local law enforcement agency doesn't make laws, you know.
I think it's not at all because those lawsuits are taking place in the US, rather it's because the US happens to be the place where the SCO lawsuits will take place first.
Actually I've heard newbies who don't use the computer frequently (my mother mostly :D) ask how to save their document and then, when I point to the icon, complain that they which to save to the hard drive.
If news isn't compelling enough, then the problem lays with those ISPs and college campuses IMO.
A collective consiousness of these Haibos. They could exchange learned behaviour or plot on an overtake of the human race! Oh... wait.
heh. He was clearly accusing you of spreading the FUD.
I remember a lot of ambivalence from GNOME developers when Mono was announced so I don't believe the answer to this issue is obvious. Although to be fair it must be said that Ximian hires quite a few GNOME core developers, most of which I assume are pretty excited about Miguel's pet project. Because of that I don't expect Mono to be shot down without some vivid discussion. ;)
Personally I would love to see Mono/Gtk# programs being accepted into the GNOME project. In fact, I believe it would fit right in with GNOME's aim for being programming language agnostic. On a sidenote, if Mono code started appearing in GNOME I'd probably start helping out where I can (I really dislike C and C++ and I don't care if anyone wants to call me a weeny because of that :P).
The hemogenizing that Red Hat did with GNOME and KDE isn't that great from a GNOME perspective either. Consider for example that the menu bar on top was dropped in favour of the old foot menu, to make the desktop experience similar to KDE.
I prefer GNOME because of its simplicity but I reckon that's a personal preference.
Well, you couldn't upgrade if you'd want to keep using old libraries. Also, if after a while this Java 3 edition had many more feautures than 2 (1.4), you could only use them if you upgraded your entire codebase. An utter waste of time for some projects (if it's not broken, don't fix it).
I realise getting rid of cruft can be satisfying to the perfectionist (a treat often found in programmers), but @deprecated is doing that just fine already. Willingly breaking code for the reasons you outlined is madness.
Modify the JavaDoc generator to filter them out if you care that much but leave my legacy alone, will you?
As for uppercase/lowercase confusion in java.awt.Color, I believe the rationale for this is that the colors are assigned in the constructor, and not in the assignments (i.e. after the constructor is run). It's a freaking stupid reason (IF I remember this correctly), I'll grant you that. I say add Color.BLUE next to Color.blue and put a deprecated tag on the latter.
But I'll say it again: don't break that much code just because you're bothered by aesthetics.
Evolution you say? I'm thinking more in the direction of a Darwin Award for you!
Oh, I must give you a hint ahead: scientists are clever folks and have come up with other ways of getting those records than simply browsing through human notes.
You're right. There are two schools of thoughts in this matter and sadly their differences will never be settled.
That's freedom??
No, no, I'm afraid you're mistaken. Copyright is by definition a restriction on other people's freedom. The license I described in my previous post undos that restriction. It also takes away the "right" for those that make derived works to punish you if you, for example, decompile their modified code.
If you want a true anti-copyright license, it would be like the BSD-license except that derived source code and its object code would be allowed to be copied, studied, modified and distributed after modifications. In cases where only the object code was distributed, it would be allowed to decompile that code.
You could also say that it would be like the (L)GPL except that the source code would not have to be distributed along with the object code. Except that it would explicitly allow to decompile the binaries and then excercice the rights granted by the (L)GPL.
As no such license exist, it is my opinion that the (L)GPL comes closest to true freedom. After all, the obligation of having to distribute the code is but a small effort and brings huge gains to end-users (or the programmers they hire.)
When will be able to vote on exiling our teachers into space?
I bet RMS will be thrilled when he hears this. The FSF will finally be able to propose the .gnu TLD.