Not possible and thats kinda the point. Free software is worked on for the most part by volunteers in their spare time. If somebody wants to spend their time porting the latest OSS app to Windows thats down to them.
Its true to say that porting OSS apps to windows improves the Windows experience by providing Windows users with some good quality software for nothing, but this IMHO is a good thing. For me, OSS software is about improving software for everybody and that includes Windows users.
Well, its a ligitimate workaround, as is the web file sharing which is also native to macos 10 and I believe there's some old school apple file sharing available as well (although thats before my time).
And if that won't do, you've still got ftp and scp. So yes, while its a potential pain in the ass that its (maybe) broken, its not exactly terminal.
The problem in my experience is that the best coding documentation writers are also the best coders, so they always get shipped off to work on the next tough problem and the rookies (like me) get left to document a system.
This is not entirely true. Its is true to say that Apple build their system with a limited set of components, they are not entirely proprietry.
Powerbook touchpads were, until recently, synaptics, the same as you'd fine in any dell. Hard disk manufacturers vary, and the 'Superdrive' is a DVD-RW from one (or more) of the large manufacturers. CPUs are by Motorola or IBM depending on who is flavour of the month, airport extreme is a standard 802.11 chip found in just about every cheap wireless card on the market. Graphics are by Nvidia or Ati (just like any PC). A variety of PCI cards are also supported on the powermacs.
So yeah, not as diverse as the PC market, but not as narrow as you make out.
Why not? There's nothing in the GPL against charging for it. All they would be doing is complying with the GPL by making the source available. They can still charge for the binary version with the manual and the box and the logo. There are plenty if non technical windows users who want to try out MacOS X who would pay.
The net used to self-regulate pretty well. If you were a pain in the ass, you got ping flooded and mail bombed off the net (until you learned to behave). Governments get involved and that's now illegal - probably a good thing IMHO.
The UN is such a weak and bureaucratic organisation that nothing is going to happen, and when it does it will be ignored by the US anyway unless it suits them in which case it will be ignored by anyone else. What is required is a means to remove that which does real harm to real people (child porn, annorexia promotion sites etc) while preserving everything else. Seeing as this is not possible, handing responsibility to bureaucrats who will talk forever and do nothing seems like the best approach to me.
Thats simply not true. Linux does let you do incredibly stupid things, but only as root. Its also designed in such a way that you mostly don't need to be root. It is therefore a reasonable assumption to make that a person running as root will be (i) Cluefull and (ii) careful.
Windows, however is setup in such a way that if you want to do pretty much anything that you need to run as 'root' to do anything, as gaining additional privilages for a single command on windows is a pain in the ass (actually, this is getting better see RunAs). Therefore Windows is forced into a dumb compromise which pleases nobody where superusers get training wheels and morons get the ability to screw things up royally.
For something to be patentable (at least over here), there must be an inventive step. Using XML to store data is what XML is for, this is an obvious use of existing technlogy and therefore should not be patentable. There's no invention there.
Wasn't there a project a while back to produce a GPLed BIOS for booting Linux? Not sure how much success you'd have with a laptop, but might be worth a go?
I'm sure another/.er will put me right.
If you have an open source car then every clueless script kiddie on the planet is gonna hack to the ECU to try to make it go faster, regardless of the saftey and environmental implications. This is probably not a good thing.
I also think FreeBSD shot themselves in the foot by going with the MxN threading model, which sounds great in theory but's a real devil to get implemented to the point where it's correct and useful.
Your kinda missing the point here. FreeBSD has got it implemented to the point where its correct and useful. Having done it kind of nullifies it the disadvantage of it being hard to do.
I also disagree, and I'm using KDE right now (on FreeBSD as opposed to Linux, but lets not get into that). KDE is pretty, I'll give it that, but its slow compared to MacOS 10.3. Its bundled applications are not on a level with the Mac either. Kmail doesn't feel as good to use as Mac mail, and nothing can touch iCal or iTunes IMHO. Also, in being a unix system I can compile and use most Linux apps anyway should I want to.
I figure it's similar to how people beleive that OS X is the best thing to ever happen to modern computing since Windows 95, even though a vast majority of OS X lovers never used it for anything other then a desktop or a toy for any length of time.
Well, OS X is great. Its a UNIX OS with a decent GUI. Not often seen
Absolutely, the vast majority of linix users are pretty experienced. The last thing you want to do is antagonise the vast majority of your user base but treating them like complete morons.
If its to happen, it needs to be not installed and off by default on everything (that incudes GNOME and KDE). And when its switched on by an administrator (who knows a particular user is dumb), there needs to be a big red 'go away and never bother me again' button.
The only reason you need to many CPUs on SPARC is because the individual CPUs are so slow.
How else did IBM outperform a 108 CPU SPARC box with a 32 CPU p-series?
I have to say I haven't noticed any. My PowerBook G4 flies along with MacOS 10.3. Can't say I've noticed any difference in responsiveness compared to Win2k, and its a lot quicker than KDE 3 on FreeBSD 5 on my 1ghz Athlon.
I bought mine because as far as I'm concerned, its the only way to get a UNIX powered laptop hassle free. Linux and FreeBSD have put a lot of work into their power management and ACPI support, but I wanna be able to shut the lid on my work and open it up again after lunch (or whatever) and my confident that suspend won't do any damage.
Also, it looks great. I havn't seen a single x86 based laptop that is as nicer looking piece of kit as my aluminium powerbook G4. Maybe this is not important to everyone, but it matters to me.
There seems to be a growing view that open source developers deliberately steal IP from companies due to some GNU powered political motivation to take over the world. This is simply not true.
Nobody in open source cares about patents. They're simply not on the radar. Open source developers only care about building good software. They're not lawyers, they don't work in marketing, and, mostly, they're not project managers. They're interested in making whatever software they're working on the best there is, and that is what makes open source sotware what it is. If there interests were anywhere else, quality would suffer.
I used to work for IBM. There are plenty of pissed off temporary staff and contractors (and even full timers) who would be quite happy to cut and paste from Notes to Hotmail.
Mark
Slashdot Mirror
Not possible and thats kinda the point. Free software is worked on for the most part by volunteers in their spare time. If somebody wants to spend their time porting the latest OSS app to Windows thats down to them.
Its true to say that porting OSS apps to windows improves the Windows experience by providing Windows users with some good quality software for nothing, but this IMHO is a good thing. For me, OSS software is about improving software for everybody and that includes Windows users.
I guess the poster was referring to the FairPlay DRM used on the AAC files from the iTunes music store.
Well, its a ligitimate workaround, as is the web file sharing which is also native to macos 10 and I believe there's some old school apple file sharing available as well (although thats before my time). And if that won't do, you've still got ftp and scp. So yes, while its a potential pain in the ass that its (maybe) broken, its not exactly terminal.
Does this mean I can convert from wordML to openoffice and back with a simple XSLT?
This could make for a pretty neat web based document repository which returns documents in any format I like.
The problem in my experience is that the best coding documentation writers are also the best coders, so they always get shipped off to work on the next tough problem and the rookies (like me) get left to document a system.
This is not entirely true. Its is true to say that Apple build their system with a limited set of components, they are not entirely proprietry.
Powerbook touchpads were, until recently, synaptics, the same as you'd fine in any dell. Hard disk manufacturers vary, and the 'Superdrive' is a DVD-RW from one (or more) of the large manufacturers. CPUs are by Motorola or IBM depending on who is flavour of the month, airport extreme is a standard 802.11 chip found in just about every cheap wireless card on the market. Graphics are by Nvidia or Ati (just like any PC). A variety of PCI cards are also supported on the powermacs.
So yeah, not as diverse as the PC market, but not as narrow as you make out.
Why not? There's nothing in the GPL against charging for it. All they would be doing is complying with the GPL by making the source available. They can still charge for the binary version with the manual and the box and the logo. There are plenty if non technical windows users who want to try out MacOS X who would pay.
The net used to self-regulate pretty well. If you were a pain in the ass, you got ping flooded and mail bombed off the net (until you learned to behave). Governments get involved and that's now illegal - probably a good thing IMHO. The UN is such a weak and bureaucratic organisation that nothing is going to happen, and when it does it will be ignored by the US anyway unless it suits them in which case it will be ignored by anyone else. What is required is a means to remove that which does real harm to real people (child porn, annorexia promotion sites etc) while preserving everything else. Seeing as this is not possible, handing responsibility to bureaucrats who will talk forever and do nothing seems like the best approach to me.
Why would you rm -r .o files?
You don't need -r for that.
Still point taken, rm -f *>o could still ruin your day.
Thats simply not true. Linux does let you do incredibly stupid things, but only as root. Its also designed in such a way that you mostly don't need to be root. It is therefore a reasonable assumption to make that a person running as root will be (i) Cluefull and (ii) careful.
Windows, however is setup in such a way that if you want to do pretty much anything that you need to run as 'root' to do anything, as gaining additional privilages for a single command on windows is a pain in the ass (actually, this is getting better see RunAs). Therefore Windows is forced into a dumb compromise which pleases nobody where superusers get training wheels and morons get the ability to screw things up royally.
For something to be patentable (at least over here), there must be an inventive step. Using XML to store data is what XML is for, this is an obvious use of existing technlogy and therefore should not be patentable. There's no invention there.
Wasn't there a project a while back to produce a GPLed BIOS for booting Linux? Not sure how much success you'd have with a laptop, but might be worth a go? I'm sure another /.er will put me right.
If you have an open source car then every clueless script kiddie on the planet is gonna hack to the ECU to try to make it go faster, regardless of the saftey and environmental implications. This is probably not a good thing.
Would be a neat idea though. A Windows exploit that only targets people who have legal copies?
How long until it happens?
No doubt Microsoft are currently (secretly) working on the opposite, a BSOD exploit that only targets illegal copies.
I also think FreeBSD shot themselves in the foot by going with the MxN threading model, which sounds great in theory but's a real devil to get implemented to the point where it's correct and useful.
Your kinda missing the point here. FreeBSD has got it implemented to the point where its correct and useful. Having done it kind of nullifies it the disadvantage of it being hard to do.
I also disagree, and I'm using KDE right now (on FreeBSD as opposed to Linux, but lets not get into that). KDE is pretty, I'll give it that, but its slow compared to MacOS 10.3. Its bundled applications are not on a level with the Mac either. Kmail doesn't feel as good to use as Mac mail, and nothing can touch iCal or iTunes IMHO. Also, in being a unix system I can compile and use most Linux apps anyway should I want to.
I figure it's similar to how people beleive that OS X is the best thing to ever happen to modern computing since Windows 95, even though a vast majority of OS X lovers never used it for anything other then a desktop or a toy for any length of time.
Well, OS X is great. Its a UNIX OS with a decent GUI. Not often seen
Feel free to mod offtopic
Software code is subject to copyright, physical inventions are not. Physical inventions therefore require patents, software code does not. Mark
Absolutely, the vast majority of linix users are pretty experienced. The last thing you want to do is antagonise the vast majority of your user base but treating them like complete morons.
If its to happen, it needs to be not installed and off by default on everything (that incudes GNOME and KDE). And when its switched on by an administrator (who knows a particular user is dumb), there needs to be a big red 'go away and never bother me again' button.
The only reason you need to many CPUs on SPARC is because the individual CPUs are so slow. How else did IBM outperform a 108 CPU SPARC box with a 32 CPU p-series?
Neverwinter Nights runs fine under Linux emu, fully accelerated with the Nvidia binary driver.
Only time its been noticably slower than on windows was when I left a make buildworld running in the background.
I have to say I haven't noticed any. My PowerBook G4 flies along with MacOS 10.3. Can't say I've noticed any difference in responsiveness compared to Win2k, and its a lot quicker than KDE 3 on FreeBSD 5 on my 1ghz Athlon. I bought mine because as far as I'm concerned, its the only way to get a UNIX powered laptop hassle free. Linux and FreeBSD have put a lot of work into their power management and ACPI support, but I wanna be able to shut the lid on my work and open it up again after lunch (or whatever) and my confident that suspend won't do any damage. Also, it looks great. I havn't seen a single x86 based laptop that is as nicer looking piece of kit as my aluminium powerbook G4. Maybe this is not important to everyone, but it matters to me.
There seems to be a growing view that open source developers deliberately steal IP from companies due to some GNU powered political motivation to take over the world. This is simply not true.
Nobody in open source cares about patents. They're simply not on the radar. Open source developers only care about building good software. They're not lawyers, they don't work in marketing, and, mostly, they're not project managers. They're interested in making whatever software they're working on the best there is, and that is what makes open source sotware what it is. If there interests were anywhere else, quality would suffer.
I used to work for IBM. There are plenty of pissed off temporary staff and contractors (and even full timers) who would be quite happy to cut and paste from Notes to Hotmail. Mark
The military write everything in caps. Goes back to the days when they only had teleprinters which could only do caps.