I suspect the reason that BSD is open source is more the enlightened policies (at the time) of Berkeley towards software developed at the university than Bill Joy's influence. Keep in mind that Sun has built a huge company around taking Berkeley UNIX and turning it into a proprietary OS.
I disagree about OpenOffice's importance; there are several other office suites for Linux and, as an end-user application, there are little other software packages that depend on OpenOffice.
What would matter (or rather, would have mattered) is true open source licensing for Java, because it could have made application development for open source platforms so much easier. But Sun missed that opportunity. Maybe C# will fill the niche.
How many ships do you think people lost during the age of exploration? And what fraction of wealth do you think was spent on exploration?
Space travel is much, much more complex. It's amazing that we manage to do it at all. And, on balance, NASA is doing very well, in particular given the limited resources they are getting.
Don't be so sure. They probably have a blanket agreement that you are bound by whatever regulations they have, even if you haven't signed them explicitly. Even if it's not in any contract or regulation, a company can often make a reasonable claim that they own your job-related inventions (which is what we are talking about). After all, they (presumably) don't pay you for manual labor, so they must own at least some of your mental output.
No, that's not what it comes down to. That's what it would come down to if they had made this decision without a financial tie-in from Microsoft. Given that they are accepting money, that raises the suspicion that the decision is not based on technical or educational considerations alone, and that is a problem.
"RTFM" is an outdated concept, applicable to well-defined, standardized, software used by specialists. A software company can't excuse poor usability or unexpected data loss by saying "RTFM".
In this case, an unobvious (mis-)feature caused a user to lose hours of work. That's a software problem, and specifically, a problem with a particular software feature, DRM. It shows that DRM reduces usability in practice. The burden of proof that this isn't necessarily true is on proponents of DRM to find workarounds.
Also note that this particular implementation of DRM is deliberately not secure; an implementation of the form that the music industry might like might simply not let the user recover their music when they reformat their drive no matter what they do. That is, after all, effectively how CDs used to work (if the medium went bad, you lost the music), and the music industry would love to get back to that kind of environment.
With Firewire/1394 you can plug your digicam into a 1394 compliant printer and you get your photos
You may notice that there are almost no FireWire digicams or printers.
In any case, you could easily make the same work with USB using existing standards: most digital cameras already speak USB storage and/or PTP, and a printer can easily and cheaply talk to the camera, pretending to be a computer. But nobody apparently really wants this; most people who want that kind of printing apparently pick a printer with a card reader.
Have a look at the hardware and protocol specs of both USB and 1394. 1394's are just so very more sane.
I have no doubt that IEEE1394 is better designed. But what difference does that make to me as a user? I have USB1, USB2, and FireWire devices, and the USB devices have overall been cheaper, easier to install and use, and even a little more reliable.
I think it's fine to teach C# in an introductory CS course. Java is required at many universities, and it is no more open than C# (in fact, C# has an open standard).
What is not acceptable, however, is for grants from a company to be tied to the use of its products in the curriculum. And, in fact, while C# is fine technically and educationally, Java would still be a more useful language for students to learn.
Decisions like this really call into question the academic integrity of a university; potential students of U. of Waterloo should take notice.
If you work for a company, the company basically owns everything you invent. If you work for a university, the university claims ownership of your ideas. You might be able to work for yourself, independently, but that's getting harder and harder, too. Software companies are putting out a minefield of patents, getting your own patents is enormously expensive (basically, it's affordable only if you become your own patent attorney), commercial software and services you use may come with requirements to transfer intellectual property, etc.
One lesson from this is: if you do something "on your own time", don't talk about it to your company; you can always publish it after quitting and nobody can prove anything. Furthermore, in certain special circumstances, if you do need an exception from a company's IP policy, get it in writing before you sign the employment contract.
Why companies get away with forcing these contracts on workers is hard to understand. They hire consultants that do not fall under such restrictions and pay them more to boot. Furthermore, in many states and countries, there are limitations on such claims by employers, but this is in Texas.
Well, then don't do that. If someone uses many devices, get them a machine with half a dozen powered USB2 ports. That's what I have on my PC. No hubs, no mess, and very easy to set up.
How about a FireWire port on my car stereo to connect my iPod?
There are already stereo components with USB connectors that can talk to portable audio devices. You just make the car stereo both a USB host and a USB device.
FireWire can carry POWER as well as data.
So can USB.
The difference between FireWire and USB are really subtle. The only place where I can think it would make a practical difference is where you have two computers and two disks all connected by FireWire. But Ethernet and various storage interfaces cover that case already, with better functionality and better software support.
But the USB model is also much simpler. All the extra possibilities that FireWire offers mean more complex software and more possibilities for misconfigurations and problems. In fact, in practice, it seems like USB and FireWire are really used in the same kinds of configurations by most people.
USB2 is a competitor because it integrates so seamlessly with USB1 software and drivers and because of its backwards compatibility. It isn't quite right to say that the installed based of USB2 is the same as the installed base of USB1, but it's pretty close for many practical purposes. FireWire is nicer technically, but in comparison, it is much less widely used.
I think USB2 will also come to be widely used on Macs. FireWire will probably become a niche product for digital video. For storage, serial ATA may take away a lot of business from both USB2 and FireWire (assuming that external serial ATA drives will become common--I don't see why not).
Both the TrackPoint and the various track pads have their own microprocessors and firmware. That's so that they can present the OS with a standard mouse-like interface. Otherwise, there would be constant hassles with drivers.
Some pointing devices can be switched into other modes ("absolute", "pressure", etc.) with non-standard protocols. I somehow doubt this can be done for the Mac, though.
Too bad that Macintosh comes with only one pointing device and a single button. Most people I know would much prefer something else, as well as a three-button mouse. With a desktop, it doesn't matter since people just plug in whatever keyboard and mouse they like (I can't remember the last time I actually have seen anybody use an Apple mouse), but with a laptop, there is no choice.
I don't see how that "license" could possibly hold up in court. You bought a copyrighted work, you didn't agree to a "license" or "contract".
Nevertheless, it shows bad faith on the part of Sun when it comes to promoting Java as an "open" language standard. In reality, Sun appears to be worse than Microsoft--at least Microsoft put parts of C# through ECMA, resulting in the kinds of open documents and guarantees that standards go with (not perfect, but a whole lot better than what Sun is doing).
Like the choice not to pay for Windows on a new PC. More importantly, I would like the choice of not having to use Microsoft software in order to read government documents, submit government forms, etc.
So, as long as the government sticks to open formats, I don't care what software they use. The problem with Microsoft software is that Microsoft does not support open formats well. If Microsoft changes their behavior, they can become competitive again for government applications.
I'm afraid you don't understand mammalian mating rituals. The whole point is to waste money on something entirely useless--it indicates that you are sufficiently well-off to be able to afford this. If you bought something useful with the money, it would show that you have to worry about it. And if you don't buy it, maybe some intelligent, thinking woman will still marry you, but a good, evolutionarily successful mammalian female should really have serious doubts about you.
Just be happy that you are human and can spend money on something that's disposable and generally not harmful to your health. Other animals have to carry around their showy but wasteful investments--you might have to run around with antlers or other useless appendages. Yet others need to engage in dangerous combats (still popular with some backwards humans) in order to win the favors of a female.
If you plug it into the USB port, does it look like standard USB storage? Can you write the MMC cards using Linux or do they have some special format? (Their web site doesn't say.)
What about the RomeMP3 and MP Wow players? Do they work with Linux?
If you like that style of window system, it's still around and very popular: it's called Java. Same stack based architecture, same imaging model, only this time they got the threading and type checking right. And it's actually powerful enough to do real work on the display side.
Those are Postscript interpreters. This effort seems to be about creating Postscript-like APIs for a C library (paths, pens, curves, etc.), similar to what Java2D is for Java.
Lots of people would like a Postscript-like graphics model accessible from C, very few people apparently want a Postscript interpreter to do their graphics (I certainly don't).
The other reason is that people think Objective C is a barrier to entry.
It is. The object model of Objective-C is far simpler and more powerful than that of C++, but when it comes to memory management and exceptions, Objective-C is outdated and very cumbersome.
Objective-C needs updating to address these issues. Unfortunately, nobody seems to be working on that. And that means that Objective-C will likely slowly drift into the sunset.
For Apple, it makes a lot of sense just to throw in their lot with Java rather than develop a new language.
Quartz brought a lot of nice effects to OS X, but slowed down the responsiveness of the GUI, especially on older hardware.
Quartz overhead comes from several sources. First, there is PDF. X11+XRender doesn't incur that at all because it uses a C API and a binary protocol.
Second, there is the imaging model. OSX really makes most applications other than games go through the same high-level imaging model. That's nice in certain ways, but completely unnecessary in many applications. A toolkit, for example, can often completely dispense with the possibility of anti-aliasing or geometric transformations and doesn't need to pay the overhead. X11+XRender gives programmers a choice for what kind of imaging model they want, for each particular call.
Still, I suspect that X11+XRender will be faster than Quartz even for applications using the same imaging model and putting the same graphics on the screen. We'll just have to wait and see. Maybe Apple will eventually switch OSX over to X11+XRender:-)
As far as I can tell from the little information that there is, what they are doing is to provide drawing primitives similar to what you get in PostScript (or Java2D, for that matter) on top of XRender, using a C-based API. They don't seem to be reimplementing Display Postscript.
That's good, as far as I'm concerned. The raw XRender interface is a bit primitive. Having a C-based API with PostScript-like drawing primitives will be really neat. That will make it much easier to get Macintosh-like screen-graphics without the mess and overhead associated with Display Postscript or Display PDF.
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I suspect the reason that BSD is open source is more the enlightened policies (at the time) of Berkeley towards software developed at the university than Bill Joy's influence. Keep in mind that Sun has built a huge company around taking Berkeley UNIX and turning it into a proprietary OS.
What would matter (or rather, would have mattered) is true open source licensing for Java, because it could have made application development for open source platforms so much easier. But Sun missed that opportunity. Maybe C# will fill the niche.
Space travel is much, much more complex. It's amazing that we manage to do it at all. And, on balance, NASA is doing very well, in particular given the limited resources they are getting.
Don't be so sure. They probably have a blanket agreement that you are bound by whatever regulations they have, even if you haven't signed them explicitly. Even if it's not in any contract or regulation, a company can often make a reasonable claim that they own your job-related inventions (which is what we are talking about). After all, they (presumably) don't pay you for manual labor, so they must own at least some of your mental output.
No, that's not what it comes down to. That's what it would come down to if they had made this decision without a financial tie-in from Microsoft. Given that they are accepting money, that raises the suspicion that the decision is not based on technical or educational considerations alone, and that is a problem.
That's easy: inject the DNA into brain cells with a gene gun and drink lots of coffee :-)
In this case, an unobvious (mis-)feature caused a user to lose hours of work. That's a software problem, and specifically, a problem with a particular software feature, DRM. It shows that DRM reduces usability in practice. The burden of proof that this isn't necessarily true is on proponents of DRM to find workarounds.
Also note that this particular implementation of DRM is deliberately not secure; an implementation of the form that the music industry might like might simply not let the user recover their music when they reformat their drive no matter what they do. That is, after all, effectively how CDs used to work (if the medium went bad, you lost the music), and the music industry would love to get back to that kind of environment.
You may notice that there are almost no FireWire digicams or printers.
In any case, you could easily make the same work with USB using existing standards: most digital cameras already speak USB storage and/or PTP, and a printer can easily and cheaply talk to the camera, pretending to be a computer. But nobody apparently really wants this; most people who want that kind of printing apparently pick a printer with a card reader.
Have a look at the hardware and protocol specs of both USB and 1394. 1394's are just so very more sane.
I have no doubt that IEEE1394 is better designed. But what difference does that make to me as a user? I have USB1, USB2, and FireWire devices, and the USB devices have overall been cheaper, easier to install and use, and even a little more reliable.
What is not acceptable, however, is for grants from a company to be tied to the use of its products in the curriculum. And, in fact, while C# is fine technically and educationally, Java would still be a more useful language for students to learn.
Decisions like this really call into question the academic integrity of a university; potential students of U. of Waterloo should take notice.
One lesson from this is: if you do something "on your own time", don't talk about it to your company; you can always publish it after quitting and nobody can prove anything. Furthermore, in certain special circumstances, if you do need an exception from a company's IP policy, get it in writing before you sign the employment contract.
Why companies get away with forcing these contracts on workers is hard to understand. They hire consultants that do not fall under such restrictions and pay them more to boot. Furthermore, in many states and countries, there are limitations on such claims by employers, but this is in Texas.
Well, then don't do that. If someone uses many devices, get them a machine with half a dozen powered USB2 ports. That's what I have on my PC. No hubs, no mess, and very easy to set up.
There are already stereo components with USB connectors that can talk to portable audio devices. You just make the car stereo both a USB host and a USB device.
FireWire can carry POWER as well as data.
So can USB.
The difference between FireWire and USB are really subtle. The only place where I can think it would make a practical difference is where you have two computers and two disks all connected by FireWire. But Ethernet and various storage interfaces cover that case already, with better functionality and better software support.
But the USB model is also much simpler. All the extra possibilities that FireWire offers mean more complex software and more possibilities for misconfigurations and problems. In fact, in practice, it seems like USB and FireWire are really used in the same kinds of configurations by most people.
I think USB2 will also come to be widely used on Macs. FireWire will probably become a niche product for digital video. For storage, serial ATA may take away a lot of business from both USB2 and FireWire (assuming that external serial ATA drives will become common--I don't see why not).
Some pointing devices can be switched into other modes ("absolute", "pressure", etc.) with non-standard protocols. I somehow doubt this can be done for the Mac, though.
Too bad that Macintosh comes with only one pointing device and a single button. Most people I know would much prefer something else, as well as a three-button mouse. With a desktop, it doesn't matter since people just plug in whatever keyboard and mouse they like (I can't remember the last time I actually have seen anybody use an Apple mouse), but with a laptop, there is no choice.
Nevertheless, it shows bad faith on the part of Sun when it comes to promoting Java as an "open" language standard. In reality, Sun appears to be worse than Microsoft--at least Microsoft put parts of C# through ECMA, resulting in the kinds of open documents and guarantees that standards go with (not perfect, but a whole lot better than what Sun is doing).
So, as long as the government sticks to open formats, I don't care what software they use. The problem with Microsoft software is that Microsoft does not support open formats well. If Microsoft changes their behavior, they can become competitive again for government applications.
Just be happy that you are human and can spend money on something that's disposable and generally not harmful to your health. Other animals have to carry around their showy but wasteful investments--you might have to run around with antlers or other useless appendages. Yet others need to engage in dangerous combats (still popular with some backwards humans) in order to win the favors of a female.
What about the RomeMP3 and MP Wow players? Do they work with Linux?
If you like that style of window system, it's still around and very popular: it's called Java. Same stack based architecture, same imaging model, only this time they got the threading and type checking right. And it's actually powerful enough to do real work on the display side.
This doesn't seem to be Postscript-for-X11, but a Postscript-like API callable from C. Think "Java2D for C".
Lots of people would like a Postscript-like graphics model accessible from C, very few people apparently want a Postscript interpreter to do their graphics (I certainly don't).
It is. The object model of Objective-C is far simpler and more powerful than that of C++, but when it comes to memory management and exceptions, Objective-C is outdated and very cumbersome.
Objective-C needs updating to address these issues. Unfortunately, nobody seems to be working on that. And that means that Objective-C will likely slowly drift into the sunset.
For Apple, it makes a lot of sense just to throw in their lot with Java rather than develop a new language.
Quartz overhead comes from several sources. First, there is PDF. X11+XRender doesn't incur that at all because it uses a C API and a binary protocol.
Second, there is the imaging model. OSX really makes most applications other than games go through the same high-level imaging model. That's nice in certain ways, but completely unnecessary in many applications. A toolkit, for example, can often completely dispense with the possibility of anti-aliasing or geometric transformations and doesn't need to pay the overhead. X11+XRender gives programmers a choice for what kind of imaging model they want, for each particular call.
Still, I suspect that X11+XRender will be faster than Quartz even for applications using the same imaging model and putting the same graphics on the screen. We'll just have to wait and see. Maybe Apple will eventually switch OSX over to X11+XRender :-)
That's good, as far as I'm concerned. The raw XRender interface is a bit primitive. Having a C-based API with PostScript-like drawing primitives will be really neat. That will make it much easier to get Macintosh-like screen-graphics without the mess and overhead associated with Display Postscript or Display PDF.