Linux is embedded in the device, not the user interface (which is JUST A PROGRAM). The UI would be more appliance-like, not a console.
You know, I'm suprised at the number of people who equate Bourne shell==Unix! (or X==Unix for that matter). In systems like this, the OS is just there to handle the dog work of memory management, buffering, provide an environment for the UI, and communications.
L. Ron (and NASA for that matter) stole the idea from Issac Asimov. One of the stories in "I, Robot" was about a station that collected solar energy and fed it back to earth in a tight beam. It even mentioned the effect it would have if the beam went off even by a fraction of an inch.
This was written in the mid/late '40's, I believe.
Here was a snippit of my e-mail to Metcalf and letters@infoworld.com
Mr. Metcalf is entitled to his opinions and predictions. In regarding this article, however, I have very little respect for Mr. Metcalf's opinions, and Infoworld had lost quite a lot of respect from myself and others for printing such an obvious attempt to bait the Linux community into a reaction. I'm sure Mr. Metcalf will use all the flame mail he gets and turn it into his next column about how illiterate and immature the Linux/Open Source community is.
After the origional article came out, I wrote a pretty hot, but non-flammable e-mail to Mr. Metcalf and the online editor at Infoworld, in which I predicted that he would use the flames he received as fodder for his next article. I even have the sendmail logs to prove it.
HA!
I'll post the e-mail later, when I get home from work (overtime sucks...).
Re:Let's not do this dance again ...
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Hear, hear! I agree completely!
Many people who have not kept up on where mozilla currently is and what it is doing, constantly talk about how it is 'doomed' and failed. JWZ is not clairvoyant, and while he may not have been happy on how things were going, many people are. I believe that JWZ left more because of the AOL thing than anything doing with Mozilla. It's unfortunate that he completely gave up the project. A huge amount of progress has been made since JWZ left, and the alpha milestones are racking up.
If nothing else, the open source community has gained a VERY nice HTML/DHTML/CCSS1 layout engine in the form of Gecko, which is currently being integrated into several projects, including Gnome.
Just wait until Mozilla comes tromping down YOUR street. Won't you be sorry then?
Can you imagine the Screaming and Torment(tm) going on at the Complex right now? There's Rob in the corner, racked with withdrawl symptoms; Hemos gibbering in the dark about "internet" and "SlashDot". Probably something resembling a level of Quake I....
And I agree, CB Neal is doing a FINE job of article selection today.
I would guess that the LGPL would help allow BladeEnc be used as a DLL in Windows freeware/shareware programs that is distributed as a binary, since Windows stuff usually doesn't include source, and most people couldn't compile it if it did.
Still, LGPL is much better than binary only. WooHoo!
While/. will lose some of it's glory of being a fiercely idependant site and with Rob and Co having to deal with the suits (and you WILL! no matter what the contract says..), It's nice to see that/. should be on firm financial footing (maybe, what does Andover's finances look like:) and will continue into the future..
Dealing with the suits will suck, badly. I know of wot I speak....
He also did it a lot calmer than I did in my reply to the editor of infoworld. To be compared to an outright murderer (Stalin) would be a bit more than I could have take.
Note: Although I was angry, my response e-mail was non-flammable.
Whoa there Tex! Suse has done some very nice things for the Linux community and are doing even more.
They are responsibe for adding 3DLabs, Rendition, some trident, Cyrix, and SiS X servers, most of which are now in the current XFree server.
They are also supporting the development of ALSA, by hiring the primary programmer, Jaroslav Kysela, full time and allowing him to work on ALSA professionally.
Both of the above are either in the GPL or under the XFree License.
They may not spend 10% of their earnings in new development, and may not have hired a lot of well known Linux people, but they seem to be a quality company, and many people like the distribution.
> A 15 day warrantee? That is obviously not an > authorized chip, all AMD chips come with a 3year > manafactures warantee, same with Intel. Its no > wonder they are cheaper then what us legit > resellers can get from our distributors.
Huh? The 15 and 30 day warranties are for OEM chips bought in bulk from chip brokers. The idea is that AMD (or Intel, or Samsung, whoever) will sell you a chip with no packaging, very little warranty, and no support for a discounted rate. The 3 year warranty is for AMD boxed retail only. There is a 1 year warranty for end-users who buy direct from AMD, and a 30 day OEM.
This is standard practice in the wholesale computer parts business. And it is perfectly legit. You just have to buy in bulk and have the right suppliers, not Ingram Micro..
Win98 Second Edition isn't free. I'ts pretty much just a service pack of 98.
Windows95 OSR1,2,or 2.5 OR THE FEATURES FOUND ON THEM wasn't free for purchasers of the origional Windows 95 or Windows 95 upgrade. These were all basicly service packs for Win95.
The cost of calling Microsoft's tech support for bugs or incompatabilties in the OS isn't free. (I know all about 'profit centers' in tech support).
Windows 2000 Beta isn't free.
Microsoft's MSCE training for the legions of VARS who get hired to do the hotfixes and upgrades isn't free. Not that it should be, but it is still a profit center.
There is a lot of profit in upgrades and tech support...
The story goes that for the Apple ][, Woz wanted a floppy drive to go with it, instead of using cassette tapes. He was strongly discouraged, since everyone knew that floppy drives and controllers were really expensive, and would cost several times the cost of the Apple ][ sold for.
He didn't listen and completely designed the first 5 1/4 floppy disk drive and controllers for personal computers . The reason he gave for his design, which was much faster and cheaper than anything previously available, was that he didn't know how to build a floppy drive, and didn't know that what he was doing was 'impossible'.
I always think of this when I start any project. The way everyone else has always done it is not necessarily the best way.
Note: I remember reading this in an A+ magazine some years ago. The only actual "proof" that I have is that the floppy chip in the Apple ][gs and most pre PowerPC Macs is called the IWM, or "Incredible Woz Machine", which he also designed.
Unfortunately, the changes listed are almost impossible with the Redmond mindset...
> Acknowledging that all ISV that write software > that runs on WinXX as partners and should > be treated with respect.
Microsoft has made killings over partnering with software companies..Until MS decided that that was an area that they needed into and then they either bought someone, or just turned on their partners. Look at IBM and OS/2 for just one example.
> Work on improving the quality of their products > instead of replacing defective products with > newer defective products
Why would they do this when they make so much money on bugfixes and upgrades. There is no financial reason for them to do so. That it is 'the right thing to do' doesn't cut it.
> Treat standards with the respect they deserve > not things to be destroyed on their march to > domination
Past history shows that Microsoft views standards as things to keep other people busy developing while MS forces a defacto on their userbase. Remember how long it took MS Exchange to support SMTP and POP well? Look to the Halloween documents for other MS views on standards.
MS is out for world domination and complete control of the computer industry. This has been reflected in most of MS's business decisions, in MS's products, and in every conversation, press release, or anticdote relating to them.
But that is the true meaning of the word 'free'.:)
But that would only involve in changes made to the embedded OS. You could still have proprietary embedded apps. (And yes, you can have embedded apps. Look at cisco routers...)
I have noticed something very disturbing, lately. People have been making disparaging, or even ever so slightly negative remarks in the press about Linux, and then reporting the sheer amount of flamemail they get.
I have a feeling our collective chain is being yanked.
There are two things I think are happening:
1) Flamebait is being publicly flung about, and many members of the Linux/Open Source communities are taking the bait. "Incite to riot" would be the term that comes to mind
2) There are 'ringers', people who pretend to be part of the community who are sending flame mail just to make the Linux/Open Source community look bad. Many of these people may just be malicious, not involved in any conspiracy.
I believe (with no evidence but observation and a paranoid mind) that Linux and Open Source software users are being manipulated in order to discredit the Open Source movement to corporate America.
Linux can be attractive for embedded applications for two main reasons:
1) Linux, as an OS, is gaining rapidly in developer tools, documentation, and business acceptance. and,
2) Linux is free, in all respects.
Most embedded OS's are expensive to license and single purpose in design. The cost of licensing or developing an embedded OS may be too extreme for many applications, whereas using Linux may decrease costs and make some applications more feasible.
An Open Source, GPL'ed, embedded OS may be better, but I don't see any projects like that as of yet. I have seen quite a few embedded projects involve Linux.
Using Linux leverages use of professional-quality development software (Gcc/gdb, Codewarrior, etc) now available and allow the growing number of Linux application developers to work in an embedded environment they may be more comfortable with.
Granted, a lot of stripping down is required to make an embedded Linux, but that's the beauty of it. NT doesn't make sense an an embedded os (and Microsoft tried!) because you CAN'T strip it down. With Linux, and some kernel hacking, you can.
Nothing really. They basicly won the 2D chipset market 2 years ago with some very decent chips (Matrox was faster, but S3 was MUCH cheaper).
Then they did a HUGE misstep with the S3 Virge 3D chipsets, which were somewhat buggy for 2D and really bad for 3D, even at that time. This caused S3's reputation to suffer greatly, and they lost a lot of the customer loyalty, from both vendors and end-users.
The new Savage 3D chipsets are reported to actually be pretty good, performance-wise, but it is also reported that they need better drivers for Windows 9x, and I don't think that S3 has released specs for the XFree86 community yet.
No one said that OSS is dead. OSS/Lite, however, will go away.
And ALSA is backwards compatible with OSS. It is also completely GPL'ed and being developed with support from SUSE (It WILL be in SUSE).
Unfortunately, OSS is a dead end, designwise. No API, no real good programming documentation, lots of stuff under NDA and binary only distribtion. Very simple sequencer implementation, which works for only a few sound cards. Simple PCM implementation, which does not allow for hardware mixing. Fairly simple mixer interface that does not easily allow for newer soundcard features.
OSS needs a major overhaul to become up to the level of where current technology is. Thet would require creating new devices and ways of doing things, while maintaining backwards compatibility.
Which is what ALSA is doing. I haven't seen anything at 4Front that indicates that OSS is being expanded.
Now, on the other hand, ALSA is Linux only. OSS is multiplatform: Solaris, BSD, SCO, etc. That may actually be where OSS's future is.
Slashdot Mirror
Linux is embedded in the device, not the user interface (which is JUST A PROGRAM). The UI would be more appliance-like, not a console.
You know, I'm suprised at the number of people who equate Bourne shell==Unix! (or X==Unix for that matter). In systems like this, the OS is just there to handle the dog work of memory management, buffering, provide an environment for the UI, and communications.
jf
L. Ron (and NASA for that matter) stole the idea from Issac Asimov. One of the stories in "I, Robot" was about a station that collected solar energy and fed it back to earth in a tight beam. It even mentioned the effect it would have if the beam went off even by a fraction of an inch.
This was written in the mid/late '40's, I believe.
>Just put the energy in a really big Tesla Coil.
Cool! Now we're at C&C Red Alert! I REALLY liked the Tesla Coils's. ZAP!
jf
It seems that it is actually Mark Twain (mis)quoting Benjamin Disraeli. The origional is slightly different. Wierd....
s ubindex and search for "Twain" in your browser's search function.
Look at http://www.xs4all.nl/~jcdverha/scijokes/1_2.html#
jf
Here was a snippit of my e-mail to Metcalf and letters@infoworld.com
Mr. Metcalf is entitled to his opinions and predictions. In regarding this article, however, I have very little respect for Mr. Metcalf's opinions, and Infoworld had lost quite a lot of respect from myself and others for printing such an obvious attempt to bait the Linux community into a reaction. I'm sure Mr. Metcalf will use all the flame mail he gets and turn it into his next column about how illiterate and immature the Linux/Open Source community is.
It seems to be a pattern in technical journals...
There are three types of lies..
1) Lies
2) Damned Lies
3) Statistics
- M. Twain
After the origional article came out, I wrote a pretty hot, but non-flammable e-mail to Mr. Metcalf and the online editor at Infoworld, in which I predicted that he would use the flames he received as fodder for his next article. I even have the sendmail logs to prove it.
HA!
I'll post the e-mail later, when I get home from work (overtime sucks...).
Hear, hear! I agree completely!
Many people who have not kept up on where mozilla currently is and what it is doing, constantly talk about how it is 'doomed' and failed. JWZ is not clairvoyant, and while he may not have been happy on how things were going, many people are. I believe that JWZ left more because of the AOL thing than anything doing with Mozilla. It's unfortunate that he completely gave up the project. A huge amount of progress has been made since JWZ left, and the alpha milestones are racking up.
If nothing else, the open source community has gained a VERY nice HTML/DHTML/CCSS1 layout engine in the form of Gecko, which is currently being integrated into several projects, including Gnome.
Just wait until Mozilla comes tromping down YOUR street. Won't you be sorry then?
jf
Can you imagine the Screaming and Torment(tm) going on at the Complex right now? There's Rob in the corner, racked with withdrawl symptoms; Hemos gibbering in the dark about "internet" and "SlashDot". Probably something resembling a level of Quake I....
And I agree, CB Neal is doing a FINE job of article selection today.
SNICKERSNAG ON CMDR TACO!!!! Whee!
jf
I would guess that the LGPL would help allow BladeEnc be used as a DLL in Windows freeware/shareware programs that is distributed as a binary, since Windows stuff usually doesn't include source, and most people couldn't compile it if it did.
Still, LGPL is much better than binary only. WooHoo!
While /. will lose some of it's glory of being a fiercely idependant site and with Rob and Co having to deal with the suits (and you WILL! no matter what the contract says..), It's nice to see that /. should be on firm financial footing (maybe, what does Andover's finances look like :) and will continue into the future..
Dealing with the suits will suck, badly. I know of wot I speak....
jf
He also did it a lot calmer than I did in my reply to the editor of infoworld. To be compared to an outright murderer (Stalin) would be a bit more than I could have take.
Note: Although I was angry, my response e-mail was non-flammable.
Whoa there Tex! Suse has done some very nice things for the Linux community and are doing even more.
They are responsibe for adding 3DLabs, Rendition, some trident, Cyrix, and SiS X servers, most of which are now in the current XFree server.
They are also supporting the development of ALSA, by hiring the primary programmer, Jaroslav Kysela, full time and allowing him to work on ALSA professionally.
Both of the above are either in the GPL or under the XFree License.
They may not spend 10% of their earnings in new development, and may not have hired a lot of well known Linux people, but they seem to be a quality company, and many people like the distribution.
Lighten up...
jf
Of Spam Cop, I can say two things...
1) It is very effective in making admins aware of spam traffic from their system; and
2) It is less than helpful to admins in identifying that is going on.
The really bad thing is that you get so much e-mail, it's almost a DoS in itself.
jf
> A 15 day warrantee? That is obviously not an
> authorized chip, all AMD chips come with a 3year > manafactures warantee, same with Intel. Its no
> wonder they are cheaper then what us legit
> resellers can get from our distributors.
Huh? The 15 and 30 day warranties are for OEM chips bought in bulk from chip brokers. The idea is that AMD (or Intel, or Samsung, whoever) will sell you a chip with no packaging, very little warranty, and no support for a discounted rate. The 3 year warranty is for AMD boxed retail only. There is a 1 year warranty for end-users who buy direct from AMD, and a 30 day OEM.
This is standard practice in the wholesale computer parts business. And it is perfectly legit. You just have to buy in bulk and have the right suppliers, not Ingram Micro..
jf
Win98 Second Edition isn't free. I'ts pretty much just a service pack of 98.
Windows95 OSR1,2,or 2.5 OR THE FEATURES FOUND ON THEM wasn't free for purchasers of the origional Windows 95 or Windows 95 upgrade. These were all basicly service packs for Win95.
The cost of calling Microsoft's tech support for bugs or incompatabilties in the OS isn't free. (I know all about 'profit centers' in tech support).
Windows 2000 Beta isn't free.
Microsoft's MSCE training for the legions of VARS who get hired to do the hotfixes and upgrades isn't free. Not that it should be, but it is still a profit center.
There is a lot of profit in upgrades and tech support...
The story goes that for the Apple ][, Woz wanted a floppy drive to go with it, instead of using cassette tapes. He was strongly discouraged, since everyone knew that floppy drives and controllers were really expensive, and would cost several times the cost of the Apple ][ sold for.
He didn't listen and completely designed the first 5 1/4 floppy disk drive and controllers for personal computers . The reason he gave for his design, which was much faster and cheaper than anything previously available, was that he didn't know how to build a floppy drive, and didn't know that what he was doing was 'impossible'.
I always think of this when I start any project. The way everyone else has always done it is not necessarily the best way.
Note: I remember reading this in an A+ magazine some years ago. The only actual "proof" that I have is that the floppy chip in the Apple ][gs and most pre PowerPC Macs is called the IWM, or "Incredible Woz Machine", which he also designed.
jf
Unfortunately, the changes listed are almost impossible with the Redmond mindset...
> Acknowledging that all ISV that write software
> that runs on WinXX as partners and should
> be treated with respect.
Microsoft has made killings over partnering with software companies..Until MS decided that that was an area that they needed into and then they either bought someone, or just turned on their partners. Look at IBM and OS/2 for just one example.
> Work on improving the quality of their products
> instead of replacing defective products with
> newer defective products
Why would they do this when they make so much money on bugfixes and upgrades. There is no financial reason for them to do so. That it is 'the right thing to do' doesn't cut it.
> Treat standards with the respect they deserve
> not things to be destroyed on their march to
> domination
Past history shows that Microsoft views standards as things to keep other people busy developing while MS forces a defacto on their userbase. Remember how long it took MS Exchange to support SMTP and POP well? Look to the Halloween documents for other MS views on standards.
MS is out for world domination and complete control of the computer industry. This has been reflected in most of MS's business decisions, in MS's products, and in every conversation, press release, or anticdote relating to them.
That is my personal beef with Microsoft....
jf
Bill's mother knew the then chief of IBM, to whom Bill sold the origional DOS. 'Old boy' networking at it's best.
Remember, MS did absolutely NO marketing until the early 90's..
jf
Er, having a monopoly in the commercial PC OS market for 15 years has put MS in it's place, not good marketing. Don't you believe anything different.
jf
But that is the true meaning of the word 'free'. :)
But that would only involve in changes made to the embedded OS. You could still have proprietary embedded apps. (And yes, you can have embedded apps. Look at cisco routers...)
jf
I have noticed something very disturbing, lately. People have been making disparaging, or even ever so slightly negative remarks in the press about Linux, and then reporting the sheer amount of flamemail they get.
I have a feeling our collective chain is being yanked.
There are two things I think are happening:
1) Flamebait is being publicly flung about, and many members of the Linux/Open Source communities are taking the bait. "Incite to riot" would be the term that comes to mind
2) There are 'ringers', people who pretend to be part of the community who are sending flame mail just to make the Linux/Open Source community look bad. Many of these people may just be malicious, not involved in any conspiracy.
I believe (with no evidence but observation and a paranoid mind) that Linux and Open Source software users are being manipulated in order to discredit the Open Source movement to corporate America.
Any ideas on how to combat this?
Linux can be attractive for embedded applications for two main reasons:
1) Linux, as an OS, is gaining rapidly in developer tools, documentation, and business acceptance. and,
2) Linux is free, in all respects.
Most embedded OS's are expensive to license and single purpose in design. The cost of licensing or developing an embedded OS may be too extreme for many applications, whereas using Linux may decrease costs and make some applications more feasible.
An Open Source, GPL'ed, embedded OS may be better, but I don't see any projects like that as of yet. I have seen quite a few embedded projects involve Linux.
Using Linux leverages use of professional-quality development software (Gcc/gdb, Codewarrior, etc) now available and allow the growing number of Linux application developers to work in an embedded environment they may be more comfortable with.
Granted, a lot of stripping down is required to make an embedded Linux, but that's the beauty of it. NT doesn't make sense an an embedded os (and Microsoft tried!) because you CAN'T strip it down. With Linux, and some kernel hacking, you can.
My 2 cents..
Nothing really. They basicly won the 2D chipset market 2 years ago with some very decent chips (Matrox was faster, but S3 was MUCH cheaper).
Then they did a HUGE misstep with the S3 Virge 3D chipsets, which were somewhat buggy for 2D and really bad for 3D, even at that time. This caused S3's reputation to suffer greatly, and they lost a lot of the customer loyalty, from both vendors and end-users.
The new Savage 3D chipsets are reported to actually be pretty good, performance-wise, but it is also reported that they need better drivers for Windows 9x, and I don't think that S3 has released specs for the XFree86 community yet.
No one said that OSS is dead. OSS/Lite, however, will go away.
And ALSA is backwards compatible with OSS. It is also completely GPL'ed and being developed with support from SUSE (It WILL be in SUSE).
Unfortunately, OSS is a dead end, designwise. No API, no real good programming documentation, lots of stuff under NDA and binary only distribtion. Very simple sequencer implementation, which works for only a few sound cards. Simple PCM implementation, which does not allow for hardware mixing. Fairly simple mixer interface that does not easily allow for newer soundcard features.
OSS needs a major overhaul to become up to the level of where current technology is. Thet would require creating new devices and ways of doing things, while maintaining backwards compatibility.
Which is what ALSA is doing. I haven't seen anything at 4Front that indicates that OSS is being expanded.
Now, on the other hand, ALSA is Linux only. OSS is multiplatform: Solaris, BSD, SCO, etc. That may actually be where OSS's future is.
jf