it would be great if these guys pooled thier resources and created a standardized UI/Widget set that was highly portable and robust enough to handle the demands that these devices would require.
Come on, this is OSS. Here's what will happen:
1: GNU or somebody will start a (sub-)project to do this. They will have very-well thought out goals and not tie themselves to deadlines.
2: Someone else will create a really cool looking front end with different goals and standards than 1.
3: OSS will divide into two camps and argue which one's the best.
4: CE technology will advance enough to include both widget libraries to run all programs written for either.
Can't....resist...."..."..."profit"....sorry. (But someone else would've posted in a response, anyway.)
If your device is capable of running Linux, it's capable of controlling a USB port. Why, then, wouldn't USB be a useful connection type?
Because USB == extra hardware. RS-232 is extremely simple in silicon and software. I presume a UART (serial interface) could be incorporated into CE devides much more easily and cheaper than USB. I'm quite sure the kernel drivers are simpler for serial, too, and I'm quite sure CE devices will be using a stripped-down kernel.
I don't know much about USB below the install-the-driver level, but I've used RS-232 at the hardware level and assembly language level. Very simple.
For an obective viepoint on a company, its founder is just not a good choice.
Agreed. This is partially why I retitled my post "Flaming Bill" before I submitted it. Bill's words on Slashdot are by default a troll, but I couldn't resist flaming back.
8-bit, which most personal computer software customers owned. This wasn't today, where moving up from 32 to 64 bits is only a question of "when"; this was the first doubling.
The 8086 & 8088 (original IBM PC) were 16-bit machines. (The 8088 was an 8086 with an 8-bit external data bus, but still fully 16-bit processor.) The 6502 (Apple ][, Commodore 64 and others) were 8-bit, and at the time the OS that came with the hardware was pretty much the only alternative. (CPM excepted.) Microsoft wasn't a hardware vendor, but they won the contract to make IBM PC DOS. I'm not sure they had any other choice but 16-bit unless they wanted to make an alternative OS for Apple or Commodore or Tandy. (The Tandy's might've been 16-bit anyway, but I don't recall.)
"GUI? Xerox/Mac beat you to it, and it was popular before you did it." Sure, Mac had it, and a lot of people I knew derided it as a toy, and told Mac people to "get a real computer". Again, MS had a lot of customers who liked the command line. (I understand there are still fans of CLIs in existance, bizzare as it might seem). The "bet" was not on providing a GUI, it was on dropping the CLI.
Many people, myself included, thought Windows was also a toy. But MS didn't get rid of the CLI. DOS was the foundation of Win1.0 through WinME, and only in WinME did they try very hard to hide it. (They tried a bit with Win95 and Win98, but not much.) WinNT-XP isn't DOS-based, but the command line is still readily available as a VM. Only MacOS really seemed to abolish the CLI, but it's back with OS X. I've been a CLI fan all along. There are things that are just much simpler and faster to do in CLI if you know what you are doing.
Re:NT/OS/2: I don't recall the MS/IBM fallout that well, but my impression is that MS ditched IBM when they decided they could keep more money for themselves by doing so. As far as marketing goes, I doubt their partnership would've prevented MS from marketing OS/2. It was probably a smart money move for Microsoft, but I still think OS/2 as the desktop OS would've been way cooler.
Re:Price/Cost: I am way too cynical about proprietary software right now to be very objective about this, but my gut feeling is that proprietary software costs more to support, and I don't think the 3% rule includes frequent MS upgrades. Like I say though, I'm not being fair or informed on this point.
Okay, you apparently know your OS/2 history better than I do. I thought MS was into it when it had a 32-bit codebase.
My first OS/2 was 2.1. It was awesome except for the lack of apps. (And the fact my 386SX PC was really too slow to run it until I upgraded my PC for Win95. For those that don't recall, a 386SX was 32-bit but had to perform two 16-bit memory reads to fill the 32-bit registers. A real drag in 32-bit mode.) None of the built-in apps had a 64k limit. You could use the edit command and Notepad equivalent on enormous text files. OS/2 really whetted my appetite that wasn't satisfied until I discovered Slackware.
Okay, I RTFA'd. Bill neglects to mention that OS/2 was at one point the future of Microsoft.
BG: . . . I mean, we've had to bet the company many times on big technological advances. We bet on the 16-bit PC. We bet on graphical user interface. We bet on the NT technology base.
Huh? You bet on the 16-bit PC? 640k jokes aside, what other options were there at the time? GUI? Xerox/Mac beat you to it, and it was popular before you did it. NT tech? Hello, you stabbed 32-bit OS/2 in the back and used VMS as a model for the first NT, later making NT more like old Windows by incorporating more and more into the "microkernel".
BG: . . . We will never have a price lower than Linux, in terms of just what you charge for the software. We compete on the basis of, if you look at the value you get out of the system and the overall cost that the system has that apply in our software. For any project, if you look at communications costs, hardware costs, personnel costs, all that, software licensing ranges -- the highest you'd ever find is, like, 3% of any IT-type project. And so the question is can that 3% [compensate], in terms of how quickly you get the system set up?
Is it just me, or was he struggling? And I wonder if the reason MS licensing is such a low percentage due to the higher support costs for their buggy software. (Yeah, yeah, a flame.)
USA TODAY: Is there a scenario by which you would at some point consider porting Microsoft applications into Linux?
BG: There's no consideration of that at this point.
"At this point"? Very interesting that he seems to admit they might consider it at all. Or maybe I'm reading too much into a figure of speech.
From my point of view the *BSD's are more "religious".
I think the fanatacism is because Windows software keeps telling you what you're not supposed to do while Linux and *BSD tell you "here ya go, have fun, and show me what you do with it." And Windows software is increasingly threatening to take that ability away from us.
I grew up on Apple DOS and ProDOS then later learned IBM DOS 2.x and then MS-DOS 3.3 and up.
A job I was interested in wanted UNIX knowledge, so I bought a book with a disk with a UNIX emulator. It sucked. I looked on the 'net for free UNIX and found Slackware Linux (w/GNU tools) in 1994. I don't recall the *BSD's being free then, but maybe I just didn't look in the right places.
Slackware was too cool. I could download packages of apps in floppy-sized chunks. I learned the basics and was awed by how complete and powerful Linux was. I had read that it was just a workalike programming project by some Finnish guy, but Slackware was an incredibly complete OS compared to DOS/Win3.1.
The Linux community online always seemed very helpful. I never even had to ask any questions; I just had to search for the answers to my question that someone else already asked.
I don't recall when I became aware of *BSD, but the users always seemed elitist to me, and I wasn't aware for quite a while that it was free.
I don't go around praising anyone, but I am very grateful for what Torvalds and Stallman made available to me, and I don't want it taken away.
I frequently wish someone would take Windows away. I use it more than Linux (work), and it pisses me off when it tries to think for me and makes things harder than it has to. It's like telling a serviceman what you want and having him argue with you. Linux is more like a toolbox that you can do whatever you want with and never talks back to you.
Okay, over the past several years Linux elitists and evangelists have sprouted, but that's not the whole community. I never got into the *BSD community enough to know if they're cooler at the core.
Interesting pictures, although I have to nitpick at them.
The Glock 17 guns they have apparently have no ammo in the magazine, otherwise the ammo would show in the normal x-ray. It's still dangerous as a brandished threat and possibly one round in the chamber, of course.
Several of the Glock-hidden-in-bag pics appear to have the Glock on top of other items and suggest that it would be hidden if it were behind the item. That further suggests to me that baggage would need to be scanned from multiple directions to be effective. And if they did that, would normal x-ray still be inferior?
I don't understand why I can't see the Glock's metal components in the ASE-11 photo in the normal x-ray.
All the x-ray machines I've seen have two video displays; these photos are comparing to only one type of display.
I'm not trained to recognize guns in x-rays, but security screeners are.
As far as privacy goes, I think screeners would quickly bore of ordinary bald naked people, but I would expect to see a lot of "naked celeb" photos leak from these. I wonder if you can tell if a woman has breast implants with backscatter? I bet you can. I guarantee you this machine will have recording capability.
I'll have to trust security experts to decide if backscatter x-ray will be more effective in airports. I can't be sure from here.
Look for AMD patches/drivers for your chipset drivers and video drivers. (And anything else, for that matter, but those are the ones I've seen.) I think I had to have an AGP patch for my Athlon XP system with Win2k.
I'm not sure what the specific issue is, but I've seen several "AMD" patches/drivers for various products.
Also, with ATI and Direct X 8 and Java 1.4.1 ( _02) you'll get hangs or hard crashes with Java unless you disable DirectDraw or Direct3d, depending upon the app. (Can be done system-wide or per-VM. See Sun's docs for details.)
Everyone loves to point the finger at ATI or Athlon, but I have a feeling there are mutual problems.
It's not something most of us would have just thought of as an obvious solution to a problem we were encountering.
Do you buy your internet service by the byte? Do you pay for your telephone by the call? Is your local library supported with per-book, per-cd and per-dvd borrowing taxes?
I don't see how people can say this is nonobvious. I'd call you trolls, but there are many of you and you're being modded to +5 insightful and interesting so a lot of people seem to agree.
What makes this busines model possible on this scale is the durability of DVDs. This wouldn't have worked well with tape media due to customers' machines tearing up their tapes and the environmental changes during shipping contributing to early wear-out. Plus tapes are bulkier and more expensive to ship. (I'm fairly sure "prerecorded" DVD media is cheaper to manufacture than prerecorded VHS tapes, but I'm not sure this savings is passed on to NetFlix. It's certainly not passed on to me as a DVD purchaser.)
Okay, now I read the article. I hope it didn't come off that I was pissing in this guy's Wheaties. I know he put in a lot of hard work and had big dreams and is now obviously disillusioned and burnt out. I've been there and it sucks to be there.
That's another interesting aspect of open source projects. When a respected project leader burns out their disappointment and dejection can be made very public.
And I haven't read much about his project but he either has done or planned to do much more coding than "simply a specialized Linux distribution". (I never seem to give these guys enough credit.)
I hate to see a guy burn out like that, and I wouldn't make a point to tell him right now (no point in kicking a man when he's down), but these things can and do happen. The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley, . . ..
It's constantly amazing to me too how many of the Gnu-Uber-Alles folks don't really understand that they are giving
their work away for free and can not reasonably expect anything in return.
(Bold his emphasis, italics my emphasis.)
They are getting something in return, but it's on the front-end. They have a codebase for free that no one can take away from them or fork a popular (or unpopular but useful) branch and keep it away from them.
I'm not very familiar with the project, but I take it that it's simply a specialized Linux distribution. He didn't have to write a kernel, write a TCP/IP stack, write a router or packet filter, etc.. And he also got a guarantee that no one can fork any of his codebase to a more popular and closed project. If, as a crazy example, a non-FSF and non-Linus organization forks the codebase(s) and creates and distributes a Windows-killer/Cisco-killer/Mac-killer uberLinux distro that gains 99% of the market he will be able to use the new code.
Not to take away from the difficulties of packaging a decent Linux distribution. I know there's much more to it than compiling Linux, init, inetd, bash and vi, and it's hard work.
I haven't RTFA yet, but in general answer to your points I agree with what I infered the spirit was, which was don't count on GPL coding your favorite project producing a steady income. On the other hand, I'd like to have that I created the Linux router distro on my resume. (In fact I think I'll add it now...j/k)
Sorry, that's not what the GPL is about, the GPL is about giving up
any control you have over how the result is used or how (or whether) you are compensated (beyond the GPL).
I'd say the GPL is more about making sure your code and all derivitaves are as freely available as your distributed code. As you say, the GPL is definitely not about your compensation. Again, I haven't RTFA yet, but if his distro were BSD-licenced (not that he could do that w/Linux) others could still use his work without compensating him. They could even improve the product, sell it and refused to give him the code or any money. If he scratch-wrote his own router with his own proprietary code he would have to spend a lot more debugging time to get the project production-ready, and then he would be in direct competition with Cisco and other vendors with his unproven, closed-source code on cheap x86 hardware.
Well, I was being a bit unfair in calling it a $300 PC. I'm a competent tech and have been upgrading my PC steadily since my first IBM PC. (Not even XT, we're talking an original 5-slot 4.77MHz PC.) The RAM, mobo, CPU and PS were $300, the rest is the best from my last primary PC.
Starting from no computer at all a Mac may not be too much more than a comparable quality and feature set PC (or maybe it is...not sure), but whenever I ache badly for a Mac it's just not worth it to spend the money on Apple versus my ROI from upgrading my PC.
My first PC was an Apple ][+, then an Apple//e. I used those for years before I got my then-outdated 5-slot IBM PC for free. When Apple killed off the Apple// line I was upset and have been with x86 ever since.
A while after the color Macs and System 7 came out I started wanting a Mac, but they were too high. I quit wanting a Mac only when it looked like Apple was doomed. (All their Macs looked like PCs but more expensive and the company was otherwise going way downhill.) I was impressed that Apple rebounded with iMacs and the new-cased PowerMac but didn't really want one until OS X came out. Now I want one more than ever but still am not willing to pay the price that others are willing to pay. (Any used Mac that will run OS X is selling too rich for my blood.)
(Yeah, that cheap power supply already blew...picked up another for $45. Okay with me for home use. Most of the rest of the PC is fairly decent quality.)
It'd be nice if Apple had a cheapo do-it-yourself line. (Or any PowerPC platform for that matter; they're all high.)
Heh, I was about to post and correct you on a couple of things, but reread a few times and realized it was my misunderstanding and you're the KnoppixMAME dude and probably know what you're talking about more than me.:-)
Thanks for responding and informing.
Mounting should be as easy as clicking the hda1 icon (for example) on the desktop, though, unless you modified the startup scripts a lot. From your post I thought you're saying you have to use an xterm to mount the drives.
And thanks for packaging KnoppixMAME. I haven't tried it yet, but it's a fantastic idea. (I have tried XMAME and a Windows MAME, of course.)
You think it's okay for American corporations to disrupt activities of American citizens?
Actually, when it's an illegal activity, then yes. [...]
So much for due process. Vigilante justice be done!
To hell with sex education, schools should start teaching personal responsibility.
Well, somebody should teach personal responsibility. I'd prefer the parents do it myself. Now we just need to figure out how to teach it to the parents.
I can now buy an NGAGE phone that is a lousy GameBoy rip-off, a phone that takes pictures, a phone that acts like a Palm Pilot, and now, a phone that acts like a significant other with my credit card number.
My right palm is my significant other. (I don't need a phone for that.)
Yeah, I was wondering this as well. Before (or during) Code Red it seems the U.S. athorities were actively hunting down virus writers, even in other countries.
I haven't heard of anything like that since, and there have been a few nasty viruses.
Slashdot Mirror
Thanks, you are -so- da man.
www.defacers-challenge.com doesn't resolve for me. Does someone have a mirror or the IP?
(Just curious. I'm not a hacker.)
it would be great if these guys pooled thier resources and created a standardized UI/Widget set that was highly portable and robust enough to handle the demands that these devices would require.
Come on, this is OSS. Here's what will happen:
1: GNU or somebody will start a (sub-)project to do this. They will have very-well thought out goals and not tie themselves to deadlines.
2: Someone else will create a really cool looking front end with different goals and standards than 1.
3: OSS will divide into two camps and argue which one's the best.
4: CE technology will advance enough to include both widget libraries to run all programs written for either.
Can't....resist...."..."..."profit"....sorry. (But someone else would've posted in a response, anyway.)
If your device is capable of running Linux, it's capable of controlling a USB port. Why, then, wouldn't USB be a useful connection type?
Because USB == extra hardware. RS-232 is extremely simple in silicon and software. I presume a UART (serial interface) could be incorporated into CE devides much more easily and cheaper than USB. I'm quite sure the kernel drivers are simpler for serial, too, and I'm quite sure CE devices will be using a stripped-down kernel.
I don't know much about USB below the install-the-driver level, but I've used RS-232 at the hardware level and assembly language level. Very simple.
For an obective viepoint on a company, its founder is just not a good choice.
Agreed. This is partially why I retitled my post "Flaming Bill" before I submitted it. Bill's words on Slashdot are by default a troll, but I couldn't resist flaming back.
8-bit, which most personal computer software customers owned. This wasn't today, where moving up from 32 to 64 bits is only a question of "when"; this was the first doubling.
The 8086 & 8088 (original IBM PC) were 16-bit machines. (The 8088 was an 8086 with an 8-bit external data bus, but still fully 16-bit processor.) The 6502 (Apple ][, Commodore 64 and others) were 8-bit, and at the time the OS that came with the hardware was pretty much the only alternative. (CPM excepted.) Microsoft wasn't a hardware vendor, but they won the contract to make IBM PC DOS. I'm not sure they had any other choice but 16-bit unless they wanted to make an alternative OS for Apple or Commodore or Tandy. (The Tandy's might've been 16-bit anyway, but I don't recall.)
"GUI? Xerox/Mac beat you to it, and it was popular before you did it."
Sure, Mac had it, and a lot of people I knew derided it as a toy, and told Mac people to "get a real computer". Again, MS had a lot of customers who liked the command line. (I understand there are still fans of CLIs in existance, bizzare as it might seem). The "bet" was not on providing a GUI, it was on dropping the CLI.
Many people, myself included, thought Windows was also a toy. But MS didn't get rid of the CLI. DOS was the foundation of Win1.0 through WinME, and only in WinME did they try very hard to hide it. (They tried a bit with Win95 and Win98, but not much.) WinNT-XP isn't DOS-based, but the command line is still readily available as a VM. Only MacOS really seemed to abolish the CLI, but it's back with OS X. I've been a CLI fan all along. There are things that are just much simpler and faster to do in CLI if you know what you are doing.
Re:NT/OS/2: I don't recall the MS/IBM fallout that well, but my impression is that MS ditched IBM when they decided they could keep more money for themselves by doing so. As far as marketing goes, I doubt their partnership would've prevented MS from marketing OS/2. It was probably a smart money move for Microsoft, but I still think OS/2 as the desktop OS would've been way cooler.
Re:Price/Cost: I am way too cynical about proprietary software right now to be very objective about this, but my gut feeling is that proprietary software costs more to support, and I don't think the 3% rule includes frequent MS upgrades. Like I say though, I'm not being fair or informed on this point.
Okay, you apparently know your OS/2 history better than I do. I thought MS was into it when it had a 32-bit codebase.
My first OS/2 was 2.1. It was awesome except for the lack of apps. (And the fact my 386SX PC was really too slow to run it until I upgraded my PC for Win95. For those that don't recall, a 386SX was 32-bit but had to perform two 16-bit memory reads to fill the 32-bit registers. A real drag in 32-bit mode.) None of the built-in apps had a 64k limit. You could use the edit command and Notepad equivalent on enormous text files. OS/2 really whetted my appetite that wasn't satisfied until I discovered Slackware.
Huh? You bet on the 16-bit PC? 640k jokes aside, what other options were there at the time? GUI? Xerox/Mac beat you to it, and it was popular before you did it. NT tech? Hello, you stabbed 32-bit OS/2 in the back and used VMS as a model for the first NT, later making NT more like old Windows by incorporating more and more into the "microkernel".
Is it just me, or was he struggling? And I wonder if the reason MS licensing is such a low percentage due to the higher support costs for their buggy software. (Yeah, yeah, a flame.)
"At this point"? Very interesting that he seems to admit they might consider it at all. Or maybe I'm reading too much into a figure of speech.
Silly Bill, did he forget that Microsoft and IBM partnered on OS/2?
Off to RTFA to find out....
From my point of view the *BSD's are more "religious".
I think the fanatacism is because Windows software keeps telling you what you're not supposed to do while Linux and *BSD tell you "here ya go, have fun, and show me what you do with it." And Windows software is increasingly threatening to take that ability away from us.
I grew up on Apple DOS and ProDOS then later learned IBM DOS 2.x and then MS-DOS 3.3 and up.
A job I was interested in wanted UNIX knowledge, so I bought a book with a disk with a UNIX emulator. It sucked. I looked on the 'net for free UNIX and found Slackware Linux (w/GNU tools) in 1994. I don't recall the *BSD's being free then, but maybe I just didn't look in the right places.
Slackware was too cool. I could download packages of apps in floppy-sized chunks. I learned the basics and was awed by how complete and powerful Linux was. I had read that it was just a workalike programming project by some Finnish guy, but Slackware was an incredibly complete OS compared to DOS/Win3.1.
The Linux community online always seemed very helpful. I never even had to ask any questions; I just had to search for the answers to my question that someone else already asked.
I don't recall when I became aware of *BSD, but the users always seemed elitist to me, and I wasn't aware for quite a while that it was free.
I don't go around praising anyone, but I am very grateful for what Torvalds and Stallman made available to me, and I don't want it taken away.
I frequently wish someone would take Windows away. I use it more than Linux (work), and it pisses me off when it tries to think for me and makes things harder than it has to. It's like telling a serviceman what you want and having him argue with you. Linux is more like a toolbox that you can do whatever you want with and never talks back to you.
Okay, over the past several years Linux elitists and evangelists have sprouted, but that's not the whole community. I never got into the *BSD community enough to know if they're cooler at the core.
Interesting pictures, although I have to nitpick at them.
The Glock 17 guns they have apparently have no ammo in the magazine, otherwise the ammo would show in the normal x-ray. It's still dangerous as a brandished threat and possibly one round in the chamber, of course.
Several of the Glock-hidden-in-bag pics appear to have the Glock on top of other items and suggest that it would be hidden if it were behind the item. That further suggests to me that baggage would need to be scanned from multiple directions to be effective. And if they did that, would normal x-ray still be inferior?
I don't understand why I can't see the Glock's metal components in the ASE-11 photo in the normal x-ray.
All the x-ray machines I've seen have two video displays; these photos are comparing to only one type of display.
I'm not trained to recognize guns in x-rays, but security screeners are.
As far as privacy goes, I think screeners would quickly bore of ordinary bald naked people, but I would expect to see a lot of "naked celeb" photos leak from these. I wonder if you can tell if a woman has breast implants with backscatter? I bet you can. I guarantee you this machine will have recording capability.
I'll have to trust security experts to decide if backscatter x-ray will be more effective in airports. I can't be sure from here.
Look for AMD patches/drivers for your chipset drivers and video drivers. (And anything else, for that matter, but those are the ones I've seen.) I think I had to have an AGP patch for my Athlon XP system with Win2k.
I'm not sure what the specific issue is, but I've seen several "AMD" patches/drivers for various products.
Also, with ATI and Direct X 8 and Java 1.4.1 ( _02) you'll get hangs or hard crashes with Java unless you disable DirectDraw or Direct3d, depending upon the app. (Can be done system-wide or per-VM. See Sun's docs for details.)
Everyone loves to point the finger at ATI or Athlon, but I have a feeling there are mutual problems.
So, you're saying "NT is dead. Microsoft confirms it."?
It's not something most of us would have just thought of as an obvious solution to a problem we were encountering.
Do you buy your internet service by the byte? Do you pay for your telephone by the call? Is your local library supported with per-book, per-cd and per-dvd borrowing taxes?
I don't see how people can say this is nonobvious. I'd call you trolls, but there are many of you and you're being modded to +5 insightful and interesting so a lot of people seem to agree.
What makes this busines model possible on this scale is the durability of DVDs. This wouldn't have worked well with tape media due to customers' machines tearing up their tapes and the environmental changes during shipping contributing to early wear-out. Plus tapes are bulkier and more expensive to ship. (I'm fairly sure "prerecorded" DVD media is cheaper to manufacture than prerecorded VHS tapes, but I'm not sure this savings is passed on to NetFlix. It's certainly not passed on to me as a DVD purchaser.)
Um, then a huge megabillion dollar corporation with lots of lawyers own the patent. (Assuming WalMart buys them.) I'm not sure that's an improvement.
Okay, now I read the article. I hope it didn't come off that I was pissing in this guy's Wheaties. I know he put in a lot of hard work and had big dreams and is now obviously disillusioned and burnt out. I've been there and it sucks to be there.
.
That's another interesting aspect of open source projects. When a respected project leader burns out their disappointment and dejection can be made very public.
And I haven't read much about his project but he either has done or planned to do much more coding than "simply a specialized Linux distribution". (I never seem to give these guys enough credit.)
I hate to see a guy burn out like that, and I wouldn't make a point to tell him right now (no point in kicking a man when he's down), but these things can and do happen. The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men Gang aft agley, . . .
They are getting something in return, but it's on the front-end. They have a codebase for free that no one can take away from them or fork a popular (or unpopular but useful) branch and keep it away from them.
I'm not very familiar with the project, but I take it that it's simply a specialized Linux distribution. He didn't have to write a kernel, write a TCP/IP stack, write a router or packet filter, etc.. And he also got a guarantee that no one can fork any of his codebase to a more popular and closed project. If, as a crazy example, a non-FSF and non-Linus organization forks the codebase(s) and creates and distributes a Windows-killer/Cisco-killer/Mac-killer uberLinux distro that gains 99% of the market he will be able to use the new code.
Not to take away from the difficulties of packaging a decent Linux distribution. I know there's much more to it than compiling Linux, init, inetd, bash and vi, and it's hard work.
I haven't RTFA yet, but in general answer to your points I agree with what I infered the spirit was, which was don't count on GPL coding your favorite project producing a steady income. On the other hand, I'd like to have that I created the Linux router distro on my resume. (In fact I think I'll add it now...j/k)
I'd say the GPL is more about making sure your code and all derivitaves are as freely available as your distributed code. As you say, the GPL is definitely not about your compensation. Again, I haven't RTFA yet, but if his distro were BSD-licenced (not that he could do that w/Linux) others could still use his work without compensating him. They could even improve the product, sell it and refused to give him the code or any money. If he scratch-wrote his own router with his own proprietary code he would have to spend a lot more debugging time to get the project production-ready, and then he would be in direct competition with Cisco and other vendors with his unproven, closed-source code on cheap x86 hardware.
...size doesn't matter.
But if you're bigger you disproportionately more "hits".
Well, I was being a bit unfair in calling it a $300 PC. I'm a competent tech and have been upgrading my PC steadily since my first IBM PC. (Not even XT, we're talking an original 5-slot 4.77MHz PC.) The RAM, mobo, CPU and PS were $300, the rest is the best from my last primary PC.
//e. I used those for years before I got my then-outdated 5-slot IBM PC for free. When Apple killed off the Apple // line I was upset and have been with x86 ever since.
Starting from no computer at all a Mac may not be too much more than a comparable quality and feature set PC (or maybe it is...not sure), but whenever I ache badly for a Mac it's just not worth it to spend the money on Apple versus my ROI from upgrading my PC.
My first PC was an Apple ][+, then an Apple
A while after the color Macs and System 7 came out I started wanting a Mac, but they were too high. I quit wanting a Mac only when it looked like Apple was doomed. (All their Macs looked like PCs but more expensive and the company was otherwise going way downhill.) I was impressed that Apple rebounded with iMacs and the new-cased PowerMac but didn't really want one until OS X came out. Now I want one more than ever but still am not willing to pay the price that others are willing to pay. (Any used Mac that will run OS X is selling too rich for my blood.)
(Yeah, that cheap power supply already blew...picked up another for $45. Okay with me for home use. Most of the rest of the PC is fairly decent quality.)
It'd be nice if Apple had a cheapo do-it-yourself line. (Or any PowerPC platform for that matter; they're all high.)
Heh, I was about to post and correct you on a couple of things, but reread a few times and realized it was my misunderstanding and you're the KnoppixMAME dude and probably know what you're talking about more than me. :-)
Thanks for responding and informing.
Mounting should be as easy as clicking the hda1 icon (for example) on the desktop, though, unless you modified the startup scripts a lot. From your post I thought you're saying you have to use an xterm to mount the drives.
And thanks for packaging KnoppixMAME. I haven't tried it yet, but it's a fantastic idea. (I have tried XMAME and a Windows MAME, of course.)
Well, somebody should teach personal responsibility. I'd prefer the parents do it myself. Now we just need to figure out how to teach it to the parents.
Or, to save money on tinfoil, just hang out in elevators or my office.
I can now buy an NGAGE phone that is a lousy GameBoy rip-off, a phone that takes pictures, a phone that acts like a Palm Pilot, and now, a phone that acts like a significant other with my credit card number.
My right palm is my significant other. (I don't need a phone for that.)
Yeah, I was wondering this as well. Before (or during) Code Red it seems the U.S. athorities were actively hunting down virus writers, even in other countries.
I haven't heard of anything like that since, and there have been a few nasty viruses.
What gives?
The state of security on the Internet is bad, and will get worse before it gets better.
.357 Magnum with hollow point ammo when surfing nowadays.
.380 in the gun store yesterday...)
That's why I pack my
(Okay, not really, but I was looking at a Bersa Thunder
The other advantage is that it's GPL. I thought I had the source, but I don't; I have the FreeCiv source. :-(
I didn't get a C&D letter. Did you? Fork it as a new project.