Well, the truth of it is that illegal evidence is not generally used, but it can be used if necessary. What generally happens is that the evidence is thrown out, but not the case - wheras in the states the entire case is thrown out the window.
I found Ivan actually a fairly good poster; if nothing else, he got discussion going, even if a lot of people didn't agree with him.
Ivan Thackchev (sp?).. MEEPT!.. and now bugbear300[01]. Unfortunately bugbear is just a moron - at least Meept and Ivan, as trolly as they were, had some good things to say, some good ideas. I especially liked MEEPT's freestyle poems.
I don't even think there are any mainstream titles that fit this (for the PC, anyways; there are lots of console games that would work).
That being said, I realised that I was wrong: Tux: A quest for herring will probably match up properly when it's finished, as the author's aiming for a Mario64-esque game. I personally haven't played it, but it might be what you're looking for, and what's more, it's Free Software!
I don't know about your country, but here in Canada illegally obtained evidence is not as important as getting the person behind bars. I'm reminded of certain police officers who videotaped a drug deal in a hotel room illegally. The judge agreed it was illegal, but also agreed that putting drug dealers off the streets was more important than guarding their rights.
Also, regardless of how you get it, if you have a warrant you're ok -- so I wouldn't be surprised to see BO[2k] being used by law enforcement agencies all over the place.
Branden deserves a lot of credit. He's committed to getting X 3.3.4 into Potato before it freezes, and so he's psychologically psyched himself up for this release. I imagine that pre-release (ie: "staging").debs will be available very soon, with 3.3.4 being rolled into Potato not too long from then.
Now that I've said all that, Adam, just s/Branden/Adam/ and it's still true. =)
I own a Palm III. It's been invaluable for me, and I'm only a highschool student, so I can imagine how a really busy person would enjoy it.
1) making appointments/scheduling
This is one thing that the Palm series excels at. After all, it's meant to replace a dayplanner. Quick tap, perhaps adjust the time, write in a description and you're done.
2) writing quick e-mail (can i?)
If you're not brilliant at Graffiti, e-mail is tortuous. For all but the very shortest notes, it's better to wait till you get to a real keyboard.
3) notes
Again, unless they're very short graffiti makes it difficult - especially when you make graffitios. When you get into a groove, though, you find that graffiti is actually rather efficient and easy to use, and with a bit of experience you make fewer errors.
4) simple games
You mean there are other purposes to a Palm?:) There are a lot of simple but very fun games out there in Palmland. Don't let anyone else know that you've got games on it or you'll never be able to use your PDA for its DA work.
Is the 2MB really worth it?
In my experience 2 MB is more than enough for everything you need. Unless you're going to be loading on many books from the Gutenberg project, the 2 MB is a huge expanse that you're not likely to fill.
I recommend the Palm III to you. It's cheap, expandable, and very useful. I know I use mine all the time.
Linux zealots were willing to pay for quality software
Ok, I'll be the first to admit I'm a Free Software zealot. I tolerate some proprietary software on my computer, but I'm actively pursuing getting it off. About the only thing I haven't got a clear upgrade path for is the 3dfx drivers, which, to tell the truth, are just sitting on my hard drive in.deb format (thank you alien).
However, I'll also admit that for certain software, it's worth paying. For example, I bought Civilization: Call to Power, and I plan on buying Myth 2. There's nothing wrong with paying for software, but I refuse - refuse - to become tied irrevocably to proprietary software.
That being said, I can't see how Sorenson are making a lot of money off of the hordes of people who aren't buying Quicktime 4 for Windows and MacOS. I know that on 100% of the computers I've ever seen with Quicktime 4 installed, it gives you that annoying, evil little "Please buy me" message.
Also, as someone previously pointed out, Apple is, uh, a lot bigger than Real Networks, and Real manages to get a Linux client for RealPlayer out, including their ever-so-proprietary codecs.
I don't particularly know why Apple and Sorenson can't seem to port their client to Linux, and I don't know why Apple won't let the xvideo guy use even a proprietary codec for us. It's a case of a wannabe monopolist, probably.
I admit I've been to neither Calgary nor Vancouver, but I don't think anything can out-do Montreal. Just see my rant on the subject - Montreal drivers are the worst I've seen.
When NSI last modified the whois "agreement," it said "You agree not to redistribute, etc" - or something to that effect.
Well, I don't. I still don't. That's why I'm now repackaging, disseminating, and modifying (for HTML) the WHOIS record of my old ISP, Internet Direct.
gemini:~$ whois idirect.com [rs.internic.net]
Access to Network Solutions' WHOIS information is provided to assist persons in determining the contents of a domain name registration record in NSI's registrar database. The data in this record is provided by NSI for informational purposes only, and NSI does not guarantee its accuracy. Compilation, repackaging, dissemination, or other use of the WHOIS database in its entirety, or a substantial portion thereof, is not allowed without NSI's prior written permission. By submitting this query, you agree to abide by this policy. All rights reserved.
Registrant: TUCOWS Interactive Limited (IDIRECT-DOM) 5150 Dundas Street West #306 Etobicoke ON, M9A 1C3 CA
Domain Name: IDIRECT.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact: Administrator, DNS (LH90) dnsadmin@IDIRECT.COM 416-233-7150 (FAX) 416-233-6970
Record last updated on 29-Oct-98. Record created on 21-Nov-94. Database last updated on 6-Jul-99 08:47:29 EDT.
I don't know about in Korea, but here in Canada prices for MS office 2000 are, to say the least, prohibitive. The version my computer science teacher got through his son, who works at Microsoft, for $80, costs about $700. The "Professional", which cost him $100, is about $1200. I don't want to think about the developer's edition.
When Microsoft themselves can offer it for $80, you have to wonder what their margin of profit is. I'd put good money that they're still making money off the $80 and $100 versions.
Opera isn't fully CSS1/DOM1 compliant, nor does it support Java (at least, it didn't when I tried it.) Also, it lacks in the customisation of UI field, at which Mozilla excels because of XUL. If Microworkz are using the BeOS backend with a new UI, Mozilla and its customisable UI could fit in very well with that scheme.
Obviously this isn't using BeZilla yet (not finished), but the iToaster probably offers a huge opportunity to Mozilla. Simply put, Microworkz would be insane not to use Mozilla once it's out, considering it will be a) free and b) fully standards-compliant - including Java^H^H^H^HEMCAScript and other things like CSS1, DOM1, etc which the BeOS currently lacks (Please, don't flame me if the current incarnation of the BeOS' browser supports JavaScript or whatever. I don't know and don't claim to.)
So, Mozilla could get a huge number of users in a future incarnation of the iToaster (if it takes off) in fairly short order. A good opportunity, I say.
Basically, Bill Gates ushers in his reign of terror by condemning hobbyist computer users for copying his software, his intellectual property, and how in God's name will he make money if people don't buy it?
Firstly, and off-topic, no one in their right mind outside of Lower Slobovia thought the earth was flat. That's why the ancient Greeks (Aristhosthenes? Pythagoras?) were able to estimate the circumference of the earth to within a couple of kilometres using simple trigonometry.
The fact is that people's outlooks change. We/think/ that people thought the earth was flat, and now it's a general assumption - but untrue for the large part. No one thought to write in the inalienable right to privacy in the US' Constitution because no one ever tried to take it from them. It was a part of their lives, and no one would have *use* for these things.
In this day and age, privacy becomes very important -- and yet, the US is trying to take it away from the entire world - especially its citizens - with projects like ECHELON. It's about time that their constitution got changed to make privacy a right, the same way they have the inalienable right to bear arms (another thing which has changed over the years. "I have to defend myself against the King of England!" (Sorry, don't remember the exact quote from the Simpsons.))
I sort of wish Rob had told me he was going to post it:) ; I would have reviewed it and changed this. I meant it to say that it cannot be incorporated into a proprietary product and sold - and I am very aware of the difference - but unfortunately I didn't write it that way in its current incarnation.
You can't technically release BSD code under the GPL. You can, however, incorporate BSD code into a GPL'd project, because there is nothing in the BSD license which says you can't put more restrictions on it, and the BSD license without the advertising clause is 'compatible' with the GPL in that it doesn't place any other restrictions on the source code. Such is the case with some drivers and bits in the Linux kernel; parts of it are under the BSD license, but the kernel as a whole is distributed under the GPL.
This is very interesting. I'd not thought of it in this context before.
When I was taking my grade 11 biology course, we studied genetics. Something that came up was the fact that your genes could, and in fact did, change. A real question that came up, which my teacher refused to answer (said to go to the religion teachers) was one involving different chromosomes. Say I, a male, was born with two 'X' chromosomes. I would be a different physical person - obviously, a female - but would I be the same person? After all, if the soul or consciousness or what-have-you is created or metred out or whatever when you're concieved, would the prescence of a couple of extra genes make that large of a difference?
A very, very good book to read on what you wrote about is "The Terminal Experiment" by Robert J. Sawyer. It involves a scientist who has created the technology sufficient to make an exact copy of the human brain (and consciousness), and can also modify it to suit his requirements. I reccomend checking it out if you're at all interested in the theology of biology and consciousness - it is a near-future science-fiction book, if you're interested.
The Open Source Initiative, OSI, was created not too long ago to deal with the fact that the term ``Free Software'' as coined by rms was not specific enough. Free Software, in its current context, refers to software which may or may not be free in price but is free in that you can modify it and redistribute it.
However, pointy-hairs have been seeing only the ``Free'' part of Free Software, and as such thought that there was no way that anybody could make money off of it.
The term Open Source was thus coined by (correct me if I'm wrong) a combination of Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, aka esr. They formed the Open Source Initiative, the prime meaning of which was to enforce the Open Source Certification. If I'm not mistaken, Bruce Perens, operating for Software in the Public Interest, SPI, attempted to register the trademark Open Source.
Why register it? Why indeed. If not registered, any company with a license - like Apple with its APSL - could claim to be Open Source, even if it didn't fit the Open Source Definition (which, incidentally, is based upon the Debian Free Software Guidelines.)
As it turns out, ``Open Source'' can't be trademarked. Neither, I would assume, can ``Free Software.'' This doesn't negate the fact that the only true Free Software licenses are those which comply with the Debian Free Software Guidelines or the OSD; regardless of what a company says its license is, you can rely on people like rms and esr and those folks on debian-legal to tell you the pitfalls, if any, of a license.
Basically, if a license can't be OSI Approved, it isn't Free Software or Open Source - which doesn't mean it can't be called Open Source or Free Software. As in all things, you must investigate to see whether or not a company's claims are true.
Netscape originally started out as the Internet company. Its job was to make the internet usable and bearable, for both developers and users. Netscape Navigator, aka Mozilla, did this - but not in a way that could easily be exploited by many other developers of web browsers.
At that time, the true web standards were immature, and couldn't make pages look like their creators wanted. HTML was a very simple markup tool. As someone else stated earlier, HTML was incapable of even specifying background images and colours; indeed, earlier versions of Photoshop reccomended using the grey colour of the Netscape default background to create "transparent" images.
So, faced with making a relatively blas'e, run-of-the-mill web browser like Mosaic, or creating something that really would Change The World, Mosaic Communications, aka Netscape, chose to extend web standards to fit the model they needed.
Regardless of whether or not you think this was a bad thing, it's what led to the web as it is: early web browsers like Netscape, and, later, Internet Explorer, extended HTML and related standards to make it do what they wanted.
Somewhere along those lines, though, the World Wide Web Consortium (w3c) got on its feet and started creating new markup languages (such as CSS and XML) and adding abilities to other languages (HTML 4.0). For some reason, though, the major browser makers weren't implementing these new standards fully; instead, they implemented bits and pieces, or in some cases nothing at all.
To this day, there is no browser which is 100% CSS 1 compliant. Opera comes close, but it's not there. Mozilla aims to be the first. Along with implementing XML and HTML 4.0 fully, Mozilla aims to knell the death toll for proprietary "standards" such as Netscape's layers and most anything else not in the specs as brought down by the w3c or EMCA (ie: EMCAScript, aka JavaScript). Netscape no longer has anything to gain from extending standards: they realised that when they released a browser, Netscape 4.x, with very sub-par implementations of existing standards. Why create a new spec if a perfectly good, standard, one exists? It doesn't make sense.
This isn't the first thing Mozilla will do to destroy proprietary "standards," and it won't be the last. I'm looking forward to seeing what it brings up next.
I've liked the idea of Enlightenment for a long time. I originally tried it out at version 0.13.1 on slackware 3.4 -- getting all the things to compile: imagemagick, imlib, the million and a half-odd graphics libraries, etc., was a huge pain, but I did like the fact that things were fairly customisable. I also liked that it offered me a way other than an xterm to get things launched, etc.
Now enlightenment has undergone a rewrite, supposedly to remove a lot of cruft and make it more extensible. When I first used E, it was more of a desktop than simply a window manager; making it a window manager again, albeit a very advanced and complex one, seemed like a good idea to me.
E's pagers, the minisnapshots, are neat. The fact that it is completely configurable is neat. But, it's not a window manager any longer. I first got concerned when Raster talked of implementing his own widgets in E for configuration; after all, there's a perfectly good GTK+ app that could be extended or rewritten to do the same thing! When Raster went on to say he might want a file dialogue or something along those lines, I knew that E was getting a bit too big.
E is now, or will soon be, a desktop environment unto itself. It's running up in the 60k lines of code area, with 0.15 at least, which if it's done well isn't a problem. Regardless of this, small machines will have a lot of trouble running E if it continues to expand. The only hope of keeping it as a window manager is that Mandrake is able to make modules of one form or another work, so that if I want to use the GTK+ app instead of the built-in E widget configuration dialogues, I can, and if I don't want the up-and-coming desktop environment bits of it, I can leave them and use GNOME and gmc instead.
There's nothing inherently wrong in making E a desktop environment on its own. But, with it being GNOME's default window manager, the GNOME developers now have a choice: Use the old versions of E, which aren't duplicating code and effort, use the new versions and hope that the user doesn't get confused with the two file selectors and various other things, develop their own window manager, or make sure that E follows its true roots: complete configurability, modularity, and choice.
This is the main problem I find with GQmpeg. I like it (although the interface is hopelessly confusing at best) but I simply won't, won't, won't, won't use non-Free software if I can avoid it. X11amp is Free, therefore I use it.
On a side note, the mpg123 input plugin for x11amp has been GPL'd by the author of mpg123. I've thought seriously about taking that, writing an mpg123-compatible frontend, and creating the Free version of mpg123. Either that, or writing a frontend or wrapper script for freeamp which exactly mimics mpg123, so that GQmpeg isn't dependent on non-Free software.
Beowulf, as far as I know, is fully GPL'd. After all, it is development on top of the Linux kernel, and it's really not an option if you're trying to integrate them (unless you're using modules).
In any case, yes, it should be freely distributable, but Cheapbytes doesn't sell them because of the United States' inane export laws. Beowulf is considered a munition because it can make computers more powerful than a certain plateau, which in theory can be used to develop weapons, etc.
In any case, if someone has a Beowulf cd, you can legally copy it (I assume that it was exported legally if you're not in the States)
...around ten boxes running Linux 5.2: Red Hat Linux 5.2, I assume - or perhaps SuSE. There is no Linux 5.2 as of yet, though - it's 2.2.
Wait ages for tar?: I haven't noticed tar being slow. What in particular is wrong with it for backup? That's kind of its point - tape archiver.
Textmode amanda?: What's wrong with textmode? If something does the work, why is it bad if it's textmode?
There are plenty of people talking about how GNU tar is perfect for what they need. I'm not sure exactly how the lack of GUI backup tools somehow makes Linux not 'enterprise-ready' - perhaps you'll enlighten me? After all, if there is a deficiency in this department, it takes people who actually need to use this sort of thing to point it out so it can be fixed.
This isn't the way things are traditionally done in the Free Software community. Generally, things get done because a particular programmer needs or wants that particular task to be (possible|easier). Even so, there are a lot of programmers who can't think of tasks which other people might need to do, but aren't programmers themselves. Other people or companies with more money and experience could ensure that their particular itch gets scratched.
However, I can think of a potential problem with this new "mercenary-like" approach to Free Software development. While I don't find anything innately wrong with being paid to do a Free Software development job - or being paid to do any programming job of any sort - this gives companies and people with money the upper hand when it comes to deciding what gets developed. True, most Free Software developers have other jobs, but when it comes to deciding between working on a "true" Free Software project and one for which you're getting paid, which a company wants - the for-pay job will probably win. It remains to be seen whether the traditional Free Software community is hurt by these developments.
Personally, I don't think this could happen - but it might. Do we really want to forfeit our independence?
My common sense tells me that if someone wants to send back falsified results, they'll send back falsified results. It's been shown time and time again that OBSCURITY != SECURITY. Just because the SETI project is closed doesn't mean that their results are not being falsified at this very moment, because it just takes a little more dedication to screw it up. The only really secure protocol/program/anything-else is one that's been peer-reviewed and shown that it's secure, which means things like checksums, encryption and accountability. It's my opinion that the SETI program is in fact more vulnerable to cracker efforts because it's closed -- a vulnerability in the system, once found, will probably not be brought to light before the results are completely and horribly skewed - after all, if they don't give us the code to review, why tell them when there's a problem in it?
Slashdot Mirror
Well, the truth of it is that illegal evidence is not generally used, but it can be used if necessary. What generally happens is that the evidence is thrown out, but not the case - wheras in the states the entire case is thrown out the window.
Ivan Thackchev (sp?) .. MEEPT!.. and now bugbear300[01]. Unfortunately bugbear is just a moron - at least Meept and Ivan, as trolly as they were, had some good things to say, some good ideas. I especially liked MEEPT's freestyle poems.
That being said, I realised that I was wrong: Tux: A quest for herring will probably match up properly when it's finished, as the author's aiming for a Mario64-esque game. I personally haven't played it, but it might be what you're looking for, and what's more, it's Free Software!
Also, regardless of how you get it, if you have a warrant you're ok -- so I wouldn't be surprised to see BO[2k] being used by law enforcement agencies all over the place.
Now that I've said all that, Adam, just s/Branden/Adam/ and it's still true. =)
I recommend the Palm III to you. It's cheap, expandable, and very useful. I know I use mine all the time.
However, I'll also admit that for certain software, it's worth paying. For example, I bought Civilization: Call to Power, and I plan on buying Myth 2. There's nothing wrong with paying for software, but I refuse - refuse - to become tied irrevocably to proprietary software.
That being said, I can't see how Sorenson are making a lot of money off of the hordes of people who aren't buying Quicktime 4 for Windows and MacOS. I know that on 100% of the computers I've ever seen with Quicktime 4 installed, it gives you that annoying, evil little "Please buy me" message.
Also, as someone previously pointed out, Apple is, uh, a lot bigger than Real Networks, and Real manages to get a Linux client for RealPlayer out, including their ever-so-proprietary codecs.
I don't particularly know why Apple and Sorenson can't seem to port their client to Linux, and I don't know why Apple won't let the xvideo guy use even a proprietary codec for us. It's a case of a wannabe monopolist, probably.
I admit I've been to neither Calgary nor Vancouver, but I don't think anything can out-do Montreal. Just see my rant on the subject - Montreal drivers are the worst I've seen.
Well, I don't. I still don't. That's why I'm now repackaging, disseminating, and modifying (for HTML) the WHOIS record of my old ISP, Internet Direct.
gemini:~$ whois idirect.com
[rs.internic.net]
Access to Network Solutions' WHOIS information is provided to assist persons in determining the contents of a domain name registration record in NSI's registrar database. The data in this record is provided by NSI for informational purposes only, and NSI does not guarantee its accuracy. Compilation, repackaging, dissemination, or other use of the WHOIS database in its entirety, or a substantial portion thereof, is not allowed without NSI's prior written permission. By submitting this query, you agree to abide by this policy. All rights reserved.
Registrant:
TUCOWS Interactive Limited (IDIRECT-DOM)
5150 Dundas Street West #306
Etobicoke ON, M9A 1C3
CA
Domain Name: IDIRECT.COM
Administrative Contact, Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
Administrator, DNS (LH90) dnsadmin@IDIRECT.COM
416-233-7150 (FAX) 416-233-6970
Record last updated on 29-Oct-98.
Record created on 21-Nov-94.
Database last updated on 6-Jul-99 08:47:29 EDT.
Domain servers in listed order:
NS.IDIRECT.COM 199.166.254.254
NS2.IDIRECT.COM 199.166.254.4
CNS2.IDIRECT.COM 207.136.80.18
CNS1.IDIRECT.COM 207.136.66.20
When Microsoft themselves can offer it for $80, you have to wonder what their margin of profit is. I'd put good money that they're still making money off the $80 and $100 versions.
Opera isn't fully CSS1/DOM1 compliant, nor does it support Java (at least, it didn't when I tried it.) Also, it lacks in the customisation of UI field, at which Mozilla excels because of XUL. If Microworkz are using the BeOS backend with a new UI, Mozilla and its customisable UI could fit in very well with that scheme.
So, Mozilla could get a huge number of users in a future incarnation of the iToaster (if it takes off) in fairly short order. A good opportunity, I say.
Basically, Bill Gates ushers in his reign of terror by condemning hobbyist computer users for copying his software, his intellectual property, and how in God's name will he make money if people don't buy it?
Firstly, and off-topic, no one in their right mind outside of Lower Slobovia thought the earth was flat. That's why the ancient Greeks (Aristhosthenes? Pythagoras?) were able to estimate the circumference of the earth to within a couple of kilometres using simple trigonometry.
The fact is that people's outlooks change. We /think/ that people thought the earth was flat, and now it's a general assumption - but untrue for the large part. No one thought to write in the inalienable right to privacy in the US' Constitution because no one ever tried to take it from them. It was a part of their lives, and no one would have *use* for these things.
In this day and age, privacy becomes very important -- and yet, the US is trying to take it away from the entire world - especially its citizens - with projects like ECHELON. It's about time that their constitution got changed to make privacy a right, the same way they have the inalienable right to bear arms (another thing which has changed over the years. "I have to defend myself against the King of England!" (Sorry, don't remember the exact quote from the Simpsons.))
I sort of wish Rob had told me he was going to post it :) ; I would have reviewed it and changed this. I meant it to say that it cannot be incorporated into a proprietary product and sold - and I am very aware of the difference - but unfortunately I didn't write it that way in its current incarnation.
You can't technically release BSD code under the GPL. You can, however, incorporate BSD code into a GPL'd project, because there is nothing in the BSD license which says you can't put more restrictions on it, and the BSD license without the advertising clause is 'compatible' with the GPL in that it doesn't place any other restrictions on the source code. Such is the case with some drivers and bits in the Linux kernel; parts of it are under the BSD license, but the kernel as a whole is distributed under the GPL.
When I was taking my grade 11 biology course, we studied genetics. Something that came up was the fact that your genes could, and in fact did, change. A real question that came up, which my teacher refused to answer (said to go to the religion teachers) was one involving different chromosomes. Say I, a male, was born with two 'X' chromosomes. I would be a different physical person - obviously, a female - but would I be the same person? After all, if the soul or consciousness or what-have-you is created or metred out or whatever when you're concieved, would the prescence of a couple of extra genes make that large of a difference?
A very, very good book to read on what you wrote about is "The Terminal Experiment" by Robert J. Sawyer. It involves a scientist who has created the technology sufficient to make an exact copy of the human brain (and consciousness), and can also modify it to suit his requirements. I reccomend checking it out if you're at all interested in the theology of biology and consciousness - it is a near-future science-fiction book, if you're interested.
E-mail me if you wish to talk further.
However, pointy-hairs have been seeing only the ``Free'' part of Free Software, and as such thought that there was no way that anybody could make money off of it.
The term Open Source was thus coined by (correct me if I'm wrong) a combination of Bruce Perens and Eric S. Raymond, aka esr. They formed the Open Source Initiative, the prime meaning of which was to enforce the Open Source Certification. If I'm not mistaken, Bruce Perens, operating for Software in the Public Interest, SPI, attempted to register the trademark Open Source.
Why register it? Why indeed. If not registered, any company with a license - like Apple with its APSL - could claim to be Open Source, even if it didn't fit the Open Source Definition (which, incidentally, is based upon the Debian Free Software Guidelines.)
As it turns out, ``Open Source'' can't be trademarked. Neither, I would assume, can ``Free Software.'' This doesn't negate the fact that the only true Free Software licenses are those which comply with the Debian Free Software Guidelines or the OSD; regardless of what a company says its license is, you can rely on people like rms and esr and those folks on debian-legal to tell you the pitfalls, if any, of a license.
Basically, if a license can't be OSI Approved, it isn't Free Software or Open Source - which doesn't mean it can't be called Open Source or Free Software. As in all things, you must investigate to see whether or not a company's claims are true.
At that time, the true web standards were immature, and couldn't make pages look like their creators wanted. HTML was a very simple markup tool. As someone else stated earlier, HTML was incapable of even specifying background images and colours; indeed, earlier versions of Photoshop reccomended using the grey colour of the Netscape default background to create "transparent" images.
So, faced with making a relatively blas'e, run-of-the-mill web browser like Mosaic, or creating something that really would Change The World, Mosaic Communications, aka Netscape, chose to extend web standards to fit the model they needed.
Regardless of whether or not you think this was a bad thing, it's what led to the web as it is: early web browsers like Netscape, and, later, Internet Explorer, extended HTML and related standards to make it do what they wanted.
Somewhere along those lines, though, the World Wide Web Consortium (w3c) got on its feet and started creating new markup languages (such as CSS and XML) and adding abilities to other languages (HTML 4.0). For some reason, though, the major browser makers weren't implementing these new standards fully; instead, they implemented bits and pieces, or in some cases nothing at all.
To this day, there is no browser which is 100% CSS 1 compliant. Opera comes close, but it's not there. Mozilla aims to be the first. Along with implementing XML and HTML 4.0 fully, Mozilla aims to knell the death toll for proprietary "standards" such as Netscape's layers and most anything else not in the specs as brought down by the w3c or EMCA (ie: EMCAScript, aka JavaScript). Netscape no longer has anything to gain from extending standards: they realised that when they released a browser, Netscape 4.x, with very sub-par implementations of existing standards. Why create a new spec if a perfectly good, standard, one exists? It doesn't make sense.
This isn't the first thing Mozilla will do to destroy proprietary "standards," and it won't be the last. I'm looking forward to seeing what it brings up next.
Now enlightenment has undergone a rewrite, supposedly to remove a lot of cruft and make it more extensible. When I first used E, it was more of a desktop than simply a window manager; making it a window manager again, albeit a very advanced and complex one, seemed like a good idea to me.
E's pagers, the minisnapshots, are neat. The fact that it is completely configurable is neat. But, it's not a window manager any longer. I first got concerned when Raster talked of implementing his own widgets in E for configuration; after all, there's a perfectly good GTK+ app that could be extended or rewritten to do the same thing! When Raster went on to say he might want a file dialogue or something along those lines, I knew that E was getting a bit too big.
E is now, or will soon be, a desktop environment unto itself. It's running up in the 60k lines of code area, with 0.15 at least, which if it's done well isn't a problem. Regardless of this, small machines will have a lot of trouble running E if it continues to expand. The only hope of keeping it as a window manager is that Mandrake is able to make modules of one form or another work, so that if I want to use the GTK+ app instead of the built-in E widget configuration dialogues, I can, and if I don't want the up-and-coming desktop environment bits of it, I can leave them and use GNOME and gmc instead.
There's nothing inherently wrong in making E a desktop environment on its own. But, with it being GNOME's default window manager, the GNOME developers now have a choice: Use the old versions of E, which aren't duplicating code and effort, use the new versions and hope that the user doesn't get confused with the two file selectors and various other things, develop their own window manager, or make sure that E follows its true roots: complete configurability, modularity, and choice.
On a side note, the mpg123 input plugin for x11amp has been GPL'd by the author of mpg123. I've thought seriously about taking that, writing an mpg123-compatible frontend, and creating the Free version of mpg123. Either that, or writing a frontend or wrapper script for freeamp which exactly mimics mpg123, so that GQmpeg isn't dependent on non-Free software.
In any case, yes, it should be freely distributable, but Cheapbytes doesn't sell them because of the United States' inane export laws. Beowulf is considered a munition because it can make computers more powerful than a certain plateau, which in theory can be used to develop weapons, etc.
In any case, if someone has a Beowulf cd, you can legally copy it (I assume that it was exported legally if you're not in the States)
...around ten boxes running Linux 5.2: Red Hat Linux 5.2, I assume - or perhaps SuSE. There is no Linux 5.2 as of yet, though - it's 2.2.- Wait ages for tar?: I haven't noticed tar being slow. What in particular is wrong with it for backup? That's kind of its point - tape archiver.
- Textmode amanda?: What's wrong with textmode? If something does the work, why is it bad if it's textmode?
There are plenty of people talking about how GNU tar is perfect for what they need. I'm not sure exactly how the lack of GUI backup tools somehow makes Linux not 'enterprise-ready' - perhaps you'll enlighten me? After all, if there is a deficiency in this department, it takes people who actually need to use this sort of thing to point it out so it can be fixed.However, I can think of a potential problem with this new "mercenary-like" approach to Free Software development. While I don't find anything innately wrong with being paid to do a Free Software development job - or being paid to do any programming job of any sort - this gives companies and people with money the upper hand when it comes to deciding what gets developed. True, most Free Software developers have other jobs, but when it comes to deciding between working on a "true" Free Software project and one for which you're getting paid, which a company wants - the for-pay job will probably win. It remains to be seen whether the traditional Free Software community is hurt by these developments.
Personally, I don't think this could happen - but it might. Do we really want to forfeit our independence?
My common sense tells me that if someone wants to send back falsified results, they'll send back falsified results. It's been shown time and time again that OBSCURITY != SECURITY. Just because the SETI project is closed doesn't mean that their results are not being falsified at this very moment, because it just takes a little more dedication to screw it up. The only really secure protocol/program/anything-else is one that's been peer-reviewed and shown that it's secure, which means things like checksums, encryption and accountability. It's my opinion that the SETI program is in fact more vulnerable to cracker efforts because it's closed -- a vulnerability in the system, once found, will probably not be brought to light before the results are completely and horribly skewed - after all, if they don't give us the code to review, why tell them when there's a problem in it?