>That's not exactly true, the BIOS also provides all your I/O services
AFAIA the BIOS hasn't provided I/O services since 16 bit DOS days. I can't see why linux or any other 32 bit OS would switch into 16 bit mode to access some crusty HD or floppy driver when they've got their own anyway.
I'm not trolling but I really don't understand the point of an open source BIOS. I like linux because (in theory) I can look at the source code and see whats running and modify it and hence modify my enviroment. Why would I care about the BIOS? For all intents and purpose it just the first stage bootstrap system for the hardware. As long as it does this quickly and simply who cares who or how its written? Ok , if ever BIOSes had some sort of DRM style restrictions installed them yes , maybe it'll have a use. But right now? I don't think so.
The author of the piece suggests a whitelist must be more practical. Hmm , so that would mean checking against a list of a few billion web pages as opposed to a few hundred for the scam pages. Anyone spot the teensy problem? I do wish that just occasionally journos would have a small amount of knowledge in the area they're writing about.
I don't have X or any bloatware desktop running at startup so I log into to the VT console and , guess what , I don't get a startup sound. So , where does your "irrelevant semantics" argument fit in now exactly?
"Provably correct operating system design is not a theory, but no one seems to be interested."
Possibly it has something to do with formal proofs only being realistic on toy systems. Anyone can formally prove a 1 line Hello World program will work to spec but try to formally prove the 20 odd million lines of code in a modern OS and your descendents will still be doing it 3 generations from now.
But eventually the bloat will cause MS to release a "minimalist" OS in the same way they reduced some of the bloat on Office (alledgedly) and market this new found slimline look as a feature (in the same way cars slowly grow in size and suddenly they're too big and get shrunk down again - then start to grow again). Who knows what the long term futures holds , Windows could either predominate, be overtaken by Linux or OS/X or some other OS/hardware combo which doesn't even exist yet or there could be a complete paradigm shift in the types of computers we use. Perhaps in 20 years we'll all be typing into a self programming neural net.
"For the first false assumption: I doubt that any offspring of human/neanderthal -- if such offspring was possible at all -- would have been able to reproduce."
The jury is still out on that one. The dividing line between human species is rather blurry. The odds are we couldn't interbreed successfully since otherwise some would have and we'd see a lot more evidence for it in the gene pool than we do. But that doesn't mean it was impossible since just because we look slightly different doesn't mean we're genetically incompatible. If you were an alien from another planet and your only 2 examples from earth were a short east asian and a large black african would you assume they were the same species going by looks alone? Looks are a very poor guide in this respect.
Try telling that to the right-on PC liberals who will probably crucity these scientists. Assuming they could ever find enough brain cells to understand the article.
They're just suggesting that europeans have a brain influencing gene that africans don't. They're not making any claims for what it may do. Though of course that won't stop nutters on both sides from reading into what they please.
These sorts of algorithms might not be ridiculus but they have limited scope. To compress text in this way you have to understand the language and its idioms. So the algo that did this would for example be useless at compressing French and possibly even English written in some colloquial form. It might have uses in some specific instances but as a general purpose text compression algorithm it leaves a lot to be desired.
Re:Let's examine other Oracle attempts at open sou
on
Oracle Linux Explored
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· Score: 1
" really hate the fact that Red Hat has to suffer stock price loss as a result of the 500 pound ape throwing its idiotic weight around."
Red Hat derives its business from code that was 99% written by people who do not work for it and never did. If it wasn't for the work many hundreds (thousands) or people put in for nothing they wouldn't exist. Did they really think they'd be the top dog in the linux food chain and no one would ever use *their* work for financial gain in turn? Too bad if they did because now they're about to discover just how relying on open source software as your sole earner can bite you badly.
Something called Raw Iron. Think it was based on Solaris but it was a plug-n-play DB + server. Never caught on and it was quietly strangled I believe at the end of the 90s.
Because downloading a single service pack is somewhat quicker for a new machine than it checking for every single update required and the longer an unpatched new machine is on the net the quicker it can get rooted. Plus with lots of little patches what you really end up with is myriad versions of the OS since not everyone will have every patch , leading to god knows how many minor (or not) glitches and issues with other software. A single service pack can be considered a fairly major OS upgrade which you either have or you don't have , your PC is either compliant or it isn't.
Ok , so Vista 64 won't load a driver unless its signed. How long do you think it'll be before some employee in the thousands that work at MS gets hold of said key and sells it to some crooks or even just leaks it for the hell of it? What happens then? They revoke the key and EVERY single driver manufacturer has to get their drivers resigned?? Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
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"Have you never had a remote serial connection to a server pre-boot before? In fact, have you never booted a machine from a remote CDROM before?"
Funnily enough - no. And whats your point anyway? It still won't use the BIOS I/O once the OS is up and running.
Ah , well in that case maybe there is a point to it :) I didn't realise this genie was almost out of the bottle already.
>That's not exactly true, the BIOS also provides all your I/O services
AFAIA the BIOS hasn't provided I/O services since 16 bit DOS days. I can't
see why linux or any other 32 bit OS would switch into 16 bit mode to access
some crusty HD or floppy driver when they've got their own anyway.
I'm not trolling but I really don't understand the point of an open source BIOS.
I like linux because (in theory) I can look at the source code and see whats
running and modify it and hence modify my enviroment. Why would I care about the
BIOS? For all intents and purpose it just the first stage bootstrap system for
the hardware. As long as it does this quickly and simply who cares who or how
its written? Ok , if ever BIOSes had some sort of DRM style restrictions installed
them yes , maybe it'll have a use. But right now? I don't think so.
The author of the piece suggests a whitelist must be more practical.
Hmm , so that would mean checking against a list of a few billion web
pages as opposed to a few hundred for the scam pages. Anyone spot the
teensy problem? I do wish that just occasionally journos would have a
small amount of knowledge in the area they're writing about.
I don't have X or any bloatware desktop running at startup so I log into to the VT console and , guess what , I don't get a startup sound. So , where does your "irrelevant semantics" argument fit in now exactly?
"Provably correct operating system design is not a theory, but no one seems to be interested."
Possibly it has something to do with formal proofs only being realistic on toy systems.
Anyone can formally prove a 1 line Hello World program will work to spec but try
to formally prove the 20 odd million lines of code in a modern OS and your descendents
will still be doing it 3 generations from now.
"However, I don't think a wireless driver falls into this category."
So you don't think data throughput speed is important then?
At least not for my HP pavilion laptop. I have to use ndiswrapper.
But eventually the bloat will cause MS to release a "minimalist" OS in the same way they reduced some of the bloat on Office (alledgedly) and market this new found slimline look as a feature (in the same way cars slowly grow in size and suddenly they're too big and get shrunk down again - then start to grow again). Who knows what the long term futures holds , Windows could either predominate, be overtaken by Linux or OS/X or some other OS/hardware combo which doesn't even exist yet or there could be a complete paradigm shift in the types of computers we use. Perhaps in 20 years we'll all be typing into a self programming neural net.
..than queue for 7 days to buy a games console (or anything non vital for that matter)they *really* need to consider getting a life.
Even losers can have wealthy parents.
"For the first false assumption: I doubt that any offspring of human/neanderthal -- if such offspring was possible at all -- would have been able to reproduce."
The jury is still out on that one. The dividing line between human species is rather blurry. The odds are we couldn't interbreed successfully since otherwise some would have and we'd see a lot more evidence for it in the gene pool than we do. But that doesn't mean it was impossible since just because we look slightly different doesn't mean we're genetically incompatible. If you were an alien from another planet and your only 2 examples from earth were a short east asian and a large black african would you assume they were the same species going by looks alone? Looks are a very poor guide in this respect.
Try telling that to the right-on PC liberals who will probably crucity these scientists. Assuming they could ever find enough brain cells to understand the article.
They're just suggesting that europeans have a brain influencing gene that africans don't. They're not making any claims for what it may do. Though of course that won't stop nutters on both sides from reading into what they please.
"This is one small step for a man , one giant leap in cost savings for Space Inc"
How many BIOSes does it have?? I know these new Macs are hi-end kit but even so....
These sorts of algorithms might not be ridiculus but they have limited scope. To compress text in this way you have to understand the language and its idioms. So the algo that did this would for example be useless at compressing French and possibly even English written in some colloquial form. It might have uses in some specific instances but as a general purpose text compression algorithm it leaves a lot to be desired.
" really hate the fact that Red Hat has to suffer stock price loss as a result of the 500 pound ape throwing its idiotic weight around."
Red Hat derives its business from code that was 99% written by people who do not work for it and never did. If it wasn't for the work many hundreds (thousands) or people put in for nothing they wouldn't exist. Did they really think they'd be the top dog in the linux food chain and no one would ever use *their* work for financial gain in turn? Too bad if they did because now they're about to discover just how relying on open source software as your sole earner can bite you badly.
Something called Raw Iron. Think it was based on Solaris but it was a plug-n-play DB + server. Never caught on and it was quietly strangled I believe at the end of the 90s.
"they don't earn any cash from supporting it"
No , but they earn a lot of goodwill and god knows they need it right now.
Because downloading a single service pack is somewhat quicker for a new machine than it checking for every single update required and the longer an unpatched new machine is on the net the quicker it can get rooted. Plus with lots of little patches what you really end up with is myriad versions of the OS since not everyone will have every patch , leading to god knows how many minor (or not) glitches and issues with other software. A single service pack can be considered a fairly major OS upgrade which you either have or you don't have , your PC is either compliant or it isn't.
So your point is?
Ok , so Vista 64 won't load a driver unless its signed. How long do you
think it'll be before some employee in the thousands that work at MS
gets hold of said key and sells it to some crooks or even just leaks
it for the hell of it? What happens then? They revoke the key and
EVERY single driver manufacturer has to get their drivers resigned??
Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
Yes but your average person doesn't have one.