"The point" of a DRM feature in a BIOS would be that if the OS and the applications were "DRM aware", then "neat" things can be done.
I think you're missing the fact that in order to capitalize on the DRM feature in the BIOS, new applications have to be written. You would not be able to install(pirate) a DRM enhanced AutoCAD on a Windows98 PC. You'd need Windows 2010 or newer. Ditto for Linux. If Matlab for Linux is DRM enhanced, then it would require Linux w/ DRM as well.
Phoenix probably couldn't care less if you elect to install a DRM unaware OS. It's just one more feature in the BIOS that's going unused. But by including the feature, they're opening the door for others to build off of it.
Could this kill Linux or even Windows XP if it doesn't have the ability to work with the bios?
No. But it could kill your ability to install the same copy of AutoCAD on multiple PC's. Installing AutoCAD with DRM enabled would require the BIOS, and the hooks from the OS to get at the DRM features of the BIOS.
That's a recurring theme when discussing so-called "broadband". There's no "killer app". People talk about multimedia applications (video on demand), but that would require real broadband (multimegabit).
If I were able to drop the cable and the netflix subscription, $50 would be a bargain. And I think a big chunk of America would agree with me.
When I read the press release, and the other
pages on that site, I didn't see anything at all related to interoperability.
It looks like they're interested in trimming the fat from the kernel to get something better suited to CE devices. In other words, have one tree where all the work that has to be done gets done, reducing the duplication of effort that they have today.
Sure, doing this will in fact "create a foundation on which the CELF members and others can build compelling network products.", but they aren't saying anything about building compelling network products that interoperate with other compelling network products produced by a 3rd party (or even members of The Forum).
you seem to have the misguided belief that by using linux, these manufacturers will open up their protocols / comm interfaces.
Just your friendly reminder that just because you're using linux, it doesn't mean you have to be open.
sure, some stuff like modifications required to pass certification will be shared with members of the Forum. but beyond that (and stuff required by the licenses), I wouldn't expect any open-ness from any of these vendors.
they've got awfully deep pockets and can afford
a prolonged fight.
and what if through their public fight, they caused enough outrage through middle (and lower) america
to get the politicians to start thinking about PTO
change.
maybe everyone should start lobbying their local store manager to get walmart to fight the good fight.
linux users who are cheap will still use 4 year old
hardware regardless of if they're able to use the latest stuff.
if somebody wants Linux on the newest / fastest/bestest Intel processor, and if they're willing to pay the price, somebody somewhere will build the board.
this partnership is between HP and MS, not Intel/VIA/SIS and MS. I'd be a lot more worried about linux on the desktop future if the chipset manufacturers were involved.
building a x86 system isn't that hard. I worked on a project last year with 2 people for about 9 months ($200k NRE) that produced a multiprocessor board using latest Intel stuff. because the volumes were so low, the fully populated boards were going cost around $1k @ qty 100.
one of the hardest parts of the software was wrapping our heads around the 20 years of legacy code that were present in the BIOS, and that we pretty much had to have working so that we could use lilo/grub to boot Linux. getting rid of all that cruft would be a welcome development, as far as I'm concerned.
I want grub [or equivalent] in flash, and that's it.
as much as I love sweeping conclusions,
how does this prevent Linux from being used on
the desktop?
Linux can obviously still run on other PC's, and other architectures in general.
What's stopping somebody from "partnering" with a manufacturer, producing a PC that won't boot DOS/Windows, but will boot Linux? Obviously on such a board, MS could always add support for it, but wouldn't.
just because the money isn't raised through a tax doesn't mean it's "private" money. the wording
of your first two bullets in your previous post are misleading, at best.
the fact is, if it hadn't been diverted into this
special project, the money might have been in the general fund, and may have helped with some of the current problems the state is facing.
hate to follow-up to myself, but the article
has a perfect example of the questionable accounting that's being used to keep this project afloat.
It mentions $400mil software donation from EDS.
That's not a donation of, for example, MS Office.
It's a donation for EDS product life-cycle management software. What's a 7th grader going to do with that? well I guess we'll have to wait and see. The software might conceivably be useful to technical school or university students, who are also covered by this "donation", but I doubt it.
but you gotta love those PBS ads where they pat themselves on the back for educating the teachers on how to use the laptops.
another thing nobody seems to be talking about here
is the fact that the $50mil that King set aside was originally supposed to last forever: just use the interest for capital purchases. somehow, I don't think that's going to be the case.
and another thing: apparently the the law the state legislature passed had clauses in it related to the amount of private donations that the fund needed to accumulate in order to stay in action (as in, if they didn't meet goals the money went back to general fund). apparently, there's been some suspicious accounting involved --- like using discounted value of the purchased iBooks as a multi-million dollar "donation" (i.e. apparently buying in bulk didn't buy us anything, we paid full retail for all those laptops, but apple gave us a "donation" of several mil to help cover the cost).
No, they aren't the same thing. Not even comparable really, anymore so than SliMP3 compares to AudioTron or RioReceiver.
The SliMP3 decodes the MP3 in hardware on the device itself.
The current device up for discussion is really just a transport for uncompressed audio: it's prepared for the DAC by the host PC. The FPGA is just there to handle the ethernet and implement the FIFO. Think of packet switched stereo cables.
I think there's a certain amount of elegance to the SliMP3 that's somehow lacking in the LanPipe.
But it (LanPipe) is pretty slick for a FPGA learn-how-to-do-it type project.
All it takes is for there to be a perception that Linux isn't supported in the drivers area for somebody to say "I'll go with Windows".
As far as telephony software goes, I think it's more like "Windows? what a piece of shit. I'll take SCO. What do you mean SCO's dead? Well give me something like it."
And that's how you can explain the success that Linux has had to date.
I think the reality is actually the inverse of your observation. Remember that SCO/UnixWare were market leaders in this area until a few years ago (I haven't been keeping track, so they still may be).
But all the 3rd party vendors recognized that UnixWare was a sinking ship, and started asking the hardware vendors (DLGC, NMS) for Linux support. Why? Because it's cheap and it at least looks like the redheaded stepchild UnixWare never had. So with a little work, the 3rd party vendors have their app running on Linux.
Add into this the fact that Microsoft also recognized UnixWare was a sinking ship, and started marketing. Remember, it's all about developers developers developers. So many 3rd parties were confused and switched their app to Windows (partial rewrites) instead of switching to linux (minimal porting effort).
I think that for some people who ended up on Windows, there may be some displeasure with the reliability / quality. But I think they are probably outnumbered by the people who are having positive results with W2K/NT in these setups. The net effect is that Windows is gaining in this market.
How many linux hackers have dialogic boards in their machines?
I do! But guess what? I didn't have to write the drivers because someone already wrote them.
In my opinion, there is not a device driver problem here. Intel/Dialogic isn't the only vendor supporting Linux. And they don't support it out of the kindness of their heart: they support it because doing so helps sell hardware.
Well, I wouldn't say free UNIX has "absolutely zero penetration". For example, Dialogic would never have released drivers for Linux if there wasn't a demonstrated need for them (i.e. they must have had a lot of their customers asking for them before hand). The same can be said for other board vendors, as well as software like SpeechWorks.
In other words, I think the fact that vendors support creation of telephony systems using Linux
at all is an indicator that it is in fact being used. I would not use the relative success/failure of a handful of telephony related projects as a guage for the success/failure of Linux in telephony.
But for what it's worth, I am aware of a $7-digit custom speech system that's running reliably on RedHat 4.2
I have a server that I wrote for wireless devices performing a few hundred SQL queries/changes and file writes per hour, and the speed is surprisingly very good for a language most people refer to as a 'script'.
I would certainly hope so.
I think that even VB+Access on a 386
can manage that.
Slashdot Mirror
The N-Gage-QD fixes the battery removal issue.
Now, you only have to remove your battery to swap
your SIM card, which is not too frequently.
Screwups like that are part of the "great learning experience"
referenced in the interview.
I think you're missing the fact that in order to capitalize on the DRM feature in the BIOS, new applications have to be written. You would not be able to install(pirate) a DRM enhanced AutoCAD on a Windows98 PC. You'd need Windows 2010 or newer. Ditto for Linux. If Matlab for Linux is DRM enhanced, then it would require Linux w/ DRM as well.
Phoenix probably couldn't care less if you elect to install a DRM unaware OS. It's just one more feature in the BIOS that's going unused. But by including the feature, they're opening the door for others to build off of it.
No. But it could kill your ability to install the same copy of AutoCAD on multiple PC's. Installing AutoCAD with DRM enabled would require the BIOS, and the hooks from the OS to get at the DRM features of the BIOS.
If I were able to drop the cable and the netflix subscription, $50 would be a bargain. And I think a big chunk of America would agree with me.
Actually, I thought the whole point of the
lawsuit was that they had been trying to negotiate
with IBM, but the negotiations brokedown.
Or maybe I'm getting confused with the Martha Stewart. Both scales rank about equally on the Yawn Scale.
It looks like they're interested in trimming the fat from the kernel to get something better suited to CE devices. In other words, have one tree where all the work that has to be done gets done, reducing the duplication of effort that they have today.
Sure, doing this will in fact "create a foundation on which the CELF members and others can build compelling network products.", but they aren't saying anything about building compelling network products that interoperate with other compelling network products produced by a 3rd party (or even members of The Forum).
Just your friendly reminder that just because you're using linux, it doesn't mean you have to be open.
sure, some stuff like modifications required to pass certification will be shared with members of the Forum. but beyond that (and stuff required by the licenses), I wouldn't expect any open-ness from any of these vendors.
they've got awfully deep pockets and can afford a prolonged fight.
and what if through their public fight, they caused enough outrage through middle (and lower) america to get the politicians to start thinking about PTO change.
maybe everyone should start lobbying their local store manager to get walmart to fight the good fight.
linux users who are cheap will still use 4 year old hardware regardless of if they're able to use the latest stuff.
if somebody wants Linux on the newest / fastest /bestest Intel processor, and if they're willing to pay the price, somebody somewhere will build the board.
this partnership is between HP and MS, not Intel/VIA/SIS and MS. I'd be a lot more worried about linux on the desktop future if the chipset manufacturers were involved.
building a x86 system isn't that hard. I worked on a project last year with 2 people for about 9 months ($200k NRE) that produced a multiprocessor board using latest Intel stuff. because the volumes were so low, the fully populated boards were going cost around $1k @ qty 100.
one of the hardest parts of the software was wrapping our heads around the 20 years of legacy code that were present in the BIOS, and that we pretty much had to have working so that we could use lilo/grub to boot Linux. getting rid of all that cruft would be a welcome development, as far as I'm concerned.
I want grub [or equivalent] in flash, and that's it.
Linux can obviously still run on other PC's, and other architectures in general.
What's stopping somebody from "partnering" with a manufacturer, producing a PC that won't boot DOS/Windows, but will boot Linux? Obviously on such a board, MS could always add support for it, but wouldn't.
just because the money isn't raised through a tax doesn't mean it's "private" money. the wording of your first two bullets in your previous post are misleading, at best.
the fact is, if it hadn't been diverted into this special project, the money might have been in the general fund, and may have helped with some of the current problems the state is facing.
It mentions $400mil software donation from EDS.
That's not a donation of, for example, MS Office.
It's a donation for EDS product life-cycle management software. What's a 7th grader going to do with that? well I guess we'll have to wait and see. The software might conceivably be useful to technical school or university students, who are also covered by this "donation", but I doubt it.
Here is a related link.
So what you're saying is that this program is financed independently of the Maine Learning Technology Endowment
?
but you gotta love those PBS ads where they pat themselves on the back for educating the teachers on how to use the laptops.
another thing nobody seems to be talking about here is the fact that the $50mil that King set aside was originally supposed to last forever: just use the interest for capital purchases. somehow, I don't think that's going to be the case.
and another thing: apparently the the law the state legislature passed had clauses in it related to the amount of private donations that the fund needed to accumulate in order to stay in action (as in, if they didn't meet goals the money went back to general fund). apparently, there's been some suspicious accounting involved --- like using discounted value of the purchased iBooks as a multi-million dollar "donation" (i.e. apparently buying in bulk didn't buy us anything, we paid full retail for all those laptops, but apple gave us a "donation" of several mil to help cover the cost).
For many people, having yet-another-wall-wart next to your switch is much nicer than plugging one next to your speakers etc.
The SliMP3 decodes the MP3 in hardware on the device itself.
The current device up for discussion is really just a transport for uncompressed audio: it's prepared for the DAC by the host PC. The FPGA is just there to handle the ethernet and implement the FIFO. Think of packet switched stereo cables.
I think there's a certain amount of elegance to the SliMP3 that's somehow lacking in the LanPipe. But it (LanPipe) is pretty slick for a FPGA learn-how-to-do-it type project.
Maybe you can already.
As far as telephony software goes, I think it's more like "Windows? what a piece of shit. I'll take SCO. What do you mean SCO's dead? Well give me something like it."
And that's how you can explain the success that Linux has had to date.
leaders in this area until a few years ago (I haven't been keeping track, so they still may be).
But all the 3rd party vendors recognized that UnixWare was a sinking ship, and started asking the hardware vendors (DLGC, NMS) for Linux support. Why? Because it's cheap and it at least looks like the redheaded stepchild UnixWare never had. So with a little work, the 3rd party vendors have their app running on Linux.
Add into this the fact that Microsoft also recognized UnixWare was a sinking ship, and started marketing. Remember, it's all about developers developers developers. So many 3rd parties were confused and switched their app to Windows (partial rewrites) instead of switching to linux (minimal porting effort).
I think that for some people who ended up on Windows, there may be some displeasure with the reliability / quality. But I think they are probably outnumbered by the people who are having positive results with W2K/NT in these setups. The net effect is that Windows is gaining in this market.
I do! But guess what? I didn't have to write the drivers because someone
already wrote them.
In my opinion, there is not a device driver problem here. Intel/Dialogic isn't the only vendor supporting Linux. And they don't support it out of the kindness of their heart: they support it because doing so helps sell hardware.
In other words, I think the fact that vendors support creation of telephony systems using Linux at all is an indicator that it is in fact being used. I would not use the relative success/failure of a handful of telephony related projects as a guage for the success/failure of Linux in telephony.
But for what it's worth, I am aware of a $7-digit custom speech system that's running reliably on RedHat 4.2
I would certainly hope so.
I think that even VB+Access on a 386 can manage that.