Uh. Isn't this why Red Hat is in business, instead of a bunch of guys in a garage with CD burners?
Isn't the concept here to make money off the people willing to pay for said documentation?
I don't have a big problem with this general concept. I DO have a problem with people like the individual described (I don't assume these are all the facts, however) who are unwilling to let common sense into the marketing and development process. But shouldn't Red Hat deserve to produce its own documentation?
As for adopting one particular Window Manager, I tend to agree with the icewm author: the GNOME WM compliance specification sucks.
I'd rather see a specification that uses an ORB for communication. If the window manager wants to support GNOME, let it support an ORB -- ORBit's overhead is NOT as much as some raving anti-CORBA fanatics insist. The libraries are already in memory anyway. If the theme applet is run, let it change themes through an IDL interface -- frankly I'd like the window manager to automatically change along with the desktop, and not have to depend on GNOME code to do it. This was the original promise of CORBA (and GNOME): independence from implementation, reliance on interface.
And as for "gtkwm", "gnomewm", etc., don't hold your breath. Listing a project on GNOME's applist is the Kiss of Death for a stable 1.0 version. If anyone wants to see a window manager using GTK, go get wm2 (the closest thing there is to a reference implementation for X11 window management) and start hacking. Make it scriptable; write an IDL interface to it; let the programmer worry about adding docks and themes and gadgets and root menus and whatever.
"Don't throw the baby out with the bath-water" is an old adage. However, when the way you're doing things involves keeping the baby in the bathtub all the time, it's time to significantly rethink the whole mechanism.
We can acknowledge the idea of patents as good and still have a severe problem with the way the U.S. Patent Office (or whoever) implements it. I stand in this particular category. I would really like to see the Patent Office working hand-in-hand with organizations in the software industry that are really knowledgeable and who would stand to gain by committing their legal department to verifying a patent application's viability (I'm sure in light of Microsoft's recent "CSS belongs to us" fiasco, the W3C is one group that would gladly lend some of its legal and technical advice to close the barn door BEFORE the horses have left).
As long as the Patent Office continues to operate on its own, blindly, in the dark, I cannot in good conscience support it.
Several tangible costs have emerged at my company, where I've been spearheading exactly this (an NT/Novell migration, or part of one, to Linux):
* The consultants we hired recommend one NT server per major service (accounting software, company database, email server, etc.) As we develop the need for more services, we'll either keep investing in new machines (or use potentially unreliable cast-off desktop machines).
* This leads into the second item -- as a diehard Novell house (before I showed up), there was no internal support structure for NT, so we hired consultants. This is a measurable, ongoing cost. Since most Linux advocates are what they are because of familiarity with their OS, there's often less need to dip into outside pools of talent for such a migration.
These can't necessarily translate into hard numbers -- but I doubt anyone else's experience can equate to a budget entry for you.
Last I heard, HURD (when it runs at all) had incorporated some Linux code. So should we call it Linux/HURD?
I dunno. I'm ok with the idea of a "GNU Inside" sticker. I'm not ok with RMS's particular interpretation of "free software" when it means "you can use our software as long as you aggressively promote our name". The only other software group I'm aware of that insists on such visible name recognition is Microsoft *cough*
Performance on low-end hardware -- does anyone use this?
Yes. I do.
My company does not need to handle a thousand hits per second or whatever. What we do need is 24/7 uptime. We do not have the budget for a four-way Intel system with massive RAID arrays. We do need something that works all the time, and doesn't need to be babysat.
For these situations, Linux works great.
Re:Damnit why do articles like this get posted??
on
Linux 2.3.0
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· Score: 2
If for no other reason, I hope that posts like this continue than to spawn discussions like this one has. The relative merits of the Linux kernel process, for example, are hashed and rehashed, and only in an open, ongoing forum like this (rather than a bland "new kernel" read-only message) can possible improvements to the procedure be offered.
Re:An Alternative Development Model:FreeBSD
on
Linux 2.3.0
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· Score: 5
"more sane in its release schedule" assumes some universal definition of sanity. If I am running a Linux box on which my company's life depends (which I frequently have been and will be again soon), I don't want a quarterly update to fix the DoS that was announced two hours ago. I want it now. If someone has just finished a driver for a new device I've been needing access to, and it gets rolled into the kernel, I want that now. I don't want to sit on my ass for June to roll around (or whatever).
The "release early, release often" philosophy has served Linux well -- I hardly see it as a "weakness" when people are presented with the earliest possible opportunity to hammer out bugs, make their own improvements, and contribute to general stability. I don't know the FreeBSD team's particular beliefs on this matter but I hardly imagine that they're possessed of enough hubris to believe that they can spot bugs in their own kernel releases better than anybody else for a whole three months.
Sysadmins know, and have known for years, what the "stable checkpoints" in the kernel are -- 1.2.13 was the number everyone knew back when I first set up a Linux-based ISP, and it's become 2.0.3x since then.
As far as "easy to upgrade", I have yet to see an easier upgrade mechanism than autorpm and apt. If you choose to include kernel updates in either of these systems, it's a no-brainer to get the latest "pronounced stable" kernel from your particular Linux distributor without the need to compile everything for each box you run.
While I hope this thread will not degenerate into "Linux sucks, BSD rules" (or vice versa), I would like to point out that despite your personal opposition to the Linux kernel release philosophy, it has garnered support across the world and across the years. It works very well for a lot of people, and I hope it doesn't change any time soon.
IMO it'd actually be better if "binaries" were ruled as not being protected speech but source code was. Imagine only being able to export open-source crypto products:)
The big companies and their closed systems could either get the license, export weak crypto, or release the source.
I guess their system must have crashed and had no backups or something, because I DID read this article on their website and was in the middle of writing a reply when I reloaded and found it had disappeared.
I'd hate to think that someone in the Standish Group either realized that yes, people would read this and respond, or that it wasn't cool to post an unprofessional, sarcastic set of "rulse" for a bogus contest on the page of an otherwise-respectable site.
Maybe they should be mentioned in the "script kiddy HOWTO". I'd add them to one other HOWTO, but I don't think there's a "Ripping off cool websites to provide lame content" HOWTO yet.
Whatever you think of his politics, you gotta admit RMS stays loyal to em. I don't see any vehement "MS must die" rhetoric here -- the suggestions he makes here tend to support maximum freedom for open programming.
For those who complain about the "MS must publish interface specs" part, bear in mind: these are potential solutions to be applied if Microsoft is found "guilty as charged" of monopoly status, and long-standing legal precedent (along with common sense) demands that monopolies operate under different rules than "normal" companies or concerns.
One other outcome I'd like to see from this trial (hoping against hope here) is a serious re-evaluation of the policy of issuing patents for software. But right now I'll knock on wood and hope that things turn out as well as they can without dreaming any further:)
Red Hat 5 (at least, I dunno about Caldera) lets you create kickstart scripts that let you automate almost the whole shebang. I HOPE they used that....:)
As for inferior software running on superior systems, this is sad but probably true, but from the sound of it the alternatives aren't that much better. I would assume that when you own a large chain of hotels you can probably commission someone to improve the thing for you though.
This is actually known as a problem with certain motherboards using the Intel chipset, which I've run across in my travels. Although the guys at Ars Technica (www.ars-technica.com) would probably know more, I do know that the best you can do on such boards is try to work around the problems with OS tuning, but the "real" fix is to get a better board;)
Obviously if you know the workarounds better for NT than for Linux, you are going to get better performance on the former.
Backwards compatibility? Hm. Around here I just recompile, and stuff works:)
Not knowing the nature of this custom software you're describing, I can't say anything except the fact that open source software wouldn't run into problems like that -- the customer could rebuild his own app, and/or find out why the app apparently decided it wasn't running under linux (despite the fact that "uname -s" would have revealed it was, whatever the version).
Backwards compatibility is fine. BEND-OVER-backwards compatibility is not something I feel any operating system needs.
..that Linux doesn't even have yet? That would be: (a) locked-down control by one company whose priority is profits, not performance? (b) a second-rate GUI designed on third-rate principles? (c) a FUD/PR engine working day and night to promote it?
Muth's statement that shrink-wrapped software runs on any Windows computer is demonstrably FALSE. One great example: at my office our highly-paid consultants worked for days trying to figure out why neither MS Access nor Pervasive's ODBC engine setup programs would even run under NT, regardless of who was logged in (even Administrator). One of the techs finally fixed it, but he had no idea how.
MS Access qualifies as "shrink-wrapped software". It's made and marketed by the same people who produce the OS it was to be running on.
I can tell you countless stories of how RPM files work great when you install them, but more than that -- if an RPM fails, I can grab the SRPM, rebuild it, and figure out what went wrong. Failing that, I can use the large number of free debugging tools (gdb, etc.) to figure out why the program doesn't run.
So let's give some credit where credit is due.
They may need to change some things first...
on
Open Source Windows
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· Score: 2
That'd be the day.
Last I heard, MS just buys out a company when it wants to roll their code into Windows. What's this "MS licenses stuff" crap?:)
What worries me about "Windows 2000 open source" is the idea that Microsoft would try to retain intellectual-property rights to the entire codebase, so you COULD submit changes etc.... you just couldn't use any MS code, even as a reference, in your own projects - which makes it worthless for stuff like WINE (good from the MS perspective).
I tried to learn the Dvorak keyboard layout for awhile. Why didn't I? I was busy working 12-hour typing days at the time. I've never really had the week or two to set aside to really retrain myself. But from what I used, I was impressed.
I can see the Economist arguing against Dvorak strictly on economic merit (retraining costs etc.) But I also hear similar arguments against Esperanto -- even though it's an extremely simple language to learn (15 grammatical rules), nobody wants to touch it because everyone uses something else.
For that matter, I hear similar arguments against Linux - "not enough apps right now", etc.
Nobody makes a buck off selling the Dvorak layout -- unlike the "Microsoft Ugh-ohnomic keyboard". I can reprogram X etc. to process Dvorak at no cost; I can do the same in Windows with a little more effort.
Open source lags so much behind proprietary ideas, whimper whimper. As I type this into a web browser originally derived from an open idea, and click on a button which sends a form via an open protocol to an open web server descended from two other open web servers.
The most visible OSS projects TODAY derive from ideas based on proprietary products. Why? Umm, maybe the big "conquer the desktop" push that some in the Linux etc. community have been making? People have been going on about GNOME etc. and how Linux must become more prevalent on the desktop. Well what's there now? Proprietary software. Is anyone else therefore surprised that a lot of new OSS projects resemble commercial offerings?
As for "the vmware concept sucks", I beg to differ -- there are many applications for such a product, but not what you'd think. For example, I'm trying to get my company's webserver switched to Linux, but I can't do that until I find a way to run the eshare expressions chat system (NT or Solaris only). So I can either somehow find a spare system in our building and install eshare, have a new one ordered (which there's no budget for) -- or I could run something like vmware and emulate NT under linux while I find some new chat/message software:)
Would I use vmware for long-term emulation of another OS? probably not. But just because I can get a PC for $300, don't make the stupid assumption that I have $300 to throw at a PC just for a single project (such as the one above).
Those who whine after this post are encouraged to send me a check for $300 to buy a new PC. I will then stop supporting the use of vmware.
What a lot of people don't think about is that many of us are stuck in "user support" roles at our jobs -- while I personally would love it if everyone here at my office ran (fill in your favorite alternative OS here), I can't enforce that kind of policy, so I'm stuck helping people who got burned.
Yes, virii like Melissa help to expose the gross negligence of companies who put shipping dates and PR image before security, and I'm glad they exist -- to a point. But I hope people don't use the "down with Microsoft" rallying cry to flood the world with macro virii and screw your fellow hackers out of valuable time while we're stuck debugging office computers:)
I wasn't aware the GNU project could claim that XFree86 fell under its purview just because of a license. This is nifty.
I should write the Garrett New World Order License. All software that's licensed under the GNWO I can now call "my software". Wow.
I respect RMS's contributions but reserve the right to think he's a nutball for the same reason I respect the socialist party's contribution to the idea of human equality and fairness without voting them into office.
First, let me say: when you hitch the trailer to the tractor, it's the kingpin that takes the stress.
Second: who asked ESR to promote the open-source community and concept? Well, some people expressed an interest, and he stepped up to the plate. I THOUGHT THAT WAS THE FUCKING POINT! You see a need, you fill it! Hello?!? Isn't that what every reactionary "corporations suck, free software rules" author here espouses -- solving problems?
I dunno. Here I was thinking that the people who were really into free software believed that if you don't like something, do it better instead of whining. So why is it I hear nothing but whining from people who don't like what ESR is doing, instead of seeing some fuckin' action?
Foul language? Crude expressions? Yes -- there's a reason, I'm pissed at the hypocrites who stand around badmouthing ESR without doing a damn thing to improve the situation themselves.
Flames to garrett@memesis.org, slashdot can do without your 2-bit opinion of me.
I personally rely on Postscript. I can convert nearly anything to Postscript; just about the only format I can't convert from the command line is graphic-embedded HTML, and that I can do with Netscape. So I don't see the need for "one more driver". And as far as "taxes to Adobe", I have yet to pay a single red cent to Adobe for any of the Postscript-aware software I use (Netscape, a2ps, etc.)
I CAN see a use for IPP as a facilitator, a mechanism for regulating and advertising access to a printer. And I'm a big fan of CORBA and related technologies. As long as IPP stays in the role of facilitator and not Yet Another Printer Driver Protocol, I'll welcome it into my toolkit.
Slashdot Mirror
Uh. Isn't this why Red Hat is in business, instead of a bunch of guys in a garage with CD burners?
Isn't the concept here to make money off the people willing to pay for said documentation?
I don't have a big problem with this general concept. I DO have a problem with people like the individual described (I don't assume these are all the facts, however) who are unwilling to let common sense into the marketing and development process. But shouldn't Red Hat deserve to produce its own documentation?
As for adopting one particular Window Manager, I tend to agree with the icewm author: the GNOME WM compliance specification sucks.
I'd rather see a specification that uses an ORB for communication. If the window manager wants to support GNOME, let it support an ORB -- ORBit's overhead is NOT as much as some raving anti-CORBA fanatics insist. The libraries are already in memory anyway. If the theme applet is run, let it change themes through an IDL interface -- frankly I'd like the window manager to automatically change along with the desktop, and not have to depend on GNOME code to do it. This was the original promise of CORBA (and GNOME): independence from implementation, reliance on interface.
And as for "gtkwm", "gnomewm", etc., don't hold your breath. Listing a project on GNOME's applist is the Kiss of Death for a stable 1.0 version. If anyone wants to see a window manager using GTK, go get wm2 (the closest thing there is to a reference implementation for X11 window management) and start hacking. Make it scriptable; write an IDL interface to it; let the programmer worry about adding docks and themes and gadgets and root menus and whatever.
I think the big problem is that the people who "Get It" don't have the funding to present "It" in the form of movies -- which is too bad.
However, I personally did love the Matrix, will probably be buying a DVD player just for it, etc. Why? The "Yes! Yes! YES!" factor.
Rock on Jon.
"Don't throw the baby out with the bath-water" is an old adage. However, when the way you're doing things involves keeping the baby in the bathtub all the time, it's time to significantly rethink the whole mechanism.
We can acknowledge the idea of patents as good and still have a severe problem with the way the U.S. Patent Office (or whoever) implements it. I stand in this particular category. I would really like to see the Patent Office working hand-in-hand with organizations in the software industry that are really knowledgeable and who would stand to gain by committing their legal department to verifying a patent application's viability (I'm sure in light of Microsoft's recent "CSS belongs to us" fiasco, the W3C is one group that would gladly lend some of its legal and technical advice to close the barn door BEFORE the horses have left).
As long as the Patent Office continues to operate on its own, blindly, in the dark, I cannot in good conscience support it.
Several tangible costs have emerged at my company, where I've been spearheading exactly this (an NT/Novell migration, or part of one, to Linux):
* The consultants we hired recommend one NT server per major service (accounting software, company database, email server, etc.) As we develop the need for more services, we'll either keep investing in new machines (or use potentially unreliable cast-off desktop machines).
* This leads into the second item -- as a diehard Novell house (before I showed up), there was no internal support structure for NT, so we hired consultants. This is a measurable, ongoing cost. Since most Linux advocates are what they are because of familiarity with their OS, there's often less need to dip into outside pools of talent for such a migration.
These can't necessarily translate into hard numbers -- but I doubt anyone else's experience can equate to a budget entry for you.
Last I heard, HURD (when it runs at all) had incorporated some Linux code. So should we call it Linux/HURD?
I dunno. I'm ok with the idea of a "GNU Inside" sticker. I'm not ok with RMS's particular interpretation of "free software" when it means "you can use our software as long as you aggressively promote our name". The only other software group I'm aware of that insists on such visible name recognition is Microsoft *cough*
Performance on low-end hardware -- does anyone use this?
Yes. I do.
My company does not need to handle a thousand hits per second or whatever. What we do need is 24/7 uptime. We do not have the budget for a four-way Intel system with massive RAID arrays. We do need something that works all the time, and doesn't need to be babysat.
For these situations, Linux works great.
If for no other reason, I hope that posts like this continue than to spawn discussions like this one has. The relative merits of the Linux kernel process, for example, are hashed and rehashed, and only in an open, ongoing forum like this (rather than a bland "new kernel" read-only message) can possible improvements to the procedure be offered.
"more sane in its release schedule" assumes some universal definition of sanity. If I am running a Linux box on which my company's life depends (which I frequently have been and will be again soon), I don't want a quarterly update to fix the DoS that was announced two hours ago. I want it now. If someone has just finished a driver for a new device I've been needing access to, and it gets rolled into the kernel, I want that now. I don't want to sit on my ass for June to roll around (or whatever).
The "release early, release often" philosophy has served Linux well -- I hardly see it as a "weakness" when people are presented with the earliest possible opportunity to hammer out bugs, make their own improvements, and contribute to general stability. I don't know the FreeBSD team's particular beliefs on this matter but I hardly imagine that they're possessed of enough hubris to believe that they can spot bugs in their own kernel releases better than anybody else for a whole three months.
Sysadmins know, and have known for years, what the "stable checkpoints" in the kernel are -- 1.2.13 was the number everyone knew back when I first set up a Linux-based ISP, and it's become 2.0.3x since then.
As far as "easy to upgrade", I have yet to see an easier upgrade mechanism than autorpm and apt. If you choose to include kernel updates in either of these systems, it's a no-brainer to get the latest "pronounced stable" kernel from your particular Linux distributor without the need to compile everything for each box you run.
While I hope this thread will not degenerate into "Linux sucks, BSD rules" (or vice versa), I would like to point out that despite your personal opposition to the Linux kernel release philosophy, it has garnered support across the world and across the years. It works very well for a lot of people, and I hope it doesn't change any time soon.
IMO it'd actually be better if "binaries" were ruled as not being protected speech but source code was. Imagine only being able to export open-source crypto products :)
The big companies and their closed systems could either get the license, export weak crypto, or release the source.
I guess their system must have crashed and had no backups or something, because I DID read this article on their website and was in the middle of writing a reply when I reloaded and found it had disappeared.
I'd hate to think that someone in the Standish Group either realized that yes, people would read this and respond, or that it wasn't cool to post an unprofessional, sarcastic set of "rulse" for a bogus contest on the page of an otherwise-respectable site.
Maybe they should be mentioned in the "script kiddy HOWTO". I'd add them to one other HOWTO, but I don't think there's a "Ripping off cool websites to provide lame content" HOWTO yet.
Whatever you think of his politics, you gotta admit RMS stays loyal to em. I don't see any vehement "MS must die" rhetoric here -- the suggestions he makes here tend to support maximum freedom for open programming.
:)
For those who complain about the "MS must publish interface specs" part, bear in mind: these are potential solutions to be applied if Microsoft is found "guilty as charged" of monopoly status, and long-standing legal precedent (along with common sense) demands that monopolies operate under different rules than "normal" companies or concerns.
One other outcome I'd like to see from this trial (hoping against hope here) is a serious re-evaluation of the policy of issuing patents for software. But right now I'll knock on wood and hope that things turn out as well as they can without dreaming any further
Red Hat 5 (at least, I dunno about Caldera) lets you create kickstart scripts that let you automate almost the whole shebang. I HOPE they used that.... :)
As for inferior software running on superior systems, this is sad but probably true, but from the sound of it the alternatives aren't that much better. I would assume that when you own a large chain of hotels you can probably commission someone to improve the thing for you though.
This is actually known as a problem with certain motherboards using the Intel chipset, which I've run across in my travels. Although the guys at Ars Technica (www.ars-technica.com) would probably know more, I do know that the best you can do on such boards is try to work around the problems with OS tuning, but the "real" fix is to get a better board ;)
Obviously if you know the workarounds better for NT than for Linux, you are going to get better performance on the former.
Backwards compatibility? Hm. Around here I just recompile, and stuff works :)
Not knowing the nature of this custom software you're describing, I can't say anything except the fact that open source software wouldn't run into problems like that -- the customer could rebuild his own app, and/or find out why the app apparently decided it wasn't running under linux (despite the fact that "uname -s" would have revealed it was, whatever the version).
Backwards compatibility is fine. BEND-OVER-backwards compatibility is not something I feel any operating system needs.
..that Linux doesn't even have yet? That would be:
(a) locked-down control by one company whose priority is profits, not performance?
(b) a second-rate GUI designed on third-rate principles?
(c) a FUD/PR engine working day and night to promote it?
Muth's statement that shrink-wrapped software runs on any Windows computer is demonstrably FALSE. One great example: at my office our highly-paid consultants worked for days trying to figure out why neither MS Access nor Pervasive's ODBC engine setup programs would even run under NT, regardless of who was logged in (even Administrator). One of the techs finally fixed it, but he had no idea how.
MS Access qualifies as "shrink-wrapped software". It's made and marketed by the same people who produce the OS it was to be running on.
I can tell you countless stories of how RPM files work great when you install them, but more than that -- if an RPM fails, I can grab the SRPM, rebuild it, and figure out what went wrong. Failing that, I can use the large number of free debugging tools (gdb, etc.) to figure out why the program doesn't run.
So let's give some credit where credit is due.
That'd be the day.
:)
Last I heard, MS just buys out a company when it wants to roll their code into Windows. What's this "MS licenses stuff" crap?
What worries me about "Windows 2000 open source" is the idea that Microsoft would try to retain intellectual-property rights to the entire codebase, so you COULD submit changes etc.... you just couldn't use any MS code, even as a reference, in your own projects - which makes it worthless for stuff like WINE (good from the MS perspective).
I tried to learn the Dvorak keyboard layout for awhile. Why didn't I? I was busy working 12-hour typing days at the time. I've never really had the week or two to set aside to really retrain myself. But from what I used, I was impressed.
I can see the Economist arguing against Dvorak strictly on economic merit (retraining costs etc.) But I also hear similar arguments against Esperanto -- even though it's an extremely simple language to learn (15 grammatical rules), nobody wants to touch it because everyone uses something else.
For that matter, I hear similar arguments against Linux - "not enough apps right now", etc.
Nobody makes a buck off selling the Dvorak layout -- unlike the "Microsoft Ugh-ohnomic keyboard". I can reprogram X etc. to process Dvorak at no cost; I can do the same in Windows with a little more effort.
Open source lags so much behind proprietary ideas, whimper whimper. As I type this into a web browser originally derived from an open idea, and click on a button which sends a form via an open protocol to an open web server descended from two other open web servers.
:)
The most visible OSS projects TODAY derive from ideas based on proprietary products. Why? Umm, maybe the big "conquer the desktop" push that some in the Linux etc. community have been making? People have been going on about GNOME etc. and how Linux must become more prevalent on the desktop. Well what's there now? Proprietary software. Is anyone else therefore surprised that a lot of new OSS projects resemble commercial offerings?
As for "the vmware concept sucks", I beg to differ -- there are many applications for such a product, but not what you'd think. For example, I'm trying to get my company's webserver switched to Linux, but I can't do that until I find a way to run the eshare expressions chat system (NT or Solaris only). So I can either somehow find a spare system in our building and install eshare, have a new one ordered (which there's no budget for) -- or I could run something like vmware and emulate NT under linux while I find some new chat/message software
Would I use vmware for long-term emulation of another OS? probably not. But just because I can get a PC for $300, don't make the stupid assumption that I have $300 to throw at a PC just for a single project (such as the one above).
Those who whine after this post are encouraged to send me a check for $300 to buy a new PC. I will then stop supporting the use of vmware.
What a lot of people don't think about is that many of us are stuck in "user support" roles at our jobs -- while I personally would love it if everyone here at my office ran (fill in your favorite alternative OS here), I can't enforce that kind of policy, so I'm stuck helping people who got burned.
:)
Yes, virii like Melissa help to expose the gross negligence of companies who put shipping dates and PR image before security, and I'm glad they exist -- to a point. But I hope people don't use the "down with Microsoft" rallying cry to flood the world with macro virii and screw your fellow hackers out of valuable time while we're stuck debugging office computers
I wasn't aware the GNU project could claim that XFree86 fell under its purview just because of a license. This is nifty.
I should write the Garrett New World Order License. All software that's licensed under the GNWO I can now call "my software". Wow.
I respect RMS's contributions but reserve the right to think he's a nutball for the same reason I respect the socialist party's contribution to the idea of human equality and fairness without voting them into office.
First, let me say: when you hitch the trailer to the tractor, it's the kingpin that takes the stress.
Second: who asked ESR to promote the open-source community and concept? Well, some people expressed an interest, and he stepped up to the plate. I THOUGHT THAT WAS THE FUCKING POINT! You see a need, you fill it! Hello?!? Isn't that what every reactionary "corporations suck, free software rules" author here espouses -- solving problems?
I dunno. Here I was thinking that the people who were really into free software believed that if you don't like something, do it better instead of whining. So why is it I hear nothing but whining from people who don't like what ESR is doing, instead of seeing some fuckin' action?
Foul language? Crude expressions? Yes -- there's a reason, I'm pissed at the hypocrites who stand around badmouthing ESR without doing a damn thing to improve the situation themselves.
Flames to garrett@memesis.org, slashdot can do without your 2-bit opinion of me.
I personally rely on Postscript. I can convert nearly anything to Postscript; just about the only format I can't convert from the command line is graphic-embedded HTML, and that I can do with Netscape. So I don't see the need for "one more driver". And as far as "taxes to Adobe", I have yet to pay a single red cent to Adobe for any of the Postscript-aware software I use (Netscape, a2ps, etc.)
I CAN see a use for IPP as a facilitator, a mechanism for regulating and advertising access to a printer. And I'm a big fan of CORBA and related technologies. As long as IPP stays in the role of facilitator and not Yet Another Printer Driver Protocol, I'll welcome it into my toolkit.
I doubt "a group of techies" could have talked the marketing and PR department into making an announcement :)
:)
If the managers at these two companies are like managers everywhere else, their program remains constant come hell or high water. Well, hell came