Well, Nvidia could afford not to follow Intel open-source drivers, since they share just a small part of the market, but it is doubtfull if they can ignore ATI open-sourcing their drivers.
The race here is exactly for the future of graphic cards, both Intel and ATI/AMD want to get rid of it, replacing them by some SIMD massively multi-core general processors (forget about those physics engines you heard about recently, it is going to be replaced by your general porpouse GPU). They think that this configuration is what the consumers want, and they may be right, but Nvidia has no route to get there. Now, Nvidia face a harsh future, both because of this change and because they have being losing quality/competitiveness/reputation recently. I really don't know how they can survive, but open-sourcing the drivers look like a good help, even if it canibilizes some product lines.
By the way, I'm delaying buying a video card since AMD brought ATI, because I trusted them to release open source drivers for their line. Before that, I'd buy Nvidia (I did buy a Nvidia card just before that), now I'll go get an ATI.
Well, about the sig, the upside is that a restart will fix every problem it causes (the restart isn't necessary, obviously, but is sufficient), there is no data loss or corruption. Also, it won't take down most modern systems, since they have some kinds of limitation on the number of processes or ticks a single user can consume.
It is not polite, I agree, but it is not that extreme to compare with natural selection. If anything, it's a teaching experience.
This is a case of "there is more than one way to cut it", where free software is able to "give you choice". Making a system that excels at web surfing does not need to turn your computer onto some specialized dumb terminal, you can have both the general, and the specific ones.
Now, I can't really imagine a way to make web browsing easier, and, by the discussion it seems both you and the GP also can't, so that is merely a philosophical point.
Yes, Linux moves fast. It is nice that you always get new functionality (what you wanted to do last month, is available today, but hard, will be easy next month), it is bad that you sometimes have to get up-to-date. The GP comment about keeping your/home on a separated partition is very good, also, keep backups of your/etc (you don't need to do them often).
Debian is famous for being easy to upgrade, maybe Ubuntu inheritaged that feature, I don't know. Try apt-get dist-upgrade after you move your/home.
"From your point (USA I guess) nearly everybody south of you speaks Spanish."
Almost a third of people at Central and South Americas speack portuguese. Don't let the number of countries, only one, fool you, Brazil is quite big. You should also discount the countries where spanish is the official language, but most people simply don't use it, the ones that speack french, german, english...
"...you won't have a pile of discarded books to dispose of."
DISPOSE OF BOOKS?!?!?! HERETICAL!!! My daugther is quite hapy to get the books I readed when I was a child. Of course, some of them are gone, but they are still quite a lot.
"The kid doesn't read or even understand what the different keys on the keyboard are at this age."
Sorry to break that, but they do. Children that age are quite capable of looking at the symbols and understand they are different, they are even capable of learning their names. A few children even learn to read at the age of 2.
Oh, and by the way, those child laptops are quite interesting. Take a look on the smaller age ones, they are quite pretty and a child doesn't need to read to operate them. Quite an interesting toy.
Ok, they are quite restricted, but by the time this is a problem, maybe they are ready for a general computer.
Take a look at Childsplay (I don't have a link, I use apt-get), it is similar, but a bit more advanced. Maybe being more advanced is bad, since older childs may be bored, but it is also extensible, so you can change the module to have just addition. My (2 years old) daugter loves the game where the letters fall (another classic), and loves to whatch people playing its version of packman, where you must eat the letters at the right order.
Myself, I learned how to multiply playing a game that I wrote. Of course, it didn't have scores or voice, but it did have colors, a lot of ugly ones:) By that time, I used BASIC, but kids today may learn Python just as easier.
"Taking an unusual viewpoint to spark debate is highly useful."
No, it is mostly useless. Debate is not something usefull on itself. Taking an unusual viewpoint is only usefull when there is some merit on that viewpoint.
The parent is exactly right, that is how the game is played. But you must also keep in mind that several people did succeed doing exactly what you plan (take a look at VMWare, for example), despite all the problems.
But, anyway, the easiest path is still to create a different product.
Well, binary is also way too convenient to implement in CMOS, so don't expect anybody to abandon it soon. Maybe they'll make some non-binary memory, but then there will surely be a conversor from that memory to the binary CPU.
"I don't know why everyone thinks that a hardware upgrade's benefits will be wiped out nearly immediately but carefully optimizing the software will last forever."
Because too often a slow program is slow because it uses a O(n^8) algorithm where it should be using a O(n) one. So, every doubling at the hardware speed after optimization will lead to a doubling on the amount of data your program can deal with, but every 256 times hardwre spee-up will lead to a doubling on the amount of data the program can handle before optimization.
Oh, yes, you have the option of spending 100k beforehand and fix that O(e^n) algorithm, or, alternatively, spend some 30k upgrading your disks and waiting a few more months before more data is added and the app crashes again, and, then you spend those 100k.
I live in a country that doesn't recognize software patents, but even here that treatening had a big impact on the media and, consequently, it strongly changed the way some pointy-haired people think. But, at the same time, other people started distrusting the company (yes, most people do trust MS).
Altought the net result is unknown, MS's intent is quite obvious, and it was to troll.
He, this article is flamebait (PJ said something completely different, but the poster probably didn't RTFA), but that doesn't makes your comment less so. Microsof can't really sue FOSS for patent enforcement, but that doesn't make their actions less damaging. Also, most people don't care about trolls that go after big companies because, well, they don't administer big companies themselves. Most people care about people, and small companies, so they care about big companies that go out of their way to put small companies out of business.
"I'm more upset that there's not as many opportunities to do __interesting__ work because of open source."
I guess you are missrepresenting your problem, and consequently, accusing the wrong party here. There isn't enough interesting work to do because our tools aren't as concerned with making it easy for competent people to develop as they are concerned about making it possible for incompetent people to do so. That is more a consequence of the tools being developped (and specified) by corporate entities than of the way their development is paid.
Now, FOSS makes it possible (but not granted) to write tools that don't incorporate the corporation mindset of "every developer is the same", while on proprietary software that is almost not possible.
"it appears that people who are trying to use FOSS aren't even programmers at all"
No problem, when they get used to the command line, they'll become programmers. Anyway, most people aren't good at any skill you choose to observe, that only makes expert work more valuable, not less.
Also, if people are outsourcing work to low-pay countries, that is because current development tools demand more manual work than inteligence, that is almost garanteed to change if people adopt FOSS en masse, because inteligent people will be albe to write the tools for themselves, instead of being restricted to a hightly restictive API.
"Then we have the companies that produce software using FOSS, and don't contribute back"
Well, they don't need to. GPL forces them to contribute foward, BSD forces nothing. There is a reason for that.
Anyway, the way I see it, FOSS will lead to the increase on the number of small development and customization companies. Those companies will employ people and sell sevices to most of the population. Those companies may or may not offer stability, depending on conjunctural factors.
"Some will choose the pay for model because they can blame someone if the rig fails."
Well, they won't be able to "blame" anybody if the rig fails, will they? This metaphor is best than it apears at first. It's obviously not by the same reason, but people and companies aren't able to blame anybody for malfunctioning software either, except, maybe, by their own IT dept, that is often forced to buy non-functional software and forced to make it work.
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Well, Nvidia could afford not to follow Intel open-source drivers, since they share just a small part of the market, but it is doubtfull if they can ignore ATI open-sourcing their drivers.
The race here is exactly for the future of graphic cards, both Intel and ATI/AMD want to get rid of it, replacing them by some SIMD massively multi-core general processors (forget about those physics engines you heard about recently, it is going to be replaced by your general porpouse GPU). They think that this configuration is what the consumers want, and they may be right, but Nvidia has no route to get there. Now, Nvidia face a harsh future, both because of this change and because they have being losing quality/competitiveness/reputation recently. I really don't know how they can survive, but open-sourcing the drivers look like a good help, even if it canibilizes some product lines.
By the way, I'm delaying buying a video card since AMD brought ATI, because I trusted them to release open source drivers for their line. Before that, I'd buy Nvidia (I did buy a Nvidia card just before that), now I'll go get an ATI.
Well, about the sig, the upside is that a restart will fix every problem it causes (the restart isn't necessary, obviously, but is sufficient), there is no data loss or corruption. Also, it won't take down most modern systems, since they have some kinds of limitation on the number of processes or ticks a single user can consume.
It is not polite, I agree, but it is not that extreme to compare with natural selection. If anything, it's a teaching experience.
This is a case of "there is more than one way to cut it", where free software is able to "give you choice". Making a system that excels at web surfing does not need to turn your computer onto some specialized dumb terminal, you can have both the general, and the specific ones.
Now, I can't really imagine a way to make web browsing easier, and, by the discussion it seems both you and the GP also can't, so that is merely a philosophical point.
Yes, Linux moves fast. It is nice that you always get new functionality (what you wanted to do last month, is available today, but hard, will be easy next month), it is bad that you sometimes have to get up-to-date. The GP comment about keeping your /home on a separated partition is very good, also, keep backups of your /etc (you don't need to do them often).
Debian is famous for being easy to upgrade, maybe Ubuntu inheritaged that feature, I don't know. Try apt-get dist-upgrade after you move your /home.
Not really, you just heat it over 200 degrees celcius, you can get that on most home ovens, you just by burning it.
Well, my bet would go to the memory being NAND FLASH, with graphene transistors. But I also can't find it anywhere.
Almost a third of people at Central and South Americas speack portuguese. Don't let the number of countries, only one, fool you, Brazil is quite big. You should also discount the countries where spanish is the official language, but most people simply don't use it, the ones that speack french, german, english...
Besides that, great rant :)
DISPOSE OF BOOKS?!?!?! HERETICAL!!! My daugther is quite hapy to get the books I readed when I was a child. Of course, some of them are gone, but they are still quite a lot.
Now, I agree on everything else.
Sorry to break that, but they do. Children that age are quite capable of looking at the symbols and understand they are different, they are even capable of learning their names. A few children even learn to read at the age of 2.
Oh, and by the way, those child laptops are quite interesting. Take a look on the smaller age ones, they are quite pretty and a child doesn't need to read to operate them. Quite an interesting toy.
Ok, they are quite restricted, but by the time this is a problem, maybe they are ready for a general computer.
Take a look at Childsplay (I don't have a link, I use apt-get), it is similar, but a bit more advanced. Maybe being more advanced is bad, since older childs may be bored, but it is also extensible, so you can change the module to have just addition. My (2 years old) daugter loves the game where the letters fall (another classic), and loves to whatch people playing its version of packman, where you must eat the letters at the right order.
Myself, I learned how to multiply playing a game that I wrote. Of course, it didn't have scores or voice, but it did have colors, a lot of ugly ones :) By that time, I used BASIC, but kids today may learn Python just as easier.
No, it is mostly useless. Debate is not something usefull on itself. Taking an unusual viewpoint is only usefull when there is some merit on that viewpoint.
Can you moderate? I am on classic, and the moderation simply stopped working a few weeks ago.
The parent is exactly right, that is how the game is played. But you must also keep in mind that several people did succeed doing exactly what you plan (take a look at VMWare, for example), despite all the problems.
But, anyway, the easiest path is still to create a different product.
Well, binary is also way too convenient to implement in CMOS, so don't expect anybody to abandon it soon. Maybe they'll make some non-binary memory, but then there will surely be a conversor from that memory to the binary CPU.
Because too often a slow program is slow because it uses a O(n^8) algorithm where it should be using a O(n) one. So, every doubling at the hardware speed after optimization will lead to a doubling on the amount of data your program can deal with, but every 256 times hardwre spee-up will lead to a doubling on the amount of data the program can handle before optimization.
After some point, even Moore's law get slow.
It is still great for water-colling electronics. There are probably several other applications, it is just a matter of thinking about them.
Oh, yes, you have the option of spending 100k beforehand and fix that O(e^n) algorithm, or, alternatively, spend some 30k upgrading your disks and waiting a few more months before more data is added and the app crashes again, and, then you spend those 100k.
That is quite a big interest rate here.
I live in a country that doesn't recognize software patents, but even here that treatening had a big impact on the media and, consequently, it strongly changed the way some pointy-haired people think. But, at the same time, other people started distrusting the company (yes, most people do trust MS).
Altought the net result is unknown, MS's intent is quite obvious, and it was to troll.
No, not the UAC!!!
Now, well, you asnwered my question. Perfectly so.
He, this article is flamebait (PJ said something completely different, but the poster probably didn't RTFA), but that doesn't makes your comment less so. Microsof can't really sue FOSS for patent enforcement, but that doesn't make their actions less damaging. Also, most people don't care about trolls that go after big companies because, well, they don't administer big companies themselves. Most people care about people, and small companies, so they care about big companies that go out of their way to put small companies out of business.
At least, it is major and tangible. Does Vista have something that is major and tangible besides Aero?
I guess you are missrepresenting your problem, and consequently, accusing the wrong party here. There isn't enough interesting work to do because our tools aren't as concerned with making it easy for competent people to develop as they are concerned about making it possible for incompetent people to do so. That is more a consequence of the tools being developped (and specified) by corporate entities than of the way their development is paid.
Now, FOSS makes it possible (but not granted) to write tools that don't incorporate the corporation mindset of "every developer is the same", while on proprietary software that is almost not possible.
No problem, when they get used to the command line, they'll become programmers. Anyway, most people aren't good at any skill you choose to observe, that only makes expert work more valuable, not less.
Also, if people are outsourcing work to low-pay countries, that is because current development tools demand more manual work than inteligence, that is almost garanteed to change if people adopt FOSS en masse, because inteligent people will be albe to write the tools for themselves, instead of being restricted to a hightly restictive API.
Well, they don't need to. GPL forces them to contribute foward, BSD forces nothing. There is a reason for that.
Anyway, the way I see it, FOSS will lead to the increase on the number of small development and customization companies. Those companies will employ people and sell sevices to most of the population. Those companies may or may not offer stability, depending on conjunctural factors.
Well, they won't be able to "blame" anybody if the rig fails, will they? This metaphor is best than it apears at first. It's obviously not by the same reason, but people and companies aren't able to blame anybody for malfunctioning software either, except, maybe, by their own IT dept, that is often forced to buy non-functional software and forced to make it work.
Just to be pedantic :) it's "C'est la vie".