I do follow your point, but I think its naive.
In general:
If you release code under GPL, you, the coder, states that you want it to be Free. Rather like a political view. Then it doesnt matter wether it would benefit more people, cure cancer, save the whales, or what ever. This is not what that author wants, and since its still his/her copyright this has to respected.
The only way you could steal it was if you took that right away from others.
If MS were to implement GPL'ed code in the new Microsoft Visual Studio.NET Sharp# XP Professional 2004 Suite for Workgroups(tm) (r) (c), they would do just that: take away rights, rights for the GPL'ed code inside the M$ defileware.
Wouldn't you love lightweight IPC, universal interconnectivity, powerful scripting, and strong security on windows? NO! I do not intend doing business with M$ ever again. Anyways.. many of the tools you must be thinking of, are already under a non-GPL license, that would allow Micro$oft to use them, but they dont, makes you wonder...
I wouldn't mind if they pasted their GUI right on top of Linux 2.6!
Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. I do think its not unlikely that Micro$oft will attempt to create a desktop environment for Linux, in order to stay in control of the worlds desktop.
Sorry if i'm rude, but either you are trolling or just having been paying attention. This subject comes up every 4-6 weeks.
The reality is that 99.9% of X applications have both the client application and X server on the same machine
Are you sure? Do you have anything at all to back up that claim? Thin client are becoming quite popular. Checkout the Linux Terminal Server Project, which can be implemented on commodity x86 hardware, using standard Linux distros and the denounced X network tranparentcy.
So why have such a complicated networking layer to draw a window on a screen? Seems like a lot of unnecessary overhead to me.
There's no overhead with X being network transparent. If client and server is on the same machine, X uses UNIX sockets, not INET sockets. Any sane implementation of a graphics system, would use a similar approch in this day and age, and there is simply no performace gain in removing network transparentcy from X.
GPL projects aren't really in competition with corporate firms. GPL software doesn't lose profit margins if there's better software out there.
Bzzzzt.. wrong! They are in competition, but one that doesnt nessarily involve money.
Most small time GPL programmers are not writing their software for money, but that doesnt mean its OK for Micro$oft, or any other CS company, to rip off their work.
Programmers are writing GPL'd software as a gift to the world. It is not OK by any means, that the worlds richest software company steals that gift, and sell it to the very people, who were supposed to benefit from it.
If you think its all right that software companies rip off your work, publish it under BSD style licens, or place it under public domain. GPL is for Free software and should be respected.
Silencing your PC is like getting into HiFi audio. The curve money spent vs. noise reduction becomes asynthotic.
It depends
I've assembled a small box for my wife, it has a Via Eden CPU and a harddrive with some fluid-something tech, in a very small and silent fanless cabinet. Its very silent, and very cheap, but no performance monster.
It would be extremely bad, if China were to do such a thing. Microsoft would have all the best ammo imaginable against the OS movement (communism, destuction of intellectual property etc..)
Microsoft migth not be able to do very much against China, but rest assured that they WOULD do a lot of damage to anyone else using the code ripped of by China.
This would effectively fork Linux, and possibly a lot of other OSS projects in a China version and a "rest of the world" version.
X itself has no direct hardware interface, it uses a device driver. X is a message parsing system, that enables a process to parse its output on to be displayed. Thats done via a socked (unix|inet), and thats the way (tm) to do that kind of thing in Unix. This socked stuff is also the feature that provides the network transparency in X. Any new window system for Unix are likely to use sockets the same way, so.... I guess you guys will have to live with the network transparency. If you were to create anything different, it should be for an entirely different demand like gaming, where alternatives already do exist. Here X was replaced (or rather supplemented) very quickly.
Message parsing needs to be done for any system to function. Its done that way in Windows too. The most significant difference is, that much more of the windowing system runs in kernel space in Windows, so it cant be changed or removed the way X can.. talk about bloat, but thats an another discussion.
One more time.. mr. AC
I havnt met anyone running a 2003-style Window manager on 2003-style hardware complain about X being slow. People trying to install KDE 3 on a machine what would also crawl with Windows XP is not a fair basis to judge that X is slow. Period!
So what if X really was slow? Its not like speed really matters in traditional desktopping, it's more in gaming, where are other solutions like svgalib and OpenGL.
Just to put that into perspective; the traditional Windows UI was percieved slow to for gaming purposes, so Microsoft made DirectX. Damn!! lets replace MFC... its too slow. Get real!
What you're suggesting is that instead of having complaints and working toward a solution, we should simply ignore the faults.
No, thats definently NOT what I'm suggesting. I'm stating that X is NOT slow. I've meet quite a lot of people that have heard some place, that OSS requires less CPU power than Windows, so they load RedHat 9 on some poor old Celeron 300a, turn on all the eyecandy on KDE, and expect it to perform like the previus Windows 98SE installation. Then it goes: X is slow and bloated. Let me see... It has network transparency?! hmmm.. windows dont, so that must be it!! lets remove network transparency, then it'll be all better."
The fact is, X is an old protocol, designed to work on slow machines, and KDE3 is not supposed to be compared to Windows 98.
XFCE 3.8, installed it just before 4 was released.:( It's based on GTK but it's still far, far, FAR lighter than GNOME... it actually runs well in only 64MB RAM.
Thats quite impressive. Desktop users complaining about X (with KDE most often) being slow, should really see some of that stuff.
As for an X terminal, there are X servers for all sorts of OSes including 286-based X servers for DOS. (FreeDOS.org has one)
But 286's and Linux doesnt mix well last I checked, (donno about 2.6+). Yes, yes, you said FreeDOS, but it also has to be accessible, and many people only know Linux. With modern-PC-style hardware for terminals you are guaranteed better hardware support, and it doesnt really get much cheaper than VIA's Eden mini-ITX. With things like ltsp, you can use the same software base (Linux, Xfree..) for both application server and terminal. I believe thats a great thing for small time operations playing with X and network tranparency.
This is a very valid point. To many users, the absence of spamfilters would pretty much render the email system unusable.
If the spammers are able to shut down spamfiltering services in this way, there will be a significant demand towards getting SMTP replaced by a smater protocol, that will not allow spamming in the form we see it today = spammers lose.
To install new software on all mailservers is quite a task. This is likely to take time, and be quite an interruption = everyone lose.
There's also a great danger that Microsoft would take advantage of the situation, and try to create a new propritary mail protocol based on Palladium, for Windows users only = everyone not using Windows lose.
I totally agree that the network transparantcy of X is great.
I think desktop users complaints about X are unjustified. For local use, X uses Unix sockets, with no special overhead for the networking part. Its KDE and Gnome thats hogs their CPU's, not X. A better solution perhaps, would be to turn off some of all that eye candy, not replacing X.
About those X-terminals. You can buy light weight PC-hardware very cheap, that will perform excellent as X-terminals. I have a assembled a little box with a mini-ITX board(VIA Eden 533MHz CPU/LAN(PXE)/VGA), 128MB RAM and a small ITX cabinet. Wonderful machine, no moving parts, completely silent. 1950 DKK, ~290 USD.
Its is true that Linux has a lot of momentum than BeOS. From that point of view youre absolutely right.
My point is that the attitude that: "if few people uses it, then its of no interest" - is not very healthy. If some folks think's BeOS' really nice, they should be able to use it, regardless of how popular it is. Perhaps they know something the rest of us dont. I certainly was a little impressed with some of the features of BeOS.
So what if nobody cares about it right now? Popularity is not the same as quality.
A few minutes ago, I knew nothing about BeOS except that it was an OS. But the fundemantals of the BeOS sounds very nice indeed.
So, why dont you care about BeOS? Lack of apps? hm?! I suppose you are the kind of person that didnt care about Linux 3 years ago.
"FreeBSD is dying, BeOS is dead, MacOS is dying" - please shut up! it only applys if you think the single CPU-arch + single OS model is a great thing. Free Software is not just about replacing Windows with Linux because its c00l3r (witch it is by the way;)). People should be able to choose the OS that fits them, even if nobody else "cares about it". One size does not fit all.
We all "know" this bloat problem to be true, or do we? People have been complaining about this, since Commodore 64 was replaced with Amigas and MS-DOS PC's. - "They only rely on number crushing" - "The gameplay sucks, its only advanced graphics" - "It doesnt do anything useful, its just burning cycles"
Regardless how you put it, things have improved, very much so. Check out Windows 95, yeah sure, it doesnt consume much CPU or RAM, but it SUCKS, big time, in every respect. You cant do anything with it, you wonder how you ever did put up with it. And its like this for most categories of software, IMHO.
All the disc jockeying, rebooting to get it above 565kb, computer crashing with more than 4 open windows. Sure..
Im so happy with my KDE3 with all the fancy animated stuff, swappable themes, relocatable buttons and menus. It might be "bloat" in the eyes om some, but I like it, a lot.
Take ecomonic crime like insurance fraud, tax evation or cheating with social security. Well, for you to do anything with money, you have to have a bank account. Since you cant open a bank account without your CPR, all financial transactions you make can be traced back to you via your CPR-number with ease.
Take missing persons. Often when a person is missing, tracing is easier because all credit cards, drivers license, health care are linked to your CPR number.
So its not so much the card it self, as it is the CPR-number that on it, that matters.
Most of this can be done without a CPR system, but its more convinient both for common people and the authorities with this system.
Its not like you have to show this card every other day. I cant remember that I ever shown my latest card to anyone, since I recieved it more than half a year ago. In most cases your credit card or drivers license will do for identification.
Most other european countries have had compulsory ID-cards for a long time. Here in Denmark I think it was introduced in 1970. It has a "Central Person Register number" wich you use everywhere: health care, social security, military, education, bank accounts, drivers license, ect. And they make damn sure you have one. If you stay for anything more than a tourist visa, you have to get a CPR-number. When my son was born, I believe they had a CPR-number ready for him, at the hospital, in less than 5 minutes.
It might sound quite extreme, but it accually convinient in many ways.
I do believe it does prevent crime to some extend.
But its beyond comprehension that soft drink vending machines are allowed at schools, let alone soft drink companies being school sponsors. Its a catastrophe for the health situation among teenagers.
Now, you cant be really sad when it's Microsoft that gets it, but this is just silly. Not to mention extremely expensive for all browser makers, 'cause just wait, these guys arent stopping with MS.... this is also going to effect Opera, Konqueror/Safari and Mozilla.
Greenland IS the biggest island in the world... if you consider Australia a continent.
IANAG, but I think that Greenland is holding the majority of the landbased northern icecap.
....Or just write your own minimalistic layer. Its not a big deal, and you suffer no performace hit.
If you really narrow it down, its perhaps 20 lines of code in to support the different function names and a couple of lines for a different database connect.
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I dont get it, isnt linux desktops an obvius goal?
CVS might be the immediate goal, but why shouldnt linux desktop be the ultimate goal?
If the majority of desktops stay non-free, wouldnt Free software have failed?
I do follow your point, but I think its naive.
In general: If you release code under GPL, you, the coder, states that you want it to be Free. Rather like a political view. Then it doesnt matter wether it would benefit more people, cure cancer, save the whales, or what ever. This is not what that author wants, and since its still his/her copyright this has to respected.
The only way you could steal it was if you took that right away from others.
If MS were to implement GPL'ed code in the new Microsoft Visual Studio.NET Sharp# XP Professional 2004 Suite for Workgroups(tm) (r) (c), they would do just that: take away rights, rights for the GPL'ed code inside the M$ defileware.
Wouldn't you love lightweight IPC, universal interconnectivity, powerful scripting, and strong security on windows?
NO! I do not intend doing business with M$ ever again. Anyways.. many of the tools you must be thinking of, are already under a non-GPL license, that would allow Micro$oft to use them, but they dont, makes you wonder...
I wouldn't mind if they pasted their GUI right on top of Linux 2.6!
Be careful what you wish for, you might get it. I do think its not unlikely that Micro$oft will attempt to create a desktop environment for Linux, in order to stay in control of the worlds desktop.
Sorry if i'm rude, but either you are trolling or just having been paying attention. This subject comes up every 4-6 weeks.
The reality is that 99.9% of X applications have both the client application and X server on the same machine
Are you sure? Do you have anything at all to back up that claim? Thin client are becoming quite popular. Checkout the Linux Terminal Server Project, which can be implemented on commodity x86 hardware, using standard Linux distros and the denounced X network tranparentcy.
So why have such a complicated networking layer to draw a window on a screen? Seems like a lot of unnecessary overhead to me.
There's no overhead with X being network transparent. If client and server is on the same machine, X uses UNIX sockets, not INET sockets. Any sane implementation of a graphics system, would use a similar approch in this day and age, and there is simply no performace gain in removing network transparentcy from X.
GPL projects aren't really in competition with corporate firms. GPL software doesn't lose profit margins if there's better software out there.
Bzzzzt.. wrong! They are in competition, but one that doesnt nessarily involve money.
Most small time GPL programmers are not writing their software for money, but that doesnt mean its OK for Micro$oft, or any other CS company, to rip off their work.
Programmers are writing GPL'd software as a gift to the world. It is not OK by any means, that the worlds richest software company steals that gift, and sell it to the very people, who were supposed to benefit from it.
If you think its all right that software companies rip off your work, publish it under BSD style licens, or place it under public domain. GPL is for Free software and should be respected.
Silencing your PC is like getting into HiFi audio. The curve money spent vs. noise reduction becomes asynthotic.
It depends
I've assembled a small box for my wife, it has a Via Eden CPU and a harddrive with some fluid-something tech, in a very small and silent fanless cabinet. Its very silent, and very cheap, but no performance monster.
It would be extremely bad, if China were to do such a thing. Microsoft would have all the best ammo imaginable against the OS movement (communism, destuction of intellectual property etc..)
Microsoft migth not be able to do very much against China, but rest assured that they WOULD do a lot of damage to anyone else using the code ripped of by China.
This would effectively fork Linux, and possibly a lot of other OSS projects in a China version and a "rest of the world" version.
Bad bad bad!!!
Now.. what are those features? No really!
X itself has no direct hardware interface, it uses a device driver. X is a message parsing system, that enables a process to parse its output on to be displayed. Thats done via a socked (unix|inet), and thats the way (tm) to do that kind of thing in Unix. This socked stuff is also the feature that provides the network transparency in X. Any new window system for Unix are likely to use sockets the same way, so.... I guess you guys will have to live with the network transparency.
If you were to create anything different, it should be for an entirely different demand like gaming, where alternatives already do exist. Here X was replaced (or rather supplemented) very quickly.
Message parsing needs to be done for any system to function. Its done that way in Windows too. The most significant difference is, that much more of the windowing system runs in kernel space in Windows, so it cant be changed or removed the way X can.. talk about bloat, but thats an another discussion.
One more time.. mr. AC
I havnt met anyone running a 2003-style Window manager on 2003-style hardware complain about X being slow. People trying to install KDE 3 on a machine what would also crawl with Windows XP is not a fair basis to judge that X is slow. Period!
So what if X really was slow? Its not like speed really matters in traditional desktopping, it's more in gaming, where are other solutions like svgalib and OpenGL.
Just to put that into perspective; the traditional Windows UI was percieved slow to for gaming purposes, so Microsoft made DirectX. Damn!! lets replace MFC... its too slow.
Get real!
What you're suggesting is that instead of having complaints and working toward a solution, we should simply ignore the faults.
No, thats definently NOT what I'm suggesting. I'm stating that X is NOT slow. I've meet quite a lot of people that have heard some place, that OSS requires less CPU power than Windows, so they load RedHat 9 on some poor old Celeron 300a, turn on all the eyecandy on KDE, and expect it to perform like the previus Windows 98SE installation. Then it goes: X is slow and bloated. Let me see... It has network transparency?! hmmm.. windows dont, so that must be it!! lets remove network transparency, then it'll be all better."
The fact is, X is an old protocol, designed to work on slow machines, and KDE3 is not supposed to be compared to Windows 98.
X does not need to be replaced.
XFCE 3.8, installed it just before 4 was released. :( It's based on GTK but it's still far, far, FAR lighter than GNOME... it actually runs well in only 64MB RAM.
Thats quite impressive. Desktop users complaining about X (with KDE most often) being slow, should really see some of that stuff.
As for an X terminal, there are X servers for all sorts of OSes including 286-based X servers for DOS. (FreeDOS.org has one)
But 286's and Linux doesnt mix well last I checked, (donno about 2.6+). Yes, yes, you said FreeDOS, but it also has to be accessible, and many people only know Linux. With modern-PC-style hardware for terminals you are guaranteed better hardware support, and it doesnt really get much cheaper than VIA's Eden mini-ITX. With things like ltsp , you can use the same software base (Linux, Xfree..) for both application server and terminal. I believe thats a great thing for small time operations playing with X and network tranparency.
This is a very valid point. To many users, the absence of spamfilters would pretty much render the email system unusable.
If the spammers are able to shut down spamfiltering services in this way, there will be a significant demand towards getting SMTP replaced by a smater protocol, that will not allow spamming in the form we see it today = spammers lose.
To install new software on all mailservers is quite a task. This is likely to take time, and be quite an interruption = everyone lose.
There's also a great danger that Microsoft would take advantage of the situation, and try to create a new propritary mail protocol based on Palladium, for Windows users only = everyone not using Windows lose.
I totally agree that the network transparantcy of X is great.
I think desktop users complaints about X are unjustified. For local use, X uses Unix sockets, with no special overhead for the networking part. Its KDE and Gnome thats hogs their CPU's, not X. A better solution perhaps, would be to turn off some of all that eye candy, not replacing X.
About those X-terminals. You can buy light weight PC-hardware very cheap, that will perform excellent as X-terminals. I have a assembled a little box with a mini-ITX board(VIA Eden 533MHz CPU/LAN(PXE)/VGA), 128MB RAM and a small ITX cabinet. Wonderful machine, no moving parts, completely silent. 1950 DKK, ~290 USD.
Its is true that Linux has a lot of momentum than BeOS. From that point of view youre absolutely right.
My point is that the attitude that: "if few people uses it, then its of no interest" - is not very healthy. If some folks think's BeOS' really nice, they should be able to use it, regardless of how popular it is. Perhaps they know something the rest of us dont. I certainly was a little impressed with some of the features of BeOS.
So what if nobody cares about it right now?
;)). People should be able to choose the OS that fits them, even if nobody else "cares about it". One size does not fit all.
Popularity is not the same as quality.
A few minutes ago, I knew nothing about BeOS except that it was an OS. But the fundemantals of the BeOS sounds very nice indeed.
So, why dont you care about BeOS?
Lack of apps? hm?!
I suppose you are the kind of person that didnt care about Linux 3 years ago.
"FreeBSD is dying, BeOS is dead, MacOS is dying" - please shut up! it only applys if you think the single CPU-arch + single OS model is a great thing. Free Software is not just about replacing Windows with Linux because its c00l3r (witch it is by the way
Please...
We all "know" this bloat problem to be true, or do we?
People have been complaining about this, since Commodore 64 was replaced with Amigas and MS-DOS PC's.
- "They only rely on number crushing"
- "The gameplay sucks, its only advanced graphics"
- "It doesnt do anything useful, its just burning cycles"
Regardless how you put it, things have improved, very much so. Check out Windows 95, yeah sure, it doesnt consume much CPU or RAM, but it SUCKS, big time, in every respect. You cant do anything with it, you wonder how you ever did put up with it. And its like this for most categories of software, IMHO.
All the disc jockeying, rebooting to get it above 565kb, computer crashing with more than 4 open windows. Sure..
Im so happy with my KDE3 with all the fancy animated stuff, swappable themes, relocatable buttons and menus. It might be "bloat" in the eyes om some, but I like it, a lot.
Its seems like a very cumbersome way to do this.
;))
Like mentioned, a USB flash drive would be more appropriate here.
Also, very few computers even has a DVD/RW drive yet.
But hey! we can dream
Bah, politicians the world over suck
;))
But they do?.. yes they do!
:)
Obviusly it wont work in the way you discribe.
Take ecomonic crime like insurance fraud, tax evation or cheating with social security. Well, for you to do anything with money, you have to have a bank account. Since you cant open a bank account without your CPR, all financial transactions you make can be traced back to you via your CPR-number with ease.
Take missing persons. Often when a person is missing, tracing is easier because all credit cards, drivers license, health care are linked to your CPR number.
So its not so much the card it self, as it is the CPR-number that on it, that matters.
Most of this can be done without a CPR system, but its more convinient both for common people and the authorities with this system.
Its not like you have to show this card every other day. I cant remember that I ever shown my latest card to anyone, since I recieved it more than half a year ago. In most cases your credit card or drivers license will do for identification.
Most other european countries have had compulsory ID-cards for a long time. Here in Denmark I think it was introduced in 1970. It has a "Central Person Register number" wich you use everywhere: health care, social security, military, education, bank accounts, drivers license, ect.
And they make damn sure you have one. If you stay for anything more than a tourist visa, you have to get a CPR-number. When my son was born, I believe they had a CPR-number ready for him, at the hospital, in less than 5 minutes.
It might sound quite extreme, but it accually convinient in many ways.
I do believe it does prevent crime to some extend.
Sorry slightly OT...
But its beyond comprehension that soft drink vending machines are allowed at schools, let alone soft drink companies being school sponsors.
Its a catastrophe for the health situation among teenagers.
softpatents are evil
Now, you cant be really sad when it's Microsoft that gets it, but this is just silly. Not to mention extremely expensive for all browser makers, 'cause just wait, these guys arent stopping with MS.... this is also going to effect Opera, Konqueror/Safari and Mozilla.
> Corporatism =! Free Market
That would be !=
Greenland IS the biggest island in the world... if you consider Australia a continent.
IANAG, but I think that Greenland is holding the majority of the landbased northern icecap.
... it looks quite Microsofty to me...
Huge,and ugly structs and argument lists..
....Or just write your own minimalistic layer. Its not a big deal, and you suffer no performace hit.
If you really narrow it down, its perhaps 20 lines of code in to support the different function names and a couple of lines for a different database connect.