> Perhaps you should have explained yourself more; from my point > of view, OpenOffice is compatible with MSO. I have been sending > my teachers Word and Excel documents created in OpenOffice for > a year and a half, which they view in MSO.
Well if they only VIEW them you could have send PDF files. Try COLABORATING on document, using stuff like changes, versioning and stuff. People do use them and it does not work well between OOO and MSO. I don't say OOO is bad or anything (I use it on regular basis on Linux) but I wouldn't mix OOO and MSO documents.
Yes but have you tested MSO 2007? I haven't but MS said that they did some serious usability testing and redesigned the interface accordingly.
> For instance, to change the paper size and orientation, > in OO writer it's under format/page (seems logical, > define the page format) whereas with word it's under > file/properties, somewhat less logical considering all > the other formatting controls are elsewhere.
Yes. OOO is bit better with its Format menu. I just think that stuff like language is not exactly format - format is describing the form of something. Language is rather a hint for spellchecking tool so it should go into Tools category.
I really wish somebody did (in open process with loads of community input and review of course) redesign of OOO interface. I guess it requires money.
> I hope in the future there will be no such thing as > directories in the filesystem at all, and there will be labels instead.
Well Palm OS uses similar aproach - you don't sort files into folders but you label them and then list them via label. Usually it works OK. But sometime it is really pain. But at least you still can browse the filesystem (with dirs and files) via additional software.
I think it would be OK to have filesystem with labels/tags and also normaln folder/file functionality if you wish. Having two options is better than having only one. Especially when both options have their advantages and disadvantages.
You are right. My point was that it was not obvious how to change language. I (and I use OOO on daily basis since I run Linux) needed to Google after the solution - I would not guess that language settings were under "character format". OOO has lots of such small quirks. OOO is great overall but it surely needs some usability improvements and interface redesign.
> OO may lack some of the 'features' of other office suites,
Features are not important - OOO does not lack any significant fature. But it is quirky. F.e. in MSO you can set entire document language (that your spellchecker will use right dictionary) or just one paragraph using menu (it is in quite obvious place). In OOO if you need to change language you need to go (it took me 10 minutes googling) into *character* properties. That is right - to change language, you need to change *character* properties. Odd.
> but that doesn't mean said other suites can't open OOs > exported files with little to no loss.
Well, yesterday we got a DOC file. It opened in OOO and it had gray background (looking extremely weird) - you could have changed the gray background to white, save in DOC format. Close OOO, reopen the file with OOO... and it had gray background...
It depends what you mean "little to no loss" - for me a text is plain text. For other people when they see document with gray background that is quite unusual.
And as always...pointing out the whole "it's free" thing can go a long way. [ Reply to This
I don't know about MSO 2007 (I've heard it has improved in this matter) but MSO produces awful charts - mainly my problem with them is that you cannot export them decently (actually I figured out that you can print such chart to a file and then get PS file and use it in some other program - there is no easy way to export chart in decent format from Excel).
In my opinion (or maybe the business where I am at) charts in Excel are mostly used for marketing purposes - and (I am talking about MSO 2003 here) that what Excel produces looks just ugly (default colours, boring).:) So you need a graphic designer to redraw the entire chart.
I know that charts are great way to visualise trends and such - where you will not exactly get the picture when presented with 500 numbers but you will when presented a chart. My problem is that these charts from Excel are ugly. And Calc is even worse.
So concluding - maybe it is easy to make charts in Excel but they certainly do not look good. Either in Calc. But I've heard that MS made a progres with MSO 2007 and charts do look nice (or at least different than boring, unexciting style that MSO used).
> Sure, you'll be fine with OpenOffice... BUT, once some dorks > update to 2007, you will be "old", "incompatible" and "cheapskate". > Just as strongholders of Office 97 were.
It depends on how you relate to those dorks. We use (small company - 20 users) only OOO. We exchange documents internally and it works fine (since everybody is on OOO). With other guys (you rerfer to them as dorks) we do not exchange documents. All we send are PDF documents like offers, letters, manuals and other types of documents that we do not want them and don't expect to edit.
Now for dorks sending us MSO documents - they don't. Any interaction with clients that supply some kind of data is via web forms and their portal. So we do not need to recive MSO documents from our clients.
We do exchange documents with parties we pay for service - we pay them. So we tell them to send their stuff in format we can read.
Face it - OpenOffice.org is not compatible with MSO (neither are different versions of MSO either). You cannot really mix them. What you need is to choose one.
> This has no bearing on what OS someone is running.
Yeah, because there is plethora of viruses and self installing software for Linux or Mac.
Look - my point is that in this *particular* case, these *particular* people would not be harmed (since the mentioned software would not even run on the OS). So (maybe indirectly) they were harmed because they were using Windows.
> There was no exploit mentioned in the article. If we took > all the stupid users and put them on linux, the same thing > could/would happen.
No. Because in Linux it is quite hard to install software from untrusted source.
But this is not important - I am not about some imagined situation - what if we blah, blah. Those people were running Windows. Din't they?
> This isn't a fault in windows, it is a case of pebkac.
But if these people were running Mac or Linux would they fail vitctims of this *particular* scam? Would they? Were they using Linux, Mac or Windows?
It is not clearly stated in the article but I imagine they were running probably MSOE which does not try to detect scam messages probably under Administrator account. It is Windows that created culture of clueless users and medicore software.
TFA does not state what operating systems these victims vere using. I bet they were on Windows. Every story like that fails to mention that this is mostly fault of Windows.
> Enabling VT is a huge security risk with no benefit > for most of HP's customers.
But please be strict and state that this is risk for running certain operating systems.
(...)
> You probably should be able to turn it on,
If you buy a car with AC (FIY not all cars are equiped with AC in Eurtope - just FYI) do you expect that you can turn it on?:)
(...)
> there are probably only a few hundred people that would run Xen on their > laptop, so why have the "bug" available on the other few hundred thousand > laptops?
Because te bug is not a bug - it is a design - the bug is in certain OS.
> Sure, you give an example under Fedora. But the reality is: > 1) The software is illegal for a good portion of the people > who are interested in using it, therefore:
Please be specific. I live in Poland/Europe and software that I use is perfectly legal in fact I've control in my offices and they didn't mind that every workstation (Windows to be specific) was equipped with VLC.
> 2) The repositories are "unofficial" and subject to disappearing > at any given time (even though Livna has been around for a while),
Of course they are unnoficial. No official support from RedHat for example. Do you get official support for WinAmp from Microsoft? WinAmp is also unofficial for MS I think - so your point is?
> 3) They don't work on x86_64.
But this is not due legal and practical issues we are discussing? I don't use x86_64 on my workstation since I don't see any need for it. So I reall don't know. Does Windows XP support 64bit? No? Ach - that one version with no drivers?:) As for Livna. I've found this listing: http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/6/x86_64/repodata/repo view/sound-and-video.group.html
But I guess it is beta or something and I really cannot confirm if it works. Looks like normal packages for me.
> The new ffmpeg stuff should help with some of that, but it is too new > for me to have given it a try quite yet.
Why can't you just upgrade your distro?
> As of November/December, my only way to watch most of these codecs was > through a 32 bit chroot on my Kubuntu Edgy box using psuedo-illegal > codecs from Debian universe.
Ah!;) You are running 64b kernel? It is possible to run 32b software in such setup but it requires hassle.
> So, despite what you say, it is kind of a dark art. Finding the repos > is a pain (varies by distro), and making it all work with 64 is a pain, > especially plugins for browsers (you have to use 32 bit wine to run > the.dlls for win32 in 32 bit mplayer, but if you want to use that in > firefox, you have to get 32 bit firefox, but then you lose Java because > the java you run is 64 bit, so then you install 32 bit java as well...) > It goes on and on.
Yeah. Well - you think this is pain? Try running 64b version of Windows XP.:P
> I've been messing with it all in kind of a techno-haze for the past 5 years > wondering when someone would fix the system. I started the (now huge) thread > ("32 bit mplayer without 32 bit chroot") on Gentoo's AMD64 forums about this > back in late 2004/early 2005 and there is still no good solution. Personally, > I'm glad the drivers are available...I might just use them.
Well 64b kernel mode is right now not mainstream on workstations - face it, MS does not do that, Apple does not and Linux in fact tries and it is usable (but with few glitches). Everybody is on 32b now and will be since main productivity apps are ported (no so soon).
But 64b/32b it is NO BARRIER for codecs - the law, the patents are. Not the implementation.
> Sorry, I don't buy it. "stable" is the last adjective I would use to describe most APIs. > gstreamer may be massively different, I don't know how fast the winds shift in that
Gstreamer is (should be) designed to be modular and backwards compatible so older plugins should work with new versions. Gstreamer is partly developed by Fluendo so they do have some inpact on its design and decisions.
Also you've ommited part of my comment regarding mplayer - mplayer is something like the described setup (but illegal). It uses some binary plugins (think Windows DLLs), changes hell lot and is quite different on diferent distros - but still it works with these binary codecs. Is'nt it similar situation to Fluendo releasing some libraries and other software to hook into them?
(...)
> I can certainly imagine a codec that needs tight integration with a particular > hardware driver, once we all bend over and get our DRM innoculations.
But you are talking like 2 years from now - please focus on current stuff.:) Maybe in 2 years everybody drops DRM and some new whizz-bang-open codecs will be developed. Same speculation as yours.
And you basically get players to play most of the content. The content you won't be able to play are extremely DRM infested files like WMV9 (which Macs also won't play) and so on. It is for FC6 but I am pretty sure it works in similar way in any other major distro - just ask their helpfull community.
Now real question - was it that hard? If you find it hard (you don't need to understand it, just copy and paste the lines) I find you retarded. Sorry. It was not harder than getting Windows to play DVDs or some obscure codecs.
> As someone who absolutely refuses to pirate software > unless I have no choice,
WTF you are saying? It is possible to play most of media files just fine with OPEN AND LEGAL codecs. It is not like you need to go to PirateBay and download some codecs to make it work in Linux. These codecs have DISTRIBUTION restrictions in some countries (namely USA) but not USAGE restrictions. It is perfectly legal for me to play WMV, MP3 and others using libmad, ffmpeg or smth. similar.
> I'd be prepared to pay a few ££ extra to stay legal.
They probalby look for uninformed people like you with such offer.:)
> This will only work if they are johnny-on-the-spot > when it comes to updates.
I belive that is why they try to have stabilised API version - gstreamer is close to 1.0 and probably when it is finished the API for plugins will froze so that any new API will not conflict with old (like propertiary codecs) plugins.
> I would hate my purchased codecs to keep me from > updating gstreamer,
As I've said - if they implement stable API in gstreamer that should not be an issue.
> the kernel,
WTF has kernel to do with codecs anyway? Linux kernel has stable API for applications since ages.
What is funny that I am keep using MPlayer with some bunch of binary Windows DLLs and it still works despite I have the DLLs since ages and update MPlayer to each new version. How is that different?
Yesterday I've read a BBC (or smth. like that) article that stated it would be possible to buy two and get one (the other one donated to some other country) - I would certainly do that. Come on - a quite usefull and supported by Linux, well designed machine. Hell I would shell out $200 for this one with no problem. Even bare without operating system (I would hack my own). This is as for me.
But here goes another story - what if I would decide to develop (here in Central Europe - why not?) software/services for this machines? I would like to get one for developement and stuff (those OS images for emulation are not suitable for Real World testing The Platform)?
For me not releasing it (even if it costs like 3x more) to general public is like creating a barrier - so kids in other countries will get this stuff. And me? Me not. I guess this laptop was intended to break the barriers - this situation - when it is not aviable for whole world creates a barrier.
Like come on - I would love to hack it and share what I did with other people.
Yeah. Just because JS and Flash games are the top ones... Developers trully wish to utilize every aspect of the platform - OS, hardware etc. iPhone as it is for now does not offers that.
That is because these projects are not finished and stable operating systems. Linux is quite mainstream now the others you mention are just toys with no real future really. Maybe that is why people tend to prefer running Linux than not running some Toy OS which does not work.
> What is wrong with using nVidia's drivers for nVidia's cards?
F.e. they taint the kernel - if things crash (one of my nvidia cards *did* with some Linux kernel version and their binary blobs) you cannot debug and fix it. Hell kernel developers will tell you to go on/dev/tree since they will not waste time on debuging some closed code with their kernel.
Like it or not this is how Linux philosophy and developement looks - we have (and don't want to) no stable kernel ABI and expect everything (at very least the kernel-space stuff) to be open source. If you don't like it go use like FreeBSD or something.
> Is there some issue with the nVidia 3D driver implementation > that would encourage an open-source reverse-engineering effort?
Yeah, they are closed, they tie you to one architecture (where are nvidia drivers for PPC?), they break with vesafb and so on. They just limit your freedom. You can imagine situation where you have old nvidia card model FOO but it works for you. Now nvidia decides to cease support for this model in their newest drivers. As kernel developement goes on you will find yourself that newest nvidia binary modules do not support your (perfectly working for you) hardware and the old drivers do not work with new Linux kernels - this limits your freedom in some way.
I would be very happy to use open source drivers for nvidia cards. Imagine just installing a Linux distro and graphics just work out-of-the box.
I *do* think nvidia is quite Linux/OpenSource friendly (but actually I run Intel since it works better for me - no hassle - Just Works) but I think at some point they just will have to release specs of hardware or even better open implementation of their drivers - they will be forced to do so by competition.
Slashdot Mirror
> Perhaps you should have explained yourself more; from my point
> of view, OpenOffice is compatible with MSO. I have been sending
> my teachers Word and Excel documents created in OpenOffice for
> a year and a half, which they view in MSO.
Well if they only VIEW them you could have send PDF files. Try COLABORATING on document, using stuff like changes, versioning and stuff. People do use them and it does not work well between OOO and MSO. I don't say OOO is bad or anything (I use it on regular basis on Linux) but I wouldn't mix OOO and MSO documents.
> Both have some weird and illogical quirks...
Yes but have you tested MSO 2007? I haven't but MS said that they did some serious usability testing and redesigned the interface accordingly.
> For instance, to change the paper size and orientation,
> in OO writer it's under format/page (seems logical,
> define the page format) whereas with word it's under
> file/properties, somewhat less logical considering all
> the other formatting controls are elsewhere.
Yes. OOO is bit better with its Format menu. I just think that stuff like language is not exactly format - format is describing the form of something. Language is rather a hint for spellchecking tool so it should go into Tools category.
I really wish somebody did (in open process with loads of community input and review of course) redesign of OOO interface. I guess it requires money.
> I hope in the future there will be no such thing as
> directories in the filesystem at all, and there will be labels instead.
Well Palm OS uses similar aproach - you don't sort files into folders but you label them and then list them via label. Usually it works OK. But sometime it is really pain. But at least you still can browse the filesystem (with dirs and files) via additional software.
I think it would be OK to have filesystem with labels/tags and also normaln folder/file functionality if you wish. Having two options is better than having only one. Especially when both options have their advantages and disadvantages.
You are right. My point was that it was not obvious how to change language. I (and I use OOO on daily basis since I run Linux) needed to Google after the solution - I would not guess that language settings were under "character format". OOO has lots of such small quirks. OOO is great overall but it surely needs some usability improvements and interface redesign.
> OO may lack some of the 'features' of other office suites,
Features are not important - OOO does not lack any significant fature. But it is quirky. F.e. in MSO you can set entire document language (that your spellchecker will use right dictionary) or just one paragraph using menu (it is in quite obvious place). In OOO if you need to change language you need to go (it took me 10 minutes googling) into *character* properties. That is right - to change language, you need to change *character* properties. Odd.
> but that doesn't mean said other suites can't open OOs
> exported files with little to no loss.
Well, yesterday we got a DOC file. It opened in OOO and it had gray background (looking extremely weird) - you could have changed the gray background to white, save in DOC format. Close OOO, reopen the file with OOO... and it had gray background...
It depends what you mean "little to no loss" - for me a text is plain text. For other people when they see document with gray background that is quite unusual.
And as always...pointing out the whole "it's free" thing can go a long way.
[ Reply to This
I don't know about MSO 2007 (I've heard it has improved in this matter) but MSO produces awful charts - mainly my problem with them is that you cannot export them decently (actually I figured out that you can print such chart to a file and then get PS file and use it in some other program - there is no easy way to export chart in decent format from Excel).
:) So you need a graphic designer to redraw the entire chart.
In my opinion (or maybe the business where I am at) charts in Excel are mostly used for marketing purposes - and (I am talking about MSO 2003 here) that what Excel produces looks just ugly (default colours, boring).
I know that charts are great way to visualise trends and such - where you will not exactly get the picture when presented with 500 numbers but you will when presented a chart. My problem is that these charts from Excel are ugly. And Calc is even worse.
So concluding - maybe it is easy to make charts in Excel but they certainly do not look good. Either in Calc. But I've heard that MS made a progres with MSO 2007 and charts do look nice (or at least different than boring, unexciting style that MSO used).
> Sure, you'll be fine with OpenOffice... BUT, once some dorks
> update to 2007, you will be "old", "incompatible" and "cheapskate".
> Just as strongholders of Office 97 were.
It depends on how you relate to those dorks. We use (small company - 20 users) only OOO. We exchange documents internally and it works fine (since everybody is on OOO). With other guys (you rerfer to them as dorks) we do not exchange documents. All we send are PDF documents like offers, letters, manuals and other types of documents that we do not want them and don't expect to edit.
Now for dorks sending us MSO documents - they don't. Any interaction with clients that supply some kind of data is via web forms and their portal. So we do not need to recive MSO documents from our clients.
We do exchange documents with parties we pay for service - we pay them. So we tell them to send their stuff in format we can read.
Face it - OpenOffice.org is not compatible with MSO (neither are different versions of MSO either). You cannot really mix them. What you need is to choose one.
> This has no bearing on what OS someone is running.
Yeah, because there is plethora of viruses and self installing software for Linux or Mac.
Look - my point is that in this *particular* case, these *particular* people would not be harmed (since the mentioned software would not even run on the OS). So (maybe indirectly) they were harmed because they were using Windows.
> There was no exploit mentioned in the article. If we took
> all the stupid users and put them on linux, the same thing
> could/would happen.
No. Because in Linux it is quite hard to install software from untrusted source.
But this is not important - I am not about some imagined situation - what if we blah, blah. Those people were running Windows. Din't they?
> It could have happened on any os,
I don't care what *could* be. That is not important for my point. If these *particular* people were not running Windows they would not be harmed.
> but to be fair, it makes far more sense
> to target users of the dominant os.
So for users it makes more sense to use an OS that is less targeted. Isn't it?
> This isn't a fault in windows, it is a case of pebkac.
But if these people were running Mac or Linux would they fail vitctims of this *particular* scam? Would they? Were they using Linux, Mac or Windows?
It is not clearly stated in the article but I imagine they were running probably MSOE which does not try to detect scam messages probably under Administrator account. It is Windows that created culture of clueless users and medicore software.
TFA does not state what operating systems these victims vere using. I bet they were on Windows. Every story like that fails to mention that this is mostly fault of Windows.
To knock out the monkeys - simple. ;)
> Enabling VT is a huge security risk with no benefit
:)
> for most of HP's customers.
But please be strict and state that this is risk for running certain operating systems.
(...)
> You probably should be able to turn it on,
If you buy a car with AC (FIY not all cars are equiped with AC in Eurtope - just FYI) do you expect that you can turn it on?
(...)
> there are probably only a few hundred people that would run Xen on their
> laptop, so why have the "bug" available on the other few hundred thousand
> laptops?
Because te bug is not a bug - it is a design - the bug is in certain OS.
> Sure, you give an example under Fedora. But the reality is:
:) As for Livna. I've found this listing:o view/sound-and-video.group.html
;) You are running 64b kernel? It is possible to run 32b software in such setup but it requires hassle.
.dlls for win32 in 32 bit mplayer, but if you want to use that in
:P
> 1) The software is illegal for a good portion of the people
> who are interested in using it, therefore:
Please be specific. I live in Poland/Europe and software that I use is perfectly legal in fact I've control in my offices and they didn't mind that every workstation (Windows to be specific) was equipped with VLC.
> 2) The repositories are "unofficial" and subject to disappearing
> at any given time (even though Livna has been around for a while),
Of course they are unnoficial. No official support from RedHat for example. Do you get official support for WinAmp from Microsoft? WinAmp is also unofficial for MS I think - so your point is?
> 3) They don't work on x86_64.
But this is not due legal and practical issues we are discussing? I don't use x86_64 on my workstation since I don't see any need for it. So I reall don't know. Does Windows XP support 64bit? No? Ach - that one version with no drivers?
http://rpm.livna.org/fedora/6/x86_64/repodata/rep
But I guess it is beta or something and I really cannot confirm if it works. Looks like normal packages for me.
> The new ffmpeg stuff should help with some of that, but it is too new
> for me to have given it a try quite yet.
Why can't you just upgrade your distro?
> As of November/December, my only way to watch most of these codecs was
> through a 32 bit chroot on my Kubuntu Edgy box using psuedo-illegal
> codecs from Debian universe.
Ah!
> So, despite what you say, it is kind of a dark art. Finding the repos
> is a pain (varies by distro), and making it all work with 64 is a pain,
> especially plugins for browsers (you have to use 32 bit wine to run
> the
> firefox, you have to get 32 bit firefox, but then you lose Java because
> the java you run is 64 bit, so then you install 32 bit java as well...)
> It goes on and on.
Yeah. Well - you think this is pain? Try running 64b version of Windows XP.
> I've been messing with it all in kind of a techno-haze for the past 5 years
> wondering when someone would fix the system. I started the (now huge) thread
> ("32 bit mplayer without 32 bit chroot") on Gentoo's AMD64 forums about this
> back in late 2004/early 2005 and there is still no good solution. Personally,
> I'm glad the drivers are available...I might just use them.
Well 64b kernel mode is right now not mainstream on workstations - face it, MS does not do that, Apple does not and Linux in fact tries and it is usable (but with few glitches). Everybody is on 32b now and will be since main productivity apps are ported (no so soon).
But 64b/32b it is NO BARRIER for codecs - the law, the patents are. Not the implementation.
> I have idea - most of ffmpeg codecs ar covered with
> nasty (mpeg2, mpeg4) patents and therefore making
> them not so legal.
Depending on where you live.
> Sorry, I don't buy it. "stable" is the last adjective I would use to describe most APIs.
:) Maybe in 2 years everybody drops DRM and some new whizz-bang-open codecs will be developed. Same speculation as yours.
> gstreamer may be massively different, I don't know how fast the winds shift in that
Gstreamer is (should be) designed to be modular and backwards compatible so older plugins should work with new versions. Gstreamer is partly developed by Fluendo so they do have some inpact on its design and decisions.
Also you've ommited part of my comment regarding mplayer - mplayer is something like the described setup (but illegal). It uses some binary plugins (think Windows DLLs), changes hell lot and is quite different on diferent distros - but still it works with these binary codecs. Is'nt it similar situation to Fluendo releasing some libraries and other software to hook into them?
(...)
> I can certainly imagine a codec that needs tight integration with a particular
> hardware driver, once we all bend over and get our DRM innoculations.
But you are talking like 2 years from now - please focus on current stuff.
> I find your suggestion of using the command line
Then go back and reread entire post. Specially the part telling that you could also use your mouse pointer to the same thing.
> They are covered by patents are therefore is a subject of USAGE restrictions.
What patents you are talking about? I bet you don't have any idea.
> And no, vlc and xine is no use for simple user.
Even if so... type:
% yum install totem-xine
It is Totem with xine backend. If you find it hard to use I really find you retarded.
> Acquiring and installing proprietary codecs is a dark art
:)
> that is major obstacle to wider acceptance of the Linux desktop.
This is BS. Installing multimedia support for decent distro is as easy as:
- enabling an additional repository
- issuing a command
You can do this either clicking with your mouse or just with terminal. I'll show with terminal since it is more strict, for Fedora:
% su -
(here enter your root password)
% rpm -ivh http://rpm.livna.org/livna-release-6.rpm
% yum install mplayer-gui vlc xine
And you basically get players to play most of the content. The content you won't be able to play are extremely DRM infested files like WMV9 (which Macs also won't play) and so on. It is for FC6 but I am pretty sure it works in similar way in any other major distro - just ask their helpfull community.
Now real question - was it that hard? If you find it hard (you don't need to understand it, just copy and paste the lines) I find you retarded. Sorry. It was not harder than getting Windows to play DVDs or some obscure codecs.
> As someone who absolutely refuses to pirate software
> unless I have no choice,
WTF you are saying? It is possible to play most of media files just fine with OPEN AND LEGAL codecs. It is not like you need to go to PirateBay and download some codecs to make it work in Linux. These codecs have DISTRIBUTION restrictions in some countries (namely USA) but not USAGE restrictions. It is perfectly legal for me to play WMV, MP3 and others using libmad, ffmpeg or smth. similar.
> I'd be prepared to pay a few ££ extra to stay legal.
They probalby look for uninformed people like you with such offer.
> This will only work if they are johnny-on-the-spot
> when it comes to updates.
I belive that is why they try to have stabilised API version - gstreamer is close to 1.0 and probably when it is finished the API for plugins will froze so that any new API will not conflict with old (like propertiary codecs) plugins.
> I would hate my purchased codecs to keep me from
> updating gstreamer,
As I've said - if they implement stable API in gstreamer that should not be an issue.
> the kernel,
WTF has kernel to do with codecs anyway? Linux kernel has stable API for applications since ages.
What is funny that I am keep using MPlayer with some bunch of binary Windows DLLs and it still works despite I have the DLLs since ages and update MPlayer to each new version. How is that different?
Yesterday I've read a BBC (or smth. like that) article that stated it would be possible to buy two and get one (the other one donated to some other country) - I would certainly do that. Come on - a quite usefull and supported by Linux, well designed machine. Hell I would shell out $200 for this one with no problem. Even bare without operating system (I would hack my own). This is as for me.
But here goes another story - what if I would decide to develop (here in Central Europe - why not?) software/services for this machines? I would like to get one for developement and stuff (those OS images for emulation are not suitable for Real World testing The Platform)?
For me not releasing it (even if it costs like 3x more) to general public is like creating a barrier - so kids in other countries will get this stuff. And me? Me not. I guess this laptop was intended to break the barriers - this situation - when it is not aviable for whole world creates a barrier.
Like come on - I would love to hack it and share what I did with other people.
Yeah. Just because JS and Flash games are the top ones... Developers trully wish to utilize every aspect of the platform - OS, hardware etc. iPhone as it is for now does not offers that.
That is because these projects are not finished and stable operating systems. Linux is quite mainstream now the others you mention are just toys with no real future really. Maybe that is why people tend to prefer running Linux than not running some Toy OS which does not work.
> What is wrong with using nVidia's drivers for nVidia's cards?
/dev/tree since they will not waste time on debuging some closed code with their kernel.
F.e. they taint the kernel - if things crash (one of my nvidia cards *did* with some Linux kernel version and their binary blobs) you cannot debug and fix it. Hell kernel developers will tell you to go on
Like it or not this is how Linux philosophy and developement looks - we have (and don't want to) no stable kernel ABI and expect everything (at very least the kernel-space stuff) to be open source. If you don't like it go use like FreeBSD or something.
> Is there some issue with the nVidia 3D driver implementation
> that would encourage an open-source reverse-engineering effort?
Yeah, they are closed, they tie you to one architecture (where are nvidia drivers for PPC?), they break with vesafb and so on. They just limit your freedom. You can imagine situation where you have old nvidia card model FOO but it works for you. Now nvidia decides to cease support for this model in their newest drivers. As kernel developement goes on you will find yourself that newest nvidia binary modules do not support your (perfectly working for you) hardware and the old drivers do not work with new Linux kernels - this limits your freedom in some way.
I would be very happy to use open source drivers for nvidia cards. Imagine just installing a Linux distro and graphics just work out-of-the box.
I *do* think nvidia is quite Linux/OpenSource friendly (but actually I run Intel since it works better for me - no hassle - Just Works) but I think at some point they just will have to release specs of hardware or even better open implementation of their drivers - they will be forced to do so by competition.