GNOME can't just change things anymore like it did in the 1.4. I think you will be pleased in that regard.
Yeah, it was crazy what they did with the transition from 1.2 to 1.4 but at least it was all for the sake of performance and API stability. I hope what you say is true for Gnome for the foreseeable future.
I really like the way Gnome is going right now, being more usable and all, but at the expense of "programmability"? I mean look at Gnome 1.x, you had to learn how to use at least 5-6 different libraries to write a basic Gnome program. More if you want to do desktop and panel integration. Gnome 2.x you have about the same number of libraries to learn, however that API is so much different from 1.x that you feel like you are starting all over again. Add the fact that some, if not most, of the API you will be using lacks documentation. It's really counterproductive to be programming for Gnome right now with all this "relearning" going on.
As a developer, I have always been interested in writing software for Gnome since 1.x. The one thing that has really set me back from doing so is the fact that with each and every iteration, something in the very core of Gnome changes and more often than not, those changes mean that you would have to recode large chunks of your software to cope with the changes.
Yuh, sure all your Gnome 1.x apps will still run but it won't be able to use any of the new features in 2.x. This comes naturally, since this is after all a "major release" upgrade. They've really done it with 2.x this time, something major changes with each "minor" version is released. I know this is all about bringing Gnome closer into the "integrated desktop where you have everything you need to do everything you need" that it is trying to achieve.
Case in point, this whole new-fangled "Object-Oriented" metaphor. Now not only do I probably have to learn a whole new set of interfaces to get desktop integration going for programs that I write for Gnome, I also have to learn how to operate this contraption. I mean come on! Do we really need all this HIG crap?!? My UI was "usable", at least for me, before all of this HIG things were implemented. If the developers want to implement this HIG thing, then go ahead and do it but it would also be nice to let users with "bad habits" choose to revert to the old UI behavior when they want. And for heaven's sake, leave the API's unchanged until the next major release! Being a developer for Gnome is a lot like being Sisyphus.
Now I realise why there are more apps written for KDE than for Gnome.
</rant>
Yuh, I know this rant probably doesn't make any sense to you. But maybe that's because you haven't been around when Gnome 1.x was new and Miguel was still sane.
(puts on asbestos underwear and ducks under the sink)
I tried the "Proof-of-Concept" code. Nice thing about it is that it tells you two things. 1) If your kernel is vulnerable 2) If your vulnerability is exploitable.
I have one kernel that is vulnerable but not exploitable according to the Proof-of-Concept code. Saves me some time to not patch, recompile and reboot a new kernel.
I wish future vulnerability announcements will be like this one. e.g. contain Proof-of-Concept exploit code that can tell me whether or not the kernel/software I am running is vulnerable and/or exploitable.
Watch your tone boy! Unless you want this guy to come over to your house and talk some sense into you:D
Great editorial btw.
--
Spread the word: talk about the blubbering idiot everyday.
Jan 29 22:18:06 [kernel] nvidia: no version magic, tainting kernel. Jan 29 22:18:06 [kernel] nvidia: module license 'NVIDIA' taints kernel. Jan 29 22:18:06 [kernel] 0: nvidia: loading NVIDIA Linux x86 nvidia.o Kernel Module 1.0-4496 Wed Jul 16 19:03:09 PDT 2003 Jan 29 22:18:07 [kernel] agpgart: Found an AGP 2.0 compliant device at 0000:00:00.0.
No problems here, I am using gentoo with kernel 2.6.1 with nvidia-kernel-1.0.4496-r3 (comes with the minion.de patches). My mobo is a Via P4M266.
It's probably in your kernel config. Why are you using spinlocks? Are you on an SMP machine? If you are, it is probably the fault of the driver not playing nice with your SMP setup and in that case, you're probably out of luck. You could of course try using a non-SMP kernel.
Just to stay on topic, I can't seem to find the need to upgrade my drivers since they are working fine.
You can buy a PC here for under 100$ at the current Peso-Dollar exchange rate.
See for yourself... This is where I buy my stuff. So the next time you come over for a vacation, shop around for a new PC:) You can buy all the parts and assemble it when you get back to your country.
I don't think a "buy out" is what SCO is aiming for here. The more you
look at it, the more it seems that everything is aimed at making it
more difficult for companies and individuals to adopt Linux (and other
free Unix clones) as the operating system of choice.
I think here's what Mi^HSCO is trying to do:
Scare all the smaller Linux companies and potential users by suing
Big Blue
The IBM lawsuit, along with other lawsuits they are filing against
other companies (and winning settlements) will serve as a precedent
for more Unix/Linux related lawsuits from other companies.
Companies (and countries) wanting to adopt Linux and its brethren as
their operating system of choice will think twice, thrice, and
eventually get tired of thinking about it and all the legal issues
that might be involved and not bother to adopt free operating systems
in the end.
Prove to everyone that using the GPL causes companies to lose their
IP
Whether SCO wins or loses, this will make other companies, especially
computer hardware manufacturers, think twice about putting their IP
under the GPL, hence prevent them from putting code for device drivers
and such under the GPL. The effect of which is to cut off the
platforms on which Linux and friends can run on.
As a side effect of hardware manufacturers not putting device driver
code, Linux users will be stuck with binary only drivers that are
either buggy, or force you to use the kernel for which the driver was
compiled. I had a recently bitter experience with the latter when I
tried to upgrade the Linux kernel on one machine with a Promise
Fasttrak device. The driver for that came as a binary only module
(ft.o) and it won't work with other kernel versions (and yes I am
aware of the existence of the pdcraid.o module but management is
reluctant to allow me to use that for various reasons).
To summarize: cause widespread FUD about the use of Linux and
Free/Open Source Software in general, and invalidate the use of
GPL.
In the end, all of this SCO crap will benefit one and only one
company and it won't be SCO or IBM.
... that the contributing authors of the book are suffering from "Damn, I wish I had thought of that." syndrome.
Think about it. They have whined and grumbled about the (mis)features of Unix, yet they themselves have done nothing and contributed nothing that has significantly advanced the state of operating systems. Worse yet, they are describing the old Unix. Unix has evolved far beyond that which is described in the book. True, the system remains cryptic and unforgiving but so does our own existence in this material plane. If you do something wrong, its probably your fault anyway so you have no one to blame but yourself.
Yes, Unix is old, Unix is antiquated, Unix is a relic from the past. But until the guys who wrote this book come up with something else that will surpass Unix in its flexibility, robustness, and elegance I remain unconvinced of their blabberisms.
And to add further, one of the guys who wrote for the book worked (still works?) for Apple *wink* *wink*. Talk about swallowing your own crap.
Also, since we are not lawyers, we thought we would try and map the contents of the licences into words and meanings that IT and management can understand,
Okay, so what we have here is an analysis of "legal documents" by a group of people who are not lawyers. Hmmm, that somehow knocks the whole analysis idea. This is more like having a mechanic perform an autopsy and write a coroner's report.
TCPA stands for the Trusted Computing Platform Alliance, an initiative
led by Intel. Their stated goal is `a new computing platform for the
next century that will provide for improved trust in the PC platform.'
Palladium is software that Microsoft says it plans to incorporate in
future versions of Windows; it will build on the TCPA hardware, and
will add some extra features.
This means that this whole Palladium/TCPA monstrosity requires
support from both hardware and software. It is entirely up to the
end-user whether or not he wants this. However, senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina is working on getting a law that will make TCPA mandatory, see here. Until such time that this bill becomes the law:
1. Don't buy the hardware. Unless there is a compelling reason to do so. Well if you are working for the military then go knock yourself out.
2. Don't buy^H^H^H lease/rent/license/WTF the software. There is
no compelling reason to do so.
It will only be compelling to use Palladium/TCPA software and hardware only if it becomes illegal not to use it.
Secure computing is not the aim of Palladium/TCPA. Its aim is
to provide a way for software peddlers like Microsoft and content pushers like Disney to monitor what
you run on your computer and assert control over your
computer. In the long run, it will provide them a way to assert
control over you.
Secure computing can be achieved through a combination of secure
computing practices, secure operating systems running secure applications, and plain-old common
sense.
If Intel, Microsoft and their cohorts push through with this stupidity
it could spell the end for them. Just think, why in the hell
would I want to run this sort of crap? Unless it's mandated by law,
there's no reason for me to do so. With the recent slew of news about stupid
laws being implemented in the U.S. it's a real possibility.
0xB00F, stands in front of Bill Gates, raises hand, extends middle
finger.
It's not an application for a patent on online advertising. Rather, it's a patent application for how one gets one's advert/banner on a target webpage through a bidding system. i.e. you bid for what's called in the patent claim as "display space" the more you bid the more chances your ad will get placed on the page, thereby increasing visibility.
Either way, I am sure there is prior art for this.
Way to go Jeff!!! Rack up those patent claims. One day when your company eventually fails to become profitable, you can use those patents to sue other companies for $$$!
Mike's Diary entry: A call for reorganizaion?
on
XFree86 Politics
·
· Score: 1
the "core developers" just need to reorganize themselves. From what
one can see on mharris' diary entry, his major gripe is about patches
not being applied quickly enough or never being applied at all. I
guess what they need to do is to have several "patch pumpkings". Some
of them could manage the patches for the current release, the others
can manage patches for older releases. Like what is being done on the
Linux kernel. MT is handling the patches for 2.4.x, AC is handling
patches for 2.2.x, with LT himself doing the same for 2.5.x. And as it oft happens, patches for the old version still apply to the new version and it propagates up.
The organization of XFree86 as it stands now is just a few head
honchos concentrating their efforts on one branch only, with efforts
being done on their spare time. The XFree86 source tree is massive in
both the physical and logical sense. Not only are they dealing with
millions of lines of code, they are also dealing with "subprojects"
within the source tree. i.e. Mesa, xterm, freetype. All of these are
projects that are and should be separate from the XFree86 source
tree. But I guess, the core XF86 developers like to keep their sanity
and just have all these subprojects integrated with the main source
tree. And having said that, it wouldn't hurt their productivity either
if these integrated projects have their own patch pumpkings. It is
highly likely that patches submitted to the XF86 core team are for
these subprojects than for the XF86 code itself and having a separate,
and dedicated group of people handling the patches for these would be
good.
By reorganizing and delegating patch management, the core
developers are freed from having to deal with patches and their time
can be spent more on working on the next release. Ideally, they should
also take patches from the old versions and see if it can be integrated
into the current development branch.
As for drivers, I guess they should also take hints from how
drivers and patches to drivers are being submitted to the Linux
kernel. AFAICT, XFree86 shouldn't have the same problem with "kernel
hooks" as the Linux kernel does. So other people can write the drivers
(presumably the hardware manufacturing people), submit it to the XF86
core team for integration, or better yet have those drivers available
for download elsewhere. NVIDIA does it, albeit binary only. That way,
these hardware companies can free the XF86 guys from their NDAs. One can't complain if one has a limited set of options.
If the core XF86 team couldn't get their act together on this one,
then a fork would be inevitable and probably be a good thing. I
personally would use the forked version if it turns out that they can
keep up with having the latest device drivers and maybe even coming up
with a better and open source device driver than what my hardware
manufacturer provides. I really would like to see the
Tainted: P from my lsmod print out go away...
I'm detecting sarcasm..meaning that you think Saddam is an upstanding citizen of the world community. What about Slobodan Milosevic? I bet you think he's a cool guy. And I'm sure you give props to Hitler, because you don't wanna leave any of these guys out.
Yes, I was being sarcastic. Since when does being sarcastic about the war make you pro-Saddam? Typical knee-jerk reflex from a typical slashdotter. GROW UP! I was being sarcastic about Dubya's remarks about Hussein and that "He's the one who tried to kill my father..." crap he said on international television. I am sarcastic about the way Dubya and friends are behaving, looking for every little reason to justify a war. And no, I don't think Saddam is an upstanding citizen of the world community. Come to think of it, maybe the Americans did think he would be when they helped Saddam win the Iran-Iraq war.
I believe you should ask the Yugoslavians about Milosevic, after all U.S. bombs and troops didn't knock him out of his seat. It took the efforts of courageous citizens leaping over the walls of his "fortress" to do that, dodging gunfire and all. Sure, the U.S. and it's war against the evil-doer helped trim down Milosevic's troops but the Yugoslavians would have ousted him eventually, if it not the civilians, then it could have been the gangsters (who are now suspects in killing their Prime Minister).
Yes, Hitler was evil. More than that, he was an evil hypocrite. He wanted to breed and rule over a Supreme Race and wanted to get rid of the Jews in his country. But Hitler himself was of Jewish descent.
What about the fascist dictators that have ruled over the various parts of Africa at one time or another, i.e. Kabila, Mugabe and friends? These men were responsible for genocide and plundering their own country. But no, the U.S. does not have any "interests" in these countries, so let them alone.
What about North Korea and that guy with the weird hair? Yes, troops may be in place in the DMZ but what did they do when it NK launched missiles that went over Japan? How many times have they bombed North Korea recently? Isn't North Korea what the U.S. considers a rogue state? Doesn't Korea have nukes? Do we do the "Forget the here because the U.S. does not have any interests in these countries." routine?
I am not opposed to war per se. I am opposed to war to advance the interest of the ruling few. I am opposed to war of oppression. I am not opposed to war in the defense of one's interests, namely to live a peaceful life and to populate the earth. And don't give me none of that "The best defense is a damn good offense." crap. This ain't basketball or football. People die in wars. People with families and happy lives before they got involved in something they did not want by accident.
The U.S. war on Iraq has always been a war for that gooey black stuff. The U.S. oil reserves are running low, despite claims to the contrary, and OPEC is not about to let up on its production quota. And no, more oil doesn't necessarily mean oil prices will drop. Oil prices only go up, never down. At least not down for long, then they go up again. Unless Dubya and friends can present a better reason than "Saddam is an evil, evil man that must be stopped.", I am unconvinced of current U.S. policy.
You need to grow up, just like Dubya. If you can't grow up, grow a sense of humor.
And please, do not bring 9/11 into this, I lost friends there. But I'm not bitter like everyone else, life goes on.
People have always been using "cash" in one form or another. This is just another form of "cash".
Follow the evolution:
1. People trading goods with one another, i.e. my 5 pounds of butter for your 4 pounds of cheese.
2. People using rare, precious objects, i.e. seashells, precious metals, round stone thingies.
3. People using coins.
4. People using paper money and cheques.
5. People using credit and debit cards.
The smart card is just another debit card, which is just another form of cash. To be truly cashless, you need to get rid of the concept of "legal tender" which is what "cash" basically is. But that wouldn't be a very good idea, unless you like the idea of foraging for food everyday.
0xB00F, the sound of a foam rubber mallet hitting your head.
They would invent smart bullets so that a gun can be fired in the U.S. by Dubya and it will hit all the evil-doers in Iraq.
Because you see, Saddam is an evil, evil man and the U.S. is not interested in Iraq's oil fields (nor was it interested in Afghanistan's natural gas and iron deposits.)
As an example, the author takes issue with the SCO's claim that IBM must have stolen SCO trade secrets in order to improve Linux by saying "OK, then, diff the code."
Perhaps. But if I were you, do what I did: download the kernel changelogs for 2.4 (and if you like 2.2) and grep them for ibm.com (i.e. commits from someone at IBM).
For example, I fetch the changelogs from here. And then I ran:
$ grep -il "ibm\\.com" *
in the directory containing the changelogs to get the filenames with commits from an IBM email address. Use a pager with regexp search capability (like 'less') to view the files, in this case the changelogs for 2.4.19 and 2.4.20.
What?!? You're not running linux?!? Shame on you!
As you will see, most of the checkins involve bug fixes for IBM's JFS, some patches for IPV6, and few ones for s390. Gotta love version control, eh?
Suppose part of the validation test set for Monterey consisted of a stress test written by SCO and owned by SCO.
Project Monterey was a plan that never happened. It was a plan to put Unix on IA-64 machines that died during conception. What we have is a lot of white papers on the subject but no written, working code. Of course I could be wrong, and if there was working code it would have probably been written by IBM developers anyway with a "Copyright (c) 2000 IBM Corp." near the top of the sources.
Let us further suppose that code was used in the Linux development work, and found a key set of bugs. (Don't tell me it isn't possible that it would have been -- developers tend to think of tools as just tools, and forget that they may be encumbered.)
Probably, but one of the accusations SCO makes is that IBM allegedly handed out Unix code owned by SCO to Linux kernel hackers. And that Linux would not have advanced if IBM had not handed out said code. But so far, all code commits from IBM appear to be mostly patches to existing code. What's more SCO accuses IBM of handing out code from SCO Unix to improve Linux's SMP capabilities. However, Linux's SMP support was one of the primary reasons why IBM adopted Linux in the first place (for proof, see my earlier post in this thread). Ergo, by adopting an Open, Freely Available variant of Unix with SMP support would lessen their development efforts.
What I find rather interesting is Caldera's Logo on the IA-64 Linux page. And it lists them as one of the players in this project. And even more interesting is the missing links on SCO's website pointing to details of the Itanium Netfarm they have presumably made available to IA-64 Linux developers.
One of the major gripes of SCO is that Linux would not have been able to have SMP support if it weren't for IBM lifting SCO Unix code and handing it out for the kernel developers.
Perhaps they should read this
article at IBM DeveloperWorks. This page pretty much explains why IBM decided to go the way of the fat penguin.
It should be worth pointing out this quote from the article:
One of the areas where Linux has an advantage on the FreeBSD community is in SMP, or multiprocessor support. Linux has supported SMP for about five years while FreeBSD has supported it for about two years. As a result, the Linux's support for SMP is considerably more mature than FreeBSD. Due to the open source nature of both systems, this will not be the case for long. FreeBSD developers have the opportunity to learn from the mistakes of the Linux developers.
Linux has had support for SMP waaaaaay long before IBM adopted it and apparently this was one of their reasons for adopting Linux. I also read in a magazine once (I think it was Time or Newsweek c.a. 1998 IIRC but someone please correct the date:-D) that in one of the numerous Linux shows, one of the participants was able to make Linux run on a machine with 4 Xeon processors.
Slashdot Mirror
GNOME can't just change things anymore like it did in the 1.4. I think you will be pleased in that regard.
Yeah, it was crazy what they did with the transition from 1.2 to 1.4 but at least it was all for the sake of performance and API stability. I hope what you say is true for Gnome for the foreseeable future.
I really like the way Gnome is going right now, being more usable and all, but at the expense of "programmability"? I mean look at Gnome 1.x, you had to learn how to use at least 5-6 different libraries to write a basic Gnome program. More if you want to do desktop and panel integration. Gnome 2.x you have about the same number of libraries to learn, however that API is so much different from 1.x that you feel like you are starting all over again. Add the fact that some, if not most, of the API you will be using lacks documentation. It's really counterproductive to be programming for Gnome right now with all this "relearning" going on.
Not trolling or anything, but here goes...
As a developer, I have always been interested in writing software for Gnome since 1.x. The one thing that has really set me back from doing so is the fact that with each and every iteration, something in the very core of Gnome changes and more often than not, those changes mean that you would have to recode large chunks of your software to cope with the changes.
Yuh, sure all your Gnome 1.x apps will still run but it won't be able to use any of the new features in 2.x. This comes naturally, since this is after all a "major release" upgrade. They've really done it with 2.x this time, something major changes with each "minor" version is released. I know this is all about bringing Gnome closer into the "integrated desktop where you have everything you need to do everything you need" that it is trying to achieve.
Case in point, this whole new-fangled "Object-Oriented" metaphor. Now not only do I probably have to learn a whole new set of interfaces to get desktop integration going for programs that I write for Gnome, I also have to learn how to operate this contraption. I mean come on! Do we really need all this HIG crap?!? My UI was "usable", at least for me, before all of this HIG things were implemented. If the developers want to implement this HIG thing, then go ahead and do it but it would also be nice to let users with "bad habits" choose to revert to the old UI behavior when they want. And for heaven's sake, leave the API's unchanged until the next major release! Being a developer for Gnome is a lot like being Sisyphus.
Now I realise why there are more apps written for KDE than for Gnome.
</rant>
Yuh, I know this rant probably doesn't make any sense to you. But maybe that's because you haven't been around when Gnome 1.x was new and Miguel was still sane.
(puts on asbestos underwear and ducks under the sink)
Thank you.
I tried the "Proof-of-Concept" code. Nice thing about it is that it tells you two things. 1) If your kernel is vulnerable 2) If your vulnerability is exploitable.
I have one kernel that is vulnerable but not exploitable according to the Proof-of-Concept code. Saves me some time to not patch, recompile and reboot a new kernel.
I wish future vulnerability announcements will be like this one. e.g. contain Proof-of-Concept exploit code that can tell me whether or not the kernel/software I am running is vulnerable and/or exploitable.
Fair and balanced.
:D
Watch your tone boy! Unless you want this guy to come over to your house and talk some sense into you
Great editorial btw.
--
Spread the word: talk about the blubbering idiot everyday.
From my syslog:
No problems here, I am using gentoo with kernel 2.6.1 with nvidia-kernel-1.0.4496-r3 (comes with the minion.de patches). My mobo is a Via P4M266.
It's probably in your kernel config. Why are you using spinlocks? Are you on an SMP machine? If you are, it is probably the fault of the driver not playing nice with your SMP setup and in that case, you're probably out of luck. You could of course try using a non-SMP kernel.
Just to stay on topic, I can't seem to find the need to upgrade my drivers since they are working fine.
Oops! Miscalculated a bit there. It should say $1000. Anyway, you can some old Pentiums here for under $100.
I was able to buy a P4 1.7Ghz PC for about $700.
You can buy a PC here for under 100$ at the current Peso-Dollar exchange rate.
See for yourself... This is where I buy my stuff. So the next time you come over for a vacation, shop around for a new PC :) You can buy all the parts and assemble it when you get back to your country.
I don't think a "buy out" is what SCO is aiming for here. The more you look at it, the more it seems that everything is aimed at making it more difficult for companies and individuals to adopt Linux (and other free Unix clones) as the operating system of choice.
I think here's what Mi^HSCO is trying to do:
Scare all the smaller Linux companies and potential users by suing Big Blue
The IBM lawsuit, along with other lawsuits they are filing against other companies (and winning settlements) will serve as a precedent for more Unix/Linux related lawsuits from other companies.
Companies (and countries) wanting to adopt Linux and its brethren as their operating system of choice will think twice, thrice, and eventually get tired of thinking about it and all the legal issues that might be involved and not bother to adopt free operating systems in the end.
Prove to everyone that using the GPL causes companies to lose their IP
Whether SCO wins or loses, this will make other companies, especially computer hardware manufacturers, think twice about putting their IP under the GPL, hence prevent them from putting code for device drivers and such under the GPL. The effect of which is to cut off the platforms on which Linux and friends can run on.
As a side effect of hardware manufacturers not putting device driver code, Linux users will be stuck with binary only drivers that are either buggy, or force you to use the kernel for which the driver was compiled. I had a recently bitter experience with the latter when I tried to upgrade the Linux kernel on one machine with a Promise Fasttrak device. The driver for that came as a binary only module (ft.o) and it won't work with other kernel versions (and yes I am aware of the existence of the pdcraid.o module but management is reluctant to allow me to use that for various reasons).
To summarize: cause widespread FUD about the use of Linux and Free/Open Source Software in general, and invalidate the use of GPL.
In the end, all of this SCO crap will benefit one and only one company and it won't be SCO or IBM.
Think about it. They have whined and grumbled about the (mis)features of Unix, yet they themselves have done nothing and contributed nothing that has significantly advanced the state of operating systems. Worse yet, they are describing the old Unix. Unix has evolved far beyond that which is described in the book. True, the system remains cryptic and unforgiving but so does our own existence in this material plane. If you do something wrong, its probably your fault anyway so you have no one to blame but yourself.
Yes, Unix is old, Unix is antiquated, Unix is a relic from the past. But until the guys who wrote this book come up with something else that will surpass Unix in its flexibility, robustness, and elegance I remain unconvinced of their blabberisms.
And to add further, one of the guys who wrote for the book worked (still works?) for Apple *wink* *wink*. Talk about swallowing your own crap.
are more laywers pretending to be IT people.
From the article:
Okay, so what we have here is an analysis of "legal documents" by a group of people who are not lawyers. Hmmm, that somehow knocks the whole analysis idea. This is more like having a mechanic perform an autopsy and write a coroner's report.
From TCPA / Palladium / NGCSB / TCG Frequently Asked Questions:
This means that this whole Palladium/TCPA monstrosity requires support from both hardware and software. It is entirely up to the end-user whether or not he wants this. However, senator Fritz Hollings of South Carolina is working on getting a law that will make TCPA mandatory, see here. Until such time that this bill becomes the law:
1. Don't buy the hardware. Unless there is a compelling reason to do so. Well if you are working for the military then go knock yourself out.
2. Don't buy^H^H^H lease/rent/license/WTF the software. There is no compelling reason to do so.
It will only be compelling to use Palladium/TCPA software and hardware only if it becomes illegal not to use it.
Secure computing is not the aim of Palladium/TCPA. Its aim is to provide a way for software peddlers like Microsoft and content pushers like Disney to monitor what you run on your computer and assert control over your computer. In the long run, it will provide them a way to assert control over you.
Secure computing can be achieved through a combination of secure computing practices, secure operating systems running secure applications, and plain-old common sense.
If Intel, Microsoft and their cohorts push through with this stupidity it could spell the end for them. Just think, why in the hell would I want to run this sort of crap? Unless it's mandated by law, there's no reason for me to do so. With the recent slew of news about stupid laws being implemented in the U.S. it's a real possibility.
0xB00F, stands in front of Bill Gates, raises hand, extends middle finger.
It's not an application for a patent on online advertising. Rather, it's a patent application for how one gets one's advert/banner on a target webpage through a bidding system. i.e. you bid for what's called in the patent claim as "display space" the more you bid the more chances your ad will get placed on the page, thereby increasing visibility.
Either way, I am sure there is prior art for this.
Way to go Jeff!!! Rack up those patent claims. One day when your company eventually fails to become profitable, you can use those patents to sue other companies for $$$!
the "core developers" just need to reorganize themselves. From what one can see on mharris' diary entry, his major gripe is about patches not being applied quickly enough or never being applied at all. I guess what they need to do is to have several "patch pumpkings". Some of them could manage the patches for the current release, the others can manage patches for older releases. Like what is being done on the Linux kernel. MT is handling the patches for 2.4.x, AC is handling patches for 2.2.x, with LT himself doing the same for 2.5.x. And as it oft happens, patches for the old version still apply to the new version and it propagates up.
The organization of XFree86 as it stands now is just a few head honchos concentrating their efforts on one branch only, with efforts being done on their spare time. The XFree86 source tree is massive in both the physical and logical sense. Not only are they dealing with millions of lines of code, they are also dealing with "subprojects" within the source tree. i.e. Mesa, xterm, freetype. All of these are projects that are and should be separate from the XFree86 source tree. But I guess, the core XF86 developers like to keep their sanity and just have all these subprojects integrated with the main source tree. And having said that, it wouldn't hurt their productivity either if these integrated projects have their own patch pumpkings. It is highly likely that patches submitted to the XF86 core team are for these subprojects than for the XF86 code itself and having a separate, and dedicated group of people handling the patches for these would be good.
By reorganizing and delegating patch management, the core developers are freed from having to deal with patches and their time can be spent more on working on the next release. Ideally, they should also take patches from the old versions and see if it can be integrated into the current development branch.
As for drivers, I guess they should also take hints from how drivers and patches to drivers are being submitted to the Linux kernel. AFAICT, XFree86 shouldn't have the same problem with "kernel hooks" as the Linux kernel does. So other people can write the drivers (presumably the hardware manufacturing people), submit it to the XF86 core team for integration, or better yet have those drivers available for download elsewhere. NVIDIA does it, albeit binary only. That way, these hardware companies can free the XF86 guys from their NDAs. One can't complain if one has a limited set of options.
If the core XF86 team couldn't get their act together on this one, then a fork would be inevitable and probably be a good thing. I personally would use the forked version if it turns out that they can keep up with having the latest device drivers and maybe even coming up with a better and open source device driver than what my hardware manufacturer provides. I really would like to see the Tainted: P from my lsmod print out go away...
creeps slowly back into the gravity well...
... and watch BBC, CNN, Discovery Channel, and National Geographic Channel.
Yes, I was being sarcastic. Since when does being sarcastic about the war make you pro-Saddam? Typical knee-jerk reflex from a typical slashdotter. GROW UP! I was being sarcastic about Dubya's remarks about Hussein and that "He's the one who tried to kill my father..." crap he said on international television. I am sarcastic about the way Dubya and friends are behaving, looking for every little reason to justify a war. And no, I don't think Saddam is an upstanding citizen of the world community. Come to think of it, maybe the Americans did think he would be when they helped Saddam win the Iran-Iraq war.
I believe you should ask the Yugoslavians about Milosevic, after all U.S. bombs and troops didn't knock him out of his seat. It took the efforts of courageous citizens leaping over the walls of his "fortress" to do that, dodging gunfire and all. Sure, the U.S. and it's war against the evil-doer helped trim down Milosevic's troops but the Yugoslavians would have ousted him eventually, if it not the civilians, then it could have been the gangsters (who are now suspects in killing their Prime Minister).
Yes, Hitler was evil. More than that, he was an evil hypocrite. He wanted to breed and rule over a Supreme Race and wanted to get rid of the Jews in his country. But Hitler himself was of Jewish descent.
What about the fascist dictators that have ruled over the various parts of Africa at one time or another, i.e. Kabila, Mugabe and friends? These men were responsible for genocide and plundering their own country. But no, the U.S. does not have any "interests" in these countries, so let them alone.
What about North Korea and that guy with the weird hair? Yes, troops may be in place in the DMZ but what did they do when it NK launched missiles that went over Japan? How many times have they bombed North Korea recently? Isn't North Korea what the U.S. considers a rogue state? Doesn't Korea have nukes? Do we do the "Forget the here because the U.S. does not have any interests in these countries." routine?
I am not opposed to war per se. I am opposed to war to advance the interest of the ruling few. I am opposed to war of oppression. I am not opposed to war in the defense of one's interests, namely to live a peaceful life and to populate the earth. And don't give me none of that "The best defense is a damn good offense." crap. This ain't basketball or football. People die in wars. People with families and happy lives before they got involved in something they did not want by accident.
The U.S. war on Iraq has always been a war for that gooey black stuff. The U.S. oil reserves are running low, despite claims to the contrary, and OPEC is not about to let up on its production quota. And no, more oil doesn't necessarily mean oil prices will drop. Oil prices only go up, never down. At least not down for long, then they go up again. Unless Dubya and friends can present a better reason than "Saddam is an evil, evil man that must be stopped.", I am unconvinced of current U.S. policy.
You need to grow up, just like Dubya. If you can't grow up, grow a sense of humor.
And please, do not bring 9/11 into this, I lost friends there. But I'm not bitter like everyone else, life goes on.
People have always been using "cash" in one form or another. This is just another form of "cash".
Follow the evolution:
1. People trading goods with one another, i.e. my 5 pounds of butter for your 4 pounds of cheese.
2. People using rare, precious objects, i.e. seashells, precious metals, round stone thingies.
3. People using coins.
4. People using paper money and cheques.
5. People using credit and debit cards.
The smart card is just another debit card, which is just another form of cash. To be truly cashless, you need to get rid of the concept of "legal tender" which is what "cash" basically is. But that wouldn't be a very good idea, unless you like the idea of foraging for food everyday.
0xB00F, the sound of a foam rubber mallet hitting your head.
They would invent smart bullets so that a gun can be fired in the U.S. by Dubya and it will hit all the evil-doers in Iraq.
Because you see, Saddam is an evil, evil man and the U.S. is not interested in Iraq's oil fields (nor was it interested in Afghanistan's natural gas and iron deposits.)
Reminds me of the South Park movie. But the army in that movie used Windows 98.
0xB00F, the sound of a cream puff exploding in my hand.
Perhaps. But if I were you, do what I did: download the kernel changelogs for 2.4 (and if you like 2.2) and grep them for ibm.com (i.e. commits from someone at IBM).
For example, I fetch the changelogs from here. And then I ran:
in the directory containing the changelogs to get the filenames with commits from an IBM email address. Use a pager with regexp search capability (like 'less') to view the files, in this case the changelogs for 2.4.19 and 2.4.20.What?!? You're not running linux?!? Shame on you!
As you will see, most of the checkins involve bug fixes for IBM's JFS, some patches for IPV6, and few ones for s390. Gotta love version control, eh?
Project Monterey was a plan that never happened. It was a plan to put Unix on IA-64 machines that died during conception. What we have is a lot of white papers on the subject but no written, working code. Of course I could be wrong, and if there was working code it would have probably been written by IBM developers anyway with a "Copyright (c) 2000 IBM Corp." near the top of the sources.
Probably, but one of the accusations SCO makes is that IBM allegedly handed out Unix code owned by SCO to Linux kernel hackers. And that Linux would not have advanced if IBM had not handed out said code. But so far, all code commits from IBM appear to be mostly patches to existing code. What's more SCO accuses IBM of handing out code from SCO Unix to improve Linux's SMP capabilities. However, Linux's SMP support was one of the primary reasons why IBM adopted Linux in the first place (for proof, see my earlier post in this thread). Ergo, by adopting an Open, Freely Available variant of Unix with SMP support would lessen their development efforts.
What I find rather interesting is Caldera's Logo on the IA-64 Linux page. And it lists them as one of the players in this project. And even more interesting is the missing links on SCO's website pointing to details of the Itanium Netfarm they have presumably made available to IA-64 Linux developers.
- casts polymorph other spell on grue... 0xB00F!
One of the major gripes of SCO is that Linux would not have been able to have SMP support if it weren't for IBM lifting SCO Unix code and handing it out for the kernel developers.
Perhaps they should read this article at IBM DeveloperWorks. This page pretty much explains why IBM decided to go the way of the fat penguin.
It should be worth pointing out this quote from the article:
Linux has had support for SMP waaaaaay long before IBM adopted it and apparently this was one of their reasons for adopting Linux. I also read in a magazine once (I think it was Time or Newsweek c.a. 1998 IIRC but someone please correct the datePlus there is also the fact that a year before IBM adopted Linux, they (among others)made large hardware available to Linux developers for testing and benchmarks.
0xB00F disappears in a puff of smoke...