Isn't neuromancer.org being a little pretentious when it suggests that Gibson 'envisioned the Internet before it even existed'? I mean, there was no www.pepsi.com in '84 but the internet was already around.
Looks like he's going to have to duke it out with Al Gore to decide who really invented the Internet.
I don't think everyone is so happy because Lego is being benevolent, it's just great to see a company that is acting intelligently. It probably wouldn't have suprised many people if they decided to fiercely and paranoidly (is that a word?) hold onto their IP.
No company would go open source if it was going to hurt them, it would be stupid. But lot's of companies don't realize that OSS can actually help them, so it's nice to see one that does.
It's strange, thoough, because in my experience, CypberPatrol *can* block only part of a name. My work uses CP as part of it's firewall and appears to do partial blocks. There are some geocities sites I can get to and others that are blocked.
But it behaves really oddly sometimes, for instance it blocks and all of Netscape's product information pages (apparently, the specifications and prices of Netscape Enterprise Server are obcene!!)
There's an interesting book called The Human Body Shop that discusses lots of biotech issues. One of the uses for cloning humans that has been proposed is maintaining a clone (genetically altered to not grow more than a brain stem) for each person, so that if we ever need an organ transplant, we'll just rip one out of our clone. Perfect donor, no rejection.
Of course, the scientists don't mention where we are going to keep all the clones (apparently, the Earth's population hit 6 billion on Sunday). I imagine this will be a service for the Very Rich only.
Actually, the latest VMs from IBM and Symantic have been kicking the tar out of Microsoft's (mind you, they aren't pluggable into web browsers...yet...depedning on how Mozilla's Open Java interface works).
If you want a good example of an application that runs just fine, take a look at Freebuilder, an open source Java IDE. I haven't noticed any speed problems, even on my puny P200.
I was taking a look at Unisys' LZW statement and saw this:
Currently applicable information as to Unisys licensing policies for products using LZW (GIF, TIFF-LZW, PostScript, Portable Document Format (PDF), V.42bis, etc.)
PostScript uses LZW? Does this mean Ghostscript and Ghostview are going to be affected?
Please don't get started with a grappling vs. punching debate!! It's been done to death on rec.martial-arts for years.
Now having said that, I'm a judo guy and I liked the fight scenes. I thought they were fun and cartoony, which was perfect for the movie.
Grappling may be effective, but it's boring as hell to watch. Did we really want to see Neo rolling around for 20 minutes, trying to break the Agent's guard?
According to the installation procedure on their website, you can choose either GNOME or KDE as your desktop during installation (although they seem to encourage users to pick GNOME)
There now...we've found yet another use for Windows NT. We can just sit back and wait until M$ convinces the various governments involved to migrate Echelon to a Windows NT platform. It will happen, if there is a system out there with THAT much computing power, it represents a huge marketplace and M$ will obviously pursue it.
Once the NT-Enhanced Echelon (perhaps they can call it Echelon 2000) is up, it will only take a couple of days, probably hours before the whole system crashes and burns:)
I'd be more paranoid, but thanks to television, I don't have the attention span...
Isn't lots of competition a sign of a healthy, growing marketplace? The linux distribution business is relatively new and still developing. If there are too many distributions, then some of them will die or merge with others, it's natural for a new market. Besides, the more companies that spend dollars advertising linux, the more users will be attracted to the platform.
The only downside may be the appearance of a fragmented OS, but as long as the vendors don't start slagging each other's distributions, that won't be so bad either.
Mind you, I may be biased because they're a Canadian company and it's nice to see a Canuck distribution:)
I think the analogy still stands. If I introduce e. coli to a cow, I *am* exploiting a problem that already exists: dead cows are vulnerable to e. coli infections, much like '95 or NT is vulernable to Back Orifice.
I tend to agree, and here is another point to consider:
One of the reasons that roguelike started up was so the authors could play there own game, and that's probably an important point for OS developers. Almost all OS projects start off with a programmer creating something for his own needs, then he releases it.
I can't imagine creating Myst to play by myself. After all the hours spent developing it, I would know the answers to all the puzzles. If a game is going to develop OSS-style, it probably has to be one the authors will want to play a lot.
One style of game that seems to work great under the OSS model is roguelike games. Granted, they tend to have cheesey graphics (or no graphics at all), but I've found the replay and entertainment values for Zangband, NetHack or the others orders of magnitude greater than, say, Diablo.
It's also interesting that code-forking seems to be quite a healthy thing for these games. There are scads of variants (esp. off of the Angband code-base) and each has interesting game quirks that authors have added.
They may not be commercial quality, but they're often more fun that commercial CRPGs.
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Hmm. Microsoft was founded in '78 so perhaps Gibson is a bit Bill Gates Fan!
Isn't neuromancer.org being a little pretentious when it suggests that Gibson 'envisioned the Internet before it even existed'? I mean, there was no www.pepsi.com in '84 but the internet was already around.
Looks like he's going to have to duke it out with Al Gore to decide who really invented the Internet.
I don't think everyone is so happy because Lego is being benevolent, it's just great to see a company that is acting intelligently. It probably wouldn't have suprised many people if they decided to fiercely and paranoidly (is that a word?) hold onto their IP.
No company would go open source if it was going to hurt them, it would be stupid. But lot's of companies don't realize that OSS can actually help them, so it's nice to see one that does.
-dl
It's strange, thoough, because in my experience, CypberPatrol *can* block only part of a name. My work uses CP as part of it's firewall and appears to do partial blocks. There are some geocities sites I can get to and others that are blocked.
But it behaves really oddly sometimes, for instance it blocks and all of Netscape's product information pages (apparently, the specifications and prices of Netscape Enterprise Server are obcene!!)
-Dana Larose
There's an interesting book called The Human Body Shop that discusses lots of biotech issues. One of the uses for cloning humans that has been proposed is maintaining a clone (genetically altered to not grow more than a brain stem) for each person, so that if we ever need an organ transplant, we'll just rip one out of our clone. Perfect donor, no rejection.
Of course, the scientists don't mention where we are going to keep all the clones (apparently, the Earth's population hit 6 billion on Sunday). I imagine this will be a service for the Very Rich only.
Actually, the latest VMs from IBM and Symantic have been kicking the tar out of Microsoft's (mind you, they aren't pluggable into web browsers...yet...depedning on how Mozilla's Open Java interface works).
If you want a good example of an application that runs just fine, take a look at Freebuilder, an open source Java IDE. I haven't noticed any speed problems, even on my puny P200.
I was taking a look at Unisys' LZW statement and saw this:
Currently applicable information as to Unisys licensing policies for products using LZW (GIF,
TIFF-LZW, PostScript, Portable Document Format (PDF), V.42bis, etc.)
PostScript uses LZW? Does this mean Ghostscript and Ghostview are going to be affected?
Doesn't the GD library use sort of a LZW-clone algorithm (generates the same output, but independantly written)?
Perhaps the algorithm they used was too close to the patented stuff.
On a wider note, what happens to Open Source projects if the source accidently gets contaminated with non-OS code? Has this ever happened before?
Please don't get started with a grappling vs. punching debate!! It's been done to death on rec.martial-arts for years.
Now having said that, I'm a judo guy and I liked the fight scenes. I thought they were fun and cartoony, which was perfect for the movie.
Grappling may be effective, but it's boring as hell to watch. Did we really want to see Neo rolling around for 20 minutes, trying to break the Agent's guard?
According to the installation procedure on their website, you can choose either GNOME or KDE as your desktop during installation (although they seem to encourage users to pick GNOME)
There now...we've found yet another use for Windows NT. We can just sit back and wait until M$ convinces the various governments involved to migrate Echelon to a Windows NT platform. It will happen, if there is a system out there with THAT much computing power, it represents a huge marketplace and M$ will obviously pursue it.
:)
Once the NT-Enhanced Echelon (perhaps they can call it Echelon 2000) is up, it will only take a couple of days, probably hours before the whole system crashes and burns
I'd be more paranoid, but thanks to television, I don't have the attention span...
Isn't lots of competition a sign of a healthy, growing marketplace? The linux distribution business is relatively new and still developing. If there are too many distributions, then some of them will die or merge with others, it's natural for a new market. Besides, the more companies that spend dollars advertising linux, the more users will be attracted to the platform.
:)
The only downside may be the appearance of a fragmented OS, but as long as the vendors don't start slagging each other's distributions, that won't be so bad either.
Mind you, I may be biased because they're a Canadian company and it's nice to see a Canuck distribution
I think the analogy still stands. If I introduce e. coli to a cow, I *am* exploiting a problem that already exists: dead cows are vulnerable to e. coli infections, much like '95 or NT is vulernable to Back Orifice.
:)
-smug vegetarian
I tend to agree, and here is another point to consider:
One of the reasons that roguelike started up was so the authors could play there own game, and that's probably an important point for OS developers. Almost all OS projects start off with a programmer creating something for his own needs, then he releases it.
I can't imagine creating Myst to play by myself. After all the hours spent developing it, I would know the answers to all the puzzles. If a game is going to develop OSS-style, it probably has to be one the authors will want to play a lot.
One style of game that seems to work great under the OSS model is roguelike games. Granted, they tend to have cheesey graphics (or no graphics at all), but I've found the replay and entertainment values for Zangband, NetHack or the others orders of magnitude greater than, say, Diablo.
It's also interesting that code-forking seems to be quite a healthy thing for these games. There are scads of variants (esp. off of the Angband code-base) and each has interesting game quirks that authors have added.
They may not be commercial quality, but they're often more fun that commercial CRPGs.
-Dana