Google is not a 'relatively small corp'. It is worth more than both Ford and GM.
I think people do forget that Google is not a little project from two students. It's a huge business. I think it says a lot about our culture and society that Google, essentially nothing more than an advanced information filter, is worth more than the manufacturers of the thing that changed transportation and human contact forever. It just really does show how much information is worth these days.
Coal is dirty but we have hundreds of years left of the stuff.
Unlike Oil, which is going to peak in at most 5 years. We are seeing the impact today, Oil hitting new heights of $56.40/barrel and OPEC really struggling to get any more out of the ground. Saudi Arabia is frankly, fucked, as they are at nearly 100% pumping capacity and pumping anymore is going to risk blowing out the equipment.
I just can't understand why 'peak oil' isn't getting any more coverage. It's by far the number 1 issue which threatens national security and economic growth.
Very specific techniques which is vital to the development of OSS in the print/media industry. Without it, the fonts look crappy and they are also not metrically compatible, which means that documents can't be imported properly -- if you imagine that you have a publishing document which is laid out with pixel precision, a couple of 1px or 0.5px font hinting problems would cause it to completely break.
The fact that Apple has the patent is irrelevant. That's not going to change for a good few years.
However, when Apple has got so much from the OSS community -- Safari, a hell of a lot of BSD stuff, Apache, Samba, postfix and a heck of other servers, is it so much to ask that Apple could offer some vital patents free, as long as it is a GPL (or other OS viral license)'ed project?
The fact that Apple doesn't do this is just obvious -- they want everything they can from OSS while holding it up. Desktop Linux is overtaking them on market share, and this is bad, bad news for them. They are going to take as much from OSS and put back as little as possible, patenting it also I assume.
Yes, but this autohinting method simply isn't as good as the real method that the TrueType font contains.
I recently moved from Ubuntu (which doesn't have the proper font hinting enabled) to Novell Linux Desktop, which does. The difference is staggering. I can actually read large amounts of text without feeling irritated by the quality of the font being rendered.
An easy way to tell if you have 'good' font hinting is to select a small font and type a big passage of text. Often when you will have auto hinting on you will get horrible artefacts which means the letters start to 'randomly' merge into the next. This makes it truly unreadable after a while.
Not to mention that Apple has absolutely tarnished the chance of decent, out of the box, _free_ font anti-aliasing on Linux/any alternative OS. They hold the patent for TrueType font hinting, which is absolutely needed for good looking fonts.
Sadly, you will get Apple apolgists that think Apple is more than a company that 'plunders' OSS so they can shortcut some of their other commercial competitors.
Second try, with a quote marks and a point to my comment:).
Ok, I can see your point for music. But what about for games or movies?
I've read many people write this before:
"I really feel bad for saying this, but ever since I've had broadband internet, I haven't bought a single game. I have saved at least a thousand dollars doing this, as in the period before this I purchased a lot of games. I feel really bad about this, and I often think 'hey, you know what I should do... buy xyz game which is good'. However, when it comes down to it, I have the choice of getting some new hardware or paying some bill or giving money for a game which I have already paid. Sadly, every single time the hardware or bill comes first.
Same with movies.
The other thing which is really putting me off buying a game or movie is that I get _more_ restrictions with the purchased item than I do downloading. I'd probably have to go through the same 'hassle' with a real game or movie that I do with ones I download (with the big exception that I don't have to leave the house to download)."
How on earth do you think the **AA react to this? Do they just sit down and think 'gee, oh well, let's let them off with this'?
No. They have an obligation to have people to pay for their product. The internet has made it vastly easier for people to pirate, and while I don't agree with a lot of the action the **AA takes, you have to realise it _is_ sales lost. If you would of bought a game if you couldn't download it (even if it was for 'trial' purposes) then that is $$$ lost, even if you were an unhappy customer...
Ok, I can see your point for music. But what about for games or movies?
I really feel bad for saying this, but ever since I've had broadband internet, I haven't bought a single game. I have saved at least a thousand dollars doing this, as in the period before this I purchased a lot of games. I feel really bad about this, and I often think 'hey, you know what I should do... buy xyz game which is good'. However, when it comes down to it, I have the choice of getting some new hardware or paying some bill or giving money for a game which I have already paid. Sadly, every single time the hardware or bill comes first.
Same with movies.
The other thing which is really putting me off buying a game or movie is that I get _more_ restrictions with the purchased item than I do downloading. I'd probably have to go through the same 'hassle' with a real game or movie that I do with ones I download (with the big exception that I don't have to leave the house to download).
The only GUI software I have seen ported somewhat successfully from Linux is AbiWord. And the maintainer gave up with that, and I believe it's in a state of limbo now. I suppose you have Firefox too but that's not really a Linux app.
I really don't see why Apple don't port GTK to OSX, give it a nice default Aqua theme and finally give those that have to have Linux, Windows and Mac compatibility some option other than running GTK in X..
The trouble is that porting GUI software to OSX is very hard. This is due to Apple/anyone not caring about porting GTK to OSX, to run outside of X. Why Apple doesn't fix this is beyond me, as they could enjoy a wealth of nearly native software. It would also finally give some sort of cross platform GUI development platform that the Mac can be part of.
I think OSX is getting very marginilised, which is a real shame since it's a very nice OS. When Linux supports my _printer_ and I can set it up in 1 minute using the GNOME printer configurationg tools, but I can't do it whatsoever on a much more expensive Mac, I think there is a problem.
This is only going to happen more often as Linux starts to become the de-facto OS for 'simple' tasks - a hell of a lot of businesses only need an OS which can run a web browser (Firefox), do email and print, thanks to the huge amount of web-based applications which are coming on board. I still think it's got a way to go before businesses will completely migrate to it (even though Novell Linux Desktop makes it so much easier than any other distro I have used), but I think we'll certainly see more and more hardware/software being supported first on Linux, then Mac, if at all.
Re:n00b - help!
on
Effective XML
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
XML is totally overhyped, which sadly makes people think it is a lot more complex than it is.
Think of it more like CSV than mySQL. It's just a format for representing structured data. It also happens to be that it's quite easily read by humans.
Yes, you can do incredibly advanced things with XML, but there is nothing you can do in XML compared to your own propietary data storing language.
The reason people use XML instead of writing their own data storing format is simple:- there is a lot of tools for parsing it, which you'd have to write yourself if you had your own format.
As for the javascript and XML example, it's impressive, but it's far more javascript than XML.
Yes, I know that, but try scaling the Firefox icon (which is a huge vector file) to 16x16. You will notice it's all smudgy and impossible to take details out of it.
You'll find you have to have one icon in SVG for 64x64 and bigger, but bitmap ones for 16x16, 32x32 and 48x48 pixels, because they need to be made specifically with little detail for them to be 'readable'.
For #1 there is gnome-system-tools, which quite a few distros use now, and it's usage is gaining. This means that we will finally have a decent control panel. It's well coded with the same GUI for every distro and a backend that does the right thing based on system config.
#2 needs solved fast. apt-get/synaptic 'do it' but have major flaws, in that it is centralized, and therefore resources are lacking (you will have some things that are 2/3 major revisions behind because noone has packaged them for the apt-get repo you have). Plus it's no good for commercial software, which like it or not is not going to vanish. Games for example will never really be able to be developed in FOSS.
#3, agreed. KDE is in a real mess at the moment. It all fell apart somewhere after KDE2. I personally would standardize on GNOME because that's where the corporate world is going to, and therefore all the corp development $$$ will be spent on it.
I agree 110%. Linspire is just like a budget version of Apple.
GNOME, IMO at least looks fairly excellent. Sure, it has rough edges, but generally it's very consistent and has a nice HIG that developers follow because the development tools enforce them.
Compare that with the mess that is KDE, using SVG icons for no real reason which look great when you have them wallpaper size but crap when you actually use them (@ 16x16 or 32x32, for example, as they just don't scale properly).
Yes, but god knows how much power those inefficent CRTs and power supplies they will be use are wasting.
I got a really nice Sony 32" Flat CRT in 1998, and it's still great now. Not one problem with it.
I'm also typing this on a 5 year old Athlon 800 w/ 384MB RAM and a GeForce2. I have a games machine which obviously I update a lot more, but this thing is great with Ubuntu on it and a copy of Glade, Firefox, Thunderbird and GEdit:).
Exeem is great. I thought it sucked, but as there is lots and lots of users online now (the indicator inside the program is just the ones you know about - which is capped to around 25,000), it's just fantastic.
Great download speeds, accurate searches and plenty of files.
If you don't like the ads, you can always use exlite.
Demonstrate that you can leverage more synergy out of international business team co-ordination and that you can aggregate e-service benefits with your B2B clients. Expose the incredible ROI that such a C2C product offers.
That idea was banded around a bit, but if it had gone ahead it would of been a horrible bueacratic mess -- this is a time when it took upto 3 months to get a simple bog standard phone line installed -- how do you think BT would of compete with incredibly expensive equipment - fiber was just starting to become viable for data transfer then. God knows how they would of done anything useful with it.
Yes, but Sweden's government paid for most of the installation of a fibre network. If you get taxed 60% of course you are going to get cheap broadband.
Some countries prefer a free and open market, however.
Most 'great' OS projects start out really, really small. For example, PHP, mySQL and Linux all started out as just a hobby - noone really had intentions of making money out of them. So they release the code, go through a few releases before it becomes apparent that it's a good project. By this time the code has got quite a few contributors and it's rather large.
Now it becomes obvious that the original person who started this would like to close it up and charge for it. But the GPL doesn't allow this, as all the existing code is still in the public domain and as such people can fork it. This means they have to compete against someone else that is not going to be charging for it.
Slashdot Mirror
Google is not a 'relatively small corp'. It is worth more than both Ford and GM.
I think people do forget that Google is not a little project from two students. It's a huge business. I think it says a lot about our culture and society that Google, essentially nothing more than an advanced information filter, is worth more than the manufacturers of the thing that changed transportation and human contact forever. It just really does show how much information is worth these days.
Yea, but can those cars only drive on 5% of the roads in the land?
Car vs computer is a terrible analogy. Please stop it.
It comes from mainly coal and natural gas.
Coal is dirty but we have hundreds of years left of the stuff.
Unlike Oil, which is going to peak in at most 5 years. We are seeing the impact today, Oil hitting new heights of $56.40/barrel and OPEC really struggling to get any more out of the ground. Saudi Arabia is frankly, fucked, as they are at nearly 100% pumping capacity and pumping anymore is going to risk blowing out the equipment.
I just can't understand why 'peak oil' isn't getting any more coverage. It's by far the number 1 issue which threatens national security and economic growth.
Very specific techniques which is vital to the development of OSS in the print/media industry. Without it, the fonts look crappy and they are also not metrically compatible, which means that documents can't be imported properly -- if you imagine that you have a publishing document which is laid out with pixel precision, a couple of 1px or 0.5px font hinting problems would cause it to completely break.
The fact that Apple has the patent is irrelevant. That's not going to change for a good few years.
However, when Apple has got so much from the OSS community -- Safari, a hell of a lot of BSD stuff, Apache, Samba, postfix and a heck of other servers, is it so much to ask that Apple could offer some vital patents free, as long as it is a GPL (or other OS viral license)'ed project?
The fact that Apple doesn't do this is just obvious -- they want everything they can from OSS while holding it up. Desktop Linux is overtaking them on market share, and this is bad, bad news for them. They are going to take as much from OSS and put back as little as possible, patenting it also I assume.
Yes, but this autohinting method simply isn't as good as the real method that the TrueType font contains.
I recently moved from Ubuntu (which doesn't have the proper font hinting enabled) to Novell Linux Desktop, which does. The difference is staggering. I can actually read large amounts of text without feeling irritated by the quality of the font being rendered.
An easy way to tell if you have 'good' font hinting is to select a small font and type a big passage of text. Often when you will have auto hinting on you will get horrible artefacts which means the letters start to 'randomly' merge into the next. This makes it truly unreadable after a while.
Have a look at http://freetype.sourceforge.net/patents.html/...
Not to mention that Apple has absolutely tarnished the chance of decent, out of the box, _free_ font anti-aliasing on Linux/any alternative OS. They hold the patent for TrueType font hinting, which is absolutely needed for good looking fonts.
Sadly, you will get Apple apolgists that think Apple is more than a company that 'plunders' OSS so they can shortcut some of their other commercial competitors.
Second try, with a quote marks and a point to my comment :).
Ok, I can see your point for music. But what about for games or movies?
I've read many people write this before:
"I really feel bad for saying this, but ever since I've had broadband internet, I haven't bought a single game. I have saved at least a thousand dollars doing this, as in the period before this I purchased a lot of games. I feel really bad about this, and I often think 'hey, you know what I should do... buy xyz game which is good'. However, when it comes down to it, I have the choice of getting some new hardware or paying some bill or giving money for a game which I have already paid. Sadly, every single time the hardware or bill comes first.
Same with movies.
The other thing which is really putting me off buying a game or movie is that I get _more_ restrictions with the purchased item than I do downloading. I'd probably have to go through the same 'hassle' with a real game or movie that I do with ones I download (with the big exception that I don't have to leave the house to download)."
How on earth do you think the **AA react to this? Do they just sit down and think 'gee, oh well, let's let them off with this'?
No. They have an obligation to have people to pay for their product. The internet has made it vastly easier for people to pirate, and while I don't agree with a lot of the action the **AA takes, you have to realise it _is_ sales lost. If you would of bought a game if you couldn't download it (even if it was for 'trial' purposes) then that is $$$ lost, even if you were an unhappy customer...
Ok, I can see your point for music. But what about for games or movies?
I really feel bad for saying this, but ever since I've had broadband internet, I haven't bought a single game. I have saved at least a thousand dollars doing this, as in the period before this I purchased a lot of games. I feel really bad about this, and I often think 'hey, you know what I should do... buy xyz game which is good'. However, when it comes down to it, I have the choice of getting some new hardware or paying some bill or giving money for a game which I have already paid. Sadly, every single time the hardware or bill comes first.
Same with movies.
The other thing which is really putting me off buying a game or movie is that I get _more_ restrictions with the purchased item than I do downloading. I'd probably have to go through the same 'hassle' with a real game or movie that I do with ones I download (with the big exception that I don't have to leave the house to download).
Well prove to me that it's not.
The only GUI software I have seen ported somewhat successfully from Linux is AbiWord. And the maintainer gave up with that, and I believe it's in a state of limbo now. I suppose you have Firefox too but that's not really a Linux app.
I really don't see why Apple don't port GTK to OSX, give it a nice default Aqua theme and finally give those that have to have Linux, Windows and Mac compatibility some option other than running GTK in X..
The trouble is that porting GUI software to OSX is very hard. This is due to Apple/anyone not caring about porting GTK to OSX, to run outside of X. Why Apple doesn't fix this is beyond me, as they could enjoy a wealth of nearly native software. It would also finally give some sort of cross platform GUI development platform that the Mac can be part of.
I think OSX is getting very marginilised, which is a real shame since it's a very nice OS. When Linux supports my _printer_ and I can set it up in 1 minute using the GNOME printer configurationg tools, but I can't do it whatsoever on a much more expensive Mac, I think there is a problem.
This is only going to happen more often as Linux starts to become the de-facto OS for 'simple' tasks - a hell of a lot of businesses only need an OS which can run a web browser (Firefox), do email and print, thanks to the huge amount of web-based applications which are coming on board. I still think it's got a way to go before businesses will completely migrate to it (even though Novell Linux Desktop makes it so much easier than any other distro I have used), but I think we'll certainly see more and more hardware/software being supported first on Linux, then Mac, if at all.
XML is totally overhyped, which sadly makes people think it is a lot more complex than it is.
Think of it more like CSV than mySQL. It's just a format for representing structured data. It also happens to be that it's quite easily read by humans.
Yes, you can do incredibly advanced things with XML, but there is nothing you can do in XML compared to your own propietary data storing language.
The reason people use XML instead of writing their own data storing format is simple:- there is a lot of tools for parsing it, which you'd have to write yourself if you had your own format.
As for the javascript and XML example, it's impressive, but it's far more javascript than XML.
I have 1,000 VCRs taping one show. Can I then give the copies to 1000 people?
Yes, I know that, but try scaling the Firefox icon (which is a huge vector file) to 16x16. You will notice it's all smudgy and impossible to take details out of it.
You'll find you have to have one icon in SVG for 64x64 and bigger, but bitmap ones for 16x16, 32x32 and 48x48 pixels, because they need to be made specifically with little detail for them to be 'readable'.
For #1 there is gnome-system-tools, which quite a few distros use now, and it's usage is gaining. This means that we will finally have a decent control panel. It's well coded with the same GUI for every distro and a backend that does the right thing based on system config.
#2 needs solved fast. apt-get/synaptic 'do it' but have major flaws, in that it is centralized, and therefore resources are lacking (you will have some things that are 2/3 major revisions behind because noone has packaged them for the apt-get repo you have). Plus it's no good for commercial software, which like it or not is not going to vanish. Games for example will never really be able to be developed in FOSS.
#3, agreed. KDE is in a real mess at the moment. It all fell apart somewhere after KDE2. I personally would standardize on GNOME because that's where the corporate world is going to, and therefore all the corp development $$$ will be spent on it.
I agree 110%. Linspire is just like a budget version of Apple.
GNOME, IMO at least looks fairly excellent. Sure, it has rough edges, but generally it's very consistent and has a nice HIG that developers follow because the development tools enforce them.
Compare that with the mess that is KDE, using SVG icons for no real reason which look great when you have them wallpaper size but crap when you actually use them (@ 16x16 or 32x32, for example, as they just don't scale properly).
They will be using an internal network to deliver the broadcasts (10.x.x.x or 192.168.x.x or your favourite internal IP range).
:).
This will not be public, so they will have no reason to run out of IP addresses. Hell, they could use IPv6 if they wanted
Yes, but god knows how much power those inefficent CRTs and power supplies they will be use are wasting.
:).
I got a really nice Sony 32" Flat CRT in 1998, and it's still great now. Not one problem with it.
I'm also typing this on a 5 year old Athlon 800 w/ 384MB RAM and a GeForce2. I have a games machine which obviously I update a lot more, but this thing is great with Ubuntu on it and a copy of Glade, Firefox, Thunderbird and GEdit
Exeem is great. I thought it sucked, but as there is lots and lots of users online now (the indicator inside the program is just the ones you know about - which is capped to around 25,000), it's just fantastic.
Great download speeds, accurate searches and plenty of files.
If you don't like the ads, you can always use exlite.
They would of been compromised anyway.
Demonstrate that you can leverage more synergy out of international business team co-ordination and that you can aggregate e-service benefits with your B2B clients. Expose the incredible ROI that such a C2C product offers.
That was before BT got privatised in 1985.
That idea was banded around a bit, but if it had gone ahead it would of been a horrible bueacratic mess -- this is a time when it took upto 3 months to get a simple bog standard phone line installed -- how do you think BT would of compete with incredibly expensive equipment - fiber was just starting to become viable for data transfer then. God knows how they would of done anything useful with it.
Yes, but Sweden's government paid for most of the installation of a fibre network. If you get taxed 60% of course you are going to get cheap broadband.
Some countries prefer a free and open market, however.
UK Online is the residential division of Easynet.
That would make sense, but...
Most 'great' OS projects start out really, really small. For example, PHP, mySQL and Linux all started out as just a hobby - noone really had intentions of making money out of them. So they release the code, go through a few releases before it becomes apparent that it's a good project. By this time the code has got quite a few contributors and it's rather large.
Now it becomes obvious that the original person who started this would like to close it up and charge for it. But the GPL doesn't allow this, as all the existing code is still in the public domain and as such people can fork it. This means they have to compete against someone else that is not going to be charging for it.