You guys can't even imagine how this IS important for wilde scale low-end computers out there. Binary drivers from VIA have been always crap, and let's hope in the right hands they will make Linux desktop expierence for lot of people much much better.
Personally I would like to see humanity already some 20 years from now capable to restore ozone layer, for our own sake - because we do a little damage here and there and we should take care about that. Of coarse, it is a long way to go, but I guess it isn't something what our sience and humanity can't deal with.
See, I guess mostly fear from change are not because changes are bad. Changes are usually good - those who doesn't kill us, make us stronger, and we learn a bunch of new stuff even if things don't work out as we hoped for.
Problem is in inrationality, emotionality hidden by... rationality. If everything is done in colobrative way (like open source), I would believe that process. And such change in state of mind of the human is started - but it comes slowly. People don't trust each other, people don't trust other nation, people better hang on on the stupid believes which leads them nowhere than risk with trusting to others.
Because if someone fails them, they hearts are broken, they don't want to trust anyone. They better off with single-minded, narrow-wided point of view, because it allows them to live peacefully.
For example, someone says coorporations are out here for money. NOT exactly. I guess they are out there for satisfy their greed to money and power. Why? Because companies are usually headed by someone for whom money and power is everything in his life. Must be a very misguided soul, if you ask me. And that is what I FEAR most. I fear human being who claims to have reasonable interests, yet, it he is laying to himself to make himself happy.
And you actually buy it, don't matter that Slashdot article is TOTALLY misleading? Actually check out all the facts about what someone has said. It is quite different.
Guess what - he doesn't manage those people and don't care about their political/ethical opinions as long as it doesn't interfere with him.
About what you whinning about... It is more difficult case than trashing kernel devs who reasonably hate closed source drivers, or company who can't release card specs due of NDA. Problem here is that is dilemma - if you put everything on card and driver do only control stuff, you get very very fast, very open source friendly card, BUT price of manufacturing it rockets sky-high then.
Is it possible to produce such card, but figuring out how to do it properly for open source? Yes, it is. BUT it is a problem - while open source and Linux isn't significant market, no coorporation will do that. Not because it won't make them money - but simply because they don't care about such small income - even if it is surplus.
And yes, binary only drivers are evil. Why? Because if you want them to work, you must have something like Apple boxes - where everything is locked down - then they maybe will work almost flawlessly. But in PC world - forget it. Even on Windows those drivers are usually messed up and buggy and are cause infameous Blue Screen of Death [tm].
And, in fact, industry slowly crawls forward standards and openess - as Windows-only devices (which usually means that almost half of device functionality is in driver) proves to be bigger nightmare for support services.
No, I know Windows security rather well - as full time sysadmin recently - and I can say that NT security is good only in theory - in practice it was always who fucked things up. So I better wote for simple thing which works than big monster of permisions what is NTFS.
It is really different now, because for example Ubuntu just puts permissions like cdrom:cdrom on/dev/cdrom. So when user is added, it is added to cdrom group too. Heck, I even don't have to care about mounting USB as Gnome Volume Manager (in coorporation with DBUS/HAL) does it for me.
I guess you are taking such guys too much to your heart. There will be always some tech freak that will claim you a looser and won't help you. Simply ignore him.
And no, he really doesn't present a majority of *nix users. Most of these people have succeeded only because they are open minded, that they can comunicate with others without insult, etc. Such guys like this is usually actracted by *nix system "elitism", so they can claim you a looser, that you don't know nothing, etc. Usually such people are very unsuccessful in their personal life and want to get this anger out somehow.
Of coarse, I'm litle bit sad that such people are making you asume that *nix nerds are all like that. But in mine former sysadmin's work such attitude actually I have seen so many times, even if we are talking about turnin on the computer, so I guess it is not very directly connected with Linux comunity culture, but with computer geek culture overall.
Don't agree with you. This coordination is taking place, named freedesktop.org, and have been extremely successful, so far, because both big desktop projects - GNOME and KDE - "buys" it and small ones simply follow that trend. Lot of freedesktop.org standards are already here, lot of distributions follow them, so I guess it is very good way of coordinate things.
OSDL, afaik, also has some kind of sub-comitee which will deal with desktop things. Lot of good desktop hackers and companies are already there.
For many distributions thing - well, if people see the reason to do that (and I guess that reason is somehow valid, because otherwise nothing could be done, because...well, people are extremely lazy these days:)), then they should do that. I will stick with Debian and Gentoo and will translate GNOME gui, documentation, etc. - and lot of people on other distros will have that.
I see distributions like big big experimental laboratory, where lot of students trying to make something useful. They share ideas, formulas, etc. And in the end, when someone succeeds, everyone gains something from that.
Hmmm, it is kinda difference between Media Center and standard workstation like MacMini or iMac, who sopposted to be stable and be able to manipulate with lot of media, including DVD foward/backward, which in fast version simply requires some kind of caching in memory. So it could be real - at least your argument can be overthrown very easily.
Yeah, I agree, such kind of system under Linux/Unix sistems (under freedesktop.org spec, for example) would be great. Actually it could be such directory with bunch directories, which actually would have bunch of.desktop files and some spec files - where the real files go, for example, so it could stay with touch with old/usr/bin system.
Yeah, it is quite up to smart geek humor, but it can touch the irony strings in every boss I know too. Good to see that Novell doesn't have to be learnt how to make some funny PR stunts.
While I agree that copyright holders are just plainly humiliating their customers, you actually never own their song - it is still belongs to them, you have some kind of limited rights given to you. Is their rights to charge how much they want, set any kind of restrictions what they want, etc.
When you buy a cd or dvd, you own only: * a plastic box, and a plastic disc * you don't OWN all rights on the content on that disc, only those rights copyright holder grants to you.
Yet, all these RIAA, MPAA actions are kinda stupid, because it is actually won't help them in sales. Anyway, I would you better off with small labels, indie music and cinema, which gets more and more attention.
Microsoft strategy WAS consistent when they pushed for software patents in the first place - because they thought benefits will be more than loses. They were simply wrong - as many greed-driven iniciatives in the world today.
I don't agree with your arguments that defensive patenting is effective in that way you described. Patents are very rarely checked for dublicates so it is common that many patents overlaps with each other in as many ways as they can. I compare this all patenting absurd more like creating modern warefare, for example, nukes. If I will have a big, nice, shiny nuke who can turn your capital into ashes in matter of seconds, you won't try to threat me with your nukes too. So we will be equal.
About those guys who won't have any kind of this nukes? Naah, they don't count.
Yeah, I know, in such situation there is no much for free market, is it?
This double-faced strategy is getting a little bit tired. Come on, Microsoft, you think world are gonna along with this? five more years? ten? That's a living in the monopolist wet dream's fantasy - when all this stuff will seriously halt any kind of development in IT, it will be changed, no matter what Microsoft would like to see that.
Ok, I admit, I'm little bit naive, but hey...
p.s. I know that they are already a legit industry, who earns in such predatoric way about 300-400 bilions a year. I know all that bullshit. And I wonder - how long it is before everyone will think - hey, let's not do a real job, let extract money from someone else - and no real job will be done.
As big companies and patent lobbies ar just lost their logical sanity and clear mind over imaginary profit and possibilities of use of this 'intelectual nuclear weapon', there is someone who will bring back some shred of reality to them. And when everything will be broken in this system which we somehow still call 'democracy', I hope everyone will get idea how BAD is to allow *only* money run the show, err, world.
But in fact, it IS getting out of hand. Either patent advocats ar totally blinded by their greed and need of power, or somehow cursed. Logical thinking and common sense doesn't apply here.
I guess from my point of view it is PERFECTLY sane request. I guess Red Hat is here for money, and I wish them well. So...it is no much "stuff that matters".
Slashdot Mirror
You guys can't even imagine how this IS important for wilde scale low-end computers out there. Binary drivers from VIA have been always crap, and let's hope in the right hands they will make Linux desktop expierence for lot of people much much better.
:)
p.s. Yeah, it is God with big G. Don't ask me
Personally I would like to see humanity already some 20 years from now capable to restore ozone layer, for our own sake - because we do a little damage here and there and we should take care about that. Of coarse, it is a long way to go, but I guess it isn't something what our sience and humanity can't deal with.
See, I guess mostly fear from change are not because changes are bad. Changes are usually good - those who doesn't kill us, make us stronger, and we learn a bunch of new stuff even if things don't work out as we hoped for.
Problem is in inrationality, emotionality hidden by... rationality. If everything is done in colobrative way (like open source), I would believe that process. And such change in state of mind of the human is started - but it comes slowly. People don't trust each other, people don't trust other nation, people better hang on on the stupid believes which leads them nowhere than risk with trusting to others.
Because if someone fails them, they hearts are broken, they don't want to trust anyone. They better off with single-minded, narrow-wided point of view, because it allows them to live peacefully.
For example, someone says coorporations are out here for money. NOT exactly. I guess they are out there for satisfy their greed to money and power. Why? Because companies are usually headed by someone for whom money and power is everything in his life. Must be a very misguided soul, if you ask me. And that is what I FEAR most. I fear human being who claims to have reasonable interests, yet, it he is laying to himself to make himself happy.
Went a little offtopic, but nevermind...
And you actually buy it, don't matter that Slashdot article is TOTALLY misleading? Actually check out all the facts about what someone has said. It is quite different.
Guess what - he doesn't manage those people and don't care about their political/ethical opinions as long as it doesn't interfere with him.
About what you whinning about... It is more difficult case than trashing kernel devs who reasonably hate closed source drivers, or company who can't release card specs due of NDA. Problem here is that is dilemma - if you put everything on card and driver do only control stuff, you get very very fast, very open source friendly card, BUT price of manufacturing it rockets sky-high then.
Is it possible to produce such card, but figuring out how to do it properly for open source? Yes, it is. BUT it is a problem - while open source and Linux isn't significant market, no coorporation will do that. Not because it won't make them money - but simply because they don't care about such small income - even if it is surplus.
And yes, binary only drivers are evil. Why? Because if you want them to work, you must have something like Apple boxes - where everything is locked down - then they maybe will work almost flawlessly. But in PC world - forget it. Even on Windows those drivers are usually messed up and buggy and are cause infameous Blue Screen of Death [tm].
And, in fact, industry slowly crawls forward standards and openess - as Windows-only devices (which usually means that almost half of device functionality is in driver) proves to be bigger nightmare for support services.
No, I know Windows security rather well - as full time sysadmin recently - and I can say that NT security is good only in theory - in practice it was always who fucked things up. So I better wote for simple thing which works than big monster of permisions what is NTFS.
It is really different now, because for example Ubuntu just puts permissions like cdrom:cdrom on /dev/cdrom. So when user is added, it is added to cdrom group too. Heck, I even don't have to care about mounting USB as Gnome Volume Manager (in coorporation with DBUS/HAL) does it for me.
Things are really changed, and very rapidly.
Read here
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/4/6/121
I guess you are taking such guys too much to your heart. There will be always some tech freak that will claim you a looser and won't help you. Simply ignore him.
And no, he really doesn't present a majority of *nix users. Most of these people have succeeded only because they are open minded, that they can comunicate with others without insult, etc. Such guys like this is usually actracted by *nix system "elitism", so they can claim you a looser, that you don't know nothing, etc. Usually such people are very unsuccessful in their personal life and want to get this anger out somehow.
Of coarse, I'm litle bit sad that such people are making you asume that *nix nerds are all like that. But in mine former sysadmin's work such attitude actually I have seen so many times, even if we are talking about turnin on the computer, so I guess it is not very directly connected with Linux comunity culture, but with computer geek culture overall.
Why do you think we don't have that?
SDL - http://www.libsdl.org/index.php
OpenAL - http://www.openal.org/
OpenGL - http://www.opengl.org/
These are - specially SDL - very matured things and lot of games are coded in them.
Don't agree with you. This coordination is taking place, named freedesktop.org, and have been extremely successful, so far, because both big desktop projects - GNOME and KDE - "buys" it and small ones simply follow that trend. Lot of freedesktop.org standards are already here, lot of distributions follow them, so I guess it is very good way of coordinate things.
:)), then they should do that. I will stick with Debian and Gentoo and will translate GNOME gui, documentation, etc. - and lot of people on other distros will have that.
OSDL, afaik, also has some kind of sub-comitee which will deal with desktop things. Lot of good desktop hackers and companies are already there.
For many distributions thing - well, if people see the reason to do that (and I guess that reason is somehow valid, because otherwise nothing could be done, because...well, people are extremely lazy these days
I see distributions like big big experimental laboratory, where lot of students trying to make something useful. They share ideas, formulas, etc.
And in the end, when someone succeeds, everyone gains something from that.
That is open source, babe. [tm]
Doesn't matter that actually you can buy many kind of 'air' gases - oxygen and carbon dioxide included, helium too - in many places of the world :)
:)
Free air is what outside is, go and breathe it while it is... here
Hmmm, it is kinda difference between Media Center and standard workstation like MacMini or iMac, who sopposted to be stable and be able to manipulate with lot of media, including DVD foward/backward, which in fast version simply requires some kind of caching in memory. So it could be real - at least your argument can be overthrown very easily.
Yeah, but maybe when you will own 90% of world houses, it could be quite different. :)
Microsoft has *abused* their monopoly status. So everything they do is taken very seriously as trying to do it again. And again. And again.
Yet, Microsoft is getting really boring - they never surprise me. Actually, they are getting predictable.
Good to hear that some real Windows sysadmin has tried Linux distro like NLD and found it working for him. Wish you luck in Linux world. :)
Yeah, I agree, such kind of system under Linux/Unix sistems (under freedesktop.org spec, for example) would be great. Actually it could be such directory with bunch directories, which actually would have bunch of .desktop files and some spec files - where the real files go, for example, so it could stay with touch with old /usr/bin system.
I think it could be done.
Yeah, it is quite up to smart geek humor, but it can touch the irony strings in every boss I know too. Good to see that Novell doesn't have to be learnt how to make some funny PR stunts.
Not quite.
While I agree that copyright holders are just plainly humiliating their customers, you actually never own their song - it is still belongs to them, you have some kind of limited rights given to you. Is their rights to charge how much they want, set any kind of restrictions what they want, etc.
When you buy a cd or dvd, you own only:
* a plastic box, and a plastic disc
* you don't OWN all rights on the content on that disc, only those rights copyright holder grants to you.
Yet, all these RIAA, MPAA actions are kinda stupid, because it is actually won't help them in sales. Anyway, I would you better off with small labels, indie music and cinema, which gets more and more attention.
Microsoft strategy WAS consistent when they pushed for software patents in the first place - because they thought benefits will be more than loses. They were simply wrong - as many greed-driven iniciatives in the world today.
I don't agree with your arguments that defensive patenting is effective in that way you described. Patents are very rarely checked for dublicates so it is common that many patents overlaps with each other in as many ways as they can. I compare this all patenting absurd more like creating modern warefare, for example, nukes. If I will have a big, nice, shiny nuke who can turn your capital into ashes in matter of seconds, you won't try to threat me with your nukes too. So we will be equal.
About those guys who won't have any kind of this nukes? Naah, they don't count.
Yeah, I know, in such situation there is no much for free market, is it?
This double-faced strategy is getting a little bit tired. Come on, Microsoft, you think world are gonna along with this? five more years? ten? That's a living in the monopolist wet dream's fantasy - when all this stuff will seriously halt any kind of development in IT, it will be changed, no matter what Microsoft would like to see that.
Ok, I admit, I'm little bit naive, but hey...
p.s. I know that they are already a legit industry, who earns in such predatoric way about 300-400 bilions a year. I know all that bullshit. And I wonder - how long it is before everyone will think - hey, let's not do a real job, let extract money from someone else - and no real job will be done.
As big companies and patent lobbies ar just lost their logical sanity and clear mind over imaginary profit and possibilities of use of this 'intelectual nuclear weapon', there is someone who will bring back some shred of reality to them. And when everything will be broken in this system which we somehow still call 'democracy', I hope everyone will get idea how BAD is to allow *only* money run the show, err, world.
But in fact, it IS getting out of hand. Either patent advocats ar totally blinded by their greed and need of power, or somehow cursed. Logical thinking and common sense doesn't apply here.
Ohhh, boy, all the time I open slashdot.org these days I have strange deja vu feeling. It is glich of the Matrix or just a bad day for editors?
I guess from my point of view it is PERFECTLY sane request. I guess Red Hat is here for money, and I wish them well.
So...it is no much "stuff that matters".
Wholy shit, this is 100% me :)
Now I see where lies my problem.