Nah. I think the Mavica sucks, and instead bought a Kodak DC290 for around $740 (and I'm grateful that the price hasn't dropped drastically since I made the purchase). Think of this:
Most people who are on Slashdot are computer people (i.e., their profession involves computers in one way or the other).
Most computer professionals are equiped with a laptop by their employer.
CompactFlash can be put in an adapter that fits in a standard PCMCIA slot.
Most computer professionals take their laptop on vacation with them.
If you have your laptop and the PCMCIA adapter (which comes with the Kodak camera) there's no need to puchase more digital film when you run out. Simply hook it up to your laptop and save the pictures you want on your hard drive.
If your laptop is short on space, it's relatively easy to backup large applications that you WON'T need on vacation to your Linux server at home before you head out, and restore them when you get back.
This is untrue. Obviously you didn't read the installation instructions. You have to give the install some funky switch, like/net or something. I hope this is the wrong switch and you are forced to read the installation instructions. When installed this way, you have to "install" it for each user, which used to use about 2MB of "personal" settings and data (and created the directory structure under your home directory).
If what you say is true, and I don't know whether it is or not, then it speaks to the stability of Solaris more than StarOffice. Let's use the same standard here. No application program should be able to "crash the OS to the point of where you couldn't pin git and had to power cycle." If that's the case, which I doubt unless it was installed incorrectly, then it's a major problem with Solaris. Yes, StarOffice may have problems also, but I'd rank the issues with Solaris as more critical
What version of Solaris was this? Was this with all recommended patches installed?
There are other large database companies or offerings that are comparable to Oracle (think DB2 for gosh sakes). Oracle does not have a monopoly on databases. Microsoft does have a monopoly on consumer desktop Intel OSes. That has already been ruled. No matter what happens from here, that fact probably can't be successfully argued.
About Novell are you talking now or then? If you are talking about the past then you may have had a case. But, the industry was not as wide-spread as it is now. Now, networks are ubiquitous. If you are talking about now, Novell certainly does not have a monopoly on network operating systems. I think it would be a streatch to say that Microsoft does, yet, but I think this is their clear goal. The merging of their consumer desktop OS code with their server OS code is a clue as to how they want to extend their desktop consumer OS monopoly into the server area. Isn't the EU looking into this?
But, traditionally, Windows has been marketed as an OS that didn't need a "nerd" to run. You could pull any Joe off the street that was halfway computer literate and they would be able to use the simple point and click administrative tools of the OS to be able to flawlessly configure and maintain your enterprise systems. Think of the salary and benefits savings! You don't have to pay someone buku bucks just to install, configure, and maintain your enterprise systems! You can hire a MCSE, which are in plenty of supply and relatively "cheap" (compare them to CCIE's).
No, unless Microsoft has drastically changed their marketing hype for Windows NT/2000 then I don't think it qualifies as nerd news worthy. If they have changed thier hype, then get rid of the friggin GUI as a REQUIREMENT! Yes, a GUI is nice to have, even on Linux servers, but they should generally not be run in a production server environment.
Me thinks you in denial! Accept what Microsoft is telling you! Windows NT/2000 is not nerd news worthy, because you don't need a nerd to use or understand it! It's a simple OS for simple people;-)
Your nit picking now because he picked some non-standard programs. But, I bet you could find the following programs on any "unix" system unless it was severely stripped down:
1) vi 2) man 3) cp 4) rm 5) mv 6) ls 7) man 8) grep 9) find 10) ping 11) netstat 12) ifconfig 13) awk 14) sed
If you don't have them on your linux system then I feel for you...
There are certain OS level interfaces that are not directly mappable onto NT syscalls. This would make it impossible to provide an interface "exactly" like Linux on NT without having some sort of emulation layer. Could you compile a device driver and load it as a loadable module on the NT box that emulates Linux? Probably not without something like VMWare or WINE or a Frankensteinian combination of the two.
Yes, they could do it, but it would be more like Bochs, with all the inherent performance loss. And you thought NT was a slow memory and CPU hog now!
It's my understanding that there ARE repeaters in the trans-oceanic runs. I believe they have ships that regularly pull up the cable and replace the batteries in the repeaters. They also have problems with sharks attacking the repeaters because they have a slight electro-magnetic field that sharks can detect.
I think I figured it out. Brett Glass IS Bob Metcalfe. And, Bill Gates has taken over the mind of Bob Metcalfe, and hence Brett Glass, to be his spokesperson against Open Source. It's the only thing that makes sense!
Me thinks you are right, but I believe that is a good thing. Seems there are at least two diametrically opposed theories on how software should be treated. "Old school" software developers (i.e., Microsoft, not the "original" software developers before Microsoft) believe in very strong copyright protection and don't believe in code-sharing. "New school" software developers (i.e., RedHat, VA Linux, etc) do believe in code-sharing and believe in strong copyright protection, but for a completely different reason. To expect "new school" software developers to support "old school" developers by allowing them to take code they developed and use it in closed software is not realistic. So, the GPL and licenses like it "protect" the investment that new school companies are contributing to the community from being used by old school companies to put them out of business.
Makes perfect sense to me, and I honestly can't understand some peoples complaint that you can't use GPL'd software in proprietary projects. It's like they expect to get all of the benefits of open source or free software for no equal investment. No, let me correct that, it's clear that they do want to reap the benefits of open source or free software without any investment on their part. IMO, that's unethical and borders on immoral.
It is (the use of GPL software in proprietary systems) very similar in many respects to stealing someone else's property. With open source/Free software protected by the GPL it forces people to not steal software and make an equal exchange by forcing them to contribute any changes or enhancements back to the community. Now, the GPL doesn't force or protect against end-users from sharing code, but selling software is not the source of income for new school companies, services are. So, someone could take the RedHat distribution and copy it and sell it, but who cares? Are they going to be able to support you as well as RedHat who made the distribution? Probably not. I don't know why anyone would want to purchase support and services from a company that simply copied RedHat's software without making any enhancements instead of going to RedHat themselves. So, they (the people who simply copy and sell the RedHat software) are not really taking any income away from RedHat. If the company does take RedHat software and enhance it, there may well be a good reason for people to purchase that software instead of the stock RedHat software, but they are forced to give back to the community (RedHat) any enhancements. So, this is in effect the payment to RedHat and makes this not stealing. RedHat is free to use the enhanced software in it's next revision and entice customers back to it's camp. RedHat is, in effect, getting free R&D for it's product that is paid for by one of it's competitors!
But, to expect RedHat to write software and allow Microsoft or some other old school company to use it and NOT release any enhancements is a totally unbalanced transaction. While Open Source/Free software may not be totally balanced, it is on the opposite end of the arguement that you are trying to make (no, you didn't explicitly state this, but from your post you seem to be arguing against the opposite view. Since I can't think of any other reason I have to assume this is what you believe. If I'm wrong, reply and let us know why you think the GPL is so bad).
The more I thought about it the more I find myself agreeing. See my later post which describes my latest thoughts (as of 13:49 EST5EDT). In short I now belive the software should be Free for consumer use when product is actually shiped in consumer available form. It should also be available to businesses that wish to offer competitive code morphing software engines that run on Transmeta CPUs. However, I think that it should not be available to business competitors to be used in designing competitive CPU designs because of the patents on the CPU. I also note that I don't believe in software patents and that they should be limited to 3-5 years for the computer industry.
That's one of the great things about Slashdot, you get other peoples opinions and feedback quickly that helps shape your own opinion for better or worse...
Um, actually the same thing can be said about software. The cost of most proprietary software packages is *not* the cost to reproduce, but to pay for the software engineering and software invention--that is, so that the software programmers can be compensated for their work. </i>
I think you miss the point in that the cost of getting involved in software producting is effectively nil, whereas the cost of getting involved in hardware production is enormous. I can't download the hardware specs for a chip, tweak it to MY liking on my home computer, and burn a new chip. While there are circuit and CPU emulators that help work with chip design that's pretty useless to the end-user/programmer.
The "value add" in free software is that the modifications are actually useful and useable to the contributor (usually, unless paid by a company like RedHat in which case the changes may not be personally useful but probably are anyway). There is no such value add in tweaking a CPU design. Since I can't manufacture a new CPU in my back yard, I'd be reliant on Intel, IBM, Motorola, or someone else with a chip fab to produce chips for me. I have the feeling that the cost of producing 5-10 chips for testing on a regular basis would quickly if not initially be out of my personal "hacking" budget.
So you see, hardware and software are COMPLETELY different from the perspective of the kid in college or the computer professional who likes to dab in a bit of programming while at home, even if that isn't his or her primary job.
With that said, the Transmeta chips and their code-morphing is a little different because it's a combination of the two technologies. I think I would be arguing a little more forcefully for releasing the morphing code if I happened to have purchased a laptop or desktop system with a Transmeta chip in it. I'd be a little miffed that I couldn't tweak the system to my own liking, something that I apparently would be able to do without any additional investment past the inital system purchase. So, I don't see anything wrong with Transmetta keeping everything secret now, until they have their production up and systems with the chip in it are actually available to consumers. But, once it is available to consumers I would hope that they release the code-morphing software to consumers.
Now, if they do that they would most likely be required from a business perspective to restrict it's use to consumers and disallow other manufacturers from using their code or patents in competing systems. I don't see anything wrong with that on face value. Should they allow competing businesses to come up with other alternative code morphing software for their chips based on the Transmeta release code? I would think the answer would be a resounding YES. Should they allow other CHIP manufacturers to use their code morphing source to reverse engineer the HARDWARE and come out with competing CHIPs that use the same code morphing software? I would think the answer would be NO here, because they apparently own hardware patents for designs used in their CHIPs. Once those patents expire then I would think it would be fair game. As I noted in previous posts, I belive patents in the computer industry should be hardware based ONLY and last ONLY a maximum of 5 years, with typical length between 3 and 5 years...
I know this and never said otherwise. My point was that I didn't think hardware should be free, as in speach, until after a manufacturing company has the chance to recoup their cost of building the plant, etc. I think the current system of protecting for 17 years is way out of wack for high technology. A timeframe of more like 3-5 years, the same timeframe businesses account for the cost of high technology devices such as PC's and workstations, is more applicable.
I think what he doesn't get is one of RMS' concepts which I believe is that software should be free because of the zero cost of duplication or manufacturing. Hardware is in a different "realm" when it comes to manufacturing. Chip companies have to pay billions of dollars to make a chip plant capable of producing the latest chips. Even though Transmeta may not be making the chips themselves, and PAY IBM to make them in their chip plants, they still have to PAY to have them made.
I can't speak for RMS on whether the Transmeta morphing code should be free or not, but it seems to me that it is in a different category because it is "tied" directly to hardware, which should not be free (due to the cost of manufacturing). AND the "tying" is not on purpose to make a profit, it's because it's an intergal part of the way the hardware works.
I personally believe that companies should have "rights" to sole-source HARDWARE for a limited amount of time in order to be able to make a profit on the investment in time needed to develop the hardware, built the processing plants, etc. Kind of like a patent, but severely reduced at least for the computer industry. I'd guess the MAXIMUM timeframe for retaining exclusive rights would be 5 years. This would be enough time for companies to recover their development costs and make a healthy profit, but force them to innovate in order to stay in business. Could you imagine if Intel no longer had the rights to the Pentium core, and possibly the Pentium II core (I don't know when the Pentium II was released)?
I also personally think that we can't, or shouldn't if we could, FORCE people to release their software as free. If Microsoft or some other company wants to keep their source closed, then let them. I believe that in the long run free software will show better quality and capabilities than closed software, and the market will reveal this soon enough.
Well, I may have been just lucky then. We've got 5 Ultra 5's and an E450 and have no problems with them. Besides, Solaris uses a journaled filesystem so a fsck is not too much of an issue (We had a power outage during the recent ice storms in Atlanta [our UPS didn't last that long and we ran out of gas in our generators] with open databases and we didn't have any corruption, and the system came back up quickly). I've heard of the problems with the E450's also, but I guess that either I've been lucky or that they HAVE fixed their problems and everything is O.K. now.
I also did a comparison of the relative costs of a Sun/Solaris and Intel/Windows system and the Windows system came out more expensive. Because the hardware is different the systems were not exactly the same, but I think they were comparable. For the Sun it was a E450/w 4 400MHz CPU's/w 4MB on-chip cache, 1GB RAM and 45GB RAID. For the Intel I priced IBM, Compaq, and Dell/w Pentium II Xeon 500MHz/w 2MB Cache, 1GB RAM, and 45GB RAID, plus the required Microsoft software. Amaizingly, the Wintel "solution" came out more expensive than the Sun solution. For all prices I used the discounts we were able to get, and not "list" prices (We don't have a reseller agreement with Sun so don't get "significant" discounts from them and I used both direct-vendor and web pricing for Intel, so if anything it was more fair to Intel).
In summary, I think you're talking about "old" Sun hardware, at least from what my experience tells me. Yes, If you received the hardware 12 months ago it may have had the hardware issues, but certainly any hardware purchased over the last couple of months doesn't have this issue any more. Also, from my own price comparisons, I don't think Sun hardware is "high cost relative to other solutions on the market."
I don't know you, and you don't know me, but FUD, or just old, not up-to-date experience with Sun hardware?
Try counting only those programmers who have influence in changing the standards that are used for the OS. If you use this critieria the only Windows programmers you can count are employed by Microsoft. A very large percentage of Linux programmers can be counted under the same criteria though.
To hear yet another "expert" as far as the patent system is concerned to be slamming Slashdot readers for having an opinion.
A better question would be why do you have to be a patent expert in order to have an opinion? The poster who's remark ranked a five seems to think that "ordinarly" people don't have the right to an opinion. Isn't that what the patent system is supposed to do, or not do? Only grant patents on "non-obvious" inventions? If it's obvious to non-experts that this patent shouldn't be granted isn't that a valid opinion? Some people may be sick of Slashdot posters jumping to conclusions because we have better things to do than become experts in patent law and prior art. But I, and I would think a large percentage of others, are sick of people implying that we don't have the right to an opinion just because we are not part of the system. Anyone else agree?
Oops, that's just in the header files located in/usr/src/linux/include/linux and/usr/src/linux/include/asm. Who knows how many bit shift operations there are in the whole kernel.
There are 527 occurances of '<<' or '>>' in the 2.2.14 Linux kernel. I'd say that it is quite often that you shift bits in software. By your argument shifting bits is more efficient in hardware, which it is, so this patent should be granted. Will the patent holders seek payment from people who utilize the patented algorithm in software instead of hardware? I think you would be kidding yourself if you said no. While this patent does not cover the general case of shifing bits you support a slippery slope argument for its approval that may well effect Linux and all other software in the future.
Edison could spend his time inventing new things because his life was paid for by the things he'd invented previously. If he didn't know that he would achieve a financial pay off from his efforts, I doubt he would have done what he did
I think he would. Most scientists don't do their work with the sole goal of profit in mind. They do it for the love of their work. Why do all the Linux kernel hackers work so hard in their work? Becase they love doing it. Just the fact that they exist tends to make your argument patently false.
In this day and age of shrinking bottom lines, if paying royalties for using an invention of someone elses becomes optional, then most companies will simply not pay the royalty and gain a few more dollars in profit.
If some company is going to take someone else's work and make a profit off of it, then I think they should pay a royalty or other form of payment. That is, if the inventor allows their work to be used for profit. Linux is different, because while it allows companies and others to use the technology it forces them by way of the GPL to share any improvements. So, companies are not profiting directly from using Linux. Rather they are profiting from their own value add, be that services or support or custom programming or whatever. I don't think that individuals should be forced to pay royalties or any other form of payment for patented works as long as they don't profit from others by using it.
Perhaps is this were a socialist system, where governments would fund inventors of something so they could live and follow their pursuits, your hope could work. But then from everything I've heard, it sounds like that may not be the way to go.
But my understanding is that a large percentage of patented works do come from work paid for my governments. Universities receive research grants and the scientists who are paid by the universities invent something. Is it right for them to patent those inventions then? They were the direct result of "socialist" funding by the government.
So, what's your point? List price for the MP3 watch is $249 for the 32MB one. Even if they were able to provide a 4GB model it would supposedly cost $31,872.
In short, I think a cost of $1099 is reasonable for a first cut at a new technology for a new small company. Heck, I remember I paid over $800 for by Blaupunkt CD player I have in my car. Sure, that was quite a few years ago, but the first products in a new area are always over-priced. Look at the initial cost of flat-screen CRT monitors or the newer LCD monitors. I also paid over $1000 for my 17" monitor, but paid less than $500 for my 19" monitor a while later. The moral of the story? Complaining about a cost of $1099 is unjustified when this is one of the few products available in it's market space. Did you take a look at the details? All the features?
Would it be better if the major car CD player manufacturers got on the bandwagon and had products in this market? Yes, of course. It would bring the price down across the board and create competition where there is little right now. But Casio does not make car audio systems. It's kinda like complaining that Sony does not have a new printer out that is capable of the Internet Printing Protocol, and instead came out with a new display technology such as direct retinal imaging.
Like I said, quit whining, you can't always get what you want, and what you can get usually isn't cheap when if first comes out.
Slashdot Mirror
Think of this:
Most people who are on Slashdot are computer people (i.e., their profession involves computers in one way or the other).
Most computer professionals are equiped with a laptop by their employer.
CompactFlash can be put in an adapter that fits in a standard PCMCIA slot.
Most computer professionals take their laptop on vacation with them.
If you have your laptop and the PCMCIA adapter (which comes with the Kodak camera) there's no need to puchase more digital film when you run out. Simply hook it up to your laptop and save the pictures you want on your hard drive.
If your laptop is short on space, it's relatively easy to backup large applications that you WON'T need on vacation to your Linux server at home before you head out, and restore them when you get back.
What if you run Linux on an Alpha or SPARC? Or what if you run NetBSD on a SPARC or Alpha?
This is untrue. Obviously you didn't read the installation instructions. You have to give the install some funky switch, like /net or something. I hope this is the wrong switch and you are forced to read the installation instructions. When installed this way, you have to "install" it for each user, which used to use about 2MB of "personal" settings and data (and created the directory structure under your home directory).
Next time, try reading the instructions.
If what you say is true, and I don't know whether it is or not, then it speaks to the stability of Solaris more than StarOffice. Let's use the same standard here. No application program should be able to "crash the OS to the point of where you couldn't pin git and had to power cycle." If that's the case, which I doubt unless it was installed incorrectly, then it's a major problem with Solaris. Yes, StarOffice may have problems also, but I'd rank the issues with Solaris as more critical
What version of Solaris was this? Was this with all recommended patches installed?
There are other large database companies or offerings that are comparable to Oracle (think DB2 for gosh sakes). Oracle does not have a monopoly on databases. Microsoft does have a monopoly on consumer desktop Intel OSes. That has already been ruled. No matter what happens from here, that fact probably can't be successfully argued.
About Novell are you talking now or then? If you are talking about the past then you may have had a case. But, the industry was not as wide-spread as it is now. Now, networks are ubiquitous. If you are talking about now, Novell certainly does not have a monopoly on network operating systems. I think it would be a streatch to say that Microsoft does, yet, but I think this is their clear goal. The merging of their consumer desktop OS code with their server OS code is a clue as to how they want to extend their desktop consumer OS monopoly into the server area. Isn't the EU looking into this?
But, traditionally, Windows has been marketed as an OS that didn't need a "nerd" to run. You could pull any Joe off the street that was halfway computer literate and they would be able to use the simple point and click administrative tools of the OS to be able to flawlessly configure and maintain your enterprise systems. Think of the salary and benefits savings! You don't have to pay someone buku bucks just to install, configure, and maintain your enterprise systems! You can hire a MCSE, which are in plenty of supply and relatively "cheap" (compare them to CCIE's).
;-)
No, unless Microsoft has drastically changed their marketing hype for Windows NT/2000 then I don't think it qualifies as nerd news worthy. If they have changed thier hype, then get rid of the friggin GUI as a REQUIREMENT! Yes, a GUI is nice to have, even on Linux servers, but they should generally not be run in a production server environment.
Me thinks you in denial! Accept what Microsoft is telling you! Windows NT/2000 is not nerd news worthy, because you don't need a nerd to use or understand it! It's a simple OS for simple people
Does it have the same system calls and directory structure as Unix? If not, then it's just a compatibility layer that could be built on top of any OS.
Your nit picking now because he picked some non-standard programs. But, I bet you could find the following programs on any "unix" system unless it was severely stripped down:
1) vi
2) man
3) cp
4) rm
5) mv
6) ls
7) man
8) grep
9) find
10) ping
11) netstat
12) ifconfig
13) awk
14) sed
If you don't have them on your linux system then I feel for you...
There are certain OS level interfaces that are not directly mappable onto NT syscalls. This would make it impossible to provide an interface "exactly" like Linux on NT without having some sort of emulation layer. Could you compile a device driver and load it as a loadable module on the NT box that emulates Linux? Probably not without something like VMWare or WINE or a Frankensteinian combination of the two.
Yes, they could do it, but it would be more like Bochs, with all the inherent performance loss. And you thought NT was a slow memory and CPU hog now!
It's that 5% that's the killer. Might as well be a totaly different OS.
It's my understanding that there ARE repeaters in the trans-oceanic runs. I believe they have ships that regularly pull up the cable and replace the batteries in the repeaters. They also have problems with sharks attacking the repeaters because they have a slight electro-magnetic field that sharks can detect.
I think I figured it out. Brett Glass IS Bob Metcalfe. And, Bill Gates has taken over the mind of Bob Metcalfe, and hence Brett Glass, to be his spokesperson against Open Source. It's the only thing that makes sense!
Hmm,
Me thinks you are right, but I believe that is a good thing. Seems there are at least two diametrically opposed theories on how software should be treated. "Old school" software developers (i.e., Microsoft, not the "original" software developers before Microsoft) believe in very strong copyright protection and don't believe in code-sharing. "New school" software developers (i.e., RedHat, VA Linux, etc) do believe in code-sharing and believe in strong copyright protection, but for a completely different reason. To expect "new school" software developers to support "old school" developers by allowing them to take code they developed and use it in closed software is not realistic. So, the GPL and licenses like it "protect" the investment that new school companies are contributing to the community from being used by old school companies to put them out of business.
Makes perfect sense to me, and I honestly can't understand some peoples complaint that you can't use GPL'd software in proprietary projects. It's like they expect to get all of the benefits of open source or free software for no equal investment. No, let me correct that, it's clear that they do want to reap the benefits of open source or free software without any investment on their part. IMO, that's unethical and borders on immoral.
It is (the use of GPL software in proprietary systems) very similar in many respects to stealing someone else's property. With open source/Free software protected by the GPL it forces people to not steal software and make an equal exchange by forcing them to contribute any changes or enhancements back to the community. Now, the GPL doesn't force or protect against end-users from sharing code, but selling software is not the source of income for new school companies, services are. So, someone could take the RedHat distribution and copy it and sell it, but who cares? Are they going to be able to support you as well as RedHat who made the distribution? Probably not. I don't know why anyone would want to purchase support and services from a company that simply copied RedHat's software without making any enhancements instead of going to RedHat themselves. So, they (the people who simply copy and sell the RedHat software) are not really taking any income away from RedHat. If the company does take RedHat software and enhance it, there may well be a good reason for people to purchase that software instead of the stock RedHat software, but they are forced to give back to the community (RedHat) any enhancements. So, this is in effect the payment to RedHat and makes this not stealing. RedHat is free to use the enhanced software in it's next revision and entice customers back to it's camp. RedHat is, in effect, getting free R&D for it's product that is paid for by one of it's competitors!
But, to expect RedHat to write software and allow Microsoft or some other old school company to use it and NOT release any enhancements is a totally unbalanced transaction. While Open Source/Free software may not be totally balanced, it is on the opposite end of the arguement that you are trying to make (no, you didn't explicitly state this, but from your post you seem to be arguing against the opposite view. Since I can't think of any other reason I have to assume this is what you believe. If I'm wrong, reply and let us know why you think the GPL is so bad).
Hmm, maybe you should try junkbuster instead. I've got doubleclick blocked and don't have any problems viewing the page.
The more I thought about it the more I find myself agreeing. See my later post which describes my latest thoughts (as of 13:49 EST5EDT). In short I now belive the software should be Free for consumer use when product is actually shiped in consumer available form. It should also be available to businesses that wish to offer competitive code morphing software engines that run on Transmeta CPUs. However, I think that it should not be available to business competitors to be used in designing competitive CPU designs because of the patents on the CPU. I also note that I don't believe in software patents and that they should be limited to 3-5 years for the computer industry.
That's one of the great things about Slashdot, you get other peoples opinions and feedback quickly that helps shape your own opinion for better or worse...
Um, actually the same thing can be said about software. The cost of most proprietary software packages is *not* the cost to
reproduce, but to pay for the software engineering and software invention--that is, so that the software programmers can
be compensated for their work. </i>
I think you miss the point in that the cost of getting involved in software producting is effectively nil, whereas the cost of getting involved in hardware production is enormous. I can't download the hardware specs for a chip, tweak it to MY liking on my home computer, and burn a new chip. While there are circuit and CPU emulators that help work with chip design that's pretty useless to the end-user/programmer.
The "value add" in free software is that the modifications are actually useful and useable to the contributor (usually, unless paid by a company like RedHat in which case the changes may not be personally useful but probably are anyway). There is no such value add in tweaking a CPU design. Since I can't manufacture a new CPU in my back yard, I'd be reliant on Intel, IBM, Motorola, or someone else with a chip fab to produce chips for me. I have the feeling that the cost of producing 5-10 chips for testing on a regular basis would quickly if not initially be out of my personal "hacking" budget.
So you see, hardware and software are COMPLETELY different from the perspective of the kid in college or the computer professional who likes to dab in a bit of programming while at home, even if that isn't his or her primary job.
With that said, the Transmeta chips and their code-morphing is a little different because it's a combination of the two technologies. I think I would be arguing a little more forcefully for releasing the morphing code if I happened to have purchased a laptop or desktop system with a Transmeta chip in it. I'd be a little miffed that I couldn't tweak the system to my own liking, something that I apparently would be able to do without any additional investment past the inital system purchase. So, I don't see anything wrong with Transmetta keeping everything secret now, until they have their production up and systems with the chip in it are actually available to consumers. But, once it is available to consumers I would hope that they release the code-morphing software to consumers.
Now, if they do that they would most likely be required from a business perspective to restrict it's use to consumers and disallow other manufacturers from using their code or patents in competing systems. I don't see anything wrong with that on face value. Should they allow competing businesses to come up with other alternative code morphing software for their chips based on the Transmeta release code? I would think the answer would be a resounding YES. Should they allow other CHIP manufacturers to use their code morphing source to reverse engineer the HARDWARE and come out with competing CHIPs that use the same code morphing software? I would think the answer would be NO here, because they apparently own hardware patents for designs used in their CHIPs. Once those patents expire then I would think it would be fair game. As I noted in previous posts, I belive patents in the computer industry should be hardware based ONLY and last ONLY a maximum of 5 years, with typical length between 3 and 5 years...
I know this and never said otherwise. My point was that I didn't think hardware should be free, as in speach, until after a manufacturing company has the chance to recoup their cost of building the plant, etc. I think the current system of protecting for 17 years is way out of wack for high technology. A timeframe of more like 3-5 years, the same timeframe businesses account for the cost of high technology devices such as PC's and workstations, is more applicable.
I think what he doesn't get is one of RMS' concepts which I believe is that software should be free because of the zero cost of duplication or manufacturing. Hardware is in a different "realm" when it comes to manufacturing. Chip companies have to pay billions of dollars to make a chip plant capable of producing the latest chips. Even though Transmeta may not be making the chips themselves, and PAY IBM to make them in their chip plants, they still have to PAY to have them made.
I can't speak for RMS on whether the Transmeta morphing code should be free or not, but it seems to me that it is in a different category because it is "tied" directly to hardware, which should not be free (due to the cost of manufacturing). AND the "tying" is not on purpose to make a profit, it's because it's an intergal part of the way the hardware works.
I personally believe that companies should have "rights" to sole-source HARDWARE for a limited amount of time in order to be able to make a profit on the investment in time needed to develop the hardware, built the processing plants, etc. Kind of like a patent, but severely reduced at least for the computer industry. I'd guess the MAXIMUM timeframe for retaining exclusive rights would be 5 years. This would be enough time for companies to recover their development costs and make a healthy profit, but force them to innovate in order to stay in business. Could you imagine if Intel no longer had the rights to the Pentium core, and possibly the Pentium II core (I don't know when the Pentium II was released)?
I also personally think that we can't, or shouldn't if we could, FORCE people to release their software as free. If Microsoft or some other company wants to keep their source closed, then let them. I believe that in the long run free software will show better quality and capabilities than closed software, and the market will reveal this soon enough.
Well, I may have been just lucky then. We've got 5 Ultra 5's and an E450 and have no problems with them. Besides, Solaris uses a journaled filesystem so a fsck is not too much of an issue (We had a power outage during the recent ice storms in Atlanta [our UPS didn't last that long and we ran out of gas in our generators] with open databases and we didn't have any corruption, and the system came back up quickly). I've heard of the problems with the E450's also, but I guess that either I've been lucky or that they HAVE fixed their problems and everything is O.K. now.
/w 4 400MHz CPU's /w 4MB on-chip cache, 1GB RAM and 45GB RAID. For the Intel I priced IBM, Compaq, and Dell /w Pentium II Xeon 500MHz /w 2MB Cache, 1GB RAM, and 45GB RAID, plus the required Microsoft software. Amaizingly, the Wintel "solution" came out more expensive than the Sun solution. For all prices I used the discounts we were able to get, and not "list" prices (We don't have a reseller agreement with Sun so don't get "significant" discounts from them and I used both direct-vendor and web pricing for Intel, so if anything it was more fair to Intel).
I also did a comparison of the relative costs of a Sun/Solaris and Intel/Windows system and the Windows system came out more expensive. Because the hardware is different the systems were not exactly the same, but I think they were comparable. For the Sun it was a E450
In summary, I think you're talking about "old" Sun hardware, at least from what my experience tells me. Yes, If you received the hardware 12 months ago it may have had the hardware issues, but certainly any hardware purchased over the last couple of months doesn't have this issue any more. Also, from my own price comparisons, I don't think Sun hardware is "high cost relative to other solutions on the market."
I don't know you, and you don't know me, but FUD, or just old, not up-to-date experience with Sun hardware?
Try counting only those programmers who have influence in changing the standards that are used for the OS. If you use this critieria the only Windows programmers you can count are employed by Microsoft. A very large percentage of Linux programmers can be counted under the same criteria though.
To hear yet another "expert" as far as the patent system is concerned to be slamming Slashdot readers for having an opinion.
A better question would be why do you have to be a patent expert in order to have an opinion? The poster who's remark ranked a five seems to think that "ordinarly" people don't have the right to an opinion. Isn't that what the patent system is supposed to do, or not do? Only grant patents on "non-obvious" inventions? If it's obvious to non-experts that this patent shouldn't be granted isn't that a valid opinion? Some people may be sick of Slashdot posters jumping to conclusions because we have better things to do than become experts in patent law and prior art. But I, and I would think a large percentage of others, are sick of people implying that we don't have the right to an opinion just because we are not part of the system. Anyone else agree?
Oops, that's just in the header files located in /usr/src/linux/include/linux and /usr/src/linux/include/asm. Who knows how many bit shift operations there are in the whole kernel.
How often do you shift bits using software?
There are 527 occurances of '<<' or '>>' in the 2.2.14 Linux kernel. I'd say that it is quite often that you shift bits in software. By your argument shifting bits is more efficient in hardware, which it is, so this patent should be granted. Will the patent holders seek payment from people who utilize the patented algorithm in software instead of hardware? I think you would be kidding yourself if you said no. While this patent does not cover the general case of shifing bits you support a slippery slope argument for its approval that may well effect Linux and all other software in the future.
The patent should not be granted.
Edison could spend his time inventing new things because his life was paid for by the things he'd invented previously. If he didn't know that he would achieve a financial pay off from his efforts, I doubt he would have done what he did
I think he would. Most scientists don't do their work with the sole goal of profit in mind. They do it for the love of their work. Why do all the Linux kernel hackers work so hard in their work? Becase they love doing it. Just the fact that they exist tends to make your argument patently false.
In this day and age of shrinking bottom lines, if paying royalties for using an invention of someone elses becomes optional, then most companies will simply not pay the royalty and gain a few more dollars in profit.
If some company is going to take someone else's work and make a profit off of it, then I think they should pay a royalty or other form of payment. That is, if the inventor allows their work to be used for profit. Linux is different, because while it allows companies and others to use the technology it forces them by way of the GPL to share any improvements. So, companies are not profiting directly from using Linux. Rather they are profiting from their own value add, be that services or support or custom programming or whatever. I don't think that individuals should be forced to pay royalties or any other form of payment for patented works as long as they don't profit from others by using it.
Perhaps is this were a socialist system, where governments would fund inventors of something so they could live and follow their pursuits, your hope could work. But then from everything I've heard, it sounds like that may not be the way to go.
But my understanding is that a large percentage of patented works do come from work paid for my governments. Universities receive research grants and the scientists who are paid by the universities invent something. Is it right for them to patent those inventions then? They were the direct result of "socialist" funding by the government.
So, what's your point? List price for the MP3 watch is $249 for the 32MB one. Even if they were able to provide a 4GB model it would supposedly cost $31,872.
In short, I think a cost of $1099 is reasonable for a first cut at a new technology for a new small company. Heck, I remember I paid over $800 for by Blaupunkt CD player I have in my car. Sure, that was quite a few years ago, but the first products in a new area are always over-priced. Look at the initial cost of flat-screen CRT monitors or the newer LCD monitors. I also paid over $1000 for my 17" monitor, but paid less than $500 for my 19" monitor a while later. The moral of the story? Complaining about a cost of $1099 is unjustified when this is one of the few products available in it's market space. Did you take a look at the details? All the features?
Would it be better if the major car CD player manufacturers got on the bandwagon and had products in this market? Yes, of course. It would bring the price down across the board and create competition where there is little right now. But Casio does not make car audio systems. It's kinda like complaining that Sony does not have a new printer out that is capable of the Internet Printing Protocol, and instead came out with a new display technology such as direct retinal imaging.
Like I said, quit whining, you can't always get what you want, and what you can get usually isn't cheap when if first comes out.