That explains it. YAST was already open sourced, so I was confused as to what was left. The actual ISO images? They don't have any!
But "open source" is still the wrong term. Opening up the developer process is NOT "open source". Besides, I still don't know what this "opening" means. Does it imply that they automatically rejected every prior fix submitted by non-employees? Does this now mean they will accept *every* submission? If they reject even one because it's a bad fix, will that make them "closed" again?
This community is too caught up in words, in my humble opinion. We're like sheep in the way we can be trivially manipulated by the right words. People are all gushing about how wonderful the world is because SuSE is now open. Sheesh.
I didn't mean to imply that "ancient trucks and strange tractors" were the only exceptions. Today in the 21st century, however, we're standardized. Except for some strange tractors.
In true Republican spinmeister fashion... right-wing idiots... proud to be to the right of Ghengis Khan
You must live in a supremely simplified universe, where everyone who argues with you must be an evil Republican. You bitch about strawmen arguments, but apparently have never heard of ad-hominem attacks.
Fuck you! You know NOTHING about me! You don't know my politics, you don't know which party I'm registered with, you don't know who I voted for. The ONLY thing you know is that I have a (temporary) sig poking fun at a common liberal bumper sticker that pokes fun at Bush. To go from that (and my response to your pseudo-marxist rantings) to assuming that I am a Bush supporting Republican is an extreme mistake. Get a fucking clue! Not every evil in this world revolves around Bush!
Get over your misguided patriotism. You have nothing to be "proud" about for happening to be born on a particular piece of land, and your worship of your country is misguided. Try looking at the broader, historical picture, and the path the current corrupt regime has placed us on.
Where the hell did that come from? We were talking about PATENTS in EUROPE, so what does patriotism and (presumably) Bush have to do with this? It's almost like you think I'm a Bush voting Republican! Is your world so narrow that you think every evil revolves around Bush? Get a freaking clue!
Oh, if only Americans were enlightened enough to vote for Kerry then Europe wouldn't be having patent problems! Geez...
There are a few reasons why automobile pedals are different from mouse buttons. The differences may explain what we've beeon doing wrong with mice. The Apple way isn't the morally superior way any more than a one pedal automobile is superior.
First there is standardization. Unless you stumble across an ancient truck or strange tractor, the clutch, brake and accelerator are all in the same locations. It's not one way for Ford and a different way for Chevys. And even though only a few people know how to drive shift, the presence or absence of the clutch doesn't change the location of the brake and accelerator.
But standardization isn't everything. Look at the gear shift of an automobile. Three speed, four speed, five speed, three on the tree. Even on automatic transmissions the controls might be on the wheel or on the floor, may or may not have "overdrive", may or may not have D1 and D2, etc. And what's that funny thing Porches have?
Finally, and this is maybe the most important. We don't cruelly humiliate people learning how to drive. Even though a simple mistake between the brake and the accelerator can cause death and dismemberment and massive destruction, it's the mouse your mother is intimidated by.
Why don't the manufacturers label the mouse buttons? Problem solved!
No matter how dense your mother his, she can still handle at least eighty of the keys on a 104 key keyboard. Why? Because they are labelled! Label the left button with a green circle, and the right button with a blue exclamation mark. Or other symbols.
Actually I've stocked up. Bought three new Logitch Trackmans (original three button version) on eBay. Besides the lack of scrollwheel, it's a damned good trackball. Much better than the newer trackmans. I took one to work as well. Silly of course, since the PS/2 mouse bus will be a thing of the past by the time I use up the last one. Oh well.
A high vitality mark just means that the project is continually making progress.
Yes, but progress towards what? Is it new software desperately trying to reach the 1.0 mark? Or the older software desperately trying to patch all the bugs? With a few exceptions, stable software doesn't need a lot of releases.
There are anonymous sources giving leads to intelligent reporters, and then there are anonymous sources giving complete stories to asshat reporters too lazy to do any research.
Deep Throat was the former. Nixon and company, didn't get busted because Deep Throat was quoted in the paper. They got busted because Woodward and Bernstein did their homework. Deep Throat was a lucky break, not a ghostwriter.
Then there is the modern anonymous source. You know the type. The reporter makes a serious allegation backed up by nothing more than "an anonymous source said...". As in "anonymous sources say Bush killed bunny rabbits in college," or "anonymous sources confirm Kerry freebased cocaine while on the campaign trail."
Without independent verification of the information, how the hell do you know that an anonymous source isn't just a figment of the reporter's imagination? A reporter that has to hide behind an anonymous source is either lazy, gullible, or lying.
You have only one vote in a representative democracy, and usually it comes down to voting for one of two parties, so it is a yes or no.
That's an excuse for violent revolution? Holy shit! Go read the grandparent post. That's what he was advocating as a solution to patents.
However, I believe until told otherwise that Siemens actually did good research in their history.
Siemens got started, IIRC, by purchasing patent from this guy by the name of Roentgen. At any rate it was their first patent.
But it doesn't matter if they did good or bad research. I don't agree with Richard Stallman on many things, but I do mostly agree with him on software patents. Software patents with good research behind them are just as bad as software patents with bad research behind them.
Sigh. Back when I was in sales, knowingly turning away 10% of the market would have been unthinkable. It's the equivalent of turing down a 10% raise. But when it comes to computers, it's considered smart, chic and enlightened to turn everyone away but the herd-like bovines. Why is that?
If I can still buy a $5 floppy drive, why the hell can't I buy a plain vanilla three button mouse?
You're the second person here to blame FOX news for the state of patents in Europe. Was that a typo or are you really that fucking stupid?
Sure, go ahead and pretend that if only Kerry had been elected we would now be living in a truly enlightened utopian socity. Whatever rocks your boat. But don't go blaming conservatives for software patents in Europe. Bush and Cheny may vivisect kittens before breakfast each morning, but they have precious little influence over Brussels.
If you think patents are evil enough that you're willing to violently reorganize society to get rid of them, then you need to talk to your psychiatrist about adjusting your medication.
If you haven't noticed by now, Europe is currently a democracy. But the time you get together enough people with guns and benzine filled bottles to start a revolution, you'll ALSO have enough people to kick the bums out of office. So why not just kick them out of office, instead of murdering your neighbors and burning down their homes?
America may be too far gone for recovery, but Europe clearly is not.
I work for Siemens AG. It's a German company. As in European. Even though I'm working for a branch in the US, everyone at Director level and above is native German. These guys have such a freaking huge hardon for patents it's not even funny. It's part of our software development process (mandated from Bavaria, Europe) that we analyze projects for potential patent filings. Our walls are plastered with pro-patent posters (all bearing smiling Aryans in three piece suits).
Don't blame the US for your European corporations.
I've been saying that since they invented the scroll wheel. Last time I went to buy a mouse everything had a stupid scroll wheel on it.
I don't care if you use a scroll wheel or not. But the one-size-fits-all stupidity of the PC market means that I have to have one even if I don't want it. I can't possibly be the only person who doesn't want a scroll wheel, so why are there no scroll-less mice and trackballs on the market? Fry's, Microcenter and CompUSA don't have any. OEMs will sometimes ship a scroll-less mouse with a cheap PC, but the only other ones I seen are stupid children's mice that have whiskers and a tail, or tiny impossible to use laptop accessory mice.
Why is more than one button on the mouse a bad thing, but more than one button on the keyboard a good thing? I mean, even after accounting for the letters, numbers and shift, you STILL have additional keys on the Mac keyboard! What's that funny Apple key? What's that funny squiggle thing? Isn't the capslock redundant?
Seriously, there are three things you can do with an icon on the desktop: select it, activate it, and manipulate it. Traditionally, even in the l33t Mac world, one click selects and two activates. But with only one button, how do you manipulate? With a triple click? With Windows/Unix use you a second mouse button, but with a one button Mac you need to use a superflous keyboard button instead. In either case, it's a separate button.
There are two kinds of standards. One is the defacto just-because-everyone-uses-it standard. Such as Windows. Windows is a standard because 90% of the people use it. Not fair to all other operating systems? Fine, then another example is GCC. It's free, but has extensions that no other compiler has, to the point that some major open source projects cannot be built with any other because they were silly enough to use them.
The other kind of standard is the formal standard. It does NOT need to be a government mandate. Examples are ISO. For some things a formal standard is almost a necessity. Protocols for public use for example. That's why we have the W3C. It is the formal standards body for the web.
How can one know that his implementation of XMLHttpRequest is fully interoperable with all the XMLHttpRequest sites out on the web? Without a formal specification for the standard, you just don't know. If a site doesn't operate correctly, is it the site's fault or yours? With a formal specification, you would know.
Of course you won't find any Windows users who use it! Duh! But it's the default browser for KDE, which I understand is a wildly popular desktop for Unix.
As for XMLHttpRequest, I only know what I've been told. And I've been told that the only reason all the new Google apps don't support Konqueror is the lack of that non-standard item.
You're forgetting Konqueror. It's not 4-5 years old. Just because it doesn't run on Windows doesn't mean it's not a major browser, as it's pretty damned major in the Unix world.
Websites should use the freaking standards. Doesn't ANYONE remember the browser wars?
The Freshmeat method is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't go anywhere far enough. What does it tell you?
Obviously, popularity doesn't mean anything or we would still be using Windows. Downloads don't tell you anything about how good a project is. Downloads from repeat "customers" might, but Freshmeat doesn't tell you that. Clickthrus to the website don't tell you anything about how good a project is. It only tells you how enticing the project description is.
I want to discount their "vitality" statistic. Why should it matter how often software is released? Why should a good project that makes major releases every twelve months have less vitality than a crappy project that puts out a trivial release every two days? Why should a project that only announces it major versions on Freshmeat be marked down just because it doesn't announce every minor bugfix there as well? And what about *mature* and *stable* projects? All the vitality stat tells you is how often the software is changing. A high vitality is actually a mark of instability!
Users rating the project *does* tell you a lot. Unfortunately very few users rate projects. Freshmeat gives you a lot of metrics, but just like the stupid process at work, all it's good for is grist for some manager's PowerPoint presentation.
"And here on page 13 we can see that our website click thru to vitality ratio jumped two points in the last quarter. Thanks Bob for making that happen. Now moving on to the subscription statistics..."
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All the while cutting European jobs.
That's because you're not BUYING enough shrinked wrapped boxes of SuSE!
That explains it. YAST was already open sourced, so I was confused as to what was left. The actual ISO images? They don't have any!
But "open source" is still the wrong term. Opening up the developer process is NOT "open source". Besides, I still don't know what this "opening" means. Does it imply that they automatically rejected every prior fix submitted by non-employees? Does this now mean they will accept *every* submission? If they reject even one because it's a bad fix, will that make them "closed" again?
This community is too caught up in words, in my humble opinion. We're like sheep in the way we can be trivially manipulated by the right words. People are all gushing about how wonderful the world is because SuSE is now open. Sheesh.
I didn't mean to imply that "ancient trucks and strange tractors" were the only exceptions. Today in the 21st century, however, we're standardized. Except for some strange tractors.
In true Republican spinmeister fashion... right-wing idiots... proud to be to the right of Ghengis Khan
You must live in a supremely simplified universe, where everyone who argues with you must be an evil Republican. You bitch about strawmen arguments, but apparently have never heard of ad-hominem attacks.
Fuck you! You know NOTHING about me! You don't know my politics, you don't know which party I'm registered with, you don't know who I voted for. The ONLY thing you know is that I have a (temporary) sig poking fun at a common liberal bumper sticker that pokes fun at Bush. To go from that (and my response to your pseudo-marxist rantings) to assuming that I am a Bush supporting Republican is an extreme mistake. Get a fucking clue! Not every evil in this world revolves around Bush!
Get over your misguided patriotism. You have nothing to be "proud" about for happening to be born on a particular piece of land, and your worship of your country is misguided. Try looking at the broader, historical picture, and the path the current corrupt regime has placed us on.
Where the hell did that come from? We were talking about PATENTS in EUROPE, so what does patriotism and (presumably) Bush have to do with this? It's almost like you think I'm a Bush voting Republican! Is your world so narrow that you think every evil revolves around Bush? Get a freaking clue!
Oh, if only Americans were enlightened enough to vote for Kerry then Europe wouldn't be having patent problems! Geez...
maybe because not enough people want it?
If I can go to may local grocer and buy arugula, I ought to be able to go to my local computer store and buy a plain three button mouse.
There are a few reasons why automobile pedals are different from mouse buttons. The differences may explain what we've beeon doing wrong with mice. The Apple way isn't the morally superior way any more than a one pedal automobile is superior.
First there is standardization. Unless you stumble across an ancient truck or strange tractor, the clutch, brake and accelerator are all in the same locations. It's not one way for Ford and a different way for Chevys. And even though only a few people know how to drive shift, the presence or absence of the clutch doesn't change the location of the brake and accelerator.
But standardization isn't everything. Look at the gear shift of an automobile. Three speed, four speed, five speed, three on the tree. Even on automatic transmissions the controls might be on the wheel or on the floor, may or may not have "overdrive", may or may not have D1 and D2, etc. And what's that funny thing Porches have?
Finally, and this is maybe the most important. We don't cruelly humiliate people learning how to drive. Even though a simple mistake between the brake and the accelerator can cause death and dismemberment and massive destruction, it's the mouse your mother is intimidated by.
Why don't the manufacturers label the mouse buttons? Problem solved!
No matter how dense your mother his, she can still handle at least eighty of the keys on a 104 key keyboard. Why? Because they are labelled! Label the left button with a green circle, and the right button with a blue exclamation mark. Or other symbols.
Actually I've stocked up. Bought three new Logitch Trackmans (original three button version) on eBay. Besides the lack of scrollwheel, it's a damned good trackball. Much better than the newer trackmans. I took one to work as well. Silly of course, since the PS/2 mouse bus will be a thing of the past by the time I use up the last one. Oh well.
Interesting, I read an interview by Jeff Waugh. Is he African too? It's so hard knowing where someone is from.
A high vitality mark just means that the project is continually making progress.
Yes, but progress towards what? Is it new software desperately trying to reach the 1.0 mark? Or the older software desperately trying to patch all the bugs? With a few exceptions, stable software doesn't need a lot of releases.
There are anonymous sources giving leads to intelligent reporters, and then there are anonymous sources giving complete stories to asshat reporters too lazy to do any research.
Deep Throat was the former. Nixon and company, didn't get busted because Deep Throat was quoted in the paper. They got busted because Woodward and Bernstein did their homework. Deep Throat was a lucky break, not a ghostwriter.
Then there is the modern anonymous source. You know the type. The reporter makes a serious allegation backed up by nothing more than "an anonymous source said...". As in "anonymous sources say Bush killed bunny rabbits in college," or "anonymous sources confirm Kerry freebased cocaine while on the campaign trail."
Without independent verification of the information, how the hell do you know that an anonymous source isn't just a figment of the reporter's imagination? A reporter that has to hide behind an anonymous source is either lazy, gullible, or lying.
You have only one vote in a representative democracy, and usually it comes down to voting for one of two parties, so it is a yes or no.
That's an excuse for violent revolution? Holy shit! Go read the grandparent post. That's what he was advocating as a solution to patents.
However, I believe until told otherwise that Siemens actually did good research in their history.
Siemens got started, IIRC, by purchasing patent from this guy by the name of Roentgen. At any rate it was their first patent.
But it doesn't matter if they did good or bad research. I don't agree with Richard Stallman on many things, but I do mostly agree with him on software patents. Software patents with good research behind them are just as bad as software patents with bad research behind them.
Sigh. Back when I was in sales, knowingly turning away 10% of the market would have been unthinkable. It's the equivalent of turing down a 10% raise. But when it comes to computers, it's considered smart, chic and enlightened to turn everyone away but the herd-like bovines. Why is that?
If I can still buy a $5 floppy drive, why the hell can't I buy a plain vanilla three button mouse?
You're the second person here to blame FOX news for the state of patents in Europe. Was that a typo or are you really that fucking stupid?
Sure, go ahead and pretend that if only Kerry had been elected we would now be living in a truly enlightened utopian socity. Whatever rocks your boat. But don't go blaming conservatives for software patents in Europe. Bush and Cheny may vivisect kittens before breakfast each morning, but they have precious little influence over Brussels.
If you think patents are evil enough that you're willing to violently reorganize society to get rid of them, then you need to talk to your psychiatrist about adjusting your medication.
If you haven't noticed by now, Europe is currently a democracy. But the time you get together enough people with guns and benzine filled bottles to start a revolution, you'll ALSO have enough people to kick the bums out of office. So why not just kick them out of office, instead of murdering your neighbors and burning down their homes?
America may be too far gone for recovery, but Europe clearly is not.
I work for Siemens AG. It's a German company. As in European. Even though I'm working for a branch in the US, everyone at Director level and above is native German. These guys have such a freaking huge hardon for patents it's not even funny. It's part of our software development process (mandated from Bavaria, Europe) that we analyze projects for potential patent filings. Our walls are plastered with pro-patent posters (all bearing smiling Aryans in three piece suits).
Don't blame the US for your European corporations.
Just make a freaking normal mouse people.
I've been saying that since they invented the scroll wheel. Last time I went to buy a mouse everything had a stupid scroll wheel on it.
I don't care if you use a scroll wheel or not. But the one-size-fits-all stupidity of the PC market means that I have to have one even if I don't want it. I can't possibly be the only person who doesn't want a scroll wheel, so why are there no scroll-less mice and trackballs on the market? Fry's, Microcenter and CompUSA don't have any. OEMs will sometimes ship a scroll-less mouse with a cheap PC, but the only other ones I seen are stupid children's mice that have whiskers and a tail, or tiny impossible to use laptop accessory mice.
Why is more than one button on the mouse a bad thing, but more than one button on the keyboard a good thing? I mean, even after accounting for the letters, numbers and shift, you STILL have additional keys on the Mac keyboard! What's that funny Apple key? What's that funny squiggle thing? Isn't the capslock redundant?
Seriously, there are three things you can do with an icon on the desktop: select it, activate it, and manipulate it. Traditionally, even in the l33t Mac world, one click selects and two activates. But with only one button, how do you manipulate? With a triple click? With Windows/Unix use you a second mouse button, but with a one button Mac you need to use a superflous keyboard button instead. In either case, it's a separate button.
Ubuntu doesn't have African origins. It just has an African name. See, even geeks like you can be shamelessly manipulated by marketing!
There are two kinds of standards. One is the defacto just-because-everyone-uses-it standard. Such as Windows. Windows is a standard because 90% of the people use it. Not fair to all other operating systems? Fine, then another example is GCC. It's free, but has extensions that no other compiler has, to the point that some major open source projects cannot be built with any other because they were silly enough to use them.
The other kind of standard is the formal standard. It does NOT need to be a government mandate. Examples are ISO. For some things a formal standard is almost a necessity. Protocols for public use for example. That's why we have the W3C. It is the formal standards body for the web.
How can one know that his implementation of XMLHttpRequest is fully interoperable with all the XMLHttpRequest sites out on the web? Without a formal specification for the standard, you just don't know. If a site doesn't operate correctly, is it the site's fault or yours? With a formal specification, you would know.
I don't know anyone who uses it...
Of course you won't find any Windows users who use it! Duh! But it's the default browser for KDE, which I understand is a wildly popular desktop for Unix.
As for XMLHttpRequest, I only know what I've been told. And I've been told that the only reason all the new Google apps don't support Konqueror is the lack of that non-standard item.
You're forgetting Konqueror. It's not 4-5 years old. Just because it doesn't run on Windows doesn't mean it's not a major browser, as it's pretty damned major in the Unix world.
Websites should use the freaking standards. Doesn't ANYONE remember the browser wars?
The Freshmeat method is a step in the right direction, but it doesn't go anywhere far enough. What does it tell you?
Obviously, popularity doesn't mean anything or we would still be using Windows. Downloads don't tell you anything about how good a project is. Downloads from repeat "customers" might, but Freshmeat doesn't tell you that. Clickthrus to the website don't tell you anything about how good a project is. It only tells you how enticing the project description is.
I want to discount their "vitality" statistic. Why should it matter how often software is released? Why should a good project that makes major releases every twelve months have less vitality than a crappy project that puts out a trivial release every two days? Why should a project that only announces it major versions on Freshmeat be marked down just because it doesn't announce every minor bugfix there as well? And what about *mature* and *stable* projects? All the vitality stat tells you is how often the software is changing. A high vitality is actually a mark of instability!
Users rating the project *does* tell you a lot. Unfortunately very few users rate projects. Freshmeat gives you a lot of metrics, but just like the stupid process at work, all it's good for is grist for some manager's PowerPoint presentation.
"And here on page 13 we can see that our website click thru to vitality ratio jumped two points in the last quarter. Thanks Bob for making that happen. Now moving on to the subscription statistics..."
Because if it were only up to popularity, you would still be using Windows!
But add XMLHttpRequest to it and suddenly you have don't have a standard. Wooo!