Yak, how can you say that. Just looked at it, it is a CDE clone.
No thanks, I'll stick to (c)twm (icons disabled; who needs icons) just as I have in the past 12 years. There's nothing I could do more with any other windows manager. The briliant iconmanager is the precursor of the windows taskbar. The workspacemanager (i.e. virtual screens) is the precursor of all other window managers' virtual screens (that windows still didn't catch up with).
For the moment I can live with the Linux JDK, which runs even faster on FreeBSD than on Linux.
Though I'd rather have a native version of course.
*BSD is not for small potatoes. Large services and companies run on it. Maybe not very many, but that doesn't matter as long as it fills *your* need. It does fill mine so yes, I get FreeBSD.
Btw Linux does not fill my need: it costs me too much time to keep a stable and up-to-date version. The only advantage to me would be a native JDK, but if I have to choose between
BSD: easy maintenance, best performance, good consistent documentation, non-native JDK
What is really lacking is a native JDK with a decent JIT (such as a real 1.3 port with Hotspot). With all the money flowing into FreeBSD, and with all its professional users/ISP's, I don't comprehend why that is taking so long.
Maybe SUN is somehow frustrating developments in this area, since they're scared that FreeBSD might be a real competitor for Solaris?
In fact it is, I know several ISP's that used to use Solaris and switched to FreeBSD or BSD/OS.
Whereas the small, starting ISP's tend to choose Linux (in that sense, Linux isn't as much of a competitor to SUN), the larger and more professional ones used Solaris, then switch to BSD.
BSD was first, and better. ( I won't go into details here).
So if anyone should join anyone, Linux developers should stop and join FreeBSD.
Btw, not for everyone the only goal is "world domination". I don't care if there are more users of some other OS, be it Linux of Windows or whatever. I only care that my favourite OS (which is clearly FreeBSD, it costs me much less time to maintain and run than anything else) has enough developers to keep my needs w.r.t. the operating system satisfied.
That said, my needs are not satisfied: What is really lacking is a native JDK with a decent JIT (such as a real 1.3 port with Hotspot). With all the money flowing into FreeBSD, and with all its professional users/ISP's, I don't comprehend why that is taking so long.
What open means in open source is open to interpretation, but IMO it means not only open to read, but also open in the sense that it is unrestricted, i.e. you can do with it what you want.
This with the single possible restriction that you can do with it what you want, except make it closed again (i.e. like the GPL). The BSD is open without this restriction (i.e. you can make it closed again if you like).
Native or not is hardly significant. Many Linux apps run even faster on BSD+Linux "emulation" (technically it isn't really emulation, apps run at near native speed or faster).
Even things like vmware have been ported (luckily the kernel modules of vmware are opensource), proving how very capable BSD's Linuxulator is.
Thus, it is nonsense to say that Linux is a better desktop OS. BSD can do what Linux can (i.e. run all it's applications) and more...
I remember when 2.2 was release, al (Linus included) said that it had taken way too long.
The cycle from 2.2 to 2.4 would take much less time (i.e. some less extra functionality in one stpe, instead more small steps in the future).
Already at that time I thought they wouldn't make it faster from 2.2 to 2.4. The Linux development model is not right IMO. 2.0->2.2 already showed this. The development group IMO is not coherent enough, there is no core group as in the *BSD's, but only one person (which may delegate some things to 1 or 2 others) that has to screen all contributions from widely varying sources. As time progresses, the chaos increases and even small steps forward get increasingly difficult.
In contrast, FreeBSD's stable releases seem to accelerate, including more functionality at an accelerating pace. There is a group of 20 people, each has his own speciality, but all of them at least have a sound idea of most parts of the system (including kernel and userland). All commits to the source are published and accessible through CVS meaning they get much wider exposure for all to scrutinize.
For Linux there have been discussions to adopt some source code control system to get things better in control. CVS wous found to be inadequate (of course, what is good enough for half the UNIX world is insufficient for Linux) so one has to wait for bitkeeper. That wait has taken about 2 years already, and apparently it is better to have nothing than CVS.
I can only say that I see a gloomy future for Linux, the fact that 2.4 takes so long again is a bad sign. Sooner or later people or firms (like Redhat) will become impatient and take things in their own hand. Sooner or later (with or without Linus) I think there will either be complete stagnation, or complete fragmentation and chaos.
Since most of the circumventors live ouside the US, and want to play region 1 DVD's on their region 2 players, and the DMCA is US only, I don't think the DMCA will be very relevant to this issue.
Indeed, even most Cable/DSL providers charge by the megabyte (after a certain amount). E.g. here in Switzerland it is quite common that you get 800MB free, above that you pay as much as $0.10 per megabyte (which is an outrageous megabyte price).
Luckily a DSL provider whose POP is just 1km from my home has just arrived, which offers flat rate. But alas, only 256kbit (for only 1 km, much faster should have been possible).
Unless you want to count our assumption that lines are terminated with "\n".
We don't even rely on that. I can't imagine 70% using a native API either. Whatfor?
We develop a large applet/servlet app in IBM's visualage on windows, which will be deployed within netscape (applet) and unix/jrun (servlet), talking over Corba to mainframe-PL/1 programs.
We can move from development (visualage/windows) to deployment (unix/jrun) without any problems or changes. The platform independence really is a crucial advantage.
As long as.net isn't available for other platforms, its useless.
Drug development would be an area which would be hit hard by abolishing IP, I agree. This is because of the high costs and long development times in this field.
OTOH, one might ask if drug development is not a public task, which should be taken over by governmental institutes such as the NIH and equivalent institutes in other countries. In Holland for example, a lot of charity is spent on institutes such as the cancer foundation, that do non-profit research for cures and drugs.
I find it highly disturbing and immoral that some new drugs are available, but people in poorer countries are still dying of diseases that are curable since they cannot pay the drugs (of which the cost is not so much real production cost, but mainly IP-related costs).
Yes, drug development in all might slow down somewhat. So be it, there are already way too many new (expensive) drugs on the market, and the idea is that everything which is possible should be available to all, driving the costs of health insurances way out of line in most developed countries.
People make no good balance: If we don't take care, in some years time 50% of your income might be taken up by health insurance, massively lowering the overall quality of life (since no money is left for other nice things). What do you get in return? Some expensive drugs and treatments that, in most cases, extent a miserable live or sickbed for a few years (i.e. instead of dying quickly at 80, you die slowly between 80 and 85). Of course the commercial pharma companies don't want us to balance the benefits and disadvantages of all that new developments, they only want to increase their profits.
I agree largely (though not with the prostitues part. a prostitute is not necesarily a slave). For me a H1-B would be slavery, but OTOH those who take it, must know for themselves what they're getting into.
I would never do that and accept such an uncertain status. Indeed I have been considering to go to Canada because it has much better options for visa or permanent residency (though the PR procedure takes long) and I love a cold climate and snow. Here in Europe I'm doing fine, I might be willing to go to the US but why would I give up my security and good income here for a US H1-B visa?
Instead I moved (from Holland) to Switzerland, where I earn more than I ever could in the US as a contractor, especially as a H1-B contractor. I don't claim I'm unique and the US couldn't do without me, but I am sure the US misses out on some useful people because of their weird policy w.r.t. visas and residency.
Especially for Europeans which really might contribute to US society and would adapt relatively easy, cause no trouble but add useful skills to US workforce, the US makes it very unattractive to come. Only people from much poorer countries in hopeless situations would accept H1-B's.
Thus, most imported labour in the IT field come from third world countries. I doubt if that is good for the US in the long run, mostly from India and China. I think it is better for the US to get a more balanced influx of people. But the current visa system makes that impossible.
After a number of patches which bring no real solution, one should just throw away the system and try something new, like no more patents, no more IP at all.
It would be an interesting experiment. Companies keep yelling that there would be no more incentive, no more progress. I doubt that, and would like to see in practice what the results would be. In the history of (western) mankind, mostly there was no concept of IP and yet there was tremendous prograss and great inventions. I seriously doubt the claim that patents are necessary for progress.
Philips Electronics, for one, won't be too happy to implement this. They are very successful at the moment with their home-cd recorders.
Also, they sold their record company (Phonogram) a year ago. I think they've been anticipating the division that is bound to occur between the electronic/PC-equipment manufacturers and the movie/music industry.
Sony OTOH, still is a combination of equipemnt and software company, thus they are one of the fiercest fighters for implementing restrictions in video (DVD, CSS, require all manufacturers to respect region locking etc) and audio equipment.
Boycott Sony to begin with. They are one of the most evil ones.
When the manufacturers see that they really loose marketshare if/when they give in the the recording industies demands and implement the copy restrictions, they might think twice.
Also it is good there are still countries like China that puke on western copyright & IP laws. In some years time they might be the only suppliers of free equipment. I can see a future where all western companies were forced/bribed to stop producing standard CD players for instance, and the chinese are the only ones to make them.
Don't try this with IE, since it won't work:
*** Error 404: Wrong Browser ***
I am sorry to inform you that this page is not accessible with Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
I had a good laugh when I tried it and saw the error message. On purpose I assume, since his page reveals that he is a Linux fanatic and obviously doesn't like MSFT.
Please click on "parent", the Slashdot threaded view doesn't always display the correct parent. My remark was to another posting, and I didn't need to read between the lines at all on that one.
So? cvsup -stable, make world, make install
then you have 4.1.1 working right.
No need for reinstalls, ever. I've been upgrading FBSD for >5 years without one reinstall from scratch (moved dumps to new disks/hardware, cvsupped all the time) still my filesystems are perfectly clean and tidy.
Slashdot Mirror
Yak, how can you say that. Just looked at it, it is a CDE clone.
No thanks, I'll stick to (c)twm (icons disabled; who needs icons) just as I have in the past 12 years. There's nothing I could do more with any other windows manager. The briliant iconmanager is the precursor of the windows taskbar. The workspacemanager (i.e. virtual screens) is the precursor of all other window managers' virtual screens (that windows still didn't catch up with).
For the moment I can live with the Linux JDK, which runs even faster on FreeBSD than on Linux.
Though I'd rather have a native version of course.
*BSD is not for small potatoes. Large services and companies run on it. Maybe not very many, but that doesn't matter as long as it fills *your* need. It does fill mine so yes, I get FreeBSD.
Btw Linux does not fill my need: it costs me too much time to keep a stable and up-to-date version. The only advantage to me would be a native JDK, but if I have to choose between
BSD: easy maintenance, best performance, good consistent documentation, non-native JDK
Linux: native JDK
the choice is easy for me.
What is really lacking is a native JDK with a decent JIT (such as a real 1.3 port with Hotspot). With all the money flowing into FreeBSD, and with all its professional users/ISP's, I don't comprehend why that is taking so long.
Maybe SUN is somehow frustrating developments in this area, since they're scared that FreeBSD might be a real competitor for Solaris?
In fact it is, I know several ISP's that used to use Solaris and switched to FreeBSD or BSD/OS.
Whereas the small, starting ISP's tend to choose Linux (in that sense, Linux isn't as much of a competitor to SUN), the larger and more professional ones used Solaris, then switch to BSD.
BSD was first, and better. ( I won't go into details here).
So if anyone should join anyone, Linux developers should stop and join FreeBSD.
Btw, not for everyone the only goal is "world domination". I don't care if there are more users of some other OS, be it Linux of Windows or whatever. I only care that my favourite OS (which is clearly FreeBSD, it costs me much less time to maintain and run than anything else) has enough developers to keep my needs w.r.t. the operating system satisfied.
That said, my needs are not satisfied: What is really lacking is a native JDK with a decent JIT (such as a real 1.3 port with Hotspot). With all the money flowing into FreeBSD, and with all its professional users/ISP's, I don't comprehend why that is taking so long.
What open means in open source is open to interpretation, but IMO it means not only open to read, but also open in the sense that it is unrestricted, i.e. you can do with it what you want.
This with the single possible restriction that you can do with it what you want, except make it closed again (i.e. like the GPL). The BSD is open without this restriction (i.e. you can make it closed again if you like).
Isn't this illegal? In many countries it is illegal to use one product to also sell something else.
Native or not is hardly significant. Many Linux apps run even faster on BSD+Linux "emulation" (technically it isn't really emulation, apps run at near native speed or faster).
Even things like vmware have been ported (luckily the kernel modules of vmware are opensource), proving how very capable BSD's Linuxulator is.
Thus, it is nonsense to say that Linux is a better desktop OS. BSD can do what Linux can (i.e. run all it's applications) and more...
So have humans, accept it and move on :-)
I remember when 2.2 was release, al (Linus included) said that it had taken way too long.
The cycle from 2.2 to 2.4 would take much less time (i.e. some less extra functionality in one stpe, instead more small steps in the future).
Already at that time I thought they wouldn't make it faster from 2.2 to 2.4. The Linux development model is not right IMO. 2.0->2.2 already showed this. The development group IMO is not coherent enough, there is no core group as in the *BSD's, but only one person (which may delegate some things to 1 or 2 others) that has to screen all contributions from widely varying sources. As time progresses, the chaos increases and even small steps forward get increasingly difficult.
In contrast, FreeBSD's stable releases seem to accelerate, including more functionality at an accelerating pace. There is a group of 20 people, each has his own speciality, but all of them at least have a sound idea of most parts of the system (including kernel and userland). All commits to the source are published and accessible through CVS meaning they get much wider exposure for all to scrutinize.
For Linux there have been discussions to adopt some source code control system to get things better in control. CVS wous found to be inadequate (of course, what is good enough for half the UNIX world is insufficient for Linux) so one has to wait for bitkeeper. That wait has taken about 2 years already, and apparently it is better to have nothing than CVS.
I can only say that I see a gloomy future for Linux, the fact that 2.4 takes so long again is a bad sign. Sooner or later people or firms (like Redhat) will become impatient and take things in their own hand. Sooner or later (with or without Linus) I think there will either be complete stagnation, or complete fragmentation and chaos.
Since most of the circumventors live ouside the US, and want to play region 1 DVD's on their region 2 players, and the DMCA is US only, I don't think the DMCA will be very relevant to this issue.
Not true. In fact I could have gotten a CHF 75,- Cable subscription, but with only 800MB (above that it costs $0.10 per megabyte, way too much).
Instead I took a CHF 180,- flat rate DSL.
(yes such things are still very expensive in Euope/Switzerland).
I love flat rates, and I'm prepared to pay a lot more for it, even more than I would probably pay using metered access.
Indeed, even most Cable/DSL providers charge by the megabyte (after a certain amount). E.g. here in Switzerland it is quite common that you get 800MB free, above that you pay as much as $0.10 per megabyte (which is an outrageous megabyte price).
Luckily a DSL provider whose POP is just 1km from my home has just arrived, which offers flat rate. But alas, only 256kbit (for only 1 km, much faster should have been possible).
Yes, since parts of IIS are (AFAIK) handled in the NT kernel.
For a true comparison, compare IIS with the Linux kernel-internal webserver (also only for static pages). I bet Linux would win then.
Unless you want to count our assumption that lines are terminated with "\n".
.net isn't available for other platforms, its useless.
We don't even rely on that. I can't imagine 70% using a native API either. Whatfor?
We develop a large applet/servlet app in IBM's visualage on windows, which will be deployed within netscape (applet) and unix/jrun (servlet), talking over Corba to mainframe-PL/1 programs.
We can move from development (visualage/windows) to deployment (unix/jrun) without any problems or changes. The platform independence really is a crucial advantage.
As long as
Drug development would be an area which would be hit hard by abolishing IP, I agree. This is because of the high costs and long development times in this field.
OTOH, one might ask if drug development is not a public task, which should be taken over by governmental institutes such as the NIH and equivalent institutes in other countries. In Holland for example, a lot of charity is spent on institutes such as the cancer foundation, that do non-profit research for cures and drugs.
I find it highly disturbing and immoral that some new drugs are available, but people in poorer countries are still dying of diseases that are curable since they cannot pay the drugs (of which the cost is not so much real production cost, but mainly IP-related costs).
Yes, drug development in all might slow down somewhat. So be it, there are already way too many new (expensive) drugs on the market, and the idea is that everything which is possible should be available to all, driving the costs of health insurances way out of line in most developed countries.
People make no good balance: If we don't take care, in some years time 50% of your income might be taken up by health insurance, massively lowering the overall quality of life (since no money is left for other nice things). What do you get in return? Some expensive drugs and treatments that, in most cases, extent a miserable live or sickbed for a few years (i.e. instead of dying quickly at 80, you die slowly between 80 and 85). Of course the commercial pharma companies don't want us to balance the benefits and disadvantages of all that new developments, they only want to increase their profits.
I agree largely (though not with the prostitues part. a prostitute is not necesarily a slave). For me a H1-B would be slavery, but OTOH those who take it, must know for themselves what they're getting into.
I would never do that and accept such an uncertain status. Indeed I have been considering to go to Canada because it has much better options for visa or permanent residency (though the PR procedure takes long) and I love a cold climate and snow. Here in Europe I'm doing fine, I might be willing to go to the US but why would I give up my security and good income here for a US H1-B visa?
Instead I moved (from Holland) to Switzerland, where I earn more than I ever could in the US as a contractor, especially as a H1-B contractor. I don't claim I'm unique and the US couldn't do without me, but I am sure the US misses out on some useful people because of their weird policy w.r.t. visas and residency.
Especially for Europeans which really might contribute to US society and would adapt relatively easy, cause no trouble but add useful skills to US workforce, the US makes it very unattractive to come. Only people from much poorer countries in hopeless situations would accept H1-B's.
Thus, most imported labour in the IT field come from third world countries. I doubt if that is good for the US in the long run, mostly from India and China. I think it is better for the US to get a more balanced influx of people. But the current visa system makes that impossible.
Is determining what is obvious and what not, not the job of those (highly paid?) patent office clerks?
I understand that at the moment there is an incentive for them to grant as many patents as possible, since they get paid by number of patents granted.
To fix that, there should be added an incentive not to grant wrong patents: for every patent that is overthrown later, they should get a (hefty) fine.
After a number of patches which bring no real solution, one should just throw away the system and try something new, like no more patents, no more IP at all.
It would be an interesting experiment. Companies keep yelling that there would be no more incentive, no more progress. I doubt that, and would like to see in practice what the results would be. In the history of (western) mankind, mostly there was no concept of IP and yet there was tremendous prograss and great inventions. I seriously doubt the claim that patents are necessary for progress.
But I have no congressman, senator etc...
I have no geek neighbours either.
Philips Electronics, for one, won't be too happy to implement this. They are very successful at the moment with their home-cd recorders.
Also, they sold their record company (Phonogram) a year ago. I think they've been anticipating the division that is bound to occur between the electronic/PC-equipment manufacturers and the movie/music industry.
Sony OTOH, still is a combination of equipemnt and software company, thus they are one of the fiercest fighters for implementing restrictions in video (DVD, CSS, require all manufacturers to respect region locking etc) and audio equipment.
Boycott Sony to begin with. They are one of the most evil ones.
When the manufacturers see that they really loose marketshare if/when they give in the the recording industies demands and implement the copy restrictions, they might think twice.
Also it is good there are still countries like China that puke on western copyright & IP laws. In some years time they might be the only suppliers of free equipment. I can see a future where all western companies were forced/bribed to stop producing standard CD players for instance, and the chinese are the only ones to make them.
Here it is.
Don't try this with IE, since it won't work:
*** Error 404: Wrong Browser ***
I am sorry to inform you that this page is not accessible with Microsoft's Internet Explorer.
I had a good laugh when I tried it and saw the error message. On purpose I assume, since his page reveals that he is a Linux fanatic and obviously doesn't like MSFT.
Please click on "parent", the Slashdot threaded view doesn't always display the correct parent. My remark was to another posting, and I didn't need to read between the lines at all on that one.
So? cvsup -stable, make world, make install
then you have 4.1.1 working right.
No need for reinstalls, ever. I've been upgrading FBSD for >5 years without one reinstall from scratch (moved dumps to new disks/hardware, cvsupped all the time) still my filesystems are perfectly clean and tidy.
There is no other OS that could do that.
So you get your feeling of "signifigance" from the Operating System on your desktop?
I pity you...
There are also people who prefer FreeBSD for desktop applications.