Perhaps a different approach might be for someone to take the Linux code and create a decent open-source Windows driver
"Open-source Windows driver" is a contradiction in terms.
Since Windows Vista 64-bit, Microsoft has placed a policy in Windows to require device drivers to be digitally signed with a kernel-mode code signing certificate from a commercial certificate authority. As of Windows 10, Microsoft has tightened this policy to require disclosure of the binary code of all drivers to Microsoft, and new drivers submitted since November 2015 must be signed with an Extended Validation (EV) certificate. An EV certificate is substantially more expensive than an ordinary code signing certificate (hundreds of USD per year according to digicert.com), and only an organization, not an individual developer, appears to qualify. It appears that Microsoft really wants the hardware manufacturer, not a third-party developer, to make and publish drivers.
Apple's policy with Xcode 7 sort of resembles the LibreJS browser extension that FSF promotes, which acts like NoScript except whitelisting all free scripts, except that Apple requires a $499 dongle (a Mac mini) to compile the apps.
Not only that, in order to run XCode you need to have a Mac.
That's very likely why he said: and allow iOS device users who also own a Mac
Just a guess, but let me try to be fair to Duckman5. I read the post as implying a claim that most iOS device users do not in fact already own a suitable Mac. Therefore my suggestion would apply to so few users that relying on it would not be worthwhile.
If one already owns a Mac, there is no need for any additional Mac computers. Just the one will do.
Unless the existing Mac is too old to run Xcode 7.
How many ultrabooks are actually used "on the go" instead of quickly becoming just another status symbol because it's easier to just whip out your phone or tablet?
My phone is a flip phone because the monthly service is cheaper: $90 per year when a typical smartphone plan costs that for two months. I own a Galaxy Tab A, but its on-screen keyboard isn't quite suitable for the hobby coding and writing projects that I work on while riding the bus. Or is working on a hobby coding project itself "showing off"?
I think the idea is to use an active DVI-D to VGA adapter with its own video DAC. This will work for anything that doesn't try to push HDCP over DVI-D, but it'll probably be a lot more expensive than a cheap $10 Monoprice cable.
DB is the shell and 9 is the number of pins. Therefore, a DB9 is a DB25 with most of the pins missing. There is no standardized DB9, but one wouldn't be unjustified in claiming that the de facto DB9 is DB25 that has only the pins used by a PC serial port (the ones that have counterparts on the DE9).
those who have a reason to use an IP address will be able to economically obtain the addresses they need for a buck or two extra.
A buck or two extra per what period of time?
Anybody who is serious about putting up a secure website can still obtain a unique IP address for their website, very easily
Let's say, hypothetically, that 2 billion out of the world's 7 billion people each decide to put up a blog. Each blog operator also needs to add security so that he or she can log in and add posts, and so that users can log in and leave comments, without their passwords and/or session cookies being copied by a Firesheep user. Subtracting IP address blocks reserved for other purposes, this leaves fewer than 2 billion IP addresses left for users' client devices.
A compact laptop is small enough and light enough that I can use it to work on hobby projects while commuting to and from my day job or the grocery store. A full-size laptop is far less convenient to use while riding in a somewhat cramped public transit seat. And unlike a compact laptop, which can be disguised by being carried in a satchel, a traditional laptop bag is more likely to act as a magnet for thieves.
From the perspective of 99% of people, they can carry a 15 pound laptop as well as a 2 pound laptop
But can they carry a 15 pound laptop plus other supplies needed for work as easily as they can carry a 2 pound laptop plus other supplies needed for work? Can they carry a 15 pound laptop plus groceries as easily as they can carry a 2 pound laptop plus groceries? And can they use a 15 pound laptop while riding public transit as easily as they can use a 2 pound laptop while riding public transit?
Let me try expressing it more honestly: VGA's DE15 was the first widely adopted connector for enhanced-definition (480p) color video. It was around long before it was common to send progressive video as YPbPr over three RCA cables.
The PS/2 port also doesn't have to deal with Digital Restrictions Management. There are plenty of adapters that translate between the PS/2 keyboard and mouse protocol and the USB Human Interface Device protocol, allowing use of legacy keyboards and mice with legacy-free PCs. Likewise, HDMI without HDCP could be translated into VGA and analog audio signals by an external DAC. But it's illegal (via anti-circumvention law) to produce such an adapter compatible with HDCP, and it may be illegal (via license terms of HDMI essential patents) to produce an HDMI sink that does not handle HDCP.
Your ThinkPad is not encoding HDCP over the HDMI connector.
You'd be surprised. A lot of video game consoles encode everything with HDCP. PlayStation 3 does, for instance, and PS3-compatible video recorders had to use the component output instead. And I think one of the many reasons why the OUYA console fizzled was that its only video output was an HDMI output with HDCP that a game's developer could not turn off. This made it impossible for a developer to record a promotional video for YouTube, let alone for a player to record something like a Let's Play, without the cheesy step of pointing a camcorder at a TV.
I suppose the users are going to use some combination of telepathy and telekinesis to use that computer without a keyboard, mouse and monitor?
The last time I checked Apple.com, a Mac mini started at 499 USD plus tax, to which one can add either A. the display, keyboard, and mouse of one's existing non-Mac PC or B. one's existing HDMI TV and a 30 USD keyboard and mouse, bringing the total to 529 USD. This is still well shy of the $1,000 that Duckman5 quoted.
Not to mention the router and other network hardware and ISP costs they'll incur while trying to get the thing onto the internet to download a compiler and the source code.
I was assuming someone who already owns an Internet-connected PC running Windows or X11/Linux and an iPhone or iPad and is looking to replace the PC running Windows or X11/Linux with a Mac in order to receive updates to a particular Free program before App Store users receive them. How would an iPod touch or iPad user use the App Store anyway without paying "router and other network hardware and ISP costs"?
Not all distros come with a windows manager. It's not needed, for example, in server installs and mini and recovery distros.
These have not been suggested as substitutes for a desktop distro in the way that Android often has been. Once netbooks were discontinued at the end of 2012, people have recommended that netbook users instead buy an Android tablet and a keyboard, which doesn't fit my work flow well. So I have been trying to come up with a precise yet concise name that includes desktop distros while excluding Android, and the closest I have is "X11/Linux" or (when already in the topic of daily-use GUI distros) "GNU/Linux".
android tablets can already run two apps side-by-side
All Android tablets? My Nexus 7 (2012) got Lollipop but never got this feature. I know a tiling window manager ships with some tablets, such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab A that I bought a week ago. When I tap the Recents button, each app's title bar has an icon for whether it supports the tiling window manager. This icon looks like the logo of the Nintendo DS, and tapping it activates the tiling window manager. But a lot of apps that I use do not have this icon, because the app's manifest does not explicitly opt into the tiling window manager, and can thus run only in the full-screen. Examples of incompatible apps include the official Stack Exchange app. If I open a tiling-compatible app in one window and press Recents in the other window, only those few tiling-compatible apps appear in the resulting Recents list. Nor can I run two instances of the same app in tiled windows on the same device.
linux, freebsd, android, osx, windows, microsoft, apple, os/2, pc, mac - people will figure it out.:-)
There's a certain pedantic personality endemic to Slashdot, people who think "technically correct" is the best kind of correct, as Number 1.0 from Futurama put it. They see the success of Android, claim it as a victory for Linux, and ignore the fact that a tablet is not always a close substitute for a laptop, especially in their respective support for offline use. In Chromium or Firefox for X11/Linux, for example, I can load a dozen web pages in tabs, put my laptop on suspend, resume later, and read the pages even while offline. (The city bus that I ride to and from work does not provide Wi-Fi, and I currently do not subscribe to a cellular Internet service plan that allows tethering.) When it runs out of memory, it swaps the affected pages' memory to disk. But in Chrome or Firefox for Android, the browser is likely to purge the pages from memory instead of swapping them to the device's SSD, with the intent of reloading them when I switch back to the page's tab. But when it tries to reload a purged page, I get an error that I am offline. And even when I'm online, reloading the page is likely to erase the contents of text areas, especially on Slashdot's comment form.
I'm not kidding that it's possible. In fact, several developers of iOS apps that do things forbidden by the App Store Review Guidelines, such as classic game console emulators or WLAN troubleshooting apps, have chosen this route of requiring a Mac for installation. But I agree with you that it's unrealistic for the majority of users.
and added a thousand dollars to it
The last time I checked Apple.com, a Mac mini started at 499 USD plus tax. Where do you get this "thousand dollars", unless you live in a country whose dollar happens to have such an exchange rate with the USD?
Lots of other filesystems support extended attributes
Unfortunately, FAT32 is not among them. In theory, Windows may support them technically, but Wikipedia's article about extended attributes gives no indication of how it is supported or what other operating systems support Microsoft's implementation. And FAT is the only removable media file system I'm aware of that 1. can be formatted by software included with Windows and 2. can be read and written by Windows, OS X, and free software.
there's a freedesktop standard
I found it. It involves setting the user.mime_type attribute. But traditional methods still need to be used for files stored on FAT32 media (usually USB flash drives or SD cards) or processed by attribute-unaware applications. Or is it recommended to amend major GNU/Linux distributions' inclusion criteria to exclude attribute-unaware applications?
Presumably company-owned wired phones that connect to the company's internal PBX or VoIP or whatever. My current employer allows BYOD, but I know of a lot of employers that don't. At non-BYOD workplaces, employees' cell phones go in a locker at the start of the shift and remain in the locker until the end of the shift.
You could distribute your app as source code under a free software license and allow iOS device users who also own a Mac to install the fix right away. Since Xcode 7, Apple has stopped requiring each individual user to buy a $99 per year developer license just to test an app compiled on his own Mac on his own iOS device.
Slashdot Mirror
Then, when a project becomes more widely used, there will be domain experts looking at the sources
How long did it take for Heartbleed to become public?
Perhaps a different approach might be for someone to take the Linux code and create a decent open-source Windows driver
"Open-source Windows driver" is a contradiction in terms.
Since Windows Vista 64-bit, Microsoft has placed a policy in Windows to require device drivers to be digitally signed with a kernel-mode code signing certificate from a commercial certificate authority. As of Windows 10, Microsoft has tightened this policy to require disclosure of the binary code of all drivers to Microsoft, and new drivers submitted since November 2015 must be signed with an Extended Validation (EV) certificate. An EV certificate is substantially more expensive than an ordinary code signing certificate (hundreds of USD per year according to digicert.com), and only an organization, not an individual developer, appears to qualify. It appears that Microsoft really wants the hardware manufacturer, not a third-party developer, to make and publish drivers.
Apple's policy with Xcode 7 sort of resembles the LibreJS browser extension that FSF promotes, which acts like NoScript except whitelisting all free scripts, except that Apple requires a $499 dongle (a Mac mini) to compile the apps.
Not only that, in order to run XCode you need to have a Mac.
That's very likely why he said: and allow iOS device users who also own a Mac
Just a guess, but let me try to be fair to Duckman5. I read the post as implying a claim that most iOS device users do not in fact already own a suitable Mac. Therefore my suggestion would apply to so few users that relying on it would not be worthwhile.
If one already owns a Mac, there is no need for any additional Mac computers. Just the one will do.
Unless the existing Mac is too old to run Xcode 7.
it's unreasonable to expect people to invest in an entirely new computer
Thank you. Can I quote you on this in case the issue comes up with someone else?
SCART is traditionally associated with 576i (interlaced, 15.6 kHz by 50 Hz, and Europe-only), not 480p (progressive and 31.5 kHz by 60 Hz).
Perhaps Anonymous Coward's point is that Gmail didn't matter from day one because of its contextual ads.
Can we stop calling opposing political opinions "trolling" and "hate speech"?
Then what's a better term for speech intended to intimidate a particular class of people?
How many ultrabooks are actually used "on the go" instead of quickly becoming just another status symbol because it's easier to just whip out your phone or tablet?
My phone is a flip phone because the monthly service is cheaper: $90 per year when a typical smartphone plan costs that for two months. I own a Galaxy Tab A, but its on-screen keyboard isn't quite suitable for the hobby coding and writing projects that I work on while riding the bus. Or is working on a hobby coding project itself "showing off"?
I think the idea is to use an active DVI-D to VGA adapter with its own video DAC. This will work for anything that doesn't try to push HDCP over DVI-D, but it'll probably be a lot more expensive than a cheap $10 Monoprice cable.
Most secure sites should run on a dedicated server [or] IP virtual hosting
If a site has its own dedicated IP address, then the act of accessing this IP address reveals the identity of the site that is being accessed.
Who the fuck needs a laptop?
Someone who doesn't own a car. A laptop lets you use a computer while you ride public transit.
DB is the shell and 9 is the number of pins. Therefore, a DB9 is a DB25 with most of the pins missing. There is no standardized DB9, but one wouldn't be unjustified in claiming that the de facto DB9 is DB25 that has only the pins used by a PC serial port (the ones that have counterparts on the DE9).
those who have a reason to use an IP address will be able to economically obtain the addresses they need for a buck or two extra.
A buck or two extra per what period of time?
Anybody who is serious about putting up a secure website can still obtain a unique IP address for their website, very easily
Let's say, hypothetically, that 2 billion out of the world's 7 billion people each decide to put up a blog. Each blog operator also needs to add security so that he or she can log in and add posts, and so that users can log in and leave comments, without their passwords and/or session cookies being copied by a Firesheep user. Subtracting IP address blocks reserved for other purposes, this leaves fewer than 2 billion IP addresses left for users' client devices.
A compact laptop is small enough and light enough that I can use it to work on hobby projects while commuting to and from my day job or the grocery store. A full-size laptop is far less convenient to use while riding in a somewhat cramped public transit seat. And unlike a compact laptop, which can be disguised by being carried in a satchel, a traditional laptop bag is more likely to act as a magnet for thieves.
From the perspective of 99% of people, they can carry a 15 pound laptop as well as a 2 pound laptop
But can they carry a 15 pound laptop plus other supplies needed for work as easily as they can carry a 2 pound laptop plus other supplies needed for work? Can they carry a 15 pound laptop plus groceries as easily as they can carry a 2 pound laptop plus groceries? And can they use a 15 pound laptop while riding public transit as easily as they can use a 2 pound laptop while riding public transit?
Let me try expressing it more honestly: VGA's DE15 was the first widely adopted connector for enhanced-definition (480p) color video. It was around long before it was common to send progressive video as YPbPr over three RCA cables.
The PS/2 port also doesn't have to deal with Digital Restrictions Management. There are plenty of adapters that translate between the PS/2 keyboard and mouse protocol and the USB Human Interface Device protocol, allowing use of legacy keyboards and mice with legacy-free PCs. Likewise, HDMI without HDCP could be translated into VGA and analog audio signals by an external DAC. But it's illegal (via anti-circumvention law) to produce such an adapter compatible with HDCP, and it may be illegal (via license terms of HDMI essential patents) to produce an HDMI sink that does not handle HDCP.
Your ThinkPad is not encoding HDCP over the HDMI connector.
You'd be surprised. A lot of video game consoles encode everything with HDCP. PlayStation 3 does, for instance, and PS3-compatible video recorders had to use the component output instead. And I think one of the many reasons why the OUYA console fizzled was that its only video output was an HDMI output with HDCP that a game's developer could not turn off. This made it impossible for a developer to record a promotional video for YouTube, let alone for a player to record something like a Let's Play, without the cheesy step of pointing a camcorder at a TV.
I suppose the users are going to use some combination of telepathy and telekinesis to use that computer without a keyboard, mouse and monitor?
The last time I checked Apple.com, a Mac mini started at 499 USD plus tax, to which one can add either A. the display, keyboard, and mouse of one's existing non-Mac PC or B. one's existing HDMI TV and a 30 USD keyboard and mouse, bringing the total to 529 USD. This is still well shy of the $1,000 that Duckman5 quoted.
Not to mention the router and other network hardware and ISP costs they'll incur while trying to get the thing onto the internet to download a compiler and the source code.
I was assuming someone who already owns an Internet-connected PC running Windows or X11/Linux and an iPhone or iPad and is looking to replace the PC running Windows or X11/Linux with a Mac in order to receive updates to a particular Free program before App Store users receive them. How would an iPod touch or iPad user use the App Store anyway without paying "router and other network hardware and ISP costs"?
Not all distros come with a windows manager. It's not needed, for example, in server installs and mini and recovery distros.
These have not been suggested as substitutes for a desktop distro in the way that Android often has been. Once netbooks were discontinued at the end of 2012, people have recommended that netbook users instead buy an Android tablet and a keyboard, which doesn't fit my work flow well. So I have been trying to come up with a precise yet concise name that includes desktop distros while excluding Android, and the closest I have is "X11/Linux" or (when already in the topic of daily-use GUI distros) "GNU/Linux".
android tablets can already run two apps side-by-side
All Android tablets? My Nexus 7 (2012) got Lollipop but never got this feature. I know a tiling window manager ships with some tablets, such as the Samsung Galaxy Tab A that I bought a week ago. When I tap the Recents button, each app's title bar has an icon for whether it supports the tiling window manager. This icon looks like the logo of the Nintendo DS, and tapping it activates the tiling window manager. But a lot of apps that I use do not have this icon, because the app's manifest does not explicitly opt into the tiling window manager, and can thus run only in the full-screen. Examples of incompatible apps include the official Stack Exchange app. If I open a tiling-compatible app in one window and press Recents in the other window, only those few tiling-compatible apps appear in the resulting Recents list. Nor can I run two instances of the same app in tiled windows on the same device.
linux, freebsd, android, osx, windows, microsoft, apple, os/2, pc, mac - people will figure it out. :-)
There's a certain pedantic personality endemic to Slashdot, people who think "technically correct" is the best kind of correct, as Number 1.0 from Futurama put it. They see the success of Android, claim it as a victory for Linux, and ignore the fact that a tablet is not always a close substitute for a laptop, especially in their respective support for offline use. In Chromium or Firefox for X11/Linux, for example, I can load a dozen web pages in tabs, put my laptop on suspend, resume later, and read the pages even while offline. (The city bus that I ride to and from work does not provide Wi-Fi, and I currently do not subscribe to a cellular Internet service plan that allows tethering.) When it runs out of memory, it swaps the affected pages' memory to disk. But in Chrome or Firefox for Android, the browser is likely to purge the pages from memory instead of swapping them to the device's SSD, with the intent of reloading them when I switch back to the page's tab. But when it tries to reload a purged page, I get an error that I am offline. And even when I'm online, reloading the page is likely to erase the contents of text areas, especially on Slashdot's comment form.
I'm not kidding that it's possible. In fact, several developers of iOS apps that do things forbidden by the App Store Review Guidelines, such as classic game console emulators or WLAN troubleshooting apps, have chosen this route of requiring a Mac for installation. But I agree with you that it's unrealistic for the majority of users.
and added a thousand dollars to it
The last time I checked Apple.com, a Mac mini started at 499 USD plus tax. Where do you get this "thousand dollars", unless you live in a country whose dollar happens to have such an exchange rate with the USD?
Lots of other filesystems support extended attributes
Unfortunately, FAT32 is not among them. In theory, Windows may support them technically, but Wikipedia's article about extended attributes gives no indication of how it is supported or what other operating systems support Microsoft's implementation. And FAT is the only removable media file system I'm aware of that 1. can be formatted by software included with Windows and 2. can be read and written by Windows, OS X, and free software.
there's a freedesktop standard
I found it. It involves setting the user.mime_type attribute. But traditional methods still need to be used for files stored on FAT32 media (usually USB flash drives or SD cards) or processed by attribute-unaware applications. Or is it recommended to amend major GNU/Linux distributions' inclusion criteria to exclude attribute-unaware applications?
What types of phones are on the whitelist?
Presumably company-owned wired phones that connect to the company's internal PBX or VoIP or whatever. My current employer allows BYOD, but I know of a lot of employers that don't. At non-BYOD workplaces, employees' cell phones go in a locker at the start of the shift and remain in the locker until the end of the shift.
You could distribute your app as source code under a free software license and allow iOS device users who also own a Mac to install the fix right away. Since Xcode 7, Apple has stopped requiring each individual user to buy a $99 per year developer license just to test an app compiled on his own Mac on his own iOS device.