What res are you running at with your PS2 or XBox? Compare that to running 1280x1024 32-bit color with a relatively cheap Radeon 9600. Yeah, you may be able to get the console for cheap. But you also lose a lot in the way of peripherals (no keyboard, no mouse, no standard surround sound, etc.). And, even though you can make up for some of that, you'll still be playing on a standard NTSC or PAL TV instead of a nice CRT or flat screen. I think PCs will still be around for quite a while as gaming platforms. Once consoles go HD, then maybe but I still think PCs will offer a lot for quite a while.
It's less covering the distance and more the dispersion of the signal as it radiates out from the source, assuming that a mobile point source radiates instead of using a directional antenna, which I highly doubt. This is the same reason WiFi speeds drop off so rapidly as you go away from the access point (and why solar radiation dissipates as you move away from the sun, etc.).
Hopefully certain applications (Livemotion, GoLive, Freehand) will be deprecated for good after the merger and others will finally get a solid standardized interface (Flash), while others will be merged so consumers can get the best of both worlds (Photoshop, Fireworks).
Actually, retiring Freehand so that only Illustrator lives on is my primary fear in this merger. I love Freehand and despise Illustrator.
And, in addition to all the different incarnations being contradictory, the original "spirit" of HHGTTG was the radio program, which predated the book, the TV series, and any other incarnation of the whole thing. Refer to http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/dna/biog.sht ml for a good description.
So fucking what? They're the ones who want to use GPL code. It's not like they can't go reimplement it themselves (copyright is not patent).
What are you talking about? So fucking what what? Who are the ones that want to use GPL code? My point is that people don't want to use GPL code because of the restrictions it places on their own code. As a matter of fact, they do reimplement and/or purchase commercial libraries that don't require re-distribution of their GPL-dependent source code. So again, as I said in my first post, your attitude comes down to "my way or the highway". Moral certitude and absolute clarity might feel quite good, but it doesn't really help solve people's problems.
Anyway, I'm PERFECTLY HAPPY to let someone "violate" the GPL on my code... provided they waive all right to enforce their present or future copyrights against me in return. The GPL is specifically designed to undermine intrinsically fascist copyright law: "Without copyright law the GPL would be unenforceable, it would also be unnecessary".
Regardless of what you're perfectly happy allowing, it doesn't really matter. First, most people don't know the difference between someone like you, who puts the GPL on their code but claims that you wouldn't enforce it, and someone who really means it. At the consumer end, open the tarball and there's the GPL: there's no way to discern intent at that point.
Second, contrary to what you might believe, most companies are quite vigilant about following the letter and law of their software licensing agreements. That means, if they get software that says they need to do X, Y, and Z to comply with the license, they do X, Y, and Z. That means, in the case of the GPL, releasing their source code back to the open source community. Again, that's unacceptable.
The last point is that you wind up this paragraph by denouncing copyright law in toto. OK, fine (well, not fine, which I'll address in a second), but that point then has nothing to do with this conversation, since the whole point is finding a licensing agreement that deals with the problems of the current major alternatives, specifically, in the case of the GPL, the requirement of releasing GPL-based code back to the open-source community. In my original post, I explained why that's a non-starter for many companies.
Now, about "not fine". Here's a rant:
What world do you live in? Do you think authors and poets should make a living from their writing? Do you think that artists should make a living from their artwork? Do you think that musicians should make a living from their music?
The very thing that makes that possible is copyright law, that thing that establishes creative persons ownership over their labors. The simple fact that it's incredibly easy to make copies of people's work doesn't make it "fascist" for them to not want you to have it for free: it means that they want to be compensated for their labors. Good laws aren't fascist (and I'm not saying all copyright law is good law, but the very existence of that law isn't, in and of itself, bad): they define the structure of society, the allowed and proscribed interactions in society, and the rules for those interactions. Some interactions need and should have no laws (family, religion, etc.) and some do need and should have laws, particularly commerce and trade, of which an awful lot nowadays uses software and technology.
You talk as if you think copyright is an intrinsic right instead of a tradeable censorship privilege established by the temporal ruling classes.
That's some pretty awesome rhetoric there. So I guess you're not really concerned about software licensing as an end in itself, but the overthrow of the entire societal structure in favor of a communal libertarian is really outside the scope of this conversation.
Anyways, yes, I do think copyright is an intrinsic right (etymologically speaking, look at the name: it cover
Apologies for sounding pedantic here, but this is incorrect. The GPL cannot be incompatable with the CDDL and MPL without the MPL and CDDL being incompatable with it. It's obviously silly to describe one as incompatable with the other but not the other way around. The MPL and CDDL most certainly are incompatable with the GPL.
You're missing his point. The GPL is incompatible with the other licenses because, once GPL is introduced, the GPL basically dictates the terms of redistribution. That is, any code that uses libraries using the GPL must in turn be GPL'ed, since that's the only way to comply with the GPL. The other licenses don't require that. That's what he means by "incompatible."
The GPL is neutral, it requires the imposition of no further restrictions, and therefore is one of the few players in town that qualifies as a legitimate baseline FOSS license for licenses to aspire compability with. The same is not true of the CDDL, MPL, or non-copyleft licenses such as the BSD and X11 licenses. The former are not project neutral. The latter do not prevent more conditions being attached, which essentially makes them useless from an interoperability point of view.
The GPL is far from neutral, which is why I never use it in any of my projects. It doesn't require any more conditions be attached, primarily because there are just about no further conditions that could be attached.
There really isn't a lot of difference in the case of the MPL and CDDL. Both require that any relicensing be done under a license that imposes the same restrictions and grants. Essentially they're saying "You can relicense this under any license you want, as long as it's this one, or a rewrite." Most additional rights granted are, in any case, a re-statement of copyright law.
The key here is the phrase "any relicensing be done under a license that imposes the same restrictions and grants." That's true. And the problem is that the restrictions and grants under GPL require open sourcing all code developed using GPL libraries.
The problems described here have nothing to do with the GPL.
Wrong. The problems here have everything to do with the GPL. GPL requires a complete open source code chain. Once you're using GPL libraries and services, all derived works are perforce GPL under the terms of that license.
What you have to understand is that this is complete dealkiller for companies with proprietary requirements. In my case, it's not that the company that I'm currently working for gives a rat's ass about whether or not anyone uses the intellectual property of the actual algorithms in the code, which is generally what's supposed to be the great value-add of software. This company is not a software development organization, but a major manufacturing concern. Requiring them to release that code would expose internal workings of their (non-software) primary products, the very things that constitute their identity as a company.
The GPL and the general self-righteous attitude of the OSS community (which basically amounts to "my way or the highway") causes huge trouble in situations like this. The GPL is guilty of one primary problem: an absolute declaration of the openness of code. This works for many many things, but is incompatible with most companies' core business development procedures.
The Los Angeles Times has a similar model, where daily print subscribers get free access to the Calendar Live section of their Web site, which includes, e.g., club and theater listings, restaurant reviews, and so on. To create your on-line account, you have to provide your print subscription account number.
Thank you, King Obvious. I was obviously talking about the GUI libraries and RAD tools available for.NET.
No, you weren't "obviously" talking about the GUI libraries and RAD tools available for.Net. You assume that everyone reading your posts knows your entire context. So when you say, "This rules! That sucks!" you sound just like any other fanboy moron. I have no way to evaluate the soundness of your argument besides that. My guess, based on your demeanor and argument, is that you're a dickhead. Hell, you might be right. But that doesn't mean you're not a dickhead.
And.Net CLEARLY is not the GUI libraries and RAD tools:.Net is CLEARLY something else entirely, just the same as the various windowing APIs and development tools for *nix systems are CLEARLY different from the underlying system architecture, which is what this whole discussion is about. I would expect someone who fancies themselves an engineer or developer or whatever to be more precise.
Qt is a C++ library usable from many languages. PyQt is its Python bindings. Not everyone does, but everyone should, because it is the right language for GUI and most of the other non-performance-critical applications.
OK, I'll be sure to let everyone know. Your initial arguments ("Bollocks!.Net sucks! PyQt/PyKDE rule!") were certainly convincing. And knowing that "it" (by which I assume you mean Python, although your language is again not very clear) is the right language should certainly convince everybody to drop everything else they're doing and get on the PyPeaker train.
Actually, I've done a fair bit of Python development (not for GUI development, but for various scripting and task automation uses), but I'm starting to drop it in favor of Ruby. So let me just interject: Ruby is the new right language! Can you refute my reasoning?
No, PyQt/PyKDE are better objectively in terms of API consistency, simplicity, power and expresiveness... When I like something I say I like it. PyQt/PyKDE are simply better than all Microsoft GUI solutions out there.
OK, that convinced me! It's objectively better (and objectively is bold, which means it must be true). You like it, you've said so, and it's simply objectively better. Were you a debating champion? These are very very convincing arguments. In fact, I'll drop all other development solutions I've seen and switch to this based completely on these very salient and perceptive points: objectively better and you like it.
That is because a ton of information is needed to program Windows GUI applications as the Windows API's are so horribly broken and difficult to use.
And the windowing APIs for Linux have historically been wildly easy to learn and access. Uh huh. Which is why I and others have been looking for a good book on GUI development on Linux for years and not finding it. Maybe PyQt/PyKDE is the answer I've been looking for. Dunno, I've never heard of it before, which proves the problem that the tools for GUI development on Linux are wildly fragmented and inconsistent overall. So thanks for the reference and I'll look into it.
As for the Windows API being broken, I really don't know about that anymore. The windowing libraries and development tools in VS.Net, Borland C++/JBuilder, and IntelliJ are really smooth, so I do most of my GUI development on Windows in C# or C++ or sometimes in Java if it's either cross-platform or just for myself. The fair comparison then would be a comparison between either the Win32 windowing APIs and the base X windows APIs or between the higher-level windowing libraries provided in RAD tools for both platforms (it's also an area I'm familiar with, having worked on the first few years of API libraries at Borland, including the big revisions of the OWL libraries).
Considering that interacting with network sockets is done entirely by libraries that handle such things for you if you know what you're doing and you'll realize that what you're talking about just isn't programming, it's gluing together other people's libraries. Unless you're writing machine code that directly addresses the hardware layer, you're standing on the shoulders of giants.
But if you've ever created a relatively complex user interface, you're not just "drawing buttons" or just doing design. Sure, there's a design component to it, but there's a design component to everything in application development (at least if done properly; I've worked on enough projects where there clearly wasn't a design component before implementation and that's as nightmarish as a slapped-together user interface). And if you're creating something for people to use directly (word processing, music, or graphical interaction such as drawing, graphics manipulation, or CAD/CAM) as opposed to accessing through some other means (e.g., a service that's accessed through an API on an application server and exposed through a Web interface), then there's a need for a graphical interface of some sort. Hell, even server and daemon apps benefit greatly from a robust graphical interface for configuration and administration.
Look, it's a stupid argument: maybe some people are too cool to use GUIs, but lots of people, including professional developers, want them and need to create them, if for no other reason than that people who aren't as cool as you find them to be a necessity for interacting with the system. As such, creating a GUI is clearly a part of the application stack. If you don't want to write a GUI (or even if you do), then go ahead and get this book. What the OP and I and others want, though, is a book that addresses all parts of the application stack, even the uncool parts.
Bollocks to you. This shows that you really don't know what you're talking about..Net isn't a GUI development solution. There's a lot of different resources out there for understanding what it is, but you can start here with the basics.
But I'll assume you're talking about Visual Studio.Net. I haven't used PyQt/PyKDE, but from what I can see, it's Python-based. That's fine if you know Python (and I do), but not everyone does. VS.Net offers 3 or 4 different development languages that easily work together. YOU like PyQt/PyKDE, but that doesn't make it "far better" for everyone's purposes. It just means that you like it.
And your point is basically immaterial to the main thread: there's a ton of support and information for and about developing Windows GUI applications, that is, the full application chain from front-end to back, and there's a paucity of such information for Linux. Want proof? Do a Google search for PyQt/PyKDE. There's no definitive set of resources, little or no professional documentation, etc. That's precisely my original point and what I was hoping the new edition of LAD would address (not PyQt/PyKDE itself, but just any good GUI solutions as part of the application stack).
The Unix shell is fine for geek work: editing confs, shell scripts, etc., even doing application development with emacs and all that. But end-user apps are not of the same nature. For stuff that you want regular users to use instead of just geeks, you need some sort of GUI, supporting mouse interaction, hot keys, graphical presentation (i.e. pictures, charts, video, etc.). The easiest way to manage that is with a good RAD system. That's what the original poster was asking about. I know that I'm aware of the shell, since that's what I do 99% of my work in Linux with (ssh into the server box from my Windows dev machine).
I actually use IntelliJ's GUI designer to create Java-based GUIs for the stuff that I want to have a nice windowed interface. This works pretty well, but Java GUIs are not generally too high performance, e.g. CAD or graphics apps need much better response.
I meant to add to that last...
The very reason I looked at the review of the book was to see if there was finally a book that included both application internals and exposing those internals (that is, making the functions of the application available thru manipulation of the inputs and presentation of the outputs) through the GUI.
I think the attitude displayed IRT GUI development is a good part of the reason that Linux has been so slow to gain widespread user acceptance as a desktop OS. "Why GUIs? I mean, you've got man pages and everything's on the tty anyways!" But GUI development on the Linux desktop is in WORSE shape than Windows app development 10 years ago. Competing standards and APIs, no consensus design patterns or generally compliant interface standards, etc. Add on top of that the inarguably flexible but wildly arcane and fragile desktop environments and there are no parents or next-door neighbors out there that are going to run Linux because of the difficulty of managing the working environment.
That's the reason I use Linux as a server and Windows for desktop stuff. Even though I know how to manage X, desktops, etc., I just don't really care to deal with it.
Re:And i really don't care much for Borland's tool
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Fair enough, but you're certainly in a minority. Just out of curiosity, what development tools rise above the level of the "crap" you're complaining about?
Amen. It's worth noting that the lead on VS.Net, Anders Heljsberg, was also responsible for Delphi at Borland. So everyone that laments the passing of Borland's dev tools (as I do; I worked on Borland C++ for years) should realize that the same development philosophy from there is what's behind VS.Net.
I'll agree with the statement that, "If you think VS is good, I don't think you will find anything you like on Linux." The second part of your statement is stupid and I don't care if you do use VS.Net every day at work (I tend to think you're a liar, but if not then you're just ideologically resistant to using the better tool).
The closest thing on Linux you could use to VS.Net is IntelliJ, which is quite awesome. Depending on what you're doing, Eclipse is passable, but if you think it's remotely competitive with VS.Net in anything other than price, you're high. As a development tool, VS.Net is lightyears beyond anything available on Linux desktops. If you prefer emacs and command-line compilers, then that's cool, but without a lot of work and customization that's NOT a feature-rich environment and, whether you share that philosophy or not, that's what a lot of developers want.
The main drawback with VS.Net is that you're locked into deploying on Windows. I work on both Windows and Linux, both for work and my own development. I prefer Linux as a deployment environment and Windows as a development environment and I'm not the only person to have that philosophy.
That's my comment on the Firefox bookmark search. In fact, it's less than "not very versatile". I'd go so far as to say that it sucks. There are things that it doesn't find, e.g. live bookmarks. Other URLs it just doesn't find for no good reason. There's no way to select just the URL or the title or whatever. That's something that could really stand to be beefed up in future releases...
As far as "sufficient discentive" (i.e. achieving deterrence), what is sufficient? Previous punishments have proven ineffective. Maybe this is what it takes to deter people from this activity.
As for as being a danger to society, it's possible to be such a phenomenal pain in the ass that you are a danger to society. Based on the huge amounts of traffic generated by spam and the network and computing resources required to filter it out, it can be argued that this activity is a danger to society and its activities (economy, communications, etc.).
Certainly ISPs, large companies, and any enterprise that services large numbers of e-mail users pays, in effect, a high tariff because of this activity. Simply because the cause is somewhat diffuse doesn't mean that one of the primary perpetrators shouldn't be held highly culpable.
Basically, screw 'im: he knew the activity was illegal, he used illegal means to perpetrate a further illegal activity, and, in doing so, ripped off ordinary people. Remember, too, that the spam was merely a vector for other underlying frauds. 9 years is about right, if not too lenient, for a crime like that. I'm not generally a lock-'em-up retributive-punishment type of guy, but when you commit acts like these, you knowingly put yourself in line for punishment: do the crime, do the time.
You're confusing development tools with the language and platform. I can say the same thing about developing in Java with IntelliJ (or Eclipse if that's your thing) and a J2EE app server. All kinds of fun stuff to work with in there, but it doesn't affect the basic characteristics of the language itself.
Don't get me wrong, I like C#/VS.Net quite a lot. But it's a different animal. I can run Java apps anywhere (yes, you can run.Net apps on Linux, but sorry, it's not an official part of the release and is reminiscent of the old Blackdown ports of the JDK/JVM: interesting, but not ready for production), while C# has some great aspects and a bit niftier development environment (I like IntelliJ better for what it does, but there are more tools in VS.Net). But basically C# only overrides Java if you're platform-dependent and I'm not even sure about then.
It's a very good point that the broadband gains in Asia and Europe have been pushed forward by government incentives and initiatives. The "faith in free markets" line of reasoning also runs into a couple of problems that have been dealt with in the U.S. (and other countries) before.
Someone mentioned the telephone system in the U.S. The phone system was actually greatly assisted by the government in a couple of ways. First, the infrastructure that broadband access now piggybacks on was initially bootstrapped both by government subsidies and government-granted monopoly status to the phone company. The breadth and reach of the system wouldn't have been so great so quickly without this. Furthermore, the ubiquity of the phone relied on the rural outreach program (can't remember the name of it) where the government required the phone company to put lines out *everywhere*, ergardless of the population density. This was paid for by a surcharge on everyone's phone bill and greatly increased the communications ability of the country (remember that, back when the phone system was first being built, most Americans lived in rural areas).
The monopoly profits of the phone company are similar to the same arguments that drug companies make: that they need to have exclusive rights to the profit-generating potential of drugs for a period of time in order to recoup their development costs and make a fair profit. But this is also similar to a problem that's seen in the pharmaceutical and technology industries, entertainment, etc.: certain markets have relatively low investment, start-up, and maintenance costs, resulting in higher profits, while others don't, while other markets have higher investment, start-up, and maintenance costs, but also much higher revenue-generation, again resulting in higher profits. This is pretty standard free-enterprise mathematics.
The problem is that this leaves companies fighting over a particular piece of the pie, while leaving other pieces of the pie completely ignored. Consider the fact that there are now three major anti-impotence drugs on the market and God only knows how many anti-depression drugs. There is not yet a vaccine for malaria. Which of these is more important? Or in entertainment, there are more and more reality shows, while "news" programs become less about news and more about discussion panels. Why? Because actual news and research is expensive (news divisions were network loss leaders for decades), while panel discussions are cheap. The same with reality shows. You don't have to get as many viewers as friends to make The Littlest Groom pay off.
Why is this relevant? Because, as noted earlier, there's not really the economic incentive to install this expensive infrastructure. Basically the business model now doesn't support it. There IS no competition in the physical infrastructure market, at least not for the proverbial "last mile". So who installs that? Comcast? Time Warner? Charter? Why should they? You can't get anything else on it besides their stuff, so where's the incentive to upgrade? Sure, it'd be nice to sell on-demand movies, but it's too high a start-up cost to offset the revenues, at least not for a while and, given the short-term focus of U.S. capital markets, that while is too long.
What legal precendent? This legal precedent, where the court ruled that (in the words of the winning lawyer), "Skipping commercials is not illegal and neither is sending television shows from your home to your office..."
You're conflating commercial success and/or the ability of large litigants to force small defendants to spend money they don't have to the court ruling that the feature was illegal. But the court basically threw the case out because the companies promised not to sue the owners, which means that the feature is de facto legal.
But the point is that ReplayTV set the precedent that transferring the recordings is legal. That's not "the feature that bankrupted SonicBlue", at least not all on its own, so the feature itself isn't the kiss of death. I mean, Replay's not doing as well as Tivo, but I don't think that's solely attributable to the recording copy feature either.
The important part of this is that there's a legal precedent establishing the right of DVR manufacturers to provide a copy feature. I'd be stoked myself, since hacking the Tivo and copying the files out is a bit of a pain.
I guess I am anal retentive, since I didn't pick up on the "joke". I guess that's because I'm so anal that I require jokes to have "humor" or to be "funny".
Since you were the one picking at nits (and wrongly), I'd have to guess that you're the anal one. The one who doesn't seem to really understand what a joke is. Here's one for YOU to look up: "unfunny"
From the Glossary of Poetry Terms:
haiku
A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Haiku often reflect on some aspect of nature.
Often, but not necessarily. The structure is the main thing.
Slashdot Mirror
What res are you running at with your PS2 or XBox? Compare that to running 1280x1024 32-bit color with a relatively cheap Radeon 9600. Yeah, you may be able to get the console for cheap. But you also lose a lot in the way of peripherals (no keyboard, no mouse, no standard surround sound, etc.). And, even though you can make up for some of that, you'll still be playing on a standard NTSC or PAL TV instead of a nice CRT or flat screen. I think PCs will still be around for quite a while as gaming platforms. Once consoles go HD, then maybe but I still think PCs will offer a lot for quite a while.
It's less covering the distance and more the dispersion of the signal as it radiates out from the source, assuming that a mobile point source radiates instead of using a directional antenna, which I highly doubt. This is the same reason WiFi speeds drop off so rapidly as you go away from the access point (and why solar radiation dissipates as you move away from the sun, etc.).
Hopefully certain applications (Livemotion, GoLive, Freehand) will be deprecated for good after the merger and others will finally get a solid standardized interface (Flash), while others will be merged so consumers can get the best of both worlds (Photoshop, Fireworks).
Actually, retiring Freehand so that only Illustrator lives on is my primary fear in this merger. I love Freehand and despise Illustrator.
And, in addition to all the different incarnations being contradictory, the original "spirit" of HHGTTG was the radio program, which predated the book, the TV series, and any other incarnation of the whole thing. Refer to http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/hitchhikers/dna/biog.sht ml for a good description.
So fucking what? They're the ones who want to use GPL code. It's not like they can't go reimplement it themselves (copyright is not patent).
What are you talking about? So fucking what what? Who are the ones that want to use GPL code? My point is that people don't want to use GPL code because of the restrictions it places on their own code. As a matter of fact, they do reimplement and/or purchase commercial libraries that don't require re-distribution of their GPL-dependent source code. So again, as I said in my first post, your attitude comes down to "my way or the highway". Moral certitude and absolute clarity might feel quite good, but it doesn't really help solve people's problems.
Anyway, I'm PERFECTLY HAPPY to let someone "violate" the GPL on my code... provided they waive all right to enforce their present or future copyrights against me in return. The GPL is specifically designed to undermine intrinsically fascist copyright law: "Without copyright law the GPL would be unenforceable, it would also be unnecessary".
Regardless of what you're perfectly happy allowing, it doesn't really matter. First, most people don't know the difference between someone like you, who puts the GPL on their code but claims that you wouldn't enforce it, and someone who really means it. At the consumer end, open the tarball and there's the GPL: there's no way to discern intent at that point.
Second, contrary to what you might believe, most companies are quite vigilant about following the letter and law of their software licensing agreements. That means, if they get software that says they need to do X, Y, and Z to comply with the license, they do X, Y, and Z. That means, in the case of the GPL, releasing their source code back to the open source community. Again, that's unacceptable.
The last point is that you wind up this paragraph by denouncing copyright law in toto. OK, fine (well, not fine, which I'll address in a second), but that point then has nothing to do with this conversation, since the whole point is finding a licensing agreement that deals with the problems of the current major alternatives, specifically, in the case of the GPL, the requirement of releasing GPL-based code back to the open-source community. In my original post, I explained why that's a non-starter for many companies.
Now, about "not fine". Here's a rant:
What world do you live in? Do you think authors and poets should make a living from their writing? Do you think that artists should make a living from their artwork? Do you think that musicians should make a living from their music?
The very thing that makes that possible is copyright law, that thing that establishes creative persons ownership over their labors. The simple fact that it's incredibly easy to make copies of people's work doesn't make it "fascist" for them to not want you to have it for free: it means that they want to be compensated for their labors. Good laws aren't fascist (and I'm not saying all copyright law is good law, but the very existence of that law isn't, in and of itself, bad): they define the structure of society, the allowed and proscribed interactions in society, and the rules for those interactions. Some interactions need and should have no laws (family, religion, etc.) and some do need and should have laws, particularly commerce and trade, of which an awful lot nowadays uses software and technology.
You talk as if you think copyright is an intrinsic right instead of a tradeable censorship privilege established by the temporal ruling classes.
That's some pretty awesome rhetoric there. So I guess you're not really concerned about software licensing as an end in itself, but the overthrow of the entire societal structure in favor of a communal libertarian is really outside the scope of this conversation.
Anyways, yes, I do think copyright is an intrinsic right (etymologically speaking, look at the name: it cover
Apologies for sounding pedantic here, but this is incorrect. The GPL cannot be incompatable with the CDDL and MPL without the MPL and CDDL being incompatable with it. It's obviously silly to describe one as incompatable with the other but not the other way around. The MPL and CDDL most certainly are incompatable with the GPL.
You're missing his point. The GPL is incompatible with the other licenses because, once GPL is introduced, the GPL basically dictates the terms of redistribution. That is, any code that uses libraries using the GPL must in turn be GPL'ed, since that's the only way to comply with the GPL. The other licenses don't require that. That's what he means by "incompatible."
The GPL is neutral, it requires the imposition of no further restrictions, and therefore is one of the few players in town that qualifies as a legitimate baseline FOSS license for licenses to aspire compability with. The same is not true of the CDDL, MPL, or non-copyleft licenses such as the BSD and X11 licenses. The former are not project neutral. The latter do not prevent more conditions being attached, which essentially makes them useless from an interoperability point of view.
The GPL is far from neutral, which is why I never use it in any of my projects. It doesn't require any more conditions be attached, primarily because there are just about no further conditions that could be attached.
There really isn't a lot of difference in the case of the MPL and CDDL. Both require that any relicensing be done under a license that imposes the same restrictions and grants. Essentially they're saying "You can relicense this under any license you want, as long as it's this one, or a rewrite." Most additional rights granted are, in any case, a re-statement of copyright law.
The key here is the phrase "any relicensing be done under a license that imposes the same restrictions and grants." That's true. And the problem is that the restrictions and grants under GPL require open sourcing all code developed using GPL libraries.
The problems described here have nothing to do with the GPL.
Wrong. The problems here have everything to do with the GPL. GPL requires a complete open source code chain. Once you're using GPL libraries and services, all derived works are perforce GPL under the terms of that license.
What you have to understand is that this is complete dealkiller for companies with proprietary requirements. In my case, it's not that the company that I'm currently working for gives a rat's ass about whether or not anyone uses the intellectual property of the actual algorithms in the code, which is generally what's supposed to be the great value-add of software. This company is not a software development organization, but a major manufacturing concern. Requiring them to release that code would expose internal workings of their (non-software) primary products, the very things that constitute their identity as a company.
The GPL and the general self-righteous attitude of the OSS community (which basically amounts to "my way or the highway") causes huge trouble in situations like this. The GPL is guilty of one primary problem: an absolute declaration of the openness of code. This works for many many things, but is incompatible with most companies' core business development procedures.
The Los Angeles Times has a similar model, where daily print subscribers get free access to the Calendar Live section of their Web site, which includes, e.g., club and theater listings, restaurant reviews, and so on. To create your on-line account, you have to provide your print subscription account number.
Thank you, King Obvious. I was obviously talking about the GUI libraries and RAD tools available for .NET.
No, you weren't "obviously" talking about the GUI libraries and RAD tools available for .Net. You assume that everyone reading your posts knows your entire context. So when you say, "This rules! That sucks!" you sound just like any other fanboy moron. I have no way to evaluate the soundness of your argument besides that. My guess, based on your demeanor and argument, is that you're a dickhead. Hell, you might be right. But that doesn't mean you're not a dickhead.
And .Net CLEARLY is not the GUI libraries and RAD tools: .Net is CLEARLY something else entirely, just the same as the various windowing APIs and development tools for *nix systems are CLEARLY different from the underlying system architecture, which is what this whole discussion is about. I would expect someone who fancies themselves an engineer or developer or whatever to be more precise.
Qt is a C++ library usable from many languages. PyQt is its Python bindings. Not everyone does, but everyone should, because it is the right language for GUI and most of the other non-performance-critical applications.
OK, I'll be sure to let everyone know. Your initial arguments ("Bollocks! .Net sucks! PyQt/PyKDE rule!") were certainly convincing. And knowing that "it" (by which I assume you mean Python, although your language is again not very clear) is the right language should certainly convince everybody to drop everything else they're doing and get on the PyPeaker train.
Actually, I've done a fair bit of Python development (not for GUI development, but for various scripting and task automation uses), but I'm starting to drop it in favor of Ruby. So let me just interject: Ruby is the new right language! Can you refute my reasoning?
No, PyQt/PyKDE are better objectively in terms of API consistency, simplicity, power and expresiveness... When I like something I say I like it. PyQt/PyKDE are simply better than all Microsoft GUI solutions out there.
OK, that convinced me! It's objectively better (and objectively is bold, which means it must be true). You like it, you've said so, and it's simply objectively better. Were you a debating champion? These are very very convincing arguments. In fact, I'll drop all other development solutions I've seen and switch to this based completely on these very salient and perceptive points: objectively better and you like it.
That is because a ton of information is needed to program Windows GUI applications as the Windows API's are so horribly broken and difficult to use.
And the windowing APIs for Linux have historically been wildly easy to learn and access. Uh huh. Which is why I and others have been looking for a good book on GUI development on Linux for years and not finding it. Maybe PyQt/PyKDE is the answer I've been looking for. Dunno, I've never heard of it before, which proves the problem that the tools for GUI development on Linux are wildly fragmented and inconsistent overall. So thanks for the reference and I'll look into it.
As for the Windows API being broken, I really don't know about that anymore. The windowing libraries and development tools in VS.Net, Borland C++/JBuilder, and IntelliJ are really smooth, so I do most of my GUI development on Windows in C# or C++ or sometimes in Java if it's either cross-platform or just for myself. The fair comparison then would be a comparison between either the Win32 windowing APIs and the base X windows APIs or between the higher-level windowing libraries provided in RAD tools for both platforms (it's also an area I'm familiar with, having worked on the first few years of API libraries at Borland, including the big revisions of the OWL libraries).
As for Linux lacking documentati
Considering that interacting with network sockets is done entirely by libraries that handle such things for you if you know what you're doing and you'll realize that what you're talking about just isn't programming, it's gluing together other people's libraries. Unless you're writing machine code that directly addresses the hardware layer, you're standing on the shoulders of giants.
But if you've ever created a relatively complex user interface, you're not just "drawing buttons" or just doing design. Sure, there's a design component to it, but there's a design component to everything in application development (at least if done properly; I've worked on enough projects where there clearly wasn't a design component before implementation and that's as nightmarish as a slapped-together user interface). And if you're creating something for people to use directly (word processing, music, or graphical interaction such as drawing, graphics manipulation, or CAD/CAM) as opposed to accessing through some other means (e.g., a service that's accessed through an API on an application server and exposed through a Web interface), then there's a need for a graphical interface of some sort. Hell, even server and daemon apps benefit greatly from a robust graphical interface for configuration and administration.
Look, it's a stupid argument: maybe some people are too cool to use GUIs, but lots of people, including professional developers, want them and need to create them, if for no other reason than that people who aren't as cool as you find them to be a necessity for interacting with the system. As such, creating a GUI is clearly a part of the application stack. If you don't want to write a GUI (or even if you do), then go ahead and get this book. What the OP and I and others want, though, is a book that addresses all parts of the application stack, even the uncool parts.
Bollocks to you. This shows that you really don't know what you're talking about. .Net isn't a GUI development solution. There's a lot of different resources out there for understanding what it is, but you can start here with the basics.
But I'll assume you're talking about Visual Studio .Net. I haven't used PyQt/PyKDE, but from what I can see, it's Python-based. That's fine if you know Python (and I do), but not everyone does. VS.Net offers 3 or 4 different development languages that easily work together. YOU like PyQt/PyKDE, but that doesn't make it "far better" for everyone's purposes. It just means that you like it.
And your point is basically immaterial to the main thread: there's a ton of support and information for and about developing Windows GUI applications, that is, the full application chain from front-end to back, and there's a paucity of such information for Linux. Want proof? Do a Google search for PyQt/PyKDE. There's no definitive set of resources, little or no professional documentation, etc. That's precisely my original point and what I was hoping the new edition of LAD would address (not PyQt/PyKDE itself, but just any good GUI solutions as part of the application stack).
The Unix shell is fine for geek work: editing confs, shell scripts, etc., even doing application development with emacs and all that. But end-user apps are not of the same nature. For stuff that you want regular users to use instead of just geeks, you need some sort of GUI, supporting mouse interaction, hot keys, graphical presentation (i.e. pictures, charts, video, etc.). The easiest way to manage that is with a good RAD system. That's what the original poster was asking about. I know that I'm aware of the shell, since that's what I do 99% of my work in Linux with (ssh into the server box from my Windows dev machine). I actually use IntelliJ's GUI designer to create Java-based GUIs for the stuff that I want to have a nice windowed interface. This works pretty well, but Java GUIs are not generally too high performance, e.g. CAD or graphics apps need much better response.
I meant to add to that last... The very reason I looked at the review of the book was to see if there was finally a book that included both application internals and exposing those internals (that is, making the functions of the application available thru manipulation of the inputs and presentation of the outputs) through the GUI.
I think the attitude displayed IRT GUI development is a good part of the reason that Linux has been so slow to gain widespread user acceptance as a desktop OS. "Why GUIs? I mean, you've got man pages and everything's on the tty anyways!" But GUI development on the Linux desktop is in WORSE shape than Windows app development 10 years ago. Competing standards and APIs, no consensus design patterns or generally compliant interface standards, etc. Add on top of that the inarguably flexible but wildly arcane and fragile desktop environments and there are no parents or next-door neighbors out there that are going to run Linux because of the difficulty of managing the working environment. That's the reason I use Linux as a server and Windows for desktop stuff. Even though I know how to manage X, desktops, etc., I just don't really care to deal with it.
Fair enough, but you're certainly in a minority. Just out of curiosity, what development tools rise above the level of the "crap" you're complaining about?
Amen. It's worth noting that the lead on VS.Net, Anders Heljsberg, was also responsible for Delphi at Borland. So everyone that laments the passing of Borland's dev tools (as I do; I worked on Borland C++ for years) should realize that the same development philosophy from there is what's behind VS.Net.
I'll agree with the statement that, "If you think VS is good, I don't think you will find anything you like on Linux." The second part of your statement is stupid and I don't care if you do use VS.Net every day at work (I tend to think you're a liar, but if not then you're just ideologically resistant to using the better tool). The closest thing on Linux you could use to VS.Net is IntelliJ, which is quite awesome. Depending on what you're doing, Eclipse is passable, but if you think it's remotely competitive with VS.Net in anything other than price, you're high. As a development tool, VS.Net is lightyears beyond anything available on Linux desktops. If you prefer emacs and command-line compilers, then that's cool, but without a lot of work and customization that's NOT a feature-rich environment and, whether you share that philosophy or not, that's what a lot of developers want. The main drawback with VS.Net is that you're locked into deploying on Windows. I work on both Windows and Linux, both for work and my own development. I prefer Linux as a deployment environment and Windows as a development environment and I'm not the only person to have that philosophy.
That's my comment on the Firefox bookmark search. In fact, it's less than "not very versatile". I'd go so far as to say that it sucks. There are things that it doesn't find, e.g. live bookmarks. Other URLs it just doesn't find for no good reason. There's no way to select just the URL or the title or whatever. That's something that could really stand to be beefed up in future releases...
As far as "sufficient discentive" (i.e. achieving deterrence), what is sufficient? Previous punishments have proven ineffective. Maybe this is what it takes to deter people from this activity. As for as being a danger to society, it's possible to be such a phenomenal pain in the ass that you are a danger to society. Based on the huge amounts of traffic generated by spam and the network and computing resources required to filter it out, it can be argued that this activity is a danger to society and its activities (economy, communications, etc.). Certainly ISPs, large companies, and any enterprise that services large numbers of e-mail users pays, in effect, a high tariff because of this activity. Simply because the cause is somewhat diffuse doesn't mean that one of the primary perpetrators shouldn't be held highly culpable. Basically, screw 'im: he knew the activity was illegal, he used illegal means to perpetrate a further illegal activity, and, in doing so, ripped off ordinary people. Remember, too, that the spam was merely a vector for other underlying frauds. 9 years is about right, if not too lenient, for a crime like that. I'm not generally a lock-'em-up retributive-punishment type of guy, but when you commit acts like these, you knowingly put yourself in line for punishment: do the crime, do the time.
Go back and read the Slate article. The broadcast flag specifically doesn't break Tivos: http://slate.msn.com/id/2091723.
Don't get me wrong, I like C#/VS.Net quite a lot. But it's a different animal. I can run Java apps anywhere (yes, you can run .Net apps on Linux, but sorry, it's not an official part of the release and is reminiscent of the old Blackdown ports of the JDK/JVM: interesting, but not ready for production), while C# has some great aspects and a bit niftier development environment (I like IntelliJ better for what it does, but there are more tools in VS.Net). But basically C# only overrides Java if you're platform-dependent and I'm not even sure about then.
It's a very good point that the broadband gains in Asia and Europe have been pushed forward by government incentives and initiatives. The "faith in free markets" line of reasoning also runs into a couple of problems that have been dealt with in the U.S. (and other countries) before.
Someone mentioned the telephone system in the U.S. The phone system was actually greatly assisted by the government in a couple of ways. First, the infrastructure that broadband access now piggybacks on was initially bootstrapped both by government subsidies and government-granted monopoly status to the phone company. The breadth and reach of the system wouldn't have been so great so quickly without this. Furthermore, the ubiquity of the phone relied on the rural outreach program (can't remember the name of it) where the government required the phone company to put lines out *everywhere*, ergardless of the population density. This was paid for by a surcharge on everyone's phone bill and greatly increased the communications ability of the country (remember that, back when the phone system was first being built, most Americans lived in rural areas).
The monopoly profits of the phone company are similar to the same arguments that drug companies make: that they need to have exclusive rights to the profit-generating potential of drugs for a period of time in order to recoup their development costs and make a fair profit. But this is also similar to a problem that's seen in the pharmaceutical and technology industries, entertainment, etc.: certain markets have relatively low investment, start-up, and maintenance costs, resulting in higher profits, while others don't, while other markets have higher investment, start-up, and maintenance costs, but also much higher revenue-generation, again resulting in higher profits. This is pretty standard free-enterprise mathematics.
The problem is that this leaves companies fighting over a particular piece of the pie, while leaving other pieces of the pie completely ignored. Consider the fact that there are now three major anti-impotence drugs on the market and God only knows how many anti-depression drugs. There is not yet a vaccine for malaria. Which of these is more important? Or in entertainment, there are more and more reality shows, while "news" programs become less about news and more about discussion panels. Why? Because actual news and research is expensive (news divisions were network loss leaders for decades), while panel discussions are cheap. The same with reality shows. You don't have to get as many viewers as friends to make The Littlest Groom pay off.
Why is this relevant? Because, as noted earlier, there's not really the economic incentive to install this expensive infrastructure. Basically the business model now doesn't support it. There IS no competition in the physical infrastructure market, at least not for the proverbial "last mile". So who installs that? Comcast? Time Warner? Charter? Why should they? You can't get anything else on it besides their stuff, so where's the incentive to upgrade? Sure, it'd be nice to sell on-demand movies, but it's too high a start-up cost to offset the revenues, at least not for a while and, given the short-term focus of U.S. capital markets, that while is too long.
What legal precendent? This legal precedent, where the court ruled that (in the words of the winning lawyer), "Skipping commercials is not illegal and neither is sending television shows from your home to your office..." You're conflating commercial success and/or the ability of large litigants to force small defendants to spend money they don't have to the court ruling that the feature was illegal. But the court basically threw the case out because the companies promised not to sue the owners, which means that the feature is de facto legal.
But the point is that ReplayTV set the precedent that transferring the recordings is legal. That's not "the feature that bankrupted SonicBlue", at least not all on its own, so the feature itself isn't the kiss of death. I mean, Replay's not doing as well as Tivo, but I don't think that's solely attributable to the recording copy feature either. The important part of this is that there's a legal precedent establishing the right of DVR manufacturers to provide a copy feature. I'd be stoked myself, since hacking the Tivo and copying the files out is a bit of a pain.
I guess I am anal retentive, since I didn't pick up on the "joke". I guess that's because I'm so anal that I require jokes to have "humor" or to be "funny". Since you were the one picking at nits (and wrongly), I'd have to guess that you're the anal one. The one who doesn't seem to really understand what a joke is. Here's one for YOU to look up: "unfunny"
From the Glossary of Poetry Terms: haiku A Japanese poem composed of three unrhymed lines of five, seven, and five syllables. Haiku often reflect on some aspect of nature. Often, but not necessarily. The structure is the main thing.