I don't know, the drivers for my R100-based card are pretty good. The R300 is a pretty new chip, and you certainly can't expect open-source volunteers to be as *fast* as closed-source developers who get paid for their work.
""" Look at Bleemcast (PSX emulator for Sega Dreamcast). It emulated the original games on a different platform, even with graphical enhancements, but it didn't convince anyone who already had a PSX to jump on the Dreamcast...it just made already-committed Dreamcast owners happier. """
I don't think WineX is intended to convince windows users to convert to Linux. It's intended to make already-committed Linux users happier, making a little money for its authors in the process.
""" It's no different to the Linux kernel. If your driver gets accepted into Linus's tree you don't automatically get BK write access to the tree. You have to submit patches through Linus (or another Core Member). """
Many people don't think that the kernel's development model is much better than XFree86's. The kernel has the advantage of a more open process and (in my limited experience) being more vigorously developed, but there's no shortage of dropped patches. People just seem to care more about the kernel and work harder to make sure Linus eventually merges their work.
Even the kernel is moving more and more towards using modules, and there's no reason all modules have to be distributed with the kernel. I sure wish I didn't have to download all of those SCSI RAID drivers every time I want to upgrade the kernel on my laptop.
""" The point of this is that the folks actively involved with the bigger picture of a project are going to be more aware as to how various pieces need to fit and work together. That's why there's a need for a hiearchy and commit control within any project. I would think this to be especially true for one as large and complex as XFree86. """
In many cases I would agree with your point, but in the case of a new driver it's essentially a distinct entity. The author is basically asking for the right to associate his work with the project, not change anybody else's work. If the developers trust him enough to accept his original work it seems silly not to let him make the changes that he feels are necessary after the driver is accepted.
Will he break things with his commits? Maybe, but developers break things all the time, and his breakage will be isolated to his driver and will be his responsibility to fix. If he took the time to write a driver and is asking for commit priveledges then there's good evidence that he'll act in the interest of improving that driver.
Still, I don't disagree with you entirely, which is one reason why I think the clearing-house approach would be valuable. It would allow drivers to be developed independently without forcing users to go scavenging for information all across the web. I suspect it would also encourage better unification for things like installing drivers. Again, see linuxprinting.org for an example of this.
I recently saw somebody try to contribute a new driver to XFree86. He was told that he was welcome to contribute the driver, but that he wouldn't be allowed write access to it once he had handed it over. What a ridiculous policy!
The thing is, drivers can be released independently of X itself. For ATI Radeons, for example, there are at least 3 different drivers they can use. It would be nice if somebody set up a website with a page for each video card (or family of cards) that had links to all of the available video drivers for that card. Even better would be if such a website could act as a catalyst for uniting these independent driver developers so that, for example, the GATOS radeon driver developers and the DRI radeon driver developers could combine the best aspects of their drivers. This could possibly help route around the blockage that the XFree86 project too often represents.
Actually, I think that such "hardware-centric clearing houses" would be useful for all kinds of hardware, not just video cards. Look at linuxprinting.org to see how well it can work.
What the hell is this?? A Sun keyboard with Caps-Lock, Control and Backspace keys in the wrong places, *and* with a big stupid 2-line enter!? This brings pain to my heart. I used various Sun Type 5 keyboards at work for years and have never found another keyboard that even comes close to comparing to its awesome feel and layout. But to see a Sun keyboard with the IBM key placement is just sad.
Even worse, now that Sun is finally making USB keyboards that can be used with any PC (unlike their Sun-only predecessors) their quality has gone to crap. We got a bunch of Sun Rays and I was giddy with the thought of snatching a keyboard, but after typing a few lines on one I changed my mind completely. They've become all spongy and cheap-feeling, unlike the delicate but precise Type 5's.
Yes, I am a keyboard lunatic...
What I really want ATM is a keyboard with a full complement of keys *except* without a numpad. I never use the numpad and it just causes extra wrist-strain when reaching for the mouse. I went to using the mouse left-handed for a while to avoid the strain but found that my left hand just wasn't coordinated enough, even after weeks of using that layout.
""" Because we spend $I_don't_know_how_much_money_but_it's_a_boatload on bandwidth giving away the RAD Video Tools [radgametools.com] for free.:) """
As others have said, let the community set up mirrors. I know it's hard for corporations to understand this, but sometimes giving up control over every last detail of software distribution can be a *good* thing!
Besides, even if you didn't let others mirror your software how much extra traffic do you think the Linux versions will really generate? The Linux community's size is a pretty small fraction of the Windows throng's, and I imagine that most wanna-be game programmers are using windows anyway.
Finally, would it hurt to at least *mention* the linux version of the tools somewhere on the website? I don't imagine you ported them for giggles. You *did* want to make some money off of them, right? You might find that your profits from these ports would increase if your customers were aware that they existed!
""" Programmers who are just starting out the *NIX way need a editor that behaves kinda-like Windows notepad or other Windows IDE editors, but has cool features, and Kate fits the bill. """ Check out NEdit. It's a windows-like editor that's very mature and well-designed.
Check out the numerical extensions to Python. They're quite good and can give you an environment with the power of Matlab for zero dollars.
Numpy uses the netlib libraries behind the scenes, by the way, so you get very good speed for array operations. You get the best of both worlds -- Fortran speed with Python's expressive power. It's much easier to do I/O and UI programming in Python than Fortran.:-)
Nobody said anything about "languages that succeed," or the languages that are "used by the most people." Success and popularity aren't the issues. The issue is why people create new languages. People create new languages to explore new ideas and new aesthetics, and even if those languages don't become huge successes the ideas that they explore often do. After all, there wouldn't be a C++ if there hadn't been a Simula.
As for languages only being tools, just because you can use a car to commute to work doesn't mean that a classic antique restored to gleaming perfection isn't a work of art.
Aha! Finally somebody who has a clue about programming languages. There will always be new programming languages for the same reason that there will always be new musical instruments. People are creative and inventive, and have different ideas about aesthetics. Why have different programming languages that are all Turing equivalent? Well, cuz some like objects and some like functors, and some like both. Some like multiple inheritance and some like single inheritance. It's almost all a matter of aesthetics.
I've given more money to the EFF in the past year than I spent on copy-restricted products. I'm more interested in living in a future where I can hack Linux (or whatever else comes along) than I am in owning the latest gizmo.
The signal comes from probes implanted in the monkey's brain. It transmits the signal the same way your computer transmits signals to your monitor--through a bunch of wires.
I've seen the monkeys, BTW. It freaked my ass out.
Wow, man, you're the only other guy in the whole fucking Linux community with half a clue! Knows that usability matters, newbies matter, *and* supports the EFF? Pinch me!
Intriguing post, but I can't find documentation of this feature anywhere in the 4.2.0 docs. Can you point to a description somewhere or describe what this option does? I've got an Inspiron 4000 and would like to be able to run it on an external monitor at times.
"Hook it to a soundcard with optical in, problem solved."
How does this solve the problem of multinational corporations aggressively moving to quash fair use in all of its guises? Oh, I see. You just want to rip CDs.
Yeah, this solution will work great until they stop putting unrestricted digital outputs on consumer electronics equipment. Once the laws are on the corporations' sides and the consumers have rolled over for copy prevention technology the picture won't look so rosy. People who dismiss news like this with statements like, "who cares? I can get around this with technique X," are playing right into the copy-prevention advocates' hands. They're just trying to get the *idea* of copy prevention accepted by the public. Strengthening the prevention schemes is just a matter of time and money. If you don't boycott copy-restricted CDs, or better yet register your displeasure with the place you buy CDs in addition, you're letting the "content management" assholes write the rules.
If you roll over now do you really think that in 20 years you'll have an optical in/out (or whatever we'll be transferring A/V data over in 20 years) that doesn't have "content management" hardware built in?
"""
if I were to buy one of these CD at the price they're sold and I couldn't MP3 it directly with cdparanoia, I'd just [snip digital to analog to digital procedure] so at the end of the day, the RIAA's brain-dead schemes will just end up annoying the crap out of everybody and not prevent any copying at all.
"""
At the end of the day you've put money into the hands of the corporation that's actively trying to screw you over. You sure showed them!
How about giving that dough to the EFF instead so there's some hope of having equitable laws that support the notion of fair use? That way we'll be able to copy *our* data without resorting to mickey-mouse (tm) schemes like this.
One of the issues I've often run up against when doing scientific programming is the desire for a *real* programming language to support the number crunching. This often caused huge frustration for me when I used Matlab and IDL. One of the nicest solutions I've found for numerical programming is the Numerical Python package. (http://www.pfdubois.com/numpy/ ) You get the numerical expressiveness of Matlab or IDL with the power of Python as a programming language for the half of your program that *doesn't* deal with crunching numbers. (In my experience it's actually usually more than half, even in heavily numeric code!)
Here are a few more links:
The Python website: http://www.python.org
The Scientific Python Project: http://www.scipy.org
"""
Thanks to modules, regular users do not generally need to configure kernels. CML is most often used by people like me, who play with esoteric hardware and regularly apply various kernel patches, messing with the code in the process.
"""
So you would be welcome to continue using CML and the rest of us regular users could use the more friendly version. Yes, even regular users need to compile kernels.
I think the original poster's idea is first-rate.
The current configuration tools for the kernel are *not* helpful to the average user.
Anyone who says "Why aren't they just using toolkit X" or "They're never going to be able to make animated skinnable toolbars with dancing frogs" is missing the point entirely. Comparing this project to AWT or Swing is missing the point entirely. This team is not reaching for the same goal as the Java team was, i.e. to be a world-class competetive GUI. There are two keywords for this project:
Minimal: The goal is to have a *minimal* set of widgets that allow the most common types of input and output. The idea is to make a toolkit that anyone can use to create a *simple* gui on any platform that Python runs on.
Universal: Which one of the "other perfectly good solutions" you mention (qt, gtk, XUL, Kylix, Swing) does *everybody* have? Which of them is available on all the platforms that Python runs on? None of them, of course. The whole point is that no single toolkit is going to satisfy this requirement, so more than one toolkit needs to be supported.
What most of the posts I've seen so far lack is an understanding of the current situation in Python. The language is great for programming almost any kind of non-realtime project in a cross-platform way, but it lacks a way to write cross-platform guis without asking the user to download a 5 to 10 MB window toolkit on one or more of Python's platforms. This is simply unacceptible when you're distributing a 150 kB Python program! Hell, it's hard enough to get people to download the python interpreter!
There is a real need for this project in the Python community, and I wish them great success.
Wine is a compatability layer that supports the Windows API. There is no emulation going on. For God's sake, the name is a recursive acronym for "WINE Is Not an Emulator." How much more clearly can they make this point??
"""
If tax dollars are funding a project, then the results of that development should be available to everyone and not just people who use one particular license.
"""
This is silly. The government funds whole shitloads of private software development and you don't see anybody asking those companies to share their code. Nobody tells them that they have to release their code under this or that license. Plus, according to MS' own philosophy, the government is paying for the finished software, not the source code.
This is just MS FUD, plain and simple. It's a move to attack the open-source movement in the only way they can -- by making GPL software development illegal under the goverment's payroll. First it'll be companies that receive govt. funds that aren't allowed to release under the GPL. Then it'll be researchers in Universities who recieve government grants (as most *all* of them do). Got a federal student loan? Sorry, no GPL for you.
If they can pull it off it will have a catastrophic chilling effect, cutting off many major sources of quality free software, and leaving those that survive vulnerable to MS' "embrace".
When you accept the "simple, self-evident truths" (e.g. taxpayer support -> no restrictions on source code) that corporations feed you, you make the mistake of assuming that the law operates in a "simple, self-evident" way. You foolishly ignore the fact that those selfsame corporations are more than happy to claim that an issue is subtle and complex when it is to their benefit to do so.
The law acts as a vehicle for injustice just as often as justice. Which it is only depends on who's in the driver's seat.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know, the drivers for my R100-based card are pretty good. The R300 is a pretty new chip, and you certainly can't expect open-source volunteers to be as *fast* as closed-source developers who get paid for their work.
"""
Look at Bleemcast (PSX emulator for Sega Dreamcast). It emulated the original games on a different platform, even with graphical enhancements, but it didn't convince anyone who already had a PSX to jump on the Dreamcast...it just made already-committed Dreamcast owners happier.
"""
I don't think WineX is intended to convince windows users to convert to Linux. It's intended to make already-committed Linux users happier, making a little money for its authors in the process.
Um. I only see 9.1 rc3, not 9.1 final. Is there a difference?
-DA
"""
It's no different to the Linux kernel. If your driver gets accepted into Linus's tree you don't automatically get BK write access to the tree. You have to submit patches through Linus (or another Core Member).
"""
Many people don't think that the kernel's development model is much better than XFree86's. The kernel has the advantage of a more open process and (in my limited experience) being more vigorously developed, but there's no shortage of dropped patches. People just seem to care more about the kernel and work harder to make sure Linus eventually merges their work.
Even the kernel is moving more and more towards using modules, and there's no reason all modules have to be distributed with the kernel. I sure wish I didn't have to download all of those SCSI RAID drivers every time I want to upgrade the kernel on my laptop.
-DA
"""
The point of this is that the folks actively involved with the bigger picture of a project are going to be more aware as to how various pieces need to fit and work together. That's why there's a need for a hiearchy and commit control within any project. I would think this to be especially true for one as large and complex as XFree86.
"""
In many cases I would agree with your point, but in the case of a new driver it's essentially a distinct entity. The author is basically asking for the right to associate his work with the project, not change anybody else's work. If the developers trust him enough to accept his original work it seems silly not to let him make the changes that he feels are necessary after the driver is accepted.
Will he break things with his commits? Maybe, but developers break things all the time, and his breakage will be isolated to his driver and will be his responsibility to fix. If he took the time to write a driver and is asking for commit priveledges then there's good evidence that he'll act in the interest of improving that driver.
Still, I don't disagree with you entirely, which is one reason why I think the clearing-house approach would be valuable. It would allow drivers to be developed independently without forcing users to go scavenging for information all across the web. I suspect it would also encourage better unification for things like installing drivers. Again, see linuxprinting.org for an example of this.
-DA
I recently saw somebody try to contribute a new driver to XFree86. He was told that he was welcome to contribute the driver, but that he wouldn't be allowed write access to it once he had handed it over. What a ridiculous policy!
The thing is, drivers can be released independently of X itself. For ATI Radeons, for example, there are at least 3 different drivers they can use. It would be nice if somebody set up a website with a page for each video card (or family of cards) that had links to all of the available video drivers for that card. Even better would be if such a website could act as a catalyst for uniting these independent driver developers so that, for example, the GATOS radeon driver developers and the DRI radeon driver developers could combine the best aspects of their drivers. This could possibly help route around the blockage that the XFree86 project too often represents.
Actually, I think that such "hardware-centric clearing houses" would be useful for all kinds of hardware, not just video cards. Look at linuxprinting.org to see how well it can work.
-DA
What the hell is this?? A Sun keyboard with Caps-Lock, Control and Backspace keys in the wrong places, *and* with a big stupid 2-line enter!? This brings pain to my heart. I used various Sun Type 5 keyboards at work for years and have never found another keyboard that even comes close to comparing to its awesome feel and layout. But to see a Sun keyboard with the IBM key placement is just sad.
Even worse, now that Sun is finally making USB keyboards that can be used with any PC (unlike their Sun-only predecessors) their quality has gone to crap. We got a bunch of Sun Rays and I was giddy with the thought of snatching a keyboard, but after typing a few lines on one I changed my mind completely. They've become all spongy and cheap-feeling, unlike the delicate but precise Type 5's.
Yes, I am a keyboard lunatic...
What I really want ATM is a keyboard with a full complement of keys *except* without a numpad. I never use the numpad and it just causes extra wrist-strain when reaching for the mouse. I went to using the mouse left-handed for a while to avoid the strain but found that my left hand just wasn't coordinated enough, even after weeks of using that layout.
-DA
""" :)
Because we spend $I_don't_know_how_much_money_but_it's_a_boatload on bandwidth giving away the RAD Video Tools [radgametools.com] for free.
"""
As others have said, let the community set up mirrors. I know it's hard for corporations to understand this, but sometimes giving up control over every last detail of software distribution can be a *good* thing!
Besides, even if you didn't let others mirror your software how much extra traffic do you think the Linux versions will really generate? The Linux community's size is a pretty small fraction of the Windows throng's, and I imagine that most wanna-be game programmers are using windows anyway.
Finally, would it hurt to at least *mention* the linux version of the tools somewhere on the website? I don't imagine you ported them for giggles. You *did* want to make some money off of them, right? You might find that your profits from these ports would increase if your customers were aware that they existed!
-DA
Yep. $100. And I'm a poor grad student.
"""
Programmers who are just starting out the *NIX way need a editor that behaves kinda-like Windows notepad or other Windows IDE editors, but has cool features, and Kate fits the bill.
"""
Check out NEdit. It's a windows-like editor that's very mature and well-designed.
www.nedit.org
-DA
Check out the numerical extensions to Python. They're quite good and can give you an environment with the power of Matlab for zero dollars.
:-)
Numpy uses the netlib libraries behind the scenes, by the way, so you get very good speed for array operations. You get the best of both worlds -- Fortran speed with Python's expressive power. It's much easier to do I/O and UI programming in Python than Fortran.
-DA
Nobody said anything about "languages that succeed," or the languages that are "used by the most people." Success and popularity aren't the issues. The issue is why people create new languages. People create new languages to explore new ideas and new aesthetics, and even if those languages don't become huge successes the ideas that they explore often do. After all, there wouldn't be a C++ if there hadn't been a Simula.
As for languages only being tools, just because you can use a car to commute to work doesn't mean that a classic antique restored to gleaming perfection isn't a work of art.
-DA
Aha! Finally somebody who has a clue about programming languages. There will always be new programming languages for the same reason that there will always be new musical instruments. People are creative and inventive, and have different ideas about aesthetics. Why have different programming languages that are all Turing equivalent? Well, cuz some like objects and some like functors, and some like both. Some like multiple inheritance and some like single inheritance. It's almost all a matter of aesthetics.
-DA
I've given more money to the EFF in the past year than I spent on copy-restricted products. I'm more interested in living in a future where I can hack Linux (or whatever else comes along) than I am in owning the latest gizmo.
What the hell's your excuse?
-DA
The signal comes from probes implanted in the monkey's brain. It transmits the signal the same way your computer transmits signals to your monitor--through a bunch of wires.
I've seen the monkeys, BTW. It freaked my ass out.
-DA
Wow, man, you're the only other guy in the whole fucking Linux community with half a clue! Knows that usability matters, newbies matter, *and* supports the EFF? Pinch me!
Here's to you, compadre.
-DA
Intriguing post, but I can't find documentation of this feature anywhere in the 4.2.0 docs. Can you point to a description somewhere or describe what this option does? I've got an Inspiron 4000 and would like to be able to run it on an external monitor at times.
Cheers,
DA
"Question: If the people who want to defeat the protection can, what difference does it make?"
Ask Dmitry Skylarov.
"Hook it to a soundcard with optical in, problem solved."
How does this solve the problem of multinational corporations aggressively moving to quash fair use in all of its guises? Oh, I see. You just want to rip CDs.
Yeah, this solution will work great until they stop putting unrestricted digital outputs on consumer electronics equipment. Once the laws are on the corporations' sides and the consumers have rolled over for copy prevention technology the picture won't look so rosy. People who dismiss news like this with statements like, "who cares? I can get around this with technique X," are playing right into the copy-prevention advocates' hands. They're just trying to get the *idea* of copy prevention accepted by the public. Strengthening the prevention schemes is just a matter of time and money. If you don't boycott copy-restricted CDs, or better yet register your displeasure with the place you buy CDs in addition, you're letting the "content management" assholes write the rules.
If you roll over now do you really think that in 20 years you'll have an optical in/out (or whatever we'll be transferring A/V data over in 20 years) that doesn't have "content management" hardware built in?
-DA
"""
if I were to buy one of these CD at the price they're sold and I couldn't MP3 it directly with cdparanoia, I'd just [snip digital to analog to digital procedure] so at the end of the day, the RIAA's brain-dead schemes will just end up annoying the crap out of everybody and not prevent any copying at all.
"""
At the end of the day you've put money into the hands of the corporation that's actively trying to screw you over. You sure showed them!
How about giving that dough to the EFF instead so there's some hope of having equitable laws that support the notion of fair use? That way we'll be able to copy *our* data without resorting to mickey-mouse (tm) schemes like this.
-DA
One of the issues I've often run up against when doing scientific programming is the desire for a *real* programming language to support the number crunching. This often caused huge frustration for me when I used Matlab and IDL. One of the nicest solutions I've found for numerical programming is the Numerical Python package. (http://www.pfdubois.com/numpy/ ) You get the numerical expressiveness of Matlab or IDL with the power of Python as a programming language for the half of your program that *doesn't* deal with crunching numbers. (In my experience it's actually usually more than half, even in heavily numeric code!)
Here are a few more links:
The Python website: http://www.python.org
The Scientific Python Project: http://www.scipy.org
Cheers,
-DA
"""
Thanks to modules, regular users do not generally need to configure kernels. CML is most often used by people like me, who play with esoteric hardware and regularly apply various kernel patches, messing with the code in the process.
"""
So you would be welcome to continue using CML and the rest of us regular users could use the more friendly version. Yes, even regular users need to compile kernels.
I think the original poster's idea is first-rate.
The current configuration tools for the kernel are *not* helpful to the average user.
-DA
Anyone who says "Why aren't they just using toolkit X" or "They're never going to be able to make animated skinnable toolbars with dancing frogs" is missing the point entirely. Comparing this project to AWT or Swing is missing the point entirely. This team is not reaching for the same goal as the Java team was, i.e. to be a world-class competetive GUI. There are two keywords for this project:
Minimal: The goal is to have a *minimal* set of widgets that allow the most common types of input and output. The idea is to make a toolkit that anyone can use to create a *simple* gui on any platform that Python runs on.
Universal: Which one of the "other perfectly good solutions" you mention (qt, gtk, XUL, Kylix, Swing) does *everybody* have? Which of them is available on all the platforms that Python runs on? None of them, of course. The whole point is that no single toolkit is going to satisfy this requirement, so more than one toolkit needs to be supported.
What most of the posts I've seen so far lack is an understanding of the current situation in Python. The language is great for programming almost any kind of non-realtime project in a cross-platform way, but it lacks a way to write cross-platform guis without asking the user to download a 5 to 10 MB window toolkit on one or more of Python's platforms. This is simply unacceptible when you're distributing a 150 kB Python program! Hell, it's hard enough to get people to download the python interpreter!
There is a real need for this project in the Python community, and I wish them great success.
-DA
Wine is a compatability layer that supports the Windows API. There is no emulation going on. For God's sake, the name is a recursive acronym for "WINE Is Not an Emulator." How much more clearly can they make this point??
-DA
"""
If tax dollars are funding a project, then the results of that development should be available to everyone and not just people who use one particular license.
"""
This is silly. The government funds whole shitloads of private software development and you don't see anybody asking those companies to share their code. Nobody tells them that they have to release their code under this or that license. Plus, according to MS' own philosophy, the government is paying for the finished software, not the source code.
This is just MS FUD, plain and simple. It's a move to attack the open-source movement in the only way they can -- by making GPL software development illegal under the goverment's payroll. First it'll be companies that receive govt. funds that aren't allowed to release under the GPL. Then it'll be researchers in Universities who recieve government grants (as most *all* of them do). Got a federal student loan? Sorry, no GPL for you.
If they can pull it off it will have a catastrophic chilling effect, cutting off many major sources of quality free software, and leaving those that survive vulnerable to MS' "embrace".
When you accept the "simple, self-evident truths" (e.g. taxpayer support -> no restrictions on source code) that corporations feed you, you make the mistake of assuming that the law operates in a "simple, self-evident" way. You foolishly ignore the fact that those selfsame corporations are more than happy to claim that an issue is subtle and complex when it is to their benefit to do so.
The law acts as a vehicle for injustice just as often as justice. Which it is only depends on who's in the driver's seat.
-DA