Since competing with speed is turning out to be non-productive, the focus will be on something else, and an obvious candidate is size. Another issue I would fervently hope gets on the table is noise and power consumption.
I am sick and tired of large beige boxes sounding like a jet taking off. Having a unit like that as the home-wide server would be a dream come true. In the same way, the 'maxi'-notebooks increasingly seem like an excellent alternative to a traditional desktop, and much for the same reasons. Maybe, hopefully, we are not too far away from another format switch, where the base hardware is smaller and quieter than the stuff we put up with today.
Just don't forget that a couple of the most intensely using mobile countries - Sweden and Finland - are also among the least populated countries in the world. the "higher population densities" argument simply doesn't hold water./Janne
I do hope Mandrake 9 will give Gnome a good treatment; earlier versions left a lot to be desired. SuSE:s earlier treatment has been pretty bad as well./Janne
I'm taking a wild guess in the dark here, but I can imagine that they would select sources based on how high the news sites are ranked total, rather than looking at rank for individual stories. So the New York Times or Frankfurter Allgemeine will have their take on a story on prominent display simply because a lot of other sites give them as good links for news in general. Bob's Tattoo and News Service, on the other hand, will rank low no matter how good the writeup for a given story is.
Of course, perfect control over layout is a pipedream on the web. It was never designed to do this. Even if you had the ability to do so on the server side, the user is still free to remake the "experience" in any way they want. Different default fonts; change default (or allowed) fontsizes; embed your page in some local css; very different screen resolutions and browser window sizes, and so on.
Now, this user control is a Good Thing. It means the web an be used with very different kinds of devices, and it means users with various impairments can access the info. Most vision-impaired users do not use screen readers, for example; for them it is sufficient to be able to set the font and size so they can read it.
If you want perfect control, make a PDF-document out of it.
As far as I can determine, there should be no need for a plugin. All server stuff seems to be open protocols that Evo already mostly supports. And if there's anything missing, I surmise that Evo will include needed stuff pretty quickly.
Since the groupware server will be assembled by existing OSS offerings, there is likely no requirement to use the supplied client if one does not want to. Indeed, if it's all open protocols, Evolution should be able to work just fine with it as is. Other (partial) clients should also be perfectly usable. This mix-n-match possibility is really one of the great strengths of OSS.
Or Java/GTK or whatever. Problem is, Sun refuses to relinquish control over the language to the point of submitting it as a standard, making the point moot for the time being.
Java is not a standard. It is patented and controlled by a single company that refuses to submit is as a standard, and that makes a lot of people uneasy about using it. Also, Java isn't the best choice for UI apps, as the resource overhead tends to be quite large.
Re:Installation not so hard -- and not so importan
on
Libranet 2.7 Released
·
· Score: 1
Also, there is a bug with the installer that precludes a net install over pcmcia hardware with a fixed IP adress.
I just did this today and it worked fine. You must have experienced user error.
Nope. With a 3com589 pcmcia card and static IP the install fails. I found the mail of another user with the identical problem, and eventually got confirmation from a developer that this indeed was the case.
So now I had a bare Woody install - really bare, like in "I need to apt-get less" bare.
This is not an ideal solution, but it sounds like what you wanted was a bare system, plus the "build-essential" meta package. It will install all of the stuff you wanted (libc-dev, less, gcc, make, etc...) without X. If you want other non standard development libraries you'll still have to load them yourself, but it's a mere 'apt-get' away. The build-essential package is great for when you want a minimalist development environment without all the typing.
As I wrote, this really was fine; I was aiming for a bare-bones kind of system after all. What was not fine was that I did not get it through consious planning, but through an abysmal lack of anything resembling UI design on the part of the installer. As for the 'build-essential' meta package, it's not too easy installing it without finding out such a thing exists (if that in fact is not the very same package that insisted on dragging X along with it).
In any case it is moot, as the supposedly superior apt system managed to hose the system for me, convincing me I'm better off with an RPM-based system after all.
/Janne
Re:Installation not so hard -- and not so importan
on
Libranet 2.7 Released
·
· Score: 2
There could be several things. Split the choice of developer tools into a 'basic' and 'X-related' part; make the 'X server' choice active whenever you choose devel tools; remove the 'X' part altogether; bake the 'devel' option into the other options, so they would 'know' which devel packages to install.
Presenting a choice that in fact is not doable is not the way to do it, however.
/Janne
Re:Installation not so hard -- and not so importan
on
Libranet 2.7 Released
·
· Score: 2
I tried to install Woody on my old laptop. A few things are really lacking with the installer. First, I wanted to keep one of the partitions where I had my/home. The problem was, all partitions are identified only with/dev/hdaX - with no size indication or other information, it was a hit.and-miss affair to remember which partition had been mounted where. Also, there is a bug with the installer that precludes a net install over pcmcia hardware with a fixed IP adress. There are plenty of other UI disasters, but those two sort of stood out.
Second, the initial package selection systems are _really_ lacking. The simplified task-centered selection seemed like a good idea, but did not work in practice. As it is an old machine, I did not want X or any X applications on it, so I deselected that task. On the other hand, I did want developer stuff, so I selected that. Unfortunately, that resulted in it pulling down X and a lot of related stuff anyway. If there is supposed to be such a task division, it needs to be done well, or not at all. I then ended up in the app for individual package selection. I started to browse it - but hit Enter by mistake, and was dumped out of the program, without a warning and without a chance to undo the action. Not good.
So now I had a bare Woody install - really bare, like in "I need to apt-get less" bare. This was fine with me. For some reason, however, I had a 2.2 kernel. This both annoyed and surprised me, as Woody is supposed to use the 2.4 kernel. No problem - I just pull down a newer kernel package. Unfortunately, the newer kernel packages all had a pcmcia module package that was incompatible with the kernel itself.
I was about to get the kernel source and compile it for myself, but when rebooting to the 2.2 kernel (for the fifth or sixth time that day) I got a kernel panic when trying to boot the machine. As i had been at this for the better part of six hours, I gave up, got the Redhat boot disks, and got a functional, configured, X-less installation done with minimal fuss in two hours.
I think the impatiense is due to the incredible amount of frustration with current laptops; anything that will give more operating hours is eagerly awaited, and right now fuel-cells seem to be the best bet.
I'm actually rather pleased with the new split in laptop designs. You have 'portables', large, relatively inexpensive laptops with desktop-class performance but only an hour or so of battery life; and ultraportables, small, light laptops - perhaps powered by a Crusoe chip - with long battery life and easy to tag along wherever you go. For the daily commute, you have your entire desktop with you. When travelling light, the ultraportable will still be able to handle most computing needs. Of course, fuel-cells would improve both designs considerably.
I use flourescent bulbs almost everywhere at home. I've had no problem with orientation whatsoever; don't know about vibration. I've yet to have one flourescent that lasts shorter than two years of heavy use.
BTW, if anyone wants to buy flourescent bulbs, be sure to buy the newer designs with a high-frequency lighter and a gas mix that gives a more natural light; they're a bit more expensive, but gives a much nicer light.
The subscription very likely covers ongoing support and (semi-)automated updates. This removes some of the need to employ Linux administrators by the companies themselves; in effect, it entails a standardized outsorcing package for desktop support. Depending on the price point, this can be a good deal for a lot of companies. This won't mean there is _no_ need for administrators within the company; rather, the local admin is relieved of a lot of the drudgery, and can do his/her work with the full backing of expertise from Redhat.
And that's where it gets a little murky. But: from what I've understood from the article, they accept everything that can be treated as GPL - which BSD code can, i.e. you can take it, and incorporate it into a GPL program, or add GPL:ed changes to the BSD code and reissue the whole thing as GPL.
What I've never understood is exactly how little is needed to add or change. From what I understand of the BSD license, all you'd need to do is give the program a different name, or maybe change a spelling error or whatever to fork the code under GPL, for instance - of course, you'd take over responsibility as maintainer of the forked code. BSD does allow you to use the code under other licenses; I don't see why this would not be allowed under it.
I believe Mozilla is dual-licenced; you can use it under the GPL if you want. As for the BSD license, all you need to do is take ythe code, relicense it as GPL and use.
I imagine they can save a couple bucks an hour on labor, but at what cost?
You also save a bundle on real estate - probably more than you would ever save on the personnel.
I like the idea. Sometimes I'm just not sociable, and I just want to get my stuff and get home without having to interact with anybody. Some people have it far worse; a social phobia can make going to a store a nightmare for them. This is a great, low-pressure way of doing small shopping without having to flash a false smile at some inane, equally fake, greeting from a cashier, or be looked at as a jerk because you could not give exact change.
I've seen (and used) the Geneva one too; it's several times larger than the one depicted in the article. And in Geneva it was a godsend, as hardly any stores were open at night./Janne
Basically: don't. You will suffer a lot of degradation. Both are lossy formats, and going from one to another will have a large impact on the sound quality. For stuff like audio books or Britney Spears, where the sound quality is of little importance, it may still suffice, but for music you really care about it will just not be good enough. As you no doubt have the original CD:s - you do have them, right? - it's far preferable to rip them again into ogg.
A company is responsible to its employees and customers to the extent of law; this also circumscribes all other ectivities of a company, of course. And if the company is noted on a public bourse, it has to comply with its regulations as well, or be kicked out.
As for the board of directors, as I said, they are appointed by the share holders, and can in principle be deposed at any time. The CEO in turn is appointed by the directors, and can (and sometimes will) be fired for pretty much any reason. A partial reason for a high salary for a CEO is exectly this lack of any job security (though that does not cover the sometimes ludicrous salaries you sometimes hear about).
Many company bylaws are designed to facilitate some kind of balance between the actors and the owners. It can include poison pill regulations, differential voting strength, making the directors shareholders, and what have you.
None of this does however change the basic feature that the company ultimately is there for the benefit of its owners and nobody else. Customer relationships may be very important for a company, but then it is so because that will ultimately benefit its owners more than the reverse. Conversely, some (smaller) companies now have far reaching environmental policies that strictly speaking are not profitable for it in the short or medium term, but that have been imposed on it by its shareholders. This is perfectly acceptable.
Slashdot Mirror
Since competing with speed is turning out to be non-productive, the focus will be on something else, and an obvious candidate is size. Another issue I would fervently hope gets on the table is noise and power consumption.
I am sick and tired of large beige boxes sounding like a jet taking off. Having a unit like that as the home-wide server would be a dream come true. In the same way, the 'maxi'-notebooks increasingly seem like an excellent alternative to a traditional desktop, and much for the same reasons. Maybe, hopefully, we are not too far away from another format switch, where the base hardware is smaller and quieter than the stuff we put up with today.
True - but the coverage is not centered only in the densely populated aeras. /Janne
Just don't forget that a couple of the most intensely using mobile countries - Sweden and Finland - are also among the least populated countries in the world. the "higher population densities" argument simply doesn't hold water. /Janne
I do hope Mandrake 9 will give Gnome a good treatment; earlier versions left a lot to be desired. SuSE:s earlier treatment has been pretty bad as well. /Janne
It's also worth remembering that we survived for hundreds of thousands of years without antibiotics, anyway.
Yes - with an expected (adult) lifetime of about 35-40 and an infant mortality rate at well over 50%. I'd rather not come back to that 'idyllic' life.
I'm taking a wild guess in the dark here, but I can imagine that they would select sources based on how high the news sites are ranked total, rather than looking at rank for individual stories. So the New York Times or Frankfurter Allgemeine will have their take on a story on prominent display simply because a lot of other sites give them as good links for news in general. Bob's Tattoo and News Service, on the other hand, will rank low no matter how good the writeup for a given story is.
Of course, perfect control over layout is a pipedream on the web. It was never designed to do this. Even if you had the ability to do so on the server side, the user is still free to remake the "experience" in any way they want. Different default fonts; change default (or allowed) fontsizes; embed your page in some local css; very different screen resolutions and browser window sizes, and so on.
Now, this user control is a Good Thing. It means the web an be used with very different kinds of devices, and it means users with various impairments can access the info. Most vision-impaired users do not use screen readers, for example; for them it is sufficient to be able to set the font and size so they can read it.
If you want perfect control, make a PDF-document out of it.
If key-stroke redundancy and syntactical errors during development was a significant factor, we'd all be using Forth.
As far as I can determine, there should be no need for a plugin. All server stuff seems to be open protocols that Evo already mostly supports. And if there's anything missing, I surmise that Evo will include needed stuff pretty quickly.
Since the groupware server will be assembled by existing OSS offerings, there is likely no requirement to use the supplied client if one does not want to. Indeed, if it's all open protocols, Evolution should be able to work just fine with it as is. Other (partial) clients should also be perfectly usable. This mix-n-match possibility is really one of the great strengths of OSS.
Or Java/GTK or whatever. Problem is, Sun refuses to relinquish control over the language to the point of submitting it as a standard, making the point moot for the time being.
Java is not a standard. It is patented and controlled by a single company that refuses to submit is as a standard, and that makes a lot of people uneasy about using it. Also, Java isn't the best choice for UI apps, as the resource overhead tends to be quite large.
I just did this today and it worked fine. You must have experienced user error.
Nope. With a 3com589 pcmcia card and static IP the install fails. I found the mail of another user with the identical problem, and eventually got confirmation from a developer that this indeed was the case.
So now I had a bare Woody install - really bare, like in "I need to apt-get less" bare.
This is not an ideal solution, but it sounds like what you wanted was a bare system, plus the "build-essential" meta package. It will install all of the stuff you wanted (libc-dev, less, gcc, make, etc...) without X. If you want other non standard development libraries you'll still have to load them yourself, but it's a mere 'apt-get' away. The build-essential package is great for when you want a minimalist development environment without all the typing.
As I wrote, this really was fine; I was aiming for a bare-bones kind of system after all. What was not fine was that I did not get it through consious planning, but through an abysmal lack of anything resembling UI design on the part of the installer. As for the 'build-essential' meta package, it's not too easy installing it without finding out such a thing exists (if that in fact is not the very same package that insisted on dragging X along with it).
In any case it is moot, as the supposedly superior apt system managed to hose the system for me, convincing me I'm better off with an RPM-based system after all.
/Janne
Presenting a choice that in fact is not doable is not the way to do it, however.
/Janne
Second, the initial package selection systems are _really_ lacking. The simplified task-centered selection seemed like a good idea, but did not work in practice. As it is an old machine, I did not want X or any X applications on it, so I deselected that task. On the other hand, I did want developer stuff, so I selected that. Unfortunately, that resulted in it pulling down X and a lot of related stuff anyway. If there is supposed to be such a task division, it needs to be done well, or not at all. I then ended up in the app for individual package selection. I started to browse it - but hit Enter by mistake, and was dumped out of the program, without a warning and without a chance to undo the action. Not good.
So now I had a bare Woody install - really bare, like in "I need to apt-get less" bare. This was fine with me. For some reason, however, I had a 2.2 kernel. This both annoyed and surprised me, as Woody is supposed to use the 2.4 kernel. No problem - I just pull down a newer kernel package. Unfortunately, the newer kernel packages all had a pcmcia module package that was incompatible with the kernel itself.
I was about to get the kernel source and compile it for myself, but when rebooting to the 2.2 kernel (for the fifth or sixth time that day) I got a kernel panic when trying to boot the machine. As i had been at this for the better part of six hours, I gave up, got the Redhat boot disks, and got a functional, configured, X-less installation done with minimal fuss in two hours.
/Janne
I'm actually rather pleased with the new split in laptop designs. You have 'portables', large, relatively inexpensive laptops with desktop-class performance but only an hour or so of battery life; and ultraportables, small, light laptops - perhaps powered by a Crusoe chip - with long battery life and easy to tag along wherever you go. For the daily commute, you have your entire desktop with you. When travelling light, the ultraportable will still be able to handle most computing needs. Of course, fuel-cells would improve both designs considerably.
/Janne
BTW, if anyone wants to buy flourescent bulbs, be sure to buy the newer designs with a high-frequency lighter and a gas mix that gives a more natural light; they're a bit more expensive, but gives a much nicer light.
/Janne
/Janne
/Janne
What I've never understood is exactly how little is needed to add or change. From what I understand of the BSD license, all you'd need to do is give the program a different name, or maybe change a spelling error or whatever to fork the code under GPL, for instance - of course, you'd take over responsibility as maintainer of the forked code. BSD does allow you to use the code under other licenses; I don't see why this would not be allowed under it.
/Janne
/Janne
You also save a bundle on real estate - probably more than you would ever save on the personnel.
I like the idea. Sometimes I'm just not sociable, and I just want to get my stuff and get home without having to interact with anybody. Some people have it far worse; a social phobia can make going to a store a nightmare for them. This is a great, low-pressure way of doing small shopping without having to flash a false smile at some inane, equally fake, greeting from a cashier, or be looked at as a jerk because you could not give exact change.
/Janne
I've seen (and used) the Geneva one too; it's several times larger than the one depicted in the article. And in Geneva it was a godsend, as hardly any stores were open at night. /Janne
/Janne
As for the board of directors, as I said, they are appointed by the share holders, and can in principle be deposed at any time. The CEO in turn is appointed by the directors, and can (and sometimes will) be fired for pretty much any reason. A partial reason for a high salary for a CEO is exectly this lack of any job security (though that does not cover the sometimes ludicrous salaries you sometimes hear about).
Many company bylaws are designed to facilitate some kind of balance between the actors and the owners. It can include poison pill regulations, differential voting strength, making the directors shareholders, and what have you.
None of this does however change the basic feature that the company ultimately is there for the benefit of its owners and nobody else. Customer relationships may be very important for a company, but then it is so because that will ultimately benefit its owners more than the reverse. Conversely, some (smaller) companies now have far reaching environmental policies that strictly speaking are not profitable for it in the short or medium term, but that have been imposed on it by its shareholders. This is perfectly acceptable.
/Janne