..Then don't use it! Is it really that hard? Besides, now with the release of GCC4 and it's much improved GCJ/Classpath support, people at RedHat (such as Caolan McNamara) are trying to get OO.o to work nicely with GCJ
The only restriction the GPL puts on pricing is that you cannot charge more for a copy of the source code than you can for a copy of any binaries. This is to prevent people from charging (for example) a few dollars for the binaries but millions for the source code, which would effectively nullify the GPL's given rights to further modify and distribute the software. That guy really doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. >=(
Wrong. MP3 (last I checked) can only do dual-channel audio, while Ogg Vorbis can do multi-channel audio, Also, Ogg Vorbis can store the same music with a higher quality/size ratio. Then you have the fact that the MP3 format is patent-encumbered while the Ogg Vorbis (and Theora video codec) are Free for anyone to use for any purpose (Theora is a reworking of On2's VP3 codec. It _is_ patented, but it's patented so that everyone can use it freely.)
" Anybody know when we can expect to see full and relatively bug-free acpi support?"...perhaps once hardware manufacturers stop producing bug-ridden ACPI implementations.;-)
Portable Network Graphics (PNG) is a lossless compression format which is Freely (as in "free spech") usable by anyone for any purpose, even in commercial and/or proprietary applications.
There's not an open format version of this I can watch, such as Ogg Theora? (no, patent-encumbered formats such as MPEG don't count...)
Can anyone using VLC, Xine, or MPlayer on GNU/Linux without the Win32 codecs wrappers confirm that I can correctly watch this? My bandwitdh isn't all that great and I'd hate to spend two hours downloading only to not be able to watch it =(
When standards form in the wild, it may be a cry for formal standardization
Level: Introductory
Peter Seebach (crankyuser@seebs.plethora.net) Freelance writer 12 Apr 2005
Column iconWhat makes a standard viable without the formal blessing of a standards organization? Should you use such informal standards, or ignore them? Learn more about de facto standards in this month's Standards and specs.
Dave Clark once said, "We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code."
The IETF (the organization Dave Clark was speaking for) is a standards body that has taken an unusual, but empirically quite effective, approach to standardization, preferring to see proposed standards tested out a bit in the field before they get formal blessing. In short, whenever possible, they formalize an existing de facto standard, rather than inventing a new one from scratch. The RFC process (see Resources) has worked well enough to produce many of the most widely used standards in the world, and IETF standards have a credibility even ISO can't always match.
What makes a de facto standard good enough to formalize, or possibly so good it doesn't even need to be formalized? In the wild, you will often encounter standards, with or without the blessings of a standards body, which seem like they might be applicable to your work. Sometimes, you may find no applicable standard, but a likely partnership to create one. In this Standards and specs, you'll see a few things to keep in mind when talking about de facto standards.
First, though, to dispel a few myths: Not all de facto standards are the same. Some of them are really good. Some are really bad. Not every de facto standard represents the best possible technical decisions; not every de facto standard represents the tyranny of a proprietary despot dribbling out just enough crumbs of documentation to keep the peasants from revolting. De facto standards can be temporary kluges, or carefully considered and planned designs; they can reflect an individual's vision or a committee's indecision. In short, it is dangerous to treat them as interchangeable.
Physical connectors Computers love to talk to other devices. This (unless you're using radio) requires them to have some kind of cable connecting them, and that means connectors for the cable to plug into.
In most cases, a connector intended to be shared or used by multiple devices will be the topic of a formal standard. There is ample documentation on the pinouts of a standard USB cable, for instance. However, if it isn't the topic of a formal standard, the compelling need for interoperability is likely to lead to an informal standard. Connectors with formal standards are generally fairly precisely defined. The RS232 specification for serial ports describes signals, voltage levels, and everything, for standard DB25 serial ports. However, many computers ship with a 9-pin serial port. The pinouts for these have become a de facto standard.
It's worth noting that the formal standard (RS232) solved the hard problem, and the informal standard just covered a common extension. Network effects make standards like this a pretty good bet. If you're making serial cables with 9-pin connectors, they need to plug into the "standard" PC pinout. Given the widespread availability of such cables, if you're making a serial port, a 9-pin male serial port with the same pinout is a good bet. This is a great standard: it's free of licensing requirements, it's very easy to implement, and millions of machines use it. Given this, it seems obvious that anyone looking to build a serial port would want to use this standard, and certainly, anyone using a 9-pin d-sub connector would use it.
This makes it frankly inexplicable that I have a few uninterruptible power supplies that use a 9-pin d-sub connector, which is connected by a cable to a PC serial port, but which has some other pinout, such that the special serial cable the UPS comes with is the only one
#!/bin/bash PASSES=50; for LCV in $(seq 1 ${PASSES} ); do dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdX bs=1 dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hdX bs=1; done echo -ne "Now go dump your disk in acid! ^_^"
Apache recently held a week-end "infrathon" to sweep the dust out of the corners, squash a few old bugs, drink a wee bit of ale (and maybe a wee bit more than a wee bit) and get their hands dirty with the Zen of maintaining their infrastructure. MadPenguin.org crashed the party in search of the secrets of getting into the "zone" while peeking into the grittiest of the nitty gritty of one of the darling projects of open source, Apache.
There's a lot of talk about "community" in the open source world, and learned papers by the hundreds are chasing the mystery of why highly talented hackers give away code for free. But for those of use who don't hack code, maybe we just have to try to sit and stare at a blank wall for an hour or so to experience the "Zen" of something as grinding and nitty gritty as infrastructure maintenance.
Maybe it's sort of like the tedious poses that yoga practitioners do; or the mind-numbing, repetitive training that star athletes engage in; or the hours of relentless practice of top violinists slashing away at their violins. Maybe true beauty can't be bought by the billions of dollars stashed away in Microsoft's banks. Maybe the only way to "get" the Zen of open source community is to hunker down and grind out deadly dull infrastructure maintenance work. Maybe you actually gotta "feel the burn" to get the high.
There were no corporate press releases for this event. No splashy media ads or glossy print magazine ads. The event did not take place in a big, loud conference center such as San Francisco's spacious Moscone Center. There was no hoard of gawkers hoping to catch sight of someone famous. There were no booth babes or flashy booth displays or big deal keynote speakers giving presos in front of massive, wall-sized video flat screen panels;and no banners or security guards or fancy speaker passes. It took place at Brian Behlendorf's house, which is not even in a gated community. We drove right past his house the first time while looking for his address.
The guys that I interviewed were among some of the brightest minds in open source; Brian Behlendorf; Upayavira; Greg Stein; and Roy Fielding, all of whom are well known and regarded (or deserve to be). These guys have the skills to be Microsoft millionaires, but instead but instead flew thousands of miles to sit slouching on couches and squatting on cushions hacking infrastructure maintenance for free, primarily just to hang out with each other, even though they could have done the same thing on line.
In public statements and in its 2004/9/1 SEC 10-k mandatory legal filing, Microsoft calls open source projects like Apache the second greatest profitability concern behind a weak global economy. Yet Microsoft doesn't "get" why their profitability is imperiled by a movement that their Chairman called a group of "communists." Maybe Chairman Bill doesn't "get" it because he's too busy answering press calls about his generosity in donating his billions to them poor brown people over there.
When I asked these guys what they liked about the infrathon, some of them did talk about seeing the physical manifestations of the stuff that they were "seeing" in code form: they liked to visit the co-location facilities, the cages, and the actual boxes that are the work horses of the minor miracle that is Apache. They talked about the massive numbers of committers they support, the huge volumes of server hits and email messages, and the security measures protecting all of that massive activity, and they liked the fact that their work here makes all of that stuff go. But mostly, they just liked to hang out with each other.
I'm sure that each of them, upon reading this article, will say that I have made a big deal out of nothing. Each of them was busily volunteering each other's availability when I told them that I was going to interview them for this article.
I spoke with Brian Behlendorf, Upayavira, Greg Stein, and Roy Fielding, in that order, and their interviews have been transcribed, snipped, and pres
Slashdot Mirror
..Then don't use it! Is it really that hard? Besides, now with the release of GCC4 and it's much improved GCJ/Classpath support, people at RedHat (such as Caolan McNamara) are trying to get OO.o to work nicely with GCJ
http://mirrordot.org/stories/6ad39285532d74fb7067a 1561bc429e7/index.html
2 005/05/10.18.shtml
http://www.macobserver.com.nyud.net:8090/article/
(according to my TI-89) 5.4! ^_^
http://edge-op.org/grouch/schools.html
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/695
does it run Linux?
Wow! That's a wonderful future! :-P
The only restriction the GPL puts on pricing is that you cannot charge more for a copy of the source code than you can for a copy of any binaries. This is to prevent people from charging (for example) a few dollars for the binaries but millions for the source code, which would effectively nullify the GPL's given rights to further modify and distribute the software. That guy really doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. >=(
Wrong. MP3 (last I checked) can only do dual-channel audio, while Ogg Vorbis can do multi-channel audio, Also, Ogg Vorbis can store the same music with a higher quality/size ratio. Then you have the fact that the MP3 format is patent-encumbered while the Ogg Vorbis (and Theora video codec) are Free for anyone to use for any purpose (Theora is a reworking of On2's VP3 codec. It _is_ patented, but it's patented so that everyone can use it freely.)
http://bugzilla.kernel.org/
"(thanks. I will be here all week.)"
;-)
Dang. I need to find another bar then.
" Anybody know when we can expect to see full and relatively bug-free acpi support?" ...perhaps once hardware manufacturers stop producing bug-ridden ACPI implementations. ;-)
They're going to need a lot more than that...
I take it you've not used the Bitstream Vera fonts then?
http://libpng.org/pub/png/png.html
Portable Network Graphics (PNG) is a lossless compression format which is Freely (as in "free spech") usable by anyone for any purpose, even in commercial and/or proprietary applications.
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/schools.html
Why didn't the poster just link to a list of mirrors? I don't want my favorite compiler's source to be unavailable =(
There's not an open format version of this I can watch, such as Ogg Theora? (no, patent-encumbered formats such as MPEG don't count...)
Can anyone using VLC, Xine, or MPlayer on GNU/Linux without the Win32 codecs wrappers confirm that I can correctly watch this? My bandwitdh isn't all that great and I'd hate to spend two hours downloading only to not be able to watch it =(
http://www.command.com/
When standards form in the wild, it may be a cry for formal standardization
Level: Introductory
Peter Seebach (crankyuser@seebs.plethora.net)
Freelance writer
12 Apr 2005
Column iconWhat makes a standard viable without the formal blessing of a standards organization? Should you use such informal standards, or ignore them? Learn more about de facto standards in this month's Standards and specs.
Dave Clark once said, "We reject kings, presidents and voting. We believe in rough consensus and running code."
The IETF (the organization Dave Clark was speaking for) is a standards body that has taken an unusual, but empirically quite effective, approach to standardization, preferring to see proposed standards tested out a bit in the field before they get formal blessing. In short, whenever possible, they formalize an existing de facto standard, rather than inventing a new one from scratch. The RFC process (see Resources) has worked well enough to produce many of the most widely used standards in the world, and IETF standards have a credibility even ISO can't always match.
What makes a de facto standard good enough to formalize, or possibly so good it doesn't even need to be formalized? In the wild, you will often encounter standards, with or without the blessings of a standards body, which seem like they might be applicable to your work. Sometimes, you may find no applicable standard, but a likely partnership to create one. In this Standards and specs, you'll see a few things to keep in mind when talking about de facto standards.
First, though, to dispel a few myths: Not all de facto standards are the same. Some of them are really good. Some are really bad. Not every de facto standard represents the best possible technical decisions; not every de facto standard represents the tyranny of a proprietary despot dribbling out just enough crumbs of documentation to keep the peasants from revolting. De facto standards can be temporary kluges, or carefully considered and planned designs; they can reflect an individual's vision or a committee's indecision. In short, it is dangerous to treat them as interchangeable.
Physical connectors
Computers love to talk to other devices. This (unless you're using radio) requires them to have some kind of cable connecting them, and that means connectors for the cable to plug into.
In most cases, a connector intended to be shared or used by multiple devices will be the topic of a formal standard. There is ample documentation on the pinouts of a standard USB cable, for instance. However, if it isn't the topic of a formal standard, the compelling need for interoperability is likely to lead to an informal standard. Connectors with formal standards are generally fairly precisely defined. The RS232 specification for serial ports describes signals, voltage levels, and everything, for standard DB25 serial ports. However, many computers ship with a 9-pin serial port. The pinouts for these have become a de facto standard.
It's worth noting that the formal standard (RS232) solved the hard problem, and the informal standard just covered a common extension. Network effects make standards like this a pretty good bet. If you're making serial cables with 9-pin connectors, they need to plug into the "standard" PC pinout. Given the widespread availability of such cables, if you're making a serial port, a 9-pin male serial port with the same pinout is a good bet. This is a great standard: it's free of licensing requirements, it's very easy to implement, and millions of machines use it. Given this, it seems obvious that anyone looking to build a serial port would want to use this standard, and certainly, anyone using a 9-pin d-sub connector would use it.
This makes it frankly inexplicable that I have a few uninterruptible power supplies that use a 9-pin d-sub connector, which is connected by a cable to a PC serial port, but which has some other pinout, such that the special serial cable the UPS comes with is the only one
...subway system computerizes you!
#!/bin/bash
PASSES=50;
for LCV in $(seq 1 ${PASSES} );
do
dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/hdX bs=1
dd if=/dev/urandom of=/dev/hdX bs=1;
done
echo -ne "Now go dump your disk in acid! ^_^"
...GPL attacks YOU!
BK is dying
Apache recently held a week-end "infrathon" to sweep the dust out of the corners, squash a few old bugs, drink a wee bit of ale (and maybe a wee bit more than a wee bit) and get their hands dirty with the Zen of maintaining their infrastructure. MadPenguin.org crashed the party in search of the secrets of getting into the "zone" while peeking into the grittiest of the nitty gritty of one of the darling projects of open source, Apache.
There's a lot of talk about "community" in the open source world, and learned papers by the hundreds are chasing the mystery of why highly talented hackers give away code for free. But for those of use who don't hack code, maybe we just have to try to sit and stare at a blank wall for an hour or so to experience the "Zen" of something as grinding and nitty gritty as infrastructure maintenance.
Maybe it's sort of like the tedious poses that yoga practitioners do; or the mind-numbing, repetitive training that star athletes engage in; or the hours of relentless practice of top violinists slashing away at their violins. Maybe true beauty can't be bought by the billions of dollars stashed away in Microsoft's banks. Maybe the only way to "get" the Zen of open source community is to hunker down and grind out deadly dull infrastructure maintenance work. Maybe you actually gotta "feel the burn" to get the high.
There were no corporate press releases for this event. No splashy media ads or glossy print magazine ads. The event did not take place in a big, loud conference center such as San Francisco's spacious Moscone Center. There was no hoard of gawkers hoping to catch sight of someone famous. There were no booth babes or flashy booth displays or big deal keynote speakers giving presos in front of massive, wall-sized video flat screen panels;and no banners or security guards or fancy speaker passes. It took place at Brian Behlendorf's house, which is not even in a gated community. We drove right past his house the first time while looking for his address.
The guys that I interviewed were among some of the brightest minds in open source; Brian Behlendorf; Upayavira; Greg Stein; and Roy Fielding, all of whom are well known and regarded (or deserve to be). These guys have the skills to be Microsoft millionaires, but instead but instead flew thousands of miles to sit slouching on couches and squatting on cushions hacking infrastructure maintenance for free, primarily just to hang out with each other, even though they could have done the same thing on line.
In public statements and in its 2004/9/1 SEC 10-k mandatory legal filing, Microsoft calls open source projects like Apache the second greatest profitability concern behind a weak global economy. Yet Microsoft doesn't "get" why their profitability is imperiled by a movement that their Chairman called a group of "communists." Maybe Chairman Bill doesn't "get" it because he's too busy answering press calls about his generosity in donating his billions to them poor brown people over there.
When I asked these guys what they liked about the infrathon, some of them did talk about seeing the physical manifestations of the stuff that they were "seeing" in code form: they liked to visit the co-location facilities, the cages, and the actual boxes that are the work horses of the minor miracle that is Apache. They talked about the massive numbers of committers they support, the huge volumes of server hits and email messages, and the security measures protecting all of that massive activity, and they liked the fact that their work here makes all of that stuff go. But mostly, they just liked to hang out with each other.
I'm sure that each of them, upon reading this article, will say that I have made a big deal out of nothing. Each of them was busily volunteering each other's availability when I told them that I was going to interview them for this article.
I spoke with Brian Behlendorf, Upayavira, Greg Stein, and Roy Fielding, in that order, and their interviews have been transcribed, snipped, and pres
GNU/Be would be pronounced "Gah-new-bie" which kinda sounds like "newbie" which makes it funny. :-)