I understand BOINC is open source, but the plugin or extension it is actually using for computation is closed source.
Also the previous clients had fully closed source.
I understand there is a confidentiality issue in opening the source while the very same client is still in "productive" use, but after the client has been obsoleted there is none anymore.
As the client consumes per person and especially globally lots of CPU time, releasing the source code after would build credibility to the future projects and also to the former project.
Nowadays we just have any project's authors word the CPU is used for that purpose it is claimed to be used.
I've noticed, in FC3 many binaries distributed have their executable stack flag cleared. Doesn't this mean it is invulnerable to stack under/overflow attacks, in AMD Duron and Athlons? See execstack(8)
I don't care if it is safe or not, but it would be annoying if a person next to me would babble to her/his phone whole trip, even if it wouldn't be nighttime.
The phones should be silent but maybe only silent text messaging would be allowed and in the separate section of a plane phone conversation could be made.
> If GNOME/Gtk is REALLY a friend, let's see them place everything under GPL (for true software protection) rather than the LGPL.
If glibc is REALLY a friend, let's see them place everything under GPL (for true software protection) rather than the LGPL?
If openssl is REALLY a friend, let's see them place everything under GPL (for true software protection) rather than the BSDish?
You are simply wrong. Why Trolltech could be the only company which you have to pay license fees when you are developing something commercial software for "de facto" Linux Desktop?
GPL is not a suitable license for software libraries. LGPL and BSD is. Qt should not be used until it is licensed under either of those. Gtk+ (and GNOME) is the way until that happens.
Think, if KDE/Qt would become de facto GUI-frameworks and desktop environment in Linux. Then, whatever commerical company would want to write commercial software for Linux, which would have GUI, it would have to pay license fees to Trolltech.
Trolltech would be the factual _owner_ of Linux OS then, and practically the only owner who always get money.
GUI-libraries is so essential software libraries in Dekstop OS nowadays, it has to be LGPLed to be Linux style. Think if also glibc, ld-lib, openssl-libs and so on would be double licensed; GPL+QPL and not LGPL. It would be a real mess and would be sure there wouldn't be any commercial software for Linux ever.
The lack of desktop alternatives is one of the main reasons Windows has been so successfull and is de facto standard desktop in the Earth. It is no suprise RedHat tried to mimic Win95-look in their GNOME and KDE default desktop settings.
Normal typical users (not nerds or slashdotters) do not want customability and alternatives. They want their user experience be the same in their homes, with computers on their friends, in their work office. Also they want their devices to work out of the shelf (drivers) and their Windows_for_Dummies have exact matching instructions how to do things.
Not even the Screen of Blue death matters, it is irrelevant as long as the desktop works as it worked yesterday and as it worked in the library or in the office.
For authors of computer books for beginners, device manufacturers, software manual writers, for common users standardized desktop look is efficient and all they want.
Besides, Qt and KDE has license issues. It is not suitable as a de facto desktop/GUI standard for Linux. GNOME is.
You want a situation be such that every time some commercial software company wants to make commercially (not GPLed) available GUI software to Linux, it has to pay license fees to Trolltech?
Wouldn't it mean Trolltech would actually be the owner of every Linux based desktop then, in some sense?
Say, would you like a situation where MS-Windows would become a free operation system and programming tools for it could be get under GPL, as long as every program developed would also be GPLed. If commercial software would be written to MS Windows, then one should pay license fees to Microsoft whether one would use gcc or any other programming tools, but just because your software uses underlying DLLs.
The situation with MS Windows is actually better now than it would be if KDE was the GUI for all Linuxes. You can, I think, write commercial software to MS Windows without paying license fees to Microsoft.
This kind of situation in Linux would suck, totally.
KDE still has licensing problems and is not suitable as the choice of THE GUI and object platform for Linux. If KDE becomes under LGPL, as all the essential software libraries in Linux, then it could be ok.
Not even thinking of technical aspects, if GNOME or KDE are the choices, then GNOME is the only possible choice.
RH does sign all its rpm-packages, but the signatures are not checked automaticly when you install some package. With up2date they are, but with rpm-program you need to use --checksig first.
I doubt if even 5% of rpm-users uses --checksig ever.
rpm should be changed so it always does --checksig integrity check first automaticly before installing/upgrading any package(s), if not implicitely some option would have been turned off in the configuration file or by a command line argument (--nochecksig)
rpm to be much MUCH nicer, one should be able to do this: rpm -Uv --upgrade-only -p ftp://updates.redhat.com/pub/redhat-6.0/i386/
rpm would get the directory listing of.../i386/ and then upgrade all packages which older version is _already_ installed in the system. Its really a full time job to keep up with everything coming from redhat-announce list.
Other usefull options would be --compress-docs and --use-compress-program=BLAH, which would i.e. bzip2 -9 all files going to/usr/man/ or/usr/doc. Now if one does bzip2 -9r/usr/man, rpm -e failes to remove the compressed files.
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I understand BOINC is open source, but the plugin or extension it is actually using for computation is closed source.
Also the previous clients had fully closed source.
I understand there is a confidentiality issue in opening the source while the very same client is still in "productive" use, but after the client has been obsoleted there is none anymore.
As the client consumes per person and especially globally lots of CPU time, releasing the source code after would build credibility to the future projects and also to the former project.
Nowadays we just have any project's authors word the CPU is used for that purpose it is claimed to be used.
I've noticed, in FC3 many binaries distributed have their executable stack flag cleared. Doesn't this mean it is invulnerable to stack under/overflow attacks, in AMD Duron and Athlons? See execstack(8)
I don't care if it is safe or not, but it would be annoying if a person next to me would babble to her/his phone whole trip, even if it wouldn't be nighttime.
The phones should be silent but maybe only silent text messaging would be allowed and in the separate section of a plane phone conversation could be made.
> If GNOME/Gtk is REALLY a friend, let's see them place everything under GPL (for true software protection) rather than the LGPL.
If glibc is REALLY a friend, let's see them place everything under GPL (for true software protection) rather than the LGPL?
If openssl is REALLY a friend, let's see them place everything under GPL (for true software protection) rather than the BSDish?
You are simply wrong. Why Trolltech could be the only company which you have to pay license fees when you are developing something commercial software for "de facto" Linux Desktop?
GPL is not a suitable license for software libraries. LGPL and BSD is. Qt should not be used until it is licensed under either of those. Gtk+ (and GNOME) is the way until that happens.
No they are not.
Think, if KDE/Qt would become de facto GUI-frameworks and desktop environment in Linux.
Then, whatever commerical company would want to write commercial software for Linux, which would have GUI, it would have to pay license fees to Trolltech.
Trolltech would be the factual _owner_ of Linux OS then, and practically the only owner who always get money.
GUI-libraries is so essential software libraries in Dekstop OS nowadays, it has to be LGPLed to be Linux style. Think if also glibc, ld-lib, openssl-libs and so on would be double licensed; GPL+QPL and not LGPL. It would be a real mess and would be sure there wouldn't be any commercial software for Linux ever.
> Re: Not a good idea
The lack of desktop alternatives is one of the main reasons Windows has been so successfull and is de facto standard desktop in the Earth. It is no suprise RedHat tried to mimic Win95-look in their GNOME and KDE default desktop settings.
Normal typical users (not nerds or slashdotters) do not want customability and alternatives. They want their user experience be the same in their homes, with computers on their friends, in their work office. Also they want their devices to work out of the shelf (drivers) and their Windows_for_Dummies have exact matching instructions how to do things.
Not even the Screen of Blue death matters, it is irrelevant as long as the desktop works as it worked yesterday and as it worked in the library or in the office.
For authors of computer books for beginners, device manufacturers, software manual writers, for common users standardized desktop look is efficient and all they want.
Besides, Qt and KDE has license issues. It is not suitable as a de facto desktop/GUI standard for Linux. GNOME is.
Why KDE?
You want a situation be such that every time some commercial software company wants to make commercially (not GPLed) available GUI software to Linux, it has to pay license fees to Trolltech?
Wouldn't it mean Trolltech would actually be the owner of every Linux based desktop then, in some sense?
Say, would you like a situation where MS-Windows would become a free operation system and programming tools for it could be get under GPL, as long as every program developed would also be GPLed. If commercial software would be written to MS Windows, then one should pay license fees to Microsoft whether one would use gcc or any other programming tools, but just because your software uses underlying DLLs.
The situation with MS Windows is actually better now than it would be if KDE was the GUI for all Linuxes. You can, I think, write commercial software to MS Windows without paying license fees to Microsoft.
This kind of situation in Linux would suck, totally.
KDE still has licensing problems and is not suitable as the choice of THE GUI and object platform for Linux. If KDE becomes under LGPL, as all the essential software libraries in Linux, then it could be ok.
Not even thinking of technical aspects, if GNOME or KDE are the choices, then GNOME is the only possible choice.
About things Russel Jones writes, I agree 100%.
My vote for GNOME, for independent Linux.
I thought OID standard already gave hierarchical structural ID-numbers to every particle in the universe we ever want to give ID to.
http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3061.txt
Will they implement OID-codes into the EPC-codes or put EPC-codes part of the OID-codes?
Maybe OIDs are too sparse and should be compressed losslessly and then encoded in BASE64, huh?
RH does sign all its rpm-packages, but the signatures are not checked automaticly when you install some package. With up2date they are, but with rpm-program you need to use --checksig first.
I doubt if even 5% of rpm-users uses --checksig ever.
rpm should be changed so it always does --checksig integrity check first automaticly before installing/upgrading any package(s), if not implicitely some option would have been turned off in the configuration file or by a command line argument (--nochecksig)
rpm to be much MUCH nicer, one should be able to do this:
rpm -Uv --upgrade-only -p ftp://updates.redhat.com/pub/redhat-6.0/i386/
rpm would get the directory listing of .../i386/ and then upgrade all packages which older version is _already_ installed in the system. Its really a full time job to keep up with everything coming from redhat-announce list.
Other usefull options would be --compress-docs and --use-compress-program=BLAH, which would i.e. bzip2 -9 all files going to /usr/man/ or /usr/doc. Now if one does bzip2 -9r /usr/man, rpm -e failes to remove the compressed files.