Can you name an OS that doesn't have Open Source code in it? (over the last 30 or so years)...
anyone?...
Okay, one that people actually use?
Now, there may be a few users that have never used an operating system, and I can't speak for every application out there, so I'm pretty sure that you never could avoid it.
Have you even read the news in the last few months? Maybe you missed the articles about Chavez revoking broadcast licenses of the private media, or the articles about nationalizing "strategic" sectors of Venezuela's economy, including such crucial things as supermarkets (in other words, almost everything that he can get his hands on). Or you just happened to miss him kicking private media out of the election process last year.
It seems to me that the best option would be to use a system much like that used for keeping the Nations roads clean. You know those signs that are all over the roads, that say that certain businesses, clubs, and other organizations have adopted certain roads. Well, what they are doing is not cleaning the stuff themselves, but paying for the road crews. In return they get to claim that they "adopted" that mile of roadway.
What Wikipedia could do is allow organizations to sponsor certain pages, where they would have the opportunity to place a single small image of their logo, claiming that they are paying for the maintainence of that page. They would have no special rights to the page, and things would be maintained by the staff. The ability to have organizations bid for the most popular pages would be a terrific source of income. To maintain an image of impartiality, it must be well explained to both the sponsor and to the public that no special treatment would be given as a result, and that the only change is a small logo (not an advertisement).
Anyone think that maybe this could be the first move towards AMD taking Transmeta into the fold? While Transmeta hasn't done all that well in retail, and AMD has very good competing products, there are a few things that would make this merger a good thing for both companies.
For Transmeta, they don't become another casualty of the "great technologies that were poorly marketed, and slightly ahead of their time" type, and become part of a larger company rather than a mountain of paperwork, memories, and angry stockholders.
One thing for AMD, who has seemed to be on the cutting edge of the general-purpose processor world since the introduction of the Athlon back in '98 or so, this gives them access to a completely different type and generation of processors, using the code-morphing soft-processor. These processors, and their technology, have a couple of VERY obvious uses for next-gen stuff. Firstly, the code-morphing nature of the Transmeta processor would allow them to introduce new instruction sets without designing new silicon. They could, when developing a new architecture, then ship properly configured soft-processors to developers before new architectures are completed. Secondly, the huge increase of importance for virtualization is on the horizon and soon to be crucial. The soft-processor can offer a whole lot more versatility to the world of virtualization, if it is reprogrammable while executing... (ooh, I just thought, what if you were to pop one of these in as a reprogrammable co-processor into an open slot on dual or quad-opteron board like the currently planned FPGA, only easier to reprogram -- no need for customized Verilog of VHDL).
Another thing for AMD is that it is not doing all that well in the notebook market. While they generally kick Intel's tail in power consumption, that's only on the desktop. Transmeta's primary marketing tactic is that they have the lowest power consumption for a GPP (General Purpose Processor).
Lastly, as to the importance of low-power consumption for the desktops mentioned in this article, remember, in other parts of the world, electricity is not a cheap as it is in the US or other industrialized nations. Also, in some more remote areas, where there is no (or an unreliable) power grid, people need to minimize the amount of extra power drawn from their generators.
BTW, how long till someone gets Linux running on one of these things, making it such that people can "Pay-as-they-please"?
If movies have taught us anything, it will end up hitting the MTV satellite, causing it and millions of TVs across America to explode, where the stoned slackers watching those TVs will say, "Whoa! Sweet!"
But you'd have to check with Dan Ackroyd and Chevy Chase to be certain.
Is it just me or do you think that someone was just watching "Real Genius" and turned it into a news story?
I mean, they're talking about a "chemical laser, but in solid, not liquid form." (that's a quote from the movie and almost identical to the press release). Also they talk about achieving an "order of magnitude." It's like they turned that one scene into an article.
So, I guess after everyone goes out drinking to celebrate, Laslo will convince them to sabotage the whole project...
Actually, if you want to solve at least a few of the problems that some have pointed out, a supply of free ice would be a good solution.
But where do you get free ice?
Well, back in high school, my friends and I used to always fill up our beer cooler by stopping by whatever fast-food joint we would come across, and just ask them if they could fill us up.
You might think that they wouldn't do so, but, as they have to clean out their ice machines often anyway, they are often glad to do it. They're just going to empty out the machine anyway -- wasting the ice. Granted, you have to be nice, and catch them at a slow time, but we never had trouble finding someone who would hook us up, even on road trips through random small towns. Also, if you're in college, there's a good chance that you know someone in the food service industry who can supply you.
Granted, this assumes that you have a car to trasport the ice, but it also allows you to make a change to the system. Rather than using an open-top trash-can, you can use a large cooler with a drainage spout, which can be placed somewhere less obtrusive. You can also put it up on a shelf (or more likely a dresser due to weight), making it easier to find a drainage solution (set it up near a bathroom or kitchen).
Of course, it requires making daily (or nightly) stops at some restaurant, a friendly manager (or managers) who will supply you regularly, a way of transporting the ice, and a bit more effort, but it makes your system much more plausible.
Ahh... Door games, TW2002, The Pit... Then inter-BBS door games (the predecessors of today's MMOG) BRE was the best... The hours of busy redial trying to get on to play my turns!
Then there was the wonderful waits, such as downloading Doom on a 2400 baud modem. Or a copy of Leisure Suit Larry 4. Oh, and remember when Xmodem and Ymodem started to be phased out by Zmodem? Oh, and the myriad of different compression formats... When was the last time you saw a.lzw or.arj file?
Although nothing was mentioned about the US government being a candidate to look at the code, I'm sure that other governments have something similar to the Freedom of Information Act.
I wonder how good MS's lawyers are, and whether the contracts that they write up for this will be able to ensure that their code won't end up in the public domain, either immediately or some time down the road.
Slashdot Mirror
What is it that allowed Google to completely take over the Internet advertising market? As I recall, it was non-intrusive advertising...
I think that someone over there at Google has forgotten what earned them their place in the market, and are looking to be undone.
Can you name an OS that doesn't have Open Source code in it? (over the last 30 or so years) ...
anyone? ...
Okay, one that people actually use?
Now, there may be a few users that have never used an operating system, and I can't speak for every application out there, so I'm pretty sure that you never could avoid it.
Have you even read the news in the last few months? Maybe you missed the articles about Chavez revoking broadcast licenses of the private media, or the articles about nationalizing "strategic" sectors of Venezuela's economy, including such crucial things as supermarkets (in other words, almost everything that he can get his hands on). Or you just happened to miss him kicking private media out of the election process last year.
It seems to me that the best option would be to use a system much like that used for keeping the Nations roads clean. You know those signs that are all over the roads, that say that certain businesses, clubs, and other organizations have adopted certain roads. Well, what they are doing is not cleaning the stuff themselves, but paying for the road crews. In return they get to claim that they "adopted" that mile of roadway. What Wikipedia could do is allow organizations to sponsor certain pages, where they would have the opportunity to place a single small image of their logo, claiming that they are paying for the maintainence of that page. They would have no special rights to the page, and things would be maintained by the staff. The ability to have organizations bid for the most popular pages would be a terrific source of income. To maintain an image of impartiality, it must be well explained to both the sponsor and to the public that no special treatment would be given as a result, and that the only change is a small logo (not an advertisement).
Anyone think that maybe this could be the first move towards AMD taking Transmeta into the fold? While Transmeta hasn't done all that well in retail, and AMD has very good competing products, there are a few things that would make this merger a good thing for both companies. For Transmeta, they don't become another casualty of the "great technologies that were poorly marketed, and slightly ahead of their time" type, and become part of a larger company rather than a mountain of paperwork, memories, and angry stockholders. One thing for AMD, who has seemed to be on the cutting edge of the general-purpose processor world since the introduction of the Athlon back in '98 or so, this gives them access to a completely different type and generation of processors, using the code-morphing soft-processor. These processors, and their technology, have a couple of VERY obvious uses for next-gen stuff. Firstly, the code-morphing nature of the Transmeta processor would allow them to introduce new instruction sets without designing new silicon. They could, when developing a new architecture, then ship properly configured soft-processors to developers before new architectures are completed. Secondly, the huge increase of importance for virtualization is on the horizon and soon to be crucial. The soft-processor can offer a whole lot more versatility to the world of virtualization, if it is reprogrammable while executing... (ooh, I just thought, what if you were to pop one of these in as a reprogrammable co-processor into an open slot on dual or quad-opteron board like the currently planned FPGA, only easier to reprogram -- no need for customized Verilog of VHDL). Another thing for AMD is that it is not doing all that well in the notebook market. While they generally kick Intel's tail in power consumption, that's only on the desktop. Transmeta's primary marketing tactic is that they have the lowest power consumption for a GPP (General Purpose Processor). Lastly, as to the importance of low-power consumption for the desktops mentioned in this article, remember, in other parts of the world, electricity is not a cheap as it is in the US or other industrialized nations. Also, in some more remote areas, where there is no (or an unreliable) power grid, people need to minimize the amount of extra power drawn from their generators. BTW, how long till someone gets Linux running on one of these things, making it such that people can "Pay-as-they-please"?
If movies have taught us anything, it will end up hitting the MTV satellite, causing it and millions of TVs across America to explode, where the stoned slackers watching those TVs will say, "Whoa! Sweet!" But you'd have to check with Dan Ackroyd and Chevy Chase to be certain.
Is it just me or do you think that someone was just watching "Real Genius" and turned it into a news story? I mean, they're talking about a "chemical laser, but in solid, not liquid form." (that's a quote from the movie and almost identical to the press release). Also they talk about achieving an "order of magnitude." It's like they turned that one scene into an article. So, I guess after everyone goes out drinking to celebrate, Laslo will convince them to sabotage the whole project...
Actually, if you want to solve at least a few of the problems that some have pointed out, a supply of free ice would be a good solution. But where do you get free ice? Well, back in high school, my friends and I used to always fill up our beer cooler by stopping by whatever fast-food joint we would come across, and just ask them if they could fill us up. You might think that they wouldn't do so, but, as they have to clean out their ice machines often anyway, they are often glad to do it. They're just going to empty out the machine anyway -- wasting the ice. Granted, you have to be nice, and catch them at a slow time, but we never had trouble finding someone who would hook us up, even on road trips through random small towns. Also, if you're in college, there's a good chance that you know someone in the food service industry who can supply you. Granted, this assumes that you have a car to trasport the ice, but it also allows you to make a change to the system. Rather than using an open-top trash-can, you can use a large cooler with a drainage spout, which can be placed somewhere less obtrusive. You can also put it up on a shelf (or more likely a dresser due to weight), making it easier to find a drainage solution (set it up near a bathroom or kitchen). Of course, it requires making daily (or nightly) stops at some restaurant, a friendly manager (or managers) who will supply you regularly, a way of transporting the ice, and a bit more effort, but it makes your system much more plausible.
Ahh... Door games, TW2002, The Pit... Then inter-BBS door games (the predecessors of today's MMOG) BRE was the best... The hours of busy redial trying to get on to play my turns! Then there was the wonderful waits, such as downloading Doom on a 2400 baud modem. Or a copy of Leisure Suit Larry 4. Oh, and remember when Xmodem and Ymodem started to be phased out by Zmodem? Oh, and the myriad of different compression formats... When was the last time you saw a .lzw or .arj file?
Although nothing was mentioned about the US government being a candidate to look at the code, I'm sure that other governments have something similar to the Freedom of Information Act.
I wonder how good MS's lawyers are, and whether the contracts that they write up for this will be able to ensure that their code won't end up in the public domain, either immediately or some time down the road.