According to this article at lwn.net (scroll down past SSSCA discussion to get to iSCSI discussion), the possibility exists that iSCSI could not be used by free operating systems because of patent encumbrances. Were these issues resolved since then?
As for the BSD license, all you need to do is take ythe code, relicense it as GPL and use.
Huh? You can't change licenses willy-nilly. Are you saying that a country, because it's soveriegn, should have this right? Are you saying that the copyright holders should just give up on BSD and adopt the GPL (or dual-license)? I don't understand your point.
Re:What a great idea! It's already done
on
Mr Anti-Google
·
· Score: 1
Yes, but it's not promoted. And additional meta-tags could be also be promoted and utilized. Perhaps. Don't assume that I've given this any more thought than I can muster while drinking my morning coffee...;)
I'm not saying the page views themselves increase the ranks. I'm saying the page views increase a page's visibility, thereby increasing the likelyhood that someone will create a link to the page.
Yeah, I know the standard(s) are there. I'm just saying Google, with all of it's clout, might be able to compell people to actually use the standard(s) by stating that they will make use of them.
While I'm at it...another idea. Google should publically state that if you put some particular meta tag in your document, that they will publish the contents of that tag (or tags?) in their page rank summary. This would encourage people to write good summary overviews of their pages, and would help users find things easier. With their clout, they could easily create a de-facto open meta-data standard. Use it or lose.
As opposed to summaries that typically look like:... Fri Dec 29 2000 Claudio Matsuoka : 5.49-39cl; put $CHKROOT inside... fixes suport to "linux confirm"; make utmp group 22. Sat Aug 21 1999...
However Google isn't used by most folks as a directory - it's a search engine. It simply pulls up entries according to a formula (see pigeonrank [slashdot.org] for the inside scoop) and gives those back.
I agree, and I wish Mr. Brandt would suggest a workable alternative, rather than whining. He clearly has a monkey on his back.
However, I do wonder about the efficacy of google's formula. My concern is that google's popularity turn it's page rankings into self-fulfilling prophesies. It's a positive feedback loop: a site w/ a high google rank gets more views and more links, which increases its google rank, ad infinitum.
Like you say, I'd rather not have search engines be driven by agendas or money. But I believe anything can be improved upon. Personally, I believe perhaps a bit of randomness might help. Instead of recieving an absolute page rank, pages should recieve a probability of being listed higher or lower. Just a thought.
I think the terms "API boundary" and "linking" could use some clarification. In fact, I don't know that I'd use the word "linking" at all, because of its specific association w/ particular programming languages. It's all about definitions. I think the issue needs to be translated from the language of programmers into legal nomenclature.
Well, as someone else already mentioned, you can do a single file like so:
mpg123 -s file.mp3 | oggenc -o file.ogg -
So now you need to recurse through a bunch of directories and files. In bash:
for i in `find . -iname '*.mpg'`; do mpg123 -s $i | oggenc -o `dirname $i`/`basename $i mpg`ogg -; done
I didn't test this. Don't be surprised to find a typo. I'm sure there are more elegant ways to do this.
As has been repeatedly pointed out, you're better served to re-encode the CD. But in case you no longer have access to the CD's from which you did the encoding...
The competition between KDE and Gnome is wonderful! To all those who plead "let's all just get along... let's combine these efforts into one desktop uber alles."...bullocks. Competition invigorates. Both of these desktops are evolving at a phenomenal pace. Why? Well, duh, to survive.
I agree. Makes me wonder, though, if someone will have the audicity to propose outlawing non-copyprotected forms of distribution. As long as we retain our freedom, this format will entertain some lawyers and clueless corporate boss people at Sony for awhile and then die an expensive death. Hopefully someone clueful at Sony will notice the waste and some heads will roll.
Makes me mad that Sony would even try this though. I've been admiring their latest laptops. I was going to buy one, but since they keep pulling this kind of shit, I changed my mind.
You're right of course. However, making font design tools widely available is still a good idea. If we want more good fonts, then we need more good designers. And if we want more good designers, then we need to give people who aren't designers yet the tools to get there.
What do you think Hermann Zapf's first font looked like? Probably horrible.
Michael's acerbic response to Tim O'Reilly's essay may not help the cause of free software. But there are legitimate reasons a government should at least consider such a move. The United States government enjoys a special relationship with the world's software monopolist: the US makes and enforces the laws Microsoft must (ostensibly) abide by. Other countries do not enjoy this priviledge.
Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nunez of Peru makes the case for using free software in government as well as anyone. Before dismissing the notion as hogwash, one would do well to read a more reasoned argument that Michael's knee jerk reaction.
It seems, in general, that most people are arguing in favor of the same thing: giving goverment more freedom. Some argue that eliminating proprietary software from the panoply of licenses the government can choose from diminishes their freedom. Others argue that proprietary software, by its very nature, reduces freedom - particularly in the extreme case of being built on an edifice of patents and copyrights.
I'm going to blatently copy a quote used by Lawrence Lessig in a recent presentation. It's actually a Bill Gates quote, so it's being copied twice over (I hope I dont get arrested;)
If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. -Bill Gates
I highly recommend reading the entirety of Lessig's presentation.
...misusing applicant information to commit identity fraud is not a serious offense at Princeton unless the public learns of it
How about being completely clueless about security? I guess it's a good thing society doesn't incarcerate people for committing stupidity (I'd be the first to take a drink). But seriously, this is like violating the DMCA by uncoding someone's ROT13 email signature.
A vector graphics display API sure, but why postscript? Why not an open standard, like SVG?
OK, so you can dump your screen to your (postscript) printer. Would there be problems accurately converting SVG to postscript?
Why should the printer drive the display anyway - isn't the tail wagging the dog? Is the argument that technology should adapt to the device capable of producing the highest fidelity output?
Maybe it's also time for printers to start speaking SVG.
If they had lost the court battle, the flaws would have been released to the public in about the same amount of time.
If they had lost the court battle, it may be because a court finds the DMCA unconstitutional. That would be much more harmful to MS than letting some insignificant techno-trifle out of the bag. When people openly defy the DMCA, they are challenging the law. Someone is picking a fight with an 800 pound gorilla, and the gorilla is sitting this one out. Microsoft's lawyers have decided to avert risk. That alone speaks volumes about the precariousness of the DMCA's standing.
I'm not really swayed one way or the other by technological arguments for or against such propositions. I'm not scientifically illiterate, meaning I'm literate enough to know I'm ignorant of much of science.
What really strikes me is the socialogical aspects of such an undertaking. You don't just team up with your bestest buddy from grade school who would never rat on you and build a 100 giga ton nuclear powered orbital warship. This type of endeavor would require the participation of, I dunno, many thousands of people. At the least.
I'm not trying to poke fun at you, but the mind can play tricks.
I was driving along a country road at night, many years ago. It was a moonless night, and I was the only car on the road. Out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly noticed a light. It really freaked me out. It was a long bright cigar shape, and it was going exactly the same speed as the car. It was on the passenger side, and as it followed me, it was moving slowly up and down.
It took me about a minute to finally figure out what it was. One completely freaked out befuddled minute. And then I realized... My car headlights were reflecting off a power line.
How much e-mail does a normal, non-spamming personal e-mail server handle in a day? Come to think of it, the traffic isn't any more than I'd handle if I had to POP it all at once!
True.
I understand that one reason various ISP's don't appreciate home users running servers is that they can't usefully cache the data. If everyone's just browsing the web, they can use caching servers to diminish their required upstream capacity. I don't know by what amount - that would be interesting to know. Anyone?
Now why don't they just come out and say that? Well, for one thing it would clearly signify that they favor traditional content pushing business models over supporting a true end to end communications infrastructure. That might not sit so well w/ various federal official contemplating the desireability of granting monopoly power in support of technological progress. If the end nodes are reduced to dumb terminals, that not progress at all; it's just the same old same old.
The only person using the word "eerily" is you. By Theo's own admission, Alan wrote him an email indicating that some people don't trust him. That's very different from what you state - that he simply didn't like the way Theo was handling things.
Whether or not Alan overstated his case is subject to debate. But what Theo said Alan told him is not. That is why having the complete text of Alan's email would be interesting. Or would you rather argue your position from a position of ignorance?
Slashdot Mirror
Will GNU Radio support Ultra Wide Band? Soon, someday, never?
Great project. Thanks.
According to this article at lwn.net (scroll down past SSSCA discussion to get to iSCSI discussion), the possibility exists that iSCSI could not be used by free operating systems because of patent encumbrances. Were these issues resolved since then?
From the site:
WIN XBOX!
Tech Circus is giving away a XBOX to one lucky winner from the first 1000 paid registrants
So why is Bob Young giving away a Microsoft product for a prize?
As for the BSD license, all you need to do is take ythe code, relicense it as GPL and use.
Huh? You can't change licenses willy-nilly. Are you saying that a country, because it's soveriegn, should have this right? Are you saying that the copyright holders should just give up on BSD and adopt the GPL (or dual-license)? I don't understand your point.
Yes, but it's not promoted. And additional meta-tags could be also be promoted and utilized. Perhaps. Don't assume that I've given this any more thought than I can muster while drinking my morning coffee... ;)
I'm not saying the page views themselves increase the ranks. I'm saying the page views increase a page's visibility, thereby increasing the likelyhood that someone will create a link to the page.
Yeah, I know the standard(s) are there. I'm just saying Google, with all of it's clout, might be able to compell people to actually use the standard(s) by stating that they will make use of them.
While I'm at it...another idea. Google should publically state that if you put some particular meta tag in your document, that they will publish the contents of that tag (or tags?) in their page rank summary. This would encourage people to write good summary overviews of their pages, and would help users find things easier. With their clout, they could easily create a de-facto open meta-data standard. Use it or lose.
... Fri Dec 29 2000 Claudio Matsuoka : 5.49-39cl; put $CHKROOT ... fixes suport to "linux confirm"; make utmp group 22. Sat Aug 21 1999 ...
As opposed to summaries that typically look like:
inside
However Google isn't used by most folks as a directory - it's a search engine. It simply pulls up entries according to a formula (see pigeonrank [slashdot.org] for the inside scoop) and gives those back.
I agree, and I wish Mr. Brandt would suggest a workable alternative, rather than whining. He clearly has a monkey on his back.
However, I do wonder about the efficacy of google's formula. My concern is that google's popularity turn it's page rankings into self-fulfilling prophesies. It's a positive feedback loop: a site w/ a high google rank gets more views and more links, which increases its google rank, ad infinitum.
Like you say, I'd rather not have search engines be driven by agendas or money. But I believe anything can be improved upon. Personally, I believe perhaps a bit of randomness might help. Instead of recieving an absolute page rank, pages should recieve a probability of being listed higher or lower. Just a thought.
I think the terms "API boundary" and "linking" could use some clarification. In fact, I don't know that I'd use the word "linking" at all, because of its specific association w/ particular programming languages. It's all about definitions. I think the issue needs to be translated from the language of programmers into legal nomenclature.
;)
Somebody should do something (but not me).
Problem is, nowadays you not only get a fix, you also get a new EULA. Some people don't like that.
Well, as someone else already mentioned, you can do a single file like so:
mpg123 -s file.mp3 | oggenc -o file.ogg -
So now you need to recurse through a bunch of directories and files. In bash:
for i in `find . -iname '*.mpg'`; do mpg123 -s $i | oggenc -o `dirname $i`/`basename $i mpg`ogg -; done
I didn't test this. Don't be surprised to find a typo. I'm sure there are more elegant ways to do this.
As has been repeatedly pointed out, you're better served to re-encode the CD. But in case you no longer have access to the CD's from which you did the encoding...
The competition between KDE and Gnome is wonderful! To all those who plead "let's all just get along ... let's combine these efforts into one desktop uber alles." ...bullocks. Competition invigorates. Both of these desktops are evolving at a phenomenal pace. Why? Well, duh, to survive.
As long as we don't forget about sportsmanship...
I agree. Makes me wonder, though, if someone will have the audicity to propose outlawing non-copyprotected forms of distribution. As long as we retain our freedom, this format will entertain some lawyers and clueless corporate boss people at Sony for awhile and then die an expensive death. Hopefully someone clueful at Sony will notice the waste and some heads will roll.
Makes me mad that Sony would even try this though. I've been admiring their latest laptops. I was going to buy one, but since they keep pulling this kind of shit, I changed my mind.
But don't you think he did a few fonts in his garage before he actually publicized something?
A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step.
You're right of course. However, making font design tools widely available is still a good idea. If we want more good fonts, then we need more good designers. And if we want more good designers, then we need to give people who aren't designers yet the tools to get there.
What do you think Hermann Zapf's first font looked like? Probably horrible.
Michael's acerbic response to Tim O'Reilly's essay may not help the cause of free software. But there are legitimate reasons a government should at least consider such a move. The United States government enjoys a special relationship with the world's software monopolist: the US makes and enforces the laws Microsoft must (ostensibly) abide by. Other countries do not enjoy this priviledge.
;)
Dr. Edgar David Villanueva Nunez of Peru makes the case for using free software in government as well as anyone. Before dismissing the notion as hogwash, one would do well to read a more reasoned argument that Michael's knee jerk reaction.
Peru to MS
It seems, in general, that most people are arguing in favor of the same thing: giving goverment more freedom. Some argue that eliminating proprietary software from the panoply of licenses the government can choose from diminishes their freedom. Others argue that proprietary software, by its very nature, reduces freedom - particularly in the extreme case of being built on an edifice of patents and copyrights.
I'm going to blatently copy a quote used by Lawrence Lessig in a recent presentation. It's actually a Bill Gates quote, so it's being copied twice over (I hope I dont get arrested
If people had understood how patents would be granted when most of today's ideas were invented and had taken out patents, the industry would be at a complete standstill today. -Bill Gates
I highly recommend reading the entirety of Lessig's presentation.
...misusing applicant information to commit identity fraud is not a serious offense at Princeton unless the public learns of it
How about being completely clueless about security? I guess it's a good thing society doesn't incarcerate people for committing stupidity (I'd be the first to take a drink). But seriously, this is like violating the DMCA by uncoding someone's ROT13 email signature.
A vector graphics display API sure, but why postscript? Why not an open standard, like SVG?
OK, so you can dump your screen to your (postscript) printer. Would there be problems accurately converting SVG to postscript?
Why should the printer drive the display anyway - isn't the tail wagging the dog? Is the argument that technology should adapt to the device capable of producing the highest fidelity output?
Maybe it's also time for printers to start speaking SVG.
If they had lost the court battle, the flaws would have been released to the public in about the same amount of time.
If they had lost the court battle, it may be because a court finds the DMCA unconstitutional. That would be much more harmful to MS than letting some insignificant techno-trifle out of the bag. When people openly defy the DMCA, they are challenging the law. Someone is picking a fight with an 800 pound gorilla, and the gorilla is sitting this one out. Microsoft's lawyers have decided to avert risk. That alone speaks volumes about the precariousness of the DMCA's standing.
I'm not really swayed one way or the other by technological arguments for or against such propositions. I'm not scientifically illiterate, meaning I'm literate enough to know I'm ignorant of much of science.
What really strikes me is the socialogical aspects of such an undertaking. You don't just team up with your bestest buddy from grade school who would never rat on you and build a 100 giga ton nuclear powered orbital warship. This type of endeavor would require the participation of, I dunno, many thousands of people. At the least.
How the hell do you keep that many people quiet?
I'm not trying to poke fun at you, but the mind can play tricks.
I was driving along a country road at night, many years ago. It was a moonless night, and I was the only car on the road. Out of the corner of my eye, I suddenly noticed a light. It really freaked me out. It was a long bright cigar shape, and it was going exactly the same speed as the car. It was on the passenger side, and as it followed me, it was moving slowly up and down.
It took me about a minute to finally figure out what it was. One completely freaked out befuddled minute. And then I realized... My car headlights were reflecting off a power line.
Oh well. Maybe another day...
I need ... something that's stable and has stood the test of time, and something that is more complex and engrossing than a Tetris clone.
How 'bout chess? Or go? That might keep you occupied for a plane ride. And maybe for the rest of your life.
How much e-mail does a normal, non-spamming personal e-mail server handle in a day? Come to think of it, the traffic isn't any more than I'd handle if I had to POP it all at once!
True.
I understand that one reason various ISP's don't appreciate home users running servers is that they can't usefully cache the data. If everyone's just browsing the web, they can use caching servers to diminish their required upstream capacity. I don't know by what amount - that would be interesting to know. Anyone?
Now why don't they just come out and say that? Well, for one thing it would clearly signify that they favor traditional content pushing business models over supporting a true end to end communications infrastructure. That might not sit so well w/ various federal official contemplating the desireability of granting monopoly power in support of technological progress. If the end nodes are reduced to dumb terminals, that not progress at all; it's just the same old same old.
The only person using the word "eerily" is you. By Theo's own admission, Alan wrote him an email indicating that some people don't trust him. That's very different from what you state - that he simply didn't like the way Theo was handling things.
Whether or not Alan overstated his case is subject to debate. But what Theo said Alan told him is not. That is why having the complete text of Alan's email would be interesting. Or would you rather argue your position from a position of ignorance?