I think Linux and FreeBSD are the most popular. Can't say much about Open, but I agree with the NetBSD comment. Of all the OS's out there now, I think NetBSD is the most underrated.
Linux and FreeBSD tend to be the best choices because they have more up-to-date hardware support. NetBSD has great hardware support too in everything except multimedia. In general, NetBSD doesn't support any 3D hardware acceleration. It also only supports the basic SoundBlaster audio. No 3D surround sound stuff that I'm aware of. For that alone, many people would probably avoid NetBSD as a workstation OS.
However, NetBSD is a great OS when all you want is a clean OS that's stable. In regards to education, I think NetBSD should be THE classroom OS. Why a college would use Linux for instruction is beyond me. NetBSD has a strong emphasis on design. Everything is pretty much designed to be generic. It's why NetBSD is the most easily ported OS. Linux on a PDA? Why? NetBSD is a much more natural choice. When one thinks of embedded Linux, they're looking at ucLinux libraries and Busybox and tools like that. In NetBSD, you can build ONE SINGLE BINARY that contains the kernel, libraries, and all the unix commands you want. I haven't done it yet, but really it sounds pretty cool. And you use the exact same source tree you would for a normal system. NetBSD is so generic, that it can emulate Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD, as well as Solaris and possibly AIX and HP-UX binaries. Yes, that's right! You can run Linux binaries directly on top of NetBSD. You can run Solaris binaries directly on top of NetBSD. Although NetBSD accomplishes this through emulation, it's remarkibly fast.
So yes, NetBSD is a poor choice for multimedia. However, it's great for stability (ie: you want an OS that runs like an appliance) and it's great for emulating other UNIX OS's. I use it as my desktop of choice because I find it very easy to manage. That and it has a small footprint comparied to other UNIX OS's. The actual application support is very good. Packages for NetBSD are much more up-to-date than Debian. I don't do 3D graphics and I don't play games (other than Wesnoth), so I don't really miss the 3D acceleration. Besides, if I really needed good 3D acceleration, sadly, I wouldn't be running a free unix system. I think NetBSD is a great OS if you just want to do work.
As a small testiment to driver support of Net vs Linux: I had a slightly older laptop I wanted to run unix on. I always used Linux for that sort of thing, but I always had to jerry rig with modules and conf files to get the all the hardware working just so. After trying to get Debian-stable working (twice), I thought I'd give NetBSD a whirl just for fun. I was amazed! Just in the boot process alone, the boot and root floppies detected ALL hardware and network adapters. No extra driver disks or configuration farting around. After the install, everything just worked. Didn't have to configure a thing. Audio, wi-fi, lan....ok, video gave problems, but it was an XFree thing (would have been the same in Linux). And the base image was small. After that I was sold. I realized unix was unix. Firefox, XFce, Abiword,...etc all work the same no matter what's under the hood. I suppose I shouldn't tout NetBSD but rather say that if you're a unix end user, one owes it to themself to try other unix varients. They all have their strengths.
The difference between Linux and the BSDs is that all bazillion Linux distros basically run the same kernel. Use the same drivers. Have the same memory manager. With the BSD systems, each one is distinct. They do share code, however the kernels are very different from each other. Unlike RMS, I feel an OS is defined by it's kernel, drivers, and memory manager, process scheduler, things like that (It's Linux not GNU/Linux!). For Linux, those are pretty much all the same on all Linux distros. That's not the case with BSDs. Each BSD really is a separate OS. It's why a merging of all the BSD into one OS is pretty much not possible. The only one I'm not sure of is OpenBSD. It's the only BSD that is a true folk from a previous project (FreeBSD and NetBSD were never on the same trunk, they were both created as separate OS's from the beginning). OpenBSD was a split from NetBSD, so I'm sure the kernel and what not are very similar to Net. However, the claim to fame for OpenBSD was that they do all sorts of fancy code auditing for security purposes. I believe they've changed much at the low levels of the OS. So much so that OpenBSD does not share the same broad platform support that Net does. I do feel Open probably could merge back with Net, however Theo's ego would get in the way. For that reason, I don't think it'll ever happen. I'm probably wrong when I think it, but I look at OpenBSD as being nothing but a tweaked NetBSD. In some ways it's good, but I prefer NetBSD. Compairing the security of both, I really don't see where OpenBSD stands that far above Net, Free, or even Linux.
On top of that, NetBSD's popularity is starting to take off too. The choice of "quality" OS's out there are staggering. Linux was first out of the starting gate. FreeBSD and NetBSD had some licensing issues. Although resolved, managed to cause the effect that many thought them a premature death. FreeBSD jumped into the server market with Linux and is now thought of as the web server OS. NetBSD has always been silent. Many assuming that it an archaic OS becuase it's the only OS that runs well on archaic hardware. However, NetBSD has this black hole effect in that once a Linux or FreeBSD user tries NetBSD they don't come back. They quietly disappear and no one talks about it....it's spooky I tell you! Oh, and yes we have that red headed bastard step child we call OpenBSD. Surviving entierly on one man's ego. Not a single hole...I mean not a single remote hole....wait....maybe there's one but only one hole since....hmmm....has there been two yet?....
What I am surprized about is how long it took for some research to produce results that were not surprizing.
Seriously, I think nothing of grabbing some pirated software. But then again I also drive 60 in a 55mph zone. On occasion, I don't use a cross walk either.
My feelings are that software companies and digital media enterprizes should lighten up. Remove all that copy protection crap. It's more a disservice to those who own the software then to the folks who pirate it. Although I prirate some music here and there and (in the past) would pirate a game or two, I also buy legit copies too. There's alot of people out there that like to scream black and white when it comes to the law. I just feel life isn't like that.
I thought you had to pay for that service? I found going to the local Library much better. I think city wi-fi may be a little premature (maybe not), but I definitely think free wi-fi at ALL public libraries should be standard. Granted, most libraries are locally funded, but there should be some grant that would provide free wireless to all public service locations. Just my take.
I'll probably get flamed for this, but why does anyone care who views what? Sure I think sexual misconduct is wrong, but when it comes to porn and prostitution, what's the crime? I mean who really cares what someone is looking at?
Legally, I see nothing wrong with viewing porn no matter what it is. However, I feel the courts should be able to use such evidence to build a profile. But not be able to convict based on that profile.
I'm sure I have lots of porn in my cache. Probably lots of child porn too. It's not because I comb child porn sites. I mostly hit news groups. You view the material in a 'large-breasted' group and you're sure to get kiddy porn. Why? Who knows. Hell, you cruz 'gay-porn' and you see it there too. It's hard to tell with the asian female porn groups because most all asian women look like they're twelve anyway. The point is yeah I view porn. Not all the time, but when I do, it's quite a variety. I even view stuff I'm not even interested it. More for the shock appeal so I can say, "wow, there's some really messed up people out there". But then again, who am I to judge. To think I'm breaking the law doing such a thing....that's disturbing in it's own right.
Depends on your perspective. I think Debian is very much control-freaky. In some ways that's good. As some have argued, being a control freak provides a base of consistancy. And consistancy is good!
However, I tend to think Debian mucks around too much with the system, packaging, tools, licenses,....you name it. They have a strong presence in the free software world (my definition of 'free' not theirs) and I think they abuse that power. If they want to distribute their own special browser, then let them. I myself only want to run a product called Mozilla Firefox if it comes from Mozilla. If the code is tweaked, then call it 'The Debian tweaked Browser'. In my mind, once they touch the code, it's not a true Firefox Browser anymore. It's a forked project.
Oh, and I prefer the pkgadd so much more. It's faster and more stable and it comes with my favorite OS (NetBSD).
I don't understand the hype with Linux. So you get an extreamly hacked up special version of Linux ported to an otherwise unsupported platform...I think the better path is NetBSD. Not to start a my OS is better than your OS war, but of all the free unixes out there, NetBSD has the best stable port record.
Well, to be fair....I installed Firefox from TheOpenCD iso image and I did it on 4 machines so far. I guess that can't track that either. With these stats, like so many others, I'm sure the margin of error is huge.
Last I knew, Lockheed was going PoE as well. At least for the phone infrastructure in Syracuse.
I never really knew the excitement about PoE. I think PowerLine technology has much more promise. Granted, PowerLine suffers from bandwidth. However, for phone technology, PowerLine would be perfect. Some people argue that PowerLine is bad because the signal won't travel past a transformer. But I think that's a plus! That way you can get the flexibility of wireless with the physical security model of a wired lan. Plus, it'd be far cheaper to deploy a digital phone/PowerLine solution that the whole PoE thing. Ever price a PoE router. Way to expensive. That and as you pointed out, running DC powerlines is just dumb. Looks like Edison will win over Tesla at least in the 21st centry.
This caught me off guard too. When I learned Common Lisp, I remember using head/tail and not car/cdr. It wasn't until I started playing with LispMe (a Scheme interpreter for the Palm) that I was introduced to the car/cdr notation. I always thought the car/cdr notation was horrible just because the names were too similar. Even visually, it's easy to screw up the middle 'a' and 'd'.
It's been my only hangup with Scheme. I always felt the function names were too cryptic. Even the 'lambda' function. Couldn't they have called it 'template' or sometime more self describing? In any case, I do love the language although I suck at imperitive programming.
By the way, I know the easy answer to my complaint is to rename all the standard functions to something more meaningful. Just more hassle than it's worth I suppose.
As much as I hate these types of lawsuits, it does put a smile on my face to see what comes around, goes around. Apple should payout. Just for the mere fact that they are just as slimy as the next compeditor.
Although I'm curious, I pretty much gave up on the whole StarWars movie scene. Like many of the older types here, I was blown away with the initial SW and ESB movies. Then that piece of crap RJ came out.
I heard all the arguments on how the first two were so gritty and that's why they were good, but when Jedi came out they toned it down to make it more family friendly. That to me completely ruined the whole StarWars experience.
Several years passed and the talk of creating the prequal finally comes true. Of course I was skepical after the whole Jedi thing. Sure enough, PM and AC was just as fuzzy as Jedi. I was even more disappointed with the cast of alien characters. The only thing those movies had was nice special effects glossing over a thin story line of ultra cheezy characters.
So from the review of the final movie, I'm suppose to assume that Lucas has gone back into adding the grit that made the very first SW and ESB so great? I'll rent it at the Library someday just so I can satify my curiousity.
For me, StarWars movies have fallen so far from grace and I just can't get excited over the hype anymore. I so hope that someday another space SciFi trilogy will rock the media world like how StarWars did back in the 70's.
Your last statement "...just write it in a way that others will understand." Obsoletes the need for code comments in my book.
Myself, I feel a well written piece of code needs little or no comments at all. I also can't stand long drawn out variable names. Variables to me should be a single word or two that describes it's value. Not a sentence. Many people hate the short or one character variable names, but for things like loop control or comparison routines they are more than sufficient.
I firmly believe a well written piece of code needs little to no comments what-so-ever. I've read code like that, and it's truely the best way to learn what's going on.
No, you're not missing anything. I too don't see the financial benifit to Open Source other than companies that use it don't have to pay for it.
I see nothing wrong with the process of someone starting an Open Source project, then deciding to use that very project to make a living. The initially released Open Source code is always availible for all to see and use. The only catch is if someone uses the GPL and others contribute to that project. I don't think the author can then market the final product without consent from ALL the authors.
For the situation stated above, if the plan was for someone to start open then go closed, I think they would be better off with a BSD style license. Using a BSD license means giving up more of your control by letting someone else completely rip off your code, however it also allows you to do the same to others that contribute. It's one of the things that GPL zealots completely hate. However, that's the pros and cons of GPL or BSD.
Getting back to your initial question, I too can't see the financial benifit of being an Open Source author. That doesn't mean I won't contribute to Open Source. It just means I won't kid myself about making a living writing code for free. I think Open Source is a great place for people to like to give. It's also a great place for programmers to cut their teeth. Ironically, many Open Source projects are run much more professionally than in house company projects (my experience only). I also like using Open Source to skirt the problem of having a company claim rights to all work I've ever done. That way, I can still touch the code after I leave said company. Maybe that's a little dishonest, but I also find those company disclaimers to be a bit dishonest too. To each their own.
I'll agree with the shotty equiptment complaint, however you get what you pay for. I too use to build custom machines out of quality hardware. Granted, I didn't build that many, but one thing was true: The lifespan of a custom machine wasn't that much longer than a cheap premade.
In general, a custom machine ran around $1500 and a typical lifespan was around 4-5 years. My last (and most quality machine) only lasted 2 years. It was a large disappointment and a learning lesson too. Bang for the buck just didn't pay off.
I recently bought a dell for my brother. $350 bucks got him a 2.8GHz, 80Gb HD, 17" LCD screen. Shit, the panel alone costs about $200. With a few minor upgrades like CD/DVD RW and 512Mb RAM plus taxes, his final bill was only $465 (that's with the taxes and delivery!). Granted, you could build a custom machine, but for that money it's too hard to beat.
Myself, I bought an Inspirion 6000 laptop, 15" widescreen with wireless G, 512Mb RAM. In general, I nice machine and with taxes and all totaled, it was under $650.
Granted, maybe we bought crap. Maybe it'll die in a year or two. But for that money, it'll be time to upgrade. My live and learn was that the quality doesn't matter too much when the technology changes that fast. The state of the art machine I build two years ago for over 4 times the money (and is now dead) just doesn't compair.
In short, you get what you pay for and it depends on your long term strategy. I figure I can't afford a custom powerhouse every few years, but for the cheap prices at dell, I can afford a new machine upgrade every now and then. Personally, I hate the throw away society we live it, but the economy has pushed me into it.
Oh man that's funny. Your example is so close to the truth it goes way beyond funny. No joke, but my last tech call went down exactly as you described it!
Semi-related, but that's why I started listening to folk music. It's not for everyone, but I've just become more open minded as to the general appreciation of music. Hell, I don't even pirate tunes anymore. Not worth the hard drive space they take up.
....or we could grab the science fiction ball and run with it. We can theorize that black holes are NOT created by dieing stars and that they're really created by civilizations that develope the concept of a black hole then proceed to create one in a lab. From that we can truely deduce that intellegent life really does exist in the universe, because we're surrounded by black holes...or did exist...or for that matter, were they really that intellegent?
It's a difficult concept, but yes, I've come to the point where I do just have to rely on people doing the "right thing". Try raising kids. You reach a point where you just have to trust them to "do the right thing".
There is alot of dishonestly out there, but dishonest people are just going to be dishonest. I choose not to waste my time trying to correct that. And for the most part, people who do "correct" others I find very hypocritical.
By the way, yes I'm pass high school and after attaining my CS and EE degrees and several jobs, I've come to realise just how dumb I am. Being serious of course. I've come to the point where my ego is of very little concern. I'm sure that has a direct effect on my interpretation of the GPL vs BSD wars.
In short, it's just another nickle and dime enterprise, and I for wouldn't care for it. There was another post that said why pay for something you could get for free? Pretty much sums up my feelings.
Not to sound too paranoid, but one of the main reasons I don't care for it is the thought of usage tracking or listen-bots or some other fool hardy thing the music industry would bury into the purchased song. It's ironic, but I trust downloads more from plain p2p sites than I do commercial sites.
When it gets right down to it, I was a heavy file swapper with Napster first came out, but in that phase of my life I also purchased more CD's than ever. The same when with games. Sure I indulged in the pirated wares, but ironically it had the effect of me buying more too. In the case of music, if I liked the song/group, I just felt it was worth going out and getting the album. Likewise with games. Since the major crackdown on pirating, I essentially haven't purchased anything. In the case of games, I think new titles are a major pain in the ass. You need to have the CD in and spinning at all times. I owned the original Warcraft2 CD, but I played a hacked pirated version because it bypassed having the need to use the CD.
Maybe my experience and feelings are an exception to the rule, but I think way too much effort is put into trying to crack down I pirating. Who freaking cares if you can download Spiderman over the internet? It would take all night to do such a thing. Then to put the effort into burning a copy to disk and most likely the pirated copy would lack most goodies found on the original disk. Even if availible, it's just worth the $20 to get the disk, rent it, or borrow from your local library.
My general feelings are that if someone is going to pirate, they're going to pirate no matter the cost. Cracking down on those individuals isn't going to make them buy anything. The same goes for people to buy legal copies. If pirated and legal copies are both availible, the honest person will always end up buying (shit, my consience always made me do the right thing). I really don't think all this anti piracy has any effect on generating lost income. All it does is make things more difficult for the end user.
So true, and it's why I'm still surfing the web on an intel/amd and not a G5. I just purchased a new laptop. I could have gotten anything I wanted as long as it's non-Windows. I seriously concidered making the jump to the Apple world. I so want to be there. Nice hardware, stable OS,....but then reality....I'm that low/middle income guy...I drive a $20k car...I wish I could drive a BMW....and I too wish I owned a Mac. Granted, I could buy a very cheap iBook for less than a grand, but compaired to a similar priced intel, that iBook looks like crap. When money becomes no object in my life, I'll be driving a BMW and owning a Mac. For now, I'm sadly living within my means. I'm not down playing Apple. I think they're the best, but it's like people who can afford a BMW saying to an average income guy like me, "you really need to own a car like this..." Why even say crap like that? When you can afford the best, you buy the best.
Re:A one time try is all that's needed for success
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The Case for FreeBSD
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Yes, you're not alone. That's the exact same sucess story I've had with NetBSD. I had an old laptop I wanted to make use of. I've tried many minimal Linux distros (Luit Linux being the best), but I was disatisfied with all of them. Under the hood they were little more than a horrible hack. I then knew I had to go with Debian to get any sort of control that I wanted. Even the much overhyped Debian I felt was just a hacked up unix. The package system was granular, but stupid. The dependancies were so intermixed that even the most trivial package install had dependancies going right back to installing the whole Gnome system. That and it was just unstable. I then downloaded two NetBSD boot floppies. I couldn't believe my eyes when jsut after two boot floppies, all my hardware was detected and working! I then proceeded to install the whole OS via internet. Smooth and fast and never a crash. Adding X and a few utilities was so damn easy. I was surprized that all apps were fairly recent. Not like the far outdated Debian stable releases. I'm getting a new laptop soon, and I'm concidering FreeBSD so I can see if I like that more, but from my general experience, the BSD world is a real treat from running a hacked up Linux box.
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I think Linux and FreeBSD are the most popular. Can't say much about Open, but I agree with the NetBSD comment. Of all the OS's out there now, I think NetBSD is the most underrated.
Linux and FreeBSD tend to be the best choices because they have more up-to-date hardware support. NetBSD has great hardware support too in everything except multimedia. In general, NetBSD doesn't support any 3D hardware acceleration. It also only supports the basic SoundBlaster audio. No 3D surround sound stuff that I'm aware of. For that alone, many people would probably avoid NetBSD as a workstation OS.
However, NetBSD is a great OS when all you want is a clean OS that's stable. In regards to education, I think NetBSD should be THE classroom OS. Why a college would use Linux for instruction is beyond me. NetBSD has a strong emphasis on design. Everything is pretty much designed to be generic. It's why NetBSD is the most easily ported OS. Linux on a PDA? Why? NetBSD is a much more natural choice. When one thinks of embedded Linux, they're looking at ucLinux libraries and Busybox and tools like that. In NetBSD, you can build ONE SINGLE BINARY that contains the kernel, libraries, and all the unix commands you want. I haven't done it yet, but really it sounds pretty cool. And you use the exact same source tree you would for a normal system. NetBSD is so generic, that it can emulate Linux, FreeBSD, and OpenBSD, as well as Solaris and possibly AIX and HP-UX binaries. Yes, that's right! You can run Linux binaries directly on top of NetBSD. You can run Solaris binaries directly on top of NetBSD. Although NetBSD accomplishes this through emulation, it's remarkibly fast.
So yes, NetBSD is a poor choice for multimedia. However, it's great for stability (ie: you want an OS that runs like an appliance) and it's great for emulating other UNIX OS's. I use it as my desktop of choice because I find it very easy to manage. That and it has a small footprint comparied to other UNIX OS's. The actual application support is very good. Packages for NetBSD are much more up-to-date than Debian. I don't do 3D graphics and I don't play games (other than Wesnoth), so I don't really miss the 3D acceleration. Besides, if I really needed good 3D acceleration, sadly, I wouldn't be running a free unix system. I think NetBSD is a great OS if you just want to do work.
As a small testiment to driver support of Net vs Linux: I had a slightly older laptop I wanted to run unix on. I always used Linux for that sort of thing, but I always had to jerry rig with modules and conf files to get the all the hardware working just so. After trying to get Debian-stable working (twice), I thought I'd give NetBSD a whirl just for fun. I was amazed! Just in the boot process alone, the boot and root floppies detected ALL hardware and network adapters. No extra driver disks or configuration farting around. After the install, everything just worked. Didn't have to configure a thing. Audio, wi-fi, lan....ok, video gave problems, but it was an XFree thing (would have been the same in Linux). And the base image was small. After that I was sold. I realized unix was unix. Firefox, XFce, Abiword, ...etc all work the same no matter what's under the hood. I suppose I shouldn't tout NetBSD but rather say that if you're a unix end user, one owes it to themself to try other unix varients. They all have their strengths.
The difference between Linux and the BSDs is that all bazillion Linux distros basically run the same kernel. Use the same drivers. Have the same memory manager. With the BSD systems, each one is distinct. They do share code, however the kernels are very different from each other. Unlike RMS, I feel an OS is defined by it's kernel, drivers, and memory manager, process scheduler, things like that (It's Linux not GNU/Linux!). For Linux, those are pretty much all the same on all Linux distros. That's not the case with BSDs. Each BSD really is a separate OS. It's why a merging of all the BSD into one OS is pretty much not possible. The only one I'm not sure of is OpenBSD. It's the only BSD that is a true folk from a previous project (FreeBSD and NetBSD were never on the same trunk, they were both created as separate OS's from the beginning). OpenBSD was a split from NetBSD, so I'm sure the kernel and what not are very similar to Net. However, the claim to fame for OpenBSD was that they do all sorts of fancy code auditing for security purposes. I believe they've changed much at the low levels of the OS. So much so that OpenBSD does not share the same broad platform support that Net does. I do feel Open probably could merge back with Net, however Theo's ego would get in the way. For that reason, I don't think it'll ever happen. I'm probably wrong when I think it, but I look at OpenBSD as being nothing but a tweaked NetBSD. In some ways it's good, but I prefer NetBSD. Compairing the security of both, I really don't see where OpenBSD stands that far above Net, Free, or even Linux.
On top of that, NetBSD's popularity is starting to take off too. The choice of "quality" OS's out there are staggering. Linux was first out of the starting gate. FreeBSD and NetBSD had some licensing issues. Although resolved, managed to cause the effect that many thought them a premature death. FreeBSD jumped into the server market with Linux and is now thought of as the web server OS. NetBSD has always been silent. Many assuming that it an archaic OS becuase it's the only OS that runs well on archaic hardware. However, NetBSD has this black hole effect in that once a Linux or FreeBSD user tries NetBSD they don't come back. They quietly disappear and no one talks about it....it's spooky I tell you! Oh, and yes we have that red headed bastard step child we call OpenBSD. Surviving entierly on one man's ego. Not a single hole...I mean not a single remote hole....wait....maybe there's one but only one hole since....hmmm....has there been two yet?....
What I am surprized about is how long it took for some research to produce results that were not surprizing. Seriously, I think nothing of grabbing some pirated software. But then again I also drive 60 in a 55mph zone. On occasion, I don't use a cross walk either. My feelings are that software companies and digital media enterprizes should lighten up. Remove all that copy protection crap. It's more a disservice to those who own the software then to the folks who pirate it. Although I prirate some music here and there and (in the past) would pirate a game or two, I also buy legit copies too. There's alot of people out there that like to scream black and white when it comes to the law. I just feel life isn't like that.
I thought you had to pay for that service? I found going to the local Library much better. I think city wi-fi may be a little premature (maybe not), but I definitely think free wi-fi at ALL public libraries should be standard. Granted, most libraries are locally funded, but there should be some grant that would provide free wireless to all public service locations. Just my take.
I'll probably get flamed for this, but why does anyone care who views what? Sure I think sexual misconduct is wrong, but when it comes to porn and prostitution, what's the crime? I mean who really cares what someone is looking at?
Legally, I see nothing wrong with viewing porn no matter what it is. However, I feel the courts should be able to use such evidence to build a profile. But not be able to convict based on that profile.
I'm sure I have lots of porn in my cache. Probably lots of child porn too. It's not because I comb child porn sites. I mostly hit news groups. You view the material in a 'large-breasted' group and you're sure to get kiddy porn. Why? Who knows. Hell, you cruz 'gay-porn' and you see it there too. It's hard to tell with the asian female porn groups because most all asian women look like they're twelve anyway. The point is yeah I view porn. Not all the time, but when I do, it's quite a variety. I even view stuff I'm not even interested it. More for the shock appeal so I can say, "wow, there's some really messed up people out there". But then again, who am I to judge. To think I'm breaking the law doing such a thing....that's disturbing in it's own right.
Depends on your perspective. I think Debian is very much control-freaky. In some ways that's good. As some have argued, being a control freak provides a base of consistancy. And consistancy is good!
However, I tend to think Debian mucks around too much with the system, packaging, tools, licenses,....you name it. They have a strong presence in the free software world (my definition of 'free' not theirs) and I think they abuse that power. If they want to distribute their own special browser, then let them. I myself only want to run a product called Mozilla Firefox if it comes from Mozilla. If the code is tweaked, then call it 'The Debian tweaked Browser'. In my mind, once they touch the code, it's not a true Firefox Browser anymore. It's a forked project.
Oh, and I prefer the pkgadd so much more. It's faster and more stable and it comes with my favorite OS (NetBSD).
I don't understand the hype with Linux. So you get an extreamly hacked up special version of Linux ported to an otherwise unsupported platform...I think the better path is NetBSD. Not to start a my OS is better than your OS war, but of all the free unixes out there, NetBSD has the best stable port record.
Is that trolling for phish or phishing for trolls?
Well, to be fair....I installed Firefox from TheOpenCD iso image and I did it on 4 machines so far. I guess that can't track that either. With these stats, like so many others, I'm sure the margin of error is huge.
Last I knew, Lockheed was going PoE as well. At least for the phone infrastructure in Syracuse.
I never really knew the excitement about PoE. I think PowerLine technology has much more promise. Granted, PowerLine suffers from bandwidth. However, for phone technology, PowerLine would be perfect. Some people argue that PowerLine is bad because the signal won't travel past a transformer. But I think that's a plus! That way you can get the flexibility of wireless with the physical security model of a wired lan. Plus, it'd be far cheaper to deploy a digital phone/PowerLine solution that the whole PoE thing. Ever price a PoE router. Way to expensive. That and as you pointed out, running DC powerlines is just dumb. Looks like Edison will win over Tesla at least in the 21st centry.
This caught me off guard too. When I learned Common Lisp, I remember using head/tail and not car/cdr. It wasn't until I started playing with LispMe (a Scheme interpreter for the Palm) that I was introduced to the car/cdr notation. I always thought the car/cdr notation was horrible just because the names were too similar. Even visually, it's easy to screw up the middle 'a' and 'd'.
It's been my only hangup with Scheme. I always felt the function names were too cryptic. Even the 'lambda' function. Couldn't they have called it 'template' or sometime more self describing? In any case, I do love the language although I suck at imperitive programming.
By the way, I know the easy answer to my complaint is to rename all the standard functions to something more meaningful. Just more hassle than it's worth I suppose.
As much as I hate these types of lawsuits, it does put a smile on my face to see what comes around, goes around. Apple should payout. Just for the mere fact that they are just as slimy as the next compeditor.
Although I'm curious, I pretty much gave up on the whole StarWars movie scene. Like many of the older types here, I was blown away with the initial SW and ESB movies. Then that piece of crap RJ came out.
I heard all the arguments on how the first two were so gritty and that's why they were good, but when Jedi came out they toned it down to make it more family friendly. That to me completely ruined the whole StarWars experience.
Several years passed and the talk of creating the prequal finally comes true. Of course I was skepical after the whole Jedi thing. Sure enough, PM and AC was just as fuzzy as Jedi. I was even more disappointed with the cast of alien characters. The only thing those movies had was nice special effects glossing over a thin story line of ultra cheezy characters.
So from the review of the final movie, I'm suppose to assume that Lucas has gone back into adding the grit that made the very first SW and ESB so great? I'll rent it at the Library someday just so I can satify my curiousity.
For me, StarWars movies have fallen so far from grace and I just can't get excited over the hype anymore. I so hope that someday another space SciFi trilogy will rock the media world like how StarWars did back in the 70's.
Your last statement "...just write it in a way that others will understand." Obsoletes the need for code comments in my book.
Myself, I feel a well written piece of code needs little or no comments at all. I also can't stand long drawn out variable names. Variables to me should be a single word or two that describes it's value. Not a sentence. Many people hate the short or one character variable names, but for things like loop control or comparison routines they are more than sufficient.
I firmly believe a well written piece of code needs little to no comments what-so-ever. I've read code like that, and it's truely the best way to learn what's going on.
No, you're not missing anything. I too don't see the financial benifit to Open Source other than companies that use it don't have to pay for it.
I see nothing wrong with the process of someone starting an Open Source project, then deciding to use that very project to make a living. The initially released Open Source code is always availible for all to see and use. The only catch is if someone uses the GPL and others contribute to that project. I don't think the author can then market the final product without consent from ALL the authors.
For the situation stated above, if the plan was for someone to start open then go closed, I think they would be better off with a BSD style license. Using a BSD license means giving up more of your control by letting someone else completely rip off your code, however it also allows you to do the same to others that contribute. It's one of the things that GPL zealots completely hate. However, that's the pros and cons of GPL or BSD.
Getting back to your initial question, I too can't see the financial benifit of being an Open Source author. That doesn't mean I won't contribute to Open Source. It just means I won't kid myself about making a living writing code for free. I think Open Source is a great place for people to like to give. It's also a great place for programmers to cut their teeth. Ironically, many Open Source projects are run much more professionally than in house company projects (my experience only). I also like using Open Source to skirt the problem of having a company claim rights to all work I've ever done. That way, I can still touch the code after I leave said company. Maybe that's a little dishonest, but I also find those company disclaimers to be a bit dishonest too. To each their own.
I'll agree with the shotty equiptment complaint, however you get what you pay for. I too use to build custom machines out of quality hardware. Granted, I didn't build that many, but one thing was true: The lifespan of a custom machine wasn't that much longer than a cheap premade.
In general, a custom machine ran around $1500 and a typical lifespan was around 4-5 years. My last (and most quality machine) only lasted 2 years. It was a large disappointment and a learning lesson too. Bang for the buck just didn't pay off.
I recently bought a dell for my brother. $350 bucks got him a 2.8GHz, 80Gb HD, 17" LCD screen. Shit, the panel alone costs about $200. With a few minor upgrades like CD/DVD RW and 512Mb RAM plus taxes, his final bill was only $465 (that's with the taxes and delivery!). Granted, you could build a custom machine, but for that money it's too hard to beat.
Myself, I bought an Inspirion 6000 laptop, 15" widescreen with wireless G, 512Mb RAM. In general, I nice machine and with taxes and all totaled, it was under $650.
Granted, maybe we bought crap. Maybe it'll die in a year or two. But for that money, it'll be time to upgrade. My live and learn was that the quality doesn't matter too much when the technology changes that fast. The state of the art machine I build two years ago for over 4 times the money (and is now dead) just doesn't compair.
In short, you get what you pay for and it depends on your long term strategy. I figure I can't afford a custom powerhouse every few years, but for the cheap prices at dell, I can afford a new machine upgrade every now and then. Personally, I hate the throw away society we live it, but the economy has pushed me into it.
Oh man that's funny. Your example is so close to the truth it goes way beyond funny. No joke, but my last tech call went down exactly as you described it!
Semi-related, but that's why I started listening to folk music. It's not for everyone, but I've just become more open minded as to the general appreciation of music. Hell, I don't even pirate tunes anymore. Not worth the hard drive space they take up.
....or we could grab the science fiction ball and run with it. We can theorize that black holes are NOT created by dieing stars and that they're really created by civilizations that develope the concept of a black hole then proceed to create one in a lab. From that we can truely deduce that intellegent life really does exist in the universe, because we're surrounded by black holes...or did exist...or for that matter, were they really that intellegent?
It's a difficult concept, but yes, I've come to the point where I do just have to rely on people doing the "right thing". Try raising kids. You reach a point where you just have to trust them to "do the right thing".
There is alot of dishonestly out there, but dishonest people are just going to be dishonest. I choose not to waste my time trying to correct that. And for the most part, people who do "correct" others I find very hypocritical.
By the way, yes I'm pass high school and after attaining my CS and EE degrees and several jobs, I've come to realise just how dumb I am. Being serious of course. I've come to the point where my ego is of very little concern. I'm sure that has a direct effect on my interpretation of the GPL vs BSD wars.
I laugh at your ignorance.
In short, it's just another nickle and dime enterprise, and I for wouldn't care for it. There was another post that said why pay for something you could get for free? Pretty much sums up my feelings.
Not to sound too paranoid, but one of the main reasons I don't care for it is the thought of usage tracking or listen-bots or some other fool hardy thing the music industry would bury into the purchased song. It's ironic, but I trust downloads more from plain p2p sites than I do commercial sites.
When it gets right down to it, I was a heavy file swapper with Napster first came out, but in that phase of my life I also purchased more CD's than ever. The same when with games. Sure I indulged in the pirated wares, but ironically it had the effect of me buying more too. In the case of music, if I liked the song/group, I just felt it was worth going out and getting the album. Likewise with games. Since the major crackdown on pirating, I essentially haven't purchased anything. In the case of games, I think new titles are a major pain in the ass. You need to have the CD in and spinning at all times. I owned the original Warcraft2 CD, but I played a hacked pirated version because it bypassed having the need to use the CD.
Maybe my experience and feelings are an exception to the rule, but I think way too much effort is put into trying to crack down I pirating. Who freaking cares if you can download Spiderman over the internet? It would take all night to do such a thing. Then to put the effort into burning a copy to disk and most likely the pirated copy would lack most goodies found on the original disk. Even if availible, it's just worth the $20 to get the disk, rent it, or borrow from your local library.
My general feelings are that if someone is going to pirate, they're going to pirate no matter the cost. Cracking down on those individuals isn't going to make them buy anything. The same goes for people to buy legal copies. If pirated and legal copies are both availible, the honest person will always end up buying (shit, my consience always made me do the right thing). I really don't think all this anti piracy has any effect on generating lost income. All it does is make things more difficult for the end user.
So true, and it's why I'm still surfing the web on an intel/amd and not a G5. I just purchased a new laptop. I could have gotten anything I wanted as long as it's non-Windows. I seriously concidered making the jump to the Apple world. I so want to be there. Nice hardware, stable OS,....but then reality....I'm that low/middle income guy...I drive a $20k car...I wish I could drive a BMW....and I too wish I owned a Mac. Granted, I could buy a very cheap iBook for less than a grand, but compaired to a similar priced intel, that iBook looks like crap. When money becomes no object in my life, I'll be driving a BMW and owning a Mac. For now, I'm sadly living within my means. I'm not down playing Apple. I think they're the best, but it's like people who can afford a BMW saying to an average income guy like me, "you really need to own a car like this..." Why even say crap like that? When you can afford the best, you buy the best.
Yes, you're not alone. That's the exact same sucess story I've had with NetBSD. I had an old laptop I wanted to make use of. I've tried many minimal Linux distros (Luit Linux being the best), but I was disatisfied with all of them. Under the hood they were little more than a horrible hack. I then knew I had to go with Debian to get any sort of control that I wanted. Even the much overhyped Debian I felt was just a hacked up unix. The package system was granular, but stupid. The dependancies were so intermixed that even the most trivial package install had dependancies going right back to installing the whole Gnome system. That and it was just unstable. I then downloaded two NetBSD boot floppies. I couldn't believe my eyes when jsut after two boot floppies, all my hardware was detected and working! I then proceeded to install the whole OS via internet. Smooth and fast and never a crash. Adding X and a few utilities was so damn easy. I was surprized that all apps were fairly recent. Not like the far outdated Debian stable releases. I'm getting a new laptop soon, and I'm concidering FreeBSD so I can see if I like that more, but from my general experience, the BSD world is a real treat from running a hacked up Linux box.