Yeah, I concede. Next time I'll RTFA before I reply to a comment. I was living in the delusion that embedded XP was actually embedded (which usually means some custom hardware).
As for Linux not being the be all and end all of operating systems - I know that. I'm perfectly happy running PocketPC 2002 on my iPAQ, developing for it on my Linux box. I would go out on a limb and say that Windows CE is a pretty nice OS compared to, say, XP. I wonder if they will ever port it to the x86?;)
With Windows NT for alpha, Compaq had to do the development themselves.
In the documentation for Windows CE/PocketPC, it specifically says that it is the responsibility of the device manufacturers to implement the parts of the OS the tie into the hardware (ie "performing the customizations").
I'm not sure how it works with this specific version of Windows, but my dime is on a similar license. In that case, HP has not gotten away with less R&D, they have to do more (since they had already done the job for linux). This is probably a question of standardizing the interface, ie making it look like everything else.
Let's not forget that not everyone in the third world is starving.
People have a tendency to make sure they get food, water, a place to sleep, and a place to crap. When they have that - they want to have fun too. When I was in India, I heard this strange sound from one of the poorer shackles in a shantytown - and as I looked again, I saw a satelite dish on the roof. Sure, they were really poor - but TV is a priority. Pretty soon, the Internet too is going to be the same sort of priority people outside the middle class.
That said, I imagine the previous poster has no idea how large the middle class of China and India is, compared to, say, the entire population of the US. (And a computer is already a priority for the middle class in these countries.)
We don't lack 'safe' vs 'devel' branches. We have the mm-tree and the linus-tree.
Now, the tricky part may be to determine which is what. But judging from the 2.4-situation - where the ac-tree was 'safe', and the linus-tree was 'devel'; I think either the linus-tree is 'devel' this time too, or Linus is getting rusty.;)
He was actually one of the earlier people to get 'puter time in Sweden. He finished his PhD in astronomy around 1967 IIRC. By the time I was born, he was a "gymnasium" (ages 16-19) teacher of computer science, maths and physics - but still very much a geek. I learned about geekiness in two ways:
1) When he was sitting at the dinner table in the evening, going through students' tests and lab reports - I used to slip up in his knee, and he'd show me neat geek stuff. Geometry, the four colour problem, and riddle type of stuff from New Scientist and other papers like that.
2) When he had to work evenings at school, he used to bring me and my younger brother. He'd leave us in the 'puter labs (playing worm and hack, among other textbased games) - and go away and do stuff. Sometimes he took us to physics lab, and showed us some neat experiments (static electricity was great fun).
This was when I was in ages 6 - 10. Before that, it was all cops and firemen for me.
I would take it a step further and say that you cannot have a truly religious person be impartial, unbiased, and untainted when making any type of policy-wide science-related decision. It's oil and water; religion and science just don't gel.
Now, I would respect that as a scientific standpoint if you actually have a personal experience of a religious inclination. But then, I would still only view it as one standpoint, and gather a couple more equally well founded standpoints - and after that I would have a somewhat usefull standpoint. Until then, you're a troll - regardless of/. mod points.
But then again, I'm a religious green from Old Europe - who have been dabbling some in science, who have an atheistic scientist for a father, and who ended up a priest. So what do I know?
Actually, IIRC the difference is between the European and US'ian definitions of Billion, Trillion etc. So, the Brittish Billion equal the Spanish and the Swedish Billion, while the one the talk about in the US is 10^3 times smaller. That's what made the parent funny...:)
Now, all I wonder is - which standard does the Canucks follow?
...I would publish the crossword on multiple pages. It would have to have a rather small side (like 10x10 or maybe 12x12), and have one layer on every page. This kinda assumes that there are 10-12 pages in the paper to begin with (and that you can have the same placement on every page, eg upper-right on odd-numbered pages), or you could have a centerfold with a DIY 3D X-word.
Wouldn't it be hard to construct though? I imagine having software to help with the construction would be nice.
...is check when then bus arives at my place. I live outside town, so I don't want to miss the bus and wait a whole hour. That's about the only service I use WAP for though. If I want to browse the 'net when I'm not by the 'puter - I use my iPAQ.:)
I too have a T68i, in fact I'm posting from my iPAQ connected with the T68i.:)
It is a bit bare bones by today's standards - but OTOH it's a bit cheaper for that very reason. So if you're looking for cheap and reliable - I recommend it.
OTOH if you're looking for something with a usefull camera, don't even think about it. I have the separate camera - and it is not very usable. It is slow, yields low quality images (640X480, always blurry), and the integration sucks (eg I can't beam images from the in-cam menu, but have to transfer to the phone first).
But it seems like the truth is, linksys did because they wanted to be good citizens. The GPL has never been tested in court. It is easy to comply with the terms of the GPL.
What was that case with MySQL AB now again? I thought it was a matter of taking a GPL violator (NuSphere) to court. Although they did settle, it was firmly on MySQL ABs terms, since NuSphere was going to lose.
That said, they may have had the option not to release it. The GPL has small teeth: the only real penalty is forced compliance. Though it could be considered copyright infringe.
Nope. If you break the GPL you lose the right to distribute the piece of GPLed software. So Linksys could be forced to inhibit sales of hardware flashed with Linux, and develop (or licence) replacement software. Does that make good business sense?
So the question that i see: If linksys did not release the source code, or in anyway comply, what would have happened? Would the coders who wrote the code utilized take legal action? I will not assume the chances of that are.
Living in Sweden, which has the same system as Norway, I think it would be a problem if the prosecution could not appeal. Essentially, our legal system is very much unlike that of the US in many ways. One aspect of it is that AFAIK the help that the defendant is guaranteed is better than that of the US (you don't run the same risk of ruining your economy, and still get a good lawyer).
The government is looked upon as resting on three pillars: 1 The decision making power - the parliament. 2 The executing power - the government, and the courts. 3 The inspecting power - the media.
The courts are not quite is linked to the government as in the US IIRC, but more of an independent meritocracy.
The general impression I get is that, since many trials are done twice (it's pretty usual that both sides appeal in the first court, unless one gets the ruling entirely its way), and since the legal help system is more generous - we have fewer inocently convicted. Also, since we hanve't got the death penalty, we have zero inocently executed.
I have the mailing program set to sort stuff into folders (one folder for each mailing list, and one for newsletters). And ActiveSync is set to sync those folders.
Then when I sit at my desk, I read and answer all mail that needs my immediate attention (IOW that which is meant for me specifically).
At times when I don't sit at the desktop, but rather on the bus, on a café, or in the bed at night (yes my wife thinks me a dork, but she loves me anyway) - I read the mailing lists and newsletters etc.
All I miss is a decent offline newsreader for PocketPC.
We fill an open area with numbered squares, and let a cow walk around until it shits. It's called Cow Bingo. This with MIR would be Russian Space Bingo. >;)
Here's an idea for a GUI interface. I have to warn you in advance though, it feels a bit unworthy (and probably a bit unstructured too since I just came up with the idea).
A metaphor which I think might ease the use of computers (and which I haven't seen anywhere else yet) for ordinary people is that of a TV. In particular the remote control is usefull, but so is the channel concept.
Channels: Each channel is a category of programs (eg Internet apps, office apps, image processing, games). You can associate programs with any channel of your own choice, or they can associate themeselves upon installation. You can have any number of channels open at the same time, though it'll turn out impractical at some level - at least until all of the walls in your house are screens. If only one channel is open, it'll open up fullscreen and launch one or more preset apps when turned on. There ought to be a set of standard channels (for software to count on to exist), as well as the possibility to create your own custom channels. A suite of programs (eg an office suite) might also create a custom channel at installation time. When a channel is closed, all data created in it is saved unless the user explicitly trashes it. A channel may also be minimized, in order for another channel to get all of the screen for a while. For programs, a channel is identified primarily by it's name though for the user it'll probably be easier to use it's shortcut - the channel number.
Remote: The remote could either be a virtual remote on the screen complemented with a pointing device (eg a mouse, and perhaps using the numerical keypad for channel selecting if the user so choose), or a real one (which in that case could be a pointing device itself, I guess it would work like those guns one can attach to consoles). It would let the user choose a channel, activate associated apps, do all of today's point/click/grab/drag stuff. Apps should provide the user with easy ways to find the files which they can process (at least if the user has the rights to them) by interacting with some kind of file browser. Of course power users should be provided with ways to do what they like, but simple things should be made easy for the simpletons. If the remote is of the virtual kind, there should be a key/key-combo that makes it dis-/reappear. Most things should be doable with the remote only, though of course a keyboard will always give a user tons of more power.
One of the benefits of a scheme like this is that it would make it a lot easier for newbies to use. After all; who doesn't understand about a TV remote? Another benefit is that, at least as far as I can see, it doesn't take more than a window manager to provide these features within X today. Well, that and hardware support for the remote control...
3)Breaking up Microsoft will have little effect on its day-to-day business. Sure, the overhead will increase, but I don't think it'll help foster competition. It shouldn't be allowed to unfairly push manufacturers, but breaking it up will have no effect on all this.
4)Microsoft shouldn't be punished for having a better product. Netscape (which helped initiate the litigation) complains about IE, and although I agree it shouldn't be forcibly packaged without alternatives by OEMs, the fact remains that today IE is way better than Navigator. Shell integration aside, IE crashes on me less often than Navigator.
To sum it up, the case seems like punishment for Microsoft for being too successful.
I don't think so. As the finding of facts did show, MS did use unfair business practices to get IE pre-installed on machines sold with Windows installed - and they also forcibly bundled IE with Windows 98 and later versions (and they also lied about it being a part of the OS, the OS is both faster and less crash-prone without IE as its shell). In addition to that, they've also bundled IE with their Office products for a while. These are all cases of letting the sales of completely unrelated products not only finance the development of, but also effectively do the marketing of their browser.
As a result of this business strategy Netscape never succeeded in getting to sell their browser at all, and since they had no other leg to stand on (except servers - but that wasn't a strong enough leg apparently), they had to sell out eventually. Had they been able to sell their product, they would have had the means to keep developing at a higher speed too. Therefore it's very much the fault of MS' unfair business strategies that the Netscape browser is inferior, and that Netscape had to sell out.
What would be a reasonable remedy for this? Forcing MS to pull IE out of Windows is hardly enough, the damage has been done already. But breaking the company into an OS branch, an Internet branch, and an Office suite branch would prevent them from doing it again. Also ruling that their Internet and Office products should be more widely ported seems reasonable.
Slashdot Mirror
Ask your friend to run gcc -v to see which version he has. When I last checked:
Because gcc33 does not support amd64 at all!
Yeah, I concede. Next time I'll RTFA before I reply to a comment. I was living in the delusion that embedded XP was actually embedded (which usually means some custom hardware).
;)
As for Linux not being the be all and end all of operating systems - I know that. I'm perfectly happy running PocketPC 2002 on my iPAQ, developing for it on my Linux box. I would go out on a limb and say that Windows CE is a pretty nice OS compared to, say, XP. I wonder if they will ever port it to the x86?
With Windows NT for alpha, Compaq had to do the development themselves.
In the documentation for Windows CE/PocketPC, it specifically says that it is the responsibility of the device manufacturers to implement the parts of the OS the tie into the hardware (ie "performing the customizations").
I'm not sure how it works with this specific version of Windows, but my dime is on a similar license. In that case, HP has not gotten away with less R&D, they have to do more (since they had already done the job for linux). This is probably a question of standardizing the interface, ie making it look like everything else.
Let's not forget that not everyone in the third world is starving.
People have a tendency to make sure they get food, water, a place to sleep, and a place to crap. When they have that - they want to have fun too. When I was in India, I heard this strange sound from one of the poorer shackles in a shantytown - and as I looked again, I saw a satelite dish on the roof. Sure, they were really poor - but TV is a priority. Pretty soon, the Internet too is going to be the same sort of priority people outside the middle class.
That said, I imagine the previous poster has no idea how large the middle class of China and India is, compared to, say, the entire population of the US. (And a computer is already a priority for the middle class in these countries.)
Insightful my ass...
We don't lack 'safe' vs 'devel' branches. We have the mm-tree and the linus-tree.
;)
Now, the tricky part may be to determine which is what. But judging from the 2.4-situation - where the ac-tree was 'safe', and the linus-tree was 'devel'; I think either the linus-tree is 'devel' this time too, or Linus is getting rusty.
He was actually one of the earlier people to get 'puter time in Sweden. He finished his PhD in astronomy around 1967 IIRC. By the time I was born, he was a "gymnasium" (ages 16-19) teacher of computer science, maths and physics - but still very much a geek. I learned about geekiness in two ways:
1) When he was sitting at the dinner table in the evening, going through students' tests and lab reports - I used to slip up in his knee, and he'd show me neat geek stuff. Geometry, the four colour problem, and riddle type of stuff from New Scientist and other papers like that.
2) When he had to work evenings at school, he used to bring me and my younger brother. He'd leave us in the 'puter labs (playing worm and hack, among other textbased games) - and go away and do stuff. Sometimes he took us to physics lab, and showed us some neat experiments (static electricity was great fun).
This was when I was in ages 6 - 10. Before that, it was all cops and firemen for me.
I would take it a step further and say that you cannot have a truly religious person be impartial, unbiased, and untainted when making any type of policy-wide science-related decision. It's oil and water; religion and science just don't gel.
Now, I would respect that as a scientific standpoint if you actually have a personal experience of a religious inclination. But then, I would still only view it as one standpoint, and gather a couple more equally well founded standpoints - and after that I would have a somewhat usefull standpoint. Until then, you're a troll - regardless of /. mod points.
But then again, I'm a religious green from Old Europe - who have been dabbling some in science, who have an atheistic scientist for a father, and who ended up a priest. So what do I know?
Actually, IIRC the difference is between the European and US'ian definitions of Billion, Trillion etc. So, the Brittish Billion equal the Spanish and the Swedish Billion, while the one the talk about in the US is 10^3 times smaller. That's what made the parent funny... :)
Now, all I wonder is - which standard does the Canucks follow?
...I would publish the crossword on multiple pages. It would have to have a rather small side (like 10x10 or maybe 12x12), and have one layer on every page. This kinda assumes that there are 10-12 pages in the paper to begin with (and that you can have the same placement on every page, eg upper-right on odd-numbered pages), or you could have a centerfold with a DIY 3D X-word.
Wouldn't it be hard to construct though? I imagine having software to help with the construction would be nice.
...is check when then bus arives at my place. I live outside town, so I don't want to miss the bus and wait a whole hour. That's about the only service I use WAP for though. If I want to browse the 'net when I'm not by the 'puter - I use my iPAQ. :)
I too have a T68i, in fact I'm posting from my iPAQ connected with the T68i. :)
It is a bit bare bones by today's standards - but OTOH it's a bit cheaper for that very reason. So if you're looking for cheap and reliable - I recommend it.
OTOH if you're looking for something with a usefull camera, don't even think about it. I have the separate camera - and it is not very usable. It is slow, yields low quality images (640X480, always blurry), and the integration sucks (eg I can't beam images from the in-cam menu, but have to transfer to the phone first).
myhosting.com use an IBM RS/* running AIX as a firewall?
;)
Damn, they are taking this firewalling issue seriously!
But it seems like the truth is, linksys did because they wanted to be good citizens. The GPL has never been tested in court. It is easy to comply with the terms of the GPL.
What was that case with MySQL AB now again? I thought it was a matter of taking a GPL violator (NuSphere) to court. Although they did settle, it was firmly on MySQL ABs terms, since NuSphere was going to lose.
That said, they may have had the option not to release it. The GPL has small teeth: the only real penalty is forced compliance. Though it could be considered copyright infringe.
Nope. If you break the GPL you lose the right to distribute the piece of GPLed software. So Linksys could be forced to inhibit sales of hardware flashed with Linux, and develop (or licence) replacement software. Does that make good business sense?
So the question that i see: If linksys did not release the source code, or in anyway comply, what would have happened? Would the coders who wrote the code utilized take legal action? I will not assume the chances of that are.
Why not? They could have had help from the FSF, like MySQL AB had.
But for the point, let's say they did. they sued for (x) million dollars.
Or they could be sued to stop distributing the GPLed softeware.
snip
If they are sued Linux will take a hit in terms of market penetration. If they are left alone, the GPL will take the hit.
Because of the flaws in you reasoning above, I don't think this holds.
Living in Sweden, which has the same system as Norway, I think it would be a problem if the prosecution could not appeal. Essentially, our legal system is very much unlike that of the US in many ways. One aspect of it is that AFAIK the help that the defendant is guaranteed is better than that of the US (you don't run the same risk of ruining your economy, and still get a good lawyer).
The government is looked upon as resting on three pillars:
1 The decision making power - the parliament.
2 The executing power - the government, and the courts.
3 The inspecting power - the media.
The courts are not quite is linked to the government as in the US IIRC, but more of an independent meritocracy.
The general impression I get is that, since many trials are done twice (it's pretty usual that both sides appeal in the first court, unless one gets the ruling entirely its way), and since the legal help system is more generous - we have fewer inocently convicted. Also, since we hanve't got the death penalty, we have zero inocently executed.
This is usefull to me, so I bite.
I have the mailing program set to sort stuff into folders (one folder for each mailing list, and one for newsletters). And ActiveSync is set to sync those folders.
Then when I sit at my desk, I read and answer all mail that needs my immediate attention (IOW that which is meant for me specifically).
At times when I don't sit at the desktop, but rather on the bus, on a café, or in the bed at night (yes my wife thinks me a dork, but she loves me anyway) - I read the mailing lists and newsletters etc.
All I miss is a decent offline newsreader for PocketPC.
Ibn
We fill an open area with numbered squares, and let a cow walk around until it shits. It's called Cow Bingo. This with MIR would be Russian Space Bingo. >;)
Oh BTW, my guess is 2001-03-17 7:57:13
Here's an idea for a GUI interface. I have to warn you in advance though, it feels a bit unworthy (and probably a bit unstructured too since I just came up with the idea).
A metaphor which I think might ease the use of computers (and which I haven't seen anywhere else yet) for ordinary people is that of a TV. In particular the remote control is usefull, but so is the channel concept.
Channels:
Each channel is a category of programs (eg Internet apps, office apps, image processing, games). You can associate programs with any channel of your own choice, or they can associate themeselves upon installation. You can have any number of channels open at the same time, though it'll turn out impractical at some level - at least until all of the walls in your house are screens. If only one channel is open, it'll open up fullscreen and launch one or more preset apps when turned on. There ought to be a set of standard channels (for software to count on to exist), as well as the possibility to create your own custom channels. A suite of programs (eg an office suite) might also create a custom channel at installation time. When a channel is closed, all data created in it is saved unless the user explicitly trashes it. A channel may also be minimized, in order for another channel to get all of the screen for a while. For programs, a channel is identified primarily by it's name though for the user it'll probably be easier to use it's shortcut - the channel number.
Remote:
The remote could either be a virtual remote on the screen complemented with a pointing device (eg a mouse, and perhaps using the numerical keypad for channel selecting if the user so choose), or a real one (which in that case could be a pointing device itself, I guess it would work like those guns one can attach to consoles). It would let the user choose a channel, activate associated apps, do all of today's point/click/grab/drag stuff. Apps should provide the user with easy ways to find the files which they can process (at least if the user has the rights to them) by interacting with some kind of file browser. Of course power users should be provided with ways to do what they like, but simple things should be made easy for the simpletons. If the remote is of the virtual kind, there should be a key/key-combo that makes it dis-/reappear. Most things should be doable with the remote only, though of course a keyboard will always give a user tons of more power.
One of the benefits of a scheme like this is that it would make it a lot easier for newbies to use. After all; who doesn't understand about a TV remote? Another benefit is that, at least as far as I can see, it doesn't take more than a window manager to provide these features within X today. Well, that and hardware support for the remote control...
3)Breaking up Microsoft will have little effect on its day-to-day business. Sure, the overhead will increase, but I don't think it'll help foster competition. It shouldn't be allowed to unfairly push manufacturers, but breaking it up will have no effect on all this.
/Ibn
4)Microsoft shouldn't be punished for having a better product. Netscape (which helped initiate the litigation) complains about IE, and although I agree it shouldn't be forcibly packaged without alternatives by OEMs, the fact remains that today IE is way better than Navigator. Shell integration aside, IE crashes on me less often than Navigator.
To sum it up, the case seems like punishment for Microsoft for being too successful.
I don't think so. As the finding of facts did show, MS did use unfair business practices to get IE pre-installed on machines sold with Windows installed - and they also forcibly bundled IE with Windows 98 and later versions (and they also lied about it being a part of the OS, the OS is both faster and less crash-prone without IE as its shell). In addition to that, they've also bundled IE with their Office products for a while. These are all cases of letting the sales of completely unrelated products not only finance the development of, but also effectively do the marketing of their browser.
As a result of this business strategy Netscape never succeeded in getting to sell their browser at all, and since they had no other leg to stand on (except servers - but that wasn't a strong enough leg apparently), they had to sell out eventually. Had they been able to sell their product, they would have had the means to keep developing at a higher speed too. Therefore it's very much the fault of MS' unfair business strategies that the Netscape browser is inferior, and that Netscape had to sell out.
What would be a reasonable remedy for this? Forcing MS to pull IE out of Windows is hardly enough, the damage has been done already. But breaking the company into an OS branch, an Internet branch, and an Office suite branch would prevent them from doing it again. Also ruling that their Internet and Office products should be more widely ported seems reasonable.
Well, AFAIK every MS product to date has been delayed. If it was for stability reasons, I can't tell (though I think it probably wasn't).
/Ibn
But if they had delayed their products until they were stable, we could perhaps look forward to the first release of Win95 before X-mas. : )