"In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild..."
Sorry to be offtopic, but Flint Wild is such a cool sounding name.
"Hi, my name's Flint Wild." Sorta like Marty McFly saying that his name was Clint Eastwood in BTF III.
Are you sure you didn't get the names mixed up in the story:-)
Perhaps their history of never doing anything like that before, but I could be wrong.
I think govts. cannot afford to take the chance that the license will never be revoked in the future. Mass. may have made a decision based on this issue. They may end up outliving MS and must therefore take the long view.
Somehow, I'm not concerned with the theoretical possibility that MS is just going to suddenly blanket revoke the licenses for everyone and the speculation on what this patent covers, despite the fact that no one speculating has read the patent text.
You may not be concerned, but other people are and that's the rub. I think MS should grant all users/developers a license in perpetuity to implement their upcoming Office XML format. They can always compete on the implementation and they've had a huge head start which should help.
I found this comment on groklaw which itself is a comment on Brian Jones' (Office manager) blog. I believe that it gets to the core of the issue. I don't think it was ever answered. So yes, the patents are licensed royalty free but not in perpetuity.
"MS can stop granting the license when they want. At that point, anyone who already has a copy of the software I wrote that infringes the patents in question can continue to use it. Perhaps new versions could be distributed to those same people (since they already have a license). I cannot, however, continue to distribute my open source project, because only MS has the right to grant my potential user a license. That is, MS can effectively kill (or at least place in stasis) any project that gets big enough to pose a threat. This is at the core of every OSS license - the right to grant the same rights I have to the recipients of my software. "
I switched to SuSE 9.1 from redhat 9 in May 2004 and right now, I'm running SuSE 9.3 Pro x86_64 version. Took a while to get the hang of SuSE but am now reasonably aware of how things are done.
Still,
1. I couldn't find an easy way to run both 32bit and 64bit kernels via YaST.
2. I use apt/synaptic and the gwdg.de repository to install all the missing pieces - dvdcss, transcode, mjpegtools, etc. and particularly in SuSE 9.3, this approach feels like a bandaid solution. For example, I've lost the ability to burn CDs to mp3 in the KDE filemanager and have to use KAudioCreator or the command line to accomplish this task.
3. Ever since I updated firefox to 1.0.6, crashes have increased - probably due to a misconfigured flash plugin and I don't know how to fix this problem. Reinstalling and updating via YaST didn't help.
4. Back in SuSE 9.2, the CDROM would open at random and there was no way of fixing this. The fix came out a month later.
5. The artsd sound daemon (version 1.4.1-3) mysteriously dies every once in a while and reports a CPU overload error. Weird.
6. Fonts are just not as good as they were in redhat. Some webpages have font bugs.
Despite all this, I like SuSE and will stick with it. However, when compared to a Mac OS X Tiger G5 box, it does have too many problems.
So coupled with all these facts why would you go with Intel? I seriously doubt it has to do with a technical advantage [specially in the SMP world].
Three reasons: i) chipsets, ii) motherboards and iii) overall case, power supply combo
Supermicro makes fantastic Intel motherboards and cases/power supply combos to go with the motherboards. If I wanted a 1U linux server, I ask my favorite vendor what he would recommend and he invariably finds a Supermicro product that fits like a glove. I cannot find a similar supplier for AMD CPUs.
Thank you for that pointer to a wonderful looking book on mystical Christianity. I just bought it. I recommend "Putting on the Mind of Christ" if you haven't already read it.
Intellegent design does not mean it was God who did it. Does not say who did it just that some intellegance did it. This is a viable theory. Don't attack it based on how religious organizations use the theory but on it's merits
I don't think you get it. It is not about whether evolution or intelligent design are viable theories or not. Evolution is falsifiable, intelligent design (ID) is not (or at least I haven't seen anyone show how it is falsifiable). Consequently, ID at best is philosophy masquerading as science.
My understanding of why mp3 support is crippled is because GPL apps can be freely redistributed whereas mp3 playback is licensed per device (unless Novell/SuSE pays mucho doubloons to Fraunhofer). So, the only way SuSE can fix this is to put a bunch of rpms on their website containing mp3 decoder binaries and tell you that using them may be illegal in your country. I think they've already done this.
Note that mp3 playback is actually NOT crippled since RealPlayer 10 is included (I know, I know, no flames please).
As someone who switched from Fedora Core 1 to SuSE 9.1, then 9.2, my opinion is that the easiest way to add all the missing packages is via apt/synaptic for SuSE and using the gwdg mirror. For more information, please visit http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm/home.html.
This has worked flawlessly for me. I update the mp3/mpeg2/mpeg4 packages via synaptic and the rest of the packages via YOU. In YOU, the apt/synaptic packages are marked as "Protected" so that YOU does not update them. Not ideal mind you, but it works.
Knoppix 3.6 does not work on my machine. Single AMD Athlon XP 2000+, Tyan dual AMD S2462 "Guinness" motherboard, Nvidia GeForce Ti 4200 AGP, Samsung 172T LCD. X hangs after a few minutes of working and I have to power reset.
Monarch Computers (Linux Journal runs on them) is pretty reasonable but I'm also looking at the Sun offerings.
We evaluated quite a few vendors recently as well. When buying say a terabyte linux file server, make sure to get adequate cooling, good sturdy chassises etc. For example, Monarch would not let us pick a CIdesign chassis which has a good reputation, so we didn't go with them.
At the very least talk to Net Express They are very knowledgable when it comes to putting together custom linux servers. Disclaimer: I don't work for Net Express.
You can run a second OS on a desktop dual core CPU via VmWare, Xen etc. with one CPU set aside for the second OS. Intel is pushing forward Vanderpool (virtualization tech.) and AMD just announced that they were working with the Xen guys to presumably achieve the same goal.
I've tested Knoppix, SuSE 9.2 Live DVD, and Linspire 4.5 Live and none of them work out of the box on my machine. I have a fairly standard AMD box with an nvidia card. It would be nice to have something that works.
They do not offer updates for those(and many others). The sites that do are things like usr-local-bin or pacman. And for their rpms to work, you have to have the latest and greatest of everything all the time. If suse 9.2 came out, you have to have it, if an update to some random lib came out, you have to grab that too.
Then to top it off, it breaks "yast consistency" all the time. And then you end up with a foobard system that you spend even more time being frustrated.
I use SUSE 9.1 Pro at home and I have to agree with this. My experience was that if I used apt to upgrade packages from packman, usr-local-bin etc., they would invariably be broken. Audacity is a good example. I updated it using packman and it would crash all the time. I don't understand why the 3rd party RPMs on SUSE are so broken compared to 3rd party RPMS for other distros. [That last part has been my experience.]
Is there a good, recent review of the various competing display technologies [LCOS, DLP, Plasma etc.]?
I know it's bad form to reply to one's own message but for those who had the same question, I found a very nice comparison of various display technologies at Audioholics.com.
Is there a good, recent review of the various competing display technologies [LCOS, DLP, Plasma etc.]? It seems to be a very confusing and chaotic place with many disparate technologies jockeying for dominance.
2) How is one supposed to rise from zero to 15% if one cannot be heard?
It's worse than you think. When I submitted a story to politics.slashdot.org that Badnarik may be the secret spoiler in this election and I base this on information available at a really good website on the 2004 presidential election---electoral-vote.com---the story was rejected. It is not as if politics.slashdot.org gets many political news submissions, but you wonder about the editorial policy when good information is rejected.
Without John Levon, there is no (present day) Qt GUI for LyX - The Document Processor. And I, along with many others found the earlier XForms GUI for LyX to be unusable. Thanks John for making LyX usable.
Here's a song from "My Fair Lady" which covers the same topic
Song: Why Can't the English? Lyrics Henry Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter, Condemned by every syllable she ever uttered. By law she should be taken out and hung, For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue. Eliza Aaoooww! Henry imitating her Aaoooww! Heaven's! What a noise! This is what the British population, Calls an elementary education. Pickering Oh, Counsel, I think you picked a poor example. Henry Did I? Hear them down in Soho square, Dropping "h's" everywhere. Speaking English anyway they like. You sir, did you go to school? Man Wadaya tike me for, a fool? Henry No one taught him 'take' instead of 'tike! Why can't the English teach their children how to speak? This verbal class distinction, by now, Should be antique. If you spoke as she does, sir, Instead of the way you do, Why, you might be selling flowers, too! Hear a Yorkshireman, or worse, Hear a Cornishman converse, I'd rather hear a choir singing flat. Chickens cackling in a barn Just like this one! Eliza Garn! Henry I ask you, sir, what sort of word is that? It's "Aoooow" and "Garn" that keep her in her place. Not her wretched clothes and dirty face. Why can't the English teach their children how to speak? This verbal class distinction by now should be antique. If you spoke as she does, sir, Instead of the way you do, Why, you might be selling flowers, too. An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him, The moment he talks he makes some other Englishman despise him. One common language I'm afraid we'll never get. Oh, why can't the English learn to set A good example to people whose English is painful to your ears? The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears. There even are places where English completely disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years! Why can't the English teach their children how to speak? Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks have taught their Greek. In France every Frenchman knows his language fro "A" to "Zed" The French never care what they do, actually, as long as they pronounce in properly. Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning. And Hebrews learn it backwards, which is absolutely frightening. But use proper English you're regarded as a freak. Why can't the English, Why can't the English learn to speak?
Call me nuts, but playing MP3's these days is about as basic as being able to copy a file from one place to another.
True. However, if you go to rpm.livna.org and follow the instructions to add it to your apt/yum repository, you have access to everything that you want to play mp3s, dvds etc. Just do
Dreamweaver MX is already listed as a bronze application in Codeweavers Compatibility center's list of win32 apps. That means it is able to perform some of its functions under either the latest wine or crossover office 2.1 Take a look, vote for it and/or pledge money to help make it work.
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"In October 2005, Mr. Deutsch sent an e-mail message to Flint Wild..."
:-)
Sorry to be offtopic, but Flint Wild is such a cool sounding name. "Hi, my name's Flint Wild." Sorta like Marty McFly saying that his name was Clint Eastwood in BTF III. Are you sure you didn't get the names mixed up in the story
Perhaps their history of never doing anything like that before, but I could be wrong.
I think govts. cannot afford to take the chance that the license will never be revoked in the future. Mass. may have made a decision based on this issue. They may end up outliving MS and must therefore take the long view.
Somehow, I'm not concerned with the theoretical possibility that MS is just going to suddenly blanket revoke the licenses for everyone and the speculation on what this patent covers, despite the fact that no one speculating has read the patent text.
You may not be concerned, but other people are and that's the rub. I think MS should grant all users/developers a license in perpetuity to implement their upcoming Office XML format. They can always compete on the implementation and they've had a huge head start which should help.
I found this comment on groklaw which itself is a comment on Brian Jones' (Office manager) blog. I believe that it gets to the core of the issue. I don't think it was ever answered. So yes, the patents are licensed royalty free but not in perpetuity.
"MS can stop granting the license when they want. At that point, anyone who already has a copy of the software I wrote that infringes the patents in question can continue to use it. Perhaps new versions could be distributed to those same people (since they already have a license). I cannot, however, continue to distribute my open source project, because only MS has the right to grant my potential user a license. That is, MS can effectively kill (or at least place in stasis) any project that gets big enough to pose a threat. This is at the core of every OSS license - the right to grant the same rights I have to the recipients of my software. "
I switched to SuSE 9.1 from redhat 9 in May 2004 and right now, I'm running SuSE 9.3 Pro x86_64 version. Took a while to get the hang of SuSE but am now reasonably aware of how things are done.
Still,
1. I couldn't find an easy way to run both 32bit and 64bit kernels via YaST.
2. I use apt/synaptic and the gwdg.de repository to install all the missing pieces - dvdcss, transcode, mjpegtools, etc. and particularly in SuSE 9.3, this approach feels like a bandaid solution. For example, I've lost the ability to burn CDs to mp3 in the KDE filemanager and have to use KAudioCreator or the command line to accomplish this task.
3. Ever since I updated firefox to 1.0.6, crashes have increased - probably due to a misconfigured flash plugin and I don't know how to fix this problem. Reinstalling and updating via YaST didn't help.
4. Back in SuSE 9.2, the CDROM would open at random and there was no way of fixing this. The fix came out a month later.
5. The artsd sound daemon (version 1.4.1-3) mysteriously dies every once in a while and reports a CPU overload error. Weird.
6. Fonts are just not as good as they were in redhat. Some webpages have font bugs.
Despite all this, I like SuSE and will stick with it. However, when compared to a Mac OS X Tiger G5 box, it does have too many problems.
So coupled with all these facts why would you go with Intel? I seriously doubt it has to do with a technical advantage [specially in the SMP world].
Three reasons: i) chipsets, ii) motherboards and iii) overall case, power supply combo
Supermicro makes fantastic Intel motherboards and cases/power supply combos to go with the motherboards. If I wanted a 1U linux server, I ask my favorite vendor what he would recommend and he invariably finds a Supermicro product that fits like a glove. I cannot find a similar supplier for AMD CPUs.
Thank you for that pointer to a wonderful looking book on mystical Christianity. I just bought it. I recommend "Putting on the Mind of Christ" if you haven't already read it.
Intellegent design does not mean it was God who did it. Does not say who did it just that some intellegance did it. This is a viable theory. Don't attack it based on how religious organizations use the theory but on it's merits
I don't think you get it. It is not about whether evolution or intelligent design are viable theories or not. Evolution is falsifiable, intelligent design (ID) is not (or at least I haven't seen anyone show how it is falsifiable). Consequently, ID at best is philosophy masquerading as science.
My understanding of why mp3 support is crippled is because GPL apps can be freely redistributed whereas mp3 playback is licensed per device (unless Novell/SuSE pays mucho doubloons to Fraunhofer). So, the only way SuSE can fix this is to put a bunch of rpms on their website containing mp3 decoder binaries and tell you that using them may be illegal in your country. I think they've already done this.
Note that mp3 playback is actually NOT crippled since RealPlayer 10 is included (I know, I know, no flames please).
As someone who switched from Fedora Core 1 to SuSE 9.1, then 9.2, my opinion is that the easiest way to add all the missing packages is via apt/synaptic for SuSE and using the gwdg mirror. For more information, please visit http://linux01.gwdg.de/apt4rpm/home.html.
This has worked flawlessly for me. I update the mp3/mpeg2/mpeg4 packages via synaptic and the rest of the packages via YOU. In YOU, the apt/synaptic packages are marked as "Protected" so that YOU does not update them. Not ideal mind you, but it works.
The site is really dated. They will build and configure just about any type of linux box with AMD chips if you want.
Knoppix 3.6 does not work on my machine. Single AMD Athlon XP 2000+, Tyan dual AMD S2462 "Guinness" motherboard, Nvidia GeForce Ti 4200 AGP, Samsung 172T LCD. X hangs after a few minutes of working and I have to power reset.
Monarch Computers (Linux Journal runs on them) is pretty reasonable but I'm also looking at the Sun offerings.
We evaluated quite a few vendors recently as well. When buying say a terabyte linux file server, make sure to get adequate cooling, good sturdy chassises etc. For example, Monarch would not let us pick a CIdesign chassis which has a good reputation, so we didn't go with them.
At the very least talk to Net Express They are very knowledgable when it comes to putting together custom linux servers.
Disclaimer: I don't work for Net Express.
Is there something I'm missing?
You can run a second OS on a desktop dual core CPU via VmWare, Xen etc. with one CPU set aside for the second OS. Intel is pushing forward Vanderpool (virtualization tech.) and AMD just announced that they were working with the Xen guys to presumably achieve the same goal.
I've tested Knoppix, SuSE 9.2 Live DVD, and Linspire 4.5 Live and none of them work out of the box on my machine. I have a fairly standard AMD box with an nvidia card. It would be nice to have something that works.
They do not offer updates for those(and many others). The sites that do are things like usr-local-bin or pacman. And for their rpms to work, you have to have the latest and greatest of everything all the time. If suse 9.2 came out, you have to have it, if an update to some random lib came out, you have to grab that too.
Then to top it off, it breaks "yast consistency" all the time. And then you end up with a foobard system that you spend even more time being frustrated.
I use SUSE 9.1 Pro at home and I have to agree with this. My experience was that if I used apt to upgrade packages from packman, usr-local-bin etc., they would invariably be broken. Audacity is a good example. I updated it using packman and it would crash all the time. I don't understand why the 3rd party RPMs on SUSE are so broken compared to 3rd party RPMS for other distros. [That last part has been my experience.]
Is there a good, recent review of the various competing display technologies [LCOS, DLP, Plasma etc.]?
I know it's bad form to reply to one's own message but for those who had the same question, I found a very nice comparison of various display technologies at Audioholics.com.
Is there a good, recent review of the various competing display technologies [LCOS, DLP, Plasma etc.]? It seems to be a very confusing and chaotic place with many disparate technologies jockeying for dominance.
2) How is one supposed to rise from zero to 15% if one cannot be heard?
It's worse than you think. When I submitted a story to politics.slashdot.org that Badnarik may be the secret spoiler in this election and I base this on information available at a really good website on the 2004 presidential election---electoral-vote.com---the story was rejected. It is not as if politics.slashdot.org gets many political news submissions, but you wonder about the editorial policy when good information is rejected.
Without John Levon, there is no (present day) Qt GUI for LyX - The Document Processor. And I, along with many others found the earlier XForms GUI for LyX to be unusable. Thanks John for making LyX usable.
I know. I almost fell out of my chair when I saw that. What are the odds?
Here's a song from "My Fair Lady" which covers the same topic
Song: Why Can't the English? Lyrics
Henry Look at her, a prisoner of the gutter,
Condemned by every syllable she ever uttered.
By law she should be taken out and hung,
For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue.
Eliza Aaoooww!
Henry imitating her Aaoooww!
Heaven's! What a noise!
This is what the British population,
Calls an elementary education.
Pickering Oh,
Counsel, I think you picked a poor example.
Henry Did I?
Hear them down in Soho square,
Dropping "h's" everywhere.
Speaking English anyway they like.
You sir, did you go to school?
Man Wadaya tike me for, a fool?
Henry No one taught him 'take' instead of 'tike!
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction, by now,
Should be antique. If you spoke as she does, sir,
Instead of the way you do,
Why, you might be selling flowers, too!
Hear a Yorkshireman, or worse,
Hear a Cornishman converse,
I'd rather hear a choir singing flat.
Chickens cackling in a barn Just like this one!
Eliza Garn!
Henry I ask you, sir, what sort of word is that?
It's "Aoooow" and "Garn" that keep her in her place.
Not her wretched clothes and dirty face.
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
This verbal class distinction by now should be antique.
If you spoke as she does, sir, Instead of the way you do,
Why, you might be selling flowers, too.
An Englishman's way of speaking absolutely classifies him,
The moment he talks he makes some other
Englishman despise him.
One common language I'm afraid we'll never get.
Oh, why can't the English learn to set
A good example to people whose
English is painful to your ears?
The Scotch and the Irish leave you close to tears.
There even are places where English completely
disappears. In America, they haven't used it for years!
Why can't the English teach their children how to speak?
Norwegians learn Norwegian; the Greeks have taught their
Greek. In France every Frenchman knows
his language fro "A" to "Zed"
The French never care what they do, actually,
as long as they pronounce in properly.
Arabians learn Arabian with the speed of summer lightning.
And Hebrews learn it backwards,
which is absolutely frightening.
But use proper English you're regarded as a freak.
Why can't the English,
Why can't the English learn to speak?
Noticeably absent are posts deriding KDE for technical problems, design issues and or performance issues.
On SUSE 9.1 Pro, the KDE clipboard is totally wonky and constantly freezes up. Hope they've fixed this problem.
Call me nuts, but playing MP3's these days is about as basic as being able to copy a file from one place to another.
True. However, if you go to rpm.livna.org and follow the instructions to add it to your apt/yum repository, you have access to everything that you want to play mp3s, dvds etc. Just do
apt-get xmms-mp3
and you'll be all set. Repeat for lame etc.
Thank you. I haven't laughed this much in years.
Seriously, your post could be used as a kernel for a great science fiction comedy movie. Space Messiah anyone?
Dreamweaver MX is already listed as a bronze application in Codeweavers Compatibility center's list of win32 apps. That means it is able to perform some of its functions under either the latest wine or crossover office 2.1 Take a look, vote for it and/or pledge money to help make it work.