before we all laugh too hard at the idea... there was a local city council race that was decided by cutting a deck of cards. when they counted up the ballots they found it was 793 for guy A and 792 for guy B, there was one ballot that had both circles filled in, but then they crossed out one of them. The local election officials counted that ballot for guy B putting it in a tie, so they had the two guys cut a deck of cards, and guy B won. Wanna bet guy A has already filed suit? (I don't remember which one had the X through it, but if it was A then they interpreted it as meaning "no, I made a mistake, this isn't a vote for A" and if it was B they interpreted it as meaning "I want *this* guy.")
just for fun, current (today) value of the average options grant for engineers this past summer: -$3,430.50 (if they were all exercisable)
and for the average grant the previous summer: -$19,612.50 (again, if all were exercisable today)
which freakin' site are you at? better yet, which group? IGS? My site has a strong "old school" server group mentality in a lot of places... 40-45 hours into the week people just disapear. Friday afternoons the place is deserted. I mean it's not always, we all sometimes put in the overtime when a customer goes balistic, or a serious critsit comes in... but in general if anyone made that kind of requirement around here they'd be told what they could go do with themselves. (I can't say people would walk, because there aren't that many places to walk *to* around here, you'd have to relocate.) Having said that there are a number of us younger, single, folks who do spend 50-60 hours a week *at work*, which equates to maybe 45-55 hours a week working. it contrasts with the older, maried with children croud that might as well be punching a clock. (one guy that used to sit down the hall from me could be used to set a clock, in EVERY day at 0630, out at 1530, lunch from 1045 to 1145.
Anyway, I know when I became an "eMobile worker" (gag me) the dirty looks I got we far from virtual. One individual that sat near me made no small issue of the fact that they didn't think I deserved a thinkpad (t20s were the current machines being distributed) and that they should get one of those to replace their 770 (or maybe it was a 600... yeah it had to be). My counter argument was basically that management didn't agree with them, and that my manager was sick of seeing me in the office as much as I was. We did a trial with a loaner thinkpad and I got a LOT more accomplished with less time in the office. The only thing I had to fight, and still do to some extent, is the urge to not stop working at home when it's nice and quiet and I can just think and work (had a few burn out weeks when I first went mobile). But now I can work in my office, or in the lab, or in a the support center, or in a conference room, or wherever. A case that I've proven a few times when I had deadlines looming and couldn't think straight in my office... unplugged walked a few buildings away to a buddies office in another division and camped out on his floor for an afternoon - got more work accomplished than I had in the last three days because no one knew where I was.:)
Oh, and remember, the manager's guidlines say they're not allowed to use 1,2,3,4 (or 1,2,3,e in some locations) anymore, it's "exceeds expectations", "meets expectations", and "falls short of expectations" (or some such eBull as that.) Oh well, when you've already finished that farce for the year, and it isn't november yet, what's the real point? (to be fair, it's only because of a managerial change, the old guy wanted to do ours since he had worked with us all year, and needed to be completely wrapped up... but still, I have my rating for the year, it's submitted and signed by my first two layers of management... where's the incentive?)
don't forget that the boss only works half days... "six am to six pm is half a day" (overheard half of a phone conversation between workaholic manager and spouse, on their aniversary (or maybe it was her birthday, don't remember well.)
You did. The OSD is the definition of what free is, you infered that the IPL isn't free. I counter that it is, and that the OSI's acceptance of it as conformant to the OSD is the proof (by real legal people, not just us hackers).
The key word you keep coming back to is "incompatible". This word has some specific meanings but I see none of them that are special to the relation between the IPL and the GPL. There is actually very little differnce between this relationship and that between the FSF license and the GPL, or the MPL and the GPL, or the FSF license and the MPL, or any other pair of licenses that aren't built with the intent of being combined with others (i.e. LGPL and GPL).
In regard to those clauses about liability and such, that's no different that the GPL's paragraphs 11 and 12. In fact they read very similarly. The biggest difference really is the assignment of copyright, wherein it's more like the FSF License, and the comercial distribution allowances, which make it more like many other licenses, including that which may someday become GPL v3.
If anyone chooses to link together code from two or more different licenses then they need to get their lawyers analysis, it doesn't matter what those two licenses are. So please don't vilify the IBM Public License just because it beongs to a Corporation; if you can find a legitimate legally whole argument then run it past a legal expert and make it.
OK, call that subject the reaction to reading too much FUD on here lately, and at having that FUD directed at a License *I* release code under; my appologies.
That said, the OSD, is derived from the DFSG. Both of which clearly contain points related to free (as in speech) code such as #3, #4, #6, #8 and #9. As well as the expected free (as in beer) points you're thinking of: #1, #2, #4 - 7, and #9. As I said, if they don't meet your definitions of free (as in beer and speech) then WHAT DOES?
Now, IANAL, however I have read through both licenses in detail... what have I missed? What does your obviously superior legal knowledge expose that makes the IBMPL not free as in beer AND free as in speech? And what is it about the IBMPL that prevents software released under it from being included in a Linux distro? are you somehow indicating that just because the kernel and much of the runtime is released under the GPL that this means ALL software in the distro must also be GPL? If that's what you're thinking then you've missed the point of #9.
in the third paragraph there is a glaringly obvious mistake: "[...] they downloaded software used to view entertainment," of course we all know the word 'entertainment' is an error, they meant 'pr0n'.
The IBM Public License ("IBM Open Source Licence" is a typo/lack of understanding) is fully endorsed by the OSI. It was originally called the Jikes Compiler License, but when corporate wanted to use it for more projects they renamed it. You'll notice that Jikes is included in many of the current distros, hell, it's even in main debian and if that doesn't fit your definition of free I don't know what will!
space heater is an understatement; especially some of the new thinkpads... I'd kill to swap the mobile pentium III in my t20 for a crusoe if it will prevent the damn thing from burning my lap when I use it. I've lately been borrowing a small acrylic cutting board from the kitchen to put between my leg and the system. But here's the kicker kids, it's NOT the processor that's doing it. The quarter that houses the CPU isn't where it's so hot! neither is the area where the battery is. It's the pcmcia cards/socket and the hard drive! they even have a FAN and AIR DUCTING over by these!
If you're wondering how anyone but a blithering idiot could possibly confuse "Guinness Really Sucks" with Guinness itself, you're not alone.
...
I might search on Guinness and turn up a "-sucks" website, and then I might actually be curious and click on it, thereby depriving the real Guinness of my eyeballs. Again, I am not kidding.
This is actually part of the reason the domains were taken away from their owner.
So you've answered your own question. There are a LOT of blithering idiots on the web: yahoo.com, altavista.com, lycos.com, the list goes on....
both belong to the same group. One puts up an example of some of the worst html I've ever seen, but claims trying to be helpfull, even provides a great big huge link to the correct spelling... which they'll happily open in the current frame (with their ads at the bottom). The other just pops up/. in the top and an ad frame across the bottom. So they want to help some people that can't spell, but not all.... whatever.
Fortunately their ad server is so slow it usually times out.
All in all, I've got to give them credit for one thing, it's better than the folks that redirect to something COMPLETELY unrelated.
(and yes, as bad as my typing is I've typed both a few times when I wanted to show someone an article.)
Yeah, I was an early adopter too. I think I left about the time you stopped using that handle, but when I read the article it was pretty clear who it was.;)
I only left athm to move to another offering from the same cable company. it's a local only vpn project with a couple *huge* local employers that have need of *massive* bandwidth for employees at home. The bandwidth is incredible, but they're even more heavy handed than athm was... for example there is an automated process that watches router logs for inbound connections on certain ports that result in outbound dataflows over a few bytes... that process is tied into the dhcp servers and the routers and will issue you a new IP address and null route your old one in only a few hours. (leases are only 6 hours)
Oh and the TOS are very interesting... includes a section that amounts to "thou shalt not transfer immoral materials across the service." Makes athm look liberal.
Yeah, there were a few really good folks in that ng, but also a LOT of jerks... my kill file only had one entry in it that wasn't from there, and I tend to use it heavily in newsgroups that had that kind of volume.
Goku,
Good luck. I hate to say it, but I smell a lawsuit. You were always ready to help in that excuse for a support group, to the point that some even called you an "undercover @homer"... it's their own loss. Cheers -=Chris
Pointers? to the interview? or at least who was it with?
"[...] large vendors have the resources to give it a push."
umm... not really, resources are VERY tight in most companies - ask the architects who have in the last few months had their grand vision killed because we can't get enough skilled people to implement and support them? (remember that in manager speak YOU are a "resource", not the hardware, or the lab space, or the desk.)
IBM isn't leapfrogging anyone, this isn't a new radical change from their current tech, it's just one of the few times they've actually told the industry what's going on inside. The "tour de force" is NOT the technology it's the fact that you, Joe Consumer, are being given a glimpse of the technology which is "ho-hum" inside IBM.
the core features "apple would die for" are just integrating existing IBM architectural feats from the S/390 and AS/400 (er, I meant zSeries and iSeries) architectures... which by the way, are routinely bad mouthed. I enjoy the irony in their being admired this time.
regarding the 10 to 12 levels of logic, one other case, that is only hinted at here, but was mentioned earlier, is the support for the old POWER instruction set... software trapping ain't cheap.
re the clock speed: let's all remember that it wasn't too long ago that the RISC camp decided to get rid of the gloves and step up to the CISC bigots clock rate == length of manhood competition. Before then lots of RISC machines operated at significantly lower clock speed than CISC machines. i.e. I've got a Power2 that runs at 66Mhz and smokes a Pentium II at 300Mhz for a LOT of stuff. Now that someone has thrown off the gloves and said "ok Intel, we'll see your 1Ghz" things will get REAL interesting in the PowerPC vs x86 world. I've got to thank Digital, er Compaq, for entering into the contest first on this one.
nobody said there weren't delays... even IBM isn't THAT good, least of all the managers. But after being through the antitrust crucible there is one sterling rule at IBM, you NEVER announce something UNTILL IT'S DONE - there are LOTS of procedures to ensure that, and lots of managers are employed just to conduct that stuff.
if the Alpha does show to be the worst hit by the power4 competition it will be a sad day indeed, Sun on the otherhand.....
it already runs Linux; too bad Linux doesn't scale up to as many processors as they'll be putting in systems as well as AIX and OS/400 do. (note, not a troll or a flame, that's FACT that even the kernel folks don't disagree with. Linux DOES NOT handle 24 processors just now... we need to fix this!)
as someone else has already noted, to REALLY see the benefit of this you need your applicaiton to be well behaved, and preferably well threaded. this is sadly harder said than done, and the number of skilled engineers capable of writing this type of code at the application level are slim to none because this isn't the kind of stuff that interests applicatiton people. Instead it interests infrastructure types, and when they put out a drop dead gorgeous infrastructure to build your next generation application on, too many idiots refuse to climb the learning curve needed to fully exploit it and the accolades of those who did aren't enough to keep imbecilic pointy haired managers from killing off the infrastructure. (who, me bitter? no....)
argh! I guess I need to get back to reading/. religiously... too bad it's sucked a little too hard for that lately:( anyway I missed the original call for entries, but I'm deeply amazed that the ultimate stupid patent wasn't even submitted... NO one thought to whip up a DeCSS patent? where are all the satirical geniuses that used to inhabit this place? HUH?! Oh yeah, the quality went down the shitter and we left, how could I have forgotten already?
Truth in advertising/journalism: I work for IBM, I do NOT speak for IBM, IBM does NOT speak for me; it's better that way. I also own stock in both companies involved.
Here's the real story as it is told within the blue halls.
RedHat will produce distros for the new iSeries(AS/400) pSeries(RS/6000) and zSeries(S/390) server families, in addition to their existing xSeries distro; this is not an exclusive thing either, SuSE is already on the zSeries. These distros will be based on work being done within IBM to make Linux run, and run well on this hardware, as well as work done throughout the community. IBM will offer these distros preinstalled and will also offer support services and contracts.
IBM will *NOT* discontinue the existing operating systems for these products, that simply isn't an option in most cases; anyone who takes the idea seriously has no grasp of the consequences. AS/400 still has the pristine security record, OS/390 still has the records for txproc, tpf is still in use in far more datacenters than anyone cares to admit.
Why you ask? Well, let's look at the logic behind last weeks unified rebranding. The stated purpose is just that unification, where there were four or five overlapping, and sometimes competing IBM server brands there is now one. In order for that to really truely be the case there needs to be something powerfull to tie these families together.
One ring to bind them all.
That thing, most logically, is the operating environment. IBM has tried that before, and failed every time out for the same reason - they choose something from within. By embracing something from the outside much of the nasty old politics (hopefully) get flushed down the drain.
Why does it matter though? Because we have a huge disadvantage to Sun and Microsoft. Both of them have ONE environment on ONE architecture (Slowaris/sparc, winblows/x86). Now some may say that only one architecture is all you need - I think they're wrong, so do a lot of others. Let's take a look at TWO machines, ASCI White and my thinkpad. The two are about as far apart as you can get in every conceivable measurement. ASCI White is the extreme limits of the S80 architecture, which is the cornerstone of the highend pSeries family of RS/6000s. My thinkpad is a t20 running a Pentium III. Could you make a thinkpad with the S80 architecture? I doubt it, even if you could would anyone besides Bill Gates be able to afford it? Could you make ASCI White with the x86 architecture? LOL... HELL NO! Thus I say one architecture IS NOT the answer... we need several, and they each need to find their own niche. Once that's done, then we need a common interface to them, and common tooling, and common applications (with at least api level compatibility, if not binary).
Where is this going to come from? Linux. GNU. IBM.
----
now the forces of openness
have a powerful and
unexpected new ally
http://ibm.com/linux/
but then most companies are doing the same damn thing with residents too - when was the last time you saw a company with a 1/6th turnover rate? hell even IBM doesn't have that good a rate in a LOT of labs; pittsburgh was at a 33% burn rate the last I heard. naw, the sleazy vending companies (keane, ciber) are using the H1B angle and hanging over people's heads; but everyone else is just as anxious to get rid of folks in the "uppity-type skilled employees" category... the folks that start meetings with questions like "will management ever pull it's collective head out of it's ass long enough to make a decent decision?"
It's pretty sad really... I've worked with a few folks on H1Bs, about half of them were/are top notch talent we were/would be screwed to lose. The other half are about as clueless as the locally produced community college kid with a associates degree in CIS (Q:"Do you have any experience?" A:"I know how to work Word and Excell" Q:"You realize you're applying for an engineering position, not a secretarrial, right?") Unfortunately we can't keep the former and can't get rid of the latter.
you're making an apples to oranges comparison. take two drives of equal capacity from the same vendor. granted, it may not be as common as my remark above makes it sound, but it is possible, we do it. Usually though it's the otherway around, you've got one plater configuration and you mount a variety of control boards on it, ssa, sca, scsi, etc, ide would be an option, but whose going to pay for it? people who want quality drives but are stuck with ide interface for whatever reason.
I used to write SCSI firmware and the reason SCSI drives cost more is this, they have more features and functionality,
I fully agree, more function = more cost, but that function has ALREADY been developed, what we see today is a bit of price gouging, plus the fact that they know the people who NEED ultra160 speed are willing to pay for it. If you want to see that second one in play, go price AS/400 DASD!
fewer SCSI drives are sold each year
ahem, BULLSHIT.
causing parts to cost more.
if the above were true then this is certainly an acceptable fact, but the above ain't, no way I'll beleive that without some reliable numbers.
Also SCSI drives usually have lower areal densities so they need more disks and heads.
WHAT? maybe in the early 80s, but today there is no difference in platters for ide or scsi or sca or whatever, the sole difference is in the electronics board screwed to the back of the case, and actually only about half of that board is different, the part for motor control and power management is the same.
Many would reverse the porportions you present and say that they had a lot of decent games and a handfull of not-so-good ones. By the time Lucasfilms Games got going Sierra as a creative outlet was already dying, and it wasn't their technology that made them great games, it was the content of the game.
In the early cga/ega days as you point out, Sierra's gfx weren't bleeding edge, but that wasn't the point, they were stable. And it was the technology under those graphics that was bleeding edge, look at the old AGI based games... they ran on just about anything. What AGI really allowed was for the game to be seperated from the mechanics of the game. Remember that it wasn't the number of polygons that made a game good, it was the items I listed before like story and characters.
Maybe you were just playing the wrong titles... LSL's storylines weren't exactly intended for kids, although Al was usually rather childish in his sense of humor. Look at some of the latter game series, Laura Bow, Phantas, etc. Also remember that at the time the target audience was NOT adult geeks, mostly parents and their kids (or kids and their parents). Sierra was a family oriented design house... I doubt you could say that for id. Although they did have their share of more grown up games.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Sierra was the ONLY BEST company in a Highlander-esque sense, they weren't: EA also had some ass kicking titles, as did some of the small no name companies. I'm simply saying that their game content (as opposed to technical glitz) was top notch, and is something that is sorely missing. Where today is there a game series with characters like the Grahams?
What these games need is what Sierra On-Line had, back before it became the pathetic shell that it is today. We need to get Roberta out of retirement. Sierra's games, and her's in particular, set the standard for the industry for what? nearly a decade? Here's a short list of the things I really miss from the good days of Sierra:
Sound. Really good sound. Sound that was on par with the graphics quality. We just don't get that today, oh sure, the games have fx and muzac, but the aural environment just isn't there.
Characters. Even if they aren't the main player, every character in most Sierra games had depth, and it was an integral part of the game, not some pile of marketing fluff.
Story. StarCraft is about as close to a good story as I've come across in games for a while. It's got a plot that twists and turns, yeah it's a bit heavy handed in it's application, but it ties the campaign missions together.
Extensibility. Most of the games today, the sequal is just more of the same, with better eye candy. With good games (like good books and movies) sequals progress a larger overall story... of course since todays games don't really have much of a story maybe there's no point extending it - water soup isn't that tasty.;)
Continuity. If in game one I teach my character to climb a rope, then when i bring that character into game two he already knows how to climb a rope. This is my current biggest complaint about StarCraft, every blasted mission I've got to redo the same stupid research, even in campaign mode!
Ok, enough of a eulgy to Sierra On-Line. What can we do with today's technology? Well, here's my suggestion for a game, I wanted to see Sierra make this, and in fact I went up to their offices in Oakhurst way back when to interview with them and try to pitch the idea... after the tour I canceled my interview, and stopped pursuing getting a meeting with Roberta. Now I'd like to suggest we do it open source... but I'm afraid we won't find the right people to do it and it'll be a disaster.
So what I'd like to see is a collaborative quest style game, much like King's Quest or Hero's Quest (aka Quest for Glory) only with some number of players each taking a given role and playing together. Define the characters, define the world, let the players figure it out from there. If bandwidth and screen realestate wasn't an issue, put real time video conferencing of the whole group up while you're playing. (audio is at least a bare minimum, trying to cary on a conversation by text while you're playing is a tedious distraction in today's games.)
Some examples of stories that I think this would work really well for... The Hobbit. All six parts of the Lord of the Rings. The Belgariad. The Malloreon. The Saga of Recluce. (ok, a couple of those last ones might be marginal, I'm working from distant memory on a couple as to whether they'd be good multiplayer quests.... the two JRRT ones however, no question they'd be excellent if done right, but I fear that some game company is already hacking out some miserable knock off, just to make it out in time for the movie.)
Slashdot Mirror
before we all laugh too hard at the idea... there was a local city council race that was decided by cutting a deck of cards. when they counted up the ballots they found it was 793 for guy A and 792 for guy B, there was one ballot that had both circles filled in, but then they crossed out one of them. The local election officials counted that ballot for guy B putting it in a tie, so they had the two guys cut a deck of cards, and guy B won. Wanna bet guy A has already filed suit? (I don't remember which one had the X through it, but if it was A then they interpreted it as meaning "no, I made a mistake, this isn't a vote for A" and if it was B they interpreted it as meaning "I want *this* guy.")
to be precise, Lou's take was as follows for 1999:
DIRECT COMPENSATION
Salary : $2,000,000
Bonus : $7,200,000
Other : $ 66,376
LONG TERM COMPENSATION
stock awards : $0
underwriten securities : $0
LTIP Payouts : $5,250,717 (delayed bonuses)
ALL OTHER COMPENSATION
TDSP (401(k)) / EDCP : $285,000
__TOTAL_COMPENSATION__ : $14,802,093
Stock Options
Granted : 0
Exercised : 803,156
Realized Value : $87,732,699
total remaining options : 7,073,804
value of (on 12/31/99) : $481,350,101
__ANALYSIS__
Total "income" in 1999 : $102,534,792
percentage based on IBM stock price : 85.6%
So what does this tell us? Lou is the most results driven employee in the company.
(all data from IBM)
just for fun, current (today) value of the average options grant for engineers this past summer: -$3,430.50 (if they were all exercisable)
and for the average grant the previous summer: -$19,612.50 (again, if all were exercisable today)
which freakin' site are you at? better yet, which group? IGS? My site has a strong "old school" server group mentality in a lot of places... 40-45 hours into the week people just disapear. Friday afternoons the place is deserted. I mean it's not always, we all sometimes put in the overtime when a customer goes balistic, or a serious critsit comes in... but in general if anyone made that kind of requirement around here they'd be told what they could go do with themselves. (I can't say people would walk, because there aren't that many places to walk *to* around here, you'd have to relocate.) Having said that there are a number of us younger, single, folks who do spend 50-60 hours a week *at work*, which equates to maybe 45-55 hours a week working. it contrasts with the older, maried with children croud that might as well be punching a clock. (one guy that used to sit down the hall from me could be used to set a clock, in EVERY day at 0630, out at 1530, lunch from 1045 to 1145.
:)
Anyway, I know when I became an "eMobile worker" (gag me) the dirty looks I got we far from virtual. One individual that sat near me made no small issue of the fact that they didn't think I deserved a thinkpad (t20s were the current machines being distributed) and that they should get one of those to replace their 770 (or maybe it was a 600... yeah it had to be). My counter argument was basically that management didn't agree with them, and that my manager was sick of seeing me in the office as much as I was. We did a trial with a loaner thinkpad and I got a LOT more accomplished with less time in the office. The only thing I had to fight, and still do to some extent, is the urge to not stop working at home when it's nice and quiet and I can just think and work (had a few burn out weeks when I first went mobile). But now I can work in my office, or in the lab, or in a the support center, or in a conference room, or wherever. A case that I've proven a few times when I had deadlines looming and couldn't think straight in my office... unplugged walked a few buildings away to a buddies office in another division and camped out on his floor for an afternoon - got more work accomplished than I had in the last three days because no one knew where I was.
Oh, and remember, the manager's guidlines say they're not allowed to use 1,2,3,4 (or 1,2,3,e in some locations) anymore, it's "exceeds expectations", "meets expectations", and "falls short of expectations" (or some such eBull as that.) Oh well, when you've already finished that farce for the year, and it isn't november yet, what's the real point? (to be fair, it's only because of a managerial change, the old guy wanted to do ours since he had worked with us all year, and needed to be completely wrapped up... but still, I have my rating for the year, it's submitted and signed by my first two layers of management... where's the incentive?)
don't forget that the boss only works half days... "six am to six pm is half a day" (overheard half of a phone conversation between workaholic manager and spouse, on their aniversary (or maybe it was her birthday, don't remember well.)
You did. The OSD is the definition of what free is, you infered that the IPL isn't free. I counter that it is, and that the OSI's acceptance of it as conformant to the OSD is the proof (by real legal people, not just us hackers).
The key word you keep coming back to is "incompatible". This word has some specific meanings but I see none of them that are special to the relation between the IPL and the GPL. There is actually very little differnce between this relationship and that between the FSF license and the GPL, or the MPL and the GPL, or the FSF license and the MPL, or any other pair of licenses that aren't built with the intent of being combined with others (i.e. LGPL and GPL).
In regard to those clauses about liability and such, that's no different that the GPL's paragraphs 11 and 12. In fact they read very similarly. The biggest difference really is the assignment of copyright, wherein it's more like the FSF License, and the comercial distribution allowances, which make it more like many other licenses, including that which may someday become GPL v3.
If anyone chooses to link together code from two or more different licenses then they need to get their lawyers analysis, it doesn't matter what those two licenses are. So please don't vilify the IBM Public License just because it beongs to a Corporation; if you can find a legitimate legally whole argument then run it past a legal expert and make it.
OK, call that subject the reaction to reading too much FUD on here lately, and at having that FUD directed at a License *I* release code under; my appologies.
That said, the OSD, is derived from the DFSG. Both of which clearly contain points related to free (as in speech) code such as #3, #4, #6, #8 and #9. As well as the expected free (as in beer) points you're thinking of: #1, #2, #4 - 7, and #9. As I said, if they don't meet your definitions of free (as in beer and speech) then WHAT DOES?
Now, IANAL, however I have read through both licenses in detail... what have I missed? What does your obviously superior legal knowledge expose that makes the IBMPL not free as in beer AND free as in speech? And what is it about the IBMPL that prevents software released under it from being included in a Linux distro? are you somehow indicating that just because the kernel and much of the runtime is released under the GPL that this means ALL software in the distro must also be GPL? If that's what you're thinking then you've missed the point of #9.
in the third paragraph there is a glaringly obvious mistake: "[...] they downloaded software used to view entertainment," of course we all know the word 'entertainment' is an error, they meant 'pr0n'.
The IBM Public License ("IBM Open Source Licence" is a typo/lack of understanding) is fully endorsed by the OSI. It was originally called the Jikes Compiler License, but when corporate wanted to use it for more projects they renamed it. You'll notice that Jikes is included in many of the current distros, hell, it's even in main debian and if that doesn't fit your definition of free I don't know what will!
space heater is an understatement; especially some of the new thinkpads... I'd kill to swap the mobile pentium III in my t20 for a crusoe if it will prevent the damn thing from burning my lap when I use it. I've lately been borrowing a small acrylic cutting board from the kitchen to put between my leg and the system. But here's the kicker kids, it's NOT the processor that's doing it. The quarter that houses the CPU isn't where it's so hot! neither is the area where the battery is. It's the pcmcia cards/socket and the hard drive! they even have a FAN and AIR DUCTING over by these!
oh yeah, and he's right GUINNESS does suck. Not only for this travesty, but their "beer", or as I call it "bottled tar", is disgusting.
http://salshdot.org/
/. in the top and an ad frame across the bottom. So they want to help some people that can't spell, but not all.... whatever.
http://slahsdot.org/
both belong to the same group. One puts up an example of some of the worst html I've ever seen, but claims trying to be helpfull, even provides a great big huge link to the correct spelling... which they'll happily open in the current frame (with their ads at the bottom). The other just pops up
Fortunately their ad server is so slow it usually times out.
All in all, I've got to give them credit for one thing, it's better than the folks that redirect to something COMPLETELY unrelated.
(and yes, as bad as my typing is I've typed both a few times when I wanted to show someone an article.)
Yeah, I was an early adopter too. I think I left about the time you stopped using that handle, but when I read the article it was pretty clear who it was. ;)
I only left athm to move to another offering from the same cable company. it's a local only vpn project with a couple *huge* local employers that have need of *massive* bandwidth for employees at home. The bandwidth is incredible, but they're even more heavy handed than athm was... for example there is an automated process that watches router logs for inbound connections on certain ports that result in outbound dataflows over a few bytes... that process is tied into the dhcp servers and the routers and will issue you a new IP address and null route your old one in only a few hours. (leases are only 6 hours)
Oh and the TOS are very interesting... includes a section that amounts to "thou shalt not transfer immoral materials across the service." Makes athm look liberal.
Yeah, there were a few really good folks in that ng, but also a LOT of jerks... my kill file only had one entry in it that wasn't from there, and I tend to use it heavily in newsgroups that had that kind of volume.
Goku,
Good luck. I hate to say it, but I smell a lawsuit. You were always ready to help in that excuse for a support group, to the point that some even called you an "undercover @homer"... it's their own loss. Cheers -=Chris
"A guy from IBM in an interview [...]"
Pointers? to the interview? or at least who was it with?
"[...] large vendors have the resources to give it a push."
umm... not really, resources are VERY tight in most companies - ask the architects who have in the last few months had their grand vision killed because we can't get enough skilled people to implement and support them? (remember that in manager speak YOU are a "resource", not the hardware, or the lab space, or the desk.)
argh! I guess I need to get back to reading /. religiously... too bad it's sucked a little too hard for that lately :( anyway I missed the original call for entries, but I'm deeply amazed that the ultimate stupid patent wasn't even submitted... NO one thought to whip up a DeCSS patent? where are all the satirical geniuses that used to inhabit this place? HUH?! Oh yeah, the quality went down the shitter and we left, how could I have forgotten already?
Truth in advertising/journalism: I work for IBM, I do NOT speak for IBM, IBM does NOT speak for me; it's better that way. I also own stock in both companies involved.
Here's the real story as it is told within the blue halls.
RedHat will produce distros for the new iSeries(AS/400) pSeries(RS/6000) and zSeries(S/390) server families, in addition to their existing xSeries distro; this is not an exclusive thing either, SuSE is already on the zSeries. These distros will be based on work being done within IBM to make Linux run, and run well on this hardware, as well as work done throughout the community. IBM will offer these distros preinstalled and will also offer support services and contracts.
IBM will *NOT* discontinue the existing operating systems for these products, that simply isn't an option in most cases; anyone who takes the idea seriously has no grasp of the consequences. AS/400 still has the pristine security record, OS/390 still has the records for txproc, tpf is still in use in far more datacenters than anyone cares to admit.
Why you ask? Well, let's look at the logic behind last weeks unified rebranding. The stated purpose is just that unification, where there were four or five overlapping, and sometimes competing IBM server brands there is now one. In order for that to really truely be the case there needs to be something powerfull to tie these families together.
One ring to bind them all.
That thing, most logically, is the operating environment. IBM has tried that before, and failed every time out for the same reason - they choose something from within. By embracing something from the outside much of the nasty old politics (hopefully) get flushed down the drain.
Why does it matter though? Because we have a huge disadvantage to Sun and Microsoft. Both of them have ONE environment on ONE architecture (Slowaris/sparc, winblows/x86). Now some may say that only one architecture is all you need - I think they're wrong, so do a lot of others. Let's take a look at TWO machines, ASCI White and my thinkpad. The two are about as far apart as you can get in every conceivable measurement. ASCI White is the extreme limits of the S80 architecture, which is the cornerstone of the highend pSeries family of RS/6000s. My thinkpad is a t20 running a Pentium III. Could you make a thinkpad with the S80 architecture? I doubt it, even if you could would anyone besides Bill Gates be able to afford it? Could you make ASCI White with the x86 architecture? LOL... HELL NO! Thus I say one architecture IS NOT the answer... we need several, and they each need to find their own niche. Once that's done, then we need a common interface to them, and common tooling, and common applications (with at least api level compatibility, if not binary).
Where is this going to come from? Linux. GNU. IBM.
----
now the forces of openness
have a powerful and
unexpected new ally
http://ibm.com/linux/
"they changed the kernal hacking icon in the graphical install"
yeah, who is that now? I don't recognize the picture....
the JFS code on AIX is radically different from the JFS code in OS/2 or the code that has been open sourced.
yup.
but then most companies are doing the same damn thing with residents too - when was the last time you saw a company with a 1/6th turnover rate? hell even IBM doesn't have that good a rate in a LOT of labs; pittsburgh was at a 33% burn rate the last I heard. naw, the sleazy vending companies (keane, ciber) are using the H1B angle and hanging over people's heads; but everyone else is just as anxious to get rid of folks in the "uppity-type skilled employees" category... the folks that start meetings with questions like "will management ever pull it's collective head out of it's ass long enough to make a decent decision?"
It's pretty sad really... I've worked with a few folks on H1Bs, about half of them were/are top notch talent we were/would be screwed to lose. The other half are about as clueless as the locally produced community college kid with a associates degree in CIS (Q:"Do you have any experience?" A:"I know how to work Word and Excell" Q:"You realize you're applying for an engineering position, not a secretarrial, right?") Unfortunately we can't keep the former and can't get rid of the latter.
let's ascribe the actions to the right groups.
/.
CODE : LinuxPPC
BRAGGING :
now then, in *that* light how 'bout we stop badmouthing the developers and give them their proper credit for the technical achievement of G4 SMP.
you're making an apples to oranges comparison. take two drives of equal capacity from the same vendor. granted, it may not be as common as my remark above makes it sound, but it is possible, we do it. Usually though it's the otherway around, you've got one plater configuration and you mount a variety of control boards on it, ssa, sca, scsi, etc, ide would be an option, but whose going to pay for it? people who want quality drives but are stuck with ide interface for whatever reason.
I fully agree, more function = more cost, but that function has ALREADY been developed, what we see today is a bit of price gouging, plus the fact that they know the people who NEED ultra160 speed are willing to pay for it. If you want to see that second one in play, go price AS/400 DASD!
ahem, BULLSHIT.
if the above were true then this is certainly an acceptable fact, but the above ain't, no way I'll beleive that without some reliable numbers.
WHAT? maybe in the early 80s, but today there is no difference in platters for ide or scsi or sca or whatever, the sole difference is in the electronics board screwed to the back of the case, and actually only about half of that board is different, the part for motor control and power management is the same.
Many would reverse the porportions you present and say that they had a lot of decent games and a handfull of not-so-good ones. By the time Lucasfilms Games got going Sierra as a creative outlet was already dying, and it wasn't their technology that made them great games, it was the content of the game.
In the early cga/ega days as you point out, Sierra's gfx weren't bleeding edge, but that wasn't the point, they were stable. And it was the technology under those graphics that was bleeding edge, look at the old AGI based games... they ran on just about anything. What AGI really allowed was for the game to be seperated from the mechanics of the game. Remember that it wasn't the number of polygons that made a game good, it was the items I listed before like story and characters.
Maybe you were just playing the wrong titles... LSL's storylines weren't exactly intended for kids, although Al was usually rather childish in his sense of humor. Look at some of the latter game series, Laura Bow, Phantas, etc. Also remember that at the time the target audience was NOT adult geeks, mostly parents and their kids (or kids and their parents). Sierra was a family oriented design house... I doubt you could say that for id. Although they did have their share of more grown up games.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Sierra was the ONLY BEST company in a Highlander-esque sense, they weren't: EA also had some ass kicking titles, as did some of the small no name companies. I'm simply saying that their game content (as opposed to technical glitz) was top notch, and is something that is sorely missing. Where today is there a game series with characters like the Grahams?
What these games need is what Sierra On-Line had, back before it became the pathetic shell that it is today. We need to get Roberta out of retirement. Sierra's games, and her's in particular, set the standard for the industry for what? nearly a decade? Here's a short list of the things I really miss from the good days of Sierra:
Ok, enough of a eulgy to Sierra On-Line. What can we do with today's technology? Well, here's my suggestion for a game, I wanted to see Sierra make this, and in fact I went up to their offices in Oakhurst way back when to interview with them and try to pitch the idea... after the tour I canceled my interview, and stopped pursuing getting a meeting with Roberta. Now I'd like to suggest we do it open source... but I'm afraid we won't find the right people to do it and it'll be a disaster.
So what I'd like to see is a collaborative quest style game, much like King's Quest or Hero's Quest (aka Quest for Glory) only with some number of players each taking a given role and playing together. Define the characters, define the world, let the players figure it out from there. If bandwidth and screen realestate wasn't an issue, put real time video conferencing of the whole group up while you're playing. (audio is at least a bare minimum, trying to cary on a conversation by text while you're playing is a tedious distraction in today's games.)
Some examples of stories that I think this would work really well for... The Hobbit. All six parts of the Lord of the Rings. The Belgariad. The Malloreon. The Saga of Recluce. (ok, a couple of those last ones might be marginal, I'm working from distant memory on a couple as to whether they'd be good multiplayer quests.... the two JRRT ones however, no question they'd be excellent if done right, but I fear that some game company is already hacking out some miserable knock off, just to make it out in time for the movie.)
So 'berta, if you're out there, WE MISS YOU!