I believe you are correct, IBM's JDK was not a clean-room implementation - it owes a lot to Sun's JDK. IBM is bound by their licensing agreements with Sun, and the IBM developers that worked with Sun JDK source code are likely 'tainted' enough so that they cannot now work on a clean room implementation.
Michael Robertson of MP3.com and the Linux distro formerly known as Lindows. Say what you want about the guy, he's a very good self promoter and knows when to jump on a new technology. This should be interesting to watch.
The older train cars' doors can be forced open, but the newer trains on the 2/3 and 4/5 lines absolutely cannot be forced. The doors have a new closing mechanism that is VERY STRONG. Strong enough that no one bothers trying to force them. Not sure if these types of doors have been deployed on the L line but I wouldn't be surprised if they are.
Perhaps you are referring to the version of Notes distributed in France which at one time had a French government imposed limitation on key lengths, presumably so it would be easier for the French gov't to crack the keys.
That's not a back door, though, and this limit did not apply to the US version of Notes.
In fact it was a limitation of the underlying OS - I think Windows 3.0. Due to Notes' requirement to run cross platform the limitation of 9 windows was not removed until after Win95 had shipped and was widely deployed in corporate environments.
Ray Ozzie has always designed his products with built in security - not as an afterthought. Lotus Notes pioneered RSA based encryption on desktop computers.
It's still the most transparent and easy-to-use email security system available (note, easy to use != easy to administer). You never even think about it, once your preferences are set, emails just get encrypted and decrypted, signed and signatures verified, automatically.
Seems like the market for this is limited. StreamRipper lets me download most radio stations' MP3 streaming audio. Mplayer with some addons allows me to download RealAudio streams which can be converted to MP3. I've got this all automated via cron job to download NPR news, This American Life, plus foreign radio broadcasts for later playback. Plus I can download multiple streams simultaneously, and no worries about poor reception.
I find this astonishing, especially since Codeweavers product provides excellent compatibility for MS Office and other Windows applications. Maybe this is what the author was referring to when he said "...there are some content limitations"?
When they bought Lotus, they acquired Lotus SmartSuite, the MS Office "competitor" that included Lotus 1-2-3, Lotus Word Pro, and some other software Personally I worked for Lotus for years and tried to avoid this software at all costs.
Lotus Word Pro (originally Ami Pro) was an OK word processor with Word import/export filters, but it never reached the level of MS Word compatibility required for seamless interoperability.
The IBM guy has most likely NEVER seen the Lotus Notes codebase. I have. There are definitely challenges in working with a codebase that's probably three or four times the size of Mozilla (and this was in 1997!), and besides that was evolved from original code written for Windows 2.1 and OS/2 1.3. Nevertheless the codebase was very well designed with an abstraction layer for porting the GUI and many features that were WAY ahead of their time (i.e. complete support for cross platform i18n years before UNICODE) The code was indeed ported to Macintosh, Solaris, HP/UX. (they did not port Notes 5+).
Porting to UNIX or LINUX today is technically feasible. Working with WineLib I am sure they could get a port up and running in a matter of weeks or months. The problem is one of support. Once a port is built, IBM has to QA it. Package it. Sell it. Support it for years. The costs are enormous. Measure that against the projected user base and it just wasn't cost effective. They'd rather spend the money on a web client.
Given that IBM is pushing for Linux desktops internally, the prospect of a Notes client port is more likely. On the other hand, IBM is now pushing new Java based groupware technologies that will naturally run on Linux. Who knows how it'll turn out.
Anyway Notes 5 runs splendidly under Wine and I think support for Notes 6 is on Codeweavers' todo list.
... unless you can find a supported hardware mpeg encoder. With software encoding, You really want an Athlon XP 1800 or Pentium 4 2Ghz to do simultaneous record + playback (i.e. pause live TV) with reasonable quality.
Re:Computers Teaching UI to Humans = Bad
on
Palm Kills Off Graffiti
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I disagree.
I used to work in the computer voice recognition field, building command and control systems for the Macintosh. One thing we noticed was that when the computer misrecognized a word, the user never blamed themselves for poor pronunciation. They always blamed the computer for poor recognition. And why not? After all, you learn to speak at an early age and other humans can understand you under a wide variety of conditions, so why can't the computer?
Contrast this to entering data by the keyboard. If the user types slowly or makes a typo, the user perceives it to be her fault, not the computer. This is a critical distinction.
The genius of Graffiti is this: by forcing the user to adapt to an unnatural style of handwriting, the user blames himself for misrecognized letters. Palm not recognizing your R's? Better fire up Giraffe and practice some more!
This led to a much better PERCEIVED user experience, regardless of the Palm's text recognition error rate.
(aside: I submitted this story 2 weeks ago... guess it's not newsworthy unless it hits the Register first!)
Pendragon Software has a browser for the PalmOS and synchronization software that is a workalike for Avantgo:
http://www.pendragon-software.com/browser/
You can even point it at AvantGo URLs and it will load the sites and let you view them just as AvantGo did. For what it's worth, the Pendragon browser feels a lot snappier than AvantGo.
Gotchas: It requires a Windows PC to run the synchronization software. You can run the Adware version for free, or pay for a version without ads.
Looks like Michael Robertson isn't improving WINE
on
Lindows Reviewed
·
· Score: 5, Interesting
To my dismay, the reviewer's experience with the preview LindowsOS exactly mirrors what you get with a recent build of WINE. Many applications run, but there are serious problems with installers.
Unless and until WINE is improved to run the MS Office / MSIE/NameYourApplicationHere installer, people will always need a dual boot system to do the initial application install.
This is not to bash the WINE developers who are making great progress with limited resources. I wish them, and Michael, all the success in the world. I just wish that Michael Robertson would commit some of his development staff to improving the core WINE code and contributing it back to the WINE project.
Shameless plug: Do you need step by step instructions on configuring WINE to run popular Windows applications? Check out my web site, Winecentric
Slashdot Mirror
VPN.
cron > mplayer (translating realaudio feed from public radio website into wav) > lame > podcast xml file generator = NPR podcast. Works for me...
(with apologies to Apple)
Yes. He's cited as an inspiration for software design patterns. He's an actual architect.
I believe you are correct, IBM's JDK was not a clean-room implementation - it owes a lot to Sun's JDK. IBM is bound by their licensing agreements with Sun, and the IBM developers that worked with Sun JDK source code are likely 'tainted' enough so that they cannot now work on a clean room implementation.
Go look at keyhole satellite photos from http://maps.google.com/ . The earth as seen from space, with no borders. Yippee.
So, are you changed? Full of loving kindness for all of humanity now?
Michael Robertson of MP3.com and the Linux distro formerly known as Lindows. Say what you want about the guy, he's a very good self promoter and knows when to jump on a new technology. This should be interesting to watch.
The older train cars' doors can be forced open, but the newer trains on the 2/3 and 4/5 lines absolutely cannot be forced. The doors have a new closing mechanism that is VERY STRONG. Strong enough that no one bothers trying to force them. Not sure if these types of doors have been deployed on the L line but I wouldn't be surprised if they are.
This guy is a lunatic/genius who produces a weekly radio show - a collage of music and spoken word. Difficult to describe. Mp3 format. Have a listen.
http://newmetaphysics.com:8080/
Perhaps you are referring to the version of Notes distributed in France which at one time had a French government imposed limitation on key lengths, presumably so it would be easier for the French gov't to crack the keys.
That's not a back door, though, and this limit did not apply to the US version of Notes.
In fact it was a limitation of the underlying OS - I think Windows 3.0. Due to Notes' requirement to run cross platform the limitation of 9 windows was not removed until after Win95 had shipped and was widely deployed in corporate environments.
Ray Ozzie has always designed his products with built in security - not as an afterthought. Lotus Notes pioneered RSA based encryption on desktop computers.
It's still the most transparent and easy-to-use email security system available (note, easy to use != easy to administer). You never even think about it, once your preferences are set, emails just get encrypted and decrypted, signed and signatures verified, automatically.
Same thing with Groove products.
Let's see what he can do at Microsoft.
I worked all those guys and I agree, getting Ray, Eric and the others is quite a coup for Microsoft.
Seems like the market for this is limited. StreamRipper lets me download most radio stations' MP3 streaming audio. Mplayer with some addons allows me to download RealAudio streams which can be converted to MP3. I've got this all automated via cron job to download NPR news, This American Life, plus foreign radio broadcasts for later playback. Plus I can download multiple streams simultaneously, and no worries about poor reception.
>Maybe someday PKI technology will make its way into a system that will get certificates into end-user hands. But somehow I doubt it.
Um... "Someday" was 1985. See Lotus Notes v1.0. (actually the key escrow feature didn't make it in until about 1995, but there you go.)
I find this astonishing, especially since Codeweavers product provides excellent compatibility for MS Office and other Windows applications. Maybe this is what the author was referring to when he said "...there are some content limitations"?
When they bought Lotus, they acquired Lotus SmartSuite, the MS Office "competitor" that included Lotus 1-2-3, Lotus Word Pro, and some other software Personally I worked for Lotus for years and tried to avoid this software at all costs.
Lotus Word Pro (originally Ami Pro) was an OK word processor with Word import/export filters, but it never reached the level of MS Word compatibility required for seamless interoperability.
Regards,
Dan
The IBM guy has most likely NEVER seen the Lotus Notes codebase. I have. There are definitely challenges in working with a codebase that's probably three or four times the size of Mozilla (and this was in 1997!), and besides that was evolved from original code written for Windows 2.1 and OS/2 1.3. Nevertheless the codebase was very well designed with an abstraction layer for porting the GUI and many features that were WAY ahead of their time (i.e. complete support for cross platform i18n years before UNICODE) The code was indeed ported to Macintosh, Solaris, HP/UX. (they did not port Notes 5+).
Porting to UNIX or LINUX today is technically feasible. Working with WineLib I am sure they could get a port up and running in a matter of weeks or months. The problem is one of support. Once a port is built, IBM has to QA it. Package it. Sell it. Support it for years. The costs are enormous. Measure that against the projected user base and it just wasn't cost effective. They'd rather spend the money on a web client.
Given that IBM is pushing for Linux desktops internally, the prospect of a Notes client port is more likely. On the other hand, IBM is now pushing new Java based groupware technologies that will naturally run on Linux. Who knows how it'll turn out.
Anyway Notes 5 runs splendidly under Wine and I think support for Notes 6 is on Codeweavers' todo list.
It's a VBI sync issue. Windows video supports syncing to the VBI, apparently X does not. See www.mythtv.org, I think their faq covers this.
... unless you can find a supported hardware mpeg encoder. With software encoding, You really want an Athlon XP 1800 or Pentium 4 2Ghz to do simultaneous record + playback (i.e. pause live TV) with reasonable quality.
I disagree.
I used to work in the computer voice recognition field, building command and control systems for the Macintosh. One thing we noticed was that when the computer misrecognized a word, the user never blamed themselves for poor pronunciation. They always blamed the computer for poor recognition. And why not? After all, you learn to speak at an early age and other humans can understand you under a wide variety of conditions, so why can't the computer?
Contrast this to entering data by the keyboard. If the user types slowly or makes a typo, the user perceives it to be her fault, not the computer. This is a critical distinction.
The genius of Graffiti is this: by forcing the user to adapt to an unnatural style of handwriting, the user blames himself for misrecognized letters. Palm not recognizing your R's? Better fire up Giraffe and practice some more!
This led to a much better PERCEIVED user experience, regardless of the Palm's text recognition error rate.
It's the millions of dollars required to provide commercial level support for a Notes client on Linux.
Porting the code is easy. Hell, they don't even have to port, just ship with a recent build of WINE. But support is the killer.
See here: Rotary Converters Very cool info about 1900-era technology used to convert AC to DC power for use on the subway lines.
(aside: I submitted this story 2 weeks ago... guess it's not newsworthy unless it hits the Register first!)
Pendragon Software has a browser for the PalmOS and synchronization software that is a workalike for Avantgo:
http://www.pendragon-software.com/browser/
You can even point it at AvantGo URLs and it will load the sites and let you view them just as AvantGo did. For what it's worth, the Pendragon browser feels a lot snappier than AvantGo.
Gotchas: It requires a Windows PC to run the synchronization software. You can run the Adware version for free, or pay for a version without ads.
To my dismay, the reviewer's experience with the preview LindowsOS exactly mirrors what you get with a recent build of WINE. Many applications run, but there are serious problems with installers.
This is not to bash the WINE developers who are making great progress with limited resources. I wish them, and Michael, all the success in the world. I just wish that Michael Robertson would commit some of his development staff to improving the core WINE code and contributing it back to the WINE project.
Shameless plug: Do you need step by step instructions on configuring WINE to run popular Windows applications? Check out my web site, Winecentric