"Worse still, when I have tried to get answers about how this is supposed to work, the conversations suddenly drop when this question is brought up.:-("
Presumably because nobody knows nor wants to make the license they worship seem silly if they get it wrong;).
"If the kids are smart, they'll bring bootable thumb drives with a bootable copy of peanut linux or some other mini-distro on it."
No, only if the kids are extremely stupid will they bring anything bootable into school to use on the computers. The people who run the network won't understand it, and even if they do it is likely in breach of a policy at the school (which isn't a bad policy if it helps them secure their network) and they run the risk of getting kicked out, or at least causing a lot of unnecessary trouble for themselves.
See the other post(s maybe, I only saw one) which told you to try installing Windows after Ubuntu - you'll find it much harder than the other way around.
I agree with virtual desktops (I know you can add this to Windows, but GNOME does it with no extra work), apt and Beryl (the last time I used Windows I installed a bash shell anyway, Google Desktop was adequate and I don't like Evolution).
I also find it's much easier to develop on - the libraries are for the most part very standard and there is no lack of them. Some things (like cross compiling a system with buildroot) are just so much effort to get running on Windows that it's not worth the bother.
I also like the fact that loading times are consistent on my Linux system - it doesn't mysteriously get slower and slower as time goes on or have a bad day and crawl:).
"You mention this but without any backing of why."
Why should he? The reasons behind the dislike are totally irrelevant, that fact is, he doesn't like it and so won't use gcc. I'm sure if you look through the rest of the comments for this story, you'll find all the arguments he would put forward anyway, so it'd be a waste of time to repeat them.
Actually, I think it might cause more harm than good for users if it puts companies off using GPL things entirely (which means no more contributions from them).
Re:How will the FSF/GNU handle the GPL 3 revolt?
on
GCC 4.2.1 Released
·
· Score: 1
"The people who are having trouble with it are people like Novel and Tivo who where violating the spirit of the GPL even before the current one was release."
I'm a bit sick of this argument. There really is no such thing as 'the spirit of the GPL'. Everybody sees it differently and as such everybody sees a different 'spirit'. I have always seen the GPL as a way of making sure code is released so at worst, it can be examined to find out how the hardware works (I am happy for the hardware to be locked down or whatever). I don't know what you see it as, but there is definitely no one 'spirit of the GPL' that people keep raving on about.
Things can still be open source and not under the GPL you know. Loads of people seem to believe GPL == "free software now though (not saying you're one of them).
And in response to your other post about the need for a custom license, they don't really have clear 'licenses', they just say when they give it out what they'd like to get back, if anything.
I understand that, but that doesn't mean I agree with it. I still think it means there is overall a lesser number of projects using the library which means some of its potential is wasted. It also means there are less things written for the 'free software community' to use or the quality of things is worse in some cases. An example of this is libmad. I work on the Open2x project (open source firmware replacement for the GP2X) and a little while ago I had to make a decision as to whether to use libmad for MP3 support in SDL_mixer. The only alternative is smpeg which uses floating point operations and is very slow on the GP2X's ARM. I ended up having to use smpeg over the far superior libmad (the difference is a dedicated MP3 player with smpeg that struggles when it is the only thing running and an action packed game using libmad which still decodes MP3s perfectly) purely because libmad is under the GPL. Had I chosen to package it with libmad, everything which ran on the firmware and used SDL_mixer (which is a lot of stuff) would be forced to become GPL.
It is common practice in the GP2X community to simply give source away in return for credit and a free copy of anything commercial that comes out of it. This kind of friendly sharing of code purely for the sake of helping people out rather than promoting a cause would die out if people were forced into using a particular license - there would be less usable code out there because of that.
Using the GPL for libraries doesn't help the community, it just tries to force the GPL upon people.
If I choose to give away my code for free, then I'm generally not to bothered what happens to it. If somebody takes it, improves it and makes money fair enough - if I had been able to do that, I wouldn't have released it in the first place. If credit is given, it is indirectly beneficial to me as I become associated with what is presumably a decent product if people are buying it (otherwise I just deny any involvement other than a small amount of initial code;)).
I can see why people would want to use the GPL and maybe it's not such a bad thing for finished applications, but where I have an issue is the linking. I really don't see any point in putting in a load of effort making this awesome library if not everybody can use it. I guess the LGPL is good for libraries in this case (I certainly don't mind using LGPL-ed libraries, it can be a small inconvenience but at least anybody can make use of the result).
Forcing people to use the GPL because they want to use your library seems silly to me. If you care how *your* code is treated, use the LGPL which will protect it without interfering with other people's. Otherwise, use something more free and much simpler - you'll get more people using and appreciating your work which is certainly the reason I release stuff for free:).
A commercial break out box with TV-out, USB host, serial and JTAG is supposed to be available at some point in the future (no dates have yet been announced). The JTAG bit is what you need to flash it if you've messed up U-Boot.
You are better off getting a DS case for it. The DS and GP2X are nearly identical sizes, DS cases are generally sturdier and you can get them much more cheaply (I managed to find a second-hand one for 50p).
Yes, FTP and telnet both work perfectly though I've not really tried the web server (I've looked at the sample page, but I don't really have much use for it). There is also a Samba server built in, so you can copy files using that (though FTP is faster) and there is a 3rd party Samba client available which is good for testing programs (rather than copying it over each time you recompile, you can just mount a shared directory then run the program using telnet).
In reply to somebody further up the message tree, I've never seen any technical documentation released by GPH. There is a leaked manual for the MMSP2 floating around, but nothing official.
I wonder if mail that is sent to the no-dot one is also sent to the dotted one. I seem to have got a bit of SPAM recently, but I don't think I've given out my e-mail address to anywhere new.
There is a C compiler for MindStorms, you can either compile GCC targetting the H8 and then combine it with librcx on *NIX OSs or for Windows, you can get a pre-compiled GCC with a nice library to access the hardware from here: http://www.elenafrancesco.org/info/lego/qc/
That just proves how you haven't bothered to get into MindStorms. Having limited resources is part of the fun. There are ways around that anyway (there are tons of designs for I/O multiplexers). Homebrew sensors and motors are fairly easy to make and you 'CAN' fry an RCX fairly easily by hooking up homebrew motors that draw too much current or by attaching your homebrew power supply to the RCX the wrong way (though you can repair this once by shorting the protection diode and I guess you could then replace it if you wanted to try your power supply again). In the official RCX firmware, there are limitations, so you can write your own if you so desire. You can't modify the official firmware without using assembly language but really, that doesn't matter - the unofficial ones that have been written from scratch are much better anyway.
It depends how long ago the flood was... The Himalayas do grow in height constantly due to the collision between the Indo-Australian and the Eurasian plate, so it is possible that the flood waters could have covered Everest. According to this article, the Himalayas only started forming 70 million years ago.
Not, that I beleive in the flood, but your argument isn't sound when it comes to mountains being covered. The shape of the crust is constantly being changed by the movement of the plates.
If they did that, the fine would become pointless anyway, since people would simply stop using Windows and move onto something else which is cheaper (which would be almost anything in that situation) and Microsoft would not only lose the money from the fine but the money from the lost business.
According to the figures quoted in that article, around about 62% of his total wealth, but Wikipedia disagrees on how much money he actually has - the article says $46.5 billion but Wikipedia says $41 billion, so that figure probably isn't correct especially since the charity money probably isn't included in those figures.
Slashdot Mirror
"Worse still, when I have tried to get answers about how this is supposed to work, the conversations suddenly drop when this question is brought up. :-("
Presumably because nobody knows nor wants to make the license they worship seem silly if they get it wrong"If the kids are smart, they'll bring bootable thumb drives with a bootable copy of peanut linux or some other mini-distro on it." No, only if the kids are extremely stupid will they bring anything bootable into school to use on the computers. The people who run the network won't understand it, and even if they do it is likely in breach of a policy at the school (which isn't a bad policy if it helps them secure their network) and they run the risk of getting kicked out, or at least causing a lot of unnecessary trouble for themselves.
See the other post(s maybe, I only saw one) which told you to try installing Windows after Ubuntu - you'll find it much harder than the other way around.
I agree with virtual desktops (I know you can add this to Windows, but GNOME does it with no extra work), apt and Beryl (the last time I used Windows I installed a bash shell anyway, Google Desktop was adequate and I don't like Evolution).
I also find it's much easier to develop on - the libraries are for the most part very standard and there is no lack of them. Some things (like cross compiling a system with buildroot) are just so much effort to get running on Windows that it's not worth the bother.
I also like the fact that loading times are consistent on my Linux system - it doesn't mysteriously get slower and slower as time goes on or have a bad day and crawl :).
"You mention this but without any backing of why." Why should he? The reasons behind the dislike are totally irrelevant, that fact is, he doesn't like it and so won't use gcc. I'm sure if you look through the rest of the comments for this story, you'll find all the arguments he would put forward anyway, so it'd be a waste of time to repeat them.
Actually, I think it might cause more harm than good for users if it puts companies off using GPL things entirely (which means no more contributions from them).
"The people who are having trouble with it are people like Novel and Tivo who where violating the spirit of the GPL even before the current one was release." I'm a bit sick of this argument. There really is no such thing as 'the spirit of the GPL'. Everybody sees it differently and as such everybody sees a different 'spirit'. I have always seen the GPL as a way of making sure code is released so at worst, it can be examined to find out how the hardware works (I am happy for the hardware to be locked down or whatever). I don't know what you see it as, but there is definitely no one 'spirit of the GPL' that people keep raving on about.
Things can still be open source and not under the GPL you know. Loads of people seem to believe GPL == "free software now though (not saying you're one of them). And in response to your other post about the need for a custom license, they don't really have clear 'licenses', they just say when they give it out what they'd like to get back, if anything.
I understand that, but that doesn't mean I agree with it. I still think it means there is overall a lesser number of projects using the library which means some of its potential is wasted. It also means there are less things written for the 'free software community' to use or the quality of things is worse in some cases. An example of this is libmad. I work on the Open2x project (open source firmware replacement for the GP2X) and a little while ago I had to make a decision as to whether to use libmad for MP3 support in SDL_mixer. The only alternative is smpeg which uses floating point operations and is very slow on the GP2X's ARM. I ended up having to use smpeg over the far superior libmad (the difference is a dedicated MP3 player with smpeg that struggles when it is the only thing running and an action packed game using libmad which still decodes MP3s perfectly) purely because libmad is under the GPL. Had I chosen to package it with libmad, everything which ran on the firmware and used SDL_mixer (which is a lot of stuff) would be forced to become GPL.
It is common practice in the GP2X community to simply give source away in return for credit and a free copy of anything commercial that comes out of it. This kind of friendly sharing of code purely for the sake of helping people out rather than promoting a cause would die out if people were forced into using a particular license - there would be less usable code out there because of that.
Using the GPL for libraries doesn't help the community, it just tries to force the GPL upon people.
If I choose to give away my code for free, then I'm generally not to bothered what happens to it. If somebody takes it, improves it and makes money fair enough - if I had been able to do that, I wouldn't have released it in the first place. If credit is given, it is indirectly beneficial to me as I become associated with what is presumably a decent product if people are buying it (otherwise I just deny any involvement other than a small amount of initial code ;)).
I can see why people would want to use the GPL and maybe it's not such a bad thing for finished applications, but where I have an issue is the linking. I really don't see any point in putting in a load of effort making this awesome library if not everybody can use it. I guess the LGPL is good for libraries in this case (I certainly don't mind using LGPL-ed libraries, it can be a small inconvenience but at least anybody can make use of the result).
Forcing people to use the GPL because they want to use your library seems silly to me. If you care how *your* code is treated, use the LGPL which will protect it without interfering with other people's. Otherwise, use something more free and much simpler - you'll get more people using and appreciating your work which is certainly the reason I release stuff for free :).
Sure they can: http://www.shewee.com/
I only found out about it when a teacher of mine mentioned somebody had tried to blackmail her with it.
A commercial break out box with TV-out, USB host, serial and JTAG is supposed to be available at some point in the future (no dates have yet been announced). The JTAG bit is what you need to flash it if you've messed up U-Boot.
You are better off getting a DS case for it. The DS and GP2X are nearly identical sizes, DS cases are generally sturdier and you can get them much more cheaply (I managed to find a second-hand one for 50p).
Yes, FTP and telnet both work perfectly though I've not really tried the web server (I've looked at the sample page, but I don't really have much use for it). There is also a Samba server built in, so you can copy files using that (though FTP is faster) and there is a 3rd party Samba client available which is good for testing programs (rather than copying it over each time you recompile, you can just mount a shared directory then run the program using telnet). In reply to somebody further up the message tree, I've never seen any technical documentation released by GPH. There is a leaked manual for the MMSP2 floating around, but nothing official.
I wouldn't exactly describe them as conspiring since they are both Microsoft...
I wonder if mail that is sent to the no-dot one is also sent to the dotted one. I seem to have got a bit of SPAM recently, but I don't think I've given out my e-mail address to anywhere new.
Easy, you can slot the studs from the normal LEGO parts into the holes in the stud-less ones, where you would normally put the pegs and beams.
There is a C compiler for MindStorms, you can either compile GCC targetting the H8 and then combine it with librcx on *NIX OSs or for Windows, you can get a pre-compiled GCC with a nice library to access the hardware from here: http://www.elenafrancesco.org/info/lego/qc/
That just proves how you haven't bothered to get into MindStorms. Having limited resources is part of the fun. There are ways around that anyway (there are tons of designs for I/O multiplexers). Homebrew sensors and motors are fairly easy to make and you 'CAN' fry an RCX fairly easily by hooking up homebrew motors that draw too much current or by attaching your homebrew power supply to the RCX the wrong way (though you can repair this once by shorting the protection diode and I guess you could then replace it if you wanted to try your power supply again). In the official RCX firmware, there are limitations, so you can write your own if you so desire. You can't modify the official firmware without using assembly language but really, that doesn't matter - the unofficial ones that have been written from scratch are much better anyway.
Google Maps isn't live anyway, so you couldn't tell even without the stars.
It depends how long ago the flood was... The Himalayas do grow in height constantly due to the collision between the Indo-Australian and the Eurasian plate, so it is possible that the flood waters could have covered Everest. According to this article, the Himalayas only started forming 70 million years ago.
Not, that I beleive in the flood, but your argument isn't sound when it comes to mountains being covered. The shape of the crust is constantly being changed by the movement of the plates.
If they did that, the fine would become pointless anyway, since people would simply stop using Windows and move onto something else which is cheaper (which would be almost anything in that situation) and Microsoft would not only lose the money from the fine but the money from the lost business.
According to the figures quoted in that article, around about 62% of his total wealth, but Wikipedia disagrees on how much money he actually has - the article says $46.5 billion but Wikipedia says $41 billion, so that figure probably isn't correct especially since the charity money probably isn't included in those figures.
Does Captain Kirk just takes his starship wherever he pleases?
He did when he stole it.