I suppose I knew it would be risky making a comment like this on a thread that actually _was_ about beowulf clustering. Just to clarify things, I intended it to be humorous - hence the part about gaining back my lost respect via first post:)
I'm sorry folks, but I'm just not creative enough to come up with a way to somehow make a beowulf cluster of these. I apologize for not being able to contribute to the obligatory beowulf cluster thread, and hope that I can earn back all of your respect by getting a first post somehow.
Rational is not bound under the legal restrictions that Microsoft is when it comes to Java.
I read this paragraph, and it only vaguely disturbed me. I don't think Rational would do anything even vaguely Microsoftesque, but I had to ask myself: what do I know about Rational?
Things I know about Rational:
They make Rational Rose, a UML design tool.
One of the guys who works there (owns it?) invented/helped make UML
They've got an interest in tools for Java (the non-trial version of Rational Rose can be configured for Java instead of C++)
I've never heard of Rational trying to subvert or destroy other, smaller companies. I could be wrong here, as I'm just stating from my own failing recollection. But I think the fact that UML itself is a compendum of earlier models (authorized by the people that made them, IIRC), rather than an 'embrace and extend' helps with this impression.
Looks interesting enough, so I asked the next question: What do I know about Microsoft?
Things I know about Microsoft:
Come on, that's too easy.
My point here is, are we dealing with a question of the devil we know versus the devil we don't, or will Rational's track record continue its trend and leave Java alone?
I'd like to state that I like this list! I think almost all of these companies have made other efforts to promote linux as well. It feels good to know that we've got such nice backing for our X server.
And my other point, a quote from the About The X Window System section:
. Further, thousands of software developers provide X Window System applications, and with the emergence of Linux, the number of users is growing exponentially
I like this, a group with some good backers (see above) publicly stating that their platform is expanding exponentially due to Linux.
I didn't send an e-mail. Though with a site like Slashdot, given the amount of people who read it, I'm not surprised that people did. I'm sure that some of the e-mail was well-written, thought out arguments for why the person should have kept the site up. I'm also sure that the majority of the e-mail wasn't of this form at all. I'm a bit optimistic when it comes to the slashdot populace. I think most people here are of above average intelligence, and are capable of rational argument. I think what happened in this case was that these people did what I did. Nothing. I didn't have all the facts, and I knew it. I wasn't going to take it upon myself to mail this person and tell him to do something that I myself might not have done. I think the majority of clearheaded slashdotters thought the same way. But there are a lot of people on slashdot, and not all of them are exactly clearheaded. There are flamers for all types of wars (KDE, Beowulf, Emacs, pick your favorite holy war), and those who are simply abusing slashdot for their own bizzare reasons (petrified posts, anyone?). Most likely, it's these people who are flaming and using the Slashdot Effect for ill. That's what I'd like to think. Personally, there's not much I can do about it. I could flame the flamers, but then I'm at their level (some would say that's exactly what I'm doing here). I certainly don't advocate the canceling of slashdot accounts. The only action I see as being fair is to push the positive side of the slashdot effect more. It can be done. Some positive things that slashdotters have done in the past include the Mass mirroring of deCSS and helping to critique and rewrite for Jane's Intelligence review. Those on slashdot who are well-spoken, intelligent and can actually get their point across without the caps lock key could help turn our failing reputation around.
I think this is quite interesting, too. Some statistics:
Historical Unix, Open Source Legal Battles, and John Lions: 28 comments
Interview with The Mind Behind Aibo: 50 comments
Napster Attacks Open Source Clone: 112 comments
So we find that a story that was rushed and (repeadedly) flamed for being incorrect ends up having more commentary than two stories which seem fairly interesting, but non-controversial. I really would hope that Slashdot isn't starting to pander to the lowest common denominator like television does. I try to have more faith in the people here.
I'm surprised that nobody's come up with this one yet. This hack not only influences the computer world, but it was executed with an MIT attention to style and trickery. Everyone here's already seen it, but it needs to make the list:
Why does this give me a very bad feeling? More than the realJukebox thing, in fact (I never use that program anymore) I think the big issue here is of the intercepted e-mail. If I read the article correctly, they didn't prevent the mail from going where it needed to, they just read it and used it in their statistical surveys.
It still bothers me. Blocking e-mail altogether wouldn't be that far off, had this corporation not been taken to task. And even though they were, what's to prevent an e-mail provider from putting a clause in the contract so they could intercept at will? The PR would be something along the lines of:
ISP: We're doing this so we can catch those dirty, dirty pornographers trying to ensnare the innocents of the world.
REPORTER: You have pornographers on your network? ISP: Er... of course not! But they're a sly bunch, so we have to watch out for them!
Even better - a quick look up at the header of this message will show that I've got Hotmail as one of my e-mail providers. What if, suddenly, I had difficulty sending mail to linux-related sites? In view of what's happened here, I don't think that a step like what I'm envisioning is too far away, and that bothers me more than anything else.
... so I don't know a whole lot about these things. But I think it's a very interesting development for them to find Oxygen. Very, very interesting. It makes me ask an important question, though:
Why?
I don't know a whole lot about planetary formation, but I seem to recall there was a reason that Oxygen isn't usually found in the big gas giants, and things like Hydrogen and helium are. So one asks the question: Why is there oxygen there? Why is there, of all things, silicon there? The current theory, I think, about how this particular planet formed is that it was created way out where it ought to have been, and then gravitated (so to speak) inward. But would that account for these odd elements in the atmosphere?
Again, I don't know much about the creation of the universe, so if there's any astrophysicists out there, I'd love to find out what's going on here:)
It's a shame that the Linux/BSD crowd didn't get any space on the main floor. I think separating them out as happened would do more harm than good. While having a separate area for the Unix folks does enable people to go right there when they want unix type things, it does absolutely nothing for advocacy. Take, for example, a manager who, for some unknown reason, wants to convince the higher-ups to install only windows on their machines. This manager takes one of them to the main floor of comdex and says "Look - Only windows machines here. And all the hardware's for windows too". Even if the higher-ups know there's a bunch of unix gurus somewhere else, it's certainly going to make an impression on them that there's not a trace of open source on the main floor.
So, AOL's rating their games. That's not a bad thing for them to do, so long as they don't go overboard. For instance, I think that the following would be acceptable:
Allowing parents/those who opened up the accounts create a 'list' of screen names that can only access certain ratings. For instance, an 8-year old might only be given access to games rated appropriate, but denied access to others. Insofar as rating is acceptable at all, I think allowing parents to use it in this manner is acceptable.
What I don't think would be acceptable is:
an 8-year old is unable to access games not rated appropriate regardless of what the parent desired.
The article's not to clear on exactly what AOL intends to do with the ratings - whether it's just going to show them and not restrict access at all, or if it's going to use another scheme altogether. Here's to hoping that if they decide to enforce the ratings, they do it wisely.
I realize there's something painfully obvious that I'm missing here, so if someone can point it out I'll gracefully admit my ignorance and move on. So...
Today, 11-19-1999 is an odd day because all the digits are odd. Wouldn't that have made two days ago (11-17-1999) also an odd day? Likewise, a great many days this month (and other odd months)?
While I'm certain I've lost much esteem in the eyes of the slashdot crowd ("Denor? Oh, you mean the one who can't figure out odd days!"), this is going to drive me nuts until I figure it out.
It's nice to see that there's at least some company that's not completely in the dark about MP3s (*cough*RIAA*cough*). But if I were a DJ in this situation, I'd hardly be happy. In fact, I'd probably see it as yet another way for the rather greedy record industry to line their pockets. Why? Some quotes from the article:
DJs can buy a license giving them the right to burn their own compilation CDs of "useable tracks,"... The license allows them to reproduce music as MP3s to be used at their gigs
and...
The CN$200 fee gives DJs a blanket license to make one reproduction of music released by most of the major record companies.
In other words, the AVLA is charging you for the priveledge of copying onto your hard drive songs that you already own! It's a step forward for recognition of MP3s as not-just-pirated-material, but it's not exactly a great thing altogether.
That is, somebody may eventually propose to the Linux kernel team some extension that's simply outside the scope of the project, and yet builds enough support behind it, and has enough reason for existing, that it proceeds anyway.
I think reviewing this old slashdot feature ("TurboLinux Releases "Potentially Dangerous" Clustering Software?") in the light of this newer article is particularly interesting - folks were worried that turbolinux might have a clustering solution. A clustering kernel is pretty specialized, and would have pretty much the same qualities that the article recognized as being required for a code fork. Question: If the code does fork, do they still call it Linux, or is that just going to create confusion?
First of all, forgive me for scrutinizing the words of St. Linus:
"We fixed the area, and as a result, Linux is doing extremely well on those kind of benchmarks."
But one has to raise the question: Is this a good thing? While I personally think it was implied that Linux is doing well not only on the benchmarks, but in general also - one doesn't have to interpret it that way. What if it meant: "Linux is doing extremely well on those kind of benchmarks and nothing else."? I realize that would be a rather Microsoft-esque thing to do, of course. Most people know that benchmarks are bogus anyway, but the Pointy-haired bosses demand the systems that the benchmarks say are good. While this almost certainly didn't happen in this case, what if it had? What if the lure of looking good in the eye of the public and getting linux into more places ended up creating a non-optimal Linux, just to impress people? Publicity like this is not always a good thing.
I know, I read the summary and choked. I'm not even that big an X programmer, but even I know that it's been done before. Until I re-read the article:
GraphOn Corporation... has acquired a U.S. patent for the remote display of Microsoft Windows applications on UNIX(R) and Linux(R) desktops with X Windows(R).
Formatting mine, of course. The only thing that's close to this that I can think of is WINE, and it's not exclusively for remote display. I won't say it's not obvious it could be done (it is, after all what the X protocol is for) but it's at least something that hasn't been done to a large extent.
This change is only for the worst, everyone. We all thought that the Crusoe would be our salvation, that Transmeta and Linus would invent something that would destroy Microsoft and all that is non-open source. In short, we looked to Transmeta for our salvation. But we will not find it. Why? It is as simple as it is shocking: The transmeta homepage once carried an announcement that it was y2k compliant.
Diablo II is going to sell a lot of copies, no matter what. Even though they're going to miss the holiday season, that's not going to stop me, my brother, the entire population of Slashdot, and everyone else from going out an buying it when it is released.
And why? Because Blizzard puts out good games. The original Diablo was late, other games were more than likely late as well, and Warcraft: Lord of the Clans was axed because it fell short of expectations. Here we have a company that is the opposite of most software companies: Instead of rushing a product out of the door, they test it and refine it until they have a product that's not "good enough" but actually good. And the fans love them for it - games like Diablo and Starcraft are still some of the highest ranked games (in terms of player esteem) ever made.
I think Blizzard gives an example of a software company that doesn't rush out a product, and yet still has a large amount of 'market share'.
How complex are these gravity waves going to be? To me, it seems that we're going to have to filter out the background noises (the redundancy seems to solve most, but not all, of that) and then try to see if the lasers were changed, and if so, by what and in what manner.
This seems to lend itself to the kind of distributed effort seen by seti@home - which does a lot of the same things (mainly filtering out background noise & analyzing for signals). On the other hand, it might not be quite so complex. I don't know if I'm giving up on detecting extraterrestrial life from my desktop just yet, but analyzing gravity waves would be a very fun thing to have my computer doing!
I think it's a good thing that XMMS got a sponsor for their contest so they could give away some prizes. However, the whole XMMS contest reminds me of the recent Loki Hack contest - with one major difference: Loki's games weren't open source.
My question is this: Should an open source project need something like a contest to get people to develop? My understanding of open-source projects is that those who are interested in contributing do so. That would lead me to the conclusion that nobody would enter the contest that wasn't already contributing to XMMS. Say, for instance, someone who was previously contributing to XMMS wins the contest and gets a prize. Does this person go on to code for free, forgetting the momentary gain? Perhaps - I'd like to think I would. Of course, I might also just go out and look for another contest to get prizes from. After all, I'm still contributing to open source, just not XMMS anymore.
What does everyone else think? Is this a trend in 'commercializing' (as far as such a thing is possible) open source, or just an innocent contest blown a bit out of proportion?
Surprisingly enough, they come out on the good side of it - even some quotes from some EFF folks on how not everyone who has this is going to go out and pirate their local Blockbuster out of business.
I think one of the items that Microsoft kept bringing up during the trial was: if it had monopoly power, it could do such things as raise the price of Windows, which it hasn't.
Slashdot Mirror
I suppose I knew it would be risky making a comment like this on a thread that actually _was_ about beowulf clustering. Just to clarify things, I intended it to be humorous - hence the part about gaining back my lost respect via first post :)
I'm sorry folks, but I'm just not creative enough to come up with a way to somehow make a beowulf cluster of these. I apologize for not being able to contribute to the obligatory beowulf cluster thread, and hope that I can earn back all of your respect by getting a first post somehow.
You know, people are going to look at your past comments and say "FIRST POST!!!! - score 4? WTF?"
Heh. If nothing else, this article gives us a chance to really confuse people looking at comments a week from now.
Things I know about Rational:
- They make Rational Rose, a UML design tool.
- One of the guys who works there (owns it?) invented/helped make UML
- They've got an interest in tools for Java (the non-trial version of Rational Rose can be configured for Java instead of C++)
- I've never heard of Rational trying to subvert or destroy other, smaller companies. I could be wrong here, as I'm just stating from my own failing recollection. But I think the fact that UML itself is a compendum of earlier models (authorized by the people that made them, IIRC), rather than an 'embrace and extend' helps with this impression.
Looks interesting enough, so I asked the next question: What do I know about Microsoft?Things I know about Microsoft:
- Come on, that's too easy.
My point here is, are we dealing with a question of the devil we know versus the devil we don't, or will Rational's track record continue its trend and leave Java alone?Folks funding the X group!
- Compaq
- Hewlett-Packard
- Hummingbird Communications
- IBM
- Sun Microsystems
I'd like to state that I like this list! I think almost all of these companies have made other efforts to promote linux as well. It feels good to know that we've got such nice backing for our X server.And my other point, a quote from the About The X Window System section:
I like this, a group with some good backers (see above) publicly stating that their platform is expanding exponentially due to Linux.
I've never felt better about my OS.
I didn't send an e-mail.
Though with a site like Slashdot, given the amount of people who read it, I'm not surprised that people did. I'm sure that some of the e-mail was well-written, thought out arguments for why the person should have kept the site up. I'm also sure that the majority of the e-mail wasn't of this form at all.
I'm a bit optimistic when it comes to the slashdot populace. I think most people here are of above average intelligence, and are capable of rational argument. I think what happened in this case was that these people did what I did. Nothing. I didn't have all the facts, and I knew it. I wasn't going to take it upon myself to mail this person and tell him to do something that I myself might not have done. I think the majority of clearheaded slashdotters thought the same way.
But there are a lot of people on slashdot, and not all of them are exactly clearheaded. There are flamers for all types of wars (KDE, Beowulf, Emacs, pick your favorite holy war), and those who are simply abusing slashdot for their own bizzare reasons (petrified posts, anyone?). Most likely, it's these people who are flaming and using the Slashdot Effect for ill. That's what I'd like to think.
Personally, there's not much I can do about it. I could flame the flamers, but then I'm at their level (some would say that's exactly what I'm doing here). I certainly don't advocate the canceling of slashdot accounts. The only action I see as being fair is to push the positive side of the slashdot effect more. It can be done. Some positive things that slashdotters have done in the past include the Mass mirroring of deCSS and helping to critique and rewrite for Jane's Intelligence review. Those on slashdot who are well-spoken, intelligent and can actually get their point across without the caps lock key could help turn our failing reputation around.
- Historical Unix, Open Source Legal Battles, and John Lions: 28 comments
- Interview with The Mind Behind Aibo: 50 comments
- Napster Attacks Open Source Clone: 112 comments
So we find that a story that was rushed and (repeadedly) flamed for being incorrect ends up having more commentary than two stories which seem fairly interesting, but non-controversial. I really would hope that Slashdot isn't starting to pander to the lowest common denominator like television does. I try to have more faith in the people here.It still bothers me. Blocking e-mail altogether wouldn't be that far off, had this corporation not been taken to task. And even though they were, what's to prevent an e-mail provider from putting a clause in the contract so they could intercept at will? The PR would be something along the lines of:
Even better - a quick look up at the header of this message will show that I've got Hotmail as one of my e-mail providers. What if, suddenly, I had difficulty sending mail to linux-related sites? In view of what's happened here, I don't think that a step like what I'm envisioning is too far away, and that bothers me more than anything else.
... so I don't know a whole lot about these things. But I think it's a very interesting development for them to find Oxygen. Very, very interesting. It makes me ask an important question, though:
:)
Why?
I don't know a whole lot about planetary formation, but I seem to recall there was a reason that Oxygen isn't usually found in the big gas giants, and things like Hydrogen and helium are. So one asks the question: Why is there oxygen there? Why is there, of all things, silicon there?
The current theory, I think, about how this particular planet formed is that it was created way out where it ought to have been, and then gravitated (so to speak) inward. But would that account for these odd elements in the atmosphere?
Again, I don't know much about the creation of the universe, so if there's any astrophysicists out there, I'd love to find out what's going on here
It's a shame that the Linux/BSD crowd didn't get any space on the main floor. I think separating them out as happened would do more harm than good. While having a separate area for the Unix folks does enable people to go right there when they want unix type things, it does absolutely nothing for advocacy.
Take, for example, a manager who, for some unknown reason, wants to convince the higher-ups to install only windows on their machines. This manager takes one of them to the main floor of comdex and says "Look - Only windows machines here. And all the hardware's for windows too". Even if the higher-ups know there's a bunch of unix gurus somewhere else, it's certainly going to make an impression on them that there's not a trace of open source on the main floor.
- Allowing parents/those who opened up the accounts create a 'list' of screen names that can only access certain ratings. For instance, an 8-year old might only be given access to games rated appropriate, but denied access to others. Insofar as rating is acceptable at all, I think allowing parents to use it in this manner is acceptable.
What I don't think would be acceptable is:The article's not to clear on exactly what AOL intends to do with the ratings - whether it's just going to show them and not restrict access at all, or if it's going to use another scheme altogether. Here's to hoping that if they decide to enforce the ratings, they do it wisely.
I realize there's something painfully obvious that I'm missing here, so if someone can point it out I'll gracefully admit my ignorance and move on. So...
Today, 11-19-1999 is an odd day because all the digits are odd. Wouldn't that have made two days ago (11-17-1999) also an odd day? Likewise, a great many days this month (and other odd months)?
While I'm certain I've lost much esteem in the eyes of the slashdot crowd ("Denor? Oh, you mean the one who can't figure out odd days!"), this is going to drive me nuts until I figure it out.
Thanks!
It's a step forward for recognition of MP3s as not-just-pirated-material, but it's not exactly a great thing altogether.
Maybe it'd be a better idea to have a virus that goes off on 1.1.2000 and 1.1.1900 Just in case.
I think reviewing this old slashdot feature ("TurboLinux Releases "Potentially Dangerous" Clustering Software?") in the light of this newer article is particularly interesting - folks were worried that turbolinux might have a clustering solution. A clustering kernel is pretty specialized, and would have pretty much the same qualities that the article recognized as being required for a code fork.
Question: If the code does fork, do they still call it Linux, or is that just going to create confusion?
But one has to raise the question: Is this a good thing? While I personally think it was implied that Linux is doing well not only on the benchmarks, but in general also - one doesn't have to interpret it that way.
What if it meant: "Linux is doing extremely well on those kind of benchmarks and nothing else."? I realize that would be a rather Microsoft-esque thing to do, of course. Most people know that benchmarks are bogus anyway, but the Pointy-haired bosses demand the systems that the benchmarks say are good.
While this almost certainly didn't happen in this case, what if it had? What if the lure of looking good in the eye of the public and getting linux into more places ended up creating a non-optimal Linux, just to impress people?
Publicity like this is not always a good thing.
Formatting mine, of course. The only thing that's close to this that I can think of is WINE, and it's not exclusively for remote display. I won't say it's not obvious it could be done (it is, after all what the X protocol is for) but it's at least something that hasn't been done to a large extent.
This change is only for the worst, everyone. We all thought that the Crusoe would be our salvation, that Transmeta and Linus would invent something that would destroy Microsoft and all that is non-open source. In short, we looked to Transmeta for our salvation. But we will not find it. Why? It is as simple as it is shocking: The transmeta homepage once carried an announcement that it was y2k compliant.
That announcement is no longer there!
Let the mourning begin.
Diablo II is going to sell a lot of copies, no matter what. Even though they're going to miss the holiday season, that's not going to stop me, my brother, the entire population of Slashdot, and everyone else from going out an buying it when it is released.
And why? Because Blizzard puts out good games. The original Diablo was late, other games were more than likely late as well, and Warcraft: Lord of the Clans was axed because it fell short of expectations. Here we have a company that is the opposite of most software companies: Instead of rushing a product out of the door, they test it and refine it until they have a product that's not "good enough" but actually good. And the fans love them for it - games like Diablo and Starcraft are still some of the highest ranked games (in terms of player esteem) ever made.
I think Blizzard gives an example of a software company that doesn't rush out a product, and yet still has a large amount of 'market share'.
IMHO, many companies could learn from this.
How complex are these gravity waves going to be? To me, it seems that we're going to have to filter out the background noises (the redundancy seems to solve most, but not all, of that) and then try to see if the lasers were changed, and if so, by what and in what manner.
This seems to lend itself to the kind of distributed effort seen by seti@home - which does a lot of the same things (mainly filtering out background noise & analyzing for signals). On the other hand, it might not be quite so complex. I don't know if I'm giving up on detecting extraterrestrial life from my desktop just yet, but analyzing gravity waves would be a very fun thing to have my computer doing!
I think it's a good thing that XMMS got a sponsor for their contest so they could give away some prizes. However, the whole XMMS contest reminds me of the recent Loki Hack contest - with one major difference: Loki's games weren't open source.
My question is this: Should an open source project need something like a contest to get people to develop? My understanding of open-source projects is that those who are interested in contributing do so. That would lead me to the conclusion that nobody would enter the contest that wasn't already contributing to XMMS. Say, for instance, someone who was previously contributing to XMMS wins the contest and gets a prize. Does this person go on to code for free, forgetting the momentary gain? Perhaps - I'd like to think I would. Of course, I might also just go out and look for another contest to get prizes from. After all, I'm still contributing to open source, just not XMMS anymore.
What does everyone else think? Is this a trend in 'commercializing' (as far as such a thing is possible) open source, or just an innocent contest blown a bit out of proportion?
It's up here: Activist defends DVD hack
Surprisingly enough, they come out on the good side of it - even some quotes from some EFF folks on how not everyone who has this is going to go out and pirate their local Blockbuster out of business.
I think one of the items that Microsoft kept bringing up during the trial was: if it had monopoly power, it could do such things as raise the price of Windows, which it hasn't.
This recent slashdot article, I think, neatly disposes of that theory.
It's things like this that might be used against them in the appeals....
- I find it extremely amazing that Slashdot now has the weight (readership, etc.) behind to be able to interview just about anybody it wants
Interview: Bill Gates AnswersNow that's a slashdot interview I'd like to see. I just think that we would need more moderation points. A lot more.