I'd watch out if I were you. Those "elitist jerks" are the people who actually wrote the OS.
And they did a good job of it, so they may be on to something.
Did you ever buy Lego cars that were pre-built and glued together? Me neither. That would've been so much more convenient, though - not so much wasted time actually building it. Not to mention the fact that you could lose the pieces!
Those "elitist jerks" over at Lego should get their act together! Who would actually want to build something out of Legos?
"Companies like ATI and Nvidia basically survive on their trade-secrets and it would not be reasonable to ask either of these companies to put their IP in jeapordy just so we could have a fully open-source video drivers."
The entire existence of Linux was built on the idea of open-source, and you think that it will be better with closed-source drivers?
Look at closed-source OSes. What do you see? It's all Windows. Some might say that there are other people here too, and they would be WRONG in many cases. Apple's got Darwin, Sun's got OpenSolaris. Novell's got SuSE.
Look at open-source now. People and companies are switching to open-source. Why? Because after all these years, it's proven itself to be better.
To say that accepting closed-source software will help Linux is wrong. People are already switching without us accepting closed-source, and accepting closed-source is one more step in the direction of being more like the closed-source OS we all left.
Why did you even switch from Windows? Because Linux was better, right? Well, it didn't get that way by magic.
"Companies like ATI and Nvidia basically survive on their trade-secrets"
And? What trade secrets would they be giving away?
The drivers simply communicate with the card. Any trade-secrets would be in the card, not the drivers.
3DFX used to make open-source drivers. Their cards worked *wonderfully* with Linux. They went out of business, but that's because nVidia had better quality VIDEO CARDS AND GPUS - it had nothing to do with their drivers.
It would've been fine if they just shipped it with the binary and let users install the drivers themselves. The only thing they did wrong is that they shipped it with the drivers already built into the kernel - which is a violation because the kernel is GPL and the drivers are closed-source.
"No, that's blatently wrong. OpenWRT includes the closed source BroadComm network driver, and RedHat Enterprise includes lots of Redhat only software that isn't GPL."
No. You've got a HUGE misunderstanding here.
The problem here isn't about what's being distributed, it's about the implementation of it. It would've been fine if they had simply included the binaries to install the drivers. Instead they mixed the drivers in with the kernel - and distributing it that way is against the GPL.
You can redistribute closed-source binaries and applications, you just can't mix them in with GPL code. Get what I'm saying? If they had only included the binary to install the driver, and let users install the driver themselves, that would've been fine.
RedHat can throw whatever they want into RHEL, as long as their proprietary code doesn't get mixed in with GPL code. OpenWRT might include the closed-source Broadcom driver, but you have to install that driver yourself, don't you? (And actually, there is a GPL Broadcom driver so maybe OpenWRT uses that - I don't know anything about OpenWRT).
nVidia isn't violating the GPL. Read the story. nVidia has nothing to do with it except that their drivers were thrown in with GPL code. nVidia did nothing wrong.
And the only reason the closed-source drivers are better is because companies don't always document things well enough for us to make use of the hardware without some serious amounts of hacking. Nobody's blaming nVidia for anything, it's just that we wish that, if they aren't going to make their own drivers GPL, they'd document things well enough that we can make our own GPL drivers.
Correct me if I'm wrong. . . but all it would need is a kernel driver for the Cell.
And you don't have to rewrite any programs to take advantage of the cells. Linux handles both multi-CPU systems and hyperthreaded CPUs quite well. I don't see why the Cell should be much different - the only difference between the Cell and most modern CPUs are that the Cell's VPUs are faster and more general-purpose.
I think what he meant was that you can hack it and write drivers for it. . .
He's right - if you have the time and the willpower you can do it. Hey, that's what people did for the Xbox, didn't they? Hack it and figure out a way to run Linux on it?
Say goodbye to (*insert modern FPS here*), then, if that's REALLY what you meant.
Sure, they may have better graphics, physics, and storylines, but they're still the same gameplay and everything.
And hardware acceleration has nothing to do with how pretty a game looks. I've seen OpenGL and DirectX games that look like HELL, and I've seen games that aren't hardware-accelerated that look pretty good. Pretty graphics require an artist, not a graphics card.
"Two bits of that I want to draw attention to; 1) the path in the mplayer source tree showing that it contains wine code, 2) I doubt if it were a re-implementation it would include an 11 year old reference to Intel."
Perhaps this file was made open-source by Intel? If it's that old, it's possible that they made it open-source because it was so out-of-date and useless to them. And I don't know what this file is for, but I do know that it is not required for MPEG or MP3 playback.
Also, I know for a fact that many distros come with LAME preinstalled, or at least in package form.
Here's the README for the "codecs" directory on MPlayer's site:
W32 Codec package for MPlayer on x86 UNIX systems.
Note: this is useless for ms windows or microsoft mplayer2 users, as
it contains modified DLLs, and doesn't contain.EXE/.BAT/.INF files
required by windows installation.
Download only if you run MPlayer on x86 unix (linux/bsd/solaris) system!
It doesn't use the original Windows DLLs, it uses the project's own home-brewed versions. So they're not distributing the Win32 codecs at all.
Also. . . XviD is open-source, and (I can't find the article but) I remember hearing that Fraunhofer IIS has declared open-source projects exempt from its MP3 licensing fees (I could be wrong about that, though).
If no one wants an OS, then why do we choose between Linux, Windows, and MacOS? A good portion of open-source software runs on all three of these.
Why? Because some of us prefer Linux, and some of us prefer MacOS or BSD.
Maybe YOU don't have a preference. Many people do, though - I wouldn't buy a phone that runs Windows. I've had too many bad experiences with Windows. It'd make me nervous. Having your phone freeze is/could be a big deal.
No, what it means is we don't want ignorant users.
We want users who are willing to learn to use Linux rather than have us hold their hand every step of the way. Users who at least try to learn how to do what they want/need to, and if they absolutely can't then they turn to us for direction and guidance but not necessarily answers.
Like when I switched, I knew nothing about Linux/UNIX/BSD/any other UNIX-type system. But I was willing to look through the documentation until I found out how to do what I need to do, and then when I absolutely had to I went to linuxquestions.org for help. They usually didn't give me straight answers, but they did give me guidance so I was able to figure out on my own what to do. And I also got curious - I wanted to know what all the commands did, what the files were for. . . and I tinkered around with them a bit. Between being guided by others and experimenting on my own, I learned quite a bit about Linux.
Linux IS user-friendly. But when I say user-friendly, I mean someone could jump in and start using it right away. I don't mean they'll be an expert at it but they can still do most everyday tasks with a standard Mandriva or SuSE install. They've also got all the tools on-hand they would need to learn to use Linux - all the documentation, all the help files. . . so if someone wants to learn to do more advanced stuff in Linux they can - all they need the willpower to learn it. In fact that's how I started out - I started with Linux-Mandrake, which was more geared toward being user-friendly.
Kevin Carmony isn't a Linux developer. He's kinda like the Steve Ballmer of the Linspire group - he probably doesn't know jack about programming, he's just there to fill a chair. Only difference is his chair stays on the ground, and he probably rather likes Google since they use Linux.
Comparing a BSD developer to some guy who runs a Linux company isn't even a comparison, really. They're completely different people with completely different jobs and completely different statuses within their respective communities (Theo's a BSD programmer with 10+ years experience, whereas Kevin Carmony's just some guy with only maybe a year's experience who was just thrown in there to take Robertson's place).
Maybe if the article were about Linus Torvalds you could make a comparison.
On the one hand, the game programmer can't have "the perfect AI" which can predict a player's every move and beats him every time - that's not much fun, it gets old real quick. Not that the AI should be stupid, but it shouldn't be unbeatable, and the first AIs the player sees should be weaker.
On the other hand, he can't just make a "dumb" AI that can't do anything realistic.
So, what would I like to see?
* AI teamwork where AIs can work together to formulate a game plan against me.
* AIs that project probabilities based on my previous behavior and other things (kinda like in "Terminator 3" where John Connor threatens to kill himself but Arnold knows there's a low probability he'll do it).
In other words, I want them to "notice" things. I want them to see that 64% of the time, when I throw the dagger, I hit dead-on; that before I enter a dark alley I look around with my flashlight; that I'll pistol-whip them if they come close; that I'm not the best sniper; that I'm not good at finding hiding spots. . .
. ..and then make predictions about what I will and won't do.
* AIs that make sacrifices. If they see that I'm sniping behind a boulder, and there's only a 12% chance they can kill me, they'll go for it if their team is in trouble.
"People won't use OpenOffice on a Linux box if they can't play their MP3s on the same box. Throw one proprietary s/w in, and the new convert gets 1000 F/OSS packages to discover. Otherwise she will not even want to look."
"Linux wants users who want Linux. And that doesn't mean just the name. It means everything: The free, open-source software; the ability to tinker with your software; the position of being in the driver's seat, in total control.
That's what Linux is. That's what it's all about. People migrate to Linux because they're sick of viruses, sick of BSODs, sick of spyware. That's understandable. But those people don't want Linux. They really just want Windows without the flaws. They don't really want Linux. So why should Linux want them?"
The codecs required for these formats are free. You just need mplayer to use them.
Yes, there are people that want things to "just work" but that almost never happens in the computer world. It's a trade-off - either the program works fine with the user's intervention or it doesn't work at all.
I've used Windows before, and I know for a fact that it doesn't "just work" - you still need to set up your own firewall, make sure you do your updates, set up some sort of antivirus, set up spyware blockers, popup blockers, do a defrag and scandisk every so often. . . all that and people STILL need to reformat their hard drives once in a while!
Compared to that, I'd say Linux is much better at "just working" - I remember a guy in my class who's fairly computer-knowledgeable telling me about how his nice PC with 1GB RAM, 3.0GHz Pentium Extreme with Hyperthreading. . . wen in the crapper. Why? Because his sister downloaded an MP3.
Yeah. Windows "just works". Hah! Maybe if you don't use it, it'll "just work".
"Some stuff is currently not doable using only open source software."
Such as?
I pretty much only use open-source. Using OpenOffice.org I can view/modify/edit/create Word/Powerpoint/Excel files. Using Kontact I can manage my contacts, check e-mails, and do anything else Outlook might let me do. I can use Scribus for desktop publishing, like MS Publisher. I can play free games available through HappyPenguin.org. I can use GIMP for image editing, I can use Nvu for site editing/publishing, I can use Firefox or Konqueror for web browsing. . .
The only things I do that "require" closed source software are playing DOOM3 and Halo.
"Actually you wouldn't have to. You would only need to know that geteuid() is a common system call on Unix and compatible systems. Knowing this, and the intricacies of the C programming language, is all that is required to understand the bug. geteuid is not an ordinary variable, it's a function. In the C programming language this means that the name of the function is a variable containing the address of the start of the function code."
Well I didn't know it was a common Unix system call. I don't really know anything about Unix-specific programming (most of my programming experience has been in Java).
I do know a thing or two about C++ programming. I just didn't know what geteuid was.
"This could not happen in any programming language, only languages with function call semantics similar to C/C++. This bug can not happen in e.g. Java, since the compiler would report it as an error."
The Java programming language was based off of C/C++ so it would be familiar for programmers and easier for them to switch from C/C++ to Java. So it's very possible that it would treat this bit of code the same way. Maybe, maybe not - I haven't tried it.
Actually, no, I haven't been online. I've been away from my PC for about a week.
And while I may have been making fun of the name, that really is something they should've considered. Throw in "Revolution", "Xbox", "PS3" or "GameCube" into those sentences instead of "Wii" and it would've sounded fine.
Or do you think gamers will completely change both their mindset and the way they talk just because of the Wii?
I doubt there's many gamers out there who don't laugh at the name.
As for my karma. . . what's that got to do with jokes? I only have high karma because I speak the truth, and I don't flame. I speak from experience, not from my ass.
"Actually, geteuid is a variable containing the address of the function geteuid."
Now I know it could've happened in other programs with other variables. I just didn't know what the geteuid variable was - maybe it was an int, maybe a boolean, maybe a String. . . to know that I'd have to know about X11's development stuff - read their source or something.
I haven't run into this yet, but I'm assuming the same thing could happen with ANY programming language (I know Java, for anyone who hasn't checked my site out).
"Actually, geteuid is a variable containing the address of the function geteuid. Appending () to geteuid simply calls the function at that address. The way you wrote it could be interpreted as geteuid and geteuid() being two separate entities."
Sorry, I don't know that much about X11's development stuff. I thought maybe they were two separate things.
"You don't really call variables, you refer to variables.:)"
Slashdot Mirror
And they did a good job of it, so they may be on to something.
Did you ever buy Lego cars that were pre-built and glued together? Me neither. That would've been so much more convenient, though - not so much wasted time actually building it. Not to mention the fact that you could lose the pieces!
Those "elitist jerks" over at Lego should get their act together! Who would actually want to build something out of Legos?
The entire existence of Linux was built on the idea of open-source, and you think that it will be better with closed-source drivers?
Look at closed-source OSes. What do you see? It's all Windows. Some might say that there are other people here too, and they would be WRONG in many cases. Apple's got Darwin, Sun's got OpenSolaris. Novell's got SuSE.
Look at open-source now. People and companies are switching to open-source. Why? Because after all these years, it's proven itself to be better.
To say that accepting closed-source software will help Linux is wrong. People are already switching without us accepting closed-source, and accepting closed-source is one more step in the direction of being more like the closed-source OS we all left.
Why did you even switch from Windows? Because Linux was better, right? Well, it didn't get that way by magic.
"Companies like ATI and Nvidia basically survive on their trade-secrets"
And? What trade secrets would they be giving away?
The drivers simply communicate with the card. Any trade-secrets would be in the card, not the drivers.
3DFX used to make open-source drivers. Their cards worked *wonderfully* with Linux. They went out of business, but that's because nVidia had better quality VIDEO CARDS AND GPUS - it had nothing to do with their drivers.
It would've been fine if they just shipped it with the binary and let users install the drivers themselves. The only thing they did wrong is that they shipped it with the drivers already built into the kernel - which is a violation because the kernel is GPL and the drivers are closed-source.
No. You've got a HUGE misunderstanding here.
The problem here isn't about what's being distributed, it's about the implementation of it. It would've been fine if they had simply included the binaries to install the drivers. Instead they mixed the drivers in with the kernel - and distributing it that way is against the GPL.
You can redistribute closed-source binaries and applications, you just can't mix them in with GPL code. Get what I'm saying? If they had only included the binary to install the driver, and let users install the driver themselves, that would've been fine.
RedHat can throw whatever they want into RHEL, as long as their proprietary code doesn't get mixed in with GPL code. OpenWRT might include the closed-source Broadcom driver, but you have to install that driver yourself, don't you? (And actually, there is a GPL Broadcom driver so maybe OpenWRT uses that - I don't know anything about OpenWRT).
nVidia isn't violating the GPL. Read the story. nVidia has nothing to do with it except that their drivers were thrown in with GPL code. nVidia did nothing wrong.
And the only reason the closed-source drivers are better is because companies don't always document things well enough for us to make use of the hardware without some serious amounts of hacking. Nobody's blaming nVidia for anything, it's just that we wish that, if they aren't going to make their own drivers GPL, they'd document things well enough that we can make our own GPL drivers.
And you don't have to rewrite any programs to take advantage of the cells. Linux handles both multi-CPU systems and hyperthreaded CPUs quite well. I don't see why the Cell should be much different - the only difference between the Cell and most modern CPUs are that the Cell's VPUs are faster and more general-purpose.
He's right - if you have the time and the willpower you can do it. Hey, that's what people did for the Xbox, didn't they? Hack it and figure out a way to run Linux on it?
Sure, they may have better graphics, physics, and storylines, but they're still the same gameplay and everything.
And hardware acceleration has nothing to do with how pretty a game looks. I've seen OpenGL and DirectX games that look like HELL, and I've seen games that aren't hardware-accelerated that look pretty good. Pretty graphics require an artist, not a graphics card.
Perhaps this file was made open-source by Intel? If it's that old, it's possible that they made it open-source because it was so out-of-date and useless to them. And I don't know what this file is for, but I do know that it is not required for MPEG or MP3 playback.
Also, I know for a fact that many distros come with LAME preinstalled, or at least in package form.
W32 Codec package for MPlayer on x86 UNIX systems. Note: this is useless for ms windows or microsoft mplayer2 users, as it contains modified DLLs, and doesn't contain .EXE/.BAT/.INF files
required by windows installation.
Download only if you run MPlayer on x86 unix (linux/bsd/solaris) system!
It doesn't use the original Windows DLLs, it uses the project's own home-brewed versions. So they're not distributing the Win32 codecs at all.
Also. . . XviD is open-source, and (I can't find the article but) I remember hearing that Fraunhofer IIS has declared open-source projects exempt from its MP3 licensing fees (I could be wrong about that, though).
Why? Because some of us prefer Linux, and some of us prefer MacOS or BSD.
Maybe YOU don't have a preference. Many people do, though - I wouldn't buy a phone that runs Windows. I've had too many bad experiences with Windows. It'd make me nervous. Having your phone freeze is/could be a big deal.
We want users who are willing to learn to use Linux rather than have us hold their hand every step of the way. Users who at least try to learn how to do what they want/need to, and if they absolutely can't then they turn to us for direction and guidance but not necessarily answers.
Like when I switched, I knew nothing about Linux/UNIX/BSD/any other UNIX-type system. But I was willing to look through the documentation until I found out how to do what I need to do, and then when I absolutely had to I went to linuxquestions.org for help. They usually didn't give me straight answers, but they did give me guidance so I was able to figure out on my own what to do. And I also got curious - I wanted to know what all the commands did, what the files were for. . . and I tinkered around with them a bit. Between being guided by others and experimenting on my own, I learned quite a bit about Linux.
Linux IS user-friendly. But when I say user-friendly, I mean someone could jump in and start using it right away. I don't mean they'll be an expert at it but they can still do most everyday tasks with a standard Mandriva or SuSE install. They've also got all the tools on-hand they would need to learn to use Linux - all the documentation, all the help files. . . so if someone wants to learn to do more advanced stuff in Linux they can - all they need the willpower to learn it. In fact that's how I started out - I started with Linux-Mandrake, which was more geared toward being user-friendly.
Okay, so you can't do that by using only open-source. But the nVidia driver is the only closed-source software you'd need.
A strong user base, good programming techniques, and a stable OS.
Comparing a BSD developer to some guy who runs a Linux company isn't even a comparison, really. They're completely different people with completely different jobs and completely different statuses within their respective communities (Theo's a BSD programmer with 10+ years experience, whereas Kevin Carmony's just some guy with only maybe a year's experience who was just thrown in there to take Robertson's place).
Maybe if the article were about Linus Torvalds you could make a comparison.
On the other hand, he can't just make a "dumb" AI that can't do anything realistic.
So, what would I like to see?
* AI teamwork where AIs can work together to formulate a game plan against me.
* AIs that project probabilities based on my previous behavior and other things (kinda like in "Terminator 3" where John Connor threatens to kill himself but Arnold knows there's a low probability he'll do it).
In other words, I want them to "notice" things. I want them to see that 64% of the time, when I throw the dagger, I hit dead-on; that before I enter a dark alley I look around with my flashlight; that I'll pistol-whip them if they come close; that I'm not the best sniper; that I'm not good at finding hiding spots. . .
. . .and then make predictions about what I will and won't do.
* AIs that make sacrifices. If they see that I'm sniping behind a boulder, and there's only a 12% chance they can kill me, they'll go for it if their team is in trouble.
from LNW:
"Linux wants users who want Linux. And that doesn't mean just the name. It means everything: The free, open-source software; the ability to tinker with your software; the position of being in the driver's seat, in total control.
That's what Linux is. That's what it's all about. People migrate to Linux because they're sick of viruses, sick of BSODs, sick of spyware. That's understandable. But those people don't want Linux. They really just want Windows without the flaws. They don't really want Linux. So why should Linux want them?"
Linux != Windows
We don't care about numbers. YOU care about numbers. We care about Linux - if you choose not to use it, that's fine with us.
The codecs required for these formats are free. You just need mplayer to use them.
Yes, there are people that want things to "just work" but that almost never happens in the computer world. It's a trade-off - either the program works fine with the user's intervention or it doesn't work at all.
I've used Windows before, and I know for a fact that it doesn't "just work" - you still need to set up your own firewall, make sure you do your updates, set up some sort of antivirus, set up spyware blockers, popup blockers, do a defrag and scandisk every so often. . . all that and people STILL need to reformat their hard drives once in a while!
Compared to that, I'd say Linux is much better at "just working" - I remember a guy in my class who's fairly computer-knowledgeable telling me about how his nice PC with 1GB RAM, 3.0GHz Pentium Extreme with Hyperthreading. . . wen in the crapper. Why? Because his sister downloaded an MP3.
Yeah. Windows "just works". Hah! Maybe if you don't use it, it'll "just work".
Such as?
I pretty much only use open-source. Using OpenOffice.org I can view/modify/edit/create Word/Powerpoint/Excel files. Using Kontact I can manage my contacts, check e-mails, and do anything else Outlook might let me do. I can use Scribus for desktop publishing, like MS Publisher. I can play free games available through HappyPenguin.org. I can use GIMP for image editing, I can use Nvu for site editing/publishing, I can use Firefox or Konqueror for web browsing. . .
The only things I do that "require" closed source software are playing DOOM3 and Halo.
Well I didn't know it was a common Unix system call. I don't really know anything about Unix-specific programming (most of my programming experience has been in Java).
I do know a thing or two about C++ programming. I just didn't know what geteuid was.
"This could not happen in any programming language, only languages with function call semantics similar to C/C++. This bug can not happen in e.g. Java, since the compiler would report it as an error."
The Java programming language was based off of C/C++ so it would be familiar for programmers and easier for them to switch from C/C++ to Java. So it's very possible that it would treat this bit of code the same way. Maybe, maybe not - I haven't tried it.
And while I may have been making fun of the name, that really is something they should've considered. Throw in "Revolution", "Xbox", "PS3" or "GameCube" into those sentences instead of "Wii" and it would've sounded fine.
Or do you think gamers will completely change both their mindset and the way they talk just because of the Wii?
I doubt there's many gamers out there who don't laugh at the name.
As for my karma. . . what's that got to do with jokes? I only have high karma because I speak the truth, and I don't flame. I speak from experience, not from my ass.
Yes it is, according to GP:
"Actually, geteuid is a variable containing the address of the function geteuid."
Now I know it could've happened in other programs with other variables. I just didn't know what the geteuid variable was - maybe it was an int, maybe a boolean, maybe a String. . . to know that I'd have to know about X11's development stuff - read their source or something.
I haven't run into this yet, but I'm assuming the same thing could happen with ANY programming language (I know Java, for anyone who hasn't checked my site out).
Yeah, dude - we can all bring our Wii's and play with our Wii's at the LAN party!
(and THAT'S why they should've stuck with "Revolution".)
Sorry, I don't know that much about X11's development stuff. I thought maybe they were two separate things.
"You don't really call variables, you refer to variables. :)"
Whatever, you get my drift.