It's 'genetic unix' - descended from the historic unix codebase. It's not Unix(tm) however - that requires certification from the Open Group, current holders of the trademark.
I consider myself well-educated with computers but I've never taken the time and effort to quit Windows for Linux. If it's really easy, I'd probably do it.
I consider myself a brain surgeon, but I've never actually bothered to hold a scalpel. If it were really easy, I probably would though.
Now if they could get this to run all Linux apps, that would be awesome.
What linux apps does it have problems with?
A simple make, make install should get most all of them running. If it doesn't, there's a bug that needs to be reported upstream. And in the meantime, bsd has support for running linux binaries anyhow.
A lot of people confuse the two, but they're very different sorts of machines designed for very different purposes, with very different characteristics.
Supercomputers are great for intensive calculations. When you have a relatively small dataset and a very long string of operations to be performed on that dataset, you want a supercomputer.
A subset of supercomputer tasks are easily parallelised, and on that subset, in particular, a cluster can really rock.
But the weakness of clusters has always been in throughput - their ability to move large amounts of data around is rather weak.
Mainframes aren't great at intensive calculation, they don't compete with supercomputers, what they're designed for and great at (besides incredible reliability) is throughput. Those suckers can move enormous quantities of data around very very quickly.
Want to calculate more digits to pi? Break an encryption key? That's a supercomputer job, and a cluster can probably handle it fairly well.
Want to search a database that contains every transaction your company has ever had, with any customer or supplier, globally, for the past fifty years? That's a mainframe job. And neither a supercomputer nor a cluster is going to get close to a mainframe at doing it. All those hot little cpus will sit mostly idle while waiting for all the data to trickle in through a relatively narrow set of connections, while on the mainframe, all those (relatively slow) CPUs are being kept busy by a massive array of hard drives on an interface with more bandwidth to memory than most of us can even imagine.
It would have been nice if the article had given some information on the advantages a 100% free software solution gave him. Obviously the article is on NewsForge and aimed mostly at folks that already know, but I'm picturing someone from the 'mainstream' reading this and coming away baffled - why did he put himself through all this trouble for no gain?
Of course there are tremendous gains there, the article just focuses on the problems, assuming the readers already know the advantages. They may not be so obvious to some readers, however.
Britain is the island, including England, Wales, and Scotland. It's a name derived from the language of those who inhabited England before the English, a p-celtic language closely related to modern Welsh.
England is a nation, comprising a large part of that island, excepting Wales and Scotland.
The UK is a state, historically descended from the (now technically defunct) English state. The English state conquered and subjugated all of its neighbors, and in a series of legislative acts effectively absorbed them. Under the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 the conquered Welsh nation was partially absorbed into the English state, although left some concessions to autonomy. In the 1500s a series of acts by the English parliament effectively finished the job, abolishing the Welsh state and absorbing it entirely into the English. It also attempted to destroy the Welsh nation as well, laying legal discrimination against those who persisted in preserving Welsh language and customs. This discrimination was legally instituted from that point on until 1993.
The Scottish nation was the next neighbor to be conquered and absorbed by the English, although with great trouble and taking considerable time and mayhem to accomplish. In 1707 this had been accomplished, and was formalised by the Acts of Union. Technically speaking, these acts did not, like the earlier acts with regard to Wales, annex the subjugated nation to England, but actually dissolved both the Scottish and the English states, creating a superstate called 'the United Kingdom.'
This is the origin of the custom of loyal Englishmen taking offense at any reference to their nation by name as England - England is technically reduced to the status of a province within the greater 'United Kingdom' to which, it was hoped, the conquered nations might be accustomed to giving a loyalty they would never feel towards the hated English conquerers. It's easy to see why this might be considered nothing more than a legal fiction, however, as the 'United' government sits in the same place as the old 'English' government, conducts itself entirely in English with nary a word of Scots or Welsh to be heard, and indeed has clear continuity with the techically defunct English state in every respect.
In 1800 a new Act of Union added the conquered nation of Ireland to 'the United Kingdom' as well. Of course, much of Ireland managed to free itself a little over a century later, leaving a 'United Kingdom' of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
So, when someone refers to 'England' where you suspect they mean 'the UK', it may well be out of ignorance - or it may instead be out of knowledge, and a dislike for the legal fictions of the conquerer.
They aren't remotely conservative, in any meaning except, perhaps, 'social conservative.' Their slant is more accurately neo-conservative, which has far less in common with political conservativism than it does with Trotskyism. They're pushing a radically leftist political agenda, they just wrap it up in the flag, throw in a dash of 'social conservativism' to make it more palatable to the masses, and shout down anyone that doesn't agree.
Remember where words like snafu come from man. The military.
Presumably a few isolated parts of the military do have super-duper network security, but the vast majority of it isn't likely any harder to circumvent than your typical half-assed corporate firewall. Now I'm only basing this on anecdotes from my many friends and relatives that have been through the military, I don't know it from personal experience, but if half of what I've heard from sources I consider reliable is true, it would actually be a miracle if military networks were half as secure as your typical corporate setup. Which means any talented 12 year old should be able to pwn it without breaking a sweat.
Using the force of the state to create monopolies is what we're talking about.
And yes, originally the monopolies granted were much more limited, and fit the rationale given - that by accepting this relatively small evil, we would gain more goods, because this would encourage the production of literature, art, and science. We'd swallow a little evil for a lot of good.
I agree with you that the current system, which has lost all the limitations that once made it only a small evil, and lost all the conditions that were focused on makingit serve the greater good, is all, out of control, evil.
But I disagree with you that it's beyond debate whether even the original system was ever a good idea. Particularly given the fact that the current situation results from that one, filtered through some years of processes which are quite predictable and only to be expected once you put this power, to grant and enforce monopolies, in the hands of a political body.
(1)
a work prepared by an employee within the scope of his or her employment; or
(2)
a work specially ordered or commissioned for use as a contribution to a collective work, as a part of a motion picture or other audiovisual work, as a translation, as a supplementary work, as a compilation, as an instructional text, as a test, as answer material for a test, or as an atlas, if the parties expressly agree in a written instrument signed by them that the work shall be considered a work made for hire. For the purpose of the foregoing sentence, a "supplementary work" is a work prepared for publication as a secondary adjunct to a work by another author for the purpose of introducing, concluding, illustrating, explaining, revising, commenting upon, or assisting in the use of the other work, such as forewords, afterwords, pictorial illustrations, maps, charts, tables, editorial notes, musical arrangements, answer material for tests, bibliographies, appendixes, and indexes, and an "instructional text" is a literary, pictorial, or graphic work prepared for publication and with the purpose of use in systematic instructional activities.
In determining whether any work is eligible to be considered a work made for hire under paragraph (2), neither the amendment contained in section 1011(d) of the Intellectual Property and Communications Omnibus Reform Act of 1999, as enacted by section 1000(a)(9) of Public Law 106-113, nor the deletion of the words added by that amendment--
(A)
shall be considered or otherwise given any legal significance, or
(B)
shall be interpreted to indicate congressional approval or disapproval of, or acquiescence in, any judicial determination, by the courts or the Copyright Office. Paragraph (2) shall be interpreted as if both section 2(a)(1) of the Work Made For Hire and Copyright Corrections Act of 2000 and section 1011(d) of the Intellectual Property and Communications Omnibus Reform Act of 1999, as enacted by section 1000(a)(9) of Public Law 106-113, were never enacted, and without regard to any inaction or awareness by the Congress at any time of any judicial determinations.
So yeah, good point there. As to EULAs though, they would indeed have to be contracts to be binding, but they fail so many tests of a contract they can't be that. Several attempts have been made to pass special legislation to make them binding, and I'm vague on this but I think a few states have? But trying to claim they're valid under contract law is just absurd.
Well the sleaziness is in the apparent desire to strip the customers rights.
I find nothing at all sleazy about the developer wanting to retain his copyright and the ability to reuse the code, as long as he doesn't attempt to cheat the customer to do it. It's hard to imagine why a client would ever need copyright for an in-house app, as long as they have a permissive license, and any needs for secrecy/confidentiality are spelled out ahead of time.
As has been noted, these issues should be spelled out in the work contract, not slipped in at the last moment in another silly EULA like he's talking about. I can see where he's coming from - the evil empire does it, why should they have all the fun? - but, uh, no. Very unprofessional.
Spell it out clearly in the contract beforehand, whatever the case may be.
This is a utility program, not a beauty pageant contestant.
It's got a job to do. It does it, as well or better than any other option.
The GUI isn't pretty, but it is superbly functional. Just about anything you might ever need to do with a.torrent is there. And 99% of the time, it's down in the dock doing its stuff with the GUI swapped out anyhow.
And I disagree that it's a 'bad interface' - it's just not a particularly pretty one. A *bad interface*, to me, would be one that doesn't allow me to access a function I need, or one that misleads me, misdirects me, into doing x when I wanted to do y. So the Azureus interface is actually a pretty good one, I'd say.
Of course, if you honestly think it's more important to look good, than to function well, then I guess it's not for you...
I use it on OSX, have been for 3 years now. The GUI isn't perfect, yes, that's true, but I don't much care. It has the features I want exposed, even if it did take slightly longer to find them all. The interface is definitely a bit slow too, I'll grant... but it's no big deal.
It does take a nice big chunk of memory, but I haven't experienced any 'leaks' and CPU usage, while significant, is stable. I generally close it if I'm going to play an FPS or the like, but it's not a problem to keep it open while using the web, email, or whatnot.
That's the idea, except that folks like HBO aren't going to go for it, at least now. But there are thousands of filmmakers out there today, many of them doing better work than anything you'd see on TV, but languishing in obscurity without access to the monopolised distribution channels. Those are the folks they're going to be cutting deals with, it sounds like, and I think it sounds like a damn fine plan to me. I hope it works out.
That's wierd, it never worked for me on my Mac, and I've tried half a dozen builds. Won't even run.
Azureus works like a champ, though, and I've never seen the problems other folks are talking about. It has a fairly hefty memory footprint, yes, and it's not the prettiest thing, but it gets the job done, and I've not noticed memory leaks or increasing cpu usage with it.
Slashdot Mirror
It's 'genetic unix' - descended from the historic unix codebase. It's not Unix(tm) however - that requires certification from the Open Group, current holders of the trademark.
I consider myself a brain surgeon, but I've never actually bothered to hold a scalpel. If it were really easy, I probably would though.
What linux apps does it have problems with?
A simple make, make install should get most all of them running. If it doesn't, there's a bug that needs to be reported upstream. And in the meantime, bsd has support for running linux binaries anyhow.
Clusters really aren't comparable.
They compete with supercomputers, not mainframes.
A lot of people confuse the two, but they're very different sorts of machines designed for very different purposes, with very different characteristics.
Supercomputers are great for intensive calculations. When you have a relatively small dataset and a very long string of operations to be performed on that dataset, you want a supercomputer.
A subset of supercomputer tasks are easily parallelised, and on that subset, in particular, a cluster can really rock.
But the weakness of clusters has always been in throughput - their ability to move large amounts of data around is rather weak.
Mainframes aren't great at intensive calculation, they don't compete with supercomputers, what they're designed for and great at (besides incredible reliability) is throughput. Those suckers can move enormous quantities of data around very very quickly.
Want to calculate more digits to pi? Break an encryption key? That's a supercomputer job, and a cluster can probably handle it fairly well.
Want to search a database that contains every transaction your company has ever had, with any customer or supplier, globally, for the past fifty years? That's a mainframe job. And neither a supercomputer nor a cluster is going to get close to a mainframe at doing it. All those hot little cpus will sit mostly idle while waiting for all the data to trickle in through a relatively narrow set of connections, while on the mainframe, all those (relatively slow) CPUs are being kept busy by a massive array of hard drives on an interface with more bandwidth to memory than most of us can even imagine.
Apples and oranges.
Umm I've yet to see a cluster with anything even approaching the kind of data throughput mainframes achieve though.
It would have been nice if the article had given some information on the advantages a 100% free software solution gave him. Obviously the article is on NewsForge and aimed mostly at folks that already know, but I'm picturing someone from the 'mainstream' reading this and coming away baffled - why did he put himself through all this trouble for no gain?
Of course there are tremendous gains there, the article just focuses on the problems, assuming the readers already know the advantages. They may not be so obvious to some readers, however.
Britain is the island, including England, Wales, and Scotland. It's a name derived from the language of those who inhabited England before the English, a p-celtic language closely related to modern Welsh.
England is a nation, comprising a large part of that island, excepting Wales and Scotland.
The UK is a state, historically descended from the (now technically defunct) English state. The English state conquered and subjugated all of its neighbors, and in a series of legislative acts effectively absorbed them. Under the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284 the conquered Welsh nation was partially absorbed into the English state, although left some concessions to autonomy. In the 1500s a series of acts by the English parliament effectively finished the job, abolishing the Welsh state and absorbing it entirely into the English. It also attempted to destroy the Welsh nation as well, laying legal discrimination against those who persisted in preserving Welsh language and customs. This discrimination was legally instituted from that point on until 1993.
The Scottish nation was the next neighbor to be conquered and absorbed by the English, although with great trouble and taking considerable time and mayhem to accomplish. In 1707 this had been accomplished, and was formalised by the Acts of Union. Technically speaking, these acts did not, like the earlier acts with regard to Wales, annex the subjugated nation to England, but actually dissolved both the Scottish and the English states, creating a superstate called 'the United Kingdom.'
This is the origin of the custom of loyal Englishmen taking offense at any reference to their nation by name as England - England is technically reduced to the status of a province within the greater 'United Kingdom' to which, it was hoped, the conquered nations might be accustomed to giving a loyalty they would never feel towards the hated English conquerers. It's easy to see why this might be considered nothing more than a legal fiction, however, as the 'United' government sits in the same place as the old 'English' government, conducts itself entirely in English with nary a word of Scots or Welsh to be heard, and indeed has clear continuity with the techically defunct English state in every respect.
In 1800 a new Act of Union added the conquered nation of Ireland to 'the United Kingdom' as well. Of course, much of Ireland managed to free itself a little over a century later, leaving a 'United Kingdom' of England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
So, when someone refers to 'England' where you suspect they mean 'the UK', it may well be out of ignorance - or it may instead be out of knowledge, and a dislike for the legal fictions of the conquerer.
There's no free market for health care in the US. Keep dreaming.
Makes as much sense as their claims of lost sales in the articles, yeah.
No, he's a bloodsucker.
They aren't remotely conservative, in any meaning except, perhaps, 'social conservative.' Their slant is more accurately neo-conservative, which has far less in common with political conservativism than it does with Trotskyism. They're pushing a radically leftist political agenda, they just wrap it up in the flag, throw in a dash of 'social conservativism' to make it more palatable to the masses, and shout down anyone that doesn't agree.
Not only that, but it requires Windows XP. Yet another way using a real computer protects one from rip-offs, I suppose.
Remember where words like snafu come from man. The military.
Presumably a few isolated parts of the military do have super-duper network security, but the vast majority of it isn't likely any harder to circumvent than your typical half-assed corporate firewall. Now I'm only basing this on anecdotes from my many friends and relatives that have been through the military, I don't know it from personal experience, but if half of what I've heard from sources I consider reliable is true, it would actually be a miracle if military networks were half as secure as your typical corporate setup. Which means any talented 12 year old should be able to pwn it without breaking a sweat.
Using the force of the state to create monopolies is what we're talking about.
And yes, originally the monopolies granted were much more limited, and fit the rationale given - that by accepting this relatively small evil, we would gain more goods, because this would encourage the production of literature, art, and science. We'd swallow a little evil for a lot of good.
I agree with you that the current system, which has lost all the limitations that once made it only a small evil, and lost all the conditions that were focused on makingit serve the greater good, is all, out of control, evil.
But I disagree with you that it's beyond debate whether even the original system was ever a good idea. Particularly given the fact that the current situation results from that one, filtered through some years of processes which are quite predictable and only to be expected once you put this power, to grant and enforce monopolies, in the hands of a political body.
Linux distributions are copyrighted.
And you obviously failed kindergarten.
I think I'd look for a clearer line to draw.
Bloody flash. Why do people do this?
Ok, who's already figured out how to get the actual file saved?
Realistically, what can google do?
This is going to happen with or without them. They can pick up a few dollars from the morons *shrug.*
From 17 USC 101:
So yeah, good point there. As to EULAs though, they would indeed have to be contracts to be binding, but they fail so many tests of a contract they can't be that. Several attempts have been made to pass special legislation to make them binding, and I'm vague on this but I think a few states have? But trying to claim they're valid under contract law is just absurd.
Well the sleaziness is in the apparent desire to strip the customers rights.
I find nothing at all sleazy about the developer wanting to retain his copyright and the ability to reuse the code, as long as he doesn't attempt to cheat the customer to do it. It's hard to imagine why a client would ever need copyright for an in-house app, as long as they have a permissive license, and any needs for secrecy/confidentiality are spelled out ahead of time.
As has been noted, these issues should be spelled out in the work contract, not slipped in at the last moment in another silly EULA like he's talking about. I can see where he's coming from - the evil empire does it, why should they have all the fun? - but, uh, no. Very unprofessional.
Spell it out clearly in the contract beforehand, whatever the case may be.
No, you're not alone, you're in the company of all the other commentors that couldn't be bothered to read the article.
Honestly, why should I care?
.torrent is there. And 99% of the time, it's down in the dock doing its stuff with the GUI swapped out anyhow.
This is a utility program, not a beauty pageant contestant.
It's got a job to do. It does it, as well or better than any other option.
The GUI isn't pretty, but it is superbly functional. Just about anything you might ever need to do with a
And I disagree that it's a 'bad interface' - it's just not a particularly pretty one. A *bad interface*, to me, would be one that doesn't allow me to access a function I need, or one that misleads me, misdirects me, into doing x when I wanted to do y. So the Azureus interface is actually a pretty good one, I'd say.
Of course, if you honestly think it's more important to look good, than to function well, then I guess it's not for you...
Your experience is not congruent with mine.
I use it on OSX, have been for 3 years now. The GUI isn't perfect, yes, that's true, but I don't much care. It has the features I want exposed, even if it did take slightly longer to find them all. The interface is definitely a bit slow too, I'll grant... but it's no big deal.
It does take a nice big chunk of memory, but I haven't experienced any 'leaks' and CPU usage, while significant, is stable. I generally close it if I'm going to play an FPS or the like, but it's not a problem to keep it open while using the web, email, or whatnot.
And this is on a fairly old Mac, a ~600MgHz G4.
That's the idea, except that folks like HBO aren't going to go for it, at least now. But there are thousands of filmmakers out there today, many of them doing better work than anything you'd see on TV, but languishing in obscurity without access to the monopolised distribution channels. Those are the folks they're going to be cutting deals with, it sounds like, and I think it sounds like a damn fine plan to me. I hope it works out.
That's wierd, it never worked for me on my Mac, and I've tried half a dozen builds. Won't even run.
Azureus works like a champ, though, and I've never seen the problems other folks are talking about. It has a fairly hefty memory footprint, yes, and it's not the prettiest thing, but it gets the job done, and I've not noticed memory leaks or increasing cpu usage with it.