VFAT is the hack with long filename support built on top of an 8.3 'truename' or whatever you want to call it.
Fat32 is the version with 'proper' long file names.
Either way they're just incremental extensions based on the FAT system created by Tim Paterson at Seattle Computer Products back about 1980 or so. Microsoft filed for the patent many years later. Software patents are evil as hell.
No they didn't. They licensed it, then later bought it with a perpetual license left to the original owner, then were sued over contract dispute, and settled by buying out the original owners contract. It was 'invented' by Tim Patterson in his capacity as chief engineer for Seattle Computer Products, although 'invention' isn't a good word here, like most software it was an improvement of pre-existing work.
They've extended it several times over the years, but again, can you patent a 'derived work'? This seems to me like an area where copyright, not patent, is appropriate, but again IANAL.
And, while I'm rambling, what about the FAT driver in the Linux kernel? Is it in violation of the patent?
IANAL, but I did at least read the material.
It sure looks to me like the Linux FAT driver would be a violation of that patent, were the patent valid. It also looks to me like there's no way in hell the patent can be valid, considering that MicroSoft didn't invent FAT. Can you really patent something someone else came up with 20 years ago, just because you're the major user of it?
Oh, I agree in general, but in the specific case the guy mentioned, someone has a mac and want to run some educational software that is Win-only for instance, better to use a virtual machine than to switch platforms. And Windows inside a virtual machine isn't really as sinister as Windows running on bare hardware.
If you ever find you simply must use Windows again, for any purpose, allow me to recommend Kerio Personal Firewall instead of ZA, and also the fine products of LitePC, to remove the spyware that's included in Windows by MicroSoft.
I'm not going to go into why mshtml.dll, explorer.exe, and friends are trying to reach the rest of the internet when you are using Opera (or mozilla), but it basically boils down to microsoft's active desktop subsystem
Then explain why it happens with Active Desktop turned off or even completely removed?
Do a tcpdump and you'll find the packets are harmless.
Transmissions taking place without the operators knowledge or consent are unacceptable, 'harmless' or not.
For the next 3 years, my neighbor/friend would ask me every month or so why they can't run all of the software that was on sale at the computer store...
They just wanted to run the copy of Freddy Fish that grandma bought for the kids.
I think it's a good idea, but they need to finish it.
Finishing it would mean getting rid of YAST and the outdated QT it needs, and creating/updating GNOME apps to do the things that people will otherwise be wanting to install KDE apps to do.
It's a good thing to have GNOME and KDE competing. It's a good thing to be able to run apps from both side by side, if you want to. But when aiming at the audience SUN wants here, it's also a good idea to use only one and make sure that all the tools needed are available with it.
For geeks like (I assume you and) me it's no big deal to have incompatible UIs floating around, but in a corporate environment with lots of employees chosen for reasons other than technical skills, it's a disaster in terms of training and technical support. Even in that environment, most people will be able to handle it, but those few that can't will eat resources like crazy. Better by far to pick one, and do the work to make that one complete. And in the long run that's better for us geeks too, more good apps to choose from.
Yes, he was wack and I'm catching him in meta-mod now.
But I am wondering, if you put both source and binary available from the same location, say an ftp server, is that sufficient to be 'distributing together' or do you have to actually put the source in every binary tarball to avoid having to deal with source requests from third parties?
It would seem reasonable that this is sufficient, but I wonder if a lawyer could make trouble over it.
This sounds remarkably like what could happen if Slashdot ever decided to break away from their overlords.
Except that the folks that started Slashdot sold it, and there are contracts with specific compensation etc. Doesn't seem to be any of that for Linuxgazette - just a hosting company deciding they own what they're hosting, and registering a trademark after they realise their content has decided to leave rather than take orders they find offensive.
There's more to it. Linuxgazette was not a creation of SSC, and it's not a 'dissident group' leaving. Linuxgazette was a volunteer organisation from the beginning, and SSC picked it up and hosted it after it had been around some time. Apparently their business got intermixed over that period, and now both SSC and the Linuxgazette staff think they own the name and design and so forth. The entire staff of Linuxgazette have left, and are continuing Linuxgazette as it's always been from a new location, while SSC intends to use the brand for an entirely different sort of site and is threatening them with legal action.
Here's the other side of it on LWN. Of course who actually owns the trademark is something the lawyers will probably have to argue over.
Most of the rural US has no Internet service, and likely never will unless some government steps in and either mandates it or provides it.
That's simply untrue. I left one of the most rural areas in the states a couple years ago and we had internet access there and had had it for years. I've friends in other similarly rural places and they have it.
No, they don't have cable modems. They do have dialup, they do have ISDN if they're willing to pay for it. DSL lines are getting put in, slowly, even in the most out of the way spots. And satellite dishes have been available wherever you are for years. They're quite inexpensive today.
Look, if I can physically compromise your network and slip in a trojan server, I can almost certainly root any machine you've got in the same time anyway.
And don't talk about wireless without RTFA, Airport is not affected.
I first programmed a simple little gizmo with a few lights and switches my older cousin had whipped up in his dads workshop. Then he got a Trash80 and I used it. First computer I owned myself was a Timex-Sinclair.
I only got my first mac about two years ago.
Same here.
However, I will no longer have anything but a mac in my house
OK, I won't go that far. I've got a windows (98lite) box for games, and a headless linux box, and they both have their functions. Fact is, actually, if I didn't have to have a couple of proprietary packages on here for work, I'd seriously consider reformatting my Mac and sticking Debian on it.
But I think the point is just that Macs are really a nice choice to have, and sometimes the best ones, and people that can't grok that fact and go around calling people that do 'zealots' should look in the mirror.
It sounds like they've gone to much greater lengths on this project than any I'm aware of in the past, but the basic thing here has been out for a long time. Most any keyboard you can buy has human voices. A single sample can be spread out over your keyboard and sing any pitch you want, even glides and stuff, pretty easily. But it's generally fairly rudimentary - 'ahh' and 'ohh' or similar, you can actually do some nice sounding background vocals but not sing verses.
From the description in the article, this 'new' thing is really just an inevitable extension of that - they spend about 5 days with a singer, recording her singing many different phonemes and different effects, so that you can then piece together the words to your own song and put it to your own melody in her voice. And, for the moment, they're still aiming at producing background vocals, just more complex ones with the ability to do actual lyrics instead of a oohs and aaahs. Could be kind of cool, but it definately doesn't sound like a 'quantum leap' - just an extension of long-existing technology. I've been expecting to see someone do this for well over 10 years now, ever since I first got to play around with a digital synthesizer.
And that's still a primary use of windowing systems for a lot of people today. Also remember that MS Windows wasn't really usable until 1992 with version 3.1. I was working with PCs through that entire period, and although I was vaguely aware that MS did have a product called Windows, and in fact I had tried some of the earlier versions myself, they were completely useless. Whereas X on Unix, for those that were lucky enough to rate a Workstation, was very slick and usable in '92, windows 3.1 was barely usable for a few things, and so often getting things done under it involved exiting back to DOS that we made a conscious decision to stick to DOS alone on most machines.
I don't believe I ever heard anyone call it 'X-Windows' until well after '92, and I believe it was on the model of MS-Windows by people who were familiar with that first. This being the case, it makes sense that the X consortium wouldn't like that usage - first because it's simply not the right name, and second because it does seem to have it's origin in a confusion with MS Windows.
That's what I thought you were getting at, but it seemed a bit wierd that you were apparently criticising the second issue when I was only talking about the first.
No, they're still great for power consumption. Problem is, that the CPU isn't the only thing in most devices sucking power, and they built up expectations that their chips would be able to perform much better than they have turned out to do. I still think they are good choices for a lot of devices that don't really need any more power - they're basically like ARM with x86 compatibility built in, and there are plenty of cases where something like that makes sense - but they definately haven't lived up to the expectations.
And as true as that is, and as true as it is that I am personally notorious for hammering that point home, a couple of other things are true too.:
Very few things actually written in HTML bother to follow proper practices.
and
Even if you do things properly, my point still stands, in that a document that was written to be usable without graphics is very unlikely to become less usable with their addition, whereas documents written with graphics included, even if they do have decent alt attributes and so forth, still are generally not so usable in a text environment as they were in their intended form.
Slashdot Mirror
VFAT is the hack with long filename support built on top of an 8.3 'truename' or whatever you want to call it.
Fat32 is the version with 'proper' long file names.
Either way they're just incremental extensions based on the FAT system created by Tim Paterson at Seattle Computer Products back about 1980 or so. Microsoft filed for the patent many years later. Software patents are evil as hell.
No they didn't. They licensed it, then later bought it with a perpetual license left to the original owner, then were sued over contract dispute, and settled by buying out the original owners contract. It was 'invented' by Tim Patterson in his capacity as chief engineer for Seattle Computer Products, although 'invention' isn't a good word here, like most software it was an improvement of pre-existing work. They've extended it several times over the years, but again, can you patent a 'derived work'? This seems to me like an area where copyright, not patent, is appropriate, but again IANAL.
IANAL, but I did at least read the material.
It sure looks to me like the Linux FAT driver would be a violation of that patent, were the patent valid. It also looks to me like there's no way in hell the patent can be valid, considering that MicroSoft didn't invent FAT. Can you really patent something someone else came up with 20 years ago, just because you're the major user of it?
Oh, I agree in general, but in the specific case the guy mentioned, someone has a mac and want to run some educational software that is Win-only for instance, better to use a virtual machine than to switch platforms. And Windows inside a virtual machine isn't really as sinister as Windows running on bare hardware.
In large portion that's true, but /opt is still stupid nonsense, regardless of what that document says.
If you ever find you simply must use Windows again, for any purpose, allow me to recommend Kerio Personal Firewall instead of ZA, and also the fine products of LitePC, to remove the spyware that's included in Windows by MicroSoft.
Then explain why it happens with Active Desktop turned off or even completely removed?
Transmissions taking place without the operators knowledge or consent are unacceptable, 'harmless' or not.
They can.
I think it's a good idea, but they need to finish it.
Finishing it would mean getting rid of YAST and the outdated QT it needs, and creating/updating GNOME apps to do the things that people will otherwise be wanting to install KDE apps to do.
It's a good thing to have GNOME and KDE competing. It's a good thing to be able to run apps from both side by side, if you want to. But when aiming at the audience SUN wants here, it's also a good idea to use only one and make sure that all the tools needed are available with it.
For geeks like (I assume you and) me it's no big deal to have incompatible UIs floating around, but in a corporate environment with lots of employees chosen for reasons other than technical skills, it's a disaster in terms of training and technical support. Even in that environment, most people will be able to handle it, but those few that can't will eat resources like crazy. Better by far to pick one, and do the work to make that one complete. And in the long run that's better for us geeks too, more good apps to choose from.
Yes, he was wack and I'm catching him in meta-mod now.
But I am wondering, if you put both source and binary available from the same location, say an ftp server, is that sufficient to be 'distributing together' or do you have to actually put the source in every binary tarball to avoid having to deal with source requests from third parties?
It would seem reasonable that this is sufficient, but I wonder if a lawyer could make trouble over it.
Except that the folks that started Slashdot sold it, and there are contracts with specific compensation etc. Doesn't seem to be any of that for Linuxgazette - just a hosting company deciding they own what they're hosting, and registering a trademark after they realise their content has decided to leave rather than take orders they find offensive.
There's more to it. Linuxgazette was not a creation of SSC, and it's not a 'dissident group' leaving. Linuxgazette was a volunteer organisation from the beginning, and SSC picked it up and hosted it after it had been around some time. Apparently their business got intermixed over that period, and now both SSC and the Linuxgazette staff think they own the name and design and so forth. The entire staff of Linuxgazette have left, and are continuing Linuxgazette as it's always been from a new location, while SSC intends to use the brand for an entirely different sort of site and is threatening them with legal action.
Here's the other side of it on LWN. Of course who actually owns the trademark is something the lawyers will probably have to argue over.
I wait until Litepc can prevent IE, mshtml, etc. from being installed.
MicroSoft has never offered anything worth the price of having that pile of bugs and security holes installed.
That's simply untrue. I left one of the most rural areas in the states a couple years ago and we had internet access there and had had it for years. I've friends in other similarly rural places and they have it.
No, they don't have cable modems. They do have dialup, they do have ISDN if they're willing to pay for it. DSL lines are getting put in, slowly, even in the most out of the way spots. And satellite dishes have been available wherever you are for years. They're quite inexpensive today.
Look, if I can physically compromise your network and slip in a trojan server, I can almost certainly root any machine you've got in the same time anyway.
And don't talk about wireless without RTFA, Airport is not affected.
I first programmed a simple little gizmo with a few lights and switches my older cousin had whipped up in his dads workshop. Then he got a Trash80 and I used it. First computer I owned myself was a Timex-Sinclair.
Same here.
OK, I won't go that far. I've got a windows (98lite) box for games, and a headless linux box, and they both have their functions. Fact is, actually, if I didn't have to have a couple of proprietary packages on here for work, I'd seriously consider reformatting my Mac and sticking Debian on it.
But I think the point is just that Macs are really a nice choice to have, and sometimes the best ones, and people that can't grok that fact and go around calling people that do 'zealots' should look in the mirror.
So? Just throw the Linux/PPC distro of your choice on it then, if you haven't already.
It sounds like they've gone to much greater lengths on this project than any I'm aware of in the past, but the basic thing here has been out for a long time. Most any keyboard you can buy has human voices. A single sample can be spread out over your keyboard and sing any pitch you want, even glides and stuff, pretty easily. But it's generally fairly rudimentary - 'ahh' and 'ohh' or similar, you can actually do some nice sounding background vocals but not sing verses.
From the description in the article, this 'new' thing is really just an inevitable extension of that - they spend about 5 days with a singer, recording her singing many different phonemes and different effects, so that you can then piece together the words to your own song and put it to your own melody in her voice. And, for the moment, they're still aiming at producing background vocals, just more complex ones with the ability to do actual lyrics instead of a oohs and aaahs. Could be kind of cool, but it definately doesn't sound like a 'quantum leap' - just an extension of long-existing technology. I've been expecting to see someone do this for well over 10 years now, ever since I first got to play around with a digital synthesizer.
And that's still a primary use of windowing systems for a lot of people today. Also remember that MS Windows wasn't really usable until 1992 with version 3.1. I was working with PCs through that entire period, and although I was vaguely aware that MS did have a product called Windows, and in fact I had tried some of the earlier versions myself, they were completely useless. Whereas X on Unix, for those that were lucky enough to rate a Workstation, was very slick and usable in '92, windows 3.1 was barely usable for a few things, and so often getting things done under it involved exiting back to DOS that we made a conscious decision to stick to DOS alone on most machines.
I don't believe I ever heard anyone call it 'X-Windows' until well after '92, and I believe it was on the model of MS-Windows by people who were familiar with that first. This being the case, it makes sense that the X consortium wouldn't like that usage - first because it's simply not the right name, and second because it does seem to have it's origin in a confusion with MS Windows.
Umm no it's not. X started in 1983. MicroSoft Windows 1.0 wasn't released until 1985.
I'm telling you to mind your own business. Is that more clear to you, or are you just thick?
If you find it 'not acceptable' then please, don't buy one.
That's what I thought you were getting at, but it seemed a bit wierd that you were apparently criticising the second issue when I was only talking about the first.
No, they're still great for power consumption. Problem is, that the CPU isn't the only thing in most devices sucking power, and they built up expectations that their chips would be able to perform much better than they have turned out to do. I still think they are good choices for a lot of devices that don't really need any more power - they're basically like ARM with x86 compatibility built in, and there are plenty of cases where something like that makes sense - but they definately haven't lived up to the expectations.
And as true as that is, and as true as it is that I am personally notorious for hammering that point home, a couple of other things are true too.: