You are confusing patent and copyright. Copyright was designed to deal with written works, and things similar. Copyright is limited, in that the first amendment (free speech) must be accomodated, hence provisions for "fair use."
Patents, although authorized by the same provision of the constitution, with the same goal, were designed for inventions - basically gadgets. The priveleges granted under a patent are much broader, with no limitations to accomodate free speech. Which made perfect sense in earlier times.
But now, the line between written work and gadget has been blurred by the use of computers. I can write a work on my computer, put it through my compiler, and produce a gadget on my virtual desktop here. Or I can stick it on a web server, make the appropriate entries in a few files, and make a gadget on the virtual desktop of everyone that visits my web site. Now the question here is whether my creation is a written work (the source code which makes my gadget work) or a gadget in its own right - whether I should be allowed a patent or only a copyright.
RMS and many of the rest of us feel that a copyright is the better answer (never mind that copyright has been extended at the very time it should have been shortened - that's another kettle of fish.) However many are getting very broad patents instead in the same situation.
Another issue here is that, while the laws involved make it seem that copyright should be easy to establish, but a patent should be much harder, it seems that as long as you have the money it's really no harder to get a patent. A patent requires a novel and not trivial invention, and an absence of prior art, a copyright requires only a unique written work. But the patent office seems to be severely dropping the ball on this - they are granting patents left and right for stuff that appears to be quite trivial and not really novel. Such patents can later be nullified - but only if someone comes up with a great deal of money to hire lawyers and litigate it, which is a significant hurdle. Even the arbitration-like option the article mentions is a significant burden that really should not be there in the cases of many of these patents, like the two notorious ones Amazon was granted, and many others, that simply should have never been granted in the first place, and would not have been if the patent office had the expertise/would take the time to properly evaluate the applications before granting them.
Hrmm the arguments for that are a lot less strong than for opening source code. In Apples old business model this would make no sense whatsoever, and although they are using more commodity hardware lately to lower their R&D costs, I'm still not sure it would make any sense for them.
Just be happy with the source guys. If I understand this right it should be a great boost for GNUStep right? Any hackers out there that want to see linux or *BSD becoming a real player in the desktop market should be paying attention.
Well everyone else seems to think this guy thinks M$ employees have written half of linux on company time. If that's what he thinks he's an idiot.
On the other hand, I have another interpretation. It's no secret that M$ owns stock in a lot of companies, including Corel and Inprise/Borland, both of which have been actively involved in modifying/creating products *for* linux. I don't know, but when Corel released the source for their KDE mods, for instance, they might well have retained copyright, which would mean the M$ has part ownership in part of KDE.. of course if this is what he meant he's still an idiot, as KDE is not part of linux except in the loosest of senses, and no matter how you figure it M$ couldn't own anywhere near half of KDE, let alone half of the software that runs on linux... but it makes as much sense as the other suggestion.
Personally I think it was just a snipe, a little flamebait, nothing more...
IANAL That said, as I understand it, GCC being under GPL all mods to it are GPL already. Assigning copyright to the FSF doesn't affect the license per se, it affects who has standing in a court to *enforce* the license - if they kept the copyright it would still be GPL but only they could sue a violator - now that it's assigned to the FSF it will be up to the FSF to sue.
Release the source for the old stuff. I mean, it's not like you can even buy this stuff anymore.
Would be nice, wouldn't it? It'll happen about the same time the blizzards hit hades though. M$ business model is based on forced upgrades - it would make no sense whatsoever to do this from their point of view./P
Depends on what you mean by good. They are fairly "user friendly" (although there are several notoriously BAD elements in the UI design, I still have to admit that it's way ahead of what I have been able to find for linux - while some programs actually have very nice GUIs even those are hampered by the failings of X still, i.e. things like no "real" cut and paste across programs - usually it can be done, I know, but X is still far less friendly than windows, and this has to affect the real world rating of programs under them.)
On the other hand, in a number of other respects these programs are EXTREMELY poor - security being the number one concern, executable documents and the like offer very little boost to usability and totally break any notion of security. Of course, this may be on purpose - if it weren't for Word and Outlook's offences in these respects folks like McAffee (sp?) would be considerably less wealthy...
Wandering perhaps to the edge of being off-topic, my personal nomination for the one thing that linux needs most atm is a good GUI standard - no flames, I agree one hundred percent about freedom of choice, I love being able to choose how to set up my desktop to make me happy and so forth. But - the problem is, none of the currently available environments are really good, in a UI design/ease of use sense. It would be really nice if I could set up a workstation with a consistent, well designed UI using linux, but I can't quite do that yet. GNUStep anyone? Seriously... the NeXT stations were, in my opinion and in the opinion of a great many experts in the field, the pinnacle to date for usability. They are far superior to anything M$ has put out, Apple is trying to improve on it, but they seem to be breaking as much as they improve - this looks like a great opportunity for anyone that wants to see linux become viable in the desktop market. I suck as a coder or I would be hacking away at GNUStep right now, but since I haven't coded my way out of a paper bag in years I'll have to be satisfied hoping some people that CAN code think about this and maybe do something about it.
That's real strange man. I've found other folks that are running K6s with more RAM and Mandrake just fine too... whatever the critical component is would probably take some time to narrow down. I've done my share of troubleshooting (maintain a very non-homogenous network for a few years and you'll do more than you ever wanted to do) and it can be a real headache. BTW Microsoft was no more help with that than Mandrake is, and we *DID* pay the big bucks for tech support.:~
However, since you have other distros that work on it this really shouldn't be a problem - remember you can just mount the Mandrake disk and access it's rpms, a lot of systems use RPMs and they work just fine for that (I've installed software from mandrake onto redhat systems and vice versa several times.) Slackware even has a tool to handle rpms now (rpm2pkg ?) so if you want certain parts of the mandrake distro on another base that shouldn't be a problem - just make sure you have the libraries that the package requires (if they aren't installed by the other distro already they'll be on the mandrake disk in RPM form too.)
Have you experimented to narrow down the problem a bit?
Here are a few ideas.
Remove some of the RAM from one of the machines (I'm using a K6 with 48 megs and have never seen any problems like this under linux - I did see similar problems on this box before I installed linux - more on that below). I honestly don't think it's likely that the amount of memory has anything to do with the problem, but you obviously do - this would be the only way to be sure.
Have you got another distribution to work on this machine? I would try another distro, any distro, if you haven't - if the same thing happens then you know it's not specifically a mandrake problem.
You haven't provided enough information to allow anything approximating certainty here, but just going on what you said, I do have an educated guess as to what might be happening - from the symptoms, and the time element, I would personally suspect a cooling problem. I have seen similiar problems hit my box after 24 hours or so of uptime - this was before I switched over to linux but it sounds very similar - installing a new heavy duty heat sink and ball bearing fan to replace the el cheapo that my box came with solved the problem for me.
Oh, one more questions - after the kernel panic have you tried turning the box off for awhile (bringing the temperature back down) then bringing it back up again?
(Moderators please be kind - if any of you are actually reading pages that are over an hour old;^)
Hrmm is that what he did? This post wasn't very coherent, and I don't remember the other one.
I wish he had been a little clearer and more consistent - I can assure you that there is no issue with mandrake on K6 - I'm on a K6 box running mandrake right now.
Unless he bought a service agreement of course they are under no obligation to provide tech support, unless he can narrow down the problem a bit it wouldn't help anyhow - I repeat, mandrake + K6 works just fine, there has to be another problem...
Whoever posted that article may have been trying to do what you say, but if you read the comments it doesn't look like many of us are buying it. In fact it seems that the story is backfiring on the poster...
Your point is made, in that there were no *accusations* in the strictest sense (and strict sense is something I favour) - but there was a call for boycott, and some pretty heavy *implications* that don't seem warranted at all. Sit back and put yourself in the dutchman's place for a minute, I think if you were him you would probably be quite offended at the implications, and feel you had been accused.
I could be wrong, but I don't believe any of these concerns apply to Delphi. Isn't Delphi a proprietary Inprise/Borland language with only one implementation? I could be all wrong here, but if memory serves that is the case... I also seem to remember reading they were considering porting it to linux at some point in the future.
If I am right then none of these concerns really apply, the source will only be useful to folks with Delphi but there is no worry of multiple versions. The main thing I would think about would be what might you gain/lose by open sourcing it. You gain, at least potentially, more people poking through your code and finding (and fixing) bugs. You lose, well, probably very little, but then again I don't really know your business situation.
If you have competitors that might gain a significant advantage over you through your release of the code, then I would seriously consider not releasing it. However, if that is not a huge concern, releasing it would probably be a good thing - at least it could be expected to increase the number of eyeballs reviewing it for problems. Don't expect miracles though - the number of open source windows developers is probably pretty small, the number who use Delphi would be a subset, and the number that would be interested in your particular project can only be a subset of that. Now if that linux port ever happens the potential audience should grow quite a bit... so such a release could be viewed as a low risk investment which *might* really pay off later.
However, there is the fact that if you do release it will be unders a pseudo-open license (ala Netscape or Sun - NOT GPL or BSD.) This means you will be reserving the right to hamstring or kill the code at any point - you aren't allowing forking. Open source developers will tend to work on projects with the sort of license you mention only if they have a strong interest in the functionality and/or (preferably and) the company that controls the code has a good reputation for supporting the community. Even then it may not be enough - in the long run we're better off reimplimenting code from scratch and placing it under a truly open source license than contributing countless hours to building on a half-open project only to see the owner kill it later. So releasing this while you have no immediate expectation of substantial return might help build a little of that sort of reputation for you, which *could* lay the groundwork for substantial returns in the future - but again, no guarantees. I would consider it a longshot.
If you don't see any way that the release can cause your company substantial harm, I would say go for it. But if the release would expose you to significant risk, I couldn't recommend it - the gain is all potential, with no guarantees.
(These comments may or may not reflect the posters own opinions after he has another cup of coffee.)
I myself have a few Questions and Concerns regarding the Libertarian Platform. In Section 6, Article the Second, it is argued that grants of legal privilege make government "the source of monopoly." Copyright is a monopoly granted by the United States Congress, but of this the Article gives no specific mention. By that Silence, ought I to construe consent thereto? If this matter is elsewhere addressed, please be good enough to let me know, as the question bears Grave Import upon the Libertarian Opinion of Copyleft.
The constitution allowed the federal government to grant a copyright - a legally created monopoly - for a limited period of time, for the consideration of providing that the work which would enter the public domain at the end of that period of time. You could make a libertarian argument against even that limited grant, but very very few serious libertarians would bother - as it originally stood this was a pretty good thing.
Remember there is no obligation to take the copyright, you could throw your work directly into the public domain or you could keep it under wraps as a trade secret or the like without ever going through the copyright process at all. You still can.
The problem is that over time the "rent-seekers" (a polite word for those who practice thievery by legislation) with Disney in the lead have bought extension after extension to the copyright terms to the point of virtual perpetuity (every 10 years or so they lobby for another 20 or so...) - this is NOT the plan of the constitution, and it completely violates the spirit of that clause of the constitution, which was to grant a temporary monopoly right to the creator of a work in exchange for the guarantee that the work would enter the public domain.
(And, for my own personal curiosity, I must wonder if the Libertarian Party in general favors a government overview of the Purity of Food and Drugs, or is it to be a private contractual matter between Producer and Consumer, whose ultimate arbiter is the Court?)
L.P. Platform 1998 III.3:
We support strong and effective laws against fraud and misrepresentation. However, we oppose paternalistic regulations which dictate to consumers, impose prices, define standards for products, or otherwise restrict risk-taking and free choice. We oppose governmental promotion or imposition of the metric system.
We oppose all so-called "consumer protection" legislation which infringes upon voluntary trade, and call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. We advocate the repeal of all laws banning or restricting the advertising of prices, products, or services. We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called "self-protection" equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.
We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration, which has jeopardized safety by arrogating to itself a monopoly of safety regulation and enforcement. We call for privatizing the air traffic control system and transferring the FAA's other functions to private agencies.
We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration and particularly its policies of mandating specific nutritional requirements and denying the right of manufacturers to make non-fraudulent claims concerning their products. We advocate an end to compulsory fluoridation of water supplies. We specifically oppose government regulation of the price, potency, or quantity able to be produced or purchased of drugs or other consumer goods. There should be no laws regarding what substances (nicotine, alcohol, hallucinogens, narcotics, Laetrile, artificial sweeteners, vitamin supplements, or other "drugs") a person may ingest or otherwise use.
While I agree with the gist of your argument, your use of the word Libertarian is completely wrong. Libertarians are strong advocates of contracts and the priniciples which make them meaningful and enforceable. You might have been thinking of Communists?
Admittedly some in the free software movement seem to have some communistic sounding rhetorical accretions (Stallman for instance,) but at the heart of it the GPL is nothing if not Libertarian - it's all about voluntary transactions with the terms of those transactions set via contract. And Carmack is doing exactly what he must do - he's enforcing his contract.
Re:pretty, yet incomprehensible
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I think you just hit several nails on their heads. In particular, sticking all three control buttons together on one end of the bar is just awful gui design, not at all what one would expect from Apple. I can't see any good reason not to give them the same placement mac users are already used to - it's not just a better design, it would also make the transition easier for their existing customers. (Remember that they cater to the not-so-technical crowd - just think of that kindly grandmother who's finally gotten used to the "classic" design suddenly confronted with this new design, scratching her head. Now think of her again, only stick those coloured buttons in the same positions their classic equivelants had...)
While there are obviously a number of really nice things about OSX, there are some obvious problems too. It just doesn't make any sense that the company that built their reputation on good gui design would make such rookie mistakes in that very area - unless the company has changed recently in a rather negative way, as certain rumours seem to indicate.
32 bit x86 code no less... Also, there is support for 32 bit x86 Linux binaries available (in Linux of course.) How well it actually works is best left for someone else to answer. I'm suprised that so many people thought there was no x86 emulation available.
I would love to buy an Alpha box instead of an Athlon next purchase, but I still have to have one or two programs that I use wine to run...
Is there any way to change the default from HTML to plain old text on this form? Grr... apologies if I double posted, not sure if I hit cancel in time or not...
32 bit x86 code no less... Also, there is support for 32 bit x86 Linux binaries available (in Linux of course.) How well it actually works is best left for someone else to answer. I'm suprised that so many people thought there was no x86 emulation available. ************************************************* Any links on this? Anyone used it? I would love to buy an Alpha box instead of an Athlon next purchase, but I still have to have one or two programs that I use wine to run...
It's a lot faster. Not only is it far faster, it's also more stable, and if it's STILL not fast enough for you it gives the user an incredible amount of control over how it operates - for real speed experiment with the image loading modes. (I am talking about the windows version here - the linux version, contrary to the blurb above, is actually an alpha NOT a beta release and still very buggy and unstable. Much like ANY Alpha release - tried KRASH?)
It's had java support for ages. It supports any netscape compatible plugin. If you WANT java, just download the plugin from sun and install it. This is an advantage - not a disadvantage - those that want JAVA get it and those that don't are not obligated to have it.
I have never found a site with valid HTML that did not render properly in Opera. The last few releases it's even been so forgiving that crap HTML like usa.net (for example) render just fine on it - I have mixed feelings about that.
HTML is not a layout language. If your goal is to totally control layout, use.pdf. HTML is a logical language, for the presentation of information. It is deliberately abstract to allow the same logical structures to be rendered differently in different environments (think cross-platform).
The problem is some web designers want to rebel against this and try to achieve total layout control in HTML. This is an utter renunciation of the very purpose of HTML in the first place, and the end result is all those stupid pages that you need IE 5 at a given resolution to view. Don't blame Opera for not rendering them as intended - blame the idiot that wrote them for not learning how to use HTML - or alternatively finding an appropriate format to do what he did. HTML isn't it.
And yes, I'm using Netscrape 4.7 to post this - but only because of a lesser of two evils choice - I would rather use Linux than Windows EVEN THOUGH that means using Netscrape atm. When Opera is ready to use on Linux that choice will be a whole lot easier to make.
And finally, yeah, it isn't open source. Of course it would be nice if it was. But better an open source OS with a good closed source browser than the other way around. I wish the Mozilla folks all the luck in the world, but I'm sure not gonna hold my breath waiting for Mozilla to be half as functional as Opera.
It's a lot faster. Not only is it far faster, it's also more stable, and if it's STILL not fast enough for you it gives the user an incredible amount of control over how it operates - for real speed experiment with the image loading modes. (I am talking about the windows version here - the linux version, contrary to the blurb above, is actually an alpha NOT a beta release and still very buggy and unstable. Much like ANY Alpha release - tried KRASH?) It's had java support for ages. It supports any netscape compatible plugin. If you WANT java, just download the plugin from sun and install it. This is an advantage - not a disadvantage - those that want JAVA get it and those that don't are not obligated to have it. I have never found a site with valid HTML that did not render properly in Opera. The last few releases it's even been so forgiving that crap HTML like usa.net (for example) render just fine on it - I have mixed feelings about that. HTML is not a layout language. If your goal is to totally control layout, use.pdf. HTML is a logical language, for the presentation of information. It is deliberately abstract to allow the same logical structures to be rendered differently in different environments (think cross-platform). The problem is some web designers want to rebel against this and try to achieve total layout control in HTML. This is an utter renunciation of the very purpose of HTML in the first place, and the end result is all those stupid pages that you need IE 5 at a given resolution to view. Don't blame Opera for not rendering them as intended - blame the idiot that wrote them for not learning how to use HTML - or alternatively finding an appropriate format to do what he did. HTML isn't it. And yes, I'm using Netscrape 4.7 to post this - but only because of a lesser of two evils choice - I would rather use Linux than Windows EVEN THOUGH that means using Netscrape atm. When Opera is ready to use on Linux that choice will be a whole lot easier to make. And finally, yeah, it isn't open source. Of course it would be nice if it was. But better an open source OS with a good closed source browser than the other way around. I wish the Mozilla folks all the luck in the world, but I'm sure not gonna hold my breath waiting for Mozilla to be half as functional as Opera.
In general, I shy away from conspiracy theories. But in this case, I see only two possibilities. You are right (or at least very close to right) or else these folks are absolutely, positively nuts. *shrug* Personally, I'd rather think you are right.
> But they never specified the URL as being a top-level domain. For instance, if > Bandx was with Sony and immediately quit after hearing how Sony was trying to > ream them and joined (to give an example from the article) Maverick, would Sony > claim they owned www.maverick.com/bandx? That is, after all, a URL. How about > bandx.maverick.com? How about bandx.net and bandx.org? How about bandxsucks.com?
If they left Sony at this point they would never have signed a contract with the objectionable language so it wouldn't affect them. More than likely they wouldn't actually be able to leave Sony *today* but they can leave when their current contract (without this language) expires and refuse to sign any offered extension containing this language, to the same affect.
On the other hand if they sign tommorrow a contract with the objectionable language it would indeed seem that Sony would have grounds to bar them from using any of those URLs. Enforceable? Maybe. I'm not a lawyer, just a layman with a little experience... at any rate Sonys lawyers would be able to cause them trouble. Just reinforces the main point, as I see it... don't sign with Sony. If you have a contract with Sony, don't renew it. At least not until this is changed.
General rule that any musician with a clue follows - don't sign anything without reading it yourself and having your lawyer read it too. Don't have a lawyer? Get one. If necessary sleep with one, or con another group member or a groupie into sleeping with one. I'm serious - lawyers suck but if you are a musician without a lawyer you *will* get screwed in the long run - better to choose the way you get screwed straight up.
> That presence would become the property of Sony once a contract was signed. To > prevent Sony from obtaining ownership, the band would have to transfer ownership > of the domain to a (friend|family member) prior to signing the contract.
Or... simply don't sign with Sony. There are many other record companies out there, and they compete for talent, and if Sony is offering you a deal you've probably got a real good chance of interesting another company. So far Sony is the only ones with such a BS policy, no? You can bet if they run into resistance on this, if they start losing talent to other companies on this issue, the other companies will take a hint and NOT follow suit. Next step will be Sony backing off on this as soon as they see that they are losing talent because of it...
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IANAL
You are confusing patent and copyright. Copyright was designed to deal with written works, and things similar. Copyright is limited, in that the first amendment (free speech) must be accomodated, hence provisions for "fair use."
Patents, although authorized by the same provision of the constitution, with the same goal, were designed for inventions - basically gadgets. The priveleges granted under a patent are much broader, with no limitations to accomodate free speech. Which made perfect sense in earlier times.
But now, the line between written work and gadget has been blurred by the use of computers. I can write a work on my computer, put it through my compiler, and produce a gadget on my virtual desktop here. Or I can stick it on a web server, make the appropriate entries in a few files, and make a gadget on the virtual desktop of everyone that visits my web site. Now the question here is whether my creation is a written work (the source code which makes my gadget work) or a gadget in its own right - whether I should be allowed a patent or only a copyright.
RMS and many of the rest of us feel that a copyright is the better answer (never mind that copyright has been extended at the very time it should have been shortened - that's another kettle of fish.) However many are getting very broad patents instead in the same situation.
Another issue here is that, while the laws involved make it seem that copyright should be easy to establish, but a patent should be much harder, it seems that as long as you have the money it's really no harder to get a patent. A patent requires a novel and not trivial invention, and an absence of prior art, a copyright requires only a unique written work. But the patent office seems to be severely dropping the ball on this - they are granting patents left and right for stuff that appears to be quite trivial and not really novel. Such patents can later be nullified - but only if someone comes up with a great deal of money to hire lawyers and litigate it, which is a significant hurdle. Even the arbitration-like option the article mentions is a significant burden that really should not be there in the cases of many of these patents, like the two notorious ones Amazon was granted, and many others, that simply should have never been granted in the first place, and would not have been if the patent office had the expertise/would take the time to properly evaluate the applications before granting them.
Hrmm the arguments for that are a lot less strong than for opening source code. In Apples old business model this would make no sense whatsoever, and although they are using more commodity hardware lately to lower their R&D costs, I'm still not sure it would make any sense for them.
Just be happy with the source guys. If I understand this right it should be a great boost for GNUStep right? Any hackers out there that want to see linux or *BSD becoming a real player in the desktop market should be paying attention.
GNUStep is seeking developers.
Well everyone else seems to think this guy thinks M$ employees have written half of linux on company time. If that's what he thinks he's an idiot.
On the other hand, I have another interpretation. It's no secret that M$ owns stock in a lot of companies, including Corel and Inprise/Borland, both of which have been actively involved in modifying/creating products *for* linux. I don't know, but when Corel released the source for their KDE mods, for instance, they might well have retained copyright, which would mean the M$ has part ownership in part of KDE.. of course if this is what he meant he's still an idiot, as KDE is not part of linux except in the loosest of senses, and no matter how you figure it M$ couldn't own anywhere near half of KDE, let alone half of the software that runs on linux... but it makes as much sense as the other suggestion.
Personally I think it was just a snipe, a little flamebait, nothing more...
IANAL That said, as I understand it, GCC being under GPL all mods to it are GPL already. Assigning copyright to the FSF doesn't affect the license per se, it affects who has standing in a court to *enforce* the license - if they kept the copyright it would still be GPL but only they could sue a violator - now that it's assigned to the FSF it will be up to the FSF to sue.
Release the source for the old stuff. I mean, it's not like you can even buy this stuff anymore.
Would be nice, wouldn't it? It'll happen about the same time the blizzards hit hades though. M$ business model is based on forced upgrades - it would make no sense whatsoever to do this from their point of view. /P
Depends on what you mean by good. They are fairly "user friendly" (although there are several notoriously BAD elements in the UI design, I still have to admit that it's way ahead of what I have been able to find for linux - while some programs actually have very nice GUIs even those are hampered by the failings of X still, i.e. things like no "real" cut and paste across programs - usually it can be done, I know, but X is still far less friendly than windows, and this has to affect the real world rating of programs under them.)
On the other hand, in a number of other respects these programs are EXTREMELY poor - security being the number one concern, executable documents and the like offer very little boost to usability and totally break any notion of security. Of course, this may be on purpose - if it weren't for Word and Outlook's offences in these respects folks like McAffee (sp?) would be considerably less wealthy...
Wandering perhaps to the edge of being off-topic, my personal nomination for the one thing that linux needs most atm is a good GUI standard - no flames, I agree one hundred percent about freedom of choice, I love being able to choose how to set up my desktop to make me happy and so forth. But - the problem is, none of the currently available environments are really good, in a UI design/ease of use sense. It would be really nice if I could set up a workstation with a consistent, well designed UI using linux, but I can't quite do that yet. GNUStep anyone? Seriously... the NeXT stations were, in my opinion and in the opinion of a great many experts in the field, the pinnacle to date for usability. They are far superior to anything M$ has put out, Apple is trying to improve on it, but they seem to be breaking as much as they improve - this looks like a great opportunity for anyone that wants to see linux become viable in the desktop market. I suck as a coder or I would be hacking away at GNUStep right now, but since I haven't coded my way out of a paper bag in years I'll have to be satisfied hoping some people that CAN code think about this and maybe do something about it.
That's real strange man. I've found other folks that are running K6s with more RAM and Mandrake just fine too... whatever the critical component is would probably take some time to narrow down. I've done my share of troubleshooting (maintain a very non-homogenous network for a few years and you'll do more than you ever wanted to do) and it can be a real headache. BTW Microsoft was no more help with that than Mandrake is, and we *DID* pay the big bucks for tech support. :~
However, since you have other distros that work on it this really shouldn't be a problem - remember you can just mount the Mandrake disk and access it's rpms, a lot of systems use RPMs and they work just fine for that (I've installed software from mandrake onto redhat systems and vice versa several times.) Slackware even has a tool to handle rpms now (rpm2pkg ?) so if you want certain parts of the mandrake distro on another base that shouldn't be a problem - just make sure you have the libraries that the package requires (if they aren't installed by the other distro already they'll be on the mandrake disk in RPM form too.)
Good luck
Have you experimented to narrow down the problem a bit?
;^)
Here are a few ideas.
Remove some of the RAM from one of the machines (I'm using a K6 with 48 megs and have never seen any problems like this under linux - I did see similar problems on this box before I installed linux - more on that below). I honestly don't think it's likely that the amount of memory has anything to do with the problem, but you obviously do - this would be the only way to be sure.
Have you got another distribution to work on this machine? I would try another distro, any distro, if you haven't - if the same thing happens then you know it's not specifically a mandrake problem.
You haven't provided enough information to allow anything approximating certainty here, but just going on what you said, I do have an educated guess as to what might be happening - from the symptoms, and the time element, I would personally suspect a cooling problem. I have seen similiar problems hit my box after 24 hours or so of uptime - this was before I switched over to linux but it sounds very similar - installing a new heavy duty heat sink and ball bearing fan to replace the el cheapo that my box came with solved the problem for me.
Oh, one more questions - after the kernel panic have you tried turning the box off for awhile (bringing the temperature back down) then bringing it back up again?
(Moderators please be kind - if any of you are actually reading pages that are over an hour old
Hrmm is that what he did? This post wasn't very coherent, and I don't remember the other one.
I wish he had been a little clearer and more consistent - I can assure you that there is no issue with mandrake on K6 - I'm on a K6 box running mandrake right now.
Unless he bought a service agreement of course they are under no obligation to provide tech support, unless he can narrow down the problem a bit it wouldn't help anyhow - I repeat, mandrake + K6 works just fine, there has to be another problem...
Whoever posted that article may have been trying to do what you say, but if you read the comments it doesn't look like many of us are buying it. In fact it seems that the story is backfiring on the poster...
Your point is made, in that there were no *accusations* in the strictest sense (and strict sense is something I favour) - but there was a call for boycott, and some pretty heavy *implications* that don't seem warranted at all. Sit back and put yourself in the dutchman's place for a minute, I think if you were him you would probably be quite offended at the implications, and feel you had been accused.
I could be wrong, but I don't believe any of these concerns apply to Delphi. Isn't Delphi a proprietary Inprise/Borland language with only one implementation? I could be all wrong here, but if memory serves that is the case... I also seem to remember reading they were considering porting it to linux at some point in the future.
If I am right then none of these concerns really apply, the source will only be useful to folks with Delphi but there is no worry of multiple versions. The main thing I would think about would be what might you gain/lose by open sourcing it. You gain, at least potentially, more people poking through your code and finding (and fixing) bugs. You lose, well, probably very little, but then again I don't really know your business situation.
If you have competitors that might gain a significant advantage over you through your release of the code, then I would seriously consider not releasing it. However, if that is not a huge concern, releasing it would probably be a good thing - at least it could be expected to increase the number of eyeballs reviewing it for problems. Don't expect miracles though - the number of open source windows developers is probably pretty small, the number who use Delphi would be a subset, and the number that would be interested in your particular project can only be a subset of that. Now if that linux port ever happens the potential audience should grow quite a bit... so such a release could be viewed as a low risk investment which *might* really pay off later.
However, there is the fact that if you do release it will be unders a pseudo-open license (ala Netscape or Sun - NOT GPL or BSD.) This means you will be reserving the right to hamstring or kill the code at any point - you aren't allowing forking. Open source developers will tend to work on projects with the sort of license you mention only if they have a strong interest in the functionality and/or (preferably and) the company that controls the code has a good reputation for supporting the community. Even then it may not be enough - in the long run we're better off reimplimenting code from scratch and placing it under a truly open source license than contributing countless hours to building on a half-open project only to see the owner kill it later. So releasing this while you have no immediate expectation of substantial return might help build a little of that sort of reputation for you, which *could* lay the groundwork for substantial returns in the future - but again, no guarantees. I would consider it a longshot.
If you don't see any way that the release can cause your company substantial harm, I would say go for it. But if the release would expose you to significant risk, I couldn't recommend it - the gain is all potential, with no guarantees.
(These comments may or may not reflect the posters own opinions after he has another cup of coffee.)
Isn't Guinness technically stout, not beer?
Stout is a type (or style) of beer. There are many types of beer. For more on the subject click here.
The constitution allowed the federal government to grant a copyright - a legally created monopoly - for a limited period of time, for the consideration of providing that the work which would enter the public domain at the end of that period of time. You could make a libertarian argument against even that limited grant, but very very few serious libertarians would bother - as it originally stood this was a pretty good thing.
Remember there is no obligation to take the copyright, you could throw your work directly into the public domain or you could keep it under wraps as a trade secret or the like without ever going through the copyright process at all. You still can.
The problem is that over time the "rent-seekers" (a polite word for those who practice thievery by legislation) with Disney in the lead have bought extension after extension to the copyright terms to the point of virtual perpetuity (every 10 years or so they lobby for another 20 or so...) - this is NOT the plan of the constitution, and it completely violates the spirit of that clause of the constitution, which was to grant a temporary monopoly right to the creator of a work in exchange for the guarantee that the work would enter the public domain.
(And, for my own personal curiosity, I must wonder if the Libertarian Party in general favors a government overview of the Purity of Food and Drugs, or is it to be a private contractual matter between Producer and Consumer, whose ultimate arbiter is the Court?)L.P. Platform 1998 III.3:
We support strong and effective laws against fraud and misrepresentation. However, we oppose paternalistic regulations which dictate to consumers, impose prices, define standards for products, or otherwise restrict risk-taking and free choice. We oppose governmental promotion or imposition of the metric system.We oppose all so-called "consumer protection" legislation which infringes upon voluntary trade, and call for the abolition of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. We advocate the repeal of all laws banning or restricting the advertising of prices, products, or services. We specifically oppose laws requiring an individual to buy or use so-called "self-protection" equipment such as safety belts, air bags, or crash helmets.
We advocate the abolition of the Federal Aviation Administration, which has jeopardized safety by arrogating to itself a monopoly of safety regulation and enforcement. We call for privatizing the air traffic control system and transferring the FAA's other functions to private agencies.
We advocate the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration and particularly its policies of mandating specific nutritional requirements and denying the right of manufacturers to make non-fraudulent claims concerning their products. We advocate an end to compulsory fluoridation of water supplies. We specifically oppose government regulation of the price, potency, or quantity able to be produced or purchased of drugs or other consumer goods. There should be no laws regarding what substances (nicotine, alcohol, hallucinogens, narcotics, Laetrile, artificial sweeteners, vitamin supplements, or other "drugs") a person may ingest or otherwise use.
While I agree with the gist of your argument, your use of the word Libertarian is completely wrong. Libertarians are strong advocates of contracts and the priniciples which make them meaningful and enforceable. You might have been thinking of Communists?
Admittedly some in the free software movement seem to have some communistic sounding rhetorical accretions (Stallman for instance,) but at the heart of it the GPL is nothing if not Libertarian - it's all about voluntary transactions with the terms of those transactions set via contract. And Carmack is doing exactly what he must do - he's enforcing his contract.
I think you just hit several nails on their heads. In particular, sticking all three control buttons together on one end of the bar is just awful gui design, not at all what one would expect from Apple. I can't see any good reason not to give them the same placement mac users are already used to - it's not just a better design, it would also make the transition easier for their existing customers. (Remember that they cater to the not-so-technical crowd - just think of that kindly grandmother who's finally gotten used to the "classic" design suddenly confronted with this new design, scratching her head. Now think of her again, only stick those coloured buttons in the same positions their classic equivelants had...)
While there are obviously a number of really nice things about OSX, there are some obvious problems too. It just doesn't make any sense that the company that built their reputation on good gui design would make such rookie mistakes in that very area - unless the company has changed recently in a rather negative way, as certain rumours seem to indicate.
32 bit x86 code no less... Also, there is support for 32 bit x86 Linux binaries available (in Linux of course.) How well it
* *
actually works is best left for someone else to answer. I'm suprised that so many people thought there was no x86
emulation available.
***********************************************
Any links on this? Anyone used it?
I would love to buy an Alpha box instead of an Athlon next purchase, but I still have to have one or two programs that I use wine to run...
Is there any way to change the default from HTML to plain old text on this form? Grr... apologies if I double posted, not sure if I hit cancel in time or not...
32 bit x86 code no less... Also, there is support for 32 bit x86 Linux binaries available (in Linux of course.) How well it actually works is best left for someone else to answer. I'm suprised that so many people thought there was no x86 emulation available. ************************************************* Any links on this? Anyone used it? I would love to buy an Alpha box instead of an Athlon next purchase, but I still have to have one or two programs that I use wine to run...
It's a lot faster. Not only is it far faster, it's also more stable, and if it's STILL not fast enough for you it gives the user an incredible amount of control over how it operates - for real speed experiment with the image loading modes. (I am talking about the windows version here - the linux version, contrary to the blurb above, is actually an alpha NOT a beta release and still very buggy and unstable. Much like ANY Alpha release - tried KRASH?)
.pdf. HTML is a logical language, for the presentation of information. It is deliberately abstract to allow the same logical structures to be rendered differently in different environments (think cross-platform).
It's had java support for ages. It supports any netscape compatible plugin. If you WANT java, just download the plugin from sun and install it. This is an advantage - not a disadvantage - those that want JAVA get it and those that don't are not obligated to have it.
I have never found a site with valid HTML that did not render properly in Opera. The last few releases it's even been so forgiving that crap HTML like usa.net (for example) render just fine on it - I have mixed feelings about that.
HTML is not a layout language. If your goal is to totally control layout, use
The problem is some web designers want to rebel against this and try to achieve total layout control in HTML. This is an utter renunciation of the very purpose of HTML in the first place, and the end result is all those stupid pages that you need IE 5 at a given resolution to view. Don't blame Opera for not rendering them as intended - blame the idiot that wrote them for not learning how to use HTML - or alternatively finding an appropriate format to do what he did. HTML isn't it.
And yes, I'm using Netscrape 4.7 to post this - but only because of a lesser of two evils choice - I would rather use Linux than Windows EVEN THOUGH that means using Netscrape atm. When Opera is ready to use on Linux that choice will be a whole lot easier to make.
And finally, yeah, it isn't open source. Of course it would be nice if it was. But better an open source OS with a good closed source browser than the other way around. I wish the Mozilla folks all the luck in the world, but I'm sure not gonna hold my breath waiting for Mozilla to be half as functional as Opera.
It's a lot faster. Not only is it far faster, it's also more stable, and if it's STILL not fast enough for you it gives the user an incredible amount of control over how it operates - for real speed experiment with the image loading modes. (I am talking about the windows version here - the linux version, contrary to the blurb above, is actually an alpha NOT a beta release and still very buggy and unstable. Much like ANY Alpha release - tried KRASH?) It's had java support for ages. It supports any netscape compatible plugin. If you WANT java, just download the plugin from sun and install it. This is an advantage - not a disadvantage - those that want JAVA get it and those that don't are not obligated to have it. I have never found a site with valid HTML that did not render properly in Opera. The last few releases it's even been so forgiving that crap HTML like usa.net (for example) render just fine on it - I have mixed feelings about that. HTML is not a layout language. If your goal is to totally control layout, use .pdf. HTML is a logical language, for the presentation of information. It is deliberately abstract to allow the same logical structures to be rendered differently in different environments (think cross-platform). The problem is some web designers want to rebel against this and try to achieve total layout control in HTML. This is an utter renunciation of the very purpose of HTML in the first place, and the end result is all those stupid pages that you need IE 5 at a given resolution to view. Don't blame Opera for not rendering them as intended - blame the idiot that wrote them for not learning how to use HTML - or alternatively finding an appropriate format to do what he did. HTML isn't it. And yes, I'm using Netscrape 4.7 to post this - but only because of a lesser of two evils choice - I would rather use Linux than Windows EVEN THOUGH that means using Netscrape atm. When Opera is ready to use on Linux that choice will be a whole lot easier to make. And finally, yeah, it isn't open source. Of course it would be nice if it was. But better an open source OS with a good closed source browser than the other way around. I wish the Mozilla folks all the luck in the world, but I'm sure not gonna hold my breath waiting for Mozilla to be half as functional as Opera.
In general, I shy away from conspiracy theories. But in this case, I see only two possibilities. You are right (or at least very close to right) or else these folks are absolutely, positively nuts. *shrug* Personally, I'd rather think you are right.
> But they never specified the URL as being a top-level domain. For instance, if
> Bandx was with Sony and immediately quit after hearing how Sony was trying to
> ream them and joined (to give an example from the article) Maverick, would Sony
> claim they owned www.maverick.com/bandx? That is, after all, a URL. How about
> bandx.maverick.com? How about bandx.net and bandx.org? How about bandxsucks.com?
If they left Sony at this point they would never have signed a contract with the objectionable language so it wouldn't affect them. More than likely they wouldn't actually be able to leave Sony *today* but they can leave when their current contract (without this language) expires and refuse to sign any offered extension containing this language, to the same affect.
On the other hand if they sign tommorrow a contract with the objectionable language it would indeed seem that Sony would have grounds to bar them from using any of those URLs. Enforceable? Maybe. I'm not a lawyer, just a layman with a little experience... at any rate Sonys lawyers would be able to cause them trouble. Just reinforces the main point, as I see it... don't sign with Sony. If you have a contract with Sony, don't renew it. At least not until this is changed.
General rule that any musician with a clue follows - don't sign anything without reading it yourself and having your lawyer read it too. Don't have a lawyer? Get one. If necessary sleep with one, or con another group member or a groupie into sleeping with one. I'm serious - lawyers suck but if you are a musician without a lawyer you *will* get screwed in the long run - better to choose the way you get screwed straight up.
> That presence would become the property of Sony once a contract was signed. To
> prevent Sony from obtaining ownership, the band would have to transfer ownership
> of the domain to a (friend|family member) prior to signing the contract.
Or... simply don't sign with Sony. There are many other record companies out there, and they compete for talent, and if Sony is offering you a deal you've probably got a real good chance of interesting another company. So far Sony is the only ones with such a BS policy, no? You can bet if they run into resistance on this, if they start losing talent to other companies on this issue, the other companies will take a hint and NOT follow suit. Next step will be Sony backing off on this as soon as they see that they are losing talent because of it...