I think a slight modification to the road analogy makes it more complete. A modern OS is more complicated than a road. A road is merely hardware, driving directly on the road is what embedded software designers do when they write applications running on hardware that doesn't use an operating system. You have one maybe two cars on the road, which is dangerous since there aren't any lines painted or street signs directing traffic. When a car crashes it's its own fault.
A modern operating system is more like a complete traffic system. It has street lights, street signs, dedicated movement and turning lanes, HOV lanes for real-time processes, cops, and the like. An OS with good memory management would also have barriers dividing one lane from the next, and if you wanted to change lanes you'd have to make a call on your cell phone to open a gate in the barrier so you could change lanes. In this context we should all be able to relate to how operating systems differ. The systems which control our freeways are operating systems, in every sense of the term. We've all experienced bad ones, and a few lucky people may have experienced good ones. (Under this scenario I've experienced Road Rage a time or two when some crazy "driver" "crashed" through my "Windows".) There's even a monopolistic force which ensures that when we build a new one, it always sucks just like all the others. We even just try to patch the old one, because we don't want to sacrifice backwards compatibility with our old cars/drivers.:)
Well, if you've ever driven on a good road system, you've been able to make the comparison and get frustrated when you drive on a crappy one. Then you know why operating systems matter, and why we fight over them.
"So what you're saying is, the black hole will eventually swallow up the earth and have the mass of the earth, and some previously unidentified force will mysteriously fling earth's mass from it's current orbit?"
Maybe, I was a bit unclear. It wouldn't consume the Earth unless it's orbit happened to be stable enough (by chance) as too not throw it out of Earth's orbit. In other words, it's elliptical orbit didn't through it so far away as to be captured by the Sun. I haven't thought about this all that much, but I suppose that the black hole would then assume Earth's orbit around the Sun. I'm making an assumption in this hypothesis, which I haven't tried to test (via math), that the hole's increasing mass will tend to give it an ever increasing elliptical orbit. Whose range would eventually exceed the radius of the Earth, and quite likely swing out past the gravitational equilibrium point between Earth and the Sun at some point, in which case the Sun's gravity would continue to pull it in towards it, or at least break it free from Earth's gravitational field.
First, Larry Niven wrote a cool Sci-Fi mystery story called 'Hole Man' which has a quantom sized black hole as possible murder weapon.
While most of the posts here have been silly, I would like to point out that as best I can remember, the pull (Gravity) of a black whole is still related to its mass. Read: Black hole's have infinite density, not infinite mass. So say you converted 1 gram of matter into a black hole, it still would only have 1 gram's worth of pull. So the world wouldn't just instantly get sucked into oblivion.
However, this tiny black hole would tend to fall, as all things near the Earth do, and it would consume any matter it came in contact with, namely the ground, the mantle, the core, bit by bit, an atom at a time. In fact the mass of the earth is so small that the size of the black whole, probably would never get big enough to consume more than an atom at a time. It could conceivebly consume the whole planet assuming it had a stable orbit, as this thing would orbit the the center of the Earth, while passing though the Earth. Now a stable orbit isn't likely to form from a black hole created in the described manner. So, when enough mass is accumulated, the elliptical orbit will toss this thing far enough into space that the Sun's gravity will get ahold of it. In which case it would begin eating the Sun, and anything else in its orbit. The same process would likely happen there, and eventually it would be tossed out of our solar system, to go eat Alpha Centari or something else. Of course it may just eat everything, but it would still take a while.
The article made it sound like they are targeting a much higher-end market than the Mac. Their aiming to compete againt Graphics Workstations, not Graphics PCs. Eventually targetting TV stations and Movie Theaters for real-time streaming and rendering. Sounds like they're targeting a new market which hasn't really emerged yet, but is going to over the next 3-5? years. Of course given the track record of the industry for high-end tech to migrate to the low end, if they are succesful it won't be long (in human years, not cyber years) before we see the tech on the consumer end.
Where is the line where someone becomes a public figure? From the sounds of it JP is trying to get all the press attention he can as long as it's good. Sounds to me like he's a public figure then. Shouldn't he be unable to sue, just like politicians and Hollywood figures who have to deal with tabloids, since that's the price you pay for being in the public spotlight?
If you've read about the stuff, e-ink (I'm probably wrong about the exact name), when it is readily and cheaply available, I'll stop printing things on paper. E-ink media gives you the freedom, flexibility, and ease of viewing to the eyes that paper does, without the CRT or LCD hassle. Simply put CRT/LCD technology just doesn't stack up to all the advantages that plain-old-paper has. Try folding up the web version of the NY Times when viewing it on your 19" monitor.
I think you're probably right here. It unfortunately doesn't change that fact that Corel's license is violating the GPL. If the FSF had the means to fund a law suit on behalf of the GPL software owners I imagine a GPL enforcing verdict would be pretty much straight forward. If Corel really wants to go down this avenue, they need to abide by the license and employ their beta testers as contract employees. I think that would qualify this as an internal beta test which would not violate the GPL.
Alternatively, a more simple approach would be to change the license to read PORTIONS COPYRIGHT 1999 COREL CORP. THESE PORTIONS MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED OR... yada, yada, yada. This way they would not be claiming licensing restrictions over GPL'd code. I imagine they could cover all of their installation, package management front end, and admin tools this way. They could change the license on those tools later to the GPL for release.
There is definitely room for another flavor of Linux along these lines. Hiding root almost completely, is a good idea. Certainly a root password will be setup at install, but a large set of root capabilities could be handled by a small set of setuid root programs that ask for the root password to peform admin tasks. Packages could be installed by something like an setuid root install shield, which would ask for root's password to install the package system wide, otherwise the package would be installed in the user account if possible. Even better, the install shield should have a configuration screen which lets you pick which users have the priveledge to add and remove system wide applications. This would then be implemented via groups, file permissions, and setuid root, behind the scenes. Using this, root could really be reserved for only the most neccessary occations, and attempting to login as root could come with all sorts of warnings.
Of course if you don't want all this hand holding, don't use it. This is Linux after all pick the flavor that fits you!
I don't think an effort to create Open Source books, in the GPL sense of open source, about linux will ever work. Simply, the desire to scratch an itch doesn't exist as it does in programming.
Take my example, I'm currently trying to find out information about using colors with GDK. There apparently is a black hole of information about the subject out there. There are many GTK+/GDK applications that use color, which implies there are many programmers that understand how it works. However, there is virtually no information on the subject in documentation any where.
So I thought to myself maybe after I figure it out I'll write something up. But, why should I? I'll do the work to figure it out (scratch my itch) in order to write a program I want/need. Afterwards I get to use that program (scratch my itch). However if I write up some documenation on the subject, I know it, very well quite likely. What benefit do I gain from the documentation afterwards? What itch does it scratch? I already know everything in the book, I'll never use it.
As far as I can see, the Open Source software movement hasn't been rewardless for those who participate in the coding of it. They get to use what they produce. Documentation on the other hand is a different beast. A good manager at a software firm will note that good documentation will save many headaches when you return to modify the code later. But even with that, you'll find his employees still don't want to do it.
Shot in the dark for a possible solution. Web based documentation. It should be geared to take advantage of the medium as we're trying to be progressive. And the people who maintain sections of the documentation receive percentages of the advertising revenue based on the amount, difficulty, and demand for their contribution, if the site ever breaks even. Sounds like something for Linux.com to try hosting. Hey, VA Linux you listening?:)
The only other option I can think of is using a QT style license for the documentation. Free is free is free is free, but if you sell it in any way you have to pay the author.
Compare the Castlewood's Orb drive to VST's Firewire drive. The performance specs are close, but then the Orb takes the cake with removable media at about $30 per disk/cartidge whatever you call it. Not to mention more interfaces than you can shake a stick at. I would guess the SCSI versions probably would run under Linux too.
++++VST 2GB Fireware Harddrive++++ http://www.vsttech.com/vst/techspecs.nsf/ByProdu ct/FW9520 This is taken from the address above. -begin--------------------------------- System requirements: Apple Macintosh G3 with FireWire or Apple Macintosh G3 with Apple 1394 PCI Card -end------------------------------------
++++Castlewood 2.2GB Orb Drive++++ http://www.castlewoodsystems.com/castlewood/web/ orb_spec.htm This is taken from the address above. -begin------------------------------------------ ORB is available as both external and internal models, with the following interfaces:
External SCSI External Parallel Port Internal SCSI Internal EIDE External USB(Announced for demonstration at MacWorld 1999) IEEE 1394 FireWire (Announced for demonstration at MacWorld 1999)
Operating Systems Compatibility Windows 98, 95, 3.1, NT 4.0+, MS DOS 5.0+, OS/2 4.0, Mac OS7.1+ -end--------------------------------------------
I agree with your point, but I just thought its neat how much cable costs vs. internet access costs. You might even be able to get some forms of high speed access cheaper than $65/month if your lucky. A testimony to the open market competition that the independent ISPs created.
Where were their mothers, huh?
on
Why Kids Kill
·
· Score: 1
While the offender is ultimately the person responsible for such demented behavior, being a parent is a large repsonsibility. One which I think people today are increasingly less and less prepared for. While the parents don't hold responsibility for the killings, they do hold the responsibility of raising these children. That means noticing abnormal or anti-social behavior and taking a GENUINE interest in there children. Generally that interest alone will reap big rewards and solve many problems. Seriously disturbed children may need outside help, but then again it is a parents responsibility to see to it that that help is obtained.
As said, outward family appearances can be very deceiving. While a work from home father may make possible the conditions for an ideal parental relationship, it doesn't mean they weren't having their difficulties. Even if you are a parent living at home you can do many things to disrupt your family. You can push your children too hard, work too hard thus ignoring family, lie, cheat on your spouse, physical or sexual abuse, drugs, alcohol, etc., etc. This can all go on under what appears to be a relatively normal family on the outside. And some of the less serious sounding ones like being a Workaholic or pushing your children too hard can sometimes be just as destructive.
Yes the kids soley hold the blame for this terrible disaster, but the parents are most assurredly guilty of neglect.
I think you hit it. Since most OSS software is being done by unfunded groups or individuals, the reason they do OSS is they see an immediate need that can be fulfilled and they build it or improve it. Most OSS is straight forward thinking type of stuff and not, "WOW thats a totally cool idea!" type of stuff. OSS often learns lesson from pioneers' mistakes or hastiness, and doesn't have to deal with corporate deadlines and the value of the company stock which is why I think OSS has been so good. Too much business money in OSS might mess that equation up.
When trying to look at where truly innovative ideas have came from, look to where they have in the past. For the most part Universities, and certain research places like Xerox's Palo Alto Labs. Why? My guess is a full time, creative thinking environment. It is good to note that the ideas that come from these think tanks didn't take off over night either. It took S. Jobs to liberate the mouse driven gui from Xerox's narrow minded execs, and it wasn't until MS Windows that guis finally went big time. The creator of ethernet had to break away from the company to create the technology, and even then it took years to catch on. TCP/IP the underlying COOL technology of the internet existed for decades before the explotion of the web.
Moral of the story, innovation takes time, frequently goods ideas aren't recognized at the time, and often if something is truly new, the inventor might decide to cash in with a patent. If it is one of a kind software, there is really no incentive to keep it public, except for moral reasons. If on the other hand, such software is well established (Word Processors, Spreedsheets, OSs, etc), there is less to gain by going proprietary and less risk that your effort will be wasted if you spend your own personal time on it.
Slashdot Mirror
I think a slight modification to the road analogy makes it more complete. A modern OS is more complicated than a road. A road is merely hardware, driving directly on the road is what embedded software designers do when they write applications running on hardware that doesn't use an operating system. You have one maybe two cars on the road, which is dangerous since there aren't any lines painted or street signs directing traffic. When a car crashes it's its own fault.
:)
A modern operating system is more like a complete traffic system. It has street lights, street signs, dedicated movement and turning lanes, HOV lanes for real-time processes, cops, and the like. An OS with good memory management would also have barriers dividing one lane from the next, and if you wanted to change lanes you'd have to make a call on your cell phone to open a gate in the barrier so you could change lanes. In this context we should all be able to relate to how operating systems differ. The systems which control our freeways are operating systems, in every sense of the term. We've all experienced bad ones, and a few lucky people may have experienced good ones. (Under this scenario I've experienced Road Rage a time or two when some crazy "driver" "crashed" through my "Windows".) There's even a monopolistic force which ensures that when we build a new one, it always sucks just like all the others. We even just try to patch the old one, because we don't want to sacrifice backwards compatibility with our old cars/drivers.
Well, if you've ever driven on a good road system, you've been able to make the comparison and get frustrated when you drive on a crappy one. Then you know why operating systems matter, and why we fight over them.
Ryan
And you would be correct. My bad.
"So what you're saying is, the black hole will eventually swallow up the earth and have the mass of the earth, and some previously unidentified force will mysteriously fling earth's mass from it's current orbit?"
Maybe, I was a bit unclear. It wouldn't consume the Earth unless it's orbit happened to be stable enough (by chance) as too not throw it out of Earth's orbit. In other words, it's elliptical orbit didn't through it so far away as to be captured by the Sun. I haven't thought about this all that much, but I suppose that the black hole would then assume Earth's orbit around the Sun. I'm making an assumption in this hypothesis, which I haven't tried to test (via math), that the hole's increasing mass will tend to give it an ever increasing elliptical orbit. Whose range would eventually exceed the radius of the Earth, and quite likely swing out past the gravitational equilibrium point between Earth and the Sun at some point, in which case the Sun's gravity would continue to pull it in towards it, or at least break it free from Earth's gravitational field.
First, Larry Niven wrote a cool Sci-Fi mystery story called 'Hole Man' which has a quantom sized black hole as possible murder weapon.
While most of the posts here have been silly, I would like to point out that as best I can remember, the pull (Gravity) of a black whole is still related to its mass. Read: Black hole's have infinite density, not infinite mass. So say you converted 1 gram of matter into a black hole, it still would only have 1 gram's worth of pull. So the world wouldn't just instantly get sucked into oblivion.
However, this tiny black hole would tend to fall, as all things near the Earth do, and it would consume any matter it came in contact with, namely the ground, the mantle, the core, bit by bit, an atom at a time. In fact the mass of the earth is so small that the size of the black whole, probably would never get big enough to consume more than an atom at a time. It could conceivebly consume the whole planet assuming it had a stable orbit, as this thing would orbit the the center of the Earth, while passing though the Earth. Now a stable orbit isn't likely to form from a black hole created in the described manner. So, when enough mass is accumulated, the elliptical orbit will toss this thing far enough into space that the Sun's gravity will get ahold of it. In which case it would begin eating the Sun, and anything else in its orbit. The same process would likely happen there, and eventually it would be tossed out of our solar system, to go eat Alpha Centari or something else. Of course it may just eat everything, but it would still take a while.
The article made it sound like they are targeting a much higher-end market than the Mac. Their aiming to compete againt Graphics Workstations, not Graphics PCs. Eventually targetting TV stations and Movie Theaters for real-time streaming and rendering. Sounds like they're targeting a new market which hasn't really emerged yet, but is going to over the next 3-5? years. Of course given the track record of the industry for high-end tech to migrate to the low end, if they are succesful it won't be long (in human years, not cyber years) before we see the tech on the consumer end.
Where is the line where someone becomes a public figure? From the sounds of it JP is trying to get all the press attention he can as long as it's good. Sounds to me like he's a public figure then. Shouldn't he be unable to sue, just like politicians and Hollywood figures who have to deal with tabloids, since that's the price you pay for being in the public spotlight?
Ryan
If you've read about the stuff, e-ink (I'm probably wrong about the exact name), when it is readily and cheaply available, I'll stop printing things on paper. E-ink media gives you the freedom, flexibility, and ease of viewing to the eyes that paper does, without the CRT or LCD hassle. Simply put CRT/LCD technology just doesn't stack up to all the advantages that plain-old-paper has. Try folding up the web version of the NY Times when viewing it on your 19" monitor.
Ryan
I think you're probably right here. It unfortunately doesn't change that fact that Corel's license is violating the GPL. If the FSF had the means to fund a law suit on behalf of the GPL software owners I imagine a GPL enforcing verdict would be pretty much straight forward. If Corel really wants to go down this avenue, they need to abide by the license and employ their beta testers as contract employees. I think that would qualify this as an internal beta test which would not violate the GPL.
... yada, yada, yada. This way they would not be claiming licensing restrictions over GPL'd code. I imagine they could cover all of their installation, package management front end, and admin tools this way. They could change the license on those tools later to the GPL for release.
Alternatively, a more simple approach would be to change the license to read PORTIONS COPYRIGHT 1999 COREL CORP. THESE PORTIONS MAY NOT BE REPRODUCED OR
Ryan
There is definitely room for another flavor of Linux along these lines. Hiding root almost completely, is a good idea. Certainly a root password will be setup at install, but a large set of root capabilities could be handled by a small set of setuid root programs that ask for the root password to peform admin tasks. Packages could be installed by something like an setuid root install shield, which would ask for root's password to install the package system wide, otherwise the package would be installed in the user account if possible. Even better, the install shield should have a configuration screen which lets you pick which users have the priveledge to add and remove system wide applications. This would then be implemented via groups, file permissions, and setuid root, behind the scenes. Using this, root could really be reserved for only the most neccessary occations, and attempting to login as root could come with all sorts of warnings.
Of course if you don't want all this hand holding, don't use it. This is Linux after all pick the flavor that fits you!
I don't think an effort to create Open Source books, in the GPL sense of open source, about linux will ever work. Simply, the desire to scratch an itch doesn't exist as it does in programming.
:)
Take my example, I'm currently trying to find out information about using colors with GDK. There apparently is a black hole of information about the subject out there. There are many GTK+/GDK applications that use color, which implies there are many programmers that understand how it works. However, there is virtually no information on the subject in documentation any where.
So I thought to myself maybe after I figure it out I'll write something up. But, why should I? I'll do the work to figure it out (scratch my itch) in order to write a program I want/need. Afterwards I get to use that program (scratch my itch). However if I write up some documenation on the subject, I know it, very well quite likely. What benefit do I gain from the documentation afterwards? What itch does it scratch? I already know everything in the book, I'll never use it.
As far as I can see, the Open Source software movement hasn't been rewardless for those who participate in the coding of it. They get to use what they produce. Documentation on the other hand is a different beast. A good manager at a software firm will note that good documentation will save many headaches when you return to modify the code later. But even with that, you'll find his employees still don't want to do it.
Shot in the dark for a possible solution. Web based documentation. It should be geared to take advantage of the medium as we're trying to be progressive. And the people who maintain sections of the documentation receive percentages of the advertising revenue based on the amount, difficulty, and demand for their contribution, if the site ever breaks even. Sounds like something for Linux.com to try hosting. Hey, VA Linux you listening?
The only other option I can think of is using a QT style license for the documentation. Free is free is free is free, but if you sell it in any way you have to pay the author.
Ryan Warner
ryan_warner@fnmail.com
Compare the Castlewood's Orb drive to VST's Firewire drive. The performance specs are close, but then the Orb takes the cake with removable media at about $30 per disk/cartidge whatever you call it. Not to mention more interfaces than you can shake a stick at. I would guess the SCSI versions probably would run under Linux too.
u ct/FW9520
/ orb_spec.htm -
-
++++VST 2GB Fireware Harddrive++++
http://www.vsttech.com/vst/techspecs.nsf/ByProd
This is taken from the address above.
-begin---------------------------------
System requirements:
Apple Macintosh G3 with FireWire or
Apple Macintosh G3 with Apple 1394 PCI Card
-end------------------------------------
++++Castlewood 2.2GB Orb Drive++++
http://www.castlewoodsystems.com/castlewood/web
This is taken from the address above.
-begin-----------------------------------------
ORB is available as both external and internal models, with the following interfaces:
External SCSI
External Parallel Port
Internal SCSI
Internal EIDE
External USB(Announced for demonstration at MacWorld 1999)
IEEE 1394 FireWire (Announced for demonstration at MacWorld 1999)
Operating Systems Compatibility
Windows 98, 95, 3.1, NT 4.0+, MS DOS 5.0+, OS/2 4.0, Mac OS7.1+
-end-------------------------------------------
Ryan
Good greif I've thought this for years. Here's a real potential use for genetic engineering. A virus which makes stupid people sterile.
I agree with your point, but I just thought its neat how much cable costs vs. internet access costs. You might even be able to get some forms of high speed access cheaper than $65/month if your lucky. A testimony to the open market competition that the independent ISPs created.
As said, outward family appearances can be very deceiving. While a work from home father may make possible the conditions for an ideal parental relationship, it doesn't mean they weren't having their difficulties. Even if you are a parent living at home you can do many things to disrupt your family. You can push your children too hard, work too hard thus ignoring family, lie, cheat on your spouse, physical or sexual abuse, drugs, alcohol, etc., etc. This can all go on under what appears to be a relatively normal family on the outside. And some of the less serious sounding ones like being a Workaholic or pushing your children too hard can sometimes be just as destructive.
Yes the kids soley hold the blame for this terrible disaster, but the parents are most assurredly guilty of neglect.
32bit Win32, slapped onto 16bit Windows, slapped onto 16bit DOS. Homogenous?
How about X+Linux, all 32bit protected mode. Definitely a lot more homogenous. Or if you prefer something more streamlined, BeOS.
Ryan
I think you hit it. Since most OSS software is being done by unfunded groups or individuals, the reason they do OSS is they see an immediate need that can be fulfilled and they build it or improve it. Most OSS is straight forward thinking type of stuff and not, "WOW thats a totally cool idea!" type of stuff. OSS often learns lesson from pioneers' mistakes or hastiness, and doesn't have to deal with corporate deadlines and the value of the company stock which is why I think OSS has been so good. Too much business money in OSS might mess that equation up.
When trying to look at where truly innovative ideas have came from, look to where they have in the past. For the most part Universities, and certain research places like Xerox's Palo Alto Labs. Why? My guess is a full time, creative thinking environment. It is good to note that the ideas that come from these think tanks didn't take off over night either. It took S. Jobs to liberate the mouse driven gui from Xerox's narrow minded execs, and it wasn't until MS Windows that guis finally went big time. The creator of ethernet had to break away from the company to create the technology, and even then it took years to catch on. TCP/IP the underlying COOL technology of the internet existed for decades before the explotion of the web.
Moral of the story, innovation takes time, frequently goods ideas aren't recognized at the time, and often if something is truly new, the inventor might decide to cash in with a patent. If it is one of a kind software, there is really no incentive to keep it public, except for moral reasons. If on the other hand, such software is well established (Word Processors, Spreedsheets, OSs, etc), there is less to gain by going proprietary and less risk that your effort will be wasted if you spend your own personal time on it.
Ryan