Mr Katz is really on form in this article - being a European, it's all to easy to see the loathful corporate-cultural-imperialism that is invading our society and to equate that with being "American".
I also like the main point of the article: the (free) re-distribution of technology and ideas promotes the re-distribution of wealth.
Unregulated mega-corps (mainly American) rely on keeping information, technology and ideas to themselves (via patents, copyrights, and various MS methods:-) to keep the wealth to themselves. Whilst I realise that's fairly obvious - it needed stating.
Yes, the peer review works here, but it's the quality of the programmers/designers and the lack of unrealistic deadlines.
In most commercial settings the number of really-good-programmers is very, very low. (OK at a big OS company one might hope it were different, but see below). A glamourous open-source project will only attract the brightest stars to show off their skills, so the proportion of really good programmers/designers is a lot higher than in the commercial arena.
In commercial settings, the release date for software is set and fixed by program management and is often vital for the companies revenue and continued existence. Hence a lot of dumb hacks, and quick-but-not-correct fixes end up in the released code. In the open source world, we (more often than not) don't play that game - we release it when it's ready.
As for peer review: in the open-source world, and for a large project buzzing with all the brightest luminaries, peer-review works great. Approving of someone else's genius wins you points, pointing out that you're more clever than another genius also wins you points.:-)
In the commercial arena, people are trying to further their careers by sneaky-snidy means. They don't wnat to waste their valuable creative time reading their colleagues' (rivals') code. It's also in your interest to cause the maximum embarrassment to your colleague (ie. don't point out flaws in their work early - only when your boss "needs it fixed now" - then point the finger of blame and (possibly) show them how it should have been done.)
Not all commercial teams work like this, but you get my point,
I think MSFT currently plays along with the MPAA, RIAA, etc. because they can supply the software to satisfy them in PC operating systems and future set-top boxes (or future HDTV/PVR operating systems?)
They can get ahead of the rest of the market and say "hey - we're the only legally compliant OS out there, therefore all other OS are illegal and should not be sold."
They're just trying to keep their near (PC OS) monopoly and create new ones (HDTV, set-top box, PVR, general purpose media station,...)
It's just another lever they can use - remember they care about expanding their market position, not about their users.
There seems to be a general confusion amongst the less educated/. audience between left-of-centre politics, communism, , anti-capitalism, libertarianism, authoritarianism, environmentalism, belief in the occult, and conspiracy theorists...
Why? Presumably, because they're still teenagers. Or perhaps it's something to do with the US political system, where there is no "left wing" party. Whatever. Just read at +1 and they all disappear...
You said, "Were the original designers of the font rendering mechanism so braindead as to specify that all fonts forevermore would be bitmaps??? What the hell for???"
Well, bear in mind that X started as a project in 1984, and neither IBM nor Digital had a workstation product with a bitmap display available at the time... So designing for the one-after-next technological jump would have involved a lot of precognition.
Saying that, one of the design goals of XLFD was to be extensible, and a solution similar to yours seems feasible to me at least/
Oddly, it's one of the few applets that hasn't taken netscape out. Maybe it's because it runs in a seperate window and once you've quit it, all the garbage really is collected. (Well you can always hope.:-) FYI, I still use 4.72 at home and it's fine.
I've tried smile with Netscape 6 pr3 and it refused to start the applet. Oh well, maybe next pre-release!
smile (at http://www.smile.co.uk ) works fine using Netscape 4.* under Linux and Solaris - this is even more amazing when you consider that it's a Java applet.
In fact, they are a great online bank, and I'd recommend it to anyone in the UK. Plus they're an ethical bank (part of the co-op) so you get to feel all self-righteous too.:-)
(One downer: they don't support MacOS but that won't concern too many/.ers).
Slashdot Mirror
Mr Katz is really on form in this article - being a European, it's all to easy to see the loathful corporate-cultural-imperialism that is invading our society and to equate that with being "American".
:-) to keep the wealth to themselves. Whilst I realise that's fairly obvious - it needed stating.
I also like the main point of the article: the (free) re-distribution of technology and ideas promotes the re-distribution of wealth.
Unregulated mega-corps (mainly American) rely on keeping information, technology and ideas to themselves (via patents, copyrights, and various MS methods
Great article Jon!,
nic
Yes, the peer review works here, but it's the quality of the programmers/designers and the lack of unrealistic deadlines.
:-)
In most commercial settings the number of really-good-programmers is very, very low. (OK at a big OS company one might hope it were different, but see below). A glamourous open-source project will only attract the brightest stars to show off their skills, so the proportion of really good programmers/designers is a lot higher than in the commercial arena.
In commercial settings, the release date for software is set and fixed by program management and is often vital for the companies revenue and continued existence. Hence a lot of dumb hacks, and quick-but-not-correct fixes end up in the released code. In the open source world, we (more often than not) don't play that game - we release it when it's ready.
As for peer review: in the open-source world, and for a large project buzzing with all the brightest luminaries, peer-review works great. Approving of someone else's genius wins you points, pointing out that you're more clever than another genius also wins you points.
In the commercial arena, people are trying to further their careers by sneaky-snidy means. They don't wnat to waste their valuable creative time reading their colleagues' (rivals') code. It's also in your interest to cause the maximum embarrassment to your colleague (ie. don't point out flaws in their work early - only when your boss "needs it fixed now" - then point the finger of blame and (possibly) show them how it should have been done.)
Not all commercial teams work like this, but you get my point,
nic
I think MSFT currently plays along with the MPAA, RIAA, etc. because they can supply the software to satisfy them in PC operating systems and future set-top boxes (or future HDTV/PVR operating systems?)
They can get ahead of the rest of the market and say "hey - we're the only legally compliant OS out there, therefore all other OS are illegal and should not be sold."
They're just trying to keep their near (PC OS) monopoly and create new ones (HDTV, set-top box, PVR, general purpose media station,...)
It's just another lever they can use - remember they care about expanding their market position, not about their users.
nic
News to me and most of us who've had mission-critical small-to-mid Linux servers running with uptimes of months etc.
What next: *BSD isn't ready for mission-critical servers?
Seems that CTOs won't choose OSS operating systems because their jobs are on the line if they "don't do what everyone else does".
nic
Correction: Solaris 1.x were SunOS 4.1.3/4 + OpenWindows. Solaris 2.x (7,8,9) are SunOS 5.x based which as you state is SVR4 based.
:-)
nit-picking, I know
nic
There seems to be a general confusion amongst the less educated /. audience between left-of-centre politics, communism, , anti-capitalism, libertarianism, authoritarianism, environmentalism, belief in the occult, and conspiracy theorists...
Why? Presumably, because they're still teenagers. Or perhaps it's something to do with the US political system, where there is no "left wing" party. Whatever. Just read at +1 and they all disappear...
You said, "Were the original designers of the font rendering mechanism so braindead as to specify that all fonts forevermore would be bitmaps??? What the hell for???"
Well, bear in mind that X started as a project in 1984, and neither IBM nor Digital had a workstation product with a bitmap display available at the time... So designing for the one-after-next technological jump would have involved a lot of precognition.
Saying that, one of the design goals of XLFD was to be extensible, and a solution similar to yours seems feasible to me at least/
Oddly, it's one of the few applets that hasn't taken netscape out. Maybe it's because it runs in a seperate window and once you've quit it, all the garbage really is collected. (Well you can always hope. :-) FYI, I still use 4.72 at home and it's fine.
I've tried smile with Netscape 6 pr3 and it refused to start the applet. Oh well, maybe next pre-release!
nic
smile (at http://www.smile.co.uk ) works fine using Netscape 4.* under Linux and Solaris - this is even more amazing when you consider that it's a Java applet.
In fact, they are a great online bank, and I'd recommend it to anyone in the UK. Plus they're an ethical bank (part of the co-op) so you get to feel all self-righteous too. :-)
(One downer: they don't support MacOS but that won't concern too many /.ers).
nic