It would be extremely nice if the BSDs shared more code, for various reasons. However, I am entirely opposed to a shared architechure.
If the BSDs shared a common architechure, they would become endlessly similar. It would, in effect, form a development model much closer to that of GNU/Linux's where each different operating system is really no more than a different distribution of the same operating system.
Not so much of a codebase, but a library of easily reusable, architechure (os, not system) independant code which each BSD had the option of using would be great. This would be a great start towards the ever-wanted unified ports tree.
However, this should really be an open effort, with a wider system of determining its contents than that of a council. Perhaps CGI-based voting for CVS commits/(sub)tree merging?
The only question is if the OpenBSD guys could audit the library as fast as the FreeBSD guys could develop it; If the NetBSD guys could port it as fast as the FreeBSD guys could develop it; if the FreeBSD guys could write it portable enough for the NetBSD guys to use it, and so on.
Disclaimer: This opinion applies to operating systems other than the BSDs. Free, Open, Commercial, Public Domain, "I Like Linux Because my Dick is too Small", whatever. (Also applies userspace code).
If I owned a company, which "understood" Open Source or Free Software, with a product that was not readily compatible with any given Open/Free software I would send it to market without support for such software.
If I waited to take my product to market until after I supported this Open/Free software my business would probably fail. The world does move at the "rate of busniess" which is faster than the "rate of open tech support" In other words: Microsoft will be more willing to help me to support their products than will Joe Blow be to help me support Jane Doe's product.
If you want IBM to support Linux on all their products, then send 50 engineers, who know Linux inside and out, to IBM to help them support Linux, for free.
I worked in the tech. dept. at my high school for high school credit (and a little something for my resume). We had roughly 150 computers (it was a small school). We could definitely have maintained all the computers between the one Technical Coordinator and two student technicians. In fact, we completely revamped every computer in the school in a week (remember: the two students were only working 2 hrs/day). Aside from that week, though, we let the problems build up until we couldn't stand the complaints anymore. Our problem was a lack of motivation. We weren't being paid a huge salary like our friends working for large corporations. The trade-off? We elected to be lazy. From an employees point of view, it is overly fair. It's sad, but it's true.
I believe there is a good chance games written for the ps2 will, eventually, look better than games written for the dc. The very restraints people complain about will also cause developers to innovate. Do you remember what the ps games looked like when it was new? Now look at the improvements they've made. I just hope Sony does their part to help developers, before they drop the ps2 for the dc.
I have never been involved in DARE, or have even known anyone who was. However, I have been in 3 different AODA (Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse) groups. The problem with all of them is that I did not want to quit. This is the main problem with drugs in America, and I assume the rest of the world. The people usually don't want to quit. On the same note, this is why AA (Alcoholic's Anonymous) has such a great success to failure ratio. The people who attend AA meetings usually want to quit.
DARE, nor any other AODA group, can wish to even come close to stopping the drug abuse in America, with their current approaches, as none of them (at least those that I have heard of) give drug abusers a good reason to stop.
Most groups use "education" as their main weapon. What they call education, is really just a scare tactic. When many drug abusers are scared, what do they do? That's right folks, they get high. If they don't get high, they usually use their great denial systems to tell themselves that either they are different from the examples the AODA groups use, or they just forget about it.
Another major apporach of AODA groups is peer counseling. Again, the members need to have a desire to stop. How can your peers help you quit if they don't want to quit or aren't quitting themselves?
It applies here as much or more than in the medical world; "prevention is easier than healing". Groups who wish to stop drug abuse in America need to focus on giving children a reason not to do drugs in the first place. This is as easy as one person volunteering a saturday a month to help the kids in the community organize a football game, a game of hide n' seek, or a table tennis tournament. What are most of us thinking on Saturday, though? "Finally time for myself". Where, then, do we get off complaining about the group of drug runners on the Monday night news selling drugs to kids? The Boys and Girls Club of America (BGCA) gets props here.
Some non-AODA groups are very effective at reducing the drug abuse among children. As mentioned above, the BGCA is very effective. Drug abuse among children (people under the age of 16) is signiicantly less within a mile of a BGCA than the rest of the city that occupies it. Another good group is the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. They show many children every day that there are respectable people in the world who don't use drugs. When their peers can't tell them "everyone does it", they have an excuse not to.
Another great way to prevent children from abusing drugs is to talk about it openly. Not only with our kids, but in society in general. We need to remove the taboo status from drugs, so that our children aren't aren't afraid to apporach us. If you've had "the drug talk" with your children, how many questions did they ask? Also, if your child can openly tell you he smoked some pot last Friday, it will make the task of preventing him from doing it again easier, as well as the shock of his possibly becoming a drug abuser, lending you a clearer head when trying to stop it.
In the end, we will never stop drug abuse. there will always be those people who wish to do drugs. You will not stop these people. We need to concentrate on those people who don't wish to do drugs, as our efforts will yield more profits. Some say this is unfair to those you wish to do drugs. Well, do it you way, then, but I have tried to help many people quit using drugs, and those who wish to use drugs are impossible to help quit.
(Slashdot, please read up on this before scoffing at it. There may seem funny, but they are legitimate questions. For sources read books by David Icke, the Liberty Lobby's "The Spotlight", and similar writings.)
Mr Bush, do you plan to give up helping your family traffic drugs into the United States if you become president?
Either way, do you plan to stop paying mexican drug lords for capturing U.S. Marines on border patrol?
On a side note, when was the last time you mutilated and raped a girl under the age of 14?
I doubt I would use Napster, if they required a monthly fee. I would most likely keep using services like audiogalaxy.com to find new artists. I would, however, pay napster a few cents for each new artist I found and liked. I suppose, if I pirated music over napster, though, I would rather pay $4.95/mo to napster (read: riaa) than $17-$25 for each cd.
If I were in your position, I would make my employer aware of my views on the patent, and request the courtesy of allowing me to attach my own review of the patent application before it is sent to the patent office. If they would not allow me to attach my own review of the application, I would sign my rights to the patent over to the company, and not sign the application itself. This would detach me from the patent, and make the point to my employer (especially if my collegues were to do the same) that the patent is not acceptable, on my terms, but they win because they have more money than I. If they know that the people behind the technology do not support it's uniqueness, then they may think twice, because in court people such as myself would be testifying against them. This is not idealistic, but it is practical.
I would suggest talking to O`Reilly, if you haven't already. They publish many books of this nature, which could add to the circulation of the book (ie: other O`Reilly books would probably site it as a reference). Another advantage is the obvious incentive on their part to fund the project as a book featured on their developers pages.
Another person to talk to would be John Carmack, of Id Software. He seems to be very interested in the Linux & BSD TCP/IP stacks. He is a millionaire, who might see fit to give you a $100,000. Perhaps under the conditions that he is given a voice in the book, as he seems to like giving his opinion. Another condition may be that he recieve 10% royalties on the book. Sure, he wouldn't make any money, but a book that would seemingly be of interest to him would be published, and he wouldn't loose too much money.
Id Software does not make proprietary software, in my opinion. I believe they will Free everything, as they did with the original Quake. John Carmack is always doing something new, "on the cutting edge", if you will. He releases the code after milking the commercial quality from it. This is the smartest approach, in my opinion. It is a happy medium that allows the knowledge to be distributed Freely, but only after the researchers get their fair share.
It seems that the author doesn't fully understand a few terms. For instance, a GUI is usually implemented by the shell, or some other userspace program. Also, UNIX was not used as the base of most operating systems. Unix-like operating systems were. The author seems to forget that the original UNIX OS was not a free or Free OS. It also contained more than a kernel and a shell. It also included "... the software... that programmers and users need to make themselves productive."
I doubt this is a 'real' court case. It has probably already been decided between the two parties that AOL will lose. There just isn't enough precedent to bring a case against a media giant. The newfound relationship with Time Warner could play a part, though, as Time Warner has some stake against music piracy. Note: I am into all encompassing eternal conspiracies held together by underground secret societies, thus I am bias.
We definitely need a computer historian to record the motives behind important descisions. This would help us to discount 'time proven' (haha) standards, such as sendmail, to clear the road of baracades preventing us from moving on to better things, such as Postfix and qmail. Another example would be moving past telnet to ssh.
Another place for computer historians would that is crucial at the present time, would be to record the status of the industry and related industries along with, again, the motives behind descisions, in relation to technology laws, such as the DMCA and UCITA to keep a clear image of why they were passed and why we should abolish them.
It seems you are forgetting about innovation. It also seems Cliff forgot about innovation, as well. My point is that this question is almost pointless to ask. Each limitation commented on here will be broken. When a new limitation is found, a solution will be found as well.
Why not let your students decide? I'm sure they will have more enthusiasm if they were coding what they truly wanted to code. If I were in your position, I would let the students nominate projects, then vote for them. Separate the students into groups working on the most desired projects, and let them do their thing.
Patenting new technology is Not bad. You must be sure it really is New, though. If your company truly is afraid to open source the drivers for fear of placing their technology at risk, why don't they patent the technology? If someone used the technology they have patented in any way that is harmful to their prosperity, they will find out. I can only see two reasons why any company would be afraid to open source drivers for any hardware, unless they make money directly from those drivers. Either a) they are unlawfully using patented technology or b) their technology is ugly as hell with kludges A-Z.
Why do we bitch and moan about the media (people who basically only know the words 'Linux' and 'hack', not the real meanings) reporting that Linux is only for hackers? We can't do so if we have groups named 'New York Linux User's Group' protesting in support of a web site with content related to hacking. What they should have done is say that 'We are a bunch of individuals with our own independant views on this case which all are in support of 2600' (as I hope they are). It is much harder to dismiss a huge number of individuals than a group.
I'm clueless in this area, so treat me like I'm 2 years old, please (not by slapping my hands). Anyways, was there ever an IPv5? If there was, assuming we don't use it because it was essentially broken, why was it dropped and not re-engineered to become what we know as IPv6. If there wasn't, then why not?
Slashdot Mirror
There is an open minded post. The phrase "key ingredients for life" should be "key ingredients for life on this planet".
It would be extremely nice if the BSDs shared more code, for various reasons. However, I am entirely opposed to a shared architechure.
If the BSDs shared a common architechure, they would become endlessly similar. It would, in effect, form a development model much closer to that of GNU/Linux's where each different operating system is really no more than a different distribution of the same operating system.
Not so much of a codebase, but a library of easily reusable, architechure (os, not system) independant code which each BSD had the option of using would be great. This would be a great start towards the ever-wanted unified ports tree.
However, this should really be an open effort, with a wider system of determining its contents than that of a council. Perhaps CGI-based voting for CVS commits/(sub)tree merging?
The only question is if the OpenBSD guys could audit the library as fast as the FreeBSD guys could develop it; If the NetBSD guys could port it as fast as the FreeBSD guys could develop it; if the FreeBSD guys could write it portable enough for the NetBSD guys to use it, and so on.
Disclaimer: This opinion applies to operating systems other than the BSDs. Free, Open, Commercial, Public Domain, "I Like Linux Because my Dick is too Small", whatever. (Also applies userspace code).
If I owned a company, which "understood" Open Source or Free Software, with a product that was not readily compatible with any given Open/Free software I would send it to market without support for such software.
If I waited to take my product to market until after I supported this Open/Free software my business would probably fail. The world does move at the "rate of busniess" which is faster than the "rate of open tech support" In other words: Microsoft will be more willing to help me to support their products than will Joe Blow be to help me support Jane Doe's product.
If you want IBM to support Linux on all their products, then send 50 engineers, who know Linux inside and out, to IBM to help them support Linux, for free.
I worked in the tech. dept. at my high school for high school credit (and a little something for my resume). We had roughly 150 computers (it was a small school). We could definitely have maintained all the computers between the one Technical Coordinator and two student technicians. In fact, we completely revamped every computer in the school in a week (remember: the two students were only working 2 hrs/day). Aside from that week, though, we let the problems build up until we couldn't stand the complaints anymore. Our problem was a lack of motivation. We weren't being paid a huge salary like our friends working for large corporations. The trade-off? We elected to be lazy. From an employees point of view, it is overly fair. It's sad, but it's true.
To be a bit short, is Richard Stallman's The Right to Read not enough?
I believe there is a good chance games written for the ps2 will, eventually, look better than games written for the dc. The very restraints people complain about will also cause developers to innovate. Do you remember what the ps games looked like when it was new? Now look at the improvements they've made. I just hope Sony does their part to help developers, before they drop the ps2 for the dc.
I have never been involved in DARE, or have even known anyone who was. However, I have been in 3 different AODA (Alcohol and Other Drug Abuse) groups. The problem with all of them is that I did not want to quit. This is the main problem with drugs in America, and I assume the rest of the world. The people usually don't want to quit. On the same note, this is why AA (Alcoholic's Anonymous) has such a great success to failure ratio. The people who attend AA meetings usually want to quit.
DARE, nor any other AODA group, can wish to even come close to stopping the drug abuse in America, with their current approaches, as none of them (at least those that I have heard of) give drug abusers a good reason to stop.
Most groups use "education" as their main weapon. What they call education, is really just a scare tactic. When many drug abusers are scared, what do they do? That's right folks, they get high. If they don't get high, they usually use their great denial systems to tell themselves that either they are different from the examples the AODA groups use, or they just forget about it.
Another major apporach of AODA groups is peer counseling. Again, the members need to have a desire to stop. How can your peers help you quit if they don't want to quit or aren't quitting themselves?
It applies here as much or more than in the medical world; "prevention is easier than healing". Groups who wish to stop drug abuse in America need to focus on giving children a reason not to do drugs in the first place. This is as easy as one person volunteering a saturday a month to help the kids in the community organize a football game, a game of hide n' seek, or a table tennis tournament. What are most of us thinking on Saturday, though? "Finally time for myself". Where, then, do we get off complaining about the group of drug runners on the Monday night news selling drugs to kids? The Boys and Girls Club of America (BGCA) gets props here.
Some non-AODA groups are very effective at reducing the drug abuse among children. As mentioned above, the BGCA is very effective. Drug abuse among children (people under the age of 16) is signiicantly less within a mile of a BGCA than the rest of the city that occupies it. Another good group is the Big Brothers Big Sisters program. They show many children every day that there are respectable people in the world who don't use drugs. When their peers can't tell them "everyone does it", they have an excuse not to.
Another great way to prevent children from abusing drugs is to talk about it openly. Not only with our kids, but in society in general. We need to remove the taboo status from drugs, so that our children aren't aren't afraid to apporach us. If you've had "the drug talk" with your children, how many questions did they ask? Also, if your child can openly tell you he smoked some pot last Friday, it will make the task of preventing him from doing it again easier, as well as the shock of his possibly becoming a drug abuser, lending you a clearer head when trying to stop it.
In the end, we will never stop drug abuse. there will always be those people who wish to do drugs. You will not stop these people. We need to concentrate on those people who don't wish to do drugs, as our efforts will yield more profits. Some say this is unfair to those you wish to do drugs. Well, do it you way, then, but I have tried to help many people quit using drugs, and those who wish to use drugs are impossible to help quit.
(Slashdot, please read up on this before scoffing at it. There may seem funny, but they are legitimate questions. For sources read books by David Icke, the Liberty Lobby's "The Spotlight", and similar writings.)
Mr Bush, do you plan to give up helping your family traffic drugs into the United States if you become president?
Either way, do you plan to stop paying mexican drug lords for capturing U.S. Marines on border patrol?
On a side note, when was the last time you mutilated and raped a girl under the age of 14?
Finally, whose yes-man are you?
I doubt I would use Napster, if they required a monthly fee. I would most likely keep using services like audiogalaxy.com to find new artists. I would, however, pay napster a few cents for each new artist I found and liked. I suppose, if I pirated music over napster, though, I would rather pay $4.95/mo to napster (read: riaa) than $17-$25 for each cd.
If I were in your position, I would make my employer aware of my views on the patent, and request the courtesy of allowing me to attach my own review of the patent application before it is sent to the patent office. If they would not allow me to attach my own review of the application, I would sign my rights to the patent over to the company, and not sign the application itself. This would detach me from the patent, and make the point to my employer (especially if my collegues were to do the same) that the patent is not acceptable, on my terms, but they win because they have more money than I. If they know that the people behind the technology do not support it's uniqueness, then they may think twice, because in court people such as myself would be testifying against them. This is not idealistic, but it is practical.
I would suggest talking to O`Reilly, if you haven't already. They publish many books of this nature, which could add to the circulation of the book (ie: other O`Reilly books would probably site it as a reference). Another advantage is the obvious incentive on their part to fund the project as a book featured on their developers pages.
Another person to talk to would be John Carmack, of Id Software. He seems to be very interested in the Linux & BSD TCP/IP stacks. He is a millionaire, who might see fit to give you a $100,000. Perhaps under the conditions that he is given a voice in the book, as he seems to like giving his opinion. Another condition may be that he recieve 10% royalties on the book. Sure, he wouldn't make any money, but a book that would seemingly be of interest to him would be published, and he wouldn't loose too much money.
Id Software does not make proprietary software, in my opinion. I believe they will Free everything, as they did with the original Quake. John Carmack is always doing something new, "on the cutting edge", if you will. He releases the code after milking the commercial quality from it. This is the smartest approach, in my opinion. It is a happy medium that allows the knowledge to be distributed Freely, but only after the researchers get their fair share.
``"...buffer overflows" (which overwhelm a machine with data packets)...'' Since when?
It seems that the author doesn't fully understand a few terms. For instance, a GUI is usually implemented by the shell, or some other userspace program. Also, UNIX was not used as the base of most operating systems. Unix-like operating systems were. The author seems to forget that the original UNIX OS was not a free or Free OS. It also contained more than a kernel and a shell. It also included "... the software ... that programmers and users need to make themselves productive."
I'm sorry, but this just seems too Macish for me.
Isn't Apple going to make them change it to N-Sphere or N-Rhombus?
I hope the gcc maintainers will take advantage of this to add pentium (others?) optimization support.
I doubt this is a 'real' court case. It has probably already been decided between the two parties that AOL will lose. There just isn't enough precedent to bring a case against a media giant. The newfound relationship with Time Warner could play a part, though, as Time Warner has some stake against music piracy. Note: I am into all encompassing eternal conspiracies held together by underground secret societies, thus I am bias.
--Drew Vogel
We definitely need a computer historian to record the motives behind important descisions. This would help us to discount 'time proven' (haha) standards, such as sendmail, to clear the road of baracades preventing us from moving on to better things, such as Postfix and qmail. Another example would be moving past telnet to ssh.
Another place for computer historians would that is crucial at the present time, would be to record the status of the industry and related industries along with, again, the motives behind descisions, in relation to technology laws, such as the DMCA and UCITA to keep a clear image of why they were passed and why we should abolish them.
--Drew Vogel
Perhaps they like to, or let others, spy on you. I believe a VPN would make this considerably harder, so why not, from their point of view, ban it?
--Drew Vogel
Why a university? Answer here.
It seems you are forgetting about innovation. It also seems Cliff forgot about innovation, as well. My point is that this question is almost pointless to ask. Each limitation commented on here will be broken. When a new limitation is found, a solution will be found as well.
--Drew Vogel
Why not let your students decide? I'm sure they will have more enthusiasm if they were coding what they truly wanted to code. If I were in your position, I would let the students nominate projects, then vote for them. Separate the students into groups working on the most desired projects, and let them do their thing.
--Drew Vogel
Patenting new technology is Not bad. You must be sure it really is New, though. If your company truly is afraid to open source the drivers for fear of placing their technology at risk, why don't they patent the technology? If someone used the technology they have patented in any way that is harmful to their prosperity, they will find out. I can only see two reasons why any company would be afraid to open source drivers for any hardware, unless they make money directly from those drivers. Either a) they are unlawfully using patented technology or b) their technology is ugly as hell with kludges A-Z.
--Drew Vogel
Why do we bitch and moan about the media (people who basically only know the words 'Linux' and 'hack', not the real meanings) reporting that Linux is only for hackers? We can't do so if we have groups named 'New York Linux User's Group' protesting in support of a web site with content related to hacking. What they should have done is say that 'We are a bunch of individuals with our own independant views on this case which all are in support of 2600' (as I hope they are). It is much harder to dismiss a huge number of individuals than a group.
I'm clueless in this area, so treat me like I'm 2 years old, please (not by slapping my hands). Anyways, was there ever an IPv5? If there was, assuming we don't use it because it was essentially broken, why was it dropped and not re-engineered to become what we know as IPv6. If there wasn't, then why not?
--Drew Vogel