You're lucky. Here in the UK they've banned anything that might LOOK like a weapon. No more paintball guns or BB guns. No pocket knives either.
Here in Canada, one of the 'freer' societies around, my brother in-law couldn't import a toy star trek phaser he won on ebay, as it was blocked by customs as being too 'similiar' to a weapon.
It's also fun just for it's own sake. I don't "compete" with my friends, or even try to keep up with general leaderboards. Unlocking achievements is, however, a fun little extra in games, and gives you some thing to look back through after you beat (and/or sell) a game.
You'll note I didn't ask about 'unlockables' or 'acheivments'. I get those. Hell I even get online leaderboards and ladder tournaments and so on. They exist in practically every game on every system.
But that has really nothing to do with 'gamerscore', which I still find utterly pointless. Its just adding everything you've ever done together into a pointless arbitrary number. Why not just count the number of times you've pressed the fire button across all games and put that online too? Its an equally absurd metric.
And yet somehow I'm sure some twit would measure his worth by it.
Perhaps the "point" is to enjoy competing with your friends in games which may not have a multiplayer element?
Er... that's what a 'high score' is or even the online leaderboards, and ladder tournaments, for a given game. I 'get' those. I've even competed in games at that level.
But a "Gamerscore" is an aggregate score across all your 'achievements' in all your games... well all your xbox 360 games anyway.
So if I'm 'competing' with my friends for 'gamerscore', the guy who rents a lot of stupid/terrible/easy games beats the guy who plays and masters a select few hard games. Or if I refuse to play shite movie-tie ins or refuse to buy each new season of nhl and football and you buy or rent or borrow them them all you accumlate more points... you 'win'.
So what exactly does gamerscore measure?
Your willingness to play "Barbie and the 12 Princesses" and the "Dora the Explorer" game? Your willingness to restart a Portal level 100x to re-throw a box until it lands on a switch on the 1st throw? Your willingness to Play games rated terrible, games that even you can't stand? Your willingness to watch youtube walkthrus to find the hidden medallians?
And I assume if you've got the highest gamer score going would that be: "All of the above?"
My inference that it measures ones lack of a life seems quite apt.
Don't hate
I "hon't hate". I think its stupid, and by extension I think people who care about it are stupid. There is a difference.
It doesn't bug me that xbox lets you 'publish' your 'acheivements' online.
But I do find it sad and pathetic that people think the fact that they've gotten all the strawberries on the hula-hoop level in the my little pony game is an 'acheivement', and that there are people out there who will rent the my little pony game and play it to absolute completion using a youtube walkthru just to 'acheive' this so that they can add extra points to their 'score'.
I can respect someone who's good at a game. I've even been impressed as someone completes Super Mario in one life, or R-Type, or does a speed run through a level, or who beat Doom on Nightmare... but 'gamerscore'? Please.
On the other hand, you can't increase your Gamerscore or collect achievements with the PC version >:)
This 'gamerscore'... what is the point?
The higher your score the more of a joke your life is? I've always thought people who cared about gamerscores were like forum rats who cared about their post count... as if being on top was something to be proud of.
Or is there more to it? Can it actually get you anything?
Yeah, if the Lego StarWars stuff was anything to judge by, the Indy lego game will be great light-hearted fun, and amusing. The devs really have a sense of humor, and from the indy trailer it looks like that sense of humor has been preserved.
I'm looking forward to more lego tie-ins in this series. In addition to the Indy, there's also a lego-batman game coming out too -- apparently its based more on the animated series/comics rather than being a direct movie tie-in. (So much the better if you ask me...)
The problem is end users. They want to use their existing x86 hardware and software. They aren't really interested in not having drivers for anything more than 3 months old, and running all their existing software at 30-70% its current speed.
Look at the x64 versions of Windows. It highlights exactly the problem. XP x64 was crippled by lack of drivers, and Microsoft HAD to force the issue with Vista because the x86 ram limit was starting to hold things back. But even today most customers don't WANT the x64 edition. This issue isn't really MS. If they could abandon x86 and keep their customer base, they would, in a heartbeat.
Linux also supports other architectures, but the G5 as a linux platform is a pretty niche thing to do, since you have to compile a lot more stuff from source and not all of it is cpu agnostic, plus no proprietary linux software will run and you can't stick Windows into a VMware VM, etc.
yes I know a decade ago NT 4.0 did run on PowerPC, and even a couple of alpha chips.
And MS could release a version for another CPU within a couple months if they really wanted to, if not faster. But who is going to step up and rewrite all the drivers? Who is going to step up and rewrite all the applications? Leaving that to the 3rd party vendors? They aren't interested in anything but their current project... they aren't going to go back and recompile squat. Hell, most STILL aren't releasing x64 native code.
Apple with a fraction a of the software guys can keep their OS on two major different style of chips PowerPC, and Intel x86, along with 32bit and 64 bit versions of both.
1) Apple controls the drivers so that part of the issue is largely solved. Of course your 3rd party hardware might not work after they switch, but at least all the apple hardware works.
2) Apple didn't want to switch. They had to. Intel was kicking butt in performance, while IBM couldn't even deliver a mobile G5. Consumers were starting to get twitchy about the fact that Windows PCs were getting markedly faster, while mac laptops were still stuck on G4s.
3) The performance gap from the G4/G5 to the intel stuff had gotten so bad, that by the time Apple switched, running PPC code in emulation on intel was actually an improvement in some cases, and in most cases at least comparable to running on the (slower) native hardware.
4) Apple is killing off the PPC. Much new software is already intel only, and the next release of OSX is rumoured to be intel only.
Apple is really a whole other ball game. As for solaris... that's the same as linux... but even more niche. How many people do you know running solaris on ppc?
It just causes the browser to render the page differently (ie, not downloading or displaying images, embedded objects, etc).
I'm actually not sure at what level or how exactly adblock is implemented. I thought it essentially filtered the html to strip out blocked content, collapse elements, etc. But even if adblock did rewrite the html I guess it would depend whether the checksum was checked before or after adblock got to it.
'course, these products could just re-compute and re-insert the checksum into the page...
It should logically be implemented as a digital signature. It would make the page tamper proof, with much less overhead than full on encryption of everything.
1) write a checksum to a page; if it doesn't match (or another hashing method doesn't match) warn the user that the page has been intercepted and corrupted; the code might not be too tough
The AJAX that Google uses for Google Docs certainly isn't.
It isn't remotely on par with a native app either. And even google's flagship gmail -- it isn't that hard to confuse the UI to the point buttons stop working, context menus won't appear/disappear or render funny, while javascript is just grinding along in the background away slowing it all to a crawl, while the page loading icon spins endlessly...
Sure I've seen MUCH worse. But really all AJAX 'web2.0' apps just aren't very robust.
Google Docs, when being run over a fast computer with a decent network connection is just as joy to use.
No. No its not. Google Docs isn't as full featured, and javascript in a browser isn't remotely as powerful or as flexible as what can be done with a native app either run locally, or even hosted via Citrix. There really is no comparison.
Now Google has no former experience or desire to go in application hosting business.
Really? I'll buy the no former experience, but pretty much everything they do lately is AJAX application hosting stuff.
They do have a lot of webserver on their disposal though and they can, without investing significant amount, host all sort of web applications (google docs included).
If they hosted 'real' applications instead of 'web applications' they could spare themselves all the trouble of actually WRITING web applications. All they'd have to do is write the application publisher... and for linux we ALREADY even have THAT in the form of remote X sessions; it just needs to be polished up a bunch to work over slow high latency WANs.
If I were at google, and I wanted to make 'online office'... who in their right mind would want to write an office suite from scratch in JAVASCRIPT to run in a variety of browsers that are all buggy to some degree and over which you have little control, and where standards compliance is a fantasy?
Especially when you could just take an existing free office suite, and the existing remote access provided by X-windows, and polish it up to run robustly and reliably over a WAN link. (And you KNOW this is possible because the guys over at Citrix have ALREADY done it.)
And when you are done, you have a solution that will work with practically ANY app. You want an online graphics program... publish gimp, you want an online ide? publish eclipse. You want an online mail program, publish evolution.
The ONLY downside to this solution is the cpu load on the server is higher. But if google figures they can scale up to give everyone on the planet gigabytes upon gigabytes of storage space, I think throwing CPUs at their network to give them some processing capability really shouldn't be an insurmountable problem for them.
I have used Citrix and to be honest, it is horrible. A royal pain in the ass to use on a regular basis. I would take Google docs any day over that torture.
Citrix, when configured properly by people who know what they are doing is a joy to use.
Trying to host incompatible software from an under powered server on an inadequate network by people who don't know what they are doing? Yeah, I've wanted to throw my laptop out the window too.
Citrix done right, and the average user doesn't even really know the app isn't running on their own desktop until they have a power failure and find that once they get back up and running and upon find their document is right there exactly how they left it.
Citrix can't publish ALL applications equally well, a lot of windows stuff simply doesn't play well on a terminal server. Its just not written with that in mind. Go figure. windows is still primarily a single user OS after all. To publish well, you need software that supports roaming profiles, active directory, runs under a user account with minimal permissions... etc, etc, etc. As we've seen from the launch of Vista a LOT of software doesn't cope well with that. Other apps are just too graphics heavy, or update the screen far more often than they realy have any real need to, causing performance issues when you host them, etc, etc.
I really am truly surprised that we haven't seen more of a push for this from the Linux world. What better way to migrate to OSS than to publish linux apps online in a platform agnostic way. VNC or remote X sessions are a glimpse of this functionality... but they aren't even in the same ballpark as the polish and performance of citrix... properly configured.
Google will bring Docs to the desktop with Google Gears backing it in Firfox3 and Safari. That will allow the web app to work offline but primarily be connected. It's a better plan that Citrix because apps should not have problems "dropping out" until time to update with the server.
Yawn. Why would I -care- if I can run 'google docs' offline? I -already- have multiple free offline office suites to choose from for -that-, and they don't run in a ridiculous mess of javascript on a browser.
GoogleDocs really makes no sense for offline use. If I'm at MY machine then I can have a much more powerful free wordprocessor running (and all I'd like is the option to save it online). If I'm NOT at my machine, than sure a browser based solution is a good idea... but if I'm offline, what the hell good is it?
If its NOT my machine AND its NOT online, then its not going to have any access to my documents.
I'd like to see and OO.org plugin to directly go to Google Docs... I think there already is one from some third party.
Yes that would be useful.
It's a better plan that Citrix because apps should not have problems "dropping out" until time to update with the server.
If I'm going offline, I'll use an offline editor. A Citrix solution is a substitute for google-docs online. And a locally installed office suite is a substitute for google-docs offline. And EACH does its scenario much BETTER than google-docs. Google docs is a cruddy offline app, by simple virtue that javascript in a browser is a crappy platform compared to a native office suite. And google-docs is cruddy online by simple virtue that AJAX doesn't hold a candle to remote access to a native app published through citrix for an online app.
The *only* thing that google-docs really has going for it is that there is no free opensource linux based citrix software, and thus no one publishing KOffice or OpenOffice or whatever for free.
Oh it does, my travel laptop at work is running Kubuntu 8.04 and I can access any citrix application hosted on the company's servers flawlessly. Just download the linux x86 ica client from www.citrix.com, install, import the SSL certificate issuer's public cert (if necessary I know I had to but it is easy to do) and you are done.
I know there is a citrix client. But can host one publish Linux Applications from a Linux Server? That is what I was referring to. And if not with Citrix... with anything?
We need a Linux based application *server*, preferably one that is FLOSS. Publishing OO.o from Windows 2003 Server and Citrix Presentation Server to a linux client almost defeats the point if you ask me.
What does OpenOffice offer the average user that Google Docs is lacking?
Not running in a browser on AJAX, the stupidest application 'platform' ever congealed? Working reliably when offline? Working reliably with large documents, with embedded images etc? Performance? Even if you thought OO.o was slow, you'll be amazed at how badly you can bog things down if you implement it in mighty javascript, inside a browser.
And why would Google use OpenOffice to fill that gap when they could just improve Google Docs?
You mean by making google docs a real application instead of a gimped web based browser hosted mess? Why re-invent the wheel? Just enhance oo.o to store docs to google's servers and call it a day.
Personally though, I don't know why anyone would even BOTHER with google docs. If you want web based document access I think we should be striving for remote desktop hosting and application publishing.
Citrix already has this, and if you've ever used MSOffice as a published Citrix web application, you'll know what I'm talking about. None of this flaky ajax crap. Accessible from anywhere. Documents exist on the corporate server. It costs a bundle to license though and I don't know if it supports linux. -- but isn't that where FLOSS shines? I'd rather see this over another half baked AJAX app.
Do quake4, Maya, Acrobat, don't use libc (you know... libraries that are free)? The implemented all of the C libraries from scratch, did they?
What difference would that make to your argument? Virtually all software of any complexity written on ANY platform makes use of "free" libraries. If a free library that does what you need exists it makes sense to use it. That doesn't make an application cross platform.
Now, if you think that I shouldn't be allowed to write a game that uses open-source libraries without open-sourcing my game, then I suppose that is your right -
I don't think anything of the sort.
I think there is tremendous value in there being software that people can build off of for commercial purposes... even the GPL crowd recognizes that with their own LGPL, which is BSD-like in that you can use it in commercial projects without open sourcing the result.
I just don't agree with people saying the BSD is 'inherently freer', because its not really. Even your own use of it resulted in proprietary software. So much for preserving 'freedom'. Don't get me wrong though, that's not a "bad" thing. Your software might not have been made otherwise. And you said yourself that by using it you made better software than otherwise. And above all the authors of the software you used gave you permission to do what you did. I don't have any criticism at all for what you did.
I just object to people up on a soap box telling me how GPL software is all restrictive while BSD is 'truly free', while using it to churn out non-free software.
After that, there is a range of possibilities. One is that B is basically a rebranded version of A, without much noticeable improvement. In this case, end users can just grab A instead. The other end of the spectrum is that A was a half-baked mess, and the company overhauled it to produce a great product.
Some other middle ground cases... B is just A with a some annoying bugs fixed. Or that A doesn't support wifi, while B does. Or that A isa commandline app, and B adds a useful GUI...
In this case, I'd be pleased if they released B under a similarly free license, but if they did 90% of the work on the project, then it's about 90% as fair for them to be able to keep it locked up as it is for a completely in-house proprietary project.
If they are doing 90% of the work, why not just bite the bullet and do 100%.
That said, I could see an argument in the middle range, where A was pretty good, and B was just a lot better, that the company has let the community do the bulk of its work, but holds control over the best-in-class product. That strikes me as somewhat unfair. On the other hand, everyone who contributed to the BSD licensed code knew that could happen, which would seem to make it fair.
Absolutely. If you release under a BSD license, 'fair' doesn't really come into play. You knew and accepted this outcome when you released it. So I don't think its fair to complain if you release BSD code and then someone does this.
Back in reality, though: Can you site an example of BSD licensed software getting gobbled up by suits, and the end users left without free options?
How much BSD software was there ever really out there to begin with outside of the 'OS' stuff that came with BSD. PostgreSQL, Amanda backup... its not really a terribly big list? How much proprietary software is based on BSD code and we just don't know about it? After all if they AREN'T contributing to an active BSD community, why even mention that their roots are in some BSD code or that they incorporated BSD code?
Indeed. GPL software has had more higher profile gobble-ups than BSD... despite how much harder it is to gobble up GPL projects -- since you actually have to acquire the copyrights. That is probably part of the reason why they are actually high profile.
Apple's Darwin/NEXTSTEP/OS X is probably the closest thing to high profile BSD evolving away from its free alternatives in a big way. Of course the freebsd/openbsd/netbsd still exist... as you say...
I guess there's OS X -- then again, I'm using FreeBSD today, and enjoying it quite thoroughly.
But you can't run any OS X software on it should you want to. So its not exactly an 'alternative' in the sense of it being a a complete substitute.
And can you run BSD on Apple hardware with full driver support? They've been keeping their drivers largely to themselves from what I've understood.
Maybe you have never heard of other phones, but I can tell you that...
BB has been security and lockdown friendly for YEARS. The other devices are playing catchup. They are getting better, and are reaching parity now, but BB has been secure for YEARS.
With a simple downloaded program, you can telnet anywhere inside your network that your Enterprise Server can see from the screen of your phone. That one makes me not sleep at night.
1) Good thing you can EASILY disable the install of downloaded programs by end users with BB.
2) The same level of access is true of any VPN. How do you cope with laptops?
3) Why haven't you got a firewall between your BES and the rest of your network to restrict its access should it ever get compromised. This is basic security advice for ANY publicly reachable server. If you just want the BES to talk to exchange on port x and y, then set it up so that's all it can talk to. The BES install guide is actually really good at documenting the 'least' privileges you need to give it.
If I've taken the time and effort to make a nice product using a bunch of pieces of software, and include some of my own, and package it up, sealed and ready for the end user, including code to prevent modification, exactly how am I restricting your use of that same GPL2 code, if I give you the source for all the GPL2 code?
You are responding with a very specific GPLv3 criticism in a post that was really about the general differences between GPL and BSD.
The only think I'm restricting is you modifying the code, and running in on the device I created. You can use the same code, make a similar device and use the code all you want. The code is free, your use is not restricted except for the product I created (and you bought).
1) Without even getting to the GPL, why on earth do you think that you can dictate what I do with a product I *OWN*? I can pee on it. I can make it into a fish tank. I can use it to fry an egg. I can install and run any software I bloody feel like. I own it. Its mine.
2) The ENTIRE POINT of the GPL is to give end users the the right to use AND modify GPL software they receive without restriction. The intention was never to allow someone to sell gpl code on a platform that wouldn't run modified versions and then weasel around saying "You can modify the code, see, you just can't run it on this platform, its all good'.
3) The bottom of that slippery slope is a world where GPL code is meaningless legal fiction. All the major PC vendors from Microsoft to Dell to HP all load up computers stuffed with GPL code, all tightly locked up to their platform. Sure you can 'modify it and run it elsewhere'... but there's nowhere to run it. Each platform only runs its own signed and sealed software. My right to modify the code is still legally there, but useless in practice since I have no outlet on which to run modified code, including the device it came on. The GPL authors do not wish to enable this.
4) People who author GPL code do not want YOU to do exactly what you've described. Period. They want the final end users and everyone else down the line to be able to modify and use the software they've authored WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS. If YOU don't want that, don't base your entire product on code largely written by authors that DO, licensed accordingly.
Remember GPL doesn't stop Tivo from existing; it doesn't stop them from having a closed platform. It jsut stops them from doing an end-run around the rights and freedoms the authors of the GPL code intended the end users to receive in the first place. This includes not erecting barriers to modifying the software on the device it came on.
If you don't like the terms, don't buy a Tivo, take the Tivo software and make your own and hack that. After all, you have all the GPL2 code in your hands, you should be able to DIY, should you not?
Indeed I should. And what better platform to run my DIY Tivo than an actual Tivo device? Its the hardware the software came on so I know it works. I have a license to use AND modify that software. I own the hardware outright. And the software authors intended for me to be able to do this. So why is there a barrier?
Because the hardware vender usurped the software license intentions and are weaseling around it by claiming we can run modified source on other devices??
To put it simply: AS A GPL SOFTWARE DEVELOPER its annoying to ME that end users of MY software are being locked out of software I gave them explicit permission to modify without restriction. I intended for them to be able to freely modify and use the software. So it annoys me that a hardware vendor has seen fit to take MY software and bundle it with hardware that deliberately violates the intention of the license I gave it to them under, while they weasel around with bullshit about how my end users can still use the software on other devices. That's not acceptable to me, as the original developer of that software.
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You're lucky. Here in the UK they've banned anything that might LOOK like a weapon. No more paintball guns or BB guns. No pocket knives either.
Here in Canada, one of the 'freer' societies around, my brother in-law couldn't import a toy star trek phaser he won on ebay, as it was blocked by customs as being too 'similiar' to a weapon.
One of these bad-ass threatening things:
http://www.zerotoys.com/newsite/products/images/StarTrekPhaser_image2.jpg
He even appealed the ruling asked them to re-review it, and they denied it again.
Of course, my other brother in law had no trouble importing a paint-ball pistol from ebay:
http://rap4.com/images/t68/pistol/t68_pistol_500.jpg
So it really depends who you draw over at customs.
It's also fun just for it's own sake. I don't "compete" with my friends, or even try to keep up with general leaderboards. Unlocking achievements is, however, a fun little extra in games, and gives you some thing to look back through after you beat (and/or sell) a game.
You'll note I didn't ask about 'unlockables' or 'acheivments'. I get those. Hell I even get online leaderboards and ladder tournaments and so on. They exist in practically every game on every system.
But that has really nothing to do with 'gamerscore', which I still find utterly pointless. Its just adding everything you've ever done together into a pointless arbitrary number. Why not just count the number of times you've pressed the fire button across all games and put that online too? Its an equally absurd metric.
And yet somehow I'm sure some twit would measure his worth by it.
No, it says 21, 22 or 23 moves. This statement is more narrow than the one you are suggesting, and thus more interesting.
... seems a touch less interesting. back-forth-back-forth...x21
So if you have a solved cube and make 1 move... the distance back to solved is 1 move.
To do it in 21 22 or 23 moves
Perhaps the "point" is to enjoy competing with your friends in games which may not have a multiplayer element?
Er... that's what a 'high score' is or even the online leaderboards, and ladder tournaments, for a given game. I 'get' those. I've even competed in games at that level.
But a "Gamerscore" is an aggregate score across all your 'achievements' in all your games... well all your xbox 360 games anyway.
So if I'm 'competing' with my friends for 'gamerscore', the guy who rents a lot of stupid/terrible/easy games beats the guy who plays and masters a select few hard games. Or if I refuse to play shite movie-tie ins or refuse to buy each new season of nhl and football and you buy or rent or borrow them them all you accumlate more points... you 'win'.
So what exactly does gamerscore measure?
Your willingness to play "Barbie and the 12 Princesses" and the "Dora the Explorer" game?
Your willingness to restart a Portal level 100x to re-throw a box until it lands on a switch on the 1st throw?
Your willingness to Play games rated terrible, games that even you can't stand?
Your willingness to watch youtube walkthrus to find the hidden medallians?
And I assume if you've got the highest gamer score going would that be: "All of the above?"
My inference that it measures ones lack of a life seems quite apt.
Don't hate
I "hon't hate". I think its stupid, and by extension I think people who care about it are stupid. There is a difference.
It doesn't bug me that xbox lets you 'publish' your 'acheivements' online.
But I do find it sad and pathetic that people think the fact that they've gotten all the strawberries on the hula-hoop level in the my little pony game is an 'acheivement', and that there are people out there who will rent the my little pony game and play it to absolute completion using a youtube walkthru just to 'acheive' this so that they can add extra points to their 'score'.
I can respect someone who's good at a game. I've even been impressed as someone completes Super Mario in one life, or R-Type, or does a speed run through a level, or who beat Doom on Nightmare... but 'gamerscore'? Please.
On the other hand, you can't increase your Gamerscore or collect achievements with the PC version >:)
This 'gamerscore'... what is the point?
The higher your score the more of a joke your life is? I've always thought people who cared about gamerscores were like forum rats who cared about their post count... as if being on top was something to be proud of.
Or is there more to it? Can it actually get you anything?
Yeah, if the Lego StarWars stuff was anything to judge by, the Indy lego game will be great light-hearted fun, and amusing. The devs really have a sense of humor, and from the indy trailer it looks like that sense of humor has been preserved.
I'm looking forward to more lego tie-ins in this series. In addition to the Indy, there's also a lego-batman game coming out too -- apparently its based more on the animated series/comics rather than being a direct movie tie-in. (So much the better if you ask me...)
Heh... took me a while to sort it out... 'decent' shoud be 'dissent'. You make some good points though.
The problem is as usual MSFT
The problem is NOT Microsft.
The problem is end users. They want to use their existing x86 hardware and software. They aren't really interested in not having drivers for anything more than 3 months old, and running all their existing software at 30-70% its current speed.
Look at the x64 versions of Windows. It highlights exactly the problem. XP x64 was crippled by lack of drivers, and Microsoft HAD to force the issue with Vista because the x86 ram limit was starting to hold things back. But even today most customers don't WANT the x64 edition. This issue isn't really MS. If they could abandon x86 and keep their customer base, they would, in a heartbeat.
Linux also supports other architectures, but the G5 as a linux platform is a pretty niche thing to do, since you have to compile a lot more stuff from source and not all of it is cpu agnostic, plus no proprietary linux software will run and you can't stick Windows into a VMware VM, etc.
yes I know a decade ago NT 4.0 did run on PowerPC, and even a couple of alpha chips.
And MS could release a version for another CPU within a couple months if they really wanted to, if not faster. But who is going to step up and rewrite all the drivers? Who is going to step up and rewrite all the applications? Leaving that to the 3rd party vendors? They aren't interested in anything but their current project... they aren't going to go back and recompile squat. Hell, most STILL aren't releasing x64 native code.
Apple with a fraction a of the software guys can keep their OS on two major different style of chips PowerPC, and Intel x86, along with 32bit and 64 bit versions of both.
1) Apple controls the drivers so that part of the issue is largely solved. Of course your 3rd party hardware might not work after they switch, but at least all the apple hardware works.
2) Apple didn't want to switch. They had to. Intel was kicking butt in performance, while IBM couldn't even deliver a mobile G5. Consumers were starting to get twitchy about the fact that Windows PCs were getting markedly faster, while mac laptops were still stuck on G4s.
3) The performance gap from the G4/G5 to the intel stuff had gotten so bad, that by the time Apple switched, running PPC code in emulation on intel was actually an improvement in some cases, and in most cases at least comparable to running on the (slower) native hardware.
4) Apple is killing off the PPC. Much new software is already intel only, and the next release of OSX is rumoured to be intel only.
Apple is really a whole other ball game. As for solaris... that's the same as linux... but even more niche. How many people do you know running solaris on ppc?
A president should be someone "special", if he is to be elected, he should be the role model of the average person, not the average person himself.
Well... the US has elected some 43 of them so far. How many count as the 'role model of the average person'?
It just causes the browser to render the page differently (ie, not downloading or displaying images, embedded objects, etc).
I'm actually not sure at what level or how exactly adblock is implemented. I thought it essentially filtered the html to strip out blocked content, collapse elements, etc. But even if adblock did rewrite the html I guess it would depend whether the checksum was checked before or after adblock got to it.
'course, these products could just re-compute and re-insert the checksum into the page...
It should logically be implemented as a digital signature. It would make the page tamper proof, with much less overhead than full on encryption of everything.
What if the phone company inserted commercial adds when you were talking to someone on the phone?
That's nothing. What if they intercepted and changed what was said:
You say: Hey Jim, How are ya?
He hears: Hey Jim, I wish I was eating a tasty Mars bar.
He says: Ok.
You hear: Ok.
You say: Wanna go see a movie?
He hears: Wanna go see Superbad, and get some popcorn?
He says: Uh... sure.
You hear: Uh... sure.
You say: Cool see ya.
He hears: Cool. Can you pick me up some Laramie cigarretes. They take me to flavor country!
He says: Uh... say what?
You hear: Uh... you too.
1) write a checksum to a page; if it doesn't match (or another hashing method doesn't match) warn the user that the page has been intercepted and corrupted; the code might not be too tough
So much for using adblock.
The AJAX that Google uses for Google Docs certainly isn't.
It isn't remotely on par with a native app either. And even google's flagship gmail -- it isn't that hard to confuse the UI to the point buttons stop working, context menus won't appear/disappear or render funny, while javascript is just grinding along in the background away slowing it all to a crawl, while the page loading icon spins endlessly...
Sure I've seen MUCH worse. But really all AJAX 'web2.0' apps just aren't very robust.
That's what LTSP already does... considerably better than Citrix and less expensive
:)
Awesome...Never heard of this project until now. I'll be looking into this for sure!
One thing I can say citrix has going for it is heavy advertising
Google Docs, when being run over a fast computer with a decent network connection is just as joy to use.
No. No its not. Google Docs isn't as full featured, and javascript in a browser isn't remotely as powerful or as flexible as what can be done with a native app either run locally, or even hosted via Citrix. There really is no comparison.
Now Google has no former experience or desire to go in application hosting business.
Really? I'll buy the no former experience, but pretty much everything they do lately is AJAX application hosting stuff.
They do have a lot of webserver on their disposal though and they can, without investing significant amount, host all sort of web applications (google docs included).
If they hosted 'real' applications instead of 'web applications' they could spare themselves all the trouble of actually WRITING web applications. All they'd have to do is write the application publisher... and for linux we ALREADY even have THAT in the form of remote X sessions; it just needs to be polished up a bunch to work over slow high latency WANs.
If I were at google, and I wanted to make 'online office'... who in their right mind would want to write an office suite from scratch in JAVASCRIPT to run in a variety of browsers that are all buggy to some degree and over which you have little control, and where standards compliance is a fantasy?
Especially when you could just take an existing free office suite, and the existing remote access provided by X-windows, and polish it up to run robustly and reliably over a WAN link. (And you KNOW this is possible because the guys over at Citrix have ALREADY done it.)
And when you are done, you have a solution that will work with practically ANY app. You want an online graphics program... publish gimp, you want an online ide? publish eclipse. You want an online mail program, publish evolution.
The ONLY downside to this solution is the cpu load on the server is higher. But if google figures they can scale up to give everyone on the planet gigabytes upon gigabytes of storage space, I think throwing CPUs at their network to give them some processing capability really shouldn't be an insurmountable problem for them.
I have used Citrix and to be honest, it is horrible. A royal pain in the ass to use on a regular basis. I would take Google docs any day over that torture.
... but they aren't even in the same ballpark as the polish and performance of citrix... properly configured.
Citrix, when configured properly by people who know what they are doing is a joy to use.
Trying to host incompatible software from an under powered server on an inadequate network by people who don't know what they are doing? Yeah, I've wanted to throw my laptop out the window too.
Citrix done right, and the average user doesn't even really know the app isn't running on their own desktop until they have a power failure and find that once they get back up and running and upon find their document is right there exactly how they left it.
Citrix can't publish ALL applications equally well, a lot of windows stuff simply doesn't play well on a terminal server. Its just not written with that in mind. Go figure. windows is still primarily a single user OS after all. To publish well, you need software that supports roaming profiles, active directory, runs under a user account with minimal permissions... etc, etc, etc. As we've seen from the launch of Vista a LOT of software doesn't cope well with that. Other apps are just too graphics heavy, or update the screen far more often than they realy have any real need to, causing performance issues when you host them, etc, etc.
I really am truly surprised that we haven't seen more of a push for this from the Linux world. What better way to migrate to OSS than to publish linux apps online in a platform agnostic way. VNC or remote X sessions are a glimpse of this functionality
Google will bring Docs to the desktop with Google Gears backing it in Firfox3 and Safari. That will allow the web app to work offline but primarily be connected. It's a better plan that Citrix because apps should not have problems "dropping out" until time to update with the server.
Yawn. Why would I -care- if I can run 'google docs' offline? I -already- have multiple free offline office suites to choose from for -that-, and they don't run in a ridiculous mess of javascript on a browser.
GoogleDocs really makes no sense for offline use. If I'm at MY machine then I can have a much more powerful free wordprocessor running (and all I'd like is the option to save it online). If I'm NOT at my machine, than sure a browser based solution is a good idea... but if I'm offline, what the hell good is it?
If its NOT my machine AND its NOT online, then its not going to have any access to my documents.
I'd like to see and OO.org plugin to directly go to Google Docs... I think there already is one from some third party.
Yes that would be useful.
It's a better plan that Citrix because apps should not have problems "dropping out" until time to update with the server.
If I'm going offline, I'll use an offline editor. A Citrix solution is a substitute for google-docs online. And a locally installed office suite is a substitute for google-docs offline. And EACH does its scenario much BETTER than google-docs. Google docs is a cruddy offline app, by simple virtue that javascript in a browser is a crappy platform compared to a native office suite. And google-docs is cruddy online by simple virtue that AJAX doesn't hold a candle to remote access to a native app published through citrix for an online app.
The *only* thing that google-docs really has going for it is that there is no free opensource linux based citrix software, and thus no one publishing KOffice or OpenOffice or whatever for free.
Oh it does, my travel laptop at work is running Kubuntu 8.04 and I can access any citrix application hosted on the company's servers flawlessly. Just download the linux x86 ica client from www.citrix.com, install, import the SSL certificate issuer's public cert (if necessary I know I had to but it is easy to do) and you are done.
I know there is a citrix client. But can host one publish Linux Applications from a Linux Server? That is what I was referring to. And if not with Citrix... with anything?
A Linux Citrix client has existed for a while.
That's not the point.
We need a Linux based application *server*, preferably one that is FLOSS.
Publishing OO.o from Windows 2003 Server and Citrix Presentation Server to a linux client almost defeats the point if you ask me.
What does OpenOffice offer the average user that Google Docs is lacking?
Not running in a browser on AJAX, the stupidest application 'platform' ever congealed?
Working reliably when offline?
Working reliably with large documents, with embedded images etc?
Performance? Even if you thought OO.o was slow, you'll be amazed at how badly you can bog things down if you implement it in mighty javascript, inside a browser.
And why would Google use OpenOffice to fill that gap when they could just improve Google Docs?
You mean by making google docs a real application instead of a gimped web based browser hosted mess? Why re-invent the wheel? Just enhance oo.o to store docs to google's servers and call it a day.
Personally though, I don't know why anyone would even BOTHER with google docs. If you want web based document access I think we should be striving for remote desktop hosting and application publishing.
Citrix already has this, and if you've ever used MSOffice as a published Citrix web application, you'll know what I'm talking about. None of this flaky ajax crap. Accessible from anywhere. Documents exist on the corporate server. It costs a bundle to license though and I don't know if it supports linux. -- but isn't that where FLOSS shines? I'd rather see this over another half baked AJAX app.
Do quake4, Maya, Acrobat, don't use libc (you know... libraries that are free)? The implemented all of the C libraries from scratch, did they?
What difference would that make to your argument?
Virtually all software of any complexity written on ANY platform makes use of "free" libraries. If a free library that does what you need exists it makes sense to use it. That doesn't make an application cross platform.
Now, if you think that I shouldn't be allowed to write a game that uses open-source libraries without open-sourcing my game, then I suppose that is your right -
I don't think anything of the sort.
I think there is tremendous value in there being software that people can build off of for commercial purposes... even the GPL crowd recognizes that with their own LGPL, which is BSD-like in that you can use it in commercial projects without open sourcing the result.
I just don't agree with people saying the BSD is 'inherently freer', because its not really. Even your own use of it resulted in proprietary software. So much for preserving 'freedom'. Don't get me wrong though, that's not a "bad" thing. Your software might not have been made otherwise. And you said yourself that by using it you made better software than otherwise. And above all the authors of the software you used gave you permission to do what you did. I don't have any criticism at all for what you did.
I just object to people up on a soap box telling me how GPL software is all restrictive while BSD is 'truly free', while using it to churn out non-free software.
After that, there is a range of possibilities. One is that B is basically a rebranded version of A, without much noticeable improvement. In this case, end users can just grab A instead. The other end of the spectrum is that A was a half-baked mess, and the company overhauled it to produce a great product.
Some other middle ground cases... B is just A with a some annoying bugs fixed. Or that A doesn't support wifi, while B does. Or that A isa commandline app, and B adds a useful GUI...
In this case, I'd be pleased if they released B under a similarly free license, but if they did 90% of the work on the project, then it's about 90% as fair for them to be able to keep it locked up as it is for a completely in-house proprietary project.
If they are doing 90% of the work, why not just bite the bullet and do 100%.
That said, I could see an argument in the middle range, where A was pretty good, and B was just a lot better, that the company has let the community do the bulk of its work, but holds control over the best-in-class product. That strikes me as somewhat unfair. On the other hand, everyone who contributed to the BSD licensed code knew that could happen, which would seem to make it fair.
Absolutely. If you release under a BSD license, 'fair' doesn't really come into play. You knew and accepted this outcome when you released it. So I don't think its fair to complain if you release BSD code and then someone does this.
Back in reality, though: Can you site an example of BSD licensed software getting gobbled up by suits, and the end users left without free options?
How much BSD software was there ever really out there to begin with outside of the 'OS' stuff that came with BSD. PostgreSQL, Amanda backup... its not really a terribly big list? How much proprietary software is based on BSD code and we just don't know about it? After all if they AREN'T contributing to an active BSD community, why even mention that their roots are in some BSD code or that they incorporated BSD code?
Indeed. GPL software has had more higher profile gobble-ups than BSD... despite how much harder it is to gobble up GPL projects -- since you actually have to acquire the copyrights. That is probably part of the reason why they are actually high profile.
Apple's Darwin/NEXTSTEP/OS X is probably the closest thing to high profile BSD evolving away from its free alternatives in a big way. Of course the freebsd/openbsd/netbsd still exist... as you say...
I guess there's OS X -- then again, I'm using FreeBSD today, and enjoying it quite thoroughly.
But you can't run any OS X software on it should you want to. So its not exactly an 'alternative' in the sense of it being a a complete substitute.
And can you run BSD on Apple hardware with full driver support? They've been keeping their drivers largely to themselves from what I've understood.
Maybe you have never heard of other phones, but I can tell you that ...
BB has been security and lockdown friendly for YEARS. The other devices are playing catchup. They are getting better, and are reaching parity now, but BB has been secure for YEARS.
With a simple downloaded program, you can telnet anywhere inside your network that your Enterprise Server can see from the screen of your phone. That one makes me not sleep at night.
1) Good thing you can EASILY disable the install of downloaded programs by end users with BB.
2) The same level of access is true of any VPN. How do you cope with laptops?
3) Why haven't you got a firewall between your BES and the rest of your network to restrict its access should it ever get compromised. This is basic security advice for ANY publicly reachable server. If you just want the BES to talk to exchange on port x and y, then set it up so that's all it can talk to. The BES install guide is actually really good at documenting the 'least' privileges you need to give it.
If I've taken the time and effort to make a nice product using a bunch of pieces of software, and include some of my own, and package it up, sealed and ready for the end user, including code to prevent modification, exactly how am I restricting your use of that same GPL2 code, if I give you the source for all the GPL2 code?
... I'm updating the license to prevent it in
You are responding with a very specific GPLv3 criticism in a post that was really about the general differences between GPL and BSD.
The only think I'm restricting is you modifying the code, and running in on the device I created. You can use the same code, make a similar device and use the code all you want. The code is free, your use is not restricted except for the product I created (and you bought).
1) Without even getting to the GPL, why on earth do you think that you can dictate what I do with a product I *OWN*? I can pee on it. I can make it into a fish tank. I can use it to fry an egg. I can install and run any software I bloody feel like. I own it. Its mine.
2) The ENTIRE POINT of the GPL is to give end users the the right to use AND modify GPL software they receive without restriction. The intention was never to allow someone to sell gpl code on a platform that wouldn't run modified versions and then weasel around saying "You can modify the code, see, you just can't run it on this platform, its all good'.
3) The bottom of that slippery slope is a world where GPL code is meaningless legal fiction. All the major PC vendors from Microsoft to Dell to HP all load up computers stuffed with GPL code, all tightly locked up to their platform. Sure you can 'modify it and run it elsewhere'... but there's nowhere to run it. Each platform only runs its own signed and sealed software. My right to modify the code is still legally there, but useless in practice since I have no outlet on which to run modified code, including the device it came on. The GPL authors do not wish to enable this.
4) People who author GPL code do not want YOU to do exactly what you've described. Period. They want the final end users and everyone else down the line to be able to modify and use the software they've authored WITHOUT RESTRICTIONS. If YOU don't want that, don't base your entire product on code largely written by authors that DO, licensed accordingly.
Remember GPL doesn't stop Tivo from existing; it doesn't stop them from having a closed platform. It jsut stops them from doing an end-run around the rights and freedoms the authors of the GPL code intended the end users to receive in the first place. This includes not erecting barriers to modifying the software on the device it came on.
If you don't like the terms, don't buy a Tivo, take the Tivo software and make your own and hack that. After all, you have all the GPL2 code in your hands, you should be able to DIY, should you not?
Indeed I should. And what better platform to run my DIY Tivo than an actual Tivo device? Its the hardware the software came on so I know it works. I have a license to use AND modify that software. I own the hardware outright. And the software authors intended for me to be able to do this. So why is there a barrier?
Because the hardware vender usurped the software license intentions and are weaseling around it by claiming we can run modified source on other devices??
To put it simply: AS A GPL SOFTWARE DEVELOPER its annoying to ME that end users of MY software are being locked out of software I gave them explicit permission to modify without restriction. I intended for them to be able to freely modify and use the software. So it annoys me that a hardware vendor has seen fit to take MY software and bundle it with hardware that deliberately violates the intention of the license I gave it to them under, while they weasel around with bullshit about how my end users can still use the software on other devices. That's not acceptable to me, as the original developer of that software.
So