My point was - if you play games, you're probably interested in FPS numbers or 3d marks (sure, in conjuction with a video card, etc); if you do server stuff, then you probably want to see how good it's doing at SPECweb/TPCx. But what does SPEC really tell you ? How can you use it to approximate the behavior of other apps?
Furthermore, SPEC*RATE is *not* a good idea for server stuff. From the SPEC benchmark suite, only one program is memory bound (mcf). OTOH, database workloads are pretty much always memory bound.
Sure, people want one number, but that number is currently very workload-dependent.
IIRC pretty much all standard M$'s EULAs are very specific about non-transferability (well, this is a standard feature in most EULAs, not just M$'s). Does this mean that they acknowledge the non-enforceability of this clause ? (I'm really curious to know, perhaps somebody with IP law background can help me).
not really indicative of anything. Some of the workloads in SPEC are what a unix hacker would run (perl,gcc,bzip/gzip), but most other are very obscure pieces of software.
"good at SPEC" is totally different from "good at server workloads". The former are generally CPU-bound, whereas the latter - memory bound (so for the former you want high clock and high machine width, for the latter, however, you want sh*tloads of caches). Also "good at SPEC" is different from "good at media" (the reasons are more complex)
The ability to run arbitrary code as a regular user is bad enough. It'll turn the computer into a zombie anyway. Microsoft does makes the problem worse, but they can't prevent it.
You'd be surprised how much scientific research is sponsored by DARPA (in the States, of course). While it's likely that this particular piece of research was not, in general DARPA funds a lot more than NSF. In other words, "killing each other", to a certain extent, drives scientific research. "killing each other" gave us the IP stack of protocols, for instance...
It doesn't have a large satelite (relatively speaking) to regulate its movement, and as a consequence it has much more variation from (its) year to year. Furthermore, it's also farther from the Sun, and the variation in distance caused by the eliptical movement also affects the amount of light it's getting (not just the inclination, as is the case for Earth).
OT: As for those irresponsible Republicans - compare Argentina's deficit before their currency crash with USA's current deficit.
... regardless of country of origin. It's a (very effective) way to attract smart people in the States. Admission in a good program is incredibly tough though.
If you invest a quarter of a million dollars into a foreign student (that's roughly the cost of a phd these days, at least at my university), sending them back to their countries is plainly dumb. Sure, they may out-compete Americans in the States, but that's still better than out-competing Americans from abroad.
Slightly OT, but why do people put C and C++ in the same performance class ? The performance difference between the two is quite significant, especially if you use gcc/g++. I once try to port a big project from C into C++, without actually converting the code into classes (not a big deal, since the incompatibilities were really small). At some point I had the code compile under both gcc and g++. Interestingly enough, with g++ the code was about 30% slower.
The article is silent on the GUI part. Unfortunately, that's also the most unportable part with.NET. Since winforms was really tailored for the windows api, porting it is no trivial tasks. Windows.Forms/Mono is still under heavy development.
Keep in mind that Microsoft saw.NET as cross-platform, but only between windows platforms. Java is far better in that respect. While full compatibility is in many cases impossible, the extra effort per platform is much smaller
I believe that xen/x86_64 is work in progress (Xen FAQ). Give Novel some slack here... The real question is how well Xen/Novel works on suse/ia32. I really like xen, the only problem is that it takes quite a while to setup right.
I actually think that GPL is perhaps one of the best licenses around from a user's perspective (i.e. somebody that doesn't actively develop the GPL'ed code). When adopting a technology, the biggest threat for a company is for that technology to die/become discontinued/etc. GPL, by mandating source code availability, works to a certain extent as an insurance. In the worst case scenario, a company adopting a GPLed technology would basically need to pay somebody else to maintain it. It's still much better than a binary-only, discontinued software, that, let's say, suddenly has a buffer overflow discovered in it.
As for Microsoft FUD - that's simply directed against any competitor. GPL is rallying banner for most of the opensource community, so naturally they're targetting it with their immense advertising budgets.
And, as for RedHat becoming the next Microsoft - journalists have asked this rhetorical question for quite a while now (and redhat is still a niche player). My personal opinion is that there's not gonna be a next Microsoft (as in a company that makes billions out of selling proprietary operating systems). I believe that the OS market will be commoditized to the point that there is not gonna be another mammoth.
Furthermore, keep in mind that most of the code behind linux is under either GPL or LGPL, which means that others can take redhat's source code and build their parallel distribution of Linux (there are already parallel distributions of RHEL, btw, I don't see how that is going to change in the future). Sure, Redhat could start replacing software with proprietary versions, but the cost of doing that is very high, and simply against their current direction
I hardly consider 33cents/song no money, especially since there is very little overhead per purchased song. Sure, they make more money from ipod sales, but iTMS is definitely running a profit.
Volcanos also spit SO2 in addition to CO2, which basically has the opposite effect (it increases albedo). Furthermore, when they erupt, the ash they throw into the atmosphere reflects sunlight to the extent that major eruptions effectively cool down the Earth. When Pinatubo erupted, it lowered the global temperature by a fraction of a degree. When Thera/Santorini erupted about 3600 years ago, the sempervirens trees from California recorded a sharp drop in temperature.
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Furthermore, SPEC*RATE is *not* a good idea for server stuff. From the SPEC benchmark suite, only one program is memory bound (mcf). OTOH, database workloads are pretty much always memory bound.
Sure, people want one number, but that number is currently very workload-dependent.
IIRC pretty much all standard M$'s EULAs are very specific about non-transferability (well, this is a standard feature in most EULAs, not just M$'s). Does this mean that they acknowledge the non-enforceability of this clause ? (I'm really curious to know, perhaps somebody with IP law background can help me).
DELETE * ?
For a lot of M$ drones that consider Bill Gates a god, it won't be that much of a difference
The ability to run arbitrary code as a regular user is bad enough. It'll turn the computer into a zombie anyway. Microsoft does makes the problem worse, but they can't prevent it.
What's the problem, from a religious organization's standpoint, with consuming coffee ? Alcohol is one thing, but coffee ?
Things like these convince me that Christian fundamentalism is very real.
The opposition (i.e. the ones who lost), are always the most patriotic, righteous, etc.
You'd be surprised how much scientific research is sponsored by DARPA (in the States, of course). While it's likely that this particular piece of research was not, in general DARPA funds a lot more than NSF. In other words, "killing each other", to a certain extent, drives scientific research. "killing each other" gave us the IP stack of protocols, for instance ...
Oh, and in case you haven't realized, people vote with their asses.
"We'll let the Chinese do it!"
OT: As for those irresponsible Republicans - compare Argentina's deficit before their currency crash with USA's current deficit.
... regardless of country of origin. It's a (very effective) way to attract smart people in the States. Admission in a good program is incredibly tough though.
If you invest a quarter of a million dollars into a foreign student (that's roughly the cost of a phd these days, at least at my university), sending them back to their countries is plainly dumb. Sure, they may out-compete Americans in the States, but that's still better than out-competing Americans from abroad.
And file transfers with non-gaim clients ?
Slightly OT, but why do people put C and C++ in the same performance class ? The performance difference between the two is quite significant, especially if you use gcc/g++. I once try to port a big project from C into C++, without actually converting the code into classes (not a big deal, since the incompatibilities were really small). At some point I had the code compile under both gcc and g++. Interestingly enough, with g++ the code was about 30% slower.
Keep in mind that Microsoft saw .NET as cross-platform, but only between windows platforms. Java is far better in that respect. While full compatibility is in many cases impossible, the extra effort per platform is much smaller
The much more interesting story from groklaw is that SCO's motion for further delay was denied
I believe that xen/x86_64 is work in progress (Xen FAQ). Give Novel some slack here ... The real question is how well Xen/Novel works on suse/ia32. I really like xen, the only problem is that it takes quite a while to setup right.
As for Microsoft FUD - that's simply directed against any competitor. GPL is rallying banner for most of the opensource community, so naturally they're targetting it with their immense advertising budgets.
Furthermore, keep in mind that most of the code behind linux is under either GPL or LGPL, which means that others can take redhat's source code and build their parallel distribution of Linux (there are already parallel distributions of RHEL, btw, I don't see how that is going to change in the future). Sure, Redhat could start replacing software with proprietary versions, but the cost of doing that is very high, and simply against their current direction
I hardly consider 33cents/song no money, especially since there is very little overhead per purchased song. Sure, they make more money from ipod sales, but iTMS is definitely running a profit.
For not making Itanium competitive enough ...
Volcanos also spit SO2 in addition to CO2, which basically has the opposite effect (it increases albedo). Furthermore, when they erupt, the ash they throw into the atmosphere reflects sunlight to the extent that major eruptions effectively cool down the Earth. When Pinatubo erupted, it lowered the global temperature by a fraction of a degree. When Thera/Santorini erupted about 3600 years ago, the sempervirens trees from California recorded a sharp drop in temperature.
The idea is simply to create market confusion at the most critical point of a competitor's launch.