But if you want me to use a window manager that only wraps the top and bottom of a window, and won't let me resize unless i grab the bottom, you have GOT to be kidding yourself.
Alt-Right mouse button; drag in the window.
Personally, I gauge the quality of a software product according to two rules. It has to basically work, and it can't piss me off.
Perhaps less software would "piss [you] off" if you read the documentation. Window Maker is foremost a useful window manager and second a faithful reproduction of the elegant NeXTStep interface. Its features are modelled after NeXTStep because it just worked very, very well. The design of each of these "more correct" features fits very nicely with other design concepts of different NeXTStep system components. Have you ever used a NeXT?
OpenGL is fantastic at 2D graphics--buy the OpenGL Programmer's Guide and Reference Guide. "Open Graphics Language" doesn't have "3D" anywhere in the title.
most of the time one of the first comments about Linux people make is something like " why is it so slow ", talking about X windows
I think you meant to type "why is this so fast?" I have never heard a new Linux user favor the "speed" of Windows to X and a good window manager (Window Maker does very well). There's just no comparison--X responds to a user's events, Windows slugs back at them.
If that's what you've got planned for the job interview, you've got the job already. Go for it, and whenever you're ready you can turn your real opinions loose (the ones that accurately reflect the state of computing today as Microsoft fails to recognize). I've gotta say that's the farthest I've seen anyone stretch the truth for a job, though. You might want to take out the part about rebooting when a sound plug-in went weird. Everyone knows a simple plug-in can't take down an operating system unless it's from--nevermind, I forgot what we were working with.:)
Yeah and I'd like to try AbiWord, but it's developed by bigots.
If you'd like to get into name-calling, my e-mail address is right up top. I invite you to throw at me all the third grade insults you can muster, and I'll get a good laugh reading them. I stated my personal opinion, and I'm not speaking for anyone else. You're free not to reply.
P.S. Wake up boy, the GPL isn't free, it puts more restrictions on what you can do with your code than a truely free license would.
Perhaps you need a bit more sleep, boy. The GPL is but one license under which you could, if desired, license any source code you've written. If you like the Artistic license, use that--or use them both!
It's about preserving freedom for users; software licensed to its under the terms of the GPL is very useful to me. Perhaps you'd rather take other peoples' code and "integrate" it into your own projects, the results of which you will not allow other users to use freely. Fine--just don't do it with my code. If I'm sharing my code, I expect you to share derivative works. The restrictions the GPL puts on the use of the software are intended to keep it free for future users, and I agree with the motives behind Stallman's license. You don't have to use my software. Trust me, I won't be up late at night worrying that you're using Microsoft Word.
A truly free license consists of two words: public domain. Releasing all owner rights to a work of software might make it truly free, but it provides me little motivation to see any of my software succeed. I have no idea where it might have gone, what it might now be called, or under whose name it is currently "authored." It's as if I never even wrote it, except someone else might be using it (maybe not).
Computers are amazing tools; I'd like to share what I can do with them with anyone else who wants to learn, but occasionally I'd also appreciate other peoples' contributions. Considering the ocean of free software out there now I've still got to write a lot of free software to catch up.
This has not historically worked.
Period. If your argument is that it does work, I would ask, what changed?
It seems to me that consumers do have power. Microsoft acts like they don't have competition, but that's just a show for shareholders. The mere existence of the "Halloween" documents shows that Microsoft has recognized a threat in Linux, if only a future one.
Some logic that seems to work for me: Red Hat makes money selling Linux distributions and support. People do pay Red Hat for its products. Red Hat continues to grow. Microsoft continues to "recognize" Linux as... something. Microsoft doesn't recognize grass in my lawn because it's not any threat to their revenue stream (at least not yet). They recognize Novell, Sun, Be, Apple, Red Hat, etc. as threats to their revenue stream--people who support Red Hat have made Microsoft recognize this.
Let's get ethical, Olivia! I work for AbiSource, I write code. I built KOffice (QT and the entire KOffice sources) in late 1998. Some programs worked, I didn't bother running others. It looked like a good collection of software, but I'm sure lots has happened since, right?
When I compiled QT, Trolltech was moving to a "free" license which ultimately turned out to be "not quite free" (the same way Velveeta is not quite cheese). I've since never needed the QT libraries, so I don't use them.
But my original argument has nothing to do with why I'm not using QT. It has to do with the characterization of the KDE developers as generous and benevolent. They might be very nice people in real life and very talented programmers too; maybe someone else writes their e-mail?
I would love to be more specific about the version of KWord I compiled, but I haven't needed a Frame Maker style word processor, so the version (or was it a date-based snapshot?) is not very fresh in my memory.
Now, you said you tried compiling AbiWord 0.7, but you had problems. Were you using the native Solaris make, or GNU make? Solaris SunPro C++ or gcc? The Solaris makefiles work on our end, please submit a bug report or just mail me if you're having problems. It's very hard to fix problems when they're not reported.
I have used both KWord and AbiWord, but of uncomparable versions, so I've made no claims as to how they compare. You, on the other hand, claim to somehow know that "what he says of KWord and Abiword is actually true." Please tell me how you know this.
Personally, I don't pay for proprietary software (I don't accept that I must reject all my personal freedoms for the privelegde of using my own electricity to push my own copies of bits through my own processor), but whatever happened to simply not buying the products you don't like?
There is a section of this article that explains how an industry should not need regulation. The author then goes on to explain how the customers (the gamers, the analysts, the office workers, the fifth grader doing a book report, etc.) are important and must be protected through government regulation of industry. I don't buy it. Why not simply not endorse (through financial or social means of promotion) the "crap?"
Examples of "successful" regulation include governments controlling companies that control either scarce natural resources like oil or the very limited space and existing infrastructure of urban utilities (pole space for cable television, power lines, telephone service). Software, being simply the abstract ordering of a bunch of bits, isn't scarce. One can make as many copies of those bits as one wants, and at virtually zero cost.
The barrier to entry for competition in the software development industry is a $400 PC and a CD with GCC on it.
Encap is a very useful tool, and it's partly how my current system is managed. I don't use a "distribution" at home, but I do use Debian at work--it's a mighty fine piece of work. It's great being able to do "apt-get install [package]" and have it done within 5 seconds. Of course things are different at home where I don't have a T1; most all my software gets installed by way of EGCS, GNU make, and cp.
It's about time I re-install at home anyway, and it will most definitely be a distribution a friend has been packaging for the last few months. It's up-to-date, complete, and I know the packaging system well (Encap is your friend) enough to do any installation or removal myself, cleanly, and easily.
Matthias Ettrich wrote: With abiword and gnumeric there are now two overhyped gtk projects that both have a far superior counterpart in the KDE office suite. ... Without wanting to discourage you: Do you really think that's worth it? I mean, Abiword right now can't do even half of what kword can do! Why fiddle around with these over-hyped C-sources without functionality, if kword is nicer designed, more powerful and object-oriented?
I don't know if I would call that "laying on the warm fuzzies." Please browse these list archives more. Cooperation does not appear to be one of Matthias's strong points, I would say.
But at least he knows exactly what users want most in a word processor: object oriented design!
I pulled out an archive message, the content of which was not exactly crucial to my argument. I'm not quite sure what you're saying; "Matthias is just a developer...he is not humble about his code...", but the point of the message I replied to was that the entire KDE team is a group of cooperative and programmers. I assert anyone with five minutes and a web browser can find megabytes of list traffic that, well, hint otherwise.
And what was the last version of AbiWord you compiled? If you had any problems, did you post to the mailing lists? Did you log any bugs through Bugzilla?
I'd like to give KWord a try, but I use free software these days, and for the same reason I don't put Velveeta on my pizza, QT doesn't quite count.
One guy buys a "licensed decoder" and pays for the right to listen to a song, buys a sound card with a digital out (like a TB Malibu, or some of the newer SB cards) and records the decoded stream on to a hard drive... he then converts to wav and uses any old encoder to convert it to an unencrypted MP3.
It doesn't even matter if the music is watermarked... all that proves is that, yes, the copy is illegal, and perhaps it tells the RIAA who paid for the first listen. A single trip through analog lines would strip that, and MP3s aren't quite top-quality sound anyway.
Total cost: a theoretical "single listen" micropayment of $0.25 (or whatever)--one time cost.
It's not like the RIAA has "lost" any war... they were never in one. Showing up after the contest is a sure way not to win.
Quick, call Consumer Reports, Ralph Nader, and Batman! While you're explaining them how you were ripped off by an evil publishing magnate with only your best interest in mind, play a sad song for me too: I had to pay for gas today, and it was expensive! And by next month, it'll be all gone!
Damn short list, isn't it (other than some old religious texts, I sure can't think of any)
Perhaps thinking is not your strong point. Few musicians make music their parents informed them at an early age that it would be a "good business move." If you know the music industry, you know just how ludicrous such a statement would be. Few programmers started programming because it pays better than emptying trash cans. Even in the world of professional sports, athletes started playing for enjoyment. A fourth-grader doesn't pick up a basketball and think, "I'd rather be reading, but my financial planner advises basketball is a sound investment in my future, for reasons both monetary and selfish. I shall now hone my skills for the professional leagues."
People do things because they like them, and sometimes they do things they don't like, but the love of a person, place, or thing is the motivation behind great works.
I would recommend streaming MP3 from the site. It scales very well from 8000 Hz voice quality up to 44100 Hz stereo music, and with relatively low bandwidth requirements. One can do 11 KHz stereo on a 56K modem and keep up with the signal pretty well.
There is an abundance of players which will read MP3 via http (mpg123, WinAmp, maybe X11Amp), just feed it a URL.
Serving MP3 is easy. First, start your favorite MP3 encoder off/dev/dsp at the correct bitrate, then attach it to a FIFO--or any other method of multiplexing the stdout. Then write a script to sit on port 8022 (or whatever you want to name it), fork on a request for any GET, and pump a hand-crafted MP3 header block (with the current bitrate), and then stream off the FIFO. There are sets of scripts that do all this work for you; you supply the encoder. I think it's called mp3server, look around for it.
Everyone can encode this way, everyone can hear this way, and the sound quality is very good.
The source for SETI@Home was released under a GPL-type licence, prior to the closing of the volunteer work. That source is obtainable, and can be examined, edited and extended as with any other GPL program.
I'm not sure about this. From the FAQ, they refuse to release source code for this project (they blab about some bullshit "security" concerns). If they're really worried about the integrity of their data, they should have thought a bit harder about setting up a simple registration process, perhaps through public key authentication. Your definition of a "GPL-type" license seems to mean "you can use our old code, or our new binaries but with none of that annoying source code."
As a side-note to the data integrity argument, but having not looked at the source code (ha!), I'm convinced anyone with tcpdump and a little persistence could surely just work out the protocol between the client and server and feed these guys whatever malicious data he wanted to.
Oh well, they won't get my CPU cycles. And I was looking forward to using them on something at least remotely useful (unlike breaking DES over and over to prove that, yes, 56 really is a smaller number than 1024).
I gave a link to the OED, as the guy who originally mentioned it didn't. Compared to a pocket dictionary, the OED has orders of magnitude more entries and more quotes and references per entry. I never said the OED had a million words. I never said the OED had every word in the English language. I gave a link to the OED and a comparison to a pocket dictionary both in scope of content and in price.
Are dictionaries really this exciting to some people?
Slashdot Mirror
OpenGL is fantastic at 2D graphics--buy the OpenGL Programmer's Guide and Reference Guide. "Open Graphics Language" doesn't have "3D" anywhere in the title.
I thought he worked at 3Dfx before id.
If that's what you've got planned for the job interview, you've got the job already. Go for it, and whenever you're ready you can turn your real opinions loose (the ones that accurately reflect the state of computing today as Microsoft fails to recognize). I've gotta say that's the farthest I've seen anyone stretch the truth for a job, though. You might want to take out the part about rebooting when a sound plug-in went weird. Everyone knows a simple plug-in can't take down an operating system unless it's from--nevermind, I forgot what we were working with. :)
It's about preserving freedom for users; software licensed to its under the terms of the GPL is very useful to me. Perhaps you'd rather take other peoples' code and "integrate" it into your own projects, the results of which you will not allow other users to use freely. Fine--just don't do it with my code. If I'm sharing my code, I expect you to share derivative works. The restrictions the GPL puts on the use of the software are intended to keep it free for future users, and I agree with the motives behind Stallman's license. You don't have to use my software. Trust me, I won't be up late at night worrying that you're using Microsoft Word.
A truly free license consists of two words: public domain. Releasing all owner rights to a work of software might make it truly free, but it provides me little motivation to see any of my software succeed. I have no idea where it might have gone, what it might now be called, or under whose name it is currently "authored." It's as if I never even wrote it, except someone else might be using it (maybe not).
Computers are amazing tools; I'd like to share what I can do with them with anyone else who wants to learn, but occasionally I'd also appreciate other peoples' contributions. Considering the ocean of free software out there now I've still got to write a lot of free software to catch up.
Some logic that seems to work for me: Red Hat makes money selling Linux distributions and support. People do pay Red Hat for its products. Red Hat continues to grow. Microsoft continues to "recognize" Linux as... something. Microsoft doesn't recognize grass in my lawn because it's not any threat to their revenue stream (at least not yet). They recognize Novell, Sun, Be, Apple, Red Hat, etc. as threats to their revenue stream--people who support Red Hat have made Microsoft recognize this.
Let's get ethical, Olivia! I work for AbiSource, I write code. I built KOffice (QT and the entire KOffice sources) in late 1998. Some programs worked, I didn't bother running others. It looked like a good collection of software, but I'm sure lots has happened since, right?
When I compiled QT, Trolltech was moving to a "free" license which ultimately turned out to be "not quite free" (the same way Velveeta is not quite cheese). I've since never needed the QT libraries, so I don't use them.
But my original argument has nothing to do with why I'm not using QT. It has to do with the characterization of the KDE developers as generous and benevolent. They might be very nice people in real life and very talented programmers too; maybe someone else writes their e-mail?
I would love to be more specific about the version of KWord I compiled, but I haven't needed a Frame Maker style word processor, so the version (or was it a date-based snapshot?) is not very fresh in my memory.
Now, you said you tried compiling AbiWord 0.7, but you had problems. Were you using the native Solaris make, or GNU make? Solaris SunPro C++ or gcc? The Solaris makefiles work on our end, please submit a bug report or just mail me if you're having problems. It's very hard to fix problems when they're not reported.
I have used both KWord and AbiWord, but of uncomparable versions, so I've made no claims as to how they compare. You, on the other hand, claim to somehow know that "what he says of KWord and Abiword is actually true." Please tell me how you know this.
There is a section of this article that explains how an industry should not need regulation. The author then goes on to explain how the customers (the gamers, the analysts, the office workers, the fifth grader doing a book report, etc.) are important and must be protected through government regulation of industry. I don't buy it. Why not simply not endorse (through financial or social means of promotion) the "crap?"
Examples of "successful" regulation include governments controlling companies that control either scarce natural resources like oil or the very limited space and existing infrastructure of urban utilities (pole space for cable television, power lines, telephone service). Software, being simply the abstract ordering of a bunch of bits, isn't scarce. One can make as many copies of those bits as one wants, and at virtually zero cost.
The barrier to entry for competition in the software development industry is a $400 PC and a CD with GCC on it.
Encap is a very useful tool, and it's partly how my current system is managed. I don't use a "distribution" at home, but I do use Debian at work--it's a mighty fine piece of work. It's great being able to do "apt-get install [package]" and have it done within 5 seconds. Of course things are different at home where I don't have a T1; most all my software gets installed by way of EGCS, GNU make, and cp.
It's about time I re-install at home anyway, and it will most definitely be a distribution a friend has been packaging for the last few months. It's up-to-date, complete, and I know the packaging system well (Encap is your friend) enough to do any installation or removal myself, cleanly, and easily.
I don't know if I would call that "laying on the warm fuzzies." Please browse these list archives more. Cooperation does not appear to be one of Matthias's strong points, I would say.
But at least he knows exactly what users want most in a word processor: object oriented design!
I pulled out an archive message, the content of which was not exactly crucial to my argument. I'm not quite sure what you're saying; "Matthias is just a developer...he is not humble about his code...", but the point of the message I replied to was that the entire KDE team is a group of cooperative and programmers. I assert anyone with five minutes and a web browser can find megabytes of list traffic that, well, hint otherwise.
And what was the last version of AbiWord you compiled? If you had any problems, did you post to the mailing lists? Did you log any bugs through Bugzilla?
I'd like to give KWord a try, but I use free software these days, and for the same reason I don't put Velveeta on my pizza, QT doesn't quite count.
Fly Microsoft Air instead, but just once!
Licensed under the GPL, looking for any contributions, pretty nice already-- Flight Gear.
One guy buys a "licensed decoder" and pays for the right to listen to a song, buys a sound card with a digital out (like a TB Malibu, or some of the newer SB cards) and records the decoded stream on to a hard drive... he then converts to wav and uses any old encoder to convert it to an unencrypted MP3.
It doesn't even matter if the music is watermarked... all that proves is that, yes, the copy is illegal, and perhaps it tells the RIAA who paid for the first listen. A single trip through analog lines would strip that, and MP3s aren't quite top-quality sound anyway.
Total cost: a theoretical "single listen" micropayment of $0.25 (or whatever)--one time cost.
It's not like the RIAA has "lost" any war... they were never in one. Showing up after the contest is a sure way not to win.
Quick, call Consumer Reports, Ralph Nader, and Batman! While you're explaining them how you were ripped off by an evil publishing magnate with only your best interest in mind, play a sad song for me too: I had to pay for gas today, and it was expensive! And by next month, it'll be all gone!
People do things because they like them, and sometimes they do things they don't like, but the love of a person, place, or thing is the motivation behind great works.
I would recommend streaming MP3 from the site. It scales very well from 8000 Hz voice quality up to 44100 Hz stereo music, and with relatively low bandwidth requirements. One can do 11 KHz stereo on a 56K modem and keep up with the signal pretty well.
/dev/dsp at the correct bitrate, then attach it to a FIFO--or any other method of multiplexing the stdout. Then write a script to sit on port 8022 (or whatever you want to name it), fork on a request for any GET, and pump a hand-crafted MP3 header block (with the current bitrate), and then stream off the FIFO. There are sets of scripts that do all this work for you; you supply the encoder. I think it's called mp3server, look around for it.
There is an abundance of players which will read MP3 via http (mpg123, WinAmp, maybe X11Amp), just feed it a URL.
Serving MP3 is easy. First, start your favorite MP3 encoder off
Everyone can encode this way, everyone can hear this way, and the sound quality is very good.
I cried when HP-UX 9 went away too.
As a side-note to the data integrity argument, but having not looked at the source code (ha!), I'm convinced anyone with tcpdump and a little persistence could surely just work out the protocol between the client and server and feed these guys whatever malicious data he wanted to.
Oh well, they won't get my CPU cycles. And I was looking forward to using them on something at least remotely useful (unlike breaking DES over and over to prove that, yes, 56 really is a smaller number than 1024).
Try $3495.00 for a C++ compiler.
You mean like the C to English converter or Bruce Schneier's Blowfish cipher in English?
I gave a link to the OED, as the guy who originally mentioned it didn't. Compared to a pocket dictionary, the OED has orders of magnitude more entries and more quotes and references per entry. I never said the OED had a million words. I never said the OED had every word in the English language. I gave a link to the OED and a comparison to a pocket dictionary both in scope of content and in price.
Are dictionaries really this exciting to some people?
I'm not sure I want to take seriously advice for tuning my system from a guy who receives his own mail as root.