It all depends on which definition you're using. You are assuming definition #3. But it seems clear from the context that the article itself (written by Joystiq?) is using definition #2.
Definition #2 also applies: Blue Ray is "exclusively owned; private". The fact that it is licensed doesn't change that.
The point is Blu-Ray is no more proprietary than HD-DVD or even regular DVD.
Quite right: they are all proprietary.
It is almost definitely true that the BD drive is one reason why the PS3 is so expensive, but that's just because it's new technology. It's got nothing to do with it being proprietary or not.
Oh, it's got a lot to do with being proprietary, but not in the simplistic way in which you seem to think. For example, the fact that there is a format war at all is related to that.
Having seen a lot of scientific codes, I can assure you: most people writing scientific software don't even know about BLAS, and even if they do, they don't bother.
Sorry, but you don't know what "proprietary" means. Proprietary means that the format is owned by someone, which it is. The fact that a bunch of big companies got together and formed an association doesn't change that fact.
Well, that's why the Subject says "bang, buck, effort", so, yes, I agree that bang for the buck matters.
However, there is a problem with the PS3: the only chip that will be made in volume is the chip that goes into the PS3, and that will likely remain at its current clock frequency for a while. And that means that it will be obsolete pretty soon. Faster versions will be much smaller runs and hence much more expensive.
So, I hope the high volume of the PS3 will help, but I wouldn't bet on it.
We should take it as a lesson and make sure that in the future, licenses are chosen more carefully. If XFree86 and X.org were under a license that forbids closed source drivers, we would have a third option. But it's hard to fix this sort of thing retroactively.
No, why would they, 99% of people don't use the nv driver.
I disagree; I think the majority of people don't use the proprietary drivers--they're too hard to install. Many people use nVidia and ATI simply because it happened to come with their machines.
I'd just like to point out that the only drivers that nVidia and ATI keep proprietary are the X11 drivers. Which are permissible because X11 is BSD licensed:)
X11 is licensed under the MIT license. And, anyway, nobody is disputing ATI's and nVidia's right to do this under the current licenses, the question is whether it is good for users. I think it isn't. Maybe the X.org license ought to be changed to GPL...
Microsoft's marketing machine is apparently again picking their messages from their standard Chinese menu of FUD. Come on, guys, you get paid well enough: try to come up with something original for a change.
Uhhh, I'm afraid you're misinterpreting that. Those "benchmarks" measure startup times and other aspects that have little to do with responsiveness. They also don't measure bloat or usability. Let's not even talk about configuration issues and observer bias.
Furthermore, even in those measurements, the differences are generally pretty modest, which only supports my assertion that trading the ability to run many different toolkits against Qt/Embedded is a bad tradeoff.
Mostly, what this tells you is that Microsoft is confused and doesn't know what they are doing in this area.
First of all, compression really isn't an issue with digital cameras or image storage. Among other things, the fact that most serious photographers store RAW images is a good indication of that.
Second, lumping together JPEG and JPEG 2000 as "JPEG" doesn't make sense; JPEG 2000 already has all the advantages that Windows Media Photo claims, but it's an open standard. Microsoft should implement it, as should electronics manufacturers.
Third, Microsoft is overestimating their market position and significance in the digital imaging market.
I suppose you can't fault them for trying, but this particular attempt at monopolizing the market looks pretty pathetic.
Expel more people, I say. The pendulum needs to swing back the other way a little bit.
Ah, that's really smart: make sure that they get as little education and training as possible so that it's virtually ensured that these people will become violent criminals.
I don't know what the solution is to discipline problems in school, but expelling people is clearly not it--it's not even a punishment, it's giving up the opportunity to reform these people. And we're reforming them not for their benefit but for the benefit of the rest of society.
You're still not being clear enough. Am I now speaking to a corpse?
The time to make a living will is when you face serious medical issues and risky procedures, not afterwards. In particular, the people in the article simply can't choose anymore: they have severe brain damage, and no matter what they say now, their choices will not be respected.
Go find out a bit about life and death before you presume to lecture other people on whether they know what their own preferences are. You're evidently the person here who doesn't know what he's talking about and you're the person who has no idea how he would choose once he'd face that issue.
TrollTech's behavior for mobile devices has been exclusionary: using Qt/Embedded ensures that other toolkits cannot run on the same device in any meaningful way.
This would be excusable if at least their claims were true that their embedded toolkits are faster than running an X11 server with an X11 toolkit, but, sadly, the reverse is true: not only are you locked into their software, Qt/Embedded is also slow and resource intensive compared to a good X11-based implementation.
No, what we need to do is much simpler: we need to stop paying money to companies that sell hardware with only proprietary drivers available. The rest will take care of itself.
Trying to reverse engineer nVidia's drivers is a legal and technical can of worms.
I guess I haven't been clear enough: I have been in the situation of having to make that choice. I decided I do not want to live with severe physical disability or brain damage, and I left clear instructions that I do not want to be resuscitated (fortunately, things worked out OK that time).
particularly when the alternative to death is only a drug dependency.
You are so terribly naive. This isn't "only a drug dependency" or a "twisted ankle", these people have severe brain damage and that's not going to get fixed, ever; they can look forward (albeit dimly) to a future of bedsores, abusive nurses, and watching soap operas as if they were lectures on particle physics in Japanese.
Or maybe I know better than you do, because I've actually had to come to terms with this issue personally and watched a number of relatives (both old and young) face these questions.
You say that now, but if it were to actually happen to you I very much doubt that you'd rather die than be dependent on that drug.
It's not a question of "dependence"--these people are never going to leave the hospital or even have a clear thought again in their life.
And I have watched enough relatives face choices that involved far less disability and seen them choose not to go on. If you're at peace with yourself and your life, it's not such a hard choice to make.
You may. As far as I'm concerned, you may also copy all of the other stuff that I have published. Your ethical obligation is to attribute it correctly. If it was published through a publisher, then the publisher may, unfortunately, try to restrict your ability to copy what I have written, something I disapprove of but can't do anything about.
If my brain has been damaged so much that I can only be roused to awareness of my surroundings by a drug that artificially and temporarily activates bits and pieces of my brain, I just want to die quickly and painlessly. As far as I'm concerned, the biggest crime against me would be to keep me alive.
Slashdot Mirror
It all depends on which definition you're using. You are assuming definition #3. But it seems clear from the context that the article itself (written by Joystiq?) is using definition #2.
Definition #2 also applies: Blue Ray is "exclusively owned; private". The fact that it is licensed doesn't change that.
The point is Blu-Ray is no more proprietary than HD-DVD or even regular DVD.
Quite right: they are all proprietary.
It is almost definitely true that the BD drive is one reason why the PS3 is so expensive, but that's just because it's new technology. It's got nothing to do with it being proprietary or not.
Oh, it's got a lot to do with being proprietary, but not in the simplistic way in which you seem to think. For example, the fact that there is a format war at all is related to that.
It's not wasted time if the time spent optimizing is less than the time saved.
Wrong. A programmer hour is much more valuable than a machine hour.
And this hasn't been lost on scientists and engineers--hence the popularity of software like MATLAB.
Having seen a lot of scientific codes, I can assure you: most people writing scientific software don't even know about BLAS, and even if they do, they don't bother.
Sorry, but you don't know what "proprietary" means. Proprietary means that the format is owned by someone, which it is. The fact that a bunch of big companies got together and formed an association doesn't change that fact.
Well, that's why the Subject says "bang, buck, effort", so, yes, I agree that bang for the buck matters.
However, there is a problem with the PS3: the only chip that will be made in volume is the chip that goes into the PS3, and that will likely remain at its current clock frequency for a while. And that means that it will be obsolete pretty soon. Faster versions will be much smaller runs and hence much more expensive.
So, I hope the high volume of the PS3 will help, but I wouldn't bet on it.
Question is, what are we going to do about it?
We should take it as a lesson and make sure that in the future, licenses are chosen more carefully. If XFree86 and X.org were under a license that forbids closed source drivers, we would have a third option. But it's hard to fix this sort of thing retroactively.
No, why would they, 99% of people don't use the nv driver.
I disagree; I think the majority of people don't use the proprietary drivers--they're too hard to install. Many people use nVidia and ATI simply because it happened to come with their machines.
What can you expect from an organization called the "b.s. alliance"?
Bite my shiny TLS-protected port-you-don't-know ass.
seriously, millions of Linux users? Riight.
:)
Yes, seriously, millions of Linux users.
I'd just like to point out that the only drivers that nVidia and ATI keep proprietary are the X11 drivers. Which are permissible because X11 is BSD licensed
X11 is licensed under the MIT license. And, anyway, nobody is disputing ATI's and nVidia's right to do this under the current licenses, the question is whether it is good for users. I think it isn't. Maybe the X.org license ought to be changed to GPL...
Microsoft's marketing machine is apparently again picking their messages from their standard Chinese menu of FUD. Come on, guys, you get paid well enough: try to come up with something original for a change.
Uhhh, I'm afraid you're misinterpreting that. Those "benchmarks" measure startup times and other aspects that have little to do with responsiveness. They also don't measure bloat or usability. Let's not even talk about configuration issues and observer bias.
Furthermore, even in those measurements, the differences are generally pretty modest, which only supports my assertion that trading the ability to run many different toolkits against Qt/Embedded is a bad tradeoff.
Mostly, what this tells you is that Microsoft is confused and doesn't know what they are doing in this area.
First of all, compression really isn't an issue with digital cameras or image storage. Among other things, the fact that most serious photographers store RAW images is a good indication of that.
Second, lumping together JPEG and JPEG 2000 as "JPEG" doesn't make sense; JPEG 2000 already has all the advantages that Windows Media Photo claims, but it's an open standard. Microsoft should implement it, as should electronics manufacturers.
Third, Microsoft is overestimating their market position and significance in the digital imaging market.
I suppose you can't fault them for trying, but this particular attempt at monopolizing the market looks pretty pathetic.
Expel more people, I say. The pendulum needs to swing back the other way a little bit.
Ah, that's really smart: make sure that they get as little education and training as possible so that it's virtually ensured that these people will become violent criminals.
I don't know what the solution is to discipline problems in school, but expelling people is clearly not it--it's not even a punishment, it's giving up the opportunity to reform these people. And we're reforming them not for their benefit but for the benefit of the rest of society.
Your contribution to a third class graphics card company will not make their products any better.
My "contributions" might not, but the purchasing power of millions of Linux users choosing other graphics cards would.
If the Linux license simply did not permit ATI and nVidia's proprietary drivers, this problem would have been solved long ago through market forces.
You are not significant.
Speak for yourself.
You're still not being clear enough. Am I now speaking to a corpse?
The time to make a living will is when you face serious medical issues and risky procedures, not afterwards. In particular, the people in the article simply can't choose anymore: they have severe brain damage, and no matter what they say now, their choices will not be respected.
Go find out a bit about life and death before you presume to lecture other people on whether they know what their own preferences are. You're evidently the person here who doesn't know what he's talking about and you're the person who has no idea how he would choose once he'd face that issue.
TrollTech's behavior for mobile devices has been exclusionary: using Qt/Embedded ensures that other toolkits cannot run on the same device in any meaningful way.
This would be excusable if at least their claims were true that their embedded toolkits are faster than running an X11 server with an X11 toolkit, but, sadly, the reverse is true: not only are you locked into their software, Qt/Embedded is also slow and resource intensive compared to a good X11-based implementation.
No, what we need to do is much simpler: we need to stop paying money to companies that sell hardware with only proprietary drivers available. The rest will take care of itself.
Trying to reverse engineer nVidia's drivers is a legal and technical can of worms.
until you're in that situation yourself
I guess I haven't been clear enough: I have been in the situation of having to make that choice. I decided I do not want to live with severe physical disability or brain damage, and I left clear instructions that I do not want to be resuscitated (fortunately, things worked out OK that time).
particularly when the alternative to death is only a drug dependency.
You are so terribly naive. This isn't "only a drug dependency" or a "twisted ankle", these people have severe brain damage and that's not going to get fixed, ever; they can look forward (albeit dimly) to a future of bedsores, abusive nurses, and watching soap operas as if they were lectures on particle physics in Japanese.
So they'll fix the bad plot and bad acting and remove all the superfluous scenes?
/.
Oh, I get it now: doing that will require the latest in computer graphics, artificial intelligence, and image synthesis; that's why it's on
Or maybe I know better than you do, because I've actually had to come to terms with this issue personally and watched a number of relatives (both old and young) face these questions.
Here is a medical perspective on such questions.
You say that now, but if it were to actually happen to you I very much doubt that you'd rather die than be dependent on that drug.
It's not a question of "dependence"--these people are never going to leave the hospital or even have a clear thought again in their life.
And I have watched enough relatives face choices that involved far less disability and seen them choose not to go on. If you're at peace with yourself and your life, it's not such a hard choice to make.
as it's the lone opinion of yourself.
No, it's not. It's the opinion of a sizeable fraction of the population, maybe the majority.
There are plenty of people who very much would like this, and as such it's a worthy pursuit.
It's a cruel and inhuman experiment in my opinion. If it weren't for ridiculous medical interventions, these people would have died long ago already.
May I copy that comment?
You may. As far as I'm concerned, you may also copy all of the other stuff that I have published. Your ethical obligation is to attribute it correctly. If it was published through a publisher, then the publisher may, unfortunately, try to restrict your ability to copy what I have written, something I disapprove of but can't do anything about.
If my brain has been damaged so much that I can only be roused to awareness of my surroundings by a drug that artificially and temporarily activates bits and pieces of my brain, I just want to die quickly and painlessly. As far as I'm concerned, the biggest crime against me would be to keep me alive.
Sorry if you don't get it, but the two issues are related.
Of course, there are also differences: drugs harm its user, while music (usually) doesn't.