It's also true that there is not much discussion of the BSD-style-licenses in here - I think that perhaps the/. crowd is a bit closed-minded about other licenses. Not everything worth using comes under a GNU license. The artistic license, as well as other licenses, have their uses. The GPL-style licenses are not applicable to all situations. Even the Sun Community Source license has its place.
There is an interesting article in the December issue of Discover (not yet online), about transposons, which are what junk DNA really is. Transposons create random mutations in our genetic code and may be responsible for the astoundingly fast development of Homo Sapiens (which was faster than random gene mutations would predict) - humans have more transposons than our closest kin, the chimpanzee. Get the magazine - there's a bunch of other stuff in there too.
I'll have to dissagree with you all - the ultimate keyboard is the TI-85 or TI-92 (depending on how I feel). Try coding for a while on a TI-85 and you'll soon learn it's layout - and miss it when you have to go back to your qwerty keyboard. As for a good qwerty keyboard, I can type on my TI-92 as fast as on a standard keyboard - no caps lock key, convienient shift/diamond (control)/second (alt) keys, and a sensibly placed delete key (where the right-hand win/penguin key is).
How's the background noise at comdex? Will I actually be able to understand you guys? If not, plz post transcripts. Also, bug the Transmeta guys for me. Tks.
To use a Larry Wall-ism, this will be all over the map. I apologize up front. Trust TRUSTe? Hah! No way! No, seriously, this real flap needs to be resolved, but there also needs to be another privacy service like TRUSTe - something more widespread, that does a large variety of verification services for a varying cost. It's sad to say that TRUSTe did not live up to it's expectations, and the RealNetworks incidents themselves are even more sad. Gov't regulation? Maybe, but keep in mind that these people happen to believe in "Security, er, Privacy through Obscurity", so they'll simply give the illusion of privacy. I think that an organization that lists its members and gives an overview of the privacy measures, sort of like a BBB for internet privacy, would be a Good Thing.
Ok - workstation-class graphics is what you're using when you're doing real-time intensive CAD/CAM and graphics modeling - you can do some of that stuff on your consumer card, but the really-photorealistic-realtime stuff requires a more expensive card. Basically, this is nVidia's first entry into this market. I suggest you pick up a copy of Computer Graphics World to find out more - it's actually quite interesting. Also, see the E&S ad in there - they differentiate quite nicely between 'cards for play' and 'cards for work'. It's my worst nightmare to have to do intensive 3d stuff and be stuck with a consumer card. For games, OK, but if you want the real tomato, the workstation-class stuff is what you want.
Compaq today announced that it would be shipping DOS for its line of personal computers to hobbyists for a mere $99. A Compaq spokesperson said, "This continues to reaffirm our position as offering the best dead technology for the most money." Supposedly, it comes with a BASIC interpreter, but you cannot edit your own programs.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't I see compaq switching to Linux a while back? Why this Tru64 garbage? Anyway, I got a copy of solaris for $16.63, shipped. Same deal - no cc, only ld. Why the expensive tag?
RMS has stated often stated that he doesn't like, among other things, Apple's APSL license because it allows them to give up liability. Well, I have to dissagree with him there - I think that the APSL is good because it allows Apple to give source to the user community in a way that they feel comfortable. Now, Sun only feels comfortable with the SCSL. I don't care - I plan to root through StarOffice and Solaris's source once they do release it, and possibly fix some annoyances in Solaris.
I do believe, however, that software should be open in some level, and that free software will win in the end because its writers make it so. However, it doesn't have to be only on the level that RMS advocates - it can fall to either side of the line. Free/Open/NetBSD have been far more successful in the long run than have any other modification of the BSD kernel.
A couple of questions for you/.ers to answer for me:
Is the corel-fancy stuff going to be GPL'ed or QPL'ed or something, or proprietary?
Will this also mark the release of the rest of the suite for linux? I've been waiting for a decent spreadsheet. No offense to you gnumeric guys, but until bonobo gets integrated, gnumeric is useless to me.
Is Corel going to port CorelDraw & PhotoPaint to Linux? CorelDraw is, IMHO, a kick-ass vector program.
(btw to guy below: Corel is doing just fine in the graphics market, and their 9 version is quite good. Not everybody uses Adobe *).
For the person remarking about the size of SuSE: Interesting - RH6.0 was 3 CD's, i think, and you couldn't install it on a zip disk. SuSE 6.2 is 6 CD's and it can still be installed on a zip disk - it's just a matter of how compact the original disk is. As for the # of disks, it seems to be expanding at a linear rate.
Hmm - money for information - this seems perfectly capatalist but I would like to see the world work more towards a place where all information is free, and people are paid to generate information. THAT seems to be how all good information is developed in the past. However, this system allows for proprietary information - BAAD. Yuck.
First: I thought we didn't like ZDnet. Anyway, I think a new tracking method ought to be devised: an open site where anyone can submit the name of their project and get counted, and with it a search engine of all of the projects, and possible hosting options. (VA, are you listening? Some bandwidth would be appreciated...:)
Ping time is a horrific measure of anything but your ISP's equipment. I bet that this is just a modem that compensates for 3com racks. And another solution is just a quality modem - my pre-3com USR 33.6 ActualModem(tm) is prob faster than most avaliable 56KB modems. Get a quality ISP, and you're set. Myself, I don't need to worry about it. I use cable. My modem is a RTL8139 and a Altair Plus II wireless ethernet module. Speaking of that, perhaps a Linux routerbox of some sort is the solution - 100BaseT inside, modem connect to ISP outside, and your box doesn't need to worry about thinking about PPP. Just a thought...
Maybe the OEM's aren't quite so short-sighted on ca$h here - maybe they're getting sick of being blamed every time one of THEIR pc's goes down because of Windows, or Windows corrupts the hard drive, etc.
I know they can't be too happy about this, and having to support the lousy M$ code. Maybe it would Do Them Good to retrain all their service technicians in (insert favorite OS choice here), so that when a user calls up with a horrible windows problem (corrupted kernel32, bsod, etc.), they can say "Sorry, we don't support that OS anymore". Instead, they can do some reasonable support work on (insert OS here), and not deal with the stupid problems that users face today. Perhaps we're all forgetting that the reason users are idiots are that the OS treats them like idiots. Install (insert OS here) that doesn't treat them like an idiot, and perhaps the number of "idiot calls" to support centers will go down.
Personally, I like the help file in enlightenment: it covers everything while being short and to the point. However, the online help in windows fscks, and it treats you like a complete moron. Maybe that's why the tech support centers get so many calls?
With this, the "Big 3" etc. won't have to spend so much time and energy supporting a flaky, unhelpful, and idiotic OS. Horray for them - they're moving in the right direction.
It's been too long since a new gateway - they should either come out with a new machine like they promised, or: I think they should subcontract out the machine - maybe the folks that make the "boxer" clone motherboard? It would allow gateway to put a new machine out without having to develop it themselves. Just a thought.
I was one of the multitude of people that submitted this, anyway, I think it's a good idea for here, too:
Governments are usually required to take from the least bidder - in this case, free and open source.
If a company that writes a proprietary product goes out of business, the government has to choose a new solution. With open source, they can continue to develop it themselves.
The government can choose and write the features they need instead of buying a more expensive package to get a few neccessary features in it.
The government can fix bugs themselves instead of waiting for a company to fix it (if it ever gets fixed).
We already use a large amount of open-source here in the US for research, so why not require it? I think it would be benificial to all. The government has no reason to pay for what it can get for free. It's also a good way to encourage open-sourcing of products - "Look, even the government won't use proprietary software!". This is in the government (and the people)'s best interest. Good for the French. Now, let's start calling OUR senators...
It seems that being fed mashed potatoes all these years is the reason. Seriously, I wonder about the applications in a pure form - extract the working component?
Interesting - it seems that if you nmap a random box (take egg.microsoft.com), their firewall grabs pretty much every port. Did he use a standard port instead of another?
Btw - Microsoft does NOT have to use IIS for EVERYTHING. There's also something to be said for detailed research of your competition.
The defining quality of Linux is that it IS open-source - there are already enough proprietary OS's. Linux wouldn't be what it is today without it being open source - in fact, who cares if some hacker on the internet comes up with some closed-source OS? I'm not gonna run it - it only grew to where it did today becase it was open. Look at bStep (I don't have a URL, find it from the plig windowmanager site), a non-free window manager that's GNOME compilant. I don't know anybody that uses it - who needs a closed-source WM? Open projects will succeed.
BTW, what kind of troll moderator didn't mark down the guy who stuck in lines of
's, screwing up the comment page? My $#@$# slashdot is giving him +1 because its "long". Please fix.
Well, I don't quite see the future of man that way - I see it closer to Brave New World, where nobody gives about anything but their soma. I think that that's the danger in becoming complacent about these things - are we going to let games, etc. be our soma?
Open source still has a while to go, but in the free-as-in-beer-but-free-as-in-speech-soon area is OpenMerchant, which will have its source released this month, supposedly. Go to http://www.opensales.org for more details. It promises to be professional and easy to use. (says them.) I would wait for it.
The ZD-type magazines have been fairly good, but the fact that they make up stuff casts doubt on anything they say. Sorry, I'm just not that trusting. I'm sure an 17 yr old COULD go in and buy it without incident, but still, that's not the point - they lied. However, I do agree that 17 year olds playing Half Life, and some other violent games is a bad idea - i've seen a lot of super-violent 17 year olds, and they're a scary sight. Just keep some of the obvious guns and gore away from them if their parents deem fit.
Even though I like corel, I hope the truth comes out here - if Bob Young (or anyone else) was accurately accused of insider trading, I would not stand behind them, because I have no respect for people who do that kind of thing. However, if he just had a "premonition" and sold some stock, I'm ok with that - why take a loss if you can avoid it? As long as it's legal, go ahead.
One of the beauties of our form of government is that lobbying can be done from both sides - those of us who don't like M$'s lobbying can lobby other congresslifeforms for our position - maybe a Linux Lobby (Bob Politician today recieved the support of the powerful Linux Lobby, the first major step in his candidacy for president...). As individuals we have the right to choose who to accept money from and who to vote for. The fact that these congresslifeforms accept the money says that either they have no strong principles or are favorable to M$. If they have no strong principles, they should be voted out (or given money by us). If they're favorible to M$, vote them out too - but at least they took the money for a reason. I believe that if enough people lobby in enough directions, the law of very large numbers says that some of them will be lobbying in the right direction (Sun, etc. against M$). Let's just hope that they have the money.
Slashdot Mirror
It's also true that there is not much discussion of the BSD-style-licenses in here - I think that perhaps the /. crowd is a bit closed-minded about other licenses. Not everything worth using comes under a GNU license. The artistic license, as well as other licenses, have their uses. The GPL-style licenses are not applicable to all situations. Even the Sun Community Source license has its place.
There is an interesting article in the December issue of Discover (not yet online), about transposons, which are what junk DNA really is. Transposons create random mutations in our genetic code and may be responsible for the astoundingly fast development of Homo Sapiens (which was faster than random gene mutations would predict) - humans have more transposons than our closest kin, the chimpanzee. Get the magazine - there's a bunch of other stuff in there too.
I'll have to dissagree with you all - the ultimate keyboard is the TI-85 or TI-92 (depending on how I feel). Try coding for a while on a TI-85 and you'll soon learn it's layout - and miss it when you have to go back to your qwerty keyboard. As for a good qwerty keyboard, I can type on my TI-92 as fast as on a standard keyboard - no caps lock key, convienient shift/diamond (control)/second (alt) keys, and a sensibly placed delete key (where the right-hand win/penguin key is).
I hope I take first post from some luser.
To use a Larry Wall-ism, this will be all over the map. I apologize up front.
Trust TRUSTe? Hah! No way! No, seriously, this real flap needs to be resolved, but there also needs to be another privacy service like TRUSTe - something more widespread, that does a large variety of verification services for a varying cost. It's sad to say that TRUSTe did not live up to it's expectations, and the RealNetworks incidents themselves are even more sad. Gov't regulation? Maybe, but keep in mind that these people happen to believe in "Security, er, Privacy through Obscurity", so they'll simply give the illusion of privacy. I think that an organization that lists its members and gives an overview of the privacy measures, sort of like a BBB for internet privacy, would be a Good Thing.
Ok - workstation-class graphics is what you're using when you're doing real-time intensive CAD/CAM and graphics modeling - you can do some of that stuff on your consumer card, but the really-photorealistic-realtime stuff requires a more expensive card. Basically, this is nVidia's first entry into this market. I suggest you pick up a copy of Computer Graphics World to find out more - it's actually quite interesting. Also, see the E&S ad in there - they differentiate quite nicely between 'cards for play' and 'cards for work'. It's my worst nightmare to have to do intensive 3d stuff and be stuck with a consumer card. For games, OK, but if you want the real tomato, the workstation-class stuff is what you want.
Compaq today announced that it would be shipping DOS for its line of personal computers to hobbyists for a mere $99. A Compaq spokesperson said, "This continues to reaffirm our position as offering the best dead technology for the most money." Supposedly, it comes with a BASIC interpreter, but you cannot edit your own programs.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't I see compaq switching to Linux a while back? Why this Tru64 garbage? Anyway, I got a copy of solaris for $16.63, shipped. Same deal - no cc, only ld. Why the expensive tag?
I do believe, however, that software should be open in some level, and that free software will win in the end because its writers make it so. However, it doesn't have to be only on the level that RMS advocates - it can fall to either side of the line. Free/Open/NetBSD have been far more successful in the long run than have any other modification of the BSD kernel.
Just my 2 nibbles...
(btw to guy below: Corel is doing just fine in the graphics market, and their 9 version is quite good. Not everybody uses Adobe *).
For the person remarking about the size of SuSE: Interesting - RH6.0 was 3 CD's, i think, and you couldn't install it on a zip disk. SuSE 6.2 is 6 CD's and it can still be installed on a zip disk - it's just a matter of how compact the original disk is. As for the # of disks, it seems to be expanding at a linear rate.
Hmm - money for information - this seems perfectly capatalist but I would like to see the world work more towards a place where all information is free, and people are paid to generate information. THAT seems to be how all good information is developed in the past. However, this system allows for proprietary information - BAAD. Yuck.
First: I thought we didn't like ZDnet. Anyway, I think a new tracking method ought to be devised: an open site where anyone can submit the name of their project and get counted, and with it a search engine of all of the projects, and possible hosting options. (VA, are you listening? Some bandwidth would be appreciated... :)
I hope I take first post from some loser.
Ping time is a horrific measure of anything but your ISP's equipment. I bet that this is just a modem that compensates for 3com racks. And another solution is just a quality modem - my pre-3com USR 33.6 ActualModem(tm) is prob faster than most avaliable 56KB modems. Get a quality ISP, and you're set. Myself, I don't need to worry about it. I use cable. My modem is a RTL8139 and a Altair Plus II wireless ethernet module. Speaking of that, perhaps a Linux routerbox of some sort is the solution - 100BaseT inside, modem connect to ISP outside, and your box doesn't need to worry about thinking about PPP. Just a thought...
I know they can't be too happy about this, and having to support the lousy M$ code. Maybe it would Do Them Good to retrain all their service technicians in (insert favorite OS choice here), so that when a user calls up with a horrible windows problem (corrupted kernel32, bsod, etc.), they can say "Sorry, we don't support that OS anymore". Instead, they can do some reasonable support work on (insert OS here), and not deal with the stupid problems that users face today. Perhaps we're all forgetting that the reason users are idiots are that the OS treats them like idiots. Install (insert OS here) that doesn't treat them like an idiot, and perhaps the number of "idiot calls" to support centers will go down.
Personally, I like the help file in enlightenment: it covers everything while being short and to the point. However, the online help in windows fscks, and it treats you like a complete moron. Maybe that's why the tech support centers get so many calls?
With this, the "Big 3" etc. won't have to spend so much time and energy supporting a flaky, unhelpful, and idiotic OS. Horray for them - they're moving in the right direction.
It's been too long since a new gateway - they should either come out with a new machine like they promised, or:
I think they should subcontract out the machine - maybe the folks that make the "boxer" clone motherboard? It would allow gateway to put a new machine out without having to develop it themselves.
Just a thought.
We already use a large amount of open-source here in the US for research, so why not require it? I think it would be benificial to all. The government has no reason to pay for what it can get for free.
It's also a good way to encourage open-sourcing of products - "Look, even the government won't use proprietary software!". This is in the government (and the people)'s best interest. Good for the French. Now, let's start calling OUR senators...
It seems that being fed mashed potatoes all these years is the reason. Seriously, I wonder about the applications in a pure form - extract the working component?
I hope I take first post from some weenie.
Interesting - it seems that if you nmap a random box (take egg.microsoft.com), their firewall grabs pretty much every port. Did he use a standard port instead of another?
Btw - Microsoft does NOT have to use IIS for EVERYTHING. There's also something to be said for detailed research of your competition.
BTW, what kind of troll moderator didn't mark down the guy who stuck in lines of
's, screwing up the comment page? My $#@$# slashdot is giving him +1 because its "long". Please fix.
That's a common myth - if you go and fight/die for your country at 18, the bars on millitary bases allow 18-year-olds in.
Well, I don't quite see the future of man that way - I see it closer to Brave New World, where nobody gives about anything but their soma. I think that that's the danger in becoming complacent about these things - are we going to let games, etc. be our soma?
Open source still has a while to go, but in the free-as-in-beer-but-free-as-in-speech-soon area is OpenMerchant, which will have its source released this month, supposedly. Go to http://www.opensales.org for more details. It promises to be professional and easy to use. (says them.) I would wait for it.
The ZD-type magazines have been fairly good, but the fact that they make up stuff casts doubt on anything they say. Sorry, I'm just not that trusting. I'm sure an 17 yr old COULD go in and buy it without incident, but still, that's not the point - they lied. However, I do agree that 17 year olds playing Half Life, and some other violent games is a bad idea - i've seen a lot of super-violent 17 year olds, and they're a scary sight. Just keep some of the obvious guns and gore away from them if their parents deem fit.
Even though I like corel, I hope the truth comes out here - if Bob Young (or anyone else) was accurately accused of insider trading, I would not stand behind them, because I have no respect for people who do that kind of thing. However, if he just had a "premonition" and sold some stock, I'm ok with that - why take a loss if you can avoid it? As long as it's legal, go ahead.
One of the beauties of our form of government is that lobbying can be done from both sides - those of us who don't like M$'s lobbying can lobby other congresslifeforms for our position - maybe a Linux Lobby (Bob Politician today recieved the support of the powerful Linux Lobby, the first major step in his candidacy for president...). As individuals we have the right to choose who to accept money from and who to vote for. The fact that these congresslifeforms accept the money says that either they have no strong principles or are favorable to M$. If they have no strong principles, they should be voted out (or given money by us). If they're favorible to M$, vote them out too - but at least they took the money for a reason. I believe that if enough people lobby in enough directions, the law of very large numbers says that some of them will be lobbying in the right direction (Sun, etc. against M$). Let's just hope that they have the money.