Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 22nd May 2006 17:43 UTC, submitted by anonymous
After Kororaa announced its GPL problems and me writing a column about it, the people behind Kororaa have now posted an in-depth follow-up: "I have been receiving lots of information which I have been sorting through, thank you to everyone who has emailed me (although I would have also thanked you personally via email). I contacted both ATI and nVidia for some clarification on particular issues, however neither have answered my questions. Nevertheless, this is what I have found so far."
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RE[4]: The accuse those who break the law
by Moulinneuf on Mon 22nd May 2006 23:15
in reply to "RE[3]: The accuse those who break the law"
RE[4]: The accuse those who break the law
by Lobotomik on Tue 23rd May 2006 07:05
in reply to "RE[3]: The accuse those who break the law"
Member since:2006-01-03
It is not a matter of ego.
The GPL is not almighty.
Closed source drivers are mines which will explode in the future, when all you can find is old, outdated, unmaintained, badly written drivers that kind of did their job in their time. If we let them in the Linux kernel, it will turn into a minefield.
The kernel is shared under the GPL license because the copyright owners want all of its development to be shared in exactly the same way, so that all parts are shared and free and can be updated and improved with the rest of the system. Opportunistically sidestepping this filosophy to gain economic advantage as nVidia and ATI do should not be allowed, even though it is convenient for many.
If you want to enjoy great closed-source drivers, then use Windows XP; you probably already own a license, and it works pretty well. But Linux exists because of its approach to free code; if you skip that approach for the sake of convenience, the reasons for using and developing it will become weaker, and it will soon stop existing.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 22:43 UTC
The Verge pointed me to a blog post by Leap Motion - which reveals how their Kinect-like motion control works with Windows 8. "From the second you plug in your Leap Motion Controller, you'll be able to browse the web and interact with your computer just by moving your hands and fingers in the air. With Leap Motion technology and Windows, you can do everything that's possible with multi-touch inputs - without actually touching anything. This also means that existing applications in Windows 7 and 8 will respond to your natural hand and finger movements. Soon, we'll show you how Leap Motion will work with Mac OS X." Quite cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/20/13 21:50 UTC
PocketNow interviews Marc Dillon, and there's an interesting note about why Jolla is keeping the display properties under wraps: "We're leaving some of those details out because we do understand that there are a lot of really big players in the market and they tend to take certain components in the market and dominate them. We created the ability to actually be able to run Sailfish on multiple hardware displays and be able to swap components, so this is part of the demand and supply planning phase. We are committed to this industrial design which is a 4.5-inch display, an 8 megapixel camera on the back and a front-facing camera at the front, and the exact specs of the display we'll provide when we're close to delivery." Something you rarely hear anything about.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:15 UTC
"This is my NeXTstation Turbo Color booting the Mac System 7.1 Operating System using a hardware add-on called 'Daydream'. The Daydream has a Mac ROM and a few custom ICs in it and hooked up to the NeXTs DSP port. Turns your NeXT into a full fledged 68k powered Mac." So cool.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/19/13 23:11 UTC, submitted by Drumhellar
"The NetBSD Project is pleased to announce NetBSD 6.1, the first feature update of the NetBSD 6 release branch. It represents a selected subset of fixes deemed important for security or stability reasons, as well as new features and enhancements. Please note that all fixes in the prior security/bugfix updates (NetBSD 6.0.1 and 6.0.2) are also in 6.1."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 21:06 UTC
"At the end of a week in which Electronic Arts confirmed it wasn't developing a thing for the Wii U, one of the software engineers in EA Sports' Canada studio, in a series of since-deleted tweets, disparaged the console as 'crap' and suggested Nintendo should give up on hardware altogether. 'The Wii U is crap. Less powerful than an Xbox 360. Poor online/store. Weird tablet', tweeted Bob Summerwill, listed as a senior software engineer at EA Canada, in a reply to a tweet posting a link about EA's no-Wii U news. 'Nintendo are walking dead at this point'." The Wii U is turning into the 21st century's Virtual Boy.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/18/13 7:37 UTC
"In NixOS, the entire operating system - the kernel, applications, system packages, configuration files, and so on - is built by the Nix package manager from a description in a purely functional build language. The fact that it's purely functional essentially means that building a new configuration cannot overwrite previous configurations. Most of the other features follow from this." Interesting approach. A Linux distribution, sure, but with some very refreshing ideas about system configuration.
Linked by fran on 05/18/13 1:38 UTC
Appfour added, among other features, C/C++ support to its new version of AIDE. From Android-IDE, "Now you can write parts of your app or your whole app in C/C++ on your device. AIDE supports the Standard Android NDK toolchain (GCC 4.6 + Bionic, STL, ...). No changes are necessary if you want to build an app developed on a PC with Eclipse. C/C++ development is fully integrated: Build errors appear in the error list and files can easily be navigated to with Go to file. The editor supports C/C++ syntax highlighting."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 23:35 UTC, submitted by kragil
Ars nails it: "The answer is that Google did announce what amounts to a fairly substantial Android update yesterday. They simply did it without adding to the update fragmentation problems that continue to plague the platform. By focusing on these changes and not the apparently-waiting-in-the-wings update to the core software, Google is showing us one of the ways in which it's trying to fix the update problem."
Linked by MOS6510 on 05/17/13 22:22 UTC
"It is good for programmers to understand what goes on inside a processor. The CPU is at the heart of our career. What goes on inside the CPU? How long does it take for one instruction to run? What does it mean when a new CPU has a 12-stage pipeline, or 18-stage pipeline, or even a 'deep' 31-stage pipeline? Programs generally treat the CPU as a black box. Instructions go into the box in order, instructions come out of the box in order, and some processing magic happens inside. As a programmer, it is useful to learn what happens inside the box. This is especially true if you will be working on tasks like program optimization. If you don't know what is going on inside the CPU, how can you optimize for it? This article is about what goes on inside the x86 processor's deep pipeline."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/17/13 22:15 UTC, submitted by Tom
"It was the only moment I heard regret slip into Otellini's voice during the several hours of conversations I had with him. 'The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut,' he said. 'My gut told me to say yes.'" The world would've been a much different place - Apple would have been less dependant on Samsung for its chips, which probably would've meant less money for Samsung to develop its Galaxy business.More News »
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Member since:
2005-08-27
Stupid logical comments are there to demonstrate the cretinism of people's attitudes when it comes to GPL or the open source philosophy. Just like in this case: The author of Kororaa is acting quite sensibly and trying to make sense of the accusations (which seem to be not valid anyway) but then there come the gazillions of zealots who cry "foul" immediately without focusing on the matter at hand. This very much resembles the ideology of totalitarian states and the mentality that you are guilty unless proven otherwise. And that because the unmentioned kernel developer does not understand his/her rights within the "almighty" GPL.
Just like now: strictly speaking it is unclear if there is a violation of the GPL (though evidently there aint) but every goddamn zealot around starts bashing at the "evil bastard who doesnt't obey the almighty GPL". BUT,the effect that it causes is that one enthusiastic chap is not certain whether or not to continue releasing liveCDs which showcase the latest developments at a new and potentially groundbreaking technology. And for what? That some idiot's evangelist ego gets in the way?
THAT is what I am disgusted at.
THAT is what caused me spitting out right now and
THAT is why i tend to be disgusted at the GPL and Open source evangelists - they have lost it(their sanity that is).
I can repeat it, if necessary:
THAT is what I am disgusted at.
THAT is what caused me spitting out right now and
THAT is why i tend to be disgusted at the GPL and Open source evangelists - they have lost it(their sanity that is).