Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 23rd Jul 2009 22:53 UTC, submitted by Remy Chi Jian Suen
So, Microsoft submits 20000 lines of code to the Linux kernel, all licensed under the GPL. Microsoft, who considers Linux a great threat, and once called the GPL a "cancer". Opinions on this one are flying all around us, but what does Linus Torvalds, Linux' benevolent dictator, think about all this?
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Member since:2007-02-17
"Looks like you are trying to justify the hate to MS at any cost, But hate whatever it comes from id bad.
you're misrepresenting the parent's statements as justifying hate, when that's obviously not the case. my position goes like this, and is far more common than the 'hate' you would assign to anybody uninterested in MS: microsoft *is* an agressive company whose highest ranking corporate officers have made plainly clear their intentions to essentially do away with FOSS. because of their repetitive reliance on unfair business practices and willingness to, quite frankly, illegally destroy competition, we as consumers are given a choice. we can use MS products and technologies or we can choose to NOT use MS products and technologies. note: this is NOT hate. this is a rational response to a repeated threat vector. MS is a corporation. it is not a person. corporations do not deserve a persistent benefit-of-the-doubt scenario as would be given to a human being making human mistakes. they should have been shut down or split up years ago. i certainly don't *hate* microsoft. MS isn't worth my hate. i just want them out of my life, because they do me more harm than good. this is the position of most people who choose to avoid MS products. i want to facepalm every time somebody calls me a blind MS-hater. it isn't blind; and, it isn't hate. i just want to maintain the ability to ignore them, as best as possible. " Hear, hear.
That is so good that it is worth repeating.
If I had not already commented on this thread, I would mod your post up as truly insightful.
Member since:2009-07-13
I couldn't agree more.
BTW, can somebody point me to *anyone* who has complained about this Microsoft contribution?? Why the rage?? Is it all speculation?? Or are they again simply trying to portray FOSS guys as immature hippie whiners? It seems to me that some commenter said something stupid and the media, being desperate to get a story where there isn't one, is attributing that to FOSS people...
OTOH, when someone says that everything RMS says or do is because he hates MS, it makes me laugh. The guy has kept consistent to his message for 30 years (and then he might even not have heard of MS), never mentions MS without "or any other proprietary company", and it all, frankly, smells of desperate faux-journalists [1]. When they mock his values as hippies or extremist, that gets me angry.
Furthermore, this hysteria seems to be inhibiting some needed analysis, as MS has previously been criticized for using GPL software (TCP/IP stack) while vilifying and downright FUDing its very license, to the point that they chose to rewrite it all. With this release, the next adjective they choose to throw at it will be perceived as a joke. Their message got slightly weakened (they surely must be needing to boost Hyper-V). How MS's attack position on FOSS evolves is important.
nachokb
[1] "There hasn’t been a Richard Stallman “over my dead body” diatribe about the Microsoft code (yet)." --- http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=3414
Member since:2005-07-06
Furthermore, this hysteria seems to be inhibiting some needed analysis, as MS has previously been criticized for using GPL software (TCP/IP stack) while vilifying and downright FUDing its very license, to the point that they chose to rewrite it all.
When did MS use a GPL TCP/IP stack? I know they moved to a BSD-based one (around Win 2K, I think), as the license allowed (in fact, AFAIK they have publicly stated that they approve of the BSD and similar licenses).
News
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.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 21:41 UTC
Glass is getting some love at Google I/O as well. New applications have been released - Facebook, Twitter, Evernote, Elle, Tumblr, and CNN. Perhaps more interesting: the newly announced Google Glass Developer Kit will allow offline applications and direct hardware access - great for hacking and expanding Glass' potential. This kit will really allow hackers to put Glass through its paces.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 17:04 UTC
"But Beck and Merrill decided that simply banning toxic players wasn't an acceptable solution for their game. Riot Games began experimenting with more constructive modes of player management through a formal player behavior initiative that actually conducts controlled experiments on its player base to see what helps reduce bad behavior. The results of that initiative have been shared at a lecture at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and on panels at the Penny Arcade Expo East and the Game Developers Conference." Absolutely fascinating stuff. I'm a League of Legends player, and to be honest, the community isn't nearly as bad as some make it out to be. I'm happy Riot games has the guts to employ science to address the issue.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 13:17 UTC
"Android and iOS, the number one and number two ranked smartphone operating systems worldwide, combined for 92.3% of all smartphone shipments during the first quarter of 2013 as Windows Phone crept past BlackBerry for 3rd place. According to the International Data Corporation Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, Android smartphone vendors and Apple shipped a total of 199.5 million units worldwide during 1Q13, up 59.1% from the 125.4 million units shipped during 1Q12." Windows Phone doubles from a few to twice few, iOS loser market share as its growth is slower than that of the overall market. BlackBerry continues slide into irrelevance.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/16/13 12:06 UTC
"According to the latest research from our Wireless Smartphone Strategies service, global Android smartphone profits reached US$5 billion in total during the first quarter of 2013. Samsung dominated and captured an impressive 95 percent share of all Android smartphone profits." Wow.More News »
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Member since:
2007-06-28
you're misrepresenting the parent's statements as justifying hate, when that's obviously not the case.
my position goes like this, and is far more common than the 'hate' you would assign to anybody uninterested in MS:
microsoft *is* an agressive company whose highest ranking corporate officers have made plainly clear their intentions to essentially do away with FOSS.
because of their repetitive reliance on unfair business practices and willingness to, quite frankly, illegally destroy competition, we as consumers are given a choice. we can use MS products and technologies or we can choose to NOT use MS products and technologies.
note: this is NOT hate. this is a rational response to a repeated threat vector. MS is a corporation. it is not a person. corporations do not deserve a persistent benefit-of-the-doubt scenario as would be given to a human being making human mistakes. they should have been shut down or split up years ago.
i certainly don't *hate* microsoft. MS isn't worth my hate. i just want them out of my life, because they do me more harm than good. this is the position of most people who choose to avoid MS products.
i want to facepalm every time somebody calls me a blind MS-hater. it isn't blind; and, it isn't hate. i just want to maintain the ability to ignore them, as best as possible.