Linked by Thom Holwerda on Thu 24th Sep 2009 13:35 UTC, submitted by Hiev
If you don't like personal, blog-style reporting, you might want to skip this item. A few days ago, during a speech at Software Freedom Day in Boston, Richard Stallman has, at least in my book, crossed a line that I thought he would never cross.
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RE[2]: For what it's worth
by WereCatf on Thu 24th Sep 2009 18:20
in reply to "RE: For what it's worth"
Member since:2006-02-15
So when De Icaza and pals pander to Microsoft's technological monopoly on, for example, the Obama inauguration coverage, he isn't undermining "F/OSS projects and/or ideologies"? Such acts provide the figleaf for Microsoft's otherwise unclothed arguments about not having a monopoly from the moment your PC leaves the production line.
So when de Icaza and pals pander to people who want things done instead of hanging on to black and white ideals and that is undermining F/OSS? The world is not black and white and most people want things that work, regardless who came up with those things first.
Right. So, in your mind the notion of Free Software is firmly associated with one figure and you'll gladly revoke those principles based on that figure's persona. Are you sure your computing choices are actually driven by such principles, or is this some kind of libertarian (or Life of Brian) one man per movement instinct in play? Sheesh!
No. I just dislike him.
RE[2]: For what it's worth
by nt_jerkface on Fri 25th Sep 2009 21:05
in reply to "RE: For what it's worth"
Member since:2009-08-26
RE[3]: For what it's worth
by TheBadger on Fri 25th Sep 2009 21:24
in reply to "RE[2]: For what it's worth"
Member since:2005-11-14
So why does Silverlight even exist?
Why hasn't the FOSS community provided us with a decent alternative to flash? They've had plenty of time to provide one.
Why hasn't the FOSS community provided us with a decent alternative to flash? They've had plenty of time to provide one.
Because it isn't one community and people presumably don't see the benefit. In fact, things like Silverlight do exist, at least in the open standards world: people may deride SVG and related technologies but they aren't really so far removed from Silverlight and Flash. Moreover, things like XForms are technologically superior to the mish-mash of technologies and approaches that Silverlight and Flash or SVG and JavaScript provide. However, the open standards world is restrained by having to forge consensus and is beholden to large vehicles (open source ones, by the way) such as Mozilla.
And this gets us to the part about deploying stuff. Mozilla and Firefox have been somewhat fortunate: a grass-roots movement has ushered that software into many places, but is it as likely that a random open source project would gain enough momentum to get that level of deployment? Meanwhile, Microsoft can pretty much push out anything and see it on millions of machines, thanks to their retail monopoly.
You make a good point, but technology is only one ingredient in the success of such solutions. How Adobe has managed to popularise Flash could be informative in popularising rival solutions, though.
RE[3]: For what it's worth
by diegoviola on Fri 25th Sep 2009 22:04
in reply to "RE[2]: For what it's worth"
Member since:2006-08-15
News
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.
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.More News »
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2005-11-14
So when De Icaza and pals pander to Microsoft's technological monopoly on, for example, the Obama inauguration coverage, he isn't undermining "F/OSS projects and/or ideologies"? Such acts provide the figleaf for Microsoft's otherwise unclothed arguments about not having a monopoly from the moment your PC leaves the production line.
Right. So, in your mind the notion of Free Software is firmly associated with one figure and you'll gladly revoke those principles based on that figure's persona. Are you sure your computing choices are actually driven by such principles, or is this some kind of libertarian (or Life of Brian) one man per movement instinct in play? Sheesh!