Apple releases octo-core Mac Pro

[phongn]

Well, it'll run on the machine if you use Windows

[Praxis]

Of course there are the BIG applications that are HEAVILY multi-threaded, and the main reason that most people use Macs:

• Adobe Photoshop.
• Final Cut Pro.
• AVID Media Composer.
• 3D Studio Max

Of course, most of those applications have been multi-threaded for a while to take advantage of multiple physical processors.

3dsMax is not available for Macintosh.

Beat me to it.

For example, none of the ads mention that Windows is a vastly superior gaming platform to OS X (from the standpoint of cost and availibility), while a number of them insinuate that Windows has severe problems in terms of compatibility with third party consumer electronics products such as digital cameras and webcams; while this may be true for Vista, it is certainly not the case for XP Pro.

Oh dear, Apple's ad campaign is inaccurate because they don't list EVERY ADVANTAGE TO THEIR COMPETITORS, such as gaming. Shocker!

Shut up and stop nitpicking.

As far as compatibility goes, I don't really know what you're talking about. Apple's ads imply that the SETUP process is more difficult (the ad in question you refer to is where an IT guy comes up and duct tapes a camera to the PC's head; they never say it is incompatible, the PC just brags about it like it's a big deal).

And it's true. Plug in any device into a Windows PC, and most of the time, even if Windows recognizes the device a bunch of "found new hardware wizard" dialog boxes and popups fly everywhere. For the average user, plugging in a device into a Mac IS much simpler than into a PC.

[Stark]

Indeed, one of the things many of the MacBook users I know are happy about is such consumer electronics use is far easier and doesn't involve installing the cd of appalling software that hijacks their MIME settings, fills their desktop with shortcuts and makes their start menu huge. It all 'just works', and for me that's the big success of OSX. I use linux, and getting it to 'just work' is sometimes a struggle for me - fuck knows how a Normal Person would handle it.

[Seggybop]

It's cool how things that are compatible will indeed "just work." Not so cool when they aren't and you're SOL. Though installation can be difficult, the total amount of supported hardware for Windows seems to be the highest. I can't recall anyone ever attempting to sell a Windows driver for money, either....

[Stark]

It's cool how things that are compatible will indeed "just work." Not so cool when they aren't and you're SOL. Though installation can be difficult, the total amount of supported hardware for Windows seems to be the highest. I can't recall anyone ever attempting to sell a Windows driver for money, either....

Like what? Even non-native hardware almost always have OSX drivers - even obscure-brand printers etc, which I'd been pretty sure wouldn't exist.

[Seggybop]

Mostly wireless adapters that don't use the same chipsets as Apple-branded parts. I also recall lots of problems setting up a gamepad. Perhaps it's changed in the last year since the intel systems have become widespread.

[Praxis]

I did have that problem in the past (tried a wireless adapter in a Pismo, later just bought an Airport card). That's just a matter of 'plug it in and it doesn't work', since there's no Mac drivers for them whatsoever.

Actually, a friend of mine just inherited an old iMac G3, I'm wondering if there's any way to get it wireless.

[Stark]

Mostly wireless adapters that don't use the same chipsets as Apple-branded parts. I also recall lots of problems setting up a gamepad. Perhaps it's changed in the last year since the intel systems have become widespread.

Well, I've never used a Mac without an internal wireless adapter, so I can't speak for that - but I use my PS2 controller on Macs all the time (through a USB thingy) and it works for most games fine. Not Ur-Quan Masters, which was kind of the point, but meh. Just as with the Windows/360 controller thing,you have to use a 3rd party button-remapper to get it going properly.

The very idea of paying for drivers is waaaay outside my experience. I'm not sure why 'intel=wireless and gamepad support ++', however.

[Praxis]

The very idea of paying for drivers is waaaay outside my experience. I'm not sure why 'intel=wireless and gamepad support ++', however.

I think it always had gamepad support. And Intel didn't affect wireless support, Apple still has virtually no support for third party wireless adapters, but all their machines have had it built in standard since 2004 and build to order since 2000 (even the 1999 slot-loading iMac had an internal Airport slot).

[Stark]

Yeah the Mac I use most often is an older 12" iBook, so the powerpc versions work fine with gamepads too. No native button-mapping support, but many Windows drivers don't have that either - like Microsoft's own 360 drivers.

[Durandal]

I, and 95% of the people I've met in the open source community, believe that authors of software should have the right to determine what license it is published on. However, we have the right to criticize software based on said licensing.

No, the FSF's page pretty much clearly states "all software should be free". In other words, no one should ever make money from software. Hence my "grow the fuck up" comment.

The fact of the matter is that proprietary software has a large number of demonstrated disadvantages compared to open source software in terms of cost, flexibility and security.

Proprietary software also fosters innovativeness and competition. If a competitor has figured out how to do something you haven't, you can't just copy what he's done. You have to figure out a way to do it yourself. You might figure out a better way of doing it.

The only software markets where I see the proprietary model as being really warranted are in terms of speciality applications for specific niches, and games. I view all other categories of software as commodities, and when you think about it, the open source model is perfect for a commoditized economic environment, in that it facilitates maximum competition and maximum user value.

No, it facilitates copying implementations. Open source software has a part in the market, but so does proprietary software. Apple acknowledges this, which is why the underlying Unix OS is open source, but the higher-level stuff (QuickTime, Aqua, etc ...) is closed, so they can maintain a competitive advantage.

The attitude that software must somehow be proprietary in order to be profitable is also complete BS, as Novell has managed to return to profitability riding Linux's coat tails, Mandriva's core Linux business has been profitable since the 90s (the bankruptcy in 2003 was due to a failed diversification iniative), Red Hat is a profitable $500 million+ company, and Cygnus was profitable for many years before being acquired by Red Hat, having built a great business model around porting the GCC compiler to different platforms.

They've become profitable through support contracts. If you base your business model on open source, you can make money, but you close off a lot of revenue-generating business models. Apple isn't a support company. They're a creative company, and they make money that way.

Also,

I would argue that they completely fail to do so, and additionally, imply several faults with Windows where none exist.

"PC, you're a whiz with spreadsheets." Yeah that sounds like complete failure to acknowledge Windows' strengths.

For example, none of the ads mention that Windows is a vastly superior gaming platform to OS X (from the standpoint of cost and availibility),

Apples aren't marketed toward gamers. Who cares?

while a number of them insinuate that Windows has severe problems in terms of compatibility with third party consumer electronics products such as digital cameras and webcams; while this may be true for Vista, it is certainly not the case for XP Pro.

No, the ads say you have to install drivers. On the Mac, it just works. Pay attention.

I could write a 10,000 word essay on the inaccuracies and untruths contained within Apple's current advertising campaign.

We're all waiting.

[Starglider]

No, the FSF's page pretty much clearly states "all software should be free". In other words, no one should ever make money from software. Hence my "grow the fuck up" comment.

It's even worse than that, if you buy into the full RMS doctrine: apparently proprietary software is worse than no software at all, and creating proprietary software is an evil act.

Extracting money from users of a program by restricting their use of it is destructive because the restrictions reduce the amount and the ways that the program can be used. This reduces the amount of wealth that humanity derives from the program. When there is a deliberate choice to restrict, the harmful consequences are deliberate destruction.

He had betrayed us. But he didn't just do it to us. Chances are he did it to you too. And I think, mostly likely, he did it to you too. And he probably did it to you as well. He probably did it to most of the people here in this room -- except a few maybe who weren't born yet in 1980. Because he had promised to refuse to cooperate with just about the entire population of the Planet Earth. He had signed a non-disclosure agreement.

Writing non-free software is not an ethically legitimate activity, so if people who do this run into trouble, that's good! All businesses based on non-free software ought to fail, and the sooner the better.

This is just further evidence that fanaticism and trying to reduce the world to a minimal set of black-and-white absolutes is always bad, regardless of the cause (though just how bad clearly does depend on the subject - the FSF doesn't advocate burning proprietary software writers at the stake - yet).

The fact of the matter is that proprietary software has a large number of demonstrated disadvantages compared to open source software in terms of cost, flexibility and security.

I like the idea of free software, and I indeed use Linux systems on a daily basis to do all my important work. But these are sensible practical metrics, not 'OMG proprietary software is eeeeeevil', and as such are perfectly sensible reasons to use free software. Sometimes though proprietary software really is better, and for many of the less popular and well-known niches (i.e. stuff not many geeks want to do as a hobby) I don't see free software displacing it any time soon.

The only software markets where I see the proprietary model as being really warranted are in terms of speciality applications for specific niches, and games. I view all other categories of software as commodities, and when you think about it, the open source model is perfect for a commoditized economic environment, in that it facilitates maximum competition and maximum user value.

All other categories of off the shelf software sure. But most of the software industry actually consists of writing (or assembling) custom software for specific corporate needs. Few companies wants to expose their own business logic and give the competition a leg up on replicating their IT advantages by releasing that code.

[RThurmont]

No, the ads say you have to install drivers. On the Mac, it just works. Pay attention.

I would assume that if OS X is like 99% of OSes out there, it does also require device drivers, so this point is retarded. I've had to install drivers on my Mac for an HP printer sold with the same Mac, so, on this point, you're way out in left field.

No, the FSF's page pretty much clearly states "all software should be free". In other words, no one should ever make money from software. Hence my "grow the fuck up" comment.

If you'd bother to read the rest of the FSF site, you'll notice repeatedly that several documents explicitly state that its OK to make money off of "Free Software", and that Free Software means Free as in Free Speech, not Free Beer. You are (IIRC this is actually explicit in the license) allowed to charge money for distributing GPL licensed software. A number of businesses have, as I said earlier, become hugely profitable around GPLed "Free Software", and indeed, in many cases, by charging money for its distribution. Indeed, in many respects its easier to profit off of GPLed software, because you can build a business around selling boxed copies or supporting a given Free Software/Open Source program, without bearing any of the costs of developing that program or royalties/licensing fees, a task that is normally impossible with proprietary software.

Free/Open Source isn't about price, it's about openness. Duh.

This is just further evidence that fanaticism and trying to reduce the world to a minimal set of black-and-white absolutes is always bad, regardless of the cause (though just how bad clearly does depend on the subject - the FSF doesn't advocate burning proprietary software writers at the stake - yet).

I don't subscribe to RMS's overzealous positions on open source software (he considers Linus Torvalds evil, for example). In my opinion, invoking RMS's lunatic rantings, in an attempt to counter a point I made about the demonstrated business value of open source software, is tantamount to using a Strawman.

EDIT: Minor grammatical tweakage.

[Starglider]

A number of businesses have, as I said earlier, become hugely profitable around GPLed "Free Software", and indeed, in many cases, by charging money for its distribution.

Some have, but it's a tough business, and I don't think free software development could support more than a tiny faction of the current software industry revenue base.

I don't subscribe to RMS's overzealous positions on open source software (he considers Linus Torvalds evil, for example). In my opinion, invoking RMS's lunatic rantings, in an attempt to counter a point I made about the demonstrated business value of open source software, is tantamount to using a Strawman.

Correct, such an attack would be a strawman argument, but I wasn't disagreeing with you here, I was just pointing out that the FSF's agenda (pretty much idential to RMS's all practical purposes) is even sillier than Durandal's comments suggested. RMS is (at this point) a nutcase, but far too many otherwise intelligent people seem to take everything he says as gospel, plus he's also giving ammunition to Microsoft and other anti-free-software campaigners who do make exactly that kind of attack. Sorry if I was unclear.

[Pu-239]

I, and 95% of the people I've met in the open source community, believe that authors of software should have the right to determine what license it is published on. However, we have the right to criticize software based on said licensing.

No, the FSF's page pretty much clearly states "all software should be free". In other words, no one should ever make money from software. Hence my "grow the fuck up" comment.

Well, to be fair, the FSF is a bit out of the mainstream. They disassociate themselves from the open source community- http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-soft ... eedom.html . And strictly speaking they don't object to free software, they object to software w/ restrictions (though it's somewhat impractical to charge for software w/o restrictions on copying, so the end result is the same- Sveasoft though I believe (makes custom router firmware) distributes software using the GPL and works around this by denying future updates to users that actually excercises their rights- GPL rights only apply to who the software is directly distributed to ).

Personally I believe there is a place for both proprietary and OSS/Free software. I do believe however that users should be able to examine the source and modify software as they wish for personal/internal use (and possibly distribute patches only), but w/ copyright restrictions in place so the vendor can still make money off the stuff. Then again, there are practicalities (such as anti-cheating mechanisms in games) where this wouldn't work. For example, the cube engine is open source, but the compiled version uses different closed-source network code to avoid cheating.

All other categories of off the shelf software sure. But most of the software industry actually consists of writing (or assembling) custom software for specific corporate needs. Few companies wants to expose their own business logic and give the competition a leg up on replicating their IT advantages by releasing that code.

The FSF doesn't really object to this- it's actually legal to modify GPL software and not redistribute the source, so long as the binaries are kept within your organization.


l

[Pu-239]

I want to weigh in my own personal opinion on the licenses talk.

Ideally, I'd like to see the source and possibly modify it for myself. Well, ideally, I'd like worthwhile documentation and the software to not suck in the first place, but having the source is the next best thing.

Having it means I can look to see how it works, and if I don't like it, I can change it. Now, a lot of Free Software Idiots (henceforth, FSIs) use that as one of their points, which I think is a valid point, but I also laugh at the FSIs since I know the majority of them never actually look at that code (hell, there are only 6 programs I have looked at and modified myself (Linux (the kernel), Qt (cross platform programming toolkit), Blackbox (X11 window manager), fspanel (tiny taskbar), gaim (IM client), and generator (Sega Genesis emulator, which I no longer use anyway)), out of several dozen open source programs I have used). I also intend to eventually modify xterm (X11 terminal emulator) for my own use, but I haven't gotten around to that yet.

Also of the programs I have hacked, I've never submitted my patches upstream, and only intend to redistribute one of them (my version of fspanel, which I am practically rewriting; I have already reworked more than 20% of the code).

Let me explain in more detail why I used the source of each of these programs.

Linux was for education mostly. I toyed with it to understand how it works.

Qt's source was useful in nailing down a question I had about the internals (I wanted to know how it managed memory internally so I could be sure I was correct in interfacing with it). I made minor modifications to it for educational purposes - this code helped me learn better C++ practices. I don't use my modifications, and certainly don't share them. Qt is also an interesting case I will be returning to on licensing.

Blackbox had a minor bug that I fixed in its window placement code. Changed two lines of its code. I also looked at it when writing my changes for fspanel, since it is the API implementation I was talking to, and seeing it in action helps me get my code right.

fspanel is a tiny program that offered a base for something I wanted to write myself - a very small, both in screen size and in memory and disk, taskbar for my own use. The source was out of date and no longer maintained, but it was the closest program to what I had in mind, so I used it as my starting point, but it was still far from what I really wanted, so I grabbed the source and started hacking. Due to the amount of work I have put into it and will be putting into it in the coming days or weeks, I am going to post it on my website for others to look at and use.

gaim had a bug that would make it crash on me every few weeks, so I hacked the offending lines out of the code. If the program didn't suck in the first place, that would have not been necessary. The documentation for its plugin API also sucks, so I used the source to fill in the gaps when I was working on a plugin. Lastly, I intend to use its source as a starting point to write my own IM client, hopefully one that doesn't suck, but I'm not going to be doing that for a while.

generator had hard-coded controls that were just annoying, so I changed them in the source. If they were configurable, this would not have been needed. I eventually ditched the program entirely, though my altered control scheme was actually pretty nice when all done.


Looking at my own experience, being licensed to redistribute the code myself is not a big priority - I use the source, for the most part, as reference / education to fill in the gaps the documentation leaves. I find this very nice with something that must interact programically with my other code; the actual implementation is an accurate reference of how to talk to it. The other use is as a starting point to make something that doesn't suck.




Now, the other argument FSIs make is since it is open source, then the quality is better. Well, this simply isn't true; if OSS guaranteed quality, then why the fuck did I have to hack around with the programs I altered? Shouldn't someone else have already done that? Well, maybe someone did, but if so, he probably did the same thing I did - a quick hack to change it to how he likes it, and he never bothered with sending his changes upstream (either out of laziness or he felt his preferences and hacks would be of no use to others).

Moreover, I've seen some OSS code that is just idiotic. Foolish errors that should be obvious to anyone who knows what he is doing. Since I've seen it, surely others have too, but none of us seem to fix it, or our fixes never get committed. I don't bother trying out of laziness; I usually don't even bother fixing it for myself, so long as it doesn't annoy me. Even if it does annoy me, I'm more likely to search for alternatives than dive into the code. Even trivial modifications can be harder than they seem, anyway. (there I go rationalizing my laziness, but really, would it be worth the effort? I'm probably never going to see any personal benefit by fixing it.)



And to get back on topic, in a license, there are three main things to think about:

1) Redistribution.
2) Availability of the code.
3) Using it on multiple machines.

Let's look at them one by one.

I discussed the usefulness of the code above. In summary, IMO its main use is acting as a very indepth API reference. Being able to fork or fix it is nice, but not used very often, and there are easy enough alternatives there (harassing the Quality Assurance team of the developer for fixes or doing it yourself for a fork, which takes time, but may end up more interesting).

Using something on multiple machines is nice for a user to have, but not necessary, and can hurt the company, meaning the programmers don't get paid, meaning the program stagnates, meaning everyone loses. (Another thing FSIs seem to ignore - coders aren't free, and donations usually just aren't enough). Consider the case of per seat pricing. If a license lets an organization use it as much as they want, they may use it several hundred times for the price of one. The software company would like more revenue, so charging a little bit for each seat seems reasonable to them. And, it seems reasonable to me too. A bulk discount would be nice, and probably acceptable (since the marginal costs are small on the software company's side anyway), but someone needs to pay for the development of the code, and that someone should be the users of the code - that is how business works.

Would you rather all organizations pay (for example) $5000 for a global license, regardless of size, to pay for the cost of developmenting the code, or organizations pay $100 per seat, meaning small businesses can get away with much paying less than big businesses. That just seems fair, and everyone wins.


Finally, you have redistribution. There are two cases where this may be useful:
1) It is something that ties into your product (a common example is the Direct X installer on older games, that the game needs to run, but the user might not have, so it is included for the convienence of the user).

or 2) You modified something and would like to share your changes. This only makes sense if you also have the source, since otherwise, you probably aren't modifying it anyway. If you have this, you can fork off a current program, or take over a dead program easily. If not, you can always try to send your patches back upstream to the original developer (Which is the preferred case either way).

That is in open source practice, not used very often in my experience. When it is used, it is generally in boring, uncreative, ways - there are several forks with very few differences.

You complain about there being different versions of Windows Vista. Have you see how many fucking Linux distros there are? Most them are the same except for some little gimmick! Fuck that. That has done almost nothing good - the FSIs can't agree on anything, leading to a bad user experience. I like choice, but I also like things that work.

Moving on, the biggest problem with redistibtion business-wise is it puts the price for all practical purposes at zero, while the development costs remain greater than zero - the result? A net loss. The only way to get around this is to write free software on commission, making your money up front rather than from selling copies. (Codeweavers does this with Wine). The problem with that is it isn't as scalable. One customer might come to you with a contract, that will pay for his needs, but that is all you will get from it. This might be acceptable, but getting constant sales of something existing that works is much easier than getting constant contracts to add new features. Also, a sale might be, say $50 per user, whereas a contract, since he is the only one paying, is more likely to be around, say $500 from him.

That's right- Free Software itself is a monetary loss. Now, it is possible to make money somewhere else, such as support contracts (Red Hat) or custom contracts (Codeweavers with Wine), but the Free Software itself is a loss.

If money isn't the reason for going free, than what is? Well, there are a few. One might be ideology - you feel this software should be free, or you are just doing it for fun anyway. A more practical one might be to get a rapport with your customers, so they will come to you later for other things (hopefully paying!). The latter might work, and is rather valid, though of course, you must be offering something else too. A variation of that is giving stuff away free for resume material or just simple bragging rights. Though bragging rights don't cause massive systems to be developed.



The simple fact of life is money pays for software, and free software doesn't bring in money, though it might be a part of something that does. If something is done for fun, that is a slightly different situation.

I said above that Qt is an interesting case. It is a software development platform that is dual licensed: the GPL and a proprietary license, and it is quite profitable. What it is basically doing is using the GPL to get their name out and build reputation, and then if you want to make closed source software (get around the restriction of the GPL), you buy a license from them to do so. This is pretty much ideal to me on how software would be, though the GPL works best on a library like Qt - linking to it puts some restrictions on it.


On the different free software licenses: if you ask me, there is one and only one worth using: the GPL. Given above, you aren't going to be making money directly from this program with any free license. If you are writing a linked library, the GPL gives you quite a lot of power - it permits dual licensing. If you are writing something else, it still gives you some power: it ensures your program remains free.

Some FSIs think the GPL is "less free" than licenses such as BSD due to the copyleft clause. Well, consider this analogy: in a civilized country, I can't enslave you unless I want to go to jail. In anarchy, I can. Some idiots would say the anarchy situation is "more free", but I would say the opposite, since being a slave isn't very free at all - you are free to do things so long as you don't take away someone else's freedom. I see free software licenses as the same thing - the GPL says you are free to do stuff with it, so long as you don't take away anyone else's freedom.

From the ideolgy standpoint, it pretty clearly wins. From a practical standpoint, it gives you at least some business advantage (also: if a competetor wants to take it, he must do so on your terms; if he doesn't like the clauses of the GPL, he'll have to rewrite it himself), and lets the user play with the source if he wants to.


I have more to say about open source and what it means to development, but this is getting lengthy and meandering off topic anyway, so I'll save that for later. Summary of my position: proprietary software is a good thing, since it funds its own development, and if you are going to go with a FOSS license, the GPL is the one.

I've altered my kernel to properly report overclocked frequency, but stopped after it became annoying to have to sync it w/ kernel updates- it would have never been merged upstream being a crude hack, and Linux devs not wanting to support overclocked hardware.

Right now I'm rewriting a closed-source freeware app from scratch, since it's extremely buggy and dated- the author wants 500$ for source/ability to modify (From what I can gather from google translate- might be only applicable to commercial entities), which I don't want to pay for something that in the end wouldn't really be mine to redistribute and do as I wish anyway.

What I'm saying above is I think it should be mandatory that proprietary software should be "open sourced" (in terms of code, not cost, like the way old unix programs cost money, but you got the source w/ them), but w/ copyright restrictions. Sure, someone may look into the internals of your code, but if it's mandatory you can look into theirs, and sue them for infringement. I suppose there are areas that this wouldn't work, such as DRM/anticheating mechanisms, hence exceptions.

Proprietary software would still be subject to copying restrictions and whatnot. Users who have paid for the software should be able to distribute the changes amongst themselves though (and the vendor can indirectly benefit by integrating these into mainline as a supported stable solution, in addition to their own improvements in future versions).

Free open source can work for games- make users pay for the content (which is the bigger chunk of the dev costs anyway)/multiplayer service. Of course, being open source, there could be rampant cheating, users can set up their own service (BnetD), and content can be created (see Desert Combat), so on second thought this may not work too well- depends on situation.

If you're an engine developer, there's the QT scheme above, but if your potential licensees use the scheme of charging for content/multiplayer only, that would fall flat, unless you place restrictions on those.


As for the multitude of Linux distros, most of them are inconsequential forks that remain compatible w/ their parent to some degree. (Debian->Ubuntu->Mepis). They are useful as a testbed for stuff.

The corporate environment seems to have standardized on Redhat and to a lesser extent SuSE (which originally was a RedHat derivative). I feel everything other than Redhat, Ubuntu, and Suse are basically marginal and of no significant consequence- Gentoo (yay ricers! funroll-loops.org) and Slackware aren't really mainstream. SuSE for the corporate desktop, RHEL for the server, and Ubuntu for the home user. They each have strengths and weaknesses.

My major peeve about Linux is duplication of effort repackaging the same thing over and over- that's still a problem, and LSB hasn't really helped that much. It's somewhat the fault of app developers- it isn't hard to simply make only a DEB and an RPM, and statically compile the app (at least for the more obscure libraries, ie other than GTK, QT, libssl, etc), instead of dynamically linking and requiring the user to install every obscure convenience library that you've used. Windows developers do this, bringing their dependencies w/ them, it's not like the OS is inherently unsuited to it (well, as long as you're using C- G++ ABI changes are a problem, so you'd have to statically link everything that is based on C++, and QT is fat). VMWare is an example of an app that's reasonably cross-distro that Just Works.

[RThurmont]

In my opinion, one of the great strengths of Linux is the huge number of specialized distros availible. A distro for every purpose, and a purpose for every distro, essentially. You have ultralight distros such as Puppy Linux and DSL for use on CDs, older hardware, USB keys, et cetera, mainstream distros such as Red Hat, Suse and Debian for enterprise use, hacker toys like Gentoo and Sabayon, consumer-oriented distros like FreeSpire and Ubuntu, and a huge range of other highly specialized distros like Icthux, GParted and Mythdora. IMO, this highly specialized approach works well, since most Linux software is compatible between different distros to some extent (especially if you build from source and eschew the incompatible package management systems), and the result is that you get an OS that's tailored to your needs, rather than vice versa.

In the case of Windows XP, and CE, Microsoft did something similiar, and IMO is to be commended for it. We have XP Home, Pro, MediaCenter, TabletPC, Embedded, and a range of different CE based systems for different applications (and also Windows Essentials for Legacy PCs).

In the case of Windows 2003 and Vista, however, the SKU proliferation is much less useful, in my opinion, as the SKUs typical differ only in terms of the number of features and the licensing tersm, and in some cases (such as Vista Starter or whatever-its-called), actually implement technological restrictions to limit the usefulness relative to more expensive SKUs. IMO this is obscene, but you can't really compare the SKU abuse with Vista/Win2k3 to the geniune usefulness of the specialized usefulness of XP/CE and Linux.

In any event, I am of the opinion that this level of specialization is another huge advantage that Linux has over OS X, the current version of which, to my knowledge, comes in just three or four versions at present: a retail version for PPC users, an OEM desktop version, a server version (not sure if you can buy that at retail, or if you can what the deal is in terms of it being PPC or Mactel). So basically, for the most part, Apple's approach is one size fits all.

Changing the subject to the licensing question, while the idea of forced open source software is appealing, IMO developers should ultimately be free to select the licensing for their software that they want. I prefer Open Source software, however, I am not at all convinced the OSS business model is workable for games and highly specialized niche applications, except where the software is a personal passion of the author. I think OSS, as a development model, is best for system software, and the further you get away from the kernel, the less likely it is to work. However, where a great OSS app exists, even if it is still in a developmental stage (pre 1.0), it is still more often than not worth its weight in gold, in my opinion, as it enables people to accomplish more at a lower cost and without fear of proprietary lock-in.

On the subject of the specific license, I prefer copyleft licenses to permissive BSD-style licenses, as there have been a number of incidents where permissively licensed code has been taken and turned into a commercial product, and the community that produced that code has not benefitted from it to any great extent. The cases of Apple and FreeBSD, Wasabi and NetBSD, and Cedega and Wine, IMO, are perfect examples (yes, Wasabi does sponsor/control NetBSD to a high degree, but their stewardship has still been highly criticized, and yes, Apple has contributed to FreeBSD, but not, in my opinion, to any meaningful extent).

As far as the question of what specific copyleft license is preferrable, I am not at all convinced that the GPL is ideal. In my opinion, the primary reason for using it is that its widely trusted, and a lot of people will have few qualms about using code licensed under it, but that fact aside, I've seen much better licenses. As far as I can tell, the Microsoft Community License (not the restricted one) does the same thing as the GPL (its closer to the MPL in how it actually works, though) while being considerably shorter. The GPL, as a text document, is long and preachy, and the GPL's incompatibility with a huge number of other copyleft licenses such as the CDDL is irritating (although not entirely the FSF's fault).

[Starglider]

A big problem with forcing companies to release source code for proprietary products is that we'd lose all hope of getting rid of software patents - in fact it would make the software patent situation even worse. Software doesn't represent the kind of R&D investment that pharmaceuticals do, but some software (including the stuff I work on) does require a lot of R&D which a competitor would be free to steal if it was open source. Copyright prevents a direct rip-off but doesn't protect an R&D investment in something like a new video codec. That said NDAs may be practical instead for limited corporate deployments, while Internet delivery of the application from the company's (supposedly) secure servers avoids the whole issue. This is one reason why I suspect we'll see more and more Internet delivery of new apps in the future (the others being user convenience and pricing flexibility).

[Ace Pace]

Free open source can work for games- make users pay for the content (which is the bigger chunk of the dev costs anyway)/multiplayer service. Of course, being open source, there could be rampant cheating, users can set up their own service (BnetD), and content can be created (see Desert Combat), so on second thought this may not work too well- depends on situation.

If you're an engine developer, there's the QT scheme above, but if your potential licensees use the scheme of charging for content/multiplayer only, that would fall flat, unless you place restrictions on those.

Dosn't work. The moment the engine is out, the assets are even easier to pirate then they were before. Also, as you just said, the moment the code is out, nothing stops anyone from creating their own standalone networks, taking money away from developers. Another solution might be in SecondLife, the client is open source, the server is not. This model might work for MMOs, but probably not the hyper-competetive ones like WoW.

Regarding engines, it's just silly. The primary use of an engine to any non-engine programmer, is modding. Modding goes by perfectly fine with the normal APIs exposed + scripting language. There was no sudden improvement in mods coming out for FS2, or Q3, with the release of the source code.

[Pu-239]

The GPL, as a text document, is long and preachy, and the GPL's incompatibility with a huge number of other copyleft licenses such as the CDDL is irritating (although not entirely the FSF's fault).

GPL3 is supposed to be compatible w/ the CDDL, though this is moot since Solaris is moving to GPL3 anyway, and Linux will still stick w/ GPL2

[phongn]

In the case of Windows 2003 and Vista, however, the SKU proliferation is much less useful, in my opinion, as the SKUs typical differ only in terms of the number of features and the licensing tersm, and in some cases (such as Vista Starter or whatever-its-called), actually implement technological restrictions to limit the usefulness relative to more expensive SKUs. IMO this is obscene, but you can't really compare the SKU abuse with Vista/Win2k3 to the geniune usefulness of the specialized usefulness of XP/CE and Linux.

What's wrong with the different variants of W2K3? I think the various versions are quite reasonable.

[RThurmont]

What's wrong with the different variants of W2K3? I think the various versions are quite reasonable.

If you'd actually bother to read the above quote, you'd note that I explained, in that paragraph, my specific objection to the Win2K3 and Vista SKUs. I am willing to write a multi-page breakdown if each Win2K3 SKU and my specific objections to it.

[Xon]

What's wrong with the different variants of W2K3? I think the various versions are quite reasonable.

If you'd actually bother to read the above quote, you'd note that I explained, in that paragraph, my specific objection to the Win2K3 and Vista SKUs. I am willing to write a multi-page breakdown if each Win2K3 SKU and my specific objections to it.

Please so, I could do with a good laugh.

There are functionally 3 version of W2k3 from the server division;

1. Standard
2. Enterprise
3. Datacentre

There are then 32bit, x86-64, 64bit itanium versions for each W2k3 version.

That is it for core versions. Microsoft doesnt even list the other versions in thierCompare Win2k3 versions page.


There are variations on Win2k3, but these are produced by other departments from the server divisions and you need to dig in microsoft's webpage to find them. For example;

1. Web edition - is nothing more than a cutdown Standard/Enterprise edition with missing features and a cheaper price tag.
2. Small Business Server - Prebundled version with several enterpirse level compents packaged into the one server for small business who dont need a server farm to handle thier computing.
3. Windows Storage Server 2003 - Stripped down version for running a glorified file server
4. High-Performance Computing version of Win2k3 - A version of windows for the HPC market Little more than a filesystem, kernel and network synchronization & communication services.

You notice something about all the versions? Beyond for the core versions, all the rest are targeted specialized markets which demand a limited feature set.

[phongn]

If you'd actually bother to read the above quote, you'd note that I explained, in that paragraph, my specific objection to the Win2K3 and Vista SKUs. I am willing to write a multi-page breakdown if each Win2K3 SKU and my specific objections to it.

But the different versions are eminently reasonable and useful for their respective target environments. I also find it astonishing that you simultaneously laud the variety of XP SKUs while denigrating Vista's!