Comment Are they GPS satellites? (Score 2) 168
Or are they GPS satellites "equipped with nuclear missiles and a laser cannon"?
Comment gh, LLC. (Score 1) 134
I used to work in the same building as these people. I even worked with a couple of them on different products.
While I have not used/seen their products, they may offer something useful.
Comment Re:God = gravity, Gravity = God (Score 1) 1328
So, I wonder, what the Gravity was thinking when It created Adam and Eve?
I wonder if opposites attract?
Submission + - Google Voice Opens To All (wifitalk.ca)
An anonymous reader writes: Google Voice is now open to anyone in the US, removing the need to search for an invite.
Heading over to the Google Voice site allows people with a US IP address and a US phone number to sign up for an account. Non-US IPs are blocked, and non-US based phone numbers are prevented from being attached to Google Voice (with the one odd exception of the 403 area code of southern Alberta, but there are some ways around the geoblocking part of it anyways.
Heading over to the Google Voice site allows people with a US IP address and a US phone number to sign up for an account. Non-US IPs are blocked, and non-US based phone numbers are prevented from being attached to Google Voice (with the one odd exception of the 403 area code of southern Alberta, but there are some ways around the geoblocking part of it anyways.
Comment Re:There is a simple solution to these caps (Score 1) 306
The telecommunication companies will never do that. They make much more revenue on fixed monthly fees. They love people that barely use their service yet pay for broadband via monthly fees. After what happened with landlines, fees based on usage were banned. Usage-based cell phone service scares them.
The only possibilities they may attempt is to charge extra per gigabyte over the cap or a "Super Duper We Love Your Money" unlimited plan. Both are similar to many cell phone plans.
Comment Re:Stop overloading common tech acronyms! (Score 1) 79
To MIB, "Orion" is a cat.
Two for the price of one joke.
Comment Re:Well (Score 1) 374
I avoid the use of BSD licensed software because I run the risk of learning to use something in which future versions are locked behind a proprietary wall.
I may stub my toe, but I still walk. The risk to stubbing my toe is greater than software under a BSD license switching to a proprietary license. A fork can be made proprietary, still subject to the BSD license, yet it is very rare to see a project using the BSD license to make it proprietary itself.
Future versions of GPL software can also be "locked behind a proprietary wall" assuming a single entity controls the code base. Of course, the project can be forked for either license. Speaking specifically about the BSD license, have you ever used OpenSSH?
Commenting on your signature: you should stop using Python since it is under an MIT license and future versions may be released under a proprietary wall.
Comment Re:Funny how similar the free Unices are (Score 1) 235
The FreeBSD Nvidia 64-bit driver should be coming soon (a few weeks minimum): http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=2129411&postcount=445
Comment Re:Why don't they use *BSD? (Score 1) 297
If you're going to expect cross-sharing to happen, you might as well go with the GPL, which makes it explicit. Otherwise you're giving with no guarantee that the other guy will give back. Under the BSD, Netgear gets to pick what they share and what they don't. Obviously they'll share stuff of little value to decrease maintenance costs, and not share code of high value, trading maintenance cost for exclusivity.
Since I am not tying any requirements to the code, I am sharing the code. To place an obligation on the code that someone must share back with me would not be sharing. It would be closer to barter in my opinion.
However, most projects (regardless of license) tend to be receptive to these changes.
Receptive how? If you're keeping your development process closed, the project doesn't know what you're doing, and if they do, they don't know how, so they couldn't accomodate you if they wanted.
The "receptive" part is that I know of few projects that would not be receptive to a company attempting to donate code to the project. It may not be accepted, but the project is probably not going to get angry about it.
Yes, they can. An example is a list of requirements Nvidia needs to support their module on FreeBSD amd64. The company just needs to explain why they need hooks or what the code they are donating provides.
Comment Re:Why don't they use *BSD? (Score 1) 297
Basically, it is sharing with all people regardless of who they are. Some companies do not have a problem with this because of your second point. To keep from having to maintain an internal fork Netgear would also be contributing back to the project. They would effectively be cross-sharing via the project.
What you've really done is turned the situation to a Prisoner's Dilemma for no good reason. And that means the game-theoretic equilibrium result is both Linksys and Netgear forking, not sharing.
Except it becomes more expensive to maintain a fork than to push the code back into the central project, however, it depends on how much and where the code will be changed. For example, if it is a separate module, then they may keep it proprietary. Nvidia is a good example of this even when the GPL is involved. If changes propagate throughout the base, then the companies will tend (granted not always) to donate the code back to the project in the hope to lower the cost of maintenance.
Comment Re:Why don't they use *BSD? (Score 1) 297
Well, if I was doing a router I wouldn't go with BSD, because:
1. If you contribute back, any contribution is going to be free for all. Which means that if Linksys contributes something, Netgear automatically gets to use it without any strings attached in their next product. If it happens that Linksys got something almost right, and Netgear managed to polish it to perfection in a few days, then Netgear just gained a really cool feature, courtesy of Linksys, and Linksys doesn't get to see how they did it.
Basically, it is sharing with all people regardless of who they are. Some companies do not have a problem with this because of your second point. To keep from having to maintain an internal fork Netgear would also be contributing back to the project. They would effectively be cross-sharing via the project.
Also, this condition does not apply to these Danish companies since they are accused of not sharing any code.
2. If you don't contribute back, you now have to maintain an internal fork. This is not very easy, since the people doing the public development don't know or care about what you're doing, and are perfectly free to introduce changes that completely break your modifications.
However, most projects (regardless of license) tend to be receptive to these changes.
3. If you release your changes under the GPL, the BSD supporters will whine about it for weeks.
I am sure some people will ask for a dual-license or to have the changes BSD-licensed. There may be some complaints too, but while wrapping BSD code with the GPL may be frowned upon, it is allowed under the licensed.
4. A lot of stuff out there is targeted to Linux. There's lots of software that doesn't build cleanly on Solaris due to applications using GNU extensions. I imagine the same goes for BSD as well.
Most software works on FreeBSD without patches. If patches are needed, they probably already exist in the ports tree.
Comment Re:100% worthless (Score 1) 489
It could be a problem with a reverse proxy. Actually, I just needed to remove the ".nyud.net:8080" from the URL to get it to work.
Comment gh, LLC (Score 1) 228
I worked long ago for the founder of this company (gh, LLC) when he was in charge of the Purdue VISIONS Lab. They may have some useful technology to use.
The VISIONS Lab is probably defunct, but I found information about it.
Submission + - China chooses FreeBSD as basis for secure OS 2
dnaumov writes: "A report by the Washington Post claims China is equipping all of its government and military PCs with a version of the Kylin (site in Chinese) operating system to make hacking attempts by foreign intelligence services more difficult. The information about the highly secure operating system was made public during a US China Economic and Security Review Commission hearing in late April. In addition to the secure operating system, the computers will also contain a special microprocessor to prevent attacks. The Kylin (Chinese page link) operating system was developed by China's University of Science and Technology for National Defence, and although it appears the system is claimed to be proprietary, an analysis of the code (site in Chinese) in the kernel indicates that it is in fact a hardened version of FreeBSD 5.3.
Kylin"
Comment Re:Fascinating stuff (Score 1) 293
Yet still probably the most appropriate technology for the mission, unless you have a fool-proof way of describing to someone who doesn't share any languages with you how to quickly build a Bluray player.
That would make them space pirates. The **AA would not be pleased.
