Ganesh999 - Slashdot User

+ - OO no longer free under non-free platforms 1

Submitted by Ganesh999 on Thursday April 30, 2009 @08:09AM

Ganesh999 writes "In yesterday's discussion about Oracle and OpenOffice, someone mentioned that a retail version of OO on the shelves next to Microsoft Office could make acceptance of the former "really start to soar". They concluded, though, that

"Granted, I would still download it for free, because I'm cheap."

Well, it seems someone at Oracle was listening.

A colleague of mine arrived at work this morning claiming that he'd attempted to download OO from its home page last night, only to find that he now had to pay. Sure enough, a brief check shows that, after providing email details, the site now demands payment "for support" on Windows and Mac platforms.

Surely this niche is already filled by Sun's commercial repackaging of OO under the StarOffice brand? How does the lack of availability of source code for the MS and Apple ports square with the GPL/LGPL licenses?"

Comment: Re:I say! (Score 1) 740

by Ganesh999 on Wednesday April 23, 2008 @08:57AM (#23170350) Attached to: $1/Gallon "Green Gasoline" In Sight

Without nitpicking, fusion as a viable power source "is always" *50* years away, not 20.

This 50-year estimate is actually pretty detailed and is based strongly on timescale & results of research conducted to date, not "pullafigureoutofyourarse" methods of project management.

The reason that the 50-year estimate has been static for the last decade is that the scientific community never anticipated that it would take a decade to obtain the funding. The countdown from 50-odd years restarted last year.

Cheers,

C

+ - AMD/ATi to release graphics specs 0

Submitted by Ganesh999 on Thursday September 06, 2007 @06:59AM

Ganesh999 writes "A recent Phoronix article hinted that despite the large number of substantially improved AMD/ATi drivers just released, there was more exciting news in the pipeline.

This seems to have been confirmed at the Linux kernel summit yesterday. From LWN :

'AMD's representative at the summit has announced that the company has made a decision to enable the development of open source drivers for all of its (ATI) graphics processors from the R500 going forward. There will be specifications available and a skeleton driver as well; a free 2D driver is anticipated by the end of the year. The rest will have to be written; freeing of the existing binary-only driver is not in the cards, and "that is better for everybody." Things are looking good on this front. More in the kernel summit report to come.'

General reaction from the kernel developers seems to be positive :

'It's definitely not a 'you're on your own' kind of proposition: this is exactly what was asked for, giving the community all the information it needs to complete a proper driver.'"