Comment 39? (Score 4, Informative) 381
I always thought that the brain works best at 39 ;)
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/10/27/1630225
Canadian Federal Government Mulling Open Source? 117
An anonymous reader points out a CBC report discussing a request from the Canadian government for information about open source software and free proprietary software. Evan Leibovitch, an advocate for open source, says the government's interest was spurred by a desire to reduce expenditures during the recession.
"...Leibovitch said he hopes the request will lead to government policies that give 'a level playing field' to vendors of open-source software services, who provide technical and administrative support to companies that use open-source programs. He alleges these service providers currently face barriers when competing with proprietary software vendors in the government procurement process. ... When the government purchases software, it often assumes that it will have to pay for a licence and asks software vendors to bid for the contract, McOrmond said. Vendors of open source software services don't respond to that initial call for tender because they have no licences to sell. But then, the government might ask for a separate round of bids for providing support services for the software, which open-source vendors could provide."
Windows 7 Beta Released To Public After Delay 848
Z80xxc! writes "The Windows 7 Beta release is now available for download by the general public, in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors. Microsoft had previously announced availability around 3 PM PST on Friday, but after unexpected numbers of people proved to be interested in the download, had to postpone it to add more servers."
Free Resources for Windows Perl Development 117
jamie pointed out an important announcement in the Perl community. Adam Kennedy, known as Alias, developed Strawberry Perl to "make Win32 a truly first class citizen of the Perl platform world." Over the last year, major CPAN modules have used Strawberry Perl to get to releases that work trouble-free on Windows. But the tens of thousands of smaller modules on CPAN are lagging, in many cases because of lack of access to a Windows environment for development and testing. Now Alias has worked with Microsoft's Open Source Software Lab to provide for every CPAN author free access to a centrally-hosted virtual machine environment containing every major version of Windows. "More information (and press releases) will follow, the entire program under which this partnership will be run is so new it's only just been given a name, so some of the organisational details will ironed out as we go. But for now, to all the CPAN authors, all I have to add is... Merry Christmas. P.S. Or your appropriate equivalent religious or non-religious event, if any, occurring during the month of December, etc., etc."
Studios' Oz Power-Grab Revealed 217
Xiroth writes "More details are beginning to come out about the lawsuit launched by film studios in Australia. According to law experts familiar with the case, the studios seek to force the ISPs to become 'police, judge, and executioner,' effectively giving the studios the legal clout to switch off ISP customers' internet connection at will. Apparently the ISP iiNet is the unlucky victim for the test case as, unlike other ISPs, they refused to pass on infringement notices to their customers."
A Look At Successful Game Mods 287
Parz writes "Mods have been an important part of gaming for well over 15 years. Not only have they provided plenty of additional free gaming to players, but they've acted as a launch pad for independent and amateur programmers to show off their skills to potential employers. This Gameplayer article highlights the programmers who are doing it best, and what mods have made biggest and most enjoyable impact on gaming. The article not only provides details for each game, but also links to the downloads, and is a great resource for those interesting in getting up-to-date with this exciting scene."
Obviously, this list will seem incomplete to anyone whose favorite mod was omitted. What mods contributed most to your enjoyment?
Comment Re:Something doesn't add up here... (Score 4, Interesting) 129
I understand why you ask this question :)
Well, i'm not a real tweaker in the sense that I compile and tune everything for maximum performance. I rather tune the system to my specific software needs and stability in the sense of "if i don't ask for x, i don't have x". My system is very basic and i have a good overview. It contains only things that I need. I really like to put some effort in installing software so that I am aware of all it's features, dependencies and caveats. I like to do this by hand and by reading documentation from the software authors themselves. Yes, perhaps it is a tedious approach but it works very nice for me and i have a system which i can really trust. For me, this is the power of Open source actually.
Before I upgrade to a major version (be it a major GCC version - I worked with gcc 2.95.2+some patch for a long, long time before i upgraded to 3+, or in this case the kernel), I always spend some time researching if the upgrade is worthwhile and good.
So, yes: I cross-compiled and built libraries myself ofcourse, but i always try to choose stable versions. Also with kernels: i never tried an odd (2.1, 2.3, 2.5) kernel release.
In case of the kernel, I am little bit confused because of the development model (no 2.7), fast development cycles, in relation to the comments and complaints I sometimes read on the internet and here on Slashdot. Regarding kernel stability, it is my understanding that 'stability should be guaranteed by vendors' ie. 'use a vendor kernel'. I am my own vendor, so to speak. Hence my question.
In my years of experience, i know that critical parts of the system (toolchain, kernel) can produce very strange problems not directly noticable in a week of testing.
Yes, such risks are always present when using free software, but software from a stable chain always worked perfectly for me. Especially software where no-one complains about :)
I found it very difficult to find information regarding this, hence i tried Ask Slashdot.
Well, i'm not a real tweaker in the sense that I compile and tune everything for maximum performance. I rather tune the system to my specific software needs and stability in the sense of "if i don't ask for x, i don't have x". My system is very basic and i have a good overview. It contains only things that I need. I really like to put some effort in installing software so that I am aware of all it's features, dependencies and caveats. I like to do this by hand and by reading documentation from the software authors themselves. Yes, perhaps it is a tedious approach but it works very nice for me and i have a system which i can really trust. For me, this is the power of Open source actually.
Before I upgrade to a major version (be it a major GCC version - I worked with gcc 2.95.2+some patch for a long, long time before i upgraded to 3+, or in this case the kernel), I always spend some time researching if the upgrade is worthwhile and good.
So, yes: I cross-compiled and built libraries myself ofcourse, but i always try to choose stable versions. Also with kernels: i never tried an odd (2.1, 2.3, 2.5) kernel release.
In case of the kernel, I am little bit confused because of the development model (no 2.7), fast development cycles, in relation to the comments and complaints I sometimes read on the internet and here on Slashdot. Regarding kernel stability, it is my understanding that 'stability should be guaranteed by vendors' ie. 'use a vendor kernel'. I am my own vendor, so to speak. Hence my question.
In my years of experience, i know that critical parts of the system (toolchain, kernel) can produce very strange problems not directly noticable in a week of testing.
Yes, such risks are always present when using free software, but software from a stable chain always worked perfectly for me. Especially software where no-one complains about
I found it very difficult to find information regarding this, hence i tried Ask Slashdot.
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