The Global Syndicator - software

Is Open Source Software a Race To Zero?

Sun, 23 Nov 2008 15:40:27 +0000

gozunda writes "My company is an open source software vendor/developer. We maintain a popular open source project and keep ourselves afloat by producing commercial products derived from or extending the value of the core project. Over time we've seen our business model eroding as other open source projects produce free versions of the same extensions and utilities that are our bread and butter. Something that was worth $5K last year is suddenly worth $0 because the free version is just as good as the paid. This same cycle is obviously having an impact on pure-play commercial software vendors. Is open source ultimately a race to zero? In ten years will there be any cost associated with commodity (non-custom) software? If not, will there still be a 'software industry' as it exists today, or will software simply be a by-product of the operation of other industries? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? As a professional developer, do I need to fear this or feed it?"

Tasks of a Free Software Legal Department

Fri, 31 Oct 2008 19:23:04 +0000

H4x0r Jim Duggan writes "For anyone curious about what the legal department in a free software organisation does, I spent some time with my co-worker in FSFE and have put a summary online with the status of the main projects: developing a legal network, producing documentation, GPL enforcement, copyright consolidation, and training courses."

Generic VMs Key To Future of Coding

Sat, 18 Oct 2008 12:16:15 +0000

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister calls for generic VMs divorced from the syntactic details of specific languages in order to provide developers with some much-needed flexibility in the years ahead: 'Imagine being able to program in the language of your choice and then choose from any of several different underlying engines to execute your code, depending upon the needs of your application.' This 'next major stage in the evolution of programming' is already under way, he writes, citing Jim Hugunin's work with Python on the CLR, Microsoft's forthcoming Dynamic Language Runtime, Jython, Sun's Da Vinci Machine, and the long-delayed Perl/Python Parrot. And with modern JITs capable of outputting machine code almost as efficient as hand-coded C, the idea of running code through a truly generic VM may be yet another key factor that will shape the future of scripting."

Do Software Versions Really Matter?

Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:45:09 +0000

An anonymous reader writes "I work for a rather large software company and I am currently working on a completely new product. So new in fact, that the official name has not even been decided. I had assumed that the version number for this product would be 1.0 (at most). However recently I learned that the Product Managers want to release this NEW product with a version number somewhere between 5.0 and 8.0 because 'there is a stigma about buying 1.0 products. People assume it's no good.' This latest Dilbert-esque comedy routine nearly sent me over the edge. So to gauge my sanity against that of the upper Product Management, I ask the community: Do version numbers play a role in software decisions, or have product version numbers lost all credibility and meaning? Would the community feel comfortable buying version '6.3' software (and paying tens of thousands of dollars for it) knowing that it was the first release of the product?"

Machines Almost Pass Mass Turing Test

Mon, 13 Oct 2008 15:28:35 +0000

dewilso4 writes "Of the five computer finalists at this year's Loebner prize Turing Test, at least three managed to fool humans into thinking they were human conversationalists. Ready to speak about subjects ranging from Eminem to Slaughterhouse Five and everything in between, these machines are showing they we're merely a clock cycle away from true AI. '...I was fooled. I mistook Eugene for a real human being. In fact, and perhaps this is worse, he was so convincing that I assumed that the human being with whom I was simultaneously conversing was a computer.' Another of the entrants, Jabberwacky, can apparently even woo the ladies: 'Some of its conversational partners confide in it every day; one conversation, with a teenaged girl, lasted 11 hours.' The winning submission this year, Elbot, fooled 25% of judges into thinking he was human. The threshold for the $100K prize is 30%. Maybe next year..."

Open Office Plans To Party Like It's Version 3.0

Sun, 12 Oct 2008 00:11:06 +0000

penguin_dance writes "The Register reports that 'OpenOffice.org is throwing a launch party in Paris on 13 October' to celebrate eight years, and hopefully announce the release of version 3.0. Some notes: [OpenOffice.org 3.0] will support the OpenDocument Format 1.2 standard, and be able to open files created by MS Office 2007 and Office 2008 for Mac OS X." As maj_id10t notes, though the OO.o site does not yet carry an announcement, "Lifehacker has posted an entry stating the final release of OpenOffice 3.0 is available for download via their distribution mirrors."

Algorithms Can Make You Pretty

Thu, 09 Oct 2008 22:48:25 +0000

caffeinemessiah writes "The New York Times has an interesting story on a new algorithm by researchers from Tel Aviv University that modifies a facial picture of a person to conform to standards of attractiveness. Based on a digital library of pictures of people who have been judged 'attractive,' the algorithm finds the nearest match and modifies an input picture so it conforms to the 'attractive' person's proportions. The trick, however, is that the resultant pictures are still recognizable as the original person. Here's a quick link to a representative picture of the process. Note that this is a machine-learning approach to picture modification, not a characterization of beauty, and could just as easily be used to make a person less attractive." Note: As reader Trent Waddington points out, the underlying research was mentioned in an earlier story as well.

Nagios 3 Enterprise Network Monitoring

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 18:15:52 +0000

jgoguen writes "Nagios, originally known as Netsaint, has been a long-time favourite for network and device monitoring due to its flexibility, ease of use, and efficiency. Nagios provided, and still provides today, a low-cost, versatile alternative to commercial network monitoring applications. Nagios 3 takes a huge step forward compared to Nagios 2, providing improved flexibility, ease of use and extensibility, all while also making significant performance enhancements. Due to its extensibility and ease of use, no device or situation has yet been found that cannot be monitored using Nagios and a pre-made or custom script, plug-in or enhancement." Read on for the rest of jgoguen's review.

Help CALI - Donate Stuff for eLangdell

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 12:44:49 +0000

CALI is looking for more content for eLangdell. This is a very worthy project and it would be great if they could get more “stuff.”

Mono 2.0 and .NET On Linux

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:59:14 +0000

Several readers noted the release of Mono 2.0, which is compatible with Microsoft's .NET Framework 2.0. According to Miguel de Icaza, "... users can move over server applications built for .NET and client applications built with Windows Forms." InternetNews points out that only about half of the .NET apps out there will work on Mono 2.0, for a variety of reasons including (but not limited to) legacy Windows-only libraries and Microsoft's progress on .NET 3.0 and 3.5 APIs.

Is Open Source Different In Europe Than In the US?

Wed, 24 Sep 2008 14:59:18 +0000

An anonymous reader writes "The first Europe Open Source Think Tank just concluded and Larry Augustin posted some interesting observations on open source in Europe versus the US. Essentially, he says that users in Europe care more about the open source nature of a product than do US users. US users are just trying to save a buck while European users actually care about access to the source code. Do Slashdot readers observe the same thing? Are the reasons for using open source software different in other parts of the world as well?"

SGI Releases OpenGL As Free Software

Fri, 19 Sep 2008 16:01:32 +0000

StoneLion writes "Since its release, the OpenGL code that is responsible for 3-D acceleration on GNU/Linux has been running on licenses that were accepted by neither the Free Software Foundation (FSF) nor the Open Source Initiative. Today, however, the FSF has announced that the licenses in question have been rewritten, the problems resolved, and the code freed. Peter Brown, executive director of the FSF, says, 'This represents a huge gift to the free software community.'"

CodeWeavers Package Google Chrome For Linux and Mac

Mon, 15 Sep 2008 19:34:16 +0000

jfbilodeau writes "The fine folks at Codeweavers performed an 11 day experiment in getting Google Chrome working on Linux and Mac. Their efforts resulted in the Chromium proof of concept. 'Not only does this give Mac and Linux users a chance to see what all the hype is about, it also lets the world see just how far Wine has come and how powerful it truly can be. In just 11 days, we were able to bring a modern Windows application across to Mac and Linux.' Caveat: their implementation is free as in beer but not free as in speech."

Fathom: Dynamic Statistics Software

Thu, 04 Sep 2008 19:28:43 +0000

Fathom Dynamic Data Software is software for learning and teaching statistics, at the high school and introductory college level.

Reviews

Super Cool Browser add on

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:48:17 +0000

I don't get too caught up in the "hot new thing" on the web. There is just so much stuff out there that is, well, a waste of time. Mostly I see new services and widgets that are neat but don't help you do anything better than before. I found Piclens about 3 weeks ago and have been bragging on it ever since. Basically it is a "3D wall" of images or videos that runs on your browser. I use it on Firefox 3 but it is available on all the other major browsers as well. It makes viewing photos & videos smooth as opposed to the clunky way of I used to search for them one at a time. It works with google images, yahoo images, youtube, myspace, facebook, flickr, photobucket and more.

It’s nice to have all the photos in one place to just click through as you please. I can't swear to it but the images look enhanced as well. Using it for youtube videos is even better as you don't have to wait for another page to load before starting your next video. More sites are becoming compatible with Piclens everyday so it should only get better. If you have a giant screen for your PC or connect your computer to your bigscreen TV that just amplifies the experience. Oh yeah, it costs exactly nothing.