Slashback: SGI, Exploding Dell, Gizmo 110
Slashback tonight brings some clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including: the possibility of selling OpenGL to save SGI, a denial from Dell that it knew of the overheating battery problem, an update on the Skype competitor Gizmo, and a response from the Chinese folks that reverse-engineered the Skype protocol. Read on for details.
SGI's McKenna Considers sale of OpenGL. delire writes "The Computer Business Review has an article on McKenna's strategies to salvage the flailing SGI from bankruptcy ... one of which may include selling assets like OpenGL. As Gnome developer Christian Schaller aptly put it, 'I hope this gets picked up by a friendly entity, especially if there are some patents still attached to OpenGL.'" Dell Denies It Knew of Overheating Battery Problem. Billosaur writes "A report from ConsumerAffairs.com staties that according to inside information, Dell knew about the overheating problem in its laptop batteries for years. According to the report, an un-named insider 'leaked scores of documents to CRN, a computer industry publication, that indicated Dell knew of a dangerous battery malfunction for two years before a shocking video of an exploding laptop forced the company to recall batteries for about 22,000 laptops.' This on top of Dell's warning about lower than expected second quarter profits may cause the company some problems on Wall Street."
Gizmo: free VoIP to landlines in 60 countries. KrispyGlider writes "The more-standards-compliant Skype competitor Gizmo has launched a promotion in a bid to rapidly grow its userbase: free VoIP-to-landline calls to 60 countries, and even to mobiles in many countries. There aren't too many onerous catches to the deal Gizmo was previously covered in a Slashdot article from 2005 where it was noted that the Gizmo network has interoperability with other SIP networks, unlike Skype. However, the new version, 2.0 also has the ability to directly log in to open-source Asterisk VoIP servers, so you don't even have to use Gizmo's VoIP network any more."
When is it Okay to Reverse Engineer? Charlie Paglee writes "Last week Slashdot covered a story about a team of engineers in China reverse engineering Skype. Reaction on Slashdot was largely negative and raised many questions: Just when is it okay to reverse engineer and then innovate? The Chinese team issued a statement clarifying their actions: 'The domain of P2P innovation is limitless. We are very honored to work side by side Skype to promote P2P technologies in the VOIP industry. Our team is composed of the most talented P2P engineers in the world. We are working day and night to build a superior quality P2P network.'"
tinker rights (Score:5, Funny)
PS tinkering with your gadget != masturbation DS
Re:tinker rights (Score:2)
Re:tinker rights (Score:1)
Re:tinker rights (Score:2)
Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer? (Score:2)
Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer? (Score:1)
Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer? (Score:5, Informative)
Even if it's decentralized though, it's not like the packets can't be intercepted... I don't think they encrypt the packets (but I could be wrong--and even if they did the NSA would be able to encrypt it). So if you're looking at general secured communication then I recommend meeting face to face.
Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer? (Score:2, Informative)
You mean $3 a month.
Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer? (Score:2)
Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer? (Score:2)
Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer? (Score:1)
Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer? (Score:2)
Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer? (Score:2)
Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer? (Score:2)
Peer to peer is really a buzzword. It doesn't actually mean anything definite and skype's approach buys you little in the VOIP world apart from annoying some router administrators by usurping the internet's regular 'peer to peer' protocol, IP.
It's SIP. It's as decentralised as email is. Then again, skype's not really decentralised because if the developers of skype go belly up, that's the end of that. SIP depends on lots of independently run servers. Like jabber. It's just
Re:Is Gizmo peer to peer? (Score:2)
Hmm, who would buy OpenGL? (Score:5, Interesting)
(cough cough Apple cough cough)
Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL? (Score:4, Interesting)
Since SGI needs money more than it needs OpenGL to survive, I expect SGI would acquiesce to such a deal even if Microsoft were up-front about their intentions.
Schwab
Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL? (Score:2, Interesting)
cough cough Apple cough cough (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:cough cough Apple cough cough (Score:1)
In fact OS X desktop uses OpenGL extensively. Quartz Extreme and Quartz 2D Extreme (not enabled yet) relies on OpenGL.
I don't get how OpenGL can be "bought" anyway. OpenGL is an industry board already,
http://opengl.org/about/arb/overview/ [opengl.org]
Notice 3dLabs, Intel, Apple, Sun, Dell and IBM which lives its good days again?
It is not some sort of a "geek" "4 guys coding" project which Microsoft can take over. Military even relies on OpenGL.
Th
Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL? (Score:2)
Apple's no saint, but Microsoft doesn't have a site like this: http://developer.apple.com/opensource/index.html [apple.com]
Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL? (Score:2)
Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL? (Score:1)
What does opensource people want really?
Darwin Intel kernel? What kind of guarantee that MS won't give some time to their genius x86 coders to make a perfect working OS X Intel, a perfect hack which may even download updates from Apple? So, everyone owning a white PC box will have fun with OS X and Apple go out of business?
It seems people
Re:Hmm, who would buy OpenGL? (Score:2)
Maybe it's time to stop thinking that MS are evil and have to be beaten, and start thinking that our house needs to be put in order.
I couldn't give a shit about illogical, irrational claims that Apple are good and need to beat MS. The fact of the matter is both of them have shitty business practices, and both try to screw over the Free and Open S
I think... (Score:4, Interesting)
(Can you imagine what would happen if Microsoft bought it? Does anyone seriously believe ANY implementation would be safe, MESA included?)
Failing that, Google must have some spare change. Hell, they could probably buy SGI for less than the value of the machines in SGI's inventory, which would seriously boost their server power.
Re:I think... (Score:1)
[J]
Re:I think... (Score:2)
It could be the OpenGL Foundation, or something.
Blender code was salvaged that way, when the company went down.
A foundation was created, and now it is a healthy project, at http://www.blender.org/ [blender.org]
A movie was recently made showing how advanced it has become, at http://orange.blender.org/ [blender.org]
At that time, they raised one hundred thousand Euros, I believe OpenGL might be a tad more costly, but one shouldn't underestimate the power of individuals to get together and raise some money.
Maybe even
Re:I think... (Score:1)
Eek! (Score:4, Informative)
Still... perhaps a something new from the ashes could form a more lasting standard that's better than going through major-company approval process of the OpenGL ARB. Even if DirectX continues to be the basis of future graphics card development, new open-source standards can use the same hardware hooks for better ends. I can't imagine that the graphics card manufacturers wouldn't be interested in helping a new standard form if enough of the developer community had a hunger for newer cross-platform 3d graphics library. GLSL is very nice - but perhaps a better set of standard could be developed in conjunction with future hardware in mind.
Ryan Fenton (Who has been reading through the GLSL Orange book for the past few weeks)
Re:Eek! (Score:5, Informative)
About the only part of OpenGL that SGI can sell at this point is perhaps their implementations (which would be specific to SGI hardware). And just about everyone who wants one of those already has one.
Wha...? (Score:5, Insightful)
Reverse engineering meaning what FOSS groups do every day...meaning WINE, Gaim, Samba etc...? I am actually shocked. This is a very good thing - I'm not sure if the Chinese group plan to release source code, but hopefully if they can, then others can, and we'll end up with FOSS Skype programs.
Re:Wha...? (Score:2)
Re:Wha...? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Dell and exploding laptops (Score:4, Informative)
Re:diction nazi time.. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:diction nazi time.. (Score:2)
diction: emphasis during pronunciation.
spelling: choosing the letters that form a word.
WTF kind of "diction Nazi" hates on people's spellings?
Re:diction nazi time.. (Score:1)
Even if I assume your post was a joke and you knew that tyre is the British spelling of tire, you're still wrong.
Re:diction nazi time.. (Score:2)
reverse enginnering bad? (Score:3, Interesting)
Perhaps this has caused skype some problems. Oh well, it happens. Perhaps this has caused Skype users some issue with security. Well, if reverse engineering can break security,then that is what is called bad security. If they want to interface with Skype, that is as good wanting the messaging services to interface. If they want to block it, as much as we may not understand, i think that soveriegnty is something everyone can agree upon. After all, you do not give keys to your house to just anyone, or let just anyone put stuff on you lawn.
Reverse engineer, especially in software, is what is going to save this generation of computing technology. Can you imagine how much a PC would be if Dell did not have support MS 40% profit margin, if Dell were truly free to put whatever software it wished on the computer and charge for the privilege? This will happen when MS is forced to standardize, as is happening with the EU case, and a truly compatible WIndows runtime is present.
The catch to Gizmo (Score:1, Informative)
Kind of pointless if you have to make everyone you want to call register and use Gizmo.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Why not another industry consortium for OpenGL? (Score:2)
Exploding batteries and closed minds (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, its definitly possible that the battery exploded due to overheating or overcharging caused by failure of its protection circuit. However, it is also possible that it suffered impact damage. (e.g. someone dropped the battery while changing it, or the laptop was dropped but survived.)
It is a bit of a pity everyone tends to ignore other likely causes simply because they enjoy talking down the same companies ov
Re:Exploding batteries and closed minds (Score:3, Insightful)
If dropping a battery will cause it to later catch fire (which it will almost always not), they should build a motion sensor into it. You can't tell me that they can put a mechanism in a hard drive that will lock the heads before it contacts pavement from a 3 foot drop, but the MYSTERY OF THE FLAMING DROPPED BATTERY remains unsolvable.
Re:Exploding batteries and closed minds (Score:1)
You might just be surprised at what sometimes happens.
Re:Try this: (Score:1)
Lithium Ion batteries can explode significant lengths of time after being dropped.
I highly doubt you'd believe any evidence they gave.
No, Dell screwed up. (Score:2)
I suspect that the problem is that the lithium-ion technology is inherently unstable and should not be put in consumer gear.
(contemplating th
Re:No, Dell screwed up. (Score:2)
Re:No, Dell screwed up. (Score:1)
Does this apply to almost every other manufacturer of consumer electronics? Are they also denied "free passes" when batteries explode? Because its a hell of a lot more common than many posters seem to think.
I am not a chemistry major, but I don't see
Re:No, Dell screwed up. (Score:2)
1. Yes. 2. Yes. 3. That was my point.
The batteries have to be better designed to fail safely instead of spectacularly. Whether this is done via
there is also ... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:there is also ... (Score:2)
OpenGL - what is there to sell? (Score:4, Informative)
SGI doesn't have any valuable rights in OpenGL. The specification is a public document. The reference implementation is open source. You can't copyright an API (SCO and Microsoft have both tried and failed). There's a charge to use the OpenGL trademark in a closed-source implementation [sgi.com], and that's it.
SGI's higher level APIs, like Inventor and Performer, have little if any resale value.
Re: (Score:2)
John Carmack could buy/"adopt" OpenGL (Score:1)
In... (Score:1)
Nice to know!
Is Slashback different than BackSlash??? (Score:1)
Bad analogy perhaps? (Score:1, Offtopic)
I sort of resent this analogy. The reason you wouldn't put regular gasoline into certain expensive (sports) cars is that it is bad for the car if you do this. These cars were designed to use high-octane gasoline and if you don't, bad things will eventually happen. Using a cheap memory card won't damage your camera (unless it's incredibly defective).
The submitter implies in his or her intro that buying an expensive camera and a cheap memory card is a bad
sorry, wrong article... (Score:2)
Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday (Score:2)
Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday (Score:4, Funny)
Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday (Score:4, Funny)
But you make a good point. Isn't Stargate SG-1 on?
Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday (Score:2)
Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday (Score:1)
at the risk of being modded -1 "putz".. sg1 has gone stale..with this recent season it seems like they just put season 1-8 into the vcr, hit rewind, then slapped a few new names and skins onto the goauld XD..
i'll tune back in in another 3 seasons when things start getting interesting again.
Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I'd've just shut it down. Send Jack into retirement, Jackson to Atlantis, Carter to Area 51, and Teal'C back to the Jaffa. Wait a year and try to talk Richard Dean Anderson into an SG-1 movie.
Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday (Score:1)
Atlantis followed the same route.. where the interplay between the species hinges on differences in their propensities.
I'm not seeing that in 9-10.. im seeing tactical blunders a first grader could point out, blatant allusions to current politics.. in short.. its selling out and the writers are getting lazy.
Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday (Score:2)
The show is dead and gone...all that remains is the shell.
Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday (Score:5, Funny)
Hey, I only came here because I thought SGI had come up with a Gizmo to make Dells explode
Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday (Score:3, Funny)
Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday (Score:4, Funny)
Those of us still at work, "being productive".
Re:slashback, pathetisad, friday (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Backslash? Slashback? (Score:2)