Forbes rewrites the history of open source
Submitted by srlinuxx on Mon, 08/18/2008 - 10:19.
In the name of defining jargon, Forbes this week tries a complete rewrite of open source history. This is accomplished by someone named Dan Woods, who calls his company Evolved Media.
Woods does this by ignoring Eric Raymond’s ground-breaking The Cathedral and the Bazaar, making Richard Stallman the father of something he frankly detests.
Stallman personally lectured me on this when I first took this beat, so I’m not getting this from examining fossils or old newspaper clippings. It’s from the horse’s mouth.
Stallman believes in free software. What he now (reluctantly) calls the Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) movement defines four freedoms for code — freedom to hold it, to see it, to fix it and to keep others from stealing the fix.
These freedoms — critics call the fourth an obligation to give away improvements – are expressed through the General Public License (GPL).
A revolution on open source ? Using embedded runtime codes ?
Open source had to use GCC compiler? Try to catch up with sloppy maintainers? Want to give up on perl, python and php? Then, see what those function keys can do on some keyboards?
So, what if you designed a computer system that is so simple that you can program runtime codes by extended ascii data compression codes and direct cpu to run the computer thru USB devices(registered IPv6 devices). USB device when hotplugged can send a webpage for congiguration you desired to the computer console.
There is no open source that can be programmed. Risc(DSP) plus asic(FPGA) plus L1/L2 cache in 4 kb pages, handles all the computer functions. Runtime codes are merely Browser function keys(on toolbars and taskbars).
In the end, who needs open source of missing bindings that can be fixed by symlinks. Big deal GNU/Linux bloated by symlinks of open source community(FOSS).
Welcome to efficiency.
Footnote:
ASIC(application specific integrated circuit) is the key to function programmable device. Many computer functions can be hardware oriented which give speedier solution than software. It is a solution to use hardware more than software for efficiency. Conventional cpu design is risc to cisc via asic. So, if asic provides regular but very complex computer functions, long instructions thru branch prediction can be very efficient, indeed.
Funny that branch prediction is merely speller confined by a dictionary?