5 ms·

Tv's too should have open firmware. Not to make RMS happy, but to protect savvy consumers from monumentally idiotic or short-sighted decisions made during the d

Tv's too should have open firmware. Not to make RMS happy, but to protect savvy consumers from monumentally idiotic or short-sighted decisions made during the design. You can't make it perfect, leave the door open so your customers can. I expect Apple will solve this problem in their usual way; pick slightly less stupid settings and lock those in. In this case, the difference will be stunning and people will marvel at how those apple tv's can look so good.

ableal 15y ago
> Not to make RMS happy, but to protect savvy consumers from monumentally idiotic Hrrm ... that was RMS's point, way back when, with some printer, if memory serves ...
- slowpoke 15y ago
  I think that's exactly what your parent meant (or at least my interpretation of it). Some people might not (want to) believe it but there's actually a whole lot of very valid reasoning behind what RMS is advocating. We shouldn't desire open systems because RMS said so, we should do it because of what he said.
baddox 15y ago
I'm pretty sure that's what RMS's reasoning was as well. You make it sound like RMS just arbitrarily chose to desire openness.
- schiffern 15y ago
  RMS would disagree. Noonespecial is making an "open-source" argument: that open software is better than closed software, where 'better' is some combination of less buggy, better designed, more secure, etc. RMS specifically disagrees with this principle, right down to the semantics (preferring the term 'free software' to 'open source'). "Free software" is better because it promotes freedom, i.e. it cannot be used by the designer to oppress others. In RMS's worldview, software freedom is an inherent good, not a derivative good. "Many eyes make all bug shallow" is nice, but for him it's a side-benefit. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
redthrowaway 15y ago
>I expect Apple will solve this problem in their usual way; pick slightly less stupid settings and lock those in. As someone who's dealt with the inimitable joy of trying to get an MBP to work with an HDTV, Apple's "usual way" appears to be to code to the standards and to hell with anyone who breaks them (or the users stuck with non-compliant products). This appears to apply to wifi as well. There's been an open bug in OSX for years involving OSX assgining its own DHCP lease when it fails to negotiate one with the router. This results in the dreaded "Self-assigned IP" message, which is nigh-on impossible to rid yourself of short of voodoo dolls and wifi dances.
- jrmg 15y ago
  This appears to apply to wifi as well. There's been an open bug in OSX for years involving OSX assgining its own DHCP lease when it fails to negotiate one with the router. This results in the dreaded "Self-assigned IP" message, which is nigh-on impossible to rid yourself of short of voodoo dolls and wifi dances. Getting a bit off-topic here, but that's not a bug: it's assigning itself a valid zeroconf* address because the DHCP server is not responding. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_configuration_networking#Address_selection http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_configuration_networking#A...
  - kwamenum86 15y ago
    "code to the standards and to hell with anyone who breaks them" I think bug in this case just means that the software does not work as intended even though it follows the spec.
- calloc 15y ago
  You can simply ask Mac OS X to request another DHCP address when it comes up with Self-assigned IP. The Self-assigned IP address is actually in a range that is specified in the RFC 3927 [1]. This is mainly done so that if it joins a network without a DHCP server it can still communicate with other hosts on the network, just not the outside. Also, in my experience Apple's DHCP agent will re-request an IP address after having assigned itself a self-assigned IP address. This generally takes about a minute or so, in that time the DHCP server can then reply once again. I've never had issues with this at all. [1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3927.txt http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3927.txt
nitrogen 15y ago
Back in the standard definition days, I loved my HTPC and the tvtime software (http://tvtime.sf.net/ http://tvtime.sf.net/). It was the next best thing to having an open firmware TV. It was also possible to get zero lag between the capture card and the video card by bypassing the CPU and having the capture card write directly to the video card's memory (using xawtv instead of tvtime).

ableal 15y ago

> Not to make RMS happy, but to protect savvy consumers from monumentally idiotic Hrrm ... that was RMS's point, way back when, with some printer, if memory serves ...

slowpoke 15y ago
I think that's exactly what your parent meant (or at least my interpretation of it). Some people might not (want to) believe it but there's actually a whole lot of very valid reasoning behind what RMS is advocating. We shouldn't desire open systems because RMS said so, we should do it because of what he said.

baddox 15y ago

I'm pretty sure that's what RMS's reasoning was as well. You make it sound like RMS just arbitrarily chose to desire openness.

schiffern 15y ago
RMS would disagree. Noonespecial is making an "open-source" argument: that open software is better than closed software, where 'better' is some combination of less buggy, better designed, more secure, etc. RMS specifically disagrees with this principle, right down to the semantics (preferring the term 'free software' to 'open source'). "Free software" is better because it promotes freedom, i.e. it cannot be used by the designer to oppress others. In RMS's worldview, software freedom is an inherent good, not a derivative good. "Many eyes make all bug shallow" is nice, but for him it's a side-benefit. http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-for-freedom.html

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

redthrowaway 15y ago

>I expect Apple will solve this problem in their usual way; pick slightly less stupid settings and lock those in. As someone who's dealt with the inimitable joy of trying to get an MBP to work with an HDTV, Apple's "usual way" appears to be to code to the standards and to hell with anyone who breaks them (or the users stuck with non-compliant products). This appears to apply to wifi as well. There's been an open bug in OSX for years involving OSX assgining its own DHCP lease when it fails to negotiate one with the router. This results in the dreaded "Self-assigned IP" message, which is nigh-on impossible to rid yourself of short of voodoo dolls and wifi dances.

jrmg 15y ago
This appears to apply to wifi as well. There's been an open bug in OSX for years involving OSX assgining its own DHCP lease when it fails to negotiate one with the router. This results in the dreaded "Self-assigned IP" message, which is nigh-on impossible to rid yourself of short of voodoo dolls and wifi dances. Getting a bit off-topic here, but that's not a bug: it's assigning itself a valid zeroconf* address because the DHCP server is not responding. * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_configuration_networking#Address_selection http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_configuration_networking#A...
- kwamenum86 15y ago
  "code to the standards and to hell with anyone who breaks them" I think bug in this case just means that the software does not work as intended even though it follows the spec.
calloc 15y ago
You can simply ask Mac OS X to request another DHCP address when it comes up with Self-assigned IP. The Self-assigned IP address is actually in a range that is specified in the RFC 3927 [1]. This is mainly done so that if it joins a network without a DHCP server it can still communicate with other hosts on the network, just not the outside. Also, in my experience Apple's DHCP agent will re-request an IP address after having assigned itself a self-assigned IP address. This generally takes about a minute or so, in that time the DHCP server can then reply once again. I've never had issues with this at all. [1] http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3927.txt http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3927.txt

nitrogen 15y ago

Back in the standard definition days, I loved my HTPC and the tvtime software (http://tvtime.sf.net/ http://tvtime.sf.net/). It was the next best thing to having an open firmware TV. It was also possible to get zero lag between the capture card and the video card by bypassing the CPU and having the capture card write directly to the video card's memory (using xawtv instead of tvtime).