Posts by Handy Plough

Dash to Panel maintainer quits after donations drive becomes dash to disaster

> Wrong on at least 3 counts.

Liam, you need to stop hanging around on the Orange Site so much.

On point 1, since IGnatius T Foobar ! referred to 'Mac', I'm counting from Mac OS X Beta only, not (NeXT|OPEN)STEP, which while a direct ancestor of the Mac OS X|OS X|macOS dock, and having used NeXTSTEP in anger, it's not quite the same app (for others, yes, it's an app, see /System/Library/CoreServices/Dock.app). Since you're clearly wearing your OS name pedant hat, it's NeXTSTEP, not "NeXTstep".

On point 2, OK, so it's a fork of a plugin that was originally designed to replicate the ([Mm]ac)? ?OS X? dock. FFS.

On point 3, never mentioned or intimated anything about the positioning of the dock. Liam, you're not "quibbling", you're clutching at straws.

I'll half concede to you on point 2, but the rest is just without merit, especially for you.

Freetards complain that people don't donate to projects, and in the next breath are scandalised when someone does something to solicit donations. They also tell you that if you need to fix or extend features or remove feature that you don't like, you can fork the project, or at least access the source code so as to fix it yourself. So why the beef? The community constantly self-sabotages...

> "We want our computer to look like a computer, not like a phone or a Mac."

macOS has had an unremovable dock for 25 years, which this plugin precisely aims to imitate.

Essential FOSS tools to make macOS suck less

Re: There's one feature I miss, and it was ruined by Apple

Obligatory xkcd https://xkcd.com/1172/

Apple's alleged UK encryption battle sparks political and privacy backlash

Re: US trying to push other countries around?

Ordinarily, I'd agree. However, they are bang to rights here. This law, as has been pointed out since its inception, is not only harmful, it is arrogantly foolish and impossible to implement securely. The UK government has been told this many times, but have their heads up their assholes,

Linux royalty backs adoption of Rust for kernel code, says its rise is inevitable

> I am enough of a Reg reader to know that the kernel has not migrated to GPL3 because it would be Hard.

Linus Torvalds has publicly stated that he doesn't like the GPLv3, let alone the politics that surround it and those of the FSF. It has little to do with how theoretically hard it would be, and more to do with the opinion of Linus that the GPLv3 is a bad license.

Apple auto-opts everyone into having their photos analyzed by AI for landmarks

Somebody, much like Jeff Johnson, doesn't understand what homomorphic encryption is...

Apple shrugs off BBC complaint with promise to 'further clarify' AI content

Re: It must not be forgotten..

HA HA HA HA! BBC and CNN interested in "the Truth"? Bollocks. Utter, complete bollocks.

Jury spares Qualcomm's AI PC ambitions, but Arm eyes a retrial

That about sums up the FSF philosophy.

Apple called on to ditch AI headline summaries after BBC debacle

They're using ChatGTP...

Hang on. Has it occurred to anyone that a 'bad' summary might just be a reflection on a poorly written article? I mean, this is BBC News - just another example of sensationalist churnalism that is a result of 24 hour news...

Apple Intelligence summary botches a headline, causing jitters in BBC newsroom

Re: Apple's response :

In all seriousness, for nearly all AI products, that's a good answer to the fuckwits that are using it inappropriately. Seriously, there are only a handful of people in the world I'd trust with a feature phone, let alone modern computers and

LLMs...

Raspberry Pi 500 and monitor arrive in time for Christmas

Re: Pictures, pictures, pictures

That whooshing sound you're hearing is the point of this device rushing past you at great speed...

M4 MacBook Pro shows Apple is still glued to the idea of unfixable laptops

Re: MacBook Pro

Bullshit - both you and your colleague are clearly just too thick to install software.

Apple throws shade on pokey AI PCs, claims its maxed out M4 chips are 4x faster

YAAAAWWWWWWNNNNNNN.

That is, to quote the great sage Vyvyan Basterd, the single most predictable and BORING thing that anyone could ever say whilst commenting on a thread about Apple.

San Francisco billboards call out tech firms for not paying for open source

Re: This is a bit confused.

Came here to say something similar. Surely employing people to work on the FOSS projects that the company uses is a good thing? I'm sure there are plenty of those die-hard fossers that will complain about "special interests" or something, but isn't this one of the models that was first proposed?

Keir Starmer tells regulators to chill as Microsoft exec takes wheel of advisory council

Don't want to bring up the "B" word, but I tried explaining the notion that "unelected officials" is exactly how government works in the UK. It seems a large portion of the country is under the assumption that governments make laws and decisions. The Civil Service is very good at perpetuating that myth, to be fair...

Apple macOS 15 Sequoia is officially UNIX. If anyone cares...

Re: But is it though?

Well, it clearly passed the Open Groups test suite and met their requirements, so yeah, it is.

They (Apple) used the name UNIX in marketing for Tiger(?). The Open Group were displeased and sued. Apple decided to certify as it was cheaper than litigation or buying The Open Group, and they've certified ever since. It means that Apple can bid on contracts with organisations that require UNIX certification. It's also why Solaris, HP-UX and AIX are all still a thing, even though FOSS alternatives exist. That said, I'm surprised at this stage that SLES, Red Hat and Canonical haven't certified their products yet.

Re: I always thought Mac OS was a skin over BSD

If you look into the design of NeXTSTEP, it's was extremely advanced for its time. To be fair, even by modern standards, it still stands up. As Liam points out, the kernel is a hybrid of MACH and 386BSD, and the networking stack is BSD, much like Windows and Linux too (happy to be stood corrected on that on). Most of what was NeXTSTEP can still be found in modern macOS. Avie Tevanian and Bertrand Serlet are very clever chaps indeed...

Switching customers from Linux to BSD because boring is good

Re: FreeBSD predates Mac OS X

Then NeXT/OpenSTEP/Mac OS X/macOS are essentially *the same* as they stem from the same branch of Unix.

Re: Don't forget 386BSD!

The Berkeley Software Distribution go back to the 1970’s! It literally predates Linux by over a decade. What we have today are in essence forks of the original BSD. Nearly all the BSDs and commercial UNIX OSs (including Darwin) can trace direct lineage in some way back to the Unix of Ritchie and Thompson.

Epic accuses Apple of foul play over iOS access, wants EU to show DMA red card

Re: STF Non apple fan boys

The problem here is that Epic is an immoral org whose sole existence is to nickel and dime kids. Yes, yes, “won’t somebody think of the children?!” Though in this case, it about death by a thousand paper cuts for parents. Micropayments, and abused by cunts like Tim Sweeney are vile, and it would be great to see the EU hammering these shiesters hard. By supporting them, they are implicitly supporting the notion that constant micropayments for shitty games is fine. Be under no illusion, Tim Sweeney want to lock you in to his store to charge you what he wants, and that’s fine, just don’t tell me that this is about frEeDhUM!!1! - this is a late stage capitalist complaining that he can’t fleece you the way he wants to.

Microsoft hits go on Windows 11 24H2: Fresh features, bugs, and a whole lotta AI

But will it continue to convert my corporate issued Thinkpad into an overspecced hot plate?

Germany's Sovereign Tech Fund throws cash at FreeBSD and Samba

I think you’re referring to userland in Apple’s case, which is different. The POSIX layer of XNU was 4.3BSD derived. The userland tooling came from FreeBSD. The primary reason that Linux wasn’t a consideration for the XNU Kernel is that Linux didn’t exist in the late 89’s when XNU was being developed at NeXT. They did use to use some GNU utilities in userland, BASH arguably being the most prominent- and a project that Apple contributed to, until the GPLv3 stupidity - hence 3.whatever being the version shipped with macOS today. Though now almost everyone on macOS uses the superior ZShell, I can see them dropping BASH soon too.

The real significance of Apple's Macintosh

Re: IPhone

Are you actually suggestiong that Apple designed, developed and built the complex supply chain in a shade under 2 1/2 months? Pssst, your fandroid is showing...

The Land Before Linux: Let's talk about the Unix desktops

Re: No, FreeBSD lost out due to the legal issues, not the GPL

Well, that’s a take.

The reason - and by the way, interest in the BSDs is growing, albeit slowly, largely due to foot-guns like systemd - is that while there was FUD around BSD, GNU/Linux grew roots and established itself. GPL v2 is also a much less me onerous license than v3 too - note that Linus is not a fan of v3 - and far friendlier for business generally.

The rise and fall of the standard user interface

Re: Torn

I always wondered this, then I remeber that GNU/FSF has always suffered from NIH syndrome...

Re: I have not!

Apple never followed CUA. Why would they? It came well after they had written and distributed their HIG (Human Interface Guidelines). The significant majority, if not all, of keyboard shortcuts that existed on the Mac 40 years ago still exist on the platform today.

Re: Got history completely wrong

> "Apple invented almost all of this, _de novo_."

Sacrilege!

Re: Motif?

Couldn't agree more with your first sentence. I saw one recently lamenting, completely unironically, the fact that the BSD's don't use "standard Unix tools..."!

Apple's on-device gen AI for the iPhone should surprise no-one. The way it does it might

Kagi is awesome. Yes, you have to pay, but for the $9.99 per month you get no tracking, no ads and accurate results. It's an extremely fair trade, and it works really well.

KDE 6 hits RC-1 while KDE 5 brings fresh spin on OpenBSD

Re: ... only distantly related a third of a century back.

Because that is not what the BSDs are about. They each offer a complete OS, not a distribution of a Kernel and GNU userland with other bit bolted on.

What if Microsoft had given us Windows XP 2024?

Re: Is this fixed in 2024?

> But tell me, do you have an actual use case for more than 255 characters?

Bless. You've clearly never worked with architects or engineers. Every file in it's own folder, long descriptive file names. Whether or not it's a valid use case is moot - they will have spent weeks and months designing the folder hierarchy - without consulting IT - and expect it to work to their will.

CLIs are simply wizard at character building. Let’s not keep them to ourselves

Re: Intuitive GUI? My arse.

I think you're confusing 'intuitive' with 'simple' old chap. Let's be honest, the computer thingys can do considerably more that they used to be able too. Add the incessant pressure from customers and the tech press (looking at you El Reg) for iNnOvasHun!!1!, and things get messy, quickly.

The 15-inch MacBook Air just nails it

Read the article?!

You must be new here.

Re: Can see that

I have a p14s and within days of taking it out of the box, the USB-C connector felt loose and cables fell out regularly. I'm genuinely not being hyperbolic here either. I've had a succession of Lenovo ThinkPads, and at this stage can only say that they are riding on the coat tails of IBMs build quality. The last 4 I have had have all universally been awful.

Chromebooks are problematic for profits and planet, says Lenovo exec

Re: Chromebooks sell to education...

As omeone that works with F500 organisations specifically in the field of email security, "Most corporate don't use Outlook locally anymore." is very much a case of 'citation needed'.

Re: Bad for the environment?

To be fair, that is true of most laptops with regards to Linux...

GhostBSD makes FreeBSD a little less frightening for the Linux loyal

> It's getting more and more closed and locked-down

I see this time and again. And it's bollocks. I expect better from you, Liam. The feeling of being 'locked-down', as I'm sure you know, is largely down to SIP. This can very easily be disabled, but I wouldn't recommend it. Frankly, KEXTs are a terrible idea, no software should mess with the network stack or the kernel, and the /bin and /sbin should be treated as sacrosanct by the OS if needs be. And yes, developers should absolutely sign their code. Apple should make it easier for developers to do this, but by the same token, forcing it is a good thing.

Apple lifts the sheet on a trio of 'scary fast' M3 SoCs built on a 3nm process

Re: We need a new metric

Do you use a Mac in an office environment?

Forcing Apple to allow third-party app stores isn't enough

Re: It's not whether the App Store is good or bad...

Revisionism at its finest. Having the monopoly on search and ramming chrome down everyone's throats has no bearing at all?

Re: It's not whether the App Store is good or bad...

Because for an IT site, "wrappers around Safari' is so spectacularly incorrect, it's funny. Mozilla, Google and Microsoft, or whomever else wants to write [i]a browser[/i] can add, within reason, any functionality they want, provided that they use (in simple terms that some that this 'just a wrapper for Safari) WebKit. So downvoted for lazy, incorrect comment and you for being a coward and the MAGA comment.

Can open source be saved from the EU's Cyber Resilience Act?

Re: EC <> European Council in this context

It is, despite your constant attempts at butchering the language.

Steve, have the courage to post publicly. Also, my copy-editing is as good as this site's, it would appear.

I rarely, if ever agree with what you say - but you are on the money (if you'll excuse the pun) with this! If you're making money out of open source, then take responsibility for what you're monetising!

Vaughn-Nichols has always been an awful journalist.

GNOME developer proposes removing the X11 session

Re: Coming to a fork in the road

If you want an old-school UNIX-y feel, why not move to one of the BSDs? They don't seem to have any of the bat-shittyness that goes on with modern Linux desktops.

Lenovo PC boss: 4 in 5 of our devices will be repairable by 2025

Is this in response to the utterly shite build quality they've been churning out the last few year?

Europe wants easy default browser selection screens. Mozilla is already sounding the alarm on dirty tricks

Re: Probably an unpopular view here

No. But there is 1Blocker and AdGuard, which aren't necessarily as good as uBlock Origin and don't do a bad job blocking ads.

Lightning struck: Apple switches to USB-C for iPhone 15 lineup

Yes, Apple kept Lightning so they could fleece the sheep. This line of thinking is so arrogantly stupid, there is no point in countering.