DR-DOS was more than alright, if Microsoft hadn't smothered it the computing world would look very very different today …
I'm sure this is a mostly forgotten part of computing lore; apologies for the Gemini's Overview:
“Microsoft actively stifled DR-DOS in the early 1990s through anti-competitive tactics, primarily using the "AARD code" in Windows 3.1, which deliberately created compatibility errors to scare users away from the competing operating system. Microsoft also used FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) tactics, such as hinting at future incompatibilities.
Key Tactics Used by Microsoft:
The AARD Code: Windows 3.1 installer contained heavily obfuscated code, discovered in 1992, that specifically checked if the system was running DR-DOS. If detected, it displayed a fake "Non-Fatal Error" message to induce panic.
Vaporware Announcements: Microsoft announced upcoming versions of MS-DOS to dampen demand for current versions of DR-DOS.
OEM Pressure: Microsoft leveraged its monopoly to ensure pre-installed Windows came with MS-DOS, hindering DR-DOS's retail market success.
While Digital Research released a patch (the "business update") to bypass the AARD code, the damage to market perception and OEM deals was significant. The case was later part of legal battles between Caldera (which acquired DR-DOS) and Microsoft.”
Yeah we know of the issues, and related lawsuits, and here we are OEMs still only sell GNU/Linux devices on their online shops, leaving to regular consumer stores Android, WebOS and Chromebooks.
Ah, and Valve had to come up with Proton, as game studios can't be bothered to natively target GNU/Linux.
It depends. For a lot of hardware it's actually easier to get working on linux, because the driver is just part of the kernel and you don't have to do anything special, including manually installing drivers, to get it working.
There are some cases where hardware support on Linux is suboptimal, such as Nvidia cards and many fingerprint readers, but things are a LOT better now than they used to be. Most consumer laptops and desktops will run linux just fine.
In 2022 we got new zen 5 amd cpus almost when they came out, windows did not recognize a bunch of stuff and had to find and download individual drivers. In linux (ubuntu) everything worked out of the box, except only that the LTS release did not support the kernel that supported the new mobos yet and had to install the rolling release instead.
Correct again -- CC- applies to data, not code -- weights are data, open weights suggests a creative commons approach …
“
CC-BY 4.0
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
This license requires that reusers give credit to the creator. It allows reusers to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format, even for commercial purposes.
BY
Credit must be given to you, the creator.
”
it's annoying the open source term is being cargo-culted around and I hate to say it but that ship looks like it has sailed.
funny that free software people were infuriated by the open source term and now the open source term is being completely misused in another context
Correct. (and I know you already know this but just for the record: (Nearly?) Everybody abuses the term "open source" when it comes to models. OSI have a post about it: https://opensource.org/ai/open-weights
“Oil and gas prices jump after US-proxy Israel attacks Iranian gasfield infrastructure, and after Iran responds in kind after having promised to do so.”
is a headline that reflects reality and doesn't finesse the details -- I should really become a headline writer, I'm clearly better than whoever is employed by The Guardian.
At the very least it should be "Oil and gas prices jump after Israel and then Iran attack gasfields"
Putting Iran first might lead some to believe this was Iran-initiated, which of course is probably the intention.
it clearly and demonstrably does not. in fact, from eyeballing their chart Qwen, Kimi, and GLM scale linearly whereas Leanstral does not. But this is not surprising because the Alibaba, Moonshot, and Zhipu have hundreds of employees each and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment each.
two AIs -- I use Claude Code and Kimi CLI -- I got them to build an agent relay so they can communicate with each other (one plans, the other reviews the plan; one builds, the other reviews the build) -- while one is working on one thing, I'll be chatting and exploring with the other one … they can build anything in any language so if you are a skilled and experienced code you should be able to guide a pair of coding agents no problem.
Otoh -- if there is this bifurcation among coders (one group super-excited, one group depressed and angst-ridden) then maybe we should be trying to figure out why people are reacting the way they are. Can you explain more about your situation? What do you code? Do you have hobby projects? Do you have free time? Etc.
i've been thinking about why we call them agent harnesses
i know all analogies suck in different ways but here goes:
coding agents are like horses. without a harness and bridle they'll the horse will do as it pleases -- a human can't travel very far and fast by foot but put a bridle and a harness on a horse, give it a bit of coaxing with carrot and stick, add in a bit a pointing the thing in the right direction and bingo you're off to the races!
I'm sure this is a mostly forgotten part of computing lore; apologies for the Gemini's Overview:
“Microsoft actively stifled DR-DOS in the early 1990s through anti-competitive tactics, primarily using the "AARD code" in Windows 3.1, which deliberately created compatibility errors to scare users away from the competing operating system. Microsoft also used FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) tactics, such as hinting at future incompatibilities.
Key Tactics Used by Microsoft:
While Digital Research released a patch (the "business update") to bypass the AARD code, the damage to market perception and OEM deals was significant. The case was later part of legal battles between Caldera (which acquired DR-DOS) and Microsoft.”https://share.google/aimode/JJs7wliOGtvnme6LY” [Tech Monitor/Wikipedia]
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