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(LGPL License Option Added to Qt)

Espoo, Finland — Nokia today announced that its Qt cross-platform User Interface (UI) and application framework for desktop and embedded platforms will be available under the Lesser General Public License (LGPL) version 2.1 license from the release of Qt 4.5, scheduled for March 2009. Previously, Qt has been made available to the open source community under the General Public License (GPL) license. In addition, Qt will now be available from the new domain, www.qtsoftware.com.

The move to LGPL licensing will provide open source and commercial developers with more permissive licensing than GPL and so increase flexibility for developers. In addition, Qt source code repositories will be made publicly available and will encourage contributions from desktop and embedded developer communities. With these changes, developers will be able to actively drive the evolution of the Qt framework.

Qt 4.5 will also be available under commercial licensing terms, while licensing for previous versions of Qt remains unchanged. In addition, service offerings for Qt will be expanded to ensure that all Qt development projects can have access to the same levels of support, independent of the selected license.

Good news for those of us too cheap to pay the $4950 per developer multi-platform license.

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WOO-HOO! Comment threads…

(via OpenDDS)

• Java Bindings for OpenDDS
• Added the ability for using multiple repositories to provide redundant service metadata management
• Implemented the WaitSet, GuardCondition, and StatusCondition interfaces from the OMG DDS specification
• Implemented DomainParticipant::get_current_time() from formal/07-01-01
• Removed requirement for repository domain specification files
• Internal service Entity identifiers have been expanded to 128 bits
• dcps_ts.pl changes
• DCPSInfoRepo changes
• Fixed bug in DCPSInfoRepo that did not re-evaluate the compatibility and associations when QoS change is made
• Fixed bugs that affected connection establishment
• Added datalink_release_delay and removed keep_link configuration
• Fixed a potential deadlock in reliable multicast transport

See the Release Notes for details.

Having spent a lot of time working with VMS, I have mixed feelings about FreeVMS:

Goals

The VMS (Virtual Memory System) operating system is available only on VAX, Alpha and Itanium processors, and in spite of its undeniable qualities, its future seems uncertain. The FreeVMS project tends to the coding of an operating system under the GPL licence according to the specifications of the VMS systems. This operating system has to function at least on I386 architecture. It is developed using the C language.

I may have to try it out…

(via OpenDDS)

• More QoS features have been implemented
• dispose() notifications have been added
• Added IPv6 support
• Improved memory management
• Multicast transport improvements
• Implemented Changeable QoS policies
• Use multiple DCPSInfoRepos
• Documentation updates
• New tests and examples

See the Release Notes for details.

Back when I was developing shiphandling simulator software, I ran into situations where it was necessary to convert decimal degrees to degrees, minutes, and seconds (for example, nautical types like to express latitude/longitude using degrees, minutes, and seconds while computers prefer decimal degrees).

Here's some C++ functions which handle the conversion between these two formats:

std::string DMS::DegreesMinutesSeconds(double ang,
                                       unsigned int num_dec_places = 2)
std::string DMS::DegreesMinutesSecondsLat(double ang,
                                          unsigned int num_dec_places = 2)
std::string DMS::DegreesMinutesSecondsLon(double ang,
                                          unsigned int num_dec_places = 2)

double DMS::DecimalDegrees(const std::string& dms)

These are inline functions defined in the header file, dms.h:

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(via mit.edu)

Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) was a mainframe timesharing operating system that began at MIT as a research project in 1965. It was an important influence on operating system development.

…

In order to preserve the ideas and innovations that made Multics so important in the development of computer systems, Bull HN has provided the source code for the final Multics release, MR 12.5 of November 1992 to MIT. It is a generous contribution to computer science knowledge and is provided for academic purposes. Additionally, we intend this site to become a repository for many papers and documents that were created during the Multics development as a complement to the other Multics sites.

Check out: Multics Source and Listings.

Here’s some C++ functions which evaluate Chebyshev polynomials:

T₀(x):
double T0(double x) ;

T₁(x):
double T1(double x) ;

T₂(x):
double T2(double x) ;

T_n(x):
double Tn(unsigned int n, double x) ;

These are inline functions defined in the header file, chebyshev.h:

OpenDDS:

OpenDDS is an open source C++ implementation of the Object Management Group (OMG) Data Distribution Service (DDS). OpenDDS leverages the Adaptive Communication Environment (ACE) to provide a cross platform environment.

OpenDDS is supported by Object Computing, Inc.

Download OpenDDS here.

I'm a GENIUS! I want to dispute sentence structure with SUSAN SONTAG!!