Slashdot Mirror

Surprise! Such a service does exist, and at the prices I mentioned. $10/month for tethered downloads plus $1/song you want to keep. It's MusicNow, and I saw it listed in a BusinessWeek story linked to from pressplay's website.

Those comments alone would have been a direct violation of our AIX contract with IBM, under which they license our Unix intellectual property.

Pretty provocative "rephrasing here," which I can't take seriously. Maybe I'm ignorant (IANAL and all) but how does a business decision to change focus violate their contract? I really do wonder if I've missed something here.

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In IBM's case, they came back and said, "If you go down this path, we are going to disengage. We are not going to do any more business with you, and we are going to encourage others not to do any more business with you." That was in fact what happened. The impact was immediate and swift. No doubt, we lost some business and some revenue.

Again, I'm wondering how creative he's getting with IBM's statements. I'd love to hear THEIR side of the story.

And as for losing business, it sounds like SCO hasn't been doing well period.

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And IBM took the same team that had been working on a Unix code project with us and moved them over to work on Linux code. If you look at the code we believe has been copied in, it's not just a line or two, it's an entire section -- and in some cases, an entire program.

Or is this an example of programmers reusing their own ideas? Using similar ideas? And, can we see this evidence YET?

Until I see reviewed evidence, I'm not buying anything.

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We would be happy to sit down and get a resolution on this so we can all live together peacefully. But when we file a legal claim and then someone does a denial-of-service attack on our Web site to try to shut us down, it creates concerns for us as to how can you work with this community.

Remember, that DOS launcher represents the entire Linux using community in its entirety. This statement alone shows both contempt for the OS community and extraordinarily small-minded thinking.

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Q: Microsoft just purchased a Unix license from you. What's significant about that?
A: They agree with our approach to intellectual property. They've taken a patent license on our technology to build better integration between Unix and Windows. I believe that sends a statement to others with respect to what it means to honor intellectual property.

Saying Microsoft agrees with him on something is not necessarily going to make him popular among the people he's already annoying. This guy not only burned any bridges with the Linux community, now he's putting mines in the river.

The suspicious timing of the deal is something he should have addressed. This sounds like boilerplate-speak.

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I believe the way the open-source community works right now has some fundamental flaws that have got to be addressed. We need to address how this open-source intellectual property is developed, routed, and sold. Thousands of software developers send code to contribute to open-source projects -- but there isn't a protective device for the customer using the software to ensure they're not in violation of the law by using stolen code.

I'd ask how, with closed source, one knows for sure it doesn't contain stolen code? After all, its closed. In Open Source at least you have the source out there so things can be caught (which, supposedly, his argument that his company found stolen code proves . . .)

Sounds like he thinks the Linux community operates no different than a company.

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After reading this interview, I've come to the conclusion this guy not only doesn't get it, he

...why hasn't slashdot reported that Microsoft just licensed SCO's UNIX source code???

Is this not important-enough news, or just not old enough yet?

I'm yet to decide if this is good news or bad news. OSI's response seems to completely destroy SCO's filing... and they've found somebody we all love to hate to take up their cause.

I find this to be horribly unfortunate. Why is it that for one sex to excel, the other pays a price? This isn't right.

WW2 Civilian Deaths ~30 million

Korean War Civilian Deaths ~2 million

Vietnam Civilian Deaths (both sides) less than 400,000

Gulf War I 13,000.

Yugoslavia~500

Afganistan ~3000

~2500

Clearly the number of civilian deaths is dramatically "improving". What most people don't seem to realize is that the philosophy of warefare has fundamentally changed over the course of the century. During WW2 civilians were not avoided as they were seen as an integral part of the war effort, and because there was no way to avoid them if you wanted to (due to inaccurate weapons). In modern day, we have the later, and disagree with the former. Of course, if you are one who believes that the US intentionally kills civilians, then nothing that I say will convince you otherwise.

Speaking as someone who in the past has managed budgets of up to five million US dollars for a global investment bank (I was a line manager, and that was my project budget) Microsofts well documented Predatory Pricing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

Now I'm not an anti-Microsofter; I have a complex love / hate thing going for them.

I remember CPM / DOS quite well, and wondering why I couldn't use a GUI like I had at work (SparcStations) and the absolute joy when windows 3.0 then 3.1, etc came along.

And then there are their Office applications and generally well received development tools. I like lots of things about their products - accelerator keys rock, for example! So they've done some good.

But then they've got to go and destroy all the good will towards them by simply insisting that they will own all of it.

So if I have a choice between Microsoft and anyone else, I'll go with the latter. The industry as a whole has been damaged enough by Redmonds behaviour.

I have seen the Register article before but had trouble believing it. It's such a blatant conflict of interest. Do lives not matter anymore? Does Bill Gates not know where to draw the line in his conquest?

Fire up a Bloomberg search for top officers in Worldcom, Enron, Microsoft, and other big rollers if you really want to lose all faith.

Jeffrey M. Birnbaum, 37, is managing director for computing at brokerage giant Morgan Stanley's Institutional Securities Div. He's so buttoned-down that he wears a suit on Casual Friday. You would think this cog in the capitalist machine would have nothing in common with young Walker. But Birnbaum is betting Morgan Stanley's (MWD ) technology future on the kinds of software projects, called "open source," that Walker participates in.

Birnbaum has fallen hard for Linux, a penny-pinching open-source alternative to computer operating systems such as Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT ) Windows and Sun Microsystems Inc.'s (SUNW ) Solaris. He's busy replacing 4,000 high-powered servers running traditional software with much cheaper machines running Linux. Projected five-year savings: up to $100 million. Does it bother him that counterculture kids like Walker have a hand in Linux? Not a bit. "We see their work, and it's good," he says.

This guy IS Mr Upper Management. Maybe we could ask him? I am sure there are /.ers who work at MSDW. I am sure he would be glad to be featured on slashdot....It's every geeks dream come true.

I'm sure they will sell many times more music once iTunes for Windows comes out. Don't believe me? Go to jobs.apple.com, click Job Search, and enter job requisition number 1949938.

There have been cases where software bugs in medical equipment killed people. In those cases, there would be strong precedent for product liability lawsuits.

Suppliers to the military are harder to sue, which is probably good news to the folks whose bugs killed soldiers when their mortar targeting software made incorrect assumptions about target altitude or when a Patriot missile targeting system's clock overflowed after 8 hours.

For further reading on software liability issues, see this Business Week article, which was discussed on /. and badsoftware.com, which surveys software liability issues from a consumer's perspective.

As usual, the lawyers are not at responsible here. They are the lap dogs of the corporation. Let's talk to the people who are going to be most affected and who are most responsible.

For example:
Spira, James C.
Director and COO at American Greetings
As of 2003-01-06 Reported to own 210,000 shares of American Greetings. As of this post, his holdings are probably worth approx 2.95 million USD.

List of Officers at American Greetings

But it should be noted that currently American Greetings is in the process of changing their executives, so it's unclear who would actually be responsible for these kinds of positions/acts.

Insider Trade Filings for American Greetings (Give you an idea of who's interested in making money off the stock)

Z.

Here are some links to reputable sources that underscore the problem in Chinese society.

Please read " Singapore implicated as piracy hub". This article has a chart showing that the rate of movie piracy for China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan is 91%, 25%, and 44%, respectively. Contrast these shocking figures with figures for normal Western countries like Australia and Japan; their rate of movie piracy is 8%.

Please read " China Learns to Say, 'Stop, Thief!'". It explains that Chinese society has a software piracy rate of 92% in 2002 and claims that this figure is an improvement over the rate of 94% in 2001.

This problem of pirating movies and software is a cultural problem, not a legal problem. Most Chinese simply believe that stealing intellectual property is acceptable.

And this is based on what facts and years of experience in economics? How about all the republicans who have voiced opposition to the tax cuts or allen greenspan's recommendation the tax cut is foolish and inappropriate given the current economic conditions. Does the president really think he knows better than 100's of experts who collectively have several hundreds years of experience with economics. For god sake, read both sides of the story and think for yourself. How about article by business week, usa today, capitalist mag, abc news, or washington times. there are articles for and against the tax cuts. Tax cuts are only good when spending is kept in check as others have stated. Trickle down economics doesn't work as the 80's proved. Finding a good balance is tough, and luckily the president has to convince the senate and congress.

the massacre continues

Actually the more accurate figure was around 200,000. And of course that says nothing about the many who died after as a result of sanctions (the figure often heard is at least 500,000 Iraqi children alone, that according to the UN) or those who died after the war as a result of the intentional bombing of Iraqi water supplies.

I just read that Microsoft's XML spec for documents is going to embed script macros anywhere within the XML document. The founder of Sophos says that this is going to make detecting viruses harder and slower since the whole document must be examined instead of just the macro section and that sending these documents in email could soon be an easy way to Dos mail gateway servers. Argh!

or read from other sources.

I hope we actually see this one.

Samsung released showed their wrist phone in 1999, and never released it.

2-3 others have had a try on the same concept but never have released them.

The reason I would buy one immediatly, (I actually was looking for the smallest cell phone I could find last night...) is because sometimes, all I want is a cellphone that is completely unobtrusive, and can't be lost easily. During the day, I wear a cellphone with everything under the sun in it (camera, email, IM, calendar, etc) , and it feels like a brick. But at night, or going out.... I hate the @#%@%$

What is the smallest cellphone you guys have seen, that is actually being sold????

Thanks

Mabidex

The SDR actually has impressive balancing capabilities.

Look at this video clip to check it out: Video

Q: People are asking why you're charging so much for Jaguar, the new OS X update.
A: We came out with OS X 10.0 in May, 2001, at $129. That's our usual price for paid upgrades. Last fall, we came out with 10.1 Normally, we would decide to charge $129, but because we wanted to help the adoption of OS X, we made it free to our customers. Now, with 10.2, it's $129 again, same as it always has been. I think a year and a half before charging for an upgrade is very reasonable. And we included 150 new features in Jaguar. That's a lot for your money.

Q: But people are conditioned to big Mac releases coming out every three years or so, no?
A: Actually, that's not true. If you follow the path over the last five years, there has been a major paid release approximately once a year, and a minor release that we didn't charge for on a half-year increment.

Q: People are asking why you're charging so much for Jaguar, the new OS X update.
A: We came out with OS X 10.0 in May, 2001, at $129. That's our usual price for paid upgrades. Last fall, we came out with 10.1 Normally, we would decide to charge $129, but because we wanted to help the adoption of OS X, we made it free to our customers. Now, with 10.2, it's $129 again, same as it always has been. I think a year and a half before charging for an upgrade is very reasonable. And we included 150 new features in Jaguar. That's a lot for your money.

Q: But people are conditioned to big Mac releases coming out every three years or so, no?
A: Actually, that's not true. If you follow the path over the last five years, there has been a major paid release approximately once a year, and a minor release that we didn't charge for on a half-year increment.

Q: But people are conditioned to big Mac releases coming out every three years or so, no?

A: Actually, that's not true. If you follow the path over the last five years, there has been a major paid release approximately once a year, and a minor release that we didn't charge for on a half-year increment.

DOW HAS BEST WEEK SINCE 1982...

DOLLAR HITS MULTI-MONTH HIGHS..."

OIL PRICES PLUNGE... with US crude at $26.30. This puts it at about the same price back during the heating oil crunch of 2000. Business Week figures that even the recent spike in oil prices will not lead to a recession, because of usage cutbacks & OPEC surplus.

GOLD DROPS BELOW $330... where it was back in december. And even at the recent peak, it's lower than it was in 1995, the start of the boom.

In about a month, the war will be over. Not only will we have thrown out a bloody dictator (freeing his citizens from harm), but we open up their nation for economic progress. Not only will we rebuild what we've destroyed (which if you've noticed, a strong effort is being made to keep this minimal), but we will upgrade them to modern technology. Power plants, water systems, industry, hospitals, roads... all of this means american jobs & products. With embargos removed, Iraq can produce at it's true output, flooding the oil market (destroying whatever little power OPEC & the saudi's have left) and the free markets win. Everyone benefits, the economies boom, and life goes on!

(On a personal note as an Electrical Engineer, my company's 2002 average was a 3.5% pay raise plus a 4% bonus)

Does anyone here know the read civilian death toll from the last Iraqi war?

Most sources seem to quote somewhere between 10,000 and 100,000 Iraqi soldiers died in the Gulf War, depending on whom you read. As another poster has pointed out, the figure for civilian casualties is much more contended. See:

"BW Online: Toting the Casualties of War
http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/feb200 3/nf2003026_0167_db052.htm

Of course, this doesn't include the 1.5 million Iraqi citizens that purportedly have died as a result of sanctions over the last decade. Adjust your figures accordingly.

On to a more cynical note. The war is only justified if it kills fewer people than would have died in the remainder of Saddam's rule. Over 150,000 Iraqis, military and civilian, died as a direct result of Allied attacks in the Gulf War. That's about how many Saddam killed himself in previous gas attacks against his own people. If this war truly is about the welfare of the Iraqi people, we have to make sure it doesn't make them suffer more than they would otherwise. And we have to be ready to follow up with massive amounts of aid. Not just food and medicine, but capital and technical expertise.

As for the other reasons that justify the war? They are nonsense. Yes, Saddam has WMD, and yes, he has used them against civilian populations. AMERICA has WMD and AMERICA has used them against civilian populations twice - in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We also used chemical agents in Vietnam that cause birth defects to this day.

In the end, I think that America is very vaguely doing the right thing for the wrong reasons. This should have been done twenty years ago, and the war now doesn't even begin to make up for America's failures in the past. Maybe things will start to change (but, to be cyncial again - OF COURSE AMERICA WON'T CHANGE. America doesn't give half a shit about the rest of the world). We'll really have to wait to see who is vindicated, and who isn't.

13,000 civilians were killed directly by American and allied forces, and about 70,000 civilians died subsequently from war-related damage to medical facilities and supplies, the electric power grid, and the water system, she calculated. In all, 40,000 Iraqi soldiers were killed in the conflict, she concluded, putting total Iraqi losses from the war and its aftermath at 158,000, including 86,194 men, 39,612 women, and 32,195 children.

She was fired by the Bush administration shortly thereafter.

available here....

Businessweek says employers have lots of loopholes, not just H1-B

It's not like we haven't seen this before. Remember those shows back in the 60's? Maybe not, perhaps (like me) you werent born yet. However, the revenue model for advertising requires a "blank spot" to allow affiliated stations to do localized adverts, and to allow for updated advertising (ie, more income) on repeat showings, and syndicated programs (we're talking years and years of potential advertising income from a single TV show).

Consequently, this leaves the "ad spot" model vulernable to time shifting ala VCR or (as in my case) Tivo.

Well, Boo-fucking-Hoo. Now they're greedy and can't get themselves off the multibillion dollar habit. Their loss, my gain.

It would not make business sense to replace 399 productive full time equivalents (FTEs) with 399 people to sit and do nothing while a 400th does the work of one FTE. Yet, that is what is going on. This is bleeding the U.S. IT sector dry. It is also very damaging to the rest of th U.S. economy. In other words, harmful to the U.S. national interests (assuming maintaining a viable IT sector is one of them).

Adjusting executive compensation to merely 2 or 3 times that of the average employee would keep hundreds on staff. Anything less could be considered by some to be seditious or anti-American.

Right here.

I do a lot of work in the Contact Management industry, and I find it very interesting that this build of Longhorn includes the My Contacts item. My interest in based on the fact that Microsoft has recently released their own competing contact management system (there are 3 or 4 established players in the field) (see Business Week article here).
I really have to wonder whether this is another MS "bundling to gain market share" tactic. We'll see how this turns out, but I really have a bad feeling that the DOJ's failure to split the OS from the application side of the company is going to reduce choice and innovation even further.

Michael Dell has repeatedly stated that Apple is dead. Good thing I don't listen to him.

From a Businessweek article: 'More important, Hewlett-Packard (HPQ ), which dominates both the printer and the $7 billion toner market, has no intention of following Lexmark's course. "We believe in customer choice," says Pradeep Jotwani, the senior vice-president who heads HP's lucrative imaging-supplies business. "If they want to buy from remanufacturers, that's fine. It's our job to make them not want to."'

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"For 2003, [Overture] now expects to see revenue of more than $1 billion and earnings per share of 60 cents to 70 cents. Analysts had been expecting the company to report earnings of 91 cents per share on revenue of $1.03 billion."

Wow! Overture has better earnings per share than Microsoft! They've also beaten eBay, which is generally considered one of the most profitable Internet companies. Is pay-for-placement really so valuable that it creates a billion-dollar company? Can someone who understands this business model explain how it's making so much money?

If Overture is truly an Internet-only success story, it bodes well for the rest of us who have jobs that rely on the Internet. More profitable companies mean that the Internet will be taken more seriously and that there will be more Internet jobs, which is always a good thing!

This too is a scam. They're selling OEM or "bundled" versions that are meant to sell with new hardware.

Business Week has your art hangin'.... just get a load of Tux with that expression on his face eyeballing that butterfly.

I love it. That's as cool of a cartoon as the infamous "Take it Tux"

Bruce

Here's the gist: Linus Torvalds is married to the six-time women's karate champion of Finland! Bill Gates better not try to mess with Linus!

It will be hard to replace the 50% to 80% gross margins of the software business with the 20% or less gross margins typical for software-service companies.

This is the main issue in open source: using open software for your business is a no-brainer (unless there is no open source solution for your problem), however developing open source software and making a living out of it is not easy. I am not saying it is impossible, it is just pretty difficult.

I have the feeling that the next main contribution to Free/Open Source Software will come from a business person, not from a developer. We need to find a way so that people can make money producing (as opposed to "using") free software, without compromising the spirit of free software.

"...A recent report published by Economic Research Institute and CareerJournal.com tracks executive compensation, and there was an interesting footnote -- the highest paid executive in the whole survey was Apple CEO Steve Jobs, even though he's not actively collecting a real salary in his role. The Executive Compensation Index tracks how corporate executives are being paid, and has been active since 1997. It tracks total cash compensation -- to wit, salary and bonuses -- for the highest-paid executives at 45 major U.S. businesses. It also compares executive compensation to corporate revenues. The report rates Steve Jobs as the highest paid executive for the most recent survey period -- although he collected $1 salary, he did get a US$43.5 million bonus, according to the data collected..."
and BusinessWeek ranked Apple's as one of the ten worst Boards of Directors due to: "...Founder Steve Jobs owns just two shares in the company. Recently departed director Larry Ellison had none and had missed more than 25% of meetings in the past five years. The CEO of Micro Warehouse, which accounted for nearly 2.9% of Apple's net sales in 2001, sits on the compensation committee. Since 2000, the board has awarded Jobs 27.5 million stock options and a $90 million jet. There is an interlocking directorship--with Gap CEO Mickey Drexler and Jobs sitting on each other's boards..." (a repeat post)

"...A recent report published by Economic Research Institute and CareerJournal.com tracks executive compensation, and there was an interesting footnote -- the highest paid executive on the survey was Apple CEO Steve Jobs, even though he's not actively collecting a salary in his role. The Executive Compensation Index tracks how corporate executives are being paid, and has been active since 1997. It tracks total cash compensation -- to wit, salary and bonuses -- for the highest-paid executives at 45 major U.S. businesses. It also compares executive compensation to corporate revenues. The report said that Steve Jobs was the highest paid executive for the most recent survey period -- although he collected no salary, he did get a US$43.5 million bonus, according to the data collected..."
and BusinessWeek ranked Apple's as one of the ten worst Boards of Directors: "...Founder Steve Jobs owns just two shares in the company. Recently departed director Larry Ellison had none and had missed more than 25% of meetings in the past five years. The CEO of Micro Warehouse, which accounted for nearly 2.9% of Apple's net sales in 2001, sits on the compensation committee. Since 2000, the board has awarded Jobs 27.5 million stock options and a $90 million jet. There is an interlocking directorship--with Gap CEO Mickey Drexler and Jobs sitting on each other's boards..."

ARGH!!! This is such bullshit, I get hired of hearing it. I am not an anti-Mac zealot (in fact, I used to use a Mac, and would consider buying one again if I weren't so disappointed with what Apple did to the macOS X interface), but it's so annoying to hear Mac fans claim that Macs have some large installed marketshare that no one recognizes.

First of all, Apple does not get 5% of all computer sales each year. It gets less than 5%. Secondly, were Macs staying in use longer than PCs, you'd expect Macs to show up as a larger percentage of web site hits. But they don't.

References:

CNet article on Mac market share in 2001
News Factor Network story about Mac market share in 2002
Business Week article about Mac market share

If you read these articles, you find that Mac market share is about 3%.

Now, what do the web stats say about Apple's market share?

Google's web stats
W3Schools web stats

These suggest the Mac has between 2-4% market share.

People need to stop fooling themselves. Just because the Mac has only 3% market share, doesn't mean you shouldn't use it. But stop pretending it has larger market share, when it doesn't!

Found this article last night that describes some of the possibilities of ZeroConf networking. It talks specifically about Rendezvous, but the underlying concepts are there.

The part that interested me the most was this...
"According to folks inside Apple's Rendezvous development program, a prominent maker of 3-D rendering software will release a new version of its product with Rendezvous compatibility. Aside from allowing graphics geeks to share images and information, the software will have the ability to check CPU (central processing unit) usage on other Rendezvous-enabled machines around the office -- and send intensive tasks to the computer currently handling the lightest workload. It's a form of distributed computing with no middleman required."

Also, in this column he dug up his own reasons to be impressed with Rendezvous (unless he had a reviewer's guide that mentions stuff Apple hasn't brought up before; it could happen.)

In this column, you can read what I thought about this. "About a week ago, my bank asked me if I wanted a new plastic card, named Moneo. This card would be dedicated to small purchases, like newspapers or a french baguette. My bank also asked for 10 euros per year for the card..." Personally, I don't think Moneo will be successful except if it's free. For more details, check this BusinessWeek article or the official Moneo website (in french). Roland Piquepaille.(http://radio.weblogs.com/0105910/)

Issues of access to culture, of its reproduction and distribution have always been central to freedom of speech. In many cases, the individuals or organizations pushing the issue have been famously unpopular and have pushed issues with which the population at large have had strong disagreements. Consider Henry Miller, Lenny Bruce, even Larry Flint.

Once, the printing press was a new technology. Publishing the Bible in the vernacular was illegal. For this crime William Tyndale paid dearly:

Tyndale's king, Henry VIII, banned the English Bible, destroyed every copy he could get his hands on, and demolished scores of monasteries throughout the country. Then, for good measure, he had Tyndale burned at the stake.

The issues discussed in Slashdot about rights of publication, rights to access material, rights to participate in culture in ways not officially approved go to the very heart of freedom. The access to this culture determines how and when we may discuss all other issues.

This is true even if the folks downloading MP3s are not very sympathetic. The changes wrought by the printing press were due to the efforts of criminal heretics like Tyndale. The changes that will be wrought by digital replication are being wrought by other folks considered equally criminal and unsavory.

You can't ignore the warning signs. What has happened in the manufacturing sector will happen now in the "professional" sector at an increasing rate. From a Business Week Online article

"This is a huge transformation--much bigger than what happened in the blue-collar world,'' says management guru Tom Peters. He estimates that as many as 90% of today's American white-collar and clerical jobs could be outsourced over the next 10 to 15 years. Some companies, like Caltex, are shutting down operations in the U.S. or moving whole divisions to new locations. Others, such as Verizon (VZ), are farming work out to subcontractors--from small software designers to large consulting outfits like Andersen Consulting, which has 550 employees working for multinational clients in Manila.

The global dispersion of work is sure to accelerate as new interactive software and telecom networks make it increasingly common for engineers, number crunchers, or researchers from China to Scandinavia to work on the same projects at once--as if in adjoining cubicles. As business functions converge onto the Web--and professionals adopt similar worldwide standards--financial analysts based in Mexico will be able to tap into the real-time data bank of, say, Finland's Nokia Corp. (NOK)."

So - Can you stay in the IT field - yes
At the same company - not likely

Continuing education, flexibility, and functional excellence will be key. Your only job security in the future will be your commitment to constant growth and a virtual global reputation for doing hi quality work.