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I really don't like the ProCd decision... it wasn't the Supreme Court though, so I have some hope it could be overturned if it went higher. It is starkly in disagreement with Supreme decisions from 1948 and 1915 (whose names and accurate dates escape me at the moment) that unequivocally barred shrinkwrap from applying to books. I especially don't think the ProCD case was valid in dismissing UCC 2.207 like that- the shrinkwrap EULA has to be a secondary license; the first license was provided implicitly at point-of-sale, but it did exist!

The funny thing about ProCd is that it was hardly about software at all. The CD in question was virtually just a long textfile of nonexecutable information. A case that's more focused on software might get better attention- especially now that the Lexmark printer-refill matter is getting attention. The judges will notice that in a few years, almost any trivial product will include a little software with it, and that greater validity of post-purchase "contracts" will harm consumers.

The simplest way to get EULAs banned once and for all (or at least restricted to a specific set of approved boilerplate, like UCITA tried to do) would be for a software publisher (ideally Microsoft) to hold a "reverse lottery". Every 1000th EULA requires the buyer to pay an extra $100. That would be squashed pronto! But since existing EULA terms are fairly minor encroachments, the courts have let them slide by.

I'd actually expect ClickWrap to have a better chance of passing Supreme judicial review. It's difficult to argue that people have entered into a contract if one party has never seen or communicated with the others. Most clickwrap doesn't entail communication, but some forms do (click-to-download, or the rarer click-for-obligatory-registration), so they more resemble a traditionally binding agreement.

Why don't you try using an airphone on an American Airlines flight?

They have signs on them stating they were decommissioned on March 31, 2002. See the announcement here

The only American planes that still have operating phones are 767's and 777's that operate on international routes (with the occasional ferry flight in the US) -- which is why I added the "domestic" qualifier to my statement. At $5.00 to connect and $10.00/minute, they aren't exactly a bargain, although I did use one while enroute back from Japan to inquire about a family emergency.

My-my-my-my (U can't touch us)
SCO tries to bill me so hard
Makes me say, "Oh my Lord, thank you for blessing me
With a mind to think about the O from SC"
It feels good
When you know you're right
A superdope winner in a court fight
And SCO knows as much
And they'd just get beat-uh!
U can't touch us

I told you homeboys
U can't touch us
Yeah, that's how we livin' and you know
U can't touch us
Look in the GPL, man
U can't touch us
Yo, let me bust the funky code
U can't touch us

Stop! RICO time!

(With some apologies to MC Hammer, but mostly to the people who read this.)

is it possible for IBM/Redhat etc to sell copies of Linux with the added bonus that they indemnify buyers of their products from legal action against them concerning copyright?

This is addressed in this article. Note that the article itself is another example of "hysteria feeding". But it is addressed here.

So if a spammer uses some copyrighted information in the contents of his spam, can the copyright holder use the DMCA "subpeona cause I feel like it" clause to find the spammer?

Also, there's a section in the DMCA (section 1309.c) which says that if you didn't realize it was copy protected, it's not you're fault. Maybe a loophole?

They probably can trace back many postings. I know my news server puts my IP in every message I post, and it's certainly possible to trace a message back to the news server it came from with the NNTP Path header. I'm sure not many ISPs and news server hosts are going to think twice about giving up the user's information in the face of a threatened lawsuit. As regular Slashdot readers know, Verizon tried to fight back, but lost.

Why not just switch to the industry standard, Microsoft Windows 2003 Server? You can bet that it supports your RAID hardware...whoever made it would be out of business if they didn't supply Windows drivers. And the FUD campaign against Microsoft's best-of-breed server solution, including Internet Information Services (IIS) and SQL Server, has been shown to be incorrect -- most reputable analysts now agree that Linux has considerably more security eratta than windows, and one great thing about Windows is that there is a centralized source for all security updates, backed by Microsoft's massive QA infrastructure and decades of experience, so as soon as a problem arises, you are likely to be able to find a patch immediately and install it immediately, instead of having to deal with recompiling from source code and using developer releases in order to fix major exploits.

And thats not even taking into account the well-known fact that Windows has much lower long-term total cost of ownership (TCO), and is much easier to use than any Unix. Linux will probably never catch up with Windows in these areas, even considering the improvements made in version 9, and SCO is decades behind Linux. Heck, even Linux users are switching to Windows now that 2003 has come out...why shouldn't you?

Uh, here is at least one of the splits.

I do believe there was a second as well, but I am not going to do your homework for you. This was the first hit on Google: "red hat" stock split.

As for options, the whole point is that the option price is less than the stock price - or else it would be much of an incentive, now would it? He had the option to buy Red Hat shares at about a buck, which, as you so astutely point out, is below the lowest price that Red Hat has ever traded.

As for the amount of options, yes, if you get in on the ground floor, you can get "HALF A MILLION DOLLARS" in stock options. Of course, since the company will be about five people at that point and have zero revenue, they are not worth much, and in today's climate, they are not likely to be worth much - ever. But some people get lucky.

In the future, before you go shooting your mouth off anonymously in public forums, take a second to do the most basic research. I'll get you started. When companies want to go public, they have to file an ownership statement called an "S-1". These have to be public record, and that record is kept on the Edgar system of the SEC. Pick a few of your favorite companies and check it out. I make learning fun!

Sales of the Xbox in Japan are even worse than your guess, according to this article. A few thousand units per week? They couldn't give that console away to the Japanese if they tried. There must be some huge cultural factor that Microsoft neglected to consider.

Then we'll find out whether they infringe on any patents. Remember this article:

clicky , clicky News.com from 2000

The Ogg developers staunchly defend the notion that they have created everything from scratch, or at least have built their system without using any of the Fraunhofer-owned technology. But their rivals say they aren't so sure.

"We doubt very much that they are not using Fraunhofer and Thomson intellectual property," Linde said. "We think it is likely they are infringing."

Whether this is true, analysts say Thomson and the German company are likely to file patent lawsuits the moment Vorbis appears to be a viable market candidate. By creating a perception of uncertainty around Vorbis' future, MP3's parents could prevent conservative digital music companies from adopting it.

"If you're going to go into a marketplace where people play hardball, that's what hardball looks like," Scheirer warned.

oops, i forgot to add the "on-topic" part...

yea, can't wait for those commercials to roll out with a guy in a black suit walking a couple of steps, then typing "can you read me now" into his Clie...

better yet, into his Sony PSP =D

Is that this legislation is being proposed contemporaneously with other legislation to help people in repressive regimes circumvent government-imposed restrictions on free exchange of information.

Of course, it will never occur to most members of U.S. Congress that the former legislation pushes the United States further into the direction of being a repressive regime itself. After all, this is the same U.S. Congress that passed the Patriot Act.

"Ok, NT was built with security as its main feature, pick up Inside Windows NT so you don't sound silly next time you post."

It did the rounds on Slashdot and other sites, including CNET and all those. A Microsoft representative said that they had been bad at security so far, but now they started their "security initiative" to make their products more secure. Did you not see this, or are you just here to throw around nonsensical statements about how others are silly when they criticize Microsoft?

Bill Gates even sent out a note about how they would have to start focusing on security rather than features:

http://news.com.com/2100-1001-816880.html

Now maybe you can get back to answering my questions, rather than ignoring the issue altogether: Microsoft have been focusing on features rather than security in the past - by admission of a representative of Microsoft, and also Bill Gates himself.

...LIVE IN B.F. NORTH DAKOTA!!!

<begin lameness_bitching>
Stupid lamness filter doesn't like me yelling
<end lameness_bitching>

Apple killed clone makers long before the DMCA using normal copyright laws. Here's a story of how they killed a PowerPC chip maker.

What about this?

As much as we like Linux, it still has a long way to go. Also, for security purposes Debian is not really a contender. How can they even document or verify what they are running? From this url:

Debian creates and provides its entire distribution free of charge. Debian does not manufacture its own CDs, but relies on 3rd party vendors. To make it easier for CD vendors to provide a high quality disk we provide Official CD images for them. This is the only version that has been fully tested by our testing team and is by far the most popular way to buy Debian.

Have you even used OpenOffice? I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.

You have no clue what you are talking about. Linux security is superior to that of any MS OS. When people talk about Linux vulnerabilities, they usually also include vulnerabilities to other open source apps. Sorry, but that is not Linux. Also, look at the expliots that have happened under Linux compared to MS OSes. Most of the ones you would find on Linux applications are very minor and fixed much faster then the MS "security through obsurity" method. Where as the ones under MS OSes are usually far more critical like network services, Server attacks, Credit card theft, logging users DVD picks, Unpatched IE security holes, etc. I wonder why the National Security Agency picked Linux for a secure OS? These are just some of the holes we hear about. It is easy to hide all the small holes when you use a closed source approach. Sorry, but the MS Fisher Price(TM) OS is not in the same league as that of Unix and Unix like OSes such as Linux, *BSD and now MacOS X. Whether you like it our not, Unix and Unix like OSes are the dominant server platform and run most of the web for a reason.

You have no clue what you are talking about. Linux security is superior to that of any MS OS. When people talk about Linux vulnerabilities, they usually also include vulnerabilities to other open source apps. Sorry, but that is not Linux. Also, look at the expliots that have happened under Linux compared to MS OSes. Most of the ones you would find on Linux applications are very minor and fixed much faster then the MS "security through obsurity" method. Where as the ones under MS OSes are usually far more critical like network services, Server attacks, Credit card theft, logging users DVD picks, Unpatched IE security holes, etc. I wonder why the National Security Agency picked Linux for a secure OS? These are just some of the holes we hear about. It is easy to hide all the small holes when you use a closed source approach. Sorry, but the MS Fisher Price(TM) OS is not in the same league as that of Unix and Unix like OSes such as Linux, *BSD and now MacOS X. Whether you like it our not, Unix and Unix like OSes are the dominant server platform and run most of the web for a reason.

AOL kept them around long enough to extract that $750M from Microsoft without having to waste time and money pursuing the antitrust complaint.

Microsoft paid what is pocket change to them to deliver the final blow to the stake in the heart of what was once their biggest competitor in the browser arena. AOL/TW got badly needed cash, Microsoft got another seven years of IE dominance amongst the mouth-breathing internet user set. Web pages will continue to be designed so they'll look good for AOL retards instead of being designed to comply with established standards so they look good in all standards-compliant browsers.

As usual, Microsoft wins, the other party to the agreement thinks they won but will later realize they didn't, and the internet-using public loses.

50 developers is 10% of the Netscape work force... however, AOL's 'official' position is that they're still supporting the browser & the web portal.

aol official position

AOL is making a *huge* mistake by not using the Gecko engine as the core of their browser/ISP product. Right now they're using Gecko as the core in their Compuserve and Mac AOL product, but still using IE in the Windows product. Seems like they could streamline their internal coding operations by standardizing on one code base, which would ultimately save them more money than letting developers go.

Also, by using the Gecko engine in the product, they could in theory start offering AOL on Linux-based PC's; while that might sound like an unprofitable venture at first, I can't imagine all of those people purchasing Lindows-based PC's at Walmart not wanting AOL as their ISP ... and Walmart sure is selling a whole lotta Lindows PC these days.

With the upcoming PS3 carrying out grid computing, there's no stopping for this technology reaching out to the masses, even those who don't know it!

I like games and I'm all for letting kids and adults play age-appropriate games and engage in age-appropriate social activity.

Is it really such a bad thing to remove children from an environment that encourages them to participate in vice -- drinking and gambling -- instead of going to school as the article mentions?

We're talking about a country that has seen its culture and heritage destroyed, and remains essentally lawless as a result of over two deades of brutal war and occupation. There is no infrastructure of any kind to speak of -- governmental, social, utility or otherwise -- and heavily-armed private militias still control the majority of the country and are still the predominant opportunity to earn an income and obtain food, clothing and shelter.

Would you really want a bunch of uneducated, underage alcoholic gamblers traumatized by war -- who have daily witnessed how cheap life is, have easy access to guns, and view the world through the latest first-person shooter -- running wild in the streets?

The other thing I'll say about this ban is that it's not for us to dictate to another culture the kinds of entertainments and pastimes they should engage in.

And before anyone gets too up in arms about this ban and starts making disparaging comments about anyone's faith or culture, I'll remind everyone that we have a LOT of efforts in America to ban minors from buying or playing video games, and none of it has to do with anything as serious as kids skipping school to get drunk and bet on the games they play.

Here's a recent post I submitted that was rejected:

A federal judge has temporarily blocked a Washington state law that bans selling violent games to minors under 17 , and would fine retailers $500 for each game sold to minors that depicts violence against law-enforcement officials. U.S. District Judge Robert Lasnik said the law (slated to take effect July 27) is too all-encompassing and too targeted, and seems to violate free-speech rights since games' complex plots, original musical scores and detailed art deserve the same free speech protection as other types of media.

And that's only the latest example. Here are a few of many more:
Violent Video Game Restriction Struck Down
Congress To Consider Age Limits On Violent Games
Indianapolis Bans Violent Video Games

The point is that in Afghanistan the games seem to be concretely linked to a subculture and environment that is detrimental to society at large and the efforts to rebuild civil society. Unless and until they can figure out a way to put games in a more appropriate social setting and context, banning them seems like a logical step.

By way of additional apology, the RIAA said it will send Peter Usher an Usher CD and T-shirt "in appreciation of his understanding."

All we have to do is create some legal mp3's, rename them to the cd's we want, post them on personal ftp sites, then just sit back and wait for all the free cd's!

The problem with this argument, actually, is that the supposedly closed and enslaving proprietary formats are very frequently hacked open by those that want to use a different program.

Until you are stopped by laws and courts that favor the "rights" of corporations over individuals. Look how far the notion of copyright is being extended, to toner cartridges for instance. Market share does gives you the money and status to throw your weight around like that.

It's for reasons like this that even if you aren't interested or concerned about the politics of it, choosing software (or any product) that is more open is a small but important act of dissent. I don't mean to make this point to you personally or to encourage you to do something that you're already inclined to do anyway, I'm just saying that making this kind choice should not to be discouraged or underestimated, and that there are reasons to make it beyond whether or not readers for various formats are available yet.

Ian Clarke, the project's inventor, said in an interview that the RIAA's recent legal actions and threats of additional lawsuits have heightened interest in Freenet. "The Freenet site has seen a threefold increase in Web traffic since the RIAA announcement," Clarke said. "We've received more donations to the project in the last week than we had in the past two months before that."

Just spend some time reading Microsoft's own product announcements, interviews, etc... they don't make any effort to hide any of this. You'd pretty much have to be blind not to see what's going on... oh wait, that pretty much describes most of /. poster community.

First, there's Longhorn...
TechWeb
WinSuperSite

But don't forget to research Jupiter, Yukon and Kodiak, and be sure to look at the extended feature sets of these products and how they can interoperate.

A quick search for some time lines got me this, but there are lots of places that keep track of this stuff:
Internet.com

Some general info on Jupiter
JupiterResearch

...and don't forget MS' own efforts to push rights enabled content into the marketplace:

for one example there is...
Microsoft
...but don't forget, games, their deal with small movie studios, etc...

MS is working with British Telecom to develop online applications and media support including appication rental that can be used for an added nominal monthly fee... all of this is web browser accessable, and while the dot's are pretty thin to find, I've heard in the developer circles that once it is stablized around MSN 9, MS is looking to offer this service out to XBox live subscribers.
news.com"

...and then there is the MIIS layer that just was released to support data tracking.
MetaConnections
"MIIS has its own data store (the metaverse) into which it consolidates information drawn from the connected systems. Rules can be applied to determine how objects in a connected system are projected into, or join with objects already in, the metaverse and to create objects in the connected system (i.e. provisioning). Other rules specify how each attribute within the object should flow into or out of the metaverse. The sophistication of these rules allows customers to create fully automated identity data integration solutions."

...or this quote:
TheWhir
"Customers have told us they need an end-to-end solution for managing identity information and access rights," said Bill Veghte, corporate vice president for the Windows Server Group at Microsoft. "With today's delivery of MIIS, we bring provisioning and metadirectory capabilities together in a single solution that enables customers to create and manage user identities with a single consistent view across the enterprise and throughout the complete life cycle of identity management."

I would point you to the Market announcements on the MS site, but they are oddly missing... but then Google saves the day here...
MS care of Google #1
MS care of Google #2

...and on and on and on... Do I really need to give you more links... I suppose it's pointless because with most of the people who can't see this, I could drop a bible of text proof in your face and you'd still denign it.

Microsoft makes no efforts to hide what they're planning, and doing. It's all out there in your face if you bother to take the time to read it.

Big business wants start-to-end accountability for ALL DATA, and they are going to get it, and Microsoft is going

The huge news with the new systems does not seem to be mentioned on SGIs site. They use ATI chips/cards for the graphics .... SGI has given up on doing proprietary graphics solutions it would seem .. and with good reason imnsho!

news.com story

> I think Yahoo needs to decide if it wants to be a portal or a search engine, because it's trying to be a one-stop-shop.

I think you miss the point of diversification. Yahoo doesn't target the techno-literate as a primary customer base. If you ask your mother or uncle where they get their information, though, chances are good that Yahoo is still their home page. Consequently, it makes perfect sense for them to try to be "everything for everybody", even if they aren't the best at any of them.

[snip]

> Is ad revenue really that big for these companies?

Yes. Take a look at this. Yahoo reported almost $200MM in ad related revenue in 1Q03. Notice also, that they attribute some of that (although they don't say how much) to a deal with Overture for paid listings. My take is that Yahoo did this because it is cheaper in the long run to assimilate the partner than to continue to pay them a slice of your profit year after year. On top of this, it gives them some control over competitors that currently use Overture.

This looks to be a shrewd business move to me.

This kind of radio-on-demand system is already available.

weblisten
puretunes

A new all-you-can-eat music download service that takes advantage of Spanish copyright law. The Madrid-based company, called Puretunes, is the second Spanish Web service to try offering access to a vast and otherwise unavailable catalog of music online without directly securing the record labels' permission.

Full article

Is there some problem with readers, with editors, hell, with story submitters, actually reading the damn article before making snide speculations?

"Wwe're going to [fix] it so when you click on a link it will take you to a registration page," said Christine Mohan, a spokeswoman at New York Times Digital, the publisher of NYTimes.com.

That's why they don't just tell google to not cache. They want the links to appear, but not to the stories themselves.

How about we discuss that issue, rather than some other, theoretical issue? I know it's an alien concept, but let's give it a try.

Here, I'll start it off. It looks like a decent idea. Google still gets the links, the NYT still gets the traffic, everyone gets to find the articles they want. What's not to like?

Oops! I linked to the wrong article on news.com in my reply above. The article I intended to link to is: http://news.com.com/2100-1002_3-1024178.html.

Isn't that true of *any* solid server OS?

There's always those virus/worm/exploit things. It's my observation that Windows has quite a few.

It looks like the latest FreeBSD (4.8) has a one and the previous release (4.7) had a few.

The last OpenBSD (3.2) had 14. The new version of OpenBSD (3.3) has been out for over 2 months and doesn't have any yet. That's pretty impressive.

Interesting that several of the flaws in FreeBSD and OpenBSD are the same bug.

Ah! Got the link! http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-511553.html

Look at how many dedicated gaming devices Sony and Nintendo have sold compared to Microsofts try-and-do-everything Box.

Sony I will give you, but I don't think this strategy is actually working for Nintendo too well. Nintendo will win Japan, granted, but Europe, Australia, and America are probably lost at this point. Too bad that the Japanese (non-cellphone) game market is shrinking so much, too.

And if you really think the Xbox has only 2-3 worthwhile games, I am really curious what kind of games you play. Project Gotham, DOA3, Amped, Panzer Dragoon Orta, Shenmue II, JSRF, etc. are all pretty cool, and not available for PC or other systems (at least in the US in the case of Shenmue II). Likewise, how can you defend the GC's smaller library, which also has less variety?

By all means, enjoy any console you like, but it seems stupid to complain about how terrible a console is that many people seriously do enjoy, with sales numbers to prove it.

And what does the Xbox try and do that Sony hasn't tried with the PS2 (which is dominating)?

It comes from two sources. Firstly, standard practice in the console biz is to start selling the thing at a loss, with the expectation that you can optimise the production pipeline, so that you can make a profit on the boxes sold later. That's actually quite a specific price bracket, and is chosen to reduce the cost of entry, maximising profit from the system in totality (including game royalties). In effect, the hardware is being subsdised from the game royalties. Note that Sony started like that for both the PS1 and PS2, and now makes a small profit (I think it's around £20 a box) on the PS2.

Second piece: The original market price of the Xbox, claims that they were not going to drop the price, and then the round of price cuts. That's circumstansial, but if they were not selling the boxes at a loss [0] after those steep cuts, I'll be very surprised.

Interesting economics point: How many games does the average console owner have, per console? I'll take a stab at 4. Therefore, the correct thing to look at, from a business point of view, is not the profit per console - but the profit from console + 5 games. Me, I'd price the box so that the initial loss on the hardware is around the profit on 4 games [1]. Keep the initial cost's low, more adoption, and leach the money out of the customer base over time.

Now, that's all well and good, but none of that says how much profit is made on each box right now , only what they would have done at launch (loss), and near the end of the xbox lifetime (profit).

I'm going to accept that after the price dropped to 200, they were making a loss per box. They seemed quite forced into it, mainly by Sony, who had probably already improved the manufacture of PS2's, so they were not worried by the price cut.

Do they make a loss now?

Let me evade that for a moment, and discuss the development costs of the console. Aught they to be included in the 'cost' per unit sold? From a strictly business point of view - yes. You need to make back that money, before any profit is generated. From the 'does the manufacturer lose money on this sale' point of view - no. You can make the dev costs back from other sales. This complicates the whole question.

Note that this is based on economic arguemnts, and this sort of anaylsis will applie to any sales model that has a buy in cost that is greater than the per unit cost (printers, razor blades etc).

Let me link to a few facts: BBC: Microst loose $177 million. Note that that's from September last year, and is for 3 months preceding, off revenue of $1.28 billion

Q4 2002 (CNET) made a $348 million loss for the division.

Next quarter (Q1 2003) at CNET, and it's $190 million loss.

And it's too early for Q2 2003 data (rember that we need by divisional break downs, not overall profits for this).

So, they're definitly making a loss somewhere in their buisness, within the division that handles the Xbox. Is that on the xbox itself, or something else? [2]

No one can answear that. Apparently Mircosoft have confirmend that they make a loss on the hardware.

I'll take a different take to the linked article. The initial launch price was $300. Assume microsoft get $7 per game (average of the 5-10 range), and that would put the manufacturing costs at $330, or so; consistant with the analysts estimates in the above link.

They were forced to drop the price to $200 before they wanted to - I think that's clear. So suddently they were makeing over $100 loss per system. How much had they managed to reduce costs by? The above link trys to assert that they drop in lines with Moores law - that's crap [3]. My guess is that the cost is sliding down into the $220 to 250 range, based off the fact the M

It comes from two sources. Firstly, standard practice in the console biz is to start selling the thing at a loss, with the expectation that you can optimise the production pipeline, so that you can make a profit on the boxes sold later. That's actually quite a specific price bracket, and is chosen to reduce the cost of entry, maximising profit from the system in totality (including game royalties). In effect, the hardware is being subsdised from the game royalties. Note that Sony started like that for both the PS1 and PS2, and now makes a small profit (I think it's around £20 a box) on the PS2.

Second piece: The original market price of the Xbox, claims that they were not going to drop the price, and then the round of price cuts. That's circumstansial, but if they were not selling the boxes at a loss [0] after those steep cuts, I'll be very surprised.

Interesting economics point: How many games does the average console owner have, per console? I'll take a stab at 4. Therefore, the correct thing to look at, from a business point of view, is not the profit per console - but the profit from console + 5 games. Me, I'd price the box so that the initial loss on the hardware is around the profit on 4 games [1]. Keep the initial cost's low, more adoption, and leach the money out of the customer base over time.

Now, that's all well and good, but none of that says how much profit is made on each box right now , only what they would have done at launch (loss), and near the end of the xbox lifetime (profit).

I'm going to accept that after the price dropped to 200, they were making a loss per box. They seemed quite forced into it, mainly by Sony, who had probably already improved the manufacture of PS2's, so they were not worried by the price cut.

Do they make a loss now?

Let me evade that for a moment, and discuss the development costs of the console. Aught they to be included in the 'cost' per unit sold? From a strictly business point of view - yes. You need to make back that money, before any profit is generated. From the 'does the manufacturer lose money on this sale' point of view - no. You can make the dev costs back from other sales. This complicates the whole question.

Note that this is based on economic arguemnts, and this sort of anaylsis will applie to any sales model that has a buy in cost that is greater than the per unit cost (printers, razor blades etc).

Let me link to a few facts: BBC: Microst loose $177 million. Note that that's from September last year, and is for 3 months preceding, off revenue of $1.28 billion

Q4 2002 (CNET) made a $348 million loss for the division.

Next quarter (Q1 2003) at CNET, and it's $190 million loss.

And it's too early for Q2 2003 data (rember that we need by divisional break downs, not overall profits for this).

So, they're definitly making a loss somewhere in their buisness, within the division that handles the Xbox. Is that on the xbox itself, or something else? [2]

No one can answear that. Apparently Mircosoft have confirmend that they make a loss on the hardware.

I'll take a different take to the linked article. The initial launch price was $300. Assume microsoft get $7 per game (average of the 5-10 range), and that would put the manufacturing costs at $330, or so; consistant with the analysts estimates in the above link.

They were forced to drop the price to $200 before they wanted to - I think that's clear. So suddently they were makeing over $100 loss per system. How much had they managed to reduce costs by? The above link trys to assert that they drop in lines with Moores law - that's crap [3]. My guess is that the cost is sliding down into the $220 to 250 range, based off the fact the M

How about this?

$97m one year, $190m the next?

As for parts costs, MS does have some leeway with their suppliers. As CPU prices drop, MS could possibly negotiate for a better price from Intel, but they've already pissed off nVidia.

You are right that more XBox sales would help MS with bragging rights with game makers. The latest MS financial reports probably have undermined any clout that might have had. The XBox division lost $180 million last year and $348 million this year. Game makers know that MS needs them and not the other way around. What I don't know is what kind of terms MS gives game makers. It can't be all that lucrative as hordes of game makers have not released games for XBox. At E3, MS announced many new titles but most of them were from companies owned by MS.

Bottom line is that MS cannot continue on it's course without lossing a ton of money. Hacking the XBox only hurts their bottom line further.

It is an interesting coincidence that the story "Sun expands Unix deal with SCO" appeared on slashdot yesterday and Sun is a sponsor of the OSI award.

CNET Reported:
A previously secret licensee of SCO Group's Unix intellectual property has revealed its identity: Unix leader Sun Microsystems.

Sun hasn't been ashamed to try to profit from the effects of that suit. It jumped at the chance to declare itself a safe haven for spooked technology buyers: "Sun's complete line of Solaris and Linux products...are covered by Sun's portfolio of Unix licensing agreements. Solaris and Sun Linux represent safe choices for those companies that develop and deploy services based on Unix systems," Sun declared the day SCO filed suit against IBM.

"Now we know why Sun was so absolutely confident about where they stand in this whole thing that they were essentially able to turn it into some marketing and sales FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) of their own," Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff said.

So it appears that OSI has been arguing that The SCO Group's Intellectual Property is worthless and taking money from Sun who is using it for PR. On one hand Sun is trying to ingratiate itself with the Linux community by funding an award and the other hand the PR is FUD against both Linux and IBM's AIX. Esr did get some press about the award, but then he has always been good at self-promotion, and not word one about the glaring conflicts of interest.

Thus I hereby nominate esr's OSI and Sun for the OSCON blue ribbon for:
1. Questionable Situational Ethics
2. Self Destructive FUD
3. Conflict of Interest

What kind of competition does Sun have? Consider IBM's p690 and HP's Superdome. Both are in a neck-to-neck race to be #1 on the internationally recognized TPC-C benchmark by the Transaction Processing Council. Both of their scores is about 750,000. Please read "IBM touts own chips over Itanium". By contrast, Sun's best score is about 250,000 (from the TPC website).

As for SPEC performance, the p690 and the Superdome again crush Sun's best machine.

The only thing left for Sun is to create fear, uncertainty, and doubt (FUD). Sun is hinting that it will soon slit IBM's jugular vein by hinting that Sun may purchase SCO. After all, SCO claims control over IBM's UNIX patents. Sun is trying to create the fear that future IBM customers may be in expensive legal trouble if they run AIX or Linux because Sun-controlled SCO has terminated its UNIX licensing agreement with IBM.

Do you hear "it"? The bell is tolling. It tolls ominously for Sun.

We knew about this 1 month back.

Sun seeks to capitalize on SCO suit

By Alorie Gilbert
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
June 18, 2003, 1:46 PM PT

Sun Microsystems launches an ad campaign on Wednesday that highlights IBM's licensing dispute with SCO Group and encourages its rival's customers to switch to Sun's computing platform.
The print ad, which ran in The Wall Street Journal and The San Jose Mercury News, was addressed to organizations running AIX, IBM's version of the Unix operating system. In an ongoing dispute over intellectual-property rights to Unix, SCO said Monday that it has revoked IBM's license to sell AIX and requested a permanent injunction against IBM's Unix business.

Sun, on the other hand, has said it would not be affected by SCO's legal claims on Unix, because it bought its Unix license outright several years ago.

"Unfortunately, our friends in Blue have a problem with licensing contracts that could make things very expensive for anyone running AIX," the ad says. "Fortunately, Sun is ready to help."

As part of the campaign, Sun is offering two days of free consulting and a "trade-in" on IBM servers for companies that are interested in switching to Sun Solaris, its competing Unix server program. Sun will determine the trade-in value of any IBM systems that it replaces after the two-day assessment, a Sun representative said.

SCO has said that the termination of the AIX license means that IBM Unix customers also have no license to use the software. But IBM, which is fighting allegations by SCO that it misappropriated SCO's Unix trade secrets and built them into Linux, maintains that its license to sell Unix products is valid and that customers should not be alarmed. IBM sold $3.6 billion worth of Unix servers last year.

"IBM remains firmly committed to AIX and its customers," said Trink Guarino, an IBM spokeswoman. "Our customers know that we'll stand by them--that we'll continue to invest in and ship AIX."

Sun Chief Executive Scott McNealy told a group of journalists in Stockholm on Tuesday that IBM's legal skirmish with SCO could help boost Sun's Unix business. "There's no question we're going to go after the AIX base and say Solaris is free and clear, with no legal or intellectual cloud hanging over it," McNealy was reported to have said.

Sun spokesman Mark Richardson said he doesn't expect the AIX migration program to be a "huge" revenue source for Sun because of the high cost often involved in such projects. "I doubt that tons of companies will do it, but for companies concerned, it is an alternative," he said.

Sun expands Unix deal with SCO

By Stephen Shankland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
July 10, 2003, 1:19 PM PT

A previously secret licensee of SCO Group's Unix intellectual property has revealed its identity: Unix leader Sun Microsystems.

SCO's Unix licensing plan got a major boost of publicity in May when Microsoft announced its decision to license Unix from SCO, but Sun actually was the first company to sign on. SCO and Sun confirmed the licensing deal on Wednesday. The pact, signed earlier this year, expanded the rights Sun acquired in 1994 to use Unix in its Solaris operating system. But there's more to the relationship: SCO also granted Sun a warrant to buy as many as 210,000 shares of SCO stock at $1.83 per share as part of the licensing deal, according to a regulatory document filed Tuesday.

Sun, the No. 1 seller of Unix servers, declined to comment on the option to take a stake in SCO Group. Fortune on Monday published news of the expanded Sun contract.

Sun's expanded license permits Sun to use some software from Unix System V Release 4 for software components called drivers, which let computers use hard drives, network cards and other devices. Sun needed the software for its version of Solaris that runs on Intel servers, Sun spokesman Brett Smith said. A source familiar with the deal said the new contract was signed in February, but neither Sun nor SCO would comment.

SCO, which hasn't had much success selling its own Unix products and which has pulled the plug on its Linux products, is trying to generate more money from its Unix intellectual property. The highest-profile result of that effort has been an SCO lawsuit against IBM that alleges IBM misappropriated SCO trade secrets and violated its Unix contracts, for which SCO now is seeking more than $3 billion.

Sun hasn't been ashamed to try to profit from the effects of that suit. It jumped at the chance to declare itself a safe haven for spooked technology buyers: "Sun's complete line of Solaris and Linux products...are covered by Sun's portfolio of Unix licensing agreements. Solaris and Sun Linux represent safe choices for those companies that develop and deploy services based on Unix systems," Sun declared the day SCO filed suit against IBM.

"Now we know why Sun was so absolutely confident about where they stand in this whole thing that they were essentially able to turn it into some marketing and sales FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) of their own," Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff said.

Sun's Smith said the company is being careful to ensure that its Unix intellectual property is "very clean."

"We've always made sure we're very aboveboard," Smith said. "We've made sure the i's are dotted, the t's are crossed." Before the newest contract was signed, Sun had spent $82 million acquiring rights to use Unix, Smith said. Among Sun's privileges is the right to show Solaris' underlying source code to customers, SCO said.

One thing has changed in Sun's Linux position, though. Its first Linux products used Sun's own version of the operating system, but at the end of March, the company decided instead to form partnerships with Linux sellers such as Red Hat. Smith said Sun doesn't know yet if the legal protections of its Unix licenses extend to other companies' versions of Linux.

SCO declined to comment on terms of the license deals with Sun and Microsoft, but SCO said in May that it earned $8.3 million in revenue in the quarter ended April 30 as a result of the licenses. In the Tuesday regulatory filing, SCO said the two licenses will generate an additional $5 million in the three quarters after that, for a total of $13.3 million.

In addition, Microsoft has the option to expand its licensing rights in the future, a move that would mean additional payments to SCO, the filing said.

Al

Seriously, is there really a need for something like this to happen? At the risk of frowning on something that some guy did "just because he could", does anyone actually use these computers anymore? I deal with alot of users, and the OLDEST machine ive seen in years still being used as an internet capable machine is a 486/66DX. Those are few and far between. Im all for hobbys, (i recently spend a week learning how to program atari games) but is this really front page material? Arent there more pressing issues at hand ?

interesting..

I wonder why this hasn't been posted yet though

Sun expands Unix deal with SCO

By Stephen Shankland
Staff Writer, CNET News.com
July 10, 2003, 1:19 PM PT

A previously secret licensee of SCO Group's Unix intellectual property has revealed its identity: Unix leader Sun Microsystems.

SCO's Unix licensing plan got a major boost of publicity in May when Microsoft announced its decision to license Unix from SCO, but Sun actually was the first company to sign on. SCO and Sun confirmed the licensing deal on Wednesday.
The pact, signed earlier this year, expanded the rights Sun acquired in 1994 to use Unix in its Solaris operating system. But there's more to the relationship: SCO also granted Sun a warrant to buy as many as 210,000 shares of SCO stock at $1.83 per share as part of the licensing deal, according to a regulatory document filed Tuesday.

Sun, the No. 1 seller of Unix servers, declined to comment on the option to take a stake in SCO Group. Fortune on Monday published news of the expanded Sun contract.

Sun's expanded license permits Sun to use some software from Unix System V Release 4 for software components called drivers, which let computers use hard drives, network cards and other devices. Sun needed the software for its version of Solaris that runs on Intel servers, Sun spokesman Brett Smith said. A source familiar with the deal said the new contract was signed in February, but neither Sun nor SCO would comment.

SCO, which hasn't had much success selling its own Unix products and which has pulled the plug on its Linux products, is trying to generate more money from its Unix intellectual property. The highest-profile result of that effort has been an SCO lawsuit against IBM that alleges IBM misappropriated SCO trade secrets and violated its Unix contracts, for which SCO now is seeking more than $3 billion.

Sun hasn't been ashamed to try to profit from the effects of that suit. It jumped at the chance to declare itself a safe haven for spooked technology buyers: "Sun's complete line of Solaris and Linux products...are covered by Sun's portfolio of Unix licensing agreements. Solaris and Sun Linux represent safe choices for those companies that develop and deploy services based on Unix systems," Sun declared the day SCO filed suit against IBM.

"Now we know why Sun was so absolutely confident about where they stand in this whole thing that they were essentially able to turn it into some marketing and sales FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) of their own," Illuminata analyst Gordon Haff said.

Sun's Smith said the company is being careful to ensure that its Unix intellectual property is "very clean."

"We've always made sure we're very aboveboard," Smith said. "We've made sure the i's are dotted, the t's are crossed." Before the newest contract was signed, Sun had spent $82 million acquiring rights to use Unix, Smith said. Among Sun's privileges is the right to show Solaris' underlying source code to customers, SCO said.

One thing has changed in Sun's Linux position, though. Its first Linux products used Sun's own version of the operating system, but at the end of March, the company decided instead to form partnerships with Linux sellers such as Red Hat. Smith said Sun doesn't know yet if the legal protections of its Unix licenses extend to other companies' versions of Linux.

SCO declined to comment on terms of the license deals with Sun and Microsoft, but SCO said in May that it earned $8.3 million in revenue in the quarter ended April 30 as a result of the licenses. In the Tuesday regulatory filing, SCO said the two licenses will generate an additional $5 million in the three quarters after that, for a total of $13.3 million.

In addition, Microsoft has the option to expand its licensing rights in the future, a move that would mean additional payments to SCO, the filing said.

Although Sun has broader rights than

I thought at some point Sony was going to release a real web browser for the PS2.

What about this old news? Was it only a PR stunt?

The NY Times is in fact having a beef with the Google cache.

Here is another story on SCO, from CNET, focusing on their recent licensing deals and the impact on its earnings.

Also, in this story our "favorite" CEO claimed he was in Japan not to invade the Consumer Electronics Linux Forum but instead "just" to get more Japanese firms to license code from SCO.

By the way, when is that code you always talk about going to show up in court? I'm still waiting to see something, anything... yeah...

Article in news.com about Lindows just came out with LindowsCD, so that people can try Lindows Linux without having to install it. They're not the first, but since they're selling easy of use and ease of transition, this seems an especially smart way to show people they can function in a non-Windows world.

Linus Torvalds said BSD is a dead end, so thats why noone will use it :P

I think he may have inadvertently legitimized the "BSD/dying" meme.

Oh Christ, well, you'd better hurry and tell that to the NSA, US Navy, US Army and Boeing since they're all apparently terrorists.