Slashdot Mirror

eBay was founded by Pierre Omidyar (who was a programmer working at General Magic at the time) as an online community (hence, e-Bay, for the Bay area up in San Francisco.) For quite a while, eBay was pretty much a personal website/community bulletin board for him, not a business (in fact, some cool code he hacked together for MagicCap devices lived at the eBay domain for a while - if anyone remembers the e-mail gateway for retrieving web pages.) I think auctions were just a feature of the site that just happened to grow into a big business.

Based on when most of eBay's current corporate officers joined (97-98), it is quite likely that eBay as we currently know it did not exist until probably 1996. Certainly, the Buy-it-now feature that eBay uses, which was ruled as violating at least one of the 3 patents that MercExchange is supposed to own, probably didn't get implemented until at least a year or two after that.

My question is whether these ideas (as detailed in Guaranteed Electronic Markets - 1999) appeared in print prior to the 1995 application date for the patents in question, given the existence of technologies like AOL, AT&T, and BBSes at the time. To be valid, none of the ideas embodied in the patents filed must have been published. I find that hard to believe - that the concept of haggling over a product with the option of a set price, as extended to a network (for example, over the phone network) did not exist in print prior to 1995. As for software agents, that seems like an obvious extension of existing software agent work prior to 1995. I mean, if you look at the patents in question, they cite lots of prior art which makes it clear (at least in my mind) that what they were trying to patent was neither novel nor non-obvious to someone skilled in the field in question.

Seriously, there wasn't any literature - even fiction, that featured the idea of auctions over a networked computer system,with software agents?

It was all over the news a few months back. Get the story from here.

Among other things, McBride says: "I'm not trying to screw up the Linux business,"

Oh really? Then could Mr. McBride please explain why I hear things like, "SCO to Linux Users: Cease and Desist" and "SCO delivers a warning"?

Sounds to me like Mr. McBride is trying to make up for the self-hurt caused by his company's own arrogance. What better way to ruin your competitor than by scaring the shit out of their users?

Look here. Sun is certainly not setting still and will release a vb like rad ide to generate macro code to Java very soon.

This sounds just like MindDrive from 1995. Not exactly new.

News.com reports that AOL ordered Nullsoft to remove their new collaboration/file sharing tool Waste from their website. This isn't the first time this has happened, either. In 2000, AOL ordered Nullsoft to remove gnutella from their website. Fortunately they released the program under the GPL, so the source is still available.

Btw, here's my search.

And while Torvalds said he agrees with some of the criticisms SCO's actions have triggered on Linux-friendly online forums such as Slashdot, he also called for restraint and maturity in dealing with SCO. "I hope this doesn't incite anybody to (launch a denial-of-service attack against) the SCO Web site or something silly like that," he said.

IBM entered into a contract with AT&T way back in 1985 to produce AIX, its own version of UNIX, and SCO ended up with AT&T's interest in that contract

It says in this article:
"We've reviewed our contracts, and our Unix license is irrevocable and perpetual," Mike Fay, vice president of communications for IBM's systems group

So SCO still can't revoke any Unix license.

- Brian.

Here's my understanding:

As you said, the Open Group owns the Unix trademark and permits products to be called "Unix." See their page for details on their ownership of the trademark and the Single UNIX Specification. The Open Group (then the X/Open Company) got the UNIX trademark and specification from Novell in 1994.

However, the UNIX code and implementation was sold by Novell to SCO. IBM entered into a contract with AT&T way back in 1985 to produce AIX, its own version of UNIX, and SCO ended up with AT&T's interest in that contract (see here for details). IBM isn't the only licensee of UNIX from SCO; Sun and HP, for example, both have licenses from SCO for their own versions of UNIX, as do "several thousand" others.

This was also covered by C|net and discussed in The Register.

From the C|Net article: "Businesses, educational institutions and home users of LindowsOS can be confident they will not be dragged into a legal battle." -- Michael Robertson, Lindows' chief executive.

This assurance is based on a pre-existing arrangement between Lindows and SCO. But does their statement imply that other Linux users have something to fear? Have they inadvertently validated SCO's claim of an IP breach by other Linux vendor(s)?

Sorry Bill, I have to call bullshit on this one.

Astute /.'ers will recall His Billness having to withdraw an ad that claims his wares "makes hackers obsolete". Even more astute /.'ers will remember the day when Microsoft's own code was compromised. They can't even protect their own IP with their own products! If M$ can't keep its own IP secure with Windows, who can?

Slashdot's product placement and trolling stepped up while European legislators were discussing software patents. Picayune articles, many of which consisted of rehashed softer versions of old FUD and misinformation, covered topics which have already been dealt with, again and again.

Since most novices do not understand the scope and severity of MS's problems and since any critique of MS, no matter the merit, gets written off as "MS-Bashing", it would be best to focus on the more successful areas of the IT sector. Here are a few examples:

• in Norway
• OSS in the mainstream
• Munich goes OpenOffice
• OSS in the UK
• OSS in Spain

Check the forums for tools that work - *BSD, Linux, QNX, Netware, eDirectory, LDAP, Kerberos, KDE, Gnome, Apache, MySQL, Postgresql, and so on ...

Microsoft is not telling corporate managers that the use of open-source applications might land them in hot water with patent attorneys. And Microsoft is not saying that the open-source development community is a hotbed of misappropriation of private property.

This is not because Microsoft disagrees with the above. But it's just so much easier to give the dirty work to SCO

The news.com article has more meat.

AOL got cash (which it needs badly), CD distribution (which may help its subscriber base), and royalty-free licenses to IE and WMP 9.

MS got the AOL lawsuit off its back, and got MSN/AIM interoperability --although another poster already pointed out that the FCC requires interoperability before audio/video may be added (#6072015).

There is nothing in the article that implies that AOL must use these IE or WMP exclusively. This is very different from past MS maneuvers attempting to force exclusivity.

In fact, AOL would be wise to remain as independent of MS as possible for browser and multimedia technology, while at the same time bundling IE and WMP for customers who wish to use them. Bunding IE and WMP for free, I might add, since the licenses are royalty-free.

It certainly wasn't $750,000,000

See This Articla for how the lawsuit started.

The lawsuit is based on previous court findings that Microsoft's business practices amid the infamous browser wars of the 1990s violated two sections of the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act.

In April 2000 a federal judge ruled that Microsoft used anti-competitive means to thwart Netscape's browser, which once had a leading position in the market but now is a distant second to Microsoft's Explorer. In June 2001, a panel of seven appellate judges upheld eight separate antitrust counts against Microsoft.

Netscape, which was acquired by AOL in 1999, is seeking an injunction that could include forcing Microsoft to sell a stripped-down operating system that does not include a browser. In addition, AOL seeks monetary damages that could be tripled under federal law, although it did not specify an amount.

In some ways, the Netscape lawsuit is trying to achieve what the government failed to do so at trial, such as proving Microsoft tried to extend its Windows monopoly to the browser market.

"Netscape's lawsuit is a logical extension of the findings entered by the District Court and unanimously affirmed by the Court of Appeals that Microsoft thwarted competition, violated the antitrust laws, and illegally preserved its monopoly at Netscape's expense," Randall J. Boe, AOL's general counsel, said in a statement.

"There is no question that Microsoft's conduct violated the law and harmed competition and consumers," Boe continued. "Netscape's lawsuit seeks not only an award of damages, but for the court to provide injunctive relief that will help restore competition on the computer desktop."

Microsoft asserted that the lawsuit is more a competitive move by AOL Time Warner than a legitimate attempt to recover damages.

"AOL Time Warner has been using the political and legal system to compete against Microsoft for years," Microsoft spokesman Jim Desler said. "This is just the next tactic in their litigation plans. Microsoft is investing to build new products, while AOL invests in lawyers and lobbyists to put roadblocks in Microsoft's way."

Desler also accused AOL Time Warner of using the Netscape lawsuit to undermine the settlement that Microsoft reached in November with the Justice Department and nine states. That settlement is undergoing review pursuant to the Tunney Act. In December, nine other states that didn't join the settlement filed a remedy proposal asking that, among other items, Microsoft be compelled to give away the Internet Explorer source code to restore competition in the browser market.

AOL Time Warner is using the Netscape suit "as an attempt to undermine the settlement between Microsoft, the DOJ and the bi-partisan group of attorneys general," Desler said. "Today's filing is timed to interfere with the efforts to bring that case to a conclusion."

Jury trial sought
Netscape is asking for a jury trial and is seeking damages but did not specify an amount in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. However, the lawsuit does ask for triple damages based on the Clayton Act and the District of Columbia Code, as well as interest and attorneys fees.

Netscape also asked for an injunction against Microsoft's alleged antitrust violations, both current and future.

The judge in the case ultimately would decide the nature of the injunctive relief, which Netscape suggested could be derived from a remedy proposal filed last year by nine states and the District of Columbia. One option: forcing Microsoft to release a version of Windows without its own "middleware" products such as a Web browser, media player or instant messenger.

Bob Lande, a professor at the University of Baltimore Law School, sees the Netscape suit as unique in some ways.

"This is fundamentally different from the couple of hundred other private suits filed against Microsoft because it's not just arguing over money," La

SCO is now claiming their threat to sue Torvalds was overstated. Quote from CEO: "Virtually we see no reason why that would ever happen. We're not trying to go down that path."

Yes. You must have missed my "besides" sentence. Besides the os and office suite, everything else loses money.

And it looks like ms agrees with my top post, and my second response where I mentioned suse's desktop office release. Because news is out today that ms is cutting their office suite by something like 15% to smaller customers. And it looks like ms is still making their office suite available for theft, as they don't check the purchasers of the "scholastic" version of their office suite, to verify that they actually are educators or students (see first news.com.com link).

Yes. You must have missed my "besides" sentence. Besides the os and office suite, everything else loses money.

And it looks like ms agrees with my top post, and my second response where I mentioned suse's desktop office release. Because news is out today that ms is cutting their office suite by something like 15% to smaller customers. And it looks like ms is still making their office suite available for theft, as they don't check the purchasers of the "scholastic" version of their office suite, to verify that they actually are educators or students (see first news.com.com link).

See here

SuSE hired about 15 SCO Linux programmers and was paid for each copy of the software shipped. news.com

The general buzz is that SCO's grasping at straws because they expected IBM to buy them out. Hence, SCO turns around and starts making trouble in the hopes to force IBM to buy them out.

News.com LWN's article, which references a News.com article, seems to point to this as well. They go a step further poking that IBM will buy out SCO, then toss them in the dumpster.

We all know the fact is that SCO's business has all but vanished. Their business model now is chasing after patent royalties. From my recent experience with patent hungry Gemstar and their failed buyout of DIVA which resulted in Gemstar being fined $40mil, the patent-chasing business model is doomed to failure and only results in animosity towards the patent chaser.

SCO is just making noise to (1) get in the headlines, and (2) drive up their value before getting bought out.

The general buzz is that SCO's grasping at straws because they expected IBM to buy them out. Hence, SCO turns around and starts making trouble in the hopes to force IBM to buy them out.

News.com LWN's article, which references a News.com article, seems to point to this as well. They go a step further poking that IBM will buy out SCO, then toss them in the dumpster.

We all know the fact is that SCO's business has all but vanished. Their business model now is chasing after patent royalties. From my recent experience with patent hungry Gemstar and their failed buyout of DIVA which resulted in Gemstar being fined $40mil, the patent-chasing business model is doomed to failure and only results in animosity towards the patent chaser.

SCO is just making noise to (1) get in the headlines, and (2) drive up their value before getting bought out.

The higher-rated of the two bulletins includes a patch that fixes four separate vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Information Services (IIS) software. That alert, rated "important," addresses vulnerabilities that could make servers running the software vulnerable to a denial-of-service attack.

"We definitely want everyone who is running IIS 4.0, 5.0 and 5.1 to install the patch," said Microsoft program manager Stephen Toulouse.

*sigh* Ah well...

• If SCO didn't buy the patents and copyrights associated with UNIX then what exactly did they buy?
• If they did buy the patents and copyrights and Novell is refusing to transfer them then why isn't SCO suing Novell for breach of contract? That would seem to be a necessary first step before suing IBM and threatening world+dog.
• Do we need to start a Linus Torvalds Legal Defense Fund? (as this slashdot article suggests)
• Can't Linus claim that by sending him a patch on the very public LKML that it is no longer secret. The suit alleges trade secret misappropriation not patent or copyright infringement.
• Is there any chance that we, the Linux community, can file a class action suit against SCO for all of this crap that they are putting us through? If we sue for damages we could tally all of the time that the community has spent investigating this situation.
• If we, the community, all started to sell SCO short (and buy some puts and sell some calls) wouldn't that give Darl something to think about as the market capitalization of SCO went shooting through the floor? I wonder if his salary/bonus is related to the performance of SCO's stock.
• How many simultaneous legal battles could SCO fight before going bankrupt? It would seem that every Linux vendor, support service provider, user of Linux, and especially the 1500 large companies that received a threatening letter from SCO now have a claim against SCO. And if everyone of those claimants filed in their own jurisdiction SCO would have to deploy more lawyers worldwide than Mico$haft!
• Shouldn't John 'KGB' Ashcroft be weighing in on the issue considering the massive deployment of GNU/Linux throughout the US government? The DOD, NSA, NASA, and many other parts of the government are heavily invested in Linux.
• If SCO were to go bankrupt then what would happen to whatever (see question #1) they did buy from Novell?
• Assuming they were to be sold through a bankruptcy court, would it be advantagous for the FSF, Linux International, or another Liberated software advocate to buy them?
• How adversely would SCO's bottom line be affected if all of its customers (mostly the fast food chains) were to receive a letter indicating the likelihood of SCO staying in business for another year if some of the counter claims that I have mentioned come to fruition? We shouldn't forget to include a blurb about the ease of moving over to Linux and the amount of money that they could save. Basically some of our own FUD!
• Using the same legal theories that the RIAA is using against Bertlesman for supporting Napster, is it possible to go after M$ for their obvious legal action by proxy?
• Since the SCO lawsuit is alleging breach of contract with IBM, is there any possibility that IBM could post the contract that it had with SCO for the development of the now defunct True64 version of UNIX?
• On that same note, is there any possibility that Novell would post their contract selling UNIX to Caldera (now SCO)?
• The media seems to suggest that SCO is trying to put pressure on IBM or some other company to acquire it. Who in their right mind would want to buy into this nightmare?

Proud to be an opinionated, elitist asshole ... I mean a member of the Slashdot community.

You're are probably right about the IP space being fine for the number of actual computers, but I wanted to respond to this point:

I'd love to some facts to backup your claim of 45.8m internet users in China

The CIA says 48.5 million users. I see no reason why they'd lie. The figure may be inflated a little, but it's probably ballpark accurate.

Your own link (first one) states 1% of China has a computer. That's ~10 million computers. But Hong Kong alone (technically part of China, listed separately in the stats on that link) has 7 million people - and 29% have computers in their household.

The abundance of (literally thousands) of internet cafes probably helps as well. People over there will certainly share access (ie: one PC per household of six / one PC at a cafe may have 8 different users a day) - but each person still counts towards being a user of the internet.

45.8 million internet users in China is not an unrealistic figure.

Also, note that China has an official Linux distribution: Red Flag Linux (english website | review). They also make their own CPU, the Dragon, a MIPS clone originally designed for the Chinese military.

Looks like a German software group is also PO'd with SCO. See this ...link....

Their stock price is down today, so maybe The Street finally sees that the reality of the situation is that their operating systems division is failing. It is ironic that SCO made a profit selling licences to something that Novell now claims it 'owns' but I really cannot make sense of this mess any more. So maybe I just misundersand how SCO can sell licenses to something that Novell opwns the copyrights to.

http://news.com.com/2010-1080-281524.html
http://www.sysopt.com/forum/Forum5/HTML/006707.htm l
http://www.e-smart.com.hk/veridicom/products/vbx.h tm
--
jpa

News.com

wonder how long before slashdot has this on the main page.....

CNET News:

From PlayStation to supercomputer in $50,000

Broadband Access on Lufthansa/Boeing Flights for $35 per 7 to 8 hour flight
The broadband service will let passengers access the Internet and e-mail, and connect to corporate networks on their own computers, either wirelessly, using 802.11b networks, or via Ethernet connections built into the seats. Connexion by Boeing also finished a trial with British Airways, while Japan Airlines and Scandinavian Airlines System have announced their intent to install the service on their long-range planes.

CNET News:

From PlayStation to supercomputer in $50,000

Broadband Access on Lufthansa/Boeing Flights for $35 per 7 to 8 hour flight
The broadband service will let passengers access the Internet and e-mail, and connect to corporate networks on their own computers, either wirelessly, using 802.11b networks, or via Ethernet connections built into the seats. Connexion by Boeing also finished a trial with British Airways, while Japan Airlines and Scandinavian Airlines System have announced their intent to install the service on their long-range planes.

hmmm... you almost sound like david becker from cnet with that fud... ;P

CNET news is reporting:

From PlayStation to supercomputer in $50,000

On CNET news:

From PlayStation to supercomputer for just $50,000

This has not made to /. yet. From CNET:

Supercomputer from PlayStation

Hmmm.....DOJ *does not* break up MSFT. They plan to build-in DRM and other measures in to the next iteration of the OS -- which makes *me* a bit paranoid due to their monopoly on desktop computing -- but I guess I'm not alone.

Since there are so many advantages to trusted computing (yes...the sarcasm is intended) that governments outside the U.S. (vs. the U.S. Government itself) are obviously extremely distrustful of any moves by MSFT and MSFT is extremely concerned about Linux since it so obviously provides an alternative that is growing increasingly viable.

So aligning with SCO makes perfect sense for MSFT...what a perfect way to spew FUD! When my buddies and I sit around talking about MSFT, the DOJ and the scary possibilities of such things as media consolidation, DRM, shrinkage of ISP's (which, BTW, makes government surveillance *much* easier)...this MSFT/SCO connection is just one more glaring example of the fact that our pals in Redmond asked us a long time ago to bend over...and are trying really hard to hand us that jar of Vaseline they're holding to make total insertion all that much easier.

Is it just me...or are MSFT's moves to kill Linux laughingly obvious to you too? Are you gonna grab *your* ankles and lube up?

This CNET article hints that Microsoft bought them at SCO's request. From the article:

A Microsoft representative said that the deal was simply in response to SCO's request. "Microsoft respects legitimate licenses, and Microsoft took that license (from SCO). That's it," the representative said.

6. I've worked on a volunteer basis for organizations that had donated software from MS. The software was: Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Professional and Office 2000. The license provided had absolutely no strings, it was "FPP" software (aka, full packaged product, aka retail boxed stuff).

If my understanding of the whole line of XP software is even close to correct, then Windows 2000, Office 2000, etc. are the last of the MS products for which this scenario would be possible. Aren't users now required to register the software online and accept an ongoing upgrade schedule as part of the system license? Is this free also? And if the NPO grows in the next year and adds another 10 workstations, is it still $0? Or if the NPO is led to understand that MS is willing to donate pretty much anything they need, only to come back in a couple of years and threaten to audit every system for illegal copies? Check out what happened in Philadelphia. Or the piracy truce [news.com] from a couple of years ago. Each illegal piece of software brings a max fine of $150,000. Not to mention that in 3 years MS will attempt to force you to upgrade to Longhorn, which doesn't have a prayer of running on the eBay'd hardware you already have. They realized in the last few years that people were deciding not to move to a newer Windows unless there was a compelling reason, which for a large number of shops there wasn't. Hence the Licensing 6.0.

Bottom line is that yes, the labor and ongoing support costs are going to be comparable for a MS or Linux shop, but you've got to look at the long haul. So look at the out-of-pocket for the initial acquisition, but also look at operating, maintenance and other costs in 3 - 5 years.

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-945834.html

Xbox game sales have been unusually strong, however, with Microsoft tallying more than 20 million Xbox titles sold worldwide, an average of almost five games per console. Typical "attach rates" in the game industry are about three games per console in a system's first year.

With the emergence of smaller form factor PCs like the oqo it really does not seem SO far fetched that MS might introduce a handheld gaming system.

However, it seems that absolutly everyone is entering the market including Nokia and sony.

Does MS really want to fight it out with sony on the handheld platform, when they have been utterly beaten on the console one?

Regardless, since it would probably be based on x86 hardware, it might make an excelent portable linux system ;)!

1. Use a dedicated firewall - I don't believe a fire wall on the machine you are trying to protect is sufficient, especially windows. Get either a router with a built in firewall, or use linux with iptable masquerade firewall. The latter option is more $$ and more trouble than the former, but I think it's untilmately more robust. You should also use a firewall on your PC, just in case.

2. Secure your browser and mail reader - these are the primary "back doors" into your computer. No firewall will protect you if you download and execute a virus attached to an email message. Sorry, no links here, but ask around, and becareful what you download.

3. Read up - Building Internet Firewalls is excellent for the novice. I have their simplest system at home - one dual homed PC that acts as NAT, firewall, and router. Not as secure, but good enough for me. Then just start reading more books as you have time. The O'Rilley series on Ethernet and the various TCP/IP protocols is good, and so are the relavent RFCs. But also consider more academic books like Comer.

Hardwarewise, Sun's low-end servers are virtually identical to the sort of thing the Dells of the world sell. The systems, in fact, come from the same contract manufacturers in Asia, McNealy noted.

Linux on x86 or Itanium is an excellent value proposition for the customer but is a horrible value proposition for Sun Microsystems. It neither designs nor builds the x86 servers. A sweatshop in Taiwan designs and builds them. The sweatshop then badges the server as "Sun" or "Dell" and ships it to Sun Microsystems or Dell, respectively. Little profits can be had. After all, Linux itself is free.

The only way to succeed in this model of business is to bring your company's cost structure down. Dell has been highly successful in running a bare-bones operation. Dell has the lowest-cost structure in the computer systems industry. Tiny amount of R & D.

By contrast, Sun has a high-cost structure. Sun will reap no profits from selling Linux atop x86 or Itanium. Sun cannot price its x86 servers below those of Dell; doing so would be financial suicide.

This is the primary motivation for selling Solaris on x86. Solaris generates some profits. Even better, Solaris will lock the customer into Sun's service and support for even more profits. Solaris will also favor Sun's software products just like Windows favors Microsoft's software product.

In the long run, Sun is deadmeat. The fact that its UltraSPARC is horribly slow, in comparison to the Itanium or Pentium 4 is just another nail in the coffin of Sun. What will happen to Sun's customers for Sun's high end servers when those customers verify that Oracle applications run faster on Linux atop x86 than the same applications on Solaris atop UltraSPARC-powered servers?

"We're hoping to get a long-term lifespan out of Windows Server 2003 without having to do major upgrading."

These guys obviously aren't students of "Licensing 6.0".

One more crippling bombshell hit the already beleaguered Google community when IDC confirmed that Google market share has dropped yet again, now down to less than a fraction of 1 percent of all web searches. Coming on the heels of a recent Netcraft survey which plainly states that Google has lost more market share, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. Google is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by Yahoo's failure to renew its exclusive deal with Google.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict Google's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Google faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Google because Google is dying. Things are looking very bad for Google. As many of us are already aware, Google continues to lose market share. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

Google search is the most endangered of them all, having lost most of its core affiliates. The sudden and unpleasant departures of Yahoo and AOL only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Google is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Google.com founder Sergey Brin states that there are 7000 users of Google. How many users of Verity are there? Let's see. The number of Google versus Verity posts on USENET is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 Verity users. AskJeeves posts on USENET are about half of the volume of Verity posts. Therefore there are about 700 users of Inktomi. A recent article put Teoma at about 80 percent of the search engine market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 Google users. This is consistent with the number of Google USENET posts.

Due to the troubles of Google News, abysmal sales and so on, Google is going out of business and will probably be taken over by idealab! who operate another troubled search engine. Now Inktomi is also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

All major surveys show that Google has steadily declined in market share. Google is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Google is to survive at all it will be among search engine dilettante dabblers. Google continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical p

Nowhere does Kazaa say these are unique downloads,

News.com says this is the number of downloads of the Kazaa client. Deal with it.

For all you know, there have been 229,150,955 downloads of the same song. 229,150,955 * 200?....

The rest of your post is just stupid. Go back to sleep.

Right you are, according to this CNet article:

The government is subsidizing the cost of the hardware...

Sorry folks, I don't think the Thai government is going to pony up for the rest of us.

Cnet.com has the specifications on the laptop.

800MHz Intel Celeron processor

128MB of RAM

20GB hard disk